March/April Issue of Endurance Racing Magazine

Badwater.

If you are unfamiliar with this 135-mile race through Death Valley, you won’t be by the time you are done with this issue. I had the extreme pleasure of working with some very big celebrities in the ultra running community to get this issue completed.

Let’s see, I interviewed Frank McKinney over the phone in my office, David Carver over the phone while I was in the Jacksonville airport, David Green over Skype, Scott D’Angelo via phone while I was running around doing errands and Chris Roman over the phone over several phone calls. I even caught Chris and Dave Green’s coach, Ray Zahab while he was sitting in a plane at Washington Dulles Airport on the way to see Ferg Hawke, who has been joining Ray recently on some of his global expeditions.

I must say, working with Ferg was an unintended surprise, for his story is the main feature in this issue. Mike Morton, Sergio Radovcic, and Brad Lombardi also provided me excellent content by email and I am forever thankful to them for their attention to detail. I do owe a special thanks to Chris, who I met via Facebook last year. At the time I interviewed him for a story in Runners Illustrated where I reported on his run along the Caminho Da Fe which he completed after his first time crewing for Badwater. Since then we’ve talked numerous times, including for about an hour as a I sat in a Whole Foods parking lot and he sold me on doing an issue about all the great guys from Florida who are competing in Badwater this year.

I really thought Badwater and all the reporting on it had dried up (pun intended), but now I am more enamored by these athletes than ever before. This issue would not have been possible without contributions from other athletes/writers as well. I am thrilled to reprint a story on nutrition written by Meredith Terranova, an ultra athlete who wrote great piece on nutrition for Badwater. The best part about preparing for this issue was meeting Chris Roman and Jennifer Vogel in person.

On a trip I took to Florida in March, Jennifer and I sat down and talked for an hour about nu-trition and that being a triathlete makes her a better endurance runner. She’s just like Ferg Hawke, Scott D’Angelo and David Green, for example, who where were triathletes before they became ultra runners. That athletic base has been important in their ability to use their over all physical fitness and mental training as assets in endurance races. Both Scott and David will test these assets for the first time this summer, like Jennifer did last year—with MUCH success, I might add. Jennifer came in 8th overall and was the 2nd place female! I owe a ton of gratitude to Lisa Smith-Batchen. I am extremely fortunate because Lisa provided the Coaches Corner column this issue and her experience I can guarantee, will get any athlete to the finish line at Badwater.

Thank you to everyone who made this issue a success!

The Badwater Basin in Death Valley, California, the nadir of the North American Continent (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related articles

• Frank McKinney’s Badwater (tighthams.wordpress.com)
• Badwater – Endurance Racing Magazine
• Ferg Hawke – The Running Man

On Location: 24K of Trails – Training for Soapstone

By Alix Shutello

The email started, “Hey Babe,” and I was hooked.  I am a sucker for a good intro to any email and when one of your best buddies in the whole world emails you and asks you for a training plan, well, you comply of course!

So my friend wants to train for Soapstone, so, knowing Evan like I do I  put his abilities aside and took look at the course and thanks to bloggers and YouTube, I was able to get familiar with the course. Here’s what I know.

1. It’s a fast start.

2. It gets hilly fast.

3. Sometimes, one gets lost.

4. There’s a combo of roads and trails that can be winding, rocky,  and “rolly.”

5. You’ll likely run into a little mud and water.

6. You are running in the mountains….so there are gonna be some sick hills you’ll hit not once….but twice (near the end).

7. The top guy is gonna win this race in a little over an hour and a half and top tens come in just under 2 hours for approx 14 + miles or so.

Evan’s gonna need to do hill work outs. He’s a die-hard cyclist and a strong trail runner but needs to build speed, balance, and distance to run a strong race. He tends to run in Vibram FiveFingers.  That may need to change but we’ll see. To get in some of the workouts he needs, he may need to hit the treadmill to practice running on inclines. Also, since I know the trail route he runs near his home in Ashland, he may need to do some speed drills up and down the short hills so that he builds speed and coordination since the course is hilly and rocky. He’ll need to start running long on weekends to get endurance. Since he has until May, he’ll have time or so to get up to 14 or 15 miles before race day.

I’ll get his individualized plan done this weekend and sent off to him.  If I’m lucky, I’ll be there to cheer him on, or if my injuries manage to heal well, I may just join him in Connecticut this May 20, but my travel schedule will probably not allow it.

See the Soapstone Video

Image via Wikipedia

Blogs: 2011 Soap Stone winner Jim Johnson

Blogs:  Steve Wolfe

Race Sponsor, Shenipit Striders

Fenwick Island Running A Must

 

I’ve run in some pretty cool places; from Hawaii to New York City to Colorado Springs to Washington, DC.  I do hope to run abroad in a race – and had my eye on a race in Valencia, Spain but I may end up going back to France to see St. Michel before they put in the wind farms along the coast.      

Alix at Fenwick Island, DE

Here I am at a nice look out point on Fenwick Island in Delaware. I run with my IPhone and catch cool photos but I’m never in them so I asked two unassuming women if one of them wouldn’t mind capturing a photo of me.  So there you have it.  I am about 2 miles out on a 4-mile run; I couldn’t think of a better photo opportunity than this one, right at my turn-around point.      

What’s nice about running at least where I was staying in the Bay View development was that one could run along a golf course, or run on back roads through undeveloped grassy savannahs to the water. That is always a pleasant experience, seeing that I live in a metropolitan area with tons of cool trails. For convenience sake I often choose to run on trails near my home that are land locked.   

LOST KEY    

I like to run where ever I travel. Yesterday I ran in Reston, VA and well, lost my car keys. Yes, I decided, since I was in Reston to run on the WO&D running trail.  I was amazed that the small of honey suckles still disgusts me. When I got pregnant and was training for the San Diego Marathon I ran along a trail with honey suckles and I just wanted to throw up. Now, while I don’t want to throw up, seven years later, the smell just disgusts me. Too bad right?      

Ever lose a key while running? I did. Yesterday I started out for a 6 mile run. It was HOT. Deathly hot. I had my IPhone in my shorts and my car key in my back pocket. I was one mile down the trail when I felt my back pocket and when I felt nothing there I had a panic attack. What if someone found my car key and then stole my car?    

I  turned back and finished 2 miles and breathed a little easier when I saw my car in the parking lot.  I did not see my key when I traced back my steps.  I thought maybe it was possible that I locked the key in my car.  I called my husband, who was not able to get to me for 4 hours. You see it was 3 in the afternoon. I sat down and worked for a little while. When I was convinced no one found my car key and after pacing the parking lot and trail head for an hour I decided to go out and run again. I ran 4 miles and walked 1 mile because it was so hot. Thankfully, there was a gym where I could sneak in and get water at the water fountain. Otherwise, I would not have gone out to run again. In this 85% heat, I should have been running with water. My water was in my car.  I really needed to have my water belt.       

ROAD ID

I do want to point out that on my shoes you’ll see a little red thing on my left shoe. That is my Road ID.      

The Road ID has my medical information on it. It says “Bee Sting.” I wear the Road ID proudly; a product recommended to me by Outside PR, a sports and marketing firm in California who recommended I sport the Road ID. So I do, greatfully…I freaked out a little less when a very large wasp landed on my thigh yesterday. It’s dead, I’m not. End of story.