150 Miler - 3rd Times A Charm

This is our third time going down to Pekin, Illinois and competing in the McNaughton Park 150 mile foot race. The graph above illustrates the three months preceding the event over the last three years. I approached this year's race a little differently by trying to keep a more gradual increase in week-to-week/ month-to-month increases in mileage. By doing so, my overall mileage is up from previous years and I feel stronger. I have run every day this year and for the first quarter of 2009 have averaged over 11-1/2 miles a day. I truly believe this will payoff at next week's race.

Peak Training Miles For McNaughton Park 150 Miler

Saturday ended my 5-week hard core training mileage for the upcoming 150 mile race. I had the kids to watch all day, so I ended up running 9 different times on Saturday for a total of 31.01 miles (129.3 total for the week). A few of those 9 runs were completed by running up and down my street - others were done in circles around the backyard while the kids played. The rest was done on the treadmill. All of which is good mental training. Mental toughness is what is necessary to complete this race. God willing we have done enough this year to improve our performance to under 30 hours. That is still the goal. In less than 3 weeks we will know if we prepared enough to make it a reality.

The Distance of Truth - Ferg Hawke Movie

These are my two youngest sons (Cruz and Dash) watching The Distance of Truth with me this morning. The movie can be ordered online at: http://www.thedistanceoftruth.com/

Let me be honest - this movie is hands down the best running movie I have seen. This movie gets my blood boiling and makes the hairs on my arms stick up. Over the last week, I have watched "The Distance of Truth" three times while training on my treadmill. It is motivational to say the least and made my training miles fly bye.

The movie follows ultrarunner Ferg Hawke during his 2nd run at the Badwater 135-mile foot race from Death Valley to the portal of Mt. Whitney (http://www.badwater.com/). Although this movie covers the 2005 Badwater race, it could have been any foot race and it truly captures the feeling of competing in a race.

I have rewound the movie over and over again starting at the fourth leg of the race (Battle for Darwin - Mile 90). This is the point in the race when Mike Sweeny is in 1st place after running like an absolute rocket for the first 12 hours. Ferg Hawke is in 2nd place and Scott Jurek (arguably the best ultrarunning since Yiannis Kouros) is in 3rd. Ferg's family came and were part of his crew during the race. There is footage of his son Carter running with him right around this time. As a father of three who one day hopes to have his sons be a part of a race together, I was truly moved by the father and son experience.

The narrator of the movie states something like "strange how the smallest bit of hope can linger even while the odds stack up." Scott Jurek went on to set a new course record in around 24.5 hours. Ferg never stopped believing that he could win. This is an awesome movie - one in which we become part of Ferg's crew hoping that he can pull off the impossible.

Leg 6 of the race is from Lone Pine to Mt. Whitney. At this point, the movie cues to an interview with Ferg stating that "no matter how well you train, things at some point are going to fall apart." The scenes after Jurek finishes the race are what really got my heart beating and are now my go to part of the movie when I need inspiration and motivation while running on the treadmill. This is where the director (who does as well of a job as any Hollywood production) cuts to scenes of Ferg Hawke suffering up Mt. Whitney and then fades to his earlier running in the race to show the contrast. This is where you can look into Ferg's eyes and see his true spirit. Long after the body said stop - the spirit said no.

With Ferg fighting up Mt. Whitney, his daughter Connie comes running down from the finish to greet her father. Holding hands Ferg and his children along with his wife and crew cross the line together for a 2nd place finish at the 2005 Badwater Ultramarathon. Simply amazing and there is no limit to the number of times I could watch this finish. Even the music gets me going.

There are a lot of extras in this dvd. I loved the finish line footage of some of the other 80 competitors at the 2005 race. The most memorable to me was the scenes of this french runner with what I assumed to be his wife. He is sitting in the interview chair after finishing just holding his wife's hand and comforting her as she cries. To me it is symbolic of the extreme scarifies of runner's families to make these pursuits possible. Ferg has a wonderfully supportive family and like I said you almost become one of the family as you watch the race unfold in "The Distance of Truth".