Ohio Cycling Disorder (OCD)

28th edition - I raced the 50-mile race                                                                 I really love to trail run, there is just something so peaceful about it. Me. The Trail. The sound of my heartbeat. No mechanical bits making noise. No tires spewing sealant when a tire blows off the rim or punctures. Throw on a pair of shoes, grab a bottle of water if the run is long and head out the door. Just simple, clean, quiet, trail running. Me and the natural beauty that God created. So, if you asked me two years ago if I would ever race a 50k Trail Run, I would have laughed ... non-stop, for a long time. If you asked me if I would ever race a 50 Mile Trail Run, my response ... well ... it wouldn't be appropriate to write that in a public blog post but to put it bluntly ... NO WAY!! If you follow me on Fa...

This was my 8th time racing the Mohican Mountain Bike Race. It's easy from a location point of view as it is in Ohio and only 1:20 hours drive. The first year I did this race, well it was my first race ever. I "raced" it on a Motobecane Full Squish, but at 35lbs I wouldn't say I had an advantage with a full squish. This was the 2010 year of peanut butter fun-ness . Severe electrical thunderstorms knocked out power and produced winds in excess of 60mph, swollen streams, several local tornados, and unusually large hail that greeted a record 600+ racers at the Mohican Mountain Bike 100, round number two of the National Ultra Endurance (NUE) Series in Ohio on Saturday. It took me over 10.5 hours to finish the 100k ... but I finished nonetheless. 12" peanut butter is an understatement. Seriously ... it was BAD! Flash forward to now and I am close to going sub-8 hours on this course. A feat easy for some ... but not me. Missed sub-8 this year ... yet again .....

Fools 50k Post-race Swag (may end up on the back of the Subaru)        This is the start of my attempt at three 50k trail races this year and one 50-miler. I completed my first 50k in July of last year at the Buckeye Trail 50k (4th in AG) and then finished my trail running season with the locally well-known Bills Bad Ass 50k and finished 3rd overall. I am digging the trail running quite a bit. Not sure why I do well in this, perhaps better than in mountain bike racing, but I love to just throw some trail shoes on and hit the trail. It's just so simple and peaceful. Me and nature and me against the trail. Western Reserve Racing puts on a whole slew of trail races and runs throughout each year and I have never been disappointed in any of their events. Not only is their race support phenomenal and their volunteers incredibly, hands-down awesome, but a large portion of the money goes to the Cuyahoga National Parks which is near and dear to both me and m...

                                                                View from Hurricane Rim Trail parking lot. Once again, for the third year running, I made the pilgrimage to St. George, Utah foraging my way through the droves of travelers at airports and shuttles, eating their way to their destination with a steady "healthy" diet of Cinnabons and that famous Italian pizza that Michael Scott (from the office) raves about ... Sabbaro's . The nutrition struggle continues for me personally as I fight through the massive amount of unhealthy choices while traveling but was smart and brought with me bananas, apples, dark chocolate coffee beans (love these little guys!), and some kind bars from Runner Boxes that Angie and I get once a month as a nice treat for ourselves. Funny thing about bananas, apparently they don't scan ...

I raced this last year when Western Reserve Racing decided to bring the race back after a bit of a respite. Last year I ran the 1/2 marathon as I began to get into trail running more. This training season since I have already run a few 13+ mile training runs I decided to step up to the net race distance and race the 30k (just over 18 miles). This race has four race distances, 13.1, 18, 26.2, and a 50k. While I know I could have raced any of those distances, being early in the season and this being the end of the first week in a new training block, I did not want to completely torch my legs (although ... 18 miles still is not easy at race pace). Legs felt a bit tired after the volume of running, riding, and strength training this week however I tried to front-load stuff in the beginning of the week so I could get "some" recovery towards the end of the week ... sort of. Once I got rolling things felt good overall but leg soreness plagued me the entire race. Could ju...