I am in the midst of training for my next marathon in November. I promised myself I wouldn’t complicate my training schedule this time by running lots of half marathons or taking a vacation where I couldn’t get in any training runs. Then an opportunity landed in my lap, challenging my promise to myself. A … Continue reading A Runner Walks the Camino
Author: funaticalrunner
1984 Summer Olympics
I didn’t start out a runner in high school or college like many people I know. The seeds of my running career were planted in 1984, the year that Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics. The 1984 Summer Olympics were pretty amazing. It was the first time in history that the Games were not sponsored … Continue reading 1984 Summer Olympics
The Ultimate Ultra
Whenever someone talks about ultramarathons, I have visions of people running up mountains, through woods, jumping over rocks and tree roots, and crossing streams. There are famous races like the Hardrock 100, a 100.5 mile race in southern Colorado’s San Juan Range that runners must complete in 48 hours. The average elevation for the Hardrock … Continue reading The Ultimate Ultra
Just Like Meb
Back in the 90s Gatorade had a commercial featuring Michael Jordan slam dunking basketballs to the song “Be Like Mike”. The commercial captured the dream of every kid playing basketball at the time - they wanted to be like Mike. I just finished reading Meb Keflezighi’s book “26 Marathons” in which he describes each … Continue reading Just Like Meb
Where to Now?
My 2018 goal was to finish my 50 State Endurance Challenge (a full or half marathon in each of the 50 states). At the start of the year I only had four states remaining on my to-run list - Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, and New Mexico. I completed my challenge last September. In true funatical … Continue reading Where to Now?
Got No Time
When is a race trip not fun? When you get to the airport and check your race results online and they don’t show you finishing the race. This happened to me in May when I went to Iowa to run the Des Moines Women’s Half Marathon. I had a few nerve-racking hours before I was … Continue reading Got No Time
Renaissance Woman
I made a pledge to myself this year to achieve more balance in my life, to focus on things other than running. I had realized the funatical runner was morphing into the fanatical runner. Just change one vowel and the whole thing goes from one extreme to the other. I want to be more than … Continue reading Renaissance Woman
We Still Need Good Samaritans
Facebook has a Memories feature where posts from years past will pop up. Most of the time they are reminders of some place you visited, a funny thing that happened, or a photo from a wonderful day. Since Memories can't distinguish good ones from unpleasant ones, you can be reminded of something not so happy. … Continue reading We Still Need Good Samaritans
Hello Again
It has been a long time since I last wrote in this blog. This past weekend during my long run I met a young man who is riding his bicycle across country. Although I was in a hurry to finish my run and get out of the heat, I stopped to talk to him as … Continue reading Hello Again
You Gotta Have Balance
At the end of last year, I asked my running coach for a week off. To be honest I was burned out. I had trained intensely all year to run three marathons. Mentally, I just wanted to check out for a bit and not be driven by a training schedule. It seemed as if my … Continue reading You Gotta Have Balance
