Rockstar Runners

How Will You Feel the Day After?

This is a fantastic video. For those of you who have run a marathon before, you'll get it. Those who haven't but are planning on it, it might give you something to look forward to, anyways... It's always fun to milk it a little bit so that when people ask you what's wrong you can say, "Oh nothing - I just ran a marathon/half-marathon yesterday"... [HT: Spence]

New Contributing Expert

Please welcome a new addition to our blogging and coaching team, Marilyn Trout. Marilyn is an accomplished cycling coach (click here or on her name in the left-hand sidebar to read her list of accolades) and writes a regular article providing training tips that are applicable to all endurance athletes, not strictly cyclists. Marilyn has also made herself available to answer any specific questions you may have about your training whether it's on a bike or on foot. Click here to send her your email - she'll probably answer it right on the blog.

Please leave a comment and welcome Marilyn to the team - we look forward to having her contribute. Happy running!

Jeremy

Inspiring Quote?

". . . to take part in a Marathon race is to risk serious and permanent injury to health, with immediate danger . . . exercise should always be purely subordinate to the business and pleasure of life."
- The New York Times, 1909

Isn't it great to live life on the edge!!  I found this quote while flipping through this book I'm sort of reading called Boston - A Century Of Running.

Running For My Life

Over the past weekend I finished a book called Running For My Life - On the extreme road with adventure runner Ray Zahab.  It’s Ray’s story of how he came to start running and turn his life around.  The man is a little bit of a freak which I’m guessing most people who can run 100 miles at a time are.  The first race he ever ran was the 160km/100mi long Yukon Arctic Ultra!!  He went from smoking a pack a day to becoming a pretty serious cyclist then he moved onto running.  And his first race is 100 miles in the arctic!  Pulling a sled behind himself!

Now I can relate to Ray with his Canadian citizenship, his Newfie wife, and love of running but I cannot relate to being able to stay on my feet for that long and enjoy it.  It is however interesting to read about his experiences.  It sure makes going out for a 20 mile run seem a lot less significant.  A good book to read if you are training for a half marathon or full marathon or any distance really.  It’ll just give you some perspective.

Some of my highlights from the book:
Ray’s learning experiences from the Yukon Arctic Ultra and finding out where Ray placed in his first real race!  Crazy.

Ray’s account of running the Marathon Des Sables in Morocco.  This race is a multi stage race in which the competitors cover 243km in six days.  This was his second real race.  He talks about how to run on sand, how to deal with sand storms, the heat, tarantula spiders and how he dealt with some poor preparation on his part of his food and sleeping necessities.

The Jungle Marathon that took place in South America.  Fun to read about but man I would never want to do that.  This is another multi stage race except they are running through the jungle dealing with swamps, razor sharp vegetation and of course a ton of animals and insects that you would not want to be caught by.

Not in the book but something you should also know about Ray is that last year he completed yet another ridiculous feat.  He ran across the entire Sahara Desert!  He ran with two other guys, Charlie Engle and Kevin Lin in support of the H2O Africa Foundation.  A film was made about the whole expedition directed and narrated by Matt Damon.  For more info about that here's the web site.

I'm convinced again about how running can change lives!

Moving Forward,
Glenn

Presidential Hopeful Mike Huckabee Featured in "Runner's World"

I've been intrigued recently about the running story of Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. I posted a blog the other day on Normal Rockstar about why I would vote for Huckabee (if I could actually vote). Suffice it to say that the fact that he's a runner factored into the equation. Well, I found this article in Runner's World that was published in 2005 while he was Governor of Arkansas and it talks about how he ended up losing 110lbs, picking up running, and completing his first marathon. It's pretty inspirational - if you've got the time, check it out!

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