Time to Grind!

Watching the online coverage of WS and Hardrock has gotten me totally psyched...it's that time again! Time to start the Grindstone 100 training. Yes, I am going to run Gstone again. I really loved the course and the event last year, and I know I can run a faster time if I just trained a bit differently and got my butt out of the chair at each AS!

For Gstone 2009, I have enlisted the help of Andy Jones-Wilkins. He is a 100 miler STAR and just proved it again by finishing the Western States 100/Hardrock 100 double yesterday with a top-10 WS finish and a top-5 HR finish. How awesome is that???? Incredible. Hey, if I want to really figure out the 100 miler thing, I need to go to the pros! I am so happy and fortunate that AJW agreed to take me on and so far I have been loving the training plan he has set up for me. It is a great mix of familiar and new stuff and it will be a great challenge.

I am not going to document every day of my Gstone training this year due to time constraints but I will be sharing the highlights (and, of course, the occasional lowlights as I am sure it will be tough). So far I am running steady at 65-75 mpw with tempo runs on Tuesdays alternating with hill repeats each week, and a solid track workout with long intervals on Thursdays. I will be ending the first cycle of training this weekend with the Catherine's 50K fatass hosted by the VHTRC. Andy wanted me to run a test 30 miler for this weekend and Cat's fit the bill perfectly. It has a good amount of climb (though not anything like Gstone) and a lot of runnable fire road to pound the quads. Plus is will most likely be super hot and humid so it will be good heat training. On Sunday I am running a part of the Gstone course and am really excited to get back out there.

I also want to send out props to my VHTRC buds who finished Hardrock today...Joe Clapper, Mike Bur, Mike Dobies, Howard Cohen, Billy Bob Combs, Leonard Martin and John Dewalt...unbelievable and totally inspiring, as John is 73 years old and the rest of the dudes all train at sea level. Great job guys! But the coolest story of Hardrock 2009 for me has got to be Ronda Sundermeier. I LOVE her blog. She is a mom, over 40, totally committed to her training, and is an excellent, informative ultra blogger. She got into Hardrock off the wait list and I get so inspired reading the posts of her training---she is coached by Scott Jurek and he clearly had her prepared: she finished her first Hardrock in under 34 hours, a time that would have won the women's race in prior years. Awesome job, Ronda! I can't wait for your report.

OK kids, it's July so get out there and train!