Dave's the Dog

Sounds like the new Road Dog philosophy is winner...and highly appropriate.  Count on support from this side.  Badaxe.

Moving Forward

Having completed my first off road ultramarathon, I now see things with much greater clarity. I paid very close attention to the other competitors on October 27th. The out and back nature of the Ghost Train is very conducive to that. I saw how they ran, how they ate and how they paced themselves. This is a sport for dogs. In the wild... wolves, coyotes, dingos, African Spotted dogs, etc. don't run the fastest... much of their prey can out sprint them, but the dogs can run longer. Wild dogs run their prey into the ground. They can run at a moderate pace for hours. That's what ultramarathoning is all about. You trot... mile after mile after mile. Sometimes you pause... to pee, to eat or to drink. And then... you trot again. It's pretty simple... not easy, but simple. So... you train to trot. Hour after hour, day after day. It's beauty is in it's simplicity. This may strike some of you as fairly obvious... but it wasn't to me, this is a near epiphany. For the next eleven months, I need to hone a slow energy efficient jog. This is the opposite of everything I have worked on for years. Fast turnovers, long strides, high heel flicks and uphill accelerations, the building blocks of road racing, are to be avoided. A steady shuffling keep your feet close to the ground gait and walk up the steeps are the order of the day. It's all about energy conservation. It is both incredibly simple and at the same time an enormous commitment. Perfect!.. I get it... off I go.