Trail Running Blog

This is about a week late but I have been really busy lately and haven’t had the time to keep up with the trail running world.

For those who missed it Scott Jurek and Nikki Kimball were named UltraRunning Magazine’s Runners of the Year. I can’t say this isn’t much of a surprise with their outstanding performances in high profile races. Scott winning the Hardrock 100 and the Spartathalon and Nikki winning the Western States 100 and Ultra Tour du Mont Blanc.

I wonder what is next for these two?

Was surfing YouTube and came across this video by runningraw. Interesting video documenting his first snowshoe race seems like Vermont has some serious runners participating in the sport. Make sure to watch the end of the video where he talks about the Dion snowshoes he uses they sure look a lot faster than my Atlas Run shoes.

Last Christmas I got the Garmin 305 which I love but it is on the bulky side. Looks like Garmin has taken a pretty big leap forward with the 405.

I can’t justify buying the 405 just on looks can I… From Garmin:

Recreational joggers and elite runners alike will be amazed at the training tools available to them in a watch that could easily be worn all day,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “Runners no longer have to choose between fashion and function.”

I think I will be hawking my 305 on eBay.

This is good promotion of Mountain Running within the African communities. This should take it too a whole new level possibly even an Olympic event? You know they do have trampoline in the Olympics…

The Cross River State Government intends to create a competition for children in subsequent editions of the Obudu Ranch International Mountain Race.

…

the third edition had prepared quality athletes from all over the world with new records, which also had European champions being beaten. He commended the president of the World Mountain Running Association (WMRA), Danny Hughes, for his support which has kept the competition getting better.

He noted that an 11-Kilometre race was not easy as it was of great significance to the state government which intends to create a children’s race next year after the media race, saying that in the race children would also win medals to encourage participation.

…

The president of WMRA, Danny Hughes said the competition was getting wonderful from year to year with improvement and commended Rita Jeptoo Stienei of Kenya for setting new mountain race record which was an indication that the quality of the race was improving. Hughes noted that though the Kenyans and Ethiopians had wonderful athletes, he hoped they would expect challenges in the next editions.

Links.

For those who do ultra running you might find this article in the NY Times interesting it discusses the use of dissociation and how it clearly works:

Dr. Morgan, who tested the method in research studies, said he was inspired by a story, reported by an anthropologist that, he suspects, is apocryphal. It involves Tibetan monks who reportedly ran 300 miles in 30 hours, an average pace of six minutes a mile. Their mental trick was to fixate on a distant object, like a mountain peak, and put their breathing in synchrony with their locomotion. Every time a foot hit the ground they would also repeat a mantra.

So Dr. Morgan and his colleagues instructed runners to say “down” to themselves every time a foot went down. They were also to choose an object and stare at it while running on a treadmill and to breathe in sync with their steps. The result, Dr. Morgan said, was that the runners using the monks’ strategy had a statistically significant increase in endurance, doing much better than members of a control group who ran in their usual way.

Link.