this has been a crazy weather year at vol state. on the bright side, it has yet to settle into one of those multiple days long spells of ever intensifying heat and humidity that make every minute of the race like running shrouded in a hot, wet wool blanket. on the other hand, the humidity has been outrageous and the dew points insane. after the huge lines of thunderstorms that battered most of the field Read more
carl and i were talking about the vol state yesterday, and how it has provided a fascinating view of collective human potential. . it has not been that long ago that there was a huge gap between crewed and screwed runners in the vol state. the serious runs for time were done by the crewed runners. the screwed contest was simply one of survival. it has not been that long ago that there was speculation Read more
sometimes the strategy is different than you expect. here is a strategy that works really well if you can execute it: just blow everyone’s doors off! . making passes thru the field all day we got to see the race taking shape. bob spent the morning building on the big lead he opened up during the storms last night. we saw him climbing the big, steep hill into linden in the morning he was 12 Read more
24 hours in, and time to take stock. . some quick observations: 1) the runners seem to have come thru the storm fine, none were made of sugar and melted in the rain. none had lost so much substance that the wind blew them away. thankfully, even with so much lightning that it was like flickering daylight at times, no one got hit. it is always unnerving when your heart feels like you should be Read more
sorry for the lateness of the update. the vol state hit the ground running, and there were things to take care of first. . what can you say about the first day? after all the anticipation, the best the runners can hope for is that nothing is decided on day one. the only conclusive outcomes on day 1 are negative. . true to form, at least three runners saw their races end on day 1. Read more
twas the night before vol state and all thru the motel not a runner was stirring… .except one sitting outside his room watching ‘america’s got talent’ on his phone. . what do you say the night before the race begins? what do you think if you are sitting on your bed looking at the 3 pounds of carefully selected possessions that will define your world for the next…. . the newbies have expectations that will Read more
the journey really starts tomorrow, . i will be up before the sun, heading high into the north georgia mountains to a parking lot cut into a cornfield on a remote mountaintop. . there i will meet a hundred hopeful runners. a few are elite multi-day athletes but most are just ordinary people. ordinary people with ordinary jobs and ordinary lives… . who hunger for the chance to do something extraordinary. . and there, out Read more
screwed . it is that time of the year again, when the tiresome discussion over what constitutes running “screwed” in the vol state begins. . of course, there are no divisions kept in the results and even tho there seems to be a predictable call for us to parse rules (so that loopholes can be searched for) i will hold that the rules should be very simple: . running screwed is running as if you Read more