Run, Koper, run

Before Another year, another Arc as they say?... After 3 unsuccessful attempts in 2017, 2018 and 2019 , I still didn't get the message and was planning to be back for more beating from this brutal race. For the first time my better half was to be there to support me and we kinda had an agreement that this year was to be my last attempt; now or never. So armed with that knowledge I threw myself at some serious training. I grabbed a training plan from Sage Running and was following it to the dot. The previous year I kinda thought I was doing OK with training, but it was nothing compared to my determination this year. I did 9 consecutive weeks of 100km+ mileage (peaking at 124). The last of those were four days spend over the New Year break in Cornwall and four recces of the course. By the end of it I almost covered the whole course. Most importantly I did cover the bits — last 50k+ from Pendeen lighthouse to the finish — that I never got to in my previous attempts. Coming...

The road to Arc Arc of Attrition... the good ol' Arc... Admittedly I have some history with that race. There's some love. There's some resentment. We definitely bonded over the years though. This love-hate affair started in 2017 when I tried it for the very first time without quite knowing what I was getting myself into. Winter race, very technical trails, lots of ups and downs... I wasn't ready for any of it and had to throw in the towel halfway through, being borderline injured. Then came 2018 . I was very determined to get my revenge from previous year's DNF (my second one ever). I was better prepared and I did fight for longer but after 70 miles I was done again, this time busting my shins. Training And so 2019 was supposed to be the year. I promised myself to train hard and come race day to show it who's da boss! I was always the happy-go-lucky kinda runner, never really following any structured training or plan but just running for the joy of it....

Arc of Attrition 2017 Long time no see, huh? First a quick recap. 2016 was a year of no-running (long story...). Almost literally. Only by the end of the year I decided to go back at it and came up with a crazy idea of signing up for the Arc of Attrition , a 100-mile long, winter-time coastal race in Cornwall. Yeah, not exactly smart. I guess the only thing I have in my own defense is that I didn't fully know what I was getting myself into... With less than three months to get ready and little to no running prior to that I had to ramp up very quickly. And I did. And so I got injured. Less than three weeks before the race. Yeah... It seemed the race was over before it started. My physio was definitely more convinced of that than I was. However, I recovered surprisingly quickly and went from barely being able to walk to feeling completely fine in time for the race. I decided to give it a go. Gingerly... Gingerly my ass. The plan was to walk. At a fast clip I figured out...

Or: How does it feel like to run for 30 hours straight. I think the above subtitle pretty much summarizes what this post is going to be about. But let's start at the beginning. Few days before the race. For most race reports I try to reconstruct chronologically what happened. This time it was such a long endeavor that there are gaps in my memory that stretch for hours. So instead, I'll try to talk about different aspects of this race, in short sections, only roughly sticking to the timeline of the race. There we go. On traditional pre-race bad luck Before almost every race things tend to go wrong. It happens so much that I even came to the conclusion that it's not that things go wrong, it's just that I'm more acutely tuned to problems and I notice them more. Screw this theory. Things do go very wrong before races. If you don't believe then listen to what happened to me on Thursday and then tell me that I'm wrong. During the day I went to wash my car ...

Last year I signed up for the Chimera 100 miler . You may ask why the hell would I do such a thing and I guess the simplest answer is: well, I didn't quite know what I was getting myself into. I trained, had some setbacks because of the injury in the San Francisco marathon but I went for the race and, from the perspective of one year, did rather well : I had to stop after 70 miles because my right knee had enough, but other than that I was in high spirits and determined to finish (I considered walking but 30 miles is a hell of a walk ;). Fast forward few months and I again signed up for Chimera, which will take place in 2 days. The excuse of not knowing what I'm getting myself into does not work this time around; I knew exactly what I was doing when I signed up. So why? Am I a masochists? Perhaps, to a point :). But I think the real answer is: I like running. I like challenges. And what better running challenge than running 100 miles? Btw. if there are any non-runners (or s...

Another race that I did 7 weeks ago. I did not even make notes after the race, as I often do, so I'm writing this from memory... and as it is very faulty, well... This was a race that I probably should not have been running. Only two weeks after Mount Diablo , I was still tired from that tough race and my feet were still recovering (blisters). But, I felt like racing, Yohann easily agreed to join me, so there it was. With 1,770m of total elevation gain, I was hoping it'd be easier than Diablo and its 2,435m. I was hoping for a 5h finish. This was an unusual run for Coastal Trails, as 50k was the only distance. Normally the bulk of people is doing shorter distances with only a handful of brave souls going for 50k :D. But in this race that was the only distance and that meant that the 100 people that lined at the start all meant business. Also it was point to point, which is great (much more fun than going in loops), except we had to get up really early to drive to Rodeo Be...

This race was almost 2 months ago. My memory of it is not very fresh, so this is going to be a lousy race report but let me try. I woke up super early, as usual was worried of not having enough for breakfast so ended up stuffing myself completely. Not good. The drive goes smoothly but then there's a long queue for registration and for restrooms so I end up rushing to the start. Yohann is there with me. If you look at the map of the race 50k consisted of a climb to the top of Mt Diablo, then a large loop, then another climb and down to the start. So essentially two climbs. Two big climbs. In fact, Coastal Trail Runs have 17 different courses for their races throughout the year (I did 10 of them, few multiple times) and out of those 17 Mount Diablo is the one with biggest total elevation gain; 2435 meters overall. It's a brutal race as we were soon to discover. We started together with Yohann, at some point I was setting the pace but he was just few meters behind me. Before l...

Boy, how I hate Blogger... I lost this post... twice! It's now the third time I'll be writing it and...... seriously. Blogger; you so let me down. Sunday's long night run did two things to me: made me super tired and caused blisters on my right foot. After taking Monday off I went for a casual jog on Tuesday but it only made the blister situation worse so no more running during the week. And then on Saturday I was supposed to do Crystal Springs 50k with Coastal Trail runs and the big question was whether it was a good idea or not. Not running during the week could work in my favor, serving as a force taper of sorts. On the other hand the blister was not completely healed. As I was already registered I decided to give it a shot. Preparations for the race went very smoothly. I woke up early, drove to the start, picking up a breakfast sandwich on the way. I arrived with plenty of time to spare so had peaceful breakfast, picked up my number and was taking my time to get ...

Another day, another race, huh? The week leading to it was anything but ideal: I had to take it easy with my workouts as my calf was giving me some trouble. Not a great place to be just before a race. Surprisingly I got a decent night's sleep before the race; possibly a first for me. I woke up at 5:30am, before the alarm, and was out the door shortly after 6am. Warming up for the race I could feel my calf not being its usual self. However, sadly, for me "racing" and "taking it easy" are two concepts that never come up together. The previous night when I should be wondering whether I'll be able to finish the race, I was instead trying to figure out whether I'll be able to do it under 5 hours. Now, during the warm-up, when my calf was hurting and I should be seriously thinking whether in those circumstances I should be running this race at all, instead I was imagining that with only around 30 runners in the 50k race, I could possibly finish in the top...