I earned my first buckle!

Razorback was so much fun! It was my first 100k and I got my first buckle there! The course is a 2 mile loop and it is pretty flat. The only really bad thing about the race for my Mom and I was that the drive to get there was 7 hours long!

Right before the race started I was very nervous and excited, it felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I had a feeling that I would be fueled by Mt. Dew, soup, and anxiety,  like at Across The Years.

I was glad when the race finally started. Our good friend Ed The Jester ran with us for about 10 or 12 miles but then he left us to run his own pace. He just took off he was going super fast. At about mile 12 I had to go to the bathroom 3 times, my stomach was starting to hurt. It worried me a little bit.

After a few more miles my stomach stopped churning, and thank goodness things started getting better. My confidence was going up and I was starting to feel really good as the day went by.When I started approaching mile 30 I got really excited because I was already half way there, but that is where it starts to get harder for me. I started to ache some and get tired. My mom had me eat more and slow down our pace. After a while, I felt better.

Later, my Mom had a bad tape problem and her toe was just ripped up and looked pretty bad, but I was doing pretty good. When the sun went down my Mom and I still kept around the same pace and we found out that we had an hour to do 2 miles for a sub 12 hour 50 miles. That was a nice little morale boost that helped my mom and I feel a little better.

The next milestone for me was mile 56, that was what I ran at ATY. I was anxious to get passed that distance for the first time. The good thing was I wasn't doing the death march, I was still going pretty strong. After I hit 56 an 11 year old kid ran a lap with me, he had done a half marathon earlier but the farthest he has ever gone was a 50k. It was fun to talk to another kid runner. Along the way I was happy to share several laps with our running friends. It sure makes the time go by faster.

During the last lap anxiety for that buckle started to  kick in and I started to run faster. Ed and our friend John were running with us. All I could think was, "I am about to get my first buckle!!!" The finish line was in sight and I ran as fast as I could. When I hit the finish, my emotions started flooding in.  A phone was handed to me, and I was happy it was my dad talking and I had just gotten my first buckle!!!

After I finished I fell asleep in our car and woke up to seeing a bunch of people huddle around my Mom to see how nasty her blisters were. She finished her 100 mile race while I was sleeping. It was fun to celebrate with everyone.

Razorback was a great race and I suggest it if you are going to try to run your first ultra run Razorback, because of how easy the course is and they have great volunteers and food.

Across the Years - 2012

My First Official Ultra-Marathon!

 I did my first ultra-marathon at Across The Years. Across The Years is a 24,48, or 72 hour event (I chose to do 24 hours). The course is a 1.05 loop and you switch directions every 4 hours so you don’t get bored of it. I was really excited the morning that my race started, my goal was to do a 100k which is about 62 miles. My Mom and Dad had already been running for 24 hours and were doing great! In the beginning I started out way too fast.  “I am doing 62 miles, not 13.1”  was the thought that reminded me to slow down.
 

 I was supposed to be doing 13 or 14 minute miles but I was doing 10 minute miles instead, that made my 10k time about 57 minutes!  That was definitely too fast so I decided to walk half of the next loop with a 9 year old that was going for 50 miles. He looked like he was having a blast.

  
At around mile 18 I ran up to my Mom and Dad and found out that my Mom was at mile 100! She also told me that to win the female division for 48 hours she only had to do 30 miles, so she might have a chance to win. This happy thought made me ignore my aches and run faster. At about mile 26 I was having weird pains, for example if I bent my knee too much pain would shoot up my leg which really hurt. I finished the first marathon just under 6 hours so I was keeping a decent pace.
  
After the first 50k I realized that every step I took was a PR, because this was the farthest I had ever ran! I was feeling pretty good at mile 35, but that ended when I realized that for a 100k i still had 27 long and hard miles... When I hit mile 40 I walked a little bit with the 9 year I was talking about earlier, I found out that his name was Liam and the farthest distance he had ever ran was a marathon too.

  
Miles 45-50 really kicked my butt. My legs were super tight, I was some what cold, and I was pushing to finish 50 miles in under 12 hours. At the beginning of mile 49 I passed my Mom and Dad and this is the conversation me and my mom had:

Mom- Colby why are you crying?
Me- Their tears of joy, I have 20 minutes to finish this lap then ill have done 50 miles in under 12 hours!
Mom- Go do it!   
  
I ended up finishing the first 50 miles in 11 hours 55 minutes, I did it! After that I walked 6 miles with my Mom and was really hurting so I sat down in the warming tent with my grandma. I waited until it was midnight and watched the runners do a “victory lap” to celebrate News Years, and well, I noticed something... our friend Michael Miller was wearing a diaper! I laughed at it until my Mom came back. When my Mom got back I got up to finish my 100k, but my legs were so stiff that I was basically walking like a penguin, so my Mom made me go sleep in my tent.
  
My Dad said that while I was asleep I was rolling around saying, “just one more loop”. Sadly, I couldn't finish the 100k but I did 56 miles that is more than double the farthest I have ever ran.

By the way here are my family's results: my Dad: 103.95 miles, My Mom: 137.52 miles she got first place in the 48hour!, Me: 56.7 miles.      

My Birthday Marathon

My Birthday marathon was a blast! It took place on November 29th, my 12th birthday. It was a 6.55 mile loop we ran 4 times. I was a little bit nervous because 26.2 seemed like a massive amount of miles. Since this was my first marathon, my mom would run the first half with me and my dad would run the second half with me so that I would never be alone.
   
When the marathon started everyone stayed in one group so there was plenty of things to listen to during the first lap. During the middle of the first lap I was starting to cramp up just a little bit, the idea of me cramping at mile 3 kind of annoyed me because I still had 23 miles to go.
   
When we hit the aid station I took a few pretzels and a Mountain Dew and took off. Right after that I realized that listening to some talk about races and what they have endured really helps for you to kind of ignore pain. After we made it to the turn around I felt great and was thinking that the next loop was going to go by really fast with my dad and Ed pushing me.
   
After the second lap we started flying and Ed said that our average mile was 11:06, the thought that I might get under five really helped me not to walk. I was really starting to hurt, after the turn around we did a lot of walking. When we were about .5 miles out from the aid station I started cramping a lot it kind of felt like my stomach was being tied in knots.
   
Most of the cramping went away after about a mile of running, when we were about two miles away from the aid station I saw my science teacher Mrs. Rickards jogging and that kind of gave me something to think about. When we were almost at the turn around I had to go poop and almost right after I said that Ed found three pieces of semi clean pieces of paper towel. So after a few minutes we found a good bush and well... lets just say I went.

At about the last mile Ed told me that I only had a mile to go and that I was going to get under five hours if i kept my pace, this made me run a little faster and made me a little emotional. When I saw the finish I could hardly breath because I was so excited :). In the end my finish time was 4:51, I broke 5 hours!

Thank you to everyone that came. It was the best birthday ever!

Long Beach 13.1

 Long Beach was a blast! The Long Beach half marathon course is awesome, most of it runs by the beach so you can smell and see the beach for several miles. Since I hadn’t ran a half in a while I use a little nervous so I just decided to have fun and not try to PR.
   
At the start of the race I heard Rudy Novotny say “Runners set....... GO!!” I felt pretty good at the start, I was hoping it will stay this way! Boom! The first mile went extremely fast, the course was pretty flat so I decided to make my strides longer. After a while I slowed some so I wouldn’t cramp or have any other problems.

At around mile 5 I passed a 10 year old. He said that this was his first half marathon and that he felt like he was going to throw up. I ran with him for about another half mile then he had to stop and walk so I kept running. At mile 6 we started to run on another beach, and I heard two of my friends coming by Andrea and Chris, they were running the marathon and looked like they were doing great!
   

I was hurting when I hit mile 8, it felt like I had knots in my stomach but I wanted to keep up the pace so I could get a few of those doughnut holes my Mom said would be at mile 9! I passed Joe Taricani from the marathon show at about mile 8.2 he looked like he was having a blast out there!
   
When I hit mile 10 I was feeling pretty good so I decided to pick up the pace. Mile 11 and 12 went by super fast but the last mile was slow and painful. My cramps came back and I wasn’t feeling good.

When I was getting closer to the finish line I started hearing Rudy yelling and I decided I was going to go all out once I saw the finish line. When I saw it I sprinted like someone was chasing me, but wow I definitely felt it when I crossed the finish and stopped.
   
Long beach was amazing! if you didn’t do it this year you should definitely do it next year!

My Experiences At Badwater 135

Badwater is special to me because.....

When Ed “the jester” Ettinghausen got accepted to run he asked me, my mom, my dad, and four other people  to crew for him. We were very excited.  Ed also made us wear skirts! 

At the pre race check-in I met Dean Karnazes, he lifted me up on his shoulders and said “I couldn’t run as far as you can when I was your age, keep running.” You have no idea how happy that made me :) I was wearing a jester hat so people would say things like “Hey mini jester.” and they would usually talk about our skirts, Ed (who most people thought was my dad), and about Badwater.

Almost everyone at the race was wearing all white and some people had their faces covered, so Ed was really easy to see in his orange shirt and jester hat. Ed’s crazy outfit also made it easier to crew because you could see him coming and have enough time to grab the stuff that he needed.

Ed started at the back while everyone went out fast and he was like a fisherman just pulling in and passing the people as the time and miles went on. 

For the first 17 miles runners weren’t allowed to have a pacer so when the runners hit the first check point the pacer had to experience the heat too. Most of the check points were really small cities with only a general store, restaurant, and hotel. Gas, ice, and almost all food was way over priced in these little towns.

At probably mile 25 we pulled over to help the pacer van and I was writing a sign, and we started hearing groans coming from the guy behind so we looks behind us to find a naked man using the toilet (a bush). The sight of that made me laugh for a few hours =).

At about mile 41 we were driving to the next checkpoint to get some ice and popsicles when this huge dust devil came in front of us and all we could see is sand I didn’t see it coming so it kind of freaked me out. After going through the dust devil we passed these massive sand dunes. I can only imagine how hot that sand is.

I noticed that if you didn’t give Ed what he wanted when he wanted it he wouldn’t take anything until the next stop to save time. Ed also didn’t stop running so he saved a lot of time.

At night most of the runners were climbing around a 7,000 foot hill and the temperature dropped down to about 45 degrees! When me and my mom stopped in front of the pacer van I would lean out of the car and cheer and then have to get back in because it was so cold.

I fell asleep in my mom’s car and I woke up and found out that Ed is at mile 98. He complained his knees are shot because of the shoes he was wearing, oh no! After about an hour Martha Ed’s wife came back to my mom’s car and we drove to mile 122 the next check point to take a shower and a nap.

After we got ready we went to were the race staff was setting out times and we would cheer for the runners and every once in a while one of the staff would come out and yell something along the lines of “Here comes elite athlete ....” It would kind of shock me when they came out because I never heard them coming.When Ed made it to mile 122 he looked terrible and you would have to yell at him for him to talk to you, I felt really bad for him.

The travel up Whitney Portal (the last 13 miles) is all hills and is really hard for all the runners.  You would go up a hill just to find another hill plus there is high elevation. I noticed that on the trip up to Whitney portal that Ed was in the zone and seemed to be in a lot of pain.

Most runners and their crew were crying and cheering for the other finishers, so in the end most of the runners picked up their pace a lot for a strong finish! 

After Ed finished he sat down, took a picture with the race director and the crew and he got back up and said “okay guys time for me to carry you.” so Ed literally picked all of us up, one at a time, and ran across the finish!

The day After Badwater there is a little awards ceremony and you watch this years race recap and Chris the race director comes up and calls on all the runners and says their time, place, and if they got close to or beat a Badwater record. After the awards ceremony was over my dad started talking to Nickademus Hollon, Nick is the youngest Badwater, and Furnace Creak 508 (the Badwater for cyclists) finisher. My dad introduced me to Nick and told him that I was gunning for his record and he gave me his e-mail address and told me to e-mail him, meeting Nick was exciting and made me really happy.

...... Badwater certainly lives up to its title and that makes me want to run it even more.

Congratulations to my favorite Jester for another Badwater victory!

Why Do You Run?

People ask me all the time why I run. My friends don’t understand why I love it so much. I run for the feeling of accomplishment, I also run because I like to look at a medal in my house and say “Hey I earned that.” Another reason I run is because of the adrenaline and endorphins that run through my veins during my run and after. My parents run and I like to be like them. I run to have fun. Some days I run to be slow, other days I like to be be fast. I run just to run.

My running goals are to do a marathon when I’m 12, a 50 miler when I’m 13, and a 100 miler when I’m 14.

Why do you run?

What are your running goals?

An Accidental Ultra-Marathoner

June 2nd didn't go as I had planned, but it turned out a lot better!

It started with the Fontana Half Marathon.

The Fontana Half was awesome! The Fontana half is almost all down hill so it is a great PR course, the only downside is you are not allowed to walk :(. The half starts at 3,300 feet above sea level so you had to take a bus up to the start. There were around 2,000 runners and my age division was 15 and under, so I had a chance to win my age division! My friend Kent took me to the start and I was excited!

Boom! the race had started and we were running down hill, so I knew this is going to be a fast course! As I was running I heard someone yell, “good job we are at mile 3 and we are running a 7:12 pace!” Wow I’ll run out of energy if I keep going this pace. At mile 4 I saw the first person looking for walkers, hopefully he doesn’t find anyone! At mile 6 we were basically down the hill and we were heading towards a gas station when I heard someone say. “he passed me again! its ok when they are older, but when not when they’re his age!” I started thinking about this for a while and laughed to myself.
  

At mile 8 I was starting to pick up my pace since there wasn’t anymore hills to go down. A lady ran by me and said “Wow, you are going to be an elite athlete one day!” Just this thought brought me to mile 13 where I saw my mom and sister and sprinted to the finish! In the end I finished in 1:54:34 and I came in 4th place in my age division! First through third place were all fifteen years old.
  

After the race, we decided to go and help my friend Ed with a 100 he was doing at the Riverside Relay for Life. When we got there I decided that I was going to do 7 miles with Ed so I’ll have 20 miles for the day. Ed was running on a .25 mile grass loop around tents, kids, and a stage.

When I finished the 7 I sat down and my Mom and (Ed’s wife) Martha said “Now you only have 6 miles to go for a marathon!” I knew that they were just teasing me but since I felt great, I got up and did 6.25 more. After that I thought to myself, “if I’m going to do this I might as well run until my mom makes me stop.” I ran another 5 and was feeling no pain except for a slight ache in my legs, but thats normal. Sadly I had to stop and go home to feed my dog Cooper =(. I was surprised I ran so far.

Including the Relay for Life and Fontana, I  ran 31 miles!!! To add on to that I felt great! Running 31 miles was painful at times, but after I finished, I felt very proud of myself. I can’t wait until I get to be an official ultra-marathoner!