+FillUs

Three days after my first 50 miler, the OSS/CIA 50M held at Prince William Forest Park, my legs are feeling great while my body is still catching up in recovery. The funny thing is, even though I ran almost twice the distance of a marathon, I felt much better than how I was after my last two road marathons. The slower pace and the softness of trails is much more forgiving than the hard pounding on asphalt/concrete. I was even able to run a couple easy miles to test my legs yesterday. The OSS/CIA 50M Night Run by Athletic Equation was held at Prince William Forest Park in Dumries, VA, about 1.5 hour north of Richmond. Two things lured me into signing up for my first miler: One is obviously to get at least one 50-miler in before my attempt at the WV Trilogy this fall. Two is the location of the run. The Park is the birth place of OSS, the predecessor to CIA in the 1930s. On the brink of war, U.S. intelligence operations needed a centralized effort. In response to the need, a team...

Four months out from West Virginia Trilogy, I'm an official entrant and have officially put in my first back-to-back long run this weekend. As to why I'm running it, read here .

I have been tremendously blessed by the past two fun-and-adventure-filled running weekends: Calgary Marathon on May 27th and Chattooga River 50K on June 2nd. This is my second year to join Team eMi to run this fundraiser marathon. Together we raised over $11,000 for two of our projects, designing an orphanage in Tanzania and a senior home in Haiti. Going into the marathon, I didn't have much expectation. My estimate was a 3:45 marathon, if the altitude wouldn't affect me too much. In best case scenario, I might be able to run a 3:40. The dilemma was that there was no 3:40 pace bunny! It's either 3:45 or 3:30. When race morning came, my heart leaned towards 3:30 even though I wasn't confident that I could keep up the whole 26.2.  Yet, I wanted to see what I could do and that's what I did. Most of the first 22k (13 miles) was a gradual uphill, with a few short steeper hills. I followed the bunny as much as I could while keeping in check that I wasn't ...