For the past several months I was planning on escaping the Portland, Oregon winter just at the right time to elude some of the dreary cold and rain. I had a 50-miler picked out in sunny southern California and made all the travel plans necessary. I was pretty excited for the rugged Twin Peaks 50-mile course and event and the fact that I'd be running in the sun in mid February. Well....things changed! Apparently there was a bunch of landslides causing damage to the Twin Peaks course making it unsafe and inaccessibly for aid stations, etc. so they cancelled the February race. I was bummed. I had my heart on an early season 50-miler. I searched around California, given that I had a non-refundable airline ticket, for other trail ultras. I did find the Montana de Oro 50k the same weekend and initially had substituted that race for Twin Peaks.
Then one day after reading some running blogs and on a training run with Todd Braje I went out to lunch with my wife Erica. A thought came to my mind as we were walking into the cafe. Erica said, "uh oh....what????" I said, "I'll tell you over lunch". I went on to tell her about my spontaneous thought. "Maybe I could go run Rocky Raccoon 50-miler???"
After I got home I did some research and found out that I could save my California plane ticket in a "bank" w/ Jetblue and use it within one year. I looked around a found a cheap ticket to Texas and the plans were in the works. I have been known to be spontaneous like this in the past!
So I'm off to Texas bright and early Friday morning and will be back to Portland by 1pm on Sunday. The middle part will be filled with seeing friends, running a flat, fast 50-miler, and watching and/or crewing for some peeps in the much anticipated 100-miler. Apparently there is some football game going on down there this weekend too?
Rocky Raccoon here I come!
You can track the 50 or 100 mile race by clicking HERE
5 comments:
When I saw the title of your post I thought maybe you were adding to the already stacked field in the 100. I don't know so much about the RR50 field, but I'm sure you will be fast. Best of luck at the race and with the HR lottery this weekend. Maybe I'll see you in Silverton come July.
Have fun, Yassine. Good luck!!
have fun and say hi to arnstein for me if you see him ;-). i told him about ya and i am sure he'd be pleased to meet ya!
You will burn that course up. Enjoy! If you are in Austis be sure to get a Freebird's burrito! I believe Joe Prusaitis is still the RD. He is one of the great people in our ultra community. That course is flat and fast.
thanks everyone...I had a great time! :-)
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