Kilgore Trout

Another year of running in the bank.  The whole enterprise has been much fun over the past four plus decades.  Anyone who has run with me has heard various renditions of runs ventured.  Some are races from eons ago, events that happened on the run, and more than likely my take on various running related topics.  When I look back it was a lot of fun running dual and even tri-meets in high school and college.  Does much of this go on anymore?  I seemed to be much more effective man to man than in bigger meets.  I was faster than I looked so if you hung around too long there was a good chance it would go down to an all out sprint finish.  In bigger events they were way out there so no chance of jumping anybody.  In college I was the guy at the end of the line at Ponderosa asking coach if I could bump up my meal if there was any extra cash left.  I guess the attitude came from my HS coach who stated, "We're not very good, but we're funny."  That we were.  We had guys so far back we had to send out search parties. 

I ran the numbers again for 2017 and it appears Dewey has won the wingman award for the 4th consecutive year by his recollection.  Here is the top ten list:

Dewey - 35
Tim - 33
Dean - 12
Christine - 11
Clement - 9
Andrea - 8
Sharon - 4
Steve HK - 4
Ron - 4
Andy - 3
Angela - 3

At the end of last week I determined I needed 52.5 miles this week to achieve 2,500 on the year.  Today's run of 8.5 miles sealed the deal.  Part of me wants to aim at 3,000 next year.  That is an additional 1.37 miles per day than this year.  If I average 8.25 miles per day the yield is 3,011.25.  Yes, this is what it has come down to.  I guess I'll aim at 60 miles a week.  The math looks easy if you run it like this 7 - 7 - 7 - 7 - 7 - 15 - 10.  I'll see what happens, but if I get serious about this it means the added aggravation of actually planning ahead and running when other stuff should be getting done.  I'm a running bum.  Getting out the door isn't a big issue most of the time.  Even when I'm waxed (which seems like a lot lately) I just have a couple more cups of coffee and solve the problem.  On another note it has been like -25F around here with the wind chill and there was no lack of getting up a posse to go running.  I was on Lets Run and people were....I'll leave it at that.  How hard is it to throw on an extra pair of sox, shorts, and another hat? 

2017 Race Recap:

4/1 Southshore Half Marathon - 1:30:02
5/6 Hartford Love > Hate 5k - 20:13
5/13 Ice Age 50 Mile - 9:13:01
6/25 Frebeka 5 Mile - 34:22
9/16 Al's Run 8k - 32:39
10/8 Glacial Trail 50k - 5:04:46
11/18 JFK 50 Mile - 8:27:27

It was a good year.  My right knee troubled me for 6-7 months.  I tweaked it out on the Ice Age trail in April.  It was never bad enough to stop running so I did not, though at times I had to hedge.  For the most part the pain vanished in early November.  I've always been lucky like that.  Tacos and pumpkin pie await me so have a good 2018.