I finished my first 50k race, The John Holmes 50k Trail Run.


Photo via http://www.jimbodoh.com

If it hadn't been pitch black prior to the 7 am race start, this is the sign that would have greeted me at the Tucker Hill Trailhead of the The Croom Tract at Withlacoochee State Forest.




The 50k course is essentially four 7.5 mile loops with a little tacked on at the beginning and at the end. Runners are allowed to leave a drop bag at the aid station nearest the start/finish area. I planned to run the first loop of the course without my handheld water bottles or gel flasks. I did carry my ziploc bag of dried dates from the beginning. I guzzled half a bottled water just before the race start.

I have upgraded my blog here at http://thatlinuxbox.com to Geeklog 2.0. You may have noticed that I am still tweaking the layout and theme (yay for mobile-friendly).

For compatibility reasons I upgraded to the latest version of the following plugins:

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This week I was chosen to be the Interim Team Lead over the Linux Team in our little section of UFIT.

Our existing team lead is heading off to greener pastures to do cloud stuff and to perform all kinds of SysAdmin wizardry at Rackspace.

Martin Smith, we will miss you!

This was the second annual Cross Country (XC) race that Fit2Run Gainesville held at The Rock Trails property. The course was mostly well-groomed field grass and was soft due to all of the rains (but still very runnable). There were a few nice muddy sections thrown in just for fun. This year there were options for both a 5k and 10k and I think I chose wisely by running the 10k.

I finished the 10k in 38:16 and earned 2nd place overall. This is the first time I can remember getting to stand on an actual podium!


Photo by "Captured Memories by Esta Eberhardt"

The 5k and 10k runners started at the same time so pacing was just a little bit tricky. I went out fairly relaxed and didn't let the 5k runners pull me out too fast. Most of the fast runners opted for the 5k distance, so when they turned toward the finish line and I started into the second lap, there was nobody in sight ahead of me. Dan Clark was out there somewhere but I never saw him.


Photo by "Captured Memories by Esta Eberhardt"

I am training for a 50k race in October (the John Holmes Trail Run ). It will be my first Ultramarathon. I decided to go up in distance rather than taking another shot at the marathon. Perhaps I had some lingering doubts after my first and only marathon experience. In any case, after working hard all summer and with a lot of speedwork under my belt, I felt that it was time to ease back on pace for a while. Besides, Ultra training should give me a nice endurance base should I decide to train for another marathon.

Sunday I capped off my second 70 mile week with a 26 mile trail run at San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park. I ran on the hiking trails, the horse trails, and the mountain bike trails. There is a surprising (for Florida) amount of elevation and terrain on some of the more remote trails.

Dailymile gives me a nice weekly brag sheet:



I think my training is going well. I hit a low spot last week after slogging through a few 4 am workday runs. The weekend trail runs have kept me going, though. I am amazed by how much more quickly I can bounce back from a 20-mile training run than a few months ago. I have finished 5 runs of at least 21 miles since July, with many runs over 10 miles during that time.

Now I plan to scale back for a week in order to recover. Then I am going to try to get in one more long day (5 hours and close to 30 miles?) before the 50k race.

My goal? Finish the race and hopefully still be running during the last few miles.

Excuse the site layout, etc. I am in the progress of upgrading to Geeklog 2.0 and will be playing with themes and functionality.