Preface

I started running as a sophomore in high school after my freshman basketball coach convinced me to run track. I believe the motive may have been to get me off the basketball court more than get me on the cinder but that is beside the point. Anyway, I can still recall my first race, it was by no means a good race or an important meet for that matter but it was a significant moment for me. I can recall sitting in 3rd place with 300 meters to go in the mile and I realized that I had a chance to kick down the two runners leading the race. I kicked them down but came up a little short losing by a few tenths of a second. Losing that race was enough to get me hooked and always striving for that first place finish. I can still recall talking to my coach Stu Behm after that race. He told me that it did not matter that I did not beat the two competitors, what mattered was that I did not give up on the race even though I was behind by a significant margin. After track season I was convinced to give cross country a try; a move that probably remained unnoticed by my football coach. The season went well but I was not satisfied and decided it was time to put in some real miles. Throughout much of my high school years I ran about 70 miles per week and as I continued running collegially I bumped my mileage to 90 miles per week. When I finally graduated from what I now consider sprints (5K, 10K, and Marathons) I could focus on what I considered to be my true passion: 100's. I bumped my mileage to 100 to 120 miles per week and moved to the mountains of Colorado where I held a position at Rocky Mountain National Park. Colorado was also the place where the race that I have had on my calendar since 2007... Leadville, was held. I can still recall my boss from the restaurant that I worked at back in high school asking me if I wanted to do this race in a small town it Colorado. It sounded like an awesome idea but not something I could handle while competing in high school. After 6 years of talking about doing the Leadville 100 when I graduated college, my dream finally became a reality and I completed the race in 2012. I plan on doing the race at least 30 more times in my life barring any injury. In addition to my Leadville aspirations, I have set the goal of 100,000 miles in my life time... I am currently 23 years old and have run roughly 25,000 miles, so I hope I am on a sufficient pace; although the race of life could be cut short, dragged out painstakingly, or poorly marked. With that said I don't think that the idea of "pace" is applicable to this distance goal. Either way while I am alive and well I will try my best to reach it. In this blog I hope to outline my training plan, draw some new ideas from others and share some of my experiences with those who have too much free time on their hands. So if you have finished watching paint dry... you can follow me on my quest for 100,000 miles in my blog: Harriers to Chadron (Tom Wilkin will appreciate this title).