The 47th Annual JFK 50 Mile Ultramarathon was held this past Saturday November 21, 2009. It is the oldest 50 Mile Ultra in the USA.  It was my third 50 Mile Ultra Marathon and my 2nd JFK50 (see last year’s JFK50 Mile Ultra Marathon Summary here).  Some new thoughts on the prep and then road, trail, towpath, and road to the finish …

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This past Saturday 9/21/09 was the first of two 50M ultras on the fall schedule.  The event was the North Face Endurance Event/Gore-Tex 50 Mile Ultra just outside of Washington DC (Algonkian Park, Sterling VA).  It is one of five North Face regional events across the country.  This course description provided in the race info packet:

“The North Face® Endurance Challenge returns to Algonkian Regional Park, Great Falls Park and the Potomac Heritage Trail again in 2009. The course keeps runners on their toes with ever-changing terrain. Overall, it consists of 50% singletrack, 40% dirt or gravel doubletrack, and 10% gravel carriage. The Great Falls sections are highlighted by some intense elevation changes, with steep-but-run-able climbs up to

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An August ultra?  hmm. On little running lately, hmm.  I may not have been thinking straight but it turned out to great ChiRunning® lesson.  Lots of insight into how efficient (and in ways how inefficient) I am running.  Almost no recovery today except for a little overall fatigue. I feel like a could go for a run today (the day after), but I won’t … maybe tomorrow.

Here is a brief summary of the 2009 Turkey Swamp 50K Ultra on

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A spring ultra?  Suuurrre.  Apparently my brain was not registering when I read the following course description back in early December at registration time:

“The course is mostly single track trail with a mix of open fields, dirt road and some paved road. The course features nearly 9,800 feet of climbing. There is a starting loop of 3.6 miles followed by two identical loops of 13.7 miles. There are 4 stream crossings that can be challenging depending on the water level – there is always the chance of getting wet feet.”

I also remember seeing this course profile picture from the http://www.hatrun.com website … apparently this did not

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The 2008 JFK 50 Mile Ultramarathon was a great experience.  Many have asked the Q: Why would you want to participate in a 50 mile event?

A: I wanted to see if I could run 50 miles ‘without using my legs‘.  What?, is that possible?  First, is it possible to run ‘without using your legs’?  Obviously, you need your legs for momentary support but is it possible to run ‘without using your legs’, for propulsion?  From experience I know this is possible, and I wanted to test it over

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The 46th Annual JFK 50 Mile Ultramarathon was held this past Saturday November 22, 2008.  It is the oldest 50 Mile Ultra in the USA.  Ultramarathon –noun: any footrace of length greater than a marathon.

It was my first 50 Mile Ultra.  Previously I had done one 50K, a few marathons and a few very long training runs.  Some thoughts on the road, trail, towpath, and road to the finish …

The Field:

The field is limited to 1000 runners across

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