Relishing those few minutes..

I read from completerunning.com that the Western states endurance run has been cancelled due to the forest fires in California. First time I read or heard about this race is in the book Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes. Western states endurance run is a gruelling and extreme long distance trail course which has six distinct sections covering 100 miles stretching from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Sacramento, California. Gordy Ainsleigh was the first to try, run and complete the course in 1974. In fact he competed with the horses to finish the race in 23 hours and 47 mins.

An Ultramarathon is any sporting event involving running longer than the traditional marathon length of 42.195 kilometers. Even though the number of ultra runners are less today, the sport is getting popular pretty fast. Cliff Young, former winner Westfield Sydney to Melbourne; holds numerous world age records and one of the most inspiring ultra runners I have come across.

For persons like me, marathon training in itself is a very challenging, demanding job and becomes even more demanding if I am targeting for a finish time. When I train hard the worries of getting injured also keeps hitting my thoughts. Few weeks of layoff from running due to injury makes me to rewind my training for a month or more. I also have to keep my diet and weight on check, cut down junk food to a large extent, finishing work on time and the most hardest thing of tasting beer only once in a month. The long run on Sundays also eats away the time I spend with my family. I have plans and goals chalked down for another 3 years with targets and training growing linearly all for the heck of enjoying those joyous minutes after I finish the race.

Well, it becomes hard to imagine the way these guys training for the ultramarathon races. More than money, pride or winning against others it’s winning against ones body and mind. It’s all about relishing those few minutes after we finish the race.