Crazy Times

Good golly it has been so busy around the Decker house the last two weeks. Hence the lack of blogging. So where to start huh ?

Well how about with a little Trail Mix 50k race re-cap. The race went pretty well I thought. Going into it I figured I was in 3:50-4:00 hour shape. I figured I would shoot for 57 min laps or so and just go with the flow. The race was stacked with lot's of fast runners and we had a great day weather wise so that was good. When the race started we got out hard. Hell I looked at my Garmin and we where rolling 6:30 miles and the leaders where pulling away! I backed off as I knew I was not ready for that yet. The whole first lap I was feeling great and very much in control and happy with how I was running. I hit 54 mins for the first lap and knew I need to slow some as we still had a long way to go. I was running the race alone for the most part so I was very happy to have my ipod rocking. Late on the second lap my friend Kelly caught up to me and we ran for awhile together. It was great to see how he was doing. He was using this as a training run before Ice Age 50 miler in 4 more weeks. At the end of lap two I was 56 min for a 25k split of 1:50 and I was feeling super good! I took a second Vespa going into the third lap and was excited as this was coming together well for me. Not much happen that third lap. I continued to run alone and listen to my tunes. It was funny to me to think I had run so far and only ran with someone like for 30 min's or so total. This third lap was a 59 min one. The last lap was crunch time for me. I knew I needed a 1:10 lap to run 4 hours. I tried to be the "new/old" Kurt and said hell forget 4 hours let's run as close to 3:50 as possible. It was on this last lap I could tell I was getting towards the max of my current fitness level but was very happy I was still cruising along hitting 6:40 mile pace still in the flatter areas. As the finish was coming I was very happy to be done and very tired. But it was more of a emotional type of tired as I knew I was finally back to running more like my old self. It felt good! In the end I was 3:53 and good for 8th place overall. I will take it as it is a good starting point as I build for Afton in July.
Hmm what else was going on? Oh yea my wife had surgery to have her Gallbladder taken out and I had my 39th b-day. I am happy to report Sonya is doing good as we even got to run some trails yesterday for my b-day! I had a good feeling during yesterdays run this is a good start for the summer for both of us. Bring it on. I leave you with this little video for a group I have been digging. Enjoy!

Ist Ultra on the year

Well it's go time I guess. The first ultra of the season for me is this weekend at Trail Mix 50k. I have run this race many times over the years, and in fact it is where I did my first ever ultra way back in 2001. Because I train there so much and have run this race so many times it is easy to feel bored with it some would say. But in a strange way it always hold a special place for me because this is where it all started for me. The last few years I have not been in the best shape going into it so I have just ran it to run it. This year I feel like I have run pretty good leading into it. I do not think I am in any shape to go after my own course PR of 3:41 but do feel like I can run a good race. I actually feel a bit nervous about this one as I find myself wondering what I can run for time. Well in the end I just want to do the best I can and enjoy being back to running with a purpose. Plus it is always so fun to see all the trail friends I have come to know and love over the years. If you are out there say hi !

Looking for something to pump me up this week I was super excited to see the first Kilian's Quest season 2 video is out. Man this kind of stuff gets me all excited ! I also found this movie trailer for Wandering Fever about Salomon runner Ryan Sandes. Enjoy and I hope you get half as much out of this as I do. Also do not forget this Monday is Boston Marathon day. You can watch the race live on Universal Sports.com

Trail Season in Full Swing

What a weird week. It was a week filled with lot's of highs and a few lows as in no running days. I unforchatly had two goose eggs this week; what a bumber that was. All in all though I got in some good days of running everyday that I did get out. All but one run this week was on dirt as well. My shortest run this week was 8 miles (one day) and I had two runs of 15 miles or farther so that was good. I did miss out on a 20 miler I was hoping to hit but no such luck. Yesterday was going to be that day but I can tell I am getting hit hard by the allergies bug now. Man today I have felt like I am in outer space all day long, which makes for a long day let me tell you.

So if I was asked what big things stood out in my week I would have two say the group run Friday morning out at Hyland Park. I have been going to the group alot over the last year and it has been oh so fun. There is always like 4-10 people who run at the 6am start. Now that the winter is over and people are rapping up there running we even started back the "early" loop which is at 4:50am. Man it is dark at that time. So I figured I would go to the first one of the year to make up some miles for the week. We had like 5 guys going. But when we got back to the parking lot to pick up the 6am starters there was like between 25 and 30 runners ready to go ! I thought to myself "do they know its 6am" ? It was great to run with so many people on the dirt.

* Some of the friday group at last years Leadville 100 miler

But the biggest thing to happen this week was the birth of my nephew Oliver Martin Decker on Saturday night. I am so happy for my brother Kevin and his wife Emily. It's nice for Evan to have another boy around now.


This week should be a good one. I hope to start feeling better and run on some more dirt and then at the end of the week we are off to the Madcity 100k in Madison,WI for the USATF 100k national championships. Sonya has trained super hard for this and hope this is her year. Wish her luck. Click on the link for the race day webcast. Happy trail running people.

World Cross Country 2010

Good god can these runners make it look so easy as they float over the land with ease. Mark my words if World Cross ever comes back to the USA I will be there ! I hope you enjoy this as much as I did even though I do not speak polish. I guess that is the beauty of running. All you need to do is watch.