Today is a different kind of ultra

It all started about 30 hours ago and its not over yet... no its not an ultra marathon but a work trip and this is just the getting there part.

I'm on my way to Hyderabad, India. On paper my flight looked simple, of course that's after we changed it to go via the Pacific vs Europe. My original route with a stop in London to see family but a new route was chosen via Bangkok, since political unrest seemed more predictable than volcanic ash and weather patterns.

My new route departed Los Angeles at 11:20pm on Thursday night, I arrived in Bangkok around 6am Saturday, then an 8:50 departure from Bangkok to Hyderabad.

Here's the part I didn't see, the 8:50 was PM, not AM, I released as I looked at my itinerary as we were landing. Now I had an almost 15 hour layover in Bangkok. Usually it wouldn't be an issue, but I checked my bags all the way through and wasn't sure if I could easily get them back.

Luckily Bangkok is a great airport with lounge with lasyboy chairs and even a dayhotel, great food court and fancy stores, all overpriced of course. I also realised on reviewing my itinerary I have a similar length layover on the return trip. Last news reports I saw referred some sort of grenade attack in Bangkok on Thursday, so I felt safer in the airport than traveling around with no plan.

Anyway in a little over an hour I'll be boarding my flight to Hyderabad, after the 3.5 hour flight and a 1 hour car trip my journey will be over.

Now the interesting part will be training for an ultra in India, with temperatures over 100F, in what I hear is a very different place to LA its going to be different.

Its a shame Mira couldn't join me for this trip, but she's here with me in spirit. Mira wrote me little sweet notes for every day I'm here, her last note said she hopes I'm having fun in India, little did she know I would be traveling for almost 2 days. I'm not as sweet and organized as Mira so I'll have to write blog notes instead...


Craig

Affordable 50k

With the current economy I'm trying to train on a budget. This involved doing less races as training runs, and finding local races vs traveling whenever possible. My target races that will involve travel costs are Tor Des Geants in Italy and Hardrock if I get picked in the lottery next week.

Earlier this week I felt I needed a 50k for my Saturday long, there were no local 50k races and I really didn't want to do it alone, at least for the entire distance. I didn't think I could find someone to run with me. Luckily the socal coyotes were doing a 16 mile point to point run from Temascal to Westridge in the Santa Monica Mountains. I had the perfect solution, I would just start a few hours earlier from their finish point, then have a group to run back with. I worked out I needed to start at 4am. I told some friends about my plan and posted my idea on facebook. Another coyote, Erin decided to join me at 4am, for what I believe was her second 50k. We had a great few hours lit by a bright full moon, then treated to an amazing sunrise. We arrived at Temascal just as the 16 mile group were ready to start and had a nice group to help pull us back for the next 16 miles Westridge to Temescal. The total distance was a little over 31 miles and took us about 6h:45m.

So if you can't find a race or a group to run with, sometimes you can just double the distance of a group run and if you are lucky maybe someone will join you for the whole way.

In a few weeks I'm heading to Corona CA for the Twin Peaks 50 mile ultra, its an affordable local ultra.