After spending another great weekend in this southern Oregon town, I made a few observations. Here are the top ten indicators you might be from Ashland.
10. You put a Shakespeare quote on your race shirts - Lord, what fools these mortals be!
9. You don’t think Granite St is a hill.
8. You own a house with [...]
Guest Post by White Trash
LAGOS, NIGERIA.
ATTENTION: GOOD AND HONORABLE CRAIG THORNLEY
DEAR SIR,
CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL
HAVING CONSULTED WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND BASED ON THE INFORMATION GATHERED FROM THE NIGERIAN CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO REQUEST FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO TRANSFER MY ENTRY INTO THE 2010 WESTERN STATES ENDURANCE RUN INTO YOUR POSSESSION. [...]
This post has little to do with running, but, with my wife in Hawaii soaking up the sun and hanging out with my outlaws, I’ve had a little time to reflect on why she has put up with me for 23 years of marriage plus three years living in sin. So this is what I’ve [...]
Female mosquitoes that is.
What a pathetic life a mosquito lives. Eggs lie dormant all winter waiting for the snow to melt. When sufficient water is available they hatch into larvae and swim and eat organic stuff until they morph into a pupa when they stop eating for a few days. Then the little guys stand [...]
Instead of all this talk about who’s gonna be in the top five or top ten, I thought us taper-wonked WS runners might want to make some lighter predictions for the race. If you get named specifically, consider it an honor.
1. Who will wear the Sexiest Outfit?
This is easy. Jenn Shelton for the ladies and [...]
I’m sure you’d rather read about the training secrets of guys like Hal and Graham who’ve actually won WS, but since neither of them is likely to reveal his secrets (although lc did get a handful of gems this weekend from Hal) this will have to do for now. Below are ten WS training secrets [...]
Michigan Bluff Training Camp version 2009 ended with some lovely California weather. It probably rained about 3-4 inches on Friday and Saturday in the Bluff. We almost had to cancel the Ice Cream Sandwich run because of the mud (I hear they do that in California). But it was a train wreck of a run, [...]
Open Letter to AJW,
Since you asked, in the comments in my last post, how or why I use you as motivation to push hard and hurt on the track each week, I would like to share with you how our ten year bet ends in my dreams.
I have whittled away at your 5-hour lead (currently [...]
I went down to Ashland this past weekend to run the Pear Blossom 10 miler in Medford. These are some of the things I learned.
Even with decapitations and blood flying all over I can still fall asleep in the front row of MacBeth.
Elevators in two-story houses are cool.
SLF is one skinny little …
The Co-Op is [...]
Finally! My friend, Mr Wizzle, after completely botching the WSER 1980s video trivia contest, getting schooled by Soderlund in the WSER course trivia contest, not even getting answers submitted for the WTC trivia contest, (”I have a job unlike the rest of you guys”) and failing to even show up at the Georgetown Hotel to [...]
Guest Post by Greg (Cougarbait) Eyerly
Passing the final guy at the 1 mile to go sign on the road back to town from the trails, I was booking but I just couldn’t shake him – the him, the guy I just passed, I could hear his foot steps right behind me.
Oh yes, while [...]
Rogue Valley Runners in Ashland, Oregon is arguably the capitol of ultrarunning in the US these days. Sorry Seattle Running Company and Auburn Running Company, but have you seen the caravan of ultrarunning gypsies that owner Hal Koerner has assembled down there? Let’s see, there’s Ian Torrence, Erik Skaggs, Kyle Skaggs, Tony Krupicka, and the [...]
You ever wonder why Tim Twietmeyer, the five-time champion with 25 sub-24-hour finishes, including a streak of 15 consecutive top-five finishes, and now president of the board, retired from racing Western States 100 in 2006? Here are the top ten reasons.
10. He ran out of belts for any new silver buckles.
9. So he can come [...]
Years ago I heard my buddy Ed Willson’s hash name was Mr Ed Sucks. If you know Ed you should realize how good a name that is, because, well, it just is. While I never joined the Hash House Harriers, their penchant for giving members interesting, usually crude names is right up my alley. So, [...]
In the spring of 2007 there’s a group of us Western States runners hanging out in Michigan Bluff talking smack like we always do. Who’s gonna kick whose butt in the race. Who’s the fittest. Who’s the fattest. And on and on. Then my friend AJizzleWizzle, a.k.a. AJW, a.k.a. Tan Mitts, a.k.a. Three Names, the [...]
10. Your crew replaced your Aleve with the other blue pills, and, while it worked as a cooling mechanism, the priapism left little blood for the stomach or leg muscles.
9. You got lost somewhere around Chicken Hawk Rd (sorry lc).
8. You’re old.
7. You couldn’t tell if you were peeing blood or if there was simply [...]
Giving away my spot at Western States, but not giving up on Ultrarunning
Guest Post by Greg (Cougarbait) Eyerly
Ultrarunning in the Midwest is harder than one might think for three reasons. 1) There are no mountains, just lots of hills, lots of runnable hills, therefore one has no excuses to walk, not to run, because you’re [...]
Did you hear about the Arizona woman who was recently attacked by a fox while out jogging? Worried that the fox might be rabid, she jogged back a mile to her car with the fox locked to her arm. When she got to the vehicle, she threw it in the trunk, then drove to the hospital. [...]
10. You wake up with a puddle of drool on your pillow and 24 empty beer bottles on the floor.
9. You have an automatic email filter that rejects anything that doesn’t contain “AJW.”
8. You find a credit card receipt for the Georgetown Hotel for $585.
7. There’s three feet of snow in your front yard.
6. When [...]
Guest Post by Alan Abbs
LB,
Thanks for asking me to waste my time writing this entry for a blog that no one reads except for you and your mom. You know, it was only 6 days after you announced your blog that you were e-mailing me to ask 1) if I’ve read it yet, and 2) [...]