Since joining the Gazelle herd in 1990, it has been my pleasure to represent the store over the years. From the crazy Kalamazoo Corporate Olympics back in the day to the River Bank 25k team competitions and Triple Crown races, most of my PR’s happened in a Gazelle Sports singlet.

When parenthood and coaching became full time jobs, training and racing tapered off until my racing consisted of a token 25k at the River Bank Run every May and an even worse Cornerstone Alumni & Friends 5k homecoming race in October. Two years ago the 100k became my focus. The two dozen marathons and one 50k on my resume did little to prepare me for the challenge for covering 62 miles at one time.  I told my long suffering wife that if I could eventually do a 100 miler in 24 hours, I’ll be done with this madness. After watching me race for 26 years, I don’t think she believes me.

In May, after my worst River Bank Run in many years, I found myself explaining to people why I didn’t have enough time to train adequately, but it sounded like a hollow excuse. Then at the end of the month the opportunity to do the TransRockies Run came along. I was wandering through 15 to 20 miles a week and knew I’d have to get my training going as quickly as possible. After some research of the event and an enlightening (actually a reality check) conversation with Marshall Randall, who did the race last year, I decided my training should be more about time than distance. The 2009 Gazelle team took 22 hours. At the very least, I needed to be able to run that much in six days.