The Skyrunning Series was just announce and I am planning to attend a few of these races in the US and potentially one International race, and thought it would be fun to get a group of you to show up and race together as an informal team.

These are great races and very popular in…

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.…

Wow, what a first week back at it! 2014 Cool Impossible formulated and now in black and white! I decided I want to…

Tools are ready (half of them home made). I already did the slant board excercises one week combined with 5 minutes running in place barefoot, so calf muscles are "slightly" sore ..tried the swissball excercises today, kind of tough of couple of them. Anyway Geneva, Switzerland joined the cool impossible…

I am into my 8th day of the No Sugar Diet recommended by CI. I don't expect this 20-day diet itself to be an issue because I am not much of a sugar junkie anyway, but nevertheless it is important because this will be my first milestone with the Cool Impossible program. For the record, I loved dark chocolates and cookies until some 6-months back and have since then almost entirely gone off sugar.

The 20-day Whole Food challenge should not be a big challenge in India. Much of the…

Alright boys and girls, here it is…..My 2014 Cool Impossible…

1. “5” as the first number in my 1 mile test….AND

2. Top 10 femal finish at Cayuga 50 mile USATF championships in June...AND…

Ok, so I've finished my second week of strength training. Still working out at a total of 4 days this week of training (2 days with the slant board feet/lower body excercises and 2 days with the fitball upper body excercises. Alternating feet/upper body/rest/feet/upper body/rest, eeh, you know the drill). And wow, I can already feel the power of the excercises. They seem so naive and simple in the book, but the slant board really does it.

So, I'm heading into third week,…

Hello! I read The Cool Impossible over the last couple of weeks and got signed up on this site yesterday. I run as a hobby and have been running an average of 1-2 Full and/or Half Marathons a year for the last 7-8 years. 

As I approach 50, I got introduced to La Ultra, The High (thehigh.in) through my buddy Dr. Rajat Chauhan who also happens to be an Ultra Runner and part of the organising team at La Ultra. He has got me seriously thinking about trying the EleventyOne at the…

My CI last year was a 50K in October. I ended up with a stress fracture in July and by the time I healed I didn't have time to finish training for the 50K. Bummer. SO I thought about making my 2014 CI the same race, but it seems a little lame. Also, there's been a voice in the back of my head (probably Eric's!) telling me that I haven't truly declared a Cool Impossible. See, the whole time I was planning my 50K training, I didn't have doubts of finishing. I'm a finisher-…

What to do, what to do?...A friend hit me up about running a half marathon December 15th; I'm totally in! Then, I got to thinking my goal for this year was to run a full marathon, and I have yet to accomplish this. So, do I want to go for it and run the full instead of the half since this will be the last opportunity for a marathon this year? Of course I do, but my longest run to date is 20 miles (October 11), and my last 'long run' after that was a 15k (October 19); my daily miles have been…

Feeling positive after completing my first week of strenght training, focusing on my feet. Taking a break in my running at the same time, as I have a history of tightness/pain in my achilles tendons and flexor hallucis longus. Hope to say good bye to that. Worked feet and barbell one day and upper body excercises the other. All toghether 4 days last week. Goal is to be persistant, as I love running but hate strength excercising.

This week: no running, strength excercise as…

Putting together my cool impossible for 2014. Like a child on Christmas Eve with visions of sugar plums dancing in her head... except my sugarplums have words printed on them like Tor Des Geants, Tahoe 200, Hardrock, Western States, Wasatch, Cayuga.. My brain dances with words and phrases, conversations with coach, “I don’t want to level off, I want to improve”, “Do I have the potential to develop into a more competitive ultrarunner?”. Statements made by the likes of…

1. Old regrets. 

2. The excuses you've been telling yourself

3. What you don't have (like time..)

4. Always feeling safe and comfortable

5. Fear of Failure

So I was sick all week, but gradually improving and by Friday morning thought I might even up my entry to the 50 mile. Why?  Just for the sheer joy of running long, one more reaaallly loooong run. My legs and my spirit were feeling great.  However,  I had developed strep throat early in the week, but with antibiotics on board, by Thursday was feeling more normal again. Friday morning's ez run felt great, but I had also started to develop a cough and runny nose. 1 kid at home with strep…

My last race for the year is Saturday....and then...gasp...sigh...moan..I am going to take 3 weeks off running.  It even hurts to type it. This will be the first time in a year I've taken voluntary break from running. I don't want to, but I grasp that I need to...barely. Right now I'm savoring every run as if it were my last...really quite silly. Disturbing and reassuring at the same time.  Frightening to be so passionate about something that you don't even want to let go for a little while.…

I haven't been on trails in months. I had high hopes of running on the US Whitewater Center trails this morning. I thought the previous day's rain would close their trails, so I was already planning to run the mountain bike trails down the road. But I forgot about the time change last night. Because I knew my children would wake up at their normal time (i.e. what would be an hour earlier this morning) I went ahead and got up at my normal time, instead of enjoying that extra hour of sleep. I…

"your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality." ~Ralph Marston

Why is it so much easier to question myself than it is to be encouraged? I am finding that almost every time I push myself hard for a race or a long run I am constantly questioning myself. Lately the voices ask; “why have I decided to sign up for this 50K and more importantly why did I tell anyone I was going to do it?” and “It would be so much easier if I kept my big mouth shut to change my plans.” Maybe I…