howl at the moon 8 hour ultra marathon--2014 edition

howl at the moon 8 hour

i suppose howl has become a quadrennial even for me ('06, '10, '14) but it really needs to be something more frequent than that.  if you haven't been to howl, you're missing oh-so-much, a real old-school ultra, really more a party that celebrates moving over distance than a race per se.  for my part, i was reminded just much dang FUN this event is. 

drove down morning of, grabbed a coffee, arrived at the race site around 6:30 a.m.  set up my chair and junk and immediately engaged in conversations with: a.  interesting guy from muscatine, ia b. 75-year old running his bazillionth ultra and has done a marathon in all 50 states TWICE  c. local doing his 22nd consecutive howl--doesn't train and only does this one even all year.  that's what i'm talkin' bout.

my event: the nuts and bolts of the run itself were fairly uneventful and really not the point, but since you asked, i was able to grind out 30.11 miles, feeling good most of the time.  never had any structural issues, only some minor stomach issues from 20-25 miles that i attribute to over-hydrating.  howl is a not tough course, but it is open, and on hot, sunny days, can be brutal.  this day was mostly cloud covered, yet i failed to hydrate properly considering the conditions.  some extra salt and pretzels settled the stomach before the stretch run.

postrace:  beer.  i mean good beer.  this is one of the cool things about howl.  killian's and sam adams summer ale.  had a great 30 minute conversation with legendary rob apple (679th ultra finish, thank you very much) over at the beer trailer, gathered my award, talked civil war history with a couple from kentucky in their 70s while i was packing up, then headed for b/n to meet the family for thai food. 

yeah, really need to make this more than a quadrennial thing.