first race of the season

Moab 55km+ (and yeah, I am throwin all the little kms into the measurement) is less than a week ahead and I am not sure what kind of race shape I am really in at this point . . . I have put in a couple/three 30 mile runs so far this year and my weekly average has been just a tad over 60 miles/week so far this year but the speed and strength don't seem to be there yet. I would like to run this race pretty much as hard as I can, since the only other race until Western States currently on my schedule is Squaw Peak and that looks to be more of a training run than a real race considering its place on the calendar (only 3 weeks before WS) . . . the weather may be as big a factor as anything else in this journey down to the desert -- rain/snow seems to be highlighting the upcoming week's pattern.

Anyhow, part of my reason for writing tonite is the icky feeling I got reading through some of the blogs about who did/did not get into Hardrock (more specifically comments made by readers). I am worried that the sport of ultrarunning is losing some of its innocence. I don't mean this as a knock on the elites or any other group I have actually run into on the trails, it is directed mostly at odd comments/commenters I have seen from time to time on race feeds or blog-comment sections. The first time I noticed a sort of nastiness directed at runners was during the Western States chatter last year when there were these anti-runner comments made by people sitting in their living rooms . . . maybe they were cheering on another runner but the number of negative comments directed at some of the runners surprised the hell out of me. One of the great things about ultrarunning's underground status has been the fact that the sport generally avoids the negative aspects of competitive sports better than most other sports but lately I feel like there are strange sounds on the outskirts of the sport . . . to be honest my guess is that this noise comes mostly from people who have never experienced a 100 mile race (if they have run any ultras at all) but it's just strange to see it out there at all -- if I was smarter/more disciplined I would simply avoid all the internet chatter and that would probably make me blissfully unaware . . .

Back to running -- I am tired of the ice. Generally I enjoy winter running, but a couple of runs in the past week or two have tested my resolve to enjoy slipping and sliding all over the place -- a half mile descent down an ice skating rink this morning may be the main reason for this sudden frustration . . . a half mile descent I could have avoided by using a little more common sense in choosing trailheads . . .