Magazines are like treasure

I always keep my back issues of magazines. The cheap part of me won’t let go. Much like old running shoes who end up in the shoe closet after their useful life, magazines pile up in all the likely spots: the bathroom, the bedside table, under the coffee table, and the glove compartment of my minivan. I figure I paid as much as $8 for these conduits of information and although the information has passed from page to brain cell I just can’t discard and recycle. It drives my wife nuts as the stacks build up over time. Secretly I know she tries to recycle them while I’m not watching but luckily for me I take the recycling out the curb. Many a TrailRunner magazine has been save from the clutches of the big blue recycling truck.

On a recent shopping trip, shopping for my wife, I elected to sit in the car, I rediscovered an old TrailRunner with an article about running your first hundred miler, “Leadville from Scratch” by Dougald MacDonald. An excellent article with some great tips I’m going to explore before I run my ultra.

I liked the way that it had the subheadings and a short vignette into his own experiences. I think over the next couple of months I’m going to explore each point and give my own interpretation of the tip. To summarize without re-writing the article the tips were:

1) Keep the right company
2) Build a base
3) Focus on the long runs
4) Learn to walk
5) Eat right
6) Experiment with gear
7) Run at night
8) Train on the course
9) Use a crew and pacers
10) Take a break
11) Try, try again

The magazine has proven to be a good reference long after I first bought it two years ago. If only I could see eye to eye with my wife on these treasures of information.