This is a recap of my year in as much as it is about a single day. One simply does not find yourself on the start line of a 100km race hoping to race for a golden ticket without a story: and what a story it’s been! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Chris Thoburn (@runspired) 11 months ago I didn’t imagine I’d be racing for a golden ticket. About to undergo lung surgery and with an uncertain recovery timeline for regaining full lung functionality, I determined to work as smart as I could. Even if it took years I thought, even if I couldn’t ever race competitively…
32mi 6K ft of gain. The first runner to break 4 hours. I should have been overjoyed but in the moment I was deep, battling the negative thoughts that threatened to end my day there. The first picture here is me, getting back up for more.…
After just missing the FKT two months ago on fairly low volume and only a couple of months post-lung surgery, I knew I needed to give this another go. I figured I'd probably try in either August or September if the weather cooperated and look to next fall if it did not. A few weeks ago I started feeling like I was ready to give it another shot. Based on how much fitter I felt compared with my last attempt I figured I could take 20-25min off my previous time. I gave the course a lot of practice and worked out a pace chart which if executed would take me under four hours. View this post…
The passage of time is enigmatic: even when seemingly bubbling past a slow happy brook it is truly a river surging quickly towards the ocean. These past few months, an idea for a new blog post has been filtering in and out of the forefront of my mind, slowly being massaged by my subconsious into something more worth sharing. Like a slow happy brook, bubbling quietly towards a larger stream. Here, these months later, having found that much time has passed with scarce a blink, I suddenly find myself adrift in an ocean. How did I get here? Step into this boat, dear reader, and allow me to revi…
Some people call these race reports. I call them post-mortems. Why? Cause usually I end up writing one when I didn't achieve a goal and I want to diagnose "why". This year's goal for DVT was aggressive: run a 2:45:00 and set the course record (currently the course record is ~ a 2:56, the faster times on ultra-signup are from the DV road marathon). DVT is a course that I believe takes a solid 20min off of whatever shape you are in, so right off the bat this goal meant that I was targeting 2:25:00 marathon conditioning. My final time was a 3:05:00. Not a course record and a solid 20…
