good news

good news speed racers... Red Wings are up 1-0 in the Western Conference Finals over the Anaheim Ducks. Go Red Wings!!!

But the real good news is Jeff just got second at Quicksilver 50 miler. He had gone in with no real expectations afterall, he just came off his monster running camp at Michigan Bluff last week.

His only real goal was to run hard the last 50k hard.

He knew the top mens splits from last year so he could gauge how he was doing. He eyed the splits that were around 7:23 Mark Lantz,(3rd the year before). And didn't really want to be ahead of his splits So, if he did 7:30-7:40 he would be happy. (No splits for runners around 7:30-7:40 last year.)

He started off and noticed he was breathing too hard the first two miles so he backed off and watched a group of 10 or so gap him. That was fine. Moving along through the race he slowly moved up feeling good and just enjoyed the running.

Then moving up and into the first split, Last years splits: Mark had come in right at 2hrs. Graham Cooper (winner of States last year)1:51, Jon Olsen 1:51 (winner of Rio last year). And Jeff came in at 1:54. He was two minutes behind a group of three and nine minutes behind Graham leading this years race. He knew he had ran too "hot" but he was feeling good. And it was here that he knew he was going to finish sub 7:30.

Onto the next split he had passed the group of three and was still feeling good. All he could think about was where is the single track. Not much on the race he said. Lots of double track and footing was not an issue.

Then at mile 32 he was only two minutes behind Graham. He thought what is happening here??? Hey Jeff, your training has been epic!!! That is what is happening.

Well, he actually thought it would be fun to win a race. So, he had caught Graham a little later at about mile 36. They chatted. And Graham comfirmed that he was meeting him, Craig, Bev, Alan, and others for the 52 mile Peace run on the States course again this Memeorial Day weekend.

Graham let him go on the long down. There was one last big climb left and Jeff knew he would be seeing him again. Sure enough, Jeff started to hike and here comes Graham. Graham said, "thanks for waiting for me". Off he went. Jeff knew he wouldn't see him again as he could start to feel it from last week.

So, Graham set a course record, 6:39. Jeff finished in 6:46 for second. Mark Tanaka (2nd at Rio last year) finished 3rd in 7:17. Mark is running Kettle also.

Jeff had to laugh late in the race. Since nobody knew who this guy running minutes behind Graham all day was. He was known as the 2:20 marathoner guy running his first ultra. Let me see, new to ultra's and you are wearing a Sunsweet ultra team shirt and also sponsored by Sporthill??? Well, don't worry, Jeff only did one sub 3 marathon and it was no where near 2:20. This was not his first ultra by a long way. He got pegged because there was a 2:20 marathoner in the race but he wasn't carrying any water or food in the race. I don't know how he finished.

So, after being up for 27 hours straight, eating three bean burritos and drinking a milkshake the night before he was pretty happy. But really more surprised than anything.

Now all Jeff is doing is driving 10 hours up I-5 back home to a warm bed. Oh, our conversation was cut short as the sign "barbeque" was on the hi-way sign. And next to that, McDonalds. Brisket sandwich and a milkshake I think was on his mind right now. Sounds like good road trip food if you ask me.