Huge Kudos

I forgot to mention yet another amazing accomplishment my brother Patrick pulled off this past weekend.  He placed third overall in in the Baker Trail Ultrachallenge which is a 50, yes I said 50, mile race.  Running 50 miles is a feat a miniscule amount of human beings can complete on a road however the majority of this race was a trail run. Check out this course description:

The Baker Trail is marked as a typical hiking trail. Yellow blazes on trees, telephone poles, fence posts, guard rails, and so on indicate the path.

Unlike many hiking trails, the Baker Trail is not always a footpath through the woods. In many areas, it follows dirt or paved country roads, some with narrow shoulders. As with road running everywhere, you must always be alert and cautious.

Because of the varying terrain, the UltraChallenge is more mentally demanding than similar ultras. You must always be watching for the blazes in order to stay on the course. In places, the Trail will be following a road only to abruptly turn off the road into the woods. Therefore, if you haven’t seen a blaze in a few minutes, you may be off course and should backtrack to the last blaze and determine where you went wrong.

Plenty of runners will go off-course at least once during the day. If you expect — and accept — that you will, too, it won’t be quite as frustrating. The key to a successful race is to realize it quickly.

So to place third in a 50 mile race, on a a difficult trail is incredible however there is one more factor that makes this approach a superhuman level feat.  Patrick has spent the majority of the last several months overseas for his job in locations that were not at all conducive to maintaining your personal sanity, not to mention ultra-marathon training.  He literally just got back home last week and had the race on Saturday.

Patrick’s determination, strength, work ethic, and endurance are truly exceptional.  When combined with his humility, kindness, and sense of humor, you have a truly remarkable human being whom I am so proud to call my brother.

Yesterday in the mail I received a couple more things I needed to move my mom’s estate proceedings along.  I am hoping to be able to get this wrapped up sooner rather than later.

Last night I also hopped on the tractor for an hour or so to finish up mowing the very high grass in the back yard.  When the grass is allowed to get that high it is a real pain in the ass to knock down, requiring two mowing passes in many spots.  It’s nice to finally have it done, hopefully it doesn’t need to be attended to again until we are officially in the fall season.