Guest Series: Why An Ultramarathoner? {Kara}

This week's guest post is part of the Great Big Bloggy Post Exchange at An Average Athlete. Please welcome Kara!

Hi Life…as I See It [Fitness, Health and Happiness] readers! I’m Kara from It's a Dog Lick Baby World and I’m doing a guest post as part of the Great Blogger Exchange. I write about life as a stay a home mom and training for ultra marathons. Yes, you read that correctly, I have a one year old daughter and I still have enough energy to want to run for hours. :)

I wasn’t always a runner, in fact back in March I ran my first ever marathon.  It was a learning experience, but even then I knew I wanted to run an ultra. Since that point, I have completed two 50K trail races, which you can read about here: Just Call Me the Salt Fairy and Does An Ultramarathoner Shit in the Woods?

This fall I am going to be running the JFK 50 mile race! I’m 3 weeks into my training for this race, which mostly involves back to back long runs to build endurance and familiarity with suffering. The big question I get is “Why?” and I’m going to answer that for you:

1. For the same reason people climb mountains: Because it’s there. I want to know if I can do it, and it doesn’t get simpler or more complex than that.
2. I love trail running. I love getting dirty, I love how everyone stays relaxed and finish times don’t matter as much as finishing. Ultra runners are just awesome people and getting out there and running with them is fun.

I get a lot of funny reactions when I mention that I’m training for a 50 mile race. These are some of the most common:

1. Is that a relay? Nope, but that is a fun idea for a race.
2. All in one day? I’d rather do the whole thing in one day than split it up!
3. How do you have time to train for that? Well, I save a lot of time by not sitting around and thinking of reasons why I don’t have time. 

My blog covers all the fun of ultra training, plus tons of baby and dog pictures. The only you won’t find is healthy eating because I eat like a lazy 15 year old boy and don’t bother photographing or recording how many cookies I ate for breakfast before an 8 mile run. 

I’ll leave you with some pictures of my 50Ks and my adorable daughter Faith and my hound dog Peanut!

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Thank you Kara. One of my goals for 2012 is to run my first ultramarathon so I loved reading this. I may be contacting you for training tips :)

Question:

Are you ever (or often) asked why you run? Do you get comments/questions like Why? Was somebody chasing you?" What do you tell them? How do you put into words your love for running?

Comments

[Julia]

ahhhhhh!!! gotta check out this blog. I am SO determined for a 2012 ultra!!! and love that pup....too cute!

[jillconyers]

That is one of  my goals for 2012 too. My husband runs ultras so he keeps raising the bar for me :)

Jill Conyers
My Blog: http://jillconyers.typepad.com/
How often in life we complete a task that was beyond the capability of the person we were when we started it. ~Robert Brault

[JMC]

I fully understand the feeling "I want to know if I can!". I have not done an ultra, but maybe....