Personal Multi-days - Dream

Today I ran 27 miles in the park. Doing 9x1s at about 11.9 min/mile. Today, I recited Hail Mary's during the 9 minutes of running and the Our Father during the one minute of walking. This was like the Japanese monk who does 1,000 daily marathons and prostrates at shrines located along his path. The park where I run has no shrines, but I made a shrine out of time with the one minute of walking.

Now I have a fresh memory of what it feels like to run more than a marathon 2 days in a row. I had not really planned to run 27 miles today. I just went to the park with a large amount of sports drink and Gu and decided to go as long as I felt like it. I actually went fast the last 2 laps because it was very hot. I made the decision to do 10 laps during the 8th lap. And I wanted out of the sun, so I went faster. Go figure where that speed came from.

I started running ultras because I was inspired by the 3,100 mile Self Transcendence race (about 12 people run/walk around a block in NYC for 16 hours a day and try to run 3,100 miles in 52 days). What inspired me was the meditative aspect of doing endless miles in this manner.

My inspiration lead me to try ultras. I'm still fascinated by the idea of mentalling spiralling inward to Silence as many boring miles are completed. Earlier this year, I completed 80 miles in 20 hours in one mile laps. My mind does find such a thing soothing, but the body is pretty whipped after about 50 miles. I'm trying to practice contemplation, not worry about whether my foot is broken.

I've been in the habit of attempting personal multi-days whenever I have a long weekend. Last summer when I was laid off, I ran/walked upwards of 6 hours every day.

Today, as I was running I sort of got an idea of what I would like to do for my next vacation, 11/20 to 28: 10 ultras in 10 days. The plan would be to run/walk around the park 10 laps (27 miles), 10 days in a row. And see where my mind takes me. The physical part is hard but not that hard as running is slow. The mental part is very hard. Most people undertake their endurance feats in the venue of an organized event. This helps them to honestly finish without "quitting." Part of my mental journey is to do a thing without the measurements of other people.

This plan is tentative. As always, if I complete it, it will be one step at a time.