(After seeing Dianna many times throughout the day during the Sangre de Cristo Ultras, I asked her to write about how her day volunteering went. We always get the race reports from the athletes - never from the people out there helping. I know she'll get back to adventuring in the mountains soon, but meanwhile there's more ways to be a part of an event then just pinning on a bib number.) To quote a blast from my college past, The Indigo Girls, “The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” This is a different kind of race report. After battling with a health issue for 6 months, and many conversations with my MD and friends, I found myself making the difficult decision to sideline myself from any runs over 2 hours long for the near future.   Eventually, I had to admit that the MD was correct, and I reluctantly emailed a Race Director, John Lacroix regarding my entry in the September Sangre de Cristo Ultra. I'd been looking forward to that rac...

One underestimated area of importance in endurance racing - from 24 hour mountain biking to ultra distance gravel grinding to ultra running - is the crew support. The amount and quality of crew support can make or break a race. If the pit crew is efficient and smooth, the athlete is in and out with minimal time spent not making forward progress. If there is a lack of communication or the crew doesn't know what is going on, then time will be lost. Watching a well practiced pit crew is just like watching NASCAR - it doesn't matter how many people are helping, each person has a task and knows the most efficient way to achieve the goal without getting in the way. But those well oiled, efficient pit crews don't just happen. It takes a lot of work - preparation, communication and practice from both the athlete and the crew. Preparation - one of the tenants of Thelen Coaching. It goes beyond simply training for an event, but into gear, nutrition and course knowledge. The athlete...

It is a different experience observing a race from this side of the screen. I've done many 24 hour races and consider the ultra endurance mountain biking as my favorite style of race. The mental and physical challenges of testing myself against the distance, the terrain and the chances of failure - as well as the opportunity to explore the unknown. Outside of occasional blue dot stalking on Track Leaders, I never paid much attention to events that I was not at. All that has changed the past year as my athletes have taken on races around the country. I've found myself obsessively checking results and following blue dots to make sure that everything is going according to plan. Not that I'd be able to change the outcome sitting at my computer, but I wanted to know. At Arrowhead 135, it was just watching the dot moving along. I knew Judd was moving slower then he wanted, but also was reading reports from the trail - about how soft the snow was and how hard the riding was. E...