RUN-AROUND
Salto!
Stablemate Michael “Emo” Weissman did what all 40-with-something-to-proves do—an ultra!
More specifically, he did The Half Pint at TransRockies’ Moab Run the Rocks event in Utah, covering a total distance of 33.1 miles (53.2km), including 2,670ft (810m) of vertical gain.
In Stage 1, over 8.8 miles (14.2km), Emo took second place. In Stage 2, over 17.6 miles (28.3km), he secured fourth—edged out by three seconds, as his kick wasn’t enough to overcome the deficit.) Finally, in Stage 3, he narrowly missed out on the top five over the 7.7-mile jaunt. Phew!
In the final accounting, our teenage dirtbag clocked an overall time of 5:19:46, which was good enough for third M40, and 12th out of 274 participants.
The Stable News met up with the angsty one at the finish to hear all about it:
“It was a three-day event, so there was an opportunity for it to be warmer at some point. However, that never happened. Our hero in this story was underdressed in a T-shirt, shorts, and gloves because that was all he packed. It was around 0-1℃ at the start, and—usually—5℃ by the end. Besides it being cold, the weather was perfect. Every day was sunny and beautiful.”
“Did you PB?”
“Hell, yes, this was a PB! The only other time I’ve ever done an event like this was a six-day stage race in 2022, and I’m being generous when I say I came in next to last. I might still be running that event right now; I was that far behind. It was an abysmal showing, but I hadn’t really started working with John yet.”
“Closing thoughts?”
“This race passes through some of the most beautiful landscapes of the United States. It helps to distract you from the pain. I hadn’t trained at all, so to be able to go out there (taking it easy as I promised our fearless leader) and get the results I did is a testament to the training base we’ve developed).
My experience on such technical terrain is minimal, and I stuck to my racing strategy of three easy runs back-to-back-to-back. I was on the older end of the category, and it felt good to show the young guns that us old folks have some fight in us.
Day one was a solid run.
Day two, I took a nasty spill when I accidentally tried to kick a boulder like it was a football at mile 7 and managed to limp my way for 10 miles to the finish.
Day three, I stuck to my strategy and enjoyed a beautiful jog while my competitors battled it out. I had enough of a lead that I was confident in my podium finish even after letting them go ahead.”
The Stablemaster had just poured himself a nice glass of barolo when the News called for a debrief on Weissman’s epic outing:
“How’s about that! … A back-to-back three-day challenge and our sensitive soul did very well indeed … If it weren’t for him playing football with the rocks, he’d have been even further up there … Nice work, my son!”
So what’s next for Weissman? “My focus has been on building up for the Dublin Marathon in 2025, with shorter term goals of the Edinburgh Half in May 2024 and the Philadelphia Half in November 2024.”
Puoi farlo, Michele!