Running Inside Out Podcast — Guest #100

I had a great time as a guest on episode 100 of my friend Chris O’Brien’s podcast Running Inside Out. On the episode we discuss ultramarathons around the northeast, the Ithaca and Rochester trail running scenes, the FLRC Ultra Challenge, training while managing kids, the Star Wars Holiday Special, and a whole lot more! Check out the episode Web page at Running Inside Out Podcast: 100: It Can Be Life Changing - with Pete Kresock or look for it directly on Apple Podcast, Spotify, etc. 

The Rochester-based Running Inside Out podcast has been around for a few years and mainly focuses on trail and road running around Upstate New York. I've struck up conversations and started friendships with strangers after hearing their stories on this podcast. I'm happy that Chris is bringing it back after a 10-month hiatus, and honored to be the first guest of its return and the one featured on episode 100. 

Thanks for listening! 

A Personal Best 50k Time Trial

Training has been going well for the past seven months. In the midst of the pandemic and my first year raising twins, things really started to click back in September. At the time most races had been cancelled, so I started running all the Ithaca area trail race courses and popular trail routes at race effort. The consistent, quality mileage carried over through the winter in the form of tempo runs and steady state runs on rail trails and roads. With no Beast of Burden to train for this winter, I kept the mileage lower than I did in previous years—50 to 65 miles per week for most weeks. In a few weeks it was lower due to inclement weather, being homebound with sick kids, or both. But the consistency was there, and it paid off. 

Once race director Adam Engst began opening courses for the recently launched FLRC Challenge virtual race, I gained extra motivation to run hard on the race's road courses while waiting for the sloppy, snowy trails to dry out. Tempo intervals and fartlek runs on the Challenge's Pseudo Skunk half marathon course, marathon-pace efforts on the 10-mile Black Diamond Trail course, and so on, kept the fitness gains coming all the way into April. When our local trails finally thawed and dried enough to run

Farewell, Beast of Burden

The New York ultrarunning scene lost two of its bigger races this week when the Beast of Burden Ultramarathon race directors posted a statement announcing their winter and summer events would be discontinued for the foreseeable future. 

Hello Beast Runners, We are writing to inform you that, due to a variety of contributing reasons, we have made the...

Posted by The Beast of Burden 100 & 50 Miler Ultra Marathon on Sunday, March 28, 2021

Hello Beast Runners,

We are writing to inform you that, due to a variety of contributing reasons, we have made the difficult decision to put the Beast of Burden Race Series on permanent pause. With this decision, that means we are cancelling the 2021 Summer Beast of Burden Ultra Marathon, and will not be scheduling a race series in 2022, or the foreseeable future. For those that have registered for the 2021 Summer Beast of Burden Ultra Marathon, we will be sending out refunds for your race registration.

This is truly a bittersweet moment for us. As Race Directors for this series for the past decade, we have had the great pleasure of building on a great race series to bring it to where it is today; a unique event that seemed to have taken on that of both an endurance run, and a family reunion of our ever growing clan of runners and awesome volunteers.