Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 12:17 PM

Subject: FW: 2008 San Diego 100 Mile Endurance Run

Dear Runners and Friends,

I have some exciting news to share with you! The 2008 San Diego 100 mile Endurance Run will be held on JUNE 7, 2008. We are moving the run date to reduce the risk of cancellation that we have faced every year since the inception of this event in 2001. Additionally, I'm please to share with you that Scott Mills will be joining me as Co-Director for the run this year. Scott is an outstanding runner, very experienced event coordinator, and fantastic guy. I'm sure that his contributions to the run will help us to put on a quality and fun event for all. The run will held on the revised course that we followed last year in the Cuyamaca Mountains. I'll will be updating the website  http://members.cox.net/sandiego100/ as ASAP to provide you with more information. I hope to seen you all in June!!!!!

Paul Schmidt

The Avalon 50 was a tougher race than I expected, but it still went really well and I learned an important lesson. It was a hot day, mid-70s, and the race wasn’t on trails—it was on fire roads and paved roads. The hard-packed terrain punished my feet and joints since I primarily train on trails that offer more natural cushioning.

Special thanks to San Diego ultra-runner Jerry Armstrong, who ran the race last year. He advised me to wear my road shoes for the race, so I ended up packing them in my drop bag, which was accessible at mile 18.9. As beautiful as the sunrise was from the highest ridge on the island, all I could think about was changing out of my trail shoes and into my lightweight road shoes.

Once I made the switch, another issue surfaced--but not so obvious. I had slowly become hyponatremic because I was not taking in enough sodium to counter-balance my water intake. I was still thirsty as I took in more and more water. I developed a headache and I couldn’t think clearly so it became increasingly difficult for self-diagnosis. I finally figured out what was going on when I recalled Joe Decker’s story from his first Badwater 135 experience. He told me that he literally had to drink salt out of a Morton’s salt container to counter-balance his over-hydration symptoms, which were very similar to mine.

At the next three aid stations, I used potato wedges to scoop-up and ingest heaping piles of salt. I finally began to feel better around mile 38 which was over 7 hours into the race. As crazy as it sounds, I felt my best for the final 10 miles. My head was clear, I had positive self-talk, my run-walk intervals up hills were pain-free and I had solid momentum. I finished with a personal record of 10 hours, 21 minutes, which is almost five hours faster than my last 50-mile race. It sounds like a significant improvement but it’s relative to the terrain differences. Mt. Disappointment was all above 5,500 feet of elevation, through rugged mountainous terrain. The Avalon 50 never climbed above 1,400 feet on hard-packed fire roads.

It was a learning experience to say the least. I have a much better understanding of my hydration needs and I’m just thankful I was able to hold it together and finish on a positive note. Now I’m excited to start training for the Ironman-70.3 in Oceanside on March 29. I’ll be taking a break from long runs to concentrate on swimming and cycling, but I’ll get into those specifics in my next series of blog posts.

I want to be sure to mention the outstanding performance of my girlfriend in her debut 50-mile race this weekend. Marie made the giant leap from 50-km races to the 50-mile distance on Saturday and finished close on my heels with a time of 10 hours, 55 minutes. I’m so proud of her and thankful that we had such a great experience together on Catalina Island.

I couldn’t do this stuff without your support--thank you all so much for believing in me.

Before things get too crazy around here with holiday travel, I’ve decided now would be the best time to check in with you all and let you know what I’ve been up to and what the next few weeks have in store.

That said, I want to introduce the latest addition to the team: Active Expert, Joe Decker Joe is a fitness expert who lives and breathes endurance. He lives here in San Diego and I’ve been training with him and his Gut Check Workout Group on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Joe holds class every day of the week, twice a day and his workouts are always challenging and offer a diverse combination of speed work, calisthenics, plyometrics and strength training—all outdoors from 6 a.m. until 7:15 a.m. I leave these group workouts feeling fulfilled because I pushed it to the max and started my day off as well as I possibly could. I feel that this style of workout has been missing until now. I encourage you to get in touch with Joe to learn more.

Then there is ActiveX Training which you may or may not have caught glimpse of here in the community. ActiveX is very similar to Joe Decker’s workouts but it’s even more concentrated, rarely lasting more than 40 minutes. These workouts are held Tuesday and Friday mornings at 11:30 a.m. I’ve been doing both Joe’s workouts and ActiveX Tuesday workouts all month.

I’ve also been quite consistent with my Friday morning yoga class which helps me recover from the high intensity, back-to-back workouts throughout the week. Yoga has been my sanctuary and has kept me balanced and injury free. I encourage you all to give yoga a try for your first time. I’m still usually one of the only guys in the class and often the least flexible out of everyone but that never discourages me because I can feel the benefits of each class and seem to learn more and take more away from each session.

This new level of training was put to the test on Sunday when I successfully ran four, 13-mile loops through Los Penasquitos Canyon. The double marathon distance run lasted just over 12 hours which breaks down to a 14-minute mile pace. This is right on par with where I need to be for the Avalon 50 on Catalina Island, January 12. The run was smooth and I felt strong from sunrise to sunset. My nutrition plan was spot-on and my recovery has been quick and with minimal soreness. I'm excited to end the year on such a positive note!

I’ll be training on the east coast for the remainder of the year. They have two feet of snow where I’ll be and I can’t stop picturing the Rocky IV training montage from the barn in Russia.

Last Friday, I took the “red-eye” from San Diego to Newark, New Jersey--arriving at 6:15 a.m. on Saturday. My brother and his wife were waiting for me, coffee in-hand, for the drive to our home town Northfield, Massachusetts. My mother was expecting Steve and Michele for breakfast and had no idea I was with them. This surprise, two months in the making, was originally designed to surprise my father for his 60th birthday. Realizing that he would be in Boston until Saturday night for a meeting, we kept my mom out of the loop to make it a dual-surprise.

It worked perfectly. Steve and Michele dropped me down the street and they continued on home, greeted my mom and then I rang the front doorbell. When the door opened, my mom froze—taking five seconds to process the situation. Tears of joy and excitement and hugs soon followed along with a group hug with Steve and Michele who were the brains of the operation.

We all caught up over a huge breakfast and planned out the day’s events, including the big birthday surprise for that evening. Steve and I measured, trimmed and set-up our 8-foot Christmas tree in the front room, stacked wood in the basement for the wood stove and went for a 5-mile run while my mom and Michele prepared the decorations and the meal.

Our run was long over-due. If you all remember from May/June, Steve and I were supposed to run the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon together. He ended up running it alone, with Michele and I cheering him along, because I turned up lame with an over-use injury. So Steve and I ran through our old town together, enduring the 30-degree temps and covering 5 miles in 37 minutes. We followed up the run with a three-set series of hanging leg lifts, medicine ball push ups and bicep curls.

My Dad arrived home that evening to his whole family waiting for him. The look on his face was priceless. The entire experience was the making for a Visa commercial. It couldn’t have gone any better. Our celebration that evening was one that we will cherish forever.