QSURT: off to a great 2011!

A quick post as I ran 50 miles this weekend, blogged about yet another busy week at my first job and caught up with work the rest of the weekend... Yet, a good running week with quite a few miles added to my log, either 92 miles (Sunday-Saturday) or 78 miles (Monday-Sunday) depending on when the week is starting for you. ;-)

On Tuesday night, we finally had our team top try-out meeting at our new sponsor, The Running Revolution, a very professional running store in Campbell, very close to the Los Gatos Creek trail. The Running Revolution and its owners, Tim, Heidi and Chris, join our 2010 sponsors, Rhomobile and its CEO and team member, Adam Blum, and the Quick Silver Running Club of San Jose.

With this additional support and publicity, with our successful first two years in the PA USATF Grand Prix and both wins in 2009 and 2010, with the renewed energy under Greg Lanctot's leadership, new members keep joining and growing the ranks of our 2011 Quick Silver Ultra Running Team (QSURT) and you will see many of us on the trails this year! I think the last count is 22, from a mere 9 in 2009. (Photo courtesy of Toshi and Tim.)

Among the QSURT members, Pierre-Yves Couteau has a very special role and responsibility: directing the QuickSilver ultras (50-mile, 50K and 25K), a major event for the club, held on April 30 this year. In addition to the Race Director duties, Pierre-Yves even organized an informal training run this Saturday. I actually joined Sean, Toshi and Larry for an early start from the McAbee Road entrance at 6:30 and we had already ran 7.5 miles when we joined the rest of the group at the Mockingbird Hill parking lot.

There were about 30 of us for the group run, some going for 7 miles, the others for the 25K loop. After my early birds companions returned to their car or bike at the end of new Almaden Trail, I led the 25K group and shared some of my experience of these races.

Matthew and Sean wanted to put more miles in, and Dan needed a ride back, so we went on, taking the 50-mile route up to English Camp before running up to Bull Run on Mine Hill. On the ridge, Matt and Sean returned to Mockingbird via Castillero Trail while Dan and I ran down Mine Hill Trail, back to McAbee Road. That made almost 32 miles for me and some good hill training, right on 5 hours of running time.

See my Picasa album for pictures of the participants of this informal run. It was cloudy most of the morning with a nice temperature when running (on the cool side when stopping to gather the group).

On Sunday, I would have run up to Black Mountain but didn't have enough time so ran 18.6 flat miles in the neighborhood in 2:20. Good enough for 50 miles this weekend before tapering this week in preparation of American River 50-mile next Saturday.

See many of you up there and have a great week in the meantime. The tip of the week: Taper In Peace... ;-)