New update from Anita 7-30-07at Badwater

After updating the finish times of the runners that started in the 10am wave, Anita's finish place was 46th overall. Not bad at all considering she was planning to continue to the summit of Mt Whitney and then turnaround and run all the way back to the start. Unfortunately she was forced to abandon the attempted double due to bad weather on Whitney. She reached about 13,000 ft but a bad storm with lightning, hail, rain and 30 degree temps with windchills put an end to the journey.
I was finally able to get through on her cell phone this afternoon. She is in good spirits and taking it in stride. And of course she says she will be back and try again next year. She was also happy with the 42:53 finish which was a course pr by about 5 hours.
Here is some excerpts from an e-mail I received from Anita today:
"Yes, I am going to do it again next year, pending my acceptance into Badwater 2008
I have never been so scared in my life, up there at 13,600 feet, surrounded by thunder and lightening, and being pelted by hail feeling the temperature dropping. I could see the summit, but the trail was getting iced over, and there was a search and rescue mission later that day, I believe for three people who ignored mother nature. I felt great, too great to give up, but we decided to save ourselves for another race, and it proved to be a wise choice.
The mountain doesn't care, the mountain will win, and it is the mountain who decides if you are going to do the double
I could have tried to re-summit, and MIGHT have reached to top on Thursday. MAYBE. If the weather held out. Then I would have had a crappy Badwater double time.The BWD will test you and your crew, put you in pain, and as far as I am concerned, you might as well make all that pain and expenses worth it with a decent time."

Catherine's FA 50K 2007

I had a great trip to Massanutten for the CFA 50K this weekend. We were Blessed with near perfect weather for July making it a much more enjoyable experience. Short version: I felt great and ran almost 46 minutes faster than last year. This can be attributed to a few things. I am feeling the training effects of my 48 miles at WS 5 weeks ago. My recovery is also complete. I am in better shape than last year with another year of consistent training and racing. And most importantly the cooler drier air. You can read my full report here at ncultra.

I took some photos here.
Overall it was a great weekend spent with some of the great people from the VHTRC. Thanks to Jeff Reed, Mike Burr and Quatro Hubbard and all the other volunteers for making it possible.

Catherine's FA 50K -preview

I'll be heading up to Virginia and Massanutten this weekend for my 3rd Catherine's. The photo, I think was taken by Anstr Davidson last year and is a view looking up toward Bird Knob. This is a no frills fun run put on by Jeff Reed of the VHTRC but each year I've run there have been some great aid stations and the picnic at the the finish is worth the drive.
My first time in 2005 was part of a back to back weekend with the Catoctin 50K on Saturday and CFA on Sunday. If you haven't read that story , you can read it here. I think it got up to about 99F that day and several people had problems with the heat and needed assistance. I was going too slow to notice. Last year it only got up into the low 90's. According to the race website, a couple of years it only reached about 71F. Where was I those years? We might get lucky and only have low 80's this year. The course used to be just over 26 miles but some changes were made getting it closer to an actual 50K. It is a slow, hard hilly course in any case.
Last year I had my first bear encounter on the trail but I think I was more worried about the ants. If you were to fall on the ant road, all that the rescuers would find are your bare bleached bones. I'm looking forward to some fun with my VHTRC friends and getting some photos along the way.
Here is a link to some info on Catherine's Furnace, the runs namesake. It was named after Catherine Forrer whose family owned the furnace from 1837 to 1867. Here is a nice photo.

If you like more info on furnaces in the area, here is a link with lots of info.

Latest #1 Hit Single

Yes music fans, the latest, long awaited smash hit from the not nearly famous kitchen studio of Ultraman Joey has finally been released. Well, no it's not Hellgate. I promise I'll get around to recording it soon but the studio is temporarily closed. No, this latest hit is called "I'm an Ironman". A friend, Thomas Asta was about to compete in his first Ironman Triathlon back in April. I was inspired to write a song and entertain the guest at a dinner party to send him off at the Scott home.
The party was on a Friday and the song came to me while working on Thursday. I sat in my car and wrote the song in about 30 minutes while the idea was still fresh in my mind. I came home and started working on the music and recorded most of it. I got home early Friday and was trying to finish it but was having some technical difficulties. I ended up having to re-record nearly all of it and then when I tried to burn it to a CD to take to the party, I couldn't get the MP3 encoder to work. After an hour of frustration I gave up and took the recorder and amplifier to the party so I could at least play it for them.
The song starts out with an intro about 18 seconds that rips off the Black Sabbath song Ironman but then breaks into a straight up basic rock n roll riff. The song was intended to take a humorous look at Triathlons and some of my own experience at shorter Tri's. I did one Half-Ironman and that convinced me I didn't really want to be an Ironman. Listen to the song and I think you can figure out why.
You can download the song as well as my other 3 hits from the North Carolina Roadrunners Club Website. Just go to the main page and look down the page and you will see a picture of me and a heading, Joey Anderson's greatest hits. If you have visited the page before you may need to clear your browser's cache for the new song to show up.

Rock on !

Sweaty Butt 50K

The first (annual?) Sweaty Butt 50K will certainly go down in history as one of the toughest 50K's ever as there was only one runner up to the challenge of the whole distance. And he has to be disqualified because he started two hours before everyone else to avoid the heat. Ok, actually it wasn't that tough. The truth is most of us were just a bunch of wimps.
It was all Mike Day's fault we were out here anyway even thinking of running 50K in 90degree heat and humidity on the tough, rocky , rooty single-track trails at Umstead Park. You can read about that here at Mike's website. Fourteen special idiots I think decided to come out for some summer fun. I had thought about coming out and doing a loop or two but after dropping at WS I've been feeling OK the past week so I arrived with the intentions of running the distance for fun and training. The run was a no fee, no aid, no whiners event but Mike showed up with some nice aid at the start area and had some of his family at the turn-around. The popsicles and ice cream were especially welcome on a hot sticky day.
About 10am Mike sent us on our way and I began to lead the group down towards Crabtree Creek. The Smythes had already run a lap starting around 8am and before long they took the lead with Mike Walsh. We hit the first major climb about 1.5 miles in and I began to walk and several others passed by. We already had sweaty butts as it was already quite warm and muggy and the temperature was rising quickly. I settled in to running with Jeff Branin and Doug Andrews as we took our time enjoying the trail. We made pretty good time coming into the turnaround and I quickly refilled my bottle and was on my way. Jeff picked up the pace since he was only planning on one loop and soon Doug dropped behind. I caught up to Tom Herbst just as we came to the connector to get back on the Company Mill Trail so we ran together back to the start area.
After a delicious lime popsicle I was on my way again. Only 5 of us headed back out for two loops(Andrea had finished her second and stopped) and Brad started his 3rd and final loop. I was by myself this whole lap , feeling Ok but moving slow. I could still feel some lingering fatigue from WS so I didn't want to push the pace. I passed a family on a bridge on the Sycamore trail and 15 feet later I took a fall. I guess I needed an audience. I was surprised that I caught up to the rest of the guys as I approached the turn-around. A cold hose at the water fountain felt very good and I was quickly on my way again. Before long, Mark Long caught up to me and we began to run together. Mark was feeling the heat so we were content to move along slowly. We came to my favorite section, a nice mile long gentle downhill and after running a few minutes I got a side stitch. Mark pulled alongside and we both knew that we would not be going for 3 loops today. From that point on we walked the nearly two miles back to the finish. There was an exciting moment when I wasn't looking and nearly stepped on a snake. I see black snakes out here all the time and think nothing of it but when I looked down and didn't see black, Mark said I levitated as the snake slithered into the underbrush. At first glance it looked like a copperhead. The markings were very similar but on closer inspection we decided it was a water snake. I did an online search and it was a Brown Water Snake. I was very relieved it wasn't poisonous because I would have been bitten for sure.
We finally made it back and there were the rest of the wimps (runners) sitting around. David had taken a shortcut and never finished the 2nd loop and no one else felt like going back out for three. making Brad the only finisher. Tom probably would have gone back out if someone would have gone with him.
So, we had a fun day running in the beautiful forest of Umstead Park. It would have been nice to get a 50K finish but at least I got in a good workout and although I was tired I never felt bad.
Thanks to Mike and his family for making it possible and for the unexpected aid.

I took a few photos here.

Looking ahead in 2007

I am well into my recovery now. Yesterday I ran for the first time since WS and everything felt good.
Western States had been my main focus for racing in the 1st half of 2007. Now that is behind me, it is time to move my focus to the remainder of 2007. Priority #1 is the same as ever, have as much fun as possible with as many of my friends as possible and run with as many beautiful ladies as I can. The rest of the summer will be very low-key with couple of no-fee fun run 50k's in July. August and September will all be training aimed at exceeding my mileage at the Hinson Lake 24 hour run Sept.29th.
After recovering from that I will get back into marathon training mode and try for a Boston Qualifier at the Richmond Marathon on November 10th. I don't expect to run Boston next year but this race falls into the qualifying period for 2009 and I would like to get that out of the way so I can concentrate on a full schedule of ultra's in 2008. Stay tuned for more details.