This whole World’s Toughest Mudder thing has me doing crazy stuff!  I’ll get into more detail as we get close to the event but yesterday was an example of how having an event on your calendarkeeps you focused!  I got up at 04:40 to drive up to Boston to run!  I don’t even drive up to Boston for a night out, and as you’ve heard before, I certainly don’t go out of my way to run for fun!  Anyway…

My good cousin Jim (our Frozen Clam DJ who’s brought me and/or come along on many an adventure) has been raving about the November Project’s workouts.  Well I can tell you first-hand that they have a great thing going!  Hundreds of people showed up in costumes to take on the Harvard Stadium Steps.  The energy was awesome for so early in the morning and they even had a DJ motivating us as we bounded up the huge steps!

I’m a fan of short, fast, adaptive strides when running.  We teach this technique on the trail, onthe hill, and on the pavement.  Unfortunately for me, that technique was not feasible as the steps are 18″ tall!   By the 6th or 7th section I wasn’t able to run all the way from the bottom to the top step.  I ran about 2/3-3/4 every section before petering out into a stutter-step lunge move, until the last two sections where I pushed and ran until the top step.  All I can say is DAMN THAT SH*T WAS HARD!  I think I would get better at it if I did it consistently but I still feel that short and fast strides is the way to run everywhere else except old school stadiums with big ass steps.

Thanks to CJ for pushing/dragging me up those steps (all 1,147 of them) and for all the cool people at November Project for putting on a great workout!  Rock on!