Chasing Buckles

#12in12

Year of the Rabbit | My Year-Long Personal Endurance Project

I was lucky and fortunate enough to kick off 2023 with an amazing adventure in Hong Kong and running the Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge. You can read all about it my HK4TUC race report. This was an unbelievable experience and reminded of how much I truly do enjoy adventure and the long distance running I have gotten into the past few years. This event took place on the eve of Chinese New Year and thus the kickoff to the Year of the Rabbit. I guess it was either during the event or very shortly after I thought it would be fitting to run a 100 Mi (or more) each month of the year as a personal challenge because I love the distance and secondly because it is fitting as being a member of the rabbit family for the past 7 years. Since it was a spur of the moment type of thought I did not really follow through right away. Flash forward to June and I was fortunate enough to be selected back onto the rabbitELITEtrail team for 2023-2024 season. With this renewed spark of hype I started pondering again about this idea of running a 100 Miler each month.

The rabbit (兔) is the fourth in the twelve-year periodic sequence (cycle) of animals that appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.  The rabbit symbolizes grace, beauty, mercy and good luck.

I had already had a June 100 Miler on my schedule and also a July one too, so I thought this was perfect timing. Sadly, my July race (Angeles Crest 100 Endurance Run) was canceled due to some road closure which limited access to the course. I was bummed that my project might be gone again before I even kicked it off. In June I travelled up to Colorado and played in the Rocky Mountains (see Ring the Springs 100 Mi race report). Near the end of June my new awesome rabbit race kit arrived, and I was once again pondering my race calendar. Since AC100 was a pending Hardrock Qualifier there was a unique opportunity for a replacement race. The RD had reached out to other HR Qualifying races and got us runners a special one-time discount for some select races that still had some room left in them. With that I noticed Tahoe 200 was on the list and I floated the idea to my family since we were already going to be in California for July. Here we are now and I am into my #12in12 personal endurance project. Let's go!!!

2023-2024 rabbitELITEtrail kit. Sleek & stylish!

WHY? 

I love long distance running and ultramarathons bring a personal growth and sense of accomplishment. Plus collecting buckles is pretty cool. I also have a dream of becoming a 100x100 member one day, which basically requires super long-term dedication.

WHEN? 

This #12in12 spans the 2023-2024 rabbit team season. Since the rabbit teams are picked each year in early June I thought it was a fitting timing. This means my calendar goes from 2023-Jun through 2024-May.

HOW? 

I will simply run [at least] one 100 Mi [or longer] race each month. You can see which races I have currently committed to on my Ultra Curriculum Vitae (CV) page. There are still a couple of the months I will need to solidify my race choice, but I have got my first months now registered.

My #12in12 #yearoftherabbit race calendar. There are a few months to finalize but it is coming together.

I will post my results and race reports after each race as per usual. My data and graphs I update after each ultra as well. These are things I enjoy doing in my own data analysis. Feel free to follow along and give me some kudos and good vibes out there on the trails. Thank you for reading my blog thus far. Hope to see you out there.

#yearoftherabbit
#12in12
#100Mi #200Mi
#ChasingBuckles
#BuckleUp
#UltraRunningDad

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