La Montée du Nid d’Aigle 🏔️🦅🪺

Hills above the lake

La voie verte du lac d’Annecy

Bonjour Annecy 👋🇫🇷

Winteregg and Grütschalp

Excellent turnout this year, with a lot of first-time bloopers discovering the event on UltraSignup and joining us from faraway places like Monterey, Vallejo, and even Valley Springs. It made for a lively race atmosphere, with plenty of fellow crazies to greet out on the bloop all night long. The highlight was Siargey Pisarchyk ⬜🟥⬜ making the trip all the way from Atlanta to join us, and triggering a sort of run club reunion, where many of our oldest running friends came out to visit and support us throughout the event.

Thanks Sergiy Kanyshchev for running with us twice on Friday night and Saturday morning, Doug Steedman and David Ahn for making the trip down from SF, Ben Smith and Vitor Rodrigues for joining us on the bloop pushing twins in a double BOB (and still easily outpacing everyone), Suet-Fei for joining at the start and then returning the next day with hot coffee and enthusiastic kids in tow to pace me through a rainy loop, Larry Sanderson for providing his customary good cheer, and Glen for seeing us off at the start and returning the next day with the most delicious breakfast burritos ever.

I enjoyed sharing time out on the bloop with returning participants Diego Zuluaga, Oleg Aravin, and Matthew Bouyack, and had flybys with Warren Yenson and post-Parkun Tyler Chenhall. Daniel Kroeger was an absolute blooping machine, ticking off loop after loop with remarkable consistency. The final results are still pending, but it's clear the course record of 21 bloops will be tied by at least one person, and may be broken.

Despite all the support and inspiration, I didn't have a great showing this year. The last two BBUs I was able to make it to 20 bloops (100 miles), and I was hoping for similar or better, but it became clear pretty early on that this wasn't in the cards — I was reduced to a shuffle far too early into the proceedings. My training wasn't too different from past years, so I'm not sure quite what happened. My best theory is that it was a result of getting sick a week before; though my symptoms had disappeared by Tuesday, my body may not have fully recovered.

I toughed it out for 80 miles, but kept getting slower. I developed some gnarly blisters on my toes, one that popped and one that didn't, and I'm not sure which one bothered me more. After a particularly unpleasant 16th bloop with lots of cold rain and wind, I was chilled to the bone and I had ceased having fun, and I pulled the plug early. I felt a bit ashamed, since I'm sure I could have hobbled out another 2 bloops in the remaining 4 hours, but once it was obvious that 100 miles was out of reach, my motivation waned. Still a solid 20-hour adventure on the bloop with lots of good memories!

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Dan Aminzade

Big Bloops Ultra 2023

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La Montée du Nid d’Aigle 🏔️🦅🪺

Hills above the lake

La voie verte du lac d’Annecy

Bonjour Annecy 👋🇫🇷

Winteregg and Grütschalp

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