The Winner of the "URG From the Hill CONTEST" is...

...Kevin P. is the WINNER of  "The URG From the Hill Contest". Kevin's calculated guess of 9380 miles was indeed URG from the Hill's yearly mileage!! Kevin is now the owner of an advanced personalized autographed copy of Bryon Powell's new book
"RELENTLESS FORWARD PROGRESS" .

Congratulations Kevin, you were the only one to guess correctly so the Bonus Questions did not come into play. Many others were close, very close and a few unfortunately appeared to have misread the distance markers. After you see my calculations I know some of you will be kicking yourself however I hope you had fun with it and I really appreciated the time it took for everyone, even the guessers to enter so thank you all so much. (Note: I have entered my calculations at the bottom of this post if you want to compare yours to mine.)

Kevin's Bonus answers were-
a - Mom & Dad - 840 miles
b - December
c - 72 days
d - How many days does URG have to substitute a Big City Run for a run to Town to make it an even 10,000 miles for the year?
Ans: 31 additional runs to the Big City vice running just to Town.

A few people seemed to have fun with Bonus Question d- where they were asked to make up a question and answer it themselves. See a few of those inventive and amusing self made questions and answers below.

Alissa L
d) How old is URG from the Hill? Under 30 because he never needs a rest day. :)  

Roger H
d. Bonus Question: What do Granma n Grampa give him for Christmas Dinner
Bonus Answer: 1 teaspoon of cement.
Bonus bonus question: Why only 1?
Bonus Bonus Answer: 100 mi in 23 hours? He's hard enough already!
: )

Tom B
d) When does URG rest? He rests every 4 years on February 29th.

OK so there was also the drawing for the 2 Power Balance wrist bands from all of the entries plus my Followers. Just a reminder to please Follow URG so you don't want to miss out on future contests and comics.
The winners are: Tatianna and Derrick. Congratulations!

My calculations and explanations-
The best place to start was at the "meat and potatoes" of the question which was to figure out how many times URG ran to Town and then figure out the distance using that number.

He ran to Town everyday of the year(365) except when he ran further so you needed to count up the number of times he ran further.

52 days to the Big City, 14 to Mom and Dad's, 4(Oct, Dec, Feb, Apr) to Brother's and 1 day to run to Gramma and Grampa's plus 1 day to run home from Gramma and Grampa's. 52 + 14 + 4 + 2 = 72

Then subtract that number from 365 to get the number of days of running to town times the distance to get the total number of miles to town. (365 -72) x 20 miles = 5860 miles to and from town per year.

Now all you have to do is calculate the distance to and from URG's other destinations-
Big City 52 x 40 = 2080
Mom & Dad's 14 x 60 = 840
Brother's 4 x 100 = 400
Grandparents 1 x 200= 200

So the total number of miles URG from the Hill ran is 5860(Town) + 2080(Big City) + 840(M&D) + 400(Brother) + 200(G&G) = 9380 miles

Note: there was one entrant who pointed out that all of my calculations were based on a house of cards that could come toppling down if for some reason URG decided to leave late for his long runs. If URG did not leave just after the crack of midnight then some of his 1 day runs could in theory have lasted 2 days and his 2 day run to the Grandparents could have lasted 3 days. I call this theory the "Human Factor Monkey Wrench" and it made my head spin. However I did determine that this was a guessing game where URG's mileage was a predetermined "X" and the hints were there to help you guess that predetermined number. Just to be safe though next time I will probably run my contests past the above unnamed entrant just to be sure; )

Muddy Shoes!!

Here is an alternate line for URP-

"Someone is in BIG trouble and surprisingly, it's not ME!"

CONGRATULATIONS DAVID  for taking the #1 spot on the

Click here for The Top Ten Ways To Run Like A Dot List WINNERS.

I really enjoyed bringing it to life as an URG comic.

See the Top Ten List in the previous post.

(P.S. for some reason I had trouble posting the results so I had to make it into 2 postings)

Back to UltraRunningGuy.com

Top 20 Signs Your Are Training (Too) Hard for Your Next Ultra - WINNERS!!

Firstly thank-you to everyone who entered URG's First Contest "Top 20 Signs You Are Training (Too) Hard For Your Next Ultra". There were so many funny entries and it was hard to choose just 3 to add to the "Top 10" list so ultimately I decided to change it into a "TOP 20" contest. Well that didn't make my life any easier because now I had 13 winning entries to determine instead of just 3.

So without further ado the winners are......... in no particular order................just kidding-

Top 20 Signs You are Training
(Too) Hard for Your Next Ultra

#20. you leave drop bags beside your bed for late night snacks. Derrick

Note: Thanks to Derrick who sent me this line as an idea for an "URG".
I thought it sounded like the start of a Great TOP 10 List.

19. you find yourself asking strangers in the grocery store to pace you through the frozen food section.

18. you insist your family uses headlamp light exclusively after Dusk.

17. your dog thinks it is so cute the way your feet and arms move when you sleep.

16. you've used your new altimeter watch to chart the elevation climb from the basement to the living room to the bedroom and have set a PR on the course...3x's

15. you wake your spouse up every night shouting "GU, more GU, I need more GU"

14. 3 days before the race you try to convince yourself that a quick little 50 km run couldn't hurt and might actually loosen things up.
 
#13. you swear your trying really hard but you just can't come up with an entry for this Top 20 List. David
 
#12. your friends and family stage a running intervention...before you get outed at iRunFar.com like DK . Sara & EJ

#11. you wax your chest hair to improve the signal of your heart rate monitor. JD 

#10. you start getting really tired of eating all the time. Sara

#9. your mother is trying to figure out what she was eating while pregnant to have such a crazy kid(s). Anonymous

#8. you set 3 alarms for your race and wake-up before any of them go off. Ron

#7. when your coach tells you the 3 Day Rock and Ice Ultra is a good idea and you agree with him! :)
 Aaron

#6. You refuse to buy the latest Garmin GPS watch because the battery life is ONLY 20 hours; JD

#5. you spend more time getting your gear ready for a long run then getting ready for a wedding, including your own. Derrick & Sara

#4. you don't think of yourself as behind schedule until you've seen the 2nd sunrise. Lakewood

#3. When your work schedule changes and the first you do is, request vacation time to cover planned races,
next you see what other races you can attend and then you tell your wife you don't have enough vacation time booked to attend the Cousins Wedding! Ron

#2. you realize that SLEEP is cutting into your RUNNING time!! Bryon

#1. you never leave the house without a piece of toilet paper in your pocket!! Evan


Thank-you again to everyone who entered or who thought about entering or who meant to enter but never got around to it. I hope we can all get together and do this again sometime.
EJ