Setting my goal I ran my first Ultra Marathon 100k (62.14 mile) Endurance Trail Run this past Saturday January 10, 2009. My goal that I set in August was to run 100k at Bandera. At the time the longest distance that I had run was 14 miles around LBJ Lake in Austin. I did not have any idea how to prepare for running 100k, but I trusted my coach Robert Heynen when he said, if you do the work you will do the 100k. Human interaction required There are a lot of things that you can learn from books and on the Internet, trail running is not one of this things. I have taught myself a lot of skills from reading books and the Internet. I learned HTML and how to manage a Linux server by reading. There comes a time when you want to learn something that is bigger than you can grasp and that is when you need a coach or a mentor. My coach, Robert Heynen, is like a tribal elder. He is passing on a skill using words and real time experience to teach successful trail running. The art of trail