Never Wipe Your Ass With A Squirrel by Jason Robillard

   Last winter when I was seriously considering running my first ultra-marathon my wife got me this book as a Christmas gift. At the time I didn't know a whole heck of a lot about ultras and this book was going to be my introduction to the world of mega mileage distances. 

   As with most of you, things don't always go as planned in my life. So here it is more than a year later and my dreams of running my first ultra never came to be during 2014 due to an injury. I'm always reading something and I never seem to read anything fast, so that's why I'm so late with getting to this book. I haven't given up on knocking back my first 50K race, but it's on hold for the foreseeable future. Since last year I've learned quite a bit about ultras and training for them. I think that I know what they're all about now, but with a title like this one how can you not want to see what this book's about?

   First off let me just say that as the humorous title implies this book was written from the author's casually comical point of view. Last year I found out pretty quickly that most ultra runners are a different breed. After all who runs 30, 50 sometimes 100 mile races for fun other than truly "special" people? The few ultra runners that I've met were laid back, friendly and didn't seem to be as serious about racing as much as they were about having fun while running. Sometimes us road runners can be a little too uptight about that old time clock. Jason Robillard lives up to my ultra stereotype in his book. After reading it I thought to myself that I'd love to meet him someday. If your looking for a serious, no nonsense ultra running guide, this isn't the book for you. Robillard regularly swears and some of his ideas and concepts may seem a little unorthodox to some people. To me though they made complete sense. Maybe I am wacky enough for ultra distances after all?  

   This book was a very quick read. That's not to say that it wasn't good or didn't have any valuable information. Even with a good self developed working knowledge about ultras I still found myself coming away with some useful tips. I've done most of my running on roads versus trails. Most ultras are run on trails and Robillard does an excellent job of covering a wide range of topics associated with running in the wilderness like foot placement on uneven surfaces, weather forecasting, nighttime running and as the name implies, going to the bathroom in the woods. It also of course covered topics associated with running ultra races themselves like how to eat during the race, sleep deprivation training and chaffing. One thing that I loved is that throughout the book he references other ultra runners for their advice in his book and provides internet links for further help on different topics. Finally he offers up some interesting life advice at the end, most of which doesn't apply to running, but was interesting nonetheless. 

   Overall I loved the book. Could I run an ultra without reading it? Yes! But now that I have I'll have even more information to draw upon when I do eventually get to my big race. If you're interested in ultras, trail running and laughing about our sport I'd say give it a read. Purchase it here on Amazon: Never Wipe Your Ass With a Squirrel. It retails for about $9.63 US for the Kindle edition and $12.21 US for the paperback edition. I don't think there's a hardcover edition. 
    Robillard started out as a fellow blogger and that's how he got the interesting name for his book. Here's a link to his blog: Squirrel Wipe Blog.

   Things are steadily moving along for me. I closed out the month of January running a little over 82 miles! This was a huge confidence booster because the two months that I was really laid up from my injury added together don't total this. I'll hoping to be back up to 100 plus months soon! I restarted my streak and to be honest, feels like it never stopped! Going strong on day 12. Love the support I've been getting from the run-net community. It's going to be time to talk about that very soon! Next week I begin leading the physical fitness sessions for my very first sheriff's deputy academy class. Nervous as hell, but the other instructors are solid people who'll give me all the help that I need. Keep you fingers crossed! Bought a new Garmin 220 watch to replace my outdated model. Slowly putting it through it's paces and of course a review will be forthcoming sometime in the future. I hope that you're running is going well! If you need anything as always just give me a shout!