Cool Running

Less than 12 hours til go time... Tomorrow morning at 8am I will be setting out on my first ultra, Way Too Cool 50k. This will be the longest distance I have yet to conquer, so as soon as I pass that marathon mark I'll be in uncharted territory for another 5 miles. Yikes.

I feel as ready as I'm ever going to be, but I've kind of been in denial this entire week. It feels more like I just have a long run on the trails rather than a race that's longer than a marathon. I don't think it will really sink in until I actually start running, and even then maybe not til after a few hours of running. I think I've prepared relatively well; I've put in several weeks at 40+ miles of training, did a 20 mile training run on the trails in Auburn and ran a 30k trail race on a challenging course. My biggest concern, actually is staying in the game mentally. I just don't want to be out there and start playing mind games on myself. Physically, I know I'll finish. I'm treating this as my peak training run for AR 50 so it's all about time on my feet, not finishing time. I'll be walking the hills and just running as much as possible. The course is new this year, and reportedly easier, which definitely works in my favor : ) There will be 700 runners out there so it should be a pretty social race, too. In fact, I'm hoping to run at least part of the race with the infamous Ron.

video of the new course

 

So my plan is to go out there and have fun and enjoy the experience as much as I can. It's been a long time since I've had a new distance PR, so I'm looking forward to that. The race has an 8 hour cut-off, and based off my times on other trail runs I'm predicting around 7 hours. The weather is looking to be perfect, clear with temps in the 50s, so that's one less thing to worry about! If anyone is interested, they will be streaming the race live here. I'll try and update on here as soon as possible after the race. Wish me luck! If all goes well by this time tomorrow I'll be an ultramarathoner!!