I’m gradually getting over the disdain for writing that came from writing two term papers at once. I’m transferring the energy into miles. My running has been off the hook the last two weeks by my previous standards. I ran 52 miles last week, and 54 miles this week. The coming week will bring 56 miles, and then the taper begins for Way Too Cool 50K on March 10th.
I am not at all confident that I am ready to run 50 kilometers -31 miles- in hilly terrain. But I’m going to try it anyway. The big hairy goal for 2007 is to run 50K. So this will be my first attempt. If I don’t succeed it won’t be the end of the world, just time to go back to the drawing board… Well, it might suck pretty bad if I don’t succeed, considering it will also be my 39th birthday!
There is another 50K in the neighborhood on September 2nd at Sly Park. It’s called Run On The Sly, and it looks harder than Way Too Cool, so it would be nice to finish Way Too Cool. Then I could decide (or more accurately, Erin could decide) if I will be running the Run On The Sly.
Erin has been very supportive of this effort. But our weekends have been COMPLETELY about running since Christmas. I run long on Saturday and not so long on Sunday. Yesterday was Saturday, and I ran 22 miles. It took the better part of the day. Today I followed that with ten more miles. It is always very hard to get started on Sunday, but pretty much every single Sunday run has left me feeling significantly better afterward than I felt before the run. It’s like a flushing effect or something. All the junk that builds up in the muscles the day before gets washed out. At least it feels that way.
The one thing I learned though is that you cannot follow a 22 mile run with another 10 mile run 16 hours later without having complete respect for both efforts. They are linked. The 10 mile run is merely an extension of the 22 mile run. You have to start hydrating and eating while you run it as if you had already been running for 22 miles, or else you will quickly begin to suffer greatly. Early on, I had to do 16 on Saturday and 8 more on Sunday. I didn’t have this mental link between the two runs established yet. I ended up walking home from the 6.5 mile mark because I was totally wiped… bonked. I did the 8 miles, but the last 1.5 miles were nearly impossible.
Alright, that’s enough text without pictures for now… more later.
