Friday, September 4, 2009

One week to Haliburton

At this time next week, I'll be packing the car to leave for the Haliburton Forest where I will be running the 50 miler. I feel ready both physically and mentally even though I'm a bit tired after a long season that started back in March with my first ultra, the Seneca Creek 50K.

My goal for this race is to finish in one piece, without doing anything that could jeopardize Rock and Ice. R&I is 6 months away, which mens that training will start soon, probably mid October so now is not the time to wreck myself. I want to enjoy this race and then rest for a few weeks to allow my body to recover as much as possible.

My taper is going well. I'm a lazy bastard, so I don't feel that overwhelming urge to overdo things. I know a few people who are probably doing back-to-back long runs this weekends. My view is that there's nothing no gain at this point, all I need to do is no f@ck it up. I'm doing one last medium run today (20-ish km) and then I will just maintain my fitness and blood volume by doing a few short quality workouts next week. I'll probably carbo load starting Wednesday, with Friday consisting of only "low-residue" carbs to minimize my chances of having to take a dump with the bears. That's the plan. That, and trying not to gain too much weight. Hunger doesn't go away just because you reduce the mileage. Carbo loading will add a few pounds, but I've added more than that before Sulphur so I'm trying to be careful.

I was re-reading my pre-Sulphur post and I definitely don't feel as hyper as I was back then. I've run 50 miles before and I know this is going to be hard. That being said, I feel like I should have gone for the 100 miles but really, that would have been stupid (see above reference to not jeopardizing R&I). Still, that's something that is in the back of my mind.

4 comments:

David said...

Save the 100 for next year - you don't want to screw up R&I for sure. Next March does seem a long way off but it will be here before we know it.
Good luck at Hali - hope to see you on the course - We'll up to help Crew/Pace at around 1:00 in the afternoon.

Happy Camping and Trails.

chris mcpeake said...

Taper .. crap I knew that I forgot something. Cya up there

JD said...

David, don't worry, I won't sneak up an extra 50 mile loop!

See y'all next week.

Derrick said...

I hate tapers, but I do find that one of the things that I enjoy doing when taper madness sets in is looking back through the previous training and racing. It's pretty neat to re-live what you've run through and have done to get to this point. Also helps to give you so much confidence on race day.

Sounds like you've already been doing a bit of that with rehashing some of your race reports.

Enjoy the long weekend and rest of your taper. See you in the forest.