‘Twas the week before Old Pueblo…

So. Less than 5 days until my first 50 miler.

There's a steady feeling of anticipation following me around. I've started making lists (ok, really the list making started about 3 weeks ago, but now the lists have been refined), printing out directions, and I've thought about what gear I'll have. I'm looking forward to this race.

Consistency continues to dodge me in training. I feel justified in skipping several workouts when I was sick, and when I hurt myself. But justification is a poor foil for vague uncertainty. It seems awfully close to rationalization, and that seems too close to making excuses for comfort.

Talking with a friend over the weekend, it helps to be reminded that the feeling of not having done "enough" goes hand in hand with training for races. Even those that I consider to be very consistent and hard-working echo the thoughts I have. And it isn't that I don't think I can do this race – I do. I have almost no doubt that I'll finish, and finish happy. But without looking back over my training log, I'd tell you that I really haven't done enough. A few more miles, if I hadn't skipped those yoga sessions, well, the race would go better for me. So here the context of "enough" means enough to come close to my potential, or enough for me to be completely happy with the results and have no regrets. Enough would mean that at the end of the race, I would think "That was the best I could do, I did everything I could."

I suspect that these desirable thoughts are shining castles in the sky.

Actually taking the time to LOOK at my training log shows me that I did a lot more than I thought I had. Seven weeks ago was the Ghost Town 38.5 miler. Nice. That 29 mile run five weeks ago? That was good – did that in 5h18. The week after that my 19 mile run was slow and hard, but I probably wasn't recovered. Then the following week was the 6 hour workout that was the Quad. Well, geez, that seems like enough.

OP50 Goals:

• Follow my plan – take it easy the first 33 miles and run the last 17 well. (Sheesh, did I just say easy, and 33 miles in one sentence?!??!)
  
• Finish in daylight, under 12 hours. My goal at Leadville is to be at the 50 mi halfway point at 12 hours, so it'd be good to have a buffer on that!
  
• Use this race to practice nutrition, gear, and pacing.
  
• Fast, efficient aid station stops.
  
• No Injuries.