Chuckanut is fast approaching … less than 24 hours. I have been preparing the last couple of days mentally for the toughest challenge yet in my life by visualizing passing the major points in the race that I feel the most anxious about … This is mental …. I have shifted from apprehension to a belief that it will be extreme but that I CAN do it. If I am in shape physically doesn’t mean that I will be finishing, because finishing will be depending how tough I am in my head … mind over matter.
This is my second consecutive day of rest and little aches and pains in my legs have subsided quite a bit. On a typical marathon I would go for 2-3 miles run the day before to “loosen” my legs up but I won’t today. Stretching has helped tremendously in that area so I don’t feel the need to loosen up really. I am anxious to hit the trail tomorrow so I expect I will be jumpy all day today lol … As a matter of fact I am jumpy as I write this.
I have also loaded the aid stations in the Garmin for the race. Took me a while to figure that out ... My first approach was to load the GPS tracks from a 2011 course I found on the net in Google Earth. Since there are changes from the 2011 course for 2012 in order to reflect the changes I needed first to draw the route from the tracks then modify the route to reflect the changes … But I found this just wasn’t practical because of the length of the course and also because some of the route trails are no coming up on Google Earth. I figured a day later (Thursday) why not just load the important waypoints ... I experimented with placing the aid stations. It looked good when I overlaid the waypoints on the 2011 GPS tracks too. So the location will likely be off but al least I expect I have them on the actual trails. If time allows I will go over the course description again tonight and see if there are important waypoints (like forks) I should add. Anyway, with the aid stations loaded on the Foretrex I will be able to “navigate” to them during the race. I think this will help me mentally to get a mile countdown to the next waypoints as I make my way to the toughest areas. Without a route defined I am not sure I will be able to get an elevation profile reading like I did when I experimented with the Tolt Pipeline trail … But if nothing else it’s more experimenting. I don’t need the elevation profile … I already know it’s f*&cked !!
Talking of experimenting … Still not quite sure what’s going to be the best running strategy. Recalling the ladies that I met on the course of Birch Bay marathon they were running on a 8 min run/2 min walk schedule (they had ran a 50k the day before so were taking the half “slow”) … And I have been wondering if that would work better to run/walk the first 7 miles for energy conservation rather than run the whole 7 miles at a slow pace. If I run at a slow pace then I figured 12 min/mile would be good … I am at a point where I wish I had a GPS watch with the ForeTrex (that means I wish I had both gadgets not that I regret getting the Foretrex ah ah.) The Foretrex wasn’t design with trail runners in mind. No min/mile pace. If I go by speed then 10 min/mile (too fast for Chuckanut) should be 6 mph. 12 min/mile is 5 mph. So I guess I’ll watch my speed to be less than 5 mph for the level sections. That said I recall that on Tolt the Foretrex reported my average speed the entire time as 3.0 mph … but my actual average was more like 5.6 mph so what gives ??? Maybe I need to load a different screen? Like current speed instead. There is a shadowy timer function I need to figure out. From what I read so far it is possible to schedule intervals on it, but on any device designed for the runner in mind the timer function would be pro-eminent.
I have been nursing some type of a cold all week too. I was hoping that it would be gone by now but it seems to want to linger there. Everyone around my cubicle has got a turn to a pretty bad sore throat with some the guys being out for a few days at the time the last weeks and mine has just bothered me at night mostly so far and slightly in the throat so I should be happy in terms of intensity mine has been pretty mellow. I hope that a few miles into Chuckanut I will have got rid all the crap in my lungs
Strength is wherever you find it so maybe it is appropriate to conclude with this scripture … Hebrews 12:1
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,”
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