I continue to bounce around and have ups and downs in my 100 miler training even as the race itself draws ever closer. This does not help to reduce my anxiety of taking on this challenge. After my regular short weekday runs my hip bursitis seemed to be flaring up a little bit, so I took an extra rest day going into my weekend long run which was going to be Sunday this week because I wasn’t going to be running on Saturday either this week.

Saturday was my planned “rest” day for this week of training. And by rest I mean getting up at 1:30 AM to drive 1.5 hours to meet up with my friends and stand on my feet for about 18 hours to help crew for them at the Twisted Branch 100k. It was amazing to be part of this event and help my friend and cheer for them as they crushed some huge goals along with all our fellow runners. It was a great experience and it was great experience for my upcoming race. I got to feel what it would be like to be awake and on my feet for as close to 24 hours as possible without being at the actual race. So I think that was invaluable experience in a way.

Then I followed up that long tiring day of “rest” by getting up in the morning and going for what was supposed to be a 15 mile long run. My GPS on my Garmin watch went a bit haywire, telling me at times my pace was as slow as 58 minutes/mile. And as I was trying to practice executing my race day strategy of running a mile then walking a minute to recover, when I was walking my Garmin said I had no pace and wasn’t ,moving at all. Like I know I am not speedy but I am certainly not that slow. It was very frustrating to deal with that issue while trying to practice my race strategy. But I think maybe that will also be helpful experience as I get closer to race day because for sure over the course of a 100 mile race everything will not go to plan and I will just have to deal with those frustrations as best I can. While GPS malfunction are really the least of my concerns during the race it was probably a good thing to deal with some mental frustrations that can really get into your head during a training run and just have to push through that and get out of your own head and focus on things you can control and think about how your body feels as you run instead of looking at the watch for guidance. While I am not sure of the exact mileage for that run I know how much time I ran for and it was right about the amount of time it should have taken to run 15 miles at the pace I was planning to go, so I am sure I was close on my distance.

I also practiced a little bit with my nutrition. I ate 1 GU gel that I will have in reserve. I ate some salt potatoes and flour tortillas as well and they all seemed to do fine. It was also nice to have cold water the entire run because I took a 2 liter bladder that I had frozen the water in.

There were so many little things about this weekend’s training that made it unique and hopefully a little bit of exactly what I needed even though ideally it wouldn’t be planned this way. Another one of those things were the trail conditions. I went and ran on one of our local rails to trails type paths that is essentially flat and smooth with just a slight grade you climb as you turn around to go back to the start. As I started and got into the more wooded section of the nice scenic trail I remembered that we had recently had some pretty serious thunderstorms. I started to wonder if the trail might be blocked by downed trees. Sure enough there were some trees on the trail. Luckily not so badly as to completely block the trails but I definitely had to slow down and be careful going around and over tree trunks and branches a total of 6 different times. It would be less of a difference if I was training for a trail run on more mountainous rugged trails that would force you to slow down like that, but the upcoming race is on a rails to trails area that will hopefully, barring any downed trees there, be flat and smooth at the Pine Creek Rail Trail.

Then I decided that since I had been sore previously and I had an unusual “rest” day, I took a rest day after my long run when normally I would get in a short run the next day and then rest. I am really just trying to be healthy for my upcoming race more than anything else at this point.

One step closer to 100 miles.

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If you are interested in taking on a challenge, check out the Pine Creek Challenge. They offer a 100 mile, 100k, Marathon, and relay option.

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