7 Weeks and Counting

We’re 7 weeks out from our first 50mile race at Rocky Raccoon which is in Huntsville Texas just north of Houston.   So I get to go back to Texas again which is my fabled birthplace.

“He tripped and fell and kept trying to get up and falling again, that’s how he hit his head 18 times on that rock.”

7 weeks out means 4 weeks of serious training left to get in shape for our first 50 mile race.   Due to injury and to get full value for my entry fee I’m planning on using 14 hours and 59 minutes of the allotted 15 hours we have to finish.   It only seems fiscally responsible to get all the value I can out of the trip cost after all.

4 weeks from now we’re capping our training with another 50K run, the FleetFeet Go Short, Go Long, Go Longer.   Then we’ll start tapering down assuming that 50K doesn’t kill me. Or my dear RW doesn’t kill me.  I run under constant threat of death from ‘accidents’ at her hands.  She has her alibi’s all planned out and has probably practiced crying in the mirror to make sure they’re believed.   “He tripped and fell and kept trying to get up and falling again, that’s how he hit his head 18 times on that rock.”

We’re thinking of trying to make a road trip up to Robber’s Cave which is the site of a brand new 100 mile race which happens on Dec 30th.  There’s a practice run on the course of somewhere between a few and 20 miles that a local running group is going to go on and ultra runners being the people they are they’re the more the merrier type. The 20 miles lines up with our planned run for that weekend so its an option for sure.

But regardless we keep slogging on, we did 5K yesterday of hill repeats on a 50-60 degree hill and it was nice seeing the improvements we’ve made.   The last time we did this particular hill which has been awhile, after one or two ups I’d be at the walking up and running down pace.  This time I was able to sustain a faster than a walk up all the slopes for the entirety of the run and was hitting 7 minute miles on the runs down.  It’s amazing how much gravity helps the clydesdale runner speed up.  🙂