Take A Breath

It is forty days until I toe the line at the Burning River 100 mile Endurance Run, so I figured maybe it is time to reflect and see how I’m feeling and wear I stand in my training. There have been good days and not so good days in my training, slight injuries that have popped up and gone away or lingering ones that won’t go away, but are not bad enough to stop me. There is the same old injury that I have had for a number of years that is still there, but of which I have learned to live with and better yet run with. I have tried many different methods in my training and I would like to think I have learned a lot. Most importantly, over the past few months my confidence has grown, although I had a few low points, I’m feeling good mentally. I have a lot to learn on July 30th and 31st, but up for the challenge. It is amazing the amount of information that you can get off the internet and how it can inspire you and that’s what it has done. Whether it was reading others accounts of previous Burning River races or videos, they have all helped my mental state. The training run last month on the first part of the course was good and I’m looking forward to the next one on July 10th. Meeting and talking to others who will be there was great, they all feel the same way that I do and have the same hesitations.
The training has gone well and will the highlight (hopefully) will be next Friday when we do the annual run to Orillia and back over night run. We will leave Barrie at about 8 pm and hopefully arrive in Orillia at midnight, then back to Barrie by 5 am ish!
I have done most of the training I can do, with a few races thrown in to see how endurance is, it is now time to maintain and get ready to taper in a few weeks. The past two weekends I haven’t been able to get in the runs I would normally do, but were still successful runs none the less, although all on road. I should get a long trail run in soon too. Yesterday 37k on the road and I felt good, except for a bit of pain in the outside shin/calf just below the knee. So when I got home I took some Motrin and some cream on it, and it seemed better. Its good today.
One thing I have learned is that running slower definitely helps. It is hard to do and without a Garmin I have a hard time knowing how slow the pace is, but yesterday I was able to concentrate on slowing it down for a bit and was able to go much further with out a walk break. Eventually I was back to my usual “too fast” pace. Still other than the pain in my right leg it was a good run. Funny thing is with the pain is it only occurs for the first ten or so steps after a walk break. I’ll have to work on that one.
Latest from Burning River is a slight course change due to construction on the Boston 1 to Boston 2 section. A proposed change is supposed to be released some time this week. This will need some changing to my pace charts etc., but its just a little bit of work for an epic adventure.