The Decision

I've filled out the entry form and written the check. I'm going to celebrate my 50th birthday by running my first 50K around Lake Waramaug at the Jack Bristol Lake Waramaug Ultra. I have absolutely no time goal. Well, I take that back. This race also includes a 50 mile and 100K option, and my one and only goal is to not be the last person on the course. So as long as I can finish 50K before the slowest 100K runner finishes, I'll meet my goal. For some strange reason I'm not nearly as nervous about preparing for this race as I was in training for my first marathon.


In other news, I ran a 5K race yesterday and placed first in my age group! The Peachtree City Rotary Club runs a series of 5K races at the local elementary schools to promote fitness with the kids and our running club helps out with organizing and volunteering at them. At the running club meeting earlier in the week, we were told that this one was new and they weren't getting a lot of support yet and that it was a good opportunity to get age group awards, and it was. The course was the high school cross country course and I got to use some of my newly found trail running muscles. I ran it in 31:05 which is a recent memory PR and since I was the only one in my age group I got a first place medal.

Training this week went very well, I ran a total of 56 miles and just finished a 16 mile run/walk. I'm getting much better at the run/walk thing. This time my heartrate stayed below 160 the entire time and averaged under 150. The first hour I walked one minute out of every 20, the second hour one minute out of every 15, and the 3rd hour one minute out of every 10. All that walking and I still averaged under my marathon pace. I also did some experimenting with eating on the run. Today I tried Gummi Bears, much better than gels, next week I'm going to try pretzels.

Plans for long runs for the weeks leading up to my 50K are; 18, 15, 20, 15, 24-25 (or 5 hours whichever comes first) and then my taper week.