Monday, January 31, 2011

400 Miles

Tomorrow I begin the longest race of my life.
At midnight tonight the run focus portion of the USAT Club Challenge will begin and I'll attempt to run 400 miles over the next 28 days. That's an average of just under 14.3 miles per day.
Naturally Mother Nature has decided to make this as interesting as possible. This morning she threw a nice layer of black ice on everythin before rolling in a snowstorm. Tomorrow's high is expected to be -3. That's the high.
Why would I do this? Well, last year I found at the end of February that I had managed to take 13th overall in the run focus without consciously trying to win it. I was putting in a lot of miles as I started my early prep for Leadville (which ended up not happening that year). So this year, for the first time ever I think, I'm entering a solo athletic competition with the intention of winning it.
How will I get in that many miles while still working full time and trying to maintain my sanity? Currently my commute to work includes three to five miles each way of running. So a five mile run in the morning, then a five mile run home in the evening gives me a pretty automatic fifty miles a week, that's half my weekly quota right there. Getting another couple miles in at lunch and the occasional late night right will bring me along further and contribute to spreading out the load. Saturday will be a long run and finally Sunday will be my mopup day, I'll evaluate how I feel and how many miles I need to get to 100 for the week. Getting Sunday as an off day would be the ideal, but a short run to polish off the mileage wouldn't be a problem.

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