Note to self: don't ever plan on writing a blog post at the end of a long day at work. You don't want to, and those creative juices are BLAH.... I actually started this on Wednesday but I don't think I'll finish it until Saturday.
I'm the typical groove of post-race. I'm anxious to get to another one. I'm scouring the web, looking up races that I've never heard of, in cool places. I'm catching up on all the ultra-forums I know of, reading about training theories, opinions, new/old races. It's an exciting time. I also think part of it is gearing up for a new training season. As I get ready to lay out a training plan, I tend to go back to the websites I've used before. I want to look for new information, as well as reaffirm the training concepts I've held to before.
I also have to be careful. Last year I was spot on to avoid getting into "training." I was running again by this point, but made a point not to get into a training mindset. When I'm training, I'll try to look over little tweaks and aggravations in the legs, resting only if it gets worse or doesn't start to get better. So when I'm not training, I'll still run but if something's not right, I take time off. So when I do start training I'm at 100%. However, with my goals for Umstead, I'm already feeling self-pressured to put in quality time on my feet.
But the past few weeks I've had fun looking up other races. Local, national, and global I love reading about cool and tough races. A couple of good resources for my discovery are ultrarunning.com and ultramarathonrunning.com. Of course, I couldn't help but read up on Western States (WSER). And they're list of qualifying 100 mi and 100K races really narrows in on the tougher and more spectacular courses.
My problem is I always end up defaulting to local races. At my age and financial situation, it's hard to justify destination races across the country or internationally (there is a WSER qualifier in Scotland I thought was cool). Furthermore, there's SO many within a few hours drive, it could take years to make the rounds around those.
A poorly organized list of "global" races are: Western States 100, Hardrock 100, West Highland Way (Scotland, 95 mi), Pine to Palm 100 (Oregon), Patagonia Run (Argentina, 100 mi), Cascade Crest 100 (Washington), Tahoe 200 (YES! 200 miles!)
And poorly organized locally: Uwharrie 40, Grindstone 100, The BEAST Series, Thunder Rock (NEW race in 2014, Chattanooga, TN), RockCreek Stage Race. Leatherwood 50 (Ferguson, NC)
There's really just too many.
Loving my return to running. I'm still feeling a little sluggish, but always enjoy pounding my feet. I still need to narrow down what type of tune up races I want to do after the new year. I really want to iron out some of the nutrition quirks I've expereienced, and a race will be the best place to do that. The key will be not to race too often, or too far. I have high aims for Umstead, and I CANNOT go into it fatigued.
Soundtrack:
"Coming Back to Life" by Blindside; title says it all about how I feel about getting back to running
"The Smile, The Face" by Emery, this lyric "But though my heart [I say body] is breaking open, know that I will not be broken"
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