8 weeks remaining, 47 miles and a few home truths about ultra running

I started this week with a lap of the 7.5 mile route on Wednesday evening, This was then followed up with the same route on Thursday and Friday. I had a bit of a time constraint on Friday which meant I ran slightly faster than usual. Considering most of my running recently has been at a consistent pace, it was nice to be able to speed up and have my heart work a bit faster for a change!

My weekend running was difficult but I managed to reach the weekly total suggested on the Relentless Forward Progress plan I’m trying to follow.

On Saturday morning I had disregarded a hole in my right sock which would have covered my little toe, this then rubbed against the inside of my newish trail shoes and I realised I had a small cut after my first lap of 7.5 miles. This was quite frustrating because it had started to bother me only about 3 miles into the route. I covered the cut with vaseline and changed into a different sock. My 2nd lap of 7.5 miles was a lot more comfortable and I didn’t have any further issues with the cut.

I finished the week with 2 laps of the 5.4 mile route this morning. Earlier in the week I had spent a large amount of time researching the Barkley marathon that took place in Tennessee last weekend. This is a 100 mile race with over 60,000 feet of elevation. To put this into context, the 44 mile Grand Tour of Skiddaw race I did a few years back involved going up a mountain and had 7000 feet of elevation. Legend has it that the course was created after James Earl Ray escaped from the local prison but only managed to flee 8 miles in the 55 hours before he was found. The race organiser Lazarus Lake, thought he could run 100 miles in that time so the race was born! In the 31 years since, only 15 out of over 1000 runners have finished.

Some of my running friends on Facebook had highlighted a story about one of the runners, Gary Cantrell missing out on being number 16 for finishing 6 seconds over the 60hour cutoff and finishing the last lap from the wrong direction.

Part of what stuck with me following this was how sportsmanlike he was about this decision. I was also impressed with how the race director responded to the criticism around it too!

I decided to look up quotes from Lazarus Lake about his event and discovered this

I found this helped me maintain my comfort zone for all of my weekend running. Even though I don’t walk hills unless I absolutely have to, I think the last 3 races I entered after Skiddaw I knew I’d finish. It is invigorating to have the knot in my stomach again about this race and hopefully this will prove useful when the challenge of the route surpasses what I’ve expected of myself before!

Being 2/3rds of the way through the plan is a confidence boost as well and I am optimistic that if I can get another 30+ mile training run in beforehand that I will finish. In 7 weeks we will know either way!