12 days and counting...

Well, I feel I am now far enough away from last week's 50 to dive into planning the main focus race which is twelve days away!!

I am feeling great, just a little scattered and overwhelmed by the event ahead.

I'm still in the afterglow of finishing the 50 which was a great experience for me and a welcome redemption from dropping down from the 50 at Land Between the Lakes last spring. It is encouraging to feel that I have hopefully come along way since then (March), at least in terms of being prepared, eating right and being realistic about my race. Of course it helped that the conditions in Nashville we're perfect and the race had almost no terrain or weather to deal with.

I was a bit nervous going into it since the last long race I had completed was probably the 1/2 ironman distance race this past spring. I had put in several 2-3 hour long runs in training but still felt like I was woefully lacking in my long runs. In the end I felt I did a good job of listening to my body. A couple of weeks out from the Nashville Ultra I started feeling some pain in my shins running so just backed off to a couple of days a week and focused on healing and getting ready for the race.

I do admit that I couldn't help but run a local 5k on Friday night and am certain I pushed it harder than I needed to running just shy of 22 minutes less than a week after my 50 miler. It was satisfying to see how far I've come in my fitness when I used to think 30 minutes would have been a major accomplishment. I was definitely off my pr of 20:13 last year for the same race but I have not exactly been focusing on speed work.

So what is the plan from hear out!

With less than two weeks left I plan on mostly taking it easy with some longer cross training days thrown in. I would like to hammer out a trail marathon the middle of this week just to focus on my stride for 3 or four hours but will wait and see how I feel.

I am definitely in race planning mode and still scrambling at the last minute to decide what gear, food etc I will use and how to set up all my drop bags etc.

I plan on ordering a new pair of shoes tomorrow since I have been in constant debate with myself over the trail/road shoe issue. After Nashville I decided I wanted to stick with a similar asics platform to the 2130's I wore in the race but with a more dedicated trail focus.

After reading some reviews and looking at way too many pair of shoes I think I'm going to go with the asics trabuco 11 wp which is on a similar last at the 2130's with the addition of a goretex upper and rock plate in the forefoot.

My goal is to get the shoe in soon enough to get 50 or 60 miles in on it so we'll see.

As far as the rest of my gear I don't plan on changing it too much. Will run with the same hip pack I usually use and may add a pocket or two for my camera and gels.

For headlamps I'm sticking with my black diamond mio's and will probably pick up another flashlight to have with me as well.

For food I'll stick with Hammer Nutrition Perpetuem and GU gels. The perpetuem worked great in Nashville and I can get the GU gels cheap at Nashbar so there you go.

Really the only thing I plan on doing different for the 100 will be to try to consume more calories in the first half of the race. I felt Nashville went great even though I got sick briefly about an hour after the race but otherwise my energy was good. I did use the amino and clip 2 products by succeed but was not convinced of all they promised as far as alertness etc.

So that is where I'm at right now. I would like to drop 5 lbs before Alabama as I have been eating junk since my last race and know that I should be consuming more quality food products.

Thanks for reading!