Sunday, March 30, 2008

Not Ready

I'm not ready for a 50 miler yet. In two weeks, I'll be running the marathon only. I believe in a two week taper, so yesterday was my last big run. It was the first time I went up the mountain twice. 5 hours to cover 21 miles (9000 feet of elevation gain). I'm hoping to break 6 hours on race day, but I kind of doubt that will happen. All of that up and down seriously kills me. Particularly the down. I will be bringing a camera on race day. The mountain is perfect. I caught my breath more than once yesterday with the sun beginning to set, the dark green hills, and more flowers than you can imagine. I don't have the words. It was amazing.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Addiction

I almost don't like sharing my running experiences anymore with anyone other than Liz. I'm usually pretty self-deprecating, but how can you be self-deprecating about a 23 mile run up and down a mountain or regular running weeks of 60+ miles. It just comes off as either psychotic or bragging, neither of which are words I want to be associated with. So I'll tell you about this past Saturday's run, but going forward, unless I'm running a race, I probably will no longer write about the mileage and elevation gain of my training runs.

The reason is that I crossed an imaginary line on Saturday. A line that spoke to me as I crossed it and said, "You should go 30 miles next week and go up and down Diablo twice." I didn't even flinch when I heard that voice. In fact, I thought to myself, that sounds like fun. So that most of my friends are able to understand, it's like the leap from marijuana to cocaine. It's a line that you don't think you're ever going to cross and then one day you wake up with your face in a pile of the white stuff and an M-16 lying on your desk. You don't really know why it happened, but man you feel pretty good.

So I'm in virgin running territory and I don't think I'm going to deny this addiction or step back over the line. April 12th is now about to become a 50 mile race (assuming the race director gives me the ok).

I haven't graduated to heroin yet. I don't see a 100 miler any time soon, but I'm not opposed to one in the future. The needle is there. I know it's coming. It's simply how long I can put it off.