What Am I Getting Into?

Today: Bike Commute 3 miles

Yesterday: Mt. Bike 17 miles

It occurred to me today that I really have no idea what I'm going to carry with me in this 50 miler that I'm racing this coming Saturday. In most races you have aid stations every hour or two so this isn't all that much of an issue, but The Resurrection Pass 50 miler only has one aid station, and it's 38 miles into the race. This is a large part of what appeals to me about this race. If it were my race I would even scrap the one aid station and make it completely self-supported. I may in fact just run it self-supported this weekend. Not sure yet.

Water is not an issue. There are streams throughout the race that I can fill my bottle in.

To get me through 38 miles I will probably plan on 1,500-2,000 calories. I could go simple (but unsatisfying) and just eat 3 gels per hour and drink some perpetuem and/or cytomax, but I'm leaning more towards mixing this up with some "real" food. (power bars, nuts, dried fruit, bananas, maybe even a sandwich). The obvious choice would be to have a stash of "real" food waiting for me at the aid station and get by on gel and liquid nutrition before and after that. What my body works best on though is a nice steady mix of foods. My stomach can pretty much handle anything, but my energy levels (and my appetite) definitely stay highest when I'm running on a mix of calorie sources.

I also need to figure out what clothing I'll carry with me. This will depend almost entirely on the weather forecast on race day. It'll make things so much easier if the weather is nice, but in a strange, masochistic kind of way I kind of think it'd be fun if it were wet and nasty out there. I think being that I live in Juneau I would probably deal with that much better than most. Even such, I'm still pulling for sunny and dry.

Should be a fun run this weekend. My first 50 miler and I expect to learn a lot. I don't have any idea what to expect as far as a race result goes. I don't really know who's running in the race and I think this will make it pretty fun. I think it's possible I could win this race, but it's also possible I could run well and not finish in the top 5. It is an unofficial, no entry fee, event thus there is no listed roster or anything like that. There might be 3 of us lined up Saturday morning at 6:00 am or there might be 50 of us. I really have no idea and for some reason I'm really content with that. At the very least it's nice knowing that I'm not going to be so anxious and focused only on one thing as I was for the last few days before Crow Pass. That said though, I plan to go out and put 110% into this run, and I expect to enjoy every step of it.