This Aint Gonna Be Easy

After feeling pretty crappy on back to back 20 mile runs over the weekend I've decided to take my last week before the race easy and try to be very rested up by the race start. I didn't run at all yesterday and then did just 30 minutes on the treadmill at the gym today. Tomorrow I'm going to do a 60-90 minute hilly trail (snow) run in the morning and then I'll probably do 10 or so flat miles Thursday morning before I fly up to Anchorage. After that I'll take Friday and Saturday completely off and then the race starts at 2:00 pm Sunday.

I would have loved to go into this race feeling more confident about everything than what I am. I generally feel pretty good about my gear and logistical preparation, but physically I just can't find the confidence that I would like to have. Running on the treadmill tonight I just didn't really feel like a runner. I felt like I had plenty of energy but I felt like I was running for the first time in months, even though I've run almost 600 miles so far this year. I'm concerned that I have something "off" in my right leg. I really can't pinpoint specific discomfort anywhere but I felt kind of like my entire right leg from the knee down is just kind of "off". It might be all in my mind and/or it might all just feel fine with a nice very mellow taper week this week. At any rate this has me doubting, among other things, my shoes (can't I ever run a race where I actually know what shoes I'm going to wear before the day of the race?), my training, and my chances of really doing this thing.

More than anything I'm just keeping in mind that there's really nothing I can do about it at this point. I'm going to start my race on Sunday with every intention of pushing on for however long it takes to get to McGrath. I think I went into this race last year with too much confidence, perhaps going into it this year with very low confidence will be just the thing I need.