…before the Little Su 50k on the 13th, that is. Time to taper! I was so excited to get out and get it over with that I was up and out the door by 0500 on Saturday morning. While it’s been fun training for a long run this winter, actually scheduling the time to get the long training runs in has been an increasing challenge. Getting out as early a possible seems to work best, but inevitably it is also means starting in the dark and cold if anything else is to get done that day. I still have a long way to go to be a serious winter athelete (or at least one that doesn’t whine so much). Needless to say, I have a new appreciation for the fortitude of dog mushers. Wow.
To recap saturday’s run, (garmin data here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/23591174) overall it was good and I made and effort to push harder than normal since the majority of the route was road surface. I managed to eek out a 10:00 min/mi pace for 24mi which I’m pretty happy with considering the weather, the amount of clothing I wore and the 15lbs my pack added.
My strategy training for the February run has been quite conservative in consideraion of the tendinitis that had been following me around in 2007 and 2008. I took it easy anticipating that running with extra weight from gear/food/water might start it up again, and thankfully the extra caution seems to have paid off. As for actually being able to run 31mi – 7 more than I’ve run this winter – it will be doable I think. The majority of the miles this season have been on hills and trails, and this race course is situated in the flat terrain of Point Mackenzie, where is is likely to be warmer than Fairbanks too (yay!). It must be bad luck to speculate about the weather in winter, but I can’t help it.