Well, it’s about 10 days until our ultra, and we’re officially in the taper. We did 17.5 miles on slush, snow, and ice for our last really long run. Now we just have a nice little 8-10 miler this weekend and then the race next weekend. I’m nervous, because the 17 ice-miles were really hard, and it looks like the race course will have lots of snow. And many, many more miles and feet of gain. But we’ve done our training. We can do this.
Tapering always makes me a bit crazy, and I know I’m not the only one. I discover new pains, and terrors about fitness. I worry about weather and terrain. But I know I’ve done the work. Next Saturday is going to hurt. And I’m going to hurt for a few days thereafter as well. But I will make it. And then I’ll be an ultramarathoner.
Now I’m super excited for the next race we signed up for: Run Tiger Claw! It’s a choose-you-own-adventure race on Tiger Mountain in May, with 22 miles and 8,200′ of gain. It’ll be the weekend after our long Scandinavian vacation. But we plan to get some good hard hiking and running in while we’re traveling. Nevertheless, I expect it to be among the harder things we’ve done.
The race is directed by Ethan Newberry and Kim Teshima-Newberry. Ethan is known as The Ginger Runner, one of my favorite film-makers and podcasters. His films are well-put-together and his podcasting is crisp and professional, so I expect the race will be well-produced too. It’s a super innovative design, with three loops you can do in any order, collecting “tokens” that prove you completed them.
So it’s going to be a good spring, and hopefully the Tiger Claw will be a good gut-check for the Volcanic 50k, which I still hope to run this year. We’ll see. A lot of ambitious ideas about the spring and summer. Here’s hoping my legs can keep up with my head.
Boundary Conditions 