In awe

Day 228

Last week was low mileage for me with a total about 9 miles. Lowest so far after having 50+ for last three consecutive weeks, but I figure I needed the low mileage rest.

As usual, Monday was a rest day. After three weeks of running, I was grateful for Monday

Tuesday: 4. Easy run with group. The weather is getting warmer. Legs were heavy.

Wednesday: 2nd rest day

Thursday: 5 miles. Also was a group run. Legs were still heavy but a bit better than Tuesday.

Friday: 0. traveling

Saturday-Sunday: *3-4ish. I would like to say it was supposed to be a run but turned out more a backpacking hike. Saturday, hiked 24 miles and Sunday 12. I won’t count them running though my body was sored from the activity.

~~~~Long version~~~~

The highlight was I went to Laurel Highlands to check on the trail, which I will be racing on it in June. The trail was not extremely hard, definitely runable in most section (‘groomed’ trail some say), but it is considerably a step up from my last ultra due to hilly terrains. It was not the most technical terrain I have seen, but I will be killed by a thousand cuts. It is flat on the elevation profile but it is anything but flat. 70-mile is not an impossibility but it won’t be a cake walk. People said to train for it as if it is a 100 mile race. One suggestion was to do 10k ft of hill climb per week. I intend to do just that.

Due to the trail being a point to point (not a loop), it was difficult to plan the training run logistically. I decided to ‘play it safe’ because of the cold weather and I camped at the race to-be checkpoint #1 (Mile 18) and intended to study the trail from mile 18 to 0. I was very tempted to run the whole thing in a day, knowing my ability I can do 18 miles any given day, however because of the remoteness and ‘what-ifs’, I decided to backpack by hiking it instead. It was definitely a wise decision.

I was much weaker than I anticipated. Even with just the hike, it exhausted me. If the previous weekend running in the woods an indicator, this weekend’s message was loud and clear: I was in no condition to ‘trail run’ it. I might call it running, but if I couldn’t put up 3 miles an hour, it was anything but running. On race day, doing 3 miles an hour will not get me to the finish line under 22 hours. I am not alarmed, given I have about 12-14 weeks left, I could train up for it.

The first night there was just straight camping. I hiked around for an hour looking for camp but that was just my stupidity of not studying the map before hand. I figured the camp was only about half mile at most from the parking area and I could bump into it. You can only go north or south on the trail, how hard can it be in finding the camp? I walked first north the back south and turned around went back north (I was so near then before turning around!) and explored some of the side trails, while really needed to use the bathroom! Yes and it costed me an hour wandering around in the middle of the night. The camp was really half mile away (South). It was 2AM by the time I close my eyes. My hiking leader would be laughing at me if she knew (she didn’t go; well if she had gone, I wouldn’t be in a jam).

The next day, bright and early, I decided to take my pack to camp#2 (at Mile 6), which is about 12 mile hike. Trust my plan, I kept saying to myself. Luckily, the snow on the ground was not much and they were fresh, about quarter to half an inch of snow on the ground. It didn’t make running impossible but the cold was a big factor for me to play it safe and decided to hike it with my pack instead of dropping the pack at where I parked and running the thing. Indeed, the ground was icy in part and I took too many falls to the ground myself. I left my trekking poles at home when the time I needed them the most was now; I had micro spikes in my pack but I was too stubborn to put them on — again my hike leader would shake her head if she saw me, like for all these years of camping and I still haven’t learned.

I arrived at the second camp by noon, exhausted, and also not haven’t eaten breakfast. I dropped my pack, set camp, ate and by 2 PM then proceeded to hike/run the remaining six miles (to Mile 0) on an out and back.

They say these six miles would be hardest in the race in term of elevation gain. It is probably a joke to those on the west coast that we complain about a thousand or two ft of elevation gain over couple miles, but to us here it is hard running! Everything is relative.

Indeed, I could hardly run it. I came across many runners on the trail in this last (first) section and one of them has ran the Laurel Ultra a few years back. He said, he knew of no one who would run up it, specifically on Spring Hill.

Next morning, woke up with body pretty much in a bad shape (bad meaning I didn’t want to run). I felt I couldn’t walk another mile. I asked myself, do I want to repeat to run to mile 0 and back, since it would be a perfect day for running it. It was much warmer and snow had melted. It would make great numbers for my runner log.

I pretty much knew the answer. I can’t find any resolve to beat my body any more but to hike (crawl) back to the car. I could definitely do it if I had to, but it would be pushing myself beyond uncomfortable. I knew it was not happening. It was really pointless to stay another night if I am not running it. Also I only had carried one day of food with me on my pack and I ate them the day before…unless I go back to the car. I always had more food in the car. But if I go to the car, why not just go home. The hike back was literally a crawl for me. That’s a wrap for the weekend.