Racing & Tapering 3/21/11 - 4/3/11

Since spring is the bulk of my racing season, I have been racing and tapering, then repeat.  I almost feel as if this the movie Groundhog Day and I am in perpetual deja vu.  Hopefully all these races and experiences will help me out in my biggest race of my season, which is the UROC 100k in September.

L to R (Ron, Mary, Dave, Nica)

Coming off a run at the HAT Run 50k on March 19th, my legs felt great and decided to go for a jog of 5 miles the next day (very slow).  The following weekend I got together with some other runners (Ron, Nica, Mary, and Dave), who are competing in the Bull Run Run 50 Mile race this upcoming Saturday, and ran 20 miles at Rosaryville Park (Dave and I).  Rosaryville is a nice course with a nicely groomed trails with a little bit of hills and almost no technical sections.  I love hills and technical sections but this course is great for training because the entire trail is runnable and is good if you want to do a long training run with involves minimal walking.  I plan on using this course as part of my double runs on the weekend, I would like to run some tough technical mountain trails on a Saturday followed by a Sunday run at Rosaryville.  The Sunday run will force me to keep running and keep walking to minimum. 

This past Saturday I ran a short 10 mile race (Annapolis Striders Cherry Pit 10 Miler) just to open up the legs a bit and get a bit of speed work in.  I ended up running a bit faster then I wanted to and ended up setting another PR for a 10 mile race with a 1:26:06 time.  Not too bad, but not what I have been training for.  Maybe one of these days I will do some more speed workouts and see what time I can do in a 10 miler.  BTW congrats to Rose for putting in a smokin' time of 1:22:55, I am sure she didn't even break a sweat.

I am very excited about this weekend as it time for the Bull Run Run 50 Miler in Clifton, VA.  Should be a bit wet as the weather forecast is calling for 1/2" of rain on Friday and possible showers on Saturday.  If there is one thing you can't change it's the weather, so I am not gonna worry about it but I need to pack as if it will rain.  I even joined a team for this race, the Ultra-holics.  The team is comprise of Ron, Dave, Kevin, and I.  Championship here we come!!!! (or "winning"as Charlie Sheen might say)  I just purchased a new Garmin gps 310xt and that thing is cool.  I am going to wear it during the race, so I am sure I will have lots of graphs and other boring nerdy charts to post next week when I write my review on the race.


See ya on the trails,
JP