Making A Commitment

After months of talking about running my first 50K I finally made a decision. I had been thinking all along that I would run the Pisgah 50K in September. It seemed like the logical choice. It's a Grand Tree race, meaning I can accumulate more points in the race series. It's also a relatively short 2.5 hour drive to New Hampshire's Pisgah State Park. More importantly, a few of my trail running friends will be running it making for a fun day overall. It was settled, or so I thought. It turns out my wife's school has an event scheduled on the same day as Pisgah. Ugh! Time to come up with Plan B.

Finding an ultra in New England is not an easy thing especially when it needs to fit into your overall training plan. My 50K attempt is step toward running the Stone Cat 50 mile in November so the race date is of some importance to me. I would like to have enough time to recover from the 50K and still have time to ramp up my training for the 50M. After much searching I've committed myself ("committed myself", that sounds about right) to running the Green Lakes Endurance Run 50K in Fayetteville, NY. It's not my 1st choice but it's the best I could come up with under the circumstances.

Here's what I like about it:

1. I've never run there before so it will be new and exciting experience for me.
2. Based on the photos I've seen, the Green Lakes area is a beautiful place to run.
3. Most of the race course looks very runnable.
4. It's a multi-loop course eliminating the need for drop bags.
5. The field has been small the past two years so it should be a low-key fun event. (Note: Valmir Nunes, winner of the 2007 Badwater Ultramarathon, (where he crushed the course record), was in the area last year on unrelated travel. He entered the 100K race and won by 2 hours. Probably just an easy training run for him!

Here's what I don't like about it:

1. It's a 5+ hour drive to the race requiring an overnight stay at a minimum. Logistically, away races make things a little more difficult and stressful.
2. It's a multi-loop race. If I'm hurting it will be easier to drop at the start/finish area. On the up side, Stone Cat is also 4 loops so this will be good mental training to push pass the start/finish line when all you really want to do is stop.
3. The race is in August. Heat and humidity are very likely to be factors in the race. I am a terrible heat runner. If it's hot, I'll be jumping in the lake, not running around it! My hydration/nutrition intake will have to be spot on or I'll suffer greatly.

Picking the race was the easy part. Now I have to train for it.