Thursday, August 23, 2007

Getting myself mentally prepared to run 50K in the trails

Even though I've done plenty of trail races,they have all been between 25K to 32K in length. In fact, last weekends' 32K trail race was the longest one I've done. Although I finished strong enough to run another race at night, the thought of running another 50KM's is not something that I take lightly.

More than just the physical aspect of running on trails, rocks etc., the mental game will be just as challenging. I'm trying to get my body ready for the fact that I'll be out on the trails for a minimum of 7 hours. Having never done this before, it is natural to feel a little aprehensive about this.

There are just 16 days before that race and between now and then my running mileage will be reduced from 100 KM's to 60 KM's. My plan is to do a few long runs of 20-25 KM's over these next 10 days and then using that last 3 days to rest.

Running a 50K trail race has always been something that I looked up to when I started running in the trail races. Most of the races that I did had 25 and 50 KM distances so when I finished my part of the race, many of the competitors kept on going as they were only half finished. A big part of me always wondered if I could complete that distance on the trails so it will be nice to simply have a goal of finishing the Haliburton 50 K in September.

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