Gearing up for Haliburton

I felt it the minute I drove my car into the parking lot near the Haliburton forest. I knew right away that this was a special place and that I would be competing in a very special race. It was without a doubt the toughest race I've ever done but once I had finished I knew that I had accomplished something.

I drove over 3 hours just to get to this race last year and thankfully it had a 9 AM start. The race this year, since I'm doing the 50K, starts at 6 AM which means I'll be running in darkness for the first 30 to 40 minutes.

During my trail run this morning I kept thinking about how demanding the Haliburton trail race was last year. It's not something that I can explain to most, it truly is something that you have to experience. I'm hoping that the experience from last year will help but I also realize that I will be running twice the distance that I ran last year. A few of us will be staying overnight just outside of where the race will be happening so at least we can get a few hours of sleep before the race.

Pacing will be critical but I feel like I have that where I want it to be for this race. The one visual that keeps haunting me from the race last year is the one long hill that seemed to go on for 2 or more KM's. It was muddy and there were parts where people were getting stuck while trying to climb over rocks. I have no idea how they did it, but there was a water/aid station right at the bottom of the hill and I remember being very thankful for that.

I noticed that one of my trail shoes had a rip in the side during my run today. I don't want to run in new shoes for this race, so I'm going to take Ken's advice and just tape them up if it becomes an issue. I only have one more trail run next week before my race so they should be fine by the time the race occurs on September 8th.

That seemed so long ago and I can't believe that it is coming up so quickly. Tomorrow I'll be doing my last long run (20K) before my race. After that, it will be runs of no more than 10K as I prepare for my taper which will be one week from today.