STRAVA Summary

Monday, September 22, 2014

The week before The Bear

It’s Monday and this coming Friday at this time I will be 6 hours into the toughest race I will have ever run, The Bear 100 in Utah/Idaho.

We leave this coming Wednesday to give us some time and will return on Monday. So far the run up to the race hasn’t been the best. A number of injuries have affected my training. I really haven’t run that much since Vermont in July. I was hoping to get in lots of hill training and some speed work. I did get in s couple of days of running at Snow Valley Ski resort and try out my new trekking poles. I also ran Harricana, north of Quebec City a week ago to get in a good training run, although it wasn’t quite the race I expected. I had calf issues pop up out of nowhere and cut the distance back to 65k from 80. I thought the calf was going to cause me to drop, but I was able to continue with the help of a new friend on the trail Tim, from Waterloo. I still managed to finish the race strongly, so that made me feel good. The fact that I was on my feet for over 10 hours was also a positive to take with me.

The calf was a secondary problem, which hadn’t been an issue before Harricana, although I have had numerous calf issues before and they are habitually very tight. The main problem going in to Harricana was my right hamstring, which had knotted up badly. Although it was tight throughout it never got worse than that. Since that race I have been nursing both through, rolling, massaging and lots of soaking in the new hot tub.

Although I am somewhat intimidated by The Bear, I plan on approaching it similarly to Harricana. That would be to run very easy, walk the hills and trek a lot of the race. I plan on finishing this race, not winning it, or even doing a PB.

Fingers crossed the muscles cooperate and I can get to the end.