So I have thinking about this for a while – all through the summer at least. I decided to sign up for the Beaudry Lemming Loop that is run here in Winnipeg (well usually just outside Winnipeg but the venue has moved due to flooding this year). It is a looped trail run where you see how far you can go in either a 24, 12, 6 or 3 hour window. It runs this weekend – the 12 hour I signed up for starts 6 am on October 4th.
I wanted to challenge myself after a hard summer of training and the 3 hour would have been interesting but I really wanted to test my long distance endurance so that means a longer time period would be needed.
The 6 hour time frame just didn’t frighten me – I did several runs over the summer in the 2.75 to 4 hour mark and 6 didn’t seem like too much of a stretch. Hell, I have had marathons take me that long and if I was going to do this I knew I wanted to hit ultra-marathon distances of 50 km or 50 miles. I should be able to hit 50 km in a 6 hour period but I’m not a big trail runner so if I ran into some obstacles or if it was really muddy and slowed down to much it might not happen.
I’m not crazy enough yet to try a 24 hour run at this point – plus it would conflict with too many other family responsibilities on Friday night.
So now that I have signed up I need to come up with a plan. The Hokas I was testing out will most likely be part of the plan as will some of the fueling things I tried over the summer. I will probably be spending most of the week freaking out….but also organizing what I will need to bring with me and trying to determine what my plan will be running wise. (most likely run/walk cycles right from the beginning)
I’m not exactly sure what my goals will be for this run besides not dying but I want to hit 50 km at least. As long as the trail isn’t a mud bog this should be more than possible. Part of me would also really like to hit 50 miles – again this should be possible if I can stay healthy and keep moving at a good pace. Anything over that would be kind of a miracle so I won’t put any stretch goals out there – I will be ecstatic with anything over 50 km frankly.
Planning for the weather should be fun – so far it looks like it will hit freezing overnight (those crazy 24 hour runners will be out in that) and then up to 10 Celsius (50 F) during the day and no rain. I expect I will need a few changes of clothes but won’t be able to finalize until later in the week when the long range weather guess becomes a short range weather guess.
….man the things I get myself into.
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