3 Weeks Out from YAU

Last Sunday I managed to get in another 4 hour hike with my wretched tire. I felt pretty strong, averaging about 3.7MPH. It was a chilly day, but sunny. There were quite a few people out on the roads and paved trails to give me funny looks. Listening to my tunes and going through the race in my mind throughout the work out passes the time. I've tried to play through in my mind the race beginning, various stages, my equipment, clothing, etc. Having no experience per se at distances beyond 100 miles or longer than 2.5 days is going to make this race interesting as well as a learning a learning experience.

I got out to Denver this week on biz and did a nice night run up in the Rockies at White Ranch.  It was great to be back out onto the trails, but reminded me just how tough it is to run at altitude.  I managed to take a couple of days off from running and made it back to the gym this morning.  Got in 10 miles on the treadmill and stair stepper.  Afterwords I went into the basketball courts for a pick up game of hoops, against my better judgement.  I proceeded to pull/tear my right hamstring not a major tear, but already black and blue....not too swift.  So as you can imagine I am absolutely paranoid about getting recovered in the next few weeks.  This will mean limited training, which may actually be just fine and allow me to heal everything up in advance of this damn race.  Doing a 300 mile race after jacking up my hamstring is certainly not in the play book.  Frustrated to say the least at my stupidity.

Switching topics...... I am going to have to focus on packing light with only the bare (not bear!) necessities. My plan is to keep only the mandatory gear on board my sled and have "back ups/extras/nicetohaves) in all 3 of my drop bags. The drop bags will be positioned at approximately mile 90, 180 and 250. I believe that being light will be the key to mitigating unnecessary fatigue when pulling the sled and core to my strategy. Psychologically it will be important for me to "feel" and "think" light.

I still have a few items left to purchase for the trek to the Arctic.  Plan on doing this tomorrow at REI.  I ordered my NEO Overboots yesterday and excited to be getting those this next week.   I am going to have to start organizing all of my gear and assemble my race strategy.   Survival is at the top of the list and finishing is somewhere in between.  Right now I'd give my chances of finishing somewhere between "no way" and "no way in hell!".

It's time to go ice my hamstring....fun times!

Cheers!