Philadelphia 100 Miler - Preview!

I've got even more than the usual pre-race excitement rushing through my veins this week as Saturday's Philly 100 gets closer. First off, I get to run with my newly-wed friend Amelia, Jamie and David Donaldson, and a bunch of other talented runners who will be looping around the Schuylkill River with us all day (including Badwater vets Phil Rosenstein, Keith Straw, and Alisa Springman). On top of that, the weather looks amazing for the whole weekend! It should be between 55-75 over the course of the day, and even though that may be a bit warm for running this early in the year, I'm certainly not going to complain...it's my first 'no tights' race since October!

The other thing contributing to my pent-up energy is the fact that I haven't been able to run at all the past few days. For no reason at all, my right hamstring started hurting like crazy on an easy run last week and I had to shut things down to try and heal up. Talk about a forced taper - I'm going crazy!  It'll be 6 days of complete rest by time the race starts on Saturday, so I'm hopeful that will be enough to get things healed up properly. I've been super lucky since last fall in that I haven't had even the slightest bit of pain anywhere in my legs, so I guess I had something like this coming to me...it's just frustrating to have it pop up so close to a race.  It's not the end of the world if I have to pull up early in Philly though, the big picture is what matters, so as long as I'm ready to roll in France I'll be more than happy.

...but I'm keeping the thoughts positive and going into the race with a plan to see how a slightly faster pace for France will feel. I'll plan on settling into 8:30-8:45s right from the start and see how that feels throughout the day. The trick is finishing the 100 miles with enough in my legs for another 8-9 hours of running. I know I can run the whole way if I pace myself with 9:00-9:15s like I did in Cleveland last fall, so this weekend I'll speed it up just a bit to see if I feel like I can go about :30/mile faster in the first 100 miles and still have plenty in the tank for 9 more hours of running. I really want to maximize my miles in France, and the flat Philly course will be a great testing ground for that!

As for in-race updates, unfortunately Utterli is pretty much dead at this point. Too bad too, since there were about 500 people who listened to the updates during the Iron Horse 100 back in February. That just proves there's a bunch of ultra fans who really want live updates from races every weekend...but I guess Twitter is the only option for now. I'll keep searching for an Utterli replacement, but for this weekend, the airwaves will be silent during the race. I should have a recap of all the fun posted on Sunday night or Monday. Until then, I hope everyone enjoys the great weather this weekend (on the east coast, anyway), and Happy Easter!