Time for a Test Race!

Training for the Long Trail has been going very well since Mohican, and I am already noticing my ability to climb improving quite a bit. This weekend I'll be going on a little test run to see how my new legs hold up under a little pressure. As I've admitted many times before, I know I don't have 50K speed (relative to the folks who can simply fly over that distance), but it's always nice to race outside of your comfort zone! In this case, I put The Catherine's Furnace 50K on my training schedule because of its elevation profile:

 As you can see, it may only have 3 "hills", but they're sure big ones! This type of climb-and-descent terrain is exactly what I'll be dealing with over and over and over on the Long Trail, so it'll be nice to get a taste of it this weekend in a little trial run. True to form for most VHTRC races, the field will have lots of great talent, so I should be able to find a pack of solid runners to try and stick with the whole way. I always enjoy picking the brains of folks who seem to run effortlessly up long 1,000 ft. climbs. I've learned many training tips over the years by asking a lot of questions (in between huffing and puffing) on the way up a mountain!

On a side note, HUGE congratulations need to be sent out to a few friends for their tremendous results over the past couple weeks of races. First off, CO friend Nick Pedatella was one of the lucky/brave ones to get into The Hardrock 100 via this year's lottery, and he certainly didn't waste that opportunity: Nick stormed through all those mountains to finish in 5th place overall with a time of 30:18! Great job, Nick!  A couple days later, on a course a little flatter and a LOT hotter, Rock Star Jamie Donaldson smoked the 135 mile Badwater course across Death Valley to break her record by 35 minutes! Big congrats to her and her awesome crew for nailing every aspect of that race so perfectly...Amazing!!  Finally, I had a bunch of friends run the Vermont 100 miler this past weekend, but a special note of congrats goes out to Tammy Massie who broke her PR on that course by about TWO HOURS (...and yes, I paced her to that much slower time last year, so let's all silently agree that I'm obviously the world's worst pacer and simply move on)! Tammy accomplished this great feat in super hot and humid conditions, AND without her husband there as her usual crew and support. Where was he, you ask? Click on the link at Tammy's name up there and check out that Medivac Rescue Helicopter photo...That's Tristan on the stretcher!  Thankfully he's safe and back home recovering now, and hopefully the news of Tammy's great run helped him forget about the pain for a little while!