I think this was part of my way of dealing with the unknown. 50K was an unknown distance for me, especially given the fact that it was on trails. There was something psychologically daunting about an "ultra marathon". I hadn't trained anywhere near this distance, so I wasn't completely confident in my ability to finish. Breaking it down by the numbers helped.
This time I'm not going to do any of that. It just doesn't seem interesting to me to do all the analysis. My approach is going to be simple. Go out slow slow slow. For me that's nine- or even ten-minute miles. Walk more of the early hills than in the past. Don't kill yourself on the downhills. Take in 300 or 400 calories per hour. Try to stay strong through the entire thing (unfortunately the old addage "it's a marathon, not a sprint" doesn't really apply). I'm going to try to look at this as a grand tour of the east-Oakland hills rather than a race.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of things I plan on doing that I've felt to be invaluable in my last two races. The first is to draw the course profile on my forearm in Sharpie marker, along with aid stations. For me this is a huge psychological help in that I can see what's coming up and steel myself for it, rather than coming around the corner feeling strong and slamming straight into a huge climb.
The second thing is to carry as much of my own fuel as I can manage. I love breezing through the aid stations, asking only for water, rather than wasting time looking for something palatable. It arguably might be more efficient from a running standpoint to depend on the stuff at the aid stations for part or all of my fuel needs, but I think it's just too much to worry about (Will they have what I'm looking for? What if they're all out? Everything I see looks nauseating, etc.) , I don't like stopping for any longer than I need to, and to be honest by the second half of my last race my thinking was pretty muddled. In a confused state, making no decision and going without food is easier than making a decision about what to eat, but has obviously disasterous consequences.
Two new things I'm going to try are Clif Bloks and Roks (see my last post) and a hat. The former seem like a pretty appetizing and cleaner alternative to gels, and the latter is just something I want to try to get used to. In long, hot races, a popular thing at the aid station is ice, meant for placing in your hat to help keep you cool. I've never been big on hats, but if it's hot in this or any future race, I just don't see a good alternative. This will also save me from the annoyance of sunglasses, which just bounce around on my nose and get blurred with sweat. I picked up a pretty cool hat from Zombie Runner for ten bucks. It's white, and has a built-in headlamp (might be handy for an emergency on an overnight run if everything else fails). It also says "Western States" on it... I was leary of buying it for this reason (I am not in the same league of folks who have run the Western States 100 mile run, is it bad form to sport this apparel?) but I reasoned that the hat will be a motivator for me while I'm running (to self: "you think this hurts? Think about what it's like to run Western States, this is nothing! Suck it up!", and: "if you ever want to run Western States, you had better learn to push through this!").
Okay, so that's all great, but the elephant in the room here is the fact that the race is freakin' 50 miles long. Nineteen miles longer than I've ever run before. Proportionally similar to Skyline in terms of climb and descent. I don't know what to make of this. If you told me at the end of Skyline that I needed to go 19 more miles I might have cried (I mean this very literally). Imagine the most gruelling workout you've ever done and add another 60% on top of that (that's precisely what it is for me).
I suspect that part of the reason I'm not doing much planning is because it will force me to face the realities of a 50 mile race. It's sort of like when you get hurt very badly (e.g. a visibly broken bone or gaping cut), there's that little guy in the back of your head saying don't look at it, don't look at it. If you're smart, you listen to that guy. Otherwise you go deeper into shock, which isn't likely to improve your situation. I think that little guy is helping me deny what's coming up in two weeks. I don't think I'm being melodramatic here... subconciously this is serious stuff!
As an illustration of this point, I'm going to steal a page from Dean Karnazes's book Ultra Marathon Man. In one chapter he succinctly and dramatically demonstrates the difference between Western States and the Boston Marathon. The Boston Marathon is somewhat notorious among marathons for a trio of nasty hills near the end that, paraphrasing Dean, have broken more than one runner. While Dick Collins is no Western States, take a look at the same comparison of course profiles in the chart below:
Holy cow! Don't look at it, don't look at it :)
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