August Update:
Total: 19 runs. 22h:13m:02s. 131.2mi.

As of today, it’s just eight more sleeps until I head out on my 50km ascent and decent of the Berg Lake Trail at Mount Robson. I haven’t logged nearly as many miles as my training plan laid out for me – and I haven’t dialed in on my nutrition and sleep in the way that I imagined I would when I began this journey – but I’m feeling quite confident and prepared despite all that.
If I had a serious time goal in mind, I’d probably be a lot more psyched out about the run – but as it stands now, I’m mostly just (1) out to enjoy the experience (2) hopefully making it through the cutoff points in time to finish the entire race (3) with a long shot goal of doing it all in 6 hours or so. I could be totally out to lunch on that last one. I really have no clue what a reasonable time for me might be.
The trip I took out to Robson for a “test run” in early August with my friend Brett (thanks for the photos!) did a lot to ease my mind though. We covered 20.75mi in 5h:15min. That’s about 2/3 of the total distance – and most importantly 90% of the total elevation. We took it pretty easy, and I felt real good when we wrapped things up at the end of the day – like I had a lot more left in the tank. More or less, I’ve managed to maintain that level of fitness these past few weeks with regular morning runs during the week and some good distance stuff on the weekends. If I can keep away from catching a cold… or some crippling virus like mono, which hit me at this time a year ago – I should be good to give it a go!
After the race, I’m thinking I might pare back my running to three or four days each week. It’s been hard to get out the door, and I’ve got a desire to spend some time in the mornings writing and doing core exercises. We’ll see.

