TMI 50 Miler

It's less than 6 weeks now until Tahoe. I'm almost, sortve, kind've starting to feel something resembling confidence. Probably it's due to equal parts part solid training, ignorance, and self delusion.

Yesterday I went out with a group of locals for a 50+ mile training run, featuring a great route laid out by the Trail Meister. We started early (5:30 am) with Sander, Todd, Scott, Dave and I ("Team Tahoe") accompanied by Dennis and William (who got up super early to drive over from Aumsville). After ~28 miles we exchanged Dennis and Dave for John and Ken, who's fresh legs led to a faster pace, and made me want to trade them back in for Dave and Dennis.

The first 28 mile section had a whole lot of everything -sunshine, drizzle, wet feet, long climbs, steep descents, slogging through freshly logged timber, miles of singletrack, a bit of bushwacking. Which was nice, but I'm afraid the only lasting memory I'll have is of the Poison Oak. I've never seen, sidestepped, jumped over, ducked under, and pushed through so much of the evil weed in my life. After a while I nearly gave up trying to avoid contact all together, but instead tried to focus on at least saving my favorite and most useful body parts from the dreaded plants' oils. Despite a triple Tec-nu scrub down after the run, I suspect I'll be cursing the damn plant for the next couple weeks.

On the bright side, the Wasabi peas made for a nice snack. Todd, especially, seemed to enjoy them.

In between dodging Poison Oak, we worked on our racing skills; specifically, I think we've mastered the NASCAR inspired drafting - sling shot technique ("Shake & Bake!").

Other than the fact the I could've used a few gas-x pills at around mile 40, I felt pretty good (meaning no specific pain stood out from the others). By mile 50, the internal bubbles had passed, the ibuprofen had kicked in, and I managed to push it pretty hard downhill for four miles to the car. I figure if I feel like that at mile 54 at Tahoe, I'll at least be able to get to mile 55, and work something out from there.

In total, The run ended up being about 54 miles, with 10,500 feet of gain and descent. Unless you're Sander, for whom 54 miles wasn't nearly enough, and you chose to take a long way back to the car. For all I know he's still out there running today. He looked as fresh at mile 50 as at mile 5.

After the run I had a "2-bagger" ICE bath, and a double decker Salmon burger with a big salad topped with a can of black beans. Life is good.

This week I'm planning to have a step back week for recovery, followed by another two weeks of high mileage and some speed work, before tapering down before Tahoe.