Sunday, June 04, 2006
8 days later
A quick re-cap: Blackfoot Ultra, 27 May 2006 - 100k event, finished in 11:28:23, placing 11th out of 42 starters, 30 finishers. There are some photos here.
Here is one of my fave photos of the day though.. a strong finish by team RunningMania.com!
Well, here I am 8 days after the ultra, still in one piece and feeling quite good. I've ran three times since the Blackfoot; twice about 5 miles, a mile of each of those with the Learn to Run clinic I'm teaching. The other run was a 14 miler on Saturday, which was a mixture of good, not so bad and just plain ugh. The not so bad was the first few miles where everything seemed to flow not too bad, I even managed to do a few fartleks, just to see if I had any speed in my. The good was that I was able to manage a solid slightly faster than marathon pace stretch in the middle of the run, plus a reasonable fast finish. There was, however, this portion of the run were my tank was dry. I just had this out of energy feeling. I guess I saw it coming, I tossed a couple gels in my water belt 'just in case' on the way out the door.
I've been wrestling with whether or not to do the Manitoba Marathon in two weeks (18 June, a whole 22 days post Blackfoot). While I know I could run 26.2 miles, I still have this inner competitive streak that I only want to do it if I feel I could race it, not just run it. I'm going to take it easy until next Monday (12 June) and if I feel rested by then I'll enter the full.
I am competing in the event regardless, some of the participants of the 10k clinic I was teaching this spring rallied together to put a team together, and I'm in with them. They are an great bunch that I had lots of fun with in the 10 week clinic, and it will be really cool to share the day with them. (and I'm not just saying this because some of them might be reading this LOL).
I'm still in a bit of a quandary about the remainder of the year in terms of races. There is the allure of the Lost Soul Ultra in Lethbridge, but I also have this wacky notion of hammering out a 3:15 marathon before I turn 40 next year. Doing it at Victoria this fall would be cool as that is where my marathon journey began. I think I'll see what I feel like in a week or two and then plot out a path for the rest of the year. I feel a bit lost without a big goal right now. I have one small goal, that is to race a 1/2 marathon to my full potential. The Ron Melnichuk in August will be that race.
D.
