2 weeks! 100 miles?

Wow, I don't think I've ever gone 2 weeks without posting.  I guess I was letting a milestone sink in: my last post, the Run from the Ducks race report, was my 100th post!  Balloon drop!  Fireworks!  Party!  OK, so no big deal.  It's also closing in on a year since I started the blog.  I started it after Palo Duro last fall, and this weekend is my second shot at the Palo Duro 50 Mile Trail Run.

Last year's Palo Duro run was my first 50 miler.  I finished a few minutes before the 12 hour cutoff.  I'm heading up to the canyon this weekend again, hoping for a sub-11 hour run.  I don't know that I'm in much better shape than I was this time last year, but I'm hoping that the experience I've gained will help me in the latter miles.  This will be my 4th 50 mile race.

Speaking of multiple 50 mile races, I have decided not to pursue the Texas Style 50 Mile Grand Slam this year.  You may recall that last year I ran three 50 milers of the 5, then on the 4th I DNF'd, so I didn't finish the Slam.  In fact, the Slam had no finishers last year.  Palo Duro is the first race for the Slam, but they have changed the format this year so that instead of the 5 races from last year, runners can choose 5 of 7 possible races.  Due to my own scheduling, after Palo Duro, the next 4 I could choose from will be in a 7 week period, with 2 weeks between each race.  I don't think I would do very well with those so close together, so I'm going to try something different.

After Palo Duro, I'll return home for some hard training for the White Rock Marathon, the first weekend in December.  I'm aiming for a Boston Marathon qualifying time (3:20).  I'm feeling pretty good about it, but I need to lose some weight and crank up my pace on long runs.  After that, I've got some new races on tap.

On January 8, I'm going to run my longest run yet, a 100K (62 miles) in Bandera.  But that will be a mere training run for my next goal: my first 100 miler.  Last February, I ran the 50 miler at Rocky Raccoon at Huntsville State Park, so I'm familiar with the course.  Next February 5, I'll find out if I have what it takes to run 100 miles all at once.  More to come. . . .

50-mile Texas Style Grand Slam

OK, OK, this will be the last post in which I mention my failed attempt at the 50-Mile Texas Style Grand Slam.  I checked the other day at the Tejas Trails web site to see what the status was, and at that time there was a chart showing the finishing times of 3 runners after the first 3 races in the Slam, me and two others.  I was last in total time, of course.  I guess they were compiling the list to compare with Hell's Hills finishers, to see who finished the Slam.  Neither of the other 2 were Grasslands finishers.  I don't know whether they ran at Hell's Hills.  But it made me realize that if I were able to finish Grasslands and then run at Hell's Hills, I would likely have been the sole Slam finisher!  That would have been cool!  Alas, it was not to be this year.  This realization made me more determined to attempt it again, maybe next year.  We'll see.  Now the site only has a blank page where the chart was.