Where It's At.

From the hill clinic I organized Sunday (today).  From left: Margo, Liz, Kara, Me, Karen, and Lauri taking photo.

Putting off packing for San Diego, per usual.  Jumped into Brazen Racing's Nitro Trail Half Marathon Saturday for a last training run before SD100, looking to run somewhat easy, which resulted in a 1:24 finish and 6:25 average pace.  Feels like I strained my hammy a bit, which is awesome.  I don't plan to run more than 10-15 miles before the race this week and will ice it, so I'm not wigging out (yet).

So far, in the first six months of 2012:  Six Half Marathons, four 50ks, one 100k.  Those were all training prep; the rest of the season is all 100 miler focused.

Mentally and physically I'm ready to lay down a hard, fast race and plan on competing for top 5 in this sucker.  Last year I ran a stupid first 40 miles and paid dearly for it.  There's some stout competition, which I'll preview this week.  But I'm a vastly different runner now and feel I can compete with all but maybe two of them.  If I have a good day, though, who knows.  I've come to the epiphany that I can run these longer events at a much faster pace than I used to believe.  And, with my heavy work on climbing, I feel fairly confident to let it all hang out and see what happens.