Western States 100 Lottery, CIM...

The Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run lottery and CIM are a little over 2 weeks away (December 7th and 8th, respectively)!  The odds of being selected to run Western States are surely not in my favor, but I have a chance and that's exciting.  I can't imagine what will be going through my head during the CIM if I am picked... well, okay maybe it will be something like this:

"Why am a standing outside in the dark at 5am on a cold December morning?  I'm freezing."

"Oh YAY!  Pre-race speeches and songs, I'm pumped!  Let's do this!"

"Here we go, settle into pace, settle into pace, don't go too fast, ignore the adrenaline."

"Wow, can't believe it's already been 8 miles, only 18 more to go!"

"OH LOOK!  Family and friends!  look happy, look happy... HI GUYS!!!  SEE YA!!!"

"Ugh, everything hurts, I'd be totally OK if this run was over right now."

"Focus, focus, this isn't THAT bad, make it hurt, this is what a PR feels like.  8 more miles, 8:20's"

"8:10's 3.5 miles to go.  Feed off the crowd, smile, make eye contact, BE HAPPY"

"BAM!  3:3x!!"

"Yikes, in seven months, I need to do this four times... in one day."

I'm happy to report that in spite of a recent calf injury, which did prevent me from running for ~8-9 days (during what should have been the highest mileage week of my California International Marathon (CIM) training), I am back on track with my training and am feeling confident and healthy enough to maintain my current marathon goal time of 3:39!  I think my recent workouts have shown that it's still in reach for me.

11/10/2013
Sunday - 23.5 miles.  Paced my friend, Helen, to her first 100 mile finish at Rio Del Lago 100!  This was essentially my first run back from my calf strain (I also ran an easy 3.5 miles a couple of days earlier to test it out).

I jumped right back into my scheduled training after pacing at RDL:
11/14/2013
Thursday - 10 mile run w/ 8 x 800m and 400m recovery.


11/16/2013
Saturday - 10 mile run at GMP.


11/17/2013
Sunday - 21 mile run w/ "fast" finish (last 4 miles @ ~7:40/mile)


11/18/2013
Monday - 5 miles w/ Lucy


11/19/2013
Tuesday - 8 miles w/ Lucy


11/20/2013
Wednesday - 5 miles w/ Lucy


11/21/2013
Thursday - 4.25 miles w/ 6 x hill @ ~7:00 min/mile


11/22/2013
Saturday - 20.75 miles w/ last 4.5 @ GMP.  Last long run!  CIM is in 15 days!


Weekly Totals: 65 miles in the last 7 days