Saturday, August 8, 2015

Ready or not, here I come...

It's about 3:00am on a Saturday morning, and I'm headed to Cool, Ca to run the Cool Moon 100.
 
Last year I dropped at mile 50 and took a DNF at the event.  It's something that's been on my mind for the last year.  I feel like I need to go back this year and get some sort of redemption on this course.  Hopefully this weekend will be successful and I'll walk away with one more 100 mile finish to my name, and have one more buckle that sits in a drawer somewhere in my room.

Last year I went in under prepared and mentally unravelled. I wasn't mentally ready to face what the course had to throw at me.  While I felt decently ready physically to tackle the event, I just wasn't prepared to handle the mental game that ultras often become.  The self-doubt set in and overtook me.  I couldn't shake the constant thoughts of "why are you doing this" and "just give up and go home" out of my head.

I fought with this feeling for many miles and at mile 50 I decided to drop out of the race.

It's a year later now and I'd like to say I'm going in with 100% confidence that I'll finish this weekend, but to be honest the doubt is still there.  I feel like I've done the mentally tough workouts, the physically draining workouts, and that I've honestly trained my ass off for this event.  I'm going in knowing that I've prepared as best I can, but there's always that self-doubt that lingers with me.

This weekends battle won't just be a physical one, but like in all events of this distance, it will be a mental battle.

Until next time...

KEEP RUNNING!!!!