This Saturday will be my 7th time running the American River 50 miler. With all the ultra's I've ran in the last almost 7 years, you would think that I would finally have my shit together.
I still get nervous before every race that I run. It would be one thing if I was just going out for a fun 50 mile day, but I have a goal that I would very much like to hit. This year my goal is 8 hours and 30 mins, or better. I've focused my training on this for the last 4 months. This is the part I don't like... the nervous feeling I get before I set out to run really far and really hard. The self-doubt that begins to creep in... the constant "did I train too much, or enough, or did I..."
This seems like the norm for me. I hate the anticipation before an event. The constant questioning, wondering, the self-doubt... I know that I will finish the event no matter what, but will I finish in the time and manner that I want to?
The 50 mile distance has always been the hardest one for me to mentally accomplish. I would much prefer a 50k or 100 miler. I don't know why I tend to mantally have a hard time with the 50 mile distance, but I do. It's the one distance where I tend to mentally unravel while running, and I have mentally unraveled multiple times at this event. My only hope is that I can run hard for 50 miles and keep my mind centered and calm.
I've been working more and more at staying focused lately. I've added nightly meditation into my practice along with visualization exercises. This seemed to work well for me when I ran the Woodside 50k last December. With a little bit of luck, hopefully it will work at AR50 as well.
I'm not sure what life has planned for me this weekend, but I know that at 6:00am this Saturday I will be running as hard as I can and I'll leave everything I have out on the trail. This race is not going to feel good or be fun... but that's what I've been preparing for.
Until next time...
KEEP RUNNING!!!!
