Training for a 100

I'm in training for a 100 mile trail race. Technically, I guess that's true. I'm signed up for the McNaughton Park 100 miler on April 12-13. I suppose that means whatever I'm doing now is "training" for that race. My last long run was the Riddle Run at the end of January (28 miles). I've been getting in a lot of short runs, but no endurance ones. Today I finally got another long run under my belt--20 miles at Clinton Lake. Felt good. This was the last official training run for the Clinton Lake ultra on March 29. There were about 25 people there for the run at 8am...many only did 10 miles. The first loop I ran on and off with Brian, Adam, and Jorge. We finished in just under 2 hours. I grabbed a new water bottle, some almonds, and a cereal bar and headed back down the trail for the second loop. I ran this one mostly by myself. After about 8 miles of solo running, I finally caught up to a group of four (Curtis, Becky, Jack, and Andrew) that was ahead of me all day. We coasted in the last 2 miles, changed clothes, and headed off for breakfast. My second loop was 10 minutes faster than my first. I was feeling good, but tired, hungry, and thirsty. The day had been a success. I told myself if I couldn't do 20 miles today, then I'd probably not do the Clinton Lake 30 miler. And without the Clinton Lake 30 miler, I wouldn't be able to finish McNaughton Park 100 miler (only 2 weeks after Clinton Lake). Now I have a renewed optimism for both races. Clinton Lake will just be a long run in preparation for McNaughton Park. I'll probably take the early start at McNaughton (Andy the RD let's the 100 milers start with the 150 milers on Friday at Noon). The extra time will allow me to make the whole event more of a stage race over Friday-Saturday-Sunday. Nothing wrong with that--I wouldn't have a very fast time anyway. This way I should finish and enjoy the whole event. Should.

Thanks to everyone that showed up today for the training run. It sure is a lot easier to run when you know others are grinding out those miles with you somewhere on the trail. Special thanks to Brian the D Dawg for organizing the series of runs.