I had a 50k on the books for this weekend, but after two weeks (and one, two, three events) of hard racing my legs had a lot of accumulated fatigue. I could especially feel the strain in my left foot, and wasn’t sure if I should race the 50k on my training plan or try to fit in the miles on my own. A race has supported aid stations and super nice people, but I get competitive. I didn’t want to push myself too hard and burn out before my target race. Not only that, but panic was starting to onset about the condition of my foot: “Stress fracture?!? Metarsaglia? Plantar fasciitis? All of the above? None of the above?”
So. A 50k on the plan, and what to do? The race was the most logical option to keep me motivated to run all morning. And while I wasn’t fresh enough to go out and race it, I felt like a little motivation from competition wouldn’t hurt me. Plus I really want to run those races that are geographically close to me. It makes financial sense since I don’t have to travel, but more importantly I want these races to stick around and be here for a while. For that to happen, people need to register, pay, and show up.
Now of course my dithering about whether to run or not meant that I missed online registration. Once I finally got a signal of good health I emailed the race director to see if it was even possible to sign up late (I am every race director’s worst nightmare). She said yes, I said yay, and I prepared to do the damn thing.
