It's Official

It’s finally official, I signed up for the Sierra Nevada Endurance Run. This is the race that last year I DNF at Twin rocks with maybe 5miles to the finish. It was a brutal race last year; the heat alone was a killer, coming into the race with an injury on top of that not good. 

I have been putting off signing up maybe secretly hoping it would fill, or that I would not want to run this particular 50 again. But I have been talking about this race since December and I know deep down I want Redemption from my 2010 attempt. It also scares the living day lights out of me. I dare not read my race report from last year as I really do not want to relive that day.

The fear was real when I signed up for this race. As I clicked on the registration page and it became official a wave of anxiety and panic overwhelmed me. My hands became sweaty, my heart beat increased, and my breath became very short and labored. “Oh my God what have I done” is all I kept thinking, but then a crazy thing happened…calmness….just as quickly as those symptoms came on they were gone in a heartbeat and calmness was all I felt.

I was calm for the first time thinking about this race. Calm because I am now 100% committed and I know what I need to do to achieve my objective.  Committed, I am committed and when I commit to something I am all in.

My goal is to get to the start of this race one healthy, and two injury free.

My training this year has been on point. Tahoe Rim Trail 50k was awesome, tough but a great race with a nice PR, American River 50 was a great race also. I achieved my qualifying time to be put my name into Western States for 2012 and I also PR. I ran Way Too Cool 50k for the first time and had a nice time at this race.  Up next Run on the Sly 50k. I am planning on using this run as a training run for the Sierra Nevada Endurance Run.

 A training run because it starts later then most ultras, a 7:30 am start time, so hopefully I can judge how my body does in the heat, if it is hot that day. A nice hilly course so that I can improve my leg strength and best of all I am hoping to run this run with some of my ultra friends and training partners and team mates.

Its official the stage has been set and I have now fully accepted the fact that I will once again run the Sierra Nevada Endurance Run. I am facing my fear and moving forward instead of away from it. My fear of this race will help make me a stronger person and a stronger runner.