I Signed Up for a 100 Mile Ultra Marathon
Here’s a little announcement. I’m running a 100 mile ultra marathon in two months.
Why?
Credibility. I know this presents problems. I didn’t rape and murder people to write Cold Quiet Country. I didn’t fight pit bulls to write My Brother’s Destroyer.
But I have made walnut whiskey, like Angus Hardgrave.
I wrote a novel last fall that I’m currently editing, and planning on releasing this summer. The novel is a murder mystery structured like Cold Quiet Country, that is, the present action unfolds in a single day, and flashbacks inform on the present action, making it relevant to the bigger story. I love the format. It’s challenging to write, but now that I’m used to thinking that way, I feel like I’m taking it to a new level.
The story is about an ultra marathon champion who, running the last race of his perfect career, becomes the prime suspect in the murder of his crew chief, which occurs immediately before the race, and the novel, begins.
As you’d expect, the more backstory, the more the reader sees how much the protagonist has to gain by murdering his chief. In fact, just about any sane man would murder this particular crew chief.
Anyhow, the race I’m using is Badwater 135–a ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY FIVE MILE RUN starting at the bottom of Death Valley and ascending most of the way up Mount Whitney. It’s a killer course, and if I had any guts at all I’d try to run it. (Actually, if I could I would. Problem is I’d never be accepted for the race. I haven’t completed a 100 miler. So after this run in Moab, maybe Badwater will be next on my list. It looks like the achievement of a lifetime.)
So, in order to make sure I accurately portray the self inflicted brutality of running 135 miles, I’m going to run 100.
Here’s the run I entered: http://www.geminiadventures.com/running-events-2/moab/
It’s at Moab, Utah, late March 2014. Or about 10 weeks from now.
Concerns: I have a couple of discs in my back that are weak. The muscles around them compensate by seizing up. I’ve treated it in the past for up to a year at a time by getting epidural shots, basically, steroids. My next is Tuesday. Meantime, I take NSAIDs and stretch a lot.
Training? Well, that’s kind of important. I’ve completed 8 marathons, and I’m finding that every training program I can find for ultras builds on a schedule that looks like a marathon program, with one exception. After the long run on Saturday, you do another, even longer run on Sunday. The point is to get accustomed to running on tired legs. Gradually, the weekly mile total increases to seventy or eighty, (for a novice level runner) and instead of running two high-mile days back to back, you go three.
My highest training month ever was two yeas ago, when I hit 240 miles. So this will be just a little worse in total miles, with the added strain of lumping miles closer together, with less recovery time in between.
I committed to the run about 10 days ago. I hadn’t been running for the last three months, and since resuming training ten days ago I was able to log a 50 mile week, including an 18 miler, while still running on a back that isn’t where it needs to be. I’m happy with the first week’s miles, but frustrated by not being able to get out today because of waking to low grade back spasms. I might turn off the playoff game and run anyway.
There’s nothing like the feeling that you could just keep on running forever. I’m eager to reacquire that feeling. I’m even more eager to get my novel edited to a quality that would make asking for a couple of beta readers worthwhile. I know the story kicks total ass and I can’t wait for someone to read it and confirm it… Funny, it’s the only novel I’ve completed knowing that it rocks… so it might not.
I’ll probably post updates about my training as I go along. I’m old enough that running eighty miles takes a lot of time out of the week, and blogging about the training would offer a certain efficiency.
Oh, and before I sign off… here’s a perk as well. I’m down five pounds in ten days, and they’re real pounds, not water weight. (I know from counting calories burned by running, versus total calories consumed.)
Okay, there it is. Be well, yall. And if you happen to be around Moab on March 22, stop by.
