I’ve been in a bit of a funk for the last 3 or 4 weeks. Practically wearing a groove in my snooze alarm. I’ve had a very active year so far with five ultra races plus my two failed attempts at the Mason-Dixon Trail (99 and 72 miles). And traditionally this has been my down season with limited to no racing in November and December. So I guess my body just assumes it’s time to shut it down for a while.
There’s just one tiny little problem with that: I’m 3 weeks out from my next hundred miler (Devil Dog).
I’ve been ramping my mileage back up in preparation for it with a couple 35 mile weeks and then 55 this week. I went for a 20 miler today and my legs felt pretty trashed before I even got to the halfway point. I grinded out the miles (barely), but it was not one of my better runs.
I’m starting to wonder if I should just pack it in from a training standpoint. Crank out my normal weekday 7 milers, start my taper a little early, and show up to the race fresh. The counter-argument is I’m not injured so there’s no real reason to cut back my training. Another 20 miler next weekend and couple more 10 mile runs with maybe a hill repeat session tossed in would do my legs some good.
But on the other hand, I don’t have any real time goals for the race. Just want to enjoy the course as much as possible while getting another finish. Part of me thinks I could just show up and get a buckle with my base level of fitness and experience in hundreds. I try and shy away from those thoughts though because overconfidence will quickly lead to a DNF.
What to do, what to do.
I’ll probably just push through and crank out the miles. It’s only another 20 days after all.