It seems like forever since I’ve raced, but Viaduct was only a relatively short 10 weeks ago. Here’s what’s on tap this weekend.
Wild Goose Trail Festival is a weekend of races put on by Sassquad Trail Running in the Wawayanda State Park. In addition to the 100M race, they also have 100K, 50M, 50K, 10K, 36HR, and 13.1M plus a 1M kids run. So basically, something for the whole family. The course is three smaller loops (4.75M, 6M, 7.75M) that make up one big loop that you keep running (or shuffling, whatever) until you hit your registered distance/time. Each of the smaller loops starts/finishes at “Squatch HQ”, which will make logistics very simple as you can just dump a box with all your stuff and not have to worry about strategically placing it in a drop bag.
The Dream Race
I’ve been infatuated with the idea of running an even split hundred miler all summer. I came close at Viaduct and was hopeful at the never happened ES100 last month. I’m dusting off the same gameplan for WG100. The question is what time do I target? I’ve finished races with similar elevation profiles in the 25-26 hour range. The “easy” way would be to target 30 hours, however what’s the fun in that? I’ve also got a thing about running a hundred miles in 24 hours so that’s going to be the goal. I’ll try to run 14:20 minute miles from start to finish, which would give me a couple minute buffer along the way. While I’ve had a great training block and my legs feel solid, I have no idea how realistic this is. Probably only 25-30% if I’m being sober honest, but that’s fine.
The current weather forecast looks to be about perfect with no rain, highs in the mid 60s or so, and lows in the mid 40s. I’d prefer the lows to be in the 50s as I normally get a little cold overnight in hundreds, however I’ll have a jacket and gloves in my box o’ stuff so should be comfortable enough. Fingers crossed I don’t need to bust out my hot bottle trick.
Overall, I’m very excited for a new race. Almost go time.