run an ultramarathon. But here we are and I'm signed up to run a lot of miles tomorrow, under the auspices of charity. Run Your Can Off (http://runyourcanoff.blogspot.com/) is tomorrow morning, and I have up to 6 hours to fill with running. I pledged to run a lap (1.25 miles) for every can/good donated. I like doing good things almost as much as I like running, so I have a lot to donate and therefore a lot of laps to run. As with all long runs, I'm approaching this one in a relaxed manner. I'm not ready to race or even push it, so tomorrow is an another exercise in patience. I'm going to take it one lap at a time, stretch when I need to and call it if things start to feel bad. After all, the finish line is at most a mile away.
I'd like to do at least 15 laps, but my real goal is somewhere between 25 and 30 slow laps. The mental exercise of pressing on and managing boredom will help me late in the marathon, when I often find myself alone and battling my inner "stop" demons. Running 30 miles will also be my last very long run for a while; on Monday, I start my gear up for Boston, the first 6 weeks of which are focused on speed and strength. Endurance is not a limiting factor for me, but speed certainly is. My best 5k time, for example, is only about 30 seconds faster per mile than my marathon pace. Focusing on speed necessitates that I drop my volume and over the next few weeks (detailed training plan to be revealed soon...), my runs will be short and intense.
I'm excited to get out there tomorrow for a good cause, meet up with some local runners and run trails for the better part of the day. Being honest, I'm also excited to eat poptarts, which are my guilty pleasure long run food. I'm also excited to take some pictures and add to my collection of running pictures in which I don't look terrible! I'll post one or two here.
Have a great weekend of running all. This is the perfect time of year to be a runner!
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