Old Goat runners will be racing too

While I'm busting my butt at Oceanside 70.3 on Saturday, my grad school friend Brian will be close by busting his own butt in the Old Goat's 50-mile Trail Race. This run takes place in the Santa Ana Mountains off the 74 and--no joke--has 13,423 feet of climbing! On a run! Crazy!

The website states that Old Goat's "...is rated one of the toughest 50 mile trail races in the Country. This race is not for the squimish, the easily intimidated, or the undertrained. "

Dang.

There are about 120 people signed up for this event. Knowing that they'll be out there trudging along in the mountains just northeast of us will serve as some major inspiration to get through the half-Ironman. We estimated that it will take Brian roughly double the time to run his race as it will take for me to finish the 70.3--and he will be relatively fast, so others will be taking 20+ hours I'm sure. So in my head on race day, I will use that as motivation to push hard and not wimp out.

Here's the funny thing about Brian: He comes from a cross-country background and runs like a gazelle--he says his everyday pace that he always falls into is about 6:10-min miles. So, for these ultra runs, he's had to teach himself how to run slower--an 8-something pace--because he knows he can't survive dropping 6-min miles 50 times. He said learning that slower pace has been really tough. I just laughed. Geeeezzz, wish we all had a problem like that--having to learn how to run slow ;-)

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Btw, I sliced my finger cutting veggies for dinner last night. I always do clumsy crap when a race is approaching! Now I have a nice deep gash on my left index finger. That's going to hurt during the race! Will have to wrap it well.