one month to go: ray miller

Last week was a big first for me. I ran on Monday evening. I ran on Friday evening. And I ran late Sunday afternoon/early evening. That quite possibly was the first time I ever did that! In the same week! Wait, let me think….

Yes. Ever.

Normally, I use Monday and Friday as my rest days. And Sunday mornings are reserved for trail runs. Due to some rain that moved into my area, I decided to skip the early morning trail run. Instead I opted for cozy hot coffee and reading about trail running when I wasn’t doing it myself.

I love the rain, but I honestly don’t trust these mountains when it does. And I really don’t trust my lack of gracefulness being on the mountains when it rains. Anything which might increase my chances of slipping, or sliding down some muddy mountain and potentially causing an injury, is something I’d like to try and avoid.

To say I’m conservative or cautious when it comes to trail running in the rain, is a pretty fair assessment. Heck, I’m a pretty conservative and cautious trail runner even when it’s NOT raining. But, with it being exactly one month out from Ray Miller (31 days but who’s counting? Me!), I also need to be mindful that this race is coming up quickly and every moment training counts!

Ray Miller has become a very important race to me for a couple of reasons:

It was supposed to have been my very first ultra race.

I initially planned on running the Ray Miller 50K in February 2013. Sometime in November and December 2012 I had some weird odd hip injury going on which prevented me from running much, so I threw my plans of completing Ray Miller out the window. Hey, there’s always next year! Instead, I volunteered at the race and you can read all about my fun shenanigans here.

Figuring I just needed a couple more months of training, I decided to set my sights on the 2013 Leona Divide 50K because gosh darn it, I wanted my 50K!

Leona Divide was well, Leona, and you can read all those beautiful details here. (Cliff notes version: It was extremely hot and I got my first DNF)

So I set my sights again on the 2014 Ray Miller. Hey Ray! It’s you and me this time!

As bad luck would have it, a fire raged through that area in May 2013 and destroyed the course. No Ray Miller for me in 2014.

Fine.

Sean O’Brien 50K it is.

Back in March of this year, Jimmy Dean Freeman came by to speak at the LA Leggers final day of the season, the day before the LA Marathon. He’s always a great person to come speak. Very insightful. Very funny. Very inspiring and motivating.

At the end of his talk, just as we were all was leaving, I spoke to him about Angeles Crest 100. At some point in the conversation, he mentioned Ray Miller was coming back. I don’t think my eyes could’ve gotten any bigger.

All I remember saying was, “WHAT?!?! WHEN?!?!”

I may have scared him a bit. Oops.

Then in June, I received the email.

Yes! Again, I set my sights on Ray Miller. I registered in July for the 50 Mile. Yeahhh, I could’ve went with the 50K since I WAS supposed to have run that distance initially, but I didn’t.

After I finished, or did not finish the Bulldog 50K in August. I felt defeated. Bulldog was to be a big training run for me. It still was in some respects. And this is another reason why Ray Miller has become a very important race to me.

I do not want another DNF. This year. At all.

I don’t care if I have to scratch and claw or crawl up those mountains. I am finishing some distance at Ray Miller (preferably the 50 miles)! Although I’ll admit, the one thing I do happen to be concerned with are the cut off times. Ray has ’em. Minor details at this point, but yeah, still concerning.

The truth is, Ray Miller has always been the race I wanted to do. I feel like I have some unsettled business with it. Three years of unsettled business. And I’m excited for it.

Thanks for reading and Happy Running!