What To Do

It is a new month and upon me, is a new race! Well, not exactly a new race, but a new race for me because I’ve never done it before, and I’m excited about it! There isn’t any race I go in without any sort of excitement attached to it, or else why would I do it? Of course, I also have that ounce of nervousness and worry surrounding it, but I’ve had my eye on this one for a while now, and it’s finally here!

If you happened to have read my Leona Divide 50 recap I mentioned I had an additional reason for doing the race besides wanting to know what was on the other side. You see, Leona was a very important race for a couple of reasons:

• It would serve as a long training run for my next race, this weekend’s Quicksilver 100K, and
• It would be the barometer for which I measured my current level of ability to complete this weekend’s Quicksilver 100K.

Leona didn’t turn out exactly as I had hoped, but funny enough, it turned out exactly as I intended.

For one thing, it brought to my attention things I surely need to work on, which every race in some way tends to do, but it also helped me decide on what I should do about the distance at Quicksilver.

In the end, my confidence for being able to fully complete the 100K was not really at its highest following the outcome of Leona, so I decided it was in my best interest to drop down to the 50K distance instead. I knew I would. Somewhere towards the end of Leona, I knew if she didn’t kill me, the 12,000+ feet of gain at Quicksilver 100K surely would. I’m not ready.

Besides, why would I take up a space for somebody who wants to complete the 100K when I run the risk of chasing cutoffs and harboring a potential DNF if I don’t make said cutoffs?

This puts me in a pickle on what to do about my fall race. Ahhh yes, the fall race. This is what my race year is coming down to. Once again, Javelina Jundred is on my card.

This was my plan: Complete the Leona Divide 50 Mile and use that as my last long training run for the Quicksilver 100K which will gear me up to run the Javelina Jundred 100 mile distance in October.

I found that to be a simple enough plan. What could go wrong? Well, I suppose only finishing 36 of the 50 miles and then finishing 31 (at least that’s the goal) of the 62 miles four weeks later.

So now I’m deciding on what to do about the distance at Javelina.

There is a part of me that still wants to go after the 100 miles. I mean, why not? But there’s a part of me that kinda wants to officially complete the 100K since I only unofficially finished it there in 2016.

Completing the 100K is not a prerequisite for completing a 100 miler. Heck, a 5K isn’t even a prerequisite for doing a 100 miler, but the 100K is something I now kind of want to check off before I hit the 100-mile mark.

Maybe I should’ve done that my first go-around at Javelina, but I can’t go back, and in all honestly I wouldn’t change a thing. Okay, I would change some things.

I guess this is why I’ve held off on registering for it. I suppose I want to know exactly what I’m aiming for.

Some people will say, just register for the 100 mile and if you’re not feeling it, simply drop down to the 100K before the race.  I could do that. There’s a good possibility I might.

There is about a 66.80 dollar difference between the two race registrations. Not an enormous amount, and I’m not exactly that frugal about certain things, but $66.80 is still $66.80 that I could spend on something else, you know?

I’m honestly not sure what to do. All I know is I plan on heading back to Arizona in October and I plan on doing a race there.

But I NEED to decide by the end of the month because registration fees go up and then it’ll be a $69-ish difference between the two races. Time is money.

I realize I am very blessed to even be contemplating this because there are certainly worse things to be dealing with. There was a time I wouldn’t even have imagined I’d be trying to decide, gee what should I do: 62 or 100 miles? Crazy how my running life has evolved.

I suppose I could see what transpires at Quicksilver before making a decision. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to ponder my goals for the rest of the year, comprise a pro and con list for each distance, and figure it out.

Thanks for reading!