Something New

Didn't really run at all during the 4th of July weekend.  I originally had a thought to do a short bike tour to wine country, but never fully made plans.  Then a different opportunity came along, complete with the perfect partner, and it sounded too good to pass up.  So I spent the 4th of July in San Diego, then the next two days on a short tour into Mexico, to a little beach town called Rosarito.  Good riding, waves, sand, margaritas, hot tubs, and holy-crap-that's-good Mexican food.  Hard to beat that, especially when it's in good company.

Coastal Trail Runs, the fantastic organization that puts on all the trail marathons I do, recently updated their standings in their year-long Blazer Awards.  In short, if you place in the top 10 at any of their runs, you earn some amount of points (the higher you place, the more points, first place gets 25), and at the end of the year, the runner who has accumulated the most points in a category wins.  I have 176 points in the marathon, and the 2nd-place runner has 46.  He would have to win six marathons in a row to catch up.  It looks like winning the marathon is in the bag.

The other interesting part was that the first-place runner in the 50K has only 50 points, or basically two first-place finishes.  If I were to win two 50K races, I would be tied for first.  Three second-place finishes and I'd have the lead.  So with an insurmountable lead in the marathon, along with a very low bar to clear in another category, is it possible to win two categories in the same year?

You know what?  I'm going for it.  Why the hell not?  I'd been thinking of upping the ante to 50K in the first place, and now I have an even better reason to do it.  50K it is.  And if it doesn't work out, I can always switch back to the marathon.  It's not like I'm in danger of losing my lead.

The first one will be this weekend.  Golden Gate Trail Run.  I find it incredibly fitting that my first ultramarathon will be the same uber-scenic course as my first trail run, which made me fall in love with the sport in the first place.  Maybe it'll also make me fall in love with ultra-distance running.  We'll have to find out!