Friday, August 26, 2011

back to trail running

With low temps finally reaching the 60's and humidity at reasonable levels, I have started back to running on the trails - yeah! My abdominal pains come and go & my 2nd Gastro Dr. continues to be baffled as to why I'm having these pains. During periods of no pain, I feel like there's nothing wrong with me. It's during these times I look at the race calendar & feel I should be signing up -- which I've done. So many races nowadays fill up & decisions have to made early. So now I have an ambitious schedule lined up for this Fall. Problem is, I'm overweight, out of shape & making big assumptions with my pains, among other things.

I'm hoping to get in shape, though, for the Pinhoti 100 in November, so I've decided to try the Iron Mountain Trail Run (IMTR) in Virginia as a starter event. Although I'm certainly not ready for the 50 miles, the course configuration let's you easily drop down to 16 or 30 miles -- options that I will surely consider when I reach those decision points. I did finish this race within the 12 hr time limit 2 years ago, but only because I had 50k prep race (on a rare cool day in August) after the usual summer off-season.