Less Than One Week to Go...

With less than a week left to go before Mountain Mist, it is time to post about my strategies, time goal, and tapering.  I don't have posts ready on any of that!  I am feeling the usual mix of being unprepared.  The waves of self-doubt are washing over me.  But the fact that this is a really busy week for me is helping me to have less time to stress out!

All I can manage for now are a few bullet points.

• The black toenail on my big right toe is REALLY black now!  I am hoping I will not feel it at all in Mountain Mist.

The toe as it looks now

•  I LOVE my five year old son.  Here is his note to me one night at dinner.  Try reading it by sounding out the letters before seeing the caption for what it actually says. 

"You are wonderful, Mom."  Right back at you, kiddo!

Many of my friends have asked me, "So what exactly is an ultramarathon?"  I assumed that it was any distance over a marathon, so technically it could be a 26.3 mile race.  The 50K is the next common distance over the marathon distance, so, naturally, you hear about those a lot.  Then I started to wonder if I was right after all, so I looked up the definition of an ultramarathon, and I was right.  I liked reading about the two kinds of ultramarathons.  Read the link to find out more. I both love and fear the "informational email" we get this week about the Mountain Mist 50K.  I wrote about it near the end of this post last year.  This year, the part about what's available at each aid station struck me as something pretty funny to newbies or non-ultra runners.  I think most people assume that you don't eat while you run or that you only drink fluids to replenish.  NOT true for ultra runners.  They eat anything and everything!  This is from the informational email from the race directors: "The aid stations are well stocked with pretzels, chips, candy, Gu, cookies, coke, mellow yellow, and more junk! You should have no problem running this race without a personal aid crew. There will be a variety of food at each aid station!"  I personally love the M&Ms and grab a handful at every aid station.  Good fuel!   Wish me luck during the taper!  I hope to have a couple of entries about the race before the big day up here so check back!