5 Days to Go - Never Tell Me the Odds

"After days and days and days....it's time for Leadville."  
   - My three year old daughter, upon waking  from a deep sleep.




Buildings in downtown Leadville, Colorado, USA       





Five days to go.  I am ready.






That is a strange sensation, but it is the truth.  I'm as ready as I'm going to be and I'm ready to get it on.  Typical taper madness feelings I suppose, but this has hardly been a typical taper.  It will wind up being 3.5 weeks of no running.  A little bit of water jogging and that is it.  Hardly ideal, but I won't lack for rest.


I've had an X-ray, but haven't heard anything back.  The MRI didn't happen yet, so I'm skeptical it will at all before we leave.  The leg hasn't hurt in a while, but I haven't run in a while.  
   
Basically, I've done the usual; questioned my training (or lack thereof), the injury, the lack of experience, the lack of elevation acclimation, the lack of a typical ultramarathoner body type, the lack of necessary speed to make cutoffs, dehydration, physical ailments, every reason, valid and sound, that would be the cause for me to not make it to the red carpet by 10:00 AM on August 22.

Right now I say to all of that, Buckle up Baby!  Here is what I know.  I'm not quitting.  No way, no how.  They are going to either A) Pull my corpse off the course or B) cut my band because I didn't make a cut off.  That is it.  I will crawl, I will roll in the dirt, I will scratch, fight, bribe medical check people, whatever it takes to keep going.  I know mental attitude won't, by itself, get me over Hope Pass twice, but a bad state of mind could keep me from doing it as well.  There will be a thousand moments of doubt, pessimism, and surrender.  I'm resolving right now to say those thoughts are going to be defeated and destroyed.  Easy to say now, but that it the plan of attack.

I know there are a lot of reasons I might not make it, believe me I've over-analyzed them all.  I'm done with all those.  Never tell me the odds.  I'm flying into the asteroid field at full throttle.  

p.s. 3,720 to 1.



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