Bandera in ONE week!

It's that time of year again. The Bandera endurance runs are just around the corner. And somehow I am signed up to run the 100k again... WOOHOO!! This year the competition is steep. To deal with the stress, I have set a couple of goals that have nothing to do with trying to win. My number one goal going into this is to run my best in order to get a good idea about how I stack up with other runners who win ultras, regardless of what place that puts me in. That way I can train to improve in the future. My thought is I'm only 29 and have been running ultras for about 3 years, so I have a lot of time to get better at this. My number 2 goal is to average under 11 minute miles for the whole thing. The last time I finished this race, I had no electrolytes and my legs started cramping before 50k. By 45miles I was just falling over and trying to go forward on legs that were cramping so bad...and my lack of experience (ultra #2) had me thinking it was under training...now I know better!! I finished in 11:25 that year (about 11:03 a mile), so with a much better nutrition plan in place I think I should at least be able to run better then that!

I really have a solid base to run from this year, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect to run well...but I also see that there are other strong ultra runners signed up, some who are strong technical runners. Meaning I know I could get my butt kicked out there and I'm OK with that. But. Out of Staters beware: this course isn't like most trails. When I moved to CO this past summer, I had a HARD time finding trails that came even close to Bandera trails. In fact, I've found that I can run faster at 9,000 feet on smooth trails for a 30mile training run then I can at Bandera with the same effort. So know this going into these runs: "technical" is an understatement for the course. I love that!