A new countdown begins . . .

Okay.  It's approaching mid-July.  It's been eight weeks since the Colorado Marathon--my first target race of 2012.  In the weeks and months prior to Colorado, I blogged 4/5 times a week.  Unfortunately, since then I've been lucky to post twice a week.  No excuse.  But, I can do better.

I have two more target events scheduled this year:  the Pikes Peak Ascent and the Madison, Wisc. North Face Endurance Challenge.  The Ascent is now only 40 days off.  The Madison North Face event is only 68 days away.

So far, my training has been adequate.  I hope.  The very hot and humid July weather (lots of mid- to upper 90s and a few days of 100+) has curtailed my longer runs though and slowed my hill workouts.  Still, I've managed to get in three 20+ mile long runs and a hard hill workout every two weeks.

This week, I have a long run (20+ miles) scheduled for Wednesday morning--according to weather forecasts, the coolest morning this week.  On Saturday, I'm running a quaint local race: the Moonlight Chase 4-Mile.  It's an annual event held in a small town on the northern edge of the Quad-Cities.  It starts at 9:00 p.m. and the route is lined with luminaries.  Despite the dark, it's still warm and usually humid.  Last year, it was 80 degrees at the 9:00 p.m. start.  I do it for fun and count it as speed work.  Coming only three days after a 20+ mile effort, I'll need to be careful about pace though.   

This year's Western States 100 is in the books, but for all you masochists out there, there's still Hardrock.  That would be the Hardrock 100 Mile Endurance Run.  See the website here:   http://hardrock100.com/index.php

Western States is tough.  Hard Rock is tougher.  It's run in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado and there's 67,984 ft. of elevation change along the 100 mile route.  The average elevation is 11,186.  The cutoff for finishers at Western States is 30 hours.  It's 48 hours at Hard Rock.  In 2011, 140 runners started and 80 finished.

To hear what some of them have to say about the experience, see the video here:  http://www.irunfar.com/2012/07/the-voices-of-hardrock-part-1-adventure.html