A rare moment of foolishness

Earlier this summer, in a rare moment of foolishness, I applied for a spot in the JFK 50 mile race in Maryland in late November. My application was accepted. However I wasn't ready to mentally deal with the prospect of training for a 50 mile run. My longest race up till now has been the marathon. So I decided to forget about the JFK 50 miler, and hoped it would go away.

The JFK 50 mile race is one of the oldest and largest ultra-marathons in the United States. It starts with 16 miles along the Appalachian Trail, followed by 26 miles along the C&O Canal Towpath and finishes with 8 miles of paved roads. It attracts over 1,000 starters from all walks of life. Most people finish the race in 9 to 12 hours. I wouldn't be finishing in 9 to 12 hours since I had no intention of actually running this thing. After running the Sri Chinmoy marathon a couple of weeks ago I decided that running another 24 miles after completing a marathon was a really stupid idea. So I decided once again to forget about the JFK 50 miler, and hoped it would go away.

This weekend I decided to see what training for a 50 mile race might be like. I ran two back-to-back longish runs, 18 miles on Saturday and 9 miles on Sunday. Both runs were quite hilly, on Route 1A by the sea starting from Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island (where we were staying with family.) I completed both runs quite happily. With memories of the Sri Chinmoy marathon fading, I am once again toying with the idea of actually running the JFK 50. With 11 weeks to go I have time to push my long runs up to 30 miles, which is enough to finish the race according to majority opinion surveyed on the internet (many people run the race on much less training mileage). The key to finishing the race seems to be to combine running with regular walking breaks, and coping with massive amounts of pain for a very long period of time.

After outing myself, I am hoping this won't be my last blog entry on the JFK 50 miler. If all goes well, I should be blogging about my training, and the race itself, in the weeks to come.