50 miles???????

I have a goal of running the JFK 50 miler in November. (jfk50mile.org) I got the idea of doing an ultra marathon after reading the book by Dean Karnazes (Confessions of an all night runner). The things that Dean did left me thinking that I could do something more than a marathon and what I thought were limitations before are now just steps on the path to doing an ultra. I would love to say that I have grand ambitions of doing the Western States or the Wasatch 100 (I'm from Utah originally) but 50 miles is 50 miles and I know that I cannot fake my way through it. So this will be done one step at a time.

I am still trying to figure out the motivation for 50 miles but the distance just resonates with me so I am not going to wax philosophical on why I am doing this right now. Maybe it will become clear as it gets closer or maybe I won't understand it until it is over. Anyways I am going to need all of the energy that I can muster to train so I will spend more time on training and recovering.

So far this year I have tried to address some muscle imbalances in my legs, fix some hip problems, work on my core and play a lot of basketball. I started biking and running more about a month ago and did a half marathon. I am now running more and am aiming for a 50k race in September (Northface endurance challenge in Washington DC) as part of my preparation for the 50 miler in November.

My schedule will roughly look like the following:

September
North face 50K

October
Marathon (TBD)

November

JFK 50 miler

Right now I am focusing on building a running base and increasing my long runs. Cross training will include biking (mountain and road) a little basketball, although not as much as before, and hiking. I am about 15 pounds overweight, my long run is about 9 miles and my diet has fallen off lately so my immediate goals are to improve my diet (less ice cream), gradually increase the long runs and not get injured- very impressive.

My next post I will put an e-mail exchange that I had with a running club in Virginia (www.restonrunners.org). I have to include a plug about how gracious they have been. I e-mailed some questions during lunch yesterday and had a long and detailed response to my questions within the hour- very impressive.