The Test
Only 11 weeks left. Wow. That’s only the length of a standardized marathon preparation. Where did all the days and weeks go?
Into my legs I hope. Looking back on those 23 weeks of Western States preparation I see things a bit blurry. Yes there’s been some highlights like a couple of marathons, countless rolling hills workouts, back-to-back weekends, a 50k and a massive runcation week with shitloads of vert and distance. However, in retrospective, I do not have the feeling I trained really hard. But maybe that’s the magic of an ultra preparation?
No one can train solely peak weeks for over half a year. There’s gotta be time for rest. Time to let the body and mind heal. Time to ease the stress and find new strength. That’s what my rational brain says.
My emotional brain speaks a different language though. "You could have done more!". "Where’s your vert? Are you training in the mountains at all?". "Those 100k weeks… too few!". "Did you even strength train?". "Where’s that Vo2Max at now?". Yes, that’s all inside of my head and sometimes its really hard to silence these nagging voices.
However, in 10 days I’m gonna get a chance to objectively see where I stand. The "MIUT 85" of the Madeira Ultra-Trail with 85k and 4700 D+ is my first and only preparation race for WSER. I have absolutely zero ideas how this is going to unfold for me, but I am curious to find out.
Until then I will keep those voices in check as good as I can, despite them getting louder every day.