My future has a past of its own that I can’t escape and has left me wishing “that I knew what I know now, when I was younger”. Our future is running by us all the time and our past has a way of playing tricks on our future. Looking back did we run the miles we could when we could and looking forward are we getting any stronger and ready for the races to come? Hmmm….
Now for my futures past. Over the last 2 years I’ve been running down a big goal, to qualify for the Western States Endurance Run. If you have not heard of the WSER it’s a 100 mile endurance run in California that runs through the Sierra Nevada mountains.
To qualify for the WSER you have to run a qualifying race before November, then send in your entry to the WSER lottery. The first year you enter the lottery you get 1 ticket. If your name doesn’t get drawn then you try again the next year, run a qualifying race and enter the lottery but this time you get 2 tickets for the lottery. I’m on year 3 and once I run a qualifying 100 miler I will have 4 tickets for the WSER lottery.
The last 2 years I’ve ran the Canal Corridor 100 in Akron, Ohio, on the first Saturday in October. The timing of the race has always worked really well, it was on the weekend before The Ohio Heritage Conference Championship race. Well not now, this year the CC 100 has been pushed to the 2nd week of October, the same day as conference. It was the beginning of April when I discovered this reality I began to search for other qualifying races but ran into a constant problem, they were already booked full. After all of my searching for a race it all boiled down to 1, The Burning River 100, on July 27th. Sounds hot right?!?! So that’s the plan and instead of having the whole summer to train for the big ultra race, I have 12 weeks. This past weekend I completed my first real long run with Coach Adam, as he left me at mile 18 on his way to 21 miles, I kept thinking “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger”. Not having enough time to train for a race is always “the hardest way” ooh la la….
Summer Races
Firecracker 5000 + Registration Fee $25.00 + You can register Day of Race.
Mile Dash High School Challenge + Saturday, July 15!! + Info on Website
Note: This race is on Saturday July 15. Also when you register sign up for Fairbanks. They award funds back to the school with the highest participant count, we don’t need to win the race to win this one. This is where our parents, and siblings can join us, let’s make it the year to bring out our “biggest cc family supporters”. Last year we tied for 1st and won $300.00 for our team.
July 27th. YIKES!!!
8 person relay Option.
We currently have interest from 7 athletes that want to run the relay on July 27, we need 1 more. We will be working out the details this week and registering a team. The big questions is who will catch Coach Van Winkle? I will have a 3 hour start on the relay team.
THE HEAT!!
It’s going to be hot this week. We will still have open runs. Bring extra water, we will bring extra freezy pops and plan on runs getting broken down to 10 minute increments.
SNAP Raise
Snap raise launched last Thursday and we are on fire!! So far we have raised $1500.00 for the CC team. Great Job everyone on getting your emails in.
https://raise.snap.app/donate/fairbanks-cross-country-re-sign-2024
Weekly Goals
If you haven’t started running yet then get started. We are not getting any younger, we need to be getting stronger.
Be cautious with the heat. Running earlier in the day if you can. If you can’t then find some shaded trails to run on or hit the tread mill. Hydrate and take breaks. It’s a great week for some heat acclimation but never a good time for a heat stroke.
Find 1 more athlete for the Burning River Relay 100miler.