STORMY is three weeks away

The STORMY 50-miler is getting close, with only one 10km race on August 1 and then STORMY on August 8. At night I wake up in a sweat at the thought of running 80 kilometres along trails but by daytime I am getting very excited about the prospect. My longest run has been an accidental 3 1/2 hours, though the last 45 minutes of that included a lot of walking since I ran out of nutrition and water.

Other than that I have not covered more than 2 1/2 hours. I know my level of fitness and my base of endurance training is solid enough to finish the race. However, my main concern is that my legs will get too sore for downhill running. When I ran the 45-km Six Foot Track in March 2005, which took me about 6 hours and 15 minutes, I was fine except for the final kilometres downhill to the finish line because my legs couldn't deal with that angle.

This weekend I will be doing a 4-hour run covering much of the first half of the STORMY course with a fellow competitor who I met a few weeks ago during a trail run. She has planned the route, which is fantastic. I'll meet her at her house and she has planned for us to run the following trails: Coho, Lumberjack, Mashiter, Jacks, through Alice Lake, up past the yellow gate, Bob MacIntosh, Dead End, Rock and Roll, Rob's and Cliff's corners, Mashiter, Tracks from Hell, Mike's Loop, Entrails, Mark My Word, Mashiter, Roller Coaster, Perth and then home.

While she took me on a run along some of those trails, I have only done them once so I am not sure how much I remember. There will be aid stations and course markings but it is a good idea to know where you are going on race day. I might take a camera and my tape recorder to record visuals and some training/pre-race thoughts.

My friend and I will leave our dogs at home for this run, because we plan to run in the heat of day. This afternoon I will plan my hydration and nutrition for the 4-hour run and am pretty sure it will include some caf gels and a Red Bull. My footwear will be the La Sportiva Raptor which I received a week ago to test them for a magazine.