Four days until a 50-miler

In four days I'll be starting my second 50-mile run, in Whistler. Tim and a friend from Australia, Dessie, are racing too, both making their debut at the distance. Neither are new to endurance sports, however, as both have finished multiple Ironmans and marathons.

Dessie also ran the Six Foot Track when it is was still 47km instead of the 45km it is now. He was on the startline with Mark Allen and Scott Tinley for the first Ironman in Australia, in Forster-Tuncurry, paying a whopping $37 (no, this is not a typo) for the privilege back in 1985.

The latest weather forecast for Saturday, race day, is a 40 percent chance of wet snow with temperatures between 0 and 4 degrees. The 6am start will be dark and chilly.

Since our Victoria Marathon 3-1/2 weeks ago, Tim and I have done three short easy runs including one with Dessie on the day of his arrival last Saturday. Yesterday the three of us trekked up the Chief, heading for the second peak to enjoy the spectacular views as the sun began setting, before we took the back route on the way down.

Amazingly it was the first time this year that Tim and I did the hike and I guess we forgot how long it takes. With our start a little past 4pm, we finished the final quarter or so in the dark about 2-1/2 hours later.

Dessie's Garmin had our pace per kilometre for 5-odd km at about 32 minutes:-).

We're all hoping to move a little faster on Saturday. The question is, How fast? I am hoping that 5:30 per km is a good pace to start, and would be stoked if I can hold that until the finish.

In the 100km a year ago, I reached 78.67km in 8hr 03, or a pace of 6:08 per km. So 5:30 (which would mean a 7hr 20 finish) might be aggressive for Saturday. But it doesn't hurt to try. Well, it will of course but you know what I mean...