Decision, Decisions:

I spent the last couple of weeks training hard and agonizing over what race I would run this weekend. The Trail Hawks and Trail Nerds went and scheduled ultras on the same damn day.

The Hawk 50 mile race is two 25-mile loops at Clinton Lake while the Trail Nerds Rock On! 50K runs the trails at Lake Perry. Both promise to be awesome events.

Originally, the idea was to just see how I was feeling after Free State and then make a decision on the basis of what distance I felt my legs could handle three weeks after my first 100k. I took a whole seven days off following Free State (not one mile!) and have been feeling terrific since. I’m running fast and have had a number of 13+ mile training runs over the last two weeks. I really feel like I could handle either distance.

So…which race? Turns out the more I thought about the Hawk 50 the more I had to admit that the thought of 50 more miles on the same course I just did 100k on is about as appealing as a Road 10k with 2,000 runners in down-town Cleveland (no offense, Cleveland).  That leaves the Rock On 50k as my choice, right?

Well…maybe not, here’s the deal. My semester at KU Med is wrapping up (my final final is next week) and I start an internship with the Topeka, KS VA Health Center on May 23^rd (great organization, did you know they created bar-code point-of-care medication administration systems? Do yourself a favor and read Best Care Anywhere by Phillip Longman).  

Anyway, add to this that I’m working on gathering all of the requirements for a commission in the Navy Medical Service Corps and I’m simply running out of days and time before the internship starts. I’ve just got too much to do! Therefore, much to my disappointment, I’m not running either race. Saturday morning I’ll just do a loop at Kill Creek or Blue River and then spend the weekend with Jessica, Alyena, and Ayden since I get the feeling that the busy summer will cut into our family time. So apart from some serious FOMO (fear of missing out), I think backing off is the right decision.

Good luck to everyone running the Hawk 50 or Rock On 50k, both races are sure to be epic, well-run, top-notch events! You can’t really make a bad choice here. I hate to miss ‘em…go kill it for me and I’ll see you at the Rock the Night Away race in June and of course, at the Psycho Psummer 50k in July.