Published February 12th, 2013
Rocky Raccoon 100, part deux: Shock the Monkey
Badass runner. Copyright 2013, Matt Hagen Photography.
Karl Meltzer is wrong — running 100 miles IS far.
My last attempt at Rocky Raccoon didn’t go so well. I left Hunstville hobbled, dejected and cringing at my rookie mistakes. I vowed to get the DNF monkey off my back.
So resolute was I to return I managed to register for the 2013 race even before the link went live on the Tejas Trails website (don’t mess with a woman on a mission). As a result I was third on the list! The race sold out within a couple of months, but not before several friends also signed up. It was shaping up to be quite the vengeance party.
Unlike in past race reports, I won’t bore you with the minutiae of my training. In short, I’d give it a B+. Didn’t run as many miles as planned, especially during the week, but I committed to my long runs. (Between Oct. 1 and Jan. 12 I ran five 50Ks, two trail marathons and a 50-mile training run). Most of my runs were on trails, and I also worked in a couple of multi-loop runs to simulate the Rocky course.
My training almost got sidelined a couple of times due to a cold, but fortunately it wasn’t too severe. The second time it hit was during my 3-week taper, and since there wasn’t much I could do to improve my fitness, I focused on rest and recovery (and obsessing about my race pacing, the weather, my gear choices, etc.) By race week my cold was basically gone, save for a pesky cough. But the burning in my chest was gone and my breathing had returned. I was pretty confident I could waddle my way to the finish line within the 30-hour cutoff.
