Pikes !?!!?!!

I'm running the Pikes Peak Ascent in five days. 

I haven't run a race in 22 months and it's been nearly three years since I finished anything longer than a 5k. 

And of yeah, it's my first trail race since this happened.

It's a little hard to know how I'm going to do. On the one hand, I feel fit. On the other hand, I haven't done a race like this in a long time, and I've never done a race that was just straight up for nearly 8k ft. of gain. Plus, my mileage has been fairly slim this year. As in, like 30 miles a week through June and then 45 miles a week since. My longest effort this year is 15 miles.

The low-mileage approach isn't a principled stance. I know I'd do better if I ran more miles (assuming I could stay healthy). I've just been too busy with work, parenthood, and coaching to do more than I have.

That said, I just PR'd on my favorite high elevation tempo run, a 7-mile tempo on Old Monarch Pass. I ran 53:01 on Saturday, or 7:34 miles for 7 miles at over 11,000 ft. with over 1k in gain. That's a fair ways faster than I ran on a similar effort before I ran 81 minutes for a half three years ago. So that's encouraging.

If this were a 2-hour race between 7k ft and 12k ft., I'd feel well prepared. Unfortunately for me, it's probably going to be closer to a 3-hour race (or more) going up to 14k ft. So I don't feel that well prepared for that long of an effort. 

Plus, I just realized that I'm not even in the first men's wave. I got seeded 231. Near as I can tell, I'm starting two minutes or so behind the lead women and a minute or so behind the lead men, so it's going be super congested going up the Ws. 

I emailed the registrar to ask if I could get a bump to the first wave, and he said he would have given me one, but I asked too late. 

Oh, well. 

A+ goal would be sub-2:50, with an A- goal of sub-2:55. B goal is sub-3. C and D goals are to finish and to not break any bones this time.