Under 72 to hours to race start

Or rather, 71:52 hours as of the start of this writing.

I feel odd about the whole race. Not unprepared, but not hyped up and nervous like I was for the TC Marathon last October. I'm just ready to run. There is nothing more I can do as far as preparation goes. Just run. Put one foot in front of the other and don't stop until I cross the finish.

For the most part, I have been distracted for the past three weeks. I haven't put on a lot of miles, and haven't done a serious long run for about a month. Not unsurprisingly, the amount of studying is inversely proportionate to the amount of running I do. And I have been doing a lot of studying lately. Because I am losing three days out of my finals time for the race, the extra preparation was necessary.

Trail conditions are looking interesting. There was a serious ice storm up north about a month or so ago that prompted trail clearing. Snow is still around on Moose Mountain, so I'm bringing and likely wearing shortie gaiters. It is too early to call temps, but the race directors are reporting lows of 40s and highs of low 50s - perfect.

Many folks have asked me how fast I'd like to run the race. Here's my standard answer: I'd like to finish. We'll talk about time later. But if you make be guess a time, I'd like to finish around 5 hours. That's about 10 min/mile average, which should be just fine considering that uphills may need to be walked. But I'd like to finish.