And so it begins

Day 1 of my training for the Way Too Cool 50k which will be run on March 8th. This run is well known in the ultra community for rapidly filling up on the first day registration goes online (as in 7 minutes last year). Since this was my first experience trying to get in to a run like this, I'll share my experience.

Since this run fills up so quickly and has an incredibly high finish rate, it seemed like the perfect choice for my first ultra. Registration did not open until 8:00 a.m. yesterday morning, so I was logged into Active.com at about 7:45. At 7:50, I went to the registration page just to make sure I was ready and much to my surprise, it let me in and I registered. My confirmation was time-stamped at 7:53, so I sincerely hope all the people who logged in at 8:00 were able to get in.

To most ultra runners, a 50k, particularly this one would not be too intimidating, but as a runner who just completed his third marathon, I have a great deal of respect for the distance. The run starts at the Cool Fire Station where I have done some runs and had my lunch handed to me by the Olmstead Loop. Everything I read online about the Olmstead Loop is that it was a nice, well groomed, moderately challenging 9 mile loop. It is a great trail, but there are a couple of hills, particularly the one leading out of the creek canyon that left me questioning the term moderate when talking about this thing. I guess it is all about perspective and since I do the majority of runs on the American River Bike Trail, my biggest hills are the bridges and overpasses.

As this is my first blog entry, I'll keep it short while I figure out how all this works. My hope is to chronicle my transition from back of the pack (4:30) marathoner to back of the pack ultra marathoner.