As much as you know you’re booked in for a race, when that envelope flutters down to the doormat with your bib number it feels more real. I still get butterflies for the big races when my number comes, and this one is the biggest I will probably do.
There was a nice symmetry about it at the time I signed up: 50 kilometres when I’m 50.
I’d paid my money last July, a little before my birthday. Time enough, I thought, to build myself up. At various points in the training, however, I’ve beat myself up, wondering how on earth I could be so daft when I struggle so much on the 42K of a marathon. Why, when a fifteen-mile training run has been an immense slog to complete, do I think I can do more than double that distance? I’m moaning when I’m out for three hours so what kind of state will I be in for perhaps close to triple that time?
Yet here I am, just a week and a half away, and the race number has come through, so it’s official.
Ultrarunners say that they run crazy long distances to explore the capabilities of their minds and their bodies. Digging deeper into their pain caves and creeping past their limits as they extend those miles or claw through harsh terrain. At a mere eight kilometres over the marathon, I’m not going very deep in my own exploration, but it’s enough for me. It’s still an unknown. I’ve never gone this far. After every marathon I’ve completed, I’ve nearly collapsed on the other side of the line, so who knows how I’ll get over those extra five miles.
If I manage it though, I’ll be able to carry that knowledge like a superpower to my next races. If I manage it, my brain will remind me when I tell myself that I can’t get to the end of my marathon. Twenty-six miles? It will say. Pfft, that’s nothing to what you can do, now shut your moaning and keep putting one foot in front of the other. So, there’s that.
This last Saturday I did a parkrun sandwich. The first in a while. The training plan that I occasionally look at said I should do a thirteen-mile long run as I am now in my taper weeks. Running to and from the park with the parkrun was around the right distance. I was pleasantly surprised that it felt comfortable. I even put a tempo effort into the three miles in between and got inside the 30-minute mark.
So, all that training has done something to me. I’m stronger than I was at the beginning of the year. I think, with lots of walking amid my running, I’ll be strong enough to get to the end of my 50K, but we shall see. I’m getting excited now and looking forward to finding out.
theleadlesspencil 
Less an ultra marathon, more a victory parade.
Looking at the rain and wind we’ve got here recently (and before the two days of sunshine last week) it will more likely be a damp crawl through the grass.