I'm terrified of Icarus Florida Ultrafest. I signed up for this race mainly to pad my stats (more 200s). The shin muscle injury from ATY is not fully healed, but I've been able to run up to 10 miles without pain so I decided the trip is a go. I'm 100% certain it's going to start hurting at Icarus; I just don't know when.
If it hits before 100 miles, I'm in trouble. Hobbling over 100 miles would not be fun.
The weather forecast has cooled off a bit. There's a strong chance of rain. Unlike the rain which turned to snow at Across-the-Years, this rain might even be warm. My plan is to prepare for everything, but at least I won't need quite as much cold weather gear this time.
I'll bring a tent to camp out during the race, but I'll stay at a cheap hotel before and after. I'm packing sleeping pills for the nights before the race and 5-Hour-Energy for that 3-5am lull. I've been off caffeine for several days to maximize its effect during the race. I'll only use it at night.
The part I'm dreading is that the course is paved. All of it. It's a 1km paved loop in a park, mostly shaded. The longest I've ever run on pavement in a day is about 40 miles at Crissy Field (San Francisco) at one of those 24 hour races. And it hurt. So doing 5 times that could be interesting. Here's are some photos of the course lifted from google image search:
My training between Across-the-Years has been minimal. It was mainly recovery training trying to get the shin muscle loosened up and healed. Those last couple of runs (9.2 and 3.7) were the only times I actually ran since ATY. But they felt good.
So in 2 days I'm flying out and the race starts in 3. I'm going to give it my best.
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