The Raven's Roost

In one more month it will be 24 weeks until December 1, more or less.

If that seems like a convoluted statement, I understand, but there's also some method to the madness here. You see, I'm thinking about doing something stupid this fall. I'm considering doing a 40 mile run.

This year we don't have any major races. We weren't able to sign up for Wine & Dine, and Fox's work means we can't do any other out of town races if we wanted to because they're pushing some major changes through and need all hands on deck. So my calendar is open. Normally I would be starting to train with a specific race in mind, usually building up marathon distance, but with no formal racing going on I felt it was time I started training to do something fun/stupid I'd been thinking about.

In 2026 I'm going to turn fifty, and I've had this idea for a while now that I want to complete a fifty mile run when I am fifty. I've done some 50k runs (which is 31-ish miles) and I'm sure that with the proper buildup of distance I can hit forty. That will let me know I can manage fifty the next year. I've found an ultra coach - a woman who lives in the southeast and understands the unique challenges and opportunities of running here (humidity is the southerner's version of altitude training). I've got a 24-week training plan to get me through, and I'd be making my attempt on the first Saturday in December.

I have some very weird ideas about what "fun" is.

At this point my chief concern is WHERE I'm going to do this. I can head into Duval and run around Jacksonville, where there are sidewalks and such, and plenty of support in the form of convenience stores and fast food. I don't know where I could get across the St Johns River on foot, though. The Shands Bridge is being rebuilt, and it will have a pedestrian and bicycle lane down the center, protected from the car lanes, but that's not going to be done until maybe 2028. I know Fox has biked across bridges in Jax, but a bicycle at least has a chance of keeping up with traffic and legally can belong in a car lane. So I may need to just circle around on this side of the river, maybe heading to 17 and coming back towards Fleming Island. I know most of this means diddly-squat to anyone reading, I'm just thinking things through.

My temptation is to sign up for the Daytona 100 ultra in 2026 and put myself in the 50 mile category. I've long wanted to do this race, and I can start working up to a 100-mile distance, but the 50 miler would give me a taste of a road ultra run at night, and Fox could crew for me. I think he could handle crewing for the 100 as well, though I thought I saw the race director recommending two crew members for each runner.

Anyway! That's my big plan. I've got one more month that I can use for base building, though I lost a couple of weeks to being sick. But since I'm not a total beginner the distance should come back to me pretty easily. It does mean I'll have some Saturdays where "long run" really and truly means LONG run.

Some photos from yesterday's long run, which may or may not amuse you.
( Behind the cut to save your reading pages. )

 For the past two years I've participated in the Gate River Run in Jacksonville, which is a nice run through some pretty neighborhoods and over the Hart Bridge. I like it but it has so many runners it's almost like a Disney run with how crowded the course can be. I'd already decided to skip this year - possibly in favor of the Hastings Spud Run 10k later on, and also to give Fox's foot a chance to heal. Basically I'd be looking at no racing until October. But I got an email from 1st Place Sports this morning saying Gate needed volunteers. So I did something a bit out of character and signed up to do either packet stuffing or one of the early days of packet pickup. I'm still not going to be running, but I've kind of thought about helping out with some races and I don't remember getting any emails about a lack of help for this particular run before. 

I'm currently doing recovery runs - short, easy-paced runs to work the kinks and stiffness out without beating up my body. I'll then move into a "maintain fitness" running routine for a while, but then I'd need to decide how to approach summer and the months leading up to the Black Creek Bowl and Wine & Dine. And since I am curious about trying to run more than one marathon this coming winter, I have an idea.

Instead of training specifically for the Dopey Challenge, I'm going to train for an ultramarathon. I won't be doing all those miles at once, but if I train like I am, the idea is that I will be able to handle more races within a shorter period of time. Whereas before I was mainly training myself to simply finish Dopey, rather than perform well or take on extra distance. So I am seriously considering running the Jacksonville Marathon, which typically falls a weekend before runDisney. That takes my total mileage to 74.8. I think this is do-able with proper planning, so at some point this month or the next I need to sit down with a calendar and some training plans and figure out how I'm going to approach this.

In non-running news, back on New Year's Eve there was a shooting just up the road from me - about two miles as the crow flies. One woman was shot and killed, another man shot who later died in the hospital, and someone got pistol-whipped before having his truck stolen. This ended with a high-speed chase over in Bradford County. So we recently found out what set all this shit off and ... it was an argument over some borrowed clothing. I have no words for how incredibly stupid this is. I mean, getting into a fistfight in the first place over clothes, but then deciding to start shooting people. I'm sure they were very important clothes... (please imagine me saying that last sentence with all the possible sarcasm I can muster)

And we've had another freezing night, with possibly one more on the way - Bugpocalypse averted, I hope! But for now I don't want to do anything except sit next to the fireplace with the cats.