I went ahead and register for the Marathon March in October at Waterloo Village. It is 20 miles of all my favorite trails but with a time cap of 8 hours. I felt super confident when I hit the register button. I had just finished reading “A Beautiful Work in Progress”, by Mirna Valerio and was feel all inspired and capable. That was 3 days ago. Today I am wondering what I am getting myself into.
I went out this morning to do a quick 5 miles as sort of a kick off for training in preparation. I took the Sussex branch trail, totally flat and easy, 2.5 miles out and back. My legs were quite sore from an especially leg heavy WOD Saturday morning so I knew I wasn’t going to fly through it but I have done it plenty of times before and had no worries. Well I ended up pacing almost exactly 3 miles an hour. That means I could finish the Marathon March in 7 hours assuming no breaks, no bathroom, and that I could sustain that pace the entire time with unknown weather conditions and a pack on. I’m clearly nuts. I realize now that I have a bit of work to do before I tackle this hike but it was a start. I still have 16 weeks to go to get my trail legs back.
