This photo is of my son-in-law Eric hugging my granddaughter Margot at one of the first aid stations in this weekend’s Bear 100 Miler. This is a big weekend for big runs. My buddies Keith and Bob ran a 50K ultra in BV today.

I’m pretty comfy now, sitting in my Boulderado Hotel king-sized bed, but at 7am tomorrow morning, I’ll be lined up to run 26.2 miles. It’s hard to sleep knowing that. I’m obsessing over the thought of pushing my pace. Going out fast hurts in the end. If I do, I probably won’t be able to hold the faster-than-I-can-really-run pace beyond the half-way point; so really, it starts hurting in the middle.

I ran both the 2023 Boulder Marathon and the 2024 Colorado Marathon at a 10 minute pace. I think I can do better. Maybe a 9 minute pace. That would give me a finish time under 4 hours. I’d be really happy with myself to run that fast. I do believe I can finish in 4:30, if all goes well, which would be about the same as my previous, recent marathons. So, 4:30 is my official projection, and 4 hours even is my dream goal that I’ll fall asleep thinking is possible.

If I’m bold, I’ll start out running with the 3:45 pace group. That’s a bit under a 9 minute per mile pace and would qualify me for Boston if I could hold it. I can’t. I could probably hold it for the first 10K, maybe even the first half. Then it will get hard. Really hard because that’s what starting out too fast does. I could start out slower and the entire run would be much more comfortable, but that won’t help me train for Bandera in January. Another strategy might be to ignore the pacers and simply queue up in the D corral, which is intended for anyone running a 9 minute pace. That’s likely what I’ll do.

I feel like accelerating my body’s demand for energy might help me to test my fueling and hydration plan for the Bandera 100K. Because an ultra assumes you got in the training miles and performance comes down to fueling and hydration. And the trail spirits being in your favor. This run is just a training run for the next one. This is how a runner thinks.

The wild card will be the heat. It’s going to be a bit warmer than earlier forecasts. Plus, I haven’t been training that fast. My training runs have been around a 10 minute pace. So one could say I’m a bit delusional, and I am. It’s part of what makes me a fiction writer. I do believe I’ll be safe being able to hydrate at the 16 aid stations that carry Mortal Hydration Mango and don’t plan to carry water bottles. I plan to carry a half dozen salt chews, but the aid stations will also have SIS Beta gels which I’ll be fueling on in Bandera, so perfect practice. This marathon has the most abundant and well-stocked aid stations I’ve ever seen. I plan to take full advantage of that. Being able to stomach all the fuel and hydration is perhaps another wild card. There are porta-potties at every aid station.

You can track me here starting at 7am, Sunday morning.