The day after

I received this text from a friend who knows me (and the process) so well:

It was in response to this text I sent with a narrative of:

                                     Oops, this just happened!

Registering for Ghost Train 100 miler in December is the easy and exciting part.  It’s easy to jump aboard as friends post their news of race registration on social media.  But a lot can and does happen during the ten months between now and race weekend. 

I’m excited to ride the Ghost Train again.  My first and only 100 miler was at Ghost Train in 2014.  I haven’t had the desire to train for this distance since then. Until now. 

Like most “first” races, I had no goals for Ghost Train 2014, but to finish (and finish healthy).  I knew I had 30 hours to complete, so if I finished in 29:59, I’d be thrilled.  I finished in 29:06, so not really that much time to waste!  Also being my first go at 100, I was ill prepared for things like sleep deprivation.  I’m still not sure if I can fully train for that, but at least now I know what it looks like, feels like, etc.

I hope to train for Ghost Train 2017 in a way that will find me stronger during the race.  This includes better management of the night running (I’m pretty sure I walked more than I ran during those night miles), keeping a cool head during the sleep deprived hours, and of course, tackling that dreaded mile 75 moment.

As excited as I am to name my A race for 2017, there’s always that “day after” moment that follows.  Sometimes it’s not the literal day after, but days or even weeks later.  It’s that moment that hits, “Holy crap, I just registered for what?”  And that’s often followed by, “OMG, I have to get serious about my training!”.  And then after the first bad run occurs, “What the $#@& was I thinking?!?”.  And so on.

Fortunately, I’m accustomed to this “day after” syndrome.  And apparently, so are my friends.  We get through it.  We support each other.  We enable each other.  Best of all, we remind each other that we are strong enough to get through the training and make it to the start lines.  Then we wrap ourselves in Christmas lights or sing songs to get each other to the finish lines.  

Meaghan during Ghost Train 2014

So here I go, onto the day after the day after....let the training begin!