Running the Western States 100 mile........well, maybe

 There, I've done it. Written down that I am, at the very least, thinking about running the Western States 100 mile Endurance run. Right now I'm not 100% convinced I ever will run it - for starters, the qualifying process to get into the race requires a fair bit of endurance itself. We'll go through that later. But if I do end up ever running the race, I thought it would be good to have a record of the process from the start. Well, almost the start. Let's begin at the beginning.....

So where am I now with my running. 47, pushing 48 years old, a lifetime of running behind me, but really just over a decade of running more seriously, after my football 'career' came to an end. On the roads that culminated with a marathon PB of 2:38 in the Yorkshire Marathon in 2016, plus a bunch of comparable times over shorter distances, 1:15 for the half, 34 mins for the 10km, 16:35 for 5km. Half decent, but then everything is relative in the world of running isn't it. 

In action running a 2:38 PB at the Yorkshire Marathon

Times have been in decline since mid-2017 I would say, when family life and coaching Leo's football team started getting in the way of interval sessions. Since then I have been dabbling in the world of ultra-marathons, and have run a whole bunch over the past 3 years, culminating with 2022 where I ran 5 ultras, including the 70km Jättelångt race (which I ended up winning, which was pretty cool), the 90km Ultravasan race (a long day in the office which got steadily harder) and the 100km Race to the Stones (complete detonation in the second half). 

Approaching the finish line at Jättelängt, hand in hand with Klara. I think it's clear who looks fresher

I'd partly entered Race to the Stones as in the back of my mind, it was a qualifying race for Western States, and knowing the process of getting a spot in the race, it was best to make a start in getting lottery tickets for the annual draw, with the hope that in maybe 4-5 years I might have a decent chance of getting in. Of course that chance might come around much sooner if my luck was in......

Race to the Stones was a bit of a wake-up call though - after the success of the Jättelångt race, I went into it with some pretty high expectations, but my body didn't really match these - after the first 50km in 4:20, the second half took a painful 7:20, with more walking than running. My left ankle was sore (a recurring problem with a ligament on the top/inside of the left ankle) and my legs were empty, possibly as a result of really emptying myself at Jättelångt just 3 weeks earlier. 

More fundamentally though, I just wasn't sure if I thought it was fun. The passing of time has definitely softened that feeling, but as people always say, you have to know the 'why' to keep you motivated and in training. Added to that, I'm still coaching Leo's football team, and I'm still also planning on playing some veterans football for my old club, Långholmen FC next season. So I'm not quite convinced yet how much I really - really - want to run a very, very long Ultra marathon. Because part of the joy of running is the feeling of movement, maybe even the feeling of speed, and of course the longer the race, the less of that you will get. 

Having said that though, it is great to have an epic adventure to look forward to, and Western States would certainly be that. I'll maybe come back to that next time. But for now, my entry to the lottery is completed, and along with 7,177 other people, I'll be seeing if I've got one of the 369 places to the 2023 edition of the Western States.