Big race this weekend

Calico racing is putting on the "Run with the Devil" 50 mile, Marathon, Half marathon, 10k and 5k this weekend out at Lake Mead this Saturday. The idea is to have a hot race that makes for a good story to tell for the extreme ultrarunners who dig this sort of thing. The marathon starts at 10 am, the half at noon, so temperatures should be above 100 out there by the treeless, shadeless lake on the blacktop road that follows the north shore. A lot of participants are those thinking of doing Badwater in Death Valley, this gives them a good idea of what to expect. A bunch of hell sent nastiness, heh.

I'll be both running and volunteeribg, but since I'm not feeling that extreme lately I'll be doing the 10k that starts at 7 am. My goal is a 6:45 pace maybe slipping down to a 6:30 for the last mile, but perhaps not - the course has rolling hills that slow things down. So a 42 is my goal. I will do a medium intensity 8 mile run with the running group today and then swim a half mile tomorrow, which should leave me fresh enough for the race on the following day.

I'm volunteering at the 11 mile aid station for the poor hard core souls attemptung the marathon and 50 miler, I'll have my iphone handy and try to take a few pics for voyeuristic amusement. If you believe the study Dean Karnazes included in his book about optimum marathon temps, this race will be 60 degrees ABOVE ideal temp - so these runners can expect a 50% worse performance than one would hope for on a nice cool day - and then there are lots of rolling hills. Ouch.

I'm looking forward to that part, watching these mad men and women try to bang this thing out. I'll also be offering them plenty of water and ice - so it won't all be shameless gawking ;)