Trepidation

I kind of feel like I've been invited to watch a car accident tomorrow.

While I still struggle with that damn, niggling hamstring tendon issue, I have managed to run a bit lately. Mostly because I well and truly hate life when I'm not running, but also because I knew I'd have to run at least 8km of hilly, technical trail at Mine Over Matter. Tanker and I had signed up to do this as a relay this year, partly because his interest was piqued by doing another off-road tri together (which hasn't happened since the Belwood Fat Tire Try-a-Tri we did all the way back in 2010), and partly because he wanted to check out the bike course that broke me.

The race has evolved since then, going from a tiny little event with under 100 people the first time I did it in 2011 (when I finished successfully) to a 300+ strong qualifier for the Xterra World Championships. To make things even more interesting, both the bike and run courses have changed since I went back to reclaim a bit of dignity last year.

The bike course is now a short 1st loop of 7.8km and longer 2nd loop of 13.2km, so Tanker will be riding 21km instead of the 2 x 9km loops of prior years. No problem - he's totally going to rock it, having got his bit of mountain bike teething trouble out of the way last weekend.

This washed out riverstone is neither easy to ride nor friendly to elbows.

I, however, am facing three very real problems.

1) The swim. It looks like it won't be wetsuit legal due to the temperature of the water, and after my utterly hapless swim at Woodstock 3 weeks ago (in spite of the extra flotation provided by my full-sleeve wetsuit), I'll be lucky if the water safety crew doesn't have to fish my sorry arse out of the pond.

Prognostication

2) Temperature. The high for Saturday is supposed to be 17c/63f, and I'm going to emerge from the pond soaking wet with probably at least 90mins to hang around and freeze while Tanker goes forth and rips up the bike course like it owes him money.

GIVE'ER BABY!

3) The run. Even assuming I'm not a solid block of ice by the time Tanker returns triumphantly from shredding the gnar, I'm going to have to limp my damaged carcass through almost 10km of terrain almost purpose-built to worsen the particular injury I'm trying to fight through. I can't even rely on my reconnaissance from prior years, as the route has changed for 2015 while increasing from 8.64 kilometers to 9.8k. The only thing I know for sure is I'll still have to do the lung-bursting scamper up the side of the quarry to reach the trails, try not to trip over the multitudinous roots and rocks while I'm up there, and endeavour to save something after the quad-destroying descent back to the quarry floor for the final loop around the pond.

All this while I haven't run more than 5km since I hurt myself on May 30th, clocking just under 37km total for the month of June so far - just a smidge less than the 200+k/month I'd averaged from January to May. 

At least I'm well tapered?