Hanging on by my fingernails..

..because my toenails are starting to fall off.

Lucky you.

This is the final week of build for the Vulture Bait 50k, and I'm starting to feel a bit ragged. To put things in perspective, here are a couple of tables, because sometimes being an accountant is a hard habit to kick.

I think there's one week that actually obeys the 10% rule..

This one is rather more dramatic.

And September's not over yet.

Odds are almost 100% that by September 30th I will have run more this month than I did in the prior three put together. This is not something I recommend.

On the bright side, despite some worrisome soreness last weekend, I think the idiot injury I sustained at the end of May is managing to hang in there. I'm trying to be kind to it  - well, as much as possible while still making increasingly unreasonable demands on it - by continuing to swim for recovery and actually using some of my myofascial release tools. Foam rolling may not seem like something that could be defined as "playing nice" while in progress, but does seem to keep things feeling better.

After I stop, that is.

The increased run training is also having the highly beneficial effect of helping me lose some of the extra poundage I've been carrying. I am quite literally running my arse off, though I'm pretty sure any hope of making it down to a reasonable racing weight evaporated back in August. Nonetheless, not only does the weight loss amplify the effect of my meagre fitness since there's less bulk for my poor, overworked legs to haul around, it also means that there's slightly less raw tonnage to cause harmful impact with every plodding step. Tanker doesn't seem to mind the extra room on the couch, either.

Recent portrait.

I've even busted out a new pair of trainers from my stash in an effort to keep from pounding myself into dust, and just bought a new pair of trail shoes in which I intend to race. All of the pairs I had in the current rotation were starting to get a bit high on the mileage scale, and right now I need my footwear to offer some good cushioning. I really am trying to walk a tightrope between arriving at the start of Vulture Bait hopelessly under-trained for a 50k and damaging myself while trying to cobble together some fitness. It doesn't even matter if it's a recurrence of the tendinosis that started at the end of May or some other kind of injury - I have to make every effort to stay healthy and strong if I'm going to have any chance of making it through the second loop on October 17th.

One last absurdly long run to go..