Does not compute

Because of a combination of a motorcycle rally, tapering (pointlessly?) for and racing a very short-course triathlon, then a week of paddling, I didn't run much in September. A measly 121km was all I could eke out, making it by far my least productive month since last November (when I was rather badly damaged). It happens.

I have been doing some exploring, though.
The Agreement Forest in Milton, ON is my newest joy.

This has not stopped me from making foolish decisions. Despite being probably undertrained for this year's Horror Trail 6-hour and having decided two years ago that racing past the end of October is not the best thing for me, I've gone and signed up for something in November.

How could I resist when it seems to be named just for me?

A friend of mine posted about it, and from reading the registration page it just sounded like too much fun. Problem is, it's more than a 3-hour drive from home, and only two weeks after Horror Trail. I explained to Tanker that the ultra world was giving me the sads, as it had just been confirmed the day before that the 2016 edition of Dirty Girls was truly going to be its last (I'm so happy I got to experience it once!); that the Creemore Vertical Challenge was similarly at its end (which I never got to try - sadface), and that there was a race coming up that seems like a riot but it's too far from home to be viable.

After showing him the registration info for the Fat Ass and explaining its location and details, his response was "So we get a hotel room, then?".

I love this man.

Someone with a slightly better sense of self-preservation than that with which I'm personally endowed would probably do the 17.5km or 25km first. After all, it will follow 15 days on the heels of running up and down the hills at Camp Heidelberg for 6 hours at Horror Trail, and in fact the course itself climbs the Batawa Ski Hill. At least, I'm pretty sure all the races do - the 7.5km course certainly does, and they say there's some climbing on the 10k course as well, but there don't seem to be any details about the loop for the 6-hour "Bad Ass" event.

I do know, however, what happened the last time I tried racing at a ski hill.

It wasn't pretty.

Hilton Falls, upon which I stumbled in the Agreement Forest, on the other hand..

If you think that has stopped me from signing up for the 6-hour, though, you clearly haven't read the title of this blog. I mean really...how bad could it be?

As bad as getting slightly lost after sunset in these woods while fog rolled in?
I may or may not be able to confirm..

So yeah, registration happened, and a hotel was booked in Trenton, and I discovered after all that was done that the lovely, entirely-reasonable 10am start time listed in the race details was for all distances OTHER than the 6-hour...which starts at seven freakin' thirty. The only reason it'll even be light out at that point is due to the end of Daylight Savings Time a whopping one week beforehand.

Ah well. Might as well get the fun started early, right?

So of course, the best plan of action right now would be to get some good, long runs in to be properly prepared to do 12 hours of racing within a 15 day period. It'd be really foolish to use this long weekend for anything other than training with just 3 weeks left before the start of all this madness, so naturally I'm taking 4 days off running to bugger off into the woods with Tank.

At least there will be trail involved..?

Realistically, backpacking probably does count as decent training for what I've got coming, because it's highly doubtful my fitness and recovery are going to let me do much more than walk most of the 6 hours at either event.

At least I won't have to carry 30+lbs on my back for those - as the November event's logo says, my ass is certainly fat enough!