Surf the Murph Checklist

Just a little more than 1 day out and all things are coming together quite nicely. I am in the middle of working out the final details of what I think I need to do to be ready for race morning. I went for a short 3 mile run tonight, no issues except for the branch I stepped on that I thought went through my foot. Then I have work, it is doing a great job of keeping me distracted of course not in a good way but hey, I will have 50 miles to work that all out.

My plans for the race are real simple go out slow, keep going, finish. I thought about posting about the weather and then I thought why? Regardless of what it is I will be there and will try to be ready.

Here is my current checklist:

Fuel
Clif shot electrolyte - 4 1/2 liters (2 bladders - 1 is 2 liters, 1 is 1 1/2 liters, 2 1/2 liter bottles)
Clif shot bloks - 2 packages
Chocolate #9 - 4
Sport beans - 2
Peanut butter sandwich - 2
Water - 6 1/2 liter bottles
Nuun tablets in case the water needs some flavor
S-Caps - 20

Clothing
Race start - Jacket, shorts, socks, running pants, long sleeve tech shirt, gloves, hat
extra running pants
extra long sleeve shirt
extra short sleeve shirt
extra socks
extra shoes
extra jackets
more gloves
costume - still thinking about it

Misc.
Headlamps 2
Flashlights 2
extra batteries
Garmin
usb battery charger for Garmin (need to create it yet)
extra watch

I am pretty sure I have forgotten something, oh well still time to correct it.

Ok, I changed my mind, here is the latest and my last weather forecast and it looks just fine.

From Accuweather - 34 at race start

Saturday, Oct 31

High: 50 °F RealFeel®: 39 °F

Breezy with times of clouds and sun

From Weather.com

Partly Cloudy High
45°F
Low
35°F

From Wunderground

45° F | 34° F

STM forecast update

After last nights blustery forecast I decided to check Accuweather again and less than 12 hours later it is an amazingly different forecast.

Saturday, Oct 31

High: 52 °F RealFeel®: 52 °F

Cool with times of clouds and sun

Saturday Night, Oct 31

Low: 39 °F RealFeel®: 31 °F

Partly cloudy with a passing shower late

It appears the wind forecast has been move to Thursday and Friday. Since Accuweather seems to have some consistencies issues, I checked Weather.com (oh I should add that they seem to have the same type of consistency issue).

Day	Night
Rain / Snow Showers High 42°F Precip 30% Wind: From WNW at 16 mph Max. Humidity: 75% UV Index: 2 Low Sunrise: 6:50 AM CT Avg. High: 50°F Record High: 83°F (1950)	Clouds Early / Clearing Late Overnight Low 29°F Precip 10% Wind: From WNW at 5 mph Max. Humidity: 79% Sunset: 5:03 PM CT Avg. Low: 32°F Record Low: 15°F (1878)

I also checked the wundergrund and it looks closest to weather.com Hard to believe any of the forecasts so I think I will get back to planning for anything.

STM Forecast Update

A little more than 3 days out, I know I am getting excited how about you? Interesting forecast update.

Saturday, Oct 31

High: 44 °F RealFeel®: 29 °F

Very windy; mostly cloudy and colder

Saturday Night, Oct 31

Low: 30 °F RealFeel®: 20 °F

Partly cloudy

Saturday winds

Winds:	W at 24mph
Wind Gusts:	50 mph

Saturday night winds

Winds:	WNW at 14mph
Wind Gusts:	32 mph

Neat symbol to show very windy and I would say 50 mph gusts qualify as windy, the southern loop may be a bit more interesting. Also, the Friday overnight forecast is looking a little less promising.

Friday Night, Oct 30

Low: 36 °F RealFeel®: 22 °F

Partly cloudy and breezy

Sure hope they got the forecast wrong one more time. Time to finish up the planning although it looks like a few warm clothes will be a good addition to the list and a good idea for loops 2 and 3.

STM Forecast, Facebook, Twitter?

Less than 5 days out, here is the latest forecast for Surf the Murph

Saturday, Oct 31

High: 49 °F RealFeel®: 39 °F

Breezy and colder with clouds breaking for some sun

Saturday Night, Oct 31

Low: 34 °F RealFeel®: 23 °F

Partly cloudy

They are saying that the overnight low on Friday will be 44 (high of 60) and except for the fact that they say it will be windy with rain and drizzle it looks like a decent temp for the race start. I added Saturday night as I am pretty sure I will experience a bit of it and it looks ok.

Now about Facebook and Twitter, Ok, I admit it I am getting old and this must confirm it, I don't get Facebook and Twitter.

A while back, I set-up a account on Facebook, looked around and deactivated it. Am I missing something, should I give it another try? I only checked it out as a blog I used to enjoy reading Runalong with Pastor Mark, said goodbye to blogosphere and hello to facebook. In a comment he made concerning his decision, he stated "For now I'm going with the conversation of FB over the monologue of blogging".

Maybe, I am just better at monologue than conversation. Is that my real issue with FB? Why would I want to share info about myself? I am a fairly private person (especially at first contact), non-social, not outgoing, introvert, non group person. Yet I have a blog? I think I have it because it allows me to document my running. As I original said as I have gotten older, I tend to forget the details of past running issues and it's good to have an accurate account that I can look back at. So for the most part my blog is only about my running. When I started it I never gave much of a thought to if anyone would read it. Although I have to admit I do like getting comments. In person, I can and do talk but mostly only about things I care about, am I that shallow or do I just lack the skills of smalltalk? Maybe I will leave that for another day.

Wayne mentioned to me that many in the local ultra community have Facebook accounts, my wife and daughters have Facebook accounts. What am I missing?

I signed up for a Twitter account I think to follow DirtDawg's 100 mile event. I have yet to post any random things about myself as why would anyone want to know what I am doing 140 characters at a time? What am I missing?

Maybe I should just reactivate my FB account and give it another try, maybe I should send out a tweet, then again maybe I should just maintain my current status quo? If anyone reads this and wants to educate me, feel free to post a comment or drop me a note.

Surf the Murph forecast update

7 days out, I haven't started to freak out but I am giving a lot of thought to the logistics you know fuel, clothing, shoes, strategy, etc... more on that later. There is an interesting change to the forecast,

Saturday, Oct 31

More Details

Not as cool with rain

Low: 42 °F

High: 54 °F

Change since last update, low and high temp forecast up 14 degrees and a change from mostly cloudy to rain. Stay tuned as I am sure within a few more days it will change :-)

Surf the Murph Weather Update

Wayne commented that I must be working on my taper since I started posting about the weather, well he is kind of right. Why "kind of", well you see I have always struggled with what to do during and exactly how to taper.

So this time knowing that I had no more long runs scheduled and that I was 2 weeks out from my first 50 miler, what did I choose to do but of course work on my speed. I went out to Lebanon Hills last Thursday and I thought I pushed the pace just a bit, I looked at my splits and said guess not, So on Saturday I went out and since I was feeling good I did push the pace, you see I was irritated that on Thursday what seemed faster wasn't. Turned out, it was my fastest time on my 6 mile loop by quite a bit. At least 8 minutes faster than normal. So what did it do for me, well, when I went out on Sunday for my last 20 miler, that nice hard run allowed me to change it to a 13 mile run. Why because I now had a very sore achilles and a fairly sore hamstring and a couple of other issues which I won't go into. Yes I was tapering just fine.

So last night I went for a run, you know a night run, check out the lights, get a feel for running as dusk turns into night. Again I felt pretty good so I decided to push it, after tripping a few times and almost rolling my an ankle what did I do for the last mile? Of course I decided to run it harder yet. Ok, reminder to self, taper means "do no harm", "don't be stupid", "it's too late", "relax and take it easy". So after 3 good runs and a lousy long run, I think it's time that I take it slower and try to actually taper before I do something really stupid.

Now about that weather forecast, here is the latest from Accuweather.

Saturday, Oct 31

More Details

Mostly cloudy

Low: 28 °F

High: 38 °F

Changes from the first forecast, 7 degrees colder and chance of rain removed. They are calling for rain the 3 days ahead of the race and snow the day after. Of course, let's wait a few more days as I am sure it will change again.

Surf the Murph - weather forecast

It looks like we may have a few more nice days ahead but what about the weather for Surf the Murph. Well here is the initial forecast from Accuweather.com

Saturday, Oct 31

A couple of showers

Low: 35 °F

High: 45 °F

Can't wait to see how many times it changes over the next two weeks.