An Inspirational Journey
I was looking for a few ultras to do that had some beautiful views during the run (although most ultras have some of those) and got some great recommendations from some running friends. My friend Shannon told me about the Conquer the Rock 50k and after researching it and seeing the views and how technical it was, I was sold! It looks like a much more challenging run than I’ve ran before (and sounds like possibly one of the more challenging courses in the Southeast) so after my experience with the elevation challenges at the Pinhoti 100 a year ago, I knew it was an adventure that I wanted to train for and attempt.
The race is on March 3rd, 2018 and located at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northwest side of South Carolina. Since it’s currently the end of November right now as I post this, I have just over 3 months to train for it. I feel the most challenging part will be training for the terrain since I can’t make a trip all the way up there to train on the actual course. To help train for the elevation (and since Florida is pretty flat), I renewed my subscription at the local YMCA so I could start using the treadmills with the incline settings so I can train with greater elevations. I also have several training routes in Pensacola that have some elevation that I’ll be including in my weekly training, but still nothing like running up a real mountain!
