The 20-week training block leading to the Black Canyons 100K started with a rest week. That’s because I had previously done a 3-week mini block to prepare for the Kodiak 50K, which takes place this weekend. My original intention, of course, was to do a full training block for the 50K race, but that idea didn’t work out due to injuries not related to running (home improvement turns out to be way more dangerous). I was able to ride the bike during my time off from running, though, so I should be in a shape to jog the 50K in the mountains. I’m hoping to do it in about 5 hours, but I won’t be too stressed if it takes longer. The goal is to stay healthy and keep training to build up endurance ahead of Black Canyons.

Speaking of staying healthy, I was recently scared by a probabilistic achilles injury. The injury was probabilistic in the sense that I had some pain near my right heel after a few hilly runs, but I wasn’t sure if this pain was “normal” or a sign of some deeper issue. What if I had an injury that would reveal itself under the right conditions such as a long run or a steep climb? As it turned out, my achilles felt great during a recent 26K effort and the lingering pain pretty much disappeared afterwards. So maybe I made up the injury. Or maybe it’s there but I just didn’t push hard enough to reveal it. In any case, there are few better sources of evidence than a pain-free long run, so the probability of an injury is low for now.