The Brutiful NUT: Adventures in Masochism
"The trail winds through old-growth forest Douglas Fir, Hemlock and Sugar Pine, with trees more than 800 hundred years old. You’ll pass moss-covered rock bluffs, fern-covered hillside and run through lush forest past several waterfalls. Both are challenging courses, described as 'brutiful'." - GoBeyond Racing, trying to convince people to sign up for this race or something
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Published on May 27, 2015
Description
Take a peek at the beauty of the NUT course, along the North Umpqua River Trail in Oregon. https://gobeyondracing.com/races/nut-...
Video by Paul Nelson Photography
I signed up for the North Umpqua Trail (or NUT) 50k. This will be my 3rd - and toughest - 50k. I showed my lifting coach the elevation profile here - the 50k starts halfway from the left - and he asked, "Why do you want to do that to yourself?"
I replied, "Probably the same reason you want to squat 500 pounds! To be a badass!"
I don't know why he asks dumb questions.
Originally the race was going to be in June. They moved the date back to August 19th so the Forest Service would have time to fix all the damage this past winter did to the trail.
August in southern Oregon. Just thinking about it gives me a hot flash.... Or maybe that's just my age.
GoBeyond Racing puts the race on. This will be my fourth GoBeyond race. They always do a good job organizing these things, marking the courses, and providing righteous food afterwards.
The course features 5700 feet - 1750 meters - of uphill. I'm also told it's rocky, rooty, and pretty technical. Downhill is sparse, but I'm "down" with that since I hate running technical downhills. My calves are a lot more likely to cramp on those descents.
Hot. Uphill. Technical. I like a challenge.
I'll start working towards the race in May. I figure I'll do a midweek longish trail run (like 6 - 10 miles) with plenty of hills, a weekend long run out in the Gorge or in the Coastal Mountains or somewhere around Mount Hood (when the snow melts) to get some more hills and some solid technical work, and a 5 - 10 mile easy run the day after the weekend long run. I'll probably do a couple easy run commutes during the week, too. Round it out with a couple hours of weight training to give me a little extra strength for those hills.
I don't really know how I'll train for the likely heat. Maybe I'll do my long runs later in the day when it's hotter? Hang out in a steam room? *shrugs* Maybe it won't end up being that hot. Can't hurt to be ready for it in any case.
Not really sure that I have any time goals for this race. "Survive" and "finish" sound like worthwhile goals.
I'm going to try and do a better job of keeping the blog up to date through all this. I don't take enough time to write on this thing, even though I enjoy it. I'm hoping it will help me keep some discipline and take note of what's working and what's not.
Stay tough and salty!
