Da Bear (100)

What started out as an exciting adventure to help pace/crew a friend in the later stages of a 100 mile footrace through the mountains, has evolved into my participation as a competitor.  I will line up with a couple friends, and a couple hundred people I haven't met yet, to try my hand at earning a belt buckle (traditional hardware for finishers at trail races) for the completion of my first 100 mile event. 
The good news is that I still have about a month left to get ready.  The bad news is that I only have a mere 27 days to finish preparing.  Mentally, I get more and more comfortable with the idea of running/walking/hiking/climbing 100 miles every day, so that's really positive. Physically, I was having a hard time recovering from my effort at Howl at the Moon.  Tiredness lingered, and my right hip/quad wassn't feeling right since an ill-advised 20 mile run on Sunday.  This means I need to be pretty careful walking the line that narrowly separates too much, from not enough.
The Bear100 http://www.bear100.com/ starts in Logan, UT in the Wasatch Mountains, and meanders to Fish Haven, ID while packing in almost 23,000ft of climbing on rugged trails and roads, the majority of which are 6,000-9,000ft above sea level.  Thin air! 
This trip will also be a great opportunity to spend some time with a good college friend.  Alvaro and I rowed at Villanova, and are no strangers to hard work.  Alvaro has agreed to fly from Denver out to Salt Lake City to be our crew chief (coincidence? ironic?) on the Bear course.  He'll be in charge of getting us into and out of aid stations in a timely fashion.  He will also need to be a really good liar and tell us we look good, and that the next section is runnable.  We haven't even started the event, but I am already thankful that he's in my corner for this adventure.  It will be nothing short of awesome, regardless of the outcome of my race.  The scenery in the mountains of Utah will potentially be spectacular, too.