Tomorrow I leave for Grande Cache and then to do the Death Race on Saturday. I hope I’m ready. The signs haven’t been good. Let’s list them, shall we.

1. My friends aren’t doing it as well.
2. My knee got badly hurt in February.
3. My hotel decided to cancel my reservation.
4. Two months ago, I twisted my ankle bad enough that it still has a bit of pain.
5. I came down with a cold a couple of days ago. I’m pretty sure I caught it last Friday, and I could see it coming almost immediately.

All this will make victory that much sweeter.

Now that is an interesting thought. Maybe the reason I feel so out of it, and have trouble thinking, is not because I have no carbohydrates in my system. Maybe it is because I have nothing in my system.
Yesterday was a weird day, considering I was up until 4:00 AM the previous night, and I didn’t really sleep in as well as I could have. So I was running on lack of sleep; that doesn’t help matters. But I also didn’t eat much. When your meal is going to consist of things you don’t want to eat, you don’t want to eat. QED.
I even had trouble forcing breakfast down my throat this morning.

I really want a glass of orange juice.

Two weeks ago I ran 60km. I did it. There were some very long hills in it, so a lot of walking was involved.
The next day, my family went for a 12km hike in the mountains. It felt exhausting and I ached.
So doubt continues to accumulate for the Death Race.
My ankle is still feeling a little off. Since there is nothing you can do in the last two weeks before a race to improve your fitness, I’ve decided to take time off from running. Hopefully my ankle will recover and I won’t have any issues on the actual race.
I noticed I had been accumulating a lot of other injuries. My arm started aching after a day of heavy mousing. My neck got a huge crick in it after a tense meeting. I thought those were the excuses, but I think it might be something else. I’ve been taking a lot of ibuprofen to help with my ankle’s inflammation. This has been going on for over a month. That can’t be healthy. I decided to stop. Many problems started clearing up.
This weekend is also the start of the Atkins part of my carb loading. It hasn’t been going well. No sweets or breads or cereals or juice or anything that makes life worth living. I’m pretty much confined to meat, eggs and cheese.
Yesterday I went to a surprise engagement party for a friend. He was going to propose to his girlfriend as a surprise with all his friends there. That sounded lovely. It was only after we all arrived that we found out we were the ones surprised. It was a surprise wedding. They were skipping the public engagement and going straight to getting married. It was a pleasant surprise, and apparently saved them a lot of money.
The big problem was that they served cake, fruit, cupcakes, crackers and all sorts of delicious goodies that I could not eat. I could only nibble some sausage and cheese.
It is getting hard to think.