It's almost time...

I have been waiting to do Western States for three years, and it's finally only three days away!  I finished a lot of my preparation yesterday -- labeling, gathering my gear, unpacking stuff from OD that I haven't gotten around to, etc.  I'd like to say that I've become more efficient since I started using my checklist that I created for OD, but I don't think I'm quite there yet -- the items are more or less the same, but the quantity and location is different  obviously.  I think though, that once I get it fine tuned for a specific race, then I'll be able to refer to it if I do the same one again in the future, and prepare without even having to think about it.  That of course, assumes that I go back afterwards and confirm that I had what I needed and in the right locations, and my checklist reflects that.

So I did my last run yesterday -- a short 30 minutes in PV.  I felt good -- no pain or significant deadness in my legs.  3 weeks is the least amount of time I've had to recover between 2 100's for me.  Vermont, Leadville, and Wasatch all have 4 weeks separating each other, so that'll be helpful, but unfortunately AC is the weekend after Wasatch.

For my first WS, I am very fortunate to have a crew/pacer -- my buddy Jeff who also happened to be my pacer for my first 100 (San Diego) back in 2004.  We haven't really run together since then, so I'm looking forward to spending some time on the trails with him.  We're also sharing a crew with a friend of mine I met at the Tahoe Triple 2 years ago -- Al Harman, who is from Canada, and will be attempting the Grand Slam.

On Friday night, there'll be a bunch of us heading over to Moody's Bistro in Truckee -- looking forward to that as much as the race.  I've invited a few of my friends who I haven't seen in a while, so that should be a lot of fun.

Ok, so my prediction for the overall male/female winners -- Sim Jae Duk and Nikki Kimball.  Who is that guy you ask?  Check out his profile at Montrail, who picked him up as a sponsor this year.  Also, don't forget to put your own predictions in here.

If you want to follow my progress this weekend, real-time updates can be found here.  If that little red blip stops moving, hopefully it's because of a technical glitch and not because I'm sprawled out along the side of the trail somewhere.