In case you're wondering, I haven't died YET. However, that may happen this Saturday as the culmination of months of non-training comes to an end with Raid the Rock. Suddenly, trying to race 50 miles over hilly, unknown terrain within a 15 hour period seems like a pretty crazy thing to do. But I always said I wanted to do The Amazing Race. Well, this is about as close as I can get, I think. And to think that I actually paid a good sum of money to do this race. What will I get out of it? Fame and fortune? Highly doubtful. A new appreciation for my teammates if they don't kill each other along the way? Definitely.

After biking 10 miles last night at a fairly rapid pace after work (I wanted to get done before the sunset threw everything into complete pitch blackness) and making it to the top of Emerald Park without stopping for the first time evar, I called it quits as far as the training is concerned. The trail up to Emerald Park is fairly rocky and steep with a bunch of switchbacks. I figure there is nothing I can do in the next two days that will get me even more prepared for the race. In fact, I probably risk a greater chance of injuring myself than doing any sort of good. As it is, I'll be racing with a bruised knee (courtesy of playing volleyball Monday night), a very mildly sprained wrist and bruised elbow (courtesy of not being able to get my feet out of my clipless pedals fast enough last night).

My gear is almost complete - I still need to go out and get my nourishment for the race, which will consist of Ensure, Snickers bars, powerbars, bananas, Red Bull energy drink, Gatorade, and Subway roast beef sandwiches. There is a pre-race check between 4pm and 7pm Friday afternoon, a pre-race meeting at 7pm that night, and the race is scheduled to start between 3am and 6am Saturday morning. We'll find out at the pre-race meeting when the race will start.

I'm mostly excited and slightly nervous not knowing what to expect. There will be 54 teams competing and I'm sure it will be a madhouse at the start of the race. This year the race organizers decided to make plotting the checkpoints on the map a part of the race. So instead of getting the map and checkpoints ahead of time and being able to plan your course out before the start of the race, this year we'll get the maps & points as soon as they say "GO!".

The weather on the day of the race doesn't look very promising either - high of 70, low of 50 with 50% chance of scattered thunderstorms. Looks like we're going to get wet! Wish me luck!! We'll definitely need it!