YAY for race week!!!  Can’t beat it!  The shorter/”easier” runs.  The anticipation of toeing the line.  The tension of the miles ahead of you.  The packing and driving to the race!

It’s all awesome!!!

I love to carb load.  I have to be careful not to over~carb load.  This kid can rationalize extra carbs like nobody’s business, the problem with that being the dreaded carb bloat and resulting tummy troubles on race day.

That’s not so much fun.

I’ll be running Brazos Bend in Brazos Bend State Park.  This is located just a little bit south of Houston, Texas.

This will be my third time running the trails at Brazos Bend.  I’m soooo excited to be running here again! The trails themselves aren’t technical but they’re flat.  I mean FLAT.

Flat sounds amazing for 50 miles, right?  It is and it’s not.  The beauty of running elevation is different muscle groups come into play and relieve the muscle groups that have been working.  All the muscle groups get a little rest time~that’s a good thing!  Here at Brazos, due to the extreme flatness, it’s the same muscle groups the entire 50 miles.  #ouch

Still, it’s a total blast!  I love getting to see the alligators along the course.  If you follow my training at all, you’ll know I meet up with all kinds of different animals on my training runs so the alligators are an added bonus.  Here’s a short YouTube clip from this past weekend.  People were on the trails I’ll be running and were chatting with a couple of alligators.  They were purring like kittens.

I’m excited to earn one of these medals for Aiden!  The 2016 medal from Brazos Bend looked like this:

I’m liking the updated look!  Sweet!!!

This time for the 50 miler I’ll have a pacer for my last loop.  I know Shobal will keep my rumpatootis moving.  Last time, I walked and chatted a lot on my last loop.  He won’t let me do that.  It might be payback time for him for when I paced him on his 50 miler this past April.  I’m pretty sure I wasn’t his favorite person by the end of his race.  He DID set a state record, though!  BOOM!!!  Awesome running, Shobal!

There’s just so much to be excited for this weekend.  Seeing friends.  Running a “few” miles.  Earning a new medal for Aiden.  A nice weekend get away with MFH.  I am #blessed.

#IRun4Aiden