Fingers crossed...

I submitted my Badwater application online just a few minutes ago.

I asked Ken Eielson and Josh Miller to each send letters of recommendation for me to the race office. I paced both of them. Josh in 2002, and Ken in 2003, and it helps support your application to have Badwater crewing experience.

The application consists of this long form that you have to fill out online and provide as much detail as possible, sort of like an essay contest. Then you print off your entrant contract and entry fee form. You have to send in printed documentation of the results of qualifying events you've completed. I need to go to the post office this morning and send off those printed forms and the entry fee. They make decisions about who gets in and let most people know around the middle of February.

The past week I've been working nights and I slept 14 of the past 24 hours or so since I got done with my last shift of the week. It wasn't as hard on my body as I thought. Working nights gives me the psychological advantage that I know I can stay up all night during a race. The disadvantage is that you're really tired and I find it harder to motivate myself to work out when I'm a brain-fogged zombie. I go back to days in March, which coincides with the beginning of my intense training for Badwater.

I did manage to get on the bike for about 20 minutes each afternoon before work this week. It's about 10 degrees outside this morning, and I plan to give it a chance to warm up to the promised 20 degrees before I go outside and try running for the first time since Across the Years.

Sending that application out into the universe makes me want to get out and run no matter how cold it is...