I’m really looking forward to running the BMM 24 in just 4 days!   I had a great time last year at this little race just outside of Asheville, NC, in the great town of Black Mountain.  It’s a great atmosphere and the format — running 5k loops over and over all day and all night – really suits me well.

Here’s the GPS data from last year, exported into Google Earth.  The GPS died about 60 miles in.

I had a “predictions post” last year, but I really want to avoid going into the race this year with expectations.  My goal is get stronger for Leadville in August, which means I don’t want to kill my training the few weeks following BMM24.  My guess is that means I’ll run something north of 75 miles, but I won’t hesitate to back off or pull out if anything comes up that might jeopardize Pb.  But if I’m feeling great I’ll just run with it…

That said, I do want to show this year’s weekly mileage compared to last years.  This year:

Last year:

What should jump out is that my volume is much higher this year… Last year I jumped into the 24 hour run with very little training, sort of at the last minute.  But this year I have been focusing on building for Leadville, starting with Uhwarrie 40 in February,  Umstead Marathon in March, and the NF 50 NY in May.  Plus lots of training in between…