Gasparilla, the day after: What have I done???

I was on cloud 9 last night after a spot opened up in the Gasparilla Ultra challenge next month and I signed up. Then, I started doing the math. Then, I started getting scared.

A 15K and a 5K on Saturday. OK, that's 12.4 miles. I can do that.

But the next day is a half-marathon and and 8K, which is 5 miles, so that's 18.1 miles total. Wow... that's a lot. I've only run double-digits once since the Freep half marathon in October. Will I be able to pull something out of my rear end in the next five weeks?

I have a couple of things going for me. One, I'm not taking this too seriously. This is for fun and for a race-cation. Two, I've been doing well with overall mileage lately. I've run two 30-mile weeks in a row, and have been feeling OK.

I think my plan of attack for the next few weeks needs to be a focus on back-to-back long runs. In the past few weeks, I've done a bunch of 7 mile/7 mile runs on consecutive days, a pair of 6.5 mile/9 mile runs, and one pair of 10 mile/7.5 mile runs. At least I'm not coming from nothing.

I'm going to try to add a few miles on those consecutive days runs for the next few weeks and see how it goes. I did 7 today, and I'll try to do 11 tomorrow. If I add 1 per run per week for a couple of weeks, and am still feeing good, I'll feel a lot better.

Wow — 30 miles in two days is a lot. I hope I can handle it.