Seizing the Fish

There's a Latin expression that I try to live by: carpe diem, which roughly translates to "seize the fish" (the literal translation is "seize the carp", but I prefer Sydenham's more poetic "fish").

"He must know Latin--look at his sandals!"

In this spirit, one of my (fiscal) new year's resolutions is to be more adventurous, especially in my running. I'm naturally a conservative person and this shows in my choice of long runs, almost all of which have been looped courses close to home. Well, no more. I'm signed up for a 50k in September and want to run a 50 miler in December, and if I'm going to transform myself into a real ultrarunner by then I need to start doing more ill-advised, masochistic things in my free time. Since as an aspiring ultrarunner 95% of my free time is dedicated to running, it follows that I need to start including more ill-advised, masochistic runs in my free time. 


Enter next weekend's 24 miler: 

My path will follow the white dots, starting at the North Rim in the distance. 

This is the tourist's-eye view of the run. The picture that pops into my head when I think about the run is this one:

From left to right (north to south), that's 5761 feet down, 4380 feet back up in (hopefully) one morning. In the summer. 


I keep telling myself that it's only 24 miles, which is a distance I've run... twice in my life... on flat roads. 

Not pictured: a hill

Ill-advised? Probably. 
Masochistic? Hoooo, yeah. 
Am I going to make it? Tune in next week to find out.