You know you are an ultra runner when...

You know you are an ultra runner when...

1. 6am is sleeping in.
2. Your feet look better without toenails.
3. You can expound on the virtues of eating salt.
4. You know the location of every garage, public toilet, and water fountain within a 20 km radius of your house.
5. People at work think you're in a whole lot better shape than you think you are.
6. You actually are in a whole lot better shape than you think you are.
   
7. You have at least 5 blisters on your feet at any one time.
   
8. You always have at least one black toenail.
9. You don't need to paint your toenails; they're already different colors.
10. Have a running shoe collection that would make Imelda Marcos envious.
11. Your number of toes to toenails doesn't match.
12. You consider the mould in your bottles extra electrolytes.
13. You're embarrassed that you've only done 90K's of running in a week...
14. You run nearly 50km one day and then get up and run again the next day.
    
15. The only time major household projects (or any housework for that matter) get done is in a taper or race recovery.
16. It takes 18kms to "warm up".
17. You're old 15km "long run" is now your recovery run.
18. You are asleep at 8pm.
19. Its not unusual to have had 2 - 3 gels, a couple of cans of coke and sometimes a chocolate bar before 8am...
20. You're fast run pace is now 4.30km pace.
21. Caffeine and compression tights are your new best friends.
22. You chaff in all sorts of odd places and sometimes you have to wear the same running top all week (clean of course).
23. You stop swimming because your legs are so heavy that they drag along the bottom of the pool (which is odd because you love swimming, but aren't really fond of running)...

These are all the things that define the training that I have been doing lately...Just 3 weeks to go now and my long race will be upon me... I will be heading into the unknown and it scares me a little. But I have put in some long hours training so fingers crossed.