Grindstone 50k is 32.5 miles with 5,020 feet of climbing, in the national forest just west of the Shenandoah Valley. It starts at 7am on September 19 at Natural Chimneys and finishes back there. Nine hours, four aid stations, no crew access and no drop bags anywhere on the course.

I trained for it on Lake Road, which runs along the south shore of Lake Erie and is flat enough that you can see the next mile before you get to it. Last week I wrote about the hill work I didn't do. This is the other post, the one where I say out loud what I think is going to happen, so there's a record to check it against.

Three versions of the same plan.

A. Six hours, about 11:05 per mile. A good day.
B. 6:15, about 11:32. A normal one.
C. 6:30, about 12:00. Warm, or my stomach turns, or the climbing takes more than I've got.

These aren't three goals. It's one goal and three sets of conditions, and I won't know which day I'm having until I'm well into it. B is what I'd bet on.

The hard number is 4:00pm. Two cutoffs come before it: 10:00am at Wolf Ridge, mile 11.4, and 12:45pm at Sand Spring, mile 21.

The first one is tighter than it looks. Three hours to cover 11.4 miles works out to 15:47 per mile, which is the tightest required pace anywhere on the course. Wolf Ridge to Sand Spring allows 17:11. The run home allows 16:57. Both of those are harder ground.

I still don't think it's the problem. That first stretch is the easiest running of the day, and I'd have to be walking most of it to be in trouble. The thing that decides this race isn't a cutoff at all.

Three that matter. A short steep one out of the start that puts you on the ridge of Narrow Back Mountain. Wolf Ridge in the middle, which the race describes as formidable and everyone else describes with less restraint. Then a second crossing of Narrow Back around mile 24, which is the one I think about most, because by then it's a climb I've already done once on fresh legs.

The middle section is the whole race. Mile 11.4 to mile 21, 9.6 miles, 2,280 feet of gain. That's 45 percent of the day's climbing in 30 percent of the distance, and it's the longest stretch on the course with no aid. Everything else in this post is really about that stretch.

No poles. I've never trained with them and race day is a poor place to debut equipment.

No planned power hiking, but I have a threshold. When my pace drops to somewhere between 13:30 and 14:00 per mile, I hike. Below that number, running costs more than it returns.

Here is the part I don't like. Applied honestly on Wolf Ridge, that threshold means I'm hiking, and probably for a while. Which makes "no planned power hiking" a distinction without much difference by mile 12.

Whether that costs me the A version, I don't know. I've never run anything like this. I worked the numbers a few different ways and got a different answer each time depending on what I assumed about the descents, which is a long way of saying I'm guessing. Six hours might be sitting right there. It might be a number I made up in a spreadsheet in August.

So B is what I'm planning around, and A is what I'll find out about somewhere near mile 21.

All of this is built around one number: 9.6 miles between Wolf Ridge and Sand Spring with nothing on the course. Longest gap of the day, hardest climbing of the day. If the plan comes apart, it comes apart there, and probably because it was warm.

Gels. One Maurten Gel 100 every 30 minutes from the start. The Caf 100 goes in at about 90 minutes, which puts it around mile 8. I'm leaving with 13, which at that cadence is exactly 6:30 of running and not a minute more. Out there any longer and I'm eating off the tables.

Fluid. Three 500ml bottles. Two water, one Tailwind, six stick packs in the vest. A packet every 90 minutes to two hours, sipped alongside plain water from the other flasks, because 200 calories in 500ml is more concentrated than Tailwind has in mind.

Salt. Eight SaltStick capsules, one an hour, taken with every other gel so I'm not running two clocks. These are a late addition. Tailwind at that cadence gives me somewhere around 350mg of sodium an hour and Maurten contributes close to nothing, which is fine on a cool day. September in the Virginia mountains is not reliably a cool day. The capsules add about 215mg an hour and no calories at all, which is the entire point, because I couldn't fix it by drinking more Tailwind without pushing my carbohydrate rate somewhere my stomach has never been.

Real food. Off the tables. Aid stations have PB&J, plus gels, chews, bars, fruit, soda, salty snacks and warm broth. I practiced with PB&J on a long run and it went down fine, so that's the plan at every stop. Which also means nothing solid for 9.6 miles in the middle, and that's the part of this I'd change if I could.

One rule for everything else on the table: I can take food I've already eaten. I'm not trying an unfamiliar gel or a new electrolyte drink for the first time at mile 21 of a mountain race.

Mile 20 is a mile short of Sand Spring, at the tail end of that unsupported stretch, with the Wolf Ridge climbing behind me and the second Narrow Back crossing still ahead. Aid is close. So is the last real climb of the day.

If it's gone sideways there, it's one of three things. Stomach, in which case I stop the gels, go to water and warm broth, and walk until it settles. Heat, in which case I slow down and stop looking at the watch. Legs, in which case I hike and take the C version of the day.

What I'm not going to do is drop because I'm slower than I wanted to be. The cutoffs have more room in them than that. At B pace I reach Wolf Ridge with an hour of buffer and Sand Spring with an hour and a half. I'd have to come apart in a specific and dramatic way to be in real trouble with the clock.

What would actually make me drop is an injury I'd be making worse by continuing.

The last 4.5 miles are 159 feet up and 552 down. If I'm upright at Lick Run 2, I'm finishing.

An A day: six hours, running the last four miles.
A B day: 6:15, having eaten everything I planned to eat.
A C day: 6:30, and I hiked more than I meant to.
Any day: 32.5 miles, before 4:00pm, done.

I'll write up whatever actually happens. That post is the point of this one, because a plan is only worth anything if somebody goes back and checks it against the result.

We'll see how much of this survives the first climb.