Here is how my 2016 race calendar is shaping up.
- Phunt 50K – January 16th – Elkton, MD
- Naked Bavarian 40 Miler – March 5th – Leesport, PA
- C&O Canal 100 – April 30th – Knoxville, MD
- Eastern States 100 – August 13th – Waterville, PA
- Cloudsplitter 100 – October 1st – Pine Mountain, KY
The latter 2 races are going to present me a challenge from a preparation standpoint. For my big races, I’ve typically done 20 week training cycles followed by 6 weeks mostly off. I’m going to have 14 weeks between C&O and Eastern States and then only 7 weeks till Cloudsplitter. I’ll have to see how I feel after each race, but I think I’m going to want at least 4 weeks of downtime. I was entirely recovered from my last 100 after 2 weeks as far as I could tell so this sounds about right for me. I may only take 3 weeks off after Eastern States. How I do in my first couple races will also factor in. I hope to have a solid base of training coming out of this spring so may be able to get by on fewer long and/or hard training efforts. The primary goal will be to get to each race 100% healthy rather than 100% trained and only 90% healthy as I think this gives me a better chance to finish each race.
I had been toying with adding a 12 hour run in between C&O and Eastern States, however decided against it for a couple reasons. First is that 5 ultras in a year is a good number and what I ran in 2015. Second is that 6 weekends away from the whole family (not all of us typically go to the runs) seems like too much. And finally, this is the first year I’m going to try three 100s. I don’t think my body will have a problem handling this, but it’s probably better to error on the side of caution as I just started out Chasing 10K.
How many races do you think are too many?