Even though I’ve been running for five years now and doing ultras for 3 of them, I’m still not sure if I’m doing the whole taper thing right. You’re supposed to ramp down your weekly mileage from your peak week to race day. My problem is that the only variance in my weekly mileage depends…
Numbers Lie
I just finished my last long run of this training cycle – 31 miles. I had been looking forward to and dreading it at the same time all week long. Up until now, I didn’t even know that was possible. After last week’s blisteringly fast pace, I was wondering how much time I could lop off…
A Tale of Two Runs
Not to spoil the ending or anything, but it was the best of times. . . Well, that was pretty fast: Part I A co-worker from our Geneva office who runs ultras was in town this past week. We have worked together for about three years now, but had never met in person. Since he was going…
Maintaining or Building?
I think my body is messing with me. Or mocking me. Or quite possibly both. So my last post was all about how I’m not in a training cycle. That I’m just trying to maintain the endurance that was built up over the spring. Well after this morning’s run, I’m not sure if that’s necessarily…
Old Dominion 100 Maintaining Update
I’ve decided that I’m not in a training cycle so much as I am in a maintaining cycle. I spent 5 months building for Umstead and was probably in my best physical/endurance shape heading into it. It would be great to take a step up from there, but the timing is a little tricky with…
Head Games
I think I’m pre-injured. Recovering from Umstead is starting to feel like I normally do during my tapers. I’m not injured, but my legs just don’t seem to feel right. Yes, I know. They call this recovery for a reason, but I got back to 95% or so within 4 or 5 days (i.e. really…
Old Dominion 100 Mile Training Plan
The timing of my three 100-milers this year (4/1, 6/3, 8/12) doesn’t really give me whole lot of time to train in between each one. Especially, since I’ll need a portion of that time to recover from the prior race. So I’ll need to be a little creative in my running over the next 8…
Project 14Forty: Taper Time
The long runs are done. Long live the long runs! I’m not really sure if yesterday counts as a long run or not. I ran 10 miles followed immediately by 2 hours of hiking. All on roads or fire roads. While 10 miles is more of an intermediate run when you’re training for ultras, the…
Project 14Forty Update: 52 Mile Weekend
My peak weekend is now behind me. Bring on the taper! It’s a little hard to believe that it’s been 20 weeks since I started training for Umstead with the goal of finishing inside 24 hours (24×60=1,440). I’ve executed my training plan almost to the letter. The only major changes was adding in an extra…
Lessons Learned (or Relearned) from Naked Bavarian
I’ve been running ultras for three years now and I’ve managed to learn a couple things. Normally this would be a good thing, however I seem to keep forgetting those couple things which forces me to relearn them at inconvenient times. Like in the last 5-10 miles of races. Tune-up races can serve many important purposes…