Life’s a rollercoaster. Just when things are looking up, well, down you plunge into the next ravine. I was feeling pretty good about my fitness after last weekend’s long run. It wasn’t a lights out performance by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a solid effort and a step up from my first…
Eastern States Maintaining Update
I’ve called my last two training cycles “maintaining” cycles for the reason that I didn’t feel what I was doing was actually training. In training, you steadily add stress and training load to your body in the hopes that you get stronger before you reach the point of injuring yourself. Each of my last two cycles…
Practice Makes Perfect
Let’s say you want to get better at something (i.e. ultras). What’s the best way to accomplish this? Well, you could gather as many materials as you can lay your hands on (books, magazines, blogs) and read till your eyes bleed. There’s a lot of great information out there and by studying it all you…
When Run is a Four Letter Word
Brutal. Soul-crushing. Hard. Unending. Soul-crushing (yes, I know I used that one twice, but it comes the closest so I might just use it a couple more times). These are just some of the words that come to mind when I think back to yesterday’s 20-mile run. There are many others, however I’m trying to…
2017 Eastern States 100 Training Plan
I’m 59 days out from ES100 so I guess it’s time I came up with a training plan. The good news is that Old Dominion proved that I’m in the best 100 mile shape of my life. Granted, I’ve only been doing these for a little over 2 years now (boy, 2015 C&O 100 seems…
Mile High Club
I finally joined the mile high club this past week and I have to admit that it was harder than I thought it would be. I don’t travel an awful lot whether for business or for family vacations so the opportunity rarely presents itself. And when I do travel, it’s typically to locations either on…
The Ten and Two Workout
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…