I’m firmly in snooze button season now. Almost all of my races and adventures are done for the year so it’s time to take some well deserved R&R. This doesn’t mean I stop running entirely. I’m still getting out the door each day to at least keep my run streak going (day #3753), however my…
Back-to-back Hundreds
I’m now less than two weeks out from my next hundred and Eastern States seemed like it was just the other weekend. The five weeks between the two races is my shortest turnaround time to date. I had six weeks between races back in 2019 and seven weeks in 2016. In both of those cases,…
Paying The Price
There’s a cost to running ultramarathons. I’m not referring to registration fees. Or the trials of actually completing a race. I’m talking about the miles that need to be racked up. The workouts stacked on top of workouts. All of the training that needs to be done just to get you to the starting line.…
Eastern States Training Volumes
For a number of years, I’ve tracked the amount of miles and long runs that I’ve done heading into my hundred milers. These aren’t training plans or even training blocks per se. More a general description of my running volume leading up to races. First, let’s take a look at the 100 days before each…
20,000 Lifetime Miles
Well, I hit another major running milestone this past week. After logging my 200th long run a couple weeks back, I crossed over the 20,000 lifetime miles threshold on a run last weekend. I’ve ramped up my weekly mileage over the past couple years so what took almost 6 years for the first 10k only…
Dead Legs
I’m not sure how I did it, but my legs are definitely pretty thrashed. I had just about zero oomph left at the end of my long run Saturday. Now I’ve done enough of these (# 201!) to know they’re supposed to be tired by the time I get to the end. They were a…
Locking Into A Training Groove
I’ve been writing a decent amount recently about training motivation. If you’re understandably tired of the topic, feel free to skip this post. If not, read on! My current belief structure is that motivation (or lack thereof) is our subconscious’ way of telling us when it’s time to ramp up/down our training volume. Wanna hit…
200 Long Runs
I reached a significant personal milestone last weekend when I finished my 200th long run. When I started out running, I built up quickly to the half and full marathon distances. During my first marathon training plan, I decided to define 20 miles as a long run. I had heard that you typically bonk at…
Tuesday: Hill Repeats
It’s been a little over 3 weeks since my last race. Time to get back into training. When I first started running ultras, it would take about this long for my legs to heal up enough for me to return to my base training mileage (40mpw +/-). The first week would see me hobbling around…
The Dreaded Long Run
I love running really long distances. Ultra races are the focus of my annual running calendar. I enjoy counting down the days till my next race (i.e. see widget to the right). The build up. The anticipation. It’s like Christmas season all year long for me. But my maintenance 20 mile long runs? Yeah, not…