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…
The Failed Run
Well, that didn’t turn out like I had planned. There’s lots of different ways to define a failed training run. Maybe you didn’t run as fast as you wanted. Or your effort wasn’t high enough. You could have missed your vert target for the activity. Or possibly you went too hard on an easy day.…
So Long Season of Slow
Well, that lasted longer than I thought it would. What started out as a month or so drop in training intensity, turned into a season, turned into . . . (checks calendar) . . . over three years?!?! Back in 2018, I was getting a little burned out physically so decided to start up my…
Stop the Madness
I’ve got a problem. I keep falling down when I go out for runs. Now this isn’t a new problem. If you read enough of my race reports, you’ll see that this has been going on for quite a while. Typically though this has been limited to races. The only times I can remember hitting…
Running as a Lifestyle
My fifth Phunt 50K is this weekend. I was thinking about my training leading up to the race and realized that I probably need to throw some quotation marks around that word. I got a little burned out last year with all of the miles I logged (2500 – new annual best!) and so dialed…
Meh, not feeling it
I’ve been in a bit of a funk for the last 3 or 4 weeks. Practically wearing a groove in my snooze alarm. I’ve had a very active year so far with five ultra races plus my two failed attempts at the Mason-Dixon Trail (99 and 72 miles). And traditionally this has been my down…
ES100 Training Blocks
I really wanted to add an adjective in the subject line like “effective” or “successful”, but I’m afraid of jinxing myself for next month’s race. Here’s a quick chart of some very high level stats summarizing the 100 days heading into each of my races. If you’re wondering why I picked 100 days and not…
Is It Working?
I seem to ask myself this fairly regularly as I progress through a training block. Is my training working? And my yardstick for measuring this 99 times out of a 100 is my pace. Unfortunately, my paces vary so much from day to day that it’s almost impossible for me to tell if I’m getting…