Boston Strong

Easy miles with my friend Jamie, she is trying to BQ at Disney next week with a 3:40.  My legs were tired ... that makes 63 miles in last 5 days for me.

On a humbling note, I was following the All Through the Years timed event this weekend, 24, 48 & 72 hour options.  Crocket from FRB came in 2nd in the 48 hr with 179 miles!  A friend of mine from here in Atlanta won the 72 hour race completing an insane 280 miles!  Completing 133 in the first day!!  Ultrarunners are a different breed!!!

PM - Threw on the headlamp & got in an easy 7, felt good ... no hard workouts this week, but time to start getting the legs moving again before Sunday fun!

65 & sunny ... woohoo

 3 @ mp, then jumped on trail for 2.5 recovery.

6:43, 6:59, 6:55, 8:38, 8:44, 8:33

Off to watch Alex's basketball game.

Spin, 1 m on TM

Off to bball game!

Day of carb loading 

Today I ran a 50k trail race ... which ended up being 55k ... not cool!  It was a 5 loop course.

Anyway, my time at 31 miles was 5:10:00, at which point I was pretty much mentally checked out &  and my legs were trashed.  This is where the course also enters a pretty tecnical rocky section & a big climb, which includes about 50 steps.  I made an acquaintance with a nice girl who was on her 4th lap that I was passing right at the 50k mark.  We talked going up the steps & then she was kind enough to pull me along the last 3 miles, which was pretty much a death march for me.  She invited me to pace her on the last loop, and as much as I wanted to, I had to decline, don't think I could have made it!

I ran the first 3 loops with TimP from the blog, as he had invited me to join him on this run, it is his birthday.  Great company for 3 loops, it really helps to run Ultra races with a friend!  Unfortunately, his ankle was bothering him, so he made a wise decision to pull out after 3 loops ... no shame in a strong 20 mile trail run, and as much as I know he wanted to finish, it is not worth aggravating an injury.

As I figured, each loop was a little slower than the last, but stayed pretty steady ... at least until I hit the 50k mark!  Probably could have kept pushing, but there was no one to chase & no one close behind me on their last loop.  So, I was content to just try to keep moving, as long as that would suffice to hold onto 8th place overall.  No sense in extending my recovery period by pushing hard on the last 3 miles.

Loop 1 was 7 miles as we did a short extra loop on the road to let people space out a little, all other loops were 6.8 miles.  Loop Splits were:

Loop 1 - 1:03

Loop 2 - 1:04

Loop 3 - 1:13

Loop 4 - 1:14

Loop 5 - 1:18

Grand Total:  34.2 miles in 5:52:00

It was fun & I am glad I did it ... but I am not big on ultra running at this point in my life!  If I am going to run over 20 miles ... 26.2 is plenty!  The good news is that with the slower pace & soft surface running, my recovery will be much quicker than if I had raced a marathon on the road ... so it served as a great long training run.

There was 2,700' of climb ... and descent.

Easy recovery miles on super soft rain soaked trail.  Surprisingly, this was harder aerobically than in was on the legs ... Go figure!

Just enough to get the blood moving thru the legs.  Wanted to go to Spin later, but will be going to Alex's basketball game instead ... maybe I will stop by the gym on the way home & pedal a little on my own ... doesn't sound very exciting to do though!

Legs  feel ok, definitely need a couple days rest though before any hard workouts though ... 97 days to Boston ... guess I will start a 13 week plan next week.

Intersting article on fueling/electrolytes ... it is too long and a marketing piece ... so you have to take it with a grain of salt!  I have become a fan of Endurolytes by 'Hammer', and am convinced that electrolyte depletion is the number one cause of failure in the last 6 miles of a marathon with well trained athletes.  With that being said, it is worth taking an hour to study up on ... even if it means cutting a long run in half to make the time to do it!

http://www.hammernutrition.com/downloads/fuelinghandbook.pdf

We all train hard, sometimes it is little things like this, and amount of sleep we get, that make the difference in achieving & exceeding our goals.

Rogers Bridge - Quick 5k:  20:41

6:48, 6:50, 6:29, 34 seconds

Ran for an hour, easy pace.  Still feeling the effects of running 34 miles a little, probably should not have run fast yesterday.

GPP - 7 @ 7:48

FCHS to Sawnee Mtn, double loop on trail, & back, 5 on road, 5 on trail - 1,350' vertical

Settles Bridge, river trails, couple fairways on Bears Best GC, took some trail blazing, ravine crossing to get that far down the river.  Needless to say, it was slow.  Good recovery miles, quads are still feeling effects of running 34 miles 8 days ago.

Dropped car off at transmission shop, 45 & cloudy.  Poured rain miles 2-6, then cleared. Consistent effort, 7:50 pace.

10.3 miles from Augusto's (mechanic) back to house ... 7:32 pace

6 days complete rest followed by awesome 6 mile progression run, ruined by sight of swollen knee ... back to icing!

7:56, 7:30, 7:16, 6:50, 6:28, 5:54 for half mile, 0.7 mile cool down.  

6:28 mile felt relatively easy, no discomfort on run until end of cool down, at which point I noticed swelling ... oh well, at least the run went well.

Rode bike to LHS track - hilly & windy - 13 miles r/t

Little motivation to run at track in wind after biking, ran 2 800's in 2:45 & 2:46, then a 400 in 1:28 ... this was going to be another 800, but I was ready to bike home.

Main goal today was keep mileage down ... although I basically bailed on my planned workout, my legs got more rest, a little speed work & I can try my track workout another day.  Maybe ... I really don't enjoy track workouts!

90 minutes soccer

7:31, 6:40, 6:41, 7:00 (alternating threshold & recovery every tenth mile), 

8:30, 8:14, 8:11, 7:54