Two Posts in One Day? This Must Be Good...

I’m only a few days out from the Mohican 50k and the excitement is starting to build. I know Rob has put a lot of time and effort in organizing the race and it’s going to be a great event, rain or shine. Instead of tapering for the race, like I did for my most recent marathon, I’ll be training through the 50k. I have to keep pushing my mileage up each week and I can’t afford to let it drop off every time I have a race coming up. With that being said I feel better now and have more confidence in my fitness training through a race than I do after a taper.
I will not be racing the 50k this weekend because I don’t want to risk injury or push myself so hard that I’m sore for days. This does not mean that I’ll just be out there for a Sunday stroll. I will certainly push myself but I won’t be worried about my pace, at least early, and I won’t be worried about what other runners are doing. I tend to get sucked into a fast pace early because I’m to worried about the runners in front of me…I’m going to make a conscious effort to go at my own pace Sunday.
Whatever I’m doing seems to be working, I feel healthy and every time I decide to push it my body responds positively (with the exception of my most recent marathon...). I can’t explain why but I can settle into 6:30 pace comfortably 5 or 6 miles into a run but when I rush into that pace from the start I’m in oxygen debt after a couple miles. I don’t know whether it’s psychological or physiological but that’s just the way my body responds. Because of this I’m better suited for longer races that allow me to work into a pace, unlike a 5k where you don’t have time to make up for a slow start. One thing I need to be careful of is increasing my mileage too quickly. After my marathon in the fall I went from running twice a week to running 4 or 5 days a week in preparation for my winter 50k’s and before I knew it I was injured. Hopefully mixing in weight training and elliptical training helps me stay injury free during the build-up to Mohican.
One last note: I was talking to Mike Keller this week about doing a 24 hour training walk/hike at Mohican. He made a post on the Mohican message board about him and Kurt O doing this for Burning River and if seemed like a really great way to simulate a 100 mile run without all the pounding. We are still trying to figure out when’s the best time to do such a training event, working around the already planned Mohican training weekend and the Cleveland Marathon weekend. Having never run 100 miles before I’m not sure if doing this 24-hour hike three weeks out from Mohican is too close to the event or not. The other alternative is doing it one of the first two weekends in May. The plan is to start at 5am from Mohican Wilderness and walk for 24 hours. Depending on our pace, which is a big unknown, we may be able to get each loop in once, or we may skip some sections but we’ll play that by ear. If anyone’s interested in joining us for a certain section of the course or the whole shebang let me know, the more the marrier!