Training Update

Thought I would post a few notes about my trainig for Umstead and how it's progressing.

Over the last few weeks I've been increasing my milage.  I was cruising on my 2 day a week regiment for a while there, just running Wednesdays and Saturdays.  A couple weeks before Regis I began making the Sunday run a regular thing.  I've even been adding in a weekday morning run on occasion.  I've done one a week for the last few weeks, with a running group in New Albany (typically on Friday mornings).  So I'm now averaging 4 days and a little over 40 miles per week.

The highlight of the past several weeks had been my speed work on Wednesday nights.  The times I've been hitting on my workouts project out to a 2:45 marathon, which means I'm seeing improvement.  All of this during what has been a pretty tough winter.  The two biggest breakthrough workouts were 6x1200 repeats (on a grade) at 5:40 pace, and an 8 mile tempo run at 6:18 average pace.  Even when training for an ultra its important to me to run fast 1x a week.

Over the last two weeks I've tried to really amp up the milage on the weekends.

Last weekend the plan was 10 Friday, 15 Saturday, 15 Sunday (CRRC Winter Run).  My actual milage ended up being a little different.  I did manage the 10 on Friday.  Saturday's run was chellenging because the bike path we ran on with MIT was a sheet of ice - we managed a slow 13.  On Sunday I decided to get up early and get in an easy 10 before the Winter Run, the late race start presented an opportunity to get in more miles that I couldn't resist.  Unfortunetly the Winter Run was awful and I had side stiches so bad that I only made it 10 miles.  It was still a 43 mile weekend but none of the runs were quality runs.

This weekend was a better weekend.  I only had time for 7 on Friday because I had to hit the road early for work.  On Saturday I ran a solid 20 miles with MIT at 7:35 average pace.  On Sunday I got in 25 miles at Mohican with Jay, Seth, Terri, Mark, Michelle, and Rob.  I had planned on doing 2.5 more but decided 25 was enough.  It was a solid 63 miles for the week and I'm tired today, not sore, just tired.

Who knows what this week will bring.  I plan on running Tuesday morning, Wednesday night, Friday morning, a double on Saturday (MIT morning and COTR Alum Creek afternoon), and Last Chance on Sunday.  That would be 82 miles for the week, which is about what I need to stay on my schedule.

My goal is to peak at around 100 miles the week of March 7-13, so that's only 3 weeks from now.  If I logged ~50 miles two weekend ago, ~65 last weekend, then I want to run ~80 miles this week, ~90 miles next week, and 100 miles my peak week.  Then it's time to taper, with probably a 70 mile week, a 35 mile week, then race week.

What is my goal at Umstead?  I'm not 100% sure.  I'd definitely like to shoot for sub-20 maybe even sub-18, but that may be a stretch goal.  I think I'll try and hit the halfway mark at about 9 hours and see how it plays out from there.