Monday, March 14, 2016

Week 11

The plan for week 11 was:












week #weekMTWThFSSuTotal

113/14/20164323140


What I ended up running was:












week #weekMTWThFSSuTotal

113/14/20162.830.433.2

  • Mon Mar 14
  • Tue Mar 15
  • 2.8 mi out-and-back along Vollmerhausen. I live near a decent gradual hill so I thought that would be good for a quick run after work.
  • Wed Mar 16
  • Thu Mar 17
  • Fri Mar 18
  • Sat Mar 19
  • HAT Run! One of my earliest ultras (2nd ultra) back in 2012. It's a good race, well run, the only issue is that it can be a little crowded for the small loop and first big loop. Garmin measured 30.4 mi, which is about a 2% error and probably all you can really expect out of a sports GPS.
  • Sun Mar 20
Some thoughts so far... I really enjoyed HAT - the trails at Susquehanna are a nice mix of hills, flats, minor rocks, and generally runnable singletrack through the woods with some nice views of the river. I've done the event 3 times and if it weren't so crowded, I'd probably try to be there every year. It gives a lot of swag for a fairly inexpensive event: we got a hat (green this year), T-shirt, portable USB charger, and lawn chair (finisher's award). You can't beat that for the price!

I'm more sore than I should be for a 50K. Left hip/knee and right ankle.

 I'm averaging around 30 miles/week. Not bad but that's less than the level of a 50K plan. I'm also running 3-4 times a week, which again is decent for a 50K plan but for a 50M or more I gotta bump up to a solid 5 days a week and at least 40 miles/week. My 3 longest runs have been events (30.4 mi at HAT, 22 at Frozen Heart, 19.4 at Eternal Winter; all according to my GPS) and this is obviously not good as I need to get more miles in regularly.

 Anyway, this initial part was a buildup to an early season 50K, actual training for Yeti doesn't start for another month. I'll need to make some changes is Yeti is going to happen. I hate to sound defeatist, but I'm not sure I can, or want, to carve out the time to get to the next event distance level. The jump from 50M/100K to 100M seems way to big for me to make without making it my sole goal. I'll try to step up the training to do 50M at Montour, but I'm kinda thinking that Stone Mill in Nov might be a more realistic goal. Montour is a timed event with a very generous cutoff (up to 24 hours); meanwhile Stone Mill is a traditional trail race with a 13 hour cutoff. Doing Stone Mill in the time limit might be enough challenge for me.

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