Week 1

The plan for week 1 was:

	week #	week	M	T	W	Th	F	S	Su	Total
	1	1/4/2016		4	8	4		10	6	32

What I ended up running was:

	week #	week	M	T	W	Th	F	S	Su	Total
	1	1/4/2016		8.3				6.1	13.1	27.5

• Tue Jan 5
Due to scheduling logistics, I swapped with tomorrow. I ran 8.2 mi on the Patuxent Branch Trail.
• Wed Jan 6
• Thu Jan 7
The rest of the weekdays didn't go so well. I picked up a cold and decided to get more sleep and otherwise rest. I don't think doing minor exercise (i.e. less than an hour of easy running) will make things worse, but instead the decision was more about getting extra sleep. Not the greatest kickoff to training, but it is early in the plan, there are a lot of weeks left, and I will get back on track this weekend.
• Sat Jan 9
Good run with a meetup group I'm an organizer of (Run, Gap, Gulp, Go). Considering the dreary day, turnout was fantastic. We did one loop of the Mid Maryland 50K route, and saw another group out there obviously running the route as well. I run with Kate tomorrow, 12-13 mi or so, thus I swapped today's and tomorrow's distances.
• Sun Jan 10
Kate and I did our own half-marathon along the C&O.

100 Training Plan

I have this training plan on Google Docs and also exported it as a table to display here.

The plan is basically a merger of the UltraLadies 50K, 50M, and 100M plans. Those are the plans that seem most realistic to me... the plan out of Field Guild to Ultrarunning is too many days a week, with many split days (run in the morning, run in the evening). The plan out of Relentless Forward Progress, the 50 mile per week version, also looks pretty decent but the timing seems rushed - it has you doing a 50 miler 5 weeks before the 100, and a 50K 5 weeks before that and I couldn't make that fit at all.

So instead, I stitched this together out of the UltraLadies plans. It starts with a 50K plan leading up to HAT and continues with the 50M plan to Montour. After that, it grafts on as much of the 100M plan as fits. Not ideal, but then I don't get to set the dates of all the events I'm using along the way. I think this will work OK. The alternative is to train for 65 weeks (the lengths of the 50K, 50M, and 100M together) plus a few more for recovery in between... more than a year would make for major burn out!

My biggest concern was not having done any 50M to 100K events, so I wanted to be sure to include one. The timing of various events in my area are that Montour, a 24 hour race, is about the correct time, 10 weeks before Yeti.

Since the UltraLadies plans are high mileage. I plan to cut the longer runs by 20% or more. Basically every run longer than 10 mi will be cut to 80%. 

Tue will be running strength/hills day - at 4 mi, a nice run will be the hills with the Crazies (Hilltop and Ilchester, skipping the Grist Mill and River Rd loop). Thu I will try to get to a track and do some sort of speed work, probably 800s at a ~4:00 pace. I'm not big on super complicated ladder workouts and all that stuff; just running faster than normal is all I want and 800s is easy to count and track. For Wed I plan to run with my friend Kristen in Baltimore - she'll need some long runs too, and it'll be nice and lit for us which will be very important until Daylight Saving Time returns in Mar.

Along the way I have a few events planned - a few will help with motivation and add variety, but too many become overwhelming, expensive, and interfere with training. I'm signed up for PHUNT 25K, Eternal Winter, Frozen Heart, HAT, Trap Pond, Laurel Highlands 50K, Montour, and Yeti. I'm set for all the events I plan to do through October of 2016! ;)

Since Frozen Heart falls on a short mileage weekend, I'll swap weeks. EF will be optional and will be a last minute decision; at this point I'm leaning against doing it. Maybe next year when I go a different direction and try a bunch of technical, difficult events. For C&O, I'll volunteer and pace since I have friends doing that one.

If Montour goes very poorly and I don't think I can do Yeti, then the fallback will be the Stone Mill 50 Mile run in Nov. However, by sticking to the plan and getting the training in, I want to make sure that doesn't happen!

	week #	week	M	T	W	Th	F	S	Su	Total
	1	1/4/2016		4	8	4		10	6	32
	2	1/11/2016		4	8	4		24	10	50	phunt
	3	1/18/2016		4	8	4		10	6	32
	4	1/25/2016		4	10	4		24	10	52	eternal winter
	5	2/1/2016		4	10	4		10	8	36
	6	2/8/2016		4	12	4		26	10	56
	7	2/15/2016		4	10	4		10	8	36	frozen heart
	8	2/22/2016		4	12	4		26	10	56
	9	2/29/2016		4	10	4		10	8	36
	10	3/7/2016		4		6		10		20	(ef)
	11	3/14/2016	4	3	2			31		40	hat
	12	3/21/2016		4	4	4		8	4	24
	13	3/28/2016		4	6	4		20	8	42
	14	4/4/2016		4	6	6		20	10	46
	15	4/11/2016		4	4	4		10	6	28
	16	4/18/2016		4	6	6		22	10	48	trap pond
	17	4/25/2016		4	8	6		22	10	50	c&o
	18	5/2/2016		4	4	6		10	6	30
	19	5/9/2016		4	8	6		24	10	52
	20	5/16/2016		4	8	6		24	10	52
	21	5/23/2016		4	6	6		10	8	34
	22	5/30/2016		4	10	6		26	10	56
	23	6/6/2016		4	10	6		26	10	56	laurel highlands
	24	6/13/2016		4	8	6		10	8	36
	25	6/20/2016		4	12	6		28	12	62
	26	6/27/2016		4	12	6		28	12	62
	27	7/4/2016		4	8	6		10	8	36
	28	7/11/2016		4		6		10		20
	29	7/18/2016	4	3	2			50		59	montour
	30	7/25/2016		4	8	6		10	8	36
	31	8/1/2016		4	15	6		30	15	70
	32	8/8/2016		4	15	6		30	15	70
	33	8/15/2016		4	15	6		30	20	75
	34	8/22/2016		4	8	6		10	8	36
	35	8/29/2016		4	15	6		30	20	75
	36	9/5/2016		4	15	6		30	20	75
	37	9/12/2016		4	10	6		10	10	40
	38	9/19/2016		4		6		10		20
	39	9/26/2016	5	3	2			100		110	yeti

2016 Yeti

I did something crazy and signed up for a 100 mile run - the Yeti 100 Mile Endurance Run.

It came down to choosing between the C&O Canal 100 or Yeti. Both have pros and cons, but Yeti's hugest advantage is the simple fact that it is Sep 30, 2016, 39 weeks into the year, while C&O is Apr 30, 2016, 17 weeks into the year. Given that I'm really going to start training the first full week of Jan, there is no way I would be able to prepare for C&O with 17 week to do it.

I'll follow up with the training plan I put together. For now, a collection of websites so I don't have to search all over to find them again.

References

• How to Train for and Run Your First 100 at the Umstead 100 by Blake Norwood, Umstead RD

• A 100 Mile Training Plan by Sherpa John. The whole series is pretty good with a lot of good tips.

• UltraLadies Run Club, with their 50K, 50M, 100M training plans

• Fellrnr's ultramarathon training plan comparison chart. Lots of good info on the site as well.

• Training for an ultra-marathon, iRunFar

• You can  Run 100 Miles on Marathon Training, Outside Online

• How to Run 100 Miles, Relentless Runner

• UltRunR website, tons of info and links to check out

Inspirational Articles

• How a too-busy doctor trained for a 100-mile race, Washington Post

• What I Have Learned from Running 100 Miles, Jodi Weiss via Huffington Post

Mid Maryland 50K

A nice local winter event is the Mid Maryland 50K. It is entirely within Rockburn Branch park, and consists of 5 loops, 10K each. The race has a solo ultra division, and a relay division which allows a team of 2 to 5 runners.

I'm familiar with the trails, since I run at Rockburn and over to Patapsco Valley State Park all the time. The trails are runnable, with a few roots and rocks along the way, and a minor hill or three. The big issue was thawing - for the first loop, the ground was solid. After a few more loops and sun, it tends to get a bit sloppy and muddy. Particularly the section roughly 2 mi into the loop, over by the neighborhood between Kerger Rd and Talbots Landing. The course passes through a field and by some historic farm building, and that section tends to mud out.

Nevertheless, this is a fun event and what is trail running if you don't have a stream crossing or mud to deal with? ;)

The start/finish passes through a pavilion where aid is setup and I stopped briefly each time to eat/drink and top of my bottle.

I knew lots of people at the event, running it, running on a relay team, or just spectating, so it is a great low key early year event. My friend Mikhail took this awesome pic of me. 

I think next year I'll volunteer at it or look to be part of a relay team. The event is great, it is just that there are some other ones around the same time (plus or minus a week) so next year I want to check out something different.

I was freezing afterwards so after chatting and hanging around a while, I zipped out for a nice cafe mocha at Starbucks.

Mid Maryland 50K 2015

Eugene Bruckert

Several of us signed up for this very low key event nearby in Delaware. This event was a "fat ass" race, which is the designation for the kind of race with no fee, no medals/t-shirts, and mostly self-supporting (as in: you bring the stuff you think you need and sometimes a bit extra to share. Some events of this nature send out a list ahead of time of what each runner should contribute). Note that it is not at all a reflection on quality - after all, what do you REALLY need at a race? A well marked course and a place to refuel is basically it. :)

I checked out the entrants list beforehand and saw that my friend Seth from FL had signed up! When I lived in Orlando, he was working on finishing off the 50 States marathon checklist. Now, he was working on the ultra version of that challenge, a 50K in every state - hence the interest in low cost (free) low key oddball timing events.

To minimize logistics, this event was a 5K loop you could run as many times as you wanted in the time limit. Obviously for a 50K you'd need to get 10 loops in... my goal at this early point in the year was a modest 8 laps.

That's what I did so I technically DNF'ed and am not listed in the results as far as I know. I went to check the results and the link doesn't pull anything up now. Hey, it was a fat ass event, it's fine.

The race itself started/stopped at a bunch of picnic tables. We runners claimed sections of the tables and benches to setup our stuff - drinks, chips, munchies, etc - and then we went to do our mileage. The group that traveled from MD included several others and loop events are always nice for sharing some time with others.

The route was runnable, minor roots and rocks with a slight hills over the distance. It was reasonably scenic as well, as we circled a small pond, Killen's Pond.

Check out the "circle of life" the birds made in the pond.

I stopped briefly at every lap before heading out again, and by the end of the 8th lap I decided not to grind out 2 more. On the way home we stopped at a great Italian place in Annapolis and I had some really delicious lasagna.

Overall it was fun, a great workout, and reasonably warm for mid January. A great way to start the year!

Eugene Bruckert

Rosaryville Veteran's Day 50K

I signed up for this event in 2012, but missed it due to a sprained ankle. This year I got sick for a few weeks in Oct so I made this my last race of the season. I was highly confident going in, because I ran the Patapsco Valley 50K two weeks ago and that course was harder.

Once again we lucked out with the weather. It was sunny and cool and couldn't have been any better!

I ran with my friend Amy, who was coming off an injured ankle suffered several months ago. Given that neither of us was in peak condition ;) we were really just looking forward to a nice gentle trail run in beautiful weather, so our plan was to just take it really easy and enjoy ourselves.

The event starts at a pavilion inside the park, follows a road out-and-back to the perimeter trail, and is then 3 counter-clockwise laps on the perimeter trail. I've run at Rosaryville dozens of times and have always measured the trail to be ~9.2 mi in length, so as we started the event some quick math told me this event would be a little shorter than 50K/31mi. My Garmin wound up with 29.3 mi, so 1.7 short (plus or minus whatever GPS inaccuracies that day) but that's fine. I think events have to work with the terrain they have and sometimes a ridiculous out-and-back or tiny loop just to make the distance works out is silly.

The aid stations were fantastic - there were two, one each time the trail crossed a park road, which were conveniently about halfway around the perimeter from each other - and the whole event went well, if slower than either of us could have done normally. But as a final trail race for 2014, it was ideal.

A race photographer took this awesome picture of me on the course.

I'm not sure I'll do this event next year, because it is scheduled around some other races I have my eye on. One of those is Stone Mill; I'm actually in it this year but there is no way I can finish it (and enjoy myself) so I won't start. Another race that I am interested in is Mountain Masochist. Both are 50 milers so they would be a step up.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/629181190

Patapsco Valley 50K

I went into this event slightly injured and undertrained due to illness, so I didn't have many expectations. On the other hand I was feeling optimistic because this is effectively my home course - I run the trails here all the time. And I was determined not to DNF. I figured if I could get to the start again (first 20/21 mi were a loop that came back to the start) and was feeling OK, I could definitely hike the remaining 10/11 mi.

The race started early - 6 am - so the initial hour or so required headlamps. It was kinda fun starting out, one dispersed mass of 120 runners and their headlamps, heading up an immediate climb.

At 5 mi in to the event it was light enough out to turn off the headlamp.

Already the crowd had thinned out quite a bit, and for the next bit it was me running in between two small groups of friends. I kept running to catch up and then falling behind because of temperature issues - I had a short sleeve shirt and a thin jacket on, but I found that I was too cold in the shirt (I could have used gloves) and too warm in the jacket. So I kept stopping to take off my vest and jacket over and over.

Right after the Buzzards Rock viewpoint (pic above) was the 2nd aid station at the Hilltop parking area. My friend Carrie was helping out - she also helped at registration - and we chatted for a bit before she reminded me I tend to dawdle at aid stations.

Leaving aid station 2 the course followed Sawmill Branch, turning south along the river to the short rock scramble. I happened to run near a young woman, Aubrey, who told me this was her first 50K. Nice! Kinda tough for a first 50K but I didn't mention that to her.

At the rock scramble I stopped to take a pic and she offered to take one of me:

That's me in my Crazies running shirt, with my jacket wrapped around my waist (still was juggling being too warm/cool but soon enough I was fine in just the shirt), and bib number 7, not 1 - the number folded slightly and at many aid stations I had to correct someone that said "bib number 1, check"!

I made it back to the start area at mi 20/21 with about 30 mins to spare for the 6 hour cutoff. I was feeling tired and wearing down, but my foot felt OK so I continued. Besides, the weather was perfect and I had another 4.5 hours to do the next 10/11 mi, which I was positive I could do. I changed at my car real quick (swapped shorts for the tights, dropped the jacket) and headed out.

The second time doing the big orange trail climb was tough, especially at the top when another runner popped out and asked for directions. I knew he was a mile from finishing and I had another 10 to go. All I wanted to do was finish, no time goal, so I kept on.

Somewhere around mile 25 my slow run turned into a hike/fast walk. In my haste to leave the start area, I forgot to top off my bottles. I was low on water but I knew I could make it to the aid station at mi 27. Right before reaching the aid station, I drained my last bottle but was able to refill it minutes later. I chatted with Laura for a bit before heading out. We both agreed that I could easily do the next 4 mi in just over an hour... which seemed odd and not quite right. While half-walking half-running down the blue trail I realized we both shorted me 1 hour of time - I actually had just over 2 hours to make it. Whew, haha, that would be no problem.

Being familiar with the course had one downside - I knew the trail the race would take to the finish included the orange Ridge trail, one of the tougher ones, especially at mi ~30 of an event. It isn't too bad really, but it is narrow with lots of ups and downs, and popular with mountain bikers. I was tired for this section I don't remember seeing one of my favorite landmarks along it - a large rock in the middle of the trail with an orange blaze mark on it. I nicknamed it "the troll" and I'm sure it is there still, I probably just was a little out of it when I went by.

I was so happy to see the finish line I picked it up slightly and grinned from ear to ear. It was a fun event and I'd like to do it again next year. My Garmin shows 8:50 moving time, 9:09 elapsed, and 32.5 mi.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/619863526