I missed a week in my journaling as we move toward our 50 mile trail race coming up in just three weeks now! I can’t believe that we’re tapering already, but it is nice to have the really, really, long runs behind us.
The last two weeks were a bit strange. Week 8 was basically a “non-week” for me, as I was sick with a cold for most of it. It took almost the whole week to recover from this nasty cold – and it was probably partially worsened by the lack of sleep while I was in Anchorage. I’m sure that people get used to the fact that it is light all of the time in the summer there, but it through me for a loop.
As I moved into Week 9, my schedule got disrupted a bit as well. I was recovering from this silly cold and wasn’t quite together in time for my long run on Saturday, so I pushed out my run and did it on the Wednesday Fourth of July Holiday. Running 40 miles is great way to spend a holiday! The only wrinkle in the plan then came from needing a couple of days to recover from it. So my two week mileage was quite low in comparison to the last few weeks.
The 40 miler was an adventure. This was the longest run that I’ve done, both in terms of mileage and duration. I wanted to do the run entirely on single-track trail, but I was attempting the run alone. That meant that I needed to construct a course that would have multiple out and backs passing my car. I also wanted to have some serious climbing involved, so I picked out the toughest out and back section and repeated this twice to start the run.
This is where I introduced some problems. I haven’t been running alone recently (I’ve been with my pals Karl and Andy) and I took off onto the first climb by myself pushing too hard. The first 6 ½ miles were an uphill climb that I pushed very hard. After circling back through the car on the first loop, I did the climb again, and again ran it too hard. I knew I needed to slow down, but it just wasn’t happening. I recall going through the first half marathon mark in about 2:20 and then the marathon in 4:20 – which is unusually fast for an off-road run with tons of climbing. About 14 of the first 22 miles were up-hill!
The other thing that was going on was that the temperature was climbing steadily all morning. I knew it was going to be a hot day, but I didn’t conceive of the 91 degree day that it was shaping up to be. In the trees, it was probably 85 degrees by early afternoon. So after tearing through the first 25 miles or so, and with the temperature soaring, the last 15 miles were a real bummer. I was consuming fluid so quickly that I ran through all of my fluids before the turn-around on the last leg of the run. That meant that I needed to walk a significant portion of the last section, because I didn’t want to kill myself out there.
At one point, I was kind of bumbling along the trail and I looked skyward at a helicopter passing over. The next thing I knew I was lying on my side in the bushes. Staggering around and falling over isn’t the best sign. But finally, I made my way back to my car and quickly consumed about a gallon of cold water, Gleukos and salt – and I felt better quickly.
Since it’s been a few days, I can say that the solo 40 miler was really tough, but I’m pretty much recovered now. In these last three weeks, we’ll focus on speed work and trying not to tap into our endurance reserves. I’m looking forward to the break from the long runs, but getting more consistent with my speed work again.
The White River 50 Mile Run is coming up on July 28th, 2007. Stay tuned to see how it unfolds.
Mileage Summary
Week 8
Sunday: travel day
Monday: sick
Tuesday: sick
Wednesday: sick
Thursday: sick
Friday: 6 miles on road
Saturday: 12 miles on road easy
Week 8 Total: 18 miles
Week 9
Sunday: 10 miles trail
Monday: 5 miles speed-work (mixed hills and 800s)
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 40 miles single-track with climbing
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 6 miles easy recovery
Week 9 Total: 61 miles
Coach Joe
Running Wild with Coach Joe – a blog focused on marathon, triathlon and ultra-endurance racing, training and motivation. Bookmark us at http://coachjoeenglish.wordpress.com or use your favorite RSS feed reader to get the latest news and articles. Running Wild is also available on Yahoo! 360 and My Space.
