Training for a 100 mile race training recap - 3 Weeks to go!

Map says 16,200 ft, website says over 18k of climbing.

You may have noticed that I went from "5 weeks to go" last week to "three weeks to go" this week.  This is because the previous posts were from the point of view of the beginning of the training week.  Since the race is on May 18th I figured that it was less confusing to post the actual time left until the race (Massanutten Mountain 100).

Monday - Scheduled day off.  And after 113 miles last week, it was nice to rest.

Tuesday - 15 miles on trails (2:00:01 - 8:01 pace).  Ran the trails at a moderate pace. Surprised to see such a brisk pace.  I guess the day of did me some good.  Shoes - Montrail Fluid Flex.

Wednesday - 10 miles of trails (1:14:52 - 7:30 pace).  Watch was acting weird.  Was on a new route so not 100% sure that the miles were accurate.  Happy with pace. Shoes - my beloved New Balance MT110's.

Thursday - 15 miles of roads and trails (2:07:20 - 8:30 pace).  Ran the hilliest roads I can find in my area.  Incorporated the steep powerlines trail section.  Low energy.  Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Friday - 6 miles of roads (49:34 - 8:16 pace).  Had 5 on schedule, but I like even numbers so I did a bonus mile.  Felt strange to run so little.  Got an email Thursday night from Skechers about a prototype shoe coming my way that I had a lot of input on (no, I can't talk about it yet).  Got motivated to reacquaint myself with the Go Bionic Trail (not out yet)  Shoes - Custom Skechers Go Bionic trail prototypes.

Saturday - AM: 12 miles of roads (1:39:03 - 8:16 pace) Ran to work.  Shoes - Altra Torin
PM: 12 Miles of Trails (1:42:58 - 8:35 pace).  Beautiful afternoon so I added a run after work.  Saw new Altra Lone Peak 1.5 on line so I decided to bust out my old pair and give them a new try.  Looking forward to trying the new ones.  Shoes -  Original Altra Lone Peaks

Sunday - AM: 14 miles (2:56:23 - 12:36 pace). Ran the tough trails at Pawtuckaway State Park with Adam.  Closest simulation to MMT's trails in the area.  After the run I drove home and immediately jumped onto my local trails and ran another 16 miles (2:24:44 - 9:03 pace).  Total miles for today, 30. Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Summary - 100 miles in 14 hours 55 minutes

Another big week.  In the last 30 days I have run 436.4 miles, which might be the most I've ever run in that time frame.  Luckily I've made it through the toughest part of my training and now I head into three weeks of tapering back.  Although my coach, Satan. still has a 30 mile run scheduled for me this coming Sunday (what the hell kind of taper is that??).

As far as the diet goes, I'm still on track.  No sugar or wheat.  But...I did have a few drinks this week.  I'm losing weight at sort of an alarming pace and didn't think that easing up on the alcohol a bit would hurt.  Now with three weeks to go, I'll be totally back on the wagon until after the race.   Honestly, it felt good to allow myself this little indulgence.  I've been a very strict Vegan for the last several months and I'm positive that it is helping with my recovery.  I'm not ever sore and I really believe that the diet is contributing to that.

I feel like "the hay is in the barn" and I'm going to be very ready to tackle this huge challenge.  I'm at the point where I feel like I could whip off a 20-30 mile run at any time without any trouble.  After crappy results last year I am more confident that this year will be much more successful.

Training for a 100 Mile Race - 5 weeks to go recap

The Wapack Trail

Another pic of Wapack Trail - MMT isn't the only place with rocks!!

After a month of putting in 90+ mile weeks, I still had enough energy to run my biggest single training week of my life. 


Monday - 6 miles on trails (50:04 - 8:22 pace).  Beautiful day marred by tragedy at Boston.  Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Tuesday - AM: 15 miles on trails (2:04:42 - 8:19 pace).  Ran the trails hard. Attacked the hills but legs felt smoked at the top of each one.  Shoes - La Sportiva Helios
PM: 5.6 miles (49:38 - 8:52 pace) from house to Memorial Field.  Ran very easy pace and met 25 or so local runners to do a mile for Boston.  Shoes - Skechers Go Run 2

Wednesday - 10 miles of trails (1:25:04 - 8:31 pace).  First run of the year at the powerlines.  Super muddy, rocky and wet.  Shoes - Montrail Fluid Flex

Thursday - 15.5 miles of roads and trails (2:04:49 - 8:04 pace).  Ran the hilliest roads I can find in my area.  Incorporated the steep powerlines trail section then did 2 one mile hill intervals (up and down).  2400 ft elevation gain.  Legs were dead first couple miles then loosened up.  Shoes - Hoka Bondi Speed

Friday - 10 miles of trails (1:25:03 - 8:31 pace).  Ran very easy and felt great.  Busted out one of my all time favorite shoes and remembered how much I love how they feel.  Shoes - New Balance MT110

Saturday - 21.1 miles (4:55:41 -14:01 pace) Did the entire Wapack Trail with Adam, Ryan and Kristina.  Excellent training for Massanutten.  Nothing but rocks, mud and water.  Lots of steep climbs with almost 5000 ft elevation gain/loss.  Felt pretty good considering how many miles I have already this week. Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Sunday - 30 miles (5:04:32 - 10:10 pace). Ran the Bow Snowmobile Trails.  Met Ron for the first half and ran a very conservative pace as he is still recovering from Boston.  The easy pace must have been just what I needed because the last 15 miles felt excellent at around a 8:30 pace.  Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Summary - 113.2 miles in 18 hours 36 minutes

I was dreading this week but in the end it actually turned out pretty good.  Nothing hurts and I'm optimistic about getting one more big week in before I start the three week taper.  This week also marks 3 weeks since I have had any flour/wheat, sugar (except fruit) or alcohol.   For running fuel I have been using only dates and nuts.  Most of the time I just pack some Larabars (peanut butter cookie flavor) I'm surprised at how well it has been working. 

I spent a lot of time in the La Sportiva Helios as I'm leaning towards them as my shoe of choice for the big race.  They have performed very well and I should have a review up on www.runblogger.com sometime soon.

La Sportiva Helios

Training for a 100 miler training re-cap 6 Weeks to go.

Welcome to my favorite trails!

The beginning of this week marked 6 weeks to go until the Massanutten Mountian 100.  Here is a recap of what I did and how it went.

Monday - Rest Day

Tuesday - 15 miles on trails (1:59:21 - 7:58 pace).  Ran the trails hard. Attacked the hills and ran the last mile in 6:30.  Beautiful weather and ran with just shorts.  No shirt, no water, no food.  Just me and my feet moving quickly over the earth.  This is the type of run that makes me love running.  Shoes - Montrail Fluid Flex

Wednesday - 10 miles of trails and roads (1:19:08 - 7:51 pace).  Took it easy, really felt Tuesdays run in my legs.  Shoes - Montrail Fluid Flex

Thursday - Ran the same 15 mile trail route as Tuesday (2:08:59 - 8:36 pace).  Legs felt completely dead. Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Friday - 10.1 miles of trails (1:26:01 - 8:31 pace).  Felt ok.  Not great, not terrible.  Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Saturday - 15 miles (2:19:17 - 9:18 pace) on the West End Farm Trail .  The trails were tough.  Covered with a few inches of snow and slush, with lots of mud underneath.  Every step ended with a slipped toe.  Really hard work.  Even so, I felt strong.  Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Sunday - 25 miles (3:43:47 - 8:58 pace). Ran the Bow Snowmobile Trails.  First two miles felt terrible.  Tripped somewhere around mile 16 and slammed my elbow into a rock or root.  Wanted to cry because I have bursitis in that elbow and it really hurt!  Decided that I needed to toughen up and suck it up.  I can tell my endurance is getting better as I only got to a certain level of fatigue and then never got worse.  I actually felt better the last 7 or 8 miles.  Surprised at the pace I was able to keep.  Shoes - Montrail Fluid Flex

Summary - 90.2 miles in 12 hours 56 minutes

This was somewhat of a tiny cutback week in terms of sheer mileage.  The next two weeks will be the hardest before I taper back for the race.  The weekend was tough because I went to my nephews wedding on Saturday night.  My brother and sister in law were kind enough to get me and Amy a vegetarian dinner, but it wasn't vegan and the only thing on the table I could eat was the green beans.  Luckily Amy packed me a cooler so I had plenty of food, but I felt like a dipshit sitting at the table with nothing on my plate.  That night people were partying until 2pm slamming doors and being super loud.  I got almost no sleep.  It made it tough to get out the door for today's long run after driving home.  As I sit here typing this, I'm wiped out.

So I made it another week being a Vegan who also doesn't have any alcohol, sugar or wheat.  As much as it is a pain, I am feeling great and starting to lean out.  If I can keep all this up I am confident that I'm going to have a great race at Massanutten! 

One of my favorite spots on the Bow Snowmobile Trails

Training to run a 100 mile race

When I talk to runners about racing 100 miles on foot the most common question is "How do you Train for that?"  My friend Pete from Runblogger has started to post a weekly review recapping his training for a marathon.  He suggested that it might be cool to post what sort of workouts I'm doing as I prepare to run the Massanutten 100 race on May 18th.  My goal is to write a weekly recap on either Sunday or Monday leading up to the race.

With only six weeks to go, I am now in my peak training.  I have been gradually building up to almost 100 miles per week.  In March I ran 383 miles.  While many marathoners run 100 miles per week, the training for a mountainous Ultra is considerably different.  The biggest difference is probably the consistent back to back long runs on the weekend to build endurance.  Below is my recap from last week.

Monday - Ran 5 easy miles (41:45 - 8:21 pace @ 1% grade) after work.  Shoes - Hoka Bondi B 2.

Tuesday - Ran 15.2 miles on trails (2:12:22 - 8:43 pace).  Trails were very icy and I had to be very careful on the hills, especially the descents.  Was supposed to throw in 4 1/2 mile hill repeats, but had a mental breakdown and decided that doing hill repeats was no fun and I needed to have fun in order to train this hard.  Wrote coach an angry email.  Starting to feel burnt out, even though I'm getting stronger.  Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Wednesday - Ran 8 very easy trail miles with my brother (1:22:51 - 10:22 pace) and fell in love with running again.  Later in the day I realized that I was supposed to do 10.  Figured I'd add in the extra miles later in the week. Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Thursday - Ran the same 15.2 mile trail route as Tuesday (2:06:00 - 8:20 pace).  Attacked the hills like a fartlek run at coaches recommendation rather than doing structured hill repeats.  Had much more fun and enjoyed the run. Shoes - Montrail Fluid Flex

Friday - 8 miles of roads (1:01:32 - 7:42 pace).  Was supposed to only run 5, but I got in the extra miles that I forgot on Tuesday.  Felt very easy, glad to see a somewhat brisk pace for the effort.  I also hiked with Amy for about 5 miles earlier in the day.  Shoes - Montrail Fluid Flex

Saturday - Got up at 5am and ran 20 miles (2:45:13 - 8:16 pace) to work.  Then worked all day.  Did a few big hills on the route. Shoes - Altra Torin

Sunday - 22.5 miles (4:55:00 13:07 pace).  Did the Tully Mountain trail with Ryan and Kristina.  Trail had a lot more snow and ice than we expected.  Trail was pretty messy.  Shoes - Montrail Fluid Flex

Summary - 93.9 miles in 15 hours 4 minutes

This week also marked the beginning of my strict diet prep.  No more alcohol, sugar or flour.  My plan is to eat this way until after the race.  I have done this before with very good results, but it is not easy!  I will write more about the diet in a later post.

Beautiful scenery on the Tully Mountain Trail