One week to go! Massanutten 100 training re-cap

Weapon of Choice.

This was my last week of any substantial running before the race.  This week, the week of the race I will only be running 16 miles before I toe the line on Saturday the 18th.  I spent most of this week obsessing about which shoes to wear and how to not gain weight...  Here is what I did for training last week.

Monday - Scheduled day off. 

Tuesday - 10 miles on trails (1:17:58 - 7:48 pace).  3.5 miles warmup, 3 x 1/2m hill repeats (up and down) then 3.5 home at a spirited pace (under 7mm for last mile, easy effort to maintain). Felt really good this morning.  Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Wednesday - 5.4 miles of trails (47:57 - 8:53 pace).  Ran at the quarries to simulate MMT. Lots of rocks. Actually bruised the bottom of my foot.  I thought I was settled on using the Helios at MMT, now I'm not so sure.  Shoes - La Sportiva Helios

Thursday - 10 miles of trails (1:21:32 - 8:10 pace).  Did HR x 3 at mile 4. Felt a bit sluggish today.  Wore my Hokas because of bruise from yesterday.  Slipped at end of run on log and slammed my arm and hip.  Luckily unhurt.  Shoes - Hoka Bondi B 2

Friday - Scheduled rest day, but I couldn't do it.  Went 6 miles on trails (48:19 - 8:04 pace). Was super excited to try my new Altra Lone Peak 1.5's because they felt so good out of the box.  Loved the shoe and decided that it might possibly be my MMT shoe.   Got an email from Coach Satan about 2 hours after the run telling me "not to be an overachiever" because I had a very long run in the woods of VA in a week.  When he says day off, he means it!!

Saturday - Rest day.  No sir, don't like it at all.

Sunday - 20 miles of trails (3:05:15 - 9:15 pace).  Ran the Powerlines trail.  Was so happy to be able to run.  Coach said "No Hammering!!" so I concentrated on practicing my 100 mile pace/effort.  Even walked a few hills.  Felt really good.  Only ate 1 Lara Bar and about 1/2 bottle of water.  Put the Lone Peak 1.5's through everything I could throw at them.  Only complaint is that they take a long time to dry out.  But all the good (great traction, super good fit. no toe jamming on downhills, great toe cap rock protection) out weigh that concern.  They were soaked the entire 3 hour run as it was a very wet trail.  Love how they feel. 

Summary - 51.4 miles in 7 hours 21 minutes

I was pretty cranky this week and really wanted to run.  As usual, I have put back on a few pounds and it messes with my head.  But, I am as ready as I have ever been and looking forward to rocks, blisters, ticks, 85 degree humid heat and incredible views!!

You can go with this (Helio)

Or you can go with that (Fluid Flex)

You can go with this (Pure Grit)

Or you can go with that (Bondi Speed)

Don't be shocked by the tone of my voice.  Check out my new weapon, weapon of choice (Lone Peak 1.5)

2 Weeks until Massanutton 100 - Training Re-cap

Yes, we have rocks in NH too!  My favorite power lines trail.

With only 2 weeks to go, I am finally in taper mode.  Usually I get pretty cranky as my body tries to figure out why I'm not running as much.  But this time I seem to be adapting pretty well.  Perhaps because even though I've backed off on the overall volume, I still managed to run 73 miles last week.  Here is how it all broke down.

Monday - Scheduled day off. 

Tuesday - 12 miles on trails (1:43:01 - 8:36 pace).  Very hilly roads and incorporated two 1 mile intervals on the steep power lines trail.  Shoes - Montrail Fluid Flex.

Wednesday - 6 miles of trails (50:50 - 8:29 pace).  Ran the hospital trails on a warm day  Happy with pace. Shoes - New experiement.  New Balance MT110 with Vibram rubber sole that I built.

Thursday - 12 miles of trails (1:35:39 - 7;59 pace).  Pushed it on the hills. Not really an "easy" run, but not quite a "tempo" either. Sort of in between..  Shoes - Exciting new Skechers Prototype

Friday - AM: 3 miles of roads (31:00 -10:00 pace).  Was supposed to be a rest day, did short run with Ron and Meredith.  Shoes - Exciting new Skechers Prototype.
PM: 5 mile walk with Amy on a beautiful day. 

Saturday - 30 miles of hilly trails (4:44:02 - 9:29 pace) Ran the power lines.  Temp was 38 when left in the morning.  Kept all my cold gear on as it warmed up into the 60's to do a little heat training.  Ran at a very easy effort on Coaches instructions.  Felt really good.  Shoes - Montrail Fluid Flex

Sunday - 10 miles of trails (1:41:00 - 10:00 pace).  Ran the West End Farm Trail with Ron at a leisurely pace on a beautiful morning.  Had no soreness or stiffness from previous day.  Quite enjoyable!  Shoes - New Balance MT110 with Vibram sole.

Summary - 73 miles in 11 hours 05 minutes

It was such an enjoyable week pulling the miles back.  I feel like I might be in the best shape of my life right now, so I'm headed into the race feeling confident.  Lets hope that confidence is still there when I'm 18 hours into the race and my feet are beat to a pulp!

Pretty stream that I came across in a new section of the powerlines.

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 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