Flip-Flop
By now if you've been reading this you've seen that I haven't been able to exactly stay on schedule. Inconsistency is obviously normal with any training program when "life happens", but whenever possible it's best to stay consistent. My challenge has been with the weekends, and in particular fitting in my two back-to-back long runs while also balancing a long Saturday of setting up and coaching our Runner's Edge of the Rockies group workouts. Midweek hasn't been easy either as I'm behind on E-mail responses to members...
True, I have been able to get in all of the miles and for a race of this distance, building a high weekly volume of mileage is key. However some of my miles have come on scheduled off days or I've done 2-a-days, and a training schedule isn't always the time spent running and includes the all-important requisite recovery activities. (Off days, stretching, massage, and SLEEP.) Unfortunately I've had to run on off days in order to keep my mileage on track, but that's left me pretty tired. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying: "how would you NOT be tired while training for your first ultra marathon?" And I do think that running 41 miles in just 2 days has taken it's toll, along doing back-to-back weekends of 31+ miles.
So between that and looking out ahead in the final 3.5 weeks of my training, I think I'm going to move a few of my workouts and flip-flop some days to balance things out a bit more. It's not what I would like to do, but is necessary since running on Saturday just isn't an option. In particular, I'm going to try and do my last two back-to-back long runs on Thanksgiving. (Can you say Turkey Trot +21?) Because if I held to my current Sun/Mon long run pattern that would shorten my taper from 11 days to 10 and I'm thinking a 14-15 day taper would be better. Less is more sometimes, and as I always tell our members... It's better to be 10% undertrained than 1% overtrained. I need to heed my own advice!
So on that note, we'll see if I even get in a run today - I was going to shoot for 9-10 miles, but I am pretty tired and also have a ton of work to get done. I did get in a 5-mile recovery run last night (first 4 with Champ and then a VERY slow final mile with Apollo), and felt OK considering it was right after the back-to-back 23M & 18M runs. And true, this is a down week so one missed run probably won't kill me (and may even help). I guess we'll just have to play it by ear and see how I feel this afternoon...
True, I have been able to get in all of the miles and for a race of this distance, building a high weekly volume of mileage is key. However some of my miles have come on scheduled off days or I've done 2-a-days, and a training schedule isn't always the time spent running and includes the all-important requisite recovery activities. (Off days, stretching, massage, and SLEEP.) Unfortunately I've had to run on off days in order to keep my mileage on track, but that's left me pretty tired. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying: "how would you NOT be tired while training for your first ultra marathon?" And I do think that running 41 miles in just 2 days has taken it's toll, along doing back-to-back weekends of 31+ miles.
So between that and looking out ahead in the final 3.5 weeks of my training, I think I'm going to move a few of my workouts and flip-flop some days to balance things out a bit more. It's not what I would like to do, but is necessary since running on Saturday just isn't an option. In particular, I'm going to try and do my last two back-to-back long runs on Thanksgiving. (Can you say Turkey Trot +21?) Because if I held to my current Sun/Mon long run pattern that would shorten my taper from 11 days to 10 and I'm thinking a 14-15 day taper would be better. Less is more sometimes, and as I always tell our members... It's better to be 10% undertrained than 1% overtrained. I need to heed my own advice!
So on that note, we'll see if I even get in a run today - I was going to shoot for 9-10 miles, but I am pretty tired and also have a ton of work to get done. I did get in a 5-mile recovery run last night (first 4 with Champ and then a VERY slow final mile with Apollo), and felt OK considering it was right after the back-to-back 23M & 18M runs. And true, this is a down week so one missed run probably won't kill me (and may even help). I guess we'll just have to play it by ear and see how I feel this afternoon...
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