Ultrarunning Update – May 2012
It’s been a while since I last posted, but the training has been going well. Couple of weeks ago I completed my biggest week to date – 82.2 miles. It took 12 runs, doubling up most days and was really helped with 2 midweek 17 milers giving me 50 miles by the Thursday morning. By the end of the day Friday I had 60 miles under my belt and still felt okay, so planned to cover another 20 over the weekend. Those final 20 were tough, I could really feel the tiredness in my legs and was running on autopilot more than anything.
The past week I reverted to a ‘normal’ week, covering a shade over 40 miles, which I need to keep up to meet my target of 2012 miles in 2012. The first half of the week has hard work, still tired from the previous week, legs feeling like lead and struggling to find the motivation. In contrast to the week before I only had 13 miles done by the middle of the week and only 28 miles covered by Friday. I only doubled up on one occasion, just not feeling capable on the other days. Saturday and Sunday saw me just getting back into it, doing a fast (7:30 pace) 5 miler on Saturday and a more leisurely 8 miler on the Sunday.
In terms of my runstreak, it’s still going strong – I had a couple of miles round the block this morning before flying to the US, keeping me straight for day 89. Day 100 is looming, and I need to think about planning something special.
100 days was my next milestone/target (I started with ‘run every day in March 2012’, carried on to 50 days, then on again to 100) but I can’t see myself stopping here – it does get in the way on some days (long days when I’m travelling for example, or busy with family stuff), but a quick couple of miles and a shower can be done in 30 minutes. Anyway, I’m thinking of setting the next target as 6 months, but that said, at this point, I don’t see any reason to stop at all. @mrafletch and @mikew30 both seem to be doing well at almost 12 months and over 6 months respectively. I did read @katykid15’s blog post about feeling trapped by it, so I guess everyone goes through various perspectives.
I have a couple of good things planned for June – a new daily challenge (a Juneathon – with a twist) and an event at the end of the month that will really test my endurance and mental perseverence – more on those two later…