Training Week One and Done

When I finished eight miles today, I completed my first real training week. Ran over twenty miles in a week for the first time since November '04 when last ran NYC Marathon.

I confess that I'm a little weary. Probably didn’t help that I’ve been cleaning twenty horse stalls a day for most of the past two weeks. Business gets real quiet from Christmas to New Years, so we gave the barn workers a couple of weeks off and Kim and I have been handling the barn chores ourselves with a little help from Haley, Stephen and volunteers on a day or two.

To get ready for the JFK 50 Mile Ultra, I’m using Hal Higdon’s eighteen week marathon training guide. I’ve used it before and it worked well for me. Higdon once ran six marathons in six weeks – to celebrate his 60^th birthday! We should all be so healthy and strong.

This training schedule will put me in marathon shape by the end of April, and that leaves the Blue Ridge Marathon or the Gettysburg North and South Marathon within reach. I don’t know which I will pick, but Blue Ridge runs along the Blue Ridge Parkway in and out of Roanoke, Virginia. It's is supposed to be really hard. I have some time before making a final decision, so we’ll see.

I already screwed up the schedule. I was supposed to run 3-5-3 Tuesday through Thursday but instead ran 5-3-5 and an eight miler on Saturday. I laid out an eight mile out and back course along Miller’s Lane.

The weather was bright and sunny in the high 50’s at noon (There are definite advantages to wintering in Central Virginia). I used my CamelBak waist pack for hydration and carried a smart phone, but didn't listen to music.

Almost 40 miles of the JFK is off-road, so I got my trail shoes and figured to stay off the road as much as possible. Miller’s Lane runs through a section of Goochland County that is much like New Jersey’s Somerset Hills. Mile after continuous mile of horse farms and equestrian estates cover gently rolling terrain.

The road is a single lane in each direction edged with gravel. There’s also anywhere from three to fifteen feet of grass between the edge of the road and the pasture fences. That’s where the riding trails are. They also wind through the fields and woods on either side of the road beyond the tree lines. 

There's single track and double track that's real soft and easy. Some landowners mow the grass close to make footing a joy. At one point a couple of women on horseback popped out of a wooded section. They were all decked out in blaze orange  – it’s hunting season in rural Virginia. Freak on foot spooked the horses a bit. What a beautiful place to run!

I only got attacked by three dogs. A golden retriever and two boston terriers. All at the same time. Vicious they were… Hmmmmm. Nah, I’m lyin’. They were very friendly but I had to stop because they wanted to play and wouldn't get out of the road. Was worried they’d get turned into buzzard buffet by a passing pick-up.

Walked the last hill past Dover Stables, but so what? Sue me. It was a good run and my longest in seven years. Eight hours later, I feel pretty good and am excited to be back. Look for future posts on my hydration dilemma and I’ll get some pictures up here as well.

If anyone wants to run with me, there are a few races we’re already committed to enter: The Monument Avenue 10K, the Irish Sprint 10K and the Marine Corps Marathon. The Irish Sprint is at Marine Corps Base Quantico on St. Paddy’s Day and all finishers get a guaranteed entry to the Marine Corps Marathon. I am planning MCM to be my final long training run for the JFK 50 Mile.

Keep in touch, keep running and keep smiling – it’ll make people wonder what you’ve been up to.

Get Real - The Training Begins

OK, I went from December 11^th to 26^th with no training. Lots of eating though. And drinking.

I know I need to get serious so I went out today. Cold still lingers, but I need to get some miles under me. I figure that if I’m going to cover 50 miles, the biggest challenge has to be picking up and putting down the feet that many times. Speed is not the first concern, endurance is. Legs and feet have to be strong and resilient enough to hold up.

If each stride is 36 inches, that makes 1,760 strides per mile and exactly 88,000 strides in 50 miles. That’s a lot of strides. I did 8,800 today. Nice and easy. When my breathing got strained I slowed down. Hardly even broke a sweat. Cardio has never been a concern for me, dead legs have. When in marathon shape, my resting pulse is about 45 bpm and blood pressure is 90/55.

Some say one of the hardest things about training for an ultra-marathon is learning to run slow. I will have no problem with that. 

My target race is the JFK 50 Mile Ultra-marathon in November 2012. It starts in Boonsboro, MD. The course follows the roads out of town and uphill for 2.5 miles until it meets the Appalachian Trail and gains about 1,200 feet of elevation to the top of the first ridge.

The course follows the AT south for 13.5 miles. It climbs and descends the ridge twice over that distance. It's a rugged and rocky stretch of trail. At around mile 16 the trail drops off the ridge through a bunch of switchbacks and joins the C&O canal towpath along the Potomac River for 26+ miles.

I'm comfortable running towpaths, and that's part of the reason I picked this race for my first Ultra. On countless Sunday mornings I've run towpaths along the Delaware and Raritan Canal in NJ & PA. I've run from Bound Brook to Princeton along the Raritan and Millstone Rivers. I covered every inch of the towpaths along the Delaware from Scudders Falls to Frenchtown  in twenty-mile chunks. Up one side and down the other.

The JFK Race leaves the canal at about mile 42 and the final 8 miles or so are on paved rolling roads into Williamsport, Maryland.    

This is going to be fun. I am still working out my training program and will detail it more in later posts. For now, I'm aiming for the Irish Sprint 10K at Quantico Marine Corps Base on St. Patrick’s Day (3/17) and that will get me a guaranteed entry into the Marine Corps Marathon which will be my final training run. I recently saw the medals they give out for that race, and I really want one. 

Ignominious Start

I decided about two years ago that I would run no more marathons. I decided about two weeks ago that I would run an Ultra Marathon. A fifty-miler to start.

When I made that decision, my next race was the Toys For Tots 5K in nearby Short Pump, VA. That race was on Sunday December 11th. I was starting to get a cold, and finished in 25:55 (I think). Something like that. Ron finished ahead of me. I tried to catch him, but no luck. He was the better man that day.

So ran a 5k ten days ago, and because of this crummy cold, I haven't run a single mile since.  With a fifty miler ahead of me, I just flushed a week and a half of potential training time down the drain. An ignominious start I would say.