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.