"There's only one hard and fast rule in running: sometimes you have to run one hard and fast."








Friday, December 28, 2007

Short training update

Recent training

12/19. 8 miles in 73
12/20. 8 in 73
12/21. 10 in 85
12/22. 9 in 67. HR av=156, pk=166. Rolled left ankle when I stepped in a hole and felt something give. Found I could put weight on it, so I stuffed my sock with snow to decrease swelling and hobbled home. Took aspirin, put on a compression bandage and elevated foot.
12/23. 1 in 9. That's right, 1 mile. Something structural is wrong and my ankle clicks with each step. As it was a blizzard, I didn't risk re-injury. Walked a few miles in the malls with the other last-minute shoppers instead.
12/24. 4 in 37. Bad footing, hungry.
12/25. 8 1/2 in 74, most with Barb.
12/26. 10 in 91. First time I put on the Yak Trax in two years. The only shoes they fit were racing flats, which curled up like the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East.
12/27. 23 in 3:33. HR av= 120. pk=225. That heart rate isn't a typo, it's an extra beat from WPW atrial fibrillation. Blisters between toes from cramped shoes. Multiple pit stops due to UTI or prostatitis. Gettin' old ain't for sissies.

I've never counted mileage for a year, until today. 3170 with a few days to go. Considering I didn't train in June, July or August (just ran FANS, Afton, Voyageur and half of Leadville with a few days of a few miles in between).

Next post: Sprinting for Ultrarunners!

3 comments:

Adam said...

Hope the ankle feels better, are you coming out tomorrow morning to EP? Here's a question that I figured you would have an opinion on if anybody would.

Let's suppose somebody was going to do a 100 mile race with 40,000' of elevation change (20k/20k). How much weekly elevation change should this person see in their weekly training program leading up to the race? I'm thinking this is a number I'm going to track in 2008, I just don't know what number I should be trying to achieve.

SteveQ said...

I don't know!

You'd be better off asking someone who's done a lot of those, like Allan Holtz or maybe Pierre Ostor.

I've always assumed that it was impossible to get that kind of training done in Minnesota. Holtz does it by treadmill.

As a rough guess, I'd say proportion your elevation change/weekly mileage to match the race as close as possible.

Anonymous said...

I know when I was getting ready for Western States a few years ago I did many weekends of hills out at the Hyland Ski hill. I would shoot for 100 loops each weekend. I did that for like 6 or 7 weeks in the build up. Everyone is different though. I like to also run them pretty hard. But in the end it is about time on your feet.