...Res Ipsa Flagitat Severitatem

The title today is from Cicero's orations against Catiline: "Now there is no place for mildness... the thing itself demands severity." Just to show I really do read my reading list and find connections to my running.

I've never been explicit about my training plans for the Superior 100, but it's always good to get others' opinions on one's program, so here it is. Keep in mind that this is a best-case scenario and I don't expect to be able to stay with it - I'm a training monster, so it looks formidable. I use a three week rotating schedule and I start my weeks on Mondays:

Tuesdays: 100 minutes at HR=135-153. This should be 8 min./mile by September.

Mondays: same as Tuesday, but with 10x100m downhill sprints. My top-end speed has suffered this year and my downhill form has been bad. This should aid that. This also gives me early warning signals when I'm overtraining.

Thursdays and Fridays: 30 minutes easy running plus 70 minutes power-walking (at night?). I like having two consecutive easy days before my long runs. I need to work on my walking, as I'll be doing a lot of it at Superior. At FANS, I found that my footstrike when walking was different enough that it led to blisters where I never have problems when running.

First Wednesday: 100 min. at marathon pace (6:45-7:00 per mile by September), HR=149-165. I have to keep up the ability to run hard for a long time, not just plod for 35 hours. My body responds best to this kind of training.

Second Wednesday: 9-12 hills of 600-800 meters, done very hard. The idea is to get a total of 25-30 minutes at HR=171-181. I need to get my oxygen uptake improved and it's impossible for me to do this on flat ground. This is essentially 4 minutes up, 4 down on my favorite hills.
Anybody heard if Buck Hill is open?

Third Wednesday: 3x20 minutes at half-marathon pace (6:30/mile by September) HR=156-163, with 4 minute recoveries. For those who follow Daniels' training plan, this is my version of threshold training.

First Saturday: 170 min. trails HR=124-138. Equivalent to 7:30-8:30/mile on flat gound.
First Sunday: same as first Saturday. The back-to-back workouts seem to work for a lot of ultrarunners.

Second Saturday: 240 minutes trails HR=116-130. Equivalent to 8-9 min./mile on flat ground. This is my bread-and-butter workout; I could do it every other day, if I had time.
Second Sunday: same as Tuesdays.

Third Saturday: 5 1/2-6 hours trails HR=110-124. Equivalent to 8:30-9:30/mile on flat ground. Keeping heart rate this low is very hard for me, but necessary. This helps get me used to walking uphills when I don't feel like it early in the 100 mile.
Third Sunday: A day off!

This works out to 80-85 miles run per week, plus another 10 walked.