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








Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Ozymandias of the Steppes

"Gaze upon my mighty week of training and tremble."

Too much?

Here's what my week looked like:

Monday: 10 miles in 100.5 (HR=130)
Tuesday: 10 in 104 (HR=127) in deep snow
Wednesday: 10.5 in 104 (HR=132) wind chill= 6
Thursday: 10 in 105.5 (HR=121) wind chill= -6, snowing
Friday: 10 in 105 (HR=122) heavy snowfall
Saturday: 10.5 in 104.5 (HR=128) wind chill= 0, bad footing
Sunday: 11 in 105 (HR=133) wind chill = -3, very bad footing

So, that's 72 miles in bad weather, though much slower than I'd like. Last week, I improved from 11 minute miles to 10 and this week I went from 10 to 9.5 (and about 9 yesterday). I included the average heart rate for the runs, which show that I'm not working too hard and am improving slightly.

I now feel I'm in shape to do the Superior 100 in 35 hours, +/- 3 hours, which means I think I have about an 80-85% chance of finishing, if I just stay where I'm at and don't improve. I hope to get my average pace down to 8.5 min./mile, which with some decent long runs, should get me a nice mid-pack finish and, with careful training and racing could get me as low as 27 hours and a top-3 finish.

[And I'm up to 11 push-ups before my form falls apart.]

8 comments:

Colin said...

Forget Lydiard, Daniels or Hudson, last week's training seems more inspired by Ed Whitlock! Well, other than the fact that you wore a heart rate monitor ...

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Gaze and tremble?

I refuse even to look and despair.

SteveQ said...

@G: I knew the correct words. Truthfully, I knew you'd make a comment that showed you knew Shelley's poem, but had a bet with myself that you'd make a "trembling gays" joke. Oh, well.

SteveQ said...

And I'm still waiting for the first person to say, "you went from just finishing to trying for third in one sentence!"

Georgia Snail said...

Hey, wait a tick?!?! you went from trying for a midpack finish, to finishing in 3rd in one sentence....

Jim ... 50after40 said...

Wow, great week! 35 hours of running, I can't imagine ... best wishes!

Anonymous said...

Just make sure you don't forget to take that sharp right hand turn off the ski/logging trail into the Finland half-way aid stations. For some reason the SHT marker is nailed onto the skinniest poplar tree in the grove. Easy to miss.
Oh yeah, and don't be like Craig Bunk and lose your light and practically crawl back to an aid station. Still to this day I find that to be a modern marvel.

-wynn

Anonymous said...

what happened to 3 days a week training? Two things I don't understand are that sawtooth isn't on a road and it's not 10 miles. I'm having an equally hard time getting long runs and hills in this time of year so i can relate a bit.