Where to now? – Goal Setting

So for that last few weeks I have been enjoying not having any specific training plan or mileage to hit. I run somewhere around 5ish miles a day, long run in the 10s, comfortable happy paces. It has been a welcome break from my very Type-A schedule, but I knew that sooner or later I would need to get a goal race on the horizon to focus on.

So I guess I need to now finally admit to myself that I am in fact training for something. In fact I am already on week two of training as of posting this…. So in my afterglow of the Chicago Marathon, I decided I didn’t want to do another marathon training cycle back to back. I had surpassed my goal at Chicago, and the thought of trying to improve it or race faster just wasn’t appealing to me. I am more than satisfied with that PR and I have my BQ and so I was looking for something new to try instead. Browsing around online the other day I came across and advertisement for a new race premiering next year and it peaked my interest and for the first time in a long time I thought “Is it possible? Could I go that distance?” followed by the feeling that I Had To Do This Thing.

On January 30th, which is a big milestone birthday for me, I will be running the Southern Tour Ultra 50k. The thought of running 50k is slightly intimidating but I felt so good after Chicago I know I could hold out for a few more miles. Also my plan is to throw out any goal time and instead focus on having fun and enjoying myself on MY BIRTHDAY at a REALLY LONG RACE! Now I had several people warn me that this was a silly idea because no one would want to run this with me (Don’t worry I am not asking anyone to do it) and others who told me that YES this is EXACTLY how I should celebrate my day. So it is on. Officially official since I am writing it here I guess.

Now I am still pretty daunted by the high mileage to the long runs coming up. I am already used to stacking long runs because it is the same plan that I used for Chicago, but the thought of training runs going longer than 20 seems like a scary idea and against all marathon training I have done so far. But I am enjoying the fact that for the first time in a long time I feel challenged and excited about a distance. You can get really used to running the same mileage and training runs when you do back to back marathon/half marathon plans, and this is a new and dangerous beast.

I really can’t wait to really get into the meat of the training program and see what it is like and so I will continue my training logs just like I did for my Chicago training. I hope that it is a little bit interesting for anyone who bothers to read as I jump straight into the crazy world of Ultra Running.

Downtime Adventures

So late as usual but here is a quick recap of some of the adventures I have been having as I close out the fall racing season.

With my big race out of the way and slowing down the training for a bit, I have been focused on taking it easy and having as much fun as possible. I haven’t done any speed work (which is nice because I am at the stage where I am starting to miss it) and it is nice to see that the accumulative fatigue hasn’t hurt my paces at all. Without speed work and long runs by easy paces have fallen back to the 7:30 range which is pleasant especially with the fall weather.

I also have had the opportunity to do more fun running related things like actually getting my ass to run club, and pacing my friend for the City of Oaks Half Marathon last weekend. I love the City of Oaks course since it is basically a mash up of my favorite running routes downtown. Yes, the course is hilly, but Raleigh is hilly. The running theme of my training is “The More Hills The Better” and I love love love running hilly races (and crushing people’s spirits as I pass them on them). So when my friend mentioned he wanted to go for a PR of 1:50 I of course jumped at the chance to help him to this goal (and get a quality long run in with support haha). Also the start finish is only about 10 minutes from my house so #winning. The race day weather was brilliant (started in the upper 40’s-50’s, overcast, spotty light rain) and I enjoyed settling in and providing support. I focused on making sure we were running his race pace, while also preparing for the tougher portions of the race to come. My friend absolutely #crushedit and went all the way to a 1:44 PR which was 25 minutes better than his last effort. I was more than proud and happy to have been of help.

So I only have a couple small races to wrap up the rest of the year. I am looking at a 10 Miler and possibly a 12k with some sort of Thanksgiving race (or it would be fun to just do a nice long trail run with friends). After that it is time to look to keeping myself keen over the winter and deciding on a goal for the spring.

Downtime…

So it has been almost three weeks since the Chicago Marathon has passed. I know that I meant to recap the entire weekend (and I promise to try and revisit it later), but if I don’t get back to current events I know that I will slack off and forget to post at all.

So what have I been up to since exceeding my expectations back in the Windy City? A lot of relaxing, a lot of school work, and a little bit of running. I have been guilty in the past of jumping from one training cycle to the next, without ever taking enough of a break in between. My usual recovery from a marathon was two days off and then right back at it. This is of course the dumbest plan ever and I believe is what led to me having a lot of stupid injury issues that either took forever to heal up, or become major issues that led to a lot of time off. After Chicago I had already decided that after such an intense short training cycle I was going to take a complete week of absolutely zero running before trying to come back. Now, after Chicago although I felt amazing with no aches or pains (I have never finished a marathon feeling so good before), I decided that a week of complete rest was even more deserved to reward my body for out preforming what I think I was even in shape for. It is really hard to go from 50+ miles a week to zero but I knew that I would be better for it in the long run and so I sucked it up and enjoyed being a normal person for a week.

So what did I do with my free time? Mostly slept. It took me a few days of some solid 9+ hour nights to feel like my body was recovered. Although I didn’t have any injury issues my body was Le Tired and wanted to nap allll the times. Besides sleeping I was also focused on eating what ever I wanted and what my body was craving. For whatever reason, all I wanted was healthy veggies and fruit but I made sure to continue to get some solid protein and carbs to restore what was lost. Then I focused on the things that I was missing up on while running so fucking much. I went out with friends, I did a lot of school work to get ahead, I read, I actually watched some tv, I even finally finished moving and unpacking my stuff. When I felt like my legs needed a little motion to get the blood flowing, I got back on my lonely bike for some nice rides. I did yoga to help stretch out an knots and bring some calm back after such a hectic but fun trip. Basically I just enjoyed life and took a lot of “me time”.

The one thing I made sure not to focus on was any sort of returning to run schedule or the thought of any goal races to come. It is always a little depressing once a big race is over and I can sort of rush to work towards something else to relive the excitement. This time I knew that I needed to give it time and really decide what I want to do. The thought of jumping back into marathon training was pretty unappealing and I didn’t need to. I don’t have any desire to try and beat my time and go for a faster spring marathon (I am quite content to sit on a 3:26) and so I am not planing on going for that any time soon. When I returned to any mileage (and I kept it super low the first few days) it was all easy miles without looking at the watch and just going my feel. Luckily the weather as been AH-MAZ-ING so running again instead of being a chore has been a blast. This is a feeling that you tend to lose after weeks and weeks of miles that have to get done.

So what now? Well now that I am back to a sort-of-running schedule I have a couple ideas on the horizon. I didn’t know if I would continue the blog now that Chicago is over, but I have found it fun and helpful to keeping track of just how my training is going. So I think I will continue to recap my weekly training as well as just spewing my random thoughts. Because lets face it: people get really sick of hearing me talk about running. For now I will enjoy my easy runs and in a couple days really decide where I am going from here!