Happy Independence Day to all of you in the US! This has always been one of my favorite holidays and always a great day to get a fun race in before the grilling started. 🙂 The one race I did every 4th was a 10K that went through a beautiful (hilly) park. Always a lot of fun and even some age group prizes for me!
Any of you run a race today? Which one and where? Always on the lookout for great race recommendations!
Runs Around the World: First 100 Mile Week
For those that may not know, in September, I will be setting out to run 6 marathon distances (26.2 miles) on 6 continents in 4.5 days. Of course, the whole trip around the world is being taken care of with miles – and in business/first the whole way! To read more about it, check out this post.
Building It Up
I have been slowly building up my training for this event. Having previously run 5 marathons/5 continents/5 days, I know what it is like to do something like this and also what I need to do this time around to improve my training. The training for the last event similar to this took place 6 years ago and I only hit 100 miles in a week once in the training leading up to the event. I know that doing that more often will be key this time.
The reason I have been building up slowly is to avoid injury. The rule of thumb with mileage increases is not to add more than 10-20% of your previous week’s mileage. Going with the full 20% each week is pretty aggressive and not the wisest of moves for most people. Since a two week injury would be a big detriment to me at this point, I played it more cautious in the lower teens of increase each week.
I had been running between 70 – 80 miles each week for a while (with recovery weeks of around 50+). I had some scheduling setbacks that prevented me from getting to 100 miles earlier but now I am finally there. It has been a few years since I had a training week of 100+ so I had been looking forward to hitting the triple digit training week again!
100+ Mile Weeks
My schedule is set to average at least 100 miles per week from now through the middle of August with a peak week of 140-150 miles. My paces are much slower than typical marathon training (again, because of injury). However, I will be adding more “pace” runs into the long runs as the weeks go by (pace runs are when you run a portion of a run at the pace you desire for the specific race). I am also adding some speedwork into the non-long run days to give me a little bit of pep.
One of the toughest parts about this week was the heat. It was warm, but it is nothing like it will be next week! Near/at 100 degrees a couple of days! That is good, though, because it will help to prepare me for the 3rd marathon leg – Abu Dhabi. I am waiting to pick the best day to pop over to Abu Dhabi for a long training run in their intense heat to help me prepare a little more for it.
The Numbers For This Week
Anyway, I still have one day left to the training week (using Dailymile had switched me to using Monday as the first day of the training week) but it will only be 3 or 4 miles. So, I should end this week at 105 miles. Here is the breakdown:
- Monday – ran 13 miles (8:18 minute pace)
- Monday – walked 4 miles (brisk walk)
- Tuesday – ran 12 miles (8:20 minute pace)
- Wednesday – ran 10 miles (9:10 minute pace)
- Thursday – ran 27 miles (9:37 minute pace)
- Thursday – walked 4 miles (brisk walk)
- Friday – ran 2 miles (8:30 minute pace)
- Friday – walked 3 miles (brisk walk)
- Saturday – ran 26.5 miles (9:44 minute pace)
That comes to a total (so far) of 90.5 miles running and 11 miles of brisk walking. If you are wondering about the walking, I have learned that walking is a valuable exercise as well. When doing an event like an ultra marathon or multi-stage run, there will (most likely) be some walking involved. If you do not work those muscles for walking, it can cause more of a drain on your muscles and body than it should. So, by adding in some walking, I am able to condition those muscles as well as build up the miles and time on my feet since both are important.
Looking Ahead!
As the weeks go on, I will be adding more 26.2+ mile runs into the schedule each week and gradually reducing the runs on off days to 5 or 6 miles. I am still on my streak for this year of running at least 1 mile each day, so I will always have some run on every day anyway!
WOW! Very impressive, you hit the nail on the head with the walking, it was crucial in my Ultra training.