The Road Ahead

I've had some time to think during the aftermath of the last event and I now know how the future will look with regard to training and racing.

First, the training...

I should point out up front that I havn't been logging mileage in many years, I log time. 6 hours a week is a minimum, 7 hour is a good week, 8 hours exceptional. Above 8 hours and I'm usually getting too tired.

To understand the future I'll touch on the past. An ideal training week would normally look a little like this:

Sunday - 1 hour trail
Monday - 3 hour night time trail
Tuesday - 45 mins road recovery
Wednesday - 1 to 1.5 hours road
Thursday - 45 mins road recovery
Friday - 1 to 1.5 hours hard road
Saturday - REST

So that gives a maximum of about 8 hours running per week with a mix of trail and road. All road running is done carrying a 15-20lb packpack.

I did this routine for a hell of a long time really. The night time trail runs would normally go 3 weeks in a row then I'd take a week or two off before hitting them again.

What I've been finding though is two things, firstly I'm finding it increasingly difficult to get out on my night runs. A 13 hour day of commuting and working means I'm pretty tired at the end of the day. I used to do this trail run on a Wednesday which I switched to a Monday to try and have more energy. That doesn't seem to be working though. Secondly, I'm getting out for alot more lunchtime runs. A typical week at the moment looks more like this:

Sunday - 1 hour trail
Monday - 1 hour hard road, 50 mins recovery road
Tuesday - 1.5 trail
Wednesday - 1 hour road, 50 mins hard road
Thursday - 1.5 trail
Friday - 1 hour road, 1 hard road
Saturday - REST

That's a total of about 9 hours which is above what I did with the long trail run.

So what's the new plan?

Well, rule 1 - enjoy my running. As I get older I want less and less to just follow a program religiously and force myself to do mileage. I want to enjoy it. Running more sessions each week is not me forcing myself to do it, I'm actually just running when I feel like. I need to continue this I think.

A new factor I have is that I have now joined a gym and I want to factor into my training regular gym work.

First thing is to accept that I'm no longer going to run in the evenings. I'm too tired and I think it badly compromises running the next day. Second thing is that if I'm not going long in the evening when am I? Well, I'm going to put specific long runs in my diary. Once or twice a month I'll schedule in a long run on a Sunday morning, it'll be around 40k-50k and I will try to find interesting routes. Once a month would be fine, twice would be a bonus. Key thing is that I'm not going to push to do this once a week. I really don't think I get the benefit from doing so. I end up getting worn out. Plus, I have a large family and they need me at home at the weekends and not running around the countryside. Finally, I have the opportunity to work from home two days a week so that gives me the chance for additional trail running and gym time.

The training plan for the week will look alot like this:

Sunday - 1 to 1.5 hour hard trail run, gym
Monday - 1 hour road, 50 mins road
Tuesday - 1.5 hour trail hard run, gym
Wednesday - 50 hour road, 1 hour hard road
Thursday - 1.5 hour trail hard run, gym
Friday - 1 hour road, 1 hour hard
Saturday - REST

Maximum total time: 10 hours (plus 3 gym visits)

If I have a long run on a Sunday morning then it will replace trail run and gym session.

This will be adapted on a weekly basis depending on several factors:

1/ How often I work from home
2/ How I feel
3/ What other things are going on that demand my time

The other thing I'm going to do is to log all my runs on Runkeeper. It'll track my mileage and provides some nice stats.

OK, now to the racing...

I run ultras. And I still want to run ultras.

Problem is that established wisdom says I should do a long run every week. Or even back to back long runs. And as you've seen above I have no intention of doing that. I can't say that my training program is going to be suited to running ultras, I just think it's going to be suited to me and that my friends is the best I can do. If that's not good enough then I'll have to live with it.

Draft race diary for next year looks like this:

February - Moonlight Challenge
I can't miss this, it's just too much fun and a great opener for the year. Goal this year is to ensure I eat and drink enough to finish full distance after dropping out last year in freezing conditions. Top 10 would be nice too, as would sub-5 hours.

October - Longmynd Hike
Get back on the horse boy! I'm not letting this event beat me. It's a great event, brilliantly organised and I want to do it justice. Next year I plan to simply finish regardless of time.

Here's the wildcard ...... May - GUCR
I'm going to start the GUCR and see just how far I can get. I hold no illusions that I'll finish, it's just too far. I just want to see how far I'm capable of.

Only other thing that springs to mind is the Halstead and Essex Marathon in early May which I'll do as a 52 mile training run.

Add into that some local trail runs which I'll do on the spur of the moment and I think that's how 2013 is going to look.