Sunday, July 10, 2011

Week 11 of 23 - July 4 -> July 10

Big week this week.

Monday - 27 miles - Trail - 5hr 31min .
Tuesday - 2 miles - Trail - Fun with Karma after i picked up my drop bags at a trail head.  Quads a little sore, and generally sore from a long 4th of July. (3:30am - 11pm.)
Wednesday - 8 miles - Road - Felt great after warming up for the first mile.  A little left quad soreness.
Thursday - Rest
Friday - 12 miles - Road - Several of these miles in the 7:30min/mile range.
Saturday - 21.5 miles - Trail - 5hrs 10 mins - (5 HOL repeats took over 1hr30mins)

70 miles in 5 days. Just under 13 hours of running. Goal was 55+.
Goal for next week will be 50+ miles.

Two runs of 5 hours in the same week. Technically the Monday run was part of the prior week's strategy as it was a holiday, but my training log goes Mon-Sun so that's the way it goes.  Started right around 5am both long runs, and it was hot and humid by the end of them.
Monday's run went really well, and I felt great throughout.  Many miles at low 9min/mile pace along flatter trails, 200+ ounces of water consumed.
Saturday's 5 hour run was lower in miles as i did more repeats of the hill of life. really wish we had longer hills to run, but this will have to do.  Spent over 90mins doing hill repeats which were spread out as 2 at the start, 1 in the middle, then 2 to end it. Ran the entire last one at hour 5.

Overall, I'm finally starting to feel mentally that fitness is returning to acceptable levels.
I can now "easily" run 4 hours (20 miles) and slowly will keep building to 6hours(30miles).
Will start adding hill work too.

I finally have my nutrition, hydration and electrolytes figured out for this ridiculously humid and hot weather.  However, I think I'm going to tweak my strategy and try EFS Liquid Shots next weekend instead of gels, as I think it's a better long term solution. (400 calories, 60 carb gr in 5oz, vs.100calories 25carb gr in 1 gel)
I may also pick up a tub of Ultragen recovery, instead of my usual chocolate milk.  Why the switch from Choc Milk?  Pretty simple... the single-serve milk cartons come witha  straw you pop into a (aluminium) foil area. That place to pop in the straw used to be wide so you could pop 2 holes. Now they have reduced the foil area to ONLY fit the straw, it becomes a suction battle instead of easy air in&out, and I don't care for battling a little container when i'm tired.  (silly, but it's the simple things that matter)

In case you were wondering...
No, my knee/IT Band doesn't hurt anymore. I'm not going to talk about it anymore.
; )

Here's another photo of Zion National park for your enjoyment.

2 comments:

GZ said...

Whoa! Those hill repeats must have been killer! Two 5 hour runs in a week - wowzers. Glad to hear the injury has cleared up.

MW said...

The hill is only 0.6, but it's very rocky, and many steps down/ups so it's rough. 2 were done in darkness which slows things down even more, and then there's the heat and humidity to deal with. so next thing you know.. .you've spent 10-14mins going up, 2 mins drinking a gallon of water at the top, then 4-6 minutes running back down. ; )

(Many austin distance runners will go to regular road hills to do repeats instead as they're much more runnable. we do what we must. you guys are spoiled.)