Training Plans

First, I'd like to say thank you to the first two individuals to donate to my fundraising efforts: Carrie Mayer and Kevin Devaney. Thank you both for your support and help.

When people hear about what I am doing in February, they all have the same question (following the main one about the level of my sanity): how do you train for such an event? Training for a marathon is difficult, and any ultramarathon is no small feat, regardless if it is a 50k (31.2 miles), 50 miles or beyond. The main problem is that you cannot train in the same way you would do for races of marathon length or shorter. What I mean by that is that you cannot run in ever-increasing intervals up until the week of the actual competition. More importantly, running any more than about 50-60 miles at once before the race is pretty counterproductive. The amount of rest needed to recover from such a training run would prevent a runner from getting in other training runs.

With that in mind, the training I'm looking to do is a greater number of mid-distance runs, rather than a handful super long-distance runs. I will be doing at least one 20+ mile run a week, but most likely two. More importantly, I will be doing two-a-days several times a week. This means doing somewhere between 5-10 in the morning, and doing the same at night. I have already done three 50-mile marathons, but they have all ended in the afternoon. I know that once night begins to fall, that's where I'm really going to have to learn to run effectively. To this end, I will also be training while wearing a headlamp to get used keeping footing and stride in the dark, which instinctively shortens when you can't see as much.

As for actual plans and mileage, I am much more flexible than one would expect. I don't usually keep a training log, or come up with a training plan. I usually plan only a couple of days out, and run based on how I feel. With the blog going now, I will be trying to post my weekly training record every Sunday evening.

On a final note, the Army 10-miler is this weekend. I am less than a month from the Ranger Challenge Competition - Marine Corps Marathon weekend of fun. Once those two events are done, I will be able to do a lot more running than I have time for now. I'm very excited to continue to get more and more involved in this.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE NOW