I have arrived to the conclusion of my four week block of training. It ended with my highest weekly mileage of training this year (68.94 miles) and included some exciting and humbling training days.

Saturday I re-visited Lake Grapevine and took on this trail which has been kicking my butt for the previous two weeks. Finally, finally, I had the feeling that I could actually run this trail beyond 9 miles and not look like the shuffling dead. It was a great feeling to know that I still had a couple gears that I was not accessing. My fitness is finally starting to catch up with the training!

Sunday, well, it just hurt. You gotta love how you can feel invincible one day and the very next like poo. I am talking a lot of poo! The temps were 100+ and the four hour run turned very real after about 30 minutes. This is going to be a long, long run. Even when the sun disappeared below the horizon, I could not get on track. The water in my hand-held began to boil because it was so flippin hot. I could taste sand, dirt, and car exhaust as it coated the inside of my desert-like mouth.

I was fantasizing about eating the watermelon sitting in the fridge when I got home. W-a-t-e-r-m-e-l-o-n…cold W-a-t-e-r-m-e-l-o-n. Delirious? Not completely, but I have been better.

I positive split the run by 15 minutes. Nothing like four hours of mental training which just might prove useful someday.

The Superior Trail 50 miler is now a short 4 weeks away and my training plan says to taper…I taper. No point in changing course now.

The Weekly Low-Down:

run: 68.94 miles (5 sessions: 8 miles-easy, 6 miles-easy, 6 miles- 4×1 mile at Threshold, 24.54 miles - easy/trail, 24.40 mile-easy/road)

bike: 40 mins

weights/core: 1 sessions

Happy Training!

Trackback URI | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed