Week 10 of a 26 week training cycle for my first attempt at a 100 mile race – The good bit is that I am feeling as fit as I every did in my life. I have not missed even one session that I chalked up on my training plan spreadsheet at the start of this year.
My learnings from the last 50 mile race last year was that I needed to work extensively on my hip and core strength while keeping the running mileage high. And that is coming through as well as I expected.
However, by nature a 100 mile training schedule is remorselessly grueling. It is meant to push the body and mind to breaking limits, break it slightly and in process make it stronger. At no point, am I even expecting a painless day.
My training plan is built to gradually ramp up the weekly running mileage as weeks go by, starting at 30 miles a week to upto 80 by around week 22 at the peak before tapering.
This next phase of training is where I move from known to unknown. It is the first time I will be consistently running 50+ miles/week for several weeks. There will be days of immense tiredness. More than any pain, the exhaustion and tiredness tests the mind and body to its tilt. Often there is no easy answer to the tiredness. Often the answer is to rest. Yet, the training is to keep moving. The intent of these coming weeks of moving through the days of tiredness is to build the ‘muscle memory’ to keep moving in the later miles on race day when the mind is too tired to will the body.
Run Diaries 