Forums >Racing>50k training plan advice
I am about 5’3 and ~100 lbs. I started consistently running back in January of this year, prior to that I mainly hiked with some mountain biking mixed in. In March I started running short races and early this month completed my first trail half marathon. Since then I have decided to sign up for a trail 50k that will take place in February 2018.
I believe that I have given myself enough time to work up to this distance but I need some advice around a training plan. Currently I have written up a 20 week plan that that I pieced together that looks like the following:
Monday: RestTuesday: 60 minutes of cross training (mountain biking) followed by 30 minutes of strengthWednesday: 60 minute easy runThursday: 60 minutes of cross training (mountain biking) followed by 30 minutes of strengthFriday: RestSaturday: Long run (starting with 10 maxing at 26)Sunday: Second long run (8 – 14 miles) or a 4-5 mile tempo run
As the weeks progress the Wednesday run alternates between hill workouts and speed workouts.
At first I thought this seemed like a well-rounded plan but the more I look at it the more I think that I am not running enough. At its peak, the plan has me running about 40 miles in a week which compared to many plans seems pretty low. Is cross training worth only running a few days a week?
I am not an extremely fast runner (currently running 9 min miles) but I want to improve and get faster as well as increase my endurance. On the other side, I want to train smart and not find myself sidelined before race day.In your opinion, is a plan like this useful or do I need to be putting in more miles? I know that everyone will have their opinion (which is apparent when you start looking at plans!) I’m open to any advice!
Pace Prophet
If your goal is a running race, running is the best training for it. Also, rest days don't have to be non-exercise days, and at higher levels really shouldn't be; an easy 45 minute run can be "rest". And finally, long-long runs without much support from weekday runs will be very hard and injury risks. You don't need to run 26 miles in a day; better to run 20 miles on Saturday and 10 on Sunday, or the other way around. (For example, you might adapt a Higdon marathon plan, which has a heavy weekend.)
When I ran a 50k, I ran 40-60mpw in training, and I usually did a back-to-back of two consecutive days of 10-15 miles each week. My longest single run was 21 miles. I did some mountain biking because I enjoy it, but I ran at least 6 days a week - if I biked two days, one day would have a short run.
Also, remember that you should be running real easy in your training. If you are training at 9 minute pace I would expect you ran around 1:40 in your half marathon.
If your goal is a running race, running is the best training for it. Also, rest days don't have to be non-exercise days, and at higher levels really shouldn't be; an easy 45 minute run can be "rest". And finally, long-long runs without much support from weekday runs will be very hard and injury risks. You don't need to run 26 miles in a day; better to run 20 miles on Saturday and 10 on Sunday, or the other way around. (For example, you might adapt a Higdon marathon plan, which has a heavy weekend.) When I ran a 50k, I ran 40-60mpw in training, and I usually did a back-to-back of two consecutive days of 10-15 miles each week. My longest single run was 21 miles. I did some mountain biking because I enjoy it, but I ran at least 6 days a week - if I biked two days, one day would have a short run. Also, remember that you should be running real easy in your training. If you are training at 9 minute pace I would expect you ran around 1:40 in your half marathon.
Thank you so much for your advice! I think I'm going to work on modifying my plan some and try it out. I like the idea of easy exercise on a "rest" day but I am worried about injury so I'll probably try it out and see how it feels.
Are we there, yet?
We have two user groups here that may be able to help also, Trailer Trash and Ultra Runners.
2024 Races:
03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles
05/11 - D3 50K 05/25 - What the Duck 12-Hour
06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour.
Thank you!
Duke Of Bad Judgment
There's a lot of information we don't have - is your target race hilly/technical, is your 9 min/mile pace what you do in your easy training runs or what you can do in an all-out flat road race, is there a reason you want to cross-train/mountain bike, have you only been running three days/week since January, etc.. Any advice we give might miss the mark due to those gaps. But I never pass up an opportunity to give poorly-informed advice, so here goes:
- as Ilana said, running is the best training for running
- given that you are new to running, you may not need speedwork yet. You might get better just by running more easy miles. Or you could do some of those bike rides hard. You'll probably need running speedwork at some point but from an injury/risk standpoint you might be better off adding running miles vs. adding miles AND adding speedwork that maybe you haven't been doing.
- I sometimes tell first-time ultra people to train for a marathon but add some hills and trails. Instead of designing your own plan you could pick any of many marathon coaches/plans out there and then tweak things if you want. E.g. swap a couple easy runs for bike rides, do speed workouts on hills by effort vs. on the flats by pace.
- You don't need to do back-to-back long weekends every weekend. There is probably some physical benefit to those but I think a huge amount of benefit is all mental - you find out that you can run when you are already tired. You don't need to try that many times before you understand that it's true. Instead of 4 months of back-to-back weekends, you might be a lot better off doing that once a month - almost all of the benefit, a lot less chronic fatigue.
#artbydmcbride
There is usually a lot of food at the aide stations in 50K races. You should practice eating during your long training runs also.
Runners run