Almost forgot to mention I’ve got the second race in the trail

series tomorrow. The hills are even more brutal than the first one so I’ll probably just cruise it and not push too hard. Also I’m gonna break rule one and wear new shoes on race day… need something with decent grip given the condition and I have some Salomon Speedcross that I won a couple years ago but have never run in.

Mark good luck.

You guys catch the 2 mile world record, womens 5000m world record and men's steeple world record? Amazing.

My week 1st time over 50 miles for a year or so.

Weekly for period: From: 05/06/2023 To 11/06/2023

Total distance: 84.13km

I have not been big on strength training in the past. But the last time I did a Track 24 hour it tore me apart. I had lots of energy, but my muscles would not take the strain. All the turning tweaked my knees in a different way than I’m used to. I’ve been working on specific strength training to work on those areas. I’ll let you know if it worked after the race.

 

Interesting... Maybe I should take another shot on trail running after 5-6 months of strength training Seriously... Your post made me really curious - I have never worked seriously on my strength and especially all body strength and legs strength. I wonder what it does to trail running specificity...

 

 

I believe the only US race Mikkey ran was New York marathon. Plus - Mikkey and 24 hours running???? Ha-ha-ha...I believe I know whom you are talking about, I think it was  bhearn probably?

piwi - awesome to see you smashing it again.  I could see you dominating masters running if you really wanted to.

There was also the World Mountain Running champs overnight.  Pretty rough one for my coach, Andy Good.  He was getting sick when we had our last chat before he left and he ended up with a reasonably heavy cold in the lead up.  I think he was recovering by race day but on a 15km course with 700 metres of elevation gain (which I guess is over about 7.5km with the downhills), you'd need to be 100%.  He finished in 81st.  A Ugandan guy didn't get the memo that it was a 2 lap course and sprinted to win...the first lap.  Then had to keep going.  Last I saw he'd only dropped to 4th.

My week - Uneventful recovery week.  Unlike last time I decided to utilise the bike and recover a bit better.  Tried a run yesterday when I thought my legs felt pretty good but soon discovered there's a bit more time needed.  I want to do the 5km in 3 weeks so that's a good incentive to do it properly.  I've had a bit of the post race blues which is obviously worse after a shocker but thankfully I have some races planned over the next few months.

Weekly for period: From: 05/06/2023 To 11/06/2023

Total distance: 8.11km

Says a lot about a trail race when you can run hills ALL WEEK and then you still get as much elevation gain in the race as you got from those other 5 runs put together.  Some super technical stuff along the ridgeline for 4-5km through the middle too with tree roots and rocks and mud everywhere, I walked most of it because any faster than that and the chances of a crash were very high.  My decision to break rule 1 and wear an untested pair of shoes also proved to be a good one thanks to this section as the extra grip and rock plate were very helpful, even though I'd rather have worn something lighter.  There was a 3km downhill to finish but my legs were too trashed from the tough bit to do anything other than jog it.  Was the toughest race I've done other than the marathon, one of those events where just finishing in reasonable shape provided a real sense of accomplishment.  Thankfully it's also the hardest of the series!

Weekly for period: From: 05/06/2023 To 11/06/2023

Total distance: 81.67km (50.8 imperial bottle caps)

following along here, great content!

Marky_Mark what's the venue for the Xterra series? the distance looks like the little local series I am doing.

yesterday ran the second race in the summer long series (~10,15,20,26.2). i don't know what everyone else has to say about this but comments welcome: a 14 miler with 2600' of vert is the hardest distance for me on trails compared to longer stuff. all out for 2.5 hours. no chatting at the aid stations, no old man breaks, running all the hills (or trying to) and generally not being nice to myself versus a 50k or 50 miler where i have to focus on being nice to myself. it might take 8-12 hours but they are more pleasant. ...but going fast is fun so the first 10 miles were (are) a blast! almost biffed it big time though. i was descending trying to keep high turnover and stumbled just as i was approaching a creek with flat-top log bridges as a walkway. i hit the walkway stumbling and had to get my balance on the walkway. dang that was close!

i ran this series last year so my goals are easy = beat last year's time. yesterday was 2nd fail on that by about 5 minutes but my excuse is that i have to wear a hernia belt keeping that sucker in (until surgery in sept). it's not a race killer but annoying and causes more chafing.

that leads to my thoughts on weight training: love the activity and i wish i could do more but there always seems to be some injury stopping me. i know people say that about running. for me it's strength training

next up is a flat half marathon. probably another long all out session but hopefully less than 2 hrs unless someone wants me to pace

Mark when I saw on your strava that huge downhill Elevation but your pace was only 10 min km, I guessed it must have been hard-core. So hard to pace a trail race as each hill sends you into lactic burn. Disclaimer I have never run a trail race 

Flavio can you drop to 40 miles this week to freshen up ? That was a very nice long run you did.

Asmith I've heard power walking can be as fast and more sustainable at certain points in a steep trail. Have you tried this method?

Dave nice solid base week on your comeback road.

I paced my local Parkrun 5k sub 20 a couple of times and loved it. Unfortunately no one finished with me either time   I just added you to my strava

Recovery 5 miles today Monday. Pace was 9 min mile and average heart rate only 110 bpm

55 miles running and 3 hours pool-running.
M: 90 minutes pool-running.
T: 10.5 miles, including a track workout of 400, 800, 2x1200, 800, 400, 2x200, with splits of 96, 3:17, 4:59, 4:58, 3:15, 93, 47, 46. Recoveries were 77 seconds after the first 400, and 2:3x-3:0x after the 800s and 1200s. Full recovery for the 200s. Followed with leg strengthwork.
W: 10 miles very easy (9:31) on the treadmill and streaming yoga.
Th: 90 minutes pool-running and upper body weights/core.
F: 10 miles, including a 6400m tempo on the track in 27:39 (7:01/6:53/6:53/6:52), followed with leg strengthwork.
Sa: 10 miles (9:33), plus drills and hill sprints, and upper body weights/core.
Su: 14.5 miles progressive, split as the first 5 miles averaging 9:39 pace, the next 5 miles averaging 8:27 pace, and the next 4.5 miles averaging 7:44 pace. Followed by injury prevention work and foam rolling.

I spent the middle of this week indoors due to the poor air quality in DC from the Canadian forest fires. Fortunately, things were much improved by Friday, and I could return to normal training. Nothing spectacular this week - I'm just maintaining fitness at this point until my half-marathon next Saturday. After that race, I'll take a season-ending break with a few days in the pool.

I did test out a new shoe on Friday - the Hoka Rocket X2.  It's a very stable supershoe, which is unusual.  Based on all of 12 miles in it, I think I like the shoe.  I'm most likely going to wear it for my half next weekend.