An easy 5 miles last night with the Lady on the trails of Coventry Woods. No run today. Packing up my stuff tonight, for the drive over to Ohio tomorrow. Getting there a day early to chill. Will get in a shake out jog tomorrow.
QOTD: How do you plan for big races? Setting goal times I mean.
If it's a race I've run before, I will look at previous times, think about where thngs went wrong and where they went well. Races that are new to me I tend to look at historical results to get a gauge of where I should fall in the bell curve. That works for typical fields, but there are some races where the field may be atypical. Then the killer spreadsheet gets produced. I also tend to be a bit optimistic.
In dog beers, I've only had one.
Morning all, we did 10 early this morning on asphalt, the fireflies were putting on a heck of a show with the headlamp off.
Speaking of bugs, ticks are really bad this year in northern Michigan. Time to break out the deet.
QOTD: most ultra's I set the pace to finish.
Morning trailers! I was so intent on working out yesterday BEFORE I posted, I completely neglected to post at all. Did some strength work at the gym, including rowing and then ran 3 miles last night to test the foot. Feels even slightly better today, and definitely not worse. Legs felt really fresh, but I was running with a friend who's legs were definitely not fresh so she set the pace and mileage. I was tempted at one point to suggest an add-on with a brutal hill, but kept my mouth shut. I wanted to keep her as a friend and running buddy.
qotd: No real need for me to plan and prep. My races are short , my ambitions are to just have fun and maybe meet a goal time, and they are logistically simple. I'm looking forward to reading everyone else's responses though.
Le professeur de trail
Morning! Got in 8 this morning on a beautiful morning. I wish they were all this nice. Last night DS1 and I did 2.2. Some of that was walking. He's doing ok but he definitely inherited my slow genes.
QOTD: Depends on the race. I don't seem to be obsessing now over the details that I used to. Races, for me, just give me goals to work towards. They seem to keep my focus in training and keep my mileage up. The races themselves are the bonus. They are fun but I am never racing, just running.
Have a great day!
My favorite day of the week is RUNday
12 trail miles at Blue Marsh lake. I developed a big hole on the inside of my shorts leg. I have some unfortunate chafing around my man bit areas.
QOTD For shorter races I usually have a pretty good idea of my time. Longer races I just try to finish and have fun.
I only managed to get 2.5 this morning before getting swarmed by horseflies. But thinking back on the run, I may have screwed up my route because I sure felt like I was running at a pretty good clip. But by my measurement, I was about a minute slower per mile than it felt. Oh well...
QOTD: I am glad you asked this question. The only ones I really concern myself with are long races/runs. And I will get a little obsessive about it, especially during base building time and again, even more so, during taper time. Hmmm. I could go on for a long, long time about this. But, I usually look at historic results and try to estimate where I fall, usually in the middle, sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse. I also generally have two separate scenarios: 1. Everything goes perfectly (has sort of happened once, sort of). 2. Coming in on a wing and a prayer (this has been very consistent). The closest thing I got to going perfectly was that I had a goal to finish Pinhoti in less than 28 hours. I finished in 27:54:54, which was pretty good considering my goal. I really planned that run from AS to AS with estimated time frames is how I came up with 28 hours. I stuck to the plan and pretty much nailed every goal. The last race was Cottonmouth last November, and I felt that I could run a sub 24, fairly comfortably. And, I most likely did run 100 miles in a little under 24 hours. However, some of those miles were run while lost; plus, the course was long, like maybe as much as 8 to 10 miles longer. Who knows? And that one ended with a 28:55. But considering that the winner was looking at a possible sub 15 hours and finished in 22:30 or so, I am proud to have been only one of the 9 finishers. I did like that course, though. I might go back one year if it comes back. It was cancelled this year due to lack of interest and the RD's house was ravaged by a tornado earlier this year. So, they had a lot going on.
And I have created some very intricate spreadsheets myself. The one I had going into Pinhoti had my crew going, "My God, did you spend any time running or did you just spend all your training time with this spreadsheet!?!"
LB2
Tim
Looks like I'll get wet over lunchtime run toad. Nice showers right now. At least I remembered to bring a hat.
XT - Safe travels and good luck!
QOTD: I always set 3 goals. The first one is usually pretty optimistic, the second one is realistic and the third one is fatalistic. I usually come in between the first two goals or closer to the second one. Goals are based on my pre-race condition and I also use history from the race or others to set pace goals. For our R2R2R, last year, I even made a time check for my pack with distances and elevation. We used it the whole way and were on pace until my friend had issues. For races, I decide on pace to each AS, since that changes with course and later in the race. I don't carry the time goals with me because I've usually remembered them by race day. Doing the math in my head helps me during a race.
“Paralysis-to-50k” training plan is underway!
Sue
Started to talk myself out of my run this morning but than Jack talked me into it. It was cold, long sleeves, capris and gloves. Left watch at work so guessing 4.5 miles. Lunch may be Yoga...may be lunch. After work the group is meeting and I may run with them...have company this weekend so need to get those miles up for the June challenge.
QOTD: If I ran it before I just try to beat my previous time. If it's a new distance such as when I ran my first 50 I just tried to chill until I hit 32 miles, a distance I have ran, and then just let myself go. I do stare at the maps a lot but usually forget everything I thought abut when I start running.
XT: Yes in case you do not log in again...good luck have fun.
05/13/23 Traverse City Trail Festival 25K
08/19/23 Marquette 50 dns 🙄
Put about 23 miles on the bike yesterday afternoon. I have had my bike computer since about 2000 and had a goal of putting 50,000 miles on it. At the start of yesterday's ride the odometer was at 42,944. I really had wanted to see the odometer turn to 44,444 miles this year yet. A few miles into the ride I noticed that it was reading something like 12.9 miles and found that odd and slightly infuriating as I thought that it had malfunctioned. So last night I was looking at the manual and found that the odometer resets after 42,949 miles/km. So may question is, what engineer decided on such a random number . Not running related at all, but just has me going, wtf!!!
Legs are feeling good and DS stole my bike for the day, so I'll probably get out for a 7-8 mile run later this afternoon.
QOTD: I struggle with this. I'm trying to train for a 50 miler in October. Part of this is doing a 12 hour run in July. There I will try to work on my pacing/fueling/hydration. The last two are what I struggle with and they always impact my finishing times. I've never put together a spread sheet, but will have a rough idea of where I want to be at each aid station. Mostly I just plan to put my head down and keep plodding onward at a pace that doesn't make me blow up.
I do stare at the maps a lot but usually forget everything I thought abut when I start running.
Sounds like me. If I'm driving somewhere I can study a map then drive and get there. For general runs it's the same way. I can remember where to go and which way to turn. On race day I suffer from CRS (Can't Remember Shit) syndrome.
Good luck, XT.
No run today. I might go to a local doctor here that a friend went to for his PF. They jumped right into giving him PT and some Electro-stim and he said it helped right away. I'm thinking it couldn't hurt. We'll see.
qotd: Evidently not so well, ha ha... But I guess I'm not the only one, I was doing some review of the results of the 100k I did last weekend, between stations 2 and 3 the cutoff time difference was given as 2 hours for the five mile distance - of the 92 runners who did the section, 16 did it in under the 2 hours. Later on between stations 4 and 5 the cutoff time difference was given as 3.5 hours for a 6.8 mile distance - of the 66 runners who did the section, 17 did it in under the 3.5 hours. Fortunately there were more liberal times given for some of the other sections, but that didn't help my much. . . .
tbd.
Are we there, yet?
3 x (600m at 5K pace, 100m walk, 300m at 3K pace, 50m walk, 150m at mile pace, 100m walk)
QOTD: Since about half my races are fixed time, my goal is simply to be out there moving for the entire time or as much as possible. For the others, mainly 50Ks, it's often a race to finish comfortably under the cutoff time.
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.