Thanks, Greg.  I have my first 50 miler coming April 10 - The American River 50-Mile Endurance Run.  It goes from Sacramento to Auburn.  It climbs something like 1900 feet the last 3-5 miles.  Thankfully, my running buddy, Karen, is going to pace me the last 18+ miles.  She's a goat when it comes to climbing hills.

 I have good (I think!) news for you - the climb up from the river (elev 500) to the finish ay the overlook (elev 1350 isn't quite as bad as 1900 feet gain.  There are a few ups and downs along the way, of course, but I don't thin an extra 1000'.  I think you'll be surprised at how short  the "hills" are (the course is pretty much a roller coaster), except the final 1.5-2 miles (depends on the route they use), which covers the entire 850' climb mentioned above.

Hi Everyone! Look who's trying to get back into the trail runner world :-). Life has been crazy busy this winter. I don't know where I left off before but I've been busy working, kid stuff, school and yes, getting my butt back out there running! My achilles had a flair up back in February and I took a whole week off with no running and I've been on the steady build up since then-flirting on the edge of disaster it feels like.

 

Last week was my first 20 miler (21 to be exact) and clearing 50m for the week. It went well and I'm feeling my usual tiredness from getting up early and staying up too late. Big news this week is that I signed up for the VT100. The old timers here know why this is a big deal, for you new folks it's because for the past 5 years I've been supporting my now former significant other, Jack, at it who won last year. So this is a big step for me to move forward. I've never done a 100 in the middle of summer so I'm working on a plan now. If all goes well, I'm shooting for Virgil Crest 100 in September (was Iroquois Trails 100, same one I've done for past 2 years). {{{deep breath}}}

 

Otherwise, boys keep me busy. We had a good basketball season. Still ski season-I'm almost done teeaching at Stowe and tried to put in extra time there this winter and other news is that I've begun working in the gym at the Stowe Mountain Lodge-the new hotel that's been built here.  So I'm still at my personal training job in Burlington Mon-Wed, Stowe gym Thurs and Fri and ski instructing on Sat. Living in Charlotte, I'm an hour from Stowe but have spent some nights at friends' houses to save some traveling when I don't have the boys.  Also taking an Intro to Psychology class online which I'm barely keeping up with but doing well. I've got a paper due on Tuesday on Depression and I'm trying to relate it to athletes.

 

Hope everyone is well-I read some of the posts and remembered Leslie's getting close to her 50 miler!!  Bummer Flower about your foot-take care of it and welcome to the newcomers even though it's been so long since I've been here I feel like a newcomer :-)

 

Kelly

I did a 5k trail race this morning, ended up more like 3.3 miles. My time was 31:28. I won my AG out of 10, 4th out of 40 overall women, and 20th out of 70 overall. I am very pleased with my performance! A good way to start off the weekend.

 

Good to see you Kelly. Sounds like you're making some good progress with that achillies problem. Good luck with your training for the year!

I did a 5k trail race this morning, ended up more like 3.3 miles. My time was 31:28. I won my AG out of 10, 4th out of 40 overall women, and 20th out of 70 overall. I am very pleased with my performance! A good way to start off the weekend.

 

Good to see you Kelly. Sounds like you're making some good progress with that achillies problem. Good luck with your training for the year!

 

Ashley  - Congrats on the great race; not too shabby for someone recovering from injury!

__

Kelly, welcome back 

Thanks! The thing with my IT band is interesting. It doesn't matter what pace I go, in fact faster seems to be easier on it. But it's the mileage. You hit a certain mile number and it craps out. Each week of recovery that mileage inches it's way back up. After that 5k my quads were toast and they still are. The trail I ran yesterday is usually what I consider moderate  with a few difficult areas but with my quads the way they are it felt like the trail was all difficult.

 

Now I'm wondering what I could do if I actually got a chance to do some speedwork. I've never really officially done any.

 

I like your explanation - thank you. It's very interesting that you can better tolerate running a little faster. The problem with that is of course that you usually can't go as far when you run faster. However, if endurance events are not your thing you may do better by running more of your runs at a slightly faster pace than your easy-trail pace. I have a somewhat similar experience: I also feel my body is less "damaged" or stressed if you will, after a shorter faster run than after a longer slower run. Even a short slow run can be very painful at times. I think it is because I hold my body and move my body very differently when running faster; this in turn means that the run stresses the body differently. 

Very little of what I do could be considered speed-work. But I do sometimes (once or twice a week) do some very short (20-30 sec) very fast/near-sprint strides. After the stride I often walk for recovery, then I start to slow jog and get back up to my easy-run pace again. When I feel ready I will do another 20-30 sec fast stride, then recover etc. I repeat as many times as I feel is needed. I warn you to slowly build this up - if you are interested in trying strides. It stresses the body pretty hard. Also, be sure to warm up for 15-25 min before you start the strides.

Mileage can be very taxing on the body - I did one week recently of higher than usual mileage and I am still paying for it several weeks later. It's difficult to get back from a week like that. 

Good luck with your races!!

Where do you guys like to do your speed work? I'm going to work it into my program in after next week. I was thinking of just doing it on the local greenway which is flat and not too curvy.

What's speed work? 

 

Speedwork is a town in Russia........

 

Ashley, the greenway is a good place to do the speedwork. It should be fun to do (and painful  NOT).

 

I love speedwork; I think it is fun and it makes me feel good  - sometimes it doesn't feel good until afterwards so just keep working on it; you will be rewarded as long as you gradually work your way into it and let the body adapt to this new type of stress. I like the term Fartlek, the Swedish word, which means speed-play. And that's how I look at speedwork; it's really speed-play. 

 

If the greenway is too mushy or the grass too soft it may not be very good for your speed-play. I do most of my faster running while on the treadmill at the gym. I can control all the factors: time, pace, elevation, climate control, fans blowing on you, water/drink ready at hand etc etc.

 

A lot of people like to use an outdoor track (usually 400m circle, 4X400m=1 mile) because they like outdoor running better than treadmills or because they used a track in highschool and that's what they know - also, the smooth material the track is made of is a little softer than running on road or other hard top, which is easier on the body to handle. If you have access to a track you should try it.

 

I have done Brad Hudson type speed-play on the gravel/sand trail in the park - the course has rolling hill and some of the footing is a little challenging - it was/is a good place to do speed-play too.

 

When you read about Fartlek you realize it was originally a very free and non-timed kind of run where the runner basically used his/her intuition and own sense of how he/she felt to determine pace, length of fast segment, length of recovery intervals, time for total amount of faster running versus easy running or jogging. It was not structured but the idea was to change things up and not run at the same stale easy pace all the time. Varying the pace gives the body a different stimulus and in response the body will make some new adaptations - very basic and very cool. So get on with the stilumilulus-work and have some FUN in the process 

 

If you have Jack Daniel's "Running Formula" there are some good speed workouts in there that you can do. I did my first speed-work with that book in my hand and the rewards were almost immediate - it was soooooo well worth it.