Let's run long... really long!

Training for my first 100 mile trail run has been a lot of fun, even though it's had some challenging moments and I haven't even started the race yet!

It all started with training for the Athens marathon back in the summer.  The confidence of putting out a decent 26.2 miles was an important first step in getting my mind and my body ready for a 24-hour endurance run.  As soon as that was done, it was back home with a 50k run the next weekend.  Then some maintenance weeks and a double half-marathon weekend, some 50+ mile weeks, and yet another 50k in December followed up with a 30k race the next day.  That was a 74 mile week--my biggest to date.

Miles are the most important thing, but they are not the only thing that matters.  It's also good to get miles on the trail.  On the race course itself is even better and since Huntsville is only an hour north of town, I decided to go get some miles recently.  Last weekend, I ran with my friend and fellow Houston Racing Triathlon Club member Ingrid.  Ingrid has a very similar attitude to me when it comes to training.  Neither of us run a record-setting pace (even though neither of us is particularly slow) but what we want out of triathlon and distance running is the satisfaction of seeing what we're capable of.  For this reason, it was pretty easy to impress her with the idea of running the 100 mile ultramarathon with me and she was in from the start.  She also has some ultra distance plans for the future that I will be taking part in, but more on that in a future post.

Anyway, back to the big run this weekend.  We went up to Huntsville State Park and ran the Rocky Raccoon course.  It's a 20-mile loop that is repeated five times.  We decided to run it twice for 40 miles.  This was an all-day affair and would be great practice for the race itself.  It would also be my longest self-supported run by a large margin.

I got to the park a little late--just after 8AM and I missed Ingrid, who was off on the trails with her friend Lauren who was running the first lap with her.  I figured I'd cross paths with them sooner or later and I ended up running into them about five miles into the run.  After that, we settled into a long day of running the trails, walking the hills, and chatting about whatever would pass the time.  After 20 miles, we were back at the car to top off our water, food, and any clothing change we needed.

The second loop was just the two of us and it was a little tougher.  The hills seemed to get a little higher and the roots seemed to jump up at my feet a bit more than they did the first time around.  Towards the end of the second loop, it began to get dark so I borrowed her headlamp (she was done--I still had an extra three miles to make my 40) and went off on a little side loop alone.

The pace I held was way too fast throughout the day and I really felt it by the end.  I think my nutrition was fine, with gels, some salted potatoes, electrolyte capsules, and and chicken soup w/ rice and butternut squash at the end.  it was cold, but I didn't care.  In the end, it was Mission Accomplished and I managed to run 40 miles just under 8 hours.  For reference, I'll be aiming to run that same distance in about 9 hours and 20 minutes on race day.

7:55:19 total time.  11:52 minutes per mile for 40 miles.

Now I'm going back today.  It's a week later and we're going to be running 20 miles, or a single loop of the course.  The difference this time is that it's all going to be at night by the light of our headlamps.  We're starting just after sundown at 6PM and we hope to be finished some time between 10 and 11PM.  The weather report looks pretty sketchy with cold temperatures and a high chance of rain.  If it was easy, there'd be no challenge, right?  I'll let you know how it goes.