50 Miler Training Plan

Before you get all excited about seeing color coded spreadsheets and perfectly calculated week-by-week mileage goals, just calm down. That is clearly not going to happen. I still hate detailed training plans and I’m still not using one.

However, while I may not have every workout mapped out for the next 8 weeks, I am adding a few core things into my weekly training to get myself ready to run 50 miles and not die before reaching the finish line.

Hills

Remember how I’m from a state with lots of mountains? And used to be awesome at running up them? Yeah, neither do my legs.

My mileage has been the only thing doing any climbing this summer. As my runs got longer and longer, I avoided anything resembling a hill, under the the logic that my legs were already fatigued enough. Which was working out just fine for me…until I signed up for a 50 miler with numerous, incredibly steep ascents.

So, bring on the hills.

I’ll be doing two things to get ready to climb on race day:

1) End my quest to identify every double digit run in the greater DC area without a single ascent

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve started to run hillier routes on both easy and hard days. I’m thinking that adding a mile climb through the zoo to the end of my runs or making sure my long run come equipped with rollers should help my legs up their game for race day.

2) Good old fashioned hill work

Weekly hill repeats. Starting yesterday morning with 9 miles and a number of sprints up one my fave local hills.

 

Back-to-back long runs

While my weekly mileage is already pretty sufficient for 50 miler training, I want to increase the frequency of my back to back long running to build time on my feet and increase my endurance. Logging major miles on both weekend days gives me the best chance to simulate the fatigue I’ll feel on race day and run on some seriously tired legs.

I wanted to do my first back-to-back last weekend, but after a great 20 mile run on Saturday, I got flattened by a bad case of dehydration and had to take a couple of days to recover. But this weekend? Game on.

Time on my feet

Speaking of time on my feet…I need more of it.

 

For my weekend long runs, I’m going to start planning my workouts based on hours instead of miles. I’m finding that even when I go out for a “long” run, I’m still not out and upright for very many hours. My 20 miler on Saturday was well under 3 hours, which is just not going to cut it when I’m trying to get ready to run for 8 to 10 to god knows how many hours on October 6th.

Weekday Doubles

I LOVE double running workouts and have been doing them for a number of months. I’ll keep relying on these to boost my mileage, increase that time on feet thing, and help me get used to running on tired legs.

Speedwork

Just because I miss it. I’m pretty close to reaching a weekly mileage plateau and feeling like I can start to insert some faster workouts without risking injury or compromising my ability to log miles. While it may not happen on a weekly basis, I’m planning to mix up my workouts and keep shit fun and interesting with some track partying, shorter race/tempo runs and faster miles.

Here’s hoping that 8 weeks + all of the above=successful 50 miler on October 6th!

I hope everyone has a great weekend of long running and racing. I’ll be bonding with my new camelbak, staying hydrated, and logging some serious hours of running. And I absolutely can’t wait for the weekend workouts to kick off. I’m pretty sure that’s a solid sign that this 50 miler thing was a fan-effing-tastic decision.