Training

I'm reviewing my training plans from last year, comparing my fitness to this year, and trying to make decisions about my training.

In 2012, I started training for Mountain Masochist in mid-July for approximately 15-16 weeks. I was coming off a stress reaction where I didn't really run from the end of May until probably early July, approximately 6 weeks (I'll double check when I get to look at my running log; right now I'm just making conjectures from my calendar. I may have run before mid-July, but I hadn't written down a training plan.). That was after running, essentially 4 marathons/50k+s (if you count the January Carrboro Fat Ass 50k, February Black Mountain Marathon, March Terrapin 50k, and April Promise Land 50k). So I had a relatively good base, that got slightly eroded by the time off, then about 4 months to build back up my training. During that time, I essentially followed a build, build, recover cycle. Weekend long runs looked like: 15, 20, 15, 20, 25, 15, 25, 30.... Once a week I did 10.+ (more than 10, but not 11) mile run with time interval fartleks. 

Where am I this year? I was following a similar build up, except I reached the 30/35 mile long run earlier. So instead of doing 4 30/35 milers, I had 6 or 7. One of those was the Holiday Lake 50k. I did not do any intentional speed work. That all culminated in the Umstead 100 miler in April. After 4 weeks, I started back slowly, but regularly. This weekend will be 7 weeks, with about 2 weeks at about recovery week mileage. If I started next week, I would probably be near 23 weeks from Mountain Masochist.

I'm been trying to read of a variety of ways to improve. Is it pushing myself physically? I think for both Masochist last year, and even Umstead, I ran hard, but still very within myself physically. Maybe it's just retrospective misguided analysis, but I don't know if I really pushed myself. I never felt like I was at the point where I had NO option but to run with my head. I never felt completely EMPTY physically. In some ways, I guess that's good; I may have a very strong body that way. But I also feel that it means I didn't push myself hard enough; I didn't challenge it. To quote Yiannis Kouros, I want to go BEYOND. I just don't know if this is a factor of distance or of speed.

I bought a washer and dryer yesterday. The washer is heavy as hell. And I had a heck of a time getting them in place and set up. My upper body feels so beat up today.

Soundtrack:
"ISHFWILF" -Distrubed cover of U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
"Broken Mess" - The Classic Crime