It's Beginning to Look at Lot Like...

It seemed like Thanksgiving was only yesterday. It REALLY wasn't too long ago. I remember hearing some news about retailers complaining. Want us to push Christmas back a few days?

It's been a cold, wet few days. Last Saturday's run was wet and so was this one's. I don't mind. It's worse at work. Early in the week was in the 40s but wet and raining and it was not fun. I felt better later in the week when the day started in the 20s, but at least the sun was out.

I SO stalling on writing out my training plan. As I think about it, I don't think I need to make differences to my typical mileage patterns/weekly cycles. I may still keep either the Build-Build-Quality-Recover or Build-Build-Recover. However, I think this time I need to get more particular in the individual weekday workouts and through in some focused workouts. iRunFar.com has a good blog series about the types of workouts ultra runners can focus on: from their endurance long runs, to speed and sprint work. While I enjoy a relax, no stress training schedule, I think incorporating these can be valuable to chasing a PR at Umstead. In order to use them, I need to make sure to do more than just write in "speed work" or "sprint work" but specifically etch out the intervals, repeats, rest, etc.. I think doing so will take some stress of later down the road. And honestly, if the workout is good and hard, the anticipation will actually lead to a better workout.

I will declare myself official recovered. The past two weeks I've had some really good runs. I haven't done much building work. Long lingering fatigue isn't really there. My rest days (er... when I just erg for a 10k) actually make me feel restful the next day. When I go out for my runs, I feel fresh and can really hit some good paces that don't feel like I'm spinning my wheels.

The key is not to abuse this rest just yet. I'll cut back on my mileage next week. And without a Fat Ass 50k or Holiday Lake to think about, there's no need to rush into the 30 or 35 milers I was doing as early as January.

BTW. Trader Joe's around the holiday is terrible for trying to eat right. Alas... Pfeffernusse cookies, Candy Cane Joe Joe's, or Gingerbread is too good to pass up.

Soundtrack:
"Pompeii" by Bastille
"Everything" by The Classic Crime

Bucket listing

Note to self: don't ever plan on writing a blog post at the end of a long day at work. You don't want to, and those creative juices are BLAH.... I actually started this on Wednesday but I don't think I'll finish it until Saturday.

I'm the typical groove of post-race. I'm anxious to get to another one. I'm scouring the web, looking up races that I've never heard of, in cool places. I'm catching up on all the ultra-forums I know of, reading about training theories, opinions, new/old races. It's an exciting time. I also think part of it is gearing up for a new training season. As I get ready to lay out a training plan, I tend to go back to the websites I've used before. I want to look for new information, as well as reaffirm the training concepts I've held to before.

I also have to be careful. Last year I was spot on to avoid getting into "training." I was running again by this point, but made a point not to get into a training mindset. When I'm training, I'll try to look over little tweaks and aggravations in the legs, resting only if it gets worse or doesn't start to get better. So when I'm not training, I'll still run but if something's not right, I take time off. So when I do start training I'm at 100%. However, with my goals for Umstead, I'm already feeling self-pressured to put in quality time on my feet.

But the past few weeks I've had fun looking up other races. Local, national, and global I love reading about cool and tough races. A couple of good resources for my discovery are ultrarunning.com and ultramarathonrunning.com. Of course, I couldn't help but read up on Western States (WSER). And they're list of qualifying 100 mi and 100K races really narrows in on the tougher and more spectacular courses.

My problem is I always end up defaulting to local races. At my age and financial situation, it's hard to justify destination races across the country or internationally (there is a WSER qualifier in Scotland I thought was cool). Furthermore, there's SO many within a few hours drive, it could take years to make the rounds around those.

A poorly organized list of "global" races are: Western States 100, Hardrock 100, West Highland Way (Scotland, 95 mi), Pine to Palm 100 (Oregon), Patagonia Run (Argentina, 100 mi), Cascade Crest 100 (Washington), Tahoe 200 (YES! 200 miles!)

And poorly organized locally: Uwharrie 40, Grindstone 100, The BEAST Series, Thunder Rock (NEW race in 2014, Chattanooga, TN), RockCreek Stage Race. Leatherwood 50 (Ferguson, NC)

There's really just too many.

Loving my return to running. I'm still feeling a little sluggish, but  always enjoy pounding my feet. I still need to narrow down what type of tune up races I want to do after the new year. I really want to iron out some of the nutrition quirks I've expereienced, and a race will be the best place to do that. The key will be not to race too often, or too far. I have high aims for Umstead, and I CANNOT go into it fatigued.

Soundtrack:
"Coming Back to Life" by Blindside; title says it all about how I feel about getting back to running
"The Smile, The Face" by Emery, this lyric "But though my heart [I say body] is breaking open, know that I will not be broken"