Training For My Next Race

After a very lack luster run at this years American River 50 miler, I did a lot of thinking about what went wrong during the race.

The first thing is my weight.  I like to eat, and I like to eat a lot.  I went into AR50 a little heavier than I wanted to.  I wanted to go in at about 175 pounds (the weight I feel most comfortable running) but I was closer to 185 pounds.  The extra 10 pounds makes a difference, especially over a 50 mile race.

The second thing that I feel like my training was lacking was good old fashioned speed work.  At the end of AR50 I felt like my legs had no turnover in them.  I feel like my lack of speed work was to blame.


After AR50 I decided to take the rest of April off from hard training.  I ran, but it was just for run.  I ran with a few friends that I had not ran with for awhile, and we just did easy miles with each other.

Now that it's May I've started training for my next race, The Dirty Dozen 12 hour race.  The event is in July and I'm looking forward to putting in a lot of miles at this race.  I've started training, but I'm easing into the hard workouts.  I'm doing weights and H.I.I.T. workouts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.  I'm also starting to incorporate speed work into my runs once again, along with some long runs.

I'm trying to make my workouts as uncomfortable as I can.  I know that the weeks that led up to AR50 I held back a lot on my training.  I'm going to keep my training for this event as demanding as I can make it.  I need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable again.  I need to bring back the training I was doing when I ran the Woodside 50k back in December of last year.


I feel like I'm not as distracted as I use to be.  The last year had a bunch of ups and downs, and I had no idea last year that my life would be like it is right now.

A couple months ago I went on a trail run with a local runner who wanted to check out the San Joaquin River Trail.  I do a lot of my training on this trail, and when Samantha showed an interest in checking out the trail I offered to take her out on a run.  I'm very introverted and find it hard to talk to people most of the time in "normal" settings.  Sometimes I come across as an ass hole, or a snob... but it's just that I feel very awkward and out of place in most social situations. Luckily for me I am able to hold a conversation with people while I'm running.

After getting to know Samantha a little better on the trail, we started hanging out more... and more... and more.  She's very active, trains a lot, is very focused on her goals, and can be very competitive..  After a few weeks a relationship started to develop and we started becoming more than friends.

I'm excited about this years Dirty Dozen race.  While I'm out running for 12 hours, Samantha will run the 10k race that is in the morning, and then she will run the 10k race that will take place in the afternoon.

We are both training hard right now.  Samantha is focusing on a triathlon she's doing this coming June, along with her upcoming solo hike on the John Muir Trail this August.  I'm very focused on the Dirty Dozen and the Headlands 100.


Life is crazy.  At one moment you can feel like you're at the bottom, then at the next moment all of that can be turned around.  You never know what life is going to give you.


until next time...

KEEP RUNNING!!!!

American River Run 04-02-2016

So... this blog post is coming very late, but oh well... let's jump right into it!!

On April 2nd of 2016 I ran my 7th consecutive American River 50 miler.  Back in 2010 this was the very first 50 miler that I had ever ran, and I've done this race every year ever since.  This race takes place close to my birthday, so I like to do this event every year.

I had big goals this year.  I really wanted to finish in 8 hours and 30 mins this year.  This would cut about 20 mins of my best time at this event.

I felt that my training was pretty good prior to the event.  I was getting in some good long runs, I was cross training regularly, and my rib was finally healed.  My weight wasn't quite where I wanted it, but it was close enough.  I wasn't back down to 175 pounds (the weight that I like to run ultras) but it wasn't so much over 175 pounds that it made a huge impact on my run.

I was feeling pretty good for the first 25 miles of the run.  My goal was to get the first half of the race done in about 4 hours.  When I hit the mile 25 mark I was only 10 mins behind the my goal of 4 hours.  It didn't feel like that big of a deal at the time, because I really enjoy the second half of this race and was wanting to try to push the pace the best that I could.

After mile 30, the course started getting to me.  My pace kept falling back more and more.  I expected this to happen, especially in the Meat Grinder section of the course.  When I hit mile 37 I was about 6 hours and 30 mins into the race.  At this time I figured that I would have to run a 2 hour trail half marathon, and on fresh legs that's a goal I would totally try to nail... but I was 37 miles into a run and had been running for 6 hours and 30 mins into my run already.

At this point I knew I was going to fall short (very short) of my goal.  The last thing I wanted to do was just lay back and feel defeated about not hitting a time goal, so I did my best to keep running as best as I could.  Unfortunately as I ran past mile 40 I started feeling more and more exhausted.  My legs were feeling super heavy and the desire to run really wasn't there.

During the later miles I felt like my legs just weren't there.  They felt like heavy bricks.  When I would try to run they just wouldn't move.  Looking back on my training, I realized that I didn't do a whole lot of speed work during the last 6 weeks leading up to the race.  I think this was a huge mistake on my part.  My lack of speed work left my legs had no turnover during the important later miles of the race.

At the end of the day I finished the 50 miles in 10 hours and 35 mins.  This was a good 2 hours longer that I wanted to take.

The weeks after AR50 I was able to reflect a lot about what went right and what went wrong at the event.  I took almost all of April off from any hard running and made it a point to just run with some friends and have fun on the trails.

I have my next race this coming July and just started for it earlier this week.  I'm excited to make some adjustments to my training and have a solid run at this July's Dirty Dozen 12 hour race.



Until next time...

KEEP RUNNING!!!!