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!!!!