100 day training plan to a 50 mile event

Well, I just looked at my upcoming race calendar and saw that as of Thursday I will have 100 days to figure out my training schedule and then officially start my training for a 50 mile spring event.

Assuming I don't change my mind and simply volunteer at Zumbro which is an interesting thought too. Of course regardless of a spring 50, I am committed to Chippewa which simply means I need to be 50k shape in 114 days, a bit easier but no gimme as I don't like running this time of year. One thing that I finally figured out this winter is that I don't like snow, yes I hate snow. This winter has been ideal almost no snow and very warm temperatures for us. Because of this, I have found that I enjoy my runs in darkness and  don't have issues on cold days but it is snow that saps all of my motivation.

Ok, back to my 100 day training program, first I checked out a post from when I first thought about training for a 50 mile event, that plan ramped up over 21 weeks, so that would be 147 days, so I needed to chop off a few days from that plan. With that in mind, here is the modified plan:

Week	Ending	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
1	01-08	x	-	x	2	x	12	14	28
2	01-15	x	2	x	2	x	4	6	14
3	01-22	x	2	x	2	x	14	14	32
4	01-29	x	2	x	2	x	14	16	34
5	02-05	x	2	x	2	x	16	16	36
6	02-12	x	2	x	2	x	4	6	14
7	02-19	x	2	x	2	x	16	18	38
8	02-26	x	2	x	2	x	18	18	40
9	03-04	x	2	x	2	x	18	20	42
10	03-11	x	2	x	2	x	4	6	14
11	03-18	x	2	x	2	x	20	20	44
12	03-25	x	2	x	2	x	20	22	46
13	04-01	x	2	x	2	x	22	22	48
14	04-08	x	2	x	2	x	4	6	14
Race	04-14	x	2	x	2	1	50	-	55
		Easy Run		Off or X Train			Long Run

Week 1 looks doable the remaining weeks look a bit problematic as I would need to allocate more time than I would like on both weekend days. Hear is another plan that I had:

Week	Ending	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
1	01-08	-	-	-	6	3	13	7	29
2	01-15	-	5	3	6	-	9	13	36
3	01-22	-	5	3	6	-	10	15	39
4	01-29	-	5	3	6	-	13	17	44
5	02-05	-	5	3	6	-	10	19	43
6	02-12	-	5	3	6	-	13	21	48
7	02-19	-	5	3	6	-	10	13	37
8	02-26	-	5	3	6	-	13	23	50
9	03-04	-	5	3	6	-	10	13	37
10	03-11	-	5	3	6	-	13	25	52
11	03-18	-	5	3	6	-	10	13	37
12	03-25	-	5	3	6	-	13	27	54
13	04-01	-	5	3	6	-	13	31	58
14	04-08	-	5	3	6	-	17	10	41
Race	04-14	-	4	3	2	-	50	-	59

A bit more to my liking, one thing that I don't see are any recovery weekend days. I might want to adjust that and give myself at least one or two. In case your curious, Plan 1 comes in at 469 miles (33.5 miles/week) and Plan 2 comes in at 612 miles (43.7 miles/week).

Another comes from the ULTRAMarathon training site and is from their Mountain Masochist 50 plan:

Week	Ending	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
1	01-08	rest	7	4x	6	rest	7 pace	16	~44
2	01-15	rest	7	4x	6	rest	7 pace	18	~46
3	01-22	rest	8	5x	7	rest	8 pace	20	~50
4	01-29	rest	8	4x	6	rest	3 hour	4 hour	~60
5	02-05	rest	8	4x	6	rest	3 hour	4 hour	~60
6	02-12	rest	8	4x	6	rest	2 hour	1 hour	~40
7	02-19	rest	8	4x	6	rest	3 hour	4 hour	~60
8	02-26	rest	8	4x	6	rest	3 hour	4 hour	~60
9	03-04	rest	8	4x	6	rest	5 hour	4 hour	~75
10	03-11	rest	8	4x	6	rest	5 hour	4 hour	~75
11	03-18	rest	8	4x	6	rest	10K	1 ½ hour	~35
12	03-25	rest	8	3x	6	rest	2 hour	2 hour	~50
13	04-01	rest	8	3x	6	rest	1 hour	2 hour	~30
14	04-08	rest	3	6	3	3	3	1 hour	~24
Race	04-14	rest	rest	rest	rest	rest	50	rest	50

One minor issue is if I estimate my pace and add up my mileage for the 1 to 5 hour runs, guess what I don't come close to their mileage estimates. So this plan I think would require a bit more modification or I will need to get a lot faster in the next 14 weeks. Well that ain't gonna happen. Maybe by summers end, but not by April fools day.

I did look through one more plan (Can Lake 50 Training info) which modified the Galloway marathon program but decided it was not worth adding in as I would need to find the right Galloway marathon plan and then adapt it, it basically added back to back long runs in the last few weeks before the 50. They did have a few words of wisdom worth noting:

The 50-Mile training plan should include the following: 

• Do your long runs on terrain similar to the race -- pick routes that include some big hills 
• Go longer and slower on the long runs 
• Walk uphills, run downhills,and run/walk on flat terrain 
• Use back-to-back runs (e.g.,on weekends) to get used to covering longer distances 
• Take training breaks when needed to all for adequate recovery and reduce the risk of injury 
• Practice with the same hydration system, drinks, and snacks that you expect to use in the race. 

Keep in mind that the most important part of running hilly terrain is to train your legs for the downhills. Review the course description and pay attention to the leg profiles. Use this information to plan your training runs. 

So now my choice is clear, within the next few days, choose one of these plans or ad hoc one or change my  focus to Chippewa in the spring and Superior in the fall. I love these kind of decisions.

2011 Re-cap

2011 is behind me which is ok with me. No marathons, no ultras and for races only a 5 miler, a 1/2 marathon, a 25k and a sprint tri. I was able to volunteer at a couple of events and really enjoyed helping out so much, that if I was smart I might just retire and become a full time volunteer but no need to worry I am not smart enough to do that :-).

I did learn that running through injuries doesn't work and that sometimes you do need to seek medical assistance and it does pay to follow their advice. That is my one big lesson from 2011, if you have an injury you need to deal with it. I failed to do that in the fall of 2010 and ultimately lost out on most of 2011.

I also rediscovered running shorter distances which allowed me to get in more runs each week and to focus  on different type of workouts (speed, repeats or hills and occasionally just a short recovery run). Later in the year, I started to transition to minimalist running with my VFF's which I plan to continue into 2012. The good news is that I learned a lot (I think) and ended the year running relatively pain free so I am looking forward to some successful events in 2012, more on that later.

There were a couple interesting statistical things that showed up.

Average run distance was down (5.95 vs 8.8) , yet days run/week (3.15 vs 2.92) was up
Mileage down for the year (975 vs 1338), yet days run (164 vs 152) up for the year
May in 2010 was my high mileage (168) for the year, May in 2011 was my low mileage (20) for the year
Set all time mileage for December at 95 miles, it's my statistical lowest mileage month
Consecutive days without a run - 19 days

Here is my summary:
2011 miles - 975 miles

High mileage month - March, 122 miles
Low mileage month - May, 20 miles 
Weekly Avg. - 18.75 miles
Longest run - 40 miles
Average run - 5.95 miles
Consecutive days - 6
Max days run in a week - 6
Average days run/week - 3.15
Total days run this year - 164
Weekday runs - 31.5% of available days
Weekend runs - 76.4% of available days

Events Participated in

April 9th - McNaughton 50 - dropped at 40 miles

July 16th - Turtle Trot Triathlon

October 29th - Surf the Murph 25k

November 6th - Rails to Trails 1/2 Marathon

November 24th - Gobble Gait 8k