Journey to a 100: Week 17/26: Supporting team : Insane Running

Journey to a 100: Week 17/26: Supporting team

This is part of a series of posts regarding how the InaseRunning group prepares, plans, and trains to complete the 100 miles Ultramarathon Umstead 100: Journey to a 100. For all the ultrarunning series, here is Journey to 100 last week’s post, and for additional ideas, follow the link. Training for a 100 .

Like many activities we tackle in the day-to-day, running is as complicated and tasking as life itself. Although at the time of an event, or race, we rely on our individual performance to complete and meet our goals, there is more than meets the eye that enables that to materialize or happen.

There is a whole set of individuals and teams that are behind each one of the runners that have helped in one way or another to get us where we are today, but also will continue to help us try to achieve our immediate and long-term goals. There are so many that help in various ways and in many different aspects of our running life, like your spouse, girl/boyfriend, children, family member, co-worker, specialist, doctor, health coach, trainer, running club, running friend, store clerk, crew member, pacer, to name a few.

Assessment:

Think about all the time, effort, and conversations from your current training plan status.

Who has affected or helped you along the way? Words of encouragement, bringing or handing you something you need, and helping you with some of the intermediate steps. The Nutrition coach provides advice on which foods are based on your training stage. Work teammates shifting a few meetings so you could either arrive a little bit late in the morning after a run or head out of work early so you can get a run in. Also, that family member that tries to help by recommending certain music and titles to consider to keep you entertained during the long runs.

Who has been affected by your training so far? Either by them spending time in places they do not want to be or keeping you company when they might prefer being somewhere else. Or affected by the time you were away from them. Even as simple as leaving early from a dinner or night activity because you need the rest in preparation for your next run.

Anyone that has gone the extra mile or taken that extra minute to make sure you were ok? Or basically asking you about your sanity levels when tackling the long hours and long mileage of the training plan.

Planning:

Pick a day of this week to reflect on that support group. If possible, put a list together of the names of the people that are part of your Journey to 100.

Next to each name, jot down a few words describing their contribution to your success.

No need to share or to let them know it is a list for you. It is just up to you. This is a more personal reflection that will help you in the upcoming weeks while tackling the higher mileage of the double/triple back-to-back runs.

Also, that list can serve as an additional incentive, as a reminder, especially during the difficult miles, of all the individuals that are proud of you and cheering for you to complete this amazing goal. They are all proud of you, of what you are tackling and will be tackling.

How is the plan going:

Summary: Alright, this week is a recovery week. It might not look like it when you look a the mileage or the plan and the back-to-back long runs, but believe me, this is recovery. Now a few interesting things happening this week.

At the Wednesday InsaneRunning run, it seems that most of the runners were feeling like fair-weather runners. It was some light running schedule in the dark. I was very fortunate that Jamie was willing to practice with me on how to handle the rain in the dark—jumping over puddles and sometimes just running thru them. I have to admit it was a lot of fun—a great opportunity to handle the rain and the water, not to mention the warm weather.
One of our InsaneRunner training for the 100-event is considering tackling a 50-miler long run instead of next week’s back-to-back-to-back long runs. I know he can handle it, but there is a big difference between the stress created and recovering from back-to-back long runs and a loaded Ultra 50-mile run. He wants to try a few things and also to try to understand some of the unknowns of running that long, but I will highly recommend to then shifting the following week’s mileage to allow for a good recovery. There are different approaches to training for a 100-mile event, as I mentioned in an earlier blog post.
Speaking of trying new things, the unknown of the many, many miles ahead of you, and wanting to learn as much as possible from experiences created during the long runs to better prepare for the day of the event. Huge kudos to Jamie for that he decided that, as part of the training run, he added a nasty fall that caused some bruised ribs. He was a trooper, as this happened at mile 7 of his 14-mile run. I guess he wanted it to make sure he was not going to wimp out to a shorter distance if it had happened at, let’s say, mile 3 of the run. He handled and managed the pain and discomfort and was able to sustain and stay ahead of the intended target pace of the training run.
Lastly, at InsaneRunning we have a few beliefs that are important and key to the success of a well-trained runner. One of those is for a group run to count, you must be at the start of the run for the official picture. From time to time, we might make exceptions, but only if other pictures were taken during the run and available to be verified. Some other groups and clubs might say if it is not in Strava, it does not count. Not for us at InsaneRunning; what matters to us is that picture and evidence. That is another important reason we doubled the original salary of our media director for this season. One of our great pacers; not going to mention any names, but I think this is the link to Jay’s profile, thinks or believes that because he apparently ran the same area or trail that the group did in the morning and Strava kind of overlap some of the segments at “similar times” that the run counts. You will be the judge, and look at the pictures below. Can you find him?

Monday: One easy mile followed by some strength training workout at the gym

Tuesday: Easy 4 miles

Wednesday: Morning stretches with some additional Yoga. Afternoon InsaneRunning group run with Jamie

Thursday: Rest day, and I was glad it was a rest day as I was very tired in the morning and used the extra time to sleep a tad longer this week.

Friday: Just 4 miles instead of the scheduled 8 miles. Also, a visit to the gym to do some upper body workouts.

Saturday: Easy Umstead 17-mile run. Felt fresh and nice.

Sunday: Great weather, great group, great conversations. The run felt fantastic, with three segments of 4,5,3 miles where we pushed the pace. Overall pretty well within what we want it to accomplish.

This week’s actual numbers: