This is part of a series of posts regarding how I am preparing, planning, and training to complete the 100 miles Ultramarathon Umstead 100: Journey to 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.

By this time of the training, things are starting most likely to be clicking into place. There have been plenty of back-to-back long runs that hopefully have provided you with good practice learning opportunities in many areas. You should start to know how it feels to run on very tired legs. Also, by now, you most likely have a fueling strategy that works or is close to work and meets your needs. The key from now until the race is consistency. The short runs, long runs, Fuel, and especially the recovery runs are going to start being very important in the preparation and training for the 100-mile event.

Assessment:

How would you categorize your progress? Are things improving? Are our confidence levels increasing? Are you learning new things to consider? Are you starting to get to a level that makes you comfortable being on your legs for long hours? Are you feeling depleted after the runs, or do you feel that you could do one more or two more miles? Any mishaps during the run? or during the changeover? Missing items? or not been able to complete the checklist of items to do at home base?

Planning:

There is still plenty of time to make adjustments. Take note of those little things that might just bother you at the end of the run, but you know that without tending, adjusting, or addressing, they can escalate and exponentially get really worse. What are those things that are still making you uncomfortable? Plan to address those in the following weeks to increase your chances of success.

Plan to minimize mishaps and forgetting things. Each run serves as a practice to get into the habit of being effective and complete during the changeover. The more consistency you have during the training run, the better the chances of things going well during the event.

How is the plan going:

This week was another solid incremental week. With all the business of the workweek, I mismanaged the calendar and plan and skipped a week, and we ran the following week’s long back-to-back runs. That is ok, it seems that we are more ready than we should be. Time to rip the benefits and make those adjustments needed to increase the success of the event.

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

Tuesday: Easy 6 miles

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

Thursday: Rest day; took it easy.

Friday: Some stretches in the morning, no mileage.

Saturday: Easy 20-mile run at ATT. Felt fresh and nice. Basically negative splits

Sunday: Another great weather, great group, great conversations. We started at 3:00 AM to tackle two loops of Umstead for a total of 28 miles. I manage to tackle most of the hills on both loops. Very happy with how it went. Overnight sugars were high, but that did not cause any issues during the run today as they stayed within the running range.

This week’s actual numbers:

Week 17	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
Plan	Stretches & Rolling	5	3	Rest	8	16	24	56
Actual	1 mile Gym	6	Yoga 5	Rest	Stretches	20	28	60

Next Week’s Plan: I have volunteered to help at a local trail event. Most likely will do less mileage on Saturday

Week 18	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
Plan	Stretches & Rolling	6	6	6	Rest	20	26	64