This is part of a series of posts regarding how I am preparing, planning, and train to complete the 100 miles Ultramarathon Umstead 100: Road to 100. For all the ultrarunning series here is Road to 100 last week’s post and for additional ideas follow the link. Training for a 100.

Alright, we already started our plan, one week down, and here is the second week. Like any good initial plan, there are going to be adjustments. Once we have that initial preliminary plan we need to look ahead in the schedule to identify as much as possible those dates that will make that week plan challenging to meet the schedule.

In this case, these kay days could be Vacation days, Holidays, Celebration Milestones and a few others can and will have to be taken into account. Perhaps, you might need to travel or have an activity that requires you to leave early in the morning and that is the time you normally go out for a run. Of vice versa, you need to spend some time preparing for a key presentation and that is going to eat up the time you have available to run.

Assessment:

You want to once again be honest with yourself about the time available and the important dates.

• Start comparing the plan with the calendar: Identify every day that might be a conflit or could add additional challenge to complete. Any birthdays, travel time, special annyversary,…
• Determine the flexibility of the conflicts: Sometimes we can prepare ahead and adjust some of the dates, time and challenges. Travel time, or shift that travel or celebration date.
• Highlight the ones that are still be problematic: Those days that you know there is no break or chance for adjustment. Could be like a New Years celebration .

The answers will help you get ready for the next step the planning session.

Planning:

Now, this is how I got about those adjusting for those days that offer a conflict with the training plan,

• Workweek day run: If it affects the time I will reduce the mileage if possible. If not loosing two runs in a row I might take a break or shift the rest days for that week.
• Workweek workout: If the conflict affects the speed work or hill work, I will try to compare the long run mileage and see if I can add some of the work during a section of the long run. Perhaps not a complete work out but a reduced version. For example, instead of the 10x 800 meters I might do 8x 400 meters inserted in the long run.
• Long Run or Long Back to Back: This one is one of the key training runs for the Ultra. I most likely will figure out when I can cover the distance. Can I split the run in two during the same day? Make it a double (Morning and Evening?) Can I shift the targetted day for the rest or stretch day to make sure I can run the long run. I love back to back run and I try to make sure I do those, but if it is not possible I wouild then still have the two long runs in that week, even if they are not back to back.

How the plan is going:

This week was a decent week. Got the vaccine booster shot on Wednesday evening and that affected me a bit my performance in the subsequence runs. The workweek mileage was decent, here are some highlights,

Tuesday and Wednesday runs were ready solid.

Thursday’s run was a little bit weird. Got my booster vaccination shot on Wednesday night and that night was not full rest night.

The long runs were ok. Saturday’s long run was slow and very hard to keep a decent effort going. The past few nights have not been that great sleep. I believe from the booster effect. Even in the morning my Garmin will recommend more rest and to take it easy based on the nighttime rest time that was able to detect.

The Sunday run was not what I expected to do. I still completed the 18 miles I had in the plan, but the weather forecast called for rain for hours. Since I was not feeling 100% still form the booster, I decided to hit the treadmill this time. I know, I know I am a wimp, but hey I normally do not shy from a good raining run. Glad I was able to get it done, even though it was a very slow joig. The Garmin registered 17, but there were 18. I took advantage to watch a few of the shows I had in the queue ready for me. I kept the incline fluctuating between 2-3.5%.

This week actual numbers:

Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Plan
Week 15: Fuel Plan	Stretches & Rolling	6	8	6	Stretches & Rolling	18	18	49	49

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