Sunday, March 8, 2009

The Big Picture

After weeks of bouncing around from one idea to another without any clear plan for racing this year it finally hit me, do what worked last year. 2008 was a transition year for me. I started running back in January after a 7 month layoff resulting from a few injuries and medical problems. I increased my mileage very slowly and focused all my training for the year on completing just one race, the Stone Cat Ale Marathon. The plan worked well. None of my conditions worsened as I increased my weekly miles and I was able to finish the marathon under my goal time.

I am still dealing with the same medical problems and want to remain as injury free as possible. Overtraining or racing too so could increase my symptoms and prevent me from running the entire year. So why not use the same strategy in 2009 that was successful in 2008? That seems to make the most sense. With that in mind, I plan to focus all my training this year towards running the
Stone Cat Ale 50 Mile in November.

I will use many of the longer
Grand Tree Series Races and other events as training or tempo runs to prepare me for this daunting undertaking. I will use a logical progression to prepare myself to cover the 50 mile distance. My plan is to run a trail marathon in June, possibly Nipmuck if I can bribe, err; convince Nipmuck Dave to let me enter. He has instituted an entry requirement this year and I missed making it by the skin of my teeth.

After the marathon I will enter a 50K in September, most likely the
Pisgah 50K in New Hampshire. I am also keeping the New River Trail 50K in VA as a backup but it’s a little late on the calendar and I also prefer to run one closer to home if possible. I have a lot of hard training ahead but if all goes well I should be ready to take on the mischievous stone cats of Willowdale!

The best laid plans……

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good plan. If you get to run Nipmuck I will see you there!

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  2. Wow! pretty agressive compared to my plan so far of running the pineland 50K in May and then.....well no specific plans as I think what happens in the 50k will tell me where I am at and what I can do. It is a huge jump for me as I have only run one race over 15 miles and that was my road marathon in 2006.

    I have run quite a few half marathons and a couple of tough 12 and 15 mile trail races last year. I think my need is to run longer times to acclimate to the time it takes to run these longer/ tougher races.

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  3. I think your plan is very smart. I have such a hard time pacing myself as I tend to go "all out" and do too much, too fast, too soon. I am , however, getting better:)
    Nipmuck sounds awesome, so I hope you get in. I am planning on doing many of the GT series races, after I recover from Boston. I miss the trails. Have a good healthy running season! Ana

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  4. pathfinder, it's not as bad as it sounds. I will run the marathon and 50K as training runs, not all out efforts. I hope to finish both with a little still left in the tank.

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