For anyone following along, I apologize for how long it has taken to get another blog post up. Life often feels like a never-ending circus, and I really haven’t had anything significant to add. I’ll try in this post to give a quick update on how training has been going since the last blog update.
Since the start of August, I’ve been able to get back to running on the trails almost exclusively. I think this has helped a lot with the compaction on my leg being less than running on the road. Over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten my mileage back up to where it was before my leg started hurting. I can still feel the area that hurt flaring up a little if I pick up my pace, but overall, I feel really good.
Last weekend, Chris and I hit our top peak mileage week for our training. We ended the week with just over 80 miles. That week consisted of the first 50+/- miles split up from Monday to Friday, and we got the last 30+/- miles from Saturday to Sunday. On Monday of last week, we signed up at the last minute for the Death by 5k up in Tulsa, which is an event where you run a 5k every 2.5 hours for 24 hours. We drove up Saturday morning, set up our pop-up base camp, and at 8 a.m., we started our first 5k. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience. The route for the 5k’s wasn’t very challenging, and after running 50 miles on trails, it was slightly underwhelming. On almost every 5k, we increased our average pace and ended up placing 30th and 25th out of 204 people who finished.
Coming off the high mileage and finishing the Death by 5k, my legs overall feel good. They were still definitely tired, but I felt like I could have done more on Sunday if I needed to. That has been a pretty encouraging feeling, knowing the training and time I’ve put in is actually working, even since the 100k. This was the most miles I’ve ever done in a week. During the 100k training block, my total weekly mileage for training only got to 62 miles, and the week of the race it got up to 67 miles. This will be the most mileage I’ll do for the rest of training leading up to the race.
We are now just under 5 weeks out, which means the next two weeks are going to be the last window for any significant adaptations to take place. With last week being such a high-mileage week, this week I’m focusing more on recovery, still aiming for around 40 miles overall. Next week, my aim will be around 50 miles for the week, and then I will start my taper for the last three weeks, focusing on recovery and strengthening for the remainder of my training during the taper weeks.
The biggest challenge I think we will face during our race is not so much the distance—we have a pretty solid base. From what others who run 100s generally prescribe for 100-mile races, if you’re able to get in 70-80 miles for peak mileage, you’re setting yourself up pretty well to at least finish the race. Rather than the distance of 100 miles itself being the most daunting task, I believe the real test is going to be the total elevation throughout the course. Where we live in Oklahoma, there isn’t really any good spot nearby to get decent elevation training in, so in the last few weeks, I’ll be focusing on strengthening the legs and maintaining the engine to start as strong as possible on race day.
As we move onwards towards the adventure of starting the Hare Mountain 100, I’m not entirely sure how many more posts I will write out. I will definitely do at least one more either the week before or the week of the race with my thoughts and game plan going into the event. After the race, I’ll do a race recap, but we are pretty much in the final stretch!
To those still following along, the real adventure is about to start! – In my next blog post I should have a GPS tracking link to share so anyone can follow where Chris and I are at during the race.
-T
Solid work Tyler 🤙
Thank you for continuing to share!