Ultra considerations

Last week: 26 miles (4/4/4/5/9)

Tuesday: run 4 miles

The nine mile run went smoothly on Sunday and I am feeling ready to train for the marathon distance. The schedule is written out on a piece of scrap paper and the only thing that remains is to sign up for the marathon. And yet I hesitate. Not because of the distance or shortened training, but rather because I want to test the waters out and see how my training goes. I would hate to sign up only to have an injury surface. But I am also hindered by the fact that I do not know when the race will fill up (and it does).

I have also found another race which has peaked my interest. For some time now I have been toying with the idea of running an ultra. Not a 50 miler or a 100 miler, but rather a 50K. It seems like a nice distance. Often during mile 20-24 of a marathon I think about what it would be like to have to keep running after the 26.2 mile mark. What lies beyond that threshold? Does that mean I'm ready for it? I don't know. But I do know that as a runner I have always wanted to run a marathon. One day I signed up for a local marathon, trained, and ran the distance. No thought process other than just get out there and do it. Is that how I should approach the 50K? Don't think. Just run.

Decisions

Last week: run 16.75 miles (3/3/3/3.75)

Monday: run 4 miles
Tuesday: run 4 miles

In my usual haphazard fashion I am suddenly considering running a marathon. In February. This all started at the beginning of this year where I decided to run Boston on no training. I think I left myself around 2 1/2 months to train. This time I have three months before the Cape Cod Marathon and I think I can do it. I wrote out a mini-training schedule and that's usually the last step before signing up for the marathon. I think I'd like to do a little experimenting with the schedule though by making my long run 18 miles instead of the standard 20. I seem to run better with less mileage, so I'm going to test that theory. My longest run before Boston was 16 miles and although my feet were burning throughout the race, my legs never really felt tired. Perhaps 18 will be the magic number. Hmmmm, I'm going to take a day or two to think on it.