Final thoughts before Silver City

The Silver City 100K is next Saturday and the days are winding down fast!  I have been working on lots of endurance miles at a moderate pace to help build the aerobic engine up a bit.  I have also been working on training in such a way that I develop my fat burning ability.  We all have enough fat to fuel us for a LONG time, but preparing your body to burn it that way is another story. 

Today was a good run that kind of surprised me.  My average HR was 118 for nearly 8 miles in the Boise foothills.  This wasn't a particularly tough route but it did still have over 900 feet of elevation gain.   I noticed two interesting things right away.  The first mile and last mile have about the same gain but I ran all the uphill at the end and my HR was 23 points higher while my speed was just over two minutes faster. This is a good trade off on an 8 miler, not during a 100K.  The other is I ran a 7:56 mile at a 116 HR.  I know it was downhill but still surprising.  The key takeaway for me is to save the legs and the effort for the end!

Anyway, I am planning on using my race plan from Antelope:

A) Don’t be STUPID


B) Repeat step A as many times as necessary to reach your goal

At this race, that means being smart on the uphills because there will be plenty of them! The elevation profile says somewhere around 14,000 and since I did this last year I can attest to how tough the course is.

It's Friday morning and I had done 50 miles this week.  Not ideal training the week prior to a race for me.  10 miles of that was hiking the foothills with Michelle while the kids were at VBS which always seems beneficial.  When I trained for St. George I always did my training each week and then joined Michelle for her long run the on Sunday.  I think that extra bit of mileage at a lower intensity was perfect for me.