Wednesday, June 15, 2011

How I Trained for a 50k

The only reason I've stuck with blogging is that I love seeing what search terms lead people to my little corner of the Internet.
Some of the ones I dig include:
  • necessary nudity
  • necessary nudity in mud
  • "hooray for helmets"
  • nudity (18+) (seriously, this blog shows up for porn? Where have I gone wrong?)
  • i hate snakes
  • I want a brick wall in my shower
  • how to brick yurt
Seek and you shall find. Weirdos.
My favorites, though, are variations on a theme:
  • how to train for a 50k
  • 50k training plan
  • how to train for first 50k
Unfortunately the souls who came across my blog hoping for some 50k input probably stumbled across this useless post --> See? I didn't really know what I was doing, let alone if it would work.
The race ended up going a bit better than I anticipated, so here's how I trained just in case you want to know.
ALERT: I have done one 50k and didn't really know what I was doing. So please don't actually think that anything below comes from anyone with actual knowledge of running or the distance, okay?
About 90 percent of my training was done on trails that I am fortunate to live near. This turned out to be amazingly helpful on race day because the course was similar to what I trained on and gave me a bit of a confidence boost.
I decided that since I am Garminless and not much of a gadget person that my training would be done primarily by time instead of mileage. About 2 1/2 months out I started focusing more on running than mountain biking. I was at the tail end of training for a longer adventure race so this wasn't ideal but I didn't care.
For about six weeks I'd run between 7 and 9 hours a week. Usually a two-a-day on Monday, an hour on Tuesday, 90 minutes on Wednesday, another two-a-day on Thursday, an hour on Friday and then two to three hours on Saturday followed by an easy 30-minute run on Sunday.
As race day got closer I worked up to about 12 hours a week with long runs a minimum of three hours with a longest run of just over 5 hours. I didn't taper too much. I am sure there's a helpful science to the taper but I find myself eating too much and  getting too nervous when I seriously taper. The week before the race my long run was about 90 minutes and I did a few more hours over the course of the week.
One thing that I was picky about was gear. I used my race-day hydration pack (the Nathan Intensity vest) constantly, for every run. I even wore it to work. Except I didn't. I switched between two pairs of Cascadias and raced with the newer pair and I only ate and drank what I knew would be available to me on race day.
In summary, I ran a shit-ton and didn't try anything new on race day.
Real specific, right? Ha, I guess this post is just as useless as the last one after all.


7 comments:

Abby said...

I wonder what kind of traffic you'll get with "shit-ton."

Laurie said...

Ooh, I can't wait to find out!

Gracie said...

Once I did a post on a salt-cellar I like and it became my top search term. Apparently selt cellars are hard to come by.

Lia said...

I like the time vs distance approach. A LOT. I might try it when I pick my first ultra. It somehow doesn't seem as intimidating. Also, my favorite search term to my blog was "how to look cool in middle school". Sorry poor kid googling how to be cool, you're not going to find the answer here.

Laurie said...

Gracie, what in the world is a salt-cellar? I can't even guess.
And Lia, that is hilarious! Not sure how old you are but when I was in middle school you tried to look cool by having gigantic hair and Hypercolor shirts.

Lia said...

I'm turning 30 in a couple weeks. I know Hypercolor VERY WELL. What an awful idea.

Anonymous said...

Well, as it turns out, your training approach was more than enough. I want cool search terms too! I knew my titles make no sense. My top search in Animal Farm... And Chris Powell! I am clearly doing something wrong!