50K Race Training Week #6

6 weeks down, 7 to go. I was thinking this race was a lot closer than that, so maybe I can breathe a little easier when I finish a 30km run and wonder how I will be able to do another 20km on top of that! Now that this week is done I feel good about it, but there were some days I was struggling a bit with motivation. I started the week feeling really stuffed up and miserable, which finally started getting better towards the end of the week, and is now almost gone. I shuffled a couple of runs around, but managed to hit all the training I had planned (surprisingly!) Having a race goal definitely gives me the motivation to run when I don’t necessarily feel like it!

I took Monday off to let my legs (and my sinuses) rest after my 30km run the day before. Tuesday I did my planned 8km road run around my neighbourhood. I was really happy with my pacing and heartrate. I managed to sustain a 4:15/km pace while not pushing my HR over 150.

Wednesday was supposed to be hills, but I was feeling my worst that day and ended up just doing a 6km road loop close to home. Again I focused on maintaining a steady pace and was happy with the result. I started using a Suunto Ambit GPS on this run (actually ran with my Garmin 305 and the Suunto for review comparison data) and was really happy with it. A little different than the Garmin so it will take some getting used to, but it worked great. I will be posting a review after I spend some more time with it. If you click here, you can see my Movescount page with all my Suunto data.

Trying out a new GPS!

My hills got bumped to Thursday which was a good choice because I felt a little better when I headed out to my favourite uphill gravel road for some repeats. I warmed up with few km’s of singletrack and then got to work. I ended up doing 8 trips up the road which is 500m long with a 50m rise. Definitely not a mountain, but its as good as we get around here in Ontario. Its a gated service road with no traffic so there is almost always other people out there running and riding it – almost feels like a gym sometimes. I felt good and my 8 repeats was the most I have ever done in a session. When I got home, my wife wanted to run 5km so I ended up joining her and running another 6+km. Like a little extra money in the bank!

Ominous looking skies on my way out to climb the hill (made more menacing with iPhone editing!)

Friday was my usual 20km road/asphalt path run. I was a little worried about how my legs felt (mostly from the downhills on Thurs. night) but knowing Saturday was a rest day I figured I could just get it done. It was an OK run – nothing special but I did it!

Sunday was my favorite run of the week. I was doing 30km on the trails again, but for once the weather was great. I got an early 7AM start due to a full Sunday family schedule and It was much cooler than it has been and mainly overcast which made it feel great. I banged out my first 22km and then met a friend who is getting into running/trail running and finished the last 8km with him. This helped me to focus on my pacing (and I think it helped him push his a bit!) It was a great way to finish out the run and I definitely felt like I had more km’s in my legs at the end (a good sign!) I was also happy because I took a risk and wore a brand new pair of Salomon SLab WIngs 3 shoes and had absolutely no issues with them over the distance. They’re a couple of models out of date, but I was really happy with them.

New shoes – wore them out of the box for my 30km run with no issues. Thumbs up to that!

This is my last week of training at home before we go on vacation. I am really looking forward to getting in some big climbing runs while we are out west, but a little nervous about how to keep the training going while away. Its a family trip so running is not going to be my focus, but I still want to get some km’s in. Of course, I’ll keep you posted!

Coming up this week is: