Saturday, August 24, 2013

24 The Hard Way Training Plan

So I guess it's time once again to post an extremely aggressive training plan for my next race. No it's not. It's time to post that I have no intention to train at all for my next race, or for any race after that. I've decided that training is for schmucks. A better plan, it seems to me, is to simply keep myself moderately fit all the time. Then, a few times a year, I will show up at a race I'm not quite prepared for and finish it anyway, because I'm a badass. That's my training plan.

That said, I'm signed up for my first 100-miler next March and I suspect I might have to do a few weeks of something similar to training before that to give myself a good chance of finishing. That race is the Prairie Spirit Trail 100 in Ottawa, Kansas. It goes from Ottawa to Iola and back on a smooth trail of crushed limestone which used to be a railroad. EPIC Ultras and über-race-director Eric Steele are putting it on so I know it's going to be a kick-ass event. It's going to be tough, but barring a blizzard like happened this year, I ought to be able to finish.

I chose Prairie Spirit for my first attempt at 100 miles because of the course and the race director, but also because of the timing. I'm running 24 The Hard Way on October 26th, then I have a few months of down time before Rocky Raccoon 50 on February 8th. (RDG and Soub, if you're free, you ought to come out to Huntsville State Park and see me finish. Mrs. DMG, The Donald Situation, and my mom will all be there and my sister is going to be pacing me the last lap. They would all love to meet you, as would I!) I can spend a few weeks recovering from Rocky, hammer out a few hard runs over the next month, and then have a long taper into Prairie Spirit which is on March 29th. The rhythm is just too perfect!

My goal for 24 The Hard Way, then, is simply to gage how much training I will need to do before Prairie Spirit. I will show up at Bluff Creek Park, Oklahoma City, having done no training at all, and see how many laps of the 0.96173-mile paved loop I can complete in 24 hours. Anything more than 84 laps will put me on pace to complete the Prairie Spirit Trail 100 within the 30-hour cutoff, meaning I would not have to train for that race either. Anything less than 84 laps means I may indeed have to do a few training runs to give myself a decent chance of finishing my first hundred. But I doubt I would ever do that. Training is for schmucks!

4 comments:

Martijn said...

One hundred miles... running! If you had written this a few years ago, I'd be gobsmacked. How strange that I am not now. If I'd run 100 miles from my house, I'd have left the country, in all directions (halfway to England west, in Germany east, in Belgium south and north at the place where it says "North Sea" on the map).

The thing I want to know is: why do you think training is for schmucks? Don't you like training? I can imagine getting bored of running after 4 or 5 hours. Is that it? Alright, Your Badassedness, you know what you're doing. Keep us informed.

Dave Renfro said...

Okay. All of my running friends train and none of them are schmucks, so that comment might not quite be fair. Myself, I don't like training at all. I can stand a few shorter runs close to the house, but I'd rather go on a big run that stands alone, one which is a worthwhile effort on it's own rather than being mere preparation for some other worthwhile effort to take place in the future.

I suppose many people would get bored after running four or five hours, but not me. To me, that's about the time a run starts to become interesting. That's when all the niggles and pains begin. The longer I press on after that, the more fun I have. Long runs demand self-awareness, and the quick correction of small problems before they become big problems. They require concentration--where and how you place your feet, remembering to eat and drink. I haven't gotten more than eight hours into a run that often, but every time I do, I feel like I reach an inflection point where the gifts I do have--intellect, concentration, focus--begin to overcome the one gift I definitely don't have, that being athleticism. That's when running really gets fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Dave

bulletholes said...

Wears me out just to DRIVE 100 miles!

soubriquet said...

7th feb? Huntsville Texas?