Aesthete Runner

On Saturday I ran the Glacier Ridge Trail 50k in Slippery Rock, PA. This was my 2nd 50k to date, and it was by far the most challenging race I've ever run. It also happened to be one of the most fun and awesome experiences and it is a race I will definitely never forget.

One month out from the Glacier Ridge Trail 50k! Week 14 was a big week. While the midweek runs were nothing out of the ordinary, this weekend brought my longest run yet - 5 hours. I struggled with motivation early on in the week, but seemed to find it by the week's end.

Yesterday I ran the Paleozoic Cambrian Fall Trail 25k, which was my first race post-Chicago marathon and the longest I have run since the race. Initially I was considering the 50k when I was signing up, and while I would definitely consider the 50k in the future, I'm glad I went "easy" on myself and stuck to the 25k.

We are now at less than 24 hours until the marathon! How quickly this week passed. My training this week was very light, with a focus on mobility, rest, and nutrition. Overall this taper was much needed after some hard weeks of training, and it is one of the first where I can say that I truly enjoyed all the extra rest.

Yesterday I ran the Naperville Trails half marathon in Wheaton, IL. It was a great day for a race...and a PR! Almost a year and a half since my last PR, I finally set a new personal best for the half marathon.

I am back from my Vegas vacation and completed another 10 mile race yesterday at the Waterfall Glen Xtreme 10 event. The "official" training for this week was mixed, as I enjoyed some fantastic hiking in Vegas, while also trying to keep my legs fresh for the race yesterday. I loved that I was able to still stick with the training plan, while choosing to keep my mileage lower.

This was a great week of training. There were some hard runs on hot weather days, but the third week felt good. The past three weeks have flown by and I am now entering the fourth and final week.

I did it! I ran my first 50k on Saturday. It has taken a few days for me to reflect on the race. I experienced so many intense feelings within one race that it was very difficult for me to even understand or identify how I feel about that day. I listened to a podcast a few months ago that talked about failure. How we often are afraid to do things where failure is a real possibility. Often times in training, we select plans or goals that are challenging enough that we feel pushed, but where we can finish feeling satisfied that we accomplished what we set out to do. We rarely select races or goals where we could fail, and as a result, we never learn to be better. Failure is not bad. Failure is not the end of the world. When we do fail, we learn how to be better. We learn that it is ok to fail, but then we pick ourselves up and try again. I knew signing up for a 50k raised the real risk of actual failure. I felt this more than any other race I had signed up for. Contrary to my fear of...

The balancing act continued this past week as I somehow managed to adjust to a new job, morning running, and a 20 mile long run. I might be crazy, but I am actually happy that the clocks jumped ahead last night as now I can get in some runs after work.

What a week! I started my new job, became a morning runner, and ran one of my longest training runs in a while. Needless to say, I am exhausted! I am still working on balancing a new job, training for my first ultra, and everything else in life, but I know that each week will get easier.

One of my favorite books is a A Tale of Two Cities and it is fitting to name this post after two vastly different runs I experienced this week. Sometimes it may appear that running is always enjoyable and easy, when that is not always the case. Before I present you with my tale of two runs, here was my training schedule for the week:

Not only is Week 10 over, but so is July! Scary to think that the Chicago Marathon is only two months away... Here was my training schedule for week 10: Monday: 7 miles easy Tuesday: Speedwork - 4 X 1200 with 400 recovery  8 miles Tempo Wednesday: Rest Thursday: 8 miles Tempo  Strength training Friday: 5 miles easy Saturday: 8 miles easy Sunday: 10 miles long (on the trail) The biggest change this week was that I skipped the speedwork. Because I missed my tempo run last week, I wanted to make sure that I completed this workout which meant skipping the speedwork. Week 11 of training is essentially a built-in "extra" week for me and I plan to repeat the missed tempo and speedwork runs. I always build in extra training weeks to accommodate injury, sickness, and vacation. Thankfully I am using this week as a vacation week, so I can do whatever I want with week 11, and I plan to get in a few high quality workouts with some much needed rest. But that will all be reporte...

Oh week 9 was brutal! Not so much the training itself, but training in the heat. Chicago is no stranger to hot temps but this week brought sequential days with the heat index over 100. I have heard that running in the heat is similar to altitude training, and I can fully appreciate this after my attempts this week. These are the times when I do wish for a treadmill or access to a gym, but I also know that I would never enjoy the runs as much as if I was doing them outdoors. As much as I had planned to stick to my training schedule, I simply had to make adjustments for the heat. Here was my training plan for the week: Monday: 5 miles easy Tuesday: Speedwork -  5 X 1k, 400m recovery Wednesday: Rest Thursday: 8 miles tempo  Strength training Friday: 6 miles easy Saturday: 5 miles easy Sunday: 15 miles long  5 miles long (on the trail) Clearly the two most important runs of the week were major fails. On Thursday the heat advisory had started and the tempos were ov...