Feed me!

Don’t know what’s going on at the moment but my appetite seems to have ramped up more than my training as the White Rose 100 looms large in less than 2 weeks.

I had hoped that I’d have got a better, more consistent block of training/maintaining in between Hardmoors 60 and White Rose 100 but the plan of a recovery week followed by 4 really solid weeks with a good 20-22 mile run in each then a taper haven’t happened and it leaves me wondering how I can really hope to run ultras at the level I think I’m capable of if I don’t get this training done.

It’s easy enough to say my schedule doesn’t help but I guess the reality is people elsewhere fit these runs into their life somehow and as I find myself getting annoyed reading these magazine articles “4 weeks to a 5k pb” and the like which promise results with minimal effort it’s a little frustrating to find myself subconsciously shortcutting the hard work and not doing one of the core training sessions of an ultra runner.

Highlight of the week was a short diversion to explore a little bit of trail I’ve been meaning to check out for years. Admittedly it was a flying tour but a track I’ll run again as an antidote to the boring and functional mileage of run commuting where my mojo is disappearing fast.

The White Rose 100 is hopefully the only 100 mile race I’m going to do, I want to experience it and see if I have what it takes to finish the distance but I don’t see that distance being something I want to do regularly. My plans for next year once this race is done is to focus on speed. I really want to be a faster and more competitive 5 and 10k runner and while I still want to do longer distances I quite fancy building on my London marathon time as well as doing some “short” ultras in the 35-40 mile range where I think I can do well.

Racing weight

The other issue I seem to be struggling with is my appetite has rocketed up a notch and while it’s not exactly the end of the world, I’ve put on a few pounds instead of losing them for the 100.

Just need to be a bit careful that my “see-food” diet doesn’t get out of hand as I’m actually the heaviest I’ve been in a year right now which does explain why instead of getting closer to the sub 17 parkrun I’ve been looking for, I’m actually getting slower.

Not a problem right now, the 100 is the focus followed by some rest and then working with Ally who will be putting together a training plan to knock down these shorter distance times.

parkrun hattrick

Amazingly after the successful 1st place finishes at parkrun the last 2 weeks at Gibside and South Manchester we went over to Glossop where I somehow managed another 1st in 18:21. Not record breaking by any stretch but it’s great to finish 1st at anything and that’s now 8 parkrun 1st places this year.

  • Monday: 9.1 miles
  • Tuesday: 11 miles (6 @ tempo)
  • Wednesday: 13.2 miles (5 & 8.2 miles)
  • Thursday: 7.2 miles
  • Friday: 7 miles
  • Saturday: 3.1 miles (parkrun)
  • Sunday: 9.6 miles

Total: 60.4 miles, 4,862ft elevation