Taper Time!

So far this year has been pretty good to me. Starting off the year with a crazy 50k win at Yankee Springs Winter Challenge. The hardest Marathon ever at the Ground Hog Marathon in the beginning of February, and training for Mad City 100k has gone well. I've been working 50 hour weeks every other week, which takes 60 hours with the commute, so my mileage has been low. I've been floating around 60-65 mpw over five runs, which isn't much for an Ultra. That being said I feel pretty confident going into my taper. Since I have been unable to put in the mileage I want I've focused on quality. Speed work on Tuesday and Thursday with back to back long runs on the weekend. Since I've been working so much and on my feet all day ever run is on tired legs which I feel adds to the training. I've had all my best racing years running lower high quality miles and working a manual labor job. I feel like I have enough speed heading into Mad City but I always question my long runs. The last two weekends went pretty well. On the 15th I ran 16 in the am at a 6:54 pace took a six hour break and ran 14 at a 6:40 pace, woke up early and ran another 10 at a 7:00 pace. I felt good on Sunday morning but really low on energy which was good practice for the later stages of the race. I totaled 40 miles in 24 hours at a 6:50 average. This weekend I ran a hilly 10 on Saturday at a 6:29 avg to get my pace set for Sunday. On Sunday I ran a somewhat hilly 24 miles at a 6:28 pace and felt great. On the flat roads I was very comfortably cruising at a 6:20 pace without much effort. After having two good speed workouts this week I was happy with this run.

post run :)

Zach Bitter, Jim Sweeney, Chris Lundstom, Greg Crowther and Nick Accardo are all racing. Including myself there are six people with the potential to run the 100k World Championship qualifying time of sub 7:20 which is a 7:05 pace. I believe that Zach and Jim are the favorites to go 1-2. I also believe if I run a smart race and the stars are aligned just so, I have a shot at running somewhere around a 7:10ish. Its only a guess though, I've never ran this far on the roads. I plan on going out at what feels comfortable but not getting caught up in the hype the first three laps. I don't want to put "time in the bank" just run a steady pace the first seven 10k's then see what I can do the last 30k. I want to thank UltrAspire and Wolfhound Racing for there sponsorship and helping make training and racing so much better! Wish me luck!!!