I realize this post is coming late; I wanted to wait until I could confirm a little bit more of my "fall preview" before I posted. So, with minimal ado, first, here was what my last week of running looked like:
Sunday: 1 mile easy (10 minutes); post-BoB shakeout at Patterson Park
Monday: 15 miles (110 minutes), out to the Fed Hill group run and back, meandering here and there to make up miles.
Tuesday: 1 mile warmup/warmdown (10 minutes), with 4 miles of treadmill hills (35 minutes, 1615 feet of gain) in the middle
Wednesday: 10 miles (70 minutes), along with the Wednesday Night Canton Run crew
Thursday: 1 mile warmup/warmdown (10 minutes), with 4 miles of treadmill hills (35 minutes, 1658 feet of gain) in the middle, followed later by 15 miles (110 minutes) of hilly running on York Road towards Towson, followed by pontificating about ultrarunning over a Slurpee to a stranger in a 7-11 parking lot
Friday: 13 miles (95 minutes) "early" morning, around the Inner Harbor/Fed Hill; later, 6 miles easy (60 minutes) around Patterson Park/Canton
Saturday: 7 miles pre-hurricane-Irene (50 minutes), out to Hopkins Bayview and back, and that felt like enough.
Total Time: 640 minutes
Total Distance: 77 miles
All of which leads me to an interesting point about this past week, before I move on with the aforementioned fall preview. If you replace this past Saturday with the Saturday prior (when I ran Beast of Burden), my 7-day miles over that period total 177, which, as far as I know, is a new high for me. Funny what a difference a day makes, because otherwise, it sounds like I had a sub-par 77-mile week. Just more evidence that 100 miles per week is pretty arbitrary (but at the same time, not something that will convince me to change my strategy as far as that's concerned).
Okay, finally, on with what I REALLY want to write about, which is my schedule for this fall. If you've been following this blog at all, you know that I've had probably more than my fair share of failures in the fall. This is partially due to my typical training cycle (which tends to lead to a mid-to-late summer peak), combined with the fact that, for whatever reason, fall seems to be an emotionally difficult time for me. From where I am now, though, I think that my training has been consistent enough throughout the year to put up some good performances this fall, and emotionally, well, as far as I can tell, things are at least trending better. This weekend kicks off what I'm calling the "Fall 2011 Redemption Series," where I attempt to take on every race over the past couple of years that's gone poorly for me, all in one season, and at least better my previous attempt (if not be very competitive, depending on the race). It all starts this weekend, and goes down something like this:
3-4 September - The Ring (http://www.vhtrc.org/news/theRing) - a 71-mile circuit around the Massanutten Mountains on the "orange" trail. Last time: I got lost and didn't finish.
9-10 September - pacer, Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run (http://www.wasatch100.com/) - Along for the ride as motivator, photographer, and companion, as Dave Snipes runs the final race in the 2011 Grand Slam of Ultrarunning.
17-18 September - North Coast 24-Hour Endurance Run (http://www.northcoast24.org/) - US 24-Hour National Championship Race; enough said. Last time: Stopped at about 50 miles, due to sore feet and general burnout.
24-25 September - SURPRISE (I'm still toying with a few things here, but I promise it will be awesome, whatever it is.)
1-2 October - Another wild card. (If 24-25 September is a bust, maybe this one will be something cool instead.)
7-8 October - Grindstone 100 (http://www.eco-xsports.com/events/grindstone/) - Debatably the hardest 100-mile race on the east coast. Last time: Stopped at around 25 miles, due to everything was wrong.
15 October - Baltimore Marathon (pacing 3:20) - Support the hometown race. :)
22-23 October - Wild Card #3. Surely something fun will come along . . . ;)
29-30 October - Halloweeny 50K (http://www.vhtrc.org/news/node/379) and Fire on the Mountain 50K (http://www.phdispatch.com/FireontheMountain50K.html) - Because 30 is a big age (maybe), celebrating twice on my birthday weekend, with two races that are just over 30 miles.
5-6 November - Wild Card, part 4.
12 November - Richmond Marathon (pacing 3:10) - Because really, why not?
19-20 November - Hmm . . . let's make this one a Wild Card for now, too. ;)
26-27 November - Tamest wild card of the bunch; seems to be a quiet weekend in general.
3-4 December - Wild card, at the moment. ;)
10-11 December - Hellgate 100K (http://www.extremeultrarunning.com/) - That 66.6-mile race that starts at midnight. Last time: Did not finish due to all sorts of problems.
Rest of 2011 - "Off" (maybe . . . ;) )
I think the above schedule (which, of course, is subject to change, and has a fair amount of change built in, anyway) ensures that I hit all of the major races (save Oil Creek, which, unfortunately, is on the same weekend as Grindstone this year) where redemption is required, while still allowing for a fair amount of flexibility to throw in some new stuff, and perhaps to even nab a few PRs at shorter distances (in my quest this year to PR at EVERY DISTANCE).
Of course, brilliant ideas are always welcome, particularly those that are a new sort of challenging and/or stupid . . . ;)
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