Training Recap: Feb. 26 through Mar. 03

This week was a down week for me, so my mileage was a bit lower. I usually include down weeks within my training, but this winter I have been really consistent with making every third week a down week. I think my body is responding to very well to this cycle. Typically, by day fourteen of the two-week high portion of the cycle, my body is telling me it’s tired, but not burnt out. And then by day seven of the down portion, my body is telling me that it is excited to log some high miles. I can tell because I start getting antsy to just cruise for long periods of time, and I have little trouble staying motivated and focused.

I am a big believer in listening to your body, and not adhering to a set number of miles. With this in mind, it's interesting that my body has been so consistent in what it has been telling me this winter. It certainly makes things more predictable, which will be nice for planning races.

Speaking of races…I plan to race the Mad City 50k on March 31! I am excited about strolling the rolling hills of Madison, Wisconsin, but I’m not sure what kind of effort I will put forth at Mad City. My guess is I that will hold back a touch, seeing as I want to really focus on the Ice Age 50 Mile in May. I probably won’t taper for Mad City, but will try to plan a down week leading into race day so that my legs feel relatively fresh.

Though this week's miles were relatively low, the week did end with a bang. I backed off quite a bit during the first six days of the week for two reasons: First, my body felt tired on Saturday leading in, so I wanted to give it a rest. Second, I wanted to do an ultra-style long run at the end of the week, so if I wanted to rest my body I had to do it in the days leading up to Saturday. It all worked out really nice. By Saturday morning I was feeling fresh. I fueled up with some Vespa and just cruised for a little under three and a half hours for a total of 30 miles. It was one of the smoothest 30-mile training runs I have experienced. I felt pretty even the entire way.

Please see below for a more detailed outline of my running week!

Sunday	7 miles easy
Monday	12 miles easy
Tuesday	10 mile workout - 3x (2x45 second pick-ups, 1x5 minute tempo)
Wednesday	12 miles easy
Thursday	10 miles easy
Friday	AM: 10 miles easy PM: 5 mile shake-out run
Saturday	30 mile long run
Total	96 miles

February 2012 Training