Training for a 200 miler
Divide 200: Week 5, Phase 0. First training block complete.
Planned mileage: 60-65/Completed miles 61.83
Planned Vert: 7-8,000ft/Completed vert 7,047ft
This week, Mother Nature chose violence. In what was my last week of “Phase 0”, my base building window, the early spring turned back to winter and dumped about 8 inches of snow overnight with temps nearing -30 and never getting above 0 the entire week. But, there was work to be done and so it was done.
Vert was going to be the trickier piece of the week with the mountains getting a fresh blast of snow, but thankfully a few peaks had enough tree cover to allow for some laps up to the saddles and back down to accumulate some uphill. It admittedly was a boring week, chasing whatever trails and sidewalks and roads were clear enough to run on and with temps so low, it was mostly just about getting out, getting the numbers and going home. It was a good practice in just making sure the work gets done, which deeper into this build, will be a skill some weeks will demand pretty heavily.
It’s been nice chasing numbers. My Strava stats have for sometime been sitting pretty low, be design. I truly believe in an off season and from December to the start of January, I just enjoyed running when it felt fun and took down days and weeks as they came. My race was too far out then anyway to build meaningful fitness and I know mental burnout is going to be a big factor when the weeks start consistently hitting 80-90-100+ mile weeks with big vert perimeters, so I wanted to keep lots of gas in the tank both physically and mentally ready for those big blocks when they get here. But now the graph is starting to take shape and show some consistency which feels like a drumbeat getting a little louder each week as I roll into my first week of “Phase 1” next week.
While next week isn’t anything extradornary from a numbers perspective (70 miles w/ 6-8k of gain) it’ll be the first time in a while I’ve ventured into that mileage and I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes. I’ve also been, out of curiosity, tracking my weight at the end of each week to see how my body responds to the progressive build. I’m a big boy, 2018lbs at the start of all this, so I’m curious what my race day weight looks like after the work is done between day 1 and August 10.
Time in the gym is still being consolidated to 3-4 days of mostly bread and butter primary movers. Back/Chest, Legs, Arms/Shoulders, Accessory legs has been the general split and it’s felt pretty manageable. Accepting some strength gains (guess I don’t need to bench 315 in this training block) while holding on to what I can and touching what I need (practice what you preach nerd!). Getting on the wall 2x most weeks top roping and bouldering on Sundays is a nice mental break from the mileage grind.
My personal reflection point on the week was how lucky I am to have a partner who supports me in all this. I was tempted to get bogged down by stress this morning and cut short/skip/whatever my run and she pretty firmly kicked me out the door and helped me get done what I needed to get done. It was a reminder why I put off chasing a 200 for so long and why I decided now is the time to go after it, because I can’t do it alone, and with her I am never alone. Thanks babe.
Finally, the course recon has started. Spending some time reviewing maps, plotting out drop bags and pacing strategies and slowly developing a sleep strategy. Lots of puzzle pieces go into a 200 miler and you realize that more and more as you get deeper into the planing.
Alright that’s enough. Just some guy running some moderate miles, for now. I’ll get a little more proud when we start living over 100mpw weeks and the vert gets up over 20k a week :)
Onward, Always.