6 Days to Go: 5 Step Plan

Last night I got 10 hours sleep, ate two good sized meals and did what I needed to do, rest after a long working week. This afternoon my plan was to split up a slightly longer run into two parts, a shorter faster 4 mile effort and a slower more relaxing 6 mile easy run. I pushed the 4 miles in at 6:30 pace just to get a gauge on how my fitness stands going into next weekend. That is significantly slower than I'd usually do tempo runs because at this stage I don't need to be doing all out efforts, but it didn't feel as relaxed as I'd hoped it would. When I'm back from RR100 I'm going to commit to doing a few shorter local races to try and maintain some speedwork. I do actually enjoy racing and I guess if I get a little smarter about how I train rather than just bashing out miles I might do ok at a few of them.

That would be quite a departure from my current ethos. In my running career I have run 5km once, 10km twice, one half marathon, one 16 miler and 53 races of marathon or longer. My last less than marathon distance race was in May 2008 and consequently I set all my PBs, 5km (19:30), 10km (39:24), half (1:26:04) and full marathon (2:58:07) at the same marathon in Washington last year. 

My goal pretty much since I started  running has been to enter long, hard races for three reasons: 1. they give me an opportunity to go to incredible places and meet incredible people 2. to find out which races truly blow me away and which don't, so I'll know what I am missing when I can't race as much as I do now and go back year after year to my one or two favourite events and 3. to see if I had the stones to get through anything that's put in front of me. I guess I'm about half of the way down that path now in terms of number of races but more like two thirds in terms of timeframe. The plan has taken on five pretty distinct separate stages. 

Step 1 was simply to finish the Marathon Des Sables. Once Jim and I had finished that and the Gobi March, Step 2 was finishing the 4Deserts series. With that done I felt like I'd done enough desert/ multi day races (that and that they cost me every penny I could save) and started to focus on the major single stage events. Step 3 was initiating myself to 100 milers in order to qualify for Badwater (I needed 2 to qualify but you now need 3). I finished RR100 and OD100 and got selected for Badwater which was always my dream race. When a few other things went awry last year I got a chance to run and finish CC100 in October which was a bonus. So I guess with 3 x 100s and Badwater out of the way and with no DNFs I can move on to Step 4: Mountain 100s. RR100 and Umstead are in every way warm up races for this summer, being relatively flat. Western States is the jewel in the crown, my A race for this year, but I will have to have one eye on Vermont, Leadville and Wasatch at all times during it because the whole lot could unravel with one mistake. Step 4 is really a year long goal for 2011, run and finish the Grand Slam plus get a couple of other 100s under my belt and Comrades which I am really excited about also. That really just leaves Step 5 and that is tackle 5 races which are arguably all harder than anything I will have done yet (Badwater aside): HURT, Hardrock, Spartathlon, UTMB (strike 3) and Arrowhead/ Yukon Arctic. 

(Step 6 is Barkley. I'll show up on the startline for that if 1. I'm unlucky enough to get picked and 2. I've run everything else and can face up to the utter misery of it).

I read an interview today, with an old school ultra runner out in the States who still enters multi day lapped events and runs 40 miles every other day. His comment was that while you're young, you should stick to shorter distances and get into ultra's only as you get older and inevitably, slower. As much as I love long hard stuff he is right and I do want to do a little more shorter distance racing while my legs still go round pretty fast.... 

Tonight my run was out and back along the Thames Path from Battersea Park in a loop up and over Wandsworth Bridge and back. Considering we are 3 miles from the geographical centre of London we're pretty lucky to have a run like this so close. I get out down there 3 - 4 times per week but it's unbeatable at night. I'll post some photos that I took later on.