Every Wish That We Put Into Motion.... (comments welcome!)

[avondale]

Because let's be honest: David Roche's "beginners trail 50k training plan" was not written with someone who is planning go sub 15min/mi on race day at the forefront.

Yes, it's really hard to know who a plan's target audience really is. One person's "beginner" is very different from another person's.

This week has my running 35k (almost 22mi) on Saturday and having Sunday off (I usually am scheduled to run 6+mi on Sundays) and then the following week (which I had written differently from the online plan) as my peak week we had previously discussed me going 20+ on Saturday and then 6-10mi on Sunday instead of the published 10 and then 6-10 (weather/heat permitting.)

To summarize:
July 26: 22 mi
July 27: off
--
Aug. 2: 20 mi
Aug. 3: 6 mi
--
Aug. 9: ?? I was confused by the last bit in your text about this
Aug. 10:??
--
Aug. 16/17: taper
--
Aug. 23/24: race

So the Aug. 9/10 week should definitely be starting the taper, but probably on the order of at least a half-marathon for the longer of the two runs.

Yeah, training for a 50k involves a lot of miles and a lot of time. You can't just somehow jump up to that kind of time and mileage - you have to build it. That's what you're doing.

Comparing to Dopey only gets you so far, because your marathon on Dopey wasn't as long in either distance or time as you're expecting this 50k to be. And the trails are more difficult than going through DW. You have to put in more training for this. But you are almost there!

Anyway, at this point, I don't think I'd suggest changing anything in your plan. I still feel like the ordering and totals of the July 26/27 and Aug. 2/3 weekends is a bit odd, but there may be some training subtlety that I'm missing. And mentally it sounds like you wouldn't be good with adding anything to the Aug. 2/3 weekend.

Once you get over the hump of the Aug. 2/3 weekend and start to taper, you'll start feeling better because you'll won't be running so much, so you will actually start to recover. And that's the whole idea.

I'd be lying if I said things went great mentally. It was really up and down in parts...literally mile-to-mile would be a change just past mile 14 where I would feel great, and then feel horrible. But even though I wasn't thrilled to do this run on my own, it was probably a really good thing for me. I also firmly believe that having multiple nights of poor/less-than usual sleep messed with this as well.

This was also good prep for your race. Your emotions will be all over the place, and you already know you're going to have a tough time getting sleep before the race. I guess take this as emphasizing to you how much you need to focus on the importance of sleep in the 7 - 10 days before the race, since you won't necessarily get a lot of sleep the night or two before.

it's about a 5.7% grade, so it's not terribly steep

That's a pretty respectable grade. I'd be walking that for sure, especially with that distance. Practicing the power-walking on the treadmill will help.


You are in the homestretch, so don't give up on the training now!

 

[Herding_Cats]

Yes, it's really hard to know who a plan's target audience really is. One person's "beginner" is very different from another person's.

To summarize:
July 26: 22 mi
July 27: off
--
Aug. 2: 20 mi
Aug. 3: 6 mi
--
Aug. 9: ?? I was confused by the last bit in your text about this
Aug. 10:??
--
Aug. 16/17: taper
--
Aug. 23/24: race

So the Aug. 9/10 week should definitely be starting the taper, but probably on the order of at least a half-marathon for the longer of the two runs.

Yeah, training for a 50k involves a lot of miles and a lot of time. You can't just somehow jump up to that kind of time and mileage - you have to build it. That's what you're doing.

Comparing to Dopey only gets you so far, because your marathon on Dopey wasn't as long in either distance or time as you're expecting this 50k to be. And the trails are more difficult than going through DW. You have to put in more training for this. But you are almost there!

Anyway, at this point, I don't think I'd suggest changing anything in your plan. I still feel like the ordering and totals of the July 26/27 and Aug. 2/3 weekends is a bit odd, but there may be some training subtlety that I'm missing. And mentally it sounds like you wouldn't be good with adding anything to the Aug. 2/3 weekend.

Once you get over the hump of the Aug. 2/3 weekend and start to taper, you'll start feeling better because you'll won't be running so much, so you will actually start to recover. And that's the whole idea.

July 19-20: 20mi and then 6mi (Last week)

July 26-27: 35k and then OFF (he does say that this will be tough and make you question life decisions, and that you could run a practice race this week, but I'm definitely not doing that)

Aug 2-3: 20mi?? and then 6-10mi (the *actual* plan calls for 10mi and 6-10mi but that seemed like way too long of a taper)
I should probably not have overthought this, and stick to what was written. I can probably gut out 21mi this weekend. If I have to. But 3 weekends in a row? Uuuuuuuuugh.

Aug 9-10: 16mi and then 10mi

Aug 16-17: 10mi and then 5mi

Aug 23-24: 2mi and then race day

This week will mean around 6 hours (maybe more) on Saturday
Next week will mean either 5-5.5 hours and then another 90min to 2.5 hours
Aug 9-10 will be 4 hours and then 2.5 hours
Aug 16-17 would be 2.5 hours and then 75min