Another successful week, although this is the first week I didn’t complete all of my workouts as planned.  I am happy with the results and debated the change to the schedule from 3-weeks training, 1-week recovery to 2-weeks training, 1-week recovery.  I will see how December goes before I make any adjustment to the schedule.
 
Monday, I had a good swim and felt pretty strong in the pool with some of my fastest splits this year.  Of course, that isn’t saying much since I only swam once prior to COVID and all the pools shutting down and just started swimming in October. 
 
Tuesday, I focused on heart rate training for my run.  I would run until my heart rate hit 165 and then I would come to a walk until it dropped below 150.  165 is mid-zone 3 using heart rate reserve for the calculation.  It proved interesting on how quickly my heart rate spiked but dropped just as quick.  I believe most of the issues is due to my poor diet. I need to get my eating habits under control before my heart rate will become steadier.
 
Wednesday, I had a great speed workout with 5 x ½ mile intervals with the goal of staying sub-8:00 pace.  I nailed it with interval 1 and 5 being the slowest.  I struggled to keep the last interval below 8:00 pace but I held on.
 
Thursday was another virtual cycling race on Zwift.  This one I decided to go a bit longer @24 miles for the race after a 15-minute warm-up.  The race was 6-laps at 4 miles each.  I tried to stay someone conservative at the beginning and manage to keep the first two laps dead on at 19.7 mph and then the pace started to drop off and by the time I hit lap 5 and 6 my legs were done.  I tried to ride the entire ride at about 2.0 watts / Kg knowing I should be able to ride at 2.4 watts / Kg for over an hour.  It was a complete fail at maintaining any type of consistent ride.  The last lap I averaged 16.5 mph and didn’t have anything left in the tank.  I averaged 1.8 watts / Kg for the 24-miles.
 
Friday was a much-needed rest day before the weekly long run.  It didn’t turn into a rest day as I headed outside to cut a tree down and it turned into a lot more work than I was planning and I felt it Saturday morning.
 
Saturday, I felt ok when I got up and had a snack and about 2 hours later I headed out for my run and again I wanted to slow things down and keep the heart rate under control.  It didn’t take long before spiked, less than 15 minutes and it jumped over 165 which was much quicker than the normal 35-40 minutes before it would spike.  I couldn’t keep it down and then the stomach started cramping.  I felt fine when I was walking but when I would put any type of pace in it would cramp up with some severe gas pains.  At about 5 miles I decided to call it quits and gradually made my way home for a total of 9.25 miles verse the 16 miles I had scheduled.
 
Sunday was part 2 of my long running weekend and I was planning on running at Raven Rock with a route that would give me roughly 450-feet of elevation gain.  I modified the planned route slightly when I got there and then headed out for my 70-minute run.  Holy crap, I was not ready for the climbing.  The first mile and a 1/4 was all downhill and the run back was all uphill, roughly 200 feet of climbing, and then I started the 5 1/2-mile loop I was originally planning and from my insight I knew the first half was the easiest so I took it somewhat easy with walking up the steeper portions and even walking some of the steep, rocky, rough downhills.  I just didn’t want to take a tumble.  It was rough, lots of rocks, roots, ruts, etc. all on the trail that I had to keep my eye on it and the leaves covering the trail didn’t help.  I almost took a tumble coming down on a steep portion but managed to keep it upright.  Miles 7 was brutal and I walked the majority of it going up with little bursts of “running” where I thought I could.  My legs were on absolute fire by this time.  Mile 7 had 200+ feet climbing.  Overall the route had 900+ feet of climbing and I was not stable by no means.  This will start to become my normal Sunday run route.
 
Lesson learned, I need to get my Bosu Ball out and start doing squats to help strengthen the legs and core for the trail running.
 
All in all, a great week of training with a total of 27.7 miles of running; 111 miles for November; 930 miles for the year.  I am ready for this rest/recovery week.

​Another good week of training.  I was able to hit all my workouts as planned.  Monday my legs were tight from the weekends runs.  I stretch and rolled the best I could through the day.  I had a good swim, however I did you a pull buoy for a good part of the swim to let the legs recover a little more so I went a little further for a total of 1750 yards.
 
The legs felt better on Tuesday morning, but still a little sore and I felt it throughout the run.  I did manage to run at a 9:30 pace, probably faster than it should have been.  The heart rate was higher than it has been which is a good sign of fatigue, maxed out at 205.  I will continue to monitor it.

​Wednesday was hill repeats, I didn’t run these all out but focused on bounding up the hills.  It was a pretty tough workout considering.  I did 4 x repeats consisting of .07 miles (15’ elevation) with .07 walk back down for recovery and then .15 miles (50’ elevation) with .08 jog/.07 walk down for recovery.  I have to find some longer hills that are not terrible far from the house.
 
Thursday was my cycling workout of 1:15 and I decided to do a virtual race, probably not the smartest thing to do but, hey Friday is a rest day before my long run so why not.  I put a nice long warm-up of 40+ minutes before the 10.3 mile race began. I have been holding a little over 2.6 w/kg for these races but today I just didn’t have it in me to hold it and was under 2.3 w/kg. For whatever reason, cycling always tends to bother my knee and it has been like that since my surgery.

​Fridays was a much-needed rest day and I focused on lots of fluids to be ready for Saturdays long run.  My goal for Saturday was to sleep in a little and maybe start running closer to 6:00 a.m. and only do a short portion of it in the dark.
 
Saturday morning rolls around and I wake of 3:50 a.m. so I started my run just after 5:00.  I just couldn’t sit around any longer waiting.  My goal was to run the flatter portion of the loop first and finish with the much more difficult hills.  I planned on eating solid foods every 4 miles so I ate 1/2 a peanut butter and honey sandwich at mile 5, 9, and 13 which consisted of me taking my running vest off and getting the sandwich out of the back of the vest.  I kept an average 10:00 pace through mile 10 and then miles 11 and 12 were the worst of the climbing.  I planned to walk up the hills to save the legs a little.  At this point I started to feel both groin muscles starting to tighten up.  It definitely affected my running gait and I had to pay attention to ensure I kept descent form.  My mile splits were: 10:39, 9:45, 9:39, 9:48, 11:02 (feeding zone), 9:44, 9:30, 9:23, 10:50 (feeding zone), 10:10, 12:03 (two nasty hills), 11:11 (one nasty hill), 10:46, and 10:21.  I was still a good 1/2 mile from the house so I picked up a run walk approach for the cool down.  The remainder of the day I focused on rehydrating and stretching throughout the day.  I drank nearly 50 ounces of water over the 2 1/2 hour period and still lost 3 pounds.

Once again, I was planning on sleeping in on Sunday and running after church.  However, I woke up at 3:30, so I was out the door running by 4:45.  It was tough, the legs were sore and I could feel the groin muscles stiffness.  It made for a tough run.  The plan was to maintain a 11:00 pace to include a few walk breaks, but the further I went the more often the walk breaks.  I ended up finishing just over a 11-minute pace.
 
All in all, a great week of training with a total of 31.3 miles of running and I went over 900 miles today for the year.

Next week increases the total miles slightly and then a recovery week.  I am ready for it.  I may need to adjust to have recovery weeks every third week instead of every fourth week.  I will base this on how I feel after the first cycle is complete.

​Train Smart and Happy Training.

The first week of training has started off nice and nailed all of my workouts at a slightly fast pace than I had projected.  My long run on Saturday was a mix of weather, high 30s, some light rain and if didn't know any better I would have had said snow as well, and a beautiful sunrise. I was overdressed as the forecast was low 30s.  Today’s (Sunday) run was absolutely miserable, a stark contrast to yesterday, low 60s, high winds (20+) and rain.  The rain was falling sideways with the strong winds.  Even though I was running with a head lamp at one point the rain was so strong I couldn’t see the road in front of me.  
 
The speed workout on Wednesday I missed the 3rd and 4th split as I only had my watch set for two repeats instead of 4.  The goal was to run 4 x 1/2 mile intervals at sub-4 minutes (8:00 pace).  Intervals were 3:48, 3:56, 4:07, & 4:09.  However, I didn’t program the watch correctly to do 4 intervals.  So, during the last 2 was all part of my cool-down portion of the workout so the actual times is a close guestimation.  
 
Overall a successful training week with some great workouts with a little over 28 miles of running.  Now onto next weeks plan.

After I had my total knee replacement (TKR) on March 16, 2018 I started to blog about my recovery and my journey to Ironman Maryland in 2019.  Unfortunately, I didn’t stay true to blogging on a regular basis and it eventually fell off.  I never made it to the start line for Ironman Maryland, not because of the total knee replacement but due to other unforeseen medical issues and I pulled out of the race a few weeks prior.  I did however complete Ironman Eagleman 70.3 in June of 2019.
 
In 2020 I had my sights set on running a half marathon at a 2-hour pace scheduled for April and Ironman Augusta 70.3 in September.  Due to the pandemic both were canceled with the half-marathon being canceled only a few weeks prior just as I was in my final training to start tapering to the race.  As we inched closer to Ironman Augusta 70.3, again it was canceled and it just took the wind out of my sails for training for any real purpose.
 
As I followed a friend complete a 100-miler a few weeks ago, I thought why not? I can run an ultra-marathon.  So, I started the search for the perfect race and decided on Knock on Wood 50 miler, called the UnBreakable 50.
 
I realize my journey will be different than most running an ultra-marathon.  I realize I won’t be able to put in the miles that most do.  Even though I have a plan, I know it will get sidetracked and will need to be adjusted based on the TKR.  So here it is, the beginning Week 0.  The plan has been developed and ready to start Week 1 on Monday, November 9, 2020.  Training thus far has been going well.  Running 3 to 4 days a week, swimming twice and cycling 3 times.  I just finished a 21-mile week averaging slightly faster than a 10:00 pace.
 
My ultra-marathon plan is to run 4 days a week, ride once and swim once with back to back long runs on Saturday and Sunday.  Here is Week 1 training plan.

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The runs are mostly calculated on 11:00 miles with the exception of Speed and Hill workouts they are at 10:00.  My long run will probably be completed based on time not distance.
 
I am a bit over weight at 5’ 11” and weigh 205.  My goal is to get my weight down to 170 prior to race day.  I haven’t been that thin since my marathoning days and typically once I break 180 I kind of stall out because am content at that weight.  We will see.
 
Train Smart and Happy Training.