Today’s Run:  Rest day

It is officially official.

Today at around 12:15 pm CST, I signed up for my very first Ultra.  50 Miles.  Definitely not a quick stroll around the block.  I can hardly wait!

How does a person train for 50 miles???

I have been doing a bit of homework on that.  It really is not much different than training for a marathon.  The biggest difference is that you have two looong runs per week instead of one~and they are back to back days.  The rest of the week is pretty much the same as marathon training.  A 5 miler.  An 8 miler…straightforward stuff.

The long runs start out at a reasonable distance (now bear in mind, I have not completely settled on a training plan).  Let’s say one day is 15 miles and the very next day you run 8 or maybe 10.  That is completely and entirely very, very do-able.

The back to back days, of course, get a bit more intense as your training progresses.  I think the largest back to back I saw was 30 miles and 18 miles.  That sounds difficult but not unmanageable.

It is my understanding that the idea is to fatigue the legs.  Make them good and tired to mimic race day when they will be like jelly.  Sounds like my legs should feel like jelly.  If I can feel them at all at that point.     🙂

You thought that you were just about all done hearing about running in my daily blogs.  Ha!  Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I will still be out there running and running and running and praying to be injury free.

Wish me luck on this new adventure!

And a side note for those of you who were wondering.  Yes, our marathon does go through the National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine but the race will NOT be affected by the Gov’t shutdown.  YAY!!!  18 days, 17 hours, 14 mins and 33 sec…