We are getting close. Three weekends away!
Today is the last day of May. I did the DINO 15k (I highly doubt it was a 15K. I had it at about 8.7…but whatever) down in Brown County to round out the month. Depending on who was racing I thought I might have shot at grabbing the win but I could tell pretty early that I didn’t have much speed in my legs. I think the winner ran 62 minutes. I was able to grab 4th in about 64 minutes. I had the 3rd place guy in my sights but ran out of room to catch him. Another 100M or a straight finishing chute and I had him. I spotted him up the trail with about a quarter mile to go and nearly got him. Oh well. I think I won an age group award but I’m not sure. Following the race I went back into the woods for another 11.5 miles to get my 20ish in for the day.
May has been a good month. It was a solid month of training. I have the month of May at about 340 miles or so and I did my first official Ultra, Dances with Dirt Gnaw Bone. That race was a mess…literally. DWD is known for making up trail sections and add in the 1.5 hours rain and you get the idea. Â Despite it being a hot mess of a course it was great prep for Mohican. Lots of climbing and technical trail to work. I also got to work on fueling over a longer distance. All things I wanted to do when I set out to do the race add in beating my goal time and a 5th place finish. I’m happy with it.
You know what I like about this training cycle compared to a straight marathon cycle? At least for me I have way less structure of workouts…no 9 mile tempos, no 3×2 repeats, no wave tempos…you get the idea. I’m still throwing stress workouts into my running but in a much more informal way. I have a set mileage each week I am looking to hit and once or twice a week I’ll throw in some fast finishes, progressions, tempos, etc. Much more feel based. Surprisingly I’ve been happy with speed I’ve been able to keep 🙂
Next week begins the taper for the race and to kick it off I’m running the Monumental Mile. It is the first year for the event and is in conjunction with the Monumental Marathon. It is on Thursday. I’m really looking forward to it. The goal is to go sub 5. I do not have an official sub 5 mile time. I have no from a Blue Mile Brew Mile but the course was not a certified mile…so here’s to going fast!
I’m ready for the race to be here…but at the same time I don’t know what I’ll do when its over. Â I am so conditioned at this point…I guess years of running will do that do you. We’ll find out in a couple of weeks.
Happy running.