Perhaps I am daunted by yet another ramp-up in the challenge, and I will certainly need to climb back. They don’t call the Reunion ultra the “diagonal of fools” for nothing…let me explain. Most of my training occurs in coastal Carolina where the topography is pancake-land --- average elevation gain per mile when I run is all of 12 feet. If I seek out every blessed hill around I can raise that to 24 feet per mile, woo hoo.
Fortunately there are a few hills in Dayton and my runs (which again I’ve intentionally routed towards inclines) typically reach 35 feet per mile. The encouraging news around my 50K the other weekend was an average elevation gain per mile of slightly over 75 feet per mile. Quite a leap, perhaps explaining why everybody walked up every hill there.
So what is Reunion, you ask? Try 280 feet per mile! Once again I am training to run much farther than I’ve ever gone before, and this time we throw in excruciating new heights. To put this in perspective, I didn’t bother to work hills into the long training runs leading up to the Finger Lakes à total elevation gain for my 26 mile runs was a bit over 400 feet.
Obviously if I am averaging 280 feet each and every mile we have some variance. But I recently downloaded a listing of the segments for my Reunion run and at the beginning is a 3.1 mile stretch where the climb is 3,667 feet…holy crap!!! I’m not real experienced with “grades”, but recall when I was on the gerbil wheel last winter that a 6.5% grade had me puffing. If my math is correct, this stretch is a 22% grade (for three miles). Talk about begging for an action plan.
Fortune may have rained a little inspiration on me during this week’s Dayton visit, however. An associate I work with, Dave, has run marathons (including Boston) and has a great knowledge about training for these events. He suggested mixing in more intensive workouts by running harder with longer strides and/or running laden with weights (hand weights or a weighted vest).
Dave dug out his pair of five pound hand weights and loaned them to me for Thursday’s six mile trot. As Dave predicted, I could feel the weights exerting their influence around mile four and the change provided some much needed motivation. In fact, we may be on to something here…
Regarding the running harder notion, I informed Dave that I had been sticking to an upright, short stride ever since reading Born to Run, because of the book’s warnings about knee injuries. But you know what, this may be the source of my fatigue and constantly plodding at the same old slow pace may have sucked the life out of me. I dwelled upon this and couldn’t recall similar feelings after my marathon training.
As much as I griped about my sprints and interval runs during the marathon training, perhaps they spiced the routine up in addition to not stressing the same muscles over and over and over again. So not only did I lug my hand weights along this Thursday, I also stretched my legs out…and it felt great! My pace was faster than it’s been in weeks and I didn’t feel fatigued after the run.
Ran twelve miles this morning using my old style and once again, ran faster and felt better afterwards. This afternoon I stopped by Dick’s to score hand weights and a weight vest and now I will try to connive a final training regimen for Reunion, one with weights, sprints and intervals. Fingers crossed that I’ll get back into the groove and start building up for serious elevation gain, because very soon the hills will be alive with the sound of wheezing!
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