Sundays are my long run days and this Sunday I’ll be at 11 miles. I know, that’s not that far but I took the past spring and summer off dealing with a stress fracture, which is still hurting, and trying to get rid of skin cancer, which I’m still fighting. Note: chemo, even in cream form, sucks.
Adding a mile a week and NOT having any recovery weeks or injuries, I should be at 25 miles by Dec. 28. Oops! Gonna be short. Now I could just push the last week and run that extra 6 miles just to hit my goal, but we’re talking an extra hour’s worth of running on day that’ll probably be cold, rainy and short on daylight.
(I was a runner once, and young! This is a spoof I did back in the day of a Zoot commercial I saw on TV that featured the great Jason Lester and I thought, "Ya know, I wear those exact same Zoots. I could do that commercial." So Karen and I headed to the Energy Lab with an old handheld 8mm camcorder just shot it in about 30 minutes. I remember I had a pulled calf muscle so it was pretty painful to try not to limp. Don't know why I never got a commercial contract with Zoot.)
Here's The Real Zoot commercial starring the awesome Jason Lester "Got Ultra?"
BUT, if I increase my mileage by one and a half miles per week that’d land me just a half-mile short of my goal a week early. But lets be realistic here. There are two major factors. Make that three major factors: 1) This is Oregon and it’s going to rain and snow and get pretty cold so I’ll be carrying a lot of extra weight in clothing. Plus I’ll be doing most of my running in the dark. 2) I’ll never make it injury free or without throwing in a recover week here and there. And 3) I’m lazy, which means I’ll miss some runs during the week because of (insert any lame excuse here) making my long runs even harder and putting me more at risk for injury.
Besides running marathons, the longest training runs I’ve done were 20 milers. And unlike a race, this will be done solo (I think I’m the only runner in our town during the winter) and with whatever support crew I can muster from the family.
Can I do it? I’d like to say HECK YA! But honestly, I’m doubtful. I haven’t had a real goal since I left Hawaii and I’m thinking that this might be fun to try - at least until it turns cold, wet and windy. Then I reckon the Ironman in me better kick in with that “anything is possible, I am an Ironman” attitude.
I'll be doing shorter runs throughout the week: a couple of hour runs and maybe an hour and a half run followed by the long run on Sundays. Probably a lot of it done on the tready once the weather turns. Btw, if anyone has any advice for training for ultra marathons, feel free to pass it along.
They say the first step is the hardest. Yeah right! Let's see how the 500,000th step feels and see which is harder… Oh, by the way, if anyone has any connections with a running shoe manufacturer, I’m looking for shoe sponsors … ha!
See ya out there!
