Wednesday, March 2, 2016

February really happened

And boy am I glad that's over! February is winter's version of August. It's always terrible. It's the only month where I regularly get sick. They go and stick that made up greeting card holiday Valentine's right in the middle. ugh. spit. phew.

Swim: 0
Bike: 0
Run: 138.4, 14 runs
Strength: 7 times
Yoga: 7 times

Dang, everything was down. I'm ok with no swimming or biking, but I should have cleared 200 miles of running. 138 is pitiful. Yes there are excuses, I had the flu for a week, there were some recovery weeks in there. But the last week of the month was the biggest week in the training plan (70 miles) and I actually cleared 60 miles of that after bailing on the last day's mileage. My training plan had 20 runs totally 242 miles. I did miss 6 days for the flu. Wednesdays have gotten hard to run on thanks to other commitments. I'm at the point in the plan where I can't just knock out a quick 5 before work, it's all 10 miles or more that takes 90 to 115 minutes each. Ordinarily a 138 mile month would be nothing to sneeze at. But for 100 mile ultra training, it's just not enough volume.

That brings up my current point of panic - the Umstead 100 is one month from today, April 2nd. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I volunteer, run a bunch of miles with these idiots, then decide to become one of them. It worked for me in Ironman. I'm trying to muster up enough confidence that it will work for me again. Hundo's are just as mental as ironman. I know that my body is capable of putting in the miles. I know that people drop out of hundo's because they don't eat enough, and I know that I can eat and run, and I know that they will have enough food to keep us all going. I have a 12 hour race coming up, and another 80 mile week before taper. it's going to be ok.



Topless Time

The weather in NC did open up to the truly beautiful a couple of times. I got the first shot on Feb 1 and the last one on Feb 28, because the entire rest of the month was too cold or rainy or just plain gray to ride around with the top down.

In the driveway after driving home from work

Evil Genius wanted to go to church on the 28th
In other happenings during February, I wasn't blogging. 2 posts last month was a new low. The closest thing to something remotely interesting was when Evil Genius and I both wore shirts from my San Diego trip on the same day. Trying to get a clean picture of it means Ella has to get in on the action too.



Hope you had a great month!

3 comments:

Kyria @ Travel Spot said...

Hey, Feb was a short month; don't sweat the mileage. John, you can only train so much physically... I have known some who have done 100 miler after training only 30 miles per week. It's not recommended but it IS doable! So. Just be prepared to be MENTALLY tough. Especially on a loop course where you have the temptation to quit. Don't give in. Just walk when you need to and keep walking until you finish. You will do fine.

Al's CL Reviews said...

I hear ya on February and August being sucky months.
But you are strong, physically. It's better you took that time off and come back strong rather than push through it and have everything continuing to linger. You know that.

You are ready to put in the last month. Your heart knows you have this. Now you just have to sync up your brain to your heart.

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

I hope that March is a better month for you. You definitely had some things that were out of your control like getting the flu. And I think like Kyria said, you can only train so much, especially when you are busy with other things like parenting and working a full time job. I hope that the next month gives you a boost of confidence! Taking on a 100 miler is a huge conquest so whatever happens, having the guts to try is impressive.