This week was the hardest week yet in the build-up to the Meet Your Maker 50-Miler, as well as the most beat-up I’ve felt during training. A big reason for that is the result of a greater emphasis being placed on vertical gain.
I moved my hill training to the rugged, rocky, hilly trails of Wyandotte County Lake Park so I can get my legs more prepared for steep climbing. The vertical, combined with the humidity, was a pretty brutal combination. Adding to the soreness was the fact that while leaving work on Friday evening I decided to move my Saturday long run to right then Friday night. I had a busy Saturday planned with a trip down to H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation for my cousin’s Mic-o-Say Warrior Ceremony, so I didn’t want to spend 4-5 hours on the trail and then have four hours in the car roundtrip.
I ran at Shawnee Mission Park until it closed at 11 p.m., and I got in a mixture of everything: single-track in the woods, the rocky dog park loop, and pavement.
I managed about five miles of hiking while down at Bartle on Saturday, and then did an easy shakeout run this morning on the Johnson County Community College campus that my knees didn’t particularly care for.
Totals for the past week:
Running miles: 40
Hiking miles: 5
Cycling miles: 7
Vertical gain: 5,306 feet
Strength training workouts: 3
This week’s agenda:
The plan for this week is to replicate last week’s results as closely as possible. I’ve been building up for a couple weeks, so I think it’d be wise to try to level out and let the body finish adjusting to where I’m at before pushing for additional distance.
Chris Wristen 