The home stretch started this week.
It marked the first of four tough training weeks that closes out with pacing duties at the Leadville 100 before two weeks of tapering for the Meet Your Maker 50 in Whistler.
This week marked my biggest mileage week of training. The previous long mileage week was 40, so the 51 miles of running this week finally took my legs beyond the distance they will need to cover in Whistler. While pleased with the distance, I was particularly encouraged by the fact that I finished Saturday’s 22-miler at Clinton Lake with Sherrie and Darin and didn’t feel destroyed. The legs could’ve gone farther if needed, and they definitely had more in them than the 3.5 recovery miles that I logged this morning.
The ability to finish runs of 20-plus miles and feel pretty good was a turning point for me in Silver Rush training last year, so I’m encouraged that I finally had such a run this time.
The coming week will be the biggest mileage week I’ll put in during training with a goal of somewhere around 55 (as long as everything feels healthy). From there, I’ll take a step back with a week in the 30s to make sure my legs are fresh when I head to Leadville to pace for Sherrie. The plan out there is for me to do about 23.5 miles and take her on the return trip over Hope Pass, a climb of about 3,000 feet.
Then, it’ll be time to taper for two weeks and get ready for race day in Sept. 1 in Whistler.
Three weeks of training remain, and I’ll be on the MYM50 course five weeks from right now. Can’t wait!
This week’s totals:
Total miles running: 51 miles
Total feet of vertical gain: 4,785 feet
Chris Wristen 