(Semi-) Thought experiment: how much could you run?

How many miles could you run in a week, or a month? Or average over a running season?

This is not merely a hypothetical question or a thought experiment. For example, Tony Krupicka ran over 1,000 miles in a five-week period during the lead up to the 2007 Leadville 100, averaging more than 200 miles per week over that time. And those five weeks were bookended by 133- and 152-mile week.

The world record – 408.04 miles in seven days – that’s a hypothetical question because it requires one to devote everything to running. The Krupicka question is less so because it does not necessarily (however likely) require one to leave everything else (mostly school, work, spouse and/or family for the rest of us) to accomplish it.

But the real issue is not “Could you run as many miles as Krupicka.” We’re not him, we don’t have the huge base of lifetime mileage (approx. 60,000 at end of 2011), and we shouldn't destroy ourselves replicating his training merely because it is him and we want to. Instead, the question is many miles could you put on in a week, or how many miles you could average over a season or seasons, all by taking the long view? Again, Krupicka was walking the razor’s edge of fitness during those five weeks in preparation – any more and he would have slipped into the realm of overtraining, overuse, fatigue and eventually, injury. Had he so slipped, it is doubtful he would have won the race.

So what is your max? Can you do it? What would it take to accomplish it?

(edit: this accidentally went live on 3/25/12 for a brief few minutes.)

Being sick sucks: March 19-25

I hate being sick for so many reasons: the exhaustion, congestion, and nausea just to name a few. But the one thing I really can't stand about being sick is what it does to training. Things slow down or go full-stop. It hurts your lungs to run, and when you do your lung capacity/aerobic capacity just goes to the toilet. Mucus oozes out of your nose in thick ribbons and stick to everything. Farmers' blows - the standard runner's method for clearing one's nose - becomes dangerous instead of effective. And there is nothing you can do but pound fluids, orange juice, (homemade!) chicken soup, cold meds of choice, and sleep. It sucks being sick.

Monday: Goose egg.
Sick. Ribs aching.

Tuesday: 4.4; 0:40
Still sick, pulled in early (wanted to run eight) but had weird sideache on tip of right ribs. Not side stitch, but ouch.

Wednesday: Goose egg, no. 2
Still sick.

Thursday: 5.5; 1:00
Trail run at Seven Mile Creek after stressful, overcaffienated day. Wanted to run hard to beat the stress out of me. Didn't work, as my lung capacity would not accommodate such running for more than about 1.5 miles. 
 
Friday: 7; 1:02
Early AM run, and cold starting to work its way though system. Getting better, but still ill.

Sunday: 21.2; 2:59:00
Finally, a breakthrough of my head cold. Sinuses aren't clear, but the gunk coming out of them is clear instead of yellow. Great run through Sibley Park, on the Minnesota River Trail and the Red Jacket Trail. More on this run later.

Totals: 38.1 miles; 5:43:23
YTD: 526.9 miles; 75:44:50

Up next: I get better. And then we'll talk. Planned is 60 miles with Yasso 800s for speed work. We'll see if that goes off as planned.

How to track training progress: monitor rolling averages

For this year, I'm tracking four rolling statistics to monitor my training to make sure I'm training consistently and not overtraining by packing two weeks of training into a single a ten-day period.

Seven-day totals: I'm keeping track of how many miles and hours/minutes I've run in the past seven days.

Three Week rolling averages: This shows my average weekly mileage and time as calculated over the last three weeks.

The idea sprung from a portion of Relentless Forward Progress, which if you (want to) run ultras, is a must-read. Tracking this has shown a few things.

1. Zero days have a huge effect on the seven day totals.

Well duh. For every day that I don't run, the totals spike down. For everyday that I skip and then later run the following week, the totals spike up. For this reason, monitoring these numbers help me eliminate (or reduce) zero days because I care about these stats. Less zero days mean more consistency, and more consistency will lead to better race-day results. The same goes for days where I run more than my average daily run, i.e.when I did a 16 miler for a mid week run.

2. Three-week totals are much less volatile. 

Again, duh. When zero days are balanced out over three weeks (because hey, they come and go about once per week), their individual effect is mitigated.

3. What I ran seven or 21 days ago (rightly or wrongly) influences my daily mileage decisions.

I look at my training log (almost) every day. When I do, I tend to check the mileage I ran on this day of the week last week and three weeks ago. It is those numbers that will be dropped when I add in today's time. Runners have a tendency to think "more is better," and so long as it is part of a consistent training plan, more is better when achieved in small increments tends to work for most folks, including me. Thus, when I look back at what I did last week and three weeks ago, I want to run at least that mileage (or more), subject to this week's plan, so as to not diminish my rolling seven-day and three-week totals.

This is not terribly intelligent because it tends to prevent recovery days or recovery weeks from being entirely effective. But it is effective at getting me to run higher mileage weeks, especially going forward with this week and next when I am shooting for a weekly effort - 60 miles with two quality runs - that I have so rarely in the past achieved with any consistency.

Don't skimp the long run: March 12-18

Don't skimp the long run. You'll regret it if you do. And I did. And I regret it.

Monday: 7.9; 1:06
Easy run with the guys - up the Minnesota River Trail, down via Riverfront. Nice run.

Tuesday AM: 4.4; 0:43
Easy, slow, sluggish jog out to gazebo by Mt. Kato. Sometimes, early morning running is just awful this way.

Tuesday PM: 2.7; 0:24
Speed work: warm up, 16x 200M repeats at repetition pace (~0:37-0:39) with send offs every 65 seconds i.e. start each rep 65 seconds after the last one started. Hard workout, was seriously gasping toward the end and times suffered (slipping up toward 0:40, 0:41 or 0:42), but good early-season test of the legs. I just wish it didn't make me feel old and feeble.

Wednesday AM: 5.4; 0:49
Easy jog out to Mt. Kato, which is seriously starting to lose its snowpack. 

Wednesday PM: 4.6; 0:34:30
Gassed it up Main Street and down Glenwood at a just-less-than comfortably hard pace. Came down with 7:30/mile, and felt great. Once again, it is amazing how the body responds when the winter doldrums disappear for the year (crosses fingers).

Thursday: 4.4; 0:45
Same as Tuesday, except even more sluggish.

Friday: 7.6; 0:57
Great run, just like Wednesday PM, except with route extended to include Warren and Stadium hills. I call it the Big M run because the route looks like an M on Google maps. Again, pushed it a little bit and ran it just like Wednesday PM and once again, felt great...

Except for my feet. I made the decision to run this one sans socks, a la running Jesus (see FAQ, at right). Terrible decision - I came back with blisters in abnormal spots, like on top of the ball of my right foot (wtf?!) and my feet felt like I just raced, or more descriptively, been hit with a meat tenderizer. I drained the blisters and nursed my protesting feet.

Saturday:  12.7; 1:42
I cur my long run short, should have been 15 or 16 or so. Took first three or so miles easy, pushed miles five through nine, and easy to the finish. Average pace was around 8 minutes/mile, but actual pace was close to 9 minutes, then low 7:00s, then back toward 8 minutes/mile. Fun run, just short. Feet still sore, but better.

Sunday: 7.5; 1:05
Woke up with a nasty head cold and sore abs. Trail run at Seven Mile Creek Park and included all of the big hills - including the lollipop hills nos. 10 and 11. Solid run at comfortable pace and great first test run for May's Seven @ Seven trail race.

Miles: 57:075
Time: 8:07:14
Miles, YTD: 488.8
Time, YTD: 70:03:27
Miles on MT10s: 664 (and still going strong!)

Next week: Another round of 60 miles and the introduction of tempo runs. This week's Q2 is a 30-minute tempo run with two miles of warm up and cool down. I haven't set my pace yet for the run, but my guess is it will be somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00/mile. My schedule has the run set for eight miles, which would be 7:30/mile, so I'll easily exceed that. It all depends on what "comfortably hard" means this early in the season.

The recovery week that wasn't, and the end of 2012 base building: March 5-11

I had scheduled this week for a recovery week, 35 miles of easy running and nothing longer than about 10 or 12 miles. My will power left me, and I ran a little too long and did a few too many hills for Saturday's long run.

Monday: 4.6; 0:39
Easy up Main, down Glenwood. A good start to a recovery week.

Tuesday: 5.4; 0:42
Ran in shorts for the first time in March. It's amazing how liberating and speedy one feels when stripped of winter's tights, hats, and gloves.

Wednesday: 5.4; 0:48
Same route as Tuesday, just six minutes slower. Ugh.

Thursday: off
Other obligations called.

Friday: 6.0; 1:03
Slow and easy hill run with a co-worker. More of a time-on-feet run than one for pure mileage.

Saturday: 18.8; 2:42
Too long for what was planned (I should have done about half of this) but I have no regrets. Until Sunday.


Sunday AM: 5.2; 0:48
Test run at Seven Mile Creek. As anticipated the sun-bathed northern trails were clear and more or less dry. The southern trails were ice rinks. Lots of time spent for the miles and felt OK. Was a little tired initially, likely because I wasn't fully recovered from Saturday. Oh well.

Sunday PM: 5.4; 0:41
Went running because I was jumpy and a little stir-crazy with the nice weather we've been having. First run in Luna Sandals of 2012. Don't have the gait down yet, and end of run revealed a blister on a toe of each foot. Still, refreshing and quick run.

Miles: 50.8 on seven runs and six running days.
Time: 7:23:40 (~63 minutes/run average)
Miles, YTD: 431.7 (~ 7 miles/day average, more per running day)
Time, YTD: 61:56:13 (~52 minutes/day average, more per running day)

My knee pain which I experienced and wrote about last week is now gone. It disappeared sometime this week and was so little trouble that I didn't even notice that it was gone until it hit me. When it left, I don't even know - I'm just thankful that it is no more.

Up next: Big and important week next week, as this was the last week of my base building/injury prevention phase of my long-term training. Next week is week 1 of phase 2, the Early Quality phase. This phase is designed to build mechanics and introduce structured, faster reps and short threshold runs into the training. Taking the long view, these workouts help build a base from which to launch into harder, longer and/or faster training runs in phase 3.

With the coming of phase 2, I will start adding defined quality workouts to my week - particularly mid-week quality runs, called by Q2 runs (Q1 are weekend long runs). This week, I'll do one of my favorite early-season workouts, 200-meter repetitions (16 to 24 of them) with send offs every 60 to 65 seconds. Weekly mileage will be set at 60, as it will for the coming three weeks, then a rest week, and then Zumbro (which happens to fall on a week, conveniently and coincidentally, I planned a back-to-back long run).

Finally, registration opened on March 8 for the Afton Trail Races and the Superior Fall Races. I put my money down for Afton because that is guaranteed to fill up and I don't want to miss out. Look no further than Afton for a top-notch mid-season 50K. It's a race I have wanted to run in the past and have either been unable to (2009, 2010) or have run it at Afton Alps (2011). With no risk of a government shutdown, I'll be ready to hit it hard on July 7 for two loops around the park.

I'm holding off registering for Superior/Sawtooth 100 until later and will watch to make sure it doesn't fill up (cap is 200, there are 22 registered as of right now). Similarly, I haven't put my money down for Zumbro - but will - simply because registration is still open and there is almost (30 registered right now, cap of 200) no chance that it will sell out.