Winter Plans

I'm a little bummed today because I'm not running. Last night I got 1.5 hours of sleep due to a late night drive to Madison. I was hoping I'd be able to catch a nap in town and get a run in today, but life had other plans and I'll be up late tonight. Perhaps I can look on this as sleep deprivation training for 100s. :)

Over the past couple weeks I've decided to go with a plan to ramp up my weekly mileage to near 100 and to keep it there for as long as I can. So far I'm surprised at how good I feel doing this. Every day I'm a little sore, but can still put in a good aerobic effort at around a 7:20 pace - nothing earth shattering, but I can tell it's having an effect without breaking me, unlike last time I had mileage this high in March. Gradually these runs will get a little faster and I'll throw in some more hill/strength work and an anaerobic day or two, while incorporating weekend back to back long runs of 50k and 35k.

All of this will be in preparation for yet another 100 miler in April - either the McNaughton Park 100 or the Zumbro 100. So far I'm leaning toward McNaughton Park for its track record as a well organized event and for its fun, muddy course with lots of stream crossings. That said, I'm not thrilled to be running a 10 mile loop 10 times. Then again, that will make it easy to calculate splits....