Using a 50K as a "Training Run"

Playing around in the ultra world can skew your sense of scale. I completed my second 50K yesterday (I'm not counting my 9-hour hike at Massanutten in 1996, which I literally did in hiking boots; my feet were pulp afterwards), and I'm calling it a training run. Five or six years ago I might have doubted my ability to even do it, and today I'm downplaying it to the point of absurdity.

The big race I'm currently training for is a 50-miler at Mt. Wachusett on June 10. The schedule I'm using called for running a 50K around this time, so I chose to do Goat Hill in central MA (I photographed at it in 2016; see photo album here).

Since the plan said to run the 50K as a training run (and because I weigh about 15 pounds more than when I did my first 50K in 2013), I chose a goal time of 7 hours, about 45 minutes slower than my first 50K finish time. Given my current conditioning, I think that was a wise goal. I finished this one in 6:58:29, right on target.

Overall, the trails at The Goat were very fun to run (a phrase I use a lot, but when it works it works). There was a wide variety of them, but mostly it was forested, switchbacky mountain bike singletrack. The course consists of four 8-mile loops.  There's a quarter-mile long straight uphill climb at mile 1 that I chose to hike up for the most part, a muddy wet area to cross at mile 2, a super helpful aid station at mile 3, a level to rolling stretch at mile 4, a hyper roller coaster section at mile 5, a long, winding climb at mile 6, a super-fun, swoopy and runnable section with great flow at mile 7, and a fast, tightly twisted section followed by a fast drop to the finish at mile 8.

Loop 1: Felt great. Slightly fast. A bit of discomfort near the end, alleviated by a quick swing by the porta... you know what, never mind.
Loop 2: Still felt good. Similar late-loop discomfort to loop 1 (sigh).
Loop 3: Starting to drag a bit. Hotter out. Sunnier. Rolled an ankle near mile 22.
Loop 4: Jen joined me for this loop. The hill really hurt on this one. 2 miles in; there's a marathon. Lots more walking, and quite a few stumbles. Lifting muscles were DONE. Managed to jog it in the last few miles.

 

L: Snacking after loop 1.  R: The finish (obviously). 

[6/15/17 update]: Well, I wasn't able to do the 50-miler this year after all. I had a biopsy done on a spot on my cheek and it did come back as basal cell so in mid-May I had some Moh's surgery done down in Springfield to have it cut out. The surgeon did a great job but said that to reduce the chance of the scar being permanent I had to do NO EXERCISE for THREE WEEKS. Ugh. Pretty much the crucial final three weeks of training, leading into the taper week. There was just no way I could get and keep my conditioning to where it needed to be on race day (it is a super challenging course). So I dropped for this year; hoping to be back for it in 2018.]