January

And the first month of the new year is done and I'm feeling tired! Stuck to my plan of 40 miles per week at a heart rate between 140 - 150 and I've seen significant improvements. I need to incorporate some more speed work though as my leg turnover is too slow to keep my heart rate up where I want it to be. 

So I've never played with this method of training, and I'm by no means 100% sticking to it but it has been working as it's suppose to. The plan, of which I am only vaguely familiar with, is the Maffetone Method. The idea is to train between a certain HR zone over time and your efficiency will improve. 

You take 180 minus your age to get the top end of the zone. I add 10 due to my running history. This zone is supposedly the aerobic zone and the zone where you utilize fat for fuel, not sugars. So it's super efficient. When starting out the pace can be heinously slow but over time it gets better. So for me I run between roughly 140 and 150 bpm. If I'm going up a hill I slow down as much as needed to stay within that zone. 

Looking back at my runs from late November I was clocking around 740 minute miles within that zone, now I'm at around 650 minute miles! Yes, these times do fluctuate a bit if I'm tired etc but it's really cool looking back at the data and seeing the improvement. 

In general I'm tired and having a tough time motivating. I think I need an easy week to recover a bit and then get back at it. It's still really early in the time frame leading up to Lakeland 100, about 6 months, so no need to push too hard or far anyway. I'd like to stay at 40 to 50 mile weeks for a couple more months  and see how I feel. For Superior I averaged around 40 miles per week, for only a few months, with a few stints between 50 and 70, but damn did those weeks tire me out. I figure I'll be pretty well off sticking early to 40 in the training, take a break, and ramp up then early summer. I'll be way ahead of my previous hundred miler training though and also should be able to handle more miles.

It's slowly getting lighter out earlier but still not enough for decent photos. Soon. I hope! Than I'll have something to look at! Can't wait for things to dry out also. The rain has been persisting all winter so any form of trail or path is muddy or flooded. I've been sticking to the roads to keep clean. At least it hasn't been raining very often in the early morning when I'm normally out. 

So on with plugging away the miles, no immediate plans in sight!