60 miles in a week

Las Vegas Sunset

I did reach my training goal for the end of January of 60 miles in a week, sort of.   I originally intended to measure the 60 miles from Monday to Sunday, but I had only reached 40 miles by the end of Saturday.  I had planned to put in a 20 mile run on Saturday, but I was really dogging it by the end of 13 miles so I decided to cut it short and make it up Sunday.  However, I still felt flat on Sunday and that didn't work out.  By the end of Sunday I had only reached 50 miles towards my goal of 60.  Then I remembered that I hadn't run the previous Monday, so if I did put in 10 more miles on this Monday, which I did, I would of actually completed 60 miles in a 7 day period - Yea!

The week's training runs went OK, but not fantastic.  I felt fine for my first run on Tuesday and I ran that at a comfortable 9:00/mi pace feeling I could have gone much harder.  Then after taking a day off on Wednesday, I felt totally flat on Thursday.  I had to push really hard the whole 10 miles just to run at a 10:00/mi pace.  Friday evening found me with more bounce in my legs and I clipped off 6 miles at a good pace and felt physiologically ready for my 20 miles long run on Saturday.  However, as I described above it didn't workout that way.  Much of my training right now is at a relatively slow pace for me.  By comparison, if I was training to for a PR in a marathon, my slow runs would be done at an 8:00/mi pace and I would be doing at least one tempo run per week at a sub 7:00/mi pace.  Ultra training is a different beast though.  Now, I am mostly running on tired legs in an attempted to build up my stamina for those latter portions of the ultra where I know that I will be running on tired legs.  Not only are my legs tired during much of my runs but also sore and part of the training is learning about pain management.  Really I am learning how I can become use to certain pain while running and keep moving forward and yet not be completely miserable.  Thank God for the beauty of music, because without that refreshing my mind as I run, I am not sure how I would handle it.  There are times when I will be struggling during a run, and a certain song will play and inspire me to move on to a different level and suddenly the run becomes easier.

As I am running and listening to songs at times I will be hit by certain inspirations as did happen this past week.  It was while listening to the these lyrics sung by Tracy Chapman:

"Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul"

Here is the part that struck me:  I am so thankful that I have turned 50 and I still am so idealistic.  I always assumed that as one grows older that one inherently would become more judgmental and rigid in ones ways.  Yet thankfully I am finding that does not have to be the case.  I don't think that lives blows which come to all of us is making me jaded.  In fact, I believe that opposite is happening.  As I get older I find myself having more faith in the goodness of humanity than I ever did.  I feel that I am still idealistic in the sense of how I felt idealism as an adolescent.  I still believe that there is truth and justice out there and not only I am looking for it but 99.9% of humanity is also seeking it and we are together on a journey towards it.