Teleworking from home today, so I went out early for a short run (4 miles) from the house. I was thinking about the upcoming Umstead 100 Mile Endurance Run in April, and my mind veered off into a discussion of time.
I am not running Umstead this year but am having flashbacks (positive, of course!) of my run there in 2010, basically to prove to myself that I could still run 100 miles. I was thinking, OK, it’s January, the race is still almost 3 months away, for anybody running in 2011 there’s still lots of time to complete your training.
But then I recalled that the race date was the first Saturday in April; i.e., 2011 race day is 2 April. That’s basically 2 months from now, not 3. And then I shifted times scales from months to weeks, and realized the race is only 9+ weeks out. For me, thinking in weeks always seems to bring more immediacy than thinking in months.
Perhaps this is because months--again, in my mind view—are just a bit more amorphous. Months have different durations and can start/end on any day of the week. You don’t have a structured, fixed set of weekends around which you build your long training runs. But weeks do: you go thru the 5 day workweek and then your weekend shows up, consisting of a Saturday and a Sunday, and you plan on how best to fit in the training run that you need that weekend.
In my mind, working backwards, if I were running this year, I’d be planning for 3 more long runs. These would be about 30-35 miles, three weeks apart, and ending three weeks prior to the race. Those dates work out to be 29 Jan, 18 Feb, and 11 March. As for the two weeks between the long runs--I’d be doing a 10 and a 15.
So…the entrants better be doing their last few long runs NOW. Good luck, my heart will be with you!
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