Friday, May 17, 2013

How to Construct a 200 Mile Week?

I'm tired of running 2 miles at 9:15 pace. My legs are tight, because I don't have the chance to stretch them in the stride of a half decent pace. The thought of trying to run a 200 mile week is taking hold in my head. Lindgren did it, and was amazing after. Others have popped that kind of mileage successfully. I'm not proposing a long term 200-mile-weeks-until-I-break endeavor. No, I'm simply suggesting a one time, seven day runfest.

Why? Because I want to know what is possible. I've run 140 miles in one week, and the 21 mile long run to finish that week was my third best long run ever, and the 23 mile run I started that week with was one of my best two long runs ever. It can be done. I did fall apart after that week running only 64 miles, but including a day off and a taper for my half marathon PR. Also, honestly, I feel that a marathoner needs times running significant mileage, such as the mid to low triple digits per week while running some of the hardest workouts. I feel a supercompensation week would teach me how to recover even better and prepare my body for weeks of 130 to 150 miles in August or September. Finally, after first running 100 miles in a week, all of the sudden other long distance objectives appear: Running 200 miles in one week, running 100 miles in one day, six day races, Badwater, not to mention the incredible pace of recovery and general running fitness felt during those high mileage weeks.

So, how does one construct a 200 mile week? First of all, my week starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday. The weekends are my best chance to get in a lot of miles and recovery from the immediate damage. I have had three 30-32.5 mile days of serious training, averaging under 7 minute pace per mile for all the miles. I figure to just bump that up a little, say 35 and do it twice in one week, easy. That leaves 130 miles in five days during the week. Just 26 miles per day. I have done over 20 miles on weekdays a number of times, so 26 shouldn't be too hard. My aim will be just to double on the weekdays although I may triple on the weekends. I regularly run 8-9 miles in the morning, so I will probably aim for 10-11 miles in the morning, which I have done a couple times. That leaves 15-16 miles every afternoon. I have done that a number of times too, so again alone it doesn't sound too hard. The difficulty is running 35 miles on Sunday, waking up on Monday to do 10 miles, doing 16 miles that afternoon, then waking up again the next day for another 10 miles. I will definitely drink coffee that week. I'm thinking maybe the week of June 9th to 15th, we will see. I would like to get in one hundred mile week before then.

In short how might a 200 mile week look by mileage and time of day:
Sunday: 5 AM, 22 AM, 8 PM
Monday: 11 AM, 16 PM
Tuesday: 10 AM, 16 PM
Wednesday: 8 AM, 15 PM
Thursday: 11 AM, 16 PM
Friday: 10 AM, 16 PM
Saturday: 8 AM, 20 AM, 8 PM

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