Bear Mountain 50k Training – Week 1

In case you’ve all forgotten, I do still exist and I have been running even though I haven’t been blogging. In the past few weeks, I’ve been focusing on slowly building my mileage up post-injury and trying to build a solid base for 50k training plan. I started off with 5 miles in one week, then 7, then 10, and so on. With the holidays, it was really difficult to actually get the miles in. We traveled to Syracuse to see my family, and then to New Jersey to see Matt’s family, AND we had Gustav (our adorable puppy) with us, which certainly didn’t make things any easier. I managed to get up to 19 miles in the week before my training – not as much as I wanted, but I was just grateful I stuck with it despite the holidays and that I hadn’t had any knee trouble. 

Training for The North Face Endurance Challenge 50k at Bear Mountain started last week, and my first week was truly wonderful. My first day was Monday, and Monday is a rest days for the training plan, so obviously my first day went well! I nailed it really. Day two was 4 miles, and was really my first day, so I was very excited to start. I ran before work – something I want to get into the habit of doing despite not having to work until noon most days. My stomach wasn’t feeling the best, but I believe it’ll just take time for my stomach to adjust to running in the mornings instead of after work. I managed to have my average pace be under 9 minute miles, which is just about where I want them (when I’m running on the road, not trails).

Wednesday was day 3, and it was freaking cold outside, so I ran 4 on the treadmill. As you probably know, treadmill miles feel like marathons, so I listened to a podcast and zoned out. It was boring and tedious, but I averaged 9:40 pace and ended it with some strengthening exercises I wrote about in my previous injury post.

Thursday was another 4 miler, and I managed to get myself outside for it after work. It was cold and I find myself running a little faster when it’s cold out, so I managed to run at a quicker pace. I had some strides thrown in at the end too, which I had never done before. It felt good to switch up my pace – I’m excited to have speed workouts in my training this time around. 

Saturday was my long run, and it went extremely well considering I hadn’t had a run in the double digits since the ol’ 26.2 in October. I ran the Firehouse 10 mile loop at the Heartbreak Hill Running Company, and was joined by my awesome friends Ken and Laura. It was pouring rain when we started, turned to freezing rain around mile 5, and quickly turned to snow for the rest of the run. I was wet and cold, but Ken helped us push our pace so our second half was faster than our first half. We ended up with an average of 9:13 miles, which was a great pace for my first long run of my training! 

Sunday was an easy 5 that I did with Matt. It was wonderful to run with him, considering most of our runs we can’t run together since our paces are so different. But on easy days he can stoop down to my level and keep me company 😉 

My goals for the rest of my training is to keep up foam rolling and stretching after every run, and to do core/hip/glute strengthening. I tend to get lazy after a few weeks of pain-free runs and it always comes back to bite me in the butt.

I’m excited to see how the rest of my training goes! I plan on doing a weekly update, so look for more posts soon! In the meantime, here’s a picture of our dog from Thanksgiving, because I don’t have enough social media outlets to post pictures of him on.