Total Mileage: 55mi
Elevation Gain: 4,300'
Cross-Training: 4mi Hike
Goal: Slight taper, cut back as needed for body to feel rested and injury free.

Not too much to say about this week, the first of my taper. I ran slightly less than I'd hoped due to taking it very easy Thursday and Friday and taking Sunday off completely aside from an easy 4mi hike. I still got 55mi in leading to the final taper week before Vermont 50. Saturday's long run was a good chance to practice my hydration and nutrition strategy, and Wednesday's tempo run went well, giving me confidence for the Mohawk-Hudson Marathon that I'm running two weeks after Vermont.

Monday: 7.5mi easy, two times around the Valley Loop in KV.
Tuesday: 6.5mi easy at the Van Hoevenberg mountain bike center.
Wednesday: AM 3mi easy on Gulf Brook trail in Keene.
     PM 12mi on 9N, including 8mi tempo at 6:23 pace.
Thursday: 3mi easy on Gulf Brook and Big Crow trails in Keene.
Friday: 3mi easy at Marcy Field.
Saturday: 20mi easy at Hardy Rd and Flume mountain bike trails.
Sunday: Off. 4mi hike on Jay Mt.

Looking Ahead: Six more days of running until Vermont 50, which happens on Sunday the 29th. I'll shoot for about 30 miles during those six days, with one tempo run and the rest easy. I'll probably take one more off day as well, either Thursday or Friday. I'm feeling confident for Vermont and hope to set a big PR there (my previous best was 7:57 in 2007).

Total Mileage: 56.5mi
Elevation Gain: 7,900'
Cross-Training: None
Goal: Mileage and race well.

I needed some time to recover after running 147mi in the 10 days leading up to the beginning of this week. A 3mi recovery jog and a day off were not what a had in mind to start the week, but making sure I didn't get injured leading up to Vermont was the priority, so I listened to my body and cut the mileage way back. This was easier to take because I knew I'd be racing Whiteface on Saturday, and wanted to do well there.

By Wednesday I was feeling recovered, but didn't want to do too much before the race. Wednesday's tempo run morphed into a much lighter dose of tempo intervals due to the 90 degree temps and some surprise knee pain. Fortunately the pain was gone for Thursday's hill repeats, which I did to get the feel of race pace on a steep uphill and also to test out the Asics Piranha racing flats that I planned to use at Whiteface but had never worn before.

An easy uphill run on Friday sent me into the weekend with only 20 miles on the week, but at least I was feeling ready to race. Race day was great (report here) and I managed to get a bunch of miles in after the race as well. A long run Sunday brought the weekly total up to a respectable 56+ miles.

Monday: 3mi recovery at Marcy Field trail.
Tuesday: Off.
Wednesday: 9mi on Rt 9N, including 3x1mi tempo intervals.
Thursday: 5mi on Hurricane Rd, including 4x half-mile uphills at hard effort.
Friday: 3mi easy uphill on Hurricane Rd.
Saturday: 19.5mi (2.5mi warmup, 8mi uphill race, 9mi easy back down) at Whiteface.
Sunday: 17mi easy at the Flume mountain bike trails.

Overall this week didn't go as planned, but I'm happy with it because I turned what was probably a mistake (147mi in 10 days) into a successful piece of this training block with no setbacks aside from a couple missed training days.

Looking Ahead: Two weeks to go until Vermont 50. Not much I can do to get faster, but I'd like to put in some consistent mileage this week and only taper a bit in the final week so as not to let my legs get stale. I've already worked out my nutrition/drop bag plan for the race and booked a motel room, so I can try to relax these next two weeks and have fun with a reduced training load. I used to love tapering, but I'm a very different runner now. A three week taper in which you hardly run and eat way too much is not a recipe for success, and at this point it would feel very wrong to run as little as I did when tapering for ultras a few years ago.

Total Mileage: 100mi
Elevation Gain: 8,650'
Cross-Training: None
Goal: Max mileage

This week ended three weeks out from the Vermont 50, so it was my last chance to get maximum miles in before starting to cut back for the race. I intentionally went for 100 miles--something of a milestone even though it's arbitrary.

I entered the week with 46 miles on my legs from the three days prior, so my legs were already feeling tired. Each day still felt good, with no injury issues. I definitely started a few runs on dead legs, but they usually felt revived after two or three miles of warmup. I used a couple of two-a-days to make sure I was never running for more than 10mi at a time on my easy days.

Monday: AM 4mi easy with the jogger.
     PM 9mi easy on the Mt Van Hoevenberg XC ski trails.
Tuesday: 15mi steady on the Whiteface auto road (including 7mi uphill, just past the Lake Placid turn).
Wednesday: AM 4mi easy with the jogger.
     PM 7mi easy on the trail to John's Brook Lodge in KV.
Thursday: 14.5mi on 9N, including 10mi tempo at under 6:30 pace.
Friday: 10mi easy on Rt 73 into KV.
Saturday: 15mi easy on 9N and the roads in Jay.
Sunday: 21.5mi easy at Hardy Rd mountain bike trails.

Thursday's tempo run was the best of the year for me, and Sunday's run was a big success because I wasn't sure how I'd feel running so long after nine days straight of high-mileage running (10+ miles every day). I ran at the Hardy Road mountain bike trails and pieced together a bunch of loops and a couple road miles, using my light racing shoes and implementing the same fueling strategy that I'll use at Vermont. It was the perfect race-specific workout and it leaves me feeling confident that I can have a good race in three weeks. 

Looking Ahead: I'm running the Whiteface Uphill Race on Saturday, so will back off on the workouts to make sure I can race well at Whiteface and have no lingering aches and pains going into the taper period for Vermont. There's not much I can do at this point to increase my fitness (I'll shoot for a couple more tempo runs as prep for my October marathon and will still run long on the weekends for Vermont prep), so it's mostly about staying healthy at this point. Looking forward to trying to improve my time from last year at Whiteface, and to racing with my friends Jeff Dengate, Keith Iskiw and Marc Galvin.

Total Mileage: 63mi
Elevation Gain: 6,300'
Cross-Training: None
Goal: Was mileage, changed to recovery.

My high-mileage vacation quickly transformed into something of a recovery week after doing the Presi Traverse right before we went to Maine. As good as I felt on the traverse, I clearly needed some time for the legs to get back to normal. The 9mi run on Monday felt pretty tough--it must have taken me half the run to feel warmed up at all--and I felt like garbage for the next three days (two of which I took off from running). The sun exposure and more alcohol than I normally drink probably didn't help. It was nice to have two beach days, though, eating lobster and not even thinking about running. Meg and I celebrated 10 years of marriage on Friday!

Monday: 9mi easy roads in West Point, Maine.
Tuesday: Off.
Wednesday: Off.
Thursday: 7.5mi easy roads around Bear Pond in Turner, Maine.
Friday: 10mi hill repeats (9x600m uphill at hard effort, easy jog down) in Turner, Maine.
Saturday: 18.5mi easy on 9N.
Sunday: Allen Mt, 18mi easy pace, 4hr40min.

Friday's run felt great. Sometimes a hard effort is just what I need to get back on track. The weekend was productive with back-to-back long runs, and Sunday's run/hike was a nice way to recover somewhat while still getting a bunch of miles and time on my feet.

Looking Ahead: I set myself up for a good high-mileage week, the last one before I'll start tapering off slightly for Whiteface Uphill and then more drastically for Vermont 50.

Total Mileage: 64.5mi + 8mi Hiking
Elevation Gain: 11,600' + 3,500' Hiking
Cross-Training: None
Goal: Was mileage, changed to Presi Traverse FKT

 I'm catching up on two weekly recaps that I haven't written yet due to vacation and time spent on the Presi Traverse race report. This week started out as a normal high-mileage training week, and I did my typical Tuesday tempo run, but changed things around on Thursday when I decided to go for the Presi Traverse.

Monday: 7mi steady pace on 9N.
Tuesday: 14mi on 9N with 9mi tempo at marathon pace.
Wednesday: 3mi easy on the AuSable Lake Rd, then an 8mi hike with ATIS up the Nippletop slide (at a very slow pace).
Thursday: 8mi on South Meadow Rd & Marcy Dam truck road.
Friday: Off to rest up for Presi Traverse and drive to NH.
Saturday: 2mi warmup, then 18.5mi Presi Traverse at race pace (fastest known time).
Sunday: 12mi easy at the Gunstock XC trails.

I felt great after the Presi Traverse and assumed I could do another long run Sunday (I hoped for three hours), but was very tired during the run at Gunstock and ended up cutting it to two hours. I guess the Presi Traverse took more out of me than I had thought.

Looking Ahead: I planned to get right back into high-mileage, with a five-day vacation in Maine offering a good opportunity to hit the roads every day. It didn't exactly pan out that way...

Total Mileage: 75mi + 23mi Hiking
Elevation Gain: 15,800' + 5,000' Hiking
Cross-Training: Not really. Does golf count?
Goal: Mileage!

 I definitely hit my goal this week of ramping up the mileage. My rough goal was to run 80mi this week, but I'm even happier with 75mi of running/hard hiking plus another 23mi of easy hiking. Even if I'm not getting much of an aerobic boost from those easy hiking miles I have to believe the time on feet is beneficial for my Vermont 50 training.

I also got caught up in a low-carb diet plan for most of the week, trying to deprive myself of carbs until the evening with the goal of adapting my body to become a more efficient fat burner while running. I've been hearing/reading a lot about this type of diet from ultra runners who I really respect (Larisa Dannis, Pam Smith, Timothy Olsen) and figured I'd give it a shot, especially if it would have the side benefit of preventing the low-energy feeling I often experience in the afternoons.

The best example of how I planned to adapt was Friday's Great Range run/hike. I had one egg for breakfast and didn't eat anything besides a few handfuls of almonds until Saddleback, over 3hrs into the trip, spending most of the day in a pretty rough, bonk-like state. Even once I fully committed to carbs I remained mostly low-energy, as I was unsuccessfully trying to eat enough to power me through with glycogen stores that were presumably totally depleted. Not until the final descent off Marcy was I able to feel like I had anything in the tank for a good effort. I need to thank David for going with the flow and not caring that I was basically using our hike as a "bonk-run," even though it meant we went slower than he would have liked.

I continued the "diet" through Sunday, eating basically zero carbs until about 6pm, when I binged (pizza, pasta with veggies, french toast) in order to replenish glycogen stores so that I would have energy to run the next day. After reading more on the subject I've concluded that the science isn't really there to say that we can train our body to burn fat more efficiently by depriving it of carbs, and even if it was this time in my training cycle (where I'm doing the most mileage I ever have) wouldn't be a great time to experiment with a low-carb diet. I do feel I've learned more about how my body responds to carbs, and hope to be able to prevent the afternoon bonk by timing my consumption of carbs vs. fat in a more intelligent manner.

Enough of the diet talk--back to running. In addition to the Great Range I had two other significant workouts during the week. Wednesday's tempo run represents my speed work for the week: it's less than I'd normally do at a fast pace, but with Vermont 50 as a goal race I don't need to be running very fast. Hopefully the weekly tempo run will maintain my marathon speed so that I can still have a good race at Mohawk-Hudson. Sunday's run up and down Whiteface with Jeff was a great workout. I went by heart rate, trying to keep it under 160 (my guess at my max aerobic HR) and averaging 156, and we ended up running the ascent just 2.5 minutes slower than my race time from last year when my HR averaged 176. I can't wait to see how the race goes this year!

Monday: ATIS Hike: 20mi, 5,000' vertical gain, 12hrs. Redfield and Cliff at a very easy pace.
Tuesday: 8mi easy trail at Henry's Woods.
Wednesday: 13mi on 9N, with 8mi at tempo (6:30/mi) effort.
Thursday: 8mi on Keene roads.
Friday: 24mi, 9,500' vertical gain, 7:50. Great Range w/ David Mitchell. Steady to hard effort, limited calories.
Saturday: 5mi recovery on Hulls Falls Rd with Josh Gay.
Sunday: 17mi steady up and down Whiteface Auto Rd with Jeff Dengate, 3700' vertical gain. PM: 3mi easy hike w/ Josh, Meg & Finn (Pitchoff Boulders).

Looking Ahead: I hope to ramp the mileage up once again this week. A weekend trip to NH will provide ample opportunity for some long runs (hopefully with Ryan Welts on Sunday), and I'll do at least one long hike and a tempo run during the week. I'll also spend some time trying to find a good compromise between zero-carb days and carb-for-breakfast, bonk-at-4pm days. Fun with nutrition!

Total Mileage: 38.5mi + 49.5mi Hiking
Elevation Gain: 3,200' + 19,500' Hiking
Cross-Training: Several core workouts
Goal: Get back into the running routine after a week off, set myself up for a lot of miles over the next five weeks.

I skipped the last two weekly recaps, as the first was the week of tapering and then racing Wakely Dam (covered in my Wakely race report) and the second was spent mostly sitting around and waiting for my quad to heal from the major bruise it incurred during the race. I was upset to be missing running time and loath to focus on fast road running once I healed, so I decided to change my race plans for the fall. I signed up for Vermont 50 and will focus on training for that, treating the road marathon two weeks later as a less-serious race.

I did manage to run twice toward the end of my recovery week when I had healed enough to run uphill without pain: the 3mi climb up Hurricane Rd from Keene was doable, and Meg was happy to pick me up at the top. I'm a much better husband when I get some exercise. Entering this past week I still couldn't run on the flats or downhill without pain. I tested it on a soft trail on Monday and stopped after two miles.

Fortunately I had committed to lead the "AAA Extreme" hike for ATIS, the local camp, on Tuesday. I've done this for four years now and it's always a high point of the summer. I wasn't worried about being able to do it--walking had felt fine for a few days--but I was afraid that it might delay my recovery. It turned out to be the perfect way to overcome my injury, and I was out running the next day. Another big hiking day with my friend Daniel further helped to strengthen and heal my quad. It's still tight, and I can't get full flexion out of my left knee, but at least now I can run and hike without and pain.

Monday: 2mi recovery on the Jackrabbit Trail.
Tuesday: ATIS hike: 25mi, 10,300' vertical gain, 14hrs. Dial, Nippletop, Colvin, Blake, Sawteeth, Gothics, Armstrong, UWJ, LWJ.
Wednesday: 5mi easy on 9N.
Thursday: 8mi easy on the Marcy Dam truck trail.
Friday: Nippletop/Dial Loop (12.5mi, 4200' gain, 4hrs) and Rocky Peak Ridge from Rt. 9 (12.5mi, 4,900' gain, 5hrs).
Saturday: 8mi steady pace on Rt. 73.
Sunday: 15.5mi easy on the Flume trails, 2300' gain.

I covered a ton of miles this week (88), but it felt easy because of the mixture of hiking and running. I don't know how to count this week: is it a true 88 mile week? The hike with ATIS was at an easy pace for me with plenty of breaks, but the hikes on Friday with Daniel were basically nonstop at a solid pace. Either way, I'm psyched to be out in the mountains again. This is mainly why I signed up for Vermont 50: if I was still focusing on Mohawk-Hudson I'd be worried that hiking days aren't ideal for marathon training.

Looking Ahead: I just agreed to lead another ATIS hike on Monday, so I'll begin the week with nearly 20mi on Cliff and Redfield. I hope to do one other big hiking day during the week, and run every other day for as many miles as I can comfortably do. If I can ramp up mileage for another couple of weeks after that and then cut back a bit leading up to Vermont 50 I should be in a good position for a fun and successful 50 miler--my first since 2010.

Total Mileage: 49.5mi
Elevation Gain: 4600'
Cross-Training: None
Goal: Hopefully heal from minor injuries, taper slightly for Wakely Dam.

I'm very happy about this week. I entered the week cautiously, running uphill only on Monday to make sure the pain behind my knees that I had been dealing with was gone, and by Tuesday I was confident that I was injury free. I did dial back my workouts with the idea of beginning my taper, and while I ran a bit less than I'd planned I think 50 miles was about perfect, as I went into the week tired from the 23 miles last Sunday and ready to heal and rest.

I've stopped posting individual workouts to the training log--it started to feel like I was posting the same thing over and over--so from now on I'll just post weekly recaps and maybe the occasional report on a cool training day to the log. Instead, I'll give details on every run here in the weekly recap. I'll still keep the sidebar up to date with my last 7 days of running for those who want to follow my training more closely (and to keep track of my 7-day total at all times).

Monday: 3.5mi easy uphill on Hurricane Rd.
Tuesday: 9.5mi at Marcy Field track: step-down intervals of 2mi, 1.25mi and 1mi at 10k pace w/ 800m recovery jogs.
Wednesday: 2.5mi easy on Grist Mill Rd.
Thursday: 13mi on trail including 7.8mi tempo at MP effort in-out-in on the Marcy Dam truck trail.
Friday: Off.
Saturday: 14.5 miles easy, out and back on Bartlett Rd. Two big climbs and descents on a dirt road.
Sunday: 6.5mi easy on the soft trails at Mt Van Hoevenberg XC ski center.

Looking Ahead: This week will my easiest in a while as I taper aggressively for Wakely Dam. I hope to do one moderately hard effort on Tuesday, with easy runs every other day until race day (Saturday). I'll shoot for about 25 miles in the five days before the race, and might take one day off if my body tells me to. At this point I can't gain any fitness for the race so it's just about keeping my legs fresh and ready to run.

Total Mileage: 67mi
Elevation Gain: 8200'
Cross-Training: 3mi (walking), 2 core workouts
Goal: Make the most of my final peak week before Wakely Dam with another long run on the course and as many miles as I can handle.

This wasn't a bad week, and I'm extremely happy to have been able to run 67 miles despite struggling with minor injuries every day. It seems 83 miles was a bit too much the week before (duh)!

I started the week with an easy paced 15-miler on trails with Chris Fey, and finished with an easy 23mi on the Wakely course with Adam Crofoot. Both friends are also running Wakely Dam. Getting two long runs in again this week should prove beneficial for me during the race.

Unfortunately I made some mistakes that led to injuries and kept me from doing hard workouts mid-week. After running on Monday I got right in the car without cooling down or stretching (it was raining) and ended up with a sore muscle below my hip. It didn't keep me from training but it was annoying and kept me from running hard for the next couple days. Then on Wednesday I tried to run at a steady pace on the very muddy trail out from Marcy Dam and pulled/strained something behind me knee. I didn't feel it at the time, but by later in the day I was worried I might not be able to run for a few days. I did end up running every day, but could only run uphill without discomfort and had some short workouts as a result.

Fortunately I felt OK for Sunday's long run, as we kept the pace easy and the course was mostly dry and non-technical. I did take one very hard fall on a wet rock, bruising and scraping my shin and hip, but it seems that won't be a problem.

Looking Ahead: Two weeks until Wakely Dam--taper time. I had planned to cut back slightly on mileage for the next week and only reduce significantly in the final week. At this point it's more important that everything heals ASAP, so I'll go by feel and only do as much running as I think I can do without jeopardizing my healing.

Total Mileage: 83mi
Elevation Gain: 4400'
Cross-Training: 6mi (walking), 2 core workouts
Goal: Run as much as I can after taking two weeks off.

Wow, 83 miles. This was just a bit more than I figured I'd do in my week back from leading the backpacking trip. I started the week with a too-fast 15 mile road run, and spent the next couple of days running through the soreness caused by my aggressive return to training. But after that I felt great and cruised to my highest mileage training week ever.

I ended up getting two speed workouts in this week, as well as two long runs (due to running a long run on Sunday and another the following Saturday), and added core strength workouts back to my routine after pretty much skipping them in May and June. Ending the week with 26 miles out and back on the Wakely Dam course was perfect and got me very excited for the race on July 27th!

Looking Ahead: Three weeks to go until Wakely Dam. I'll try for another big week before starting to taper.