Training for a 100 Mile Race

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"One of the bridges along the Muskoseepi Park trail."

January is the first month of my official training for my 2019 races.  After completing the 125 km Canadian Death Race in August of 2018, I decided it was time to run a 100 mile race!  Sinister 7 was an easy first choice....but that is just the the first race of the Sinister Triple.

At 160 kilometres long and nearly 21,000 feet of elevation gain over 7 mountain summits, Sinister 7 in Coleman, Alberta is known as one of the harder 100 mile races in western Canada.  The race starts at 7AM on Saturday, July 6.  Thirty hours later, the race ends; whether I am finished or not....

Four weeks later, on August 3 is the beginning of the Canadian Death Race.  The 125 kilometre trail spans three mountain summits which add up to 17,000 feet of elevation gain.  In 2018 I finished this race, in 23 hrs 21 minutes; just ahead of the 24 hour cutoff.  This year, my goal is to finish the race in less than 21 hours.  That goal might be a bit of an aggressive finish time for me, but what is the purpose of a goal, if it doesn't scare you a bit?

The final race of the season starts 3 weeks later, on August 23 in Kimberly, BC.  The Black Spur Ultra climbs 14,600 feet on the 108 km course.  While it is the shortest race of the series.  This one almost scares me the most...I will have been training hard for 8 months, run several thousand kilometres in the year, and worn out numerous pairs of shoes.

Of course Ill run several other races throughout the year, just for fun.  I just signed up for two trail marathons, here in Grande Prairie.  And thanks to the influence of my crazy fellow runners, I guess I am also doing the running and bike riding portion of the Grande Prairie Triathlon.  I swim like a rock, so my buddy Francois will be doing the swimming portion for our team!!

I can't even begin to image the adventures that the next 8 months might hold.  There will be moments of extreme highs, and Im sure there will be lows that will test me to the core.  Both extremes are vital, and will play important roles in making the races successful.

On December 31, I received my training plan from Coach Krista, with great anticipation!  I was excited to see what a training plan would look like for a 100 mile race.  When I first looked at the plan, I must admit I was slightly disappointed...  She only gave me the first 3 weeks, and it looked quite simple!!  The mid week runs were only 6 to 10 kilometres long and the long slow runs on the weekend started at 16 kilometres ended at 20 kilometres on the third week.

"Im not sure who decided this was a 'steep' hill,
and why would I slow down for it??"

It didn't take me long to see what she was teaching me....  Focus on the "right now"!  Don't worry about the 70 kilometre training run that is still several months ahead.  I can't do it right now anyway; but when I get to that point in my training plan, my body and mind will be ready and the challenge.

The first run of the training plan was a 6 kilometre steady run.  Even though it was January first, it was +5 C.  A light rain started to fall as I finished the lap around the reservoir and headed towards home.  As I got closer to the end of the run, the snow packed trails turned soft and slushy and my pace slowed.  I finished the run with a 6:12 pace.  Just short of my sub 6 minute goal.

"Slushy trails around the Reservoir"

I could feel tension in my calves and heels, but it felt good.  It felt like I was pushing myself again.  Not just running for the fun of it with no real goal in mind.

Mid-week, I had an appointment with my chiropractor as well as a massage.  In early December, while coming down Mnt Hamel, I sprained my right ankle. I knew it wasnt a serious sprain, but I wanted to get it checked out.  Nothing else was really wrong that I knew of.  I just wanted to get an overall alignment check done.  (Alignment is very important in any racing machine.)  My chiropractor said I was all good to go, and my massage therapist said I had "healthy IT bands".  Im not sure what that really means, but I liked their confidence in me....  That was really the only reason I went to see them anyway.  Just for the reassurance that I was physically ready to start training season.

My massage therapist did suggest I do ice baths after my long runs.  At her recommendation, I had done them several times last summer after long runs.  They are just about as exciting as they sound, and I wasn't 100% convinced that they worked.  But I agreed to try them again.

About a week later, was my first day of hill training.  One hour of hills.

"Running from Obrien Park to Nighthawk"

After dropping my daughter off at volleyball practice at 7 PM, I picked up my running buddy Michal and drove to Obrien Park.  The single track trail climbs out of the Wapiti River valley and ends at the top, near Nighthawk Adventure Park.

Neither one of us had been on the trail in over a year, and couldn't remember exactly how far it was to the top.  We decided we would run up for 40 minutes, then turn around and run back down.  Hopefully in 20 minutes.

The first few kilometres of trail were well packed from hikers on snowshoes.  Then the tracks turned off, and we started continued up the hill with 4" of fresh snow covering a well packed base trail.

Soon both of my feet began to fall asleep.  I have occasionally had this problem in the past, and don't know what causes it.  Soon I let Michal lead the way, and I did my best to keep up to him.  He set a pace that I was not comfortable doing, but I pushed myself to keep up as best I could.  Occasionally, I had to stop, stand on one foot, and swing the other leg to get the blood flowing again.

"Running into the darkness..."

Coming back down, my feet were fine.  As anticipated, we made much better time and finished the 7.1 kilometre run in 1:04.  My watch only registered 720 feel of elevation gain.  That was slightly disappointing, but I didn't really care what my watch said, I knew I had run a good hill!

That weekend, my scheduled long run was 18 km.  I ran the first 8 kilometres with Ken "The Beard" Livingston on the Arbour Hills loop, then finished off the run downtown Grande Prairie. Running along the city streets was quite the contrast from running snowy bush trails; but it was kind of fun running the brick sidewalks in front of the small downtown shops.

It was Saturday afternoon, so there weren't too many shoppers in my way.  I did get the odd strange look though..... fluorescent green buff, worn as a hat; black windbreaker under my hydration pack; then black shorts over my grey leggings and fluorescent orange running shoes to finish off the outfit.  Hey, these city people need a taste of trail running too!

"My downtown run."

While running an extended figure eight pattern through the downtown core, I remembered that I was supposed to do an ice bath after this run.  I typically don't do anything half-assed but I formulated a plan to really test out his whole ice bath theory, and see if it actually worked.

When I got home, I filled the tub with about 12 inches of straight cold water, then carefully lowered just my left leg into the frigid bath.  I kept my left foot propped on the faucet, keeping my leg well out of the icy brew.  (I apologize if this is giving you a bad mental image. I agree it was painful.)  Im not sure what was more painful though; the actual image of a 215 lb man half submerged in a tub of ice cold water, or the waves of mixed emotion that were flooding my brain.

It was a very odd sensation.  My mind couldn't sort them out and make sense of any of them.  The left side of me wanted to shiver and the right half was actually quite warm!  I laid there for 3 minutes, then the timer on my phone went off and I hurriedly got out of the tub, wrapped my one leg in a towel and warmed up for 2 minutes.

My body almost had time to begin feeling normal again.  Then the timer went off, and I hesitantly resumed my contorted position in the frigid water for another 3 minutes. Two more minutes out to warm up my one leg, then back in the water for my final 3 minutes of ice soaking and I was done!

The warm shower that followed sent more mixed feelings flooding my body.  The water was either too hot or too cold.  One leg was nearly numb and the other was tired and wanted to sit down.  I noticed that my left foot felt much more fatigued and I could feel the joints in my feet aching from the run.  My right foot and leg felt strangely normal; like I hadn't run at all.

Several hours after the ice bath and even into the next day, my legs felt like a mismatched set.  I felt like I was wearing a work boot on one foot, and a tennis shoe on the other.  The leg that I had iced definitely felt better and recovered faster than the right leg.

"Winter night runs are the best!!"

My experiment had worked....I had convinced myself that these ice baths do work.  They are still not fun, and just as cold and painful to get into; but I know they make a difference and help me to recover faster.  As my training runs get longer, recovery time is key to making the next run a success.

Towards the end of the month, but right ankle started to give me pain randomly when I ran rough trails.  I had no issues at all on flat hard packed trails; but full range of motion bothered it, so I made another appointment with my chiropractor.  He said it could be sensitive for a while but assured me that it would get better if I didn't reinsure it.  He recommended that I try to run on the smoother trails for a while, and gave me some strengthening exercises.

On January 25th my coach hosted a bike-a-thon to raise awareness for mental health.  The event took place in the college gymnasium during a basketball game.  When I first heard of it, I knew I wanted to participate!!  I haven't ridden a bike for any length of time in many years; but without hesitation, I jumped on a team with two other guys and agreed to ride bike for 2 hours.  There were 30 bikes on the stage and for 5 hours over 90 different people road stationary bikes.  When the 5 hours were up, our team had ridden 175.5 kilometres.  We finished in second place; less than 2 kilometres behind the leaders.

I always say running is more mental than physical.  Sure, at the end of the ride, my "seat" was more sore than my feet were after running the Death Race, but I remembered that ride for a few days and it was a great way to raise awareness for mental health.

The last few runs of the month were cold and windy.  The temperature hovered between -20 and -30 for most of the runs.  Then it seemed to snow every day!  Between the cold weather and the fresh snow, I was still able to complete all my runs.  My pace slowed down a bit more than I would have liked, but at least I got the runs in!

January Stats:

• 19 runs in 31 days
• 164 kilometres run
• Body Weight:  207 lbs.  Down 9 lbs in 30 days.