How Far Will I Go?

Last night I met with Coach Dana to discuss the game plan for the Ultra this summer. Oh, and yes, Coach Dana, not Coach Jack. The Coaching company I use now has a new Coach, Dana, who is a friend and running buddy of mine. Dana also ran the Ultra last year and she did an amazing 68 miles. A few months later, she ran the Tahoe Triple (3 marathons in 3 days around Lake Tahoe). Needless to say, she is an incredible long distance runner and this year, she's going for 100 miles!! Since Dana is running the Ultra too and we will be training together, she'll be handling my scheduling, etc from here on out. Anyway, I have been really torn about how far I want to go this summer. Here's my dilemma:

1) I love racing and although I'm running 3 marathons this winter/spring, I won't be racing them. I sort of think I want to finish the year off by racing a fall marathon and seeing if I can beat my BQ PR of 3:38:02. If I want to race in the fall, it's smarter for me to stick with 50 miles at the Ultra. Since this is what I did last year, I know I can recover fairly quickly and switch gears to train for racing a fall marathon.

2) I love challenging myself. I know I can do 50 miles, 51.2 to be exact. But can I do 58? How about 68? I'm going to put in all the training so why not see if I can do a little more this year? It would be a new distance PR!

Since the training won't really differ based on how far I decide to go, I'm not locked in to what I decide to do. I do know that 100 miles is out. Not sure why, but I ruled it out. But after some discussion with Coach Dana and my crazy little head, I've settled on a goal. I'll be shooting for 75 miles!! Since we run a 8.4 mile loop, this will be 9 loops. Last year I did 6. While loop 5 was really hard, when I finished loop 6 I knew I had at least one more in me. We did luck out last year with the weather. While it was a warm summer day, we didn't have our typical hot and humid Philly weather. Who knows what the day will bring this year. The weather might dictate how far I actually go.

Training will consist of a lot of miles, peaking around 80 miles per week, and back to back long runs on the weekend. Last night I asked Andy if the back to back long runs ruined any of our weekends last year and he said, "did you do back to back long runs?" So I guess that's my answer. It obviously didn't phase us too much.

I'm happy I set a goal and if the day goes well, I feel confident that I can reach it. I'm still going to register for a fall marathon and make the decision of whether or not to race it after the Ultra. Oh, and if anyone in the area is up for a loop, I'll be looking for pacers after loop 4, which will be about 33 miles into the race. If you're interested, let me know!