On the cusp

I've been harping on about the 100 runs in 100 days challenge for almost 3 months now.

Fair warning: I will continue to do so for a while yet.

Now, on day 84, I thought I'd provide a bit of an update for both of the people out there who may actually care.

My previous best effort in the annual challenge was 90 runs in the winter of 2016/2017 - I went on to run my longest race to date (the Sulphur Springs 100k) just 2 months after it ended, and did ok there partly because of the base I'd built through those 90 runs between mid-December and late March.

Certainly not because I share any traits with this gorgeous girl, spotted on Saturday's run to the market

In some ways, I'm actually doing significantly better this go 'round.

Ooh..

Yep. Thanks to 24 double run days - plus one notable day when I ran 3 times - I'm now just a single run away from making 100...with 16 days to spare!

Despite one of the iciest, snowiest, coldest winters in recent memory.

The frequency looks good on paper, and it's certainly the most training I've put in since my catastrophic injury almost 13 months ago. 

Looked at another way, though, I've been slacking. Here's my final total from 2016/2017:

Click the photo to enlarge, or I'll just tell you what the heck I'm on about below.

In the 90 runs I managed that year, I covered 947.45km. That's almost 276 additional kilometers over my mileage in the 99 runs I've recorded for 2018/2019 - more than I ran in the entire month of either January (~260km) or February (~220km) of this year. 

Consistency is good, but - at least for me - if you want to run long races, you've gotta get the time on feet in training. 

My legs don't accept "but it was snowy" as an excuse come June.

So, while I'll continue to log double runs here and there, I need to start shifting my focus to extending my runs on Saturdays. So far - other than Stride Inside and Frosty Trail - I've mostly just been running around 10km down to the market on Saturday morning, then getting out for another 5-6km later in the day. 

"Just sitting in a tree, looking down my nose at your training strategy.."

My weekend totals have generally been less than 30km even with doubles on both Saturday and Sunday, and I no longer have the excuse of upcoming snowshoe races to keep me from trashing my legs.

Though I couldn't resist going for a snowshoe run at Eramosa Karst as run #2 last Saturday

So, it's time to pick up the mileage. I've got some big things coming with the changing of the seasons, and I know I'll need to get those 4-hour-plus training runs into my legs if I don't want things to degenerate into a sufferfest early in the day.

Fortunately, I'll have the best support ever no matter how it goes otherwise!

With a bit of luck, maybe the weather will even start to feel like spring..