The Managed Bonk

Why Brazos Bend 100? After  Bigfoot 200   I wanted to do a faster race where I’d be able to, ya know, actually run!  Rob Goyen’s BB100 is one of the fastest around, and this year it doubled as the 100-mile Trail National Championship. As a bonus to USATF , I thought I’d have a pretty good shot of hitting at least the ‘B’ Standard qualifying time (16:10) for Desert Solstice Invitational next year, a 24-hour race around a track (I know...weird).  While I do love mountains and mountain races, I’m a relatively weak climber so I’m hoping these flat races may be more up my alley.  The ‘A’ Standard for Desert Solstice is 14:00, and I thought maybe I’d have an outside shot at it, although in hindsight seems maybe a tad aggressive. BB100 is 6 equal loops of 16.7 miles, and my plan was to start off at 8:00/mile, see how that felt, then let the pace bleed slower as it got hotter and more miserable.  After the gun I found myself in 10th, and I was tri...

I’m a month early in reviewing 2019’s training, but since I’m now starting a taper for my final race of the year, it’s time! I  ended 2018  having logged the fewest miles I’d ever run in a calendar year, since taking up this sport.  But I’d also just turned 40, and used the milestone birthday to turn the tide. As I prepare to run the Brazos Bend 100 on December 7th, here is my final moving average chart. 2019 The blue line looks back 13 weeks, and is a bit volatile - I think what it best reflects is that, week-to-week, it’s really hard to be consistent and motivated for an entire year!  I don’t think I missed a single run in the first 3 months of 2019, so that’s where it peaks (minus that one time I ran 200 miles in a weekend!).  I’m ending up at only 56.7 miles/week for the most recent 3 months; some of that low number is a slow recovery from Bigfoot, some is time off for a nagging Achilles, and some is just lack of motivation! The green line looks back 26 week...