Steve, Meet Wheel

To succeed in the sport of running, you have to do what others aren't willing to do. What I keep forgetting is that you also have to be willing to do what those who are successful do. I posted some ideas on training for a 100 mile trail race, but overlooked the fact that everyone agrees on some basic points, which I chose to ignore because I didn't care for them.

A brief question and answer with John Horns, who won the Superior 100 at age 51 (23:16, a slow time - a hot year) brought back some old ideas to me, which I've managed to gel into a coherent plan that looks like what others have done.

M 10 miles hike
T 5 miles with 3x20sec. hill sprints
W 15 miles hills with 7.5 miles hard
Th 5 miles with 3 sprints
F 10 miles hike
Sa 19 miles with last 13 hard
S 31 miles easy

Improvement comes by increasing the pitch of the hills on Wednesday and increasing the difficulty of terrain on Saturday and Sunday.

Every third week is an easier week, though the mileage stays steady.

10 walk
5 w/3
15 hill WALK
5 w/3
10 walk
19 EASY
31

That's almost 100 miles per week, which John was doing at his peak training. So how does one build to that? I just went from running 20-30 miles per week straight into it! Ten days in, I'm not hurt, but I  haven't been doing much of the hard running and my weekend runs haven't been long enough. I'm doing 75 miles per week, just as the weather starts turning cold.

Ideally, the times for the above would eventually be

M 2:00-2:15
T 45 min
W 3:00 (done on Hyland ski hill, 500 ft. climb per mile)
Th 45
F 2:00-2:15
Sa 19 @ Afton  in 3:00
S 31 @ Afton in 5:30.

Given that running the Afton course in 5:30 is what I've done in races there, it's "a bit of a reach."