Monday, October 18, 2010

MMTR!!!

I got the exciting news on Saturday morning that my late overflow entry into the Mountain Masochist Trail Race had been accepted. So I'm runing a 50 mi mountain race on Nov. 6. I wanted to run another 50 miler and decided on MMTR for a few reasons... first off, well it's the Mountain Masochist, enough said! Excited to be participating in one of the east coast's premier ultra events. Plus I wanted to do another ultra sooner rather then later, feeling like my body needs a rest before I begin Umstead training. So it worked on the calendar... I've averaged around 80 miles a week since late May. So I'm excited yet nervous, concerned that I haven't done the proper mountain climbing in training. I feel like I'm a decent uphill runner, but I guess I'll find out in a few weeks.

After the high of the New River race last week you'd think I would have kicked it in training this week. Didn't exactly happen (at least not until the weekend.) I did learn a bit about my legs.... I figured out I can run 25-30 miles at an easy 9 min per mile pace and bounce back quickly with little recovery time. But running 31 miles at 8-8:20 pace really took it out of me. I just don't seem to have much energy and my legs have been dead. We moved out of our house (renting it out to the big furniture market in High Point and re-located for 8 nights into an extended stay hotel in Winston-Salem) and things weren't settled and routine for several days. So I ended up taking two days off (with a rest day prior to New River and rest day the next day).... so have taken the same amount of rest days in the last two weeks as I took all of 2008!

After not much during the week, I did have a decent weekend. Saturday I headed over to Salem Lake on a beautiful day and ran a VERY slow 24 miles. Legs were tired the whole time but I just learned of my MMTR entry so I was determined to spend a few hours on the trail. Sunday I found the closest mountain I could find and ran for 3 hours at Pilot Mtn. State Park. The trail was decent and nice to do some climbing in prep for the VA mtns. I went up to the summit twice (approx 1200'+ ea, so probably over 3,000 of climbing) and on the second time down hit an alternate trail and back up looping around the stone face of the summit... lots of rock climbing. Not sure how far I went but it was 3 hours of climbing and downhill. Legs still very tired so I have to figure out what I'll do over the next ten days before I taper. Hopefully I will head up further into the mountains this upcoming weekend.

Brief Summary of Oct 11 - Oct 17
10/11/10 Monday
AM- Easy paced 7 mile run with Chuck and docs on Ewood loop and downtown.
10/12/10 Tuesday
Busy all day long with moving out for Market so took a rest day
10/13/10 Wednesday
12 miles in Winston Salem... struggling and going slow.
10/14/10 Thursday
10 miles in W-S in a cold rain. SLOW
10/15/10 Friday
Another unplanned rest day... feeling tired and burned out
10/16/10 Saturday
Easy 24 mile run @ Salem Lake. Slow and enjoyable!
10/17/10 Sunday
@ Pilot Mtn. 3 hours, to the summit 3 times. Not sure distance, but 3 hours is 3 hours right?
Total miles: 70

8 comments:

  1. AWESOME!!!!! can't wait to see you there,
    SO HAPPY FOR YOU! AND you'll get to meet ALL my friends ( you met my besties at new river 50k)

    You'll do fine. There is some mtn running involved but, everyone always says MMTR is a "runner's course" it's very runnable. you'll do well!

    take care rob! see you in a couple weeks!

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  2. thanks jenn for the words of encouragement. i'm excited but nervous, so i needed that...

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  3. Rob, I don't think you and I met at New River, but I am glad to hear you got into Masochist. Jenny is right. It is a runner's course. You are in for a wonderful experience, but I will caution you to run your own race. It is so easy to get caught up in all of the excitement with easier footing and run too fast. It is a long race (probably 54 miles) and if you have overdone it, the loop will humble you quickly. The loop starts off with a nice smooth level trail and you are saying to yourself I can't believe everyone says this is so hard and then it hits. Just like the saying "beware of the chair", "beware of the loop". See you in a couple of weeks. By the way, I will also be running Umstead.

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  4. Rick-
    I did see you at New River but I don't think we officially met. I think you beat me by several minutes! But thank you for the advice/warning/caution.... I'm very new to the ultra world (folks can probably tell) and will remember your words. Have to admit when you "read" the course description and even "watch" youtube videos it doesn't look so hard. But I learned during a 52 miler in WV that it can be quite different deep in the woods after 6 or 7+ hours. Look forward to meeting you officially.
    -Rob

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  5. hey rob!! great job today!!! it was so good to see you! super glad you got to come run the MMTR training run. you are going to do so well!!! I can't wait to see how fast you run!

    rest, recover from today, and taper:o)

    jenny

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  6. Great to see you also. What a fantastic day to be running in the mountains! Let's hope for that kind of weather in 2 weeks. I promise to taper the last ten days....

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