I’m writing this post from the comfort of our Airbnb in Cave Creek, Arizona. It isn’t quite as warm as I wanted it to be down here, but the desert is as beautiful as always, there is no snow and it is much warmer than back home in Colorado. Last year was full of travel and a lot of bike training. We had a blast on our fall gravel bike trip to Slovenia and Croatia. I tried to write up a post about that trip, but I found I just couldn’t summarize such an epic adventure. Suffice it to say we loved the Julian Alps in Slovenia and highly recommend riding in that area. The trip was much harder and rougher than expected, especially in Croatia, but it definitely improved my ability to ride through rocky terrain on my gravel bike. After 6-10 hours on the bike every day, I came home with a pretty strong base fitness.
Transitioning Back to the Run
When we got back at the end of September, we signed up for the Moab Run the Rocks three-day stage race in March and it was time to get back into running shape. And if we were putting in the miles for that race, we might as well hit up the San Tan Scramble 50k in January. And since I apparently had no recollection of how bad it was the last two years, we decided to go back so Josh could get redemption at Black Canyon 100K in February. I paid all my entry fees and hoped it would be a better winter of training than last year. Training through the winter of ’22-’23 was pretty rough for several reasons.
After the Leadville 100, I had not been mentally prepared to jump back into full training. I was never truly emotionally invested in doing Black Canyon 100K again. Josh had wanted to follow a 100k training plan from TrainingPeaks (where he works), and he picked one that ended up working really well for him but, as a perimenopausal female athlete, was a very bad fit for me. There was not enough recovery and way too much tempo work, and as the weeks went on, I felt more and more fatigued. Everything hurt all the time, and I felt that instead of getting stronger, I was getting slower and more broken. On top of all that, trail conditions were the worst I have ever seen. We spent most of our time running the same dirt roads, and it got really old…which did not help with the mental side of training.
This year, when we decided to head back to Black Canyon 100K, I knew I wanted to do things differently. Camille Herron, who is a professional ultrarunner my age, and still breaking world records, is a strong proponent of changing the way ultrarunners train, especially female ultrarunners. I decided to take a page out of her playbook and change my training strategy. Typically ultrarunners do back-to-back long runs on the weekends. Camille strongly advises against this, and instead, she recommends “skipping the long run” and getting in that volume over the entire week. After years of doing big training weekends with different coaches, it is a scary concept to not do really big mileage long runs, but I knew I needed a change. I also made nutritional changes, upping my protein intake to 80-100 grams per day, and increasing to 80 grams of carbs per hour on any run over 90 minutes.
Applying the Work
Last week, we headed down to Phoenix for the first big test — San Tan Scramble 50K. Leading into it, I had done one run longer than 18 miles, and that was a super slow 25 miles — a 4.12-mile lap every hour for six hours, so a lot of run/walk, and then standing around chatting with friends and eating snacks before the next lap. I wasn’t sure how my body would hold up for the 50K race, but I expected to be pretty hurty.
The day before we started our drive to Phoenix, we got COVID boosters. Was the timing ideal? No, but for a variety of reasons, that was the only time it really fit in. I’ve done poorly with every booster, and although not as bad as before, I still had a fever, body aches, and insomnia the night before we left. This put me in a pretty bad brain deficit, and when we stopped for the night in Albuquerque seven hours later, I was a disaster. Even though it has been over eight years since my TBI, my brain still can’t handle being in the car for that long, and I forgot to be proactive in limiting the overstimulation. I didn’t wear my ear filters or noise-canceling headphones or take breaks to close my eyes. I got myself into a bad negative loop, where my brain was too overstimulated to sleep, so then it was a second night of insomnia, and by the end of the second day of driving, things were pretty ugly.
We were in Phoenix for two days before my vertigo resolved and three days before my vision was no longer blurry. My body was stiff and tight after not getting out as much as planned. I only got in two short runs during the week and mostly focused on sleeping a lot. By the weekend, my brain was almost back to my baseline.
The race at San Tan was a so much fun, and my body felt strong. Although 34º at the start wasn’t exactly the warm Arizona race I had planned for. The race is a 10-mile loop course that changes direction on each lap — “washing machine style” as they said at the start line — with a lot of rolling hills and one super steep, rocky, loose climb and descent. I actually enjoyed the loop format more than I expected, and it was fun to see people coming back, especially getting to check in on how Josh was feeling. It was also really great to have several friends out cheering for me, filling my bottles, giving me hugs and sending me out for the next lap.
The third lap was my best, and as I cruised into the finish, I felt like I could’ve kept going for hours. Could I have run it faster? Absolutely, that was obvious at the finish, but I wasn’t really out there “racing” this weekend. What I needed was a fun long day out to remind me why I do this and prove that the change in training and high carbohydrate fueling actually works for me. Feeling great at the finish was the confidence boost I needed, and I’m happy that my ultrarunning days are not over.
Josh finished as the 4th place male. We both had a great day out there.
Big Things on the Horizon
That boost is extra helpful because Friday night was the High Lonesome 100 lottery, and I got in. There is a lot of work to be done before July, but I’m excited to get a chance at another big mountain 100 miler. I have to sort through what I want my training plan to look like, but I do know that I will stick with Camille Herron’s advice. I’ll be doing my speed and hill workouts, and avoiding the 25-30 mile Saturday runs and 20+ mile Sunday runs that used to be the norm for my 100-mile peak training weekends. Instead, I’ll try to spread the volume out over the week and probably get in some doubles (morning and evening run) days. We will see where that gets me.
It’s four weeks until Black Canyon 100K and only 27 weeks until the next TBI to 100. For now, I will enjoy another week of desert running before heading home to winter.
Love the nutrition changes; how do you get 80 g of carbs/hour in?
Between all the chewing and digesting, it is impossible to sustain that level of intake with real food, so it is a lot of sports nutrition including drink mixes. I use Maurten 320 – which is 80g carbs in 500ml water. Then I’ll use Spring Energy (basically blended food packets), Honey Stinger Chews, Clif Bloks, and other random sugar snacks like gummy bears. It can be hard to do, and expensive honestly. I only do it during races and longer runs. I used to have a lot of GI issues and never would have though I could do this, but is is all about finding what works for you, and the types of carbohydrates you can handle. Standard “gels” do not work for me.