Taking it down a notch...for a little while!

After finishing my first 50 mile race at Rocky Raccoon, I was left with one of those feelings that I can only describe as "now what?" I remember feeling that way after my PhD was completed. I was left with this feeling that I had accomplished something very big in my life, and now, it was time to figure out what to do next. As for my PhD...I filled in the holes by doing research and traveling around the world, writing books, and publishing articles. But after finishing my first 50 miler, I was left in a rut. I even signed up for a number of races, but I still didn't feel like running any of them, and my training even slipped for awhile, while I was recovering. It was hard to get going again after such an accomplishment.

TAKING IT DOWN A NOTCH

After doing some thinking, I decided that I needed to work on a few things, and with the warm weather approaching, I decided to step down from Ultras and work on some faster, shorter events, and mostly because my natural pace had slowed quite a bit because of those long, long distance runs. It's time to add some variety to my routine. So here is the change:

Shorter faster workouts
Weight Training
Hill repeats
Tempo runs
Fartlek training
Medium long runs instead of "long, long" runs.

SCHEDULE

for the rest of the spring and summer, here is my racing and events schedule:

March 27th: Steamboat Mountain Half Marathon, Abilene, Texas.

April 24th: Outlaw 10k run, Commanche, Texas.

May 8th: Wounded Warrior 5k

For the rest of May and June, I will be traveling to the Navajo Reservation, and then to China. Then, as the weather begins to cool a little, and we approach Fall and Winter, I will switch back to Ultras, with the goal of running my first 100 miler. I will switch back to the Ultra running workout schedule at the end of June, when I return from China. Here is a partial schedule for the Fall and Winter:

July 24th: El Scorcho 50K, Fort Worth, Texas

September 25th: 8-Hour Run From the Ducks, Mineral Wells, Texas

October 24th: 24-The-Hard-Way, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

November 13th: Rockledge Rumble 50k, Grapevine, Texas.

In the meantime, I'm hoping that I will be faster, stronger, and more refreshed to attempt my first 100 miler and the 24-hour run in Oklahoma.