Over the past three years I’ve been increasing my annual running primarily with new distance goals in mind. In 2021, I ran my first 50k and since I progressed to a 50 miler this past fall. The training has been a time and volume commitment I haven’t made since organized sports in high school. My eventual goal to run a 100 miler, but I’ve realized this winter that I need to change how I train to get there. I already wake up super early to get long workouts, and more time isn’t on the table right now.

My training for the past three years as been mainly to bludgeon running into submission. More or less I just just run more miles. Week over week, training block over block, I would just increase my overall weekly volume and it’s worked up to this point, but I think I’m reaching a limit with that approach. With two young kids, a full time job, and a wife who works and also run ultra’s just adding more time to my training isn’t feasible. I’m already running 5 days a week and I’m not willing to sacrifice more time with my family to run more. Now see the old adage “train smarter not harder”, but I’m finding out, I’m training harder to.

Time vs Distance

One of the biggest changes I’m making is running for a set amount of time vs a distance. In the past I’d run 6, 12, 6, 9, 22 miles with little consideration on how my body felt, and guessing how long it would take me. The shift to time with allow me to know exactly how long I’ll be running. Now a similar week will be 1 hour, 2 hours, 1 hour, 1.5 hours, and 3 hours. WIth additional changes I’ll mention below, the distance I can run in these windows will also increase, giving me increased volume without increasing time.

More (and varied) Intensity

My runs the past three years would attempt to keep my heart rate in zone 2 (generally less than 155 bpm) for the entire run. This was a great way to build a base and get my body used to running for long periods of time, but it’s not the best way to get faster. I took the 80/20 rule and decided I just wanted to do the 80 portion all the time, but it has caused my pace to stagnate, even after running a few thousand miles the past few years. Enter the 20 portion.

This year I’ve committed to adding Intervals (5k pace), Tempo (10k pace), and Threshold (half marathon pace), and Steady State (marathon pace) runs to my training. It’s an interesting addition to all my weekly runs. I will do my regular runs, but add these increased paces into the run. For example to day I just started a Tempo Block and ran 3x12 minutes with 6 minute rest to my hour run. I ran the 12 minutes at 10k pace and the rest at my normal easy pace.

Race Goals

The 100 miler won’t come this year, but I am setting my sites on a 50 miles and 100k. The 100k is a new distance but I’m confident (with training) and the results of my 50 last year I won’t have an issue if nothing goes wrong. The 50 miler I ran in 2023 was more technical than any of the trails I could train for and I was forced to run much slower and grind the race out more. A secondary goal is to run more races close to home.

My wife and I spent a lot of time running races away from home, while it was fun, it was a lot of effort. I decided I wanted to do races I could stay at my house, or with my parents to make travel easier but to also support the local running community.