Switching things up

This year has been mostly focused on cycling; mountain biking (XC, Endurance — even an Enduro race!), several gravel events and a lot of road riding in between (currently on pace for 10,000km in 2016). Racing Cat 1 Masters this season has been a real kick in the pants and something I want to continue getting better at over the long haul (that’s a whole other topic). Oh and #ridelikeaninja.

A recent conversation had me going over some of my bucket list items, one of which was to complete a 50 mile ultramarathon before I hit the big five-oh. Having run a 50k ultramarathon in 2015 (Oriflamme), I know that’s nothing to be trifled with. That, combined with the need to come up with the next set of training goals got me eyeing my running shoes and consider switching things up a bit. Not that I am going to hang up the bike, but bias toward trail running over the next few months. I’ll get on the bike for active recovery — both physical and mental — along the way.

Of course any sensible person wouldn’t jump head first into 50 miles and with that in mind I’ve set the Lake Hodges Trail Fest 50k as an intermediate goal. That’ll tell me if I’ve completely lost my mind or not… we’ll see. With twelve weeks until the moment of truth, it’s time to get serious and get on a program.

Today I had a great hour long pre-planning session with my friend Josh from GlideTC. He knows his stuff and we’ll be perfecting a training plan over the next few days.

While we get the next twelve weeks worked out on paper, I know I’ll be lacing up and hitting some hill work/intensity tomorrow and a six mile run on Sunday. Yikes…