Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Here we go again

During our 20 mile, hilly run yesterday, Gary and I were expounding on the virtues of hill-training for this September's Pine to Palm 100 miler (Oh, I didn't mention I'm running another 100 on my 40th birthday? Errr, I am.) as we huffed and puffed, climbing and descending. I mean, ya gotta train for what you're gonna run, right? Lookit this profile:



Yup, that's THREE mountains we'll climb up and drop down. Anyhoo, as I blathered on and on (and on), the following words leaped from my drooling, dry, gasping mouth:

"If you aren't hurting during your long run, you aren't training right."

We both guffawed and cackled, and then we stopped. It's SO true! You need to get into that discomfort during your long runs to prepare yourself for the discomfort of the race, because it WILL come - no denying it.

And so I now dive back into my 100 mile training for the fall: The back to back long runs, the you-can't-wake-me-with-a-baseball-bat sleeping, eating like a rabid bear, the wondering where my time has gone (and knowing full well it's been on trails).

BRING IT!

3 comments:

fatozzig said...

Woo hoo! Pine to Palm! If we get into McKenzie Forest the weekend before, I probably won't be able to crew for Kate, unfortunately.

This time - you're gonna rock it!

Gretchen said...

Yeah, bring it! Sweet!! Look forward to hearing about the journey.

Kate said...

At first I saw the profile and I thought it was of your recent training run! And then I'm thinking, man, I really need to be training a lot harder and I wonder if Russ can show me where he did all this great hill training or I'm going to be woefully under-prepared. Whew! I'm glad I figured it out before I spiraled down into an abyss of self doubt and insane "keep up with the Jones'" training.