More Progress...

After being selected for the highly selective Tokyo and Mont Blanc Marathons, I came up empty on the less selective Chicago and Berlin. I'm not too concerned about it.

I signed up for Valencia in December and the Kodiak 100K in October. If I finish Kodiak I'll be able to enter the lotteries from UTMB CCC and Western States. My race calendar is now (1) Polar Opposite Peachtree, (2) Tokyo, (3) Paris, (4) Mont Blanc, (5) Peachtree, (6) Speedgoat 50K, (7) Kodiak 100K, (8) Valencia. Two 10-Ks, three road marathons, two trail marathons/50ks, and a trail ultra.

I'm running well and feeling good but I'm not following any sort of a plan. I'm doing a lot of long runs, trail runs, and hills. I need to buckle down for 12 weeks and follow the plan to be ready for Tokyo. That's doable but it requires a bit of focus and managing my efforts a bit better. I tend to do a couple of hard efforts that leave me spent and then I take a couple of days of. I need to balance the load better to be more consistent.

Two changes I'm focusing on.

First, hills instead of intervals. The aerobic and VO2 max stimulus is stronger and the risk of injury is lower. Running hills inspires confidence when I'm in a race and need to run a hill.

Second, if I have to do a tempo run, let's find a race as those are always my best tempo runs. For whatever reason, I'm a minute a mile faster in a race than I am in a hard solo run.

With Mont Blanc, Speedgoat, and Kodiak between June and October, I'll have a big trail stint. I'm going to focus on the trail running after Paris as I'll have 70 days to prep for the first; Mont Blanc.