Barriers

Barriers are funny things, particularly when they are mental barriers. 

For the entire time I’ve been running, or at least, the time I’ve been keeping track of mileage, the 50 mile week has seemed like both a major barrier and a major breakthrough point. There is no reason that 50 miles should hold such esteem in my mind. 49 miles, seven miles each day, might make more sense from an aesthetic perspective, but from a training perspective there is no real reason that 50 miles is any different than 45 or 55. 

Nevertheless, it has always been firm in my mind as an almost mythic barrier. I have flirted with 50 mile weeks fairly regularly. I often surpass 40 in my training. Somewhat less often, I start to hit around 45 miles per week, usually in the lead up to an ultra. Rarely, though, have I hit 50 miles in the span of a week (I define a week as Monday-Sunday). 

The very few times I’ve reached that point in my training, though, there was no real momentous occasion to it. The 50 mile mark almost seemed to sneak up on me and pass me by. 

That is exactly what happened to me this past weekend. I had run 46 miles the week before, a total that was somewhat unexpected to begin with. I actually ran a good six miles shorter than I expected on my normal Saturday long run, after waking up and feeling tired and uninspired by trail running. To my surprise, after a leisurely 12 on Saturday, I got up on Sunday and ran a fast eight to close out the week on a high note.

This past week,I got a good start. After resting Monday, a day I take off religiously, I hit eight miles on Tuesday, complete with my fastest non-race mile in three or four years sandwiched in the middle of a steady-state run. Wednesday was easy and short. Thursday, I ran twice: six miles fast in the morning, and five and a half in the evening at a slow pace. (Thursday evenings I have started running trails with a couple different groups, which allows me both to socialize and to get some easy trail miles in when I normally would not). Friday was again easy and short. 

I went into the weekend with 27.5 miles on my legs, and no thought of hitting 50 for the week. 

Saturday, though my legs were still carrying a good bit of fatigue from the week, I ran a solid 16 miles out at Afton State Park. I stopped often, taking pictures of any mushrooms or fungi I saw, and chatting with the other runners sharing the trail on what was, after all, a gorgeous morning for a run. I even managed to pick up the pace for the last three miles back to the car. That was 43.5 for the week. 

Sunday, I still had no intention of hitting 50 for the week. 

But Sunday was Twin Cities Marathon day, and I ran around spectating. Soon enough, my watch said four for the morning, and my legs and brain said “why not?”

So I kept running until I hit just about seven miles. And the mythic (in my mind) barrier was broken. 

In the grand scheme of things, obviously. 50 is just another number. But the mere act of running that much in a week has done wonders for my own confidence in my training. More than that, the relative ease with which it happened (there was no special scheduling, no particular addition of miles or runs), and the two relatively low-mileage days in the middle make me think I could do it again. 

And maybe do even more.