Today makes exactly one month since Kettle Moraine, where I completed my first 100-mile trail ultra. And with no upcoming goal races in the near future, what have I been doing training-wise since then?

The answer in brief is – not much, and too much.

Not much, because I’ve cut back on training volume. Too much, because it appears that I should have also cut back on training intensity.

Just three months ago, my race calendar looked like this:

Date                                 Race                                                    Goal
======================================================
April 9                    Martian Marathon                     Qualify for Boston
April 24                    Trail Marathon                         Test readiness for Glacier Ridge
May 14                 Glacier Ridge Trail 50                 Purge 2015 DNF,, prep for Kettle
June 4-5               Kettle Moraine Trail 100         Finish

I think most runners would agree that was an aggressive schedule. To pull it off I needed a training regimen to match. Last November I told my running coach and strength trainer of my goals, and once they stopped shaking their heads they came up with a program to get me there.

From December through March I underwent the hardest training I’ve ever had. I ran hard. I ran long. I ran hills. Sometimes I did all three at once. And at Body Specs, Skip and company were relentless, giving me tons of squats, core work, pull-ups, and the dreaded weighted jump ropes.

There were ups and downs during that period; times when I felt invincible, and times when I could barely drag myself through the day. But the payoff became visible almost immediately, as I set personal bests at the Bigfoot Snowshoe 5K in January, the Leap Day 4-miler in February, and the No Frills All Thrills trail 8K in early April. But would these short successes carry over to the long goal races?

Yep.

I’ve written about the races in previous posts (except for the upcoming account of Kettle), so I’ll just say here that all the training was worth it. Those two months went by so fast it’s still a bit hard for me to believe it’s over. 100 miles done. DNF purged. And Boston, I’ll see you in 2017!

So what’s my training been like in the month since I finished Kettle? Naturally, I planned in recovery time, then to gradually resume active training. My success with this approach has been mixed.

With running, there was no choice but to cut back. My beat-up feet took over a week just to heal enough to walk normally. But on June 14, I went out with PR Fitness for the Tuesday evening six-miler, and I’ve been averaging one run per week, with distances between five and eleven miles with no issues. Good news there!

Body Specs has been a different story. Just four days after Kettle I felt good enough to resume strength training, so I asked them to go easy for a bit. And so they did – for one session. The following week, it was pretty much back to normal. I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t running much and felt good enough to complete the sessions.

This week, however, it caught up with me. I began to feel fatigued throughout the day – a classic sign of overtraining. I had no energy to run, and my performance at the gym got worse during the week instead of remaining steady or improving. Time for an enforced break.

Fortunately, this long weekend was just the ticket. With enforced rest, sleep, and lots of eating, my energy is returning. It hasn’t been easy. I feel like a lazy slug for sitting around, and worrying about gaining weight. As if putting on a couple of pounds during recovery is a bad thing. Just goes to show, you can always find something to worry about if you try hard enough.

It’s not all sloth and gluttony, however. I have gotten in an (easy) bike ride and a (somewhat easy) run. Can’t take the edge off completely, can I?

Happy Independence Day to all!