50 Mile training is in full gear now

I just completed my longest run since my trail race in September. During that time I've still run, but my longest distance has been 21.1 K and that was on Christmas Day.

Training for a 50 Mile race requires lots of long distance training, but to avoid injuries it's important to add mileage slowly each week. Although I feel that I have a very good "base" mileage, for some reason it's been difficult for me to go out longer. I can come up with plenty of excuses why, but it's really all about being mentally prepared to run for 2, 3, 4 and eventually 5 hours.

Today was a giant step forward in that direction so I'm very pleased with what I was able to do. I went out early at 7 AM and did 8 K's on my own. Then I met up with a group of friends who were doing about 18K's. This would have brought my mileage up to 26 which I would have been very happy with. However, they decided to run a little longer and the 18 K turned into about 20 K. I had to take a few more walk breaks than the group, but I was happy with my strong finish.

Besides the fact that I was able to run 28 K today, what really made this day special was the fact that I was able to run with some truly great people. Although running is such an individual thing, having group support is very important.

We all ran at different speeds but it really didn't matter. The fact was that we were running together. We would take turns running with each person for a few K's and that kept our minds off the fact that we were out for so long. During various parts of the run I had to listen to some music to keep me motivated. Thankfully my friends understand that I need to listen to music when I run and they don't take it as a sign that I'm being anti-social.

After our run we all met up for coffee/tea at the local coffee shop and I was asked by the Running Room store manager if I would do a nutrition talk for the 1/2 Marathon clinic. I haven't been able to do one of those in a long time because of my schedule at the gym, but I'm available this week so I'm glad so I was more than happy to oblige.

Now that I have my recent run "bookmarked" in my memory bank, I know that things will only get better from here on out. Getting past that 20-25 K mark was a big barrier for me so now that I have, I can start building on this every two weeks.