Recovery Week | 6 Weeks Till Shore To Shore
After putting in a solid block of work of the past few weeks, it is finally time for a recovery week. I will into finer detail how I personally like to grow volume that I will post this week on the blog. The short story is, when I am ramping back up after a niggle or post race I will build volume (Time/Vert/Milage) about 8-10% a week in a more traditional way, but then make changes to that growth as I approach the higher volume weeks. I have found this change to be much better for me and how I absorb increased volume. But sure to check out that other post for a detailed look at how I build volume. Also, be sure to follow me on Strava for the daily details and my podcast, 50k Ready, where every your stream you podcasts. You can also join my free ultramarathon discord community! Discord Link: https://discord.gg/4QMxjFyQGJ
Totals:
Time: 5:40 (Down From 8:36)
TSS: 343 (Down From 482)
Miles: 32.1 (Down From 47.9)
CTL: 55 (Same 55)
Tuesday March 11th, 2025
Time: 40:05 | rTSS: 37 | Miles 3.84 | Elevation: 79 ft | Shoes: Mount To Coast R1
Foundation run coming off a rest day on Monday. Today was one of those days where I just had to squeeze in the workout where ever I could. Being a parent definitely changes the approach sometimes. Between that and the 9-5, it’s almost impossible to plan an ideal training week with all the times and locations I want. Spring just brings on more after school activities with the kids that I love to be apart of up. This makes me have to adapt to the day, as well as keep strong communication with Tara. I dropped my daughter off at Bible Study and then knew that I had about 50 min before I had to be back to get her. Left the parking lot and headed for some loops around town for 40 min. Weather was nice for this time of year!
Wednesday March 12th, 2025
Workout:
20 Min WU Zone 2
12 x 1 Min Hill Sprints
2 Min Recovery Back Down The Hill
20 Min CD Zone 2
Time: 1:13:30 | hrTSS: 65 | Miles 5.23 | Elevation: 1,667 ft | Shoes: La Sportiva Prodigio Pro
Hill repeats are amazing for a number reasons. Besides the obviously cardio and strength gained from these workouts, the low impact on the body to get a true training stimulus is what I like the most! When looking back at my HR, there is no way that I would be able to get my HR as high as it was on a track or on the road without really stressing my body to max physically. I was doing 9 min pace, but felt like I could throw up right there on the side of the trail. During the workout my legs are absolutely SCREAMING, but a few hours later now my joints and ligaments feel amazing, and my muscles have absorbed the work. Even if you are not doing a mountain race, think about doing some hill work to lower the impact. If I was not doing a mountain race, I would have just done this on the treadmill. This would have arguably got me a better workout because of the ability to max the grade and set the speed. My brain wouldn’t really be able to slow me down. With my A Race being in the mountains, I sacrificed a little of that difficulty for the specificity of being on the trail.
A word on how I handled the stress score from this workout. It is so hard to manage pace for obvious reasons and sometimes HR can lag behind. So this is the type of workout where I will use RPE during the workout. For those that use your watch for intervals you know how annoying it can be to have your watch beeping at you every 5 seconds cause you’re going too fast or too slow. With RPE you don’t have to worry about that too much. RPE is harder, especially for beginners in the mid range, but for this it was 10 out of 10. Full send is easy to measure! For the overall stress score of the workout I used HR not pace.
Thursday March 13th, 2025
Workout:
40 Min Z2 Base/Foundation Run
Time: 40:32 | hrTSS: 49 | Miles 4.42 | Elevation: 95 ft | Shoes: North Face Enduris 4
Legs feel surprisingly good after yesterdays hills. I guess that really goes back to one of the benefits being low impact. Legs are a little heavy but nothing crazy. Pretty easy afternoon so I was able to get out to Southard’s Pond trail for 20 min out and 20 min back. This was the first ride in the North Face Enduris 4. I have definitely been spoiled with the $200 shoes I’ve been wearing. At a more reasonable price point of $150, I can feel the difference. This isn’t a bad things. They aren’t shit. They just aren’t super shoes. The fit was great. They were just noticeable heavy and not a ton of cushion. I can definitely see these be an everyday training for the trails. They are by no means going back, but I don’t they would fill the place of a race shoe. Other than that, the weather was nice and the run was good. I got home and did my pushups with Brody and 30 min in the sauna.
Saturday March 15th, 2025
Workout:
40 Min Z2 Base/Foundation Run
Time: 42:13 | rTSS: 49 | Miles 4.54 | Elevation: 36 ft | Shoes: Mount To Coast R1’s
Nice Foundation run coming of a rest day. Temps were nice a cool but kind of perfect for this time of year. Had a little bounce in my step as I left the driveway. One of my buddies had recently taken a Strava segment from me recently that I though I had a chance of taking back so I took a stab at the .3 mile segment after a pretty good warm up. The R1’s came through again and I took it back by 3 seconds with a 5:14 min/mile average pace on the segment, which I believe was the second fastest 400m I have ever run. I’ve really been liking the 40 min runs. It’s kind of the distance that feels just right. 30 min feels to short and hour is hard to find time for after work. 40 min allows me enough time after to get in the sauna for 20 min and do all my accessory work without feeling like a deadbeat dad. Tight hammy I have been dealing with for a few weeks is finally starting to feel 100% as well which is great.
Sunday March 16th, 2025
Workout:
2h 30 min @ 50k Pace
Time: 2:23:57 | rTSS: 143 | Miles 14 | Elevation: 259 ft | Shoes: La Sportiva Prodigio Pro
Busy Busy day today so had to get up and out early. Was probably up a little too last last night recording the podcast but was still able to get up and get moving. Was out the door by 6am to get an hour in before meeting some friends for the last 90 min on the local trails. With day lights savings last week it is not dark at 6am again which sucks so the headlamp came back out. It was warmer today with a misty, foggy type rain. It made the air feel wet, but not enough to make it muddy on the trail. With a few bathroom breaks I fell about 10 min short on time before needing to get home and get my son to basketball. With it being a recovery week, I wasn’t too concerned with it. If it was a build week I probably would have found time later this afternoon to get the rest of the stress score that I wanted. Three more weeks of build before we taper into Shore To Shore. Feeling good. Feeling Strong. Absorbed the build from the previous 3 weeks and Im ready to keep going!
