On Tuesday, I did a bit of a plan re-write with my Coach Gemini... fed it my past 7 weeks of runs and told it my availability for the rest of the training calendar.
You have roughly 6 weeks until race day on Saturday, October 24. Given the massive vertical profile (8,000 ft in 31 miles is ~258 ft/mi), the primary focus for the remaining peak weeks must be vertical gain, time on feet, and back-to-back fatigue management rather than raw flat speed.
Since you've already completed a 25-mile/6-hour effort and an 18-mile day with nearly 5,000 ft of climbing, your base is strong. The goal now is to hit one final key peak training block over the next 3 weeks before entering a proper 3-week taper.
Peak Phase & Taper Breakdown
...so let's see how that goes!
Monday
2 mi beach walk
Last vacation day, long walk on the beach - perfect!
Tuesday
6.36 mi XC trail
Lunch run at the office on the XC trails. No, it's not the hill work the plan called for but I needed to ease back into the week.
Wednesday
3.2 mi easy pup run
Oh the glorious morning temperatures are here! Took the opportunity for some easy pup miles.
4.9 mi singletrackSolid hour at Your Mom's House during kiddo bike practice. This was excellent, legs felt good!
Thursday
rest day
An actual whole rest day... ok I did walk the dog a few times, but man... trying to rest when I'm supposed to!
Friday
4.04 mi @ 9:59/mi
As prescribed, easy 4 miles on flat road. Good shakeout for tomorrow's planned big adventure.
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| 'Merica shorts for 9/11 🫡🦅 |
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| Cheers to Fr8 Fridays! |
Saturday
18.27 mi with 6,000 ft elevation
Trail run adventure to the MAX!! I mapped out this route thinking "it's Jones Gap, it has to be easier than Pisgah..."
hahahahah NOPE
This route was so incredibly tough, I had no idea what I was getting myself into! Started at the Raven Cliff Overlook parking lot just past Caesars Head - it was crazy foggy all around. Packed tons of snacks and 2.5L of water with me. First section was Ravel Cliff Falls Trail to Gum Gap Trail. This was pretty runnable overall and the suspension bridge was a nice first milestone... unfortunately only 3.5 miles into the whole adventure!
Next section (miles 3.5-5.7) was the Naturaland Trust (pink) trail, past Dismal, all the way down to where it meets the trail from the Asbury Hills Methodist retreat center. Sadly the cable bridge is gone :( and there's a ton of rerouted trail along the pink trail... Helene damage makes it unrecognizable from when I've done it in years past. The Cathedral Rock is still there, though, and just as impressive as ever!
At that point, the rain started and got pretty steady for most of the rest of the day and the steep climbing began (over 1,000ft in less than 1.5 miles!). At about mile 7.5 was where the trail joined Pinnacle Pass Trail, crossed Hwy 276, and continued on a steady descent on wide double-track road (gravel road-ish, but no car would pass there) dropping 1,300ft til mile 10.3 then climbing back up that same drop til it met the Rim of the Gap Trail at mile 13.9.
The remaining miles to about 16ish were so insane you could hardly call it hiking much less running. Climbing up and through rocks, ladders, and waterfalls over and over - SO much fun but incredibly challenging. Not to mention the continuing rainfall!
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| Bald rock overlook somewhere... can't even remember where! |
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| Waterfall gazing |
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| Through the rocks! |
Finally had some more runnable sections towards the end which were kind of nice, but I was definitely ready to be done by then. Over 8 hours out on trail and Garmin says I was only moving for about 5.5 but I think that's because some sections were SO SLOW with the climbing and scrambling that it didn't register as movement.
What an adventure but whew!
Sunday
3.9 mi recovery trail + 2.4 mi SUP at Croft
Morning in croft, not quite early enough for Croft@Dawn, but good enough to get in some recovery miles on the legs (yes, they actually felt much better afterwards!) and a nice paddle on Lake Craig all motivated with the promise of a pool party in the afternoon.
Week Summary
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Tuesday Hills - not hills, did offroad
✅Wednesday singletrack (60 min) - yes
✅Friday Easy 4 - yes
✅Long Run 20 mi w/ 4,500+ - traded a couple miles short for way exceeding the elevation (6,000+), I'm calling this good enough
🟨Recovery Sunday 6 mi - a little short on miles but did an hour, so this is almost green
40 miles for the week makes me pretty happy! This week and the week coming up should be the PEAK mileage weeks. Will hover in the high 30s/40 mile range then taper in October.
