As I begin this blog post we are quickly approaching the weekend of the Runderwear Festival of Running half marathon. Additionally, this Saturday is exactly 2 weeks out from my first 24 hour race! I am so excited and pumped to have an “in real life” race on my schedule and happening so soon.
I hope to use this weekend’s Runderwear Festival of Running virtual half marathon as a portion of my final weekend of training before rolling into taper mode until my 24 hour race. I’m excited to attempt to run a faster half marathon as it feels like it has been so long since I have pushed myself to run hard for any distance longer than up to a mile. Part two of my plan to use this half marathon as part of my final training weekend is to get out for at least a medium distance run the day after on what I expect to be either tired or sore legs. The thinking behind this is of course that at some point during the 24 hour race my legs will be tired so I want to be prepared and mentally ready to continue to move on those tired legs.
My pace goal for the half marathon is to run an average pace of 8:15 per mile. It’s not shooting for the stars or a PR for me, but my training for the last 5 months hasn’t been focused on speed; it’s been focused on building volume and endurance. Additionally, even if I thought a faster pace was within my reach, I don’t want to overextend myself with only 2 weeks to recover before the 24 hour race which has been my top running goal for the last couple years.
Based on my monthly mileage build up, I feel mentally and physically ready to run for 24 hours straight. I have built volume and endurance with this single race in mind. My last long run to prepare for it was 42 miles at what I considered a comfortable pace. Near the end of that run I wanted to test my legs and see what I had left at that point. I ran my forty-first mile in just a little over 7 minutes. This gave me a huge confidence booster for the 24 hour race. Now I just can’t wait to be on that starting line!
Scott Snell
April 2, 2021
