In the days leading up to the Lookout Mountain 50, I tried my best to stick to a consistent training plan. Most of the races I've done in the past were focused on distance, so I was glad to sign up and train for this 50 mile run with no real goal for a finishing time. The one problem was I hadn't actually run farther than 26 miles.
Runners world had this 16 week 50 mile ultra training guide on their website. Although I only had 14 weeks to train by the time I signed up, I figured that was a good place to start, and I just started on the 3rd week into the training program. I stuck with it pretty consistently for 5-6 weeks, but when work got busy, my training waned. The race was fast approaching and I new based on the training guide that I needed to get at least one 30 mile run under by belt.
After talking with several avid trail runners, Kennesaw Mountain seemed to be the best place to get 30 miles in. I figured I'd summit the mountain and then run 8-9 miles on the trail, and just do three laps of that. Easy, right? Wrong. I only ended up summiting one time, after that I was just focusing on finishing the distance. It was a rough day, but I ended up finishing that 30 mile training run in around 7-8 hours. The time wasn't great, but I got the miles in.
My legs and feet were pretty torn up after that run, and the race was only 10 days away. I woke up the next day limping, wondering if I would be able to run the race at all. After a few days, my body recovered. It was also my first time wearing this training vest. I went to REI and paid $150 for it before the training run, only to find out later you can find a generic on Amazon for $20. Anyway aside from the price it worked out great!
Live and learn.
Here is a link to the training plan I followed.
https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/training/ultra/a774983/16-week-50-mile-ultra-marathon-training-schedule/
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