#he's either intriguing her vs pique her we may never know

[flmed]

nonchalantly brushing the remnants of his liquor from the brims of the glass, before a clicking sound 'tween his tongue &. the roof of his mouth interrupts her musing upon the accident; he is surprised that it may have not been her first time dealing with the stunt . . . perhaps the other's supporters aren't as gracious as hers, however it is comical to think that they only targeted her for a ludicrous jest that shall lingers for period of time,

❝ yes, you shouldn't have too, but most of americans aren't as intelligent as you, ❞  beaming, the man's holding the decanter to pour into his own glass, however doesn't do the same to hers because it's still half-full,

❝ no offense, but i think it's diabolical that this country only has two major parties for the election–––––that's how cults were formed, ❞  shrugging indifferently, guised 'neath poised demeanour despite it is undeniably churlish to say in front of her after her contretemps, however the indulgence seeps within him, ❝ do you ever think about your supporters might do the same to the other candidate? or are they just as gracious as you are.. ❞ 

it shouldn't bother her. she could beat hollis doyle and his cult of redneck followers in her sleep. but god is it frustrating and gross and beneath her that she has to put up with them in the first place. at least the other republican contenders have brains, even if their ideas are misguided and wrong for the country. this stunt? it was idiotic and it's all the press will be talking about for the next news cycle. it's got her riled up, whether it should or not.

she exhales a sigh of relief as he hands over a glass, and she is noticeably calmer after taking a long swig. mellie's gaze settles on him as he pays her a compliment ━━ much needed, whether she'd admit it or not. " i can handle it. but i shouldn't have to. that man has been allowed to tout his nonsense for too long. "

[gobigorgohome2016]

The Allure of High Mileage Running

The 100 Mile Week. For as long as I can remember, high mileage has intrigued me.  Of course, this probably partly stems from spending high school glued to message boards like letsrun, dyestat, and indianarunner, where a person’s worth was strongly tied to his (rarely her) running ability.  I’m sure that growing up reading stories about Deena Kastor’s monster mileage didn’t help with my fascinaton, either.

In high school I was a fairly high mileage runner, topping out around 45 or 50 miles per week.  I think a lot of high schoolers do that now, but at the time we only trained for a 4k race.  I have always enjoyed mileage, and my body seems to respond better the more that I run.  

In college, I was a low mileage runner because I was always injured.  I remember the first time I ran a 60 mile week.  I was pretty proud of that moment.  Also in college my fascination with 100 mile weeks grew after hearing legends of former (male) teammates that pursued 100 mile / 100 beer challenges. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t even do a 100 mile / 10 beer challenge in a week (the beer being the limiting factor), but nevertheless my interest was piqued.  Would I be able to run 100 miles someday?  At that point, I figured likely not since I could barely make it past 40 miles without injuries.

When I got to grad school I realized it didn’t really matter how much I ran, since I wasn’t planning to take running seriously anymore.  What if I just pushed my limits instead?  I distinctly remember my first 70 mile week in January 2012.  Dave and I went to The Rail (now defunct) to celebrate.  Well, Dave didn’t need a reason to celebrate, but 70 miles in 7 days without getting hurt seemed as good a reason as any to have overpriced hipster drinks.  That night we also realized that I never picked up my car from a trail head I had parked at during the week, since I ultimately just ran home one day to add on miles.  (it’s easy to forget about your car when you live in a college town!)

My first 80 mile week was when I was training for Chicago, the time I didn’t finish the race, in 2012. I felt badass, especially because I completed the mileage during one of the hottest weeks in July, and in 5.5 days (I had taken a day off and had a 4 mile day that week as well).  I felt strong and badass.  I knew the mileage was working for me.

I didn’t hit 90 for the first time until I was training for Chicago the second time, in 2014, when I did finish the race.  6 weeks out I did an over distance training run of 32 miles, and easily got 90 in 5 days of running that week.  If I wasn’t so dead from 32 miles on horse trails, I would have surely gone out and gotten in the extra mileage to hit 100, but I fortunately realized that would have been dumb.  

My first 100 mile week came when I was training for the trials.  I have never been as simultaneously exhausted and satisfied.

For me, my satisfaction with running has always been intrinsically tied to two things:  doing new things I’ve never done before, like highest mileage ever or longest streak of 100+ mile weeks, and my success as a runner. I guess for me I have seen the most success when my mileage is high, so I’m hooked.  Of course that begs the question:  am I successful at running simply because I am satisfied with my training, or is the training making me a better runner?  I have always strongly believed that the foundation of success is simply believing that the way you are training is the best, and never doubting.  

But, why is 100 miles a seemingly magic number for me?  

No matter where you look, it appears that 100 mile weeks is what separates the elite runner from the super serious runner – at least if you read online message boards, running magazines, or talk to old school coaches.  

Yet, the pursuit of the 100 mile week is ultimately the undoing of many runners.  Where did this arbitrary number come from, and are we so wedded to the idea of 100-or-bust?  

From my research, Jack Daniels suggests that aerobic benefit ceases around 70 – 75 miles per week. Beyond that number, runners simply improve their running economy as they add more mileage.  What I have yet to find, however, is any research on how a runner feels after hitting certain barriers in training, and how that mentality ultimately affects training.  

For instance, I take a shit-ton (that’s a scientific unit, right) of pride in being able to sustain 100 mile weeks sans injury.  Assuming I finish out this week as planned, I will have three 100 mile weeks under my belt in a row.  (kind of. One was a 98 mile week and the other a 97 – close enough).

As an aside, that’s another funny thing about 100 mile weeks – 98 miles is pretty damn near 100 miles, so why didn’t I round up?  For whatever reason, that 2% difference feels more significant than the difference between, say, 45 miles and 50 miles.  2% versus 10%.  This fact doesn’t make a whole lot of logical sense.

Also, this is where runners tend to run into problems.  You may be asking, if you were 3 miles from a 100 mile week, why didn’t you just go out and run an extra 3 miles?  Well, because that would be stupid.  It seems like high mileage would be filled with a lot of junk runs, but it really isn’t (at least not for me).  At a certain point, you realize there are weeks where you really shouldn’t run extra mileage for the sake of extra mileage, no matter what your log looks like at the end of the week.  I think that reaching this level of maturity is important, but it took me being a complete idiot to grasp that concept (i.e. the time I ran 115 miles the week I got food poisoning.  Not my best life decision).

So, again, why is 100 mile weeks considered this magic training number?  As far as I can tell, this started with Arthur Lydiard, who advocated high mileage running, but I can’t find anything that specifically says 100 miles is the magic number.  I’m curious if anyone has an idea why runners seem to feel that 100 mile weeks separate the women from the girls?

Frankly, I think that high mileage – at least when run consistently – is probably beneficial because it forces you to take care of all the little things that runners neglect if you want to continue to sustain this type of training.  For instance, there are certain rules one must abide by when hitting mega mileage, and those include:

Sleep:  my first few weeks of hundreds will require 10 – 12 hours of sleep (including naps). I hear stories occasionally of runners attempting 100 mile weeks off of 6 – 7 hours of sleep.  I think adrenaline can get you through maybe 2 weeks of that before your body crashes.

running lots of miles makes you tired.  coffee is important.

Self Care:  Even though my body feels best during big mileage, I acknowledge that it requires more care.  You can injure yourself in the dumbest ways when you’re running a lot (ask my massage therapist, she could probably write a book on the stupid ways I have tweaked muscles).  At the same time, a little bit of self care goes a long way at this mileage because your immune system is on high alert.  The other day I tweaked my calf muscle, and 6 hours of icing, recovery yoga, legs up the wall, foam rolling, stretching, compression sleeves, and having Dave dig his fingers into my calf resulted in a pain free run the next morning.  

Nutrition:  This is the trickiest part.  When you’re averaging 14.3 miles per day, you’re bound to run through a meal.  If you’re like me, you’re also not at all hungry after a hot and humid longer run.  Kefir, cheese, crackers, whole-fat foods, yogurt, protein shakes, and high-carb / high – calorie / high-protein foods are your best friend.  Also, all the popsicles.  

There is a conundrum at this mileage when it comes to nutrition.  You want to eat as healthy as possible, but healthy foods aren’t always calorie dense.  Sometimes your stomach fills up before you reach your caloric or macronutrient needs. It is so important at this mileage to remember that quantity (of calories) is sometimes more important than quality.  If all that is available to me in the foreseeable future is a big mac and fries, you better believe that is what I’m going to eat.  

sugar = glycogen = necessary

Singles vs. Doubles:  At 70 – 80 miles per week, doubles seem easier.  But, when I am 90+ mpw, I would much rather run singles.  I’m not sure why this is, but going for a 14 mile run sure as hell beats a lot of 8 and 6 mile days.  

Weight lifting:  I used to attempt high mileage weeks without lifting.  It was fine, for like 3 weeks.  Then I started noticing my imbalances and lack of lifting is probably what contributed to a lot of the problems I had in my right leg last year. My biggest takeaway from that experience:  if you can’t sustain your mileage + lifting, drop your mileage to the highest level you can sustain while getting in the extra work.  

Flexibility:  My massage therapist does range of motion and flexibility work.  Without seeing her every two weeks, there is no way I could ever sustain this mileage.  I also go to yoga once per week, and try to incorporate as much recovery into my weekly routine as possible.

Speed:  I was talking to someone recently who asked me what my three pieces of advice would be for a marathoner.  He was surprised when I said speed work, like strides, were one of the most important components.  There is a misconception that running a lot of mileage results in slowness.  That’s only true if you only run all of your mileage slowly.  I do speedwork and strides every week, and I know that when I am in peak marathon shape I could also PR in nearly every other distance.  

Pace:  I think another misconception is that “slow” miles are junk miles at high mileage - but I also think this idea is perpetuated by people who believe that all mileage must be fast.  There are times when I am in the best shape of my life that I do 10 mile runs in 90 minutes, or 20 mile runs in 2:40:00.  Some days you just have to meet your body where it’s at, and respect that when you’re running mega mileage there will be more opportunities for bad days. When that happens I just throw on some extra strides at the end and call it even.  Slow days (for you) don’t mean you aren’t in shape or that you’re losing fitness, it’s just important to remember that effort is more important than speed sometimes.

What Does a 100 Mile Week Look Like?

Here is what my most recent 100 mile week looked like:

Monday:  10 miles (double, 6 and 4) + yoga – I always do super easy 10 on Mondays, whether that means 10 in 90 minutes, or a little bit quicker but in doubles.  Recovery yoga is also an every Monday occurrence.

Tuesday:  2 mile warm up, strides, 8 mile tempo in 48:27, 2.5 mile cool down + weight lifting.  My plan was to hit 5:55 – 6:00 pace for this run, but with 14 mph winds and most of the route affected by the wind, I was very happy with this run.  Overall average was 6:03 pace, which is faster than my marathon PR and the effort felt great.

Wednesday:  8 miles easy AM, 3 miles easy PM, + massage.  Normally I would do 10 and 4 on Wednesday, but my sister was in town so things got changed to accommodate for all the walking we were going to do (4 miles of walking).

Thursday:  14 miles w/ last 400 m of each mile hard + weight lifting I love this workout.  Makes the miles go quickly and has great aerobic and anaerobic benefits.  I forgot my watch and nutrition, so I had to make an adjustment and run it as an out-and-back on a path that is marked every 400 m.  Not my favorite way to do this workout, but it’s always good to practice things going wrong for when crazy things happen on race day.

Friday:  4 miles AM, 12 miles PM + strides having friends to run with is nice!

Saturday:  21 miles, I have been running 20+ milers since early July, so now I am focusing more on quality than just time on my feet

Sunday:  15 miles, I like to join friends during their 20+ milers on Sunday so that I can get in a relaxed semi-long run.  Back to back long runs have been good for me!

So there it is.  I don’t know why I’m obsessed with high mileage – especially when I don’t really love running for the sake of running – but it does make me feel badass and powerful.  Do I think everyone should run 100 mile weeks?  No – especially if you are unable to recover from them or are unable to take care of the little things.  I do think there is something to be said for running the highest mileage that you can sustain individually if you are going after a goal, but much of that comes from the extra vigilance people use when chasing a new benchmark as well as the satisfaction they feel when new achievements have been reached!