Training is ticking along nicely, this last 2-3 weeks my focus has been on increasing leg and core strength and interval type training, some involving gradients, in the gym.
I am putting in around 2 hours a day of work, a minimum of 5 days per week, towards getting Ultra-marathon fit for my maiden Ultra in around 11 weeks time.
It certainly seems to be paying off when I tested my leg strength on a particular hilly 6 miler last week the day after an intense leg press/interval session..at the point where in previous runs I have begun to struggle I found myself powering up the hill with ease, breathing under control and an even natural stride length.
My focus now needs to be on putting some serious mileage down as all i've managed to bag in a week to date in the last 5-6 weeks has been 30 miles in 5 days...I need to up this now to around 40 initially and then 50 to ensure I have the leg endurance come race day and around 5 hours on the hills of the Sussex South Downs.
According to similar training routines posted on Ultra sites the advice is to hit a 3-4 hour long run maximum by 4 weeks before race day...hmmm...that's 3-4 times the length of my current long run, but walking is allowed when needed so im not too fazed by this task ahead and will build up gradually to hit that by mid May.
Diet wise I found the Paleo type plan, animal protein just didnt work as id hoped and experienced stomach cramps, lack of energy and enthusiasm for training all in the first 10 days, so I have switched back to a high fruit intake more along the 80/10/10 guidelines set out by Dr Douglas Graham and followed by an ever increasing number of endurance, strength and MMA athletes the world over to great effect.
Fuelling myself on mainly fruit and greens has improved my running fitness, body composition, moods, energy levels and recovery after exercise regardless of the miles/intense intervals i have put in and a 10 banana breakfast or 4 mango lunch has not been uncommon..something no other nutrition plan has done for me in the past.
So the next few weeks will really put to the test how many miles I really CAN get to the melon!!! :-)
Thanks for reading...until next time
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