"April showers brings May...."
A Start to My Month of 5s.
The fifth month of May is upon us and here we are still faced with a different world with covid-19 pandemic. I am going to challenge myself and make the 5th month of the year, My Month of 5s. I will be aiming for the following goals of during the 5th month of 2020:55 miles per week (minimum)revised 2020-05-10 --> goal of 70 mile weekly average, which works out to just over 555 km.5 km per day that i'm active (or more)revised 2020-05-05 --> goal of 5 km every day of the challenge: all 35 days5 runs per week (or more)revised 2020-05-05 --> same as above thus = run daily!- 50 km ultramarathon each of the 5 Saturdays (or Sundays - if delayed by weather/family issue)
Why? Why Not. Keep yourself motivated and active during these times is important. Not just for your everyday athlete but for anyone. I'm not saying you need to go run an ultramarathon every weekend, but I think it is valuable to at least commit to staying active and getting outside, while of course abiding by the local rules and guidelines that may be in place in your area. I challenge you to get out and even walk on a regular basis, do more biking, or simply trying something new and beyond your normal comfort. *Again please stay safe in these times and follow your local rules and most certainly the CDC guidelines.*
Below is my tentative schedule, and it starts today! I rarely take rest days so I will probably run 6-7 times a week still in going for my goals because well I just love to run and stay active. You can follow along daily with my STRAVA account (https://www.strava.com/athletes/16130969).
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| "My Month of 5s" tracking sheet |
A huge thank you to Trail Racing Over Texas (Rob & Rachel Goyen) for not only converting some existing races into virtual options, but also coming up with a whole other mini virtual summer series to keep the trail community motivated and engaged. Thank you.
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| Register for TROT virtual races here: https://trail-racing-over-texas.myshopify.com/collections/trot-virtual-races Open from now until 2020-Aug-01. Full updates follow at @trailracingovertexas |
WEEK 1 (Apr 27th - May 3rd)
My Week: Kept up my training while doing some of my #EverySingleStreet Sugar Land project work as well. On Tuesday I had a really decent workout for me. A 5 mile tempo at my half-10k pace where I nailed it and actually felt very well at the end. I have been trying to have at least 1 speed workout per week since the beginning of 2020. Rest of week was filled with mix of trails and road streets to make up my mileage. Kept active everyday.My Race (Crazy Desert Virtual Run 50 km): Woke up bright and early for this one as I knew it would be a warm day. Started off with a 400m TROT time trial at full speed to get my blood flowing which i came away with 71 seconds (not my fastest, but speed is not my specialty either). Then leaving from my house, I spent the day leisurely travelling around Sugar Land area linking up all my mountain bike trails by the Brazos River (there is ~24 miles worth). I tacked on the extra mileage with a slight detour back home in the end to ensure correct distance. A fairly easy pace for myself and had a very enjoyable time listening to a couple podcasts and simply enjoying the local trails.
Ultra #058. STRAVA activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/3386469368
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| My Crazy Desert Virtual 50 km linking up all the Sugar Land mountain bike trails on the Brazos River. |
WEEK 2 (May 4th - May 10th)
My Week: After 2 weeks at I have now revised my goal for May to not only hit that 55 mi minimum but aim for an average of 70 miles per week over this 6 week block (includes the 1 week prior to this challenge where i hit 68.7 mi). I think this will be a great training block for me. I was going to have a big May initially anyway building up towards California Untamed 330 mi, but it has since been delayed to 2021 in the wake of the pandemic. I have decided this should not alter my training process to much and I will use this time to focus on my own build anyway. My Month of 5s is just a great way to stay motivated to do so. I did have one workout this week on Wednesday where I kept it simple and did a short speed intervals of 2 sets of (5 x 1min @ 5:30 pace, w/ 2min recovery) with 5 min jog between sets. My goal lately is to do at least 1 speed type workout per week as part of my training stimulus. In the past I have been very sparse on this on not very consistent.
My Race (Wildlflower Virtual Run 50 km): Alarm was set for 03:30 super bright and early. Packed up my gear in my Victory Sportdesign gear bags and Nathan pack and hit the road North from my home in Sugar Land to the Lone Star Hiking Trail (LSHT) out in Sam Houston National Forest. I was drawn to the forest, I had to go. I've been wanting to run the LSHT in its entirely for awhile now, and I have just not put a date to it yet. But I took this weekend as a chance to get out and explore some more of the trail. I started prior to sunrise at trailhead #10 and headed east and south following the blazes marking the trail past trailhead #11, #12, #13 and went out a full 16 miles (which put me at mile marker 84). Here I turned around and returned back to my car at the parking at trailhead #10 to complete my mileage. The miles were easy pace and so relaxing. I soaked up nature and simply enjoyed the trails and forest. The second half on the way back west I saw a few hikers getting out to enjoy nature as well, but not a lot. I may have to return back up here soon for more long runs. I hope to complete this full trail and give the FKT (Fastest Known Time) a go in the fall/winter when the weather cools off again.
My Race (Wildlflower Virtual Run 50 km): Alarm was set for 03:30 super bright and early. Packed up my gear in my Victory Sportdesign gear bags and Nathan pack and hit the road North from my home in Sugar Land to the Lone Star Hiking Trail (LSHT) out in Sam Houston National Forest. I was drawn to the forest, I had to go. I've been wanting to run the LSHT in its entirely for awhile now, and I have just not put a date to it yet. But I took this weekend as a chance to get out and explore some more of the trail. I started prior to sunrise at trailhead #10 and headed east and south following the blazes marking the trail past trailhead #11, #12, #13 and went out a full 16 miles (which put me at mile marker 84). Here I turned around and returned back to my car at the parking at trailhead #10 to complete my mileage. The miles were easy pace and so relaxing. I soaked up nature and simply enjoyed the trails and forest. The second half on the way back west I saw a few hikers getting out to enjoy nature as well, but not a lot. I may have to return back up here soon for more long runs. I hope to complete this full trail and give the FKT (Fastest Known Time) a go in the fall/winter when the weather cools off again.
Ultra #059. STRAVA activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/3426186846
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| My Wildflower Virtual Run on the Lone Star Hiking Trail (LSHT) |
WEEK 3 (May 11th - May 17th)
My Week: Into my 4th straight relatively high volume week now and legs are starting to feel a bit heavy. But that did not stop me as this week was my highest yet. In fact I decided to take my "workout Wednesday" and do a long run in the form of an FKT attempt very last minute. I had discovered the Turkey Creek Trail somewhat randomly browsing the FKT sight and thought it would be cool to do some time. Since I am currently on a furlough week from work I took the opportunity to do it. I managed to set the unsupported FKT on this route. You can read all the details on my trip report.
Ultra #060. STRAVA activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/3445107996
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| An impromptu FKT attempt on the Turkey Creek Trail in the Big Thicket National Preserve. |
My Race (Possums Revenge Virtual Run 56 km): I had moved my planned race on Saturday over to Sunday to avoid some anticipated thunderstorms coming in on Saturday in my area. I did squeek in my #QuarantinedQuarter run for 5km around my pool though. Sunday a.m. I got out my Sugar Land map of my #EverySingleStreet project and found a nice big blank area in the middle of the map. I headed out early and ran around the neighborhoods checking off streets and simply filling in my map. I made 2 pit stops back at my parked van, self-supported style, to refill my water. A great morning listening to some podcasts and checking off my map.
Ultra #061. STRAVA activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/3467976350
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| Completed Possums Revenge as well as checking off more streets for my #EverySingleStreet Sugar Land project. |
WEEK 4 (May 18th - May 24th)
My Week: As my mileage has been consistent now at my higher mileage of ~70 miles per week I have been felling pretty decent. Thus far I am happy how my body is handling the load. Some other goals would be to get a bit more sleep and keep up my strength work and yoga I have been dabbling in with my wife. I did put in 2 harder workout this week. On Tuesday I did some intervals on 2 mins on, 2 mins off. I was aiming for about 10 reps, but I accidently stopped my watch (instead of the lap) after the 6th rep. I called it there, and just finished with a cooldown run to finish off the day. My second workout was on Friday when i took on a faster 5 km run. There is this STRAVA challenge right now called Run For Heroes Faster 5k Friday and this is week2 of the challenge. I have mapped out a perfect 5 km route from my home and now using this as a fitness gauge to time trial myself every once in a while and to complete this challenge over the next 3 more weeks now.
My Race (The Sweaty Yeti Virtual Run 50 km): I wanted to get out and get some vertical gain into my runs so I took the long weekend opportunity to drive out to San Antonio, TX for this weekends 50 km challenge.
My Race (The Sweaty Yeti Virtual Run 50 km): I wanted to get out and get some vertical gain into my runs so I took the long weekend opportunity to drive out to San Antonio, TX for this weekends 50 km challenge.
It was supposed to be cloudy and a chance of storms in the afternoon so I thought it would be nice cool running weather - that turned out to be false! I started out at the famous Powerlines segment and was going to just do 5 reps (it's a perfect 10 km out&back). The morning was about 87f and 100% humidity. Eventually it cooled down a bit to mid-70s but I was slowing down badly. I struggled to keep pace and to change it up I just started doing other off trails and routes to get the mileage in. The sun came out late morning and I was down to a death hike to get the run completed. After many long breaks (including one short nap). I managed to grind out the mileage and complete The Sweaty Yeti. This is my slowest 50 km run to date, but my lesson today was grit= don't quit. Proud of myself afterwards on getting it done.
Ultra#062. STRAVA activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/3506847198
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| Utilizing a facet to cool down. Rough day running for me. |
WEEK 5 (May 25th - May 31st)
My Week: Another solid week of training was had. Initially I was a bit worried coming off Sunday's horrible run that lasted literally twice as long as I would have anticipated. But I took a couple short recovery days early in the week and that definitely helped a lot in terms of overall outlook on my week. I did not do a mid week workout like I have been accustomed too for this same reason. On Friday I did a 5 km tempo run at decently-hard effort and was using this as a baseline for HR training moving forward (I have been wanting to do this for a long time, but have never gotten around to it). I also added one final workout at the very end of the week post-race and to finish off the month (see more details on this in the Summary section.
My Race (Double Dragon Virtual Run 50 km): I did not put a lot of thought into the pre-planning for this virtual run and so the night before I grabbed my Sugar Land maps and looked where I was lacking in terms of my street progression a long run would benefit from and help knock off a big chuck. With this strategy I found my "route" a mere 12 hours before the run. I knew the area and parked at a local park where I planned on lots of streets and also left the options of some local trails to mix in. This is exactly how it played out as I took a casual approach and did about 20 miles of streets and completing a lot of my Sugar Land #EverySingleStreet project and then did the remaining 11 miles or so on the local trails to mix it up and also provide some fun back into this last virtual 50 km. I did enjoy the run very much and got another 64 streets done at the same time.
Ultra #063. STRAVA activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/3536571299My Race (Double Dragon Virtual Run 50 km): I did not put a lot of thought into the pre-planning for this virtual run and so the night before I grabbed my Sugar Land maps and looked where I was lacking in terms of my street progression a long run would benefit from and help knock off a big chuck. With this strategy I found my "route" a mere 12 hours before the run. I knew the area and parked at a local park where I planned on lots of streets and also left the options of some local trails to mix in. This is exactly how it played out as I took a casual approach and did about 20 miles of streets and completing a lot of my Sugar Land #EverySingleStreet project and then did the remaining 11 miles or so on the local trails to mix it up and also provide some fun back into this last virtual 50 km. I did enjoy the run very much and got another 64 streets done at the same time.
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| Running along the Oyster Creek Trails on the latter third of my run. I love trails! |
Summary & Conclusions.
My weekly mileage totals this month is on the higher side (for me I usually average ~40-45 miles). I was planning on a large block in May-June building toward California Untamed 330 mi, but unfortunately that has been postponed till 2021. However I have decided to keep my training volume high during this month and build my fitness anyway - long term goals. Below are my final numbers for the month:
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| My Month of 5s - Final Stats. |
- COMPLETED - goal (revised) of 70 mile weekly average, which works out to just over 555 km
- achieved 607.72 km (377.62 mi)
- COMPLETED - goal (revised) of 5 km every day of the challenge: all 35 days
- achieved all 35 days > 5 km
- COMPLETED - run 5 days a week or more
- achieved running all 35 days thus each week was done in the process
- COMPLETEd - 50 km ultramarathon each of the 5 weekends
- completed all 5 ultras done, and also did an extra FKT in there as well, so i got 6 ultras in with this extra unplanned long run.
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| #MyMonthof5s Pictured here with all 5 medals - crafted by Elevation Culture. |
So how do I feel after creating this self imposed challenge for myself? Well honestly I feel great. My body has adapted to running a lot more mileage in training than I have normally been accustomed to even though I have go above these numbers many times due to my love for ultra races. I have been thinking a lot over the month of how this training block will benefit me in the future and well to finish off the month I threw down a hard 5 km effort to see how my body is holding up. Keep in mind this was my second run of the day and also after a moderate 50 km the day before. I am extremely happy that I came away with my second fasted 5 km time in a solo time trail setting with a split of 0:18:58 for the 5 km. My fitness has definitely benefited from this Month of May. I will now take a couple weeks of lower volume and absorb the training and let my body adjust.
What's next? The age old question for an ultra runner.
Now that I have had this nice solid training block I will throw down a 100 miler in the near future - I have a virtual Blazing 7s 100 mi entry I need to complete before August. But most of all I am excited to get back to some real racing events. We have just gotten word here in Texas that TROT has been allowed to put on all of their fall series events currently and so I will be highly looking forward to most of those events. Can not wait to hit the trails again with the entire #TROTtribe and throw down with trail friends and just simply enjoy the fact that I can participate in this great sport of ultrarunning.
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Next up: Blazing 7s Virtual run 100 mi
Thank you for following along.
