RunFasterSarah (my running adventures)

Better late than never?! I did want to write about my 100 mile week…

First off, let me just start by saying I DID IT!!!!

I freaking did it. I ran 100 miles in one week. Between Monday, August 31st and Sunday, September 6th I ran one hundred miles (160km). As you can tell, although it’s now nearly a month later, I’ve not yet completely come down from cloud 9, to where I was immediately elevated the minute I completed my last mile of that one hundred.

In my last post, it was Thursday and I’d thus far completed 53.8 miles. Barely over the half way mark. But really, that’s jumping ahead. Let me go back for a minute.

Day number one. I rolled out of bed at 5am. Dark. Wet. Rainy. Gloomy. Windy. Plus I was starving! And my legs were tired. Who’s idea was this anyway?!! But nevermind, it was day number one and that was exciting enough in itself to help me push through just about anything! Really, it was easy done.

It was a busy day at work that day and I waited for hubby to get home until getting set for my second run of the day. Again, easy stuff – so motivated at the beginning!

After we ran, we watched replays of all the running events that went down at the world championships the week before in Beijing. Although the speed these elites run at is obviously completely unattainable for us, it was nonetheless extremely inspiring, just watching their determination and effort they put in made us want to do the same. We couldn’t wait to get out there and smash our tempo run the next morning!

Now, upon getting out there the next morning, no smashing took place. We finished our warmup, looked at each other, and jogged back home. Legs were dead. I don’t know why they felt so drained, but I can tell you that I pretty much thought my 100 mile week was over right then and there.

Once again I’d failed. We promised to try again that evening. Another busy day in the office (aka sitting at my ‘desk’ hanging off the side of our living room) and all to quickly it was time to give the workout another go.

Amazingly, I rocked it. We both rocked it. Smashed it in fact! My last repeat was by far my fastest. I honestly thought I had nothing in me to give that evening. Just goes to show that we really can’t tell what we’ve got in us until we go out and give it everything we’ve got.

After crushing that workout (and then drinking ALL the tart cherry juice) we were honestly looking forward to the next run, and I for one was happy to see only a single run on the schedule for Wednesday. Although, it was a longish one!

After a bit of a sleep in Wednesday morning and another crazy work day, hubby arrived home early for our run so I shut down and we took off. I’m not sure how I got so lucky as to have a partner run many of my 100 mile week runs with me, but once again hubby ran the entire run with me.

I started off feeling great but he struggled to get into the run so I talked him through it… Then right when he was feeling good and I started to struggle as we ran into a strong headwind, he talked me through it.

And then as if in a fairytale of sorts we ran smack into a rainbow. Seriously. Amazing.

While the week started with some crappy weather and a few struggle runs, it had definitely turned a corner. Which brings me back to Thursday. Thursday morning was a great run with Team Awesome Run Crew – everyone needs one of these! I had 2km of pickups in this run – I didn’t really feel like doing anything speedier than easy, but again surprised myself. That bit of speed was completely doable and my paces were actually speedy!!

This was followed by yet another crazy work day. I seriously love my work. But at that point I also seriously wondered if I should scale back somehow. But that day was not the day to do so. That day finished with a solo run. And it was a good one.

And at this point I know I’ve pushed past the half way mark in my 100 mile week. I started to feel like this is really going to happen! But I was also tired.

So on Friday hubby and I took the day off. Slept in and then got out for the longish run on the schedule.

We got a taste of what it might be like for elites whose daily work it is to run. The fatigue I’d felt yesterday was gone. It is truly amazing what good sleep can do!

And then we finished off our Friday off with a short easy shakeout run in beauty weather. It’s at this point in the week I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the support my husband has given me, certainly throughout this particular week but also just always. He ran so many of this weeks mileage by my side, stride for stride, when in fact he is a much faster runner than me.

Saturday dawned another gorgeous day and with it, the need to run a couple of activation runs. Sunday was scheduled to be quite the workout – 25km at marathon pace – so the two Saturday runs were really just about keeping it easy and shaking out the legs. I kept the first one really easy and was feeling good.

And then, life. My furbaby Sparkle got stung by a bee and while she didn’t have an allergic reaction, she got very sick very quickly and was in my arms all afternoon. I debated bothering to go out again – I was quite worried. All of a sudden the importance of my 100 mile week faded. Perspective. But hubby took Sparkle into his arms and motioned me out the door.

Which brought my total for the week to 80 miles. And all that was left was to go run VanRace 30km the next morning.

Sunday dawned another beautiful morning. I wasn’t too nervous – mostly just anxious to start running! I won’t say for a second it was easy – that was definitely a challenge, one I’ll save to write about in a separate post. But I crossed that finish line absolutely  elated, with a total of 101 miles for the week.

Yup, I overacheived. An extra mile for the just in case! LOL

But seriously, I crossed that finish line, realized what I’d just done – and at that moment realized once again, as I have now many times before – that we really are capable of some pretty darn amazing things once we truly set our minds to them.

Run faster…