00:00:00:00 - 00:00:04:25
Unknown
I am going to run an ultra marathon in ten days. And I am terrified.

00:00:04:25 - 00:00:10:11
Unknown
Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

00:00:10:12 - 00:00:17:20
Unknown
Last year my 21 kilometer runs at Spartan were taking approximately five hours.

00:00:17:20 - 00:00:25:03
Unknown
And now I'm going to attempt an ultra, which I hope I will finish in about 12 hours.

00:00:25:03 - 00:00:33:02
Unknown
Now if it was just a run, I wouldn't be so scared because I know I can just walk and continue going forward.

00:00:33:02 - 00:00:41:08
Unknown
but this is a spartan obstacle course, ultra marathon, which means that I will also have to do 60 obstacles.

00:00:41:08 - 00:00:46:08
Unknown
And I expect to fail at a lot of them

00:00:46:08 - 00:00:54:25
Unknown
because I can't do any monkey bars. I can't jump over the walls that are higher than six feet. Maybe not even six feet. Maybe,

00:00:54:25 - 00:00:58:07
Unknown
don't do a lot of heavy lifting to do the rope pulls.

00:00:58:07 - 00:01:09:20
Unknown
Yeah. And I entered myself in the competitive age group heat, which means that I cannot skip any obstacles which I was doing last year.

00:01:09:20 - 00:01:13:19
Unknown
I wish I could have trained upper body a little bit more, but

00:01:13:19 - 00:01:20:18
Unknown
I basically ramped up from zero miles per week to 30 miles per week in 12 weeks.

00:01:20:18 - 00:01:32:05
Unknown
And I really don't recommend that anyone do that. I actually got sick for a little bit in February, and I was running so much that I did not get better for over a month.

00:01:32:07 - 00:01:38:05
Unknown
So finally, I decided to take a break from running so that my body could heal,

00:01:38:06 - 00:01:48:16
Unknown
And then just before I started peaking my peak, we witnessed my highest mileage of my training. I took another break because I just felt absolutely wrecked.

00:01:48:16 - 00:02:01:03
Unknown
I had set a goal of 50 mile weeks, which like over the course of a week, run 50 miles. But that ended up being way too much. I couldn't get there.

00:02:01:03 - 00:02:20:18
Unknown
the minimum standard that Jason Cooper said, according to his podcast, was to run 30 mile weeks for three peak weeks at least six weeks out from your race. So what that essentially looks like is a peak week of 30 miles per week. Rest, recuperate. So maybe like half that.

00:02:20:20 - 00:02:33:10
Unknown
Rest. Recuperate. And then another peak week, 30 miles per week. Rest for a week. And then your third peak week 30 miles per week. And if you're able to finish that, then you are likely able to finish

00:02:33:10 - 00:02:37:02
Unknown
a 50 kilometer ultra marathon. Given that your training,

00:02:37:02 - 00:02:46:14
Unknown
terrain and your race terrain are similar, which mine are not because I run in very flat terrain.

00:02:46:17 - 00:03:04:28
Unknown
The city that I live in is very flat, and the race that I will be doing is not. It will probably be hilly. It's not going to be a crazy elevation change. It won't be like 5000ft. I don't think it might be around 2000, but I think they're going to be smaller and very steep climbs.

00:03:04:28 - 00:03:07:19
Unknown
So I haven't really trained for that either.

00:03:07:21 - 00:03:09:12
Unknown
So there's a lot of.

00:03:09:14 - 00:03:24:18
Unknown
Difficulties that I am coming up to into this race, but I really think that I've done the best that I could to train, given that I just set this goal for myself in January.

00:03:24:20 - 00:03:28:21
Unknown
I'm not successful yet, but things that I have learned.

00:03:28:21 - 00:03:33:05
Unknown
This training is that it's really, really important to

00:03:33:05 - 00:03:34:18
Unknown
gauge your body

00:03:34:18 - 00:03:36:04
Unknown
and listen to your body.

00:03:36:04 - 00:03:40:00
Unknown
Everyone has a goal and a plan and a schedule,

00:03:40:00 - 00:03:46:24
Unknown
but whether or not we are able to stick to that schedule all of the time might not be as much as you want.

00:03:46:25 - 00:03:53:12
Unknown
Especially my super, super aggressive goal of hitting 50 miles per week.

00:03:53:12 - 00:04:00:25
Unknown
Once I got to 30 miles per week, I was not having any more.

00:04:00:27 - 00:04:08:29
Unknown
I was basically sedentary at the end of last year due to a lot of inflammation in my foot.

00:04:08:29 - 00:04:28:17
Unknown
so the whole time that I've been ramping up my mileage this year since January, I've been very, very careful to not injure my foot any more. So I of course, someone's going to say, like, I could have tried harder, could have pushed myself harder, but I'm just not willing to risk the injury again.

00:04:28:24 - 00:04:53:02
Unknown
I already had the injury. It started in July last year. The inflammation in my foot, and I couldn't walk or run at all for a while because it was so bad, so I just really don't want to go through that again. I'm not going to push myself to that edge ever again, except maybe on race day, because it's race day and you've got adrenaline and all that stuff.

00:04:53:02 - 00:04:56:12
Unknown
And on race day, the number one thing is just to finish, right.

00:04:56:12 - 00:05:08:19
Unknown
So that's one thing that I would say is you can set your goal, you can make your plan. It's always good to have a plan so that you have an idea of what you want to do. But

00:05:08:19 - 00:05:16:11
Unknown
if you're not able to stick to it 100%, then give yourself a little bit of grace and just do the best that you can.

00:05:16:11 - 00:05:29:04
Unknown
just to add on to that point, a little bit more of listening to your body. When I got sick, I probably got sick end of January and it lasted all the way until mid mid-March.

00:05:29:06 - 00:05:37:26
Unknown
And that's because I think I was ramping up my mileage so much. I was pushing my body really hard, even though I was sleeping pretty well.

00:05:37:26 - 00:05:48:20
Unknown
I was just expending too much energy and wasn't giving myself the rest that I needed. So when I finally slowed down a little bit, that was when I started to feel better.

00:05:48:23 - 00:05:51:12
Unknown
After though, I also went to the doctor,

00:05:51:12 - 00:06:06:29
Unknown
got antibiotics, got antiviral medication, and got antiviral supplements and got a puffer. So slowing down, allowing my body to rest definitely helped. Yes, and also

00:06:06:29 - 00:06:11:23
Unknown
I went to the doctor, I got support and I got medication and that helped me as well.

00:06:11:23 - 00:06:37:09
Unknown
Another thing that I've learned on this ultramarathon journey is that although I'm trying to run for a very, very, very long time, I can also practice running faster. Sometimes I think that during the initial stages of my running, I was still building up a pace of running, and so I didn't really care about how fast I was going at all, actually.

00:06:37:09 - 00:06:46:06
Unknown
And I think that's the proper or the best mindset to have when you're starting to run is just there's only one goal is just to get out there and run.

00:06:46:07 - 00:06:54:14
Unknown
Now my endurance is a lot better. I feel like my fitness level is better. My cardiovascular health is a little bit better.

00:06:54:14 - 00:07:07:05
Unknown
I think the joints in my body are more accustomed to running now as well. And I'm starting to learn the movement pattern of what it's like to run properly.

00:07:07:07 - 00:07:16:21
Unknown
Now that I'm at this point, I feel like I can start to run a little bit faster. So maybe my next goal won't be,

00:07:16:21 - 00:07:29:07
Unknown
you know, longer in distance. Maybe my next goal will be to run a little bit faster. That's going to be a completely different challenge and completely different training than I have done.

00:07:29:07 - 00:07:33:08
Unknown
I normally don't like to push myself that hard

00:07:33:08 - 00:07:34:04
Unknown
physically,

00:07:34:04 - 00:08:02:09
Unknown
like max high intensity intervals. They just feel really bad to me. But I think that's because I wasn't fit before and I didn't know what that felt like. And it felt very, very uncomfortable. But now that my pace fitness is a little bit higher, it's starting to feel less uncomfortable and I'm starting to feel really good about pushing myself harder.

00:08:02:11 - 00:08:14:23
Unknown
So yeah, that's something that I'm going to consider for next time. Maybe not increasing my distance anymore. Like, do I really need to run farther than 50km? I'm not sure. I probably don't need to. So

00:08:14:23 - 00:08:15:23
Unknown
maybe

00:08:15:23 - 00:08:29:15
Unknown
going back to the 21km or even the ten kilometers and doing it a little bit faster, I think that would be a really good goal, and I don't have to spend 12 hours a week running.

00:08:29:15 - 00:08:37:03
Unknown
Third lesson or thing that I wish I would have done more in this training block is doing more pull up

00:08:37:03 - 00:08:51:06
Unknown
and upper body work. I definitely do upper body at the gym once a week. However, I don't know if I've actually made direct progress on my pull ups. Probably not, because I just I really don't like pull ups.

00:08:51:07 - 00:08:58:04
Unknown
that's like something I want to work on. I want to convince myself to like, pull ups.

00:08:58:04 - 00:09:01:03
Unknown
Even though I think it's going to take a lot of convincing.

00:09:01:03 - 00:09:10:04
Unknown
But like I said before, my base level fitness is higher this year than it was last year. So I think I'm starting to enjoy more that.

00:09:10:04 - 00:09:12:06
Unknown
Pushing of oneself.

00:09:12:07 - 00:09:19:10
Unknown
I am really looking forward to finishing this race, because I want to start focusing on other things other than running,

00:09:19:10 - 00:09:43:05
Unknown
which I haven't had the capacity to do before this race, because I didn't have that base mileage yet. So I thought that the most important thing leading up to this ultra marathon would be to get my base mileage up so that I just had legs that were I'd be able to finish 50km because I did it before, but now I might.

00:09:43:05 - 00:09:49:28
Unknown
yeah, I'm really excited to get back into yoga, Pilates, stretching. I want to work on my skills.

00:09:49:28 - 00:10:04:14
Unknown
I want to work on headstands pull ups, the splits. I have a whole bunch of goals that were kind of put aside for this training block, because the number one priority was increasing my base mileage.

00:10:04:14 - 00:10:11:27
Unknown
so that's been my ultra marathon training journey so far. I started mid January and now

00:10:11:27 - 00:10:16:02
Unknown
mid May I will be doing the big five oh

00:10:16:02 - 00:10:17:20
Unknown
kilometers, not miles.

00:10:17:20 - 00:10:28:17
Unknown
I'm scared. But I'm excited. I'm looking forward to how it goes. I am terrified, I am terrified, but I'm just telling myself that if I wasn't terrified that the goal wasn't

00:10:28:17 - 00:10:31:01
Unknown
big enough, it wasn't stretched.

00:10:31:03 - 00:10:31:27
Unknown
It wasn't.

00:10:31:27 - 00:10:46:28
Unknown
A good got a good goal is something that you could possibly fail at because if you knew you were going to succeed 100% about your goals, then you probably set a goal that was too easy, right? So.

00:10:46:28 - 00:10:47:23
Unknown
It's a good goal.

00:10:47:23 - 00:10:49:13
Unknown
So that's all I've got for you.

00:10:49:13 - 00:10:56:00
Unknown
We'll see you in probably 2 to 3 weeks after the race. I'm going to recap and let you know how it goes.

00:10:56:00 - 00:11:04:29
Unknown
if you have any questions that you want me to answer in that next video, then drop a comment, send me a message and I'll do my best to answer it next time.

00:11:05:01 - 00:11:08:29
Unknown
See you later. I just let myself see you later. Bye.