Moving around the schedule

Although I'm afraid to commit to a fall marathon, not being sure that I ever want to run one again, I'm thinking seriously about a 50k trail race next spring. For those of you not accustomed to running math: marathon = 26.2 miles while 50k = 31.1 miles.

So what would possess someone who's experiencing marathon anxiety to think about running a race that's about 5 miles longer? Ironically, less pressure. At least mentally, and face it, running is 90% mental (say it with me: and the other half is physical). One of the awesome things about trail racing, at least for me, is that the challenge is entirely in finishing and still feeling like you want to continue living. Zero time pressure, sort of like my flirtation with low heart rate training. Doesn't matter how fast I go because it's all about keeping my heart rate between 135 and 145.

I've got myself a 50k training plan, which has about the same number of miles per week as the marathon training plan I used last year, but the runs are moved around so that you're running a long run on one day and then a medium long run the following day. That translates into running both weekend days, which might not be real popular on the home front, but will result in less hectic weekdays, as I'll have Mondays and Fridays off. We'll see how it goes. I'm instituting a trial of this schedule for June. This weekend will be 12 miles on Saturday followed by 6 miles on Sunday.