This past week was my fifth week of training for the North Face 50K on April 9. My mileage is starting to ramp up a bit and this ultra training thing is starting to seem more real. I finished this week feeling strong and confident, with one third of the training behind me. I know it’s going to get much, much tougher in the weeks to come. But I have to say, I’m really enjoying this process so far!

Monday – Rest.

Tuesday – 3 mile easy run on the treadmill, followed by some strength training. I decided to do some ‘real life’ strength training and shoveled the foot of snow off of our front walk.

Wednesday – 4 mile hill workout on the treadmill. My run included six quarter mile hill repeats with a total of 464 feet in elevation gain.

Thursday – Rest.

Friday – Cross training: Jillian Michael’s 30 day shred level 3 DVD workout

Saturday – 16 mile long run around Blacksburg. I had to do this run all on paved trails, since the dirt trails I normally run are still covered with deep snow. A couple of my friends were down visiting for the weekend. My one friend, Jackie, and I try and get together for a run when she’s in town. When she initially asked me about what my plans were for the weekend, I told her I had a 16 miler on Saturday. I asked if she wanted to join me for part of the run, but she enthusiastically said she would try and run the whole thing. She’s never run more than 6 miles. We ran a route that would allow her to drop around 10 miles if she wanted to. But lo and behold she toughed it out and ran the whole way with me. I was very impressed!

It was a gorgeous day for a long run. The temperature was in the upper 20’s at the start and it warmed up to the 40’s by the finish. We started out on a trail I used to run on in college all of the time – the Huckleberry trail. We also explored a new trail that connects to it. I was happy to find all of these trails had been cleared of snow.

On our way back, we decided to run around the Virginia Tech campus for a bit. We made our way over to the football stadium, and found that the entrance to the tunnel was unlocked! This is the tunnel that the football players run through when they come onto the field.

It was fun to go out onto the field in the snow and look at the empty stadium.

At this point we were at mile 10 and decided to start making our way across town towards to the house where a bunch of our college friends live (and where my friends who were visiting were staying for the weekend). We ran by their house a little past mile 14.5, and they came out to cheer us on as we ran by. Then, after a mile and a half out and back that felt very long, we finally hit 16 miles!

Our cars were actually about two miles away, back at the beginning of the trail where we started our run. So we had to get a ride back over there to get them. First, though, I oversaw Jackie’s very first ice bath which she actually completed by sitting in the front yard and burying her legs in the snow.

Sunday – 4 mile run with Kim in the afternoon. I was worried that my legs would be sore, after running my 16 miler all on pavement the day before. Surprisingly, I wasn’t sore at all. I just felt a bit tired.

It was a gorgeous day out, and Kim and I both got to wear shorts. We thought it looked funny to be running in shorts in the snow, so we snapped a picture at the halfway point.

Much of the run was in the snow, since the trail is still covered in a couple inches of snow in most places. That made for a fun run, though. I also started breaking in new shoes. Same model as my old ones, but these are purple – my favorite color!

Total Miles: 27 miles
January total: 102 miles

This weekly workout recap is part of the Weekly Wrap link up, hosted by HoHo Runs and MissSippiPiddlin’.

How was your weather this weekend?
Who else is in training for something? How is it going so far?