How Mountain Mist Compares/Affects My Upcoming Little Rock Marathon

My Mountain Mist 50K time of 5:11:03 averages to 10:02 miles.  My marathon pace is 7:15 (for a 3:10).  A loose rule of thumb is that you can add 2 hours to your marathon time and get your Mountain Mist time. For the more elite runners, this is not the case, but I have found it to be a pretty good loose rule of thumb for me.  This year it happened to be almost exactly 2 hours difference from my recent marathon time.

Yes, a 50K (31 miles) is only 6 miles more than a marathon, but in Mountain Mist there are tough trails and major elevation change.  There are sections where most runners don't run.  I walk on the steep uphills (K-2, Waterline, and McKay Hollow---see below), and I walk into each aid station too (since I enjoy taking a short break and properly getting my bottle filled by the volunteers).  Though there are many rocky sections, I like running those (you just have to be careful where you land).  The last 1.8 miles of Mountain Mist are flat, and this year I was able to run them in 14:41, or an 8:09 pace.  I considered this to be a great accomplishment.  The rest of the race takes a toll by that point.  

 Oh, and here are the white trail shoes....before the race!

Rick and I never really focus on Mountain Mist the way we do a marathon.  I do not train specifically for that race except for a couple of trail runs and a couple of long runs.  For the marathon, I do many more pace-specific runs.  But after the race, I am more tired and spent than I am after a marathon.  I am more "beat up" too.  I have blisters, cuts, black toenails, and dirt ground into my heel that won't wash away.  I feel very tired all over my body, not just my legs.

Mountain Mist has really caused my marathon training to be all over the place for Little Rock.  I aimed at focusing on Little Rock, but just as I was getting into my grove with the training, I hit the taper for Mountain Mist.  I really didn't plan for Mountain Mist to be a goal race, but I still knew I needed a good taper for it if I was going to have the strength to run it.

And then last week was a recovery week.  Yes, the whole week!  I ended up getting a bug or food poisoning on the Tuesday after MM.  I felt very weak, nauseous, and lethargic for a few days---just as I was starting to feel better from the race.

I sound down about MM, but I am actually very happy that I finished and that I PRed this year.  Eight years worth of running the race has paid off in terms of my knowing how to run the race.  I will always love the challenge of this race and the memories it holds for me.  I don't have a streak at any race, but since I've run MM multiple times, I have many memories of earlier stages of my life when I ran the same trails.  Trail running almost forces you to be reflective as you look at nature all around you.  I think about who I was when I began running this race.  I am so different now.

But back to Little Rock.  At this point, I've only hit 3 or 4 key workouts for Little Rock.  I am still struggling to maintain pace on pace runs, and I haven't done many tempo or track runs at faster than pace.  So I'm thinking I may have to adjust my goal time for Little Rock.  For now, I plan to run as closely as I can to my training program and assess how I feel I've done in 2 more weeks.  While Rick is doing a program for "5 weeks between marathons," I am still doing Hal's Advanced program (just added MM to it as a long run and took last week to recover).

Today's 10 miler was the kind of run where I just wanted to quit, but I forced myself to press on.  I told myself to focus on only my breath (and not my legs which still feel tried).  I never got to where I was breathing hard, so I felt good when I forced myself not to think about my legs.  I also feel like my heart is very taxed from MM.  I've had to do other "tricks" to get myself to run fast these days.  To get my miles to pace a few weeks ago, I had to turn up my music very loudly and run laps around the track.  I know having to find all of these "tricks" to make myself go isn't good.  I feel tired and ready for a break.

On a better note, I taught Science to my preschoolers this week.  I either look very cool or very nerdy in this picture, but the kids loved it so that's all that counts!  We did an experiment with celery and colored water.