Official Day 1 of Stumpjump 50k Training

Well... here we go. After a couple months of slacking off with my running a bit (which, shockingly... I kinda enjoyed), it's time to get back into hardcore training mode.

I spent some time yesterday pouring over some training schedules, I flirted with Higdon and Pfitzinger again and I reviewed a plan from an old Marathon and Beyond Magazine. I crosshatched those plans with the Nashville Striders Group Fall Marathon Training Runs and I even looked at a race calendar to find any logistically doable marathons to use a training run.

After spending about 20 minutes looking through all that, I came to the conclusion that I absolutely hate that training plan shit and that I'm just going to do my own thing. My daily running Mantra is going to be this: run far. Farther than you want. And don't be a wussy.

So, to start the training off, I met up with my super speedy running partner, Anonymous Commenter (AC) for a tempo run. Initially, I was thinking... If I can get in a good 4.5 mile run with him today, I'll be happy. So we met at the park and got started. We were clicking along and I'd glance at my watch every so often and see that we were maintaining a pretty decent pace and by the time we got to the 2.25 mile marker, I thought of my mantra and pushed on another quarter of a mile before we turned around, so that we ended up with 5 miles instead of 4.5. (woot woot! no wussing out on day 1!).

Overall, I felt challenged, but strangely good, too. I never run that fast, but I kinda felt like maybe I could more often (if I wasn't such a pansy). When I looked at our splits, I was amazed that I felt so good:

Mile 1 8:55
Mile 2 8:18
Mile 3 8:16
Mile 4 8:14
Mile 5 8:05

Who am I????? It's like 10,000 effing degrees outside with 215% humidity and I'm busting out an 8:05 on the last mile???

Be afraid Stumpjump, be very, very afraid.