training

42 Mile Run on MD Segment of the Appalachian Trail - The Training (Solo Adventure Series)

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Growing up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, I have treasured her ancient slopes since before I can remember. I learned how to drive (a manual at that) on her winding one lane roads. I was taught mountain ecology on hikes with my ever-curious father. Prom dinner was at a restaurant nestled right along her spine. I watched with envy as my brothers embarked on backpacking trips with the boy scout troop, traversing miles of mountain trail over long weekends with all their friends. I told myself one day I too would come back with wicked memories of time on trail, just like them.

Over the years, my love for adventure along the Appalachian Trail evolved from simple day-hikes to backpacking. Eventually, that love for running evolved to a love for trail running. Embracing the wild of the mountain trail for hours on end became an escape for me. I heard people ran along the AT, but wasn’t quite convinced. In the lead up to my first 50k, I decided to give it a go. From a trailhead near my hometown, I stepped on to the trail with a new vision in front of me, and slowly built my confidence in gliding along the undulating rocky trail.

A Challenge Unfolds

When the coronavirus pandemic descended upon the United States, I had just been cleared to run again after over a year of recovery from an ankle break that just did not want to heal. Stuck at home in Washington, DC, I used running as my escape from the world. I began to log local miles, masked and distanced. I ran along the Anacostia River multiple times a week, soaking up a little urban outdoor oasis.

By May, my early and eager motivation to remain active during lockdown began to fade. Given that I had nothing to do when I wasn’t working, I knew this dip in motivation was bad news for myself. Surreptitiously one day, I received an email from the folks who put on the Patapsco 50k I ran back in 2017 – turned out they had put together a coaching business and were looking for athletes right at the time I was looking for coaching support.

I told my coach my goal for the year was to complete a solo marathon. And so that’s what I trained for. Throughout the summer and into the fall I trained diligently. But as the fall faded to early winter, I lost complete and utter motivation once again. I ran my 20-mile training run, then just … stopped. I just didn’t want to run anymore. I was tired. Exhausted. Burnt out and emotionally zapped. I hit pause on running. I just couldn’t stomach the idea.

As the holidays came and went, the seed of an idea that had been planted when I first stepped on the Appalachian Trail with my running shoes years before began to germinate. My next running project. My winter motivation.

I was going to run the Maryland section of the Appalachian Trail. I was going to do it solo.

Maryland Section of the AT

The Appalachian Trail in Maryland is quite short, all things considered. Just around 42 miles from border to border, the trail cuts through a narrow part of the state along the Frederick and Washington County borders.

The trail in this area is relatively well trafficked, given its vicinity to Washington and Baltimore, as well as all the towns and communities in the surrounding vicinity. I have never been out on the trail and not seen another person.

Over the course of those 42ish miles, there is roughly 7,000 feet of elevation gain. These gains are primarily achieved through a series of major climbs, supplemented by some continuous rolling trail, especially in the northern portion.

Training

I had never run further than about 34 or so miles before, and never gained more than about 4,600 feet of elevation in any race. This was truly going to be a challenge of pure physical and mental strength for me.

Between Christmas and New Years, my grand plan began to shape. I knew my motivation was likely to wane if I pushed this idea off too far into the future. I also knew I was not in super solid endurance shape. And I knew I was turning 30 in April, and it would be my second COVID birthday to boot.

My 30th birthday became my goal. Do something epic to signify the changing decade and set the tone for what I wanted out of the next chapter of my life.

I created a spreadsheet for training, with day-to-day instructions for how I would get to where I needed to be. I began with a master training log – projecting out long runs, and anticipating weekly volume and elevation needs to get my body to where it needed to by my birthday.

The plan started on December 28th, with week 1 training volume at 23 miles, slowly ramping up to 30 miles by week 5 and 40 miles by week 11. I take my mileage volume load very seriously these days after a devastating injury training for the New York Marathon a few years ago.

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I got even more specific in the early days, creating a day-to-day specific training plan, which articulated how I should be running my weekly mileage (slow, hills, intervals, etc). And to make sure I was getting out of the city and getting elevation beneath my feet, I created a master long-run tracker. I focused in the early days of my long-runs with easy trails near my house. As the mileage began to creep up, my focus became ensuring I knew every portion of the MD section of the AT, as I would be solo for most of the run.

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Turns out, I pretty much stuck to NONE of this plan, beyond generally ramping up my mileage at a consistent click and making sure my long runs got me out on the AT and experiencing the sections I didn’t know.

By February, the weather was gross. There was ice everywhere. My long runs were supposed to start getting me up into the mountains, but local intel (my father) told me the trail was socked in, covered in thick layers of ice. I suffered through city running through February, but got increasingly nervous about not knowing the AT terrain well enough by the time my birthday rolled around.

I took a risk in early March, and went to the PA border with a planned 19-miler south from PenMar. This was the section I knew the least, and it was the most important for me to train on this section. What a horrible mistake this decision was.

I arrived to the trail around 10AM. The temperature never rose above freezing that day, and 12-20 mile per hour winds were whipping around the mountain. I walked to the PA border from the parking lot, then started running south. Within just a short distance, the terrain takes a sharp turn for the worse. And by worse, I mean boulder fields. Boulder fields which happened to be covered in ice and snow. For most of the 19-mile run that day, I was participating more in a sport akin to parkour than to trail running. All I tried to do was not fall. It was miserable. I cursed this section and dreaded my return in a few weeks.

The following weekend I headed back to the AT, this time to run from Washington Monument State Park south through Gathland for a 22-mile final long-run effort. I was not in the mood to run the morning I went up there. Some pretty hard stuff was going on at work the week before, and I really hadn’t slept at all that week. Saturday rolled around and it took everything in me to get up drive.

Once I started running, I had a bit of a meltdown on the trail. At mile 4, I pulled off the trail and had a little pity party. Tears were shed. Calaculations were made: if I turned around and ran back to my car, I would have only run 8 miles on the day. Not enough for my last long run of the training cycle. I’d have to go out again, and I’d have to come back to this section. I told myself ‘just two more miles out, see how you feel’, and started running again. I didn’t feel great, but told myself ‘just another mile out, see how you feel’. And kept doing that until I turned around at mile 11.

After this last long run, my training went to pretty much zero until the 42-mile attempt. My ankle was really bothering me, shooting sharp pains that were deeply concerning. My knee was also tweaked and not in great shape. I know enough to know that you shouldn’t just push through pain, especially at the end of a training cycle. I trusted the process, and rested, and waited.

Preparation for Marathon #2

I’ve made it!

Four and a half months later, I am within 5 days of finishing my second marathon (knock on wood). I’ve put blood, sweat, tears, toenails, and more in to training for this race, and…sans one minor injury this summer…have successfully made it to marathon week in 100% health. Now the nerves set in.

In March, I ran my first marathon here in DC. It was a miserable experience through and through. I started training after having spent a month+ travelling around Nepal (which meant not a single day of running). While I was trekking for much of that trip, the distances were not long. The hills? Steep, yes, but we only covered about 80 miles round trip in 15 days. The altitude was the challenge and didn’t set me up for a proper training base last winter. Then came mid-February. I got tendinitis that persisted all the way to marathon day. I didn’t run for 5 weeks before the race, and at mile 14, I almost gave up.

Fast forward to today. I just ran 13 miles on Saturday a full 15 seconds faster than my ideal race pace. If I maintain the consistency that I have seen through training, I could very well run a sub-9 minute mile the whole 26.2. Compare that to the 10:04 I ran in March, and we’ve got a serious PR headed my way.

BUT.

Every race brings its own challenges. I could be feeling 100% today, but come Saturday morning, my whole world could shift. This week, I am focusing on nutrition, hydration, and a few short 3-4 miles runs. Nothing hard, nothing fast. I’ve built my base, I feel confident in my abilities, and I’m ready to rock Baltimore!

Race Report: National Capitol 20 Miler

On Sunday, I bagged another 20 miles, this time with the DC Road Runners Club along the historic C&O canal. Dragging my body out of bed at 5am, hopping in the car, and hitting the ground running at 7am was so difficult this weekend. The combination of working full time, taking 2 graduate level courses towards my MS in Environmental Science & Policy, as well as training for my marathon and ultra is starting to take a toll on me. Throw in house/landlord issues and its the perfect storm.

But you know what I learned this weekend? Hard work, determination, and a whole lot of mental willpower can get you through even the toughest of times and the toughest of races. While this was by no means a difficult course (lets be honest, elevation gain was barely even registering), I pushed my pace to 35-seconds beyond my goal marathon pace to a cool 8:40 per mile. That means, if I keep that pace at Baltimore, I could theoretically run sub-3:50, and shave 35 minutes off my current PR!

I'm feeling strong, just need to keep my head in the game as I quickly approach race day. T-19 days!

Random Musings: Fears of Failure

I had a moment at the end of a 5-mile race this past weekend where I let my fear of failing (or what in my mind I define as 'failure') overcome what should have been a celebration at the finish line with my amazing boyfriend. I went in to the race underprepared for a 'sprint'....I've been training for distances that are multiples of 5-miles, and didn't get my head in the game enough. I knew I was going to run back with my boyfriend as he competed in his longest race to date. What I wasn't prepared for was the wave of emotion at the finish, when we both surged to cross the line, and I remembered that I am terrible at sprinting and usually don't have much left in the tank to kick out the last 200 meters because I've left most of it out on the distance courses.

This was a huge learning moment for me. Instead of feeling disappointment in what I perceived as a failure (watching my boyfriend -- who by his own account would never say he is a runner --  surge ahead and toe the finish just ahead of me), I need to look at this as a training moment, a reminder that while I KNOW I can easily run 5-miles (probably in my sleep at this point) training really has an influence on your output depending on distances. I'm not training for short course running, not even training for half marathon distance (though I'm fairly certain I could crush my PR right now) but training for the long, slow, deliberate distances of 26.2 and beyond. 

Friends in the ultra community might still classify a marathon as a sprint, but for me, just breaking in to this super long distance category, everything is new to me. The emotions I feel every day on my runs varies, and its a reality check every time I lace up my shoes and hit the pavement (or more frequently, the dirt). 

In a consolation to myself this morning -- I ran 6.5 miles this morning and you wouldn't believe it, but I actually ran faster than my 5-mile race this weekend. Guess its really is all mental :)

Keep your head in the game everyone. Whatever your goals are, don't ever let a single race ruin what good things you have going for you, and the strong base you have been building in your training programs. We're all human. We're all competitive to some degree (either with ourselves or others....some way more than others too!) but we must remember that the running journey is inherently individual. Run. Have fun. Laugh a little.  

xoxo Kate