With my plan to compete in The Grimreaper in early August I have just officially begun a training cycle. I have been working on a little base mileage the past few weeks, peaking at the 15 mile mark on long runs. But now the long trawl of improving every week begins!
Historically I have always run splits. When I first started running I went straight to the 100 mile distance. I had never even run a 5k before. So in order to increase my mileage consistently and rapidly I decided to run splits. I would run for 25 mins and walk for 5; repeating this until I had achieved my distance. This also had the added benefit of allowing me to time my food intake. So every 25 minutes I would aim to consume something, it differed for each split but I would always eat something.
The downside of this was the fact I was terrible at anything below ultra distance. I could rack up the miles but I couldn’t achieve shorter runs at speed. As a result my half marathon and marathon times were terrible. For this training cycle I have decided to do away with splits and just run.
This is in an effort to improve my shorter distance and manage my time a little better. It has also resulted in my average pace increasing by 1mph. Which is quite a chunk at the ultra distance.
I am hoping I can maintain the lack of splits as my cycle continues. It will certainly improve my times come race day. I will however switch back to splits if training becomes too difficult. After all splits serve a great purpose and is still something I intend on using for 50+ mile races. Its just nice to get those brief recovery periods to allow you to throw down a GU!