24 hour Track Race

In 3 weeks time i'll be taking part in my first 24 hour race in Tooting Bec, London and at the moment I'm feeling slightly underprepared. After reading various race reports from Ultra Marathon Runners there would seem to be a lot of gifted runners that can run these events at the drop of a hat and in some case without any training, well that's not me so for the next 3 weeks I've some serious training to do.

Since returning from Dingle my training has been event specific focusing on spending more time on my feet and running at my planned race pace to prepare for the slower pace during the race. During these training runs I've also been experimenting with different food types and trying to work out a feeding plan and race day strategy.

My new regime as prescribed by Bernard Donne in Trinity College consists of 4-5 runs of 1-4+ hours in a heart rate zone of 120-128bpm (which will also be my race day zone) and 1 interval session of 4*2K with a heart rate of 165-170bpm.

The Long Run zone has me walking at times when faced with hills and the Interval pace has me running faster than I would ever run. I'm struggling with the interval session but I'm noticing improvements already and expect my Long Run zone to be ideal on race day over the flat course.

My training so far this week included:

Sunday: 4hr at 120-128bpm.

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: 2hr at 120-128bpm.

Wednesday: Interval Session.

Thursday: 2hr at 120-128bpm.

Friday: 3hr at 120-128bpm.

Saturday: 2hr 120-128bpm.

Most of the above runs were done either early morning or late at night to prepare my body in some way for the stress of running in darkness and during unsociable hours. I expect my longest run to be less than 5 hours and this will be at least 10 days before the race.