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Month: April 2015

Salt Flats 100

For the fourth time I went to run the Salt Flats 100 near Wendover, UT/NV.  I really like the course which combines speed with some serious challenges.  The Salt Flats 100 (and 50) starts on the historic Bonneville Salt Flats Speedway.  The actual salt flats are 12 miles long and 5 miles wide covering just over 46 square miles.  Near the center, the crust is 5 feet thick in places.  That is 147 million tons of mostly table salt!  It is the site of some astounding land speed records of more than 600 mph. 

Tour de Cedar Valley – 54 miles

With recent cold spring storms, I chose this weekend to stay in the lowlands for a long run. The day before I got the idea of running all the way around massive Cedar Valley which lies about five miles west of my home. It is mostly flat, 23×7 miles and surrounded on all sides by mountains.  Because my wife was gone for the evening, I decided to make this a night training run that mentally should help me in my 100 milers as I have had increased difficulty running the entire night without problems.

Cedar Valley
Cedar Valley

I’ve run in this valley many, many times but the planned a route would take me on a few roads and trails I haven’t explored before.  I would run a giant loop in the clockwise direction. I parked my car on the east end of Eagle Mountain city center and took off running south at about 8:00 p.m.

Frequent Long Runs

In 2013, I discovered if I did a very long run each week instead of a series of shorter runs that my body adjusted and I recovered from these long runs much faster than if I only did one about once a month.  My recovery from 100-mile runs was faster and the pain felt during them was decreased.  I never do “back-to-back” long runs (two runs in two days) because I believe it is important to recover between them to avoid injury, but once recovered, another long run seems to be very beneficial.

chart

Again in 2015, I have been doing weekly very long runs.  So far this year I have run at least a 50K run every week except for three.  In addition I have been doing mid-week training and have so far run further than any year before during the first three months of the year (1,120).  This March I ran 453 miles which is my highest mileage month ever.