This week I was fortunate enough to be able to work from home and it gave me the opportunity to try something different. On Monday I needed to take an 8 hour round-trip commute to London, so I woke up at 3:15am and got in a short 4 mile run to kick my week off. This left me with 96 miles to run in 5 days. I've done 100 in 5 days before so it's not a massive challenge, a couple of marathon days (13.1 miles in the morning and 13.1 miles in the afternoon) usually do the trick. However, I wasn't sure what time I would be finishing work each day, so I had to get my miles done in one long morning run. Tuesday was a 21 mile run, Wednesday 22.5 miles, Thursday 21.5 miles, and Friday was an easier 11 miles. I completed my 100 miles on Saturday with a 13.1 mile tempo on the seafront followed by 8x1km. "Doubling up creates the challenge of constantly moving throughout the day..." I'm very used to running my miles over two runs a day and I've always advocated this as a great way to train for ultramarathons as it creates the challenge of constantly moving throughout the day and builds some consistency and mental resilience. Therefore, running one long run (+20 miles) every day was a different challenge. I really enjoyed it! The aches and pains are different. When I run twice a day, I have a feeling of general fatigue that stays throughout my runs and get progressively stronger throughout the week. There's no pain that I could pinpoint to my medial quad, my lateral hip, or my medial shin, for example. However, running multiple long runs back to back this week was completely different. The pains are more localised, I suspect due to the long repetitive nature of the runs. In addition, the fatigue didn't really start to kick in until after around 75/80 mins each day, meaning that my average pace for the week was faster than when I'm doubling up. This week has made me realise the benefits that multiple days of long runs can bring. I still think doubling up is powerful, and it's something that fits well into my daily routine and life. But I will make time for the days of long runs stacked together in the future as I think that has a valuable place in ultramarathon training. "Multiple days of long runs back to back has a valuable place in ultramarathon training"
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