Monthly Archives: June 2018

Week 2 of 16 week Centurion training (Active Recovery)

Walked 8 Hours 49 Minutes, 42.4 Miles, Average pace 12:29. My weight 174.6

Saturday – One hour nine minutes 5.6 Miles. 4 sets of 60 Push-ups.

Sunday – Two Hours three minutes Lane 1 on the 400 meter track. 39 Laps 9.6 Miles.

Monday – One hour eight minute 5.6 Miles. 4 sets of 2 pull-ups, 15 Minutes of Planks.

Tuesday – One hour ten minutes 5.6 Miles. 4 sets of 60 Push-ups.

Wednesday – Two Hour ten minutes 10.4 Miles.

Thursday – One hour nine minutes 5.6 Miles. 4 sets of 2 Pull-ups, 15 Minutes of Planks.

Friday – Day Off.

My legs have been tired this week. Tired and achy. In the past it has taken about six weeks after a Centurion race before I feel back up to par. It has been four weeks. I was not as well trained for my last race. It could even take me a little longer to get back to normal. We still train even when we don’t feel like it. There will be times during a Centurion race when you feel tired. You have to push through if you want to succeed. Same with training. There will be times when you don’t feel like training. Times when you won’t be at peak performance. Push through those hard times.  Mental training.

No change to my diet or strength workouts.  Pull-ups are getting easier. I would like to work up to 4 sets of 5 pull-ups. Enough to impress anyone who has ever failed to do one single pull-up. That was me five years ago.

Add one more hour to my long walk at the track this next week.

Week 1 of 16 week Centurion training (Active Recovery)

Walked 7 Hours 42 Minutes, 36.6 Miles, Average pace 12:38.  My weight 169.8

Saturday – One hour nine minutes 5.6 Miles.  4 sets of 60 Push-ups.

Sunday – Two Hours three minutes Lane 1 on the 400 meter track. 38 Laps 9.4 Miles.

Monday – One hour one minute 4.8 Miles. 4 sets of 2 pull-ups, 15 Minutes of Planks.

Tuesday – One hour ten minutes 5.6 Miles. 4 sets of 60 Push-ups.

Wednesday – One Hour ten minutes 5.6 Miles.

Thursday – One hour nine minutes 5.6 Miles. 4 sets of 2 Pull-ups, 15 Minutes of Planks.

Friday – Day Off.

It felt good to get back on the High School 400 meter track on Sunday. My race in New Zealand is on a track. Late in a Centurion race the track feels different to your legs. You start to get a feedback from the rubberized surface. You need to prepare by training on a similar surface. Slowly building my distance and speed back up. Build slowly. Train hard to peak. Taper well. The secret for success.

Dialed back my strength training. Focus most of my time on walking.  Just enough strength training to keep my arms and core strong. I think I got carried away with my strength training in the past. I still think strength training is important. Just not as important as time on your feet walking.

Diet: Oatmeal & toast every morning. Turkey & swiss sandwich with mustard during lunch everyday. Anything I wanted for dinner. Water to drink. No snacks anytime. Just three meals per day. If my weight holds just under 170 pounds I won’t change my diet this training cycle. It takes a lot of calories to train. Don’t short change your training by being too restrictive.

All the same next week plus another hour on Wednesday.

Training June 9th – 15th

Walked 3 days for a total of 3 Hours. Push-ups. My Weight 170.2

This week concluded my rest from the 100 miles at the U.S. Centurion race two weeks ago. This next week starts my detailed sixteen week training for my next Centurion walk. The New Zealand Centurion Qualifier. October 6-7th.   I will start slow. I will use all my past experience from training. I know what works for me. I have a plan for success. I will arrive in New Zealand prepared, A lean mean walking machine.  Going to be Fun!

Plus:

4 sets of 60 push-ups on Saturday and Tuesday.

4 sets of pull-ups, 15 Minutes of Planks on Monday and Thursday.

Longest walk on Sunday using the 400 meter track. Long walk on Wednesday. Fridays off.

 

Training June 2nd – 8th

Walked 1 day for a total of 24 Hours 101.9 Miles

I can not start to tell you how pleased I am with my Centurion race at FANS. I felt so underprepared and so overwhelmed I had no idea I would end with the result I got. Very Pleased. I feel like a Centurion again. I feel on top of the World.

Now I can start training for New Zealand. Training while I am overflowing with confidence. A springboard to my next Centurion.

I took the rest of the week off. I will take most of next week off also. Maybe a few short walks next week. Then on Saturday June 16th I will start training for the New Zealand Centurion Qualifier. I will have sixteen weeks to get ready. I will use this blog to record my complete 16 week training guide for a Centurion Walk. I will include every detail. (Keep in mind this will not be a starters guide 16 weeks to a Centurion Walk.) This will be a sixteen week guide for someone with about 50 miles per week on their legs. Someone with long distance race experience. I will start slow, short and build up. It will be sixteen weeks from a FULL race recovery to my next Centurion race.

After New Zealand I will end posting on this blog. I started the blog in February 2015, When I was training for my First Centurion race. It will be a good place to end as I finish the only Centurion qualifier around the world I have not done. I will keep my Race and race report pages up to date. I will keep the blog paid up on the chance that someone in the future might want to change their life. Someone might want to take up an extreme challenge. Someone might want to become a CENTURION!

 

2018 United States Centurion

The 2018 United States Centurion Qualifier at FANS in Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2nd and 3rd.

I could not wait to return to the site of my First Centurion walk.  I had nothing but fond memories of the race and the people there. Three years later and none of that has changed. FANS is still a great race with wonderful people. Great to see U.S. Centurion John Greene and his wife Betty again. Also Centurion judge Bruce Leasure. David Holmen who I met in 2015 was back but this time to attempt a Centurion walk. I was as excited for David as he was nervous. It is the unknown aspects of a first Centurion walk that makes you nervous. After that first one it is what you know about a Centurion walk that makes you nervous.  Andrew Titley from the Isle of Man was there. I had never met Andrew but it only takes about one minute to bond with another Centurion. And we did. My Dutch friends Centurions Marco Bloemerts, Arie Kandelaars and Gertrude Achterberg were there. We have all four raced together in Holland, Africa, New Zealand and now the United States. Also were two Centurion hopefuls I know from facebook. Paul Terbrack and Radek Lopusnik. Both walkers have been past 80 miles at Centurion qualifiers.

The forecast for the race looked wet. An 80 percent chance of rain all day on Saturday. I walked in a thunderstorm there in 2015. While not impossible rain does make the race harder. The temps however were a plus. The weekend before Minnesota was in the 90’s. For our race a high of 70 and the low near 50 degrees. Perfect.

I was in a weird place for this race. After my failed Centurion attempt in New Zealand last October I had been walking around with a cloud around my head. I had lost my confidence. On New Years I got my head right and my Mom unexpectedly passed away. I limped through my 50K and Marathon season. Every attempt at saving the sinking ship just left me with more and more water in the boat.  Every week I kept skipping extra training days. Not how you want to arrive at a Centurion race. I came to FANS knowing I had not trained up to par. I could bail anytime because I was already a U.S. Centurion. I still had time to train for New Zealand and did not want to hurt anything here. Wow sounds like I should have stayed home.

On race morning I got a little caught up in all the race excitement. At a big race you don’t just feel excitement you can see it and taste it. I started dead last. No pressure on me. The packed dirt trail behind Lake Snelling was not packed. The rocks were larger than I remembered. Lucky for all of us there were enough feet and just enough rain to pack down the dirt during the race. During all the daylight hours of Saturday I made it my mission to kick every rock off the trail I could. Remember there was no pressure on me. I could kick rocks If I wanted to. In the first eight hours only Andrew passed me. I suddenly realized that I was on the same lap as everyone else and I still felt great. Kicking rocks gave me another advantage. I would not have to worry about stepping on them in the dark. Right before dark I told my Wife Brenda I would stop next pass to change shoes, socks and into a long sleeve shirt. If I am going to keep walking I am going to wear comfortable, clean, dry shoes. That decision changed my race. For the next seven hours my feet did not hurt. Did not hurt till I stubbed my left big toe on a root in the dark. I thought for sure my toenail must have popped off. Other than my toe and just being tired my race was going very good. When I finished lap 38 I realized I had just passed where I quit in New Zealand. And I was 15 minutes ahead of my New Zealand pace. At this point that cloud around my head for seven months started to breakup a little. After daylight I got a bonus. I saw David ahead of me leaving the tent city. He did not know it but I made David my target. I had been checking on his status every time I saw his Sister or Brother in-law John. I knew David was in second place. Just past the second feed station the course makes a sharp turn onto the road. I saw David go around the corner. When I went around the same corner he was gone. For a second I thought, What the ……. but right on that corner was a portable loo. I walked as fast as tired legs could carry me. I wanted as much distance between me and the door of that loo as I could get. When that door opened I wanted to look too far away to be caught. It all worked perfect except for one thing. While David was in my sites, I was in Marco’s. When Marco passed me I had nothing left. I coasted in for my second U.S. Centurion finish. The first American to finish more than one U.S. Centurion since Eric Poulsen in 2001. I finished my 100 miles at 23:29:40. Stayed on the short course and added 1.9 miles. I don’t know if I am more pleased with finishing another Centurion or the fact that the cloud around my head is gone. Either one it feels Great. I am back!

Five racers crossed the 100 mile mark on a much tougher Centurion course than I remembered.
1 Andrew Titley IOM new race record 106.9 miles New C89
2 Marco Bloemerts NLD New C90
3 Rob Robertson USA C78
4 David Holmen USA New C91
5 Arie Kandelaars NLD New C92

  Photo by Betty Greene

Me with NO Pressure.

At the100 mile mark. Finally the burdens from seven months gone!

Training May 26th – June 1st

Walked 4 days for a total of 5 Hours.

Finished what I consider the perfect taper. A reduction in distance, an increase in speed. Legs feel fresh and rested. I am ready to race. The United States Centurion qualifier at FANS, Snelling Lake, Minneapolis part two here I come. Will be interesting to see how racing a Centurion with none of the extra pressure (since I am already a U.S. Centurion) feels. Excited to see the course and my friends again.