On February 17th, 2017, I will start my second 48 hours race. It will be at the same competition I was this year, namely in Athens, an event called The 12th International Ultramarathon Festival.
For those of you who don’t know what a 48 hours running race is, well, it’s a race that lasts 48 hours (obviously), on a 1 kilometer long lap. During the race you can stop at any time, you can go to sleep, you can change clothes, you can walk if running gets too difficult, but the winner is the one who covers the longest distance.
This year, in March, I attended for the first time such a race and it was a transformational experience. I was in a relatively good shape, physically, but logistically I was completely unprepared. I didn’t have a sleeping bag, nor a mattress, not even appropriate clothes (betting on the fact that it’s gonna be warm in March in Athens, which, alas, it wasn’t). That logistical blunder influenced my performance more than I was ready to accept, so the final result was basically a failure: I only did 202 kilometers.
Surprisingly enough, after looking at the national and international charts a few months later, I discovered that even this underperformance wasn’t so bad, compared with other results. In my country, for instance, it looks like it’s the best result overall for this type of race, making me some sort of a national champion. But in my own system it’s still a blunder.
Since I know I can do much better and since I feel like there’s some “unfinished business” at this level, I decided to participate again next year. The registration paperwork is already done, I still have to cover transportation and hosting, but I’ll let this for December or January.
The goal for next year is to cross the 300km limit (same as this year). I know now that in order to achieve this goal just my physical shape will not be enough so I started to work on the logistics as well.
And since I know that sharing my goals will put some (good) pressure on my activities, I decided to document my journey here, on Steemit. The fact that it will split in a lot of small episodes kinda fits with Steemit style also.
I will share the status of my preparation, whatever progress I make and everything that may be related to this event.
Current Status
Here’s a rough description of where I am now, in terms of preparation and results. I noted only the important events, not the mileage I covered by training.
- September: 24 hours race, 163 km
- October: Bucharest International Marathon: 4 hours 19 minutes
- November: Birthday ultra (running my age in km): 46 km: 5 hours, 39 minutes
During last week I was in recovery mode. The actual training will start tomorrow, Thursday. I intend to gradually reach a 250-300km load each month. For November I plan to cover between 100 and 150km, December around 300km and January 300km. February will have just 80-100km before the tapering starts, which should be 3-4 days before the race.
An important milestone will be on December 20th. For the last two years, on December 20th, I run a 70km ultra in a Bucharest park, Herastrau (it’s basically 10 laps around the park lake). It's the first ultra ran completely by myself, so it's sort of an emotional thing too. This year, as an additional pressure for the 48 hours race, I decided to up the game a bit, so I made it into a multi-day race: 70-80-90, meaning 70km on December 20th, 80km on 21st and 90km on 22nd. So this part alone will account for 240km, if properly done.
For now, if you’re curious, you can go ahead and read the aftermath of my first 48 hours race on my blog.
image source: personal collection
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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