Thoughts on entering Energia 24hr?

Cabaal

So I'm running a few years and last year I had the intention of doing my first 100km in Portumna but ran into problems with injury which meant that although I did 50km in Portumna it actually took me 30min longer then my previous best time.

I'm in better shape now and managed a 3:33 marathon in October (down from 3:41) and a 1:34 half in December (down from 1:37) both of which were PB's for me, I have run a few ultras with the longest being Connemara ultra in 6:29 in 2013.

I have a few things lined up in 2014 already, Clonakilty Back 2 Back in Feb and Connemara Ultra again in April, but I'm toying with either Portumna 100km or trying the Energia 24hr event.

Now I'm not pushed about views and actually I'm leaning towards the Energia because I could just slowly put in the miles to see can I hit 100km (main goal) or 100miles (hey if I could get it it would be great) and after all I'd have 24hrs to do it.

Of course given its 24hrs and its far longer then the 6hrs 29min I did in Conn means its a different animal in relation to preparation, there's a good few people that have done this race and similar so I'd like to hear whats involved?

What sort of preparation is involved? For example miles in training? (currently at between 40-50miles per week right now)

ultraman1

Do dem both....

menoscemo

Cabaal wrote: »

So I'm running a few years and last year I had the intention of doing my first 100km in Portumna but ran into problems with injury which meant that although I did 50km in Portumna it actually took me 30min longer then my previous best time.

I'm in better shape now and managed a 3:33 marathon in October (down from 3:41) and a 1:34 half in December (down from 1:37) both of which were PB's for me, I have run a few ultras with the longest being Connemara ultra in 6:29 in 2013.

I have a few things lined up in 2014 already, Clonakilty Back 2 Back in Feb and Connemara Ultra again in April, but I'm toying with either Portumna 100km or trying the Energia 24hr event.

Now I'm not pushed about views and actually I'm leaning towards the Energia because I could just slowly put in the miles to see can I hit 100km (main goal) or 100miles (hey if I could get it it would be great) and after all I'd have 24hrs to do it.

Of course given its 24hrs and its far longer then the 6hrs 29min I did in Conn means its a different animal in relation to preparation, there's a good few people that have done this race and similar so I'd like to hear whats involved?

What sort of preparation is involved? For example miles in training? (currently at between 40-50miles per week right now)

This is probably gonna sound extremely harsh but heh :rolleyes:

Your marathon time relates poorly to your half time. And your Conn Ultra time relates poorly to your Marathon time.
In other words your endurance is poor and the cause is likely your mileage. 40-50 miles a week is not really sufficient to run a decent marathon much less a 100k or a 24hr race. Would you not consider 'mastering' the Marathon distance first? Based on your half you should be able to run 3;20 or lower in a marathon but you would need to be running 60-80 mpw to do that. If it were me only then would I consider moving up to doing Longer ultras tbh...

Hard Worker

menoscemo wrote: »

This is probably gonna sound extremely harsh but heh :rolleyes:

Your marathon time relates poorly to your half time. And your Conn Ultra time relates poorly to your Marathon time.
In other words your endurance is poor and the cause is likely your mileage. 40-50 miles a week is not really sufficient to run a decent marathon much less a 100k or a 24hr race. Would you not consider 'mastering' the Marathon distance first? Based on your half you should be able to run 3;20 or lower in a marathon but you would need to be running 60-80 mpw to do that. If it were me only then would I consider moving up to doing Longer ultras tbh...

You are spot on with that assessment. Marathon time is really poor compared to Half Marathon time. More mileage needed.

ultraman1

Plenty of time to train though caabal........meno -dont even thinl of analising my times..

Cabaal

Fair enough callout on the time, I will say I was on track for 3:28 in Dublin only for ran into issues at mile 23, oh well.....

In the process of increasing the mileage right now and I figured given its 8 months away I have an ok base to start from to increase milage,

On the basis of doing longer races, well I'm not aiming for times here its just distance. Ok longer times means more time on the feet but sometimes I'm a sucker for punishment.

menoscemo

ultraman1 wrote: »

meno -dont even thinl of analising my times..

:pac:

ultraman1

Ur well capabale of a 10:XX 100k in portumna and a sub 23hr 100 mile,...

RacoonQueen

To answer what you actually asked. You could easily do both. 100K will take you less than 12 hours, factoring in that you get slower as the distance increases.

You could hit 100 miles in 24 hours...if you do enough long runs.

menoscemo

RacoonQueen wrote: »

To answer what you actually asked. You could easily do both. 100K will take you less than 12 hours, factoring in that you get slower as the distance increases.

You could hit 100 miles in 24 hours...if you do enough long runs.

I thought the actual question was about the training required?

I saw a similar thread on the 100 Mara club FB recently. Advice was to do 50 miles over 2 back to back runs every weekend in the build up to a long ultra (40+10, 30+20, 25+25).
To support that you would be looking at 80-90 MPW minimum I would imagine. The basic advice would be to do much more mileage (same as to improve Marathon time).

TFBubendorfer

Now that's quite some coincidence! Guess what race I signed up for this very morning?

I'm not sure if the poor time progression meno has (correctly) flagged up has all that much meaning once you get to the kind of distances people run over 24 hours. My own marathon times are poor when compared to my half and 10 mile times, yet my 24 hours performance was way above expectations. Things are different over 24 hours, and mental factors are becoming much more important than physical ones.

If you want to sign up for the 24hrs, just do it. Most people will think you've gone totally bonkers for wanting to run in circles for hours, but it's exactly that fact that makes it such a social race. You're always in close contact with your fellow runners and the shared misery holds up everyone's spirit.

TFBubendorfer

menoscemo wrote: »

I saw a similar thread on the 100 Mara club FB recently. Advice was to do 50 miles over 2 back to back runs every weekend in the build up to a long ultra (40+10, 30+20, 25+25).

And while the runner who gave that advice clearly knew what she was doing, that same kind of training does not work for everybody. I didn't do any long b2b runs, but my overall weekly mileage was consistently high. I've done 50-60 miles b2b weekends in the past and found that's not working for me. I got progressively slower when training that way.

Cabaal

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

Now that's quite some coincidence! Guess what race I signed up for this very morning?

yeah I spotted that,
I've been thinking about it on and off the past few weeks and figured with 38 entries remaining out of the 50 I should post this thread since I've been meaning to for awhile,

Any suggested training plan I can work off of?, or atleast base my training plan on and modify it as needed

Aimman

I went on a bit of an ultra bender a couple of years ago and I built up the distances from the start of the year with the following

Donedea 50k > Connemara Ultra > Portumna 100k > Belfast 24

With marathons thrown in there as LSRs.

It is possible to all of them to build you up to Belfast and there may even be a repeat of the Le Cheile 2 Marathons in 1 day in Lexlip in June 2014. The midnight one is 105 laps of the running track and it is perfect training to get you psycologically prepared for both running around in circles and also running in the middle of the night while everyone if tucked up in bed.

belcarra

Hey Cabaal,

I had a HM PB from Bohermeen last March of 1:32, a Marathon PB of 3:26 from Nov 2012 and signed up for the 24hr in early Feb this year.
I hadn't a clue how far I would manage and was kinda like your thinking of 100km min and ultimate being 100 miles.

In preparation i did a few marathons throughout the year but was focusing on PBing in Rotterdam marathon (April) first, and then Portumna marathon (June). As it turns out I DNF'ed in both of those and only had a month left after Portumna for Belfast.

I threw in a couple of weeks of back to back long runs (including a Fri 6MB marathon followed by a 20 miler along the Wicklow Way on the Sat. I also did the 2 Leixlip marathons in 1 day which is being repeated again in 2014) but apart from this had done nothing too specific for Belfast.

On the day itself I fell into a nice rhythm around 6:00/km and ran the first 12hrs stride for stride with another lad. We hit the 100km mark around that time and then were confident we'd manage the 100 miles with 12 hrs to go. Things got tougher soon after that point though and the projected 100 mile completion time went from 18hrs out to 21.5hrs but I still managed to get it comfortably.
The one thing I might change next year is to run at a slightly slower pace than 6:00/km and to avoid the surge I had at halfway where I upped it for 90mins or so which drained away much of my residual energy.

So, in summary, you are in a very similar position as I was and as Thomas says 24hrs is very different to marathons.
The event itself was top class and probably my favourite event of 2013.
Do it!

PS - you could also incorporate a relaxed Portumna 100km as part of your training!

RacoonQueen

belcarra wrote: »

Hey Cabaal,

I had a HM PB from Bohermeen last March of 1:32, a marathon PB of 1:26 from Nov 2012 and signed up for the 24hr in early Feb this year.
I hadn't a clue how far I would manage and was kinda like your thinking of 100km min and ultimate being 100 miles!

:eek::eek::eek:
You legend :eek:

RayCun

Talk about being better suited for the longer distances