Thanks Jason Koop & I ❤️ intervals

Once I decided to start training for a 50M, I asked around to my few friends who do ultras. One put me in touch with an old high school friend who recommended Jason Koop's "Training Essentials for Ultrarunning" 

This book is amazing. All the worries I had about nutrition, especially balancing sodium and hydration, are addressed. Plus, it gets to some training techniques that I wouldn't have previously considered. I am and always have been a slow runner. My fastest marathon is 4:51 and when I run comfortably it's usually around 5:20. I'm happy with this. I have no interest in training in a way that I don't like just to get faster because I don't value being faster. That means all my runs were the same except for the distance.

Koop's book convinced me that the benefits of more intense training - namely, that I could better keep food down and stay vertical in a long ultra - were worth it. So with some trepidation I made myself a plan stating with 6 weeks of interval training. I started a week ago and I confess now that I adore running the intervals. They are hard and make my lungs hurt, but they are really engaging. They make me feel stronger. They even make treadmill time WAY more interesting.

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