My training over the past couple of years has really stagnated; my times were not improving, and virtually every effort ranged between difficult and miserable. Easy days did not feel easy. Easy and long runs were paced around 8 minutes/mile, but tempo runs could not get much below 7:30. I knew enough to understand that there should be a bigger discrepancy between those two paces, but could never seem to sort it out. So I pulled out the chest strap that came with my Garmin Forerunner and did some research about heart rate training.

I am hoping to get some training advice from a coach or someone experienced with ultra training.

Goal: Be able to complete a 50-mile trail run December 1st, injury-free (North Face Endurance Challenge, SF)

Hi to all,

Hi Trifuel-ers,

I need help figuring something out that I'm sure some of you have had the unfortunate luck of experiencing.

I have just finished reading Bill McKibben's book, "Long Distance" the story of a year in his life training to be the best skinny-skier he could be, with a coach and everything, during which his father came to the end of his life. The latter was unplanned, and unexpected as his siblings and father had lived to their nineties but he had succumbed to brain cancer at 68.