What's Your 250 Mile Pace?

This past weekend I did my first really long effort with lots of vert and lots of hiking. For my current fitness level the pace was very easy. I've been training a lot of road miles and speed workouts in the build so far. Needless to say: I was excited to get out on a 20+ mile trail effort with a good amount of vertical gain.

Being outside training for multiple hours left me thinking about my 250 mile pace. Not just my "all-day-pace" which is a common phrase you'll hear ultra-runners say, but literally my "all-week-pace".

I know it's probably a bit early, but I've started to game out what I want to target for that "all-week-pace". I certainly know what it won't be:

It's weird to train slow to run fast and then train fast, but race slow. It gets kinda confusing if I'm being honest. And the pace of the Cocodona can't really be talked about without touching on the elephant in the room: how long are you going to sleep?

My favorite tool for gaming out any ultra race is the amazing Ultrapacer.com created by Danny Murphy. This tool is seriously impressive! It lets you target a goal time or a goal pace or a smarter normalized goal pace which takes into consideration factors such as: grade, altitude, heat, terrain, and darkness.

So what does my 250 mile pace look like right now? I'm really not sure. I've only just started to play with some possible scenarios and I'm not comparing those plans with any of the previous two years worth of actual Cocodona competitors. I also want to talk with my coach about this topic in more depth before I start to get too excited about possibilities that an unknown reality could smash to pieces.

Anyway, if you're interested, here are a few of the plans I've started to play with. I know they are all crazy because this event is crazy and as my friend on this weekend's long run pointed out, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. I'll probably throw them all away by the second aid station.

• Plan [A]

• Plan [B]

• 12 Hour Sleep

• 10 Hours to Spare