Barkley Marathons 2017 – Final Training Week

Done and done!

The final four week training block is complete. The deposits have been made and numbers stack up as follows;

February 20th – March 19th

28 days.

129,000 total feet of climbing.

62,000ft over an 8.5 day span through my final workout.

187 total miles.

72 hours of training, almost all of it completed on a single two mile long trail called the BCMC.

One man cold.

Four gym sessions and four massages out at Fortius Sport and Health.

Two Coast Mountain Trail Series races directed, Run Ridge Run and the Cap Crusher.

28 dark chocolate bars consumed.

One Squamish50 orientation run cancelled due to the trails being buried in snow.

One three liter box of red wine polished off.

One single toe blister due to running in snow spikes for 70% of those 72 hours of training.

One completely exhausted, exuberant and ecstatic ultra runner who is all but ready to give this crazy Barkley thing another whirl.

Here’s my final training video of the last seven days, including my final overnight training session. I am now happily into the taper phase and anxiously awaiting another go at this thing 🙂

Comments

3 responses to “Barkley Marathons 2017 – Final Training Week”

March 21, 2017

Lindsay Hamoudi

Unreal dude! Barkley will be a vacation after this 😮

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March 21, 2017

Noah Bloom

This preparation is unreal and inspiring. Any quick jaunts around North Van / Lolo before you leave that I can join?

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March 23, 2017

Sean Felty

Gary,

I have been following this training and it’s really amazing and inspiring. I will be checking twitter compulsively the day of the Barkley to see how you’re doing. This particular video was really helpful. The part where you changed your shoes and said something along the lines of " sometimes you just have to make decisions you don’t want to make to take care of yourself" especially hit home. I ran my first 100 miler last year and signed up for the same race again so will start training soon. I feel like I can take a lot of time off of my finishing time next time. I learned so much from that race, and almost every big lesson I learned was along the lines of what you said in your video. I hope to one day have the resolve to make those types of decisions while i’m exhausted and feeling bad during a race. Thank you for sharing your training and for the comedic entertainment of your wonderful family. looking forward to seeing you become a Barkley finisher! Good Luck!

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