My First 100 Miler: Heartland Spirit of the Prairie

by Kay Scott-Seale Cassoday, Kansas, middle of nowhere October 9-10, 2010 The few weeks before the Heartland 100 were crazy: not because I was so busy, but because of what I was doing. 6 weeks before the race, I did my first Ironman. I’m a lousy cyclist, so I devoted most of my training time over the summer to the bike, and trusted in my running base to get me through the marathon. I gave myself 6 days to recover, and then started training for Heartland with a 20-mile run. My strategy was to run only twice a week (one long run, one 5 mile pace run) to give my body the maximum amount of time to recover. So a week later, I ran a 50k trail race. The next week, I had to work, so no long run at all. The week after that, I did 34 miles at an 8-hour race. The next weekend, the one before Heartland, I “tapered”: a half marathon on Saturday, then a 12-mile trail run with friends on Sunday. view PDF with pictures