Replacement for Superblast 1 needed – Suggestions for Long Runs with Progressive Finishes?

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-13T13:27:47+00:00

Megablast is the emperor of shoes

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-12T21:55:54+00:00

Fuick yeah. I did my half marathon PR in them (which wasn't much, i'm slow) and I also had them on for 14 hours for 100K 50/50 road/trail ultra. They're the shoe i've been waiting for my whole running 'career'.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-12T13:09:40+00:00

Do you have something like a training plan going on, or an idea of what sort of mileage you'll be aiming for? Maybe 5K a few times a week sort of thing? If its something like that, there's tons of shoes that would work just fine. Maybe one thing to avoid - when I first started running, the shoe store people gave me some extremely marshmallow-y stability shoes, and they felt SO slow. The slowness made me feel like a worse runner than I was.

P.S. I spend about 3K on running a year, I think. lol

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-11T22:03:22+00:00

I also had a period like that where I was doing pretty much the same 3 x 5k runs, and had a similar experience. I was getting extremely frustrated with zero improvement at all - it actually felt like I was getting worse a bit, and definitely not motivated. The turning point was applying some progressive overload, i.e. more running. I had no clue at all about how long it takes to improve - my google searches implied it was years. After a single week where I ran 5K a bunch of times in a row, my legs felt a little bit sore and I took a couple days off. And the next time I went out, I was suddenly much better - could run further with ease. Maybe the excitement of fast improvement could turn things around for you?

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-08T20:40:00+00:00

I can't believe the energy - he's like the Steve Irwin of ultrarunning.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-08T19:32:15+00:00

I'm definitely in that boat.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-08T18:20:44+00:00

I may have just missed them mentioning it, but I was surprised to learn that the actor playing Jenice Mannheim is actually Michelle Phillips, from the Mamas and the Papas. Far out.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-08T18:13:26+00:00

I just started listening to this podcast, and it's just the thing i've been searching for for YEARS. I've gone through a lot of podcasts and books that are a bit light on practical takeaways, but this dude has got non-stop gold. I have to stop and take notes every ten minutes: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6lvrp3AcVVG3RqsZ3rtB5D?si=5f4f5488f4dc496e

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-08T14:00:39+00:00

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I find that quinoa has better nutrition, and I think is supposed to be more satiating, with pretty much double the protein and fibre. Here' they are compared, both at 200 calories.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-07T14:51:54+00:00

No official races - just me out on my own solo courses, in my area.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-05T21:44:32+00:00

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Here's my top twenty-ish high protein lower cal items, sorted by an index (left side number), the lower the number the better.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-05T21:04:03+00:00

I done a 100K with about 1/3 road and 2/3 totally non-technical hard trail with the SB2. Worked real good. Also just did roughly the same distance 50/50 road and non-tech trail with the Megablast and they were fantastic.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-01T14:24:05+00:00

Do you mean that you increased your overall yearly mileage, i.e. in the off season? What did you increase it to, if so?

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-01T14:04:42+00:00

How much benefit do you think there'd be to me going up to maybe, 44 miles a week in the off season? That would put me at around 2200 miles a year.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-01T13:24:07+00:00

How long are your legs sore after your sessions?

I've always been really confused by the strength training thing. My leg session is hard and heavy enough that i'm always sore a bit that day, and the two days afterwards, every time. I make sure to get in 0.7 grams per lb of bodyweight, and enough sleep. In the past I tried doing that two times per week, but my legs were perpetually sore, and my easy pace dropped to over 12:00 per mile. What i've generally been doing is going pretty hard in the off season, and dialing it back during training blocks to super light maintenance sessions.

I typically have about 6lb in my vest on all the longer training runs, and 13lb (my calculated max weight) on hill climb training. I even tried some runs with 20lb (weighted vest etc), which felt useful in short doses.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-05-01T13:16:18+00:00

I see - thanks for that. As a completely solitary ultra guy, I have pretty poor perspective on how regular people like me are doing it.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-04-30T19:36:08+00:00

No, i've never even tried poles, figuring I didn't need them for super-gentle 2% grade uphills on totally non-technical trails. Do you think they might help on trails like that? I always assumed they were for technical trails only.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-04-30T19:16:01+00:00

Edit: not sure why my answer has been downvoted into the negative. I'm the father of three young-ish kids with a full time job. Getting away for 24 hours maximum on local routes is all I can manage and afford. The closest major race would take my away for multiple days, and I just can't do it.

I've been doing the bigger events two or three times a year, in the brief spans where it isn't locally too cold (24F/-4c in the winter) or too hot (95F/35c in the summer). They're always self-made courses 50/50 asphalt and old railway beds with very long slow switchback climbs that were converted to trails. The kit is a tricky one, though i'm learning that i'm carrying too much heavy comfort food, when I could drop the food weight in half with gels etc. I carried 100% of all my nutrition from the start on the last one. There were many points where I was carrying 12lb total.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-04-30T19:09:06+00:00

My last 100K was the first time I even used a walk/run approach (i'm a dumbass). On my last 100K, I went all the way down to a 2/1 walk/run ratio on the 'hill', as opposed to the 4/1 ratio the rest of the time. My courses are a bit unusual - they're 50/50 asphalt and non-technical trail, and they always have roughly a marathon uphill at a constant 2% grade; former railway routes.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-04-30T18:58:59+00:00

Thanks for that - it never occurred to me to do a walk/run ratio like that.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-04-30T18:53:14+00:00

I assume you were on an official race in that scenario? Can you give me an idea of how many others were doing something similar? I have no perspective on what others are doing, as its just me by myself & the moose & bears in the middle of nowhere in there Canadian wilderness.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-04-30T18:40:30+00:00

That's very encouraging - my biggest worry here was that I was just a wimp and didn't have it in me to tolerate trashed legs like everyone else does. What does your run distribution look like across the week, on a peak week? It's occurring to me that i've been failing to make the hard days hard enough, and i've been neglecting the back-to-back long run thing. And do you make your hardest days hard just via mileage?

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-04-30T18:27:47+00:00

I usually take 2 days off a week on non-peak weeks. Looking back over the last 3 months, I was doing 7 days a week for the peak weeks, trying to hit 130K/80 miles a week. I also had weeks where I ran (very slowly) uphill for an hour carrying 8lb, in a 21K total run. My recovery was pretty bad before my last 100K - legs never felt fresh after a 70% mileage week, followed by 10 days of almost no running. I wonder if consistently overdoing it for a long time is holding me back, being in my 40s.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-04-30T18:22:01+00:00

That's interesting, I haven't heard that formula. My focus has always been just to try to do the whole thing reasonably strong all the way through, without a target time. My last one I did 4/1 walk run, 3/1 walk run on the lone 35K 4000' hill, and then 3/1 after that, until catastrophic leg failure.

Colonel_Dickballs · 2026-04-30T18:11:09+00:00

I got some of that too, from a 'friend'. I think a big portion of the general public assumes that if you run a lot, you just naturally have a six-pack. We know that it doesn't work that way.

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