So I've spent most of 2013 doing aerobic base building (also called heart rate training). This type of training has been beneficial for me in several ways. Not only have I built my aerobic base up but I've built my body back up from injury in a pretty gentle way. Having a stronger aerobic base enables my body to use its fat stores as a fuel in an efficient manner.
Using Dr. Phil Mafetone's 180 minus your age * method of calculating my maximum heart rate, I started the year off doing lots of walking. Especially with hills and other inclines. Lots of walking up hills and inclines. Just when I saw some progress with the method, Summer came in and brought heat and humidity with it also. These things cause heart rate to increase thus slowing my running down. (A person's heart rate rises with rising temperatures and humidity as the heart works harder to try and cool the body down.)
With the coming of fall and now that winter is almost here I have started to show slight improvements once again. My mile times have decreased and persistence has started to pay off.....again.
Though speed is actually a bi-product of what I'm trying to accomplish. At the moment I'm trying to concentrate running greater distances. It's always a bonus to be able to just go out and run without having to walk due to a rising heart rate. Training my body to use it's fat stores as fuel would mean that I could run forever, in theory. In the past, trying to get faster and faster just led to injury. Running at or below my aerobic threshold uses my fat stores as energy which, in theory, are infinite. Running at an effort greater than my aerobic threshold causes the body to use it's finite stores of glycogen and could increase chances of injury. (This is the way I understand the reasoning behind the method, I could be wrong. If I am, it wouldn't be the first time.)
As I mentioned earlier, the summer was full of lots of uphill walking. I spent all of 2012 tackling hills with gusto and charging straight up them like they owed me money. My quads were hill running mama jamas. Then I experienced several unrelated injuries. Then I changed my training technique. I went a year without being injured and dedicating my time to aerobic base building is the main reason I think I dodged major injuries this year. (That and doing strength training. But that is another rambling blog post.)
I guess what I'm getting at is that I miss running up hills. I miss the satisfaction of charging up a hill. I miss the burning with acid quads. Or do I? Does running up hill have to be a glycogen depleting, anaerobic endeavor? Some will say yes. But these are the experts. These are the people who have been studying endurance athletes for years. Some even decades. I know next to absolutely nothing about the human body.
So that brings me to the experiment I'm been flirting with for the last couple of weeks. I have a theory that one can train themselves to aerobically run up hills. If enough time, patience, and persistence is given to running up hills or inclines at or below my maximum heart rate: I will eventually be able to run up them at a moderate pace while staying in (or at least arms reach) of my aerobic zone. The process will get easier. My heart rate should stay at or below my maximum setting while my effort will be greater than before. In theory.
I came up with this experiment idea while running up a wee tiny hill that I would have to walk up to keep under my maximum heart rate several months ago. I've also noticed that other hills and inclines on other routes were requiring less walking breaks. So far the norm is that I can get a good amount of distance up an incline before my HR raises and forces me to slow my effort. Sometimes walking is necessary, but other times I just have to go at a slower pace. Over the last several weeks I have been seeing improvement in my efforts. Some of this is due to consistency, while some of the progress has to do with the heat and humidity of summer leaving.
Is it working? Will it work? Will it work for me? I have no idea. I've only been at it for about a week and a half. In theory it should. If I'm just wasting my time at least I'll be getting in some decent hill work while I'm at it. It's hard to say. I know the aerobic base building has worked for the past 9 months.
I started using an online running log called STRAVA that collects data from my Garmin and analyzes it. On STRAVA there is a Grade Adjusted Pace (GAP) feature that estimates an equivalent pace when running on flat land. Most times of my GAP while running inclines is comparable to my pace while running a flat section. This has helped boost my confidence that my theory will work or is working.
I know the 180 minus a person's age is based on an average (or peak bell curve) for all the clients he ever had. My maximum heart rate for aerobic work could be above or below the number I use. It's a good base number to be within range of. I tried to find a lab that could do metabolic testing so I would have a better idea of what my aerobic zone is. (And by "try" I mean I googled metabolic lab testing or something for 5 minutes once on a lunch break with no luck.) But that would be something I would be interested in doing.
So in the meantime, I put together a neighborhood route that is about 8 miles long and has 1,000' of elevation gain to test this theory out for the winter. Am I over thinking all of this? Maybe. I tend to over think when it comes to this stuff. I reckon winter is the best time to try such an experiment since my efforts won't be compromised by hot weather. As long as I keep my heart rate at an aerobic rate I can't do any harm to my ongoing base building project. The worse that will happen is that I will build my hill running muscles up in a slow, gentle way.
* http://philmaffetone.com/180-formula
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Tecumseh Trail marathon
So, the big race that I was trying to come up with a strategy for got cancelled due to severe weather. The county that it was being held in was under an "emergency travel only" advisory for the day of the race. I spent the Friday before securing rides, car pooling rides, accepting rides, and offering rides. Then at about midday Friday the race director and the Hoosier Hills Hikers Council made the announcement that the race was cancelled.
No biggie. My race entry was deferred from last year. To be honest, I was just glad to make it to "race day" uninjured and healthy. That was my Tecumseh victory !!!
No biggie. My race entry was deferred from last year. To be honest, I was just glad to make it to "race day" uninjured and healthy. That was my Tecumseh victory !!!
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Post injury and Pre race concerns.....or something
So I got over my strange injury. My doctor had me not run for two weeks. It really wasn't a big deal not running. I just turned my focus to strength training three times a week for the two week period. Instead of hitting the trails and roads, I hit the gym. Ab wheel work, weighted planks with a 45 lb. weight on my back, box step ups holding a 50 lb dumbbells in each hand, resistance band movements, wide grip pull ups. rear foot elevated split squats while holding a 45 lb plate, squat rows with a ginormous resistance band, etc.... My plate was full while I was on doc's orders not to run.
I felt like my foot was fine about a week and a half into the "rest" period. I figured it wouldn't hurt anything to just not run the whole two weeks. I was more than content on putting my focus on the anaerobic work outs that I was replacing running with. When the running moratorium ended I drove to McCormick's Creek State Park to give myself a nice soft trail to run on. I went six and three quarter miles and the foot was fine. The next day I did a run around my neighborhood on roads and my foot was fine. I was back !!!
The first week back I did about 34 miles total. My legs felt stronger from all the weight work I did in the layoff. I gained strength and I was running up hills with less fatigue. The first couple of runs showed that my aerobic base suffered a little but my anaerobic running was improved. I started to abandon the heart rate training I had been doing all year on my long trail runs and run by "feel". I kept doing runs by heart rate on my road runs though. I figured three runs a week on roads and then two on trails without the HR alarm would be good. My aerobic base was improving. I was knocking a minute or so off my mile time while my heart rate was staying at or below my set rate (143 bpm). My second week back and I did over 49 miles. Not a twinge from my injured foot.
I've ran this way for the past two weeks. Heart rate alarm on roads, no alarm on the trails. This was great and freeing, but then I stumbled upon a website called "the sock doc" by a doctor that does all kinds of articles and work with aerobic conditioning. http://sock-doc.com/2013/09/aerobic-endurance-superiority/
http://sock-doc.com/sock-doc-training-aerobic-intervals/These articles have caused me to rethink my training strategy and return to the aerobic building training I've been doing up until the brief injury.
Which brings me to my current conundrum. On December 7 I have a trail marathon coming up. It's the Tecumseh Trail marathon. A point to point run on some hilly trails here in South Centrail Indiana. Part of my thinking during the two long runs on the trail without using my HR alarm was that I would run the race by feel. Now I am second guessing this plan because I wonder if it would be wiser to stick to the HR training and continue to develop my aerobic base.
I just want to run the race for fun anyway. The Tecumseh Trail is a trail I've always wanted to run and a point to point supported run on it will be awesome. I just don't know if I want to have my garmin watch buzzing the whole time because I'm pushing my HR too much while climbing a hill. I can always take the hills easy instead of attacking them though. Part of me wants to challenge myself and my discipline by running the event aerobically though. Then the pressure of failing myself through a lack of self-control will be there. Gah !!!
I guess my problem at this point is physically I'm more than capable of doing the distance. My last long run of 18 miles I did on an empty stomach and didn't "bonk" or even come close. Mentally I'm a fucking wreck for this. I've been flip flopping on tactics ever since my foot injury cleared up. I don't have anything to prove except to myself. Man, this is why I hate races !!! Why do I even do them !?!? After this race my schedule is clear and I really don't have any desire to sign up for any because of the brain fuck the preparation this race is doing to me.
So basically I have a little more than a week to decide if I want to use this race as an opportunity to stick to my aerobic building training or run the race by "feel". I have no idea what "strategy" to go with or try to come up with a happy hybrid of the two. Honestly, I just want to get this thing over and done with, take mental notes of the terrain so I have a better idea of the area for runs there in the future, and just get back to training without all this bullshit of an organized event. Oh, and have fun.
I felt like my foot was fine about a week and a half into the "rest" period. I figured it wouldn't hurt anything to just not run the whole two weeks. I was more than content on putting my focus on the anaerobic work outs that I was replacing running with. When the running moratorium ended I drove to McCormick's Creek State Park to give myself a nice soft trail to run on. I went six and three quarter miles and the foot was fine. The next day I did a run around my neighborhood on roads and my foot was fine. I was back !!!
The first week back I did about 34 miles total. My legs felt stronger from all the weight work I did in the layoff. I gained strength and I was running up hills with less fatigue. The first couple of runs showed that my aerobic base suffered a little but my anaerobic running was improved. I started to abandon the heart rate training I had been doing all year on my long trail runs and run by "feel". I kept doing runs by heart rate on my road runs though. I figured three runs a week on roads and then two on trails without the HR alarm would be good. My aerobic base was improving. I was knocking a minute or so off my mile time while my heart rate was staying at or below my set rate (143 bpm). My second week back and I did over 49 miles. Not a twinge from my injured foot.
I've ran this way for the past two weeks. Heart rate alarm on roads, no alarm on the trails. This was great and freeing, but then I stumbled upon a website called "the sock doc" by a doctor that does all kinds of articles and work with aerobic conditioning. http://sock-doc.com/2013/09/aerobic-endurance-superiority/
http://sock-doc.com/sock-doc-training-aerobic-intervals/These articles have caused me to rethink my training strategy and return to the aerobic building training I've been doing up until the brief injury.
Which brings me to my current conundrum. On December 7 I have a trail marathon coming up. It's the Tecumseh Trail marathon. A point to point run on some hilly trails here in South Centrail Indiana. Part of my thinking during the two long runs on the trail without using my HR alarm was that I would run the race by feel. Now I am second guessing this plan because I wonder if it would be wiser to stick to the HR training and continue to develop my aerobic base.
I just want to run the race for fun anyway. The Tecumseh Trail is a trail I've always wanted to run and a point to point supported run on it will be awesome. I just don't know if I want to have my garmin watch buzzing the whole time because I'm pushing my HR too much while climbing a hill. I can always take the hills easy instead of attacking them though. Part of me wants to challenge myself and my discipline by running the event aerobically though. Then the pressure of failing myself through a lack of self-control will be there. Gah !!!
I guess my problem at this point is physically I'm more than capable of doing the distance. My last long run of 18 miles I did on an empty stomach and didn't "bonk" or even come close. Mentally I'm a fucking wreck for this. I've been flip flopping on tactics ever since my foot injury cleared up. I don't have anything to prove except to myself. Man, this is why I hate races !!! Why do I even do them !?!? After this race my schedule is clear and I really don't have any desire to sign up for any because of the brain fuck the preparation this race is doing to me.
So basically I have a little more than a week to decide if I want to use this race as an opportunity to stick to my aerobic building training or run the race by "feel". I have no idea what "strategy" to go with or try to come up with a happy hybrid of the two. Honestly, I just want to get this thing over and done with, take mental notes of the terrain so I have a better idea of the area for runs there in the future, and just get back to training without all this bullshit of an organized event. Oh, and have fun.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Hurm.....Injured? Am I injured?......Hurm.
So here I sit. A couple of weeks ago when I got done with the "Eight Hours of Payne" non-event event, I had a slight pain in the outside of my left foot. I didn't really think anything of it. I had just ran a shit ton of miles so a little twinge in a body part wasn't unexpected. The pain went away after a while anyway. Perfectly fine and dandy.
I took a couple days off of running for some recovery and went back out for a four to five mile run around my neighborhood. No problems. Afterward I felt a little niggle in the spot that hurt after the big non-event. I really didn't think anything of it. The day after that I got about two miles from home on a post-work run and the niggle was back. It was back and a little more bothersome. I finished my route (which I was halfway done with anyway) and decided to give slack off on my running to let this heal before it snowballs into something worse.
Six days later, no problems from my left foot, I decide to hit it again. Post work six miler: done. Post work five miler: piece of cake. Post work five miler: hurm....maybe should have rested? I just that small niggle creep up again. I woke up the next morning and it felt fine. I went to my gym and worked out. Jumping switching lunges: fine. Weighted box step ups: no problems. Nothing. Later that day. Kind of a niggle. What the hell?
So Saturday, a group of us went to the Morgan Monroe State Forest with the plans to run the Three Lakes Trail. I was kind of worried about the foot, but woke up with no pain in it. So I decided to play it by ear. I wanted to do two laps (each lap being 10 miles) and my friend Chris joined me.
The run started out fine. My quads and glutes were experiencing delayed onset muscle soreness so the hills on this trail were tougher than I wanted. We were cruising along and my foot was fine. I decided the soft trail was just what the doctor ordered. Pounding on concrete and asphalt aggravated the spot more than anything. Eureka !!! One more reason to not like road running.
The day's run ended up being a twelve miler. My legs were taxed from the previous day's weight work and I figured I could get a longer run on my day off in the middle of next week. My wife and I met up, said goodbye to our friends who wanted to do more miles, and we were off for home.
While I was taking my socks off at home, I squeezed my foot where I was experiencing the here today gone tomorrow pain. I immediately felt a sharp pain where I was squeezing. Not good !!! My foot felt fine otherwise, but when I squeezed it....Yipes !!!! So, being the genius I am, I sat on the edge of the bed squeezing around the spot until I mentally mapped out the injured area and irritated the spot into hurting. Hurm.
My wife, who rolled her ankle on the run, was doing a cold water bath for her ankle. When she was done, I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to do so for my foot. Twenty minutes in a cold bath will cure it all. Then we decide to go downtown. Walking around and no problems. I get home and give the spot a slight squeeze and.......yipe. Not so bad, but I'm not happy. "I'll just not run tomorrow," I decide.
So on Sunday I wake up. Foot check: slight niggle when squeezed. Hurm. Later in the day I do the worse thing I can do with a running injury: Google foot injury symptoms. Mentally, I decide to reject anything that says I have any kind of foot cancer. I look for running injuries. Find that midfoot strikers could develop stress fractures in their metatarsals. Or that it could be a bruised bone.. Hurm.
Then I make the decision that if I'm looking up symptoms or causes for this sharp pain, I better just make an appointment with my doctor. Monday morning I secure an appointment with x-rays and make a Jesse Pinkman meme and post it to Facebook.
This leads to a couple of discussions on the thread. Then my friend Savannah starts asking about where it hurts and how. She says that she recently tore a ligament in her foot and it hurt her way more than just a little injury. She posted this pic along with her comments
Torn Tendon ? Could it be that? Hurm....So then I start googling all the possible tendons on the side of the foot and symptoms of tearing or injury. Most of the injuries involve loss of balance as a major indicator. I didn't have this, so I'm back to stress fracture. Then something in my head tells me that I have a doctors appointment and that I need to get the fuck off the internet. I decided to listen to the voice.
The next day I get an X-ray done. My doctor runs me through a battery of movement drill and I pass each one. I tell him that I'm not really bothered physically by the injury, except when I run on roads. (or sit and pinch, poke, and squeeze the area minutes at a time.) He takes me to see my x-rays and I'm walking around the hallways with only one shoe on. He says my bones look fine in the problem area. No cracks, breaks, splinters, fissures....nothing.
So we go back to the examination room and he tells me that my somthinginlatinus tendon may have a tear in it, but it is most likely tendonitis. He then proceeded to tell me that this is an injury most commonly seen in dancers. (Dancers that do lots of leaps and jumps.) I told him that the week prior to the injury I was practicing running down hills and trying to get faster at it. Then how at the Paynetown event non-event I was trying to bolt down the hills in order to give my quads a rest. This information seemed to back his diagnosis.
I was given two choices: a pricey MRI scan to help determine for sure what is causing the sharp niggle or to try not running for two weeks, do ankle strengthening exercises, and take an anti-inflammatory. I chose the latter and he agreed with my decision. He gave the go ahead to cross training and weight workouts but to avoid any running.
I'm relieved there aren't any bruised, fractured, or broken bones. Tendonitis or a tear is something that can heal more quickly than a compromised bone. I'm more disappointed in the fact that I have a "dancer's injury". Shit, my last major injury was more commonly found in soccer and hockey players. I'm amused and lucky that I've been avoiding typical runner's injuries but shit. I'm really resisting the urge to squeeze the spot though. I haven't had any niggles today. Technically, I hadn't run two days prior to the doctor telling me not to run for two weeks so I'm kind of on the fourth day at the time of this writing. Piece of cake. My personal trainer wrote me a leg heavy program and didn't want me running too much while doing it anyway. (just look at that optimistic silver lining attitude !!!) So, I'm winning there.
But still......hurm.
I took a couple days off of running for some recovery and went back out for a four to five mile run around my neighborhood. No problems. Afterward I felt a little niggle in the spot that hurt after the big non-event. I really didn't think anything of it. The day after that I got about two miles from home on a post-work run and the niggle was back. It was back and a little more bothersome. I finished my route (which I was halfway done with anyway) and decided to give slack off on my running to let this heal before it snowballs into something worse.
Six days later, no problems from my left foot, I decide to hit it again. Post work six miler: done. Post work five miler: piece of cake. Post work five miler: hurm....maybe should have rested? I just that small niggle creep up again. I woke up the next morning and it felt fine. I went to my gym and worked out. Jumping switching lunges: fine. Weighted box step ups: no problems. Nothing. Later that day. Kind of a niggle. What the hell?
So Saturday, a group of us went to the Morgan Monroe State Forest with the plans to run the Three Lakes Trail. I was kind of worried about the foot, but woke up with no pain in it. So I decided to play it by ear. I wanted to do two laps (each lap being 10 miles) and my friend Chris joined me.
The run started out fine. My quads and glutes were experiencing delayed onset muscle soreness so the hills on this trail were tougher than I wanted. We were cruising along and my foot was fine. I decided the soft trail was just what the doctor ordered. Pounding on concrete and asphalt aggravated the spot more than anything. Eureka !!! One more reason to not like road running.
The day's run ended up being a twelve miler. My legs were taxed from the previous day's weight work and I figured I could get a longer run on my day off in the middle of next week. My wife and I met up, said goodbye to our friends who wanted to do more miles, and we were off for home.
While I was taking my socks off at home, I squeezed my foot where I was experiencing the here today gone tomorrow pain. I immediately felt a sharp pain where I was squeezing. Not good !!! My foot felt fine otherwise, but when I squeezed it....Yipes !!!! So, being the genius I am, I sat on the edge of the bed squeezing around the spot until I mentally mapped out the injured area and irritated the spot into hurting. Hurm.
My wife, who rolled her ankle on the run, was doing a cold water bath for her ankle. When she was done, I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to do so for my foot. Twenty minutes in a cold bath will cure it all. Then we decide to go downtown. Walking around and no problems. I get home and give the spot a slight squeeze and.......yipe. Not so bad, but I'm not happy. "I'll just not run tomorrow," I decide.
So on Sunday I wake up. Foot check: slight niggle when squeezed. Hurm. Later in the day I do the worse thing I can do with a running injury: Google foot injury symptoms. Mentally, I decide to reject anything that says I have any kind of foot cancer. I look for running injuries. Find that midfoot strikers could develop stress fractures in their metatarsals. Or that it could be a bruised bone.. Hurm.
Then I make the decision that if I'm looking up symptoms or causes for this sharp pain, I better just make an appointment with my doctor. Monday morning I secure an appointment with x-rays and make a Jesse Pinkman meme and post it to Facebook.
Torn Tendon ? Could it be that? Hurm....So then I start googling all the possible tendons on the side of the foot and symptoms of tearing or injury. Most of the injuries involve loss of balance as a major indicator. I didn't have this, so I'm back to stress fracture. Then something in my head tells me that I have a doctors appointment and that I need to get the fuck off the internet. I decided to listen to the voice.
The next day I get an X-ray done. My doctor runs me through a battery of movement drill and I pass each one. I tell him that I'm not really bothered physically by the injury, except when I run on roads. (or sit and pinch, poke, and squeeze the area minutes at a time.) He takes me to see my x-rays and I'm walking around the hallways with only one shoe on. He says my bones look fine in the problem area. No cracks, breaks, splinters, fissures....nothing.
So we go back to the examination room and he tells me that my somthinginlatinus tendon may have a tear in it, but it is most likely tendonitis. He then proceeded to tell me that this is an injury most commonly seen in dancers. (Dancers that do lots of leaps and jumps.) I told him that the week prior to the injury I was practicing running down hills and trying to get faster at it. Then how at the Paynetown event non-event I was trying to bolt down the hills in order to give my quads a rest. This information seemed to back his diagnosis.
I was given two choices: a pricey MRI scan to help determine for sure what is causing the sharp niggle or to try not running for two weeks, do ankle strengthening exercises, and take an anti-inflammatory. I chose the latter and he agreed with my decision. He gave the go ahead to cross training and weight workouts but to avoid any running.
I'm relieved there aren't any bruised, fractured, or broken bones. Tendonitis or a tear is something that can heal more quickly than a compromised bone. I'm more disappointed in the fact that I have a "dancer's injury". Shit, my last major injury was more commonly found in soccer and hockey players. I'm amused and lucky that I've been avoiding typical runner's injuries but shit. I'm really resisting the urge to squeeze the spot though. I haven't had any niggles today. Technically, I hadn't run two days prior to the doctor telling me not to run for two weeks so I'm kind of on the fourth day at the time of this writing. Piece of cake. My personal trainer wrote me a leg heavy program and didn't want me running too much while doing it anyway. (just look at that optimistic silver lining attitude !!!) So, I'm winning there.
But still......hurm.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Eight Hours of Payne....or the "non-event" event
A couple of months ago my friend Rick and I signed up to do a two man relay at an event called "Eight hours of Payne." This event was an eight hour endurance run where a runner would run either a 10k course or a 5k course for eight hours. Each runner can pick and choose which distance they wanted to run each lap with the idea of running 8 total hours. The event was to be held at the Paynetown state recreational area. I guess I say "was" because the event had to be cancelled due to the government shutdown. The state park is obviously run by the state of Indiana, but the trails we were to run on are in the Hoosier National Forest. The powers that be decided to revoke the land use permit that the race needed to be an event.
The silver lining in the whole thing was the fact that one section of the course was on state property. So the race coordinator decided to go ahead and be there with the intention of just kind of hanging out. Salomon shoes had a tent there and had a wide assortment of shoes for people to try on. There was a small group of people there to just support Bill (the race coordinator) and Ben (his son).
I didn't really have any expectations going into the event. When I signed up with Rick it was with the understanding that I my legs wouldn't be fresh because the same week I would be hiking in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park with my wife, Erin. (A vacation that also was compromised by the government shutdown. Originally, I wanted to do this event as a solo runner but my wife talked me out of it. Then Rick approached me to do a 2fer.) He reassured me that he wasn't in it to win it and just wanted to be a part of the event. This took the pressure off to hold back during my vacation for the event.
So anyway, back to the event. I guess my game plan was to run four laps. Twenty four miles was about what I would have run partnering with Rick in the two man relay. So that was my primary goal. The idea of doing a distance personal record was there, but only if I was feeling good about it. I had already run about 20 miles and hiked about 30 already in the week, so a PR distance goal was a long shot.
Erin talked me into trying a pair of the Salomon lab shoes. A pretty minimalist shoe that had a pretty good tread on them. I always wear Altras and love them. Altras have a very roomy toe box that these Salomons didn't have. I figured I would wear them for a lap (10k or six miles in american) and put on my beloved Altra Lone Peak 1.5's.
We started running at 9am and everything was good. The running groups thinned out while people rushed ahead of me and others stayed behind. I quickly found myself in a familiar situation: by myself. It was kind of strange. I expected to run with people but I seemed to be in a pace limbo between packs. Oh, well.
I've run this trail dozens of times so I knew what to expect. It's constant uphills and downhills with no real flats anywhere. The first six miles just kind of cruised by and I kept a lookout for a part of the course that was a junction in the trail that I was unfamiliar with. For some reason, I was real worried about missing that turn. I eventually came upon it and went up and followed the flour trail markings down and then a turn and then another. Then I lost the markings and had to make a 50/50 decision. Turns out I made the wrong choice and ran downhill about a quarter mile til I came to the lake. "Well, shit, this can't be right," I muttered to myself and headed back up the hill.
I saw two guys at the same junction trying to decide which way to go. "Not this way," I called out to them. I caught up to them and we went down the other way. It was only a couple of hundred yards to the parking lot and the completion of the first lap. I was at an extra half mile or so after the first lap and the second "event" in a row that I had gotten lost. I got skills.
I came to the parking lot and gave Ben a low five. The salomon rep asked how I liked the shoes and I had positive things to say about them. The traction was great and I hadn't really had any problems. The lace system is cool. They are similar to the Nathan "never tie" laces that I use on my Altras. You don't tie them as much as you pull them up and they "lock in" which are great because then you don't have to worry about your laces becoming untied. I decided to keep the shoes on for another lap.
The second lap was pretty uneventful. The coolest thing to happen was that all of a sudden several miles into the lap the forest's bird population suddenly came alive. All kinds of birds were waking up and calling out in various chirps and songs. The birds were silent and seemingly non-existant during the first lap. It was pretty awesome.
So anyway....the second lap: Up,down,up,down. I had read the book Chi-Running on vacation and had been trying to apply some of the principles from the book. I was basically going to concentrate on form. Keep my posture erect without slouching and keep a steady cadence. Some of the things in the book were useful and some weren't. (It's a quick read but the author tries to oversell the "Chi-running" as a brand which comes off as gimmicky.) So far in the day, experimenting with with different stride lengths, the different angles I can lean, and keeping my cadence constant were keeping the run interesting.
My pinkie toe was starting to rub in the shoe a little. This was no surprise. (My left pinky toe kind of sticks out a little ever since I broke it running a trail in vibram five fingers last year.) I came to the parking lot and when the Salomon rep asked me how things were going I told him about the toe issue but didn't really make a bid deal of it. I don't remember much of this pit stop. Two laps down and onto the next one.
About a mile and a half into the next lap I caught a glimpse of two runners coming up from the back fast. I kind of skittled over so they could pass and saw that one of the runners was Ben. I kept pace with the two for a little while and Ben asked about the trip my wife and I took. This exchange didn't last very long though. I couldn't keep their pace so I slowed down so I could conserve energy . I was only about half way through the day's goal and trying to keep up with these two would have thrown that plan in jeopardy. (Not that I could sustain their pace anyway)
Things were going smoothly and then at about the 14 mile mark or so the salomon shoes started constricting on me. Every downhill I went down my toenails just started to grind into the shoe. And by grind I mean it felt like the shoes were peeling my toenails up and back. It fucking hurt !!! The miles started to slowly tick by with the pain happening on the downhills and then spreading to the uphills too. Good lord this sucked so much balls !!! At about mile 16, I started to check out the trail debris situation to see if taking the shoes off and just running in socks was an option. Small twigs and some acorns littered a good portion of the trail. "I'm fucked for the next two miles," I thought to myself. Then I remembered that I ran an extra half mile and that it would be two and a half miles until I could get the shoes off. "Man, I'm fucked for the next two and a half miles !!!" Ugh.....I can only guess that my feet swelled just enough that the shoe became too tight. I reached down and loosened the laces. It helped some but not much.
I finally reached the turn from the main trail that lead to the parking lot. I couldn't wait to get out of these shoes !!! I caught up to an older runner and he asked how I was doing. I told him the tale about the sudden constricting shoe phenomenon and he laughed. He had been running with a thirty pound weight vest on. He told me why but I don't remember the reason anymore. At any rate, we came upon the clearing and I hoped the salomon rep wasn't around to ask me what I thought of the shoes.
I saw my Altras under the salomon table and ripped off the shoes to put on my trusty pair. Immediate satisfaction !!!! Oh lord Jeebus !!! It was like I put on shoes made from the hair of angelic cloud kittens !!! Erin was at the aid station and asked what I needed. At this point I needed to fill up the bladder of my camelbak so we skittered to my car, thus avoiding the shoe rep. She asked how I was doing and I mostly complained about the shoes. We filled the bladder and I ate a larabar or two or something. The rep found me and asked me about the shoes. I told them that they just squeezed up on me. He made mention of the Altras bigger toe box, but that was about all I can remember. (Boy, I was more civilized than I thought I would have been.) Then I was off for lap number 4.
Lord, I felt so much better now !!! My pace and my spirits picked up and I was back in business. I could only guess that me and those salomon shoes were only good for 12 miles. At any rate, this was a happy accident to make the fourth lap all rainbows and unicorns. My first goal was going to be accomplished. I had about five miles left to do it, but I felt great at this point. My quads were getting a little fatigued but I was trying to run downhill loosely to help alleviate their workload.
I was about three miles in and coming right towards me was Ben. He had run the course backwards to run with me. How cool was that !?!?! After running solo all day it was great to have him there. I must admit I wasn't much of a conversationalist at this point. I can't remember two words I said to him. At one point we came upon our friend Christy and we high fived each other. She was looking good and strong.
"This hill is where Paynetown PR's go to die," Ben said as I shifted from running to an aggressive hike to get up the last hill til the turnoff. It was at about this time that I knew a fifth loop was in the cards and I wanted to conserve my legs. We ran all the way to the parking lot making this the best lap of the day so far.
Another uneventful parking lot pit stop and I was off for lap five. Everything was going smoothly after changing shoes and I was looking forward to this lap. I got up the whitetail trail hill and coasted down to the switchbacks and then up the long incline to the 10k/5k split off. I was doing a decent effort and then somewhere around mile 27 my tendons started to ache. My hamstrings and calves just got a little too tight and were starting to effect my tendons. My pace was starting to suffer and I stopped to stretch here and there.
Coming down one of the switchbacks, I saw an amazing bright green snake. It was about a foot and a half long and I stopped to check it out. Of all the times to not have my camera on me !!! I nudged at its tail to get it off the trail but it wasn't moving. Aw, well. I continued down the switchback and back up the other one on the other side.
I finished the lap and my pace dropped considerably. I told Erin I wanted to do a distance PR and that I was going to do a 5k lap. Starting the trail again I passed the 50k point and knew I could stop there and be done. My tendons were aching but my ego started to take over. "It's only a 5k, you can do that," my ego told me. My ego can be a bad influence and an asshole, I decided. So I kept at it. When I came to the split I remembered that the 5k trail is mostly uphill. I got halfway up the first part of the hill to a small flat section that only led to more uphill. Shit. It might have been easier to run the 10k trail again. My tendons ached and I cursed myself for letting my ego make this decision. Ugh, what a fool.
I pushed through those last three miles and didn't feel very strong about it. I came to the parking lot and, for the first time all day, it was empty. I reset my Garmin so I wouldn't be tempted to go out again. 33.44 miles and over 6,100 ft of elevation gain for the day. I had been at it for about six hours and forty five minutes and knew I had more time to get another lap in. Physically, it would have been the dumbest decision ever. Luckily the tendon pain I was experiencing was loud enough to drown out my ego's other bad idea of going out for another lap. I walked down the parking lot hoping that my legs would loosen up and ease the tension in my tendons. Erin grabbed me a coconut water and I chugged half of it down. Bill came up and called me an "animal".
"I'm a moron," I said, correcting him. He disagreed. Bill's a good guy.
I stretched and walked. Endorphins and other things were starting to kick in. Oddly it felt like I was going to cry for a second. I walked to my car and leaned back on the hood and started seeing a dozen tiny little pinwheels twisting at the scene before me. "Fuck....I'm having an acid flashback?" I thought to myself. Oh, boy. This is getting weird. Then it stopped after about 20 seconds or so.
I went back to the tent area and people were back from wherever they disappeared to. I sat down and just kind of zoned out. I guess endorphins were kicking in but I felt an amazing calm overcome me. I don't know if I was smiling on the outside but I definitely was on the inside. It was a great feeling. My friend Heather sat down on the ground next to me and we chatted a little. I was just enjoying the moment and the accomplishment. My legs loosened up and the tendon pain subsided. Some group pictures were taken and I felt well enough to drive home.
Looking back, I didn't finish as strong as I would have liked. Things started to fall apart at about the 27 mile mark. I have no idea why. It's possible that the week's hiking and running had a hand in it. At about that point I would have been at about the 77 mile mark for the week. I would have like to finished my PR distance run a lot stronger than I did. But I think the most valuable lesson I learned this day was that I need to ignore my ego a lot better in the future. Risking my physical well being for a small amount of glory was a pretty foolish thing to do. Luckily I managed to get through the day without any major injuries. My recovery was fast and had no real case of delayed onset muscle soreness either. I guess what I'm trying to say is: I can't wait to do it all again next year !!!
The silver lining in the whole thing was the fact that one section of the course was on state property. So the race coordinator decided to go ahead and be there with the intention of just kind of hanging out. Salomon shoes had a tent there and had a wide assortment of shoes for people to try on. There was a small group of people there to just support Bill (the race coordinator) and Ben (his son).
I didn't really have any expectations going into the event. When I signed up with Rick it was with the understanding that I my legs wouldn't be fresh because the same week I would be hiking in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park with my wife, Erin. (A vacation that also was compromised by the government shutdown. Originally, I wanted to do this event as a solo runner but my wife talked me out of it. Then Rick approached me to do a 2fer.) He reassured me that he wasn't in it to win it and just wanted to be a part of the event. This took the pressure off to hold back during my vacation for the event.
So anyway, back to the event. I guess my game plan was to run four laps. Twenty four miles was about what I would have run partnering with Rick in the two man relay. So that was my primary goal. The idea of doing a distance personal record was there, but only if I was feeling good about it. I had already run about 20 miles and hiked about 30 already in the week, so a PR distance goal was a long shot.
Erin talked me into trying a pair of the Salomon lab shoes. A pretty minimalist shoe that had a pretty good tread on them. I always wear Altras and love them. Altras have a very roomy toe box that these Salomons didn't have. I figured I would wear them for a lap (10k or six miles in american) and put on my beloved Altra Lone Peak 1.5's.
We started running at 9am and everything was good. The running groups thinned out while people rushed ahead of me and others stayed behind. I quickly found myself in a familiar situation: by myself. It was kind of strange. I expected to run with people but I seemed to be in a pace limbo between packs. Oh, well.
I've run this trail dozens of times so I knew what to expect. It's constant uphills and downhills with no real flats anywhere. The first six miles just kind of cruised by and I kept a lookout for a part of the course that was a junction in the trail that I was unfamiliar with. For some reason, I was real worried about missing that turn. I eventually came upon it and went up and followed the flour trail markings down and then a turn and then another. Then I lost the markings and had to make a 50/50 decision. Turns out I made the wrong choice and ran downhill about a quarter mile til I came to the lake. "Well, shit, this can't be right," I muttered to myself and headed back up the hill.
I saw two guys at the same junction trying to decide which way to go. "Not this way," I called out to them. I caught up to them and we went down the other way. It was only a couple of hundred yards to the parking lot and the completion of the first lap. I was at an extra half mile or so after the first lap and the second "event" in a row that I had gotten lost. I got skills.
I came to the parking lot and gave Ben a low five. The salomon rep asked how I liked the shoes and I had positive things to say about them. The traction was great and I hadn't really had any problems. The lace system is cool. They are similar to the Nathan "never tie" laces that I use on my Altras. You don't tie them as much as you pull them up and they "lock in" which are great because then you don't have to worry about your laces becoming untied. I decided to keep the shoes on for another lap.
The second lap was pretty uneventful. The coolest thing to happen was that all of a sudden several miles into the lap the forest's bird population suddenly came alive. All kinds of birds were waking up and calling out in various chirps and songs. The birds were silent and seemingly non-existant during the first lap. It was pretty awesome.
So anyway....the second lap: Up,down,up,down. I had read the book Chi-Running on vacation and had been trying to apply some of the principles from the book. I was basically going to concentrate on form. Keep my posture erect without slouching and keep a steady cadence. Some of the things in the book were useful and some weren't. (It's a quick read but the author tries to oversell the "Chi-running" as a brand which comes off as gimmicky.) So far in the day, experimenting with with different stride lengths, the different angles I can lean, and keeping my cadence constant were keeping the run interesting.
My pinkie toe was starting to rub in the shoe a little. This was no surprise. (My left pinky toe kind of sticks out a little ever since I broke it running a trail in vibram five fingers last year.) I came to the parking lot and when the Salomon rep asked me how things were going I told him about the toe issue but didn't really make a bid deal of it. I don't remember much of this pit stop. Two laps down and onto the next one.
About a mile and a half into the next lap I caught a glimpse of two runners coming up from the back fast. I kind of skittled over so they could pass and saw that one of the runners was Ben. I kept pace with the two for a little while and Ben asked about the trip my wife and I took. This exchange didn't last very long though. I couldn't keep their pace so I slowed down so I could conserve energy . I was only about half way through the day's goal and trying to keep up with these two would have thrown that plan in jeopardy. (Not that I could sustain their pace anyway)
Things were going smoothly and then at about the 14 mile mark or so the salomon shoes started constricting on me. Every downhill I went down my toenails just started to grind into the shoe. And by grind I mean it felt like the shoes were peeling my toenails up and back. It fucking hurt !!! The miles started to slowly tick by with the pain happening on the downhills and then spreading to the uphills too. Good lord this sucked so much balls !!! At about mile 16, I started to check out the trail debris situation to see if taking the shoes off and just running in socks was an option. Small twigs and some acorns littered a good portion of the trail. "I'm fucked for the next two miles," I thought to myself. Then I remembered that I ran an extra half mile and that it would be two and a half miles until I could get the shoes off. "Man, I'm fucked for the next two and a half miles !!!" Ugh.....I can only guess that my feet swelled just enough that the shoe became too tight. I reached down and loosened the laces. It helped some but not much.
I finally reached the turn from the main trail that lead to the parking lot. I couldn't wait to get out of these shoes !!! I caught up to an older runner and he asked how I was doing. I told him the tale about the sudden constricting shoe phenomenon and he laughed. He had been running with a thirty pound weight vest on. He told me why but I don't remember the reason anymore. At any rate, we came upon the clearing and I hoped the salomon rep wasn't around to ask me what I thought of the shoes.
I saw my Altras under the salomon table and ripped off the shoes to put on my trusty pair. Immediate satisfaction !!!! Oh lord Jeebus !!! It was like I put on shoes made from the hair of angelic cloud kittens !!! Erin was at the aid station and asked what I needed. At this point I needed to fill up the bladder of my camelbak so we skittered to my car, thus avoiding the shoe rep. She asked how I was doing and I mostly complained about the shoes. We filled the bladder and I ate a larabar or two or something. The rep found me and asked me about the shoes. I told them that they just squeezed up on me. He made mention of the Altras bigger toe box, but that was about all I can remember. (Boy, I was more civilized than I thought I would have been.) Then I was off for lap number 4.
Lord, I felt so much better now !!! My pace and my spirits picked up and I was back in business. I could only guess that me and those salomon shoes were only good for 12 miles. At any rate, this was a happy accident to make the fourth lap all rainbows and unicorns. My first goal was going to be accomplished. I had about five miles left to do it, but I felt great at this point. My quads were getting a little fatigued but I was trying to run downhill loosely to help alleviate their workload.
I was about three miles in and coming right towards me was Ben. He had run the course backwards to run with me. How cool was that !?!?! After running solo all day it was great to have him there. I must admit I wasn't much of a conversationalist at this point. I can't remember two words I said to him. At one point we came upon our friend Christy and we high fived each other. She was looking good and strong.
"This hill is where Paynetown PR's go to die," Ben said as I shifted from running to an aggressive hike to get up the last hill til the turnoff. It was at about this time that I knew a fifth loop was in the cards and I wanted to conserve my legs. We ran all the way to the parking lot making this the best lap of the day so far.
Another uneventful parking lot pit stop and I was off for lap five. Everything was going smoothly after changing shoes and I was looking forward to this lap. I got up the whitetail trail hill and coasted down to the switchbacks and then up the long incline to the 10k/5k split off. I was doing a decent effort and then somewhere around mile 27 my tendons started to ache. My hamstrings and calves just got a little too tight and were starting to effect my tendons. My pace was starting to suffer and I stopped to stretch here and there.
Coming down one of the switchbacks, I saw an amazing bright green snake. It was about a foot and a half long and I stopped to check it out. Of all the times to not have my camera on me !!! I nudged at its tail to get it off the trail but it wasn't moving. Aw, well. I continued down the switchback and back up the other one on the other side.
I finished the lap and my pace dropped considerably. I told Erin I wanted to do a distance PR and that I was going to do a 5k lap. Starting the trail again I passed the 50k point and knew I could stop there and be done. My tendons were aching but my ego started to take over. "It's only a 5k, you can do that," my ego told me. My ego can be a bad influence and an asshole, I decided. So I kept at it. When I came to the split I remembered that the 5k trail is mostly uphill. I got halfway up the first part of the hill to a small flat section that only led to more uphill. Shit. It might have been easier to run the 10k trail again. My tendons ached and I cursed myself for letting my ego make this decision. Ugh, what a fool.
I pushed through those last three miles and didn't feel very strong about it. I came to the parking lot and, for the first time all day, it was empty. I reset my Garmin so I wouldn't be tempted to go out again. 33.44 miles and over 6,100 ft of elevation gain for the day. I had been at it for about six hours and forty five minutes and knew I had more time to get another lap in. Physically, it would have been the dumbest decision ever. Luckily the tendon pain I was experiencing was loud enough to drown out my ego's other bad idea of going out for another lap. I walked down the parking lot hoping that my legs would loosen up and ease the tension in my tendons. Erin grabbed me a coconut water and I chugged half of it down. Bill came up and called me an "animal".
"I'm a moron," I said, correcting him. He disagreed. Bill's a good guy.
I stretched and walked. Endorphins and other things were starting to kick in. Oddly it felt like I was going to cry for a second. I walked to my car and leaned back on the hood and started seeing a dozen tiny little pinwheels twisting at the scene before me. "Fuck....I'm having an acid flashback?" I thought to myself. Oh, boy. This is getting weird. Then it stopped after about 20 seconds or so.
I went back to the tent area and people were back from wherever they disappeared to. I sat down and just kind of zoned out. I guess endorphins were kicking in but I felt an amazing calm overcome me. I don't know if I was smiling on the outside but I definitely was on the inside. It was a great feeling. My friend Heather sat down on the ground next to me and we chatted a little. I was just enjoying the moment and the accomplishment. My legs loosened up and the tendon pain subsided. Some group pictures were taken and I felt well enough to drive home.
Looking back, I didn't finish as strong as I would have liked. Things started to fall apart at about the 27 mile mark. I have no idea why. It's possible that the week's hiking and running had a hand in it. At about that point I would have been at about the 77 mile mark for the week. I would have like to finished my PR distance run a lot stronger than I did. But I think the most valuable lesson I learned this day was that I need to ignore my ego a lot better in the future. Risking my physical well being for a small amount of glory was a pretty foolish thing to do. Luckily I managed to get through the day without any major injuries. My recovery was fast and had no real case of delayed onset muscle soreness either. I guess what I'm trying to say is: I can't wait to do it all again next year !!!
Vacation to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park (or how the government shut down nature and we became disciples of civil disobedience)
I have never been to this national park so I had no expectations. I was severely disappointed that all the daydreaming of trail running in the mountains was to be about as close as I could get to actually trail running in the mountains though. Days before we were to leave Erin, my wife, took to the internet and found some promising things to do though.
I scoured the internets and found some great places too. Great places that were all in the park. Or great trails that were out and backs with a total distance of a half mile. The day before we were to leave I slipped into the library and checked out some books about hiking in Tennessee.
So then we were off. On the drive, I discovered that one of the books I got was for the wrong region and the other two focused on the park. "A" for effort, but an "F" for execution. It turns out Erin, my wife, found a pretty cool place in North Carolina called Pisgah National Forest. Technically it would be "shut down" as well but since there are so many roads in the area, it was impossible to enforce. This sounded perfect and we were off for adventure !!!
The way there was a single lane dirt road that winded up the mountain side and when we got to the trailhead it was super foggy.
I did about 12 miles total and, according to my Garmin watch, it took forever. I loved every minute of it. During the run I made a habit of running up a hill and then turning around to go down the way I came until I found Erin and then turned around to retake the hill. It was a good system to keep close to her and get a good run in. Overall, it was about 3,400 feet of elevation gain for the out and back that I did. At times I was grinning from ear to ear and loved every minute of it.
The next morning we headed for the "closed" Gatlinburg trail. It was a two mile out and back and it was an easy trail. I did about 4 laps of it for a total of eight and a half miles. We were trying to be conservative since we wanted to hike later in the day. This trail runs by a park ranger station. On one of my laps a ranger drove by in a SUV and I thought "Uh-oh" but he just smiled and waved at me as he drove by. I smiled and waved back. Totally awesome.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
1,000 mile mark
So I hit the thousand mile marker for this year. This is something, at the beginning of the year, I wouldn't have thought possible. I spent most of the first three months of this year with a diagnosis of athletic pubalgia. In simple terms, I had a soft tissue injury in my groin area. More specifically I had small micro-tears in the tissue that connect my abdominal muscles to the front of my pelvic bone. I couldn't run twelve feet without sharp pain occurring in my lower abdomen.
Sometimes the pain would go away after a hundred yards or so and I'd continue my run. When I had runs like these I would have the shooting, sharp pains tenfold about twenty to thirty minutes after the run was finished.
I got this injury sometime late last September. I went on a long run in Brown County State Park and around the twenty mile mark my adductor muscles (especially the one in my right leg) got extremely tight. As I was running up the Hesitation Point trail, I stubbed my toe on a rock which pitched me forward. When this happened my back bent backward and I overstretched my abdominal muscles. This movement combined with a real tight adductor muscle caused an unknown amount of minitears along the pelvic bone where a lot of connective tissue happily live. I yelped at the sharp pain and called it a day.
Then I got rearended in an automobile accident about a week later. A few days after the accident, I ran the Knobstone half marathon and I injured my right foot. This was basically an overuse injury. So I couldn't run for the next couple of weeks. All the while the more serious injury was present but kind of in the background. I couldn't run because of my lame foot so the injury was never irritated. After three weeks, I started to slowly get back into running.
By this time, the Tecumseh Trail marathon was coming up and I went on a long run at the Paynetown SRA to see if the marathon was even doable. After about ten miles my adductor seized up and I had pains going from the back of my knees to my belly button. Not good. Luckily I was able to defer that race entry til the next year. The injury was still present or reoccurring after a month. Also, not good.
So I went to Dr. Michael LaGrange (a local family medicine/ sports medicine doctor). He diagnosed me with athletic pubalgia. I was prescribed anti-inflamatories and physical therapy. I went into physical therapy with the knowledge that if it didn't work surgery might have to be an option. Physical therapy started in January and, something I didn't know at the time, would last for three months. Every Wednesday I would go and have my abdomen stretched and then I slowly progressed to balance exercises and then to strength building exercises. Every other week I would come home with a sheet or two of things to do that would strengthen my core muscles. Some of the exercises would trigger pain, others not. Some of the simpler planks would trigger pain while more difficult plank exercises wouldn't. The therapists were perplexed.
I would diligently do the exercises. Every morning I would wake up and do some before work. My boss gave me permission to do sets at work if time allowed. I would do more exercises after work. Then on Wednesdays I would get new things or modifications of old ones. I started to progress and heal quickly. The therapists even commented that I was a fast healer. They did caution me that rest was just as important to the injury as the exercises I was doing. My motivation was to avoid surgery at all costs.
So this was my routine at the beginning of the year. In the spring I started to do slight jogs. If I had a small twinge of the pain, I would stop. Some days I would run a mile, other days I would run ten feet. Eventually I worked my way up to a mile every other day. Then I made it to two and then three pain free miles.
It was around this time that I started heart rate training. I would run but keep my heart rate under 145 beats per minute. If I was running too fast my heart rate monitor would beep and I would have to slow down or even walk. but mostly walk. My aerobic threshold was super low. Which was good because this new way of training kept me from overexerting my healing body. I slowly rebuilt my endurance in a new way and was soon running for an hour to an hour and a half. The heart rate training kept me at a snail's pace but I was seeing improvements. My pace was increasing but my heart rate was staying the same.
A few weeks into running and at the beginning of heart rate training my therapists discharged me. They put me through a battery of tests and were satisfied with my progress. It was strange. I spent every Wednesday for the first three months of the year going to see them at ten a.m. And then I was done. I graduated. What was I to do? Go for a run !!!
This injury was a game changer for me. I realized that I liked trail running enough that I didn't even flinch when it came to the work needed to get myself back to running. I never thought twice about not doing the work. I couldn't run and I wanted to run. (I also wanted to avoid surgery) I wanted to be on the trails in nature. I never thought of what I did as work. In a way the exercises were medicine. Now I see them as preventive medicine and I'm a better runner for continuing to do them.
I've been thinking about those first few months at the beginning of the year a lot this past day. I've run a thousand miles since then. In those miles I've run two half-marathons, a full marathon, and a 50k ultramarathon. Training weeks included twenty or more mile long runs in 1000% humidity. During some of these runs, which would have been miserable for me a year ago, I would find myself smiling. I was and am happy to be doing what I'm doing.
Would I go back and do it over again? If I could avoid that injury all together, would I? The injury, the physical therapy, the frustration, and fear. I think I would. That experience has made me a stronger person both mentally and physically. I've changed my eating habits to make myself a healthier person and not just a fit person. I am grateful for that injury though I would never have thought I would think that about it then.
Sometimes the pain would go away after a hundred yards or so and I'd continue my run. When I had runs like these I would have the shooting, sharp pains tenfold about twenty to thirty minutes after the run was finished.
I got this injury sometime late last September. I went on a long run in Brown County State Park and around the twenty mile mark my adductor muscles (especially the one in my right leg) got extremely tight. As I was running up the Hesitation Point trail, I stubbed my toe on a rock which pitched me forward. When this happened my back bent backward and I overstretched my abdominal muscles. This movement combined with a real tight adductor muscle caused an unknown amount of minitears along the pelvic bone where a lot of connective tissue happily live. I yelped at the sharp pain and called it a day.
Then I got rearended in an automobile accident about a week later. A few days after the accident, I ran the Knobstone half marathon and I injured my right foot. This was basically an overuse injury. So I couldn't run for the next couple of weeks. All the while the more serious injury was present but kind of in the background. I couldn't run because of my lame foot so the injury was never irritated. After three weeks, I started to slowly get back into running.
By this time, the Tecumseh Trail marathon was coming up and I went on a long run at the Paynetown SRA to see if the marathon was even doable. After about ten miles my adductor seized up and I had pains going from the back of my knees to my belly button. Not good. Luckily I was able to defer that race entry til the next year. The injury was still present or reoccurring after a month. Also, not good.
So I went to Dr. Michael LaGrange (a local family medicine/ sports medicine doctor). He diagnosed me with athletic pubalgia. I was prescribed anti-inflamatories and physical therapy. I went into physical therapy with the knowledge that if it didn't work surgery might have to be an option. Physical therapy started in January and, something I didn't know at the time, would last for three months. Every Wednesday I would go and have my abdomen stretched and then I slowly progressed to balance exercises and then to strength building exercises. Every other week I would come home with a sheet or two of things to do that would strengthen my core muscles. Some of the exercises would trigger pain, others not. Some of the simpler planks would trigger pain while more difficult plank exercises wouldn't. The therapists were perplexed.
I would diligently do the exercises. Every morning I would wake up and do some before work. My boss gave me permission to do sets at work if time allowed. I would do more exercises after work. Then on Wednesdays I would get new things or modifications of old ones. I started to progress and heal quickly. The therapists even commented that I was a fast healer. They did caution me that rest was just as important to the injury as the exercises I was doing. My motivation was to avoid surgery at all costs.
So this was my routine at the beginning of the year. In the spring I started to do slight jogs. If I had a small twinge of the pain, I would stop. Some days I would run a mile, other days I would run ten feet. Eventually I worked my way up to a mile every other day. Then I made it to two and then three pain free miles.
It was around this time that I started heart rate training. I would run but keep my heart rate under 145 beats per minute. If I was running too fast my heart rate monitor would beep and I would have to slow down or even walk. but mostly walk. My aerobic threshold was super low. Which was good because this new way of training kept me from overexerting my healing body. I slowly rebuilt my endurance in a new way and was soon running for an hour to an hour and a half. The heart rate training kept me at a snail's pace but I was seeing improvements. My pace was increasing but my heart rate was staying the same.
A few weeks into running and at the beginning of heart rate training my therapists discharged me. They put me through a battery of tests and were satisfied with my progress. It was strange. I spent every Wednesday for the first three months of the year going to see them at ten a.m. And then I was done. I graduated. What was I to do? Go for a run !!!
This injury was a game changer for me. I realized that I liked trail running enough that I didn't even flinch when it came to the work needed to get myself back to running. I never thought twice about not doing the work. I couldn't run and I wanted to run. (I also wanted to avoid surgery) I wanted to be on the trails in nature. I never thought of what I did as work. In a way the exercises were medicine. Now I see them as preventive medicine and I'm a better runner for continuing to do them.
I've been thinking about those first few months at the beginning of the year a lot this past day. I've run a thousand miles since then. In those miles I've run two half-marathons, a full marathon, and a 50k ultramarathon. Training weeks included twenty or more mile long runs in 1000% humidity. During some of these runs, which would have been miserable for me a year ago, I would find myself smiling. I was and am happy to be doing what I'm doing.
Would I go back and do it over again? If I could avoid that injury all together, would I? The injury, the physical therapy, the frustration, and fear. I think I would. That experience has made me a stronger person both mentally and physically. I've changed my eating habits to make myself a healthier person and not just a fit person. I am grateful for that injury though I would never have thought I would think that about it then.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Let's all go to Hell !!!
So last May my wife registered us for the Running Fit Dances With Dirt 50k race in Hell, Michigan as an anniversary present. I've spent the whole time since training for it. Training that seemed like every other long run created a new distance personal record for myself.
The race was supposed to start at 6:15 am but I think they started it about five minutes early. We were walking from the car when we could hear the announcer counting down from a minute. Shit. I fiddled with my headlamp to get it to the setting I wanted as I trotted toward the start line. I can never get the headlamp's setting right on the first try and I've owned it for over a year. Then I had the realization that I hadn't turned on my Garmin GPS yet. I turned it on as Erin, Chris,and I got to the group of runners waiting for the start. The race started just as we got there !!! We were off and running while I kept checking the GPS to get the satellites for me. The first and second bars kept alternating between full and empty. I then made the decision to just step off the course and stand still til the signal locked in. After about ten seconds (or forever) satellites were locked in and I was off.
Then after the first incline my heart rate buzzed for me to slow down. (I set my heart rate at a higher level for race day....or so I thought) So I ran a little ways up the hill and stepped off the trail again. I scrolled through the menu and got to where I needed to change things, except the number I wanted was correct. I would find out much later there after the race that there is a separate function that I needed to change also. So I said "fuck it" and just figured I would just go on.
I started out a little too fast. I was trying to move up the hill by slightly running past people who were walking up. Between the early start, not finding my satellite signal, and the HR thing I felt that I had to make up for lost time. I tried doing that but then some common sense came in to remind me that I was running in the dark on a trail with a headlamp on. Dodging tree roots and other debris while three feet behind another runner was new territory for me. Yet kind of awesome !!! I instantly thought to myself "Holy crap. I can totally do running like this in the fall and winter !!! ADVENTURE !!!"
Things were going well for a couple of miles. I was pushing my pace a little harder than I should have but I was starting to settle in. I was getting used to the headlamp and found that using it wasn't going as treacherous as I imagined it would be. Then at about the three mile to four mile mark I settled in the back of a line of runners with a loud, not saying anything interesting chatterbox of a girl. She wouldn't shut up or say anything of any interest to anyone except her friend who shared and encouraged her use of uninteresting subjects to talk about. The line of runners was about ten or so deep on an almost impassable single track trail in the dark. I was in Hell !!! We came to a flat part between inclines and the pace picked up until we came to another incline. I immediately decided to pass the group and the girl's friend said "We usually save that kind of burst for the last mile" to me as I passed them. Remembering the phrase "My mother always said if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say it at all" I laughed it off and launched up the incline looking forward to the promise of a peaceful run.
This was the first time I had to run with the headlamp without anyone in front of me. It wasn't any different than running in the daylight. I could see debris, roots, and rocks on the trail just fine. I had no idea what the forest looked like beyond the range of my headlamp, except dark. Though the sun was rising and natural light was becoming more plentiful. The trail came to a road and the first aid station was there. I didn't need anything at this point and the course continued onto another incline. I chose to walk up while I stowed my headlamp into my camel back. My heart rate was too high anyway so this would give me a chance to calm down.
The course continued through some inclines and declines. There were even some boardwalk parts that were mildly slick from the week's rain. After a couple of miles I came upon a group of four guys and kind of settled in behind them. After about five minutes of being behind this group the trail crossed a dirt road. There were no flags marking the course. No flags anywhere. We all came to a stop. I figured it would make sense that the course would continue on down the trail we were on. We got about three hundred feet in and two runners were coming towards us. "This isn't the way" one of them said and we turned around toward the road. When we got to the road a group of three runners were coming up from a bend down the dirt road. They met up with us and said there weren't any flags that way. Another guy and I went back the way we came to see when the last marker was. We found it about a hundred yards back so we knew we hadn't missed a turn. Then we decided to continue down the only way nobody had gone. I thought about staying at the junction for my wife. I didn't know if she was with anybody or where she was. The guys continued down the road and I reluctantly went with them. The road went down a way and then came to a T. Another runner came and he had a map. He and another guy figured out where we were and we ran down the dirt road. We were clicking at a decent pace when the road took a bend and we followed that to where there was a small parking lot with a trailhead. A trailhead that wasn't marked with any course flags. Adventure !!! I then decided that I was going to really break that distance PR. Maybe even make it a self-supported fifty miler if we stay lost enough.
So the map came out again and someone decided to back track the way we came. We got about a half mile up the road when a truck came by and told us the course was back up the road. We thanked the guy and continued up the road. Then another truck came. One of the guys from our group knew him and he told us to get in. Myself and two other guys jumped on the lowered tailgate while the other guy rode shotgun. We sped down to the road where we should have taken a turn. (Later I learned that the driver was Randy the race director aka The Head Goat. So catching a ride wasn't illegal !!!)
We clicked along for a bit and I kind of felt a pressure lift off of me. I was relieved that we were back on track. I was also relieved that some subconscious pressure I was putting on myself about getting a "good race time" was gone. Now I just had to worry about if my wife was still on course or if she got to the junction after it was remarked.
We thanked Randy for the ride and we started moving at good clip down the road. My garmin was set to vibrate and I could feel it on my wrist warning me that I was above my desired exertion. (I was so grateful to have this new model. Normally the deedle~deedle~dee ring of the old HR would have driven me into a fit of Incredible Hulk rage by this point.) Up ahead I saw a runner that I thought was my wife. As we got closer I shouted out her name and was right !!! She turned around and said "Oh, did you get lost?" I sure did !!! I asked her what mileage she had and she was about 3 miles behind what I had. Three mile detour !!! She was running low on electrolyte pills and asked how I was doing with my supply. I hadn't even touched mine so we switched containers since I always forget to take the electrolyte pills anyway. We ran together for a little bit and then I said goodbye as I started to pick up my pace to rejoin the rest of the "Got Lost Boys".
The course went from road to trail and came upon a horseman's camp where there was an aid station set up. I grabbed some orange slices and some water and headed up to a trail. Then I saw Ben and Stephanie waiting up the hill with their dog, Toby. Ben rode up with us while his wife drove to meet us in Hell. They were there to hang out and offer any help the three of us may need on the course. I told them about getting lost and how I was just gonna concentrate on having fun and working on a now 34 mile personal record distance run. They had asked where Chris was and I had said that I hadn't seen him. Then I was wondering if they missed him or if he got super lost at that junction.
I continued on the trail. At this point in the race other runners were getting spread out and it was starting to turn into a nice run. I was experiencing a weird twinge in my right heel/achilles tendon all week. It was letting itself be known for the first nine miles but that had disappeared without notice somewhere in the last few miles. I was in good spirits and started enjoying the scenery around me. There were great wetlands and more boardwalk parts of the course with elevation changes. Nothing major just some small hills here and there. The course was leading up towards an aid station that was set up as an out and back. I was starting to see some of the group of guys I had got lost with coming from the aid station. We were giving each other high fives as we passed and kind of laughing. I hung out at the aid station while talking to a support crew worker while he filled the bladder of my camel back. Headed back the way I came and gave more high fives to other members of the "Get Lost Boys"
I came out and hit the horseman's camp again and reaffirmed which flags I was to follow for the rest of the race at the aid station there. There were more inclines but nothing bad. I took my second vespa and electrolyte pill as I power hiked up a hill. The pace and the terrain of the last few miles were starting to push my calves a little much. I didn't want to risk another calve seizure like I did at the Eagle Creek Marathon so I knew I had to power hike the hills for awhile. (Something I should have been doing anyway) More miles went by, the course turned to some bushwhacking, went down a steep incline (which took its toll on my quads) and then up the climb known at "the stripper pole". It was steep but not very long. I got to the top and started to laugh at the awesome absurdity that the climb was. Adventure !!!
The course continued and along the way I started running with an older mustached gentleman doing the 50 mile race with his wife. He offered me the advice that you want to walk the uphills, run the downhills, and run the flats. This strategy was saving my calves from cramping up. We were soon joined by another runner who was also an experienced distance runner. The two of them chatted while we ran and I gladly ran along with them. We would come to an incline and power hike up and then cruise down. At one point the mustached man stepped off the trail and said that this was a good spot to wait for his wife. I thanked him for his advice and said goodbye.
I ran along behind the other guy and we encountered the first water crossing. I got in and the cold water felt awesome on my pounded feet. We crossed and the trail turned into a slight high grass bushwhackesque part where we were gaining ground on a lady. She stepped aside to let us pass and my running buddy kind of slowed his pace with the lady's. I said a brief goodbye and continued on alone. I came to another water crossing, plopped in, and came out to pass another lady emptying stuff out of her shoe.
Just after that the course took me into a creek where it had us running up it. Not only was I running through it, but also hopping over downed trees and other shit. There was a bend in the stream and the course kept going with the creek. It fluctuated between being ankle deep, to knee deep, to waist deep. I'm six foot three if that gives any idea of depth change. At one point I passed a runner who was gingerly going through the water. I passed him and turned around to look at him and he made an odd sound. Turns out he was deaf and had a confused look on his face and was pointing at the bank of the creek. I went to where he was pointed and gave him a thumbs up. He started my way and then I turned and took some steps in the knee to thigh deep water. Then I stepped on a rock and lifted up about six inches. When I put my foot down I hit a hole and my right shin crashed into a sharp rock and I fell in the water. Holy shit did it hurt !!! I just got up and continued toward another bend in the creek and then diagonally toward a pink trail marker with a photographer. I headed up the bank and saw Satan !!! He welcomed me to Hell and there was an aid station there !!!
My calf was killing me so this caused me to have no use for any water or food. But there was some sort of festival going on. There was a cool rockabilly band playing. Not only were they a rockabilly band but they were some sort of evil lyrics of death rockabilly band !!! Totally fucking awesome !!! The course took me by this event (Which I later found out was called "Hell Fest".) and there were all kinds of pimped out hearses in the parking lot and goth type people everywhere. Cool as shit. My shoes had managed to pick up every sharp piece of debris while I was in the water. I stopped, untied them, and dumped water and other torturous devises out of pain out of them.
Then the course turned uphill on a dirt road and I power hiked up. I could tell that I was starting to compensate for my bashed shin. I think I had nine miles to go at this point. The course turned from the dirt road to more trails and slight bushwhacking. I could still hear the psychobilly band playing off in the distance as I maneuvered through fallen limbs and trees on this stretch of the course. My lower back also started to cramp up from having to constantly duck from the foliage. After about four or five miles the back of my right knee started to get a sharp pain in the tendon. I knew it was from compensating for my bashed shin. I had also realized that I tied my right shoe lace too tight and it was squeezing the top of my foot to the point of discomfort. I stopped to loosen it up and the pain relieved instantly. Despite all this discomfort: We must keep going.
The terrain was still quite pretty. There were pine groves, abundant hardwood trees, and great wetland areas. The boardwalk sections of the trail had great views of marshes and ponds. After one incline the trail came upon a section of the forest that suffered a fire in the recent past. There were new growth smaller trees whose leaves were starting to change colors. Towering over these were older, taller trees that survived the fire but were proudly showing off their scars. The sun was coming through the field and it was probably one of the most amazing scenes I have come upon. (I wished I would have brought my camera, but I got the feeling the fall in the water would have ruined it. But really, I doubt a photo would have done any justice)
Not too long after this I came to the trailhead and was at a road. The lady there said "Just follow those flags there. Just a half mile to go." I thought that couldn't be right. I should have about three miles to go according to my GPS. But what did I know. The course was now on grass and heading slightly downhill !!! I got my second wind and pushed through all the annoying little niggles from my lower back all the way down my right leg and kicked it into gear.
As I came to the bottom of the hill I saw Ben and Stephanie there. They were cheering me on and snapping pictures. When I got by them I saw Chris cheering for me and taking pictures as well. It was good to see him !!! I wondered how the race went for him. (Turns out he finished ninth overall and won his age group !!! Later, I busted his chops a little about this being a "training run" for him, He's a powerhouse.)
I was chugging along and almost overran the chute. As I went through my GPS read that it was just over 30 miles for the event. Not the 34 I was hoping for, but I finished relatively unscathed !!! I walked through and people were handing me shit left and right. Banana, bottle of water, heavy ass finishers medal. A lady with a clipboard asked my age. When I told her she said I placed fifth in my age group. "Are you shitting me?!?!?!?" I asked.
"When have I ever shitted you?" she asked back. She had a good point and I didn't have the energy to argue. The she handed me a pretty nice pint glass that was my age group award. Yay for me. More shit to carry !!! Placing in my age group didn't even seem like a reality the whole race. That was a cool bonus.
As I exited the area Ben and Stephanie came running up with a giant fat head picture they made of me and my dog. This was the most awesome thing ever which made me love these two even more. What great friends !!!
I checked out my shin and I could see blood coming through my calf sleeve. The others could see a raised bump on the profile of it. I could feel muscle groups starting to unnaturally contract so I walked around as a form of a cool down, took off my shoes, and waited for Erin to come in.
She came in and we found out that she placed fourth in her age group !!! All three of us were winners !!! (If you'd like you can read her race report at her blog here: http://persistentrunner.blogspot.com/ She's a lot better than me at this so it's worth your while.) .
Overall, I had a great time. I gained more experience during the race and got to pick my friend's brains about long distance running racing and training afterward. The race course was way shorter than advertised, but since I got lost I ran close to the distance I was hoping to accomplish. I managed to be more disciplined than my last race and I hope to build on that. (Building the discipline will, hopefully, enable me to thwart any major or minor injuries which will let me run more....unlike last year) If I could change one thing it would be to redo the first ten miles where I was running harder than I should have. I think if I would have power hiked the inclines I wouldn't have risked taking my calves to the edge of cramping. Nevertheless I accomplished more than I intended to do and got to know my friends a little bit better in the process. Awesomesauce !!!
The race was supposed to start at 6:15 am but I think they started it about five minutes early. We were walking from the car when we could hear the announcer counting down from a minute. Shit. I fiddled with my headlamp to get it to the setting I wanted as I trotted toward the start line. I can never get the headlamp's setting right on the first try and I've owned it for over a year. Then I had the realization that I hadn't turned on my Garmin GPS yet. I turned it on as Erin, Chris,and I got to the group of runners waiting for the start. The race started just as we got there !!! We were off and running while I kept checking the GPS to get the satellites for me. The first and second bars kept alternating between full and empty. I then made the decision to just step off the course and stand still til the signal locked in. After about ten seconds (or forever) satellites were locked in and I was off.
Then after the first incline my heart rate buzzed for me to slow down. (I set my heart rate at a higher level for race day....or so I thought) So I ran a little ways up the hill and stepped off the trail again. I scrolled through the menu and got to where I needed to change things, except the number I wanted was correct. I would find out much later there after the race that there is a separate function that I needed to change also. So I said "fuck it" and just figured I would just go on.
I started out a little too fast. I was trying to move up the hill by slightly running past people who were walking up. Between the early start, not finding my satellite signal, and the HR thing I felt that I had to make up for lost time. I tried doing that but then some common sense came in to remind me that I was running in the dark on a trail with a headlamp on. Dodging tree roots and other debris while three feet behind another runner was new territory for me. Yet kind of awesome !!! I instantly thought to myself "Holy crap. I can totally do running like this in the fall and winter !!! ADVENTURE !!!"
Things were going well for a couple of miles. I was pushing my pace a little harder than I should have but I was starting to settle in. I was getting used to the headlamp and found that using it wasn't going as treacherous as I imagined it would be. Then at about the three mile to four mile mark I settled in the back of a line of runners with a loud, not saying anything interesting chatterbox of a girl. She wouldn't shut up or say anything of any interest to anyone except her friend who shared and encouraged her use of uninteresting subjects to talk about. The line of runners was about ten or so deep on an almost impassable single track trail in the dark. I was in Hell !!! We came to a flat part between inclines and the pace picked up until we came to another incline. I immediately decided to pass the group and the girl's friend said "We usually save that kind of burst for the last mile" to me as I passed them. Remembering the phrase "My mother always said if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say it at all" I laughed it off and launched up the incline looking forward to the promise of a peaceful run.
This was the first time I had to run with the headlamp without anyone in front of me. It wasn't any different than running in the daylight. I could see debris, roots, and rocks on the trail just fine. I had no idea what the forest looked like beyond the range of my headlamp, except dark. Though the sun was rising and natural light was becoming more plentiful. The trail came to a road and the first aid station was there. I didn't need anything at this point and the course continued onto another incline. I chose to walk up while I stowed my headlamp into my camel back. My heart rate was too high anyway so this would give me a chance to calm down.
The course continued through some inclines and declines. There were even some boardwalk parts that were mildly slick from the week's rain. After a couple of miles I came upon a group of four guys and kind of settled in behind them. After about five minutes of being behind this group the trail crossed a dirt road. There were no flags marking the course. No flags anywhere. We all came to a stop. I figured it would make sense that the course would continue on down the trail we were on. We got about three hundred feet in and two runners were coming towards us. "This isn't the way" one of them said and we turned around toward the road. When we got to the road a group of three runners were coming up from a bend down the dirt road. They met up with us and said there weren't any flags that way. Another guy and I went back the way we came to see when the last marker was. We found it about a hundred yards back so we knew we hadn't missed a turn. Then we decided to continue down the only way nobody had gone. I thought about staying at the junction for my wife. I didn't know if she was with anybody or where she was. The guys continued down the road and I reluctantly went with them. The road went down a way and then came to a T. Another runner came and he had a map. He and another guy figured out where we were and we ran down the dirt road. We were clicking at a decent pace when the road took a bend and we followed that to where there was a small parking lot with a trailhead. A trailhead that wasn't marked with any course flags. Adventure !!! I then decided that I was going to really break that distance PR. Maybe even make it a self-supported fifty miler if we stay lost enough.
So the map came out again and someone decided to back track the way we came. We got about a half mile up the road when a truck came by and told us the course was back up the road. We thanked the guy and continued up the road. Then another truck came. One of the guys from our group knew him and he told us to get in. Myself and two other guys jumped on the lowered tailgate while the other guy rode shotgun. We sped down to the road where we should have taken a turn. (Later I learned that the driver was Randy the race director aka The Head Goat. So catching a ride wasn't illegal !!!)
We clicked along for a bit and I kind of felt a pressure lift off of me. I was relieved that we were back on track. I was also relieved that some subconscious pressure I was putting on myself about getting a "good race time" was gone. Now I just had to worry about if my wife was still on course or if she got to the junction after it was remarked.
We thanked Randy for the ride and we started moving at good clip down the road. My garmin was set to vibrate and I could feel it on my wrist warning me that I was above my desired exertion. (I was so grateful to have this new model. Normally the deedle~deedle~dee ring of the old HR would have driven me into a fit of Incredible Hulk rage by this point.) Up ahead I saw a runner that I thought was my wife. As we got closer I shouted out her name and was right !!! She turned around and said "Oh, did you get lost?" I sure did !!! I asked her what mileage she had and she was about 3 miles behind what I had. Three mile detour !!! She was running low on electrolyte pills and asked how I was doing with my supply. I hadn't even touched mine so we switched containers since I always forget to take the electrolyte pills anyway. We ran together for a little bit and then I said goodbye as I started to pick up my pace to rejoin the rest of the "Got Lost Boys".
The course went from road to trail and came upon a horseman's camp where there was an aid station set up. I grabbed some orange slices and some water and headed up to a trail. Then I saw Ben and Stephanie waiting up the hill with their dog, Toby. Ben rode up with us while his wife drove to meet us in Hell. They were there to hang out and offer any help the three of us may need on the course. I told them about getting lost and how I was just gonna concentrate on having fun and working on a now 34 mile personal record distance run. They had asked where Chris was and I had said that I hadn't seen him. Then I was wondering if they missed him or if he got super lost at that junction.
I came out and hit the horseman's camp again and reaffirmed which flags I was to follow for the rest of the race at the aid station there. There were more inclines but nothing bad. I took my second vespa and electrolyte pill as I power hiked up a hill. The pace and the terrain of the last few miles were starting to push my calves a little much. I didn't want to risk another calve seizure like I did at the Eagle Creek Marathon so I knew I had to power hike the hills for awhile. (Something I should have been doing anyway) More miles went by, the course turned to some bushwhacking, went down a steep incline (which took its toll on my quads) and then up the climb known at "the stripper pole". It was steep but not very long. I got to the top and started to laugh at the awesome absurdity that the climb was. Adventure !!!
The course continued and along the way I started running with an older mustached gentleman doing the 50 mile race with his wife. He offered me the advice that you want to walk the uphills, run the downhills, and run the flats. This strategy was saving my calves from cramping up. We were soon joined by another runner who was also an experienced distance runner. The two of them chatted while we ran and I gladly ran along with them. We would come to an incline and power hike up and then cruise down. At one point the mustached man stepped off the trail and said that this was a good spot to wait for his wife. I thanked him for his advice and said goodbye.
I ran along behind the other guy and we encountered the first water crossing. I got in and the cold water felt awesome on my pounded feet. We crossed and the trail turned into a slight high grass bushwhackesque part where we were gaining ground on a lady. She stepped aside to let us pass and my running buddy kind of slowed his pace with the lady's. I said a brief goodbye and continued on alone. I came to another water crossing, plopped in, and came out to pass another lady emptying stuff out of her shoe.
Just after that the course took me into a creek where it had us running up it. Not only was I running through it, but also hopping over downed trees and other shit. There was a bend in the stream and the course kept going with the creek. It fluctuated between being ankle deep, to knee deep, to waist deep. I'm six foot three if that gives any idea of depth change. At one point I passed a runner who was gingerly going through the water. I passed him and turned around to look at him and he made an odd sound. Turns out he was deaf and had a confused look on his face and was pointing at the bank of the creek. I went to where he was pointed and gave him a thumbs up. He started my way and then I turned and took some steps in the knee to thigh deep water. Then I stepped on a rock and lifted up about six inches. When I put my foot down I hit a hole and my right shin crashed into a sharp rock and I fell in the water. Holy shit did it hurt !!! I just got up and continued toward another bend in the creek and then diagonally toward a pink trail marker with a photographer. I headed up the bank and saw Satan !!! He welcomed me to Hell and there was an aid station there !!!
My calf was killing me so this caused me to have no use for any water or food. But there was some sort of festival going on. There was a cool rockabilly band playing. Not only were they a rockabilly band but they were some sort of evil lyrics of death rockabilly band !!! Totally fucking awesome !!! The course took me by this event (Which I later found out was called "Hell Fest".) and there were all kinds of pimped out hearses in the parking lot and goth type people everywhere. Cool as shit. My shoes had managed to pick up every sharp piece of debris while I was in the water. I stopped, untied them, and dumped water and other torturous devises out of pain out of them.
Then the course turned uphill on a dirt road and I power hiked up. I could tell that I was starting to compensate for my bashed shin. I think I had nine miles to go at this point. The course turned from the dirt road to more trails and slight bushwhacking. I could still hear the psychobilly band playing off in the distance as I maneuvered through fallen limbs and trees on this stretch of the course. My lower back also started to cramp up from having to constantly duck from the foliage. After about four or five miles the back of my right knee started to get a sharp pain in the tendon. I knew it was from compensating for my bashed shin. I had also realized that I tied my right shoe lace too tight and it was squeezing the top of my foot to the point of discomfort. I stopped to loosen it up and the pain relieved instantly. Despite all this discomfort: We must keep going.
The terrain was still quite pretty. There were pine groves, abundant hardwood trees, and great wetland areas. The boardwalk sections of the trail had great views of marshes and ponds. After one incline the trail came upon a section of the forest that suffered a fire in the recent past. There were new growth smaller trees whose leaves were starting to change colors. Towering over these were older, taller trees that survived the fire but were proudly showing off their scars. The sun was coming through the field and it was probably one of the most amazing scenes I have come upon. (I wished I would have brought my camera, but I got the feeling the fall in the water would have ruined it. But really, I doubt a photo would have done any justice)
Not too long after this I came to the trailhead and was at a road. The lady there said "Just follow those flags there. Just a half mile to go." I thought that couldn't be right. I should have about three miles to go according to my GPS. But what did I know. The course was now on grass and heading slightly downhill !!! I got my second wind and pushed through all the annoying little niggles from my lower back all the way down my right leg and kicked it into gear.
I was chugging along and almost overran the chute. As I went through my GPS read that it was just over 30 miles for the event. Not the 34 I was hoping for, but I finished relatively unscathed !!! I walked through and people were handing me shit left and right. Banana, bottle of water, heavy ass finishers medal. A lady with a clipboard asked my age. When I told her she said I placed fifth in my age group. "Are you shitting me?!?!?!?" I asked.
"When have I ever shitted you?" she asked back. She had a good point and I didn't have the energy to argue. The she handed me a pretty nice pint glass that was my age group award. Yay for me. More shit to carry !!! Placing in my age group didn't even seem like a reality the whole race. That was a cool bonus.
As I exited the area Ben and Stephanie came running up with a giant fat head picture they made of me and my dog. This was the most awesome thing ever which made me love these two even more. What great friends !!!
I checked out my shin and I could see blood coming through my calf sleeve. The others could see a raised bump on the profile of it. I could feel muscle groups starting to unnaturally contract so I walked around as a form of a cool down, took off my shoes, and waited for Erin to come in.
She came in and we found out that she placed fourth in her age group !!! All three of us were winners !!! (If you'd like you can read her race report at her blog here: http://persistentrunner.blogspot.com/ She's a lot better than me at this so it's worth your while.) .
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Taper musings
My summer training for my first 50k is over. The race is several days away and I'm in the middle of tapering for the big day. I enjoy training for sure. In reality, maybe I just enjoy running. I especially enjoy trail running. Trail running gives me time to be away from people and offers me a form of meditation. The solitude of nature is my escape.
I'm looking forward to the 50k as an adventure. Traveling to a different state to run different trails and running the farthest I've ever run before is more appealing. I'm not interested in beating anybody. I want to conquer the distance not my fellow runners. Last year my emphasis was on running both far and fast. I think my past emphasis on times and placing brought out competitiveness that I am trying to avoid at this stage of my development as a long distance runner. Being competitive led to nothing but injuries for me last year. I have too many plans coming up this fall and being injured is not one of them.
I'm holding onto the idea of this event as as adventure. I want to appreciate my surroundings while running this new distance. Running farther than I have ever run before has been my focus and fascination this year. Running in Ohio and Kansas and around Indiana has been a blast while pushing myself physically as well as mentally has been fun.
I have been reading about different Buddhist philosophies and experimenting with meditation. Incorporating these thoughts and ideas into my life and running has been fun and challenging. The last few months have been an experiment of discovering things that have been useful. The months have also been a time of scrapping the things that haven't been useful. All of these things I've been learning, discovering, and inventing are puzzle pieces that I have been trying to fit into a picture of what I hope will make me a better person and runner. Hopefully, the journey to Michigan and the 50k experience will help me discover more pieces of the puzzle that will help me understand what I have been developing and searching for.
I'm looking forward to the 50k as an adventure. Traveling to a different state to run different trails and running the farthest I've ever run before is more appealing. I'm not interested in beating anybody. I want to conquer the distance not my fellow runners. Last year my emphasis was on running both far and fast. I think my past emphasis on times and placing brought out competitiveness that I am trying to avoid at this stage of my development as a long distance runner. Being competitive led to nothing but injuries for me last year. I have too many plans coming up this fall and being injured is not one of them.
I'm holding onto the idea of this event as as adventure. I want to appreciate my surroundings while running this new distance. Running farther than I have ever run before has been my focus and fascination this year. Running in Ohio and Kansas and around Indiana has been a blast while pushing myself physically as well as mentally has been fun.
I have been reading about different Buddhist philosophies and experimenting with meditation. Incorporating these thoughts and ideas into my life and running has been fun and challenging. The last few months have been an experiment of discovering things that have been useful. The months have also been a time of scrapping the things that haven't been useful. All of these things I've been learning, discovering, and inventing are puzzle pieces that I have been trying to fit into a picture of what I hope will make me a better person and runner. Hopefully, the journey to Michigan and the 50k experience will help me discover more pieces of the puzzle that will help me understand what I have been developing and searching for.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
The correct word is tortoise, but I call them turtles
I like turtles. Nothing gives me a surge of happiness like seeing a turtle on the trail. I sometimes gauge my runs a success or failure based upon a turtle sighting. This may seem totally ridiculous, and it is, but not to me. For instance, I did a 22 mile run in Brown County State Park this past week. It was an okay run but I was kind of disappointed that I hadn't seen a turtle.
At one point I came to a bend in the trail and spooked a deer that was knee deep in a small pond. It jumped to the bank and watched me as I slowed down to a stop and took a couple of photos of it. The young little guy eventually gave in to it's suspicions of me and took off and disappeared into the forest.
Deer are always fun to come across though. Most times they see me first and all I get to see of them is their white tails taking off away from me. But the deer have nothing on turtles.
I can't explain why turtles always get me excited. In some bizarre way I see them as kind of the spirit of the forest. As if I have the forest's blessing to be there. This may sound weird, and it is, but I came up with this idea during a long run. A long run on a hot, summer day. Do I really believe this? Not really but maybe. I usually come up with some kooky ideas on my long runs.
But the turtles are always a morale boost to me. On the long run I did last week I hadn't seen a turtle for 18 whole miles and then "WANG !!!" there was one in the trail in front of me. I immediately got excited and got a second wind.
Overall, I've had good training runs this summer but I've always been more pleased when I do encounter a tortoise. Though I like to call them turtles.
Deer are always fun to come across though. Most times they see me first and all I get to see of them is their white tails taking off away from me. But the deer have nothing on turtles.
I can't explain why turtles always get me excited. In some bizarre way I see them as kind of the spirit of the forest. As if I have the forest's blessing to be there. This may sound weird, and it is, but I came up with this idea during a long run. A long run on a hot, summer day. Do I really believe this? Not really but maybe. I usually come up with some kooky ideas on my long runs.
But the turtles are always a morale boost to me. On the long run I did last week I hadn't seen a turtle for 18 whole miles and then "WANG !!!" there was one in the trail in front of me. I immediately got excited and got a second wind.
I took a couple of pics of the guy, thanked him, and was on my way. I was actually rejuvenated as I continued down the trail and finished the last four miles. My run was instantly a success. It honestly was. It was my first successful long run without discomfort since pushing myself at the Eagle Creek Marathon a few weeks back. And most of all : I had the forests blessing !!!
I usually carry a small digital camera with me on my runs and I've taken lots of turtle pics this summer.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Eagle Creek Trail Marathon as training run....or My failing success
I ran the Eagle Creek Trail Marathon as part of the training I've been doing for a 50k coming up this September. My goals for this race was to finish, finish uninjured, work on nutrition, and gain some long distance race experience.
I thought I would have had more anxiety the night before. I got an email confirmation earlier in the night that my deferred entry for last year's Tecumseh Trail marathon was made active for this year's. (I was in a car accident and beset with other injuries last fall. Luckily the Tecumseh race allows deferments in such events.) The excitement at this news pretty much wiped away the slight nervousness. This allowed me to get a decent night's sleep !!!
I wanted to have a solid race. I also have been struggling to find things to eat while running. Fueling while running has been a struggle for me. I follow the Whole 9 nutrition plan so eating a lot of "normal" runners fuel isn't in the equation. I've never had shot blocks, goo, or gels of any kind in my endurance training. During the marathon I took pitted dates with roasted almonds in them. They were a complete fail. The date portion was too big and I chewed forever. Then I used up way too much water to try and get them down. Luckily, I also had two lara bars with me. I ate a blueberry muffin one and later forced myself to eat a quarter of another. Overall, I don't think I had enough food while running. Still something I need to work on.
The other issue I had was my pace. I started out way too fast, but it felt good. I started the first half ranging between eight and a half to ten minute miles. I train by doing Maffetone heart rate training. This enables me to run ten to twelve minute miles while staying in an aerobic zone. This enables me to use my body fat as fuel (a near unlimited fuel source) as opposed to my glycogen stores (a very limited fuel source). I dropped the heart rate for the race. I did bump up the heart rate alarm on my Garmin watch just to kind of give me an idea of where my effort was. The alarm was mostly ignored during most of the race. Another failure.
The first half was pretty uneventful. At the beginning I passed a lot of people on the uphills and then on the downhills. I was kind of surprised at how the group I was in used a lot of their quads to brake themselves on the downhills. I like to use gravity to speed down the declines in a kind of controlled recklessness. It's safer than it sounds, but it sure beats using up all that energy to gingerly go down hills. I just thought it was odd that I was the only one in this group of runners to go down hills this way.
As I came upon the half way mark of the race (which went through the finish line. The course was a horseshoe shaped lollipop that was a half marathon distance long) I saw that my half time was two hours and six minutes. I wasn't sure if the pace I was doing was going to be sustainable. I hadn't really trained myself to put this much effort into this long of a distance. So far the only issue I had was running in the open field with the sun beating down on me. Temperature wise it was a great day for running, though the humidity was high (almost 100%).
Everything was going smoothly and I was still maintaining my pace. It was around this time that I had the failed date and almond experience. There was a half marathon taking place as well and I was starting to see friends running that race coming in the opposite direction. Each friendly face was a good morale boost. At one aid station, my friend Christy (who I thought was out of town) was there to cheer everybody on. That was a great surprise and an amazing morale booster !!! (I think I might have told her that multiple times later in the day)
Somewhere between miles 16 and 18 my left calf started acting up. I could feel it going right to the edge of cramping up and just staying on the verge. Then the feeling would go away. Then the feeling would creep back up several minutes later. Again, my calf felt like it was flirting on the edge of becoming what I knew would be a painful Charley horse then it would go away.
Around this time I started to drink the electrolyte drinks at the aid stations to see if they would help with the issue with my calf. I had took an endurolyte pill at the beginning of the race and sometime during the race. I figured drinking the liquid form couldn't hurt. I kept hoping for an aid station with a banana but that never happened. I figured the potassium would help.
As I came into another aid station it happened to be the one where Christy was at !!! Yay !!! I downed two cups of blue electrolyte and maybe a cup of water and was on my way. (My Camel bak ran out of water about three miles ago) About a quarter of a mile down the trail I had the thought that I should have left the empty pack with Christy. D'oh !!!
Shortly after leaving the aid station my calf flared up worse. I stopped for a hot second to stretch the calf which helped immensely. The uphills were aggravating it and, as an extra bonus, I was starting to feel nauseous. I never use any electrolyte drink with my training, I blamed this feeling on the blue fluid. So now I was faced with the dilemma of continue to drink something that may or may not be keeping a potential cramp at bay, not have a cramp but puke my brains out, or continue drinking the blue stuff at the aid stations (and risk puking my brains out and having a massive Charley horse at the same time)
My pace was starting to suffer but not too much. I was dropping down but persevering. I only had about five to six miles to go. I knew that if I made it to the causeway bridge part of the course I would be homefree. The bridge gave my calf some relief as it was on a decline heading towards the finish. Then as I hopped the guardrail to get to the trail portion of the course my calf cramped as I landed. I immediately flexed my towards towards my body and the cramp went away just as quickly as it appeared.
It was around here that I got Johnny Cash's song "25 minutes to go" roiling through my head. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCVxQcsdpWI (here's a link to the song) I couldn't remember most of the words but the countdown chorus part was going through my mind. At one point I came out of the forest onto a service road portion of the route and momentarily bent down to stretch my calf. Looking up, I saw my wife and our friend Heather coming in the opposite direction. I was so glad to see them !!! I told them about my calf as we high fived each other. My wife asked where my heart rate was at (which was at 145 bpm at the time) Looking back the issue with my calf was slowing me down to my aerobic zone, which might not have been a bad thing. I exited the road and was back on the forest trails for another couple of miles to the finish.
I came upon the field with the finish and was glad to be there. I got my finishers medal and knew that I had to keep moving. My calf was tightening up and taking the rest of my legs with them. The growing unpleasantness in my legs was making me wonder if I had injured myself. I walked to the car and sat in the driver's seat and started massaging and stretching my legs. I was totally zoning out and gaining some relief from my messaging. I don't know how long I sat there but after a while all the pain had subsided. I grabbed a coconut water from the cooler and downed it fast. Then walked back to the finish line with the cooler. I saw that my finish was 4:26:13 and was 20th place overall. I only lost 13 minutes compared to the first half which surprised me.
Overall, I completed most of my goals for the race. I managed to finish and finish uninjured which were major pros. (Though I was really scared at the momentary tendinitis that I experienced soon after finishing) I think I had more cons than pros though. I would say the few pros out weighed the cons. I failed at keeping my competitiveness in check. The calf problem, I am guessing, stems from starting the first half of the race at an effort that I wasn't trained at maintaining for a whole marathon distance. I think if I would have been about one or two minutes slower per mile on the first half I might have avoided that problem. I also failed at my nutrition conundrum. (I don't know why I can't get this down !!!) My two liter hydration pack didn't last over twenty miles. I was even drinking at most aid stations. I do have a three liter pack that I might have to switch to for the 50k race. (But the 50k race is in late September where the cooler temperatures will mean less water consumption) I was surprised at my placing and my finishing time though. Those last two things are what makes this training run a failing success. I'll take it !!!
By the Numbers
Distance: 26.2 miles
First half time: 2 hours 6 minutes 26 seconds
Second half time: 2 hours 19 minutes 50 seconds
Average pace: 10 minutes 2 seconds per mile
Time: 4 hours 26 minutes 16 seconds
Fastest mile: 8:48 (mile 7)
Slowest mile:12:01 (mile 25)
Average Heart Rate: 154 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate: 172 bpm
Nutrition
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with chia meal, cherry tomatoes, black olives, avocados, and pickled okra
Race: One and a quarter blueberry muffing lara bars and one date stuffed with two roasted almonds. two endurlyte capsules
Gear:
Shoes: Altra Lone Peak 1.5
Socks: Injini midweight black socks
Clothes: Nike running shorts, Muzuno compression calf sleeves, buff, and Nike BARA singlet
Other: 2 liter Rogue Camelbak, amphipod belt, Garmin foreunner GPS watch with heart rate monitor
I thought I would have had more anxiety the night before. I got an email confirmation earlier in the night that my deferred entry for last year's Tecumseh Trail marathon was made active for this year's. (I was in a car accident and beset with other injuries last fall. Luckily the Tecumseh race allows deferments in such events.) The excitement at this news pretty much wiped away the slight nervousness. This allowed me to get a decent night's sleep !!!
I wanted to have a solid race. I also have been struggling to find things to eat while running. Fueling while running has been a struggle for me. I follow the Whole 9 nutrition plan so eating a lot of "normal" runners fuel isn't in the equation. I've never had shot blocks, goo, or gels of any kind in my endurance training. During the marathon I took pitted dates with roasted almonds in them. They were a complete fail. The date portion was too big and I chewed forever. Then I used up way too much water to try and get them down. Luckily, I also had two lara bars with me. I ate a blueberry muffin one and later forced myself to eat a quarter of another. Overall, I don't think I had enough food while running. Still something I need to work on.
The other issue I had was my pace. I started out way too fast, but it felt good. I started the first half ranging between eight and a half to ten minute miles. I train by doing Maffetone heart rate training. This enables me to run ten to twelve minute miles while staying in an aerobic zone. This enables me to use my body fat as fuel (a near unlimited fuel source) as opposed to my glycogen stores (a very limited fuel source). I dropped the heart rate for the race. I did bump up the heart rate alarm on my Garmin watch just to kind of give me an idea of where my effort was. The alarm was mostly ignored during most of the race. Another failure.
The first half was pretty uneventful. At the beginning I passed a lot of people on the uphills and then on the downhills. I was kind of surprised at how the group I was in used a lot of their quads to brake themselves on the downhills. I like to use gravity to speed down the declines in a kind of controlled recklessness. It's safer than it sounds, but it sure beats using up all that energy to gingerly go down hills. I just thought it was odd that I was the only one in this group of runners to go down hills this way.
As I came upon the half way mark of the race (which went through the finish line. The course was a horseshoe shaped lollipop that was a half marathon distance long) I saw that my half time was two hours and six minutes. I wasn't sure if the pace I was doing was going to be sustainable. I hadn't really trained myself to put this much effort into this long of a distance. So far the only issue I had was running in the open field with the sun beating down on me. Temperature wise it was a great day for running, though the humidity was high (almost 100%).
Everything was going smoothly and I was still maintaining my pace. It was around this time that I had the failed date and almond experience. There was a half marathon taking place as well and I was starting to see friends running that race coming in the opposite direction. Each friendly face was a good morale boost. At one aid station, my friend Christy (who I thought was out of town) was there to cheer everybody on. That was a great surprise and an amazing morale booster !!! (I think I might have told her that multiple times later in the day)
Somewhere between miles 16 and 18 my left calf started acting up. I could feel it going right to the edge of cramping up and just staying on the verge. Then the feeling would go away. Then the feeling would creep back up several minutes later. Again, my calf felt like it was flirting on the edge of becoming what I knew would be a painful Charley horse then it would go away.
Around this time I started to drink the electrolyte drinks at the aid stations to see if they would help with the issue with my calf. I had took an endurolyte pill at the beginning of the race and sometime during the race. I figured drinking the liquid form couldn't hurt. I kept hoping for an aid station with a banana but that never happened. I figured the potassium would help.
As I came into another aid station it happened to be the one where Christy was at !!! Yay !!! I downed two cups of blue electrolyte and maybe a cup of water and was on my way. (My Camel bak ran out of water about three miles ago) About a quarter of a mile down the trail I had the thought that I should have left the empty pack with Christy. D'oh !!!
Shortly after leaving the aid station my calf flared up worse. I stopped for a hot second to stretch the calf which helped immensely. The uphills were aggravating it and, as an extra bonus, I was starting to feel nauseous. I never use any electrolyte drink with my training, I blamed this feeling on the blue fluid. So now I was faced with the dilemma of continue to drink something that may or may not be keeping a potential cramp at bay, not have a cramp but puke my brains out, or continue drinking the blue stuff at the aid stations (and risk puking my brains out and having a massive Charley horse at the same time)
My pace was starting to suffer but not too much. I was dropping down but persevering. I only had about five to six miles to go. I knew that if I made it to the causeway bridge part of the course I would be homefree. The bridge gave my calf some relief as it was on a decline heading towards the finish. Then as I hopped the guardrail to get to the trail portion of the course my calf cramped as I landed. I immediately flexed my towards towards my body and the cramp went away just as quickly as it appeared.
It was around here that I got Johnny Cash's song "25 minutes to go" roiling through my head. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCVxQcsdpWI (here's a link to the song) I couldn't remember most of the words but the countdown chorus part was going through my mind. At one point I came out of the forest onto a service road portion of the route and momentarily bent down to stretch my calf. Looking up, I saw my wife and our friend Heather coming in the opposite direction. I was so glad to see them !!! I told them about my calf as we high fived each other. My wife asked where my heart rate was at (which was at 145 bpm at the time) Looking back the issue with my calf was slowing me down to my aerobic zone, which might not have been a bad thing. I exited the road and was back on the forest trails for another couple of miles to the finish.
I came upon the field with the finish and was glad to be there. I got my finishers medal and knew that I had to keep moving. My calf was tightening up and taking the rest of my legs with them. The growing unpleasantness in my legs was making me wonder if I had injured myself. I walked to the car and sat in the driver's seat and started massaging and stretching my legs. I was totally zoning out and gaining some relief from my messaging. I don't know how long I sat there but after a while all the pain had subsided. I grabbed a coconut water from the cooler and downed it fast. Then walked back to the finish line with the cooler. I saw that my finish was 4:26:13 and was 20th place overall. I only lost 13 minutes compared to the first half which surprised me.
Overall, I completed most of my goals for the race. I managed to finish and finish uninjured which were major pros. (Though I was really scared at the momentary tendinitis that I experienced soon after finishing) I think I had more cons than pros though. I would say the few pros out weighed the cons. I failed at keeping my competitiveness in check. The calf problem, I am guessing, stems from starting the first half of the race at an effort that I wasn't trained at maintaining for a whole marathon distance. I think if I would have been about one or two minutes slower per mile on the first half I might have avoided that problem. I also failed at my nutrition conundrum. (I don't know why I can't get this down !!!) My two liter hydration pack didn't last over twenty miles. I was even drinking at most aid stations. I do have a three liter pack that I might have to switch to for the 50k race. (But the 50k race is in late September where the cooler temperatures will mean less water consumption) I was surprised at my placing and my finishing time though. Those last two things are what makes this training run a failing success. I'll take it !!!
By the Numbers
Distance: 26.2 miles
First half time: 2 hours 6 minutes 26 seconds
Second half time: 2 hours 19 minutes 50 seconds
Average pace: 10 minutes 2 seconds per mile
Time: 4 hours 26 minutes 16 seconds
Fastest mile: 8:48 (mile 7)
Slowest mile:12:01 (mile 25)
Average Heart Rate: 154 bpm
Maximum Heart Rate: 172 bpm
Nutrition
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with chia meal, cherry tomatoes, black olives, avocados, and pickled okra
Race: One and a quarter blueberry muffing lara bars and one date stuffed with two roasted almonds. two endurlyte capsules
Gear:
Shoes: Altra Lone Peak 1.5
Socks: Injini midweight black socks
Clothes: Nike running shorts, Muzuno compression calf sleeves, buff, and Nike BARA singlet
Other: 2 liter Rogue Camelbak, amphipod belt, Garmin foreunner GPS watch with heart rate monitor
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