Ultra running – Page 4

Almost there…

But it’s wafer thin, sir. ~ Waiter

Sat 10 April: 00:36, 3.5 miles, Casa trails to Firehouse loop
Sun 11 April: 1:19, 7.91 miles, P2P to Gap to Raccoon, around Thorne Lake

Well, that was not a stellar week but I did manage to get in a few miles despite continuing to shed weight and have little-to-no appetite. Ugh. That food bout of food poisoning kicked my ass. Today is a new day, however, and I am bound and determined to get back on that pony and ride. (“Pony,” in this case meaning “running schedule,” NOT “dirty food eating.”)

As I mentioned, Friday’s run was fairly miserable. Saturday was better in regard to gut-pain, but energy levels were pretty “meh” and it wasn’t like I felt like doing long surges. I tossed in a couple of very mild, very short bursts and didn’t feel completely like jumping off a bridge, so that was nice. There is still a ton of snow in the woods around the house. We need a couple good rains to compliment the already massive melting going on due to warmer temps to really start to take a bite out of the biggest drifts but we’re getting there.

Yesterday, I tried to get out for a couple of hours but the energy levels just weren’t there to support that kind of effort. Managed to make pretty decent time up to the park where I dropped down Raccoon Trail in Golden Gate Canyon State Park to test the (frozen) waters. Still a lot of snow on this loop as well wis MASSIVE drifts toward the bottom. My plan was to spin a lap but once I started up the climb from the bottom, decided that idea was for the birds. So I just headed home on another route.

Met up with a young fella (probably about 4-years old but I am terrible at estimating the ages of kids) on my way who came bursting out of his driveway inquiring frantically, “Why are you running?” I stopped and explained that I run for fun – an answer that apparently didn’t jive with his 4-year-old world-view. “But why?” I laughed and he quickly moved on to asking, “What are those things in your ears?” (My earrings.) “Why do you have them? That tree attacked me. Can I come with you? Who’s that dog?” All delivered shotgun style. I explained that he needed to ask his mom before coming with me and he agreed that she would probably not be down with that action. I was then instructed to walk, don’t run and we parted ways. Funny exchange, to say the least.

Eating was still not breaking into my “top-activities-for-a-Sunday” list (try as I might) and so I whacked down what I could and decided to just roll with it for now. Hoping that today produces a marked change in my stomach’s ability to deal with solids. I am approaching race weight from 1989 when I was a skinny cyclist. Not really where I planned to be at this time in my life.

As always, I’ll keep you posted.

~stubert.

Ka-PLOW….

Venting prevents explos-i-on. ~ Homer Simpson

Tues 6 Mar: 00:51, 6 miles, Boulder Creek Path tempo
Wed 7 Mar: 2:01, 13.5 miles, Watson tempo
Fri 9 Mar: 00:18, 2 miles, Beav’

This week started well. I recovered quickly from Sunday’s effort and jumped back into the fray on Tuesday with an excellent, albeit windy run in Boulder. Headed west on the Creek path (into the wind) then spun at 2.5 miles and did 7, 1:20 surges. Felt great. Got a new pair of skids too, which is always a treat. Garett Graubins set me up with Boa lacing systems on some Brooks Adrenalines and I must say, “Stu likes.” Very easy to use, feel lighter (for whatever reason) and are definitely trick.

Wednesday, I headed down to Boulder early to meet up with the group for a tempo run. Started out on my own and spun a big lap in more clothing than necessary even in sporadic snow flurries so I shed some layers and queued up for the tempo portion of the day’s event. Art Ives and I hung together for about 4 miles then he cut me loose and I finished the last two miles solo. I am still not the fastest guy out there but have managed two weeks in a row with negative splits each mile so that is quite nice. All in all a great run.

That’s when things went pear shaped. I had to take a meeting in Denver and grabbed some food on the way at a restaurant I have frequented over the past 20 years without incident. Well, my luck apparently ran out and though I felt awesome for the rest of the day and went to be a happy camper, I was rudely awakened at 2:00 with a “not-so-terrific” feeling coursing through my bod. “Not-so-terrific” soon turned to much, much worse and for the next 6 hours I alternated between puking up my toenails and full-body convulsing. Rach even dreamed that we were at a dinosaur exhibit and my ralphing was the sound of one of the creatures that was a) a bit too loud and b) wouldn’t stop. Lovely.

I spent all of Thursday in bed, lost 5 pounds in 12 hours and am just now getting back on positive terms with solids. My abs look awesome, however.

So though Thursday was a bust, I was able to get out for a brief, relatively unpleasant run on Friday and am hoping to extend the duration and minimize the unpleasantness today. All will be taken in stride, sometimes these things happen, but don’t ask me to join you for Middle Eastern food anytime in the foreseeable future.

~stubert.

Week in review

Runnin’ with my brothers, headed for the home base
With a steady pace on the race we just faced
The road ahead goes on and on
This shit is gettin’ longer than a motherfuckin’ marathon
~N.W.A

Mon 29 Mar: 00:29, 2.97 miles, easy ‘hood run
Tues 30 Mar: 00:54, 4.73 miles, Janet’s house surges
Wed 31 Mar: 1:50, 12.25 miles, Gunbarrel tempo
Fri 2 April: 00:25, 3.06 miles, Cirque de la Butte
Sat 3 April: 00:39, 4.25 miles, Treadmill surges
Sun 4 April: 5:50, 30 miles, Cirque de Boulder

Week total: 10.3 hours, 57.5 miles
March total: 37 hours, 221.31 miles
YTD: 113 hours, 575 miles
*hour totals include all activity

Post race, I actually felt okay. Not particularly damaged at all and ready to keep rolling the mileage. Took Sunday off then did a quick little jaunt around the ‘hood and felt fine.

Tuesday, I met up with Janet and did some easy surges out in East Boulder. We worked on some form issues but really things are coming around nicely in the form department. Still trying to figure out shoes and insoles but that may be an ongoing task.

For my tempo run on Wednesday, I had a great time running with Art and the crew. Started out solo and then bumped into Art doing his warm up. Joined him and ran to the start. Felt great, actually, and was excited to see what I could do with the tempo portion of the run. Janet had me teed up for a little shorter distance this week to recover fully from Saturday’s race and I started with Art. Spun negative splits each mile and finished very strongly. Just what I have been looking to do since starting tempo work several months back. Good stuff!

I creamed my toe (no roast beef) Wednesday night with a door and thought I might have broken the little bugger so I just did a short walk (about 1.5 miles) to test the waters. It wasn’t too bad – hurt a bit in the shoe but didn’t really bother me too much. So that was pretty good news. Something is definitely not completely right with it but it doesn’t seem to affect my running so I am going to choose to ignore it for now.

I had two days left on my Crested Butte pass so tested cramming my foot into my boot (all systems go) and jammed over to Gunny for the night on Friday to ski, hang with my pops and get in a short run. The skiing wasn’t too bad for last-week-of-the-season action but I was hitting it like a chump. Spun a lap around the town of CB before dinner and felt pretty great, actually, then gorged myself on Donita’s food.

Decided to head back home Saturday instead of braving the slopes as a storm was rolling in and I didn’t want to get caught up in heinous I-70 traffic on the way. Stopped at the gym and ran briefly but didn’t feel super red hot. Did ~45 minutes with some surges.

Sunday we were up early for bunny duty then I decided to tackle what has been a bit of a nemesis – the Cirque de Boulder. This fun run takes one completely around the PRB and manages to do so mostly on dirt. I felt great for the first half or so then started to fade a bit once I got into more technical, hilly, sloppy terrain. By mile 25 I was pretty hammered but vowed to finish up. Ended up with a not-too-shabby 5:50ish for 30 miles with a lot of walking in the last 5. It wasn’t pretty but I got ‘er done.

Think my main problems during this run were pacing and hydration (which led to bonking). I definitely bit off more than I could chew but was really pleased that I managed to finish it up. I need to work on hydration across the board and get more used to carrying water in a pack vs. bottles. There are a lot of advantages to the pack but one significant disadvantage is being able to monitor your consumption more closely. This will be something on which I work on future training runs.

So that was my week. All in all, pretty solid effort and a lot of good training as I continue to prep for the LT100. More to come this week!

~stubert.

24-hours of Utah Race Report…

I want to be more like the ocean… no talkin’ and all action. ~ Jane’s Addiction

Thurs 25 Mar: 00:38, 4.9 miles, Boulder Creek Path tempo
Sat 27 Mar: 5:13, 31.9 miles, 24-Hours of Utah 2-person 12-hour race

Back to Moab and more racing. I would say that the results this time were significantly improved over my last venture. Different course, totally different race. Good times.

First, the prelude… Wednesday went totally pear-shaped on me as it started off poorly and just seemed to get progressively worse. I had a 7-miler on deck but a snow storm put the damper on that plan and apparently the Rec Center still thinks that snow is enough of a catastrophic event to continue to close down whenever it happens. I am going to chalk that up in the “lame” column. Anyway, the day was a bit of a disaster so I am pretending it never existed. Moving on…

Thursday, I was supposed to go for a relatively easy run with some light tempo work but apparently my bod had other plans. Ended up slamming a 5-miler in 38 minutes while trying not to. I am going to not scoff at it, however. Guessing I needed to release some frustration from the previous day’s cluster, so I did. Tried out the new Pearl Izumi SyncroFuel XCs. Apparently, they are speedy.

Friday, Sean and I jammed down to Moab to run the 2-person, 12-hour event at the 24-Hours of Utah ultra race. Sean offered to drive so I did a little happy dance and plopped into the passenger seat for the 6-hour trip. We stopped a couple of times along the way to eat and fuel up so it was a leisurely adventure. Rolled into Moab around dusk, checked into the hotel, grabbed some food and hit the sack early. One thing I have noticed about many Moab restaurants… very few places “specialize”. Seems like you can get burritos or pizza or whatever pretty much anywhere you go. Very odd.

Up early on Saturday to gather our stuff, check in to the race and get rolling. It was fairly chilly in the morning but clear and calm and I started us out with a couple of relatively fast laps which put us in 5th overall. This was not a good way to start the day and the early fast pace would haunt me the rest of the day. The course featured fun, varied terrain which started on dirt roads then dipped into some sandy singletrack then climbed on slickrock to the highpoint and then reversed the order on the back side of the loop (descend slickrock, singletrack, roads). Runners were instructed to alternate direction each lap which provided some variety, which was nice. Great scenery abounded for sure.

After my two laps, it was Sean’s turn and he spun a couple while I attempted to figure out how to fight stiffness and chills while waiting for his return. Not sure that mission was accomplished as when it was my turn to run again, I was seriously clunky. This would be the pattern all day: Run for a bit, attempt to not get too wrecked during the down time, repeat. Definitely a challenge.

I ended up spinning relatively even laps (well… not my last one, so much) and Sean kept the tempo during his stints on course even while experiencing some seriously horrendous stomach issues. He hung tough and I couldn’t even convince him to let me finish things out by taking his final lap. We ended up with 64 total in just under 12 hours for a 2nd place finish.

Sean’s stomach problems continued into the night so I went to Zax for quite possibly the worst $20 “large” pizza of all time. Yeah. Don’t go there. We got up early the next day, hit the Jailhouse for breakfast (Sean’s stomach still not cooperating) and then jammed back home. Aside from the nausea, it was a great trip.

Some tidbits:

Pacing: Figuring out how to pace these types of events is a challenge. One gets the Devil/Angel thing going on with the Devil telling you, “Rip it up, man. You only have to run 5 miles.” And the Angel keeps screaming, “Dude! You’ll log over 30 by day’s end. Slow the fuck down!” Well, as usual, the Devil won.
Pacing Part 2: Having logged virtually all of my mileage this winter on roads, my ideal of a “reasonable” pace is still thoroughly out of whack. Running 11-minute miles just doesn’t feel right. This… will need to change.
Run/Rest Cycles: Honestly, this format is for the birds. I had fun, but taking 45 minutes to 1.5 hours off between efforts is not the way to get things done.

Overall, it was a great race. It was cool to meet Ben Dunn, who won the men’s 12-hour solo race and logged as many miles in 10.5 hours as the two of us managed to crank out in almost 12. Also congrats to Sonja Wieck who tore up the field with her 21:58 100-mile solo effort. Her first 100-miler too!

All in all a great weekend of running in the desert.

~stubert.

No track mind…

Plonk.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. ~ Lao Tzu

Tues 23 Mar: 00:47, 4.25 miles, Treadmill surges

An upslope storm rolled in last night and dumped about 18″ of fresh stuff on the Casa del Critters. Standard operating procedure for the Front Range this time of year. What is significantly less standard is my “meh” reaction to the whole thing. Typically, I would be standing in a line with a thousand other yahoos waiting for the lifts to start churning. This year, not so much.

Lots of factors contribute to my blah reaction to what would normally be unbridled enthusiasm for blower pow conditions. The death of my friend, Jonny Copp, in an avalanche last Spring certainly isn’t getting me overly thrilled to go out and tackle the backcountry and the shitty snow conditions we have experienced all year aren’t helping either. I tend to get into patterns of behavior and if things don’t line up, I move on.

I am a bit bummed that I bought passes again this year that have remained virtually unused. And I think my bummed-ness comes less from the money I spent on the passes than from the loss of enthusiasm for something I once cherished. I have been trying to look at it all from a more Zen perspective (with mixed results). Over the past 10 years or so, I have racked up an average of about 60 days per year. So over the long haul, I have gotten my money’s worth. I think that the overall change in attitude has to do with the quality of running I am experiencing this year. All season I have been telling myself that I would rather go for a good run than a mediocre ski and now, well… I think that I would rather go for a good run than a good ski.

Perhaps next year things will change. If the East Wall at the Basin will ever open up, maybe my attitude about skiing this year will come around. But I really only look at that as a way to cross-train for running. Apparently, I now have a no-track mind.

~stubert.