It's a bleary-eyed 6am as I hang my legs over the edge of the pool about to embark on my workout. Today the schedule calls for 8 x 5 minute intervals of pool running with 1 min. recovery, bookended by a warmup and cool down. I know that in order to complete this I'll need a good deal of mental resolve but I'm not quite there yet. In the interest of hastening bone growth I've given up coffee and beer- both known retardants of osteocyte function. This is no small feat as anyone who knows my consumption habits can attest and this morning I feel the unmistakable foggy shroud of the former, amplified by a short night of sleep.
All week I've been coming to this pool with the singular goal of just getting it done. I don't chat it up in the locker room, sit in the sauna with that hairy dude, or otherwise engage in any form of social contact. I wear a heart rate monitor, a waterproof Ipod, and I'm in and out: all business.
Wearing this walking cast problematizes certain things. For instance, the obligatory shower before entering the pool. To do so I must first remove the boot (which has a wieldy outer shell), hop over to the shower, shower, put the boot back on, walk out to the pool, then take it off again to get in the water. In my desire for efficiency I've taken to simply walking over to the showers and getting my hair wet as I hold my leg away from my body. I'll rub some water on my chest so as to give the impression of having taken a full bath prior to entering the pool. I then hurry over to an open lane and jump in before anyone accosts me.
15 min. warmup. Once I'm in and going I'm glad to be here. I'm even developing a fondness for this routine, despite myself. I begin my intervals. The effort feels surprisingly hard and I'm again reminded at how intense the work sessions must be to elevate my heart rate appropriately. The 1 minute recoveries pass almost instantaneously.
I pee in the pool.
I can't help myself. Just being in water makes me have to urinate, even if I emptied my bladder immediately before entering. I slow my cadence imperceptibly but keep a look of stern concentration on my face so as to avoid detection. The only evidence of my infraction is a small envelope of surprising heat for several seconds.
As I finish #6 I notice that they are pulling lane lines to prepare for the aqua-aerobics class. My heart rate is 160- with the 10% rule I equate this to around 176, or right around lactate threshold. I'm now without a lane to run in but I keep going, hugging the plastic barrier as the deep end slowly takes on the feel of a geriatric unit. There are only 8 ladies in this class and a vast swath of aquamarine real estate to be had so I feel justified in hugging this barrier, well out of their slow-moving, age-spotted, telomerically-compromised grasp.
The instructor- about 20- is energetically jumping up and down on the sidelines but the old ladies pay no heed. They are clustered in 3 small social groups chatting avidly, the water lapping at the hair on the base of their neck so that it hangs down in dark gray tendrils. They bob slowly up and down effortlessly, legs moving in distracted, desultory circles: giant floating bags of jelly encasing small skeletons of brittle, osteoporotic bones.
I continue straining, a slight wheeze on my expiration now.
There are two aerobics participants that seem uniquely uninvested in the class proceedings. As I slowly make my way to and fro across the pool I note them coming closer and closer to my line, eventually planting themselves directly in my path, now full outliers from the rest of their group and with their backs to the instructor. I make a large slow-motion arc around them as I complete my seventh interval. This takes longer than you might expect- long enough in fact to catch more than one dirty look. On my way back on the recovery interval one of them addresses me haughtily: "this area of the pool is for deep water aerobics only. You'll have to use one of those lanes." She gestures with her head. Those lanes are 5 feet deep or shallower, the suggestion untenable for my lanky body. I say nothing, smile benignly, and begin my last interval, again sweeping wide around their pale, motionless bodies, distorted and condensced as seen through the refracting surface of the water.
Keep focused. I can feel my face and head sweating. It is now getting light outside and there is a fresh dusting of snow on the peaks outside the window: Mt. Wire, Grandeur, Mt. Olympus- all my regular training routes. A ray of sun beams across the pool lighting it on fire and for a moment I am blinded, suddenly transported outside onto a summit, the front range of the Wasatch spreading out before me in entropic waves. It is momentary but glorious and I get goosebumps. Out of the corner of my eye I see one of them, the woman who addressed me, move more aggressively than she has all class to get to the edge of the pool, water droplets flinging off her hair. She pulls herself out and pads determinedly down the concrete length to the lifeguard. There is vigorous gesticulating and pointing but I can't catch what is said. Only 2 minutes left to go. I spin around on the east end and churn my legs as fast as they will go over the final stretch, all hamstring and hip flexor. Tag the wall and I'm done. I pull myself up out of the water, hop over to the bench, take off the flotation belt, strap on my boot, and without looking back limp to the locker room, my boot making heavy, echoed thuds with each step.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
A Change of Plans...
Bummer. After nearly two weeks of mid-foot pain after the Antelope Island 50m I had an MRI this past Friday.
Stress fracture of the lateral cuneiform, bone contusion on the calcaneus, peroneus longus tenosynovitis, and mild achilles tendinosis.
Of course the only real game changer in that set of diagnoses is the first one. The stress fracture: bain of the runner's existence and inevitable harbinger of 6 weeks + of no running whatsoever and then a gradual reintroduction of stress to the bone. The imaging gives clues to the likely etiology. I had entered the race with a slight achilles injury which flared at about mile 12 or so, forcing me to alter my biomechanics and foot strike. The rearrangement of my gait, compounded over the course of a fast 50 mile race (in the context of having done very little specific training for this type of running) provided an overload of stress on my foot resulting in breakdown. Seems like a good hypothesis at least.
It's interesting how quickly so many things can shift. Just days prior I had been pounding up and down Mt. Wire and Mt. Olympus, telling myself that my foot was indeed getting better and it was nothing to worry about, that the Zane Grey 50 was still in the cards for me in a couple weeks. I disregarded the fact that every step brought on a wince and my foot hurt to touch. Running hard involves in large part the ignoring of bodily distress signal, or at least the recasting of this signal in a different light. I've run through plenty of injuries in the past (for better or worse) so wasn't thinking this one was going to be very different. Now, suddenly I had a broken bone, a heavy plastic walking cast, a crushing sense of disappointment, and a lot of time on my hands. The stark, honest rupture of calcium hydroxylapatite matrix and some tough existential questions.
As I re-equilibrated over the weekend, lounging about, doing housechores and spending time with family, I thought to myself, baffled: "so this is what being a normal person is like." It's amazing how differently a Saturday goes when you aren't spending 5 hours running. I might actually be a productive person if I didn't spend such large amounts of time either in aerobic exertion or basking in the hazy, contented afterglow.
Yup, not that big a deal in the larger scheme of things. But the sense of loss highlights the tenacity with which running entwines itself amidst one's meaning-making machinery. There are other factors at play here to be sure that help explain the malaise: the fostered dependence on one's endogenous opioid system (the associated squirts of dopamine and the withdrawal thereof), habituation to routine and expectation, the social outlets afforded, competitive goals. And there is this: running has become an inextricable part of me. It is a reflection of who I am, my means of connection and exploration, a domain to test myself and grow, an expression of love.
With cycling out of the question for now I've been trying to make friends again with the pool in all her chlorinated claustrophobia. Water running is likely the most mind-numbingly boring activity of all time, surpassed perhaps only by swimming itself with its insular immersion, redundancy, awkwardness, and peculiar cadre of lycra-clad, large shouldered, strangely-non-athletic looking mammals who, for some bizarre reason, have forsaken the sublime mountains just outside the window in favor of this overcrowded cesspool of chloramine vapors.
In sum, it is mental training par excellance.
Without the same gravitational forces to overcome and because of the compressive forces of the water which increases venous return, to achieve any semblance of a workout pool running you need to hammer at what feels like significant intensity. Even so, heart rates are around 10% lower for the same aerobic efforts. The plus side is that without any eccentric muscular damage you can do intervals every day without risking injury. And so it is: Monday- 10 x 90 sec. with 30 sec recovery, Tues - 6 x 2:30 with 30 sec recovery (interrupted by Masters Swim class, arg!), Wed- 12 x 2:30 with 30 sec recovery (to make up for Tuesday's poor showing). I read an article about Paula Radcliffe destroying herself with marathon pool running sessions and vomiting on her way home as she came back from injury and have made this my new goal over the next 6 weeks.
I've also resumed doing pullups in earnest. While this has little if any specific impact on maintaining running form it at least provides a handy outlet for short-term goals. Having neglected my upper body for the better part of 4 years my lats and biceps are as flaccid as Claire Meuse's (my grandmother). My inaugural showing resulted in a pitiful 15 pullups: a far cry from the legendary 5 sets of 10 pullups of 2008 , but at least it is a starting place.
Stress fracture of the lateral cuneiform, bone contusion on the calcaneus, peroneus longus tenosynovitis, and mild achilles tendinosis.
Of course the only real game changer in that set of diagnoses is the first one. The stress fracture: bain of the runner's existence and inevitable harbinger of 6 weeks + of no running whatsoever and then a gradual reintroduction of stress to the bone. The imaging gives clues to the likely etiology. I had entered the race with a slight achilles injury which flared at about mile 12 or so, forcing me to alter my biomechanics and foot strike. The rearrangement of my gait, compounded over the course of a fast 50 mile race (in the context of having done very little specific training for this type of running) provided an overload of stress on my foot resulting in breakdown. Seems like a good hypothesis at least.
It's interesting how quickly so many things can shift. Just days prior I had been pounding up and down Mt. Wire and Mt. Olympus, telling myself that my foot was indeed getting better and it was nothing to worry about, that the Zane Grey 50 was still in the cards for me in a couple weeks. I disregarded the fact that every step brought on a wince and my foot hurt to touch. Running hard involves in large part the ignoring of bodily distress signal, or at least the recasting of this signal in a different light. I've run through plenty of injuries in the past (for better or worse) so wasn't thinking this one was going to be very different. Now, suddenly I had a broken bone, a heavy plastic walking cast, a crushing sense of disappointment, and a lot of time on my hands. The stark, honest rupture of calcium hydroxylapatite matrix and some tough existential questions.
As I re-equilibrated over the weekend, lounging about, doing housechores and spending time with family, I thought to myself, baffled: "so this is what being a normal person is like." It's amazing how differently a Saturday goes when you aren't spending 5 hours running. I might actually be a productive person if I didn't spend such large amounts of time either in aerobic exertion or basking in the hazy, contented afterglow.
Yup, not that big a deal in the larger scheme of things. But the sense of loss highlights the tenacity with which running entwines itself amidst one's meaning-making machinery. There are other factors at play here to be sure that help explain the malaise: the fostered dependence on one's endogenous opioid system (the associated squirts of dopamine and the withdrawal thereof), habituation to routine and expectation, the social outlets afforded, competitive goals. And there is this: running has become an inextricable part of me. It is a reflection of who I am, my means of connection and exploration, a domain to test myself and grow, an expression of love.
With cycling out of the question for now I've been trying to make friends again with the pool in all her chlorinated claustrophobia. Water running is likely the most mind-numbingly boring activity of all time, surpassed perhaps only by swimming itself with its insular immersion, redundancy, awkwardness, and peculiar cadre of lycra-clad, large shouldered, strangely-non-athletic looking mammals who, for some bizarre reason, have forsaken the sublime mountains just outside the window in favor of this overcrowded cesspool of chloramine vapors.
In sum, it is mental training par excellance.
Without the same gravitational forces to overcome and because of the compressive forces of the water which increases venous return, to achieve any semblance of a workout pool running you need to hammer at what feels like significant intensity. Even so, heart rates are around 10% lower for the same aerobic efforts. The plus side is that without any eccentric muscular damage you can do intervals every day without risking injury. And so it is: Monday- 10 x 90 sec. with 30 sec recovery, Tues - 6 x 2:30 with 30 sec recovery (interrupted by Masters Swim class, arg!), Wed- 12 x 2:30 with 30 sec recovery (to make up for Tuesday's poor showing). I read an article about Paula Radcliffe destroying herself with marathon pool running sessions and vomiting on her way home as she came back from injury and have made this my new goal over the next 6 weeks.
I've also resumed doing pullups in earnest. While this has little if any specific impact on maintaining running form it at least provides a handy outlet for short-term goals. Having neglected my upper body for the better part of 4 years my lats and biceps are as flaccid as Claire Meuse's (my grandmother). My inaugural showing resulted in a pitiful 15 pullups: a far cry from the legendary 5 sets of 10 pullups of 2008 , but at least it is a starting place.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
2012 Antelope Island Buffalo Run 50 mile Race Report
March 24th, 2012
Time: 6:30:31
Place: 1st
Bethany: 2nd overall, 6:55 (course record)
Chris Helfer: 3rd overall, 7:07
The only other time I've lined up to race under similarly inauspicious circumstances was when I did the Tour de Park City 170mile bike race having been up all night the previous night on call at the hospital. (Strangely, that event turned out surprisingly well too.) Due to an achilles injury it had been about 3.5 weeks since I'd done any significant running to speak of, choosing instead to do lap after hiking lap on Mt. Wire. This approach can maintain some semblance of aerobic fitness but, unsurprisingly, has little bearing on the specific demands of running at a decent pace for 50 miles. Add to this a cold I came down with on Monday as well as the fact that our daughter Ada has been sick and sleepless for the majority of the preceding 2 weeks with night after night of 3 hours of shut-eye for the whole family and you understand why it wasn't until this past Wednesday that I decided I would at least line up and give it a shot.
The Buffalo Run 50 miler involves a lot of running. This may sound redundant in describing a 'running race' but it is a singularly distinguishing feature of this course (which involves a seemingly never-ending 20+ mile flattish out and back along the east side of the island) and places it in an altogether different category than other western ultrarunning events with substantial vertical and technical terrain such as the Pocatello 50, Speedgoat, Zane Grey, etc. The run takes place on the otherworldly Antelope Island, the largest of 10 islands in the Great Salt Lake, and home to populations of bison, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, and countless birds. The 50 mile course showcases the range of terrain on the island, from the central mountainous region to rolling prairie grassland along the north and east aspects.
We left from our house at 4:00am to pick up Chris Helfer en route and arrived at the start line around 5:15. Inside the tent we found Karl Meltzer wrapped in a sleeping bag, having finished the 100 miler about 2 hours earlier in an impressive 15:28 (course record). He mentioned off-hand that his first 50 miles was 6:33 (which is one of the top 3 fastest times for the 50 mile course in race history). The gauntlet was down.
We started off in the moon-less dark at 6am with headlamps and I was immediately in the lead with a few folks trailing just behind. I exchanged a few words with another runner from Grand Junction whose name escapes me now who ended up being just 30seconds to 1 min. behind me for the first 8 miles or so but who then apparently went significantly off course later in the first loop. I plugged in my earphones early on and just focused on enjoying the cool morning as I moved along at a quick pace seemingly effortlessly. I could tell I was running faster than I had anticipated and even my heart rate was high (low 160s) but it just felt too good to slow down and I cruised along into Elephant Head and headed out for the out-and-back, bopping along to M83 on the iPod and passing Greg Norrander, out on the course to take photos. Within the first mile or so of the out-and-back I came down hard on my R. ankle, twisting it fairly badly. It is always tough to tell how bad a sprain is right after it happens given the burst of pain and for a few moments there I thought my race was over before it had even really begun. I sat on the trail for a moment and rotated it around, then got up and took a few tentative running steps. It hurt for another few miles and then went numb (although it is bruised and quite swollen today). I continued along the Split Rock trail as the sun rose. Around 12 miles in I noticed my achilles beginning to twinge. This increased in intensity till about mile 20 and then seemed to progressively numb from there on, perhaps due to the increase in pain signal coming from the rest of my body. I swung by the start line area (mile 18+) and continued past just prior to the start of the 25k. I was wearing a Garmin GPS watch, a piece of equipment I typically eschew, and noted that at mile 20 my average pace had been 7:43/mile per mile- quicker than I expected given the decent amount of climbing on the first half of the course.
At the northeastern turnaround point (mile 22) I judged I had at least a 10-15 minute lead and settled into a sustainable pace. Given my faster pace for the first section of the run I had a fleeting moment where I thought the course record of 6:15 (Dylan Bowman 2011) might be conceivable. This would involve running just under 7:30 pace for the remaining miles which seemed at least theoretically feasible given the mellower terrain. My inability to hit these kinds of splits despite feeling relatively fresh however quickly informed me that this would be out of reach and I focused my efforts at maintaining a controlled pace.
Running is hard. I've never run a race where I didn't at least once wish I wasn't doing it. Being solidly in the lead from early on I didn't have a lot of motivation to push hard after a certain point and engaged in a fairly constant inner battle with laziness. At one point I recall even calculating how much I could slow down by and still win the race. Nonetheless, I was buoyed by the fantastic volunteers at Lower Frary aid station and by Jay Aldous who provided plentiful encouragement, not to mention 100-mile runners still out on the course who, despite being 24 hours deep in their own race (having started at noon the day before), offered energetic cheers and hoots, even stepping off the trail to let me run past. Knowing how shelled I was in the final stages of the only 100 miler I've done this was really inspiring and admirable and I consoled myself with the fact that however bad I was feeling they were assuredly feeling worse.
It was hot. And kept getting hotter. The story from here on out is just a linear increase in effort and similarly linear decrease in pace. Things never got all that bad and my energy levels stayed relatively intact- I could just tell that my legs were not accustomed to this task. To wit, they protested with aching hip flexors and hamstrings that started seizing in earnest over the last 10 miles of the course. I had been carrying one bottle but as the race progressed I would drain it fairly quickly after leaving each aid station. In retrospect I significantly underestimated my fluid needs in this heat (mid 70s) and was pretty volume depleted by the finish where I subsequently drank over 4L of fluid fairly quickly but still managed only a meagre amount of orange urine 3 hours after finishing (1).
Unsurprisingly, the best my legs felt all day was when I hiked up the steep uphill grunt around mile 43- now this is the kind of stuff I've been training for. Unfortunately, running mode returned all too soon as I dragged my body down to Bridger Bay to finish up along the Lakeside trail. The last 5 miles of the course are surprisingly refreshing: more ups and downs and plenty of rocks and features to negotiate which breaks up the monotony of identical foot strike patterns characteristic of the previous 20 miles. I managed 38:30 for the last 5 miles and stopped the clock at 6:30:31, as far as I know good for the second-fastest time in race history and a satisfying end to my 2nd 50 mile race.
Given the size of this race and the fact that at any given time you are finishing with 100 mile, 50k and 25k participants, the finish is a relatively anticlimactic affair involving just the perfunctory snip of a timing chip off your shoe. In my mind, this is perfect and completely captures the existential essence of this sort of endeavor: no glory, no external rewards, no money, no reasons for doing this other than the ancient need to explore your own personal physical and mental limits. (And then to blog about it.)
Bethany finished up looking smooth and strong in 6:55 which took over an hour off the previous women's course record (!) despite running a very conservative pace for her. In typical fashion she was coherent, cheerful, and fresh at the finish. In stark contrast I spent a great deal of time sitting lamely on the ground breathing in shallow breaths with my head between my legs, trying not to vomit on my knees. I can't imagine doing another 50 after running that pace. It's so cruel: you spend so much of the final stages of a race just wishing for the sweet relief of the finish and then you cross it only to be beset by seemingly unending discomfort. Helfer the Manimal finished in 3rd overall around 7:07 in his first 50 mile race and his 5th running race of any kind ever, having started running this past spring. Impressive stuff.
We hung around for a while at the finish which offered buffalo stew, beer, baking in the sun, and plenty of social time with familiar faces. It was fun to meet JB Benna and his wife Jennifer (director and producer of Unbreakable which had just screened in SLC thanks to Christian) who have a daughter named Eva born just a few days apart from our daughter Ada.
Today I feel surprisingly good apart from my achilles and ankle which are swollen and sore. Hopefully these will heal up in short order so as to race Zane Grey in a month's time. Race director Jim Skaggs and crew put on a great show- a well organized and well executed event in uniquely beautiful surroundings and a great start-off to the season.
(1) One great thing about having a running blog is having the opportunity to discuss and describe in detail my
bodily excretions.
Time: 6:30:31
Place: 1st
Bethany: 2nd overall, 6:55 (course record)
Chris Helfer: 3rd overall, 7:07
The only other time I've lined up to race under similarly inauspicious circumstances was when I did the Tour de Park City 170mile bike race having been up all night the previous night on call at the hospital. (Strangely, that event turned out surprisingly well too.) Due to an achilles injury it had been about 3.5 weeks since I'd done any significant running to speak of, choosing instead to do lap after hiking lap on Mt. Wire. This approach can maintain some semblance of aerobic fitness but, unsurprisingly, has little bearing on the specific demands of running at a decent pace for 50 miles. Add to this a cold I came down with on Monday as well as the fact that our daughter Ada has been sick and sleepless for the majority of the preceding 2 weeks with night after night of 3 hours of shut-eye for the whole family and you understand why it wasn't until this past Wednesday that I decided I would at least line up and give it a shot.
The Buffalo Run 50 miler involves a lot of running. This may sound redundant in describing a 'running race' but it is a singularly distinguishing feature of this course (which involves a seemingly never-ending 20+ mile flattish out and back along the east side of the island) and places it in an altogether different category than other western ultrarunning events with substantial vertical and technical terrain such as the Pocatello 50, Speedgoat, Zane Grey, etc. The run takes place on the otherworldly Antelope Island, the largest of 10 islands in the Great Salt Lake, and home to populations of bison, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, and countless birds. The 50 mile course showcases the range of terrain on the island, from the central mountainous region to rolling prairie grassland along the north and east aspects.
We left from our house at 4:00am to pick up Chris Helfer en route and arrived at the start line around 5:15. Inside the tent we found Karl Meltzer wrapped in a sleeping bag, having finished the 100 miler about 2 hours earlier in an impressive 15:28 (course record). He mentioned off-hand that his first 50 miles was 6:33 (which is one of the top 3 fastest times for the 50 mile course in race history). The gauntlet was down.
We started off in the moon-less dark at 6am with headlamps and I was immediately in the lead with a few folks trailing just behind. I exchanged a few words with another runner from Grand Junction whose name escapes me now who ended up being just 30seconds to 1 min. behind me for the first 8 miles or so but who then apparently went significantly off course later in the first loop. I plugged in my earphones early on and just focused on enjoying the cool morning as I moved along at a quick pace seemingly effortlessly. I could tell I was running faster than I had anticipated and even my heart rate was high (low 160s) but it just felt too good to slow down and I cruised along into Elephant Head and headed out for the out-and-back, bopping along to M83 on the iPod and passing Greg Norrander, out on the course to take photos. Within the first mile or so of the out-and-back I came down hard on my R. ankle, twisting it fairly badly. It is always tough to tell how bad a sprain is right after it happens given the burst of pain and for a few moments there I thought my race was over before it had even really begun. I sat on the trail for a moment and rotated it around, then got up and took a few tentative running steps. It hurt for another few miles and then went numb (although it is bruised and quite swollen today). I continued along the Split Rock trail as the sun rose. Around 12 miles in I noticed my achilles beginning to twinge. This increased in intensity till about mile 20 and then seemed to progressively numb from there on, perhaps due to the increase in pain signal coming from the rest of my body. I swung by the start line area (mile 18+) and continued past just prior to the start of the 25k. I was wearing a Garmin GPS watch, a piece of equipment I typically eschew, and noted that at mile 20 my average pace had been 7:43/mile per mile- quicker than I expected given the decent amount of climbing on the first half of the course.
At the northeastern turnaround point (mile 22) I judged I had at least a 10-15 minute lead and settled into a sustainable pace. Given my faster pace for the first section of the run I had a fleeting moment where I thought the course record of 6:15 (Dylan Bowman 2011) might be conceivable. This would involve running just under 7:30 pace for the remaining miles which seemed at least theoretically feasible given the mellower terrain. My inability to hit these kinds of splits despite feeling relatively fresh however quickly informed me that this would be out of reach and I focused my efforts at maintaining a controlled pace.
Running is hard. I've never run a race where I didn't at least once wish I wasn't doing it. Being solidly in the lead from early on I didn't have a lot of motivation to push hard after a certain point and engaged in a fairly constant inner battle with laziness. At one point I recall even calculating how much I could slow down by and still win the race. Nonetheless, I was buoyed by the fantastic volunteers at Lower Frary aid station and by Jay Aldous who provided plentiful encouragement, not to mention 100-mile runners still out on the course who, despite being 24 hours deep in their own race (having started at noon the day before), offered energetic cheers and hoots, even stepping off the trail to let me run past. Knowing how shelled I was in the final stages of the only 100 miler I've done this was really inspiring and admirable and I consoled myself with the fact that however bad I was feeling they were assuredly feeling worse.
It was hot. And kept getting hotter. The story from here on out is just a linear increase in effort and similarly linear decrease in pace. Things never got all that bad and my energy levels stayed relatively intact- I could just tell that my legs were not accustomed to this task. To wit, they protested with aching hip flexors and hamstrings that started seizing in earnest over the last 10 miles of the course. I had been carrying one bottle but as the race progressed I would drain it fairly quickly after leaving each aid station. In retrospect I significantly underestimated my fluid needs in this heat (mid 70s) and was pretty volume depleted by the finish where I subsequently drank over 4L of fluid fairly quickly but still managed only a meagre amount of orange urine 3 hours after finishing (1).
Unsurprisingly, the best my legs felt all day was when I hiked up the steep uphill grunt around mile 43- now this is the kind of stuff I've been training for. Unfortunately, running mode returned all too soon as I dragged my body down to Bridger Bay to finish up along the Lakeside trail. The last 5 miles of the course are surprisingly refreshing: more ups and downs and plenty of rocks and features to negotiate which breaks up the monotony of identical foot strike patterns characteristic of the previous 20 miles. I managed 38:30 for the last 5 miles and stopped the clock at 6:30:31, as far as I know good for the second-fastest time in race history and a satisfying end to my 2nd 50 mile race.
Given the size of this race and the fact that at any given time you are finishing with 100 mile, 50k and 25k participants, the finish is a relatively anticlimactic affair involving just the perfunctory snip of a timing chip off your shoe. In my mind, this is perfect and completely captures the existential essence of this sort of endeavor: no glory, no external rewards, no money, no reasons for doing this other than the ancient need to explore your own personal physical and mental limits. (And then to blog about it.)
Bethany finished up looking smooth and strong in 6:55 which took over an hour off the previous women's course record (!) despite running a very conservative pace for her. In typical fashion she was coherent, cheerful, and fresh at the finish. In stark contrast I spent a great deal of time sitting lamely on the ground breathing in shallow breaths with my head between my legs, trying not to vomit on my knees. I can't imagine doing another 50 after running that pace. It's so cruel: you spend so much of the final stages of a race just wishing for the sweet relief of the finish and then you cross it only to be beset by seemingly unending discomfort. Helfer the Manimal finished in 3rd overall around 7:07 in his first 50 mile race and his 5th running race of any kind ever, having started running this past spring. Impressive stuff.
We hung around for a while at the finish which offered buffalo stew, beer, baking in the sun, and plenty of social time with familiar faces. It was fun to meet JB Benna and his wife Jennifer (director and producer of Unbreakable which had just screened in SLC thanks to Christian) who have a daughter named Eva born just a few days apart from our daughter Ada.
Today I feel surprisingly good apart from my achilles and ankle which are swollen and sore. Hopefully these will heal up in short order so as to race Zane Grey in a month's time. Race director Jim Skaggs and crew put on a great show- a well organized and well executed event in uniquely beautiful surroundings and a great start-off to the season.
(1) One great thing about having a running blog is having the opportunity to discuss and describe in detail my
bodily excretions.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Beards
The next day I ran just over 27 miles on Antelope Island with the middle 12 of it at a pretty brisk pace along the flatter trail along the east side of the island. I then met up with Christian, Karl, Greg, David, and Matt who had started a bit later Sure enough, doing all that 'real' running was enough to flare the achilles up and this past week involved some unappreciated downtime, during which I was revisited by ghosts of injuries past, neurotic and otherwise. To heal myself I've simply reverted to my old ways of slogging uphill and it is working like a charm for both collagen and soul. I did the steep route up Mt. Wire from the Sunnyside trail head parking lot in 31:40, all hiking, and then today did 3 x Mt. Wire for about 6,600 vert in 12 miles. All good specific training for the mostly flat and graded upcoming Antelope Island 50 miler in 2 weeks... :)
Of course, all this is just preamble to the real news of having finally shaved my face. While a positive move for the marriage, professional life, and vitamin D synthesis, I nonetheless miss being mistaken for a homeless person. Interestingly, while Charles Darwin (himself whiskered) speculated that beards have evolved in our ancestors because women find them attractive this turns out not to be the case. Rather, at least according to a study in the Oxford Journal of Behavioral Psychology (here), the converse is true. However, the augmentation of aggressive facial displays facilitated by facial hair may lend an indirect survival advantage in competition with other males in the intrasexual mating milieu.
   |
| The face of dominance. |
 |
| Peter Adler, Bonneville |
 |
| Grandeur Peak: 1st of 10 for Jared. |
 |
| Antelope Island. Greg Norrander, David Hayes, Karl Meltzer, Christian Johnson, Matt Hart. |
 |
| On the island of Yap, age 10. Photo courtesy of Craig Lewis. |
 |
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Bridge-Jenny Loop, Zion NP
This past weekend Bethany, Ada, and I traveled down to Zion NP to meet up with Jared and Mindy Campbell and Ryan and Julie McDermott and their two children. Viral infections be damned, Jared, Ryan and myself went out for a great 8 hour backcountry traverse to Bridge Mountain, Marble Ridge, and the Jenny Peaks. I imagine there are few people on the planet who know this terrain better than these two guys (see Zironman) and it was pretty cool to get a chance to see parts of the park that very few folks ever get to. We headed out around 9am, leaving just east of the tunnel and made our way through mixed terrain of shin deep snow, ice, sandstone, and brush. The pace was steady which belied Jared's increasingly labored and shallow breathing and evident malaise. I politely declined to follow these guys up and then back down Bridge Mtn out of both abject fear for my life as well as realistic appraisal of my limited climbing skills and instead explored around the tamer terrain around the sloping sandstone saddle between Bridge and G2. We continued on, eventually traversing the sublime and rolling Marble Ridge which was punctuated at several points by bizarre scattered slabs of basalt: fractured alien-appearing remnants of what must have once been a full layer of volcanic rock over the sandstone. Our final scrambling descent back to the tunnel was small potatoes for these guys but ended up being fairly gripping stuff for yours truly. I did manage not to shit my pants, for which I'm thankful, but it was not a graceful sight to behold.
 |
| Ryan and Jared with Bridge Mtn in the background. |
 |
| Ryan, taking in the surroundings. |
 |
| Otherworldly slabs of basalt perched on sandstone |
 |
| Traversing across Marble Ridge. |
Monday, February 20, 2012
Being Social.
Another great couple of weeks of running / post-holing up steep snow covered slopes. I've had a lot of social runs lately which has been a nice change of pace from my typical solitary and antisocial caveman ways. Highlights include some good running with Jason Berry, Greg Norrander, Bryon Powell, Matt Vukin, Chris Helfer, Kerry Gaines, Jared Campbell, and Bethany. Got in about 8 hours of running this past weekend with a vert session with Jared on Saturday, hitting both Mt. Olympus and Grandeur for over 7000 vertical and then a hard aerobic 23 miles with Bethany yesterday along a slushy and wet Bonneville trail. I woke up this AM with my second of 2 colds in the last 3 weeks: a testament to starting Ada in disease-infested daycare and simply an additional level of resistance added to the training load.
 |
| School! Doggy! |
 |
| Summit of Grandeur, right after doing Olympus which is in the background |
 |
| A typical training day for Jared... |
 |
| Bethany on Bonneville trail, slushy conditions |
 |
| Helfer on Mt. Wire |
 |
| Bryon Powell and Chris Helfer at Round Valley |
 |
| Baby moose at Round Valley (mamma close-by) |
 |
| Ascending west face of Grandeur. |
 |
| Looking towards Mt. Olympus off Grandeur. |
 |
| Black Mtn with new snowfall |
 |
| Coming off Black Mtn, valley below |
 |
| Greg Norrander and Jason Berry in the fog on Mt. VanCott. |
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Updates and TRT
Two big pieces of news over the past week: 1) I got into the Wasatch 100 and 2) I committed to a speed record attempt on the 165 mile Tahoe Rim Trail in August. Gary Gellin- the speedster who I met at the Bear 100 this past year- has been organizing an impressive team of ultrarunners to take on this challenge (everyone running as individuals) and was gracious enough to invite my sorry ass along. The current record is 38:32 and is held by the phenom Kilian Jornet. I must say, even mentioning this possibility feels like unrealistic hubris on my part (as far as my abilities alone are concerned.) But what the hell... I'm certainly not one to turn down such a potent opportunity to sublimate death anxiety. I can only hope to be fit enough by that time so as not to embarrass myself too badly.
I've had a good run of healthy, solid training over the last month with over 80,000 vertical gain in January. While little of this training has much likely bearing on my prospects at the mostly graded and nontechnical trails at the upcoming Antelope Island 50m it has certainly been enjoyable and hopefully is money in the bank for later season technical mountain races on the schedule. The past week's highlights include a good threshold effort on Mt. Wire (29:10 to summit in slow, icy conditions), a hard aerobic 26 miler on Antelope Island and then 4 x 5 minute cruise intervals at the end of a 16 miler today- the latter two workouts with Helfer, the Manimal. Nice to see a bunch of local SLC runners out on Antelope Sunday morning.
Remembering in the midst of this Einstein's caveat: 'not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.'
I've had a good run of healthy, solid training over the last month with over 80,000 vertical gain in January. While little of this training has much likely bearing on my prospects at the mostly graded and nontechnical trails at the upcoming Antelope Island 50m it has certainly been enjoyable and hopefully is money in the bank for later season technical mountain races on the schedule. The past week's highlights include a good threshold effort on Mt. Wire (29:10 to summit in slow, icy conditions), a hard aerobic 26 miler on Antelope Island and then 4 x 5 minute cruise intervals at the end of a 16 miler today- the latter two workouts with Helfer, the Manimal. Nice to see a bunch of local SLC runners out on Antelope Sunday morning.
Remembering in the midst of this Einstein's caveat: 'not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.'
 |
| Mill D |
 |
| Mt. Wire, the old standby |
 |
| Bonneville overlooking the city |
 |
| I heart Mt. Wire. |
 |
| Antelope Island, sunrise. |
 |
| Helfer, taking a break from hammering. |
 |
| Antelope island... |
 |
| Towards Mueller Park... |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)