JD's Ridiculous Endeavors

Sometimes

2012-01-23T14:16:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel like crying because I’m so tired of running. The thought of going out for another run on nasty, unmaintained, slippery sidewalks makes me want to puke.

Sometimes I feel like crying because I’m sick of pain. Pain in my ankles. Pain in my quads. Pain in my calf. I feel like if I ran only when there’s no pain, I wouldn’t run at all.

Sometimes I feel like crying because I feel like I’m waisting my time running ultras. I suck at running long and I’m not really getting any better.

Sometimes I feel like crying because I’m mad at my family for not giving a shit about my running and never offering any support.

Sometimes I feel like crying because I hate other runners, for whom everything seems to effortless, who get up at 5AM to run, who never seem to doubt anything. Why is it so hard for me?

Sometimes I feel like crying because I wonder if I’ll ever be able to run 100 miles again. It’s so hard. Can I ever summon that much willpower again?

But then again;

Sometimes I feel like crying when I remember standing alone under the stars in Alaska, my headlamp off, taking it all in.

Sometimes I feel like crying when I stop during a long run in the desert to look around and see how beautiful it all is.

Sometimes I feel like crying because I feel so alive I can hardly stand it.

Sometimes I feel like crying because I know how lucky I am to be able to do this.

Don’t worry though. Most of the time, I’m OK.

Re-Boot

2012-01-19T13:42:00.004-05:00

After barely dragging my ass out of the Grand Canyon in October, I had a hard time running with any kind of consistency in November and December. Heck, I had a hard time all year!

I felt like I had all the excuses in the book. Too much work, tired, my Achilles is killing me and finally my favorite: maybe having half my thyroid removed is lowering my energy level. It’s rare but it happens. Haven’t I gained over 10 pounds in the last year? Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that I’M EATING LIKE A FRACKING PIG. I eat a lot, I eat often and I snack all night. AND I had gained about 5 lbs even BEFORE the operation. What's up with that? Obviously, I'm full of it.

So my new thinking is this: my right Achilles hurts more because I’m heavy AND I run too long for my level of fitness right now. I would typically go for a run at lunch, let’s say 8 or 10k and then my Achilles would hurt the next day and I would skip. Vicious circle. No consistency. I believe my fitness has been on a downward spiral for over a year now. I need to do something about this.

My new plan is to rebuild from the ground up.

Lose weight: It’s a fact that I need to lose weight if I’m going to finish Leadville. I hear people who say they ask their pacer to carry their water bottle, which weighs a pound, and here I am carrying 15 our 20 extra pounds on my back. I need to go below 160 lbs. I started calorie counting on Monday so I can reset my eating habits. Calorie counting is the only technique that works for me. Everything becomes black and white: either you eat it or you don’t.
Consistency: I want to run at least 5 times a week, preferably 6 times. I’m starting with short runs, in the 30 minute range, so I won’t aggravate my Achilles and have to skip. I should be able to build fairly quickly on top of this. I went out 6 times last week and this week looks good.
Increase volume: As mentioned, my training sucked last year. Looking back at my training log last year, I see only 8 weeks where I ran more than 7 hours. If you take into account the fact that I ran two hundred milers, paced two others, ran two 50k and did r2r2r then you’re left with ONE week where I trained more than 7 hours. It’s really hard to run more than 5 or 6 hours if you run 4 times a week. Your really need to run maybe 5 but probably 6 or more days to get that kind of volume.
Shoes: After two years running in Nike Lunarglides, I’ve decided to switch back to the Lunaracers. I’ve noticed after coming back from running trails in my Crosslites that my Achilles felt really good only to get really painful after a couple of road runs in the Lunarglides. I’m not a big fan of Nike because they change their fracking shoes too often but I seem to come back to them. I tried to get me some Adizero Pros, but Adidas doesn’t seem to carry them here. Fuck ‘em. I got a new pair of Lunaracers which is more of a neutral shoe, where the Lunarglides are more of a “support” shoe. They feel pretty good and my Achilles feels really good. Then again, might be my new plan and the shoes do nothing.

So this is my re-boot plan. After I’ve consolidated this for a while, I will get into more Mohican/Leadville-specific training (aka ‘pain’).

Speaking of Mohican, I see on their website that they have removed the horrible 2 mile lollipop we had to do at the end of each loop. This is a relief. A (small) part of me thinks that to get true redemption, I would have needed the same course, but really that section of the course was truly horrible. The cutoff is still 32 hours, so I shouldn’t count my chickens until I see what they’ve replaced it with...

Santa's Back 5K Race Report

2011-12-12T11:35:00.003-05:00

After a couple of weeks of more or less stable training, I decided that I needed to set a baseline for my training. Being an unconditional Jack Daniel's follower, I needed to know my current VDOT so I can determine my various training paces. JD says that the only way to know is to race, so when I got an email last week about the "Santa is back" 5K race in Whitby, I knew I was in. A quick email to Chris and he (and Kim) was in as well.

I hadn't raced a 5k since April 10, 2009, which will forever be remembered as the day I broke the 20 minutes barrier. Compared to the logistics of preparing for an ultra, getting ready for a 5k felt like going out to the corner store to grab a can of Pepsi. After dropping off my wife to the airport, I stopped at Kim & Chris' place and got changed there while they were getting ready. For the first time ever, I made the mistake of bringing two right foot Injinji toe-socks. This is a puzzle I've long solved, ever since I saw a guy do the very same mistake before Haliburton. I had nearly 29 hours to think about it then, so I immediately inside-out'ed one sock and voila!, one right and one left.

Two issues were conspiring against me. One is my lack of training at the faster paces. I did a few strides this week, just for for shits and giggles, and I noticed that I completely forgot my various paces. I used to know exactly what my 10k or 5k paces felt like but now I have no idea. My other problem is my weight. Running a lot of distance allows you to eat pretty much whatever you want, but I've run a lot less since July and I've kept eating. The scale was packed up in a box somewhere while we were renovating the upstairs bathroom and a few weeks ago I finally stepped on it and nearly had a coronary when I saw the readout: 177 lbs, about 10 lbs over my target range of 160-165.

We got to the race site, signed up, warmed-up. It was a nice but blustery day. I knew that the course was pretty exposed and we would be running a long stretch going on a slight uphill with the wind blowing right in our face. I figured that would even out the fact that the course was 100 meter short. It was an out and back course. Why they didn't just place the turn-around cone 50 meters further is one of those mysteries that I will haunt me forever. It was on a bike path, there was no ice or other barrier, they knew the course was short (they had announced it). Why, why, why?

Anyway, about 100 people were lined up for the 5k. Chris and I were close to the front and Kim seeded herself a bit further back. When the horn sounded, we rushed forward to get through the 3 feet wide gate that funneled people onto the first section of the walk path before the crowd. After 1km I thought I was done for. The wind was horrible. After 2km, I was still hanging in. The gap between me and the guy ahead of me was pretty stable. I turned around at 2.45km (WHY? WHY?) huffin' and puffin'. The return trip was an exercise in pain management, trying to fend off a side stitch that was threatening to stop me in my tracks and broken expectations when the distance between every single landmarks turned out to be 3 times further than I remembered them on the way out.

I finally saw the clock ticking up from 21:10 and went as hard as I could, finishing in 21:32. Not too bad. Then of course they expect you to stay still while they remove the chip and give you a medal, while you are basically trying not to pass out. Everyone was pretty happy with their results. Kim beat her PB. Chris finished about 20 seconds ahead of me, which I expected because he's been training a lot more seriously than I have.

So this gives me a VDOT of 46, down 4 points from my all time high of 50. I was 160 lbs at the time, so if I adjust for my current unfortunate weight using Daniel's weight correction, I get something that's pretty close to 50. By that I mean that if you had a VDOT of 50 and suddenly went from 160 to 175 lbs, you could expect your race results to reflect a VDOT of 46. Losing the weight is going to be a priority.

Here we go. Back to training.

What a Year

2011-11-22T14:24:00.001-05:00

2011 was a tough year but it had its rewards. I ran a ridiculously wet and cold 50KM at the Mud Puppies where I actually felt colder than at any point during Susitna. I experienced my first DNF at Mohican, after 60-some miles in unbelievable heat and humidity, to say nothing of the unexpectedly brutal course. Six weeks later, I again cooked my brain and body in debilitating heat at Burning River but this time I overcame the night demons (on a course that was WAY more difficult than expected) and finished. I paced in two races, two perfect strangers for about 60-70km each, helping them finish their first 100 milers and making new friends in the process. Finally, I ran across the Grand Canyon and back, spraying Gatorade through my mouth and nose all over the South Kaibab trail on the way back up, swearing I would never do anything that stupid again only to find myself signing up for the Leadville 100 on the first day registration opened and then put my name in the Western States lottery.

Funny to think that I’m one of the more reasonable ultrarunners. That being said, I’ve now added some more amazing memories to my list of things I will never regret doing. I believe that those memories will be important when comes the time when most of the day is spent reminiscing, sitting on the rocking chair and telling stories that nobody believes or really cares about.

I do have some regrets about this year, although they were beyond my control. I do wish that I had been able to train a little bit more this year. As proud as I am of what I accomplished, things at work were so insane that I just didn’t have the mental energy required to run the volume that I should have. On the other hand, work was really interesting so what are you going to do?

What’s in store for 2012? Well, my first big race will be in June, either Western States if I get in or I’m going back for redemption at Mohican. Then, the summer will be spent rebuilding to get ready for Leadville on August 18-19th. Leadville scares the shit out of me, because it’s not just a little dip at altitude, it’s a full 100 miles above 9000 feet, going as high as 12,500 feet. The highest point in Western States (8700 ft) is lower than the lowest point in Leadville (9200 ft). Four big climbs, including two huge ones. For a wannabe like me, this is going to be a big challenge. I’m freaking myself out as I’m writing this so enough said.

To try to save me from my poor decision making, I will once again ask Derrick to train me. Derrick has his own problems with impulse control (he just signed up for the Yukon Arctic Ultra 100 miler), but he did do an amazing job of getting me ready for the two 100 milers that he trained me for. There isn’t much he can do for my poor flat-lander, sea-level lungs but I’m sure he will get me as ready as I can be.

Depending on how devastated I am after Leadville, I would like to rebuild over September and October and run the Javalina 100, near Phoenix in Arizona. We will see about that one, but it’s close to our place and I could make a vacation out of it.

For now, I’m barely running. I’m fat. I don’t care. One needs some rest, so I’m recharging my mental batteries until the new year and then it will be time to start taking things more seriously.

R2R2R Epic Report

2011-10-30T14:17:00.002-04:00

I wasn'treally ready for an effort of this magnitude (a recurring theme this year). Sure, I've run long distancesthis summer, with some decent climbs, at least for an east coast runner. The thing is, it's easy tolook at r2r2r only as numbers. Forty-two miles, 11,000 feet of climbing. Doesn't sound too bad. Well,once again, reality came knocking.

Chris,Steve and I have been planning for this adventure for about a year. A group ofOUSER runners did the R2R2R last year and we've have R2R2R-envy ever since. In thelast few months, two more runners joined the group: Johnny and Kendra. OnSunday the 23rd, they all flew into Phoenix. I picked them up at the airportand we drove to our condo in Sedona where we immediately went for anhour shakedown run on the local trails. On Monday morning we got ready and departed for Grand Canyon, where wehad reserved two rooms at the Yavapai lodge in the park itself. We took our sweet time, stopping a few times along the way to see the sights.

Chapel

I was theonly one who had seen the Canyon previously. At the first view point, we stopped the car, got out and just stoodthere, saying things like "holy fuck!" or "JesusChrist!". Pictures don't give theGrand Canyon justice and the thought that we could make it to the other side,let alone come back, in one day, eating a handful of gels and power bars, seemedludicrous.

First look at the Grand Canyon

We found a place to park the minivan near the South Kaibab trailhead and walked there for a quick recon. By then, I had butterfly in mystomach. We all went down a bit down the trail to get a taste and took a fewpictures. We were all excited, babbling like little kids, asking questions tohikers coming up the trail. Following the advice of local Sedona runners whohad done r2r2r many times, we had pretty much decided to stick to the SouthKaibab trail for the return trip, rather than take the longer, but shallowerBright Angel trail. With the cool temperatures that were on the forecast, thelack of water on South Kaibab would not be an issue and saving two miles, evenat the cost of an extra 500 feet of climbing, seemed like a great idea.

Trail winding down

We gotour rooms, got dinner and went to bed around 9:00 PM. By 4:30 AM all five of us are standing at thetrail head, with winds of about 25 miles/hr blowing in our face. We all havebackpacks containing 3 litre bladders filled with our drink of choice as wellas food, clothes and electronics. We can see nothing outside of the circle oflights created by our headlamps. We try to take a group picture, but we're allchomping at the bit, anxious to begin and we just go.

We follow each othercautiously, the wind picking up dust, at time reminding me of a snow storm.It's obvious from the start that the group's pace is not comfortable for everyonebut we stick more or less together. After a fairly short distance, we get to an exposed section where welose the trail for a minute. We pull out the map in the wind and get ourbearings. There's only one trail and we eventually find it and keep going. Thetrail is pretty nice but I'm cautious. The thought of tripping freaks me rightout. Some of the sections are nicer than other but some require us to jump downsteps or rocks. We go down for over 90 minutes in the dark, my quads slowlystarting to feel the burn. Johnny decides to push ahead and will be waiting forus at the Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon. As we approach the bottom,we see lamps below, slowly moving up and we start meeting hikers on their wayout of the canyon after sleeping at the ranch or at the campground. Most look abit grumpy and we just say "hi" and keep going. As we near thebottom, daylight makes an appearance and we can see the suspension bridgecrossing the Colorado river below us. The river is pretty damn big. We getthere, cross the bridge and push on to the Phantom Ranch where we join John ataround 6:15 AM. We've run 7 miles and come down 5000 feet. I still feel great,my legs are good. The worse part of coming down was the constant breaking and Ididn't really breathe hard during the descent.

At the Phantom Ranch

At theranch, we decide to break up the group. The two faster guys want to go bythemselves. Us slowpokes decide to stick together. The trail from the ranch to the Pump House is about 7 milesof gentle-ish uphill. We take our time and take lots of pictures and movies. Therunning in this 7 miles section, from Phantom Ranch to the Pumphouse, is prettygood. We walk a few of the bigger hills, but by this time Kendra is in frontsetting a nice pace and she likes to run the uphills to "use differentmuscle groups". The weather is still perfect, with a light cloud coverthat prevents the sun from making the temperature uncomfortably hot. From theweb site we know that all the water sources are still on, except for the tapsat the very top of the North Rim. That's good news because that means we won'tneed to purify any water.

Bottom of the North Side

The realclimbing starts near the Pump House. The trail starts to hug the canyon walland for the most past the trail becomes an unending 4-to-6 feet wide ledge thatclimbs up and up and up. The surface is ok, but a few sections are dicey andnow that it's daytime, we can see clearly what could happen should we slip ortrip so we tend to stay close to the wall rather than the other side, where a momentof inattention can send you down some huge cliff. Slowly, we go up. There isn'tmuch running anymore. Every 10 minutes we stop to take pictures or look around.We can't believe how incredible this is. We can see what we believe to be thetop, but as much as we climb, it doesn't seem to be getting any closer. The twoguys forgot to leave one of the two maps with us, so we're a bit fuzzy aboutthe distances between some of the landmarks.

Yes, it was scary at times

Eventually,we hear some voices and here are Johnnyand Steve, coming back down. They tell us we're less than an hour from the top.They also ask us if we saw the map they left for us way back near the RibbonFalls side trail. I had seen some markings, but I definitely saw no map so wefigured somebody took it. Steve tells us they'll be waiting for us in the carat the trailhead. They resume their descent and we keep climbing. I'm reallystarting to huff-and-puff. As we get closer to 8000 feet, my breathing isgetting louder and louder. Kendra seems to barely notice and just keeps going.I'm feeling ok, but this altitude is starting to get to me.

We'remeeting quite a few people hiking down from the North Rim now. Most people are just going down for a shorthike, but some are going all the way across, sleeping first at the Cottonwoodcampground, then at Bright Angel and finally at Indian Garden.

Finally,after more climbing, some more amazing vistas and some rain, I hear a hoot fromKendra and I figure she made it to the summit where Chris and I join her aminute later, some time around 12:15. As we sit in from of the top marker totake the requisite picture, hail starts to fall down and we decide to go downwhere the temperature is a bit warmer.

At the top, North Rim

Thedifference coming down is amazing. Sections that took hours are dispatched inminutes. We stop at a little rest area after the Supai tunnel to fill ourbladders and eat a bit. A bunch of hikers are there and we exchange a fewstories. I'm feeling good but I'm getting sick of Gatorade. My initial plan wasto drink eLoad but I couldn't find any and the taste of Gatorade is starting toget to me. I pop my last two Tylenol to calm my right Achilles that arestarting to get a bit tender. I decide not to switch to water but rather stickto Gatorade. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake. I had been drinkingwhat I thought was diluted Gatorade but in reality was full strength. The USmixing instructions were in quarts and gallons and cups and I somehow gotconfused when translating to litres. Add gels and other solids and what youhave is way too much sugar in my stomach. We're going down at an easy pacethough, so I'm feeling ok. Down the narrow switchbacks we go. Just as the suncomes out a bit and things get a bit warm, the trail switches canyon wall andwe get in the shade. In what now seems like no time at all, we're back at thePump House where we stop to drink and eat a bit.

Supai Tunnel near top of North Rim

The trailjoins the river and now we're on the 8.5 miles stretch to the Ranch. Easyrunning, but starting to get harder. The views are still out of this world. Thewalls of the side canyon we're running in are slowly closing in around us andthe feeling of being somewhere special is sometimes overwhelming. Sometimes, we can see the South Rim, far aheadand I have a hard time believing that I'm going to be climbing that in a fewhours. Everything is just so big.

About 2 miles from Phantom Ranch, I'm at theback of our little group and I hear a high pitched scream followed by"SNAKE!". Kendra just jumped over a rattlesnake that was gettingitself warm near a rock on the trail. She saw it too late when it started torattle and had to choice but to just jump over it. When I see it, it's coiledand a bit miffed. It slowly gets off the trail. My camera decides to chose thattime to refuse to boot up but Chris gets a good picture and a short clip.

Kendra almost stepped on this rattlesnake

After that,we tend to look down rather than up. After this long day, I'm starting to feelthe strain and the thought of climbing up the South Rim is a bit daunting. Chrislooks a bit stiff but Kendra is just as bouncy as she was in the morning. Idon't know what Crossfit does, but it seems to be doing Something. We keeptalking about how we're going to try to buy a cold bottle of Coke at the ranchand how great it's going to be. Eventually, we get to the ranch, but there's noCoke to be bought. Our money is no good down here, and not in a good sense. Wesit near the water faucet and rest a bit. Chris looks like shit. I don't noticeit, but apparently I'm really bloated and I'm walking around with my gutsticking out. I feel fine though and I drink a bit, refill and put moreGatorade in my bladder. I'm out of Tylenol, but I want to make sure my Achillesdon't bother me too much on the way up so I take two Excedrin. After 10 or 15minutes, we get going again and get to the bridge at 5:30PM.

On our way up South Kaybab

Less than7 miles to go. Cake. We figure 3 hours, maybe 3:30. AH!

The SouthKaibab trail is pretty scenic and the first 30 minutes are impressive.Beautiful views in the sunset and all that. Then it gets dark and all we haveto do is climb. And climb. And climb. There's nothing to look at, we just lookat the circle created by our headlamp and walk up. As we go up, I'm starting toget a bit nauseous. Then, a bit becomesquite a bit, then really nauseous. When we stop, it seems to get worse. I'mreally edgy. I start wishing that I hadn't taken those Excedrin. I keepthinking that the caffeine rush is too much in my weakened state. I'm not apuker. I have not puked since 1994, when I got a stomach flu that got thebetter of me. Before that, I puked in 1980 after eating some"magic" brownies that gave me the munchies, causing a chain reaction. My point is, I do getnauseous but I don't puke. Now, I don't remember feeling this retched. About 4miles from the top, I call for a break. I sit on a rock, my feet spread apart,looking at the donkey shit on the trail. I'm so sick of Gatorade. Kendra offerswater but I'm not too sure about that either. Chris says "One of twothings will happen, you'll feel better or you'll throw up". Deferring to Chris' vast experience in allthings puke-related, I take a solid pull from Kendra's water. Fifteen secondslater, I'm starring in disbelief as a powerful jet of Gatorade sprays out of mymouth (not unlike a scene from the Exorcist) and splashes on the trail splattering my shoes. And again. Then some more. Just as I think this is over, my gut seems to get into second gear and spasms even harder, pushing ever more liquids out my mouth andmy nose. Unbelievable. A part of me is wondering if it's possible to drowndoing this. Slowly, my abs calm down and I feel a bit better. I look around andChris is so tired that hasn't moved, he's still standing right there, one hand on the wall ofthe canyon, looking at me with clinical, detached interest: "I know exactly how youfeel", he says.

All we saw for 4 hours

I get upand we get going. We get to a sign that says "Trail Head 3.5 miles".Fuck. I was hoping for something like 1.5 miles. We get to a flatter area,probably Skeleton Point and I'm actually feeling better. As soon as we startclimbing again though, the nausea comes back though. I keep calling for breaks. Mynon-puking streaks, that used to last for decades, now only last minutes. Ihave no energy. I'm pretty sure all the Gatorade and food I ingested sincePhantom Ranch, maybe from even earlier, are gone. Every switchback, I lookup hoping to see an easy section. Every time, my spirits sink when I seeanother long, steep climb. The wind has picked up and we put warmer clothes on.It rains a bit. Kendra is in front, cheering me up the trail.

South Kaibab in daylight

It's aweird feeling, being on the side of that wall, knowing you have to get yourselfout. I'm not really in trouble. I'm just so fucking tired, going on fumes, and I want to get tothe top but I can't get to the top if I don't move. I fantasize aloud about gettingmy space blanket out and having a nap. Kendra does not approve of the idea. Breaks go from being every 30 minutes to15 minutes then 5 minutes. Un-fucking believable. I remember being more mentally distressed during 100 milers, but I've NEVER felt this weak before. My legs feel hollow. Ipuke a total of 5 times going up that fucking wall, then things get a bitbetter except for the fact that I'm sooo tired. I'm kind of resigning myself to the fact that this will never end. This trail will just keep going forever. And then, all of a sudden: WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? I see a sign, tellingpeople not to attempt to go down the canyon and up the same day! That has to beclose to the top! I perk right up. We keep going. A few minutes later, a"No Dogs Allowed" sign. I KNOW that fucking sign! Steve and I camehere yesterday! We're here! We climb up a couple of switchbacks and all of asudden, a see a flat paved area and a couple of steps. Not a log, not a pile ofrocks: honest to God steps. We're on top. We group-hug. We've done it. In traditional ultra fashion, Iswear I will never do this again, just as I've sworn after every hundred milerI've run that I would never again subject myself to such misery. We all know what that's worth.

I seesome lights in the parking lot but I go the wrong way to get there. I turnaround and walk toward the car. I keep thinking the guys are going to come outand congratulate us, singing songs and carrying us on their shoulders. I get to the car and both of them are asleep, the enginerunning. Jesus, what if they died from CO2 poisoning? What am I going to do?Poor me! Of course, they are fine andthey let us in after I knock on the window. It feels like 100 degrees in thecar. I wedge myself in the back seat. I feel so content right now. It's 10PM.What was supposed to be a 3 to 4 hour climb turned into a 5h30 hour pain-fest. Who cares? We fucking finished. There are no cut-offs here. You either do it or you don't.

We decideto sleep in the park again if we can find rooms. Nobody wants to drive. Sure enough, we find two rooms. Webuy a couple of pizzas and after a long search for the elusive lodge, wefinds the block we're looking for and get inside. I can't eat yet. I have ashower and still I can't eat. I drink ice-cold coke and Ginger ale like it'sgoing out of style, but after one little bit of pizza, I call it quits and goto sleep without eating. Don't worry, I ate plenty the next day!

This wasan epic adventure that I recommend to anyone who can do it. The sights, the trails, the climbs, the misery, everything I experiencedwas MORE than I expected. Everyone finished. Some faster than others, buteverybody had a blast. This run was challenging for me. I had justnot trained as much as I should have. Still, I have no regrets. Even going upthat wall, puking my guts out every 30 minutes, I knew I was doing somethingspecial that I would remember for the rest of my life, something that only a luckyfew are ever able to accomplish. All I had to do is what we all do: keep movingforward, relentless forward motion.

R2R2R

2011-10-27T01:14:00.001-04:00

Just a quick post to let you know that all five people in our group successfully finished the Grand Canyon double traverse in times varying from 12:30 to 17:30. Of course, I was with the slower group. The run was way more challenging than I expected. Full race report coming up soon.

Grand Canyon

2011-10-20T23:59:00.000-04:00

A week from now I'm going to run across the Grand Canyon ... Twice. I'm really excited about this classic bucket-list item. Classic if you're an ultra runner, of course. My wife thinks we're utterly out of our minds.

Just in case you're not familiar with the Rim-to-rim-to-rim (r2r2r for short), it's a 45-ish mile run that typically starts on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Two trails go down, the Bright Angel trail and the South Kaibab trail. The Bright Angel trail is longer but less steep. It also has a few water sources. The South Kaibab is a bit steeper but shorter with no access to water. Once at the bottom, the trails end at a suspension bridge that crosses the Colorado river. On the north side, there is only one trail that goes up, the North Kaibab trail. The South Rim is at 6800 feet. We will descend to 2400 feet, cross the bridge over the Colorado River, climb to 8240 feet at the North Rim, and then return. Altogether, the elevation gain, including some ups and downs along the way will be about 11,000 feet. It's going to be Epic.

At this point of the racing season, I'm in ok shape, nothing more. I peaked for Burning River and I've been trying to maintain a minimum of distance ever since. I paced Kendra for 70km about a month ago at Haliburton and since then I've done a couple of 4+ hour runs on trail. My weekly totals have been lackluster due to work. It is so crazy at work that my wife prefers that I run rather than work. Anyhoot, this ain't a race so all I need is to be in decent shape, which I am, and be well prepared. The temperature should be nice as long as we're ready for the near 0C at the start at 4AM and then up to 30-33C in the afternoon. Granted, it's a dry heat (ah, ah), but there is NO shade.

This run is going to be different from any other run I've ever done. For one thing, anyone who has ever been to the Grand Canyon knows that the very idea of crossing it in one day is ludicrous. Doing it twice seems impossible. I've been there twice. The second time was last Fall and we already had formed a plan of coming this year. When the view hit me, I have to admit that my resolve faltered a bit. Holy shit, it's big and it's barren! It's beautiful though.

Another thing that's special about the run is that you see where you're going. It's only 10 miles away, as the crow flies. The other side might as well be on the moon, it looks so unreachable.

I'll try to be a good boy and take some pictures and maybe some video. See you next week.

Running On Empty

2011-09-16T15:53:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I paced another runner, Kendra Olson, at the Haliburton Forest 100 miler. This was the only significant running I had done since Burning River at the end of July. I did go for a guilt run of 20 km the weekend before Haliburton, but that was just to determine whether it was even remotely possible for me to pace. Other than, that my runs were mainly short 30-to-60 minute runs near my house.

I could have run more, if it weren’t for work. Work is completely crazy right now. Hugely interesting and crazy-busy, a fatal combination when it comes to my running. With modern virtual teams spanning multiple time zones, lunch runs become a theoretical fiction. By the time I’m done, it’s time for dinner and then I’m just too mentally beat to go out later. Repeat the next day. In “The Lore Of Running”, Tim Noakes stipulates that it’s impossible to run hard and work hard at the same time. I now believe him. Just maintaining the pitiful volume that I’m running now requires some effort. My wife is now pestering me more, saying I run too much AND work too much.

Anyway, my runner finished. I spent 14 hours running overnight from 8 PM until 10:30 the next morning, a total of 70 km. It was a full moon in a cloudless sky, not a hint of wind, cool but not cold (well, not TOO cold). Kendra was a trooper and she hardly complained, except for random announcements that she couldn't run anymore. She would usually say that just before she started to run. We talked a lot about running and people who run. Funny how a relatively short distance like that leaves you completely drained. Running overnight is hard, especially without feeling the mental reinforcement that comes with racing. You are pursuing a secondary goal, basically helping someone accomplish something that makes no sense to begin with.

Kendra says she will never run a hundred miler again. Maybe she won’t. I don’t understand why I will do it again, so I sure can’t judge anyone who decides not to. Another friend, who had just finished her first 50 Miler, was a bit shaken by her experience even though she did really well. Talking to her about it afterward, I could see that she had been caught by surprise by how physical a 50 miler becomes, to the point of questioning whether it was worth it. Obviously, she’s the one who needs to decide where her personal limit stands. Where does insanity start, 50 km, 50 miles, 100 miles or further?

For my part, I find that doing something insane once in a while heals my soul. Somehow, standing at the finish line after the race physically beat up, mentally exhausted and emotionally drained, despite how weak I am, I feel certain that there is something in me that is more than it was a day or so ago. That certainty fades away slowly over time, I guess, and that might be why the urge comes back after a while.

In our world of daily responsibilities, cause and effects and pervasive yes/no technology, is it that crazy that I sometimes feel the need to escape into insanity, if only for a little while?

Burning River 100 Race Report

2011-08-04T23:57:00.000-04:00

Anyone signing up for a hundred miler in Ohio at the end of July has some kind of mental issues. Chances are that it WILL be hot and it WILL be humid. I’d like to think that I’m a smart person, but I did sign up for Burning River. I blame my so-called friends for peer-pressuring me into it.

Here’s the story.

Six of us drove down to Cuyahoga Falls in style, having rented a Toyota minivan: Kim (Chris’ crew), Chris (runner), Steve(runner), Stephen (runner), Adi (Steve’s pacer) and me. Spirits were high and we discussed the usual ultra topics at length. Our Garmin GPS guided us to our hotel, which was directly across the street from the finish line. After getting our rooms, we immediately grabbed our drop bags and went to register and … drop off our drop bags. The pasta dinner was ok. We went to bed early, around 9:30. That was not the most restful sleep I ever had, but my phone woke me up at 2:15AM. By 3:15, we were all in one of the 3 shuttle buses driving us to the start line up near Cleveland.

It was warm and muggy. At the line, I met with Carlos (see his blog here) and Gail Anne, who run many of the OUSER races. After a quick stop at the porta-potty (lights are very useful in there when it’s pitch dark), we waited for the start.

At 5:00AM sharp, we were gone. The first 10 miles or so are on road. This fact made me decide to run in my Mizuno Wave Ascend 5 instead of my Crosslites. I knew there were other sections of either pavement, bike path and tow path that were not a good match for my beloved shoes so I went with the Mizunos. They are in the garbage can as I type this. I ran part of the road section with my friends but I had already decided that I was doing this by myself and I stopped to pee and never tried to catch up.

I have to admit that I can barely remember the first 30 miles. Aid stations ticking by. Rumors that a runner had been hit by a car. Desperate hunt for a toilet. Talking to a runner racing without water bottles (really? I was running with two.). I DO remember that it was hot and getting hotter. Sometimes, the trails would go up and down and you would feel what felt like a 10 degree drop (or increase) in temperature within a few seconds. When I got to Shadow Lake (19 miles), someone already hadmy drop bag in hand and I sprayed myself with sunscreen and kept moving.

Other than the road-like sections, I'm not sure there is a single flat on the course. The trail sections were an endless cycle of going up something that is smaller than a mountain but definitely bigger than a hill, going down said obstacle usually almost straight down, totally busting your toes and quads, crossing a stream and then repeat. A few sections had great views of waterfalls that made me regret not bringing my camera.

The one section I remember well is referred to as "The Tow Path". No shade, straight, hot, goes on forever. I was on a strict 25 run/5 walk diet but the temptation to drop to a walk was very strong. At the end, the urge to get it over with won and I stuck with my program. Aid stations are far enough apart that sometimes you need a goal that you can wrap your hands around. A walk break within 25 minutes is a nice goal to have. Eventually, I made it to Station Road Bridge and I was a third done, 33 miles in. A lot of people were hurting at that aid station from the direct exposure to the sun. I took a bit more time than at previous stations, but I tried to get out of there as fast as possible. I filled my bottles, put ice under my hat and in my buff, which I put around my neck. I was cooking. Thankfully, the trail following the aid station had decent cover so it didn't feel quite as hot.

Somewhere after Station Road Bridge, I caught up with Chris, who was having some ankle issues, as well as heat issues. We ran together for a while but I eventually pulled away. Hills were getting bigger, the trails a bit more rugged. Running the full 25 minutes before taking a walk break was becoming more and more difficult. I was drenched with sweat with no hope of relief. I got to Boston Store, 49.1 miles, shortly after 4:30 PM. I still felt somewhat ok, especially compared to Mohican where I was a wreck at 50 miles. Kim was already there waiting for Chris and I sat in her chair for a while, ate some soup, changed my socks and cinglet. I had to do a 4.4 mile loop before continuing forward. Just before I left, Steve shows up having just finished his loop and announced he wanted to quit. I don't know how serious he was but I told him what I thought of that idea. The loop started with a long flat followed by some hilly road and finally I got back to Boston Store. I was now more than halfway done. I changed my hat for a buff, changed my bottles for my Nathan vest filled with half ice/half Gatorade, put my lights on and after eating some more I got out of there. Food was losing its appeal. Even cold drinks didn't feel all that great. The heat was really getting to me now and I felt a continuous low grade nausea.

Just as I was thinking about how stinking hot it was, some guy passes me wearing a full body mosquito suit, including the fucking head net. I ask him if he was training for some jungle race but he told me it was because there were some bugs in the sections to the finish. Wonder if he finished. Anyway, now I'm starting to hurt. Drinking is a chore. Eating becomes more and more difficult. The thought of having a gel is so repulsive that I can't even contemplate it. The trails are a series of unending climbs followed by quad and toe busting downhills. As I get close to Pine Lane I hear some screaming. Bees are running wild stinging runners left and right. I see a woman being helped by volunteers after being stung 3 times. Somehow I get through unstung, refill at the aid station and get back out. Of course, this is an out and back section so we have to run passed the crazy bees again but again, I get away with it.

I'm so tired. It's getting dark and I push on with my lights on. Things are fuzzy. I run, I walk, I run some more. This is when I remember how hard it is to run 100 miles. After the race, you forget but after 65, 70 miles, your body remembers. It is so hard not to quit, the temptation is almost overwhelming. To be honest, I remember nothing until shortly before I finally get to Pine Hollow, mile 70, a bit after midnight. I remember walking with this guy who had been hit by a car. He went to the hospital, got a ride back 2 hours later who dropped him off where he got hit and then started running again. Now, he's decided to quit with 30 miles to go. I probably have 10 or more hours of running left. I want this to stop. I swear to myself that I will never run another 100 miler. But I need to finish this one. I do my loop and when I come back an hour later, I get my drop bag, change my clothes, chat a bit with Kim and a volunteer and get the Hell out of there. Cut offs are far enough away that I don't really worry about them but they're not that far either. I push on.

The section to Covered Bridge is a nightmare that I can't remember. 6.6 miles in the bush, all by myself. Every five minutes, I wonder if I missed a turn even though this course is very well marked. I keep thinking I'm off course. Up. Down. Cross a stream. Up again. Repeat. Eventually, I get close to Covered Bridge and I see the dark outline of a huge hill. Of course, I see a light moving near the top. Fuck. At the aid station I get some rest and refill my vest. I try to eat a saltine cracker. After a while I go out for my loop, another fucking nightmare. As I get out of the aid station, a guy is puking so loudly that I ask a volunteer if it’s a joke. I saw someone in the first 5 minutes, a grown man crying telling his pacer that he’s sorry but he can’t go on, his feet are just to painful. I'm pretty sure I didn't see anyone until I finished the loop. By now, the sun is rising, I know I only have 15 miles to go and things are looking up. I may just finish this thing. I don't spend much time at the aid station. I say hi to Chris, who just got pulled off the course because he missed the cut off and I leave. He’s sitting in a chair with a space blanket wrapped around him. He looks like what I feel.

The rest of the course is mainly roads, bike and tow paths although there are some trail sections. I try to run as much as I can but it's not going well. It's getting warmer by the minute. I'm so nauseous I'm afraid I might puke any minute. I can barely drink a few sips of water once in a while. Eventually, a guy named Wayne catches up to me and we pull each other for a while. As we get close to the finish, we run faster and faster. We're passing quite a few runners, who probably think we're assholes for passing them so close to the finish but we don't care. We just want this to be over. Eventually, we cross the finish line (28h55min) and I almost cry, I'm so happy this is over.

Sitting in a chair at the finish is Adam, a guy with whom I ran big chunks of Susitna last year. He finished almost an hour ahead of me. Small world. His father physically lifts me up and sits me in his chair and we chat for a while. After about 20 minutes I walk across the street to the hotel. As I walk in the parking lot, I start sobbing because I’m so relieved this is over. It only lasts a few seconds and then I'm under control again, I go up to my room and jump in the shower.

This race was supposed to be easier than this. Instead, it ended up being my toughest race yet. My feet were completely destroyed. I could barely eat or drink for the last 10 hours. I'm happy I raced my own race. I believe that's why I was able to finish. Go fast when I can, go slow when I have to. Still, that one was a bitch.

Pre-race - Burning River 100

2011-07-27T11:39:00.002-04:00

It's funny how one can feel great after 35 miles and be completely destroyed at 50. That's what I remember from Mohican. Going from feeling ok, maybe even felling good, to feeling like I couldn't go on within the span of what felt like a few miles. I don't remember feeling in-between at any point. Good, then horrible.

No need to tell you that I feel a bit gun-shy about Burning River this coming weekend. I used to feel invicible. I used to think that (barring an injury) I could just push on no matter what. I knew that the temptation to quit is always strong, I've felt its siren song many times before, but I thought I could always overcome it. I guess that's one reason we run ultras. We want to find out what it takes to break our will. Mohican bitch-slapped me. I didn't see it coming. My ears are still ringing.

One of the biggest challenge at BR will be the heat. As hot as Mohican was, the course was almost entirely in the shade whereas BR has a lot more road and tow path where we will be running in the sun. The forecasts are for pretty warm weather, but then again, we're running in Ohio on July 30th. It's not like it's unexpected. I'm going to go with a 25 minutes run/5 minutes walk schedule, same as Susitna. My thoughts are that heat is even more debilitating than cold, so I need to recovery time. I will take the time to take care of myself, eat, take my salt and drink. The key will be to keep a good walking pace. When it's all said and done, in the second half of the race, a solid walking pace is not much slower than running, where the term "running" only loosely describe what I'm doing.

For the first time, I plan on not using my Crosslites, at least for the first 20 miles. The first 10 miles are on road, so I want to save my legs a bit and the Crosslites are a bit lacking on the cushioning side. I will wear my Mizuno Wave Ascend 5 trail shoes and plan A is to run the whole race in them. I've never run very long in the Mizunos so I'm not sure how my feet will react. They have a bit of a road shoe feel to them, similar to my old Wave Riders 11. I'll have a pair of Crosslites in both my 19 mile and my 50 mile drop bags. I'll put my old Wave Riders in my 75 mile drop bag just in case but I probably won't use them. I'm still hesitating about the hydration system. Probably start with two hand-held so I get a good start on the calorie intake, switch to the Nathan vest at 50 mile. Something like that.

Still, I'm excited about this race. Nothing else would have satisfied my need for redemption. God forbid I had to wait until September or later to try again. When I was in my teen, I had a car accident and I wrecked my car. I was fine physically but mentally shaken. The next day, my mother told me to take her car and drive for a while. The longer you wait, she said, the worse it's going to be. That's how I feel now. I need to give it another try now. Not just to the distance, but rather the distance, the humidity AND the heat. BR is just what the doctor ordered. My only reservation is the amount of road/tow path, around 25% or basically a full marathon. Personally, I prefer trails, where you don't have that long strip of asphalt/gravel ahead of you. I guess it could mean a fast time, but I don't really care about time for time sake. What does a 24h hundred miler means out of context? It's all about the course, right? It's a little bit like life, you don't want to see too far ahead. You need to be able to imagine some surprises are waiting around the corner or else things can get a little boring.

Like they say, it's all about the journey.

Morning Running, My Nemesis

2011-07-14T15:01:00.000-04:00

I hate running in the morning. When I drive my daughter to school and we see morning runners, I always point to the offending runner and say "I hate you". I hate morning runners the same way non-runners hate runners: I wish I could do what they do. Since I can't, there must be something wrong with THEM.

When I got into my rental car in Phoenix a few weeks ago, I started driving and I noticed that the clock was wrong, it said 1:17 and it was sometime around noon. Then, I figured out that I wasn't looking at the clock. I was looking at the thermometer and it was 117F, or 47C. In the shade. Holy fuck. We actually had to turn around and go back to switch from a Dodge Neon to a Malibu because the Neon's AC just couldn't cope.

By the time we got to Sedona at around 3PM, it was a balmy 104F. How am I supposed to run in that? Well, I have two choices. One, I wait until 6 or preferably 7PM, when the temperature goes down to the low 90's but than I only have an hour of daylight left. It's nice though. But this isn't a good choice when you're vacationing with a non-runner, which is the case for my wife.

The other choice, the only choice, is to run in the morning. Early in the morning. At 5:30AM, the temperature up here is usually around 65F. By 10:00AM it's usually in the mid-80's and there ain't much shade, this being the desert and all. There are trees, but they're short and don't project much shade. So there you have it, I've been getting up at the crack of dawn, I eat breakfast and then drive to the trail head and squeeze a decent run.

I hate it. Not the running, the morning thing. Even if you've been up for an hour, the first few steps of a morning run are jarring. Every step resonates deep into my skull. I'm immediately winded. My legs hurt. My stride is way off and I feel like my legs have forgotten how to run. Things do eventually get better and I end up having a great time anyway, but I ain't a morning running convert. If I wasn't scared shitless by Burning River, I'm not sure how many times I would have run. As it is, I'm not sure I ran as much as I should have, but I probably ran enough to maintain what I had and have a good shot at finishing. Hopefully.

My vacation is now almost over, I have only one or two runs left. I'm probably going to rest tomorrow and try to get up REALLY early on Saturday and do an epic climb. I did that run last Xmas when it was nice and cool and it was hard so I have to be up there before the heat. Coming down should not be an issue even if it's a bit warm.

Now on a completely different topic. I've always been amazed that one can actually run in trails without face-planting every 2 minutes. I believe my trail running is slowly improving. When I first started running in trails, I remember being very indecisive. I always looked for a better line than the one I was taking, therefore not paying enough attention to MY line and tripping frequently. Tripping (or stubbing your toe) can be frustrating, painful and down right scary if you're going down hill. I've noticed a sudden and dramatic decrease in the frequency of such tripping incidents. Somehow, my brain seems to have decided that it doesn't matter which line I pick, as long as I pick one. I also think that my focus has moved a little further ahead but somehow, my feel still seem to end up at the right place. Mostly. Anyway, I find it interesting because this is not something I've been consciously trying to change, other than NOT falling on my face, obviously.

Obviously, I'm totally scared of Burning River. I told Russell (the runner I paced at Sulphur Spring) that I preferred to run alone and wouldn't need him as a pacer. Maybe it's a mistake. I just feel I need some alone time out there. Mohican was confusing to me and I need some clarity and I believe running BR by myself will do that.

That's it for now.

Mental games

2011-06-24T18:36:00.000-04:00

In the last few days, I've spent a lot of time flashing back to the race, to the last fateful hours where my will to finish were finally overwhelmed by the humidity, frustration and fear of the coming suffering. The point of all that thinking is obviously to answer the question: could I have finished?

It's a difficult question to answer. I remember thinking how thrashed I was after 50 miles. I couldn't believe I was only halfway. In contrast, last year at Haliburton I was relatively fresh after that distance. I certainly didn't feel defeated. This time around, after two loops and 54 miles, I wanted my suffering to be over. I've rarely wanted something so bad in my life. On the other hand, I couldn't believe what a cup of soup and a change of clothes were able to accomplish. I was tired but ready to finish.

I can't remember what happened, what made me decide to quit. I know that it became mathematically impossible to finish and that's why I quit, but why did I let it happen? Why didn't I tell My running partner that I needed to go? He would have understood.

If I let my mind wander a bit, I always end up in that forest, with my headlamp illuminating the trail. I remember thinking that I was scared to go on. By that time, I had never sweated so much in my life. I was wondering how I could go on in that oppressing humidity.

The 100 mile race is a mental race. Sometimes, one is tested, like we were tested last weekend. We thought we knew what we were doing. For some of us, our inexperience showed. In my case, I had a purely mental breakdown and let my mind take me to an emotional state where it became impossible to finish. I know I'm babbling, but that's how it's been all week inside my head.

Thank God for Burning River in 5 weeks! I need redemption so bad I can taste it and I rally don't feel like waiting until the Fall. I'm going to spend the next 3 weeks in Arizona, running in the desert looking inside myself, trying to understand why this is so important to me when nobody else really cares.

Mohican 100 Miler 2011 - My First DNF

2011-06-20T19:35:00.004-04:00

Mohican 100 Miler DNF Report

It never crossed my mind that I might not finish this race. I may not be what you would call a high mileage runner but I did put in some good mileage preparing for this race. I just didn't expect the challenge that was coming. The tone of the post might be a bit bitter, but then again, I am.

I drove down to Loudonville with Chris Mcpeake and his wife Kim, who was crewing him (but ended up helping me almost as much). Thanks to modern GPS technology, we got there without getting lost. After picking up our bibs and waiting 45 minutes for a plate of spaghetti, we attended the pre-race meeting where we learned that the toughest part of the course would be the last 2 miles. how hard could they be?

There are a few things that were troubling me going into this race. It was pretty hot and humid. The weather was really muggy and it didn't cool down much during the night despite an evening shower. The aide stations were pretty far apart, more than 10km in some case and never less than 9km after the first 2 loops. That's almost 2 hours on tired legs. Other than the start/finish drop bag, you only had one other drop bag at around the halfway point. Not a problem, I thought, I'll take advantage of the aide stations. Anyway, I knew this was going tombe a challenge so it was all good.

The next morning at 4:15AM, after a short but decent sleep, I drove down with Steve, who had come in too late to attend the meeting and he picked up his packet. Steve, Chris and I decided to run together. Steve was kind of my unofficial pacer and Chris was a bit gun shy after a tough experience at Suphur so he decided to stick with us despite my slower speed.

The race started at 5 AM sharp in warm, stuffy darkness. We started toward the back, to let the 50 milers move ahead of us. Immediately, we were stuck in a long single file that went on forever. There was very little running in the first hour, even on the downhills because the line was sonlong that someone ahead was walking up a hill and keeping the pace down. Even at that slow speed, we started sweating immediately. By the time we reached the first aide station, it was light and we were able to turn off our headlights. We refilled and left.

Time passed. We were sweating heavily and were careful to take our salt tablets every hour. I ate gels from my flask, sandwiches from the aide stations and a Boost when I got to a drop bag. We ran through beautiful scenery. That course is just gorgeous. There are no flats. It felt like every in was an incline, usually long and often steep. As we got to the end of the first loop, we were all in excellent spirits. We got to a short section where we met a few runners going out on their second loop and just before we turned on the final 2 mile loop, a guy said: "take it easy on the loop". Holy shit he wasn't kidding.

I didn't time that one, but it probably took us over 45 minutes to run those two miles. It was madness. The loop was entirely composed of 5 long uphills, with the matching downhill on the other side. Not gentle switchbacks; brutal staight up and down. I got to the start/finish a little shaken by the thought of having to run that loop 3 more times.

We had a short stop at that point, just enough time to switch my headgear from a buff to a regular hat. Drank a Boost and we jetted out of there. It was easy not to linger because it was slim pickings at the aid station. It was getting warm. We walked to the trail and started running. The amount of sweating was just ridiculous and it had no cooling effect whatsoever, or so it seemed. There was no wind to speak of. As we get to the Park Road aide station, we're really hot but thank goodness they have a sponge bucket filled with ice and water. When they pour the water on my neck it feel like an electric shock! I wish I could dive in that bucket! I get a few pieces of turkey sandwiches. It was a nice novelty a few aid stations ago, but this is getting old. With the heat, my stomach is starting to get picky and the sandwiches just don't cut it. I'm sick of gels. We leave for the next leg. It's a pretty short one (meaning a normal 5 or 6 km) and surely, things will be getting better soon. See where I'm going?

I'm starting to get some chafing down there. Never happened before but then again, I've NEVER sweated so much in my life and none of it is evaporating, it's just pouring down my body. It's probably only 28 or 29C, but I bet the humidity is above 90%. In this section, it's not too hilly but it's never flat. We're not talking so much anymore. We get to the next aide station and now I'm getting worried. They're out of Heed and I have to fill with Gatorade instead. They must be low on ice, because the sponge bucket is filled with tepid water. Again, only fucking sandwiches.

We're slowing down. It's getting hot and I think Chris is getting the first signs a heat stroke. He's panting, his breathing short and shallow even when we're walking. Steve is starting to worry about time, but I'm thinking things will improve when it gets cooler. We did the first 27 miles loop in 7 hours, we're going to do the second one in 7:30 and the last two loops are only 23 miles each. Why worry? He worries anyway. We climb down the canyon and stick our heads under the waterfall. We're starting to get worried about the water. All of us are almost out. We get to the dam and the water fountain is off so no luck. We're all out but thank God, it's only a flat couple of miles to the Covered Bridge aide station, where we have our drop bags. The aide station area is like an oven. My Boost has been cooking in the sun for a while and Chris gives me one that's semi-cool instead. Steve is chomping at the bit, he wants to leave so bad. I look at the table in disbelief: there's only fucking sandwiches. My morale is in free fall. I sponge with cool-ish water and we get out of there. At least, the trail is in the shade.

My mind is racing. As expected, I can barely take a sip of gels without wanting to hurl. One can only take the taste of warm gel for so long. What I didn't expect, was that the aide stations would have nothing appealing as far as solid food is concerned. What the fuck am I supposed to do? It's 5.5 miles to the next station, the better part of 2 hours going up and down horrendous hills, all that on half a sandwich? We're still running, but definitely not as fast as we should at this point. There's no more laughing. Well, some, but not much.

OK, the rest of the loop is not good. The expected fall in temperature is simply not happening. I'm eating less and less. Chris is panting like a dog. My mind is all over the place. Steve is trying to help us finish but we don't want to hear what he's telling us. Or we simply can't do it. Chris because he's in trouble physically and me because I've snapped mentally. I try to regroup and pick it up but just as I'm almost turning the tide, we reach what we are now calling the lollipop, the 2 mile loop from hell. I believe this is where I lost my race. Chris and I convinced Steve to go ahead and finish ahead of us. It took a while to convince him but he finally took off (Steve finished in 29:10). It's past 7 PM and it feel just as hot as it was at 2. I try to imagine running all night, getting to aide stations that offer me nothing but turkey sandwiches and jujubes. I want this to be over. I'm almost excited by the idea of quitting.

I decide to make a major stop at the start/finish and try to rebuild. If I don't, there's just no way. If I leave before 9PM, I have 16 hours to finish. Two 8 hours loops. Doable. IF I rebuild. I get to the start/finish and they have nothing. I shake my head in amazement. I grab my drop bag, and go to my chair. Kim offers me some warm chicken noodle soup and drinking the broth almost gives me a hard on, it's so good. I change my clothes, my socks and my shoes. I put my buff on and my headlamp. I switch to my Nathan hydration vest because my arms are just about to fall off. I have more soup, more water and probably something else but I can't remember. I feel 90% better. My side stitch, reminiscent of the one I got at Creemore last year, is still there but it never really got bad.

At 9PM sharp, with 16 hours to go, we get up and get out of the station. We're all excited because we're going to finish this! As we walk into the forest, the humidity hits us in the face like a baseball bat. We start running and we're drenched immediately. I'm feeling pretty good though. After a few miles, Chris tells me he's panting again. Now. Chris and I are not two babes in the woods. We do things because we decide to do them. At any time, any of us could have told the other that he was going to either fall back or push on. I decided to stick with him to the next station and see what happens. It was mostly uphill anyway so we weren't losing much time. We actually passed a few people! The next station was as bad as I feared, maybe worse.

We get out of there and we actually started running again but after a bit we had to stop and then we started doing the math and it was becoming pretty much impossible to finish before the cutoff. Personally, it was because I couldn't look forward to anything except humidity and lack of food. I just couldn't summon the will to finish because I felt like I had no real support. It was midnight and I had not seen any improvements in the aide station food. It was 50k race food: a few fruit, pretzel, candy, chips, sandwiches.

We decided to drop, each for our own reasons. I don't regret it. I wasn't ready for this race. I was ready for a hot, humid, hilly 100 mile race. The aid station thing got me by surprise and as you can tell be reading this, I became totally manic about it.

Anyway, again, instead of accepting early in the day that this was how things were going to be, I kept rehashing that in my head all day and I went to the dark side. There was no time to pull out of it at that point. At 32 hours, the limit on that course seems pretty tight. This is a new course and the winning time went from 19:07 last year to over 22:00 this year. Last year's winner was there but I was told he pulled after the second loop. He wasn't interested in running a 22 hour hundred miler. Some of us don't mind staying out there for a long time, but we need potato wedges and chicken noodle soup. I believe about 60% of the starters DFN'd. I'm told the weather wasn't bad for the area and the time of year. It was a tough one.

It's time for dinner. Hmm, turkey sandwich.

When Birds Attack

2011-06-15T09:23:00.000-04:00

Not much running over the last week, this being a taper and all. I'm looking at the weather reports for Loudonville, OH, every 30 minutes hoping for perfect weather. After running in the heat last week, I know that a hot weekend could make for a character building experience. Not much I can do about that.

One weird thing that's happening on my running route, is that I'm being bullied. Some bird has decided that he hated my guts and has been bomb-diving me, actually hitting me on the head. I tried changing my hat and it still happens. He attacks me going out, and coming back. I've asked other runners if they had been attacked and they look at me like I'm crazy. Yesterday, I looked at a cyclist ahead of me and he went through no problem so I followed and sure enough, the friggin' bird came after me. On the way back, I picked up a stick and tried to hit it when he came for me. He started hovering just out of reach, mocking me, so I threw the stick at him and almost got him. Be careful bird! Law of the jungle and all that.

Overshare warning! Skip this paragraph if you're not comfortable with intimate-part running injuries. I don't know what happened last weekend, if some of my shorts shrunk or something, but on Thursday morning I woke up with shooting pain in my left ball area. Was it the heat? That kind of pain is a bitch. It radiates to other location and I was worried my race was doomed. I went for my run on Thursday and it wasn't too bad, but it sure didn't help. I decided not to aggravate it and take 3 days off. I could have panicked but I didn't because I've had this kind of pain before, ending up laying down on an ultrasound table, a towel under my sack and a female technician named Frieda running the ultrasound stick all over it. Not fun. Not to panic, I was told, leave it alone, stop squeezing it to see if it hurts and it will get better. That's what I did this time and sure enough, I'm now perfectly fine. End of overshare.

I have not started to pack for the weekend. I still have to buy my gels and Advil. It's Wednesday for Pete's sake. Last year, I think I started getting my drop bags ready a week in advance. I'm not sure I opened more than one during the race. The only thing with Mohican, is that the aid stations are pretty far apart, about 10km in a lot of cases. That's a long time when you're shuffling in the heat, so you need to carry a lot of water. At least two handhelds. I will also leave my belt and my bladder in drop bags in case I get sick of carrying both bottles. I will leave 3 different kinds of shoes at the start/finish: my oversized Crosslites, my Mizuno Ascent trail shoes and, in case of emergency, my Nike Lunar-something road shoes because the toe box is so nice and roomy. I will start with the Crosslites.

My plan for this race is to eat and drink more than I did last year. Derrick always told me to eat close to 300 calories per hour, but I doubt I did. This time I will. Of course, it's easy to say that now. We'll see what happens after 50 miles in the heat. Eating is not so easy then. I keep getting flashbacks from Creemore, where I experienced the worst bonk of my life. Was it the hydration, the salt, the heat, the side stich from hell, all of the above? Freaks me out just thinking about it.

I could go on, but let's end this now. Race report next week.

Countdown to Mohican 100

2011-06-09T11:31:00.000-04:00

You know a race is coming when you can see it on the 10 day forecast. This week is going well, mostly running medium distance in hot, humid conditions. Hopefully, those forecasts (max 24C) will hold because the heat is just killing me. We basically didn't have any warm weather, so a long race like this in hot weather would be a challenge.

I'm experiencing the usual last minute doubts. I second guess my training. Did I do enough? I really think I did. The problem is the enormity of the task. It's easy to forget the specifics of 50 milers. I remember being tired, I remember pain but I could always visualize the finish. But with 100 milers, I remember darkness, despair and exhaustion, with 30 miles to go. I remember at the turn around at Haliburton (25 miles to go), thinking I was 95% fried, having that feeling that the end was still so far into the future that you can't allow yourself to think about it yet.

It's weird that just as I question the wisdom of running 100 milers, I've signed up for two and I will probably run a third one in the Fall. And then there's R2R2R. Am I stupid? I don't have anything to prove: I've done it twice already. So what's up? I just don't know.

Obviously, there's no good reason to run ultras but that's ok. There's no good reason for people to do yoga either. So what if they get all bendy? So they can tie there shoes without bending their knees? Really, who cares? In the words of Evan Hones, at least with ultra running "When Armageddon comes,[...] running really fast and jumping over stuff will come in handy". So there.

Sulphur Springs 2011 - Pacing Russell

2011-05-31T13:12:00.000-04:00

This was my second pacing experience and it was awesome, yet again.

I jumped in on the Saturday evening at around 9 or 9:15 PM. Russell was done with his 5th loop and had equalled his previous longest-distance record. Only 60km to go.

My man Russell looked great for a guy who just ran 100 km. I had seen a few people come in that looked pretty terrible (Hi Chris!), so that was a relief. The course was wet and muddy, the day had been humid and all those factors combined were taking their toll. By the time we started running it was dark and we took off in the dark.

The night was warm and wet. All night I felt a weird disconnect between how I felt and how I knew Russell felt. Both of us are from Quebec and we became known as the “French Connection” at some aid stations. I tried to gently help by initiating a gentle jog every time the trail was flat-ish. It’s easy to “forget” to start running again when you’re as tired as those guys.

After our 7th loop, with one loop to go, Russell announced that we were going to walk the last loop. We walked for more than 10km on that loop, until he realized that he could probably make it under 28 hours. That (and wanting to be DONE) gave him the motivation to get running again and we ran a fairly solid second half. I was happy to start running again, cause I was starting to feel very sleepy. Running, a cup of instant coffee and a volunteer’s Tim Horton Breakfast sandwich, brought me back to life. Dear volunteer, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t say no when you offered. I don’t know how you guessed that I was dieing for that sandwich. Was it the drooling?

According to the splits, we did the 8th loop a shade faster than the 7th so we must have done something right.

That hill at the start/finish is STEEP.

We got to the finish with time to spare and Russell finished his first 100 miler in 27h 50min in pretty difficult conditions. As I mentioned, it was muddy and it rained on and off pretty much all night.

I have to admit that my feet were in pretty rough shape for a 60km run. I felt solid, but my feet were hurtin’. I have a fair sized blister on each pinky toe and one of the toenail (left pinky) will probably fall off soon. Weird. Maybe there’s been too many wet races in a row.

Mohican is coming in less than 3 weeks now. I’m going to take those weeks fairly easy, with a decent run next weekend but nothing like this. There’s nothing I can do to get fitter now, I can only screw it up. I’ll try not to.

Where's The Heat?

2011-05-26T09:05:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday was the first day I ran in any kind of warm weather this year. I thought I was going to croak. This makes me worried because my next race, Mohican 100, can be pretty hot and I have a troubled history when it comes to running in the heat. With only 3 weeks to go, I might have to find me a sauna or something. Maybe the weather is as cold there as it is here.

Training was sluggish this week and not just because of the heat on Saturday. I ran the Toronto marathon a bit harder than I planned and it made my training this week feel like I had no energy. The last couple of runs have been better but I got a bit worried. Did the surgery really have no effect? Anyway, I'm going to go for blood tests to make sure my hormone levels are all good.

This weekend is Sulphur Springs and I won't be racing it. I decided that running a 50 miler 3 weeks before Mohican would be counter productive so I will be pacing my new friend Russell. I will be running the last 3 loops with him, probably starting at around 9PM until the finish. I guess I could have singed up for the 50K but this way, I help someone, there's no temptation to run too fast and the distance is just about perfect, especially at the speed I will be running. It's Russell's first 100 miler and his stated goal is to finish within the 30 hours so I don't expect a mad pace.

After this weekend, I will not be racing until 3 weeks later at Mohican, so I'll keep my running volume fairly reasonable. This year is incredibly busy at work, so it's very hard to find the time for longer runs during the week. I'm going to go for a low volume taper and I should be in top shape for my race. If it's not too hot...

Toronto GoodLife Fitness Marathon 2011

2011-05-16T09:10:00.001-04:00

Short one. Yesterday was the first Spring Edition of the Toronto Marathon. For those of you not familiar with Toronto, we've had two marathons here for a few years. For some reason that are unclear to me, the newer Scotia Marathon decided to hold its race only 3 weeks before the older Toronto Marathon, which seems to me like a shitty thing to do. With more money (Scotia bank is the main sponsor) and the most boring course ever (but flat as a pancake), Scotia finally succeeded in forcing GoodLife to move to the Spring. I don't care who's right, I just like the GoodLife course better.

Anyhoot, last week I decided to sign up for GoodLife which was held yesterday. I signed up before looking at the weather forecasts. That's just as well cause I probably wouldn't have run yesterday. I was supposed to meet Chris before the start but I believe he just made it in time.

There was a light drizzle at the start and around 10C (50F), but the wind wasn't so bad. Other than a fairly long-ish hill about 3km from the start, the first half of the course is a net down hill from Northern suburbia (also known as North York). We ran down Yonge st and then, after a little detour toward Casa Loma, to the Bayview extension. This took us to about 18km and pretty much Lake level. My plan was to run in around 3:45 and when I got to the intersection of the Bayview Extension I found myself running with the 3:40 pace group, led by Dave The Beaches Runner. Despite an earlier traumatic experience with a pace group, I decided to stick around. Not like I had anywhere to go.

I was wearing a thin Merino base with a singlet over top and I was getting warm but I could hear the wind in the trees around us and I knew it would be cooler on the Lake shore so I decided to keep the base layer. I felt surprisingly good. At around 28km I saw Chris ahead of me, obviously in trouble since I was catching up. He had been worried about his knee all week, after running the 50 miler at Bear Mountain last weekend. I picked it up a bit and caught up with him. He confirmed that his knee was not doing well. I waited for the pace group to catch up and I ran on with them.

The pacer was really good. We held a very even pace, running at around 4:55 to 5:05/km and we walked briefly while drinking at the aid stations. I had a gel every hour, replacing Gatorade with water at that aid station. I felt strong until km 38. The CN tower still looked so friggin' far, I stepped in a huge puddle, I got elbowed in the teeth by someone who stopped cold right in front of said puddle, the wind was blowing in our face and our pacer, for some unknown reason, picked up the pace to 4:40 to 4:45/km. For a moment there, I wondered if I was going to be able to stick around. More accurately, I wondered why I should. The pacer was obviously demented.

Running too fast, all of a sudden, THE LEFT TURN! After that, it's straight up to the finish. This is sweet and sour. Sweet: we're about 3km from the finish. Sour: it's almost all uphill. Anyway, I push on and run slightly ahead of the pace group. With around 1 km to go, a girl who was running with the group catches up and we pull each other toward the finish. We finally cross the finish under 3:39:46, gun time. My chip time is 3:38:59.

That was a sweet race. I did better than planned. I never got bored. I was sufficiently prepared. I didn't bonk. And finally, it also reminded me that there is such a thing as having fun in a marathon.

One Step Back

2011-05-10T08:44:00.000-04:00

After running Pick Your Poison on a slightly injured left calf, I decided to give it a rest last week. Even walking on it on Sunday and Monday was a pick painful, so I didn't run on it until Friday and then only for 7 or 8 km. I was afraid that without a break, that injury would linger until Mohican and haunt me for the entire race.

Taking a week off 6 or 7 weeks before a 100 miler is mentally difficult. I knew I was doing the right thing, but I know that my mileage hasn't been as high as it should have been. On the other hand, the last two races have been pretty hard and I've stretched them out to over 7 hours so I do have decent time-on-my-feet.

I had planned to run on Saturday and Sunday, but I had to be a bit careful, this being Mother's day weekend and all. A bunch of people were going to Sulphur Springs for a few loops on Saturday morning, but the idea was not well received and a scrapped that plan. Just as I was about ready to go out on Saturday, I got a call from my 17 year old daughter that the car she had been riding in coming back from London had been in an accident on the 403 somewhere near Hamilton. She was OK but shaken. My wife and I jumped in the car and picked her up there. Other than biting her tongue and a stiff neck, she's fine but it was a close call. Highway accidents scare the shit out of me. So, no running on Saturday.

I did go out on Sunday for a short 20 km run on the bike path. A problem I've been having lately is that I don't have road shoes that I like. I have a pair of Brooks Green Silence, but they are a bit oversized and I ran with them all winter wearing thick wool socks and now my feet slide all over the place in them and I get hot spots after 10k or so. I ran with them on Sunday and nearly got blisters. Unacceptable. I also have some Adidas Adizero model but they hurt the outside of my foot after an hour or so. I've been hacking at the insole but it's still a work in progress.

The shoe issue is a problem because I've signed up for the Toronto Marathon this Sunday and I don't want to wreck my feet so yesterday I went to the Nike store and bought a pair of Nike Lunarglide+2. I've trained in the Lunarglides last Winter and I ran the Sedona marathon in them so I'm pretty sure I'll be OK. I decided to run Toronto because there's a weird 4 week hole in the OUSER race schedule and it's always nice to have support for a long run. I plan on running pretty slow and finish in around 4 hours.

Finally, I found someone to pace at Sulphur Springs so I'll be running the last 3 loops (60km) with Russell. That's perfect. This will be my last long run before Mohican and then I'll start tapering over the following 3 weeks.

That's it for now.

Pick Your Poison 2011

2011-05-03T12:07:00.001-04:00

First, a non-running event that touched my family. On Sunday, we had to put our 17 year old cat Babe to sleep because of a sudden (and severe) health issue. Although I knew it would be hard on the kids who basically grew up with him, my wife and I were surprised by how hard it was to let him go. It was a heart wrenching experience. Now our house, that used to be alive even when we were out, feels hollow and empty when we enter. I always think I see him out of the corner of my eye and my heart sinks when I remember that he's gone. I miss you Babe.

I ran PYP for the first time last year and I thought I knew what to expect. I knew the course had changed from an email that Pierre had sent on the ous-l mailing list stating that "annoying flat part in the middle is now more hills". Somehow, it didn't register.

It was a beautiful day with pretty much perfect conditions. The course was in great shape with very little snow and water on the ground, a welcome relief after Seaton. I got lost a couple of time, once early in the race after wrong directions were given to a group I was running in and another time after I pretty much jumped over a marked log placed there to prevent idiots like me from running down that way.

My main goal for this race was to eat more calories. In a great many races last year and then again at Seaton, I've been bonking at around 30km and I've decided to increase my caloric intake by taking an extra 200 calories an hour. Another important goal was to run slow enough so I wouldn't set myself back. Earlier in the week I had pulled something in my left lower calf and I still had some pain there. I almost didn't do the race but I decided to at least start and take it from there. I really need the mileage. It turned out that the pain didn't get any worse. I didn't take any Tylenol until the very last loop, and even then it was more about my right ankle than the calf.

The new course was indeed harder, but I managed to run a really even pace. I never bonked and the last loop actually felt like my most solid one. I did have my first cramp ever going up one of those hills. Didn't last long but man does it hurt. I'd had cramps after races but never during an event. I think that I was somehow protecting that left calf and working some muscle group more than usual. Anyway, by the time I got to the top I was fine and it didn't happen again.

I ran the last two loops by myself and really enjoyed it. As I said, I applied just a bit of pressure on the last loop, keeping in mind that my leg was a bit iffy. The last uphills came just at the right time and I finished in 7h05min, about 45 minutes over last year although I felt I ran at about the same effort level. I guess there WERE more hills. I believe my ranking is actually better than last year although I'm not sure about the total number of runners. There were definitely more DNF this year.

Really nice race, well organized, fun to run. Thanks you Adam (RD) and volunteers!

Seaton Mud Puppies 52Km

2011-04-17T12:53:00.000-04:00

I could lie to you and say that I didn't enjoy yesterday's race. Sure, it was 4C (40F), with howling winds bringing down branches and trees on the course, sideways pissin' rain, mud everywhere except in the ice cold lakes and rivers that grew at every laps, sucking the life out of our feet. Still, I found myself enjoying the race.

All week I'd been looking at the long range forecasts. When I first saw that they called for 25mm of rain on Saturday, I wasn't worried. It'll shift to Sunday, I told myself. Poor stupid bastard. All that changed was the probability of rain, moving from 80% to 100%, the amount of rain going up to 40mm and finally the wind speeds kept creeping up. When I went to bed on Friday, the windows in my bedroom were shaking and I knew the race would be interesting.

Kim and Chris picked me up at 5:45 AM and we got there with plenty of time. It was exciting to see all the people we hadn't seen since last year. Derrick and Sarah were there also, as well as David. We didn't have much time to talk but it was nice to see them. The rain started as we got our bibs. The wind was already blowing. I look around and I see people looking ridiculously under-dressed. I guess they plan to run hard. Still, it's friggin' freezin' out there.

We all huddled under trees near the start. A bit after 7AM, after some words that I missed completely, someone said GO and we started running. My race plan was simple: go slow. My time last year was around 6:40 and I wanted to go slower than that (that turned out not to be a problem). I felt like I was barely ready to tackle a 50k race. I just haven't built up much mileage yet other than last weekend's 2 loops at Sulphur and that might actually play against me because I just finished my biggest week of training yet this year. My legs are a bit tired. So this is a training run for me.

I start running with Adi and Steve at a pretty conservative pace. Immediately, we're too hot and we're questioning our clothing selections. The trails are in fair shape. It's raining, but not too hard. We get our feet a bit wet before the river crossing but not too much. The river is about 25 meters, I would say. The current is pretty strong, with lot's of rounds rocks and the footing is questionable. I would be surprised if it's temperature was much above 5C. By the time I got to the other side, my feet were in pain! Holy shit! I wouldn't want to fall in that!

The first aid station is pretty far, almost an hour of running. By the time we get there, the rain is really coming down and I'm definitely not too hot anymore. I could find my wind-breaker gloves last night and now my liner gloves are just soaked. My hands are a bit cold. I'm wearing a merino wool base and a waterproof shell. I'm not warm but somehow my base is totally wet. I grab a potato wedge and we go. I'm feeling pretty damn good for some reason.

Before I can even think about it, we're at the next aid station. I'm trying to remember that section but it seems like nothing. The rain was really coming down. Adi was running a bit behind with Diane and Steve is starting to get worried that he's falling too far behind. He's running the 50 miles and the way things are going, this first loop is going to take us close to 4 hours. The time limit is 12 hours so that's a bit close. Me, I know I can't keep up with him but I could pick it up a bit. The rain is still falling sideways, hard, specially when you get to the more exposed portions of the course.

We get to the turnaround, 14.5km really quick. The rain seems to stop for a while but it doesn't last. A few minutes later, Steve picks it up and disappears. I slowly pull ahead of the girls. The course seems totally changed. There's water and mud everywhere. On the way out, I remember battling the rain and wind but now the course is just a mess. Sections that were dry are now rivers and lakes. Uphills and downhills are covered in mud. Anyone in road shoes must be planning their trail shoe purchase right now. The run back is a blur. At some point I start meeting the 29K runners, who started at 9AM. They didn't get to enjoy any of the dryer course. I'm running by myself and I'm enjoying the run.

As I get closer to the big river crossing, there are a number times where you have to cross major water features that freeze your feet to the bone, so when I get to the river, my feet are already frozen. The river seems awful high now, and you can't see the bottom at all. I start crossing, almost trip but recover and just as I think my feet are about to fall off I reach the other side. The pain increases for a few seconds, I swear like a trucker, and then it subsides and I start running.

The conditions are now bordering on ridiculous. My hands are a bit of an issue. Should I change my gloves? They're in the car so that means 5 or 10 minutes and how long are they going to stay dry really? Despite the gaiters, finer particles of mud accumulate on the insole of my shoes and create little uncomfortable bumps under my feet. Should I attempt to clean my feet? How long is that going to last? I get to the start/finish and it's a sad sight. People are dropping like flies. I consider it but other than being a bit cold I don't really have a reason to drop so I refill, take a piece of banana and get out of there before I change my mind.

29 km done, 23 to go. I turned around at exactly 4 hours. Holy shit, this is going to be a long one. I press the "lap" button on my watch but actually that was the "stop" button but I don't notice. Jeez my hands are cold. I have a handheld bottle, so I start keeping the other hand inside my sleeve to keep it out of the wind. It works well, but the hand holding the bottle gets cold really fast. I loosen the strap as much as I can, pull my sleeve over my hand and stuff the whole thing into the hand slot. That's better. Not perfect but better. I get to the river. Is it my imagination or it's even bigger? I cross. Fuck it's cold. A few minutes from there, as I get to the bottom of a switchback turn, I see Hans jumping over the logs that were put there to prevent people from taking a wrong turn and start running down on the wrong trail. What's his name??? "BUDDY, HEY BUDDY!!!" He stops and sees me. I tell him he's going the wrong way and he gets back on the trail. I hear he's not the only one who made that mistake.

I now have a sharp pain somewhere in my pelvic area. It makes my running a bit painful. I'm also experiencing a bit of a low point. Despite the apparent impossibility, the course keeps getting worse. Doesn't the water drain anywhere? Wait, yes, it drains on the friggin' course! The trail is completely trashed. Thank God, on this loop I only need to go up to aid station 2. At the speed I'm going, that shorter loop is going to take me 4 hours as well!

My ass (aka pelvic area) is killing me. That's now all I can think about. That and my freezing hands. Do I have a stress fracture of the pelvis? The pain doesn't seem to be on the foot strike. I the sensory deprived bubble in which I run, all I can think of is my ass (well, the pain), my hands, the mud build up under my toes and the water and mud that keeps accumulating on the course. Why didn't I bring some Tylenol? After what seems like forever, I reach aid station 1. I tried to look at the time but noticed I had stopped the timer instead of lapping it. I grab a cup of e-load to save what I have in my bottle and scoot.

On the first loop, this section passed so fast that I can't even remember it. This time, it's taking forever. St least, my pelvic fracture seems to be on the mend. Now I'm just tired. After a while, I see Kim who's on the return leg of her 29K. I ask her how far the aid station is and she says about 10-15 minutes. Gulp, I thought it was closer. I'm still enjoying the race, but the conditions are indeed a bit harsh and I can't say that I'll be sorry to be done. I get to the aid station and I'm a bit surprised that I haven't seen any of the guys coming back from the 50M turnaround. Given that I'm thinking I will finish in 8 hours total, I don't see how any of them plan on finishing the 50 miles in less than 12 hours.

At the aid station, I get a cup of warm chicken broth and it feels fantastic. I refill for the last time and get out of Dodge. Let's get this done. Two hours to go. I'm running better now. The pain in my ass is all but gone. That's good because even though it sees impossible, the course if even worse. I don't even want to talk about it anymore. I run by myself although chick number 129 is hanging back somewhere and sometimes gets close enough for us to exchange a few words. I get in a zone where all that exists is my cold hands, my painful feet, my shrunken dick and the ridiculous course. Except for a few exceptionally nasty lakes, I run straight through. A few times, it takes longer to get your feet our of the water than to cross the river. And then there's another one just as large. I really hurt.

After a unknown amount of time, I get at the river at the same time as chick 129 and some other runner. There's nobody minding the crossing so we wait until everyone is safely across before moving on. The river is huge now and I wouldn't want to do the crossing by myself. I'm feeling pretty good so I decide to push on to the finish. I get into a good pace and lose the two other runners. I pass a couple of people and eventually I see the power lines. Alleluhia! I see the grass, I RUN up the fucking hill, run around the track and I'm done!

The shower feels SO hot I'm wondering if I'm going to get blisters. Fantastic! My feet are fine. NO blister or anything. I grab some food and wait for the others. I'm pretty sure they're going to drop because there's no way they can finish in time. That's what happens. We shoot the shit for an hour or so and head home.

This was one for the books.

Ramping Up

2011-04-15T09:33:00.000-04:00

After what felt like a slow start, I’m finally starting to feel like a runner again. My training is going according to plan and that plan has me peaking just in time for Mohican. This means that all other races before that will need to be sacrificed and run as training run. This includes Mud Puppies (52k) this coming weekend, Pick Your Poison (50k) two weeks later and I’m considering running the 50k at Sulphur Springs, although it might be a bit too close to Mohican. Ideally, I would like to find something in early May. I’m on the waiting list for the Bear Mountain 50 Miler, after waiting one day too long to sign up.

Muddy Trails at Sulphur Springs

Last weekend, I drove up to Ancaster with Chris and we did a couple of loop of what we think is the new Sulphur Springs course, although we seem to be missing a couple of km. The hill at the start/finish is just ridiculous, basically impossible to run up by mere mortals. Give it a few loops, and it might also be difficult to run down! What a quad buster! The course was really wet and muddy but we had a good time. There was a lot of horse tracks (and horse shit). They really tore up the trails. That Saturday was the nicest day yet this Spring and we really took advantage of it. According to my Garmin, we ran somewhere around 36km in about 5h15min. All numbers are approximate because of operator errors at various points during the day.

This week is going well, my legs are feeling good. My fitness seems fine. My right ankle/Achilles are holding up. The only clouds on the horizon are (literally) the Saturday forecast, with really nasty weather being predicted. Mud Puppies will hold up to its name. I just hope that the river can be crossed without getting my balls frozen by the frigid water. That should be fun.

This brings me to my closing topic. Fun. For the last 10 days, I’ve really been enjoying my running. If I’m truly honest, last year was difficult for me. I don’t know why, but after Susitna I had a hard time getting back into my training. I went through the motions, I had some good days, but with the exception of Limberlost, I didn’t have much fun. Some of them were good, but few were great. Lately, I’ve been feeling a difference when I train. I feel more connected to my running. I feel like I’m flowing better. An hour run feels like a short run again, not something to get over with.

If only it could get warmer out there...

Racing Season!

2011-04-05T09:12:00.002-04:00

Last weekend was the OUS Spring Warmup run up near Creemore. Pierre did a great job of organizing the run. The course was very snowy and hilly but who cares? The racing season is here! Of course, everyone else is in great shape and I’m just plugging along trying to ramp up, wondering how on earth I’m going to run 52K at Seaton in less than two weeks but still it was great to see everyone else and plan the next season. I ended up running a bit less than I’d hoped, only a bit over 25k, but it took me about 3h30. What can I say? It was really hard! My ankle was really burning so I decided to stop after the second loop. No point in overdoing it.Last thing I need right now is to be forced to take a break.

Of course, one gets a little over-excited discussing the summer with other unbalanced runners, with the result that I am now signed up for the Burning River 100 miler on July 30th with Chris Mcpeake, Steve Beach and possibly others. That’s only 6 weeks after Mohican. What have I done? The logic behind it is that we want to run R2R2R in early October so I don’t think I should be running the 100 miler at Haliburton. With Burning River in my pocket, that shouldn’t be an issue. Plus, as Chris mentioned, between Mohican and Burning River we have plenty of points for UTMB... Not that I’m going to do anything about it. Well, then again...

So Mud Puppies 52K on the 16th, followed by Pick your Poison 50k on the 30th. April is going to be se-weet!

I am a whimp

2011-03-25T18:20:00.000-04:00

This post is to out myself as a wannabe runner, a whimp and a looser.

Following last weeks amazing weather, I collapsed mentally when we suddenly got over 6 inches of fresh snow on Wednesday. I did not run that day. Yesterday, I ran 14km in the slush wearing my trail shoes even though I ran in the city. It wasn't horrible, but it sure wasn't great. Today, it's sunny but below freezing with some wind. I tried to go out but I could not do it. I went outside and came back in, swearing like a sailor.

I'm exposed as the fraud that I am. Fair weather runner.

The worst thing is, I don't have any booze in the house and I don't want to go out. 'Cause it's focking freezing. The humanity...

Spring Planning

2011-03-17T09:35:00.000-04:00

I'm on week 2 of my return to running. Last week I finally got the "all clear" from the doctor, confirming that the nodule they removed was not cancerous so I get to keep the other half of my thyroid. That's excellent news indeed. Scar doesn't look too bad. My energy level seems about right for someone who only thinks he's in shape. I wore my HR monitor on a few runs, and I now know better.

I decided not to go for the safety pin look.

On Tuesday, I pulled my name from the Massanutten waiting list. There's just no way I can be ready to run a 100 miler by mid-May, let alone a hard one like that. This gives me 13 weeks to get ready for Mohican, which should be doable. Last week I ran 50% of my pre-break weekly volume, this week I will run 75% and next week I actually start training. I signed up for the 52K distance at Seaton last week. My plan there is to run SLOWER than last year. I will also run PYP a few weeks later although I haven't signed up yet. My big unknown this Spring is what to do about Sulphur Springs. It's only a few weeks before Mohican so I don't want to run the 50 miler, where I might be tempted to run too fast. The two options I'm looking at are running the 50k or pacing someone. If you need a pacer let me know.

The rest of the Summer is wide open. I'm probably going to run most of the OUS races, with a few exceptions. I'm still unclear about Haliburton. I wouldn't mind running the 100M but I'm still planning to run the r2r2r at the Grand Canyon in the Fall and I'm not sure I can do both. There's time, so I'll keep puzzling about this.

The weather has suddenly taken a turn for the better and running is much more fun.

It's running season!

Back on the Road

2011-03-03T18:01:00.000-05:00

Got my stitches taken out on Tuesday. The incision was still quite swollen and tender so I didn't go out yesterday but today I decided to go out for an easy 30 minute. It felt good despite the cold. I felt as I would expect after 2 weeks without running, half of which was under the effects of pretty good ~~drugs~~ painkillers. I did feel some pain but it was ok. My energy level was good. My only problem right now is that I sleep like shit. Ever since I stopped the medication, I keep waking up very tensed until finally it gets better around 3am. I'm not sure if this is a side-effect of the operation or maybe just because I went to bed medicated for close to a week. This will hopefully subside over the next few days.

Any-hoot, I'm running!

Intermission

2011-02-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

This is definitely not a running entry, but as I use this Blog mere like a personal journal, I decided to make write a little something about my experience before the memories evaporate.

Background: About 5 years ago, I went for an ultrasound of my neck because of a sore throuat. They never did find anything related to the sore throat, but they did find a nodule that was large egough to need follow up. A large proportion of the population has nodules, but mine was 1.1 cm and doctors like to follow those larger than 1.0 cm. This basically means an annual ultrasound. Because mine kept getting slightly larger every year, this also meant a biopsy pretty much every year except that the last 3 they did were inconclusive. My Doctor felt that we should take the nodule out. I took quite a long time to think about it. I don't feel any effect. If I hadn't gone for some other reason, that nodule would probably have gone undetected. On the other hand, going for a ultrasound/biopsy every year is a pain in the ass. Waiting in the doctor's office to get the result, you always feel nervous.

You would think that they would only tqke the nodule out, but in fact they take half of the thyroid out. That gave me pause. What about my energy levels? Can I run 100 miles with half a thyroid? I was assured that I could. I met the surgeon at Sunnybrook Hospital last Fall. The surgeon explained the risks and the procedure. They take half out, they test it and if they find it to be cancerous, they take the other half out a few weeks later. I was bombarded with numbers. My understanding is that the chances of the nodule being cancerous are pretty small, in the 1 to 5% range but the fact of the matter is that it either is or it isn't. The only risk that struck me about the surgery was that my voice could change.

The surgeon tells me I can get the operation done within a few weeks. What happened to our famous Canadian wait lists? Fuck, I was thinking more about late Winter or Spring not a week before Chrismas. I chickened out and to make a long story short, I met with the surgeon again in January and the surgery was scheduled for last Wednesday, February 23rd.

So here I am, 6:25AM waiting for the surgery office to open. This is my first brush (that I can remember) with big medicine. I had my tonsils taken out when I was 6. I had a vasectomy when I was 33. That's it. I had tests and probing, but nothing like this although this is only a day surgery. I'm going home this afternoon. Other people are showing up. They open the office, we check in and wait a bit. Over the next few hours, I will be asked my name, date of birth and procedure at least 10 times. Two names are called, including mine and me and this women are brought to little "rooms" where we change into our hospital gowns. We are asked to put all our personal effects in clear garbage bags, they stuff the bags in a personal locker and we go back to the waiting room. Adter maybe 10 minutes, I'm taken to what is best described as the speed dating area. We, patients, sit in numbered sections and around us stand a number of surgeons, anesthegiologists and interns. A few pople come to me and ask the usual questions. At some point, they start asking me about my shoulder. Wrong patient. Disturbing. The clockis ticking. I look around at other people. We exchange quick glances, but everyone is wrapped up in their own bubble. Then, a nurse shows up and it's time.
I enter the operating room. They ask me for my name, my date of birth and they ask me to describe what operation I'm about to have. There's a cross-shaped bed where I lay down. My arms are strapped to the arm's of the cross. They stick a needle in my left hand. The guy is obviously in training cause I can feelthe needle poking around, looking for something. I'm so tensed that I don't feel any pain. The other doctor takes over and fixes the needle. They put a mask on my mouth and nose and tell me to breathe. Then they tell me that I'm going to go to sleep. I'm about to say something...

Darkness. I hear: "Do you feel any pain?". I swallow and it hurst a bit so I say yes. Flashes, voices. Feeling of the bed being moved. "Do you feel any pain?". Sure. Didn't they just ask? Wonder how long it's been since they asked? Feels like 10 minutes. I open my eyes and see that it's past 12. Wow. They give me two blue pills and I take them. Swallowing is a bit hard. I fade in and out. My wife is supposed to pick me up at 3PM. I actually hear the nurse talking to her on the phone around 2:30 and she tells her to come a bit later, around 4 or 4:30. Good, cause I'm not standing up right now. Slowly, the world stops spinning, then I get up for a leak. The surgeon comes and says everything went great. She gives me a few prescription. It's funny how when I was at the hospital they gave me strong pain meds but they send you home with Tylenol-3. No worries, I expected that. A bit after 4PM, My wife calls the desk, I get dressed, I ask for a painkiller so I don't have to rush to the pharmacy and we drive home.

All in all, things went pretty smoothly. Everyone was nice and efficient. My only negative experience was with pain management after I leave for home.

Doctors are weird. Faced with an operation where you know they will cut you open and take a chunk out, we, as patients, are worried about pain. When I was 17, I got my wisdom teeth taken out (all of them at once), and the dentist sent me home with a prescription for Tylenol-3. What an asshole. That did absolutely nothing. My parents had to scramble to find a doctor to get me something a bit more potent. I was really worried about the pain. I explained my worries about Tylenol 3 and nobody gave a shit. They asked if I was allergic, I said no, and that was it. All is fine in the hospital, but once they sent me home you're on your own. Talking to the nurse and Doctor, if you try to talk about it, you're left feeling like a fucking drug addict trying to score drugs. "Call us if there's too much pain." Yeah, right. I wonder if they would send someone from their family home with Tylenol-3. All I needed was peace of mind.

So, no running for a few more days, until I get my stiches out on Tuesday.I'm told the scar will be pretty small and will fade over time. I keep thinking about the movie Highlander. The bad guy had this huge scar around his neck with safety pins as decorations. Hopefully, it will look a bit better.

The Sedona Marathon 2011 - Race Report

2011-02-13T21:48:00.002-05:00

Prior to yesterday, I had only run one other marathon, the 2008 Toronto Marathon. I had trained pretty hard for that one. Since then, I have run quite a few ultras ranging from 50k to 100 miles but nothing significant on roads. My training for this race was lackluster, after my aborted training for Susitna. I did do some fairly long trail outings time-wise but I never really covered more than 25k in my longest run since last Fall. Still, I had a few 3+ hour trail runs under my belt so I felt mentally ready. It’s not like I was trying to qualify for Boston or anything.

Section of the Course on Google Earth

It’s weird because here I sit, trying to write a race report and I’m drawing a blank. It was a road race, almost every runner in his own iPod bubble. Yes it was hilly with about 1800 feet of climbing (my Garmin says 2200ft). Yes it was pretty. A third of it was actually on unpaved roads. Yes, I paid for my lack of training. I crossed the halfway mark at 1h56 after a net downhill of about 300 feet. A few miles into the second half, I knew I was in trouble. I don’t think I really hit the wall but the long uphills were just killing me. I walked quite a few times on the uphills. There were very few flat sections on the course.

The highlight of the race was running for about 15 or 20km with another ultra runner getting ready for the Leadville 100. After we got separated (he finished a few minutes ahead of me), I was left counting the miles all by myself. I slowed down by about 13 minutes on the way back up for a finishing time of 4h09:50. I won’t lie to you, I was utterly spent. The last two km were significantly uphill and you constantly fight a battle between wanting to be done and what you got left in the tank. I finished 56th out of 168 runners, actually placing 3rd in my AG (there were 6 of us). Hey, I placed!

As long as it was since my last marathon, it probably will be even longer before I run another one. Quite frankly, it was a grind, running on the white line, waiting for the race to be over. I don’t know what my problem was, I’m used to running much longer than that. The scenery was beautiful. There were plenty of well stocked aid stations. The weather was nice, around 16C. I don't have an excuse.

I didn’t really regret doing the race while I was running it, but today I was thinking that if I’m here at this date next year, I’m probably going to strap on my hydration vest and go for a sweet 4 or 5 hour trail run.

McDowell Mountain 15 miler Race Report

2011-02-06T18:44:00.003-05:00

After yesterdays fiasco (see earlier post entitled "I Am A Moron"), I drove back to the race site this morning and this time, nobody had bikes. The weather was beautiful, af a bit cold at around 40F but it was sure to get warmer during the race so I decided to run in half tights, t-shirt (my "HealthAndAdventure" La Sportiva, of course), arm warmers and light gloves. I had bought a brand new pair of shoes for this race, a pair of Mizuno Ascend 5, but despite how beat up my Crosslites look with the side-fabric pretty much busted open, I decided to use them.

People looked fit. I knew that people would be fast, because of the short distance. Same thing happens at the ITT, with it's shorted 32k distance it attracts fast trail runners we don't usually see at ultras. Not too many ultra runners here though, although there were a few. Gators and handhelds are a dead giveaway. I wore my Haliburton hoodie until the start and a couple of ultra runners came and talked to me.

At 8AM sharp, we started running. The first couple of miles were flat-ish. It was nice and cool and I was running without fluids, a luxury I knew I could afford with aid stations every few miles. Then the trail started going up. None of that rolling hills shit. Up. For miles at a time. Then down a bit. Then up for more miles. The incline was not too steep though. Where back home trails tend to go up a hill straight up (thereby crushing runners legs and spirit), here they use switchbacks to make it more manageable and runner friendly. Cultural difference I guess. The course was a big loop, but with a one mile spur at around 5.5 miles.

I felt good so I started at a solid pace, sub 5min/km. I passed a few people and then settled in a group I felt comfortable following. This was no ultra and there wasn't much talking. When we hit the uphills, I ran with a solid effort but nothing stupid. Obviously, a lot of runners can't write the same on their blogs because my group desintegrated and I pushed on to the next one. I was climbing as fast as I dared considering the fact that you could see groups of runners really far ahead still climbing the same hill. On the first major downhill, I decided to run as hard as I could. The trail was nice but challenging enough that I didn't quite go as hard as I could have but I didn't want to trip.

As I entered the spur (which is downhill on the way out) at around 5.5 miles, the leader was just climbing out of it, with a stream of others maybe 20 seconds behind him. The downhill was challenging, barelling down the rocky single track and having to move over to let those guys up. After the turnaround, which was up a nasty, very steep but short uphill, I got my second cup of Gatorade. The guy in front of me got a gel.

At this point, I have to go to commercial for a rant about gels. You can't just eat a gel while running and expect your stomach to process it. You have to drink a lot of water. Not Gatorade, water. If the concentration of carbs in our stomach exceeds a certain limit (set by your level of effort), the stomach just shuts down and waits for you to stop running. Drinking Gatorade with a gel is like putting oil on the fire. It doesn't help. Gatorade (well sport drinks in general) already contains an optimum (well, you know what I mean) amount of carbs. If they could put more calories in Sport drinks they would, but they can't. Gels are like Gatorade powder. Would you just take a spoon of Gatorade powder at an aid station and guess-timate how much water to drink? So when a guy who's been huffin' and puffin' going up a hill decides to gulp a GU, with which he should probably drink two cups of water but I know he didn't, I want to slap him on the back of the head. Gels are a convenient way to transport energy, but they take a lot of experimenting and are more appropriate for extended efforts where your pace is slower and therefore you can tolerate more carbs in your stomach. Ok. Done. Back to our program.

As I leave the aid station and start up the mile-long climb out, I get passed by 3 guys! WTF? Nobody has passed me yet! WHo do they think they are? Resistance is futile, I'm climbing as fast as I dare. After the climb, a sweet downhill and I really push it. I'm having the beginning of a side stitch. That last Gatorade is sloshing all over the place. Halfway up the next short uphill (half a mile) I look up and I see that my gel-eating friend is walking. Probably the gel. I pass him and look up to see another of the guys walking. He's too far to catch on this hill, but I'll get him. I'm really starting to enjoy my race.

The next three miles are pretty much downhill and I'm having a hard time catching those two. I turn a corner and there's a fairly short uphill with one of my pals struggling to get up. I pass him near the top of the hill. There's another mile-long uphill coming. Not too steep but it kicks me in the balls. Then with about 3.5 miles to go, it's pretty much all downhill from there. I go as hard as I can. As I run down, I can see long stretches of the trail ahead and below me. I see 4 runners, most of which I'm pretty sure I won't be able to pass. The first one is the 3rd guy who passed me. He must pay. I get to him fairly quickly. He's done like dinner and not moving well. Probably had a gel as well. Then, surprisingly, I get close to the next two, a guy and a chick and I eventually pass them both.

I get closer to the last guy and with a mile to go I'm right behind him. I don't want to go for a sprint right at the finish line because if the guy is not into it I'll look like an ass. On the other hand, if I pass him too soon he might hang on and do it to me. It's happened to me before. His legs look shaved so he's probably a triathlete (they are verywhere here) and will resist. With about 1k to go, I pass him but just as I pass him, the terrain starts rolling instead of steadily going down. This is going to hurt. Even worse, I hear him right behind me. He's not letting me go. We're pretty much going uphill now and, as they say in the books, I ventilate like a mad man. Where is that finish? With what my Garmin says is 400 meters to go I'm starting to hurt. My foe has fallen back a bit, I think, but I can hear him and he's definitely within striking distance. All of a sudden, I go up a short steep hill and I'm on the parking lot where the finish is. I can see it. I take off like a bat out of hell. I finish in 2:05:57 and he finishes 6 seconds later.My overall pace was about 5:12min/km which I'm pretty happy with.

I haven't raced a shorter, intense race like this in a while, over two years actually. I love ultras, but the racing aspect is a bit more pronounced in shorter races. That being said, for a guy who hasn't run short in a while I think I ran it pretty smart. Nobody passed me and got away with it. I passed plenty of people. That being said, it's tempting to think that I should have started a bit faster, worked the hills a bit harder but I'm not sure I could have done much better.

I'm sore as hell right now. My friend the right Achilles is on fire but he's just pissed. I'll take an easy week and next Saturday (YES, Saturday), it's the Sedona marathon.

Good times.

I am a moron

2011-02-05T15:06:00.001-05:00

This morning I get up at 4 AM, perform my pre-race rituals and jump in the car for the 2 hour drive to the McDowell Mountain park. I get there a bit after 6:45, with plenty of time to spare for my 8AM start. One problem though, everybody else has a bike. WTF? Did I sign up for a bike race by mistake?

After speaking with a few people, one of the organizers then tells me he heard that there was indeed a foot race somewhere else in the park. I jump in the car and start driving around the small roads, but I can't find any other race. I finally stop a park employee and he tells me the XTERRA race is TOMORROW!

I haven't raced a non-ultra race in over 2 years, and ultras are ALWAYS on Saturday, so the concept of a Sunday race never even crossed my mind. Who wants to race on Sunday anyway? Isn't there a football game or something tomorrow?

Anyway, I thought about looking for an IMAX theater to see Sanctum but the reviews are so bad I decided not to do it. I could have run there, but I didn't have a trail map. I drove back on the scenic route, nearly shit my pants driving on the side of a cliff and got back home in about 4 hours.

Fuck it, I'm going ~~for a run~~ to have a nap (I was going to run, but I fell asleep after lunch.).

Three Weeks of Spring

2011-01-28T18:53:00.000-05:00

First thing tomorrow morning, I'm getting in an aeroplane and I'm getting the f@ck out of here. Last year, I needed snow and there was none. This year, I don't need snow. I don't want snow and we're constantly running in slush. I've had it. Some of it is falling from the sky as I'm typing this. Dammit, I should have run at lunch! Last week's ridiculous cold snap pushed me over the edge. I'm buggin' out. Arizona, here I come! I'm going down there for three weeks, all by lonesome self. I've scheduled two races: the XTERRA McDowell Mountain 15 miler somewhere near Phoenix next Staurday and the Sedona marathon the Saturday after that. Yummy!

Add to that sweet runs in the red rocks in 50 to 60F (10 to 15C) and what do you have? A Winter-frustrated-runner's wet dream, that's what you have. No city bus spraying you with slush on the sidewalk. No ice patch waiting to trip you when you're trying to do some intervals for once. No need for a windshield to protect your pecker. Running in shorts, what does that feel like again?

Would you prefer running on this ...

... or that?

Hopefully, when I come back, most of that white crap is gonna be gone. Winter running in the city is just not fun. Like my kids say: "it's character building".

Damn, I'm getting moody. I need a vacation.

The Duct Tape Method

2011-01-21T09:29:00.000-05:00

One of the first book I bought when I started running ultras was “Fixing Your Feet” by John Vonhof. One section that intrigued me was the section on plantar wart removal using duct tape. See, I’d had a small wart (Eeewww!) for a while and although it didn’t bother me, having it removed using liquid nitrogen didn’t appeal to me. Many years ago, I had a wart burned on my thumb so many times that I lost count and it always came back until one day I got rid of it using some kind of acid coated tape. Also, a burned wart can hurt a lot and prevent you from running for a few days and who wants that?

I’ve also tried one or two commercial liquids. Usually, the wart ends up bleeding and it hurts like hell when I put the stuff on and I just quit before the wart is gone. The nice thing about the duct tape is that it doesn’t hurt.

So in the Fall of 2009 I made a half-ass attempt to use the duct tape method. It didn’t work. I would find the piece of tape stuck to my sock somewhere, or I would pick the wart and it would start bleeding. Eventually I just gave up. But the damage had been done and I believe that those bleeding episodes allowed the wart to spread and by the Summer I ended up with a small cluster around the original one. Damn.

My doctor assured me that the duct tape method did indeed work. She also recommended a cream called Aldara, which is supposed to trigger some kind of immune system response. So this Fall, I decided to be more careful and get rid of the fuckers. Finally, after almost 5 months of walking around with a piece of duct tape stuck to my right heel, I can claim victory.

If you decide to try this method here’s my advice:

Keep it Clean

To make sure the tape sticks, I bought boxes of 100 Alcohol Swabs. I would always clean leftover adhesive. Also, this process removes any dirt or skin oil that could prevent the adhesive from sticking.

Use BIG pieces of tape

The first time around, I tried using fairly small pieces of tape that would cover a little more than the wart. Those pieces would immediately come unglued and end up stuck to my sock somewhere. This time around I used big sections of maybe 1inx2in (the width of the roll).

Do NOT pick at it

This is probably the hardest part. You always feel like you could just peel it off. You can’t. The things feed off blood vessels and every time you start digging into it you will start bleeding and that blood can spread the virus around. If it happens, make sure to use your alcohol swabs to clean everything and use duct tape to stop the bleeding.

You can try Aldara(tm)

That shit is expensive, but my insurance covered it. Warts are caused by a virus and Aldara is some kind of antiviral. You will need a prescription from your doctor. I would put a drop on each wart 3 or 4 times a week, rub it in using a Q-tip or something and then tape right over it. I have to say that it seemed most effective on the small secondary warts. I had two good-sized ones that didn’t seem to be bothered by it but it probably did help.

Use an Emery Board (or equivalent)

Basically, I used some kind of rough stone tool I bought at Shopper’s Drugmart to gently scraped to top layer of skin and (hopefully) dead wart. Key word is “gently”. Don’t overdo it or you’ll end up bleeding. Scrape, clean, Aldara (optional), tape.

Change the tape every day

The book says to keep the tape on for 6 days before doing the scraping-cleaning-taping routine. Good luck with that. The tape WILL move around and the resulting strips of glue on your foot will stick to your sock and that can be annoying. I found I just HAD to change the tape every day to keep things nice and clean.

Don’t run long with the tape on

I sometimes ran with the tape on for as long as an hour but for anything longer, I just took it off and cleaned the area before my run. The tape always comes unglued and ends up in a ball somewhere in your sock. Not something I want in there for 3 or 4 hours. Put a nice fresh piece of tape right after you clean up and it’ll stick real good.

Be patient

It takes a while. My small ones went away fairly fast but as I mentioned earlier, it takes months to get rid of larger ones. Still, it doesn’t hurt, you can run, so who cares?

2011 Hopes and Plans

2011-01-13T09:45:00.000-05:00

What's a blog without a post about New Year Resolutions?

Realistically, I don't have a lot of specific goals this season (I guess I'm living the dream already) but the few I have are difficult to achieve.

Increase my Base

I believe that one reason for my lack of improvement last year was my fairly low weekly mileage. It was enough to finish the races, but not to actually approach my potential PR. There is no substitute for time on your feet and I'm going to try to do just that. We will see what happens to my right ankle.

Become a Hill Lover

There no buts, ifs or maybes: if I'm ever to finish races like Western States or UTMB, I have to become stronger on hills. I need to train on them. I need to learn when to walk them and when to run them. I need to become better at walking, since a strong uphill power-walk if often faster than a half-ass run. Can I ever become an uphill runner? Depends on the incline, I guess but realistically for 50 and 100 milers, I will be walking anything significantly uphill. That's the hand I was dealt. I just need to learn to walk them faster.

Get Closer to my Racing Weight

Ever since I've started ultra running, I've gained weight that I can't get rid of. I'm so hungry all the time. Some part of my brain has obviously decided that I can't be trusted and has decided to build a reserve. Hopefully, my increased training volume will take care of some of that. Since controlling cravings is basically impossible, I'm also experimenting with lower-calorie snacks.

Work on my Nutrition

My race nutrition is a mess. What can I say? Is there anyone out there who actually know what they are doing? It is my opinion that nobody does. As soon as it gets hot, everybody falls apart. Sulphur Springs wasn't even that hot and it was just a mess. Anyway, I want to try to improve on what's been working for me in the second half of last year.

There you have it. Nothing dramatic. I do plan on running a few new, hard races. I want to run the Mohican 100 in June and do the Rim-to-rim-to-rim of the Grand Canyon with a few friends some time in October. But those plans can change. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter what race I do, as long as I can run.

First run

2011-01-01T23:37:00.000-05:00

This is the last day of my vacation. It’s also New Year day. Tomorrow we fly back home and then it’s back to work the following day. We just came back from a late lunch. More like a brunch but at 1:30PM. It’s cold outside. Two days ago it was nice and warm and now it’s around freezing. There are patches of snow on the red rocks. I haven’t run in a couple of days because I did something to my back. Excuses, excuses. I get my shit ready and I drive to the trail head.

***

The sun is nice and warm, but it’s pretty cold. I know I can run the main loop in 45 minutes. About halfway, there’s a trail that heads North and I can take it and add as much time as I want. I decide that I’m going to run out and back on that trail for 45 minutes, giving me a total of 90 minutes. Not exactly the 4+ hours I should be doing, but better than nothing. I lock the car, put my Nathan vest on and I start running. Tap, tap, tap, tap...

***

I’m stiff. My feet are stiff. The trail is mostly frozen solid, with bike tracks and footprints making the surface uneven. Still, the air is crisp, the sun warms my back. I feel great.

***

The first couple of miles are a gentle, but steady uphill. Quick steps, tap, tap, tap. I hear music in my head, in sync with my stride. I run by a few people but I don’t really see them. I scan the ground looking for rocks, listen to that music in my head and the sound of my breathing. I keep the effort as easy as possible on rolling hills.

***

I wonder what it would feel like to run like Krupicka, Jurek or Roes. I’m doing fine but this isn’t really climbing. Last Sunday I climbed, around 2000 feet and it was hard. But I did it. And I’m doing it now. And, quite frankly, I feel like a running god right now. They might run faster than me, but at this very moment for some reason this trail is exactly what I need it to be and I feel as strong as anyone. I breathe deeply but easily. I still hear the music in my head. There’s a bit of snow, especially in the shade. The red rocks, the desert vegetation, the silence, except for my breathing and my footsteps. Wow. Tap, tap, tap...

***

It’s almost time to turn around. I look up a bit and I stop dead in my tracks. The sun is hitting the red rocks around me and the sight is just breathtaking. The sky is dark blue, the kind of blue I think I remember from when I was a kid but I never seem to see anymore. I’ve run far from the busier trails and the silence is striking. The trail I’m running is in kind of a bowl shaped valley, so I can see how far I’ve come. I love the feeling of traveling on my own power, the loneliness of running AWAY, of being away. Maybe I should see someone about that... I stand there for a while, looking around and I feel like there is something special about this moment. I raise my arms like Rocky and I see my shadow do the same. I feel silly but I feel great.

***

The trail has some snowy and icy spots. I’ve turned around now. I’m still thinking about how good this feels, how beautiful this run is, how lucky I am to be able to do this. All of a sudden, I can’t see the trail very well. What the fuck? My throat hurts, my breathing gets choppy: I’m fucking crying, I shit you not. As soon as I realize, I start laughing, blink the tears away and keep going. What the hell was that all about?

***

I get back to the main loop and immediately there are more people around. It’s easy running now, mostly downhill. My mind is going a hundred miles and hour. I’m thinking about whether I can ever become a better runner. Whether I have what it takes. I’m so lazy. Am I willing to walk the walk? I understand I will never be a great runner, but am I willing to do the work to become a better one? Even if I train like crazy, will I ever be able to run some of the uphills in an ultra? Can I ever finish Western States or some of the other difficult ultras? My head is spinning. I keep running. Tap, tap, tap...

***

I get to the car as the sun slips behind the mountains. My nose and upper lip are frozen. What a run. I can't remember what song I was hearing though...

2010 In Review

2010-12-30T13:59:00.002-05:00

I guess it’s that time of the year again. Time to look back and reminisce. For me 2010 was a rollercoaster year with unbelievable achievements as well as very humbling experiences. Here are the races that I remember the most. I ran quite a few more, but sometimes things go according to plan and we tend to not remember those races quite as much.

Susitna 100

I know, I know: You’re sick of hearing about it. Doesn’t matter to me, I can talk about it all day long. People who politely ask about it can vouch for that. Susitna was more than just a race, it was an adventure. It was fucking EPIC. I still can’t believe how amazing that experience was.

Sulphur Springs

Although officially it was only a ‘B’ race on my schedule, I managed to screw the pooch on this one. My only goal was to beat my 2009 time of 10h06. My training had been going ok physically, but after Susitna I hit some weird mental road blocks, maybe a bit of burnout. Anyway I felt good for Sulphur and ran the first few loops way too fast, basically running the first 2 loops at a sub-9hr pace, which I knew was too fast. I don’t know what I was thinking. I blame Chris and Jamie (Killerz) who also paid dearly for our collective hubris. I managed to finish in 10h17, after an epic bonk at 40 miles that destroyed me physically and mentally. Yes, the heat was a factor but stupidity was the root cause of my destruction.

Creemore Vertical Challenge 50km

Mile for mile, this is the most difficult race I’ve ever done. I have NEVER wanted to quit a race so badly. It’s only 50k for fuck sake. By 30k I was in trouble and at 35k I was road kill. I’ve fantasized about quitting races before and I’ve done it since, but I’ve never WANTED to quit. At Creemore, I wanted to quit. The heat and humidity were just unbearable. I must have done something wrong. Not enough hydration, not enough salt, not enough food, running too fast. I still can’t figure out if it was all or none of the above. I suspect the hydration and ever since that race I’ve switched to handheld bottles instead of the hydration vest. I did that for two reasons: it’s easier to know how much you drink and I switched to sport drinks instead of water/gels. I did finish, with Kinga’s help/constant torture. I can’t believe I’m going back there next year.

Limberlost Challenge 56km

Limberlost is a new race on the OUSer calendar and I came in pretty beat up mentally after a few difficult races. I came in with only one goal: enjoy my race and that’s exactly what happened. The course is deceptively slow. I couldn’t believe the time it took me to run the first lap. I couldn’t remember any monster hills or walking much, but it was a SLOW lap. I ran with a couple of good friends and we just enjoyed our race, running fairly consistent laps. I finished that race ready to run another lap. I guess this means I didn’t run hard enough but this wasn’t what that race was about for me. It was about redemption and I found it there.

Iroquoia Trail Test

Got to mention the Final Edition of the ITT. For us ultra runners, it’s always humbling to see all those crazy-fast shorter distance guys just sprint out of the blocks at the start. My big memories of that race are the two huge spills I took. The first time I fell right into a bunch of medium-sized rocks and to this day I can’t sleep comfortably on my right side. It’s slowly getting better but that was my hardest fall ever. The second one was more spectacular because I caught a root running downhill, but I landed on soft muddy dirt so no biggie. Again, with Haliburton coming up, my race plan was not to race hard but I still managed to shave 15 minutes from last year’s time.

Haliburton 100 Miler

My last race of the season was the Haliburton 100 miler. Holy smoke. That race was a mud-fest that tested me in different, but equally challenging, ways than Susitna. During Susitna, I never really entertained fantasies of quitting the race. During Haliburton, I thought about it all the time. I never wanted to quit, but for some reason, my mind seemed to enjoy torturing me with the IDEA of quitting. The mud and the Normac loop, especially that last one, were almost too much to bear at mile 90.

Now, the year is over. I had decided to go back to Susitna, but I recently had to change my mind (again) about doing it. After thinking about it over the Xmas vacation, I decided that as much as I wanted to do it, I just couldn’t afford it again this year. I plan on doing a few other non-OUSER races this year and I don’t want to blow my budget on that one race. I’m still training but I might replace that race with Beast of Burden. I’m giving myself a few more weeks to think about it. An alternative would be to go back to my initial plan of running the Sedona marathon. Not quite sure yet.

2010, we barely knew you...

Bear Mountain

2010-12-28T21:33:00.001-05:00

Today my daughter and I climbed up Bear Mountain, pretty much one of the highest climbs around here. It was not extremely technical but I have to admit that after my morning run I was pretty happy when we finally reached the summit. Definitely not runnable. The vertical gain is 1900 feet over a shade less than 4 km.

Almost Up Top

We had many false victories, reaching a summit only to discover that yet another one needed to be vanquished. Finally we reached the highest point and took a few minutes before coming down.

Jamie On Top of Bear Mountain

Coming down was not as easy as you would expect, as Jamie can attest after trying to hold on to a cactus during a little slippage event. All in good fun, we made it home in one piece.

Hill training

2010-12-26T19:07:00.001-05:00

Today for my long run, I wanted to go SOMEWHERE. I keep seeing these big mountains around so I wanted to go up one. My schedule called for a 4 hour run, so I figured I would go up for 2 hours and then come back.

Well, I`m sore. My ass is sore. My feet are sore. I got an ankle massage like you wouldn't believe. The higher elevation trails basically become stream beds when it rains and they are covered by egg-sized (and up) rocks. It took me 2 hours to go 10km, climbing from 4600 to 6600 feet. By the end, I was huffin' and puffin'. Maybe even wheezin'.

My run down went a bit faster, but not that much since I wanted to keep my ankles as safe as possible. Still, I got to my car with 20 minutes to spare and I couldn't make myself run the extra time. I was done.

I started way down there

Xmas Vacation

2010-12-24T13:02:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to update this blog for a while. I've started at least 3 posts but never finished them. What can I say.

I'm currently in Sedona, AZ, for the holidays. Weather is nice, not hot but perfect for ... running! I know that this is not exactly snow running but I don't give a damn. I really enjoy the trails here and I'm looking forward to my long run on Saturday. The longest run I've done here was about 3h30. I had started in nice cool weather but as the hours passed, it got hotter and hotter and I ended up running out of water in sweltering heat a few miles from the house. That was not fun. With this nice Winter weather, my hydration bladder will last way longer and I should have no problem running for 4 hours. This means exploring trails I've never seen before and I'm excited about that!

Yesterday I did a quick 45 minutes run. Here's a GPS/Google map rendering:

Sweet 45 minute run

There were no big hills but very few flats except for the last mile or so. The surfaces are challenging but nothing crazy and the dry air makes the run really comfortable. Today I'm going to run a similar route but extend it north a little bit for a total of about an hour.

I'm pretty happy with where I am right now. My right ankle is a bit bothersome whenever I run too fast. Last week I did my second tempo in two weeks and I could really feel it the next couple of days. I've really lost touch with any kind of speed work. Whenever I run faster (Half-marathon pace and up), my body feels fine but a voice in my head keeps asking me what the hell I'm thinking and wants me to slow down RIGHT NOW.

This is it for now.

Ooops, I’m Doing It Again

2010-12-13T20:42:00.003-05:00

First, this just in, my number didn’t come up (again) at the Massanutten 100 lottery and neither did Chris’, so I probably won’t be running (or pacing) it. I decided to send my wait-list check but my odds don’t look too good. Starting to smell like Sulphur Springs.

Took me long enough but I finally decided to go for a second trip to Alaska. I had fun reading the comments on my previous post. It might seem like it was a foregone conclusion, but it really wasn’t. That race is very intimidating. I’m extremely aware that last year’s conditions were really good and that there’s no guarantee that it will be the same this year. If you get in trouble, quitting is not easy with aid stations as far as 20 miles apart and volunteers spread out over dozens of miles. At the pre-race meeting, they take an imprint of your VISA card so they can bill you for the flight out if you decide to quit. It is a sobering thought that with near-perfect conditions last year, it took me 37 hours to finish. What’s going to happen if the conditions are more challenging?

I guess we’ll see. I’m back training with Derrick and already I’m excited. I’ve come to term with the long runs that are coming my way. If anything, the most frustrating part is the lack of snow in the Toronto area. This year I would like to put more snowshoe time in. I probably did between 5 and 10 miles with the snowshoes and when I tried to put them back on at around mile 80, I just could not make myself do it. My body physically rejected them. If there’s soft snow, this could be the key so I need to fix this.

A recurring question I ask myself is: why not do the Beast of Burden. It’s a 100 miles. It’s nearby. It’s on snow. It’s cold. I know other runners. Why not? I have no idea, but I feel that I made the right decision.

PS - Dave, read your emails already!

Aaaaarrrrgggghh!!!!

2010-12-08T09:50:00.000-05:00

This is killing me. I'm trying to decide whether I should cancel my February marathon plans and switch to Susitna instead. I was looking at my training last year at this date and I'm pretty sure it's not too late. Actually, at this time last year I was in the middle of an IT band issue that had pretty much confined me to the elliptical until the end of the year, so I'm in pretty good shape. Derrick agrees, as long as I make my decision soon.

I have the gear. Sancho the sled is still in my shed. I have the fitness. I can take the time. Now, am I willing to actually do the training? You can't fake a 100 miler, especially that one where only two guys (Geoff Roes and John Stamstad in 2007) have ever run it under 24 hours. I know I WILL spend lots of time out there.

I REALLY want to run it, but training for that race is something else. I have to decide by tomorrow...

Damn.

No Western States for Me

2010-12-06T09:47:00.000-05:00

Damn, I didn't get in Western States. When I put my name in, I didn't really want to get in for 2011 but as the lottery grew closed I found myself getting excited. On Saturday, I actually grabbed a beer and watched some of the lottery, before the web site crashed (or was it my home network?). Unfortunately, it was not to be. Neither me or Chris McPeake got picked. We had a "pacing" pact going but it looks like there will be no trip to California this June.

That left me in a depressing spot with no exciting 100 miler in my running horizon. There's always Sulphur Springs, I guess, but to be 100% frank, I find the course less than exciting. I can manage 50 miles on it but the thought of going around 8 times quite frankly freaks me right out. So I put my name in the Massanutten 100 lottery, which is mid-May somewhere down in Virginia. Hilly, but if I'm going to give WS a run for its money, I have to get better at climbing.

The gist of this post is: I have to do something. As you can see from my lack of postings, I'm in a running funk. The Sedona marathon in February is just not doing it for me. Quite frankly, I don't give shit about ever beating my marathon PR. If I happen to be in Sedona on that date, sure, I'll go out and run it but as a motivator it's just not happening for me.

So I might have to resort to Plan B: Susitna 100. There's also plan C, Beast of Burden which a number of people I know are running but all things being equal I would prefer going back to Alaska. There's a little more than 2 months before both of them. If I don't get injured, Derrick thinks he can get me in 100-miles-shape in time for the race. See, I think I'm getting excited already...

I think what triggered this 100 miler fever is my first experience as a pacer at the Creemore Horizontal 100 miler 10 days ago. After freezing my ass off working most of the night at an aid station begging people to let me pace them, a friend of mine decided he could do with some company at around 3:30am. He's a faster runner than me but by that time I had no problem keeping up. We had a good time chatting about all the finer aspects of bonking, until he finished the race at around 9:30. This experience made me wonder about the sanity of volunteers, especially non-runners. How can people be so nice? Anyway, I did have a blast chatting with the other volunteers and having quick chats with slowing imploding runners. I'm going to do this again, for sure.

Last Saturday, I ran the Santa Shuffle with a couple of my runner's from my "Learn to Run" clinic at the Running Room. It was a fun little race and it was nice to see of they improved since to the beginning of the clinic. That clinic has a lot of attrition (some don't even make it to the first clinic), but it's very satisfying to see some of them become runners. Today is my last clinic and I won't be teaching the next one. I need my weekends if I'm going to race long in February and I need to get back to my regular schedule.

That's my news for the last month.

That Time of the Year

2010-11-12T17:27:00.001-05:00

Yes, tomorrow is the opening of the Western States 100 lottery. This is the first time I’ve seriously thought about entering and I’ve pretty much made up my mind to put my name in. Up until today, I had pall but decided not to enter for fear of getting picked. Chances are not good of being picked the first year but if your name comes up, you have to do it. You just have to. It’s Western States for Pete’s sake!

A few things were on my mind:

On the plus side: I’ve got my 100 miles qualifier in the bag. I’m healthy. I’m willing to train.

On the minus side: I’ve heard people who run much better than me say that they don’t think they can finish in 30 hours (the cutoff). The heat is a problem. The altitude won’t help.

Well, I don’t care about the negatives. Well, I do care a bit, but they reflect my insecurities and I’m using them as excuses not to do it. The fact is that I can train for heat. I can train for hills. What am I really afraid of? I think my biggest fear is to miss a cutoff. I guess I’ll have to train for speed too then.

So you bet I’m in! I probably won’t get in, but I have as much chance as the next guy. Should I get picked, I have a plan: back to training with coach Derrick, who trained me for Susitna and Haliburton. I would definitely need help for that one. If I’m not picked then it’s all good too. I’m sure I’ll find something crazy to do in 2011.

That Time of the Year

2010-11-12T17:26:00.000-05:00

Fresh Plans

2010-10-29T16:25:00.000-04:00

With my racing season having pretty much ended at Haliburton, I’ve been taking it pretty easy. I’ve been running 3 or 4 times a week for a total of 4 to 5 hours. I’m eating as if I’m running 100 miles a week, so I’m afraid to step on the scale, which I haven’t done since August. We’ll cross that bridge when we have to.

One of the good things about running less is that it allows me to run harder. After a few difficult races early this summer, I slowed everything way down with the definite goal of finishing Haliburton. That worked well. The second half of the season was slow, but I enjoyed every single race. Now that Haliburton is done, I can go with the flow a bit more, without making a conscious effort to stick to a certain pace or effort level. Personally, I find running fast exhilarating and my mood is always sky high after a harder workout.

That’s why I decided to start a marathon training cycle, with the Sedona marathon on February 12th as my target race. Since most programs are 24 weeks, I don’t quite have enough time for the full program but I think I can ride my current fitness level and compress it a bit. It’s not as obvious as I thought. I found out this week that running faster means changing my stride and form and that means pain. Right now both my calves really feel the burn from my last couple of workouts. I might race a 5k or 10k race in the next couple of weeks to kind of see where I’m at and set my various training paces. That should be painful.

So I’m kinda, sorta, semi-excited about running my second marathon. Compared to my earlier idea of another epic trip to Alaska, running a marathon is a bit underwhelming. I guess I’m desensitized or something. With a Winter hundred miler, for just a bit more training you get to enjoy over 30 hours of fun in the snow instead of a paltry 3 or 4. Damn, maybe next year. Still this marathon will definitely be a challenging race for many reasons: I haven’t raced hard in a long time; the race is at 4500 feet, not quite officially at altitude but you definitely feel it; only half the course is on pavement; and finally, there over 1800 feet of elevation change. I doubt I will break my marathon PB on that course, but it should be fun and I’ll give it a shot.

This is it for now. Enjoy this nice cool weather.

Back from Vacation

2010-10-19T14:01:00.001-04:00

Well, my vacation is over. I had a great time in Arizona. I haven’t run quite as much as I’d hoped but I still managed to squeeze in a few good ones. The main reason I’ve been so busy is that we were looking for a vacation property here in Sedona and that consumed an amazing amount of time and mental energy. We did find something so expect to see more posts and pictures from here in the next few years. I just love running the trails here and I’m really looking forward to doing a lot more of it.

Sweet trail

Last weekend, Thanksgiving weekend, the kids flew in and spent the weekend with us. We went to see the Grand Canyon on Sunday. It’s big. It also reminded me of the Rim-2-Rim-2-Rim (r2r2r) trip that a few Ontario ultra runners did this September. Looking at this gigantic crack in the Earth, it’s hard to believe that anyone could go down, climb up the other side and then do the whole thing in the opposite direction, all that in the same day. My wife was not impressed when I told her that I really wanted to do that next Fall. I’m going to have to work on my climbing.

To the other side and back?

Hopefully, other like-minded runners will be interested and we can make this a team expedition. I’m not sure I would attempt this all by myself. I believe there are already two of us. Let me know if you’re interested!

Another big decision I made is that I’m not going back to Susitna this year. There, I’ve said it. That breaks my heart but I just can’t contemplate the training right now. I need some down time where I can just run for the fun of it without having to worry about squeezing in 5+ hour long runs on the weekend, plus travel time if I need to find snow. I believe that the fact that I can’t even think about the training tells me that I need a break, so I’m taking it. We're going to try to spend as much time as we can at our new "cottage" and I'm going to enjoy my runs there, that's a for-sure. I'm going to call it hill training for r2r2r.

Our new garden. Looking forward to a few beers.

I’ve been taking things pretty slow since Haliburton, running about every other day for 45 to 60 minutes. My pace varies according to my mood and the terrain. I’ve been eating like crazy so I haven’t stepped on the scale since the race. I’ve started teaching another Learn to Run clinic at the Running Room. I’ve got 27 people signed up and yesterday I met them for the first time. Much harder to go out with so many people. Still fun though.

So this is it. No race in the immediate future. That feels weird. I’ve been training for one race or another for a couple of years now and it’s going to take some getting used to. Mind you, Seaton is only 6 months away. 50 miler this time? Some people never learn.

Ooops I've Done It Again

2010-09-30T14:33:00.000-04:00

My Garmin Forerunner 305 has been giving me grief for a few weeks now. The "mode" button gets stuck and is now pretty much non-functional. That's a problem, because I rely on my Garmin to get me back home if I get lost on the trails. The "take me home" button has saved my bacon a few times and I need a functional "mode" button. When I go out on trails I don't know intimately, I always bring my 305 and my little Petzl Zipka headlamp. That little headlamp can be worn on your wrist or you can stuff it in a pocket, and is bright enough to get you out of trouble. Last year at Susitna, a guy I was running with couldn't make his headlamp work and he ended up running the whole race with my little lamp.

So in the interest of safety, I took advantage of my Running Room discount and got myself a brand new Forerunner 305 (with HR strap) for less than 170 bucks. I couldn't make myself pay the extra money for the 310XT. I would love the 20 hour battery life, but I run more than 10 hours at a time maybe 5 times a year, it costs over 200$ more, so 10 hours will have to do. Quite frankly, at that price the 305 is almost as much GPS as the 310XT for less than half the price. Love the '05.

Vacation

2010-09-29T16:44:00.000-04:00

The last weeks have been pretty mellow. I have not done much running outside of my Running Room “Learn To Run” clinic. My racing season is over, so I’m really enjoying the rest. I plan on picking it up a bit this week. I have to admit that my legs are still under the shock of Haliburton.

I’m leaving on Sunday for a two week vacation in Sedona, AZ. My wife and I have been there many times and we always enjoy it. I truly enjoy running on the beautiful trails, surrounded by red rocks. The plan is to hike with my wife really early in the morning and go out for a run either right after (if it’s still cool enough) or late afternoon. I just love running in the desert, for some reason.

On big decision I have to make is whether I will do the Susitna 100 again this Winter. Because of the lack of snow in the Toronto area, the training last year was completely demented. Many times, I had to get up at 2AM and drive North for a couple of hours to find some decent snow covered trails. I really would love to do the race again, but I’m not so sure I’m willing to go through all the sacrifices that this kind of training demands. To say nothing of the snide remarks at home about being crazy. Even if we do get some snow, training in the city is not a good option because of the lack of maintained trails, so some kind of travelling is required. It is a 100 miler and I need to do the volume that this kind of race demands.

Susitna is not just about running though. If something happens, you are responsible for getting yourself out of trouble, or at least keeping yourself safe (alive?) until help arrives, so you also have to be able to use your equipment. Sounds simple but you would be surprised by how hard it is to get out of a sleeping bag at -30C, boil some water, make food and pack up your gear without freezing you hands and feet off. Just keeping your water from freezing can be a challenge. Last year the weather during the race was very forgiving but it’s not always like that. My problem is that I don’t see how I can NOT go. I sometimes watch my Susitna video on Youtube and I can feel something stirring in my head and in my gut.

Anyway, lots to think about. Hopefully, some rest will make things a bit clearer.

2010 Haliburton Forest 100 miler Race Report

2010-09-14T20:03:00.001-04:00

I Ran All Day. Then I Ran All Night. And then I ran some more.

I’m waiting for the nurse to take my vitals at the Haliburton Forest 100 registration desk. The nurse in question has her finger on the guy’s wrist. “76”, she say. “That’s high”. The guy is shattered. “But my rest HR is 50! That’s impossible!”. I feel my heart rate go up as I try to slow it down. She pinches him on the top of the hand. “Your dehydrated. You have to drink lots of fluids tonight.” Then he steps on the small IKEA scale and whatever the number is, he’s not happy with that either. He walks out, dejected. Pretty much the same scenario plays for me and then Chris.
...
I’m sitting with Kim, Chris and Steve. After we finish our pasta at the 100 miler dinner, a paramedic explains how we will surely either die or, if we’re lucky, end up on a stretcher in the Emergency. Then, we hear that we should expect ridiculous amounts of water on the course thanks to mother nature and also a beaver, whose house I will run by many times. Basically, we should expect our feet to be wet at all time. He wasn’t kidding.
...
4:00am Saturday morning. Thanks to cell phones all holding the exact time, I can hear 3 alarm clocks ringing their different chimes at the same time. It is time. We tape nipples, lubricate feet, ass and balls. I remind myself again never to borrow someone else’s Bodyglide stick. I drink some coffee and eat breakfast. It’s fairly quiet in the cabin. Everyone is thinking about the race. It’s about 3 degrees Celsius so we congratulate ourselves on our smart decision of going for the nice heated cabin. Getting dressed in a cold, humid tent would not be as much fun. The coffee is nice and hot.
...
Walking to the start line, I hear my name. I turn and here’s Derrick, my coach, who’s not supposed to be there. I have a quick thought about how hard it must be to be wearing “civilian” clothes right now. We chat a bit, other people join in. Then, Helen says the prayer and we’re off. I start way in the back, making sure I’m not sucked into a fast pace. I’ve learned my lesson at Sulphur Springs. I have a vague outline for a 27 hour finish. First 50 miles in 12 hours, then 15 hours for the next one. Death by spreadsheet.
...
Some people run without lamps. That just plain blows my mind. Why risk 6 or 8 months of training for a 20 dollar lamp? I’m wearing my small Petzl Zipka Plus, who saved another runner’s bacon at Susitna. I always have it on me if darkness is possible. I will have to loan to two other people before the night is over. It’s getting warmer. When I get back to station 2 after the Normac loop, I take off my arm warmers and put them in my drop bag. I go out toward station 4.

...

Aid Station 4. I feel great, I’m in a good place but the trail was kind of harsh. My feet are thoroughly soaked and caked with mud. I forget how many times my feet sank in the mud passed my ankle. I pick up my second hand held from my drop bag. Up until now the aid stations were pretty close together so one bottle was fine. The next step is about 10k and I don’t want to take a chance. I saw someone who ran out of liquids last year and he was not a happy camper. Derrick is there: “What do you need, JD?”.
.
I’m getting closer to the turnaround. I’ve been running for 5 hours now, yet I’ve just started. Thinking about time in a 100 miler has no meaning. All I know is that I’m at leat halfway to Aid Station 7, the turnaround. The past few hours are a blur of never-ending uphills and downhills, as well as mud and water. The weather is nice, not too hot. I run mostly alone. I remember how great I felt last year. Then, I didn’t. This year, I’m drinking fine. I’m taking in a fair amount of calories, probably over 200, definitely under 400. How many calories in a burrito? I see a group of runner, Johnny MacA is in there. I ask how the trail is and he ~~pouts~~ ~~a little~~ makes a face and says there are hard sections. Half an hour to go. A bit later, I see a bunch of people I know coming the other way, Steve, Kinga, Stephen, Iris and finally Chris.
...
The extra spur at AS7 is a pain in the ass. I wonder how much more I’m going to hate it tonight. I don’t have a drop bag here, so I refill and I get back out. 25 miles in the bank. 5 hours and 30 minutes. Right on target. I wonder if that’s good?
...
I enter AS4. “42”, I yell. “What do you need JD?” Someone grabs my bottle to refill it. I look at the food and pick something. I try to eat at least one substantial item at every AS. I hear a noise behind me and here comes my new pal Josh. Unbelievable. This guy has not run a step since AS7, 25km back and he has kept up with me. He says he can’t run anymore. He walks ridiculously fast, especially uphill. Since most flat sections are effectively pools of mud, I can barely run at all so he effectively walks as fast as I can run.

I’m entering AS2 after my Normac loop. I barely have 2km to go for my first 50 miles. I won’t make 12 hours, but I won’t be much more than that. I really don’t like the Normac. I keep thinking about Derrick’s story about the guy who dropped from the 100 miler with 10k to go because he couldn’t bear the thought of running the loop one more time. I understand. I look around and see Jean, one of my pacers. Jean and his wife Hélène drove 10 hours from Quebec City to pace me. Unbelievable. We chat a bit and then they leave to drive to the various aid stations to make sure they know where they are going. We agree to meet at AS4, around 8:30pm or later.
...
I get out and about halfway there I see Chris. He can’t be much more than 20 minutes ahead of me. We exchange a few words, without really stopping. Wonder what’s going on? As I get close to the line, I get a bit choked up. I don’t know why, since I’m not finishing. Going back out is not going to be as hard as I thought. People are cheering. I step over the line, thank the people and turn around.
...
Entering AS2, aka Margaritaville, I decide to get ready for the night. I see Kinga with her shoes off, with someone working on her feet. We have a quick chat and I go hide behind a tent to change my shorts. Bending my legs is a bit of a challenge. 50 miles will do that to you. The new shorts are nice and dry, and keep my “package” a bit tighter. I was starting to get worried about chafing down there. I change my shirt. I sit down and finally take one shoe off then the sock which is caked in mud. I’m pleasantly surprised. Nothing too horrible to report. I put on a fresh pain of Injinji socks and finally decide to also switch to my 1/2 a point larger Crosslites. My other foot looks just as good. I’m really relieved because there are some nasty looking feet around here. Marika is rubbing some kind of white paste on her feet and they look a bit harsh. Someone comes in and says he just saw a bear on the Normac and the bear wouldn’t move and growled at him. Fucking Normac. By the time I’ve changed my shirt and setup my lights, a couple of other runners are ready to go. We leave as a group for our outbound Normac loop. I’ve spent 35 minutes at the aid station, but I figure it’s time well spent.
...
We’re on the Normac and we haven’t seen a bear yet. Is pretty much dark and the guy I’m running with didn’t pick up his lamp at AS2. We try running with him in front, then with me. Christy is about 50m behind, but she’s looking strong. We meet a guy coming the other way, by himself, with no light. How the fuck is he going to find his way out? About 5 minutes later, I remember my spare Zipka lamp, which I have in my pocket. I give it to my companion and things get better fast. We can run a bit now. The mud pools look bigger with more light though.

I finally enter AS4, an hour later than expected. Running in the dark is not for sissies. Plus, there was that extra time at AS2. I kept going with the same group. We even picked up a few extra runners. Jean is waiting for me and he is so ready to go. He looks so clean and fresh, surrounded by dirty, exhausted runners. His shoes are so white.
...
Jean starts to run. Boom, boom, boom. He is running with a slow, powerful stride, full of energy. He pulls me ahead and I follow. Tap, tap, tap. Fast, short stride, my feet barely lifting above the ground. We’re alone and we push ahead into the darkness. I have no idea what time it is. My watch is on “chrono” and all I know is that I’ve been running for what seems forever. Kim, Chris’ wife, told me that Steve dropped at 50 miles. I have a vision of him sitting on the couch, having a beer. This image will be a siren song that will make the rest of my race very difficult. I’m so tired.
...
Hélène is doing great. She’s ahead of me, running with a nice easy stride. She doesn’t pull as hard as Jean, but I don’t mind. I think that I need the rest. I think she’s surprised by the amount of water on the trail. I actually talk more with her than with him. I barely know her so it’s an easy conversation. With Jean, we tend to talk about work and neither of us wants to do that.
...
I see someone ahead. Jean is back on the clock. We’re getting close to AS7. We catch up and this is Chris, running as if someone had emptied a box of nails in his shoes. He says he doesn’t think he can finish in time. I tell him that he can finish for sure, there’s plenty of time and he’s moving really well. When we’re sure he’s out of range, Jean and I agreed that there’s no way he is finishing this.

I’m running with Hélène again, on our way to AS6. As I left AS7, someone said “75% done!”. Somehow, I found it depressing. I am so fucking tired. I feel 95% empty, but apparently I’ve only done 75% of the work. I see that couch. The beer. All I had to do is scratch. I could have driven back with Hélène and Jean and been done. It was 2:30AM when we left AS7 well behind schedule but with plenty of time to finish. Chris was right behind us. Now, even though I remember this section as very runnable, I can’t summon the strength to run much. In the light of our headlamps, everything looks like an uphill. My quads are on fire. The bottom of my feet radiate pain every time they hit the ground. There’s a hot spot on the back of both my heel but nothing on earth is going to make me take those shoes off now.
...
Oh look, another fucking lake of mud. I follow the others on the right edge, getting my feet wet anyway. At the very end, I see a good spot and I put my left foot there. I sink in the mud up to my thigh, and I fall sideways into the mud. This is so much fun. The others try not to laugh.
...
I get in the aid station. I’m not sure which one. Derrick is there. I tell him I heard that Christy was in trouble. I’m telling him how tired I am. I’m such a whiner when I get tired. This is the bottom of the barrel. I’m still eating. I’m drinking plenty of eLoad/Heed. My mood is just nasty. Couch. Beer. I know never to think about that in a race, but for the 100th time tonight, I’m certain that I will never run a 100 miler again.
...
I finally turn my lights off. It’s fucking daylight. This means that the end is nigh. As long as it was dark, it couldn’t end because it could only end in daylight. Now it is, so the end becomes possible. If only I didn’t have to shit so bad. Jean is back pacing me. I did a section without pacer because of logistics. The plan now is for him to take me to AS4 and then I pick him up at AS3 after my Normac loop and he takes me to the finish.

I’m by myself. Two guys have taken off. Marika and her pacer are somewhere behind and I left Jean at the last AS. Chris, against all odds, is probably not far behind Marika. I don't understand how he can still be running. I try to ignore the stirring in my gut but there’s no way. For the first time ever, I’m going to have to take a dump in the bush during a race. How far are the girls, I wonder. Thank god I have some baby wipes. I find a good spot and do what I have to do. Bending my legs to get the proper angle is just pure agony. I should have leaned on a tree or something.
...
I’m looking at the flat rock on the ground, with a series of parallel scratches made by fucking bear claws. I’m not really afraid, but that rock looks scratch resistant to me. I can’t believe I’m doing this fucking loop (yes, I’m on the Normac) yet again. I’m by myself and I’m pushing a bit. There’s a part of me that’s waking up. Distances are now numbers that make sense. I’m less than 10k from the finish, the the trail is trying to hold me back. The mud pools are getting bigger and muddier, more difficult to cross. I finally get to one where I look in disbelief. I actually yell “HAVE YOU NO SHAME???”. I don’t remember this! Did someone come with a fucking shovel and dig this? Did the bear do it? Holy fuck! I walk straight through it.
...
I see a turn ahead. No!? It can’t be! YES. Here it is, the gravel road that marks the end of the Normac trail. I turn back, flip my middle finger and yell “FUCK YOU NORMAC!”. This is effectively the end of my torment. There are not a single steep uphill or mud pool between me and the finish. Jesus Christ. I’m going to finish this.
...
I’m running on the dirt road with Jean. He was hoping that I had hooked up with someone and that he wouldn’t have to run with me. I told him he didn’t have to come but he insisted so here we are. I’m going to blow through AS2.

I blew through AS2 although I did take the time to say hi to Derrick and thanks the volunteers. I am running like a crazy person. I dropped my pacer because he couldn’t keep up. I had to walk a bit on the hill but now I’m actually running. I feel no pain. I feel like I’m running a 10k. I see the line. Yikes, it’s far. I can hear them. I get a bit choked up. I’m so happy this is over. The course was just too hard. I cross the line. I’m done. An angel goes to the cabin and hands me a handheld filled with beer. Where’s the couch? I tell Helen she's crazy to make us run that course. I finished in 28 50min.

I knew from the start that this second 100 miler would be difficult. I had one in the bag, so I had nothing to prove. The terrain was just nasty compared to the flat Susitna river valley. The intensity of running the distance under 30 hours compared to the 37 hours last Winter. Which one was harder? I truly don’t know. They were the same, but different.
...
Again, I slipped into the dark side for a while. This is a side of me that sometimes shows its ugly face. I was able to rein it back a bit, but I felt it loose all night inside my head. This race truly tested me. I’m happy I finished. Again, I was able to live hard, to turn up the contrast and experience life with an intensity that is painful but also beautiful, like looking directly at the sun. After the race, most of it disappears and all that is left is an after image that slowly fades way. Then, I guess, you have to race again.

Halibuton update

2010-09-13T08:55:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post about the Haliburton 100 miler. I finished it yesterday morning with a time of 28h 50min. It was hellishingly (is that a word) hard with innumerable mud pools where you could sink up to your knee. The hills were everywhere. Big ones. There were no easy sections. Anyway, I'll have a race repost soon.

This Running Life

2010-09-01T13:07:00.002-04:00

“I’m about 6 years old. I’m running on the street with my friends. They are all in front of me. Why can’t I move my legs faster?”

“A few years later, walking to school, one of us starts running. We follow. We all jump through someone’s hedges. The house’s owner is on the other side. I’m slowest. I get caught.”

“Grade 11, the English teacher starts a jogging club after school. I go to the first meet. We all run around the gym for 10 minutes, then we all are completely wasted. Nobody goes back.”

“In University, a guy I know tells me he ran a marathon the year before. Unbelievable. He must be crazy.”

“1984, I’m 20 years old. I'm doing a work term during my 3rd year in University. I’m so out of shape it’s not even funny. I’m trying to start running. I can’t get past running 10 minutes. Someone at the office says it gets better. When?”

“A few years later, out of school, someone gives me a training guide from the Montreal Marathon. It has a beginner’s program. This is a revelation. A training program. Who knew? There is a method to this madness. I start running regularly.”

“Couple of months later, I’m running my first 10km race. I turn around, the police motorcycle is right behind me. I pick up the pace a bit and I pass an old guy with a few hundred meters to go. I’m not last.”

“After a long run a few weeks before the Montreal marathon, my IT band hurts like hell and I decide to take a few days rest. I won’t run again for 2 years.”

“New contract at work, a few people run at lunch so I start again. I’m now 25, maybe 26. I’m running my second 10k race ever. I started way too fast but I hung in there. I see the finish now and it’s under 50 minutes. Unbelievable. I sprint as hard as I can and finish in 49:55.”

“I’m 31 years old and I’m trying to start running, yet again. My youngest one just won’t sleep and I’m so tired all the time. I’m pushing a double “running” stroller with both kids in it. They loved it last time. Now they’re fighting and it hasn’t even been 10 minutes. Damn.”

“June 2000. I’m in the middle of a lake in Sydenham, Ontario. I’m sitting in a kayak so tippy, I can hardly move. I’ve signed up for the master’s program of flat water sprint kayaking. I’m on the starting line for my first race ever. The gun goes off. I lean forward for my first stroke. I tip on the line.”

“Three years later, I’m paddling in a canal, down in Florida. A bunch of us came for a ‘training camp’. I really enjoy the long 2 or 3 hour outings. Maybe I’m more of a distance guy.”

“August 6, 2007, I go out for my first run. I’m trying to improve my cardio for kayaking.”

“September 2007, I’m in a sea of people for the Run For The Cure 5k. Unbelievable. Never seen so many runners in one spot. They say there might be 30,000 people. I believe it.”

“Early 2008, browsing the Burlington Runners website, I’m looking for a medium distance race in my ramp up for my first marathon, which I would like to run in the Fall. I find the Sulphur Springs Trail Run. They have a 25km trail race. They also say they have a 50k, 50 miles and 100 miles race. What the fuck are they talking about? Nobody can run 100 miles.”

“May 2008, 6:00AM. I got to the Sulphur Springs race early so I can see the 50 and 100 miles start. What kind of people do stuff like that? They look ridiculously ordinary. When the race starts, some just start walking. I don’t understand.”

“October 2008. I’m about 30km into my first marathon. I might have to punch the guy behind me right in the face. he’s been huffing and puffing for the last 2 hours right in my ear. Pfff! Pfff! Pffff! He hasn’t said anything, he’s just right there, a foot behind me. I finish in 3:27 and qualify for Boston. Unbelievable.”

"April Fool's 5km run, Burlington. My lungs are on fire. I turn the last corner and I see the finish line. The clock says 19:something. Jeee-zus. I dig even deeper, finding energy I didn't know I had and I finish in 19:52. Unbelievable."

“May 2009. I had signed up for Boston, but got sidetracked in my training and never made it there. I just finished my first 50 miler at Sulphur Springs. Hard as hell, but not as hard as I thought.”

“July 2009, Triathlon Saguenay. I just finished the race ahead of all those same childhood friends who used to be ahead of me when we were kids. I feel vindicated. I'm 45 years old and I'm in the best shape of my life. Only took me 40 years to finally run faster than them.”

“September 2009, mile 35 of Haliburton Forest 50 miler. I hear: ‘Are you allright?’. I reply: ‘Sure, just a bit tired.’ Fuck, I’m not all right. I might pass out right there. How the hell am I supposed to finish that race? I think I will sit on that rock and cry a bit. If only I could be sure that nobody else is coming...”

“January 2010. You know there’s something wrong with you when you wake up in your backyard, in a sleeping bag and bivy sack in -20C weather. It’s 2am and I’m driving up north for a long run in the dark. I’m registered for my first 100 miles race up in Alaska next month. Like that makes it ok.”

“A month later, around mile 45 of the Susitna 100. It’s about 1am. It’s -20C and the snow is nice and hard. Perfect running weather. I see the incoming light of the first runner going back towards the finish. I've seen a lot of cyclists and skiers but no runner yet. It’s my new friend Dave. We exchange a few words, then we go our separate ways, he to win the foot division, me towards the turn around. Can’t believe I’m here. Sometimes, I stop, turn my light off and look at the sky. This is definitely the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

“July, Creemore, Ontario. I’m listening to Kinga, who’s been talking non-stop for what feels like hours. I sometimes give a feeble reply, threatening to quit. I’m experiencing a total system failure in what should have been an easy-ish 50k race. The 30C+ temperature got the better of me. If I quit I will probably have to walk to the finish anyway, so I keep going.”

I’m not sure where running will take me now. The Haliburon 100 miler is in 10 days. After that, I don’t have definite plans. All I know is that I wouldn’t trade my running memories for all the gold in the world. Unbelievable.

ITT, I Barely Knew You

2010-08-21T23:55:00.001-04:00

Three weeks before Haliburton, the Iroquoia Trail Test is the little ultra that could. IT is, as far as I know, the only race that counts in the OUS rankings with less than 50km. The ITT has a way of making me feel slow. Being shorter, it attracts a different mix of people, fast trail runners who typically don’t participate in longer events.

It was my second ITT. Last year I had a pretty good race but I got lost for a good 15 minutes. My plan this year (actually Derrick’s plan) was to go easy on the initial loop, push a bit harder on the way out and then give a good effort on the way back. Sounded like a good plan to me.

After what was essentially a sleepless night (2 hours of sleep) because of non-race related events, I picked up John McAlister (of TrailFooted fame) and we drove to Kilbride, arriving there around 6:45. That gave us time to chat with other runners and at 8am, we started.

Did I mention something about feeling slow? The very large majority of runners took off like bats out of hell. Most of the slower runners had started at the early 7am start, so there were only a few people behind me. I ran the first loop with “The Mod Squad” (see Limberlost report): Adi, Steve and me. We ran that loop really easy in 53 minutes. After looping back to the school, we headed out on towards Rattlesnake Point on the Bruce trail. The terrain slowly became more and more challenging. Although I enjoy running in group, my plan was to pick up the pace a bit and I soon noticed that I had lost my group. I was running well but not hard. In a more technical section, my foot caught something, I started flailing and I knew I was falling. I knew it was going to hurt because there were nasty, pointy rocks everywhere. There would be no rolling. At impact, I felt something hit my kneecap, my right shoulder hit something hard and my neck cracked. I had yelled like a little girl and I heard someone asking if I was ok. I took stock, sitting up and then standing up. A bit of pain, but it felt ok. I told the runners and they kept going.

For a few minutes, I was really careful and then slowly picked it up. I had almost wrecked my Haliburton 100 miler. Gulp. Just before getting on a long bridge, I see David (see his blog here). He had mentioned he was going for 3h30 but from what I knew of the trail, either he was going way faster than that or I was on a 5 hour pace. After the bridge is a long uphill and then a nice runnable stretch to the turnaround where I refilled my handheld. On the way in, you see people that are ahead of you. As you get close to the turnaround, you see people you have a hope of catching up to. I see Chris about 800m from the turnaround, a bit far for me to catch up.

Yes, my handheld. I ditched my vest. It’s just so darn hard to refill. Also, I find I run better on Sport drinks than on water and gels. Anyway, by then I was just totally dripping with sweat and covered in dirt. It was not really hot but it was humid and my clothes were just saturated with water. I get to the turnaround in 2:20:00, for a split of 1:27 for the out section. Following the plan, I increased pressure again. Going pretty fast on that downhill I had climbed minutes earlier, my foot hits something and I fall again, hard. F@ck me! I am so pissed off! From then on, everyone I meet will make a comment about my falls. I scraped my right leg but nothing more. I was going faster but the ground wasn’t as rocky this time around. Back to the bridge and then starts a long section that, for me at least, is just not runnable. Every time I hit better terrain, I run hard but in the first half, those sections are few and far between. Slowly, the trail improves and there’s more and more decent running to be done. I’m passing people now and then. You can’t see very far ahead so it’s hard to go into “catch up” mode, since you never see anyone. All of a sudden, someone just seems to appear right in front of you.

I ran the last 5k or so pretty hard and finished in 3:44:22. The back section took 1h23min, a full 4 minutes faster than on the way out. I felt pretty good, much less tired than last year. My last few races have felt really good and I feel like I'm as ready as I can be for Haliburton, given the limited mileage I did in training.

I will miss you ITT.

Almost There

2010-08-16T16:02:00.002-04:00

Driving 100 miles on the highway, at 60 miles an hour, takes about an hour and a half. On rural roads, going at about 45mph it can takes well over two hours and it's a fairly long car ride.

As September 11th approaches, the sheer absurdity of running a hundred miles is starting to assert itself. It doesn't matter that I've done it once before. That experience has taken a dream-like quality where all I can remember is relentless, neverending forward motion but without much emotional content, except for a few exhilarating moments which I remember with amazing clarity. I am not certain how that race will help me at Haliburton, except for the fact that it at least proves that I'm crazy enough to do it.

Unexpectedly, I have found people willing to pace me. I still cannot believe it. One of my co-worker, his wife and possibly their son are going to drive all the way from Quebec City, a friggin' long drive, to run with me overnight. They offered spontaneously; I never asked! Unbelievable. They will relay each other, driving from aid station to aid station and resting while one of them runs with me so I will have both a pacer AND a crew!

The fact that it takes 2 or 3 average runners to be able to run 40 miles with me, an average ultrarunner, even after I've already run 60 by myself, really drives home how alien ultrarunning is. Obviously, their fear that I will run too fast for them is hilarious. I keep trying to describe how tired I'm going to be but it has hit home yet. They have never been at an ultra so they are in for a treat when they see my face on Saturday night. Last weekend they bought head-lamps and they are really excited about the whole running-in-the-dark-with-the-bears (and wolves) thing and I think this is going to be an amazing boost to my morale. It almost feels like cheating, but I'll take it.

My clinic at the Running Room is going well. I have a core group of runners who are pretty motivated, show up at most practice runs and probably run on their own when they don't come. Sunday on my long run after the clinic, I actually saw one of "my people" running on the Discovery Trail, after having overslept and missed the practice. I was so proud of her. It's so hard to start running and even harder to keep it up for long enough so that you start identifying as a runner. I really enjoy the fact that it's a beginner's clinic. It's harder in the sense that a lot of people seem to have given up already but on the other hand, the people who still come are really eager and ask a lot of questions.

Next weekend is the Iroquoia Trail Test, a "shorter" 32km race, but a tough one because of the really difficult terrain as well as the fact that people tend to take a wrong turn a leat once for some reason. Probably because one has to keep their eyes on the trail. Derrick wants me to run it fairly strong so I will probably suffer a bit. I've trained on the Rattlesnake Point trails quite a few times and the ITT course uses some of those so this will hopefully help a bit. Wish me luck.

Back from the Brink at Dirty Girls

2010-08-08T13:58:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, Saturday August 7th, was my first Dirty Girls (DG) race. Last year I had some prior commitments and couldn’t do it. This year, I signed up for the 12 hour race. DG offers a number of events: 30k, 6hr, 12hr and 24hr. The course is a 10km loop. The course apparently has been changed quite a bit this year and people I talked to were unanimous: it’s harder now.

I was dubious about running this long, with Haliburton only a few weeks away, but it didn’t seem to faze anyone else, many people going signing up for the 24hr event. A lot of 12hr and 24hr runners drove up on Friday and camped but Mansfield isn’t that far and I drove early in the morning and got there with time to spare. I chatted with a few people, including a few who had run Burning River 100 the prior weekend. Kinga and Stephan were taking a break by volunteering at the 5km aid station for the whole 24 hour. A couple of or BR100 people were actually signed up for the 24hr event. Unbelievable.

My plan was simple, run about 50 miles and stop if I didn’t have time for a full loop before the 12hr was done. You can keep running until the end of your event but DG will recognize only 1/4 loop increments (2.5km). Then you have to walk back. To me, this was purely a training event. I wanted to test my nutrition, my pacing, my water system and, of course, my fitness.

The 6, 12 and 24hr races started at 8AM. We actually had chips, which is pretty rare in a long event like this. The weather was cool, probably 15C, but a bit humid. Still, it was better running weather than what we’ve had for most recent races.

The course begins with a low grade uphill that keeps on giving. On the first loop, we ran quite a bit of it but on following loops, I rarely ran much for the first 12 minutes. The flat sections were rare. The downhills were steep and rocky. By the 5k aid station, I was already wondering about those 50 miles. Didn’t feel like I was making much progress and I needed an average of 1h30 per loop, which I had thought wouldn’t be an issue. A few of the uphills were really long and steep, sucking the energy right out of your legs. I finished my first loop in 1h21, including a stop at the porta-potty. I felt like I had been pretty conservative, but the first loop is tricky because your body is just so strong. I had been eating gels and Nature Valley bars regularly. It was getting warmer but not hot.

Things were going well until the 5th loop. My pace was getting slower but that was to be expected. The wheels came off a bit. Eating the gels was difficult. I switched to NV bars, but I didn’t feel that much better. After a climb, getting back to running was difficult. Back at the start area after the 5th loop (50km), I felt pretty bad. On that loop, my time had been 1h40 and I knew that 50 miles (8 loops) was no longer an option. I briefly wondered if maybe I should just stop. I didn’t feel horrible, but the gravitational pull of seeing all your stuff around your comfy chair is really strong. A guy was drinking a cold beer right beside my chair. It looked so good.

I was feeling a bit nauseous. Something had to be done. My nutrition wasn’t working. I decided to stop the solids and switch to sport drink. My problem is that I don’t really like Heed if it’s not ice cold. I filled my bottle with 1/3 ice and the rest Heed and I got going. Stopping had not really been an option. It was just nice to pretend that I could put an end to this.

The 6th loops was both the worst and the best loop of the race. The worst one because it was my slowest one, in the 1:45 range. The best one because I came back to life on that loop. About 2km into the loop, I was running pretty slow and going down a long hill, I passed a wreck of a guy. He was walking down, chatting with another female runner. I recognized him because he had lapped me on the previous loop. I slowed down a bit and he decided to follow. I decided to stick around with him for a while. I needed some rest and he could use the diversion. So we jogged/walked for a while. After a km or so I could feel him pull and I told him to go. A few 100 meters later I passed him while he puked about a liter of liquid on the side of the trail. I reached the 5k aid station in pretty good spirits,considering that only 5k before, I had considered quitting, however briefly. They had, of all things, grilled cheese sandwiches. After a while without solid food, I decided to try one and I slowly ate it walking away on the road. It felt surprisingly good. Actually, I felt pretty good. My pace on the first 5k had been really slow, but now I felt pretty darn good.

I had read and heard a low about getting out of bad patches. Personally, although I had experienced going from horrible to bad, I had never made it back to feeling good. Well, by the end of that 6th loop, even though that loop was the slowest of the day, I felt like a million bucks. I decided to test this miraculous recovery on the 7th loop. I wanted to know if this was a fickle feeling that would go away as soon as I pushed a bit or if this was something more substantial. I decided to leave my legs on the course on that last loop. When I plan on suffering, I make deals with myself about the limits. There’s a part of my brain that seems to need to know the worst case scenario. In this case, the deal was that we would run as hard as we could without puking and in exchange, we weren’t going back out for a partial loop, no matter who tried to convince me to go back out.

The guy I had helped passed me at some point and when I got to the start/finish area he was still there trying to figure out how to revive himself. I stuffed my face with fruit, Charlotte gave me a big chunk of cantaloupe from her personal stash. On my way out, I told him I was now officially un-lapped. He was now less than a lap ahead. He said he would catch up and I told him he could try.

I started the loop and ran the shallower hills on that first uphill stretch. Not quite as much as on the first loop, but more than in any other loop. I felt pretty friggin’ good. Sometimes, after a longer uphill push, I started to feel nauseous and I walked until the feeling receded but my general energy level remained high, even with the effort level I was sustaining. I got to the 5k aid station in what felt like no time, and then it was time for the final push. At about 7k, I hear something and here’s my new friend, apparently recovered, right behind me. Damn. When he catches up I let him pass and off he goes, slowly pulling away. But not pulling away that fast. I still feel like I’m running strong. The big difference, compared with the first couple of loops, are the downhills. I just can’t go down as fast when the footing is questionable. I’m afraid my foot will not do exactly what I want it to do and I’m going to end up flat on my face. About 2k from the finish, there’s a short out and back where you can see other runners that are within a few minutes from you. My pal is not that far ahead. The last section has a sign that says: “Single track to the end”. I know there’s not 10 minutes left. I decide to go all out just to see what happens. I run the uphills (well, maybe I walk the one). I’m a running machine. I see movement up ahead. Ah! I sprint and catch up shortly before the field. We come out of the forest at the same time and he is gracious enough to let me get on the mat before him, thereby un-lapping me officially. By him anyhow. I got lapped numerous times, even double lapped by a couple of people.

As expected, well meaning people tried to convince me to go out for a partial loop. But I had made a deal and I only smiled. Sitting in my chair, I saw a number of people come out of the woods and then go back out and I marvelled at their mental fortitude. I guess they made different deals.

DG was a great race for me. Experiencing this comeback blew my mind. I’m sure it wouldn’t have lasted forever, but it sure lasted longer than I thought. Just knowing that my body is capable of that is an amazing boost before Haliburton.

Do I regret not going back out? After all, the point of the race is the distance you run, not how fast you run. Not really. Of course, all those people will move ahead of me in the official results but I satisfied that I accomplished what I needed todo for myself.

I’ll post my official lap and finish times when they come out.

6 Weeks to Haliburton

2010-08-01T12:57:00.000-04:00

This has been an excellent training week. Ever since Limberlost, I've been feeling ridiculously good. I think that I've come to term with the fact that I need to train slow if I'm going to have a good race at Haliburton. Limberlost was, for me, almost effortless. I've been trying to use that same level of effort in training. Also, I've watched "Indulgence", the movie about Anton Kupicka. His stride seems so easy. He has this fast strike rate, but very economical, his feet landing right under him, that makes him look like he's just out for a light jog. Tap, tap, tap,tap... Obviously, he's probably going twice as fast as me when he does that, but what's important is the perceived effort. I've watched other videos, including Josh Cox's 31 mile training run, but those guys are just friggin' flying at close to their marathon pace, which is faster than my 5k pace (WAY faster) so it's hard for me to relate. I'm just not in the same genetic running specie. I just watch in awe.

So I've been prancing around in my "Anton" stride, running slower than ever but still aware that this is faster than I will be running in Haliburton, so who cares? This week's run have all felt ridiculously easy, except for the hill training/tempo combo on Wednesday that nearly did me in. Yesterday's goal for my long run was 4 hours and that's pretty much what I did (3h 53min). I ran a total of 35k on pretty hard surface and although the first 3 hours felt really easy, the last hour was a bit of a grind. City runs over 3 hours are just long, especially at this point of my training where pretty much every weekend I run long. Thank god for races, where you run on trail and talk to other runners. I guess I could have driven to a trail, but my wife is starting to resent how much time I spend running and I don't want to add the extra 2 or 3 hours required to drive to Rattlesnake point or Terra Cotta. Small price to pay but that last hour yesterday was just such a grind!

Yesterday though, I was actually quite spent after my run and that made me question whether running the 12H race at Dirty Girl next weekend is a good idea. Is running a 50 miler (give or take a few miles) 6 weeks before Haliburton too much for me? Not sure. Anyway, I'm going to go for sure because whatever I decide to do this week, the course is a 10k loop that makes it easy to run whatever distance I decide to run. It's all paid for anyway so might as well enjoy it.

In other news, this week was my first week teaching the "Learn To Run" clinic at the Rosedale Running Room. I have about 15 runners-to-be. This is a true beginner's class and we're not running much yet (7 bouts of 1 min running/2 min walking) but we're going to increase the pressure slowly but surely. Pretty much everybody was there at Monday's class and run, but it was a lot quieter on Wedesday evening and this morning, with about 6 runners showing up for practice. It is a long weekend so hopefully, things will pick up this week. I'm sure prople have run on their own this week.

The group seems quite motivated and people ask a lot of questions so I've been enjoying myself. They keep me busy talking and I keep forgetting to stop after 60 seconds of running. Too bad I won't be there for the Run for the Cure, I would have enjoyed running it with those who want to try a 5k. Maybe I'll try to find another race around that time.

That'sit for me this week.

Giving Back

2010-07-24T16:50:00.000-04:00

Well, it had to happen eventually. The urge to give back overcame common sense and this Monday I will begin teaching the “Learn to Run” clinic at the Rosedale Running Room. What was I thinking? Where will it stop? Am I going to end up digging a well somewhere or poking at the ground with a stick in some faraway land, looking for unexploded mines?

I’m not sure whether I will be an inspiring teacher, but I decided to give it a try. I’m excited about the fact that this is a beginner’s clinic. Once someone starts running, they get set in their own belief system very quickly and I won’t have to deal with that. People signing up for the clinic are obviously interested and want to learn, so it should be a blast.

The fact that they will be running slowly is not a problem for me. As an ultra runner, running slow and walk breaks are concepts that II am very comfortable with. The clinic’s goal is basically to build them up from no (or very little) running, up to the RR standard of being able to run a couple of intervals of 10 minutes run/ 1 minute walk. After that, equipped with all the knowledge I will be imparting upon those poor souls, they will be ready to move up the RR clinic pyramid.

It looks like I will have a fairly small class. I’m not really surprised, the hot and humid weather at this time of summer is not really attractive for someone trying to start running. I’m sure many people are telling themselves that they will start running in September. Still, a small group (there are currently 12 people signed up) is ok, as long as I don’t lose too many over the next 10 weeks. Attrition is always a big problem with beginners. Apparently, the current clinic started with 35 people and only 7 showed up last week. Yikes.

I’ll let you know how things go.

Redemption at The Limberlost Challenge

2010-07-19T14:34:00.000-04:00

It's weird to talk about redemption after taking over 8h 35min to run 56 km, but what can I say? This was my best run ever. It wasn't my best RACE ever because quite frankly, racing is not exactly what I did on Saturday, but before TLC, I cannot remember running with such "effortlessness". Even after running 56km, I still had that feeling that you have at around 15k when you feel like you could run forever.

I didn't get much sleep on Friday night. My 16 year old daughter had picked that night to go to a party and after some negotiations, we agreed that if I woke up after midnight and there wasn't a text message on my phone that she was in a taxi and on her way, I would shame her by going to that party, actually go inside and take her home, spelling the end of her social life. I set my alarm clock for 3:50AM, went to bed at 11:30, got woken up by said daughter at 12:30, started thinking about the race, finally fell asleep and then woke up at 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. After my morning ritual, I jumped in the car and picked up Kim and Chris out in the West end. My Garmin GPS took us for a 20 minute detour in some small roads somewhere near Limberlost. I have NO idea what that was all about, but we lost 20 minutes driving aimlessly around, following directions. Weird.

We got there with plenty of time, setup base camp, covered myself with bug repellent, got my bib and proceeded to shoot the shit with the usual suspects. This race made me nervous. This season has not been kind to me. I feel like I'm in a bit of a funk. All my races have hit me pretty hard, even when I tried to go easy like at Seaton and PYP. Even going at what should have been a fairly easy pace, I finished those races exhausted. Sulphur was a mental disaster and Creemore was a physical one. Things felt like they were falling apart, getting worse instead of better, making me wonder if going for 100 miles at Haliburton was realistic.
I decided to run from the back and hook up with Adie and Steve, who often use that strategy. Steve is a stronger runner than me and Adie usually has a pace similar to mine although she kicked my butt at Creemore. At around 9am, someone started talking in a microphone and eventually the race started. There were a lot of people there, with the 14k, 28k and 56k runners all starting together. We started toward the back and the first few km were more walking than running. There were a few traffic jams to go over small bridges or single file uphills. Eventually though, people spread out and we settled into an easy pace.

The course was beautiful, probably the nicest course of any race I've done. You run near lakes, the trail has a soft feel under your feet (especially when sinking up to your knee in mud!), it's challenging, what can I say? It was just great. The weather wasn't hot yet but it was quite humid. The course was well marked, with markers every km, which was nice because the course was curiously slow and covering a km took way longer than one expected. The course has no ridiculous climbs or difficulty, but there's always a little somethin'-somethin' to prevent you from keeping a steady pace. The aid stations were well placed at 3.9 and 8.8 km, extremely well stocked (they still had ice even in the 4th loop) serving the usual ultra fare. They even had Nature Valley bars, a personal favorite.

We finished the first loop about 2h 4min, which is an unbelievably long time but we never got passed, at least not while running. One of my goal during that race was to test other hydration systems. I have a feeling that I don't drink enough using my hydration vest because it's difficult to estimate how much is left. For the first loop, I had decided to try my brand-new never-used Camelback "Delaney Race" waist bottle holder. It has a nice pouch in the front where I can stash my Advils and Salt pills and two flask holders for gel bottles. Once it settled on my waist, it was fantastic. The water stayed nice and cool and I barely felt it. After the first loop I decided to stick with it. Once we all refilled our bottles and ate a bit, we took off for the second loop.
I was feeling fantastic. I was drinking more than usual and eating regularly. It was on the warm side, but the trails were well covered and the sun rarely reached us. I had decided to run without a cap on that loop and immediately regretted it when the sweat started to pour into my eyes. Damn. We settled into our pace, taking turn at the front pulling the group forward. At some point we stopped at a small beach and washed the salt off our face in the lake water. Bliss. Running in a pack like this gives you a weird sense of power, especially once you start overtaking people which we started doing late on the second loop. To be frank, that's also when we got lapped by the two leaders. I'm not sure if they were running the 28k or the 56k, but they were ripping it. We finished the second loop in about the same time at about 2h 10min.
For the 3rd loop, I decided to switch to two handheld bottles, even though I still thought that hte belt was the cat's meow. I wanted to try other options, so it was time to switch. I put my hat back on, put one of my gel flasks into a small belt, grabbed the two 20oz handhelds and took off with what was now "the Mod Squad".We walked a bit going up the road, polishing off our melon and Nature Vally bars. Eventually, Steve said something like "are we going to run?" and we broke into what was now our group pace.

I was still feeling extremely good after 30km. I had been monitoring how I felt for a while, remembering how the wheels had fallen off suddenly at around 25km at Creemore. No sign of weakness. I had a big decision to make. Adie was very happy with the pace and Steve was racing with her. Should I push on or stick with "the Mod Squad"? What did "Redemption" mean to me? Why was I there? What did I need? Why did I decide to come, after telling everyone that I wouldn't do this race? I decided that what I needed was a race where after putting a solid effort, I still felt strong. Speed had no meaning, here. We were picking off other runners regularly, noone was passing us. The pack feeling was a bit intoxicating, if to be honest. We would see movement up ahead. The leader would tell the other two and you could feel the pace just pick up a bit. Sometimes it would take 30 minutes to reel someone in. They would hear us come from behind and some would try to pick it up but we never saw anyone we didn't catch up to. So I decided to stick with "the Squad". The 3rd loop was the slowest one, I'm not quite sure why and I'm not quite sure by how much, probably something like 2:15.

Back at home base (aka my chair), I dumped the hand held and went back to the belt. I found that the water got warm too fast and I wasn't used to running with them. I heard Steve yelling my name and I went back out. Even after 3 loops and more than 6 hours of running, I was feeling great. I had a huge smile across my face and when people told me "only one loop to go", I didn't want to punch them in the face.

After a couple of km, Adie told us she was having a bit of a hard time. Steve told me to ignore her. We lined up behind her to make sure we weren't going faster than she was comfortable and kept going. We we going to finish together. We still passed a couple of people. All of a sudden, about 5km into the loop (can't be sure exactly), a girl comes from behind and passes us! When she passes Adie, she says something about smelling the finish line. You would have thought that she had spit in Adie's face. Not 300 meters later, we're passing her back and we never saw her again. Adie had picked up the pace quite a bit and it's not going down. We're passing people we know were well ahead of us and it's a good feeling. With only a few km to go, I'm still feeling great. I'm drining, I'm eating, I'm taking in some salt. The humidity has come down a bit and my clothes aren't as wet as in the second loop. The wind is really nice. We pass one last girl and shortly after that we get to the road for the final stretch. We finish in something like 8h 35min, which seems like an unbelievably long time for 56km but even though we weren't going really fast, we weren't going that slow either. The thing is, I felt like I could go for another loop.

After the finish, we immediately jumped in the lake and it was the perfect end to a great race.

I probably could have run this race significantly faster. Probably. But I would have missed out on something that up until now I had only experienced during Susitna: the feeling that I could run forever. I needed to experience that feeling again before Haliburton. Thank you Adie and Steve for letting me run with you and helping me remember what it feels like to run forever.

Signed up for TLC

2010-07-13T09:30:00.001-04:00

Before Creemore, I had pretty much decided against running the Limberlost Challenge, way up in Huntsville. I’m not a friend of the bugs, although THEY like (love?) me just fine. I prefer my forests covered with snow and free of mosquitoes and deer flies.

Well, it is summer and as the week progressed my need for redemption kept growing. Finally, I Google-mapped the directions and found out that it’s “only” a 3 hour drive. With a 9am start, it’s an easy morning drive so I decided to sign up; after all as the “grand prize” winner, I get a free entry! This will be a lot more fun than running a double long run all by myself on boring city trails.

Training went ok last week, although it was damn hot. I’ve been looking at sweat rates, nutrition, electrolytes and all things related to running in ridiculously hot weather. I now have even more questions and fewer answers.

Only two months until Haliburton. That’s 8 weeks and a bit. If you take out a 3 week taper, this leaves only 5 actual weeks of training which can positively affect the race. In the last 3 weeks, you can only screw it up.

Creemore Vertical Challenge 2010

2010-07-05T14:01:00.002-04:00

I’ve had a couple of days to ponder Creemore. I shook my Eightball and it says: Signs Point to Nutrition. It’s probably right, but I feel like I was doing pretty good until the wheels fell off. I can deny, cry and whine but the fact remains: I have been judged and found wanting.

I read my SportsTrack entry for CVS (Creemore Vertical Challenge) last year (2009) and it said: “My best ultra race ever.” Same with my blog entry: “Most intelligent trail race yet”. Wow, what a difference a few degrees make.

I drove up to Creemore with Chris and Kim. They got a Zip car, picked me up at 5:30am and we got there with time to spare. The weather was already warm. I wasn’t worried. I had a plan, I knew the course and finally, it was only 50k: how bad could it get? Right...

There’s nothing to say about the first loop. It was warm but not horrible. I ran with my pal Steve and we had a conservative pace. Toward the end he took off to catch up to someone he knows but that was fine. I stuck to the plan: easy pace, eat and drink every 30 minutes. The one thing that did happen is that I got a side stitch on the right side after going down a long, steep hill. We went down fairly fast, but what can you do? It was steep. The stitch faded but never completely. I didn’t know it at the time but my fate was sealed.

I finished my first loop in exactly 3 hours and I was really happy with that. I replaced my nearly empty gel bottle (5 gels) with a new one, refilled my bladder and got going. I still felt good although I did feel like I was going a bit slower. Then, someone passed me. Then I heard voices behind me and got passed again. And then again. Every time I tried to increase the pace, my stitch would come back. In the never ending uphill section, I was still in good spirit but I was starting to get worried about that stitch. WTF? I never get stitches at a slow pace.

It was hot. It was damn hot. The was little or no shade. At the 35k mark I saw Chris coming the other way, looking like someone wondering what the hell he’s doing there. It actually made me feel a bit better. I though he would be much further ahead. Misery likes company. I was craving ice cold beverages. then, with the next aid station in view, a thought popped into my head: “why don’t I just ask for a ride”? What’s the point of finishing this pain-fest? Then, as I was finishing a cup of water and ice, I saw Kinga coming into the aid station. I figure I’ll try running with her to the next aid station around 40k and see what happens.

I became Kinga’s project. I’ll never know if I would have quit. I don’t think I would have but that’s beside the point. Every time I talked about it, Kinga would freak out. Personally, I don’t have a big issue with dnf’s, given the right reasons. I was trying to discuss those conditions with Kinga, but basically, for her, there is no such thing outside of a broken limb below the belly button. And even then, I remember her telling me about her thoughts on duct taping a broken ankle, at last Winter’s training run in Creemore. This should give you an idea of what I was dealing with.

I was starting to feel bad for her, because truth be told, if I decided that I should quit, then I would and I was starting to worry that she would be mad at me. The point is, if I was going to quit, 35k was the place to do it because after that you only have 10k to go so what’s the point of even quitting? They’d probably ask me to walk back anyway.

So we walked the uphills, some of the flats. By then it wasn’t just the stitch. I had been out there for longer than expected. I was experiencing an honest to god bonk. I was still forcing myself to eat and drink, but probably less than I should. I was worried that I wasn’t drinking enough to digest my salt pills, which I had been taking fairly regularly although probably not enough.

Did I mention the heat? I was just unbelievable. There was no shade to speak of. here and there, you could catch 10 seconds of shade but that was it. There was some wind in some places but mostly, it was just damn hot. Running in the tall grass, with rising humidity from the ground and no air was oppressive.

After the last aid station, I started to feel quite nauseous after hard efforts. There are two extremely steep ditches where you actually have to pull yourself out using a rope and at the top of both of them I thought that was it. But then, you start hearing the people at the finish line and you know it’s over. We jogged to the bridge and then the finish and it was all over.

Laying down in that river a few minutes later was just pure bliss. It was just unbelievable. Someone mentioned that that race had the best “after-race” setup and it’s so true. Talking to other runners, I could tell that I wasn’t the only one who had a tough time.

I’ve had hard races. My 50 miler at Haliburton last year was extremely hard for me but I eventually recovered somewhat in the last 10k. This race was harder. The stitch, the bonk and the heat together made this close to the limit of what I’m willing to endure for “fun”. One thing Kinga said made sense: “the reason we run ultras it to experience extremes. Well, experience it!”. In other words, be careful what you wish for.

After all this, it’s funny to think that I’ll be there next year asking for more.

Quick Update : Creemore Vertical Challenge

2010-07-04T09:56:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update about CVS yesterday.

I won't write a full race report because I'm still not sure what happened yesterday. Well, I know what happened: after a near perfect first loop, a side stitch got progressively worse, then I totally bonked and never recovered. Most of the second loop was a death march under the near-ever present sun, in oppressive heat, with Kinga Miklos cheering me on and providing constant entertainment.

This was my personal Waterloo. On that day, for me, it was the hardest race I've ever ran. I added almost 1h30 to last year's time. I ate, I drank, I walked the hills, I took my salt tablets. What did I miss?

I'm still struggling with some things: what happened?; should I have called it quits and dnf'd at 35k?; did finishing that race make me stronger or made me question my mental toughness?

As you can see, much happened under the Creemore punishing sun and I'll let you know when I sort it all out. It's still too raw.

Much Ado About Nothin'

2010-06-25T10:27:00.001-04:00

Nothing much to report. Training is proceeding as planned. I've slowed down my easy run a lot and I'm starting to see positive results, with my hr being noticeably lower during my easy runs. I'm no big fan of hr monitors except that I find that they keep me honest on slow runs. For faster runs, I prefer to use a pace-based approach because hr is a bit of a crap shoot that goes up and down at the slightest hill, according to the weather or what time you went to bed the previous evening. For slow runs I don't care since they are supposed to be slow. Of course, I have to suffer the humiliation of being passed by basically everybody and their sister, but such is the life of the ultra distance runner.

Creemore Elevation Profile from my Garmin (2 loops)

Can you believe it, Creemore is next weekend! The biggest challenge for me in that race is the length of the hills. They just keep going. I had a pretty good race last year. I actually ran negative splits (2h54 and 2h51 for a 5h45) despite equipment failure (my Nathan bladder split open) and increasing heat. I'm going to try the same strategy again, maybe going even slower on the first loop and then I'll try to run some of the hills on the second loop. We'll see what happens. Should be a fun race.

Like I said, not much to report. That's all she wrote.

Dude, Where's My First Gear?

2010-06-12T14:03:00.000-04:00

I know it's customary to dismiss technology. Well, I'm a nerd and although I agree that running without electronics can feel more natural than running with a quarter pound GPS watch and a HR monitor strap collecting more data than NASA does on a space shuttle flight, it's always interesting to be able to look back and compare numbers.

Cause my friends, it's easy to lie to yourself. When that happens, the main symptom of self-delusion is running too fast in your easy runs. Now I don't want to generalize, but looking at people huffin' and puffin' out there on Sunday mornings, it's a pretty common mistake.

I'm not sure how it happened to me. I think that the big problem is that running faster feels good. My stride feels more natural, the hormones start flowing, your whole body feels good. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Problem is, instead of running in zone 1, I end up running in zone 2 or 3, which can also be sustained for quite a long time.

So what's the problem, you ask? Well, after a few runs collecting data and comparing with the exact same routes last year, I have to face the facts, running at my "50 miles on road ultra pace", my hr has increased by nearly 10 bpm over the last year. I believe that my ability to use fat as fuel has decreased instead of improved over that time. Of course, other factors probably come into play: I gained about 8 pounds, my mileage is not as high and my life is more stressful.

So here's my plan: run a lot and run a lot slower. Running fast feels good, but it doesn't cause the right physiological adaptations for running a 100 miler.The only fuel source that is available to your body after the first few hours is fat. The glycogen is all gone. You burn close to 1000 calories every hours, yet you can't eat much more than 200 without puking. You do the math. Those calories have to come from somewhere. The speed you can sustain is basically dictated by how fast you can run on a 20% glycogen/fat ratio. Some people can run ridiculously fast under those conditions. Most of us mere mortal can barely run. But we can train to improve what pathetic speed we can achieve under those conditions.

Running slow brings about the adaptations that are needed to run on fat. It's boring. But I often use the quote "the will to race starts with the will to train". Haliburton is my A race, so even though my so-called racing doesn't mean much, it means I will try my best, so I need to train the right way.

The problem with running slow is that it's not very good training. There's a reason that hard training sessions are called "quality" sessions. Quality sessions pack a lot more punch per hour than slow running. Way more. But you can only do a limited amount of hard running every week before your body starts getting behind on repairs and ultimately gets injured. So a balance is needed. The point is, you do your quality sessions hard, and your easy runs slow. There's very little place for medium runs, which I have done a lot in the past few months, pretending they were "real" easy runs. They weren't easy, they just felt good.

So that's my plan: run slower, do one or two solid quality sessions per week, increase my mileage and hopefully that will take care of my extra few pounds. That, my friends, will bring me to Haliburton in tip top shape and leave me with no choice but to run the race of my life.

Post Race Rambling

2010-06-09T12:24:00.001-04:00

This post is more of a personal journal entry. Before a race, I like re-reading those entries. They are a bit narcissistic, but hey!, this is blogging and you don't have to read it. This post explores how my mental game has changed, now that this shiny new toy called ultra running is not so new and shiny anymore. I've never DNF'd, but my ultra "career" hasn't been that long and I've run only 4 races with distances of 50 miles or more (three 50 milers and one 100 miler). I can't speak for other runners, but those are the distances that truly get under my skin. My prepared answer to myself for those moments where I wonder if I should quit is: "Am I doing any long term damage?". Up until now the answer has been no, so I've kept running.

Up until now though, I didn't quite realize that running those distances for the first time, I was drawing strength from a deeper well, what I shall call "the newbie well": I had to know whether I could do it. In my first races, it was an easy to understand, black and white battle. I either finished or I didn't.

Now that I have run those distances successfully, in a weird, counter-intuitive way the temptation to quit during a race seems to have increased. In the immortal words of Jean Chretien: "A proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." Well, I've proven it: I can run 50 miles. I can even run 100.
Last weekend, many things happened: I started too fast, it was hot, and finally, I had nothing to prove. Oh, I did have goals, but speed goals are a shady concept easily dismissed when sufficient excuses are available and I had plenty of those. As I got closer to 60k, my body started to tell me that I had made a huge mistake. Then it started. "JD, we know we can run 50 miles. This is too hot. You screwed up. You're going to have to walk. Actually, you're walking now! Really, what's the point? Look at you. What is it that you think you're doing? You call this running?". I knew I could finish, now the question was, should I? Where was that mental strength that I thought I had when I was sitting on the couch eating bon-bons? Out there in the "real" world, I was quickly crumbling under pressure.

There were two key moments where I thought about quitting: when I first felt (at 55km) and then knew (67km) that my race goals were slipping away from me.
As far as I can remember, here are the reasons why I kept going:

The absurdity of quitting. How could I quit, 70km into a 80km race?
Fear of regrets. I trained for this. What am I going to think tomorrow when the pain is only a vague memory?
Respect for other runners. As I kept whining about whether all that (mostly mental) pain was worth it to finish with a crappy 10:15, I realized how stupid I was. Plenty of people were behind me. Plenty of people were suffering. Even though I was slowing down, very few people were passing me. Hell, I even past one or two. Who the fuck do I think I am, that 10:15 isn't good enough for me?

At some point though, I realized that this was EXACTLY what I wanted, why I was there. A mental challenge disguised as a physical one. Finishing although I can't think of a SINGLE REASON WHY I SHOULD. Those 3 reasons I mentioned above are really flawed logic. You have to have gone down the (ultra) rabbit hole before any of them make sense. You have to accept that it should be done at all. Most people would beg to differ.

That being said, we don't really care what those outsiders do think. For all of us who somehow ended up down here in Wonderland, wanting to do it is enough. We all run for reasons we probably don't fully understand and that seems to be ok with us. It's just fun to think about it.

A Hot One at Sulphur Springs

2010-05-30T12:59:00.000-04:00

Going up the "mulch" (or something like that, it's an infamously nasty climb about 5-10 minutes from the finish) for the last time, I can't believe this ordeal is nearly over. Because, my friends, there ain't no such thing as an easy 50 miler. I'm remembering how close I came to quitting with 10 km to go. Even the decision to actually go back for that last loop was difficult. I had to just stop thinking and go. I remember how I felt when it became clear that it wasn't going to happen today, that I wasn't going to break 10 hours, or even last year's 10:06. It broke my heart.

The day started well. After meeting with the usual suspects and talking about nothing, we took off in relatively cool weather. I have to admit that the whole day is a blur. I ran with Chris and Jamie for big chunks of the first two loops. I knew I was running a bit harder than I should, but it's hard to know. Anything slower than a 2:15 for my first loop would be too slow. As per my plan, I was going right through the aid stations, not even slowing down. On that first loop, crossing a bridge and chatting with the guys, my left foot caught on a board that was maybe 5 mm higher than the others and I fell hard. I saw stars, my jaw hurt, my head hurt. We ended the loop in about 2:05, which was too fast. I figured I would slow down on the second loop.

The second loop was more of the same. It was getting warmer but nothing too bad. I took off before Jamie and Chris and ran quite a long time by myself. I don't remember much. I felt good. They caught up after the midpoint and we finished that loop pretty much together in 2:15. Damn, still a bit too fast. Those two guys are stronger runners and I got caught up.

Third loop, I pop an Advil and I go by myself but pretty soon, I know I'm in trouble. It's getting warmer still. I lost my bounce. At the 50km mark, I look at my watch and it says 5:47. I'm starting to suffer. I can feel myself slowing down and there's nothing I can do about it. I drink as much as I think is smart. I eat some of my gels every 30 minutes. I walk the hills, which are growing steeper after every loop. And then all of a sudden, I'm wondering if maybe I should just not do the last loop. I'm seriously thinking about it. It's the first time ever that I've questioned whether I was going to finish. I decide that I'm going to ditch the vest, put a cinglet on to feel a bit cooler and go with a hand-held. Maybe that's going to help. Finishing the loop, I can't even summon the energy to run. I walk past Jamie, who tells me he's not sure he is going back out. I walk though the mat.

At my home base, I get changed, grab my bottle that's already filled with Accelerade, stop at the aid table to get some ice put in it and I go. As I run past Jamie's chair, I don't see Jamie and his wife confirms he did go back out. My mood is dark. My race goal is within reach but I feel it's getting away from me. Kinga runs with me for a few minutes but I can't keep up. I'm walking a lot now. On top of hills, I keep walking longer and longer to recover. I feel like I'm drinking a lot, maybe too much. I can feel the liquid slushing in my stomach. When I start to run, it's doesn't feel good. I decide to walk for at least 20 minutes to let my body find some kind of balance. I see the 10k mark coming soon and I need at least 90 minutes after that. My watch tells me it's not happening, that those two first laps were just too fast and now I have to pay the piper. This was the lowest point of my race. Maybe I should just ask for a ride at the gate house aid station. It's hot. I can't run for more than a couple of minutes straight. I get to the aid station, I don't ask for a ride and I keep going. It's now official, I'm not going to make my A and B goals. But I'm going to finish. The thought of quitting 70k into an 80k race just rubbed me the wrong way.

From that moment on, without the pressure of trying to go at a pace I just couldn't sustain, I started to feel better. My mood lifts a bit, but still, I start questioning my toughness. Do I really have what it takes to run 100 miles at Haliburton? Do I have what it takes to train for it? You think a lot during those races. You think about things you don't want to think about. You have feelings you don't want to feel. Finally, I get to the last aid station and I see it: the 15k sign, only 5k to go. My body has been slowly feeling better and I'm running more now, but not enough to make it in time. Still, I run in the dead, hot air along the field, trying to find as much shade as I can. Than, it's the long down hill. I'm careful, afraid to catch a root with the shadows playing tricks on the trail and making the rocks harder to see. I actually pass a runner (not a walker) who seems to be in worse shape than me.

Finally, here I am, at the foot of the Mulch. I'm happy I didn't quit. Memories from the race hit me. I get to the top. The 3 or 4 kids who were cheering at the last lap are gone, probably tired of seeing bone tired people who could barely summon a smile to thank them for the support. I catch my breath and start running down, then I get to merge into the finish stretch and I fucking run up the hill. I hear the mat chirp as my chip registers and I make a beeline for the tent's shade. Someone wants me to give me a medal. That would mean 5 steps in the wrong direction and I'm not happy. I go back, get the medal and head for the shade. I sit. I'm done. Around me, I see some of the guys I saw in the last few aid stations. We're just sitting there, exchanging a few words.

Jamie finished about 20 minutes before me, Chris, who is running the 100 miler, has gone back out. I drink my one cold beer too fast, chat with Jamie and his wife and then go for a shower.

This was one tough race for me. Bad decisions, wishful thinking and hot weather made the perfect storm that sunk my ship. I did learn a lot. I don't even regret doing what I did. At some point, you have to try things for yourself. Lessons like that hurt because we don't get to race a lot of those longer races, so making big mistake in one of those precious events, in which you've invested so much time and emotional capital, is devastating. In my case, I still managed to finish in a decent time and I'm grateful for that. The price wasn't too high.

Sulphur Springs - Pre Race

2010-05-25T19:48:00.000-04:00

Sulphur Springs will always have a special place in my heart. It's only two short years ago that I signed up for the 25km race there. I had seen the race on the Burlington Runners website and thought it would be interesting to try a trail race. When I downloaded the Participant's Guide, I was disturbed by what I saw on the first page:

10Km, 25Km, 50Km, 50 Mile, 100 Mile & 100 Mile Relay

50 Mile, 100 mile? WTF? Surely they jest? I showed up before 6 to see what kind of super-human athlete would accomplish such feats. At the line, all I saw was a bunch of regular people wearing weird outfits. The one thing I noticed though, is that they all seemed to know each others. In a way I couldn't quite define, it seemed to me that they were there for more than just running. Weird.

So Sulphur is also responsible for introducing me to ultra running. A year later I was on that same line, ready to run my first 50 miler.

This coming Saturday, I will again run the 50 miler. For a while I thought I would go for the 100 miler, but it was not to be. I read somewhere that "the will to race must start with the will to train." This early after Susitna, I was just not ready to put in the training miles. I would probably be able to finish it, but I would wreck my season and probably wouldn't recover in time for the 100 miler at Haliburton, which is my true A race this year. After last year's 50 there, where my body came close to collapse and my spirit got crushed, I am seeking redemption by doubling the stakes.

So 50 miles it is. I've already discussed my goal of beating my 10h06m time from last year. My taper is going good. My big thing right now is to accept the pain that is to come. 50 miles is a serious challenge and I know it won't be easy. This is the first race this season where I'm allowing myself to go hard. Well, you know what I mean... I'll try not to overdo the first lap, and then I'll try not to slow down too much. Obviously, it's easier said than done.

I'm rambling. Talk to you after the race.

It`s in the Bank

2010-05-18T09:26:00.000-04:00

I was reading my entries from last year, two weeks before Sulphur. I was so excited. I obviously didn't know what I was getting myself into.

This year, things are a bit different. I feel more prepared, but also a bit more apprehensive. I still feel that I haven't fully recovered from Susitna. It's as if I left a piece of me somewhere on those trails and it hasn't fully grown back yet. I feel fine physically, although I feel slower than I was last year.

Here's what I think my problem is: I've done the easy stuff. By "easy stuff" I mean that it's easy to sustain the excitement of running while you escalate the challenges. It becomes a drug: the first 50k, 50 miler, 100 miler. You ride the highs and the lows, you use the emotions to push yourself to the next challenge. Well, now I've gone pretty much as far as I'm willing to go, so I have to learn to run for the right reasons, whatever the "right" reasons are. Of course, there are more challenges out there, but I don't want to run just so that I can chase the next even crazier race.

Back to Sulphur Springs. Two weeks to go and that means taper. I know a lot of you crazy runners hate tapers, but I don't mind. As I mentioned before, I'm a lazy bastard and I`m confident that I've done the work. There isn't anything I can do now other than NOT do anything stupid. The only problem this time around is that I feel I didn't have enough time to recover since February. I'm trying to beat my time from last year (10:06) and I have a feeling this is going to be a close call. I think that one key will be discipline. I will not waste as much time as last year in aid stations. I've been able to do that this season at Seaton and PYP and I hope I can translate that into a longer race. If you count the start/finish, there are 5 aid stations per loop, 4 loops, that's 19 opportunities to waste time. If you stop 2 minutes each time, that's 38 minutes where you're not moving an inch. I'm pretty sure I wasted more time than that last year.

Let's enjoy the next two weeks of easy running! What's that I see tomorrow: hills?

Drained

2010-05-10T12:38:00.000-04:00

Pretty good week of training behind me, although I have to confess I did it kicking and screaming. The week was fairly light, to give me a chance to recover from Pick Your Poison. On Wednesday I noticed a bit of an ache behind the left knee, at the base of the hamstring. I took the day off. There's still kind of a phantom pain there but it's not really bothering me.

Coming into the weekend, with the weather turning cold and rainy, I was dreading my planned runs. I had basically decided not to do it, but I went to bed early on Friday, got up at 5:30 and drove to Dundas to run 3 hours on the trails there. The weather was cold and windy but the rain started only once I got back in my car. The place was packed with people getting ready for the race. On Sunday, we went out for brunch for Mother's day and I spent a few hours dreading my day's workout. Finally I went out around 3:30 and ran 20km. I was out of Gatorade and went out with water only. The last 5km, I felt like I was running on fumes. I'm just not used to this much volume anymore.

So even though I'm happy with my weekend, I feel so depleted right now it's not even funny. The goal now is to let my body heal, rebuild stronger than before and peak on the morning of May 29th (around 6am would be great)!

Pick Your Poison 2010

2010-05-02T11:41:00.001-04:00

For me, taking part in races is integral to running. I didn't do too well on the genetic lottery in regards to running, so for me to run long distances, I have to make deals with my body. I don't know if you are as psychotic as me, running really sharpens the line between mind and body. The thing is, the body is not only physical, it also has a mind of its own and sometimes I spend a lot of time negociating with myself. Promises are made and in my case, rarely broken, especially in training. In exchange for our "no surprises" agreement, I'm allowed to do really stupid things in races like running ridiculous distances or running crazy courses.
Well, yesterday was one of those races.

I picked up Chris and Kim on the way to PYP early Saturday morning and when we showed up at the start and I saw the chairlifts, I knew something was fishy. "I wonder if we're going up there?". Little did I know.
The weather was ok. It was cloudy but the temperature was nice, around 16C. We picked up our bibs, got ready and chatted with people we knew. If you're not familiar with the ultra scene, let's say that few people run the longer distances and after a few races you feel like you know everyone. The distances for the race were 12.5k, 25k and 50k. I had signed up for the 50k, which was going to be my last truely long run before my 50 miler at Sulphur Springs at the end of the month. I promised Derrick I wouldn't run hard, but looking at that ski hill, I wondered what that really meant.

It was a mass start so at 9am sharp we heard someone yell "GO" and we got going. I was running with my pal Steve and one of his running protege Lisa. We were stuck toward the back and it took a few km before we were able to start running freely. The course was a 12.5k loop and it was quite hilly. I saw the top of those chairlifts more often than I care to remember. I would estimate that we climbed up and down the hill 3 or 4 times per loop. The two aid stations were really well positioned, about 1/3 and 2/3 into the loop, timewise. Toward the end of the first loop, it started raining. Then, it started pouring. The trail, which had been fairly dry except for a few spots, became pretty slippery. Areas that had been fairly dry would now be lakes of mud. Good times. There was a little brook crossing, maybe one step in the water, and it cracked me up when I saw a guy go for the logs that made a little bridge. What difference would a step in the water possibly make? It actually washed off some of the mud.

It rained pretty much for the entire second loop. I fell on my ass going down a steep section and my back side was pretty much covered in mud from my feet up to my waist. At the end of the second loop, we somehow took a wrong turn and ended up adding a few hundred meters. I have no idea how we did that. I think we had to step over some yellow tape and some signage. It was definitely our fault. The third loop, for some reason, would be the slowest loop of the race. More of the same, except muddier. By that time, Lisa was a bit behind. At the end of the 3rd loop as we crested the hill and could look down to the start/finish area, Speve saw someone in his age group and asked me if it was ok if he tried to catch him. I told him it was fine and he took off. The 4th loop was actually not too bad. The only stressful thing about it was that I decided I could finish under 6:30 and once I start thinking about time, I obsess a bit. The course was becoming really beat up, but I still had a good loop and passed a few people. I finished well under 6:30, with a time of 6:21 and change.

I think I could have done better, but then again, I wasn't supposed to. Still, 50km isn't easy regardless of how fast you run, so the last loop was a grind. In many sections of the trail, there's a nasty canter and if you combine that with mud, you have to be pretty careful where you put your feet.

Despite the weather, I had a great time. It's a challenging course, the aid station staff were great and it was just plain fun. Well, you know what I mean...

Why I run

2010-04-27T17:28:00.000-04:00

I feel my need to run far as a longing. Ever since I started running long, I have this image that sometimes pop into my head: I'm running down a trail. I feel great. I don't know where I'm going but I know it's far. I'm just moving forward. Then the image is gone but its taste lingers and I know that I want to be that person who was running free, alive, without a care in the world.

I'm lucky because I actually got to live that dream. I remember running in the dark around 1 AM, my headlamp painting a white circle in the snow in front of me, listening to my foot steps on the hard snow: crunch, crunch, crunch. At least 5 times I stopped, turned off my lamp and looked at the sky, taking it all in. Then I'd get cold and get going again. I hadn't felt so alive in a long time.

I run so I can live my dream again, so I can be free. Often I wish I were a good runner, that I could run faster, but really, it doesn't matter. Much.

Seaton Trail Mud Puppies 2010

2010-04-18T11:49:00.000-04:00

Finally, the first race of the season, the Seaton Trail Mud Puppies! I have to say, I like that race. It's the second time I run this race and I had forgotten how hard the course is. It's weird, because this year the OUS Spring Warmup was pretty much run on the same course but I think we just happened to miss the best parts!

Oblivious to common sense, I offered a ride to someone I met over the Internet, on Runningmania.com. His handle is Killerz. I picked him up downtown, near where I live and we got to the start in time to see the 50 miler start.

The weather was harsh. About 3C (38F) and pretty windy. Occasional snow. I changed into my full length Sugoi tights and a light merino base top. I also wore light gloves, a hat and yellow sunglasses. Finally, I wore my trusty Injinji toesocks and my brand new La Sportiva Crosslites that I just bought last weekend. They are half a size larger than my previous pair to prevent my toes from crashing into the front of the toebox when going downhill. This new pair feels a bit tight on top and I might have to cut part of the integrated gaitor. I wear gaitors anyway, so that's no problem.

For hydration, I went for my Nathan HPL-020 hydration vest. I just hate running with a bottle and I love the storage. I can have a bit of sunscreen, a first-aid kit, some bug spray and all the food I need. One of my goal in this race was to spend very little time at the aid stations. I'm a sucker for aid stations, especially when I get tired so this year I would basically run right through. I brought an extra bladder so after the first loop, instead of refilling the bladder, I would just switch for the full one.

The course had changed a bit from last year, going around some of the stairs and was a bit longer so that 3 loops would be 50 miles (80.5km) instead of 78km. According to my Garmin readings after the race, the "52km" course is really a shade over 54. I might be wrong, but some of the hills that went around those stairs were huge. I mean HUGE.

It was really nice to see the usual crowd. I had seen a few in Creemore this Winter at Pierre's impromptue training run at his house,but some of them I had not seen in a while.

We started right on time. My plan was vague: run a good race. Not all out, but not a jog either. I started the race with Ron at a fairly sedate pace, then Kinga and Adi. On signature feature of this race is that there's a river crossing only a couple of km from the start. I'm not sure how, but after a while I ended up by myself. I pressed a bit harder. I walked (crawled) the hills but ran the rest. I ate a gel and drank water every 30 minutes, stopping at the aid stations only to down a quick cup of Heed and maybe grab a handful of chips. The course was harsh, muddy in a few places but the shoe sucking swamp section was detoured, replace by a deep, runny mud section and an ankle busting rocky hill.

I got to the turnaround in about 1h40min. According to my Garmin, the outbound leg is a net uphill of about 235 feet. I don't really trust the altimeter,but it's definitely an uphill. On the way back, against my better judgement, I pushed pretty hard. I finished the back leg in 1h30min for a 3h10min loop. There would be a price for that. At basecamp (a camp chair with my stuff stacked on it) I quickly switched water bladders, replaced my gel flask with a full one, popped two Excedrins (my Achilles was feeling the uphills), took off my gloves and stuffed them in my bag and took off.

I still felt good but my pace was definitely slowing. Mentally, that leg is difficult because there's no end in sight and you're starting to feel the burn. The hills had grown taller and steeper. The wind felt colder. I was having a hard time warming up my hands. That leg was the slowest with a time of 1h46min. That turnaround felt like it had been moved about 2km further down the trail. I felt like my legs were completely out of juice. Going up the steep hills, I could feel the burn. Once I got up the top, I couldn't immediately start running. I needed a few steps before going again, huffin' and puffin'. I finally made it to the last river crossing and then finally to the finish with a total time of 6:40:05.

I pretty happy with my race. I think that I might have overdone the second leg a little but it's hard to say by how much. 50km going up and down trails is a long way and obviously, one is tired after a while. Because of the steepness of the hills, I can't imagine running even splits on that course. Going up the hills, you can feel the energy just evaporating from your muscles. Once it's gone, it's gone until you stop and recover so you have to run that last leg on some less energetic fuel. It gets the job done, but it's a more involved, more painfull effort.

My nutrition went well, I never truely bonked although I did get slower but that's ok. The cold was a factor, but not a big one for me. My merino top kept me from getting cold without being hot. My fitness is ok, but not outstanding. I still have some time before Sulphur, but not tons of it so I might have to rethink some of my goals for that race. Mentally, things went well. I ran most of the race by myself and I never went to the dark side, except maybe before I got to the turnaround on the second loop. It felt like it would never come.

If you're looking for a challenging 50km on trails, you should consider Seaton next year.

Caveat

2010-04-14T09:18:00.000-04:00

About that last post...

Yesterday (Tuesday) I ran again the same route with my HR monitor. Same pace. Same distance. My HR was down very close to last year's. This goes to show you one of the problem with hr-based training. Our heart rates can change for various reasons. Maybe I was a bit dehydrated. Maybe I was still under the effect of the 5hr run from the previous Saturday. Maybe I was fighting some bug. We shall never know.

Anyhoot, I'm relieved because secretly I was a bit worried about Saturday's race and even more worried about Sulphur Springs, where my goal is to PB on that course (last year I ran a 10:06 for the 50 miler). That mental question mark about my fitness would have been hanging over my shoulder and maybe given me an excuse to slow down when the going gets tough (and you know it will!).

All is well, I'm not wearing that hr strap again for a while. Like a politician, I have now cherry picked the numbers that prove I'm in great shape and I will ignore the rest.

What Happened?

2010-04-12T09:49:00.000-04:00

On a whim, I decided to wear my heart rate monitor during my Saturday run. I hadn't done that in ages. Up until I started ultras last year, I ALWAYS recorded my training runs. I know that some of you are not friends of the Garmin, but what can I say: I majored in math, so I like to crunch numbers. Well, let me tell you that I was in for a surprize. My top-end fitness has gone to shit. Sure, I can slog forever but on that run, done at what should be my recovery pace, my HR was a full 10 beats per minutes higher that on the exact same run last year. WTF?

That goes to show you that all those intervals and hills actually do a lot for one's fitness. I just recently started doing hills again (Susitna was flat as a pancake) so I'm expecting things to improve quickly in that department but I will change something else in the way I run: I think I run my recovery and long runs (when I can't get to a trail) too fast. They feel fine, I breathe easy, but I think that I need to slow down on those runs.

I'm running the 52km at the Seaton Trail Mud Puppies on Saturday. I intend to push a bit and see how things compare to last year. I was definitely more fit last year, but I feel that my body is stronger now and also I have more experience with ultras. My other experiment: stop wasting time at the aid stations. This is my curse and I have to stop doing that. I might just go with gels and grab the occasional cup of Coke and/or cookie, but that's it. I'll let you know how things go.

On the training front, I managed an ok week of training. Following last weekend's 5hr, 38km long run, I pulled back a bit this week with a nice 2hr run at Rattlesnake point. The trail was more challenging than I remembered and I tripped and fell for the first time in a while. That obviously happened as I was meeting a group of hikers. Never saw that rock sticking out of the dead leaves. I felt ok but not great. I really wanted to run on trails because I just bought a brand new pair of La Sportiva Crosslites. My old ones were a shade too small and after a year and much distance, the lugs were almost gone. The ones I bought for Susitna are too big to run with regular socks, so they will be my Winter shoes. I bought the new ones half a size bigger than my old ones, but still half a size smaller than the Winter pair, and they feel great. My toes didn't hit the back of the toe box, even when I hit that rock and fell on my face (well, I tried to roll, with mixed success).

This week's training will be light, kind of a mini taper, with hopefully a great day at Seaton on Saturday.

OUS Spring Warmup

2010-04-08T09:52:00.003-04:00

Last weekend was the OUS/OTS Spring Warm Up. The Warm Up is not a race but more like a group long run on trails, with an aid station added and a prize. The prize is nice: free entry to all the OUS races of the season. This year couldn't have been more different than last year's warmup. Last year (in Creemore) we had a mini snow storm during the event, this year the temperature shooted up to about 20C.

It wasn't quite that warm at 9am, but it was still comfortable. The course was a bit vague. Follow the trail to the school and back, which was a 22km loop, I think. That is basically a big chunk of the Seaton Mud Puppies race course. People immediately split up in a few groups and I ended up with the slower group, since I planned on doing two loops. I have been struggling a bit since Susitna, but lately I found that my longer runs were going well (especially on trail) and even though Derrick had planned on me running about 3h30, I had pretty much decided to go longer than that. There were 6 of us, I think, in the group and were kept a comfortable pace, chatting the whole time.

We missed a turn somewhere although we did follow the trail markers and ended up at a parking lot at about 9.5km. The course was not quite as technical as I remembered, but it was still quite challenging. Last year's Mud Puppies was one of my first trail races, certainly the most technical, and it left a big impression. The shoe sucking mud and steep hills were certainly still there.

After the first loop, we ate some pizza and refilled. We lost a couple of people who didn't want to go back out and about half-way through the second loop we lost some more, so it was pretty much me and one other runner after that, although were briefly ran with a third man on the way back from that second loop.

After the run, I learned that I was the Grand Prize winner! That was nice.

So all in all, a fantastic day. About 38km of nice technical trail. My running felt nice and strong. Good company. Beautiful weather.

What more can a runner ask for?

What worked, what didn't

2010-03-24T19:49:00.000-04:00

I know that by now everyone is sick of reading about Susitna, but I've been asked (well, by one person) to make a list of what worked and what didn't. Some of it was pretty clear from the race report, but I think this would be an interesting exercise. That's the last Susitna post, I swear!

I brought a lot of gear to Alaska. At the pre-race meeting, I stuffed only some of it in the bag, just to make sure to have the minimum weight (15 lbs) and I weighted in at over 30 lbs. The complete list of the gear I brought is available here.

I decided to shed some weight. I won't go through all items, but basically, I went through each item and wondered if I was going to absolutely need it. This being the night before the race, I had a pretty firm weather forecast and I knew the cold would not be a major factor. Some of the items I decided to discard:

Half my hand and toe warmers
Stove, pots and pans, and fuel
Some of my extra gels and both dehydrated meals
Some of the spare clothes (kept 2 base layers and 5 Injinji socks)
Most of my duct tape
Replacement cleats
Half my batteries (AAA and AA)
My two 500ml thermos (I kept the 1l)

All in all, I got rid of a lot of stuff and the final weight, without the sled, was 26 lbs. Of all the things I discarded, the only thing I missed were the spare AAA batteries for my headlamp. I brought my spare head lamp, which contained a fresh set of batteries, but I loaned the lamp to another runner who's lamp didn't work. After the first nigh, my headlamp was pretty depleted. I got fresh batteries at Luce's Lodge (they didn't sell batteries but the lady gave them to me!). The betteries would have been ok for the second night, but they would have been weak. My headlamp, the Petzl Tikka XP2, worked great and was really powerful. Just remember, if you want the 60 lumens, 1 set of batteries per 16 hour night). I also used it most of the day in blinking mode to make sure that the snowmobiles rocketing toward me at 100 miles an hour saw me.

The SPOT satellite tracker was one of those fire and forget thing. People were able to follow me, I never really thought about it except in the morning to restart the tracking mode (tracking turns off after 24 hours). That was money well spent. The eTrex Legend is another story. For that race, you just don't need it. It goes through batteries fairly fast. There's not enough memory. It doesn't support Garmins downloadable maps (you have to buy the DVDs). If I ever need a GPS for a race, I'm going to buy a better unit. I didn't use it during this one.

If I had to pick a piece of equipment that I loved the most, it would be my Kahtoola Microspikes. Even though my La Sportiva Crosslites sport decent lugs, they are still rubber and traction was an issue. The Microspikes gave me fantastic traction in soft snow, on hard snow, you name it. I wore them for at least 60 miles, possibly more. They never came off or slipped. The only negative is that they are heavy and toward the end I convinced myself that they were tiring my legs and I took them off so my feet would feel a bit lighter. Maybe I should have kept them on. There was little decent running after that, but that also coincides with when the snow softened up because of the temperature so I'll never know.

I was one of the few runners who brought snowshoes, a pair of Dion. I was happy I brought them. I probably only wore them for 12 or 15 miles, but they saved me from mental collapse. In the afternoon, when the snow softened up and I started post holing like crazy, I almost started crying. I would try to follow a firm path but every few steps, I would sink in all the way to my calf or knee. I put on the snowshoes and even though I couldn't run fast, I was running. And, I didn't have to worry about where I would put my feet. Toward the end of the race though, I put them on and ran a bit with them, but I was just to tired. I couldn't do it and I walked the more punchy sections. I should probably have trained with the snowshoes more, but with the Winter we had here in Toronto, it wasn't in the cards.

My foot care was pretty good. Not perfect, but it's hard to run 100 miles and have perfect feet at the end. One thing I did, which had been recommended by Dave Johnston, was to change my socks and base layer as often as possible. I ran most of the race only wearing a thin merino base and a wind shell. I seem to remember maybe wearing my extra merino layer during the first night (I was told it went down to -15C/5F but I never felt the cold). I definitely wore it in the last two hours of the race while walking. I changed my base layer only twice, both times at Luce's Lodge. It felt so great to feel the warm, dry wool on my skin. Recommended. I changed my Injinji socks at every aid station, a total of 5 times. Unfortunately, I only had 3 pairs of thin wool socks and I couldn't change them on the way back. I didn't want to use my thicker wool socks because I was afraid to create pressure points. Next time, I'm bringing 5 pairs.

I did wear my IQ overshoes during the first night. They felt great either with the snowshoes or the Microspikes. You can't wear them without those because they cover the bottom of the shoes and there would be no traction. Still, I'm keeping them.

At some point, when it got pretty cold, I decided to wear my ski goggles because my eyes were a bit uncomfortable and they worked pretty good. Until I took them off for a second by letting them hanging around my neck. They steamed up from the heat coming up my shell and they froze instantly. That was the end of that. I tried wiping them off, melting the ice with my fingers, nothing worked. Goggles are still a big question mark for me. Something always seem to happen, they fog up, and then they are useless.

The 20 run/ walk 5 routine worked well. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to sustain it, but it was fine. As soon as I stopped, I drank a bit, ate my 200 calories, drank some more. There are ups and down, but 5 minutes is pretty long and I usually didn't have any problem starting to run again. One has to keep warm and the best way is to run.

The iPod was ok. I did listen to music for a few hours but it wouldn't have been a big problem if I hadn't. Using the headphones instead of the earbuds was definitely more comfortable for me.

One thing that needs a lot of work is nutrition. I had enough food, but I had too many items that contained peanut butter. I arranged my food in baggies, putting about 800 calories per bag. At 200 calories per hour, a bag carried 4 hours worth of food and I had one bag in each pocket. That means I didn't have to stop and go through my bag between checkpoints. That was good. In those bags, I had a mix of:

Macademia nuts
Reese Cups
Peanut butter and honey wraps
Nature Valley Harvest Crunch Crunchy Granola bars
Powerade gels (vanilla and strawberry)

I had tried all of those in training, but after a while, I had to pinch my nose to eat anything with peanut butter. The macademia nuts were a total fiasco. I'm never eating one again. When it became clear that I was doing better than expected and had more than enough food, I switched almost exclusively to Granola bars and gels.

All in all, I think I was better prepared than most runners. Not all. I had good equipment. I had trained with it. I had a plan. I did pretty well even though I wasn't racing. I spent a ridiculous amount of time in aid stations. I think that of all the runners, I spent the 3rd most time at checkpoints. I had a blast.

We were lucky, the weather wasn't a factor, but I was prepared either way. I knew I had what I needed. I remember vividly running in the night, stopping, turning off my light and looking at the stars for a few seconds. Then I would turn the lamp back on and keep running, further north, away, towards nowhere. I never felt any doubt.

Almost...

2010-03-23T14:58:00.001-04:00

Sunday I had a decent trail run. I went up to Halton Hills and ran some of the Bruce Trail side trails up there. It was colder than expected but I had a good time. Trails re definitely more fun than pavement.

Had an exciting Monday morning. Me and the guys at the office (there are 6 of us) have been buying 6/49 tickets for years, but only when the prize goes above 15 millions. Even people who now work somewhere else still participate. We round robin and last week it was my turn to get the 6 tickets for Saturday's 42 million draw. On Monday morning I checked my tickets and the last line had 5/6, with the 6th number being a 10 instead of the winning number 11. Damn. That was close.

Still, we decided that the glass is half full, since we won $6,000. Split 6 ways, nobody is quitting their job but to make a long story short: I got new running shoes!

I decided to split my $1k four ways with my wife and 2 kids and I with my share I bought a new pair of Nike Lunarglide. I tried some of the others in the "Lunar" series but they either had a small toe box or I had funky pressure points. These ones feel pretty good and and decided to give them a try.

My current road shoes were a pair of Adidas Adizero Pros. They are barely more substancial than socks and they feel great for shorter distances but there is NO cushioning and I decided to try shoes that hit the pavement a bit softer. I have to say though, if I had to run a 5k tomorrow, I would definitely run in the Adizeros.

With the rest of my money, I'm probably going to buy a new bladder for my Nathan Hydration Vest. My daughter just came back from the Amazon (yes, that's right) and she used it quite a bit down there. It smells a bit funky and I don't trust it one bit.

I'm starting a new training cycle and today I ran hills. Ouch! Sulphur Springs is only a couple of months away and I feel out of shape! Really, how could this happen? I just ran 100 miles for Pete's sake! I need speed. I need to feel the burn! I think I should be careful what I wish for...

Damn. So close.

Weird Week

2010-03-19T13:22:00.000-04:00

I guess all weeks cannot be above average. This means that some will suck. This was another of those. As the title says, this was a weird week. Both my daughters are away. My running, although getting better, started in the gutter last weekend. And it was my birthday. Everything was just off.

I'm still struggling a bit mentally on longer runs. Not sure why. It's as if my inner dialog brain center went into dialog-debt during Susitna and now I can't think about anything. My kids being away, I can't be mad at them for the various usual reasons.

Luckily, things have started to improve a bit so I'm optimistic I will be ready for the Mud Puppies 52k.

Last week I ran a total of 3h 15min. I started ramping up a bit and next week I'm going back to more "serious" training.

I've now lost 3 toenails and that will be it. I've learned my lesson, so I waited for them to be ready to fall off so there were no pliers or blood involved. They already started growing back, so it's all good.

That's all she wrote my friends. I'm off to the airport to pick up my oldest.