Ooops, I’m Doing It Again

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!!!!

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

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

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

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.

Fresh Plans

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

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.