AdventuresInMissingThePoint.com

Since I’ve taken the last few months off from trail running, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to reflect on good memories of trail running.  Alternatively, here’s what I’ve learned that I hate about it.

1. Trail runners don’t have any allies. Trail runners look down on both mountain bikers and road runners.  A minority might participate in mountain biking or road running; yet in a group setting, trail runners will transform into elitists.  I think they side best with hikers, only because hikers don’t bother nor threaten the trail runner.
2. Like an American is doomed to side with either the Beatles or Elvis Presley, a trail runner can only respect Dean Karnazes or Scott Jurek. Slow trail runners naturally side with social inclusion in the sport (Karno).  Faster runners believe in a sort of sports as a form of one type of religion (Jurek).
3. Trail runners like the idea of the outdoors, but they are ignorant to the physical reality or risk of it. Trail runners rarely carry the 10 essentials, have much back country skills, and tend to rely on others heavily (aid stations for hydration, nutrition, and safety like ham radio operators).
4. Trail runners don’t understand the term “TRACK!!!” If you use this on a road run, you are much more likely to have a person instinctively and *quickly* move out of the way fast.  Whether you are  joking or serious is all in terms of use.  Trail runners are subject to the much more inefficient, “On your right/left,” and hence are much more lame.
5. Salt tablets. Salt tablets are only used to help laborious efforts in sweat shop like conditions.
6. All trail runners are old. There’s just not a lot of fresh blood in trail running.

I’m excited to get back on the trail and become lost in the delusions again (and hate roadies, again).

This was my first thought Saturday when I saw dre whiz past us for the finish chute to PR a half marathon by 9 minutes, breaking the 2hr barrier.  If I’m an optimist, I think it is only because I am a reformed pessimist.

Really, I should be happy to have an additional form of inspiration in my life.  But at the same time, a 3 second PR sounds like monkey poo compared a 9 minute PR . . . just as much as when she cut 16 minutes from her half marathon time the same day I cut 16 minutes from my marathon time, making her feat seem twice as awesome.

I’ll get over it, and I really am happy for dre, as well as myself.  Besides, it’s not always about the bragging rights.

Now, back to the focus of this blog, narcissism.

In my mind, my one year goal seemed to mentally register as more of a journey.  That is I see remarkable progress, in only three months so far; progress I was not expecting so fast into the training.

The last time I placed a PR for a 5k was during a running phase where I was enamored with the 10k race.  My training was much different.  I was probably running 15 to 25 mile weeks.  In hindsight, I was going about the training somewhat ineffectively, with only one track workout per week accompanied with exploratory urban runs in anticipation to set awesome hash courses.

This past Saturday when I laced up for the SoCal Half Marathon 5k, my goal was to run under 20 minutes.  As far as my performance goes it felt good, but not great.  That is, I can tell that my training focus is not the 5k distance, nor was I set to peak (which is good for my goals).

I was proud that during the race I looked at my Garmin 4 times, only.  jeff called me out on a tempo run recently, which helped me realize that I was not using my Garmin correctly as a tool but rather crutching on it.  His terse “Stop looking at it!” comment made sense right away.  A tempo run should focus on perceived exertion.

The Garmin was nice to look at after the first quarter mile, during the excitement that follows the gun.  It felt like a hard pace, but a 5k isn’t meant to be a stroll.  My Garmin let me know that I was on a bonk-promising, pack-excited 5:00/mi pace.  My second look at it during the half mile confirmed I was in a better spot, 6:20/pace.

It also boosted my pace after the 2.5 mile mark when the pack I was in slowed to a 6:40/mi pace.  I don’t know if I would have set a PR without my Garmin, and I will never know because of the flux of time.  I was happy for my progress in this state of time, regardless of my personal records.

Extrapolating my races in my most recent roadie era with a McMillian Calculator and then extrapolating even more with an exponential regression, we get this fun graph, which implies a slight ridiculous amount of assumptions, but showing that my chances for qualifying for Boston aren’t as much of a dream as they somewhat appeared to me a few months ago.

The major assumptions in the model that I think are ridiculous is that once you start building mileage, you leave behind the same potential for aerobic improvement.  Trade-off’s.  Also, I want to stop the intensity of training after the OC half in lieu of some summer ultra running and/or something more like this:

Thunderclap, jeff's son, playing in the street while anticipating dre's finish.

Another victory for my progress in fitness, learning about building speed in the roadie world, and claiming my own damn piece of thunder.

rumble rumble crack ga-BOOOOOOOOOOM

From my vague memory, the pancreas aids in the digestive process. It extracts nutrients and makes some conversions, then ultimately makes crap.

I don’t like to be negative, unless I feel it is entirely warranted.  And now that I’m a roadie snob, it goes along with the territory that I nag and whine. . .

I can’t pin point what part of the race I hated most, so I’ll give you my chronological experience.

I showed up at a reasonable time, 30 minutes after registration opened and one hour before the race started to find that the registration line was 50 people long.  Even though there were three registration tables, everyone lined up in the H-P Last Name line (n00bs).  This is the second time I blame my father this year; the first was for the Eastern European inclination to being sun burnt.  There are a few ways to prevent this, but I won’t waste my time with that right now (roadies don’t make improvements).

I finally get my race SWAG (Stuff We All Get). “Excuse me, where do I pick up my bib [race number]?” “Oh, we aren’t timing the race this first year.” Ah man, the whole reason I wanted to do a small 10k was to get in a hard run. I figured that without timing, people wouldn’t be as likely to go as hard. But, whatever, there are probably still going to be a few people who will run hard.  It’ll be ok.

The next problem I had was that all the n00bs were putting on their race day shirt, for the race!  I have never felt like such an outsider AT MY OWN activity!  Whatever though, if people like to run to raise money and awareness, or possibly honoring a loved one, for the 4th most common type of cancer then let them eat cake, too.  (Just don’t call it a race; call it a fundraiser.) Now 30 minutes before the race, I am surrounded by the COTTON purple shirt wearing freaks, 95% of the racers.

I like minimal warm up before races.  This distance, 10k, for me means running a mile or so with a couple of goal race pace strides.  I do my thing.

It is now race time.  Homeboy MC calls the crowd to the grass area. I don’t see a starting line, but whatever those aren’t really necessary, just more of a nice ascetic. Oh hey, we’re here AT THE RACE START TIME to stretch together.

White flag. You win, pancreas.

I walked over to the coffee pot. Sitting on the park bench with my coffee, I watch the sheep go from the grass to the canopy area due to the limits of the wireless microphone.

They stretch.

Alright sweet, time to start the 10k.

“Before you start [realizes the microphone doesn't work at the starting line]. . . ok, I am just going to shout this: the course isn’t marked well, so please listen to these directions of the course.”

WTF.

Note that there wasn’t one map of this course available before this time. This should have been a red flag for me, or at least it is now.

After messing up and corrected by the audience a couple of times, the emcee finally starts us about 20 minutes late on our two loop 10k.  Perhaps you already see the next roadblock. . .

The race was a 5k and 10k.  After running a relatively fast pace on the first lap, the second lap was an obstacle course to get past the walkers of the 5k.

The one good thing I have to say about this course is my PR.  I ran a 31 minute 10k, which is a little bit better than my projected goal time of 45 minutes (sarcasm). The race was a touch short, only 4.2 – 4.4 miles depending on the Create Your Adventure Finish Chute.

Thankfully, dre calmed me down from my unnecessary negatives, and also realized we might be better off just leaving. Now, the Create Your Adventure Finish Chute adapted into the parking lot. A beautiful encore. Effin bravo, pancreas!

In case you are wondering, I have more rants from this race.  I figure this is good enough, though.  In all actuality, I was happy with my tempo run race pace that averaged about 7:12/mile.  This is a VO2 max improvement for me, since my last race, the Chicago Marathon. (This is projected extrapolation from a McMillan Calculation.)

I attribute this to two different reasons.  The first is a mid-week workout over the last month alternating weeks in the form of track/tempo/track/easy.  The second is that in every other long run I have been doing at a normal easy pace for two thirds of the run then transitioning into a tempo run to the last third of the run.  The latter is new to me, and really takes the long run from a 10 and turns it up to an 11.

My next planned race is in the Winter Trail Series #1, the 12k on January 9th. Between then, I’m going to try out my pacing debut for the Chimera 100 Miler, in miles 62 – 87 ish.

Manamana.

I race for fun, including my intentions for this year’s Chicago Marathon.  It’s also nice when you’re having a good time to put down a good time.

Myself and Rooster after the race

This race was so built up that I was fearing it was going to suffer the high-expectations-low-results phenomenon.  Everyone I talked to — on the plane, carrying my entrant bag around, and wherever else — talked this up. “You’ll love it. There are such large crowds.  You get to see a great view of the city.” The afternoon before the race, I remember telling Rooster “I just want to run this already.”

Fortunately, it did live up to its hype.

The crowd was electrifying. The course meanders through many neighborhoods in Chicago.  So, there are diverse types of cheering from the big dragon costumes in Chinatown, the smells in Greek Town, and the mariachi bands in Little Mexico.

My favorite neighborhood was around the eighth mile, Boystown. It’s hard to remember exact details in this stretch because I wasn’t quite prepared for it.  You slowly enter hearing the club music echoing off the buildings and shops.  As you get closer, the people get more and more enthusiastic, and more flamboyant.  I also think it’s fair to say that almost everyone was cross-dressed.  There were multiple performance stages.  Cheerleaders on one. Choreographed dancers with the twirling guns on another.  And, at the aid-station cross-dressed dudes with beards, on a stage, in addition to cross-dressed dudes handing out water and Gatorade . . . and bananas, of course.  It was that try and see as much as possible, without making the awkward eye-contact kind of moment.

As for my paces, I had a hard time holding back at the start of the marathon. My goal was to hang on to a 9 minute mile, and dwindle the pace down to a 8:49 average minute mile, so I could PR.  Instead, I took some risk and slowly brought down an 8:30 minute mile to an 8:11 minute mile, for a 16 minute PR, 3:35:33. Wahoo!

It was a fun race, and it’s always nice to have home town support, including my dad!  The mass-transit adds a neat perspective for spectators.  The L runs parallel to a lot of the course, so you can hop on and catch your beloved little runner at multiple spots.

After the race on the way to the beer tent, we saw Dean Karnazes, who was about to go out for the second loop of his double marathon.  It was neat to see that he has the same effervescence for life, as he writes about in his books.

Now for the first time in a couple of years, I don’t have a big race on my plate.  I didn’t plan it this way, but it is nice to not have something lingering.  I think I am going to veer away from ultra’s for now.  I enjoy the low-key enviroment with all the camaraderie, but I don’t feel as healthy training for those distances.  Nonetheless, there isn’t anything specific in my upcoming race plans.

On my flight into Chicago, someone flying behind me reminded me of an annoying way people from the area end a statement, so. . .

Lately, my PRs come when I least expect it.

I didn’t feel like I tapered well.  Busier with cycling this summer, I felt like I didn’t have enough long runs in.  I didn’t really care about what I ate before the race.

Even though the Mt Disappointment 50k didn’t fall into my calendar well, I wanted revenge from my experience with it last summer.

2008 Race

Last summer, I came out of a technical part of the trail and snuck a view of the scenery. Y’OUCH!!! I twisted my ankle. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I walked so slow, initially hoping just to make it two more miles to the 10mi aid station so I could drop and get a ride from there. Walking a lot of downhills, I ended up finishing my first ultra-marathon (50k) in 7:11.

2009 Race

Toeing the line, I was cold. I had memories of heat, like real heat. I had expectations of hills, big ones with long climbs. And the last five miles. . that’s not a climb. That’s a 2300′ torture.  Why did I sign up for this? I just want this to be over.

Fortunately a “cold front” came through.  It was just regular old heat that I experience in the OC.  Making Dawn Patrol a regular Tuesday morning activity, those hills didn’t seem like anything!  I felt relatively full of energy, even getting to play around with e-rod on the course.  Thanks to dre, volunteering at an aid station, I dropped off a water bottle at mile 21.  I finished with a 50k PR of 6:32.

Taming the Course

Here are my notes, if you want to visualize the 50k.

Starting Line to Red Box (5mi)

This year, we didn’t get run up Mt Disappointment, in the first five miles.  Last year we did; it is a great part of the course. If the course has the Mt D section (with a tunnel!), jockey for position off the starting line so you don’t have to walk the gradual uphill section.

Red Box to Clear Creek (10mi, cumulative)

Get in a groove, and take it easy in this section.  It’s nice single track.  There’ll be some passing. Just yell, “TRACK!”  People love that.  If you’re feeling good after this section, eat lightly at this aid station so you can run the next uphill 3 miles.

Clear Creek to Josephine (13mi)

The climb isn’t too bad.  It’s similar to No Name Ridge in El Moro.  The view along this section includes Strawberry Hill, which is close to the Josephine Aid Station. Hang the eff out at this aid station.  Drink, drink, drink. Eat. Drink, drink, drink.  The next aid station is 8 miles away, after some exposed (hot) trail.

Josephine to Red Box (21mi)

This is a good section to cruise along.  After a slight ascent, you crest a pass.  From there it’s about 2 miles to Red Box, and also from there it’s about 7.5 miles until the next (and final) uphill.  Wooooo.

Red Box to Westfork (26mi)

Nothing really to note. Enjoy the downhill.

Westfork to Finish (THIS SECTION IS 4.75 MILES)

During the race, this is the most talked about section.  Many people say this section is a 5k; many say it is 4 miles; many say it’s 3 miles; many say it’s 5 miles.  On a 2300′ foot ascent after running a marathon, I want exact dimensions. It’s 4.75 miles!  I have data.  The first mile is runable.  From there, try to run as much as you can and just get it over with!

Advantage of finishing at 1:10pm:

. . . a high-five from Smokey the Bear at the finish line!  He’s there to chear on the kids run.  The race director is great; he likes to yell. It’s a fun type of yelling.  The aid stations are stocked really well.  The scenery is great. Do it!