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10/6/2012 - 2000 Miles to Boston

All the summer ultras left me too beat up to slide in a VO2Max cycle this fall. I'm taking it easy for a few weeks and then will start the 24-week buildup to Boston. It's pretty much the same program I used for Illinois last year. Hopefully, we'll see similar results.

For those unfamiliar with Daniels' speed notations, E is base (easy) miles (7:40-8:20 for me), M is marathon pace (6:45), and T is tempo (6:20). Recover time is assumed to be equal to quality time (for example, an 800 run in 2:55 is followed by approximately 3 minutes of rest before the next). When that's not the case, recovery time is specified (followed by an R). Striders are run either at the end of one of the specified quality workout(s) or during the next day's run.

Boston is Monday, April 16, which is why there is no weekend quality workout on the week ending 4/15.

Week Ending	Midweek Quality	Weekend Quality	Stiders follow	Weekly Mileage
11/06	4x800@2:55	Duck@20:00	Mid	70
11/13	Terrain intervals	Lone Wolf 10K	Mid	75
11/20	Terrain intervals	Skippo 30K	Mid	70
11/27	6x800@2:55	SLOC 3-hour	Mid	80
12/04	Terrain intervals	Chubb (Tyson@50:00)	Both	90
12/11	Sat:Pere Marquette	Sun:Possum Trot	None	70
12/18	8x800@2:55	20:00T	End	80
12/25	Terrain intervals	5x1500@6:00 100R, 1E	Both	90
01/01	Terrain intervals	18E (FF New year's run)	Both	100
01/08	10x800@2:55	2x15:00T 2:00R, 8E	Both	90
01/15	6x1000@3:40	6x1500@6:00 1:00R	Both	100
01/22	5x1200@4:24	10E + 13.1M (Frostbite half)	Mid	110
01/29	4x12:00T 2:00R	4x1200T 1:00R, 1E, 20:00T	Mid	90
02/05	4x1T 1:00R, 5:00E, 3x1T 1:00R	18E	End	110
02/12	2x20:00T 10:00R	Psycho Wyco 50K	None	70
02/19	Recovery	2x2T 2:00R, 10E, 20:00T	None	50
02/26	8x1500T 100R	15M	End	90
03/04	4x12:00T 2:00R	18E	End	100
03/11	2x20:00T 20:00R	2x(4x1200T 1:00R) 10R	Mid	110
03/18	8E, 6x5:00T 1:00R	St Pats 5mi + 1.5E	None	80
03/25	2x(40:00E 20:00T)	15M	End	100
04/01	2x20:00T 20:00R	2x15:00T 10:00R, 5E	Both	80
04/08	Duck@18:00	12E	None	70
04/15	4x1200M 2:00R	Rest	None	25

8/22/2011 - Site Updates

Oh, heck, I've let the blog slip again. There's actually a fair bit of new content on the site.

The A-meet page has a lot of new information and online registration is now open.

There are a few new race reports.

The calendar, which had become even more stale than the blog, has been updated.

I've also got a few more substantive posts in the works, but that's all for now.

6/16/2011 - Lessons Learned

When a race goes really bad, I like to simply put it behind me. Kettle 100 was way off of expectations and I don't think doing things differently would have changed that much. It was a bad day on a day that punished badness in the extreme. As the question has come up in several online conversations, I want to be clear that I'm talking strictly athletic performance here. As an experience, the race was great.

All that said, one has a lot of time to think when a 100-mile race is going in the tank. Here are a few things I came up with that are worth noting.

• Five weeks isn't enough time after a competitive marathon. If there is a "root cause" for being so far off, I'm pretty sure this is it. I do think the strategy of prepping for and competing in a marathon as buildup for an ultra is sound. There just needs to be more spacing. Six worked out great last fall between Wineglass Marathon and Mother Road 100. In retrospect, I think I may have got away with one there because the conditions at MR100 were so favorable. I'll give myself eight to ten in the future.
• Keep moving. The universal mantra of all endurance events. I already know this, of course, but this race really drove it home. It was one thing to bounce back from a low spot at Mother Road. This was a much deeper hole. And yet, I was able to walk and then run my way out of it. I spent over an hour at aid stations (three stops of just over 20 minutes each) while I was in trouble. I think I could have cut that in half and experienced similar recovery while walking.
• Have a more carry capacity. It doesn't have to be (in fact, shouldn't be) full, but have a way to carry more food and drink if necessary. Having some extra bottles would have made it much easier to walk and recover. As it was, I could only leave the aid stations with 16 ounces of water. That was fine when things were going well, but meant I had to hang around longer when I was dehydrated. I didn't have much food capacity either. That wasn't really an issue since I was already limited by water, but it would have been if I was really trying to get out of the afternoon stations quick.
• Go easy if you know something nasty is coming. Rushing to get to the meadows before the clouds broke yielded nothing and had me a bit in the hole before the death march even began. Backing off between the turnaround and the meadows to tend to hydration, electrolytes, and food would have been a few minutes well invested.
• Go easy even if you don't know something nasty is coming. There's really no upside to hammering the first half of an ultra. I don't think my early pace was way off, but it was probably just a touch too fast.
• Problems will be worse and recovery will be better than expected. This is just a function of experience. When things go bad in a short race, your choices are generally gut it out or quit. Therefore, the first reaction to something that's slowing you down is to push. In a hundred, there's time to turn things around, particularly if a problem is recognized and corrected before it gets too bad. Making such a correction may require giving away some time in the short run, but 100 miles is not a short run.

6/5/2011 - Puppy Day

Well, we're dog-less no more. Her name is Ruby.

6/5/2011 - Kettle race report

... is here.

5/11/2011 - Post Partum

Any time you run a PR it's a good race, especially when you're 47 years old. That said, Illinois has left me a bit flat. Even though I've been through this many times, the recovery period is always a bit depressing. Last weekend I ran the annual 3-mile Fun Run at Yaya's school. I ran it at marathon pace and it felt really hard. It feels like I'll never be able to run fast again.

Most of it is usual marathon recovery. The soreness went away pretty quickly and I can do light workouts, but there's no snap in the legs at all. My sleeping has been a bit erratic. My weight is up a few pounds. Returning to normal training in another week or so should take care of all of that.

Of greater concern is the fact that the mild case of plantar fasciitis in my left foot isn't getting better. It's not getting worse, either, but I had hoped that taking a couple weeks off running would be enough to clear it up. I'm a little worried that if it isn't completely gone by the end of the month, the 100 miles at Kettle could turn it into something serious.

It's still way too early to be panicking; 10 days isn't much in the context of marathon recovery. However, when I originally put my spring schedule together, the thought was that Illinois would be a tune-up race for Kettle. It was only after having a really good training cycle that I decided to go for a PR. Now, the five weeks between the races is looking mighty short.

I had six weeks between Wineglass and the Mother Road 100. Wineglass was a PR and I was definitely back on form for MR100. How important was that extra week? I probably won't know until the sun sets on June 4th. By midnight, I'll know for sure.

5/5/2011 - Recent race reports

Wow, kinda let the blog slip a bit, there. The site hasn't been quite as stale as that. In case you missed 'em, here are some recent race reports.

Gateway Grunt

Double Chubb

Illinois Marathon

3/15/2011 - MOJO Course Notes

For lack of a better spot, I'm posting the course notes for this weekend's Missouri Junior Orienteering (MOJO) finals here. The event is held at S-F Scout Ranch just south of Farmington. It's open to all ages and abilities.

COURSES CLOSE AT 2:30PM - NO EXCEPTIONS. We will immediately start picking up controls at that time because we have to get them relocated the Grunt/Runt on Sunday. Please remember to check in at the finish, even if you are overtime or do not complete your course.

The map is 1:10,000 with 5m contours. It was fully updated in 2006 for US Team Trials. A few minor updates were made for this meet as well.

True safety bearing for all courses is EAST. You will either hit the main camp road or the big Lake, which you can follow south to the camp road. Follow the road back to the start/finish. If you know FOR SURE that you are on the east side of the camp road, you can skip the going to the lake part and just head southwest to the road.

I didn't spot any tics last weekend, but with more warm weather this week, they could be out by race day. Insect repellent is recommended. Check yourself afterwards.

White and Yellow courses use traditional punch cards. Orange, Green, and Red use e-punch. When White or Yellow have a control in common with one of the e-punch courses, the control will be hung on a stand. Use the clipper next to the e-punch unit to punch your card. Controls on stands are a bit lower than typical hung controls. Care has been taken not to "hide" the controls. If you are at the correct feature, you will easily see the control. The control may, of course, be on the far side of the feature and therefore obscured by the feature itself during the approach, which is certainly fair game. Clue sheets indicate placement where relevant.

Trails have received very little traffic since last summer. As a result, they are much less distinct than usual. They are generally easy to follow (see important exception in next paragraph), but you could certainly cross one or go through a junction without realizing it. There are also a fair number of new minor trails. These are typically short connectors to campsites and provide no route advantage. White and Yellow have been set to minimize the potential for confusing a mapped trail with one of the new unmapped trails.

WHITE COURSE: The trail between controls 3 and 4 is very indistinct near control 3. Control 3 has been hung slightly south of the trail junction to get you pointed in the right direction. Control 4 is hung relatively high and visibility is good. If you simply head straight down the hillside and keep your eyes open, you should be able to spot the control, even if you're having trouble following the trail.

Vegetation mapping is fairly current. The main exceptions are pockets of storm damage. In test running and setting the courses, I came across nothing that was significant enough to affect route choice, but you may have to alter your line a bit to get around some of the new deadfall. Medium green can be taken at a run this time of year, though you may lose a few drops of blood in the process.

Water features are all crossable everywhere (except the big lake, but you'll have no need to cross that). Most intermittent streams will have water in them or at least be mushy. You may encounter unmapped goopy spots as well, but nothing significant enough to affect route choice.

Bare rock completely covered with lichen or moss is mapped as clearing. If it's mapped as rock, you will actually see some of the surface exposed. The mapping standard for boulders is slightly higher than normal to avoid confusion with all the small rock in the park.

3/7/2011 - UROC

The big news from the weekend is that I've been invited to line up with the elites for the Ultrarunner Race of Champions. It is a serious attempt to get the bulk of the world's top ultrarunners all on the same start line. To call this a big honor would be a colossal understatement.

In the anarchistic world of ultrarunning, there is no governing body to sanction a true world championship. However, this event appears to have the organization and backing to support a somewhat legitimate claim to such status. It remains to be seen who will actually turn up, but just the folks on the selection committee would constitute a mighty strong field. Aside from the financial incentives and substantial purse (at least by ultrarunning standards), there are some pretty good reasons for an elite runner to like this race.

Personally, I think the 100K distance is brilliant. If they had gone for 100 miles, they would have alienated the younger, faster runners that are the future of the sport. Also, the shorter distance means that most of the elites will finish during the day (though a sub-12hr on this course may be a stretch for me). That may rankle purists who insist that night running on technical terrain is a big part of the sport, but daylight makes it much easier for TV to cover the event and the early finish allows people to follow live online without staying up until 2AM.

I also like the mix of surfaces. Slightly more than half is singletrack. I haven't run these particular trails, but I'm familiar with other trails in the area and I expect the technicians will have a chance to shine. You'd better bring some horsepower, though, because the rest of the course is on gravel roads (with a short section of pavement).

Climb seems about right for a championship event: 6,100 feet in four major climbs and nearly 13,000 total. The biggest single ascent is a steady grade rising 2,100 feet between miles 10 and 20. The final climb is shorter and considerably steeper: 1500 feet from miles 52 to 56. The climb up from the turnaround is the most severe, but it's also fairly short. The opening climb looks pretty easy which means it will be pretty easy to ruin your whole race in the first five miles by overcooking it.

The highest elevation is 3,100 feet, so altitude won't be a factor. Despite the fact that I'm pretty good at altitude (no idea why; I've never lived above 1,500 feet, but I've raced up to 14.200 and it doesn't get to me), I consider that a good thing. The Europeans will already be at a disadvantage due to jet lag. Hitting them with a 12,000-foot pass would practically rig the game.

The elites will start at 7AM, 15 minutes ahead of the main field. There are also 50K and half marathon distances starting at 8. How that all plays out on an out-and-back course remains to be seen, but it looks like the organizers have been careful to not jam up the trail. The first mile is on road which will string things out a bit and the ensuing singletrack climb will string things out a lot. The first descent and big second climb are on gravel road so by the time the main bit of singletrack arrives, there shouldn't be anything resembling a pack. The turnaround is in the valley, so the leaders will be able to blast down the steep trail without having to constantly adjust their line to miss someone coming the other way. By the time they're meeting the bulk of the field, they'll be safely back on top of the ridge. Even I should get the steep part of the climb done before hitting too much head-on traffic.

Finally, there's the staggering beauty of the venue. While the Appalachians may lack the scale of the western mountains, looking out over the Shenandoah Valley from atop the Blue Ridge literally takes my breath away. Of course, the climb up the Blue Ridge will have already done most of the work on that front. If I'm running well, I should get to the top of the ridge heading west before sunset. If the sky is clear (a good bet in late September), the combination physical depletion and sensory overload could produce one of those rare moments that are relived in reverie for the rest of one's life.

In short, I'm pretty psyched. And, I expect many of the world's best are psyched, too. I've never been so excited about getting my ass kicked.

2/17/11 - Aftermath

Run Toto Run went well enough. You can read about it here. Obviously, one takes an easy week after a run like that. I was happy to see the weather forecast calling for warm temps this week, figuring I could ride into work all week. Easy rides are just about the best recovery you can give your legs.

Well, that was the plan. The truth is that getting on the bike in the dark and riding in on wet roads has just seemed pretty bleak, so I've been driving in (hopefully my agent doesn't read this, because my car isn't insured for regular commuting). I do need to get back to bike commuting, and I will, but right now I need a mental break. I think the fact that I indulge myself these little goof-off periods rather than insisting I harden up a bit is a big part of why I'm still doing this stuff after 40 years.

Breaking your regular training routine is dicey, especially in the middle of marathon prep. Even if it's just easy stuff, you want to stay in the habit of getting out the door at your usual time. But, given that I need a recovery week anyway, my body isn't going to know the difference between riding in to work through snowmelt at 5AM or just going for an easy spin in the warm sunshine after I get home. My brain sure will. By not forcing the issue, I should be able to get my head in the right place for the second half of my marathon prep. The next 10 weeks contain some workouts that will require all the mental discipline I can muster (2x5K@20:00 with 3 minutes recovery, 10 miles easy, then 3K@12:00; that sounds like fun). I'll need to have a pretty upbeat attitude going in if I hope to get through them.

2/4/2011 - Sticker Shock

I finally got the Hospital bill from for last summer's mountain bike wreck. I think it's a pretty good representation of everything that's wrong with health care in this country. Now, before anybody gets too defensive, let me say that I think that health care in this country is generally pretty good, albeit pricey. But, things like this are examples of staggering waste.

First, there's the simple observation that if the system processed these bills in less than six months, we could see a 5-10% reduction in cost right off the bat. I know of no other business that lets a bill from a regular customer (that would be my insurance company, not me) linger for that kind of time. It's like these folks have never heard of cash flow or net present value. There's nothing they did to me that was at all non-standard. Any documentation for payment could have been provided the day I left the hospital. Net-30 terms would seem quite appropriate, with the bill for the non-covered amount coming to me the following month.

Then, there's the bill itself. Sixteen Thousand Dollars. That might be defensible if they had actually done something to treat my injuries, but they didn't. Sure, they gave me a reasonably comfortable bed, pain medication, and marginally acceptable food, all of which made the healing process more bearable. I also met with a parade of doctors, nurses, and other caregivers who did a fairly thorough job of assessing and monitoring my progress. Again, all good, but there was absolutely no treatment of the actual injuries. I'm not upset that they didn't start cutting me open and gluing stuff back together. I say, if the body can heal itself, that's the way to go. But, really, $16K to put me up and keep an eye on me for three days? It's whacked.

Fortunately, I do have health insurance, so my share of the bill is a somewhat manageable $1,200. But, that insurance ain't free. The reason it sets me back nearly a grand a month (for the family, not just me) is because of stuff like this.

I remember the hospice folks telling Carol that when she really started to get sick, don't go anywhere near a hospital, even if the problem has nothing to do with the disease. Once you're sucked into their system, it's very hard to get out. I had to push a bit to get released on the third day, even though I was moving around on my own and had completely turned off my pain meds. An ALS patient foolish enough to check in late in the disease can count on dying in the hospital only after having their last few days or weeks turned into a futile and undignified stalling of the inevitable (and having what's left of their life savings wiped out in the process).

I don't have the answer, but there has to be a better way.