A Walk in the Woods and #SJAT15

Several years ago for either his birthday or Father’s Day (they’re only a few weeks apart), I got my dad A Walk in the Woods, a book Bill Bryson wrote about hiking the Appalachian Trail with his friend. It’s now a movie coming out this fall, starring Robert Redford, which I find odd because is only 63 and he wrote A Walk in the Woods when he was in his 40s (it was published in 1998).

I bought the book for my dad because he was born in New Hampshire and spent summers there as a kid, and he has hiked the Presidential range. And I have hiked down Mount Washington, so congratulations to me. On my far-off list of dream races, I’ve penciled in the Mount Washington Road Race.

A few months ago he finally started reading it. Actually, he got through one chapter, reading the funny parts aloud to me the way he used to do with Patrick McManus books when I was a kid. Then after he went to bed I read half the book in one night and he let me take it back home with me to finish.

The book starts off funny, with a sort of British puzzlement at the trappings of an outdoorsman, and then some parts with Katz are hilarious because he’s a crazy crank. Then once Katz departs (this is not a spoiler), the book becomes a little plodding and preachy. Katz comes back, the book improves, and I felt very much like plunging into the woods on some long trek.

While I was reading this, Scott Jurek was on the beginning of his quest to set the Fastest Known Time (FKT) for the Appalachian Trail, starting in Georgia and ending in Maine on the summit of Mount Katahdin. Scott Jurek was kind of my intro into ultrarunning. I was following it a bit because I started reading more running blogs, but I really got into it when I was driving through Proctor and a digital sign proclaimed “Proctor, home of ultramarathoner Scott Jurek.” And then I got really interested in ultrarunning.

Spoiler alert, Jurek captured the FKT (supported), finishing in 46 days, 8 hours, and 7 minutes, beating the previous record by 3 hours and 12 minutes. (The fastest unsupported record is 58 days, 9 hours, and 38 minutes, which is insane.) The final day, I followed along on Twitter and waited for the official time to come across. It was pretty exciting.

I am of two minds about this achievement. It is a fantastic feat, and Jurek is an unbelievable athlete. Scott is a fantastic and gracious ambassador for the sport. He’s a veganvangelist, that’s for sure (the main reason I haven’t bought his book, as I don’t plan on changing to a plant-based diet), but it works for him, and he was able to make it work while on the trail, which was an achievement of its own.

It was nice though, that the previous FKT holder was a woman (Jennifer Pharr Davis). I liked that a woman held the record for an athletic achievement that both men and women can compete in equally. I also think Jurek took “supported” to a new level, since he was sponsored by Clif. According to Clif’s site, he ate about 30 of their products a day. Probably all free. It was a little different than Pharr Davis’s record-setting hike. Running is his job.

It does show just how amazing her accomplishment was, considering that even with the extraordinary level of support Jurek received, he “only” beat it by 3:12. (He was planning to do it in 42 days, which was a smart idea, because it gave him some wiggle room.)

I hate to give caveats to such an important and difficult (understatement of the year!) achievement, so I won’t harp on those thoughts. Scott overcame injury, illness, hot and rainy weather, and self-doubt to set the FKT for the Appalachian Trail, and I think that’s pretty amazing.

Harder’n Hell Half Marathon

The Harder’n Hell Half Marathon is the next race on my calendar. It’s October 17th, and I have properly calculated the start of the 12-week training cycle this time around. Training starts Monday.

This race is TECHNICAL. Here’s the course profile for the 50K, from the course website:
wild-duluth-50k-profile

The final 13.1 miles of the 50k are the same as the half marathon, I believe. I don’t know why they wouldn’t be. I actually think the course profile might be a little different now, but I am not sure. Anyway, it is technical.

I need to get serious about training for this race. A friend of mine who is a non-runner but in excellent shape (he is a caddy) is going to run this with me. I mean, probably not alongside me, he’ll probably beat me even though I have been training longer. That’s fine. This race is capped at 150 entrants and it is very possible I’ll be in 150th place. I am comfortable with that. I have some non-mileage-related training plans I need to implement this time around in order to be prepared.

1. Run hills A LOT.
I will be doing hills for speed work every other week. And not wimpy hills either, but real hills like I might encounter on the course. I will also run hilly routes (not hard to find) for almost all my other training runs.

2. Eat a little better and lose a couple pounds.
I am not planning to make MAJOR dietary changes, but I do need to make better choices for breakfasts and lunches. My husband makes dinner, so I eat what he makes without complaint or judgement. The breakfast and lunch changes are especially important once school begins again. I need to plan ahead. And save money, too. I don’t believe in a “racing weight” for a back of the pack runner like me, but I do think a 5-10 lb weight loss between now and the starting gun would be beneficial.

3. Get serious about strength training.
There were a lot of weeks during my Park Point 5 Miler training where I did, maybe, one strength workout a week. That’s got to stop. I am going to need serious core strength to get me through this race. I’ll be doing lots of yoga and other body weight exercises.

4. Sleep
I am terrible at getting enough sleep during the week. I go to bed too late, and then I’ll read or do a crossword. That has to stop. Even an extra hour of sleep during the week will go a long way. This is going to be extremely important once I’m back in school, as I’ll be balancing schoolwork, work, and training.

I think these four points will be as beneficial, if not more, than the mileage I’m putting in for this race. I am really excited to try my first trail race and my first half marathon, even if it ends up being a 6 hour sufferfest. But… I hope it isn’t 6 hours.

PP5M Training: Week 9

A light week to wrap up the training cycle.

Monday: 4 mi, road
Tuesday: 4.5 mi, road, 5×400 intervals (I have no data for this since my power cord for my watch no longer works for downloading information)
Wednesday: 3 mi, road + trails
Thursday: rest
Friday: 5 mi, race
Saturday: rest/recovery
Sunday: 5 mi, trail
Total: 21.5

The race sucked, as I already discussed. I am disappointed still, but I also think it was a learning experience. Sometimes races just suck. New runners tend to make a lot of progress fairly quickly, setting PR after PR after PR. While this was a PR technically, because I haven’t run a 5 mile race before, it was well off the pace I expected. It was even 14 seconds slower than my sandbagging goal. I need to work on endurance, it seems, although I thought I had. I just find it hard to blame the heat entirely.

My training was nice and light this week, which felt weird. I did do yoga several times, which I didn’t log, so I’ll just guess I did it… 5 days? Maybe 4? I did my intervals on Park Point on Tuesday, just to check out the course (not that I haven’t run there before), but of course on Tuesday it was in the high 60s when I ran, so I felt amazing and was flying. Then I stood on the beach barefoot and got soaked by the waves.

If there hadn’t been a rip current, I’d have been in that water swimming, clothes and all.

I probably could have run Saturday, but it was hot again and I was feeling lazy, so I recovered. Sunday I hit the Superior Hiking Trail, starting at Spirit Mountain. It was rough, very hot, and there was a long, steep uphill in the first half mile, so steep that it required stairs. Lots of them. And then I turned a corner and there were more stairs. Sigh. I “ran” pretty slowly, with lots of power hiking, and tried to prevent myself from getting winded or overheated. I carried both of my handhelds, one with sports drink and one with water, and finished off all the sports drink (drank this first since warm water is much more palatable and I wanted the water available in case I wanted to douse myself) and about half of the water. I also ate a Clif bar when I got back into my car. I probably ate it too fast because I felt sort of weird on the way home. Not nauseated, per se, just… off. The heat didn’t help, I’m sure.

Even though my race result was disappointing, I am still pretty pleased with the training cycle. I KNOW I am a better, stronger runner than I was at the onset, and I set a 5K PR along the way. I stuck to the training for the most part, but I was flexible when I needed to be. This upcoming week is going to be kind of haphazard, kind of running by feel, and then I’m jumping into another training cycle. (I ran a 5 mile race, slowly. I think a week off from training is sufficient.)

Race Report: Park Point 5 Miler

Official Results:
Time: 61:09
Pace: 12:14
Placing:
Overall: 334/365
Gender: 183/209
Division (F 19-34): 82/98

Watch Results:
Time: 61:15
Pace: 12:08
Distance: 5.04 mi
Heart Rate: N/A

Goals:
A: 56:00
B: 59:59

Food:
What I ate for lunch: Bacon, lettuce, avocado sandwich with fried egg, french fries
What I carried with me: Handheld water bottle

Gear:
What I wore: Tank top, running capris, ball cap
Gadgets: GPS watch

Discussion:
What a disappointment. That’s all I can say. I was over a minute off my 5K PR pace, and even though I started conservatively (mile 1 @ 11:45, mile 2 @ 11:34), the wheels really fell off.

I clearly did not handle the heat well. I just haven’t trained for it enough. I got to Park Point at about 4:30 or so, after stopping to pick up some mints, driving back home because I forgot sunscreen, and then finally getting underway. It was about 84 F at that point, with very little cloud cover. I walked over and picked up my race packet, t-shirt, and socks (socks! Yay!), then walked back to my car. I sat in my car and read/fooled around on my phone for a little over an hour. This was not a good idea, because I wasn’t in the shade. I was mostly in the shade, but a small part of me (depending on where I was sitting) was in the sun. And overall I was just heating up, although it didn’t feel too bad. There was really no reason to get there so early. I could have arrived at like 5:15 or 5:30 and had no problem parking in the exact same spot I did, and I wouldn’t have been letting my body heat up.

At 5:50, I was antsy enough to walk back over the pavilion and start warming up. I was feeling slower than normal during the warmup, but that’s the point of the warmup, to shed the slowness from the legs. I sat in the shade by myself after that and just waited. I SHOULD have parked somewhere closer to a shady area. Then I could have gotten out of my car, sat in the shade and read, and then stowed my stuff back in the car before starting my warmup. Anyway, I felt ok after the warmup and I felt better about the run. A few minutes before I walked over to the start, I doused my hat in water from my handheld and then doused my hair.

As I said, I held back at the beginning. I started near the back again, but there was no time clock, so I had no idea how far off I was from the start. There were only 365 finishers (maybe more starters, I don’t know if anyone DNF), so my chip time turned out to be only 25 seconds off of gun time. I was feeling ok, but hot, and my mouth was kind of drying out. A few people along the route had sprinklers or hoses going and sprayed consenting runners when they went by. These people were lifesavers.

I reached the turnaround, which was a little over 2.5 miles in, and I saw my uncle standing there waiting for me. He lives on Park Point in the summer and rode his bike over for some moral support, which was nice. He told me I looked great, and looked strong, which I probably did at that point. Later he told me he hadn’t had a chance to get his camera out and I am very grateful for that. I looked at myself after the race, maybe 10 minutes after I’d finished, and I was beet red, as always.

I don’t really know what happened, but I started to feel really badly after the turnaround. I took a sip of water and a little went down my windpipe a bit, so I had to cough. The water was pretty warm already (another consequence of leaving too early for the race) so it wasn’t refreshing and didn’t make my stomach feel great. I must have swallowed a bunch of air because I was burping a bit, which worried me that my stomach was going to be even more upset if I wasn’t careful. I doused myself with some water from the water bottle, completely wetting my tank top, and poured some more on my hat, but it didn’t feel that refreshing. I also dumped the cup of water from the aid station on myself, rather than trying to sip from it. I would never survive the Western States Endurance Run. I ran mile 3 at 12:28, which ate up all the cushion I’d given myself in the two previous miles, and then I lost focus, energy, everything in mile 4, 12:55 pace.

I think something was funky with the clock, because I thought the clock said 1:02:XX when I crossed, and at the 4 mile mark, I thought an hour was out of my reach. It really wasn’t, and if I’d known that, maybe I’d have been able to dig a little deeper. Maybe not. I wanted to pass a couple people I’d been following at the end, and I wasn’t able to get enough of a kick together. I did get passed at the end by someone, but I think she had been sandbagging a little, picking up a runner behind me and trying to help me out, so she had a little more in the tank. There were a couple people who I think were trying to keep up with me, or at least were using me as a benchmark (would walk, run until they caught up with me, then walk again), and I was able to turn on a little more speed to leave them behind, but I didn’t have as much of a kick as I would have liked. My final mile was at a 12:09 pace.

I didn’t walk at all during the race, and I pushed myself to keep moving, keep speeding up, whenever I saw my pace slowing. I didn’t let fear of an upset stomach slow me to a walk (I did slow down a few times when I felt really iffy, but I didn’t walk.) I could have done more to manage the heat, but I made the right choice to carry the water bottle with me, and it didn’t annoy me too much. I learned how to suffer in a race, I guess. I FELT strong, physically, and I wasn’t gasping for air at any time, so my training worked, but the heat just sapped my energy and my competitive edge.

After the race I sat in the grass for a little while, just to shake away the post-run wooziness (it was still 82 degrees at 7:30 PM, when I finished), and then I got in line for the goodies. They had little mini containers of Ben and Jerry’s! Amazing. And also very helpful because I was stuck on Park Point. There’s only one way off, and that’s the same road the race is on. I had to wait til the race ended and the road was cleared, and then it took forever to get off the point. The traffic in Canal Park, four miles away, was backing us up. I will need a better strategy next year.

I trained hard and ran somewhat hard (not as hard as I could have) and I learned some hard but valuable lessons. I don’t know how common 5 mile races are (it seems 10Ks are more popular), so I might have to wait until next year to try to get under an hour. I’m mad at myself because, looking back, less time pre-race in the heat and the sun would have made a difference, maybe over a minute’s difference, I don’t know. But hey, it was a PR! And I had a good time, even when I was suffering. Since I wasn’t winded, I could talk to spectators or other runners a bit, and I smiled most of the way. I had a disappointing result, but a good overall experience.

Park Point 5 Miler Goals

I am probably heading down to the race in about an hour and a half in order to try to find a convenient parking spot, so I suppose I’d better talk about the race.

I’m nervous. It’s hot and I don’t think it’s going to cool off anytime soon. I have trained in hot weather, but not consistently, and the last few days it has been cooler. This is also the longest race I have run. I know I’ve set my sights on even longer runs, but this is a longer race at a fast pace, which is a lot different than, say, running a marathon at a more sustainable pace.

Unlike the other races I’ve done lately, this won’t have many walkers, if there are any at all. This is a small race, and I am going to be one of the last people to finish, based on the results of previous years.

I think this to myself before every race, but this race especially: I can not go out hard. I need to be smart about my pacing and hold back a bit. A lot. And probably not speed up until the turnaround.

Timewise, I don’t know what to expect, so I’m giving myself a broad range between my A and B standards.

A Standard: 56:00
B Standard: 59:59

I was going to write an hour, but I realized no matter what, I want to come in under an hour and I will be extremely disappointed if I don’t. I realize that is almost a minute slower in pace than my 5K PR, and I have been training like a fiend for this race, but I’m lacking confidence at the moment.

This is the first race I’ve ever trained for in such a focused manner, and I hope I see the benefits of my efforts over the past 9 weeks while I’m out there on the road. If it wasn’t so hot and humid, I would feel a lot better about my chances of a successful race. Come on, Lake Superior, give me a nice breeze!

PP5M Training: Week 8

Since I counted the weeks wrong and started my 8 week training program a week too soon, this week was kind of… strange.

Monday: 5.2 mi, road
Tuesday: 6.7 mi, trails, Hartley Nature Center
Wednesday: 4.5 mi, tempo, 3.5 @ 12:30 avg pace
Thursday: rest
Friday: 6 mi, road
Saturday: 6.7 mi, training, Superior Hiking Trail
Sunday: 5.2 mi, road
Total: 33.4 mi

That’s my highest mileage week for this training cycle. I realized that on Sunday and decided not to run the 8 miles I’d planned. I want my legs to be fresh on Friday.

My running watch, a Suunto Ambit 2R, is really sucking. I haven’t been able to use the heart rate monitor for a few weeks because it connects but does not display or record a heart rate, no matter how good of a connection I get. I wonder if the battery is dead, or if there’s some other problem. I’ve been too lazy to check.

But now I do need to contact the company because the watch still charges (thank goodness) but the computer doesn’t recognize the device, or if it does, the download fails. This happens in all my USB ports on my home and work computers so it is clearly an issue with either the watch or the cord. I have only had this watch for 6 months, so it’s still under warranty, and there’s no reason it should be failing. It doesn’t charge with a micro USB cord, so I can’t just swap in a different charger.

This week of training was kind of weird, since I was just winging it. I didn’t do a long run, but I did 3 runs of six or so miles, so I don’t think I needed a long run. I got speedwork and trails in, and all the runs felt decent-to-good. I am pumped for the race (except I think it’ll be hot), and plan to take it easy in the days leading up to it.

On Speed

Yesterday I enjoyed a well-deserved rest day after a long streak of running, ending with back to back speed days, a big mistake that I got away with, at least so far.

I ran 8 days in a row again, in order to get back on track with my usual Thursday rest day. 8 days in a row isn’t that big of a deal, especially since most of my runs are easy, but because of my weird schedule last week and a mistake on Tuesday, I ended up doing three speed workouts in the span of 5 days. Oops.

I guess I can’t say Tuesday’s hard workout was a mistake. I just let myself get caught up in the moment. I had a terrible start. I was out on the Hartley Nature Center trails, without any bug spray on, and I spent the first mile obsessing over every last hint of a possible mosquito proboscis piercing my skin, stopping and slapping at my legs, arms, and back as though I was Nancy at the end of The Craft. I didn’t stop obsessing over bugs until I was like 3 miles in. I wanted to quit several times because I was so frustrated by the mosquitoes, the bites I’d already gotten that were itching like mad, and the energy I’d expended flailing my limbs. I kept thinking “Ok, that mile was faster than the last one” and they kept getting slower and slower. I wanted to finish under 2 hours, so I started to speed up once I passed the biggest climbs, and I ended up doing a “fast finish” workout, with the last 2/3 of a mile ramped up to a 12:46 pace, which is fast for me for any non-speed workout but is especially fast for a trail workout.

I felt fine on Wednesday and did my tempo run on the “northern” Lakewalk. I did a 3.5 mile tempo (well, basically progression) run, starting at 14:00 (or thereabouts) and ending at 11:00, for an overall pace of 12:30. Pacing-wise, I did ok, with a gradual upward progression in pace (on the graph, I mean, obviously in time it was a downward progression) and occasional spikes or dips. I still end up overcompensating one way or another when I’m trying to hit a certain pace. I’ll speed up, my watch won’t have caught up, and I’ll suddenly be :30 to 1:00 above the pace I want to hit, then I’ll back off and end up backing off way too much. It’s annoying.

I can’t do that again, though, or I’ll wear myself out. My sleep schedule has been off lately, and I’m hoping to get it back on track this weekend. I’m 8 days out from my goal race, and I’d like to be fresh and well-rested when it comes around.

I read a blog post about speed today from Jim at 50 After 40, a straightforward site written by a pretty fast guy. He wrote about the “speed ceiling,” and how we don’t all have the potential to run elite level times, no matter how much we train and how hard we try. I really hope my “speed ceiling” is a lot higher than my current level. I realize certain achievements are unobtainable, both because I just don’t have the natural talent and because I don’t have the drive and ambition to really dig deep, but I’d like to think I can graduate from the back of the pack in a few years. With patience, luck, and hard work, I think it’s possible!