A Sticker Dilemma

My streak of running without pausing to walk for a stretch was snapped yesterday.  There were a few extenuating circumstances, however.  Saturday mornings have been reserved for the week’s long haul, but the schedule was turned upside down because I do happen to have a life beyond running.  Friday was our wedding anniversary, so Kim and I enjoyed a wonderful evening of walking about downtown Wilmington and popping in here and there for appetizers.  This alone would have justified forfeiting the usual Saturday morning run, but there’s a lot going on at the moment.

Not only is Eric back for a visit from Phoenix, but Kim took off for a trip to Italy on Saturday – an unexpected opportunity that came her way at a terrific price.  Saturday morning I dropped Spencer off at the local PetSmart (where she volunteers at a pet adoption service for several hours every other week) and then took Kim to the airport.  Ate lunch while waiting for Spencer’s shift to end and returned home mid-afternoon.

It was blistering hot outside, but I decided it had cooled sufficiently to head out around 5PM.  The schedule had nine miles and I suited up with sixteen pounds of extra weight, praying that heat exhaustion wouldn’t do me in.  This dovetailed with Eric and Spencer’s evening agenda as they began preparing a sushi dinner when I took off!

Even towards evening, the run was sweltering, but I had selected a route offering some shade so it was bearable.  Around mile seven I made a turn back towards home and headed north on Carolina Beach Road, tired by this point and now completely exposed to the sun.  I needed to cross over this busy road and was disappointed for about a half mile as I kept looking over my shoulder to see whether there was any break in traffic.  Alas, each time I looked back and focused (there was a constant stream of sweat blurring my vision), the view always included a fresh gang of vehicles motoring along.

To complicate matters, there was a painful prick in my ankle which I knew was a sticker I had picked up.  Before we moved to Texas back in 2004 I was unfamiliar with “stickers,” though my cousin (who had lived there for ten years) had forewarned me of these painful bastards.  Stickers are weeds which seem to thrive in sandy soil and sport burrs that hurt like the dickens.  I was discouraged to realize this plague persists in North Carolina and is a constant nemesis for running – after most of my runs I have to endure the slow process of prying these little villains out of my shoelaces.  The sole amusement stickers provide is when I am running through weedy areas in Ohio, because I laugh at the instinctive need to scan for stickers before remembering they aren’t in Ohio.

Between the futility of identifying an opening in the traffic and the annoyance from the sticker, I decided to stop, remove the sticker and wait to make it over to the other side.  Good thing I did, because there was a red splotch on my sock where the sticker was lodged and it was decidedly easier facing the proper direction to evaluate traffic.  Both sides of the street were the “sunny” side, but I certainly didn’t click my heels and break into song!  What I did do was walk for a bit as the combination of heat and weight had made me a bit unsteady.  Fortunately I was only two miles from home and made it back in time for a tasty meal thanks to Spencer and Eric.

Do I look like a ‘Transformer’?  I can load the vest up to twenty pounds, the hand weights are three pounds apiece.

Wrapping up this challenging run yesterday evening didn’t set me up for a successful run this morning.  Since I wasn’t strapping on the vest, I had hoped an unencumbered feeling of ‘weightlessness’ would invigorate the pace, but I felt tired from the start.  Eric, Spencer and I had stayed up late playing cards and I didn’t set off until 8:15AM, so I had also forfeited cooler weather, probably another culprit for the sluggish feeling.  I still trotted twelve miles for a 45+ mile week…the final push continues.

Unsuccessfully attempting to pose like a Transformer, lol!

In the Dark

Not certain how far I ran yesterday morning.  Only eight miles were on the schedule, but I felt good and it wasn’t stinking hot so I started off on a twelve mile circuit.  Of course I was beginning early enough to be sure I could complete the run and still shower before sitting down to work, which meant it was dark outside.  I guess this was the reason why I suspected myself of not properly kicking off the Sports Watch.

If you’ve been following this blog you know I rarely peek at my watch while running, and I was chagrined to see it wasn’t tracking anything when I got back home.  The run went well but I was starting to flag near the end so I took a shortcut and created a unique path, meaning no previous run to look up for distance + elevation gain statistics.  Of course I used to estimate distance before the sports watch anyway, so a conservative estimate is eleven miles.  Still annoying since the estimate around elevation gain is a bit more uncertain.

Hopefully the energy levels are rebounding, because I did manage to run the entire time…and any circuit beyond ten miles without walking a bit has become a rare occurrence lately.  This potentially encouraging news is followed by another solid run this morning…albeit I was still in the dark!

I was confronted by the failure of my sports watch again, but this time the feedback was immediate.  When I tried to switch on the tracking mode for my run it displayed LOW power, making it apparent that it had never STOPPED tracking from yesterday!  Although the tracking screen had disappeared and there was no response to my attempts at both stopping and re-setting, the dang device was still expending energy to plot GPS points while sitting on my desk ever since the previous morning.  At least this absolves me from guilt for the failure --- rather than my bungling set-up in the dark, the device has obviously been possessed by some gremlin…hopefully temporarily.

Knowing that I was proceeding without the benefit of being tracked, I followed familiar paths and grunted out just shy of nine miles with sixteen pounds of additional weight strapped on.  Another pound-miles record rung up for a single run with 141 the new maximum.  Even burdened I managed to run the whole time and even picked up the pace towards the end since I didn’t feel weary.

Let’s hope this trend holds up --- I could be kidding myself but running with the extra weight already feels as though it is building up muscle.  Even if true, it is only my personal theory that this equates to improved hill-climbing ability, but we’ll continue with the experiment.

The Full Load

Just a quick update on running and Reunion.  On the running front, circumstance torpedoed Sunday’s plan, though no big deal as I am inclined to focus on staying rested as opposed to satisfying the weekly mileage prescription right now.  My daughter had a baby-sitting appointment and got picked up late, so I didn’t start until 11:30AM and since it reached 110 with the heat index this was clearly not the ideal starting time.  I slugged out 6.5 miles (8 were scheduled) but it was just too hot.

I figure the intensity of this run probably equated it with eight miles from a heart rate perspective, which brings to mind an interesting point in the evolution of my running program.  Way back last summer I purchased a heart rate monitor and began using that as a tool.  Though initially excited about its potential to help with training, experience suggested limited application (this could be due to my ignorance about how to best utilize it).  Believe I discontinued using the monitor after the half marathon and haven’t looked back…curious how I’ve moved on and forgotten all about this.

Sunday’s run was without any weights due to the heat, but since Tuesdays are the short program (always four miles) and I took off at 6AM, the full load got heaped on my body this morning.  Let me tell you, running with an extra 26 pounds gets noticed, but I ran a strong pace and even aimed at a few hills for 4.5 miles.  I was little beyond a puddle of panting sweat at the end, but enthused that I registered the biggest pound-miles trot thus far at 117 (= 26 pounds * 4.5 miles).

But all the blab here seems to be around running when I am beginning to get excited about Reunion!  The uplifting news is that my brother-in-law Jeff (my hiking companion from Kalalau) is officially on board and will rendezvous with me in Paris – we are on the same flight to Reunion after that.  He will have to leave a few days before me, but I am relieved having somebody nearby when I run the ultra-marathon.

Jeff seems to have been smitten by Reunion like me and it is a blessing that he is diving in and doing most of the grunt work to assemble an itinerary.  I am grateful Jeff is coming along because my bandwidth to cobble together arrangements is compromised by this crazy running schedule.  Jeff has already made reservations for us at Le Gite du Volcan, or “the Volcano Cottage” and we will head straight for the volcano after arriving to hike it first thing the next morning!  Looks like we will be completing a lot of hikes prior to the race, so no doubt I’ll be well rested for the ultra…   J

But Jeff is also poring over my running route in search of the few aid stations he might be able to reach with our rental car to check on how I'm faring (and whether I need to punt!).  The ultra path twists through a mountainous section of the island known as the Cirques.  One of the cirques is Mafate and Jeff passed along a beautiful mountain biking video shot along these trails à Mafate by Bike

I will likely be running some of these trails you see in the clip --- please enjoy and hopefully you may begin to understand why I fell in love with this destination...

Certifiable

Had a regular check-up with my doctor yesterday morning and got the sign-off of my “medical certification” for Reunion.  This was quite a project as I had to translate the entire document from French into English, so my doctor could understand what assurances he was signing off on.  Some of the translations were humorous, like #8 from their list of the “10 Ways” for good sportsmanship:

8.      TOBACCO : The use of tobacco affects health.  It is particularly dangerous to smoke one hour before until two hours after a sporting event.

This makes me curious how many ultra-marathon contestants need to spark a butt up right before launching into a 58-mile run?

All kidding aside, the notice points out some of the particularly perilous parts of the race.  I highlighted the following bullet so my doctor knew this was serious:

-                      aware of the length and difficulty of this race, taking place in the mountains where environmental conditions may be extreme (humidity, temperature variations from 32 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit and altitude from 0 to 8,200 feet above sea level), requiring very good training and a real capacity for personal autonomy

...and he still signed off, so I went straight to the local post office and posted it for Reunion.  If nothing else, I have a nice keepsake – a “Medical Certification for the Diagonal of Fools”, which implies I am certifiably insane?

Having a signed Certificate for the "diagonal of fools" = Certifiably Insane???

During my check-up I asked about taking a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) for a test spin.  This is a device which gets attached to your body and yields constant real-time blood sugars (well, pretty near real-time, anyway).  Excited about the possibility of adding this to my arsenal, because this would tremendously reduce the attention I devote to mentally monitoring blood sugar during long runs: the monitor would allow me to simply glance at the read-out, thus investing greater focus on the terrain I am bound to face on Reunion.

Back to the training, I ran 12 miles down to Fort Fisher this morning.  Today is my daughter’s 15^th birthday and after last night’s sleepover with three of her friends, my wife drove them down to the beach there, so I had a ride back!  I made it to the beach around 9:15AM and they arrived about a half hour later, where we relaxed until noon.

My run was disappointing.  Despite abandoning any weights, I still seem weary and lethargic, quite different from the marathon training when I was tackling these runs with gusto.  Will still press on and rack up the miles, but I may not ramp up to sixty mile weeks so quickly and try to get so more shuteye.

Pounding Out the Miles

Well I’ve put together a final running program to prepare for Reunion.  Sprints and form runs (where you run hard for an extended period of time) are back in the mix, as well as running with weights in hopes of increasing my ability to scale mountains.  Hopefully the variations on a running theme will also help overcome the fatigue which has been plaguing me lately.

Running with weights is a brave new world, so my attempt to quantify this has led to the creation of a “pound-miles” statistic…basically the total weight I’ve burdened myself with, multiplied by the number of miles I’ve lugged it around.  I would hazard that this has already been thought of before or is an entirely useless concept, so I won’t credit myself with any originality.  We’ll see how it goes, though – the hope being that it yields a basis for measuring progress and understanding what size payloads stress my body out.

I can tell you that racking up pound-miles wears you down.  Set out Wednesday morning at 5:30AM for ten miles and only strapped on the pair of three-pound hand weights to burden myself with an extra six pounds.  Well, about mile six I really started feeling tired and opted to shave a mile off the run – so 6 pounds * 9 miles made this a 54 pound-mile trot.  Even though last Sunday’s run was much shorter, hauling 24 pounds around made that effort equal 96 pound-miles.  Enthused to see how this science experiment turns out!

Watching and Weighting

Uncertain whether the weight vest will enable me to scale hills easier, but dead certain it makes runs more strenuous!  I only logged four miles Sunday morning in full weighted regalia --- I did remove two pounds from the vest (primarily to make sure I knew how, but it was real basic), but adding in the hand weights had me taking off with an additional 24 pounds.

The weight exerted its presence from the very beginning, but it wasn’t like you were gasping or felt as if you were dragging an anchor along…though it took a toll.  It was a hot day and I took off at 11AM, so no doubt that added to the burden, but still a serious workout.  The good news is that I wasn’t stiff yesterday morning (as I expected) and changing up the routine has re-energized me.

Kim tells me I look like a Transformer robot with the vest and hand weights on, so I am likely adding some “local flavor” to the neighborhood as well!  I’ll see if I can get a picture next weekend and embarrass myself far and wide.  But for this week, I will continue experimenting and try to map out the final training schedule shortly.

The Hills are Alive

On my way to a forty mile week as I try to get psyched for another fifteen week training cycle. It is difficult though, I kid you not.  I am physically and mentally fatigued from all the hours plodding down roadways and can’t claim serious motivation for climbing back in the saddle again.
 

Perhaps I am daunted by yet another ramp-up in the challenge, and I will certainly need to climb back.  They don’t call the Reunion ultra the “diagonal of fools” for nothing…let me explain.  Most of my training occurs in coastal Carolina where the topography is pancake-land --- average elevation gain per mile when I run is all of 12 feet.  If I seek out every blessed hill around I can raise that to 24 feet per mile, woo hoo.

Fortunately there are a few hills in Dayton and my runs (which again I’ve intentionally routed towards inclines) typically reach 35 feet per mile.  The encouraging news around my 50K the other weekend was an average elevation gain per mile of slightly over 75 feet per mile.  Quite a leap, perhaps explaining why everybody walked up every hill there.

So what is Reunion, you ask?  Try 280 feet per mile!  Once again I am training to run much farther than I’ve ever gone before, and this time we throw in excruciating new heights.  To put this in perspective, I didn’t bother to work hills into the long training runs leading up to the Finger Lakes à total elevation gain for my 26 mile runs was a bit over 400 feet.

Obviously if I am averaging 280 feet each and every mile we have some variance.  But I recently downloaded a listing of the segments for my Reunion run and at the beginning is a 3.1 mile stretch where the climb is 3,667 feet…holy crap!!!  I’m not real experienced with “grades”, but recall when I was on the gerbil wheel last winter that a 6.5% grade had me puffing.  If my math is correct, this stretch is a 22% grade (for three miles).  Talk about begging for an action plan.

Fortune may have rained a little inspiration on me during this week’s Dayton visit, however.  An associate I work with, Dave, has run marathons (including Boston) and has a great knowledge about training for these events.  He suggested mixing in more intensive workouts by running harder with longer strides and/or running laden with weights (hand weights or a weighted vest).

Dave dug out his pair of five pound hand weights and loaned them to me for Thursday’s six mile trot.  As Dave predicted, I could feel the weights exerting their influence around mile four and the change provided some much needed motivation.  In fact, we may be on to something here…

Regarding the running harder notion, I informed Dave that I had been sticking to an upright, short stride ever since reading Born to Run, because of the book’s warnings about knee injuries.  But you know what, this may be the source of my fatigue and constantly plodding at the same old slow pace may have sucked the life out of me.  I dwelled upon this and couldn’t recall similar feelings after my marathon training.

As much as I griped about my sprints and interval runs during the marathon training, perhaps they spiced the routine up in addition to not stressing the same muscles over and over and over again.  So not only did I lug my hand weights along this Thursday, I also stretched my legs out…and it felt great!  My pace was faster than it’s been in weeks and I didn’t feel fatigued after the run.

Ran twelve miles this morning using my old style and once again, ran faster and felt better afterwards.  This afternoon I stopped by Dick’s to score hand weights and a weight vest and now I will try to connive a final training regimen for Reunion, one with weights, sprints and intervals.  Fingers crossed that I’ll get back into the groove and start building up for serious elevation gain, because very soon the hills will be alive with the sound of wheezing!

Falling for the Finger Lakes, Part II

And there would be more touring after the race had been run.  My appreciation for the Finger Lakes would grow after enjoying a post-run dinner at the famed Moosewood restaurant in Ithaca, and even more so by visiting Watkins Glen Gorge the next day.  Absolutely stunning!

Yummy!

Watkins Glen Gorge

Falling, falling, falling…

Serenity and turbulence…

Behind the falls at Watkins Glen Gorge

Falling for the Finger Lakes

Let us dismiss all of this running for a moment since travel is another feature of this blog.  I seized on the opportunity of landing in the Finger Lakes region to do some exploring…and it is fantastic in the Finger Lakes!  Got up early Friday and checked a pair of splendid nearby State Parks (Buttermilk Falls and Taughannock).  The hiking was not difficult and the views indescribably beautiful.

Buttermilk Falls is right outside the city limits of Ithaca (perhaps three miles from my hotel) and is basically a narrow gorge featuring splendid cascading falls.  Taughannock features excellent facilities for swimming, fishing and boating on Cayuga Lake and the waterfalls here is spectacular, with a vertical drop exceeding Niagra!

Not far from Taughannock State Park is the engaging Museum of the Earth, which I dropped in on to conclude my day of touring.  After that I drove on to where the race would start the next morning to register.  Off to a good start!

Beauty of Buttermilk Falls State Park

Buttermilk Falls State Park

Taughannock Falls!

Museum of the Earth

Fifty at Fifty

Full disclosure from the git go.  Fifty kilometers, not fifty miles.  But you know what?  Despite rarely throwing in the towel I am pleased, not disappointed with what I accomplished last weekend.

A year ago I began running seriously for the first time in my life and had never run beyond ten miles before embarking on this journey.  But since then I have completed a half marathon, a full marathon and now an ultra-marathon, the latter two happening after turning fifty.  The ultra turned out to be a learning experience, explaining my contentment at stopping after fifty kilometers (32.9 miles was the true length of the 50K route).

Being a total novice in the ultra-marathon realm, it seemed the Finger Lakes Fifties would be a great entrée.  You run three 16.5 mile loops through the Finger Lakes National Forest, with the option of quitting after two to call it at fifty kilometers rather than completing the final loop for fifty miles.  The course description was forest trails, cow pastures and some roads, so I didn’t envision terrible terrain challenges.

Lesson #1: this ain’t road running.  Right from the start we bolted down narrow trails of roots and rocks that would have had me trudging slowly if hiking.  As luck would have it, I wound up at the front of the pack when the race started and hearing other runners on my heels had me hustling much faster than my training (or simple prudence) dictated. I was running faster than I would have been on macadam, and you had to focus on each and every footfall to ensure firm placement and avoid injury.

The trail opened up after the first few miles and I could release the hounds behind me, but then we started running through muck.  What I mean is long stretches of deep, sticky mud that forced everyone to slow down.  Practically the only places where you weren’t hampered by roots and mud were trails that permitted horses, and these may have been worse!  Horseshoes had utterly pitted the pathways and you risked busting an ankle every time your foot met the field.

My muddy legs and sneakers after the race…

Once the pack scattered I could enjoy some patches of solitude – five or ten minutes of heading down the forest tracks at my slow and steady pace which accommodated negotiation of obstacles.  Around mile ten I teamed up with a guy from Corning, NY and we hung together for the remainder of loop one.

Most runners attempting fifty miles had “pacers” --- friends who would accompany them for the final 16.5 mile loop (the last loop is actually a bit longer).  Extreme exhaustion can lead to mental breakdowns and serious injury, leading me to respect how pacers serve as vital safety valves.  Chatting with my new buddy, we decided to serve as one another’s pacer should we both opt to push on for the final loop.  Unfortunately I got ahead of him after the first loop and never saw him again.  He was usually running a quicker pace than me, but intermittently walked for stretches, so we had these back-and-forth meet-ups.  I noticed several other runners employed this running style.

It wasn’t long into the second loop before I accepted this would likely be my last.  After running for about five hours I could appreciate the total focus required on every step on top of efforts to mentally monitor blood sugar levels was draining me.  There was no rocket science involved in the forecast of likely outcomes for one more loop when physically and mentally tapped out.  The decision would soon be confirmed with authority.

Thinking I had perhaps five miles remaining in the second loop, I was delighted when informed at an aid station (these watering holes, well stocked with food, drink and assistants, were roughly every three miles along the course) that I was 2.8 miles from the finish line back at the campground!  I had successfully managed my blood sugar all day, but this news caused me to slack off and I didn’t consume the usual amount of calories at this last station.  They had so many goodies at these stations that I had barely touched the stash of Clif Bars, etc. in my hydro belt.

Naturally this final stretch was more roots, rocks and mud, the latter causing the first foible.  Having read the rules of the race, I had striven to obey the guideline to run straight through mud puddles since running on the drier fringes just makes it a bigger mess for others and yourself when you return.  Despite noticing relatively few of my running mates were paying heed to this caution, I had plodded directly through the heart of most quagmires right up to a monster one after the aid station that literally sucked the sneaker right of my foot.

It was afternoon now and the heat had started drying up the swampland.  I guess this exponentially boosted their suction power, but what a tremendous hassle.  Had to wade back through the mire and pluck my footwear free and search for a place to sit and wrestle it back on.  Stiff from running, bending over was a drag and with all the tree roots there wasn’t any good place to park my butt.  Even worse, I had difficulty just untying the shoelaces because the mud had caked and made them too thick to slip out of the knot…

Two small packs of runners passed me during the five minutes invested to finish playing Cinderella and both made sure to ask if I needed assistance.  I had earlier extended the same offer to two guys lying by the trail and one slowly hobbling along.  Runners were dropping like flies but it was refreshing to feel the camaraderie: I had also seen two groups of “Search & Rescue” runners sprinting past me in the other direction as well, presumably off to reel in other casualties.

Do need to comment that they were meticulous in recording bib numbers whenever you came to an aid station, so it was clear they were making a serious effort to know where everyone was.

Back on feet, running soon became difficult because I couldn’t coordinate my legs properly.  This had happened before and I was usually able to quickly diagnose low blood sugar.  But being tired and aware of how folks get delusional in these races I initially worried that my blood was too high (had I taken enough long lasting insulin to accommodate the calories ingested during this long haul???).  The good news is that I stopped running and began walking.  The bad news is that I was still walking rapidly.

I was sooooo close to the finish and knew a hot dog was waiting, causing me to wish I could just get there without having to usurp my calorie quotient prematurely.  Although I did pull out a Clif Bar, the better option would have been a Hammer Gel, which restores blood sugar much faster.  The unsurprising outcome was that I stumbled over a tree root and went down HARD.  Incredible good fortune had me plummet onto one of the very few spots that was largely just dirt and grass, so the damage was limited to a slightly twisted arm.  After getting up, brushing myself off and assessing no serious damage had been inflicted, the journey continued at a more reasonable slow walk.

Of course it only took a couple minutes for my brain to come back, so I actually started running again and was soon back at the campground and the finish line.  The first question they asked was how I was doing, followed by whether I wanted to continue.  After the trauma of the last stretch I quickly replied NO and the race was over.  Now I could now enjoy my hot dog…

Here’s the final tally.  There were 200 entrants for the race, 100 for the 50 miles and 100 for the 50K.  Only 46 made it fifty miles and despite all those abdicators (like me) to 50K, only 109 completed that course, so about 78% of those at the start persevered to the finish.  My 50K time was 7 hours 24 minutes, which ranked 61^st out of the 109 and I was 5^th out of twelve in my age group.  I am quite content to have endured and survived!

My poor tootsies after the race…