5-25-12

Rockford Marathon

Rockford Marathon day.  After not running for seven weeks, you didn’t know what to expect.  You’d signed up last minute and decided to use this as a training run to see where you were at and to gauge the injury.  You were pretty confident you could get the thing done, you just didn’t know what kind of time you could pull off.  The forecast was hot, humid and possibly storms.  You had a few friends doing it as well.  Sounded like a party…

Just like usual, you took off too fast.  You ran three or four miles and realized you were doing 6:45’s.  You needed to slow down.  W/ the heat and humidity, you wouldn’t be able to hold that forever.  You backed off a bit and tried to find a decent rhythm that would suit you well for another 22 miles or so. 

A couple of things you noticed while running (not to be a Debbie Downer, but…)

1.  You don’t like running roads.  It’s not nearly as forgiving as the trails. 

2.  You don’t like the marathon distance.  You have to run so fast and you can’t walk the uphills.

3.  There was almost no shade.  Trail runs are full of shade, making a hot and humid day more manageable. 

4.  It was HOT!

It’s amazing how much time you have to think while running for three and a half hours.  You thought about your family.  You thought about your future.  You thought about your injury over the past couple of months.  You thought about how grateful you are to be back running.  You thought about your friends.  You thought about the mountains.  You thought about her.  You thought about why you were doing this.  Why?  And you decided that you must enjoy suffering.  Suffering somehow makes you a better person.  You love to be on the move while sweating and being out in the sun.  You love racing.  But suffering teaches you who you are and what you are really all about.  And that teaches you more than anything.  If you can’t figure out your problems in the time it takes to run a marathon, you aren’t going to find any answers. 

So there was the emergency bathroom stop at mile 10.  There was the shoe coming untied at 13 and almost tripping.  There was the heat that kept telling you to stop, walk the hills, take a little break.  But something just a little deeper inside of you kept telling yourself to push.  Push farther.  Don’t stop and walk just yet.  Push.  Move.  Keep on keeping on.  Oh, and there were your friends and crew that drove from aid station to aid station and may or may not have flashed you.  For motivation purposes only, of course.  

Either way, the day was a success.  You finished the race virtually injury free and with a smile on your face.  You were ecstatic.  You ended up getting a little dizzy afterwards but kept it together.  You didn’t puke afterwards like you did at Ironman last year.  You cheered a few more of your friends in and just finishing on a hot day like that is an accomplishment.  And then you had to rush home and get to work.  You may have been a half hour late but you did it.  Goals accomplished.  And now…on to bigger things…

5/14-5/19

5/19/12  Saturday 8:33p

Bike 3 miles to work and 2 to the grocery store. 

Rest. 

5/18/12  Friday 11:59p

Today you did an easy 10 kilometers on the trail.  It felt like heaven.  Everything is in order for you to try the Rockford marathon on Sunday.

At night, you go to the fights in Madison w/ a few friends.  The National Guard put on some fights (Fight me MMA).  They were by far the worst fights you’ve ever seen.  The fight promoter said something to the effect of / We don’t wanna see a couple of sweaty guys rolling around on the ground, we wanna see them fight! / --so every time the fight went to the ground, they stood them up.  It was terrible.  But the tickets were free and you still had a blast, getting out of town for the night…

5/17/12  Thursday  8:59p

Rest day from running.

3 mile commute.

15 minutes worth of planks w/ the boss at work.

Today you met Dusty Olson, the guy who inspired Scott Jurek to start running (and gave him the nickname Jurker (which he said began as Jurk-off)).  He was a very cool guy w/ tons of good stories.  He has crewed for Scott during nearly all of his huge adventures.  And he hooked you up w/ three pair of Scott running shoes.  What a cool day!

You also signed up (last minute) for the Rockford marathon.  You won’t race it, you’ll just run it as a training run.

5/16/12  Wednesday 7:37p

Day off from work today and the foot is comin around!

14 miles on moderate trails.

2100 yards (approximately)  across Lake Ripley and back.

Solid adventure day w/ a friend.  After all the exercise, you went to Cam-Rock Sports and Café.  What a cool place.  Great menu and ambiance, coffee, bike rentals, 100 different beers, soon to be kayak and canoe rentals w/ shuttle services to pick you up, Frisbee golf, cool employees.  What a cool little shop!  They even let the two of you bring your dogs in and hang w/ the black lab in the back while you ate!

5/15/12  Tuesday  11:04p

No real exercise today.  Rest day.  Although you did bike 3 miles to and from work on the fixie and did 10 minutes worth of planks w/ the boss at work.  1 minute up, 1 minute rest.

5/14/12  Monday  9:52p

Bike 3 mile commute.

5 min plank.

Weights for half hour.

Run three. 

You are just coming back from the injury and starting to incorporate some small runs.  The Achilles was a little fussy tonight, probably d/t running 10k yesterday morning.  You’d better take tomorrow off from running.

bummer dude

My season has not started out the way that I intended.  Not at all.  I hoped to have my first hundred miler under my belt by now.  Unfortunately that was not in the cards for me.  I trained hard for the McNaughton 100 miler all winter but suffered an Achilles injury three weeks b/f the race.  Achilles Tenosynovitis.  I threw everything but the kitchen sink at it in the weeks prior to the race in hopes of healing it up in time.  Acupuncture, massage, ice, compression, kt tape, reiki, lemongrass oil, Biofreeze, rest, elevation, Udo’s oil, the list goes on.  Any advice people gave me, I tried.  I wanted that race SO bad.  But…we make plans and God laughs.  I’ll probably never know why I wasn’t meant to run that race.  I guess the biggest thing now is healing up and being able to run this season.  My next race is the Ice Age 50 and it’s only a couple of weeks away.  I haven’t run in a month.  I’ve been unable to compete in two races that I was signed up for so far this year.

I’m learning a lot by not being able to run.  I’m learning patience and I’m learning to let go of the ego.  I’m reminded how unimportant running races really are.  I put so much time and energy into something that really doesn’t matter in the broad scope of things.  But as coach Bowerman once said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “If you can find meaning in something as arbitrary as running, maybe you can find meaning in something as arbitrary as life.” 

Not being able to do something you love and something that you are passionate about and something that you normally do everyday leaves you w/ a lot of time.  I’ve been writing a bit more.  Reading a bit more.  I’ve got a clean house most days now.  I’ve been swimming, doing jiu-jitsu and lifting weights to keep my fitness level up.  Roxy has too much energy and I get lonely w/out running to keep me company.  I live by myself and I don’t have cable tv or internet at my house b/c I am normally training like a madman.  So, while my friends are all working hard for their upcoming events, I’m catching up on movies I didn’t have time to watch last year.  The break is nice and probably essential to my life.  It’s just taken a period of adjustment.  This is part of the game.  All athletes go through it.  It could be worse.  I’m keeping my head up and being optimistic.  Just learning how to keep my head up and be optimistic as I go…

3-21-12

never underestimate your opponent.

Rule # 1.  Never underestimate the distance of a race.  Rule # 2.  And I know you’ve heard this next one b/f.  But today I broke the rule and suffered.  Never try anything new on race day.  I don’t know why but I completely changed my nutrition plan that I usually stick to on race day and felt like crap the whole race. 

I wasn’t mentally prepared for this race either.  I didn’t think I’d need to be.  I completely underestimated the distance and thought / It’s only a 20k.  I do more than that all the time. 

But the thing is, I took off at a suicide pace and had no intention of suffering.  I hadn’t visualized myself tired or being passed.  And then when it hit me, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  You have to be mentally prepared for every adversity you can think of b/f a race.  Otherwise anything can throw you off your game.  At about two miles I knew I was too tired.  Why am I so tired? / I thought / I shouldn’t be this tired.  But I was in the top ten at least and didn’t want to lose my spot.  I realized the pace I was going wasn’t sustainable and I was going to have to back off.  I was pushing 7 minute miles and was breathing too hard to take a drink.  The heat threw us all off.  None of us are heat trained at this point and here it was eighty degrees in March.  But I don’t use that as an excuse. 

And for whatever reason, I changed my pre race meal into something that SHOULD be good for a runner’s pre breakfast, but it was something I’d ever tried b/f a run.  It didn’t give me gi issues or a stomach ache.  I just felt / off / for lack of a better word.  So I plugged along and focused on myself and just decided to have a good time.  This was going to be a run, not a race.  It was MUDDY!  I like racing in the mud and going through creek crossings.  I like having wet feet all day.  It doesn’t bother me.  So I just hung on and ran the pace that I could maintain.  I still finished w/ a respectable 1:40ish which isn’t bad but I usually judge a race by the way I feel rather than my time or place.  And I felt awful today and it is of my own volition.  The strange thing was my shoulders felt worse than anything else.  At the end of the run, I couldn’t even lift my arms b/c my shoulders were so sore.  I don’t know what I did differently.  That’s why I say something was / off /  So from now on…heed the words of the masters.  Don’t do anything new on race day.  Stick to the same pattern or routine and you will be more adapt to handle the day.  Also, visualize b/f every race.  Put yourself in the worst case scenarios and work it out in your head and be ready for it to happen.  B/c then it won’t happen.  And you’ll have a good race.  So there.  I’m dropping knowledge.  Boom.  Now I’m off to punish myself w/ another ten.  I will not feel this way at any more races this year. 

“Never underestimate your opponent.”  Bruce Lee

how am i going to break Kilian?

All the running and training is slowly falling into place for me recently.  A few weeks ago, I ran the Survivor Series 15k at Rock Cut Park.  I decided to use this as speed work and took off at a suicide pace.  I’m not the fastest in the world but I lit those trails up and passed every person that I could see.  I wiped out four times and finished the race w/ bloody knees.  Wound up running 7:10 / miles and this was a VERY hilly course.  That STILL wasn’t fast enough to place but I ran harder and felt better than I ever have.  And you can’t ask for much more than that.

On my birthday, I ran the Frost Bitten Fat Ass 50k w/ some friends up in the hilly Blue Mounds.  It was a small race and this was the first year it was put on.  It was a 2 loop course w/ a huge climb at the end of both loops that was almost a thousand feet to the top.  And it was COLD.  And I’d been sick and unable to run the week b/f.  No worries.  I set off not far behind the leaders who were running the 25k.  Ran the first loop w/ them and had a blast.  Set off for the second loop by myself and by the time I made it back to the big climb at the end, I was power hiking and hoping there wasn’t anyone coming up behind me.  Well, turned out I was the only one crazy enough to run the 50k so by default, I got a first place and set a course record.  Luckily some friends waited for me and had some chicken noodle soup and other foods ready for a cold and tired boy.  I fueled up and changed clothes and had it in my head that I needed to run 6 more miles to equal my age.  That’s how I usually celebrate my birthday.  A couple of good friends were willing to run w/ me and I was glad for it.  I was tired and would have had a very hard time getting it done w/out them.  And after that…went to a sushi joint and ate my age in pieces of sushi.  It was an awesome birthday and great training for the McNaughton 100. 

After that, I started feeling some nagging injuries.  Three, actually.  I rarely get injured and of course they would have to come when I’m training for my first hundred miler.  I took it easy for a few weeks, incorporating a lot of cross training and bike riding, hoping like hell the injuries would iron themselves out.  Days were going by and I was unable to log much for running miles.

Friday I woke up and went for a bike ride.  About 25 miles.  When I got back I was feeling good.  Really good and rather optimistic about the nagging injuries.  They felt fine.  I decided I would go for a long night run that night to get used to running at night in the woods.  I also wanted to train running by myself and wanted to do ten loops somewhere, to wrap my head around the whole 10 loop thing I’ll be up against at McNaughton.  So I set off for the trail system by my house w/ a hydration pack, iPod, ten gels and my dog at about 7pm.  Roxy ran about 15 miles w/ me and then I ran her home.  I refueled and headed back to the trails.  I really wanted to do 10 loops.  It was a mental struggle for sure.  But overall, my legs and feet felt good.  I concentrated on the ground in front of me and the little light my headlamp provided.  I ran for a total of 7 ½ hours before finishing my tenth loop of the Rockport Park trail system.  As I was running home, I checked my watch and I was up to 38 miles.  I decided I could squeak out another 2 miles to equal an even 40.  I didn’t get home until 2:30am.  I had a Budweiser and a lot of trail mix before passing out.  I had to work the next morning.  And the next morning after that I ran 17 fast on tired legs.  This was a huge confidence booster for me after nursing the injuries for a couple weeks.  I’m feeling good.  I have two more tune up races b/f I will be running 100 miles of brutal trails on April 13^th.  I’m really looking forward to it.  I will have a few friends there pacing and crewing and it will be a huge celebration of LIFE.  I am also running for Active Water and brining clean water to places where it is not accessible.  Mainly in Zambia, Africa.  Many of the families there have to walk 10 or more miles everyday for unsanitary water.  $25 takes care of a family FOR LIFE!  If I raise $3000, Active Water will dig a well, providing water for an entire village!  So I’m working hard and hoping for big things this year.