Taper Time!

On a muggy Sunday afternoon with six days to go before my first 50 miler I thought I'd pen some current thoughts.

1. There are no mountains in or around Cincinnati

2. It's hard to run slowly in or around Cincinnati

3. It's starting to get really hot. 90s and muggy. Today I was drenched in sweat after a quick 4  miler only in shorts.

4. Last Wednesday I went to a state park 45 mins away to run some trails. I wasn't running happy cause the trails were extremely windy and overgrown. Glad I did the run, but not very happy. Here's a little guy I ran into:

5. Last weekend I went to Shawnee State Forest for two days and one night with a friend. Hiked in 5 miles with a backpack and hiked out the same the following day. I was planning on doing a 20 miler after we hiked in, but it ended up being a 10 miler due to the heat and general fatigue. Bridal trails were steep in portions and rocky which was a nice change of pace. I felt pretty badly though and didn't run very happy. Many ticks. The next morning I did 6 or so and was much happier. That was basically the only run that I've been happy on since 50sforyomomma.

6. I'm quite nervous that I haven't been necessarily enjoying my running the past two (?) weeks. I've been cranky and slow speeds feel worse than faster speeds. It's been so hot that I haven't really ran more than an hour in the past week.

7. I read something on http://ultrunr.com/ about hormones getting all messed up after ultras. With three 50ks in the past three months, I think my endocrine system hasn't recovered. Like I said, I've been tired and cranky and motivation isn't really there.

8. But screw that. I'm starting to feel better and am getting amped or this coming Saturday. My energy levels have been up a tad since I've dropped in mileage this past week. I'm not quite itching to run, but my legs have been shaking a bit. After not doing really anything this coming week I'm sure I'll be good on Saturday. I'm starting to think confidently and I'mma enjoy the Gore-Tex North Face Endurance Challenge 50 miler. To be honest, I'm not ideally where I'd like to be. But I'mma make the best of what I have. And I have a lot.

See you round the mountain.


ps. I found the video from 50sforYoMomma. There's a snippit of me at 5:00 and my short interview is at 5:37 :-P

50sForYoMomma Race Report

This past weekend I hesitantly ran the 50k at 50sForYoMomma in flat Circleville, OH. With 5.2 mile loop course and two weeks after Promise Land 50k+ and three weeks before the North Face 50 mile in D.C., I thought it'd be a solid last long run, which it was! Mostly. I told myself I wasn't going to race as I had been tired from destroying it at PL, but of course it's hard to hold back during an actual event.

So Friday evening Wyatt, my dad and I found ourselves at Hargus Lake in middle-of-nowhere Ohio camping. We camped next to a 50something year old dude Rick who was fun to get to know. He's ran Burning River 100 and Mohican 100 before, both two summer ultras around Cleveland. We talked about races and training and nutrition and whatnot. I learned a couple good things:

"After your first 100, your hormones will be so off and you'll be so emotional that your pencil will break two weeks later at work, and you'll start to cry and scream, "why me!?" -Rick

Eat protein early in a race 50 mi or longer. Egg whites. (I'll def be doing that at NF)

Burning River and Mohican are the races to do in Ohio. They're "not flat" but I think they'd still be flat.

With dogs barking the whole night in camp I barely got any sleep and was quite annoyed come time to wake up. I wasn't feeling it. But it was just a training effort and a small race (~140 starters?). Plus it was a nice day and a new type of race with the loops so what the heck. At the starting line I met an older dude with the finisher shirt from Terrapin this year. I wish I got his name, but he seemed legendary. Finished Hellgate 4 times! Gonna do the beast this year. He went off 15 mins before me with all the 50 milers.

"Go" and some dude literally sprinted off the line. Everyone was like, "does this dude know this isn't a cross country 8k?" The chase pack formed and quickly turned into a peloton of 7 people with me pulling up the rear. Mile 3.5 came and my dad was sitting on a bench and I said, "they're going out too fast" which they were. I dropped off the back with Wyatt after the aid station then Wyatt faded and I completed the first lap my myself and finally was running my own pace. I soon caught the then four-man chase pack and ran with them for a bit. They had slowed down a bunch and after an aid station I took the front and started feeling good. One guy dropped off the back then I let another person lead. Ran with him and another guy for the next two laps. They took the downs really slowly but overall held a steady pace which was probably a tad faster than I would have liked to have been running for a training run. But I was enjoying running with them.

Aid station on lap three and I went to fill up my bladder. It wouldn't close fully, literally took me 4 if not 5 mins to get it half way on. Then I was a little down cause I had work to do and I didn't want to race. Went through lap 5 craving coke which they didn't have at the aid stations but finally found some. My dad said, "you're in fourth the last dude just left the aid station. Do it for yo momma." And all I could say was, "it's so flat."

But I caught that guy pretty quickly and ran pretty hard to hold him off for a third place finish with a time of 4:52:00. If I was fresh and raced I'm confident I coulda gone like 4:30, but I'm content with how it went. Still a PR! I was able to run the next day to put in a solid 50 mile week. Someone was taking pictures and I got an interview (! haha) after I finished but they're not up on the website yet.

Because I ran around 85-90% effort I wasn't too tired after I finished. I was only sore in my hips from the constant running and no climbing or descending. I'm super stoked for NF and coulda kept going for 50 mi at this race. Leggo.

Nutrition (not a lot):
2 roctane gels
2 noncaffine gus
1 twix bar
~100oz water
1 cup coke
1 cup heed
    = ~600 cal.

Will definitely eat and drink more/on a schedule at NF

See you round the mountain

The beginning! For the right reasons.

Hello!

Kind of odd to be speaking to the internet. I've been debating starting a blog for probably four or five months now, going back and fourth on the pros and cons. Pros: I get to write, share my musings, I like reading other people's race reports, and I have somewhere to put my thoughts. Cons: Everyone can see it, and I feel like I'm joining the bandwagon of blogging runners.

What really made me decide to click the mouse on this one was what happened yesterday. Yesterday I ran the 2nd annual 50s For Yo Momma (50k not mile). From last year's results, the field seemed slim and like It'd be a small local ultra (it was). With the race only two weekends after Promise Land 50k+ (more like 34.5 miler), I was a little wary of running another 31 miles. Recovery after PL was pretty rough. I'm quite sure that race was the hardest I've ever ran. I loved it: the almost 9000 ft of vert, the LUS community, driving to the race with VT ultra, the 5:30am start, the course. I ran a super-quick 5:12 and destroyed myself in a great kind of way. As for recovery, I don't think I ate enough the following two days after the race. I only ate a regular Chipotle chicken burrito for dinner then went to bed and didn't focus on eating protein on Sunday or Monday. Super sore. Anyway! That was an incredibly fun race but I was so toast I didn't feel like running at all in between that and 50sforyomomma. I felt like I had to run but I didn't want to run, you know? All about the learning experience (I didn't need to run). I listened to my body and scratched a 12 miler on the following Sunday and instead ran 5 really really fast miles which was odd. What was my body doing? I had read some stuff about how your endocrine system (hormones) are all messed up after you race really hard. I think that's true. Not to mention my body was so messed up from Terrapin Mtn 50k back in March paired with PL a month later and some decent miles inbetween.

So Friday before 50sfoyomomma and I didn't feel like running. I got a massage on Thursday which realllly helped my ITbands out and I was super thankful for that. I'll write a race report on the actual race here later. The point I'm getting at is.....drum rolllllll...thoughts and things I saw/heard after 50sforyomomma:

What's your motivation? Specifically I'm talking about running, but it applies to all. How'd you get into Ultras and why do you like it? Why do you keep coming back for more? Why do the guys (who I hope to be) that are 60 and still running crazy distances still do it? How do they do it? There are a million reasons to run, but running to be tough/cutthroat/to brag is not a reason to run.

I don't want to assume anything about this specific person I'm thinking of. I don't know anything about him really. He was actually pretty nice when I talked to him, but he got me thinking. He's a young dude around my age and a fast dude, but from my impressions he's running ultras for the wrong reasons. I heard him post-race brag about his PRs. How he's really fast and really young and up-and-coming. He's talking to this really nice fully tattooed 40 year old man that's massaging him for free. And the kid is talking about how he wasn't pleased with his day (although he blew the competition out of the water) and how he's won a million smaller races. I'm sitting beside him thinking, dude, just enjoy it. Who gives a fuck if you didn't reach your extremely lofty goal. (Am I allowed to cuss here?)

It might be that I'm slightly jealous of this dude living in Colorado and that he's super fast. But that doesn't really matter. I'm pretty sure I could go on and on and on about what rubbed me the wrong way but I won't. His demeanor was very "me" focused. (I acknowledge that running is selfish and so is blogging, perhaps a post on that later. Races should be about community though, not about the self)... I run trails because I like running trails. I like running trails alone and I like running trails with my friends and with strangers alike. I like talking about running and reading about running. I like the outdoors (a lot, if you know me). I like the elements and the challenges that are thrown at you while running up mountains, physically and mentally. Getting out of our comfort zones to push ourselves to be better people. (John Butler Trio chimes in my head, "life's not about what's better than")... After Promise Land where my good friend who I coaxed into running ultras got out of the race mentally and just lost it, I said, "You can't not have a good time if you try to smile the whole time. Just enjoy it." I hope after the summer he'll get the fire back in him to run another ultra. Immense potential. Seeing other people happy makes me happy. Shout out to Rachel Corrigan!

I didn't want to run a 50k this past Saturday, but after 5 miles of it I started loosening up and ran with a couple good dudes. I started smiling and enjoying it. Even though I told myself I wasn't going to race, I started pushing it and got to the low points where I walked and ate and said, "alright, lets do this." And it felt so epic. Of course it wasn't epic. Like Dakota Jones says, "it's just running people." But I conversed with about 5 new faces during/before/after the event, and they were all great, smiling people. That's the ultra community.

So that's my main point. Whatever you're doing, make sure you're smiling. Make sure you're doing it for the right reasons.

See you round the mountain :)
(Phrase stolen from Steve Mooney, the best English professor of all time!)