With Vermont behind me, there's an opportunity to work on some new life habits. There are some cooking/eating habits that I want to explore for both money and health reasons.
So, one usually needs to set concrete goals with tangible steps to actually achieve anything, but this is a "off the top of my head" list of things that I'll flush out later.
Cooking/Eating:
-Cook more food from the bulk bins at Edge of the Woods
-Cook with less salt
-Eat less processed and pre-prepared food
-Eat less sugar / refined carbs
-Eat more greens
-Expand/Explore new foods and develop new "standard" dishes
-Make extra food so that Marie can take food to work
Other:
-Read More books
-Spend less time on the internet
-Go to the library / play groups with Andrew 2 x per week
-Step up my brushing/flossing
-Core/weights
-Invite more people to dinner
Big/Open Ended:
-Job/Career/part time work
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Possible runs for Fall 2012
Here's what's going on around CT and nearby this fall... for some casual 50ks on the cheep side...
What about some road runs? 10k?
Jay Peak, September 2nd, 50k on ski slopes and jeep trails... $75, Jay Peak, VT
http://www.jaypeaktrailrun.com/50k_ultra_trail_race
Pisgah Mountain 50k, Sept 16th, $40 before Aug 15th, then $50, then $60... Chesterfiled, NH
https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1UgRp5dvabVCphphxQw1B1Ih_BhcUFCkf_-sd4xLhXBo&pli=1
Sept 22nd, Virgil Crest 50k, 50M, Cortland, NY, $55 before Aug 5th then $70
http://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=15974
Sept, 22nd, Hancock Shaker Village 50 mile, Pittsfield MA, $100
http://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=16022
Sept 30th, NipMuck Marathon, Ashford, CT, $40
http://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=16082
TARC Fall classic 50k, Carlisle, MA, $22, 5 x 10k loops, OCTOBER 13th
http://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=14914
Bimbler's Bluff, October 21st, $45... changes to $55 on August 3rd
http://www.active.com/ultra-marathon/guilford-ct/bimblers-bluff-50k-2012
- Bite 1: August 26, 2012 @ 8:00 am. Meet at the Guilford Lakes School, Maupas Rd, Guilford. This will be an out and back route to Race Hill Rd that is dog friendly and about 8 miles in total.
- Bite 2: September 16, 2012 @ 8:00 am. Meet opposite the monestary off Race Hill Rd, Guilford. The distance is approximately 12 miles, but I have been known to misjudge these things!
- Bite 3: September 30, 2012 @ 8:00 am. The flagship bite over Bluff Head! A gentle 12 miles starting at the Rockland Preserve entrance off Renee’s Way, Madison.
Ghost Train Rail Trail, October 27th, $35. Milford, NH, 15 mile multiples and 100 mile option
http://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=16401
Friday, July 27, 2012
Vermont 2012: Hypnosis and Honey Bears
I had no intention of doing a post Vermont race report. I love reading them, and from time to time I've written them, but I'm always ambivalent about inflicting them on others. But, with the completion of an epic quest, successful in this case, there's a sense of... "loss" is too strong a word... being "ungrounded"... where the singular objective lived in my mind and pumped out the fear, drive and near obsession that's necessary to put together months and months of hard training... there's only a lazy white noise. And so, perhaps to try to tie an emotional bow on the first half of the year and to really move on, I'm going to, in one sitting, bang out whatever comes to mind...
Prologue: The Months before Vermont...
This year, between a greater understanding of how I respond to training, a positively mild Winter and being, frankly, unemployed, I quickly got to a new level of running volume and fitness. Some hard 4-6 mile tempos on the track in March paid dividends with a huge half marathon PR of 1:26.xx. More of the same combined with 20k, 25k and 30k race pace runs on the track (I shit you not) helped me dial in my attempt at road 50k at Lake Waramung which could not have gone better despite running every step solo: 3:48.xx. I negative split the 50k and honestly could have gone farther. I finished a road ultra wondering what I could have done over the longer distances... not the reaction I expected. I'd never won a distance race in my life, and with Marie 39 weeks pregnant crewing me and cheering me on, it was extremely emotional. With both wept with joy, partially from my accomplishment, but mostly at the immanent prospect of having a baby.
After a few easier days I started Vermont-specific training the first week of May only having run more than 4 hours twice so far in 2012 (including the 50k+warm up and cool down) but feeling ready to do the work necessary to prepare for the long road miles and quad busting downhills. The catch was that Marie hadn't had the baby yet, and so I couldn't be more than an hour out of contact at a time as she was first 40, then 41 then 42 weeks pregnant!! So I spent lots of time doing loops in West Rock park, particularly up and down the road hills leading to the overlook.
Finally the baby was born and while there were some sleepless nights we made a pretty cooperative baby. I transitioned from running lots of double days to fewer singles with a big trip to Sleeping Giant Tower on Wednesdays and a long run on Saturdays. This pattern continued until late June when I added a second long run on the weekends and most other days became very minimal recovery. It just was just about quads, quads, quads. Tuesdays and Fridays I would do a whole set of calisthenics that included wall sits and body squats plus core. Last year at Western States I had run out of quads at mile 75 and I didn't want to repeats the training mistake.
Vermont: Expectations and Outlook...
I had originally planned to go without pacer or crew, but before I knew it I had Hillary generously crewing me and Elaine taking me the last 30 miles of the race. My cup was runneth-ing over and I wasn't going to fight the stellar alignment of good weather, starting injury free and a great support network.
I'm a numbers guys. There's no two ways about it. I love and understand data. Data from realendurace.com comparing everyone who had ever run both Western States and Vermont, suggested that if weather cooperated, Vermont was about 2 hours faster and that I should be looking at split times in the 21 hour range. I suspected that my fitness (quads in particular) was a notch higher than 2011 and going into race day we knew the weather was going to be excellent. I suspected that I could break 21 hours if I nailed the race.
And there's the rub: Racing 100 miles is about doing so many things right, doing very little wrong, getting lucky and allowing your fitness to show itself. So basically run, don't screw up, solve problems and if things work out, you'll have the opportunity to try hard the last 20.
A quick note if you haven't done the race, but are considering it (I'm looking at you GVHers Eric and Mark). This is a road race that from time to time goes onto some jeep trails, a little crappy single track and crosses some harvested fields. It's a very very hilly road race, NOT a trail race with some road. Eric, Mark, this course was MADE for you. You can do the whole thing on ONE WATER BOTTLE and some GUs. You're only problem will be running too fast the first 50 miles and blowing up. If you're fit and want to run hard you can seriously think about getting in the 19-20 hour range.
Vermont: The Race...
So, at 2:30am I'm up and getting stuff together. There's some milling and waiting at the can. There's bagel, Ensure and coffee. There's pre-race pictures with Bimbler's and Marie. And 4am... we're off. And HOLY CRAP! What is everyone doing? I'm running 8:30 minute pace and I'm immediately in ~100th place. You people are crazy. So I enforce my vow not to do anything stupid in the first 30 miles and settle.
The course is beautiful from mile ~7 to mile ~30 as you see pastures through dawn fog, as horses and cows and 200 year old farm houses are warmed my the morning sun, as you climb and see sweeping vistas of the Vermont country side. And then that's about it. While I'm sure I got a bit of tunnel vision, the Vermont course, uses up it's "pretty" pretty early on. After 50k it's about business, not about views.
The first 47 miles went pretty smoothly, although I got a bit fuzzy at about 42 from working a bit too hard and needed to grab an early coke and some M&Ms.
I had put together some 21 hour splits that looked like this (based on previous year's splits):
Stage Road (Mile 22.5): Est: 4 hours. Actual: 3:55
Pretty House(Mile 30.5): Est: 5:30 hours Actual: 5:25
Camp 10 Bear (Mile 47.6) Est: 8:45 hours Actual: 8:35 (12:35pm out of AS)
My weight was down 3 pounds which was okay, but I needed to keep drinking as it was heating up. I was getting pretty sick of solid foods and Gatorade... and then I saw my new favorite food:
HONEY: It turns out that I can chug a LOT of honey. When I couldn't fathom putting any more food in my face I could still grab a honey bear by its fat little waist and squeeze a quarter of it into my mouth. PS: I now know that a standard honey bear is 16 x 60 calorie servings which makes it equal to about 10 GUs... literally food for thought... at each aid station that had one, I would ask for the honey bear and violate it, much to the awe and horror of those around me. One long time volunteers said "Wow, I just didn't expect a person to do that."
There are some slow grinds after 10 Bear the first time but after you fight through that you do a 2+ mile downhill road run coming into Tracer Brook ~57. Coke, Honey Bear, Crew stuff and I was out to tackle "Heart Break Hill". This amounted to about 2+ miles of uphill hiking on road and then 1+ mile downhill into Margaritaville. I had been pushing fluids to keep my weight up, and this had bloated my stomach and I had gotten behind on calories. When Hillary asked what I needed at mile 62... I just stared blankly at her. So I chugged 2 cokes and knew I had to put myself back together, by force if necessary.
I think the next section was THE KEY to the rest of the race. I force fed myself 4 hundred calories. It was horrible. I almost vomited. I just choked down half a Lara Bar, some shot blocks, a GU and some Gatorade as a marched on the flat road. It was the lowest point of the race. Especially since I was 100% under the belief that the biggest climbs of the course were right ahead of me. So as the calories kicked in I started jogging an easy hill figuring the HUGE CLIMB was right around the corner. And I got stronger, but the trail actually flattened out so I kept running... then it started going DOWN... and the calories kept kicking in... and it KEPT GOING DOWN... and down and down on beautiful 2-4% downgrade trail and then road. I had mentally prepared to take 5 hours to do the 23 mile loop from 10 Bear back to 10 Bear (thus a 5:30 arrival) but the downhill kept going and before I knew it I was at the turn back... and I realized I was going to get to mile 70.5 at 5:10pm feeling great. TRICKS OF THE MIND!!
So I picked up my Elaine 20 minutes ahead of what I thought was 21 hour pace. On weight. Feeling good. Don't screw up now! Elaine and I hike strong but not all out up the big hill and then ran the beautiful farm roads at the top of the ridge. From 72-75 I knew there was a long and mysteriously slow downhill. Well, mystery solved: it's very steep horse trail that has been totally WRECKED by a million hooves. Unless you're totally fresh, you have to powerhike/break down the chewed up trail and twice we got stuck behind horses and twice horses wanted to pass. This took a pretty big toll on my quads but we powered through okay and got to Spirit of 76' (Mile 77 at about 6:50-55pm) we got my lights and stocked up for the 12 miles to Bill's at Mile 89. I didn't remember what was next on the course, but I told Hillary to expect us in between 2.5-3ish hours (9:25pm-10pm).
My memory gets a little fuzzy here, but Elaine and I worked pretty hard and I remember running a LOT of downhill road. My watch kept going off telling me to eat or drink and I kept saying "at the next hill, at the next hill" and it just never came... finally I stopped running to pee and then we ran downhill some more. One thing that happened was that I couldn't really read any more. I couldn't make sense of the signs at the aid stations, so I had Elaine read them and tell me what mile we were at and how far to the next aid station. We turned on our lights at 8:45 since it was a new moon which I think was about at mile 85-86.
Running downhill became pretty painful, but not excruciating. Just very very uncomfortable. I would have to do sort of a meditation / Lamaze breathing and vocalization. I did this the last 3-5 hours of the race and though it must of been pretty weird to be around, Elaine never said a word about it. Anyways, we got to Bill's (Mile 89) at 9:25-9:30pm (~2.5 hours for those 12 miles ~12:30 per mile pace which... I think this can be run faster if I would have thrown a lot more fuel on the fire ahead of time... but we didn't know). I weighed in, pounded some coke and quick snacks and we were out of there at 9:30-9:35ish. I told everyone we should shoot to do the last 11 miles (which I knew to have some tough hills) in 3 hours and to see if we could break 20:30 for a finish.
89-96 are a blur of steep road hiking with horses, getting passed and blinded by cars, yo-yoing with about 6 other runners and their pacers, grunting my way down steep road hills and power hiking through some ratty trail. At a dinky little AS I told Elaine "I think we can get to Polly's (mile 95.9) by 11:30 if we work". We kept working and grunting and Lamaze breathing and we got to Polly's at 11:15pm. With 4.1 miles to go, and some hills to go I stuck to the goal of getting to the finish by 12:30pm.
We were now "running" flats and downhills at a 12-13 minutes a mile and power hiking everything else. A little sign said "1.9 miles to go" when I thought there was a mile... roll with it. And soon enough it was a mile to go, then a half and we could hear the finish and see all the gallon jugs of glow liquid... I ran the last 200 meters including the slight uphill at the end and stopped the watch at 20:22:43.
Marie, Hillary and a bunch of wonderful Bimblers were there to greet me. I was in one piece but honestly the first coherent thought in my head was "Thank god; I finally get to stop."
Vermont: Thoughts and Wrap Up...
Mentally preparing for and executing a 100 mile race is a grand act of self-hypnosis; you create this psychic object in your mind over the months of trainings, a
vessel where you store all the toughness you've accumulated in training and
where you can hide the more fragile parts of yourself that would otherwise recoil at the
level of discomfort that you inevitably feel in the last 20 miles of a 100.
When you cross the finish line you allow yourself to come out of this state,
and almost immediately you become a fragile and suffering creature that requires
help to reach the med tent 50 yards away and then spend the next few hours
feeling the stings and arrows of what you just inflicted on yourself. The spell
breaks and now you are broken.
And so there you go. Guy trains hard and exceeds his publicly stated goals while meeting, almost to the minute, his secretly held actual best-case-scenario goal. And then it hurt like a bitch for ~5 hours as I "slept" in a cot in the med tent, mostly because the prospect of hiking a quarter mile uphill to the tent was a non-starter.
I'm certainly satisfied and Vermont was a wonderful social experience with Marie, Elaine, Hillary and the other Bimblers. There's an ambivalence though. There are questions raised:
Another chapter ends.... another awaits... but on the other side of two easy weeks...
Alex
July 27th, 2012
Prologue: The Months before Vermont...
 |
| crazy to say it, but me winning Waramung 50k |
After a few easier days I started Vermont-specific training the first week of May only having run more than 4 hours twice so far in 2012 (including the 50k+warm up and cool down) but feeling ready to do the work necessary to prepare for the long road miles and quad busting downhills. The catch was that Marie hadn't had the baby yet, and so I couldn't be more than an hour out of contact at a time as she was first 40, then 41 then 42 weeks pregnant!! So I spent lots of time doing loops in West Rock park, particularly up and down the road hills leading to the overlook.
Vermont: Expectations and Outlook...
I had originally planned to go without pacer or crew, but before I knew it I had Hillary generously crewing me and Elaine taking me the last 30 miles of the race. My cup was runneth-ing over and I wasn't going to fight the stellar alignment of good weather, starting injury free and a great support network.
I'm a numbers guys. There's no two ways about it. I love and understand data. Data from realendurace.com comparing everyone who had ever run both Western States and Vermont, suggested that if weather cooperated, Vermont was about 2 hours faster and that I should be looking at split times in the 21 hour range. I suspected that my fitness (quads in particular) was a notch higher than 2011 and going into race day we knew the weather was going to be excellent. I suspected that I could break 21 hours if I nailed the race.
And there's the rub: Racing 100 miles is about doing so many things right, doing very little wrong, getting lucky and allowing your fitness to show itself. So basically run, don't screw up, solve problems and if things work out, you'll have the opportunity to try hard the last 20.
A quick note if you haven't done the race, but are considering it (I'm looking at you GVHers Eric and Mark). This is a road race that from time to time goes onto some jeep trails, a little crappy single track and crosses some harvested fields. It's a very very hilly road race, NOT a trail race with some road. Eric, Mark, this course was MADE for you. You can do the whole thing on ONE WATER BOTTLE and some GUs. You're only problem will be running too fast the first 50 miles and blowing up. If you're fit and want to run hard you can seriously think about getting in the 19-20 hour range.
Vermont: The Race...
So, at 2:30am I'm up and getting stuff together. There's some milling and waiting at the can. There's bagel, Ensure and coffee. There's pre-race pictures with Bimbler's and Marie. And 4am... we're off. And HOLY CRAP! What is everyone doing? I'm running 8:30 minute pace and I'm immediately in ~100th place. You people are crazy. So I enforce my vow not to do anything stupid in the first 30 miles and settle.
The course is beautiful from mile ~7 to mile ~30 as you see pastures through dawn fog, as horses and cows and 200 year old farm houses are warmed my the morning sun, as you climb and see sweeping vistas of the Vermont country side. And then that's about it. While I'm sure I got a bit of tunnel vision, the Vermont course, uses up it's "pretty" pretty early on. After 50k it's about business, not about views.
The first 47 miles went pretty smoothly, although I got a bit fuzzy at about 42 from working a bit too hard and needed to grab an early coke and some M&Ms.
I had put together some 21 hour splits that looked like this (based on previous year's splits):
Stage Road (Mile 22.5): Est: 4 hours. Actual: 3:55
Pretty House(Mile 30.5): Est: 5:30 hours Actual: 5:25
Camp 10 Bear (Mile 47.6) Est: 8:45 hours Actual: 8:35 (12:35pm out of AS)
My weight was down 3 pounds which was okay, but I needed to keep drinking as it was heating up. I was getting pretty sick of solid foods and Gatorade... and then I saw my new favorite food:
 |
| Me chugging honey at mile 57... |
HONEY: It turns out that I can chug a LOT of honey. When I couldn't fathom putting any more food in my face I could still grab a honey bear by its fat little waist and squeeze a quarter of it into my mouth. PS: I now know that a standard honey bear is 16 x 60 calorie servings which makes it equal to about 10 GUs... literally food for thought... at each aid station that had one, I would ask for the honey bear and violate it, much to the awe and horror of those around me. One long time volunteers said "Wow, I just didn't expect a person to do that."
There are some slow grinds after 10 Bear the first time but after you fight through that you do a 2+ mile downhill road run coming into Tracer Brook ~57. Coke, Honey Bear, Crew stuff and I was out to tackle "Heart Break Hill". This amounted to about 2+ miles of uphill hiking on road and then 1+ mile downhill into Margaritaville. I had been pushing fluids to keep my weight up, and this had bloated my stomach and I had gotten behind on calories. When Hillary asked what I needed at mile 62... I just stared blankly at her. So I chugged 2 cokes and knew I had to put myself back together, by force if necessary.
 |
| Yep, you're at 70.5 at 5:10pm... |
So I picked up my Elaine 20 minutes ahead of what I thought was 21 hour pace. On weight. Feeling good. Don't screw up now! Elaine and I hike strong but not all out up the big hill and then ran the beautiful farm roads at the top of the ridge. From 72-75 I knew there was a long and mysteriously slow downhill. Well, mystery solved: it's very steep horse trail that has been totally WRECKED by a million hooves. Unless you're totally fresh, you have to powerhike/break down the chewed up trail and twice we got stuck behind horses and twice horses wanted to pass. This took a pretty big toll on my quads but we powered through okay and got to Spirit of 76' (Mile 77 at about 6:50-55pm) we got my lights and stocked up for the 12 miles to Bill's at Mile 89. I didn't remember what was next on the course, but I told Hillary to expect us in between 2.5-3ish hours (9:25pm-10pm).
My memory gets a little fuzzy here, but Elaine and I worked pretty hard and I remember running a LOT of downhill road. My watch kept going off telling me to eat or drink and I kept saying "at the next hill, at the next hill" and it just never came... finally I stopped running to pee and then we ran downhill some more. One thing that happened was that I couldn't really read any more. I couldn't make sense of the signs at the aid stations, so I had Elaine read them and tell me what mile we were at and how far to the next aid station. We turned on our lights at 8:45 since it was a new moon which I think was about at mile 85-86.
Running downhill became pretty painful, but not excruciating. Just very very uncomfortable. I would have to do sort of a meditation / Lamaze breathing and vocalization. I did this the last 3-5 hours of the race and though it must of been pretty weird to be around, Elaine never said a word about it. Anyways, we got to Bill's (Mile 89) at 9:25-9:30pm (~2.5 hours for those 12 miles ~12:30 per mile pace which... I think this can be run faster if I would have thrown a lot more fuel on the fire ahead of time... but we didn't know). I weighed in, pounded some coke and quick snacks and we were out of there at 9:30-9:35ish. I told everyone we should shoot to do the last 11 miles (which I knew to have some tough hills) in 3 hours and to see if we could break 20:30 for a finish.
89-96 are a blur of steep road hiking with horses, getting passed and blinded by cars, yo-yoing with about 6 other runners and their pacers, grunting my way down steep road hills and power hiking through some ratty trail. At a dinky little AS I told Elaine "I think we can get to Polly's (mile 95.9) by 11:30 if we work". We kept working and grunting and Lamaze breathing and we got to Polly's at 11:15pm. With 4.1 miles to go, and some hills to go I stuck to the goal of getting to the finish by 12:30pm.
We were now "running" flats and downhills at a 12-13 minutes a mile and power hiking everything else. A little sign said "1.9 miles to go" when I thought there was a mile... roll with it. And soon enough it was a mile to go, then a half and we could hear the finish and see all the gallon jugs of glow liquid... I ran the last 200 meters including the slight uphill at the end and stopped the watch at 20:22:43.
Marie, Hillary and a bunch of wonderful Bimblers were there to greet me. I was in one piece but honestly the first coherent thought in my head was "Thank god; I finally get to stop."
Vermont: Thoughts and Wrap Up...
 |
| Me and Andrew the next day |
And so there you go. Guy trains hard and exceeds his publicly stated goals while meeting, almost to the minute, his secretly held actual best-case-scenario goal. And then it hurt like a bitch for ~5 hours as I "slept" in a cot in the med tent, mostly because the prospect of hiking a quarter mile uphill to the tent was a non-starter.
I'm certainly satisfied and Vermont was a wonderful social experience with Marie, Elaine, Hillary and the other Bimblers. There's an ambivalence though. There are questions raised:
- Should a race/experience be THIS complicated logistically?
- Should a challenge cause this much damage?
- What would it be like to run the race easier, meaning "not all out"? A 22 hour finish would be a minute PER MILE easier... would this be more fun? Or would it be unsatisfying?
- Do I want to chase my Vermont time next year? [Almost certainly NOT]
- Do I want a course with more trails or with EVEN more running? Maybe one of each...
Another chapter ends.... another awaits... but on the other side of two easy weeks...
Alex
July 27th, 2012
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