Holy Crap! A Race (report in 3 parts)...Pt. 1: Discovery.

Wow, so it's been a long time since I put keyboard to screen in this manner, hopefully I'm not too rusty.

First, a bit of an apology for dropping off there.  A number of things happened that made writing more than a little difficult (and perhaps too personal) so I took a break.  I don't know how much or how consistently I'll post here in the future, but having just run in my first race since 2011, I figure I probably ought to put something down.

As anyone who's read more than one entry on this blog is likely aware I like to style myself an ultrarunner.  Of course, I've run all of 2 ultramarathons, so it's probably more appropriate to call me an aspiring ultrarunner.

This year I've been hoping I'd be able to get to Colorado this coming weekend to run in Ouray and follow that up with 50 miles in Steamboat next weekend.  I've logged miles directed at Running Rabbit Running in what I thought would be good for a finish time somewhat under the 10 hour mark.

As the race dates have gotten closer though, I've realized that the airfare wasn't going to materialize and I decided to pay attention to an injury (achilles tendon) that I'd been ignoring.  So on August 16, I took the first of 10 days off.

Around that same time I gripped about my achilles on Twitter.  @RunnerMatt (fast guy from Boulder), responded that he'd had great success treating his ailing achilles using a roller.  I gave that a google and found myself a bit confused as to why I'd never encountered the treatment in my previous searches for relief.

I went to the grocery store and bought a rolling pin and went to work on my calfs.

Let's just call them tight and leave it at that (ouch)...

After a week off which involved nightly rolling pin work, I felt good enough to try out a short run.  I made it all of 100 meters from my gate before stopping, turning around, walking home and going to work with the rolling pin.  That was Friday about 2 weeks ago.

The following Sunday, Deneb, Nataly and I were at the IC Norte (a grocery store with a little mall attached) for lunch and some supplies for the house.  Recently a New Balance store opened upstairs in the "mall". Now...I prefer Brooks shoes, but NB are a decent second place and I've written at length about the MT10 on this very blog.  Love that shoe.  Anyway, since they opened I've harassed the store owner to:

1. Order shoes in size 13+, and
2. Stock some of the Minimus line.

This time when we went in there, there was a table set up on the side:

Sign up for 5k & 10k race on Sunday, Sep. 1.  

The woman who was collecting the entry fees and registering participants was on lunch and I wasn't sure how my heel would feel so I didn't leave my name on the desk, but did say I'd be back later on in the week (pending a successful test of the achilles)...

Thanks for reading, up next: 1 week of specific training.
J

Stuff that hurts.

I don't usually complain about things that hurt, well at least not publicly, but that's changing with this post.  I've got a number of nagging aches and pains that may end up derailing my Leadville 100 race day, and have to play into my LT100 race plan.

Rotator Cuff
I'm going to start with the oldest first and work forward chronologically from there - the oldest injury that seems to affect my running performance.

I crashed my bicycle during a crit in 1998 (I think).  I was fourth wheel in a 4 man break away and we were getting ready to lap the field.  I was in with a good shot to win the race but the idiot leading the break decided that he'd slam on his brakes because of a manhole cover.  That caused the 2 guys behind them to do the same with wheel 3 adding a swerve left into the mix.  His back wheel washed out my front one and I hit the deck going the better part of 30 miles per hour.  Strained rotator cuff.  I haven't even really thought about that injury for quite some time, but it's recently been bugging me on my longer runs - to the point where I just let my right arm hang limp at my side for a while.  I'm doing some strengthening exercises for it...

The Knee
In 2010 I ran the 25 mile race on Saturday and the 10 mile race on Sunday at the Desert RATS Trail Festival.  During the 10 mile race, I remember ticking through pretty good, even having one guy complement my pace.  Unfortunately, that came to an end during the second climb.  My knee started killing me and I had to drop to a walk.  I got some Vitamin I from an aid station worker and was able to grit out a finish, but ever since then I've had recurring flare ups in my knee.  Sometimes it's a very sharp pain, other times it's a dull long lasting ache.

I have no idea what the injury is, just that it comes and goes.  It's currently "on" in a dull long lasting ache form, but it also seems to be in a "waning" part of its life cycle.  It was much worse a few weeks ago.

The Ache-illes
I've also been dealing with Achilles pain for quite some time.  I don't remember specifically when it started, but I do believe I know what caused it.

Good running form is kind of like the dude in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy who figured out how to fly by falling and missing the ground.  You kind of want to lean forward to the point where you lose your balance and have to step forward to catch yourself.  With a bit of angular momentum in the upper body, all that's required to maintain forward motion is alternating knee lifts.  I have a habit where I push off with the balls of my feet and grip with my toes for a little extra speed and that messes me up.  I go through periods where I improve, but then fade back into my bad habits and have to start over.

It doesn't really bother me while I'm running, just before and after, but I'm nervous that'll change.  Right now I'm enjoying a "relearning" phase.  Ache-illes is aching.

The Lower Abdomen - Hip Flexor - Groin
This is my most recent injury.  I initially blamed Deneb because of a game which we (used to?) play called, "Deneb jump Papa." I now think it may have happened while defending myself from one of my bad dog friends.  The injury really flares when I try to kick a dog (I never in my life expected I'd write those words, but there it is).
This injury really makes it difficult for me to get started on a run.  Once started, it fades into the background, but it never quite goes away.  I think it's improving, but 2 weeks ago it was only the Lower Abdomen.  Then again, I had to kick a dog on Friday.  Ugh...

---

With the exception of the shoulder injury, all of these injuries are on my left side.  Fun.
Anyway.  This is the stuff that hurts, here's hoping it gets better.

Thanks for reading and lift up, don't push off...
Jay

A long silence.

It's been a busy couple of weeks.  Cuevas was fantastically busy over the holiday weeks and we as a family really needed to spend time up there.

Then, I wanted to make some measurable progress on the visitcuevas.com website, so I spent some time up there alone and without the interruption of a 2.5 year old gymnast leaping on my back every time I sit down.  I was able to get some stuff done.  It still needs some design work and content needs to be created for a couple of pages so I may spend another day or two up there this coming week to try to finish up, perhaps going up Thursday.

There have been a couple of quite notable things in the last couple of weeks.  I've been logging my two longest runs for the week on back to back days.  This is pretty standard operating procedure for folks training for ultra distance events, but it's new to me.  As far as the running muscles go, I haven't had any huge complaints, but I'm also not logging huge miles.  As far as the rest of the body goes, well...

Last week my long runs were 7 (Wednesday) and 10 (Thursday) miles.  I did them in the middle of the day in La Guardia on hot sunny days.  Hot means 97 degrees and by sunny I mean:

I snapped that photo at mile 5 of the 7 mile run on Wednesday.  At the end of that run, I weighed 85.7 Kilos (a loss of 1.8 kilos).  The next day I went out for 10 miles in similar conditions.  Again I dropped about 2 kilos during my run.

I got a headache.

The headache was so bad, in fact, I couldn't sleep.  It stuck with me throughout the day Friday.  I drank lots of water and even added salt to my bottle, but the pain behind my eyes wouldn't go away.  Acetaminophen helped, sending the headache to a more distant place, but it didn't eliminate the problem by any stretch of the imagination.  I spent a lot of time lying on my bed and in general being grumpy.

Sorry Deneb.

Sorry Nataly.

Needless to say, Friday turned into a day off.  I needed it, because when I awoke on Saturday I still had the headache.  It had eased off, but I was no where near a happy camper.  With the help of the Tylenol, I did get out for my run that day, but it was slow and rather uninspired.

I finally got back to normal on Monday, up in Cuevas.  It was cooler and I think I finally got back on top of my hydration and electrolytes.  Somehow through all of this, I've stayed on top of my workouts.  I have yet to miss a scheduled run, and this week I'll be able to offer Nataly the choice of my running days off.  Which is better for her, us and Deneb: Saturday or Sunday?

That's nice.

Anyway, since last I wrote, I've logged something like 99 miles and climbed something like 9000 feet.  Not a bad 3 weeks.  The vast majority of those climbing feet have come on the road to Bella Vista.  This coming week, I think I'll do my long run on the road to Palermo.  I've only hit that once and I was really turned off by the mud, but obviously it's not muddy all of the time.  Not sure why I've never been back...

Thanks for reading and keep your electrolytes up.
jay

Incomplete Week in Review.

Got one more run on tap for this week.  I'll get to that when Deneb is down for his nap this afternoon.  Going to let him have a long one because tonight will go late.  Somewhere, someone is roasting a whole pig for the Ascarrunz Family Christmas.

Anyway.  Somehow I've managed to stay on top of my workouts this week.  There was a brief moment of "despair" as I thought I'd miss a workout on Wednesday thanks to Christmas shopping, dilly-dallying, and eyeglasses, but I doubled up on Thursday and managed to log the miles.

I'm not a big fan of making up workouts in that fashion - I think it tends to lead to injury.  Especially if one hasn't built up to the required mileage and toward the end of my second run on Thursday, I was feeling it in my Achilles tendons.  An almost burning sensation which I've never experienced before.

The same sensation resurfaced yesterday during my short recovery run.  Not psyched about that at all, but I was able to make the pain go away yesterday by focusing on high turnover rate and lifting up rather than pushing off. Going to have to spend more time doing form drills.

The highlight (and lowlight) of the week has to be Monday and Tuesday in Cuevas.  In my previous post I mentioned that I stayed in Cuevas.  I actually wrote that post Monday morning in Cuevas before Hugo and I went out to collect some bench making material...

We set out around 10:30 or 11.  Hugo with a chainsaw over his shoulder and me with an axe, oil, gasoline, DSLR and Jackson.  We hiked up above the second waterfall at Cuevas, took a left and quickly reached the property boundary.  After another quarter mile or so we got to the location where a tree was already felled, deposited our bench making supplies and continued onward.

Hugo wanted to get out and visit with the mountains.  We ended up walking the better part of 5 miles with a fair number of ups and downs.  The highlight of our hike was the pool at the bottom of a tiny waterfall which must have been 400 feet high.  The water came down from above and hit a tree making a sound just like rain. Beautiful.

We eventually made our way back to the chainsaw and tools and Hugo cut the tree trunk to fashion 3 long benches.  Wizard with a chainsaw he, but the chainsaw decided that Monday was a good day to die and it stopped working about 80% of the way finished.  That was that and so we headed back to the cabins.

Tuesday Hugo found some help (who had another chainsaw) and went back to finish up the job from yesterday.  When they left I wasn't quite ready and I took off about 30 minutes behind them.

Somewhere along the way I took a wrong turn and found myself above where they were working.  I cut through the brush, heading to where I could hear the sound of the chainsaw and pissed off a nest of bees.  Suddenly I was crashing through the forest, and breathlessly telling Hugo in my worst Spanish, "Arbeja, Arbeja!" which locally translates to: "Peas, Peas!" (Simply adding an R causes all kind of confusion)...

Now there were 4 of us crashing through the woods (Jackson included - he thought it great fun!).  Eventually the bees settled down and I'd been stung on the order of 20 times, putting an end to my day and sending me to the pharmacy for some antihistamine.

I wasn't entirely sure what kind of bee had hit me and having ancient history of allergy to wasps, I had to be careful not to die.  I was pretty confident that I wouldn't have problems because I was pulling stingers out of my head. But I have never been stung that many times before and Hugo was saying that these bees weren't honey bees so we decided the best course of action would be to head back to Santa Cruz.

So much for the week in review.

Thanks for reading and the pictures below are pretty much in temporal order from our hike Monday.
J

My hands hurt.

My house has a big yard.  It's got a bunch of trees.  We've got 2 avocado trees, 2 huge mango trees, 8 citrus trees, 1 tamarind tree and something called a chirimoia.  There are also 4 big trees which flower and one small lavender tree.  There used to be more.  Along the west side of the yard, there are 3 large stumps and one smaller one.  Along the back of the house (North) there are 3 more medium sized stumps and the east side has a huge pile of wood.

I'm not a big fan of the stumps.  Nataly and I have been paying a gardener to help bring grass back to our yard, and the stumps aren't a great deal of fun to mow around.  Not to mention they're pretty ugly. So Friday I set about removing a few.  By hand.  With a pickax.

In total I spent something like 5 hours whacking away at 3 different stumps.  One big one which yielded up enough good wood that I'll be cooking some chicken or hamburgers with it.  A smaller one which I believe was once a citrus tree and a new one I created when I cut down a very ill peach tree that we had in back.

I was actually able to extract the root balls of both the peach and the probable citrus trees, but the big one I whacked at until I got it below the ground and then buried it under a mixture of compost, sand and wood chips.

Needless to say, the repeated shock to my hands, arms, and back has me sore even two days later.  And my fingers are particularly stiff.  Why do it then?  Well, like I said: the stumps are ugly and a pain to mow around, but also because of the reading I've been doing about the Paleo diet.

Now, I'm never going to adopt the "Paleo diet".  As a friend of mine on Facebook said:  I tend to stay away from anything with the label diet.  But that said, there's a whole bunch of lifestyle information in these articles too.  Hunter Gatherer lifestyle stuff.  A hunter gatherer was an all around athlete by necessity.  "Cross training" was part of their weekly ritual.

I've never been one to mix up my athletic endeavors;  when I raced bikes, I rode my bike; when I did Kung Fu, I did Kung Fu; when I run; I run.  But here there's all this stuff around the house that is challenging physically, and it's got to get done.  So instead of having the gardener do it, when I get back from the North East, I'll continue my war against the stumps.  That should develop some good core strength.  I've already noticed that just raking leaves is a fair workout and my lawnmower?  It doesn't require gasoline or electricty...

Running wise:  I've logged 7 hours and 49 miles since Monday.  I let the 5 hours of ax swinging count for 30 minutes of running and I will be heading out for 2 hours plus today once Deneb is down for his nap.  Right now it's raining, so I'm hoping it'll stay cool.  It seems that every run this week has been brutally hot, sunny, and windy.  The rain is a welcome change.

Thanks for reading and it seems exercise doesn't have to be a formal undertaking...
J

Five Finger Marathon and More.

Beautiful tree covered in blue flowers
between Cuevas and Samaipata

This past week and weekend were pretty big for me.  My aforementioned change of racing schedule made it so I wanted a fitness checkpoint.  I set out the week with the goal of logging 2 hours running per day, but after registering for the Blues Cruise I decided that I'd switch my runs up a bit and go long Saturday and not so long on Wednesday and Sunday.

I ended up averaging almost 2 hours running per day last week even though I had an unscheduled day off on Thursday.  Unfortunately, Thursday I spent 4 hours in a bus.  First it had a flat.  Then we got to a section of the road to Cuevas which was closed as they try to get a bridge finished before the rainy season comes.  By the time the bus arrived in Cuevas it was getting dark and my back and knees were hurting so bad all I wanted to do was lie down.

Whining aside, the good stuff came during my run on Saturday.  I ran out and back from Cuevas to Samaipata (link on Garmin Connect).  I was hoping to end up with around 4 hours running on Saturday and 25 miles, but my watch time had me at just under 4:30 and as I was pulling back through the gate to the waterfalls, I knew I was only three tenths of a mile short of a full marathon.  If you were on a training run and had .3 miles left for a full marathon, would you stop or run for 3 more minutes?

Saturday's run told me alot of things.  First and foremost:  I can run a marathon in Vibram Five Fingers.  I debated my footwear before heading out for a while, but came down on the side of, "I don't expect to get blisters on the descent back from Samaipata if I wear my Bikilas."  So, I left the Minimus Trail shoes in the cabin.

I seem to have the eating thing down pretty well too since I never really bonked.  I took the last of my tech food and had a gel or half a pack of ClifBloks every 20 minutes.  This seemed to work pretty well, but toward the mid-point of the return I was really wanting a crapper.  Not sure if that was menu choices from the day before, the long descent out of Samaipata, or the half liter of Coke I drank outside of La Estrellita as I took a few minutes in the shade.

Whatever the case, lower GI distress is something that has really slowed me down on some recent runs.  Though were a toilet or secluded knoll to present themselves, the distress would be released in short order.  I'm not a huge fan of dropping trou' right next to a road, and will avoid it at just about any cost.  The cost on this run was a fair number of walking breaks where I may not have needed them.  Oh well.  Hopefully the Blues Cruise has ready access to facilities.

As far as how I feel after logging a full marathon in Vibram 5Fingers, I'm in remarkably good shape.  I seem to have suffered some soft tissue damage in the top of my left foot which made me decide to run yesterday in my old trustworthy Cascadia's and has me taking today off.  Depending how I feel, tomorrow I'll put the Cascadia's on again for my run.  Other than that, I'm not the least sore in muscle or joint and could run another marathon today without too much trouble.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the flowers.
Jay

Ache Here, Ache There, Ache Everywhere.

Mmmmm.  Bison Cheeseburger.

I took Tuesday off thanks to the heat.  Skipped lunch and left work a bit early with the plan to run easy around the Boulder Reservoir, but as I got closer to my run destination, the temperature gauge in my car crept over 90 degrees.  Even for a short run, 90 degrees with no clear objective in the near future didn't seem fun.  I opted instead to stop at the grocery store and pick up some ground bison for hamburgers.

Yesterday I was much better about the whole motivation thing.  It took me a while to actually get out for my lunch run, I've been reincarnating a PC in the office which had gotten funked by a trojan.  It'll be running Fedora 13 and Windows 7.  I do like the Windows 7.

I finally got out at 2 PM and headed down to the Creek Path.  I wore my heart rate monitor, but since I've taken so many days off, it's not really a good judge of my effort.  My heart rate tends to be sky high even after 2 days off: 10-15 beats per minute faster than usual for a given pace.  I'm not sure why, perhaps my heart shrinks?  Probably it's well rested and ready to go?  It conjures an image of Homey bouncing around when I grab the leash.  I'll often run the first couple of workouts after a layoff without the HRM because the data are so screwy...

Anyway.  I knocked out 7 yesterday in just over an hour.  Pretty easy.  One disconcerting thing occurred while I was out there, my left knee really grumped at me.  Patella tendon I think.  I was running in my Green Silence shoes (Monday was a vff day), but after 5 miles I decided to take them off and run the rest barefoot.  That helped the knee almost immediately, but my left achilles tendon got grumpy.  Ugh.

Today I woke up with achy knees, elbows, back, neck and a sore throat.  I don't have a fever, but Deneb got something viral after his trip back from Bolivia.  I expect that he's passed it on to me (and maybe Natatly too).    I'll run short this evening, while pushing Deneb.  That'll take some of the pressure off my knees and ankles.

Thanks for reading.
J