Tapering Is So Hard To Do

It's gotten to be about that time that I should begin to taper for the NF 50 in San Francisco in 12 days. Problem is that I'm feeling as good as I've felt and enjoying my running as much as I've enjoyed it in quite some time. Each day I keep telling myself that this will be my last long run before December 4th.

Today I actually did a short mellow run, but will probably take advantage of the free time that I have tomorrow and get out for a 2-3 hour run with ~5,000 ft. of climbing. There are just too many runs that interest me right now, and lately I've been having no trouble finding great companions to join me on these runs. It makes it hard to taper when I know I'll really enjoy my day quite a bit more if I get out for 3+ hours.

I spent most of my time on my run today exploring some trails half way between here and Boulder. I was able to find a link that cuts out most of the road that I needed to run the last time I ran from my house to Boulder. I've got a route figured out now that can get me to Boulder on 25+ miles of trail with less than 5 miles of dirt road and less than a 1/4 mile of pavement. It'd be wise of me not to run this route in the next 12 days, but we'll see if I'm actually able to resist the temptation.

It's About Time

Finally for the first time since August I have strung together several weeks of time in which I'm feeling really good in my training. Beyond this it's felt great to feel strong and healthy in my day to day life outside of running.

It's always really hard for me to feel confident and grounded in life when I am struggling in how I feel in my physical body. For all of September and most of October I felt sick, weak, and tired more often than not. That was a hard time for me.

For over 3 weeks now though I have been feeling progressively stronger and stronger. This has allowed me to finally feel excited about being here in Colorado, and for the first time since moving here it really feels like home.

In terms of running the timing couldn't be better. I'm less than 3 weeks removed from the most competitive race I will have ever run, and it feels really good to be developing the kind of confidence that I am right now. I still have about 10 days of really good training that I need to get in before a week long taper, but I feel really good about where I am right now... Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself.

Freaks Of Nature

Was out running in the mountains around Boulder with Tony (and several others) today. We were running down Fern Canyon and began talking a bit about Kilian Jornet and his insane talent running up and/or down steep technical trail. I mentioned to Tony how I had no idea what to really expect from Kilian going into Western States this year, but how obvious it was just a few minutes into the race that he is every bit as gifted of a runner as all the hype would indicate. He has so much capability that I only needed to run with him for a few minutes to realize that we were running in the presence of someone who is one of the best in the world at what he does.

As Tony and I ran down one of the steepest, most technical trails in the Boulder area and talked about this I suddenly had this ironic "ahha" moment in which for maybe the first time I really understood how insanely talented of a runner Tony is. Here was a guy who had run 68 miles yesterday, was 2+ hours into a run in which he hadn't had a sip of water, and was running down Fern Canyon like it was a paved bike path. I was feeling really good today so it was really easy for me to stay right on his heels and admire how gifted he really is. I was shocked at how smooth he was able to run down this trail with his legs as tired as they must have been after his huge effort yesterday. I also had a bit of insight into just how dialed into the local trails he is when we were further down Fern Canyon and in mid sentence he said, "oh, that is new." That being one random rock in the middle of a thousand rocks. Intimate trail knowledge certainly helps with being able to run so smoothly down a steep, technical stretch of trail, but what I saw in Tony today goes way beyond intimate trail knowledge. It speaks rather of the reality that he (like Kilian) is one of the best in the world at what he does. Good stuff.

Ultra Town USA

As much as I have been missing running in Juneau, this past weekend here in Colorado sure went a long way in getting me dialed into my running here.

On Saturday I took the bus down to Boulder to meet up with a few folks for a fun little 4 hour group run. What I expected to be a dozen people or so was actually more like 50. I started behind everyone because I showed up late and eventually I made my way toward the guys running out in front. I've known since moving here that the talent of runners in this area is off the charts but it wasn't until Saturday that this really hit home. Had this been a race it would have been one of the most competitive ultras ever run. Scott Jurek, Tony K., Dave Mackey, Nick Clark, Dakota Jones, Joe Grant... just to name a few of the locals that I would run with most of the day on Saturday. I didn't feel very good that day but it was nice to run with such a large, diverse, and insanely strong group of runners.

On Sunday Tony, Joe, and Dakota drove up to Nederland to join Patrick Garcia (who had driven up from Denver) and I for a fun 5 hour slog up over 11,000 ft. into some pretty serious early season snow. It was mostly clear trail up to about 10k, but once we were to 10,500 there was well over a foot of snow. Stubbornly we pushed on to get a nice view of the Continental Divide before turning back for home and then down to Boulder for some trick-or-treating with the little one and a fun Birthday/Halloween/Housewarming party at Scott Jurek's house.

In all it made for a great weekend in which I felt, for the first time since moving to Colorado, that I found a bit of a rhythm to my running here. I actually felt physically really weak on both of these long runs but it felt really nourishing to get out with several other runners and to be out for over 4 hours for two days in a row. Now I just need to find a way to get my body to come around and catch up with my mind and spirit.

Up, Up, and Up

In Oregon now after 5 days in Juneau. Going to MHW/Montrail meetings before heading back to Colorado on Thursday.

It was pretty sweet to have a little Juneau getaway. The weather miraculously was really nice while I was there. In 5 days it only rained for a few hours and was sunny more than half of the time!

My first morning there I woke up and looked at the mountains. Mt. Jumbo was the mountain I could see from my friend's house where I was staying and right away I felt the draw of the alpine. I "needed" to go up there. Quick breakfast and that was where I went. Up, up, and up.

After craving steeper terrain for over 2 months (in Colorado I haven't found much of anything that climbs more than 7 or 8 hundred feet per mile) it felt like pure bliss to be climbing at a clip of 1,400 ft. per mile. Up, up, and up. Hitting the snow felt even better. And when the snow got deeper, that felt even better.

On this morning there were still some clouds, but once I got above 3,000 ft. I was above all of the clouds and could see only snow covered mountain tops in every direction. I felt more nourished by the mountains and the landscape in that moment than I can possibly describe with words. I could have left Juneau right then and been happy with my trip. But then I just kept getting more and more nourishment.

70 more miles of mountain running, lots of sunshine, and dozens of social engagements later and my time there was done.

I don't know exactly why I went there, or what it was that I was looking for, or what it was I found, but whatever it was I know that I liked it. And the great thing is that I also find myself more excited to head to Colorado on Thursday then I have been about being there yet. I haven't really accepted Colorado as "home," but I feel like taking this trip to Juneau is going to help me do this much more in the coming weeks than I have been able to so far.

Homeward Bound

Hopefully my Mom (who thinks New York is my home) and my girlfriend (who thinks Colorado is my home) don't read this, but I'm heading to what I consider home later today for a 5 day visit to Juneau. My bags are packed and I'm ready to go. There even looks to be some decent weather forecasted for the next several days up there, something which could easily be considered a miracle for Juneau in October.

Juneau has what I consider to be the best mountain/trail running of anywhere I have ever been. I'm jittery with excitement to get back in those mountains for the first time in almost 3 months. Word is that everything up above tree line is snowed in, but I am craving the alpine above Juneau so much that I suspect I'll be pushing through as much snow as I need to be up there.

Also, I have 6 friends up there who are planning on running either the 50 mile or the 50k at the North Face San Francisco race in December. Juneau might be more represented at that event than any city outside of California. My hope is to run with all of them in the next 5 days.

I also am looking at this trip as an opportunity to gauge if my general weakened physical state in the past 6 weeks is because of the altitude here in Colorado. I'll be in Juneau for 5 days and Oregon for 3 days after that. 8 days at much lower altitude should give me a decent idea of how my body is feeling as compared to how it has been feeling here and how it feels when I return here. I've been coming around and feeling better and better the past few weeks here so I feel confident that in time I will feel as strong as ever here, but this next week will be a good test of whether the altitude has been the cause of what I've been feeling or if instead I have a nagging illness or something similar to that going on.

And beyond all of this running stuff, some of my best friends in the world live in Juneau. I'm looking forward to lots of time with them... making food; sipping coffee; being outdoors; drinking a few beers; and talking a lot about life.

A Fine Day At The Office - NF 50 Southeast Region Race Report

I've never been one to take money (the acquisition of money that is) very seriously. I've only worked a handful of 40 hour weeks in my life. I've never been able to justify sacrificing the value of having more free time in trade for having less debt or more money saved for the future. I put my happiness and satisfaction in the current moment ahead of perceived happiness and satisfaction in the future. I think the notion that it is our civic duty to work a 9-5 day; week in and week out; for years, is an antiquated notion that is a significant contributor to some of the ills of our society. I don't think it's a coincidence that the average American works more hours in a year than those of all but a few developed nations and that Americans are on average more overweight and more depressed (to name a couple things) than the people of every other nation on the planet (at least according to multiple studies).

OK, I've gone off on a tangent here, but the point is that I've never been able to find a whole lot of excitement in doing things primarily for the sake of earning money, and thus it comes as no surprise to me that it ended up being somewhat difficult for me to take my race in Georgia very seriously this past weekend.

I've never run a race (until this past weekend) in which my primary reason for doing the race was to earn money. This time though I decided that I would give this a go because I'm fairly broke right now and I knew I would have a great shot at winning some of the $2000 prize money up for grabs at this race.

And so this was my main focus starting the North Face Southeast Regional race on Saturday. And just as I expected it was a bit harder than normal for me to feel super excited while running. That's not to say I didn't have fun. I felt really good the entire day (except for one 2 mile stretch late in the race when I was short on calories and felt dizzy and weak and just wanted to lay down for a nap), but I kept finding myself feeling really apathetic about it. At one point the route was not marked properly and I ran about 7 miles off course. As it turned out this was a stretch of course that we were supposed to run later in the race so they improvised on the fly and just had those of us that ran this 7 mile loop in error not run it again later in the race when we were supposed to. The funny thing was that even at first when I thought that I was basically going to run 57 miles I didn't really care. More than ever in any race I've done I just felt like I was out there for a run, not necessarily a race.

On the surface this probably sounds like an unfulfilling experience, but the reality was that I really enjoyed running a race that I felt so apathetic about. It made it really easy. I was able to stop and enjoy the views in the distance a couple times and I spent more time at aid stations than I ever have in a race.

In the end I finished more than an hour ahead of the 2nd place finisher. My time (7:42) wasn't very fast at all but I was very happy with how it all went. The course was very enjoyable to run. Much flatter and more smooth than what I'm used to racing on. Although my altimiter showed over 8,000 ft. of climbing though so there certainly were hundreds of small climbs that added up after 50 miles. Also we were on singletrack the entire race. Not even one short stretch of pavement or dirt road.

In all this turned out to be a successful race in every way: Nice payday; beautiful trails; relaxing pace; my parents drove down to the race from New York; and I was only gone from home for about 36 hours!

Human Express

Thanks to everyone for your advice after my last post. I strongly considered all of the suggestions for needing rest. I did, I promise. And then I went up to Wyoming and ran 58 miles of the Pony Express Trail with Karl yesterday.

In case you haven't been following Karl Meltzer's current journey he is running the entire Pony Express route from Sacramento to St. Joseph, MO. He is currently averaging over 50 miles a day and has been at it for 28 days with only one day off. Only twice in that time has he logged less than 50 miles in a day!

It was a great day of running. Perfect weather. Really scenic views and lots of great conversation with Karl and his crew (especially Krissy who ran the last 20 miles of the day with us).

Before heading up there I thought it was very impressive what Karl was doing. Now it seems almost impossible to me. I felt good yesterday but I am tired today. Not sore, but fairly tired after running for 10.5 hours. I might go out for a short run before the sun goes down here in a few hours but if I do it'll be no more than 30 or 40 minutes. Karl? Well, he got up at 5am again today, and for the 27th time in 28 days hit the road at sunrise for about 10 hours of running! I don't know if I could have run for 10 hours again today. I probably could have but I'm not sure I would have had the mental tenacity to do so. If I found the mental strength to do this I can't imagine my body would hold up very well. My guess is that I might be able to go 4 or 5 fifty mile days in a row before my body just couldn't go anymore. Maybe a week at most. Several years ago I rode my bike across a huge portion of the country averaging 50 miles a day. I was pretty well exhausted by the end. That was on a bike. Doing this on foot just seems nearly impossible.

The crazy thing is that for Karl this seems relatively easy. He just gets up and starts going and keeps moving and then he finds himself 50 miles down the road around dinner time. After a big dinner he goes to sleep and gets up and does it all over again. Really impressive. It's one of those things that you almost have to see first hand to believe/understand. I feel fortunate that I got a chance to see it, even if I'm too tired to do much of anything today.

???

Physical well being is such a fickle thing sometimes. All week last week I was feeling like I had really found my stride (sorry for the lame pun) in my running, and also in my physical and emotional well being in general. I was running more than I had run in weeks and I was feeling really good most of the time. I ran 130 miles in an 8 day span and it seemed like my body was responding really well. And more than that it felt like my mind was responding really well. Running was becoming really fun again (for the first time since I was in France) and I was feeling really excited about life in general. And then this Tuesday I went out for a run, intending to do 12-15 miles easy, and my body just felt horrible. I ended up running only 8 miles that day, and have only run 4 miles total since then. I'm still feeling good about life in general but my body is for some reason really worn out right now. I've had some fairly severe pain in my lower back and just today I feel like I'm coming down with another cold or illness of some sort. Luckily I'm running a race in a week since races always seem to cure my ills.

This past 5 weeks is the most I have been challenged in my running in almost 18 months. I'm sure there is a reason for this, and I'm sure there is a lesson in this, but right now I'm too close to it all to see it as clearly as I need to. Maybe I just need an extended break from running, but right now it doesn't feel like that. I've been pretty good in the past (I think) at knowing when I need a break and it just doesn't feel like that right now. I guess time will tell.

Favorite Time Of Year

It seems as though Run Rabbit Run really did heal up a lot of the physical illness and weakness that I was feeling in the weeks leading up to it. I took 2 days off after the race and then when I went for a short run last Tuesday I felt better than I've felt in weeks. My legs felt fresh and my chest cold seemed to finally be more or less a thing of the past. In the week since this I've felt much better than I have since early August. Not great everyday, but who ever feels great everyday? I was even able to do a 6.5 hour run on Sunday and really enjoy being out for that long. Previous to this every long run I've done in the past several weeks felt pretty miserable by the end.

It feels good to be healthy and feeling mostly strong again. The altitude still feels hard sometimes but I feel much more comfortable with it now. I think living and training this high will change my perspective and my training a little bit, but I'm confident that with time I will find the ways to turn this into a positive change. Much like I needed to do when I moved to Juneau. My first several months in Juneau I felt like the steepness of all of the trails there was really going to hinder my training. The ironic thing about this is that I am now trying to adapt to being here without feeling like the gradual nature of the trails in this area doesn't hinder my training. I'm sure I'll figure it out. I feel like I mostly have already.

I like the timing of starting to feel strong again. Autumn was always my favorite time of year (before moving to Juneau where autumn is more or less miserable) and it feels nice to be living somewhere right now that has nice crisp autumn weather. I've got a lot of running related stuff that I'm really looking forward to in the next several weeks (and feeling stronger in my body definitely makes all of these things a lot more appealing):

I'd like to meet up somewhere north of here in Wyoming with Karl and run a day with him on The Pony Express Trail. This will depend on the timing of when he rolls through this area.

At the end of next week I'll be heading down to the Grand Canyon to do some hiking, camping, and most likely a Rim To Rim To Rim run. Probably just take it easy and do 9 or 10 hours, but maybe I'll end up feeling a bit more inspired to make a push for a fast R2R2R time.

The week after that I'm going to head out to Georgia to run The North Face 50 mile race in Pine Mountain. Should be a fun little run in the southern Appalachians.

Shortly after this I'm going to head up to Juneau for a short visit with friends and if I get any kind of break in the typically miserable October weather in Juneau I'll be running up and down as many mountains as I can in the few days that I'll be there.

And then beyond all of this I am certainly planning to run the San Francisco North Face 50 miler in December. I suspect the competition in Marin will be even hotter this year as it seems like every ultra runner I talk with has plans of running for a piece of the $10,000.

Managing Mediocrity - RRR Race Report

I had a really interesting run at the Run Rabbit Run 50 miler in Steamboat Springs this past weekend.

I really didn't have much confidence in my body going into this race and as it turned out I never felt very good on race day. Lucky for me though I never felt all that bad either. Just really mediocre for 7 hours. Luckily I've had three weeks of feeling mediocre (at best) so I was good and ready to just keep plugging along feeling this way.

I realized early on in this race that I was really going to need to focus on trying to do the best I could with what little I had on this day. My stomach wasn't wanting as much food and water as I needed so the entire run was a study in trying to get down enough, without taking down too much and upsetting my stomach.

It turned out that I timed it just right. I was on the edge of getting sick all day and then finally, just seconds after crossing the finish line everything I had in my stomach came up. It took a few hours after that to get my stomach back, but then by Sunday morning I felt almost like I hadn't raced the day before. I felt weak enough all day that I wasn't ever able to push myself hard enough to get sore muscles and once I was rehydrated and renourished (I think I ate 7 pieces of pizza at the post race dinner) I pretty much felt recovered.

And the best thing is that I even seem to have gotten rid of my chest cold. It bothered me quite a lot in the first half of the race but then somewhere around mile 30 my chest felt better and has felt mostly better since. I had also developed a really sore muscle in my back the day before the race that seems to have been healed during the run. I like to joke that the best way to get rid of injury, illness, or weakness is to run 50 or 100 miles, but I think I'm beginning to actually believe this.

In all it was a nice race to go run. It would have been nice to feel a lot better on race day, but it felt nice to do such a good job of getting the most out of a weak body. I feel like my body had a very similar day to The Miwok in '09 that I dropped out of, but this time I had the experience and the patience to manage my body much better and was able to manipulate it into running a pretty strong race despite not being very strong on that day. It feels good to know that I have at least learned that much.

Beyond this it was really nice to go to this race because this is one of the "good ones." I would highly recommend this race to anyone looking for a new 50 miler to run. Everything was run very well, and all of the people (organizers, volunteers, other runners) were very friendly, generous, and enjoyable to be around. This race does a perfect job of being totally organized, without being too organized. Many races just feel like a race, and the entire experience there boils down to the time that you are running the course. Run Rabbit Run is not one of these races. The course is very challenging and very enjoyable, but the entire event has a "soul" and a "spirit" to it that makes the 7 hours of running the course just one small part of a very nourishing weekend. Thanks to everyone who was a part of my weekend in Steamboat for this nourishment. Hope to see you all next year... and watch out cause I'm pretty sure on a good day I could run this one quite a bit faster.

RRR 50

Heading out to Steamboat later today to race the Run Rabbit Run 50 miler this weekend. I'm still not feeling great, but I am feeling significantly better than I was a week ago. I've even had a couple runs this week which I would say I was feeling strong. We'll see how it all plays out. This is certainly the weakest I've felt going into a race in quite some time. A good strong run on Saturday could be just the thing to snap me out of this funk, but a really tough race could be hard on my mind and body. I think I am prepared for this though. I'm not expecting a lot and I have no intention of allowing this to be an outing which has a significant negative effect on me (physically or mentally). More or less I just see it as going out for a nice, scenic, and fun run in the mountains on Saturday morning. If I can keep this perspective I think it will be very easy to have a "successful" race, even if I don't feel as physically strong as I would like.

Still Looking For A Rhythm

I thought I was over this head/chest cold that I've had for almost a week now, but I learned yesterday that this certainly was not the case. I didn't feel great when I set out on a run into The Indian Peaks Wilderness, but usually I'm able to run for an hour or two and get warmed up and generally feel a lot better the longer I go. I had about 4 hours to run yesterday so I chose a route up over a 12,500 ft. pass and down the backside. I figured I'd go for 1:45, turn around, and be back to the trailhead comfortably under 4 hours. I felt OK climbing up to the pass at the start, and OK going down the backside (about 2,500 ft. up and 2,500 ft. down), but when I turned around to retrace my route I felt horrible right away. I had no energy and felt like I couldn't breathe. Probably a result of my sickness as well as the high altitude which I am still not fully adjusted to. When this run was all said and done I had done 18 miles with about 5,000ft. of climbing, a very typical training run for me, the type of run I have done dozens, if not hundreds, of times in the past couple years. But never has a run this short felt so long and hard to me. By the time I finished I was completely exhausted and depleted.

It doesn't feel good to feel so weak right now, but this past week has been a very humbling experience that I think I can learn a lot from. Running feels really hard to me right now. This isn't a great place to be, but after a 14 month stretch in which running has felt shockingly easy I suppose I was due for a rough patch. My intention now is to work to find ways to turn this "rough patch" into a positive experience, something that I really haven't had to do since my DNF at Miwok last year.

Looking For A Rhythm

The past month has been a strange one for me in terms of running. I've run on some amazing trails all over the world: Alaska; The Yukon; Banff; Colorado; and France, to name a few. With all this travel though it's been very hard to get into any kind of consistent rhythm with my running. I don't think I've had any stretch in the past month in which I've run more than 6 days in a row and my total time and mileage has been way down due to all the days off. Add to this the fact that the one race that I was supposed to run in this time got cancelled 3 hours into the event and it's safe to say that it's been anything but a typical month of running for me. I've enjoyed this time for sure, but I am very ready now to get back into a more steady stretch of running. I got back here to Colorado 5 days ago thinking that I would jump right into this rhythm but I have been a bit sick this whole week so it's been necessary for me to take it slow because of that. Finally now I think I am feeling healthy and have no big travel plans anytime in the near future. I'm looking forward to getting back into hitting the mountain trails everyday and being out for 20+ hours and 100+ miles a week. I miss it a bit.

Only 361 Days...

... Until UTMB next year.