overtaking haynes

was in providence so i ran the Haynes classic training run...1hr 15 min, it felt good to actually run under 8 min mile pace for the first time in weeks. 128 miles on brooks.  

Ran at nickerson state park in cape cod today. Mostly pavement but a few miles of dirt trails/roads. First mile was 9 min and then after that averaged 7:30 for the next 8. Pushed myself a bit, the run was fun on windy hilly bike trails. Tomorrow i'm going to go explore jeremy point, which is an ~8 mile round trip trail run i think. will go at low tide in the afternoon so i can go as far out as possible. Today I went out at low tide at the bay and was able to walk out 1.1 miles before turning around. Nothing above the knee. Could have gone farther but it was getting close to dinner time. 

Went to Jeremy point....at least i think so, it was hard to tell since i could have went out farther since i went at the lowest possible tide. It was supposed to be 4.1 miles to the point but it took me 4.45 and was entirely a sand path. I had a tick on me from a tall grass section but got it off before it could bite. There was no one there at all...i had 2 miles of beach all to myself and the birds. The running on the sand was challenging. many dead birds and shells and horseshoe crabs that were just shells. wish i had more time just to hang out there and relax. Running time 1hr 26. shoe mileage 146 on brooks.

1hr 25 min on mostly rolling bike trail at nickerson. some dirt. looking to do a longer run on sand tomorrow to reach 70. may go back to jeremy point as it was awesome...not liking the pavement. also not stretching or icing lately. extremely foolish. 

2hr 8 minute run on dirt roads and trails. 170 miles on brooks. 

I just got back from iceland yesterday and so i can say some stuff about the trip. I have never had a more enjoyable week in my life. Iceland is a great place. I didn't sleep well since it never got dark and i did a bunch of camping, but it is simply awesome.

The only running i did was the previous saturday i ran 13. On tuesday i hiked up the highest peak in iceland with a guide. I was on the largest glacier in europe. it was pretty spectacular. It was a 6700 ft ascent and total distance was 15 miles total. The trip took just over 12 hours. The day after I did another long 5.5 hour hike/tiny bit of running for 13 miles up a mountain with 3300 foot of vertical. Legs were a bit tired on thursday. On friday I walked around reykjavik that day and on sat was the race. The bus left at 4:30am and we didn't get to the race start until 8:40 or so and the race started at 9. Our bus was the last one in line so i barely checked in and got to the toilet in time. I didn't have time to discard my jacket or body glide in my pocket which was annoying. there was simply no time. I didn't feel all that well for the first 1.5hrs. i had some problems with my stomach and a woman was in front of me by a tiny bit as well as people who don't look fast. Then I farted a ton of times and felt much better. I picked it up and just kept getting faster. By the end I couldn't seem to get tired no matter how fast i went. I passed about 15 people in the last 20km and a satisfying last person in the last km that i couldn't even see. I just felt inspired and amazing. it was weird. The first 15km was quite difficult, and gained 1500ft. There was sulfur and boiling mud and snow fields. The weather was rainy, windy and a little cold. The last part of the race was sandy and very flat except for a final hill. There were several fun river crossings with ropes. After about 30km my legs were hurting a bit but as i slowly gained distance on the people in front of me i felt stronger and stronger. is running all mental? Physiologically how can i keep feeling like i have more energy and less tired and no pain anymore? Anyway i won my 18-29 age group (only 18 people) and came in 7th out of 242 people that started.

easy mileage on sand. felt ok. was barely sore the day after the race, nothing at all the day after. just feel a little drained.

ran around 8:15 pace on the cape cod rail trail. very flat and boring. felt like i could maintain that speed forever but did not feel super good. think by the weekend i should get back to almost normal. i need to seriously by the daniels running book and start following the training plan. as haynes is keeping track and there are 15 weeks to go. i think haynes will defeat me as i don't care as much about the race as he does and i will have another race to hurt me in a couple weeks, the escarpment trail run which is apparently a brutal 18 miles in the catskills with about 10k of elevation gain. would like to break 2:55 though and not just 3....and then not run another road marathon again. this last race has got me thinking about going back to ultras again...this is my default state with no training partner. it's easier for me to just go out and run long than fast....and also i feel like i have more potential in 50 mile races since fewer people do them and i seem to be able to keep going longer compared to most people, in part due to my superior stomach processing power and eating abilities.

brooks shoes have 187 on them. trail runners have about 150.

4.5 miles on beach sand. kind of annoying...felt ok. 196 miles on shoes. will be glad to be at home in the woods again in a couple days.

horrible sickness...tried running after eating general tso's tofu.....felt like quitting running

forever. hopefully next week i'll get back on track with miles and workouts....
 

good to be home again...felt a little better in the morning but ran in bad heat and

immediately got horrible stomach problems. ran on road with 3.1 miles of dirt roads

mixed in. 220 miles on brooks.
 

1hr 47 min trail run...felt horrible during the day but no matter what i'm hitting 70 this week.

I have a difficult 30k trail race on sunday so i want to go heavier early in the week. 210 miles on montrails... 

1hr 48:30. Felt kind of pathetic like it hurt a bit to run on the technical sections of the trails. 231 miles on shoes. hmm, contemplating not hitting 70 this week and taking two days before the race easy so i don't completely suck. excuse of not recovered yet after ultra. why does it take so long to recover? it seems lame. 

went out during the tour de france. the beginning part is always really boring and there is 3 min of riding 5 min of commercials for 5 hrs. so i decided to get in 3.3 miles by running out and back 3 times on the dirt road adjacent to my house. i got back exactly as the leaders were making their way up alpe d'huez. it was awesome to watch carlos sastre pull away! he probably still won't win though unfortunately. anyways, then i had a phone call i had to make at noon so i ran 1.2 miles down the road. Then i made the phone call and ran an out and back 7.1 miles, only 3.4 of that was on pavement. i like the out and back. there are 2 major climbs in it. and the dirt roads are really nice. i'm thinking this will be a good route for me to get maximum dirt in and stay off main roads. running on technical trails every day right now just hurts too much...not even just the legs but the feet. may do an am and pm 7 mile out and back to be on my way to getting 70 with a minimal day of running on sat before the race. i really need to stretch, i feel so much better and fresher when i do and it doesn't take me 5 miles to feel a good stride. am i beginning to get motivated again? a friend i talked to was thinking about going to hawaii in jan. the hurt 100 is in january. i would "only" do the 100k if i did it at this point which is enough suffering with the winning time of 17 hrs last year and 2nd place 20hrs. intriguing...it will be interesting to start working again in a week. i really miss having structure...it's amazing how i make time go by. i'm beginning to seriously question how anyone accomplishes anything with how little time there seems in a day. 

3.7 dirt, 3.4 pavement....was hoping to run in the morning too but wicked thunderstorm. 

according to my new advanced maratoning running book i should be recovering for 5 weeks anyway but i want to keep trail racing until people start beating me that i've previously beaten. once that starts happening i'll know i'm overtraining.

haynes disagrees and says he's fully recovered after 2 weeks. i also am recovering from a 34 mile trail race which is probably 50% more effort of a normal marathon.  

1hr 2 min run, probably around 7.4 miles with my pace as of late. gps didn't start

working for a while. ran to the post office with mail. will take tomorrow off for race on sun. i'm going to get destroyed by the terrain i think. i'm still excited though cause i've never been to the catskills. i heard it's only ok but looking forward to it.

247 miles on brooks

231 on montrails-i'm so bad at keeping track of mileage.

now that i live only a couple hrs from the catskills in NY i decided to give the escarpment trail run a try and see what was so difficult about it. this is hands down the most ridiculous course i've ever raced and i've raced many. it was really fun, there were no views despite running along a high mountain ridge the whole time. there would have been a couple if it wasn't cloudy and then raining and then crazy thunderstorms with hail by the end (thankfully i was in my car by then). I didn't know how i would feel. i had lost confidence in the last couple weeks since iceland since i hadn't been running that much trying to recover and didn't feel that great while running. There were 175 people who signed up and at the start we had to run through a mud pit up almost to the waist from the huge storm the night before. i settled in, i think in 11th place going up the first 2000ft climb. there is apparently 10k of elevation gain in the 30km race which i don't doubt. i hate the first climb more than anything because everyone is establishing position and you don't know how many faster people there are than you. it's just nice getting that settled after the first hr and then you know if you feel good you'll stay put and move up and if you don't at least you control you own destiny. so i got up to the top and there was all this poison ivy and shrubbery that was irritating my legs. after about 45 min i got to the top and i caught up to 2 guys who had passed me on the climb and annihilated them on the downhill which was especially sketchy because you couldn't see what you were running on. i'm not exaggerating. then the next climb wasn't as long but involved climbing with your hands and was sick steep for about a mile. one of the guys caught up to me who i found out ran a 4:08 mile last yr but apparently was partying more this year. i again crushed him on the downhill and would not hear his footsteps again. the rest of the course didn't bring any huge memorable climbs although it did go up still. a lot of sitting on rocks so you didn't slip and i caught up to another person and then in the last mile i passed 2 more. there was one place near the end in the fog where i could have easily fallen off a cliff if i wasn't careful. would have been nice to have a warning sign. i was talking to a guy who beat me this year who last year fell 10 feet off a rock only 100yds from the finish and broke 4 ribs. i'll probably do this race again. i felt pretty good and realize that i have really good endurance. i can just keep going, maybe not as fast as i would like. the winning time was 2:59 and i finished in 3:25 which i guess is respectable. overall i'm pretty satisfied. i'm glad all the big races are out of the way now and i can go back to the weekend trail racing series of shorter distances. just the cape cod marathon to go i guess to prove myself. 

ran up the road and across the street to the trails i ran when i was in h.s. there didn't used to be a development next to these trails and a couple hundred acres were destroyed basically and there was a good access trail. my brother and i didn't realize how overgrown the alternate access trail was and were sketched out about ticks and me about snakes but i beat him in a double rock paper scissors and not only did we do the trail but he had to lead. when i led i just farted on him at will which made him lead again. i didn't really feel tired at all from the race yesterday which surprised me. legs didn't feel dead or anything, just a slight soreness in my sides but barely. i won't be going back to these trails anytime soon although they would be nice in the winter but then i have to worry about bow hunters.

feeling very uninspired...wasn't even going to run but my two brothers were going to run out an back on the dirt road at the bottom of our driveway so i went. i guess recovery isn't a bad thing. i feel so unmotivated immediately after racing a long distance. i guess what i don't know is how long one should really take off or run easy for in order to not get worn down. everyone is probably different and i didn't feel like the race took a lot out of me. The downhills were much too technical to push it so i guess i only raced about 9 miles and some of that was using my hands so i'm down to 8 maybe. i don't really have any sort of plan this week. hoping i guess that i want to run...short 7 mile trail race this sat. will wear road racing shoes for the first time...my heavy clunkers meant for 100 mile races have got to go! it's hard picking out a new shoe though when you've had the same ones for years. i've gone through 8 pairs of them. I wonder if i'd gain minutes in races over 3hrs by wearing trail racers. i'd like to think it's that easy...only one way to find out. 

2hr 13 min trail run, felt fine, started to feel like i was locking up a little bit

by the end but was glad my legs felt fairly fresh. listened to a book on tape while running which made the time pass much better. i think this will be a new thing for me.

262 miles on brooks.