M'kay

LM warmup (10 reps), 8 miles in 59:31, 7:26/mi, HR 152, & stretching.

Proof positive that feeling tired and crappy at the start of a run doesn't mean squat.  Legs, body and mind woke up after about 1 mile and wound up inadvertently pushing the pace so that the last 3 were MP miles.  Oops. 

LM warmup (10 reps), 6.5 miles in 46:40, 7:08/mi, HR 161, w/ 2 Tempo miles in 6:08, 5:55 (both net downhill), & stretching.

Believe I'm flirting with overtraining.  Have been feeling very run down the past several days.  Yesterday I was tired but had a good run where I pushed the pace a bit but I think that may have been my remaining energy allotment.  I scaled back today's workout as a mini-taper for Saturday's 50 miler but also because my legs were completely dead and I'm feeling pretty exhausted.  So I'll keep the mileage scaled back the next couple of days and hope for the best on Saturday.

LM warmup (10 reps), 6.5 miles in 49:07, 7:33/mi, HR 156, 1 mile walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Sunny and warm (62F).  Legs were lead today.   

LM warmup (10 reps), 4 miles in 29:34, 7:23/mi, HR 155, & stretching.

Humid.  Legs feeling better but HR was way up.  Perhaps the humidity, the sleep under the 8 hours mark, or the pace.  Or maybe none of those.  Who knows.   

Fast start, some muddy singletrack where I took my first ever race header, 10+ port-a-john stops (not including the ones pre-race and last night), sunny and warm temps (70F+), a sandy leg with "puddles" 50' long and up to my knees deep, and a death march that began at about mile 10.  I'd write more but I have to finish packing, collapse, and get up at 3am to catch a flight back east.  Maybe more tomorrow.

----------

Well this race hurt.  Still does as a matter of fact.  Race morning began with an early rise at 4am in order to drive to the finish, catch the shuttle to the start at 7:30 outside of the Carbon river entrance of Mt. Rainier.  Unfortunately, this merely compounded the sleep debt I've been accumulating this past week and I was dog tired race morning.   But I guess race morning really started with one of the several trips to the bathroom I had to take starting the evening before.  As I found out after the race, it hit my wife later race morning afflicting here similarly (worse, I suppose, since she actually threw up), but I'm getting ahead of myself.  None of this really sank in, as I toed the line anxious to start (very cold in the shadow of the start canyon), aiming for another sub-7 finish.

I felt pretty confident about my chances in this race.  First, it's a net downhill with the only advertised uphill at the very start of the race of about 100+'.  Second, I've run portions of the course before; specifically, the paved portion of the Foothills Trail from South Prairie to Puyallup and Puyallup River Trail.  Last, training has been going pretty well and since I now knew what to expect from a 50 mile race, I figured I could go out a bit more aggressively.  Run concurrently with a 12 stage relay, I was really hoping to run in the 6:45 +- 15 minute range.

Leg 1 was about 5 miles on the road, with the uphill portion followed by more downhill.  My slowest/fastest splits probably tell the story here:  6:38 & 7:37.  Yup, I was out pretty quick and settled into 5th place.  

Leg 2 is where the story really begins.  Advertised as the first of 3 "remote" sections that would be "muddy", I completely and utterly underestimated what that meant.  Leg 2 was really a beast.....muddy single track is a kind description.  I had flashbacks to the cross-country mudfest I'd experienced a couple of weeks ago in the UW Pack Forest.  The trail was extremely technical so even in the spots where the mud was relatively tame, rocks, roots, undulations, turns, streams, logs, and brush all conspired to slow the pace.  So did whatever reached up and grabbed my foot, sending me skidding in the mud.  Fortunately, my water bottle softened the blow and I wasn't too worse for wear.  Unfortunately, I didn't heed yet another signal that my day was likely to be a long one.  Oh, did I mention that if someone crashed and burned on this stage, the medical plan involved packing them out on donkey's that were pre-staged halfway down the trail with some medical staff?  Awesome.  

Leg 2 is also where my bathroom woes would continue.  I'll spare the gory details, but by my count I had to stop no less than 10 times to use the facilities, and not the quick kind.  Along with the sudden biological urges I was having to deal with, the stomach began an immediate rebellion against my first GU.  Dehydration combined with a side of no carbs.  Excellent.

Legs 3 and 4 mellowed out some and we got some ATV trails mixing in with the singletrack, putting the gnarly leg 2 behind us, but still taking a lot of energy to navigate.  On the bright side, my decision to wear the Montrail Rockridge shoes that I'd bought and run exactly 4 road miles in actually worked out....I can't imagine trying to navigate those three legs in road or road-trail shoe hybrids.  The dark side was that the potty-breaks and stomach woes continued and I was quickly getting to the point where I was going to drop.  I bargained with myself to get to mile 20, the South Prairie aid station where our first drop bag was stashed, and then drop, so that I could give good directions to Dianna and she could come and pick me up (not knowing that she was busy camped out near the bathroom).  

So mile 20 arrives and I just can't bring myself to drop.  Can't do it.  Really, really want to but feel like perhaps these are just a few dark miles and that things will settle down.  Managed to get some boiled potatoes and a bagel down, so I figured going one or two more aid stations would be okay.  Maybe I could get a 50K in and not feel so bad about bailing out then.  

Mile 20 also started the paved trail so I swapped out the muddy Rockridges for some nice clean Adrenalines.   The paved trail also started the virtual end of the shaded section.  The downright chilly start had given way to a rare sunny cloudless day in the Pacific NW.  Let the cookoff begin.  Enroute to the start, I'd realized (along with everyone else in my shuttle) that I'd forgotten sunscreen.  I'm still paying for that.....walking thru the airport the day after was not pleasant with a laptop backpack bag pulling on my lobster-like shoulders.  In any event, I was still managing to average 7:30-7:40s through mile 28, except for those miles that involved a potty stop.  Then, mile 29 hit and the wheels official came off.

I don't even think I realized it at the time.  7:30s gave way to 8:30s (and eventually to a few 9+ miles).  Walk breaks started occurring outside of the aid stations and the true bargaining began.  Just get to the next aid station.  Run a mile then walk for a few seconds.  Get to that crossing road.  It was ugly.  It didn't help matters that by this time, garmin was telling me I'd gone 1+ mile more than the official distance.  1 mile worth of bathroom breaks?  Don't think so, but seeing how the official distance was 50.8 miles, the idea of having to go to almost 52 was really not sitting well at this point.

Yet still the competitive streak in me was alive.  Having no clue where I was in the standings after starting off in 5th, I finally noticed what was on the boards at each aid station had runner's numbers and their passing time.  According to the board at the last checkpoint on the Puyallup River Trail, I was only in 6th and the next competitor up was only 6 minutes ahead.  Maybe they were hurting worse than I.

After finally clearing the Puyallup trail system we hit one more trail section, where sand, not mud, was the enemy.  Packed and hard occasionally, soft and loose more frequently, this section was a complete energy sink.  Then came the "puddles".  Looking back at the course condition reports the week prior to the race, they were described as long but not spanning the full width of the ATV path.  Well, evidently the rains of late had swollen their size because after avoiding a few of them, I found myself wading thru knee high muddy water for 50+ feet at a time.  Fun.

The last part of the course was the ugliest running thru some industrial areas in Fife before scooting through Tacoma and on to Ruston.  Either paved road or concrete sidewalks, I couldn't manage more than 8+ minute miles with frequent walk breaks.  Truly the death march phase.  About the only good news was that the potty breaks had ceased because I hadn't been able to really eat much of anything for a while, and I was downing the liquids as fast as I could.  It's all a bit of a painful blur of a memory to the end, my only memory being finally catching the 5th place ultra runner (who actually was hurting worse than me) to move into 5th overall and 3rd in the Open division.

So a 7:46:23 finish.  Not even close to a PR but in hindsight, the course was harder (in spots), the weather worse, my body wasn't rested (or entirely well), and I went out too fast to all contribute to a sub-par performance.  I did get a pretty cool railroad spike for 3rd place in the Open division, so that was nice.  24 hours later though and I still feel tired and sore, so I don't imagine the recovery will be quite as quick as it was from Mt. Si.  On one hand, this really scares the bejesus out of me with White River 50 coming up in July.  Legs 2 through 4 really tore me up and there wasn't really any significant elevation change to deal with, which there will be at WR50.  On the other hand, perhaps a meltdown now will help temper my enthusiasm there so that I don't hit the death march stage until later in the race.  We shall see....

LM warmup (10 reps), 6 miles in 47:42, 7:57/mi, HR 153 & stretching.

Downright toasty (79F).  After 2 days off to recovery from the 50M on saturday, today was the first day back.  The quad soreness is pretty much gone and the calves aren't so tight (or sore) anymore, so I was feeling ready.  The first couple of miles were slow....close to 9 & 8.5 minute miles....but things started feeling better towards the end and wound up averaging under 8.  First 2 miles were on some soft twisty trails I discovered in a nearby park, but the rest were on the nasty asphalt and concrete.  Not the hotel I normally stay at, so running routes pickings are very slim.   

LM warmup (10 reps), 8.11 miles in 1:00:22, 7:26/mi, HR 162, & stretching.

Warm (82F), cloudy & humid.  Some tiredness in the legs and the heat/humidity combo was tough, but otherwise a decent run.

LM warmup (10 reps), 6.69 miles in 49:36, 7:24/mi, HR 157, with 3 mile warmup, 2 x Strides/Drills, Fartleks:  1 x 4 min on @ 5:51/mi/90 sec off.  1 x 2:12 min on @ 6:11/mi.  Bathroom break.  2 x 4 min on @ 6:13/mi, 5:56/mi/90 sec off, 56 sec on @ 6:35/mi.  PU/SU/Leg ladder (7/7/4) & stretching.

Sunny and hot (85F+).  Warmup okay, strides/drills okay.  Fartleks not so much.  First one on was hard but okay.  90 sec rest was probably just too short, as half-way thru the next one I was kaput.  Didn't help that I had to make an emergency bathroom stop.  Got back out and managed two more....third one was slow but didn't kill me.  Fourth one felt like the original by the end.  Started a fifth but just didn't have the mental willpower to gut another 2 out, so I chalked it up to the heat, not fully recovered from the 50 miler, and called it a day.

LM warmup (10 reps), 8.06 miles in 1:03:09, 7:50/mi, HR 154.

Hot (85F+).  Tried to run in as many shady spots as possible but it was still very hot.

1 mile warmup, 1.5 tempo miles (~ 6:32/mi pace avg), .43 mile cooldown.

Quick run after a hot day playing 18 holes of par-3 golf followed by visiting with family.  A quick run just to keep the legs on notice that the running will continue in the future. 

No running today.  More family visits.  Very very hot....it was 93F *inside* the house at the hottest point of the day.  We all just tried to think cool thoughts.  The trip to lunch in the air-conditioned car was the best.

LM warmup (10 reps), 11 treadmill miles in 1:18:34, 7:09/mi, w/ 3 mile warmup (23:17), 6 x 4 minutes on (5 @ 5:46/mi, 1 @ 5:42/mi), 2 minutes off, 3 mile cooldown.  PU/SU/Leg ladder & stretching.

Still far to hot outside to get in a quality workout so it was treadmill or nothing.  Nothing was wayyyy to attractive, but I managed to get it done.  A bathroom break after repeat #1 (can't wait to get back home and on a normal workout schedule) but 2-6 were on schedule.  Looking back, this is quite a lot of speedwork in one session, so I'm sure I'll sleep well tonight.  Only bad news...my left foot is killing me (PF).

LM warmup (10 reps), 14 miles in 1:49:58, 7:51/mi, HR 153, & stretching.

Warm (82F) with a breeze getting cooler throughout the run.  Compared to previous days, it was downright cool.  Got progressively tired throughout this run to where it got pretty tough towards the end just to move the legs but kept the pace under 8/mi.  Ran an overpass to get a smallish hill in.  Glad to have it in the bank. 

LM warmup (10 reps), 8.16 miles in 1:02:26, 7:39/mi, HR 153, & stretching.

Warm and very humid (mid 80s).  Thunderstorms moving through the area so at least it was cloudy.  Tired today. 

LM warmup (10 reps), 9.09 miles in 1:14:16, 8:10/mi, HR 154, & stretching.

Cool and rainy (52F).  Hoped to feel up to a long run today but after missing 3 days of runs and the other events of this week, the body just wasn't up to it, so I took what I could get.

The short version is that while I was in VA for work, my wife Dianna was in a head-on collision that totaled both our truck and horse trailer as well as the other SUV involved.  Fortunately, both humans and all 3 horse seem to have been able to walk away with minor bumps and bruises (although the jury is still out on Dianna's neck....hoping that its just a strain and can be rehabbed from completely).  The cops, fire dept, ambulance crew & wrecker all count believe everyone was still alive much less without obvious serious injury.  We're both still counting all of the lucky stars involved.

On the insignificant side of the event, now we're trying to sort thru insurance, medical, property, liability, lack of transportation, and all of the other gazillion things that need tended too following something of this magnitude.  Runs didn't really fit into the schedule and yesterday when we were both finally able to take a breath, I chose a nap over a run because I was exhausted.  So today's run felt like I hadn't run in months but I'm hopeful that it woke the body up and tomorrow will be better. 

LM warmup (10 reps), 9.78 miles in 1:16:53, 7:51/mi, HR 165, w/ 3 mile warmup, 5 x 1K @ 5K/2 minutes rest in 3:44 (up), 4:00 (up), 3:56 (up/down), 3:43 (down), 3:34 (down), 3 mile cooldown, & stretching.

Brutal with a capital B.  Didn't get to run yesterday as every spare moment was devoted to dealing with accident aftermath (I believe the insurance adjuster called 11 times, suddenly the at-fault driver has "insurance issues" that their adjuster won't elaborate on, and Dianna's leg swelled up like a watermellon....none of it fun).  So, faced with easing back into running or hitting it hard with a rut-buster workout, I chose the latter, of course.  Sunny and 70F this afternoon, which started off nice but got warm.  The 1K repeats were simply impossibly hard....the breathing spiraled out of control quickly and the legs turned to lead early, then got heavier.  I managed the first with some semblance of dignity but quickly shed that for 2-5.  Actually, they were probably more fartlek like as I did take a couple second pause in #3 & 4 when the side stitch became nearly overwhelming.  The cooldown miles were complete slog miles too.  

But after all that complaining, I think it did what it needed to do.  Undoubtedly tomorrow I'll probably hurt a bit and it'll take a while to get back to normal, but I think I busted the rut.  Hope so, because the stomach cramps I got about 15 minutes after the run nearly had me praying for a quick end.....haven't had that happen in quite a while and it took about 30 minutes for them to pass.  Oh well, I really really really needed the stress relief that this run afforded. 

LM warmup (10 reps), 8.12 miles in 1:02:12, 7:39/mi, HR 165, w/ 10 x 12 sec Hill Sprints, 1 mile walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Warm (77F) & sunny.  Felt better today despite the (relative) warmth.  HR still silly high but typical after the recent stretch of intermittent training.  Hill sprints decent after 2 weeks without them training in the flatlands of VA.  Glad to be back in the hills. 

Another disasterous day took us down to 0 operational automobiles in the family, so a run was completely out of the question (although I nearly had to run from my house 30 miles to the car rental place so I could rescue my wife who was driving the now non-operational car).  It can't always get worse, right?  Right?

LM warmup (10 reps), 8.09 miles in 1:01:56, 7:39/mi, HR 159, 1 mile walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Oh, how I needed this run.  I'm tired, stressed, had a raging headache from when I woke up and really really really needed this run.  After yesterday's debacle...our remaining auto, our "beater" car decided it was time for the clutch to go, so I wound up taking a cab to get a rental to fetch the wife from the dentist where she had just gotten an implant....painful work on top of last week's accident injuries....and to attempt to limp the car home.  Made that by avoiding all steep hills where I might get stopped.  After some pain meds for Dianna and a breather for me, we decided it made no sense to dump money into the Saab, so off we went to find a new car and a mere 7 hours later were signing the paperwork.  So car payment stress, insurance claim stress, injured wife stress, plus normal everyday work and life stress == one giant stress-ball.  So I ran and actually felt better, except for the emergency pit-stop 6.5 miles into the run.  Hopefully tomorrow I can actually get a long run in so I'm not completely under-trained for the WR50 in July.

LM warmup (10 reps), 26 miles in 4:00:23, 9:14/mi, HR 158, w/ 3650' of elevation gain.

Back on the long run horse today and it about killed me.  Its been 3 weeks since my last long run (coincidentally, that was the R2R 50 which didn't go so well), so I really needed to get this in and knew it was going to hurt.  Goal was to get between 20 and 26 in but I really wanted to get the full 26 in if at all possible, and needed to throw in some hills to get my hill legs back.  Mission accomplished.  First third was easy effort and I actually managed to keep things fairly easy.  Focused on running the hills no matter what pace that brought, and I actually managed it.  This probably overworked the legs a bit earlier than I should have, but I was going out to get the distance in and to really torture the legs so they'd remember how to run hills.  Second half was some logging roads and some single-track I found.  The Nicholson horse trail system runs thru the area and I finally found a trailhead, which was nice.  The trail was highly technical and I nearly took headers multiple times.  Even going downhill, my trail paces were in the 10-12 minute mile range.  Thankfully, the dry/warm weather dried the mud so it was a deep soft mushy loam, but that really took some effort to run through.   Got lost a bit here, and was navigating using my general sense of location, the sun, and hoping to pop out on a fire-road so I didn't have to retrace steps back up the steep single-track, and I did manage to somehow take the right combination of trails to find my way back to the road home.

At this point, I was one big climb and lots of downhill away from the end of the run.  I was also low on water and my legs were feeling pretty shot.  The remaining third+ of the run was pretty brutal.  Lots of "power hiking" which means stumbling up the hill a tad faster than walking, and rationing my water as well as possible to make it last.  Got within 2 miles of the house and thankfully a neighbor was out working in their yard, so I begged for some water and they kindly obliged.  I probably would've made it back, but really didn't want to find out.  The last miles were slow with numerous short walk breaks but I got the miles in and collapsed back at the house.  Glad I don't do these too often.

The thing that really worries me?  I essentially ran 1/2 of the 50 miler (distance and elevation change-wise) today and was completely shot.  How the heck am I going to make it thru another 24+ miles?  Guess I have another month to work on that. 

LM warmup (10 reps), 9.55 miles in 1:14:22, 7:47/mi, HR 158, w/ 3 mile warmup, 5 x 1K @ 5K/90 sec rest effort (3:31 - down, 3:36 - down, 3:47 - rolling, 3:46 - rolling, 3:51 - up), 3 mile cooldown.  1.25 mile walk w/ dogs, PU/SU/Leg ladder (7/7/4) & stretching.

Despite yesterday being an "off" day, legs are shot.  Long hilly run + yesterday's yard work left me with some sore and tired legs.  Maybe that'll be good training for late in the WR50, so I ran the 1K repeat workout anyway.  Felt like dung but it didn't turn out too bad.  The rest portion was done at a walk....otherwise I'm not sure I would've made it.  Compared to last week's similar workout (longer rest), improved repeat times.  Guess I'll call it good.

LM warmup (10 reps), 14 miles in 1:46:08, 7:35/mi, HR 157, w/ middle 5 miles moderate on the hilliest section out/uphill and back/downhill, & stretching.

Cooler today in the mid 50s.  Felt wonderful.  Legs were tired but warmed up after a few miles and during the middle section I pushed it up to moderate trying to get back into hill climbing/descending shape.  It's only about 480+' over around 1.75 miles but it was enough to put the legs to work both uphill and downhill.  On the final easy stretch the legs were pretty tired but I still managed a decent pace, so it feels like they're beginning to finally come around.  2200' elevation change for the whole run. 

LM warmup (10 reps), 8.14 miles in 1:02:32, 7:41/mi, HR 153, w/ 12 x 12 sec Hill Sprints, & stretching.

Perfect weather day...sunny and cool (low 60s) with a breeze.  Legs tired.  Hill Sprints:  1 - eh, 2-4- good, 5-10 great, 11-12 fading fast.  Hip was bugging me during the run but that disappeared into the hill sprints.