12 wins, 5 CR's, plus four 2nd, five 3rd, 4th, 4th, 5th, 5th, 9th, 16th, 20th, 28th, 38th, and 62nd place, with 1 DNF
Short-Term Running Goals:
Goals
Enjoy running, stay fit (and maybe lose a few pounds). Play ultimate frisbee.
4 year coach of Langston Middle School- love it
Long-Term Running Goals:
Unretire at some point
Run a sub-6 hr 50 miler
Win a 100 mile ultramarathon
Personal:
I have five cute kids. And I have some rockin short green racing shorts- I wear them mainly because it embarrasses my wife so much. I like ultimate frisbee, trail running, reading, and cheering for the Denver Broncos! And I have the absolute best wife in the world. And I used to run for the now-disbanded national Team Pearl Izumi- Ultra!
Lunch- 11- We had a record lunch-run group of 9 people. Hot, of course. I'm looking forward to when my toe isn't sore, red, swollen and bloody anymore.
AM- Met Jim and Dan at GE, ran to the lake where we did 7 laps (6 miles) tempo. First was slow at 6:17, then 5:58, 5:59, 5:51, 5:52, 5:56. Long cooldown- finished with just under 14 miles total, 1:39:13. Very nice weather- coolest run in a long time, only mid-70's and moderate humidity.
Lunch- 8 with some of the guys.
PM- Played ultimate frisbee for a while, and got my toe jumped on. Ouch, that hurt.
I guess my Saturday hot run finished my acclimatization. I am now fully a Southerner. How do I know? I heard on the radio after my evening run that we set a record high of 103 today... and I didn't even think it felt that warm during my runs.
Lunch- 6 with Aaron and Mike.
PM- 12.5 with Barry at Paris Mtn. Stopped the watch, but it was about 1:55 with 2000 ft climbing. Always nice to run with Barry in the mountains. Easy pace with lots of talking.
The gym at my work is having a challenge to "Swim the Nile"- 4130 miles. Each minute of exercise counts for 10 miles. It lasts from Aug 1-31. And... I'm already at 4200 miles, just 3 days in. Maybe I should try to swim it 10 times.
60+ miles in 3 days. I think this is my highest Mon-Wed total ever.
Lunch- 7 run plus 2 xt. My toe wasn't feeling good and Shark Week was on the TV at the gym, so I stayed in and ran/biked. Plus the heat index was 105 outside, which didn't sound appealing.
Definitely excited for UROC in 6 weeks. They continue to add more elite runners- the most recent is Ian Sharman. Looks like it will be a fun race. They even put a page with all 26 of the elite runners (so far) on it, including me. Link here. If anyone else is interested, I encourage you to throw your name in the pot.
PM- picked up Barry right after work and drove straight to the wonderfully-fandibulous Dupont State Forest trails, where we spent the next 2 hrs 54 min hours sweating our way along 18 miles of beautifully-runnable singletrack with 2600 ft gain. Saw 2 people the whole time. What a great run. Even had to do the last 45 min in the dark. The downside is I didn't get home until 11 pm, so I never saw my daughters all day. Last time I was at Dupont, I ran 20 miles in 2:47. Today, 18 miles in 2:54. The difference? It was about 40-50 deg warmer today. If you don't think that matters, let me show you my backpack from today, absolutely soaked through with my sweat.
95 miles Mon-Fri this week. Sounds like a good training week to me.
AM- I've had sleeping issues recently- no matter how tired I am, I wake up before my alarm. For example, I fell into bed at midnight last night, exhausted and hoping to sleep until at least 8. Instead, I was wide awake well before 6 am, so pounded out my run. One day this week, I woke up at 4:30 am, 90 min before my alarm. I have decided that my body will not sleep in past 6.
77 deg with 87% humidity this morning before sunrise. I didn't even bring a shirt. 7 miles in new shoes- they feel great, except they really hurt my toe. Of course, all of my shoes except 2 inflict undue amounts of pain on my toenail area and swollen, red toe knuckle. Fortunately, as long as I can grunt through the pain, my toe usually goes numb after 30 min. Usually, but not always. The doctor recommended to rest my toe as much as possible as running will prolong healing. Yup, he's right. At least it gets a 46 hour rest now, the longest since my surgery.
I want to tell everyone about my next race and demonstrate how sick ultra runners and RD's are. First, make a 35 mile race course. Put it over the most challenging terrain in South and North Carolina, through poison ivy, yellow jacket, wild boar, and bear-infested country. Then, make sure it is so remote that there are no roads within 5 miles of the course, other than the start and finish at trailheads. Yup, no DNF on this one- you drag your butt out one way or another, or die trying. Then, don't offer any aid stations or other help of any kind. And no course markers. Oh, and do it in the middle of August. Let me repeat that: 35 miles in August in South Carolina with NO aid stations. What do you get? A 17 year old race that sells out every year. Yes, we all paid good money to partake of this experience. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Laurel Valley 35 mile race, next Saturday.
One interesting fact- there are 55 entrants, and only 3 are younger than me.
Lunch- 5.5 easy with the guys. Except the mad sprint through the tunnel wasn't easy. You'd have to see it to understand. Our lunch run group has a lot of funny guys which results in all sorts of crazy discussions and happenings. The tunnel sprint is one of them.
It's go time. I'm not racing much this year, so need to make the most of each race. I am obviously training through the Laurel Valley race on Saturday rather than tapering, as my focus is UROC 100k next month, but I am pumped for this one and determined to do my best given the conditions. I'm much more mentally psyched up for this one than I was for OD100, for some reason. And it even appears the weather is cooperating- low of 66, high of 86 on Sat. That's a good 10 degrees cooler than we've had in a long time (although weather.com says the humidity will be 100% at the start. Really? I mean, Really?!? 100%? Doesn't it have to be raining to be 100%?). And with no aid stations, Barry has volunteered to backpack in and set up one mid-way through for me to refill my water!
Matt Hart posted another awesome video. If this doesn't get you excited for a trail race, then check your pulse.
PM- I was hoping to run 6-8 miles. Felt like absolute crap the first 5 or so, then started feeling better. That lasted about half a mile, then I felt even worse than before. Stuck around for 9 total miles, though it was one of the more miserable runs in a long time. I think I averaged over 8:00 pace.
There are a few races I had to decide between this weekend- a Corporate Shield road 5k or a trail 15k in the mountains. I decided on the 15k, but haven't signed up yet. If I don't feel a whole lot better by Thur morning, I don't think I'll do either.
And, seeing as this is my blog, I'd like to add the following video. Love Ron Paul, love Jon Stewart... so let's combine them.
Signed up for the Xterra Table Rock 15k on Sat, a new trail race. Goes from the nature center to the top of Pinnacle Peak, the highest peak entirely in SC, on very, very technical terrain. Looks like 2200+ ft climbing. Should be fun.
Lunch- 6 with Jim on another warm day (the real, 95+ degree heat has broken, but we're still hitting low 90's).
Interesting display of the national debt here, and how big it really is. The most shocking stat to me was that you could spend $1 million every day for 2000 years, and only have spent $700 billion. Somehow, our government had to BORROW twice that much just last year.
Xterra Table Rock 15k (10 Miles) 01:43:28, Place overall: 1
Easy Miles
Marathon Pace Miles
Threshold Miles
VO2 Max Miles
Crosstraining miles
Total Miles
2.00
10.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
12.00
Quick report- Won the first ever Xterra Table Rock State Park 15k (more like 10+ mile) trail race. Very fun, well-organized, and great course- tons of climbing (2500+ ft?), amazingly technical trail. Good workout, which is what I wanted today to end my recovery week. I'm not sure I have ever run two races in back-to-back weekends before, or at least races this challenging. Great race, then a fun 5 hours playing in the State Park with the family (swimming in the lake, picnic, playground, and some hardcore hiking with Kinley). Full report later. First I have to unpack the car, clean the house, and follow some Leadville 100 results!
UPDATE- Full report is now up on my GSR page. Feel great the day after. Now I have 3.5 more weeks of high mileage, then a 10 day taper for my goal race of the year, the elite-start of the increasingly and impressively stacked UROC. Should be fun.
Lunch- 7 with Jim. The weather is still hot and humid (94 high today), but not near as bad as it was for July and a few weeks of August. Of course, I'm acclimated, now- Logan didn't hit 90 all summer, and we hit it almost every day for 2 months. So my definition of hot has changed. Plus, I feel real cold running in the 68 deg temps in the morning (really, it's freezing), while Logan will be 45 deg all the time. Paul, you would hate summer weather here. I'm viewing it as an advantage- come UROC in September, just having the cooler temps will be as good as a full taper!
AM- Intended to do a very challenging, technical, hilly long run at Caesars Head State Park. Got a bit of a late start and was feeling tired even on the drive up. Saw a trail I thought connected into the park so ran up it, but it was a dead end after less than a half mile. Went back to my car, drove into the park, had to find a place on the side of the road to park (park doesn't open till 9 am, annoyingly). Immediately felt bad- tired, sluggish, no energy, plus a new pain in my right hip. And found the trail was basically unrunnable- not really fun to slowly pick your way around things. Cut the run to less than 3 miles and called it a day. On the drive back to town, I decided to add a few more miles on the trails around Cleveland Park. Ran 2.5 more miles in about 25 minutes... on flat terrain. Yup, that's my day. 5.5 miles total in 1:04 with ~1000 ft climb between the 3 runs. Gone over 4 hrs including driving, just for less than 6 miles!
Now to spend a day with the family and resting. I've been pushing hard... maybe too hard, so having an easy day isn't a bad idea, though I missed my planned 100 mile week. Hard Mon-Thur, then petered out Fri-Sat. I need to get more sleep and recover better. 2 more hard training weeks, then taper for UROC.
Here is a great read, and appropriate for Sunday. It's a great view on Christianity and war. A bit long, but I really encourage you to read the entire thing.
PM- 8+2=10. 60 for the past 3 days, each consisting of a 10 mile morning run and 10 mile lunch workout. I am nothing if not consistently boring these days.
This month was my highest mileage month ever (436, beating Aug 2009 of 406.5). And in Sept 2009, I ran my marathon PR, so that's good. However, my Jun-Jul were much higher in 2009 than this year, so that's not good.
Gotta admit The North Face puts up some awesome video of UTMB. This video was posted while the race was still going. Gorgeous, rugged scenery. I'd love to see the Alps.
