Trails and Travails

Mark B wrote:

Mike MacLellan wrote:I swear, there's not a flat quarter mile in this town.

Heh. Welcome to Auburn, California. It's not called "The Endurance Capital of the World" for nothing.

If you did CIM, you'd be amazed at the folks doing the pace teams. It's a who's who of ultrarunning stars.

Like this guy: Tim Twietmeyer.

Or about about her: Julie Fingar

Or, if that's not enough, how about this guy: Rae Clark (held U.S. 24-hour run record for 20 years, finally bested by Scott Jurek)

Etc! Browse for more.

Lots of chances to soak up serious ultrarunning karma from these folks. Who are, BTW, really nice.

Good lord!!! I just browsed a few of those pacers. The number of ultras completed by this group is simply mind-boggling. One has done 228!

Alright catching up again that vacation which was spend mostly in a haze has left me behind again. I have to say that the running is still looking good. Yes keep learning about trail running and passing your knowledge on to me. Last no fair that you are training on the WS100 course. What's up with that you trying to get a leg up on me for 2012?

Mark - Nope, not yet. Maybe if this whole ultra thing keeps on going for another year...

Schuey - I would never do such a thing - I'm trying to figure out exactly where YOU'RE going to drop ME.

Mike MacLellan wrote:
Stripping is when you "lend nature a hand" and coax the young out of the mother's mouth prematurely. They're completely viable (and if they're not yet ready to eat, they have their egg sacs and don't need to, anyway), and the stress it puts on Momma is outweighed by the fact that she gets to start eating again 12-20 days early. Also, you normally get more fry by stripping than by letting Momma spit naturally.

Wow, that is really cool! I never knew such a thing and I learned something new today. Thanks, Mike!

Mike MacLellan wrote:
No real good wine, but lots of French bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar with Aileen. Only a little hummus of late. Still loving Trader Joe's brand, eggplant flavor. Yum.

MMMMMMM...loving the French bread with olive oil! I haven't tried the Trader Joe's eggplant flavor. We just bought some Greek olive hummus tonight at the store. Yummy! Thanks for the tip on the Trader Joe's hummus.

Very cool! Nice elevation change! Those hurt but feel so good!

Nice pictures Mike. Looks like a nice to run in. Great job with the elevation.

Love the pictures and running with that elevation is crazy!

Thanks all for the pats on the back with the climbs. I don't even set out trying to find these monsters; they're just there, and once I'm on them, pride will not let me back down. There's one I've yet to try - it's affectionately referred to as "The Training Hill" as well as "K2" - that averages 22%, caps at 30%, and is 1.2 miles long. That's ~1k' gain. Eep.

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Less hilly today (still 500' gain/loss over 8 miles... sigh). Just a breezy hour, pace subject to whim, which turned out to be just over 8 miles total. Ran around the streets of south Auburn, was asked directions to a street I'd never heard of, and only felt a little bit of the past week's hills in my legs. Core started sore from yesterday afternoon's session, but really only noticed it on the downhills.

If I'm not here for the next couple days, here's why:
About to head out (wait, didn't I just get here?) to my grandparents' (San Jose) for the night. Will... not... run 4-5 miles there this afternoon (in line with Greg's recommendation not to jinx future runs). Then driving to Santa Barbara to visit a few friends, tackle Gibraltar (maybe), and avoid "carmaggedon" this weekend. Back in Orange County Monday morning. Whew.

Have a good trip - you deserve a little break!

Have a good trip! Hope you escape the OC before "Carmageddon" releases the zombie apocalypse, or at least prompts cannibalism. Those running skills just might come in handy.

John - Break? Do a little mapmyrun search for Gibraltar Street in Santa Barbara

Mark - I'll be back in OC after the zombies take over. I think the foraging skills will come in handy more than the running

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4.7something GA miles when I got to grandparents'. Then my grandmother proceeded to get me drunk and beat me in a card game. Go figure. Yummy veggies from grandpa's garden for dinner, though.

Oh.....crap....

Now I feel stupid. Well, have fun anyway...

Have fun!

What are you going to school for?

When do you leave for life up north, Mike?

John's comment made me laugh about Santa Barbara - obviously, he is stuck in SoGA - not SoCA.

Thank you so much for checking in with us and letting us know where you will be. I can sleep better at night now.

John Kilpatrick wrote:Oh.....crap....
Now I feel stupid. Well, have fun anyway...

Haha, don't feel stupid; it's really only famous because Lance used to come to SB and do repeats on it. So the story goes.
But it turns out I actually won't be running up it... yet. There's a half marathon called Pier to Peak that starts at sea level (at the SB pier) and goes up to the top, though. I think it's in October. Might do it.

Julie wrote:Have fun!
What are you going to school for?

Thanks! I'm going for American Sign Language interpreting.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:When do you leave for life up north, Mike?
John's comment made me laugh about Santa Barbara - obviously, he is stuck in SoGA - not SoCA.

I move for good sometime between early-mid August.

Kenny B. wrote:Thank you so much for checking in with us and letting us know where you will be. I can sleep better at night now.

Hey, some people on the V-team site expressed concern when I disappeared for 3-4 days.

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Had an awesome visit with the grandparents. Grandma got me drunk and kicked my ass in a card game after dinner, and in the morning grandpa showed me his garden and sent me on my way with 8 tomato plants and 2 raspberry plants. As well as a ton of food from the garden itself. Yum.

Got in a "recovery" run yesterday afternoon with the friend I paced to her BQ - Jess - and the friend I'm primarily visiting - Jen. Since Jess is the runner, I told her I wanted no hills, minimal lights, 4-5 miles, 9:00/mile pace. The first mile turned out to be 30' sharp rollers at an 8:00/mile pace until I looked at the watch and told her to slow it up a bit. Then we hit tons of lights before reaching the beach and it got smooth. We got to the 1-mile-to-go point at exactly 4 on the Garmin, which is where Jen turned off, but the run had been pretty much zero effort, so Jess and I tacked on another mile or so at sub-8 pace. Oops.

6 and a third averaging 8:43.

Now to head out on the first of this weekend's longs: an hour on rolling streets in Montecito followed by an hour on the trails. Tomorrow is a planned 3 hour @ 8:15-8:30 average (~22 miles?) on pancake flat roads.

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Oh, and in honor of Da Bull's 40th and the fact that he totally beat me to signing up for his first ultra:

http://www.eventsonline.ca/events/endurancechallenge/confirm.htm

Scroll down to the M's.

Here's today's run. First hour on roads in Montecito. A decent amount of elevation change (after the big hill, the next miles were all sorts of twisty-turny with lots of 10-15' drops and climbs). I met Jess at the trailhead at mile 7.5. We ran together until mile 9. She was really having a hard time - just goes to show how much difference there is between trail running and road running, since I was running at only a very slightly harder effort level today than when she and I ran together yesterday. I reminded myself that this run was about time on feet, not necessarily killing myself up the climb, so I welcomed the easier-than-normal pace with some walk breaks (untimed on the Garmin). The first part of the trail was 1.4 miles at 11.9% average - I think the Garmin cut up some of the switchbacks, because it felt closer to 9-10% average. Not sure.

I took off from her at 9 and continued to the top (arbitrary turn-around point), which was above the fog layer. Pretty cool to all of a sudden come out of it and the sky is BRIGHT blue, it's hot, completely different and isolated world up there. The gradient averaged 13% and most of the trail was loose rocks. Going down it I could only hit 9:30 or so pace, and I definitely rolled my ankle multiple times, slammed my toes into rocks, and nearly went off the trail and down a steep, long drop once. Then when I hit the lower section of the trail, I was really able to take off.

Overall: 2:02 time, 13.1 miles. Pace for the first hour was sub-8, pace overall was 9:20. Go figure.

EDIT: Forgot the image. Here:
EDIT 2: Looks like the new "Latest Topics" sidebar cuts off the image. Resizing and trying again:

Hi Mike!

Thought I'd come by and see what kind of travails you're up to. Mountain climbing, I see... as usual. Have a great weekend!

HaHa to funny the grandparents getting you drunk and then kicking your ass in cards. Have to look out for those seniors tell find anyway they can to show us youngsters a lesson!

Dude I remember when I lived out there and doing all my hiking, I'm so jealous of you right now. Hey when you get a chance and have a long weekend you should drive up past Shasta and do some camping and running up in the Trinity Wilderness. That place was my home away from home, it is also the place I name my dog after.

Hope Jess has a better run next time out.

Jess doesn't understand no hills and 9:00 pace. Haha, sound like a good run!

That is great you're going for ASL interpreting. I know some ASL and have worked with some people with cochlear implants since I work in speech pathology. I'm teaching my toddler quite a few signs, she loves Signing Time (which I've heard is really good for people just wanting to learn ASL not just little kids if you haven't seen it, it's pretty fun, lots of music which she's pretty much addicted to. We just get the DVDS at the library though so I'm not going crazy hearing them all the time). Anyway, that was a long winded way of saying, "great field, keep it up!"

Natalie Wolf wrote:Hi Mike!
Thought I'd come by and see what kind of travails you're up to. Mountain climbing, I see... as usual. Have a great weekend!

Hi Natalie! Yep, still climbing mountains. Today's run, however, was not in the slightest bit mountainous!

Schuey wrote:HaHa to funny the grandparents getting you drunk and then kicking your ass in cards. Have to look out for those seniors tell find anyway they can to show us youngsters a lesson!

Dude I remember when I lived out there and doing all my hiking, I'm so jealous of you right now. Hey when you get a chance and have a long weekend you should drive up past Shasta and do some camping and running up in the Trinity Wilderness. That place was my home away from home, it is also the place I name my dog after.

Hope Jess has a better run next time out.

Seriously, for having had a stroke a couple years back, Grandma's still pretty spry. And on top of her wit.

Trinity Wilderness: check. I'll try and make it up there before it gets too cold.

Jess had a much better run today. Details below.

Julie wrote:Jess doesn't understand no hills and 9:00 pace. Haha, sound like a good run!

That is great you're going for ASL interpreting. I know some ASL and have worked with some people with cochlear implants since I work in speech pathology. I'm teaching my toddler quite a few signs, she loves Signing Time (which I've heard is really good for people just wanting to learn ASL not just little kids if you haven't seen it, it's pretty fun, lots of music which she's pretty much addicted to. We just get the DVDS at the library though so I'm not going crazy hearing them all the time). Anyway, that was a long winded way of saying, "great field, keep it up!"

Nope, she doesn't. Actually, we were both just super excited to have a running buddy, so I didn't mind the run being a bit speedy. It didn't adversely affect this weekend's double-long either, so I'm alright with it.

My aunt works in speech pathology, too. It makes for great fun at family gatherings when we sign across the dinner table and everyone gets mad that we're "talking about them." Happens with Aileen, too, but since she's hard of hearing, people are a bit less likely to say anything about it. Besides, we're usually just making really dirty jokes about what's going on around us.

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Today's run! A great success to cap off a great week.

I was nervous for today because at a planned 3 hours, the distance was going to be ~22 miles, which would bring my week total to over 85, which would be more than 10 more than my previous longest-week-ever... which was last week. So I was cautious yesterday, not pushing it too much, and was going to really listen to my body today to ensure that I didn't ignore a niggle and bring injury upon myself.

Jess and I planned to meet at 8, since she had work at 11 and was only going to join in for 2 of the 3 hours. So that meant a 6am wake-up call for me to be on the roads by 7. Of course, I wasn't able to sleep well last night, despite being tired and in bed by 10.

The first hour of the run started creaky. I really felt some of my stabilizing muscles (particularly those in the groin region) from yesterday's slip-and-slide down the rocky part of the trail... Had to squeeze my legs together at one point to stop from sliding off the trail and down a steep, long drop. My legs weren't heavy, but they weren't fresh, and I wondered just how this 3 hours would go. Then I remembered: that's the point. The double-long is supposed to simulate running on fatigued legs. Accepting this fact seemed to help.

Covered 7.44 miles in the first hour, just .11 more than planned. Grabbed some chia-seed-chocolate-date energy bar from my car (it came in a race goodie bag a while back) and Jess handed me a water and we were off.

I wanted to keep around 8:20s for the first 40 minutes with her, then drop it to 8:10s for 40, then 8:00s to bring it home. We came out of the gate slightly faster than planned and didn't slow much the entire first hour together. Covered just under 7.5 miles in 1:01 before turning.

I started to crack, just a little bit, after turning around, because it was an out-and-back and I knew that no matter what, I had that distance left to go. I got quiet for about 15 minutes, but then the funk lifted and we were both chatty again. The remainder of the run was pretty easy, with only minor HR drift (from 140 average for that second hour to about 144 average for the third) and actually a slightly (1-2 seconds/mile) faster pace.

Overall, 22.56 miles in 3:02:27. That caps my longest-week-ever at 86.366 (yes, all those decimal points are important!) miles in 11:54:50. And really, other than being wiped from a 3 hour run, I don't feel too much worse for the wear.

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Tomorrow starts my first cutback week since "official" ultra training started. Since Saturday is the big Grand Canyon run, I'll be taking a rest day Thursday (driving there) and hoping to hit somewhere between 35-45 miles - all easy except 4-5 at "new MP" on Tuesday - between M/T/W/F's runs.

GREAT week Mike! That is a crazy back-to-back. You're a tough dude!

Mike MacLellan wrote:

Schuey wrote:HaHa to funny the grandparents getting you drunk and then kicking your ass in cards. Have to look out for those seniors tell find anyway they can to show us youngsters a lesson!

Dude I remember when I lived out there and doing all my hiking, I'm so jealous of you right now. Hey when you get a chance and have a long weekend you should drive up past Shasta and do some camping and running up in the Trinity Wilderness. That place was my home away from home, it is also the place I name my dog after.

Hope Jess has a better run next time out.

Seriously, for having had a stroke a couple years back, Grandma's still pretty spry. And on top of her wit.

Trinity Wilderness: check. I'll try and make it up there before it gets too cold.

Jess had a much better run today. Details below.


Today's run! A great success to cap off a great week.


The first hour of the run started creaky. I really felt some of my stabilizing muscles (particularly those in the groin region) from yesterday's slip-and-slide down the rocky part of the trail... Had to squeeze my legs together at one point to stop from sliding off the trail and down a steep, long drop. My legs weren't heavy, but they weren't fresh, and I wondered just how this 3 hours would go. Then I remembered: that's the point. The double-long is supposed to simulate running on fatigued legs. Accepting this fact seemed to help.

I started to crack, just a little bit, after turning around, because it was an out-and-back and I knew that no matter what, I had that distance left to go. I got quiet for about 15 minutes, but then the funk lifted and we were both chatty again. The remainder of the run was pretty easy, with only minor HR drift (from 140 average for that second hour to about 144 average for the third) and actually a slightly (1-2 seconds/mile) faster pace.

Overall, 22.56 miles in 3:02:27. That caps my longest-week-ever at 86.366 (yes, all those decimal points are important!) miles in 11:54:50. And really, other than being wiped from a 3 hour run, I don't feel too much worse for the wear.

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Tomorrow starts my first cutback week since "official" ultra training started. Since Saturday is the big Grand Canyon run, I'll be taking a rest day Thursday (driving there) and hoping to hit somewhere between 35-45 miles - all easy except 4-5 at "new MP" on Tuesday - between M/T/W/F's runs.

Glad to hear that Grandma is doing well after having her stroke. That is some scary stuff.

As for the running what a great week and what an awesome finish to the week Mike. I hear you about being nervous about having the back to back long run and running more miles then you have in the past. The first time you do something like that you just don't know how the body is going to react to it all but I do like your approach you took.

I also hear you about the creaky starts and about the stabilizing muscles. I have been having some minor issue with the same muscles. Once I get warm and loose no problem but if I start to get tight during a longer run I will feel them again and well when that happens I have no choice but to fight through it. I have to admit that they are getting better since I have started stretching them and doing some core stuff. Fingers crossed!

You nailed it on the head about the the back to back long runs are suppose to be all about "running on fatigued legs" that is something that we both have to train our legs to get used to, to be able to run 50 miles. Now I did have as big as second long run as you this week but I was in the same boat yesterday morning were my legs didn't feel heavy or dead but I can tell that I just put a total of 21 miles in the day before (15 & 6).

Again like you I want through a similar thing after 11 miles were for 2 miles I was just in a little funk. Great job working out of the funk and finishing not only a great run but a great week of running.

Also safe travels and best of luck with your Grand Canyon running this coming weekend! Nice to see that you are listening to your body and taking a cutback week after back to back weekly high mileage! That is a very very smart move on your part. Way to use you knowledge and to train smart Mike.

Great back to back hard weeks.

I think it's funny how most people end up being paranoid about "talking about them" when you're using another language.

Strokes are terrible things, I'm glad your grandma seems to have had a good recovery.

Best wishes on the Grand Canyon run! Sounds exciting!

Solid work, Mike! You'll be well prepared to take on the Canyon next weekend.

If you're looking north, you can also hit the trails at Lassen Volcanic National Park, east of Red Bluff and northeast of Chico. You can set up a campsite, run all day at altitude (and maybe even run up Lassen Peak) in gorgeous terrain, come back to camp and bask in the alpenglow.