Trails and Travails

Mike MacLellan wrote:Removing blackberry thorns while navigating a trail and chatting with another runner: maybe the definition of ultra-races?

Boy, I hope so.

Nice job on the race. Even with a small field, a win's a win.

Small race, but 20 minutes? That is still awesome and impresses the hell out of me! Can't believe you were heading out to do 3 hours tomorrow - but then again, I guess I can believe it. I'm just jealous, that's all. I think 90 miles would leave me in a crumpled heap somewhere... I know you didn't consider this a race, but I agree it was a good affirmation of all of the hard work that you have been putting in. I know you already have a mom and dad, but be careful...

Race report's up. And John, it wasn't just 20...

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3 hours as scheduled. First 20-30 were kind of tired - late night eating lots of good food in Davis and drinking a few beers with the whole family - but I told myself I wasn't going to look at my watch at all. Period. At least, not until I finished the first 7.5 mile loop.

Each loop started and ended at my brother's place, so I had set out a tall glass of water and an extra granola bar on his front porch. End of first lap, I pushed the lap button on my Garmin and headed in to use the restroom really quick and look for some sunscreen. None to be found, so after about 2 minutes, I was off again. I happened to notice that my time for the lap was 59:40. Almost a perfect 8:00 pace.

Didn't look at the watch at all for the next two laps. In the middle of lap two, I put forth a slight effort where the road curved for .75 miles. Yes, the curve is that long. Turns out that effort was a 7:20 pace, building from 7:25 to 7:15. Nice. Took it easy the entire remainder of the run, just running according to how I felt. My hips were a little sore from yesterday, but really, the muscles used for trail running are COMPLETELY different than those used for flat roads. The only time I felt any - ANY - residual soreness was on the little overpass as the road goes over a railroad track.

Finished up lap 3 in 2:55:xx, and noticed I was just under a half mile from 23 miles even. Went for the full 3 hours/23 miles and finished in 3:00:09. Average pace 7:51 (first half hour was 8:25, it turns out, so I made up a bit of time after that, averaging 7:44 the last 2 hours) and average effort level was piece-of-cake. Love days like today.

Back in Auburn now, parents spending their last night in Davis before going home. School starts tomorrow. Skyping with Aileen. Things are still transitory, but at least they're looking up.

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Here's the one picture I have from the race. My mother will appreciate that I cropped her out of it, as she hates photos of herself. I captioned it "#winning" on Facebook.

Great job Mike. Great race and great training going on.

Thanks Alex. Great is how I feel since Saturday, and that's a nice change.

4.2 @ 8:19 (this was a zero effort run; loving the pace) this morning. Nice to shake out the little creaks, of which there weren't many at all, on my first morning sans parental units up here. Came home to eggs in the fridge - thanks to my brother's chickens - and a list of to-dos that are to-done. It's been a productive morning, and I haven't even gone to class yet.

3 more recovery miles after class tonight.

I could get used to this...

Cool photo, Mike!

Finally catching up on my blog reading. Some more good running that you are putting in. Hopefully school doesn't get in the way

23 miles makes a nice easy recovery run, Mike. If your Dean Karzanes!

Nice photo!

Nick - Fingers crossed. I don't like that whole first-week-overwhelmed feeling. But I've got it right now.

Mark - Dean? Really? C'mon, man...

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3.05 recovery miles after class today. Was nice to have a run to unwind, but I'm definitely looking forward to it being cool enough to run at 6:30 when I get home instead of having to wait until almost 8:00. Left hamstring is tight, so I'll be nursing it the next couple days so I can hit the trails and enjoy them on Wednesday.

7.2x @ 7:55 pace this morning. Started slow and kind of not motivated, no real zip in the legs, and did the first 4.2 @ 8:04. Then the hills (as opposed to little rollers) came and I somehow sped up. I'll take it.

Hoping to meet up with a group - from meetup.com, notice the pun? - and hit a relatively flat trail after class today. That'd be another 7.5ish miles.

Looking good, Mike. It's weird, even before I started doing targeted hill work, it seemed that my legs wouldn't wake up until I ran up some hills and/or ravines. They like a challenge.

I think it's the mountain goat in me, Mark. Love them hills.

Speaking of... Pretty rolly 8 miles on some new trails tonight. There's a group on meetup.com that meets pretty often near Folsom Lake, so I decided to cruise over for their Tuesday night run after classes today. Pretty much a show-up-and-run-your-own-run thing, but I paced with the group leader for the first 4, then he went another mile before turning whereas I was satisfied with 8. Overall pace 8:11. Didn't hurt, didn't feel great. Well, part felt great. Got a bit over it at the end. Long day.

Two laps on K2 tomorrow. That'll be a fantastic elevation chart.

Seriously, the stuff you're throwing down right now, you'd go under 3:00 easily in a marathon at this point. Nice back to back on the weekend and great job on the win, even if it was a small race.

Your running is looking fantastic, Mike! When is your next race?

Big props to you on the win. I've won a couple of relay races where it becomes clear early on that the win is in the bag and I know it can be a bit of a struggle to really push it without the competition. But that's a nice run you did and you are bouncing right back and throwing down nice runs on the tough terrain around there. Sub 3:00 does appear to be the next logical step for you to take. Is there a road marathon in your near future?

Looks like you guys have caught on to the bigger-bigger picture of what's going on this training cycle. Aside from doing my first 50 miler - the main goal of this training cycle - I'm hoping that this will put me on an accelerated track for breaking 3 hours sometime early spring. Mid-April, if I'm lucky... cough cough. But until then, no attempts at a PR. I might run a road marathon or two - Napa looks fun, especially if a number of 365ers are there - as well as a road 50k as training runs for the 50 miler.

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Lesson of the day: there are trails, and then there are mountains. Now I understand what the leader of yesterday's group run meant when he said "once you're in mountain shape, you're golden." I admittedly think I have a huge step up on most people when it comes to being in mountain shape, but today's run was humbling and taught me that I still have a ways to go.

It wasn't so much the mountain itself - affectionately referred to as "Training Hill" and "K2" but never its real name (have to check my trail map for this one): "Pointed Rocks FTB" (whatever FTB means) - that killed me as was it the residual fatigue of the past 10 days and the massive elevation change bookending the meat of my run. Not that K2 itself isn't a beast... It is. 7 false summits within a mile, with 30% gradients in between.

So, the loose plan was 2x the Training Hill loop, which I've seen pegged at anywhere from 3.75-4.5 miles. I thought it was 4 miles from my house to the base of the hill, maybe a little more, so this would make a perfect 17. Well, from my house to the base is 5.1, and the loop itself is 4.14 (with 1200' gain/loss). The math adds up to 18.5 if I did it twice, and that was a bit much. So I improvised a bit.

Knew when I started that today wasn't going to be impressive, in terms of pace. Definitely got a little excited last night and put a bit too much effort into it, and I wasn't expecting the course to be constant rollers. So the quads were sore and the legs didn't want to zip down the hills. That's okay; I didn't force them to.

I hit a groove about 1:10 in, but lost it once I started up K2 the second time. Took a super steep shortcut back down to the backside of the loop, then headed back over the bridge and up towards Auburn.

Eh, I'll just let the elevation chart do the talking.
16.23 miles total @ 9:30 average pace (oof). For those of you who know the Auburn trail system, here's what each segment encompassed:
1. Home to Overlook Park
2. Overlook to No Hands Bridge via WS trail and Robie Point FBT
3. No Hands Bridge to base of K2
4. K2 to a small singletrack at the top
5. Singletrack (meets back up with Pointed Rocks) to WS junction
6. WS junction to base of K2
7. K2 to Pig Farm Trail
8. Pig Farm Trail back to WS trail
9. WS trail to base of K2
10. K2 to home via the same trails used on the way



Oh, and I took my first real fall today. Always wondered what kind of idiot it took to fall on a trail. Well, combine spotty sunlight, sweaty sunglasses, tired legs, and some half-buried rocks on a short, steep downhill and this idiot takes a fall. Fortunately rolled onto my Camelback and have only (very) minor abrasions on my hands.

Also had to ward off a young male deer that seemed to want to play "chase." Mother fucker.

Lastly, it takes me 16 minutes to get up K2. Hoping to build to 3 repeats at that pace before December.

Mike, awesome running lately. Your 3 hour "recovery" run after the race is pretty damned amazing, as is that crazy hill run. Cool photo from the race also!

There are two types of trail runners, those that have fallen and those that will.

There are two types of trail runners. Those who have not been chased by amorous deer, and Mike.

So jealous of the mountains so close to your house. I'd have to do a bazillion hill repeats to match your climbs without driving somewhere.

Mike I would agree with everyone that a sub-3 is in the bag with the training you've been doing. Great job.

Hey Mike, just checking in. It looks like you will have a sub 3 in the bag if you would just decide on a race. You seem to be firing on all cylinders right now.

wow great mountain run! Sorry about the deer. He just wanted to say hi.

Seth Harrison wrote:Mike, awesome running lately. Your 3 hour "recovery" run after the race is pretty damned amazing, as is that crazy hill run. Cool photo from the race also!

I think had I truly raced the 18 miler, I'd have been slowed down a bit on that 3 hour run the next day... But what I'm noticing most with this ridiculous training regimen I've given myself is that my legs are recovering REALLY quickly. Both mid-run and between runs. For the most part. It's kind of nice.

Jim Lentz wrote:There are two types of trail runners, those that have fallen and those that will.

Mark B wrote:There are two types of trail runners. Those who have been chased by amorous deer, and Mike.

Jim - I'm a convert; I now agree with that statement.
Mark - But wait, wouldn't those two types both encompass me? I feel so... split.

Alex Kubacki wrote:Mike I would agree with everyone that a sub-3 is in the bag with the training you've been doing. Great job.

T Miller wrote:Hey Mike, just checking in. It looks like you will have a sub 3 in the bag if you would just decide on a race. You seem to be firing on all cylinders right now.

Alex/Tim - Seems to be a consensus going around. I'm hoping you guys are all right and that I am able to retain most of my gains from this cycle during my "down" month in December. And I've decided on an ideal race, it's just a matter of whether 2:08-below-qualifying is good enough to get in this year.

Julie wrote:wow great mountain run! Sorry about the deer. He just wanted to say hi.

He definitely wanted to play. I just didn't want to get mowed down by him. This was only about 10 minutes before I took my spill, so my level of fatigue was creeping up there.

I didn't mention another weird possible animal encounter... Going up K2 the second time, I heard something somewhere off the side of the trail, then heard what sounded like - I kid you not - a horse fart. Not that I really know what that sounds like, but it was expelled air, a good burst of it, and I didn't want to imagine that it was a bear "hissing," like what happened this year in the WS100. So, horse fart. No idea what it was. I clapped a few times and made my presence known, then carried on. In hindsight, maybe it was another hiker/runner on a potty break who thinks I was applauding their bowel movement? Hm.

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Weird when this happens, especially after a tough day like yesterday: the legs wanted to go from the first few steps, so I let them. About 1.75 miles in, changed up my breathing to accommodate the speed and just went from there. First lap (this was a lollipop course) averaged 7:32, overall average was 7:15 (GA effort) with the last third of a mile gradually building from MP to ~VO2max effort. 8.5x miles total. Gonna post the elevation chart for this later, as this is the "flat" run. Flat. Sure.

4.5-5 with another group tonight; that is, if I can make it to the meet-up in time. Gonna be rushed after class.

Mike MacLellan wrote:

Mark B wrote:There are two types of trail runners. Those who have NOT been chased by an amorous deer, and Mike.

Mark - But wait, wouldn't those two types both encompass me? I feel so... split.

D'oh! Stupid typo. I fixed it above so it actually makes sense. Well, as much as I usually do, anyway.

Thought that's what you meant. Then I started wondering whether playing with deer was common among trail-runners. In which case, maybe Auburn ISN'T the right place for me...