Trails and Travails

Mike MacLellan wrote:I'm becoming a bit of a, dare I say it, Northern Californian? I've started keeping my iPod off and playing country stations instead. What the hell is happening to me?!

Tut-tut-tut, Mike. Merely listening to country music doesn't make you a true resident of Northern (aka, Superior) California.

Its knowing that, when it comes to grilled meat, this is the closest thing to ambrosia on the planet.



Look for it at Raley's. It's worth the search. If they have BBQ sauce in heaven, J. Lee Roy makes it.

And for dessert?



So NorCal. Sooooo good!

Oh yes. Good job on 100.13, and on gutting out that hangover run. Ah, kids these days...

Mark - suggestions duly noted. I think I'll be able to get the BBQ sauce, but the ice cream will be incompatible with the vegan lifestyle. I'll have to find a work-around. And was the pun on "gutting out the run" intentional?

Mike MacLellan wrote:Mark - suggestions duly noted. I think I'll be able to get the BBQ sauce, but the ice cream will be incompatible with the vegan lifestyle. I'll have to find a work-around. And was the pun on "gutting out the run" intentional?

Two words: Laco-ovo. For an ITS-IT, it's probably worth the change.

Pun? Moi? How could you think such a thing?

I bet you could find some soy based or coconut milk ice cream for some sort of substitute. Many of my friends had to be on soy-dairy free diets because of sensitive babies (milk-soy protein intolerant) while nursing so I have heard that coconut ice cream is pretty good.

Congrats on the 100+ mi week! Please stay injury free! I'm on my 3rd day off in a row and it's not very fun.

Mark - I know, I know. I'm technically an ovo-pescatarian right now, but just super picky about where it's all sourced... Man, if only I could shake the hands of the cows and chickens whose products go into those things. And I dig that pun, it was (almost) subtle

Julie - You're right, there are a lot of yummy vegan ice cream substitutes. Tofutti Cuties (like Klondikes) are actually one of my favorite frozen desserts, though nothing beats Turtle Mountain's "Purely Decadent" Peanut Butter Zig Zag. I'm pretty sure it was a carton of that which I polished off after my BQ. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I haven't found ANY vegan desserts in Auburn yet. I think I've gotta make a stop in Sac for those.

I woke up feeling more awake and alive than normal today, which I'm taking to be a good sign. That, or another indication that I'm really a mental (in both ways) runner. Knowing it's a stepback week just makes it that much easier to look at on the whole.

Love the cuties ice cream. I am vegetarian sprinkled in with some dairy but usally soy, almond, rice milk products!

Great job on getting 100+ in last week!

You are correct Mike, waking up to a stepback week is pretty nice. After the miles you just put in, the stepback looks easy as hell

I know the unfortunately fortunately thing. I am thankful for my nut allergy because it keeps me away from a lot of junk, especially baked stuff people like to bring to break rooms at work and lots of junk around the holidays. I was almost happy when chocolate made my throat sore this week because it's probably a mild allergic reaction (which makes sense since it's sort of related to peanuts and nuts). Now if I can convince myself a sore throat is worse than eating chocolate...

Hey Mike awesome week of running for you this past week! Enjoy that step back week but hey why not go for the 100 again this week? Just joking let your body recover and benefit from your huge week!

Wow, huge week! Let the body relax and recover this week!

Thanks all! Will get to each of you individually tomorrow; just a real quick post before bed.

4 this morning - went well. Definitely feeling the last week, but not bad.
2.7 this evening. Wasn't planning on running, but thought I felt good enough for 3. Ha. Realized it was a stupid/futile effort when I got to the track and was averaging 9:30s or higher. Turned and went home.

Great job Mike hitting the century mark. Just keep plugging away and you'll go off race day.

Mike MacLellan wrote: I'm technically an ovo-pescatarian right now, but just super picky about where it's all sourced...

Youre and ovo what? . I know what you mean about food sourcing - ignorance is definitely bliss in that department. Learning about the seafood industry is a real bummer... Great week of running!

Mike MacLellan wrote:Thanks all! Will get to each of you individually tomorrow; just a real quick post before bed.

4 this morning - went well. Definitely feeling the last week, but not bad.
2.7 this evening. Wasn't planning on running, but thought I felt good enough for 3. Ha. Realized it was a stupid/futile effort when I got to the track and was averaging 9:30s or higher. Turned and went home.

Good idea in shutting it down early, especially when you didn't have it. Those are the things that will keep you injury free.

Kenny B. wrote:Love the cuties ice cream. I am vegetarian sprinkled in with some dairy but usally soy, almond, rice milk products!

Cuties are good. I'm pretty sure I could take on a couple boxes at once.

Jim Lentz wrote:Great job on getting 100+ in last week!

Thanks!

Nick Morris wrote:You are correct Mike, waking up to a stepback week is pretty nice. After the miles you just put in, the stepback looks easy as hell

I'm not sure 70 looks easy as hell, but it's nice to be able to shave 30 off the week.

Julie wrote:I know the unfortunately fortunately thing. I am thankful for my nut allergy because it keeps me away from a lot of junk, especially baked stuff people like to bring to break rooms at work and lots of junk around the holidays. I was almost happy when chocolate made my throat sore this week because it's probably a mild allergic reaction (which makes sense since it's sort of related to peanuts and nuts). Now if I can convince myself a sore throat is worse than eating chocolate...

Ah, I hear you there. Fortunately, I have great will power about not buying it; it's just if it's in my vicinity, it's gone. But really, chocolate is so worth the sore throat!

Schuey wrote:Hey Mike awesome week of running for you this past week! Enjoy that step back week but hey why not go for the 100 again this week? Just joking let your body recover and benefit from your huge week!

Hahaha Schuey, don't tempt me. I plan on having a few back-to-back 100+ weeks in this cycle, but that won't start for another 4 or 5 weeks. The plan is 70 this week, mid-high 90s next week, 100+ after that.

mul21 wrote:Wow, huge week! Let the body relax and recover this week!

I'm trying, I'm trying. Will have my first day off (Friday) in 21 days. That'll be lovely.

Alex Kubacki wrote:Great job Mike hitting the century mark. Just keep plugging away and you'll go off race day.

I'm sure hoping this all pays off, Alex. I've talked to a few people who have run parts of the NF50 course and said that hill repeats (we're talking 1000' hills) are crucial to any attempt to finish with a smile on my face. I know what I'll be doing starting in a few weeks...

John Kilpatrick wrote:Youre and ovo what? . I know what you mean about food sourcing - ignorance is definitely bliss in that department. Learning about the seafood industry is a real bummer... Great week of running!

Hahahaha, it means I eat eggs and fish but am otherwise vegan. Kind of a weird way to put it, but if it's from an animal and subsequently sold in a store, I won't eat it. Only if it's sourced locally and humanely (for eggs) and only if I kill it myself (or know the person who did... maybe) for meat. I'd like to be able to take personal responsibility for the life of the animal I'm eating, so I think it'd be important for me to kill whatever animal I was to eat. Aaaanyway...

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More on yesterday. Like I said, I woke up feeling great, had a really nice, relaxing recovery run, got a lot of stuff taken care of for classes (able to transfer some credits and drop a course, now)... Then I was on Skype with Aileen, looking at the clock, seeing it was 7:45... Decided I wanted to get in the normal 3 evening recovery. It wasn't on the schedule, but I felt like it. Mistake. Like I said, got to the high school (1.3x miles each way) and wanted to just be home and eating. By the time I got home, I wasn't so much bonking as just weak and shaky. Not really sure how that happened, but I don't think I ate enough Sunday since I had such bad stomach cramps for most of the day.

This morning started off just as bad, mentally speaking. My head just wasn't in it. I was doing that ECG route, and at the first turnaround, I actually said to myself, "I really hate this route." My legs were kind of twinging, I didn't feel smooth... Then when I got back to the starting point, something just fell into place. Checked my watch after the first loop and I'd averaged around a 7:46 pace. Decided I wouldn't look at the watch again until I did the second loop but would try to keep the same effort. Kept the same effort - easy, smooth running - and did loop #2 at just over a 7:10 pace. Uh... Nice. In case we've forgotten, that was my last MP.

Overall, 8.4x (I think; I haven't uploaded it yet) miles in 1:04:xx.

I think all my short runs recently have made me forget that I'm more of a diesel; I start slow, take a long ass time to warm-up, but when I'm warm, I can go, go, go, go, go ad infinitum. So I'll definitely be trying to add more miles to my morning runs (T/Th) and keep the evening runs those days short (4-5 miles max) in order to accommodate that.

That said, going for 4.5-5 easy/recovery miles in an hour or so.

4.8 @ 8:02 pace, more than half on a nice, pretty flat trail. Looks like I found something flatter than my ECG route. Still ~200' gain/loss over 1.5 miles of trail, but it's not too noticeable. Anyway, it was a nice run. Saw some deer that DIDN'T chase me, and a little dog that did. I nearly kicked it.

Good training! My running group calls me the energizer bunny because I can lock in a fairly slow and steady pace for forever. Well, not forever, but a good 20 miles.

In justification of my purchase of the chocolate, they were big bags of m and ms for 75 cents each and I couldn't pass up the sale.

Nice to see you bounce back from a big mileage week. Try the Chocolate Chip mint cuties. Dam!

Julie - Back when I could eat M&Ms... Yep, a $.75 bag would mean I cleaned out the store.

Kenny - Mmmm sounds good. Something to look forward to when I visit the parents.

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12.01 miles @ 8:00 pace this morning for the stepback sorta-long. I'm still intrigued by the way one 6 mile out-and-back (such as today's) can feel so much different from another of equal length (such as the one back home). Probably has a lot to do with the terrain (mostly dirt with some rocks/gravel/sand compared to concrete/asphalt) as well as the elevation change (somewhere in the range of 1700-2800' gain/loss [more on this in a second] compared to 500-600' total). Anyway...

Checked out a new trail with a relatively harmless looking elevation profile... And I want to shoot whoever drew that fucking thing.
http://members.psyber.com/asra/tgquar.pdf
Scroll down to the rudimentary drawing they've got going on there. Granted, the info does say it maxes out at 15%, but how many hills can we count there? Three? With a slight incline to the turnaround?
Now, I present to you the Garmin data:

Yes, the scale is a bit different than normal as the biggest hill is only around 200' compared to the usual 1000' (did I just call a 1000' climb normal?); however, let's count the peaks, not including the first or last, as the trail starts on the descent after the first and ends on the incline before the last. I'm counting 8 per side, so 16 total. Sure, some are only 40-60', but when I'm expecting flat with 3 rollers... Ah, who am I kidding? I love hills. Just not when they're more than 8% and my quads are still shot from the weekend so my knees take a pounding.

The raw Garmin data says the elevation change was 1700' gain/loss (3400' total change). If I correct for the GPS coordinates, it jumps to 2800' gain/loss (5600' total). I'd imagine it's probably closer to the former, since basically the only difference between the two is that the "flat" parts get really, really spiky.

Anyway, enough on things that ultimately don't matter. The trail is pretty nice, really well shaded in the morning, and actually connects to the WS100 course through a couple different side trails, one of which is at the turn-around 6 miles in. I figure I'll turn it into a loop eventually.

Nice 12 today! elevations are mind boggling vs. what I run on!

Another nice run, Mike.

That's a nice run Mike...you are killing those hills!!!

Thanks all. Easy 4 this morning (8:06 pace) to shake out the cobwebs and keep my legs fresh for tonight: group run, 2 laps on K2. 8-9 miles total, 2 of which will be straight up.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Checked out a new trail with a relatively harmless looking elevation profile... And I want to shoot whoever drew that fucking thing.

I agree - quite the difference between the graph and your data ! Good running of late and have fun tonight. K2 just sounds tough....