Five days removed from my first 50 miler, I'm still coming to
grips with what we did. My training towards this race did not go as
I'd hoped. An ill-advised 24 miles on pavement in late August caused
my plantar fasciatiis to flare up in my left foot, and I was reduced
to minimal distance during the week, and trying to extend my long run
on the weekends. I researched training plans and race strategies,
the most encouraging of which stated that if you can run a marathon,
you can finish a 50 miler if you're smart about pacing and eating.
My only goal for this race was to finish, and the 13-hour time cut
ensured that finishing would be a challenge.
The week of the race, we watched the latest winter storm march
across the country. Rain and temps in the mid-forties were predicted
for race day (had we been any farther north, it would have been
snow). Race morning did not disappoint. The rain was unrelenting,
with the temps in the mid 30s, so we stayed in the car until the last
possible moment. I may have looked calm in that picture on Jordan's
blog, but my mind was screaming, “what the hell are you about to
DO?????” Though the race was sold out, there were definitely not
400 runners at the start line. Once we got moving were totally
soaked, my mind calmed and we got down to the business of running.
The race packet said that the views of Chattanooga from the first
6.3 mile section are really amazing, but I will have to take their
word for it; we were in a thick fog on the mountain. The trail
descended down the side of the ridge, hugging rock formations over
some very high cliff faces; with so little room for error, I was
thankful we didn't encounter this section any later in the race. The
first aid station at Craven's House came quickly enough; we had
averaged better than 13 min/mile pace, keeping things nice and easy
at the start of a long day. The next section remained in the valley,
with gentle rolling terrain on jeep trails; I hadn't expected
anything this easy on the course. I was stretching my legs a bit, so
Jordan and I decided to split up around mile 10 and run our own
races. I got to the next aid station a full 30 minutes before I
expected to, but still feeling good, knowing that the next section
included the long climb back to Covenant College at the top of
Lookout Mountain.
I walked much of the climb, which is one of the secrets of
ultra-running; we don't run the entire time. I'm sure some of the
frontrunners and professionals can run 95% of the distance, only
walking the most technical or steepest sections. I was aiming for a
60/40 ratio of running to walking, hoping to find a balance that kept
me within the time cut. I chatted with a number of folks, which
helped to break up the monotony. I rarely caught people's names;
sometimes we'd chat for miles and I'd never even see their face as I
followed them up the mountain. As the day went on, I could only
recognized fellow racers by what they were wearing.
I returned to the start at Covenant College still feeling good;
tired, but ready for more, as the first 22 miles were really only a
warmup. 'More' turned out to be mud; miles and miles of mud. The
hours of rain, overnight and throughout the morning, had turned vast
portions of the course into thick, slick, sucking mud. There was no
way to move through it quickly, and certainly no way to get through
it cleanly. As mud and water poured into my shoes, the water leaked
out, but the mud and silt built up into mounds under the balls of my
feet that I had to periodically stop and scrape it out.
As we descended the far side of Lookout Mountain, we were on
familiar trails. Jordan and I ran the Rock Creek stage race last
year, part of which took place in the same area. We were approaching
the part of the course that I'd been thinking about for months; a
collection of switchbacks so steep they required a series of ropes to
navigate. I wasn't worried about going up this section; my concern
was that in 12 more miles I would have to descend it, possibly in the
dark, having already covered 42 miles. Going up proved no problem,
and the trails leading to the Long Branch loop passed without
incident.
If I had a dark time during the race, it was on the Long Branch
Loop. My left knee had been hurting off and on, but the pain turned
on with a vengeance during this section (I discovered later that this
was due to my quads cramping and pulling on the tendons in my knee).
Going downhill was really painful, and even level ground was
uncomfortable. The 'short 4.5 mile loop' as it was called at the aid
station seemed to last forever; the trails were beautiful, but
technical enough so that I could never find a rhythm. I began to
think about what damage I might be doing to my knees, and how far I
could push before I should consider pulling out at the next aid
station. I must have felt better by the end, as a quickly grabbed my
headlight and a small burger at the aid station and headed back the
way I'd come, toward to the finish at the top of Lookout Mountain.
For the rest of the day, the passage of time was foremost on my
mind. I had four and a half hours left to cover the remaining twelve
miles; certainly possible, but this was unfamiliar territory, farther
than I'd ever pushed myself on foot. The trails proved just as
technical on the way back, but since they were now familiar, my
perceived progress was quicker. I steeled myself for the climb down
the roped switchbacks, warning runners around me that I was planning
to take the section very slowly to try to save my knees (it did occur
to me that flinging myself off the top would have been a more
expedient means of decent...). I made good use of the ropes as my
feet slipped out from under me at one point, leaving me dangling on a
particularly steep switchback. I only took on water and a reserve
energy gel at the last aid station, as seconds now began to count; I
had less than 3 hours to cover 7.5 miles, and knew I might need
every minute to beat the time cut.
It quickly became full dark as I started the last section. I
spent much of it alone, ticking off familiar landmarks and following
the dim shine of my headlamp. I fell hard at some point, flat on my
back in the mud, but didn't injure anything. I kept looking for the
start of the climb; my leg muscles were so sore by this time that
going uphill was the only action that didn't hurt. I worried that I
wouldn't make the time cut; I knew the difficult mud sections were at
the top of the climb, and wanted plenty of time to navigate them in
the dark. As I got higher on the mountain, the fog grew thicker,
until when I emerged at the summit, I couldn't see more than five
feet ahead. Cold wind hit me in the face as I came out of the tree
cover, almost blind, slipping in mud, trying to avoid the reaching
briars. I remember laughing inwardly, thinking, “this is absolute
hell.” Soon I was joined by another runner (never got a name, only
know she was from West Virginia), and we chatted for the last mile
and encouraged each other to the finish. At some point, I mentioned
that this was my first 50 miler, and she asked if I planned to do
another one. I responded by saying that now was not the time to ask
me that question... We knew were getting close when we could faintly
hear cheering and a voice through a loudspeaker. We knew we were
very close when we suddenly saw white Christmas lights strung through
the trees and a large red clock showing that we'd made it inside the
time cut with almost thirty minutes to spare. I crossed the finish
line, heard my name announced over the loudspeaker, and bowed my head
for a volunteer to hang a medal around my neck. Jordan finished
about ten minutes later, and as it was cold and they'd run out of
burgers, we quickly hobbled to the car, returning to the hotel for
hot showers and some of the best pizza I have tasted in a long time.
Now that the legs are less sore and the swelling has gone down, I
find myself already eying races for the future. Until Saturday,
fifty miles was a distance to be covered over a week of hiking; now
it's just a long day's work. And I had more to give at the end of
the race; I could have kept going. And that makes me curious...
-Nathan
PS – The endurance test didn't end on Saturday, as I had to
drive my standard transmission truck all the way back to Charleston;
shifting gears after a 50 miler is no easy task...
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Lookout Mountain 50 Miler: The Day I Fell out of Love with my Kinvaras
For the past three weeks, I have been traveling for interviews, dragging with me an embarrassing amount of luggage, including two separate pairs of Saucony Kinvara 3s. One pair tends to cut into my heels but only has 100-200 miles on it, so I brought this pair for all my shorter runs. The other pair broke in easily and had not rubbed on my heels, but it had 500 miles on it, so I carried these shoes to Pittsburgh, Greenville, Cincinnati, Rochester, and Columbus, just to wear for the Lookout Mountain 50 Miler in Chattanooga, TN.
In training for past 50s, I have run weekly mileages in the 60s with long runs every weekend working up to 6 hours or 36 miles. Since starting my clinical years, I have not been able to maintain this schedule. With a front-loaded fourth year schedule, I struggled to get a few short weekday runs in a week with long runs occurring every 2-3 weeks. I did manage a 5 1/2 hour mountain run 3 weeks prior to the race and I was counting on this to carry me through. I knew this training could allow me to finish, but no more, so I spent a lot of time preparing myself to be miserable for much of the race. As such, the pace chart I wrote on my arm was quite conservative:
This race was Nathan's first 50 miler, and he drove up from Charleston to meet me for the race. We were a little nervous about the weather: 39 degrees is perfect, but rain complicates things. We got to the race start, waited in the car awhile, dropped off our drop bags, and then decided to go back and sit in the dry car some more. Nathan was very excited to start his first 50:
He perked up once we hit the trail.
400 runners were signed up for the 50 miler. There were definitely not that many at the start. I heard rumors that some people ran a few feet in the rain and then said, "Oh, nevermind," and turned around. Not us. We were in it to suffer.
Much of the first section was single track along a ridgeline. The rain was falling and there were plenty of puddles. The options were to step in the puddle or on the slippery edge of the cliff. I chose the puddles. There was no hope of keeping feet dry anyway. The result was that when Nathan and I arrived at the first aid station at 6.3 miles, my socks had fallen down in my shoes and my heels were already bleeding. I tried to pull up my socks but they were not budging.
The next 8.5 mile section was impressively easy. It was about as similar to road running as wet trails could be, and largely downhill. Nathan's easy pace is naturally faster than mine and he started inching ahead, then he would periodically wait up for me. I needed to go to the bathroom anyway, so I thought this was a good time for us to split and each run our own race. I took this opportunity to go to work on my socks. They would not pull up and I couldn't get a good grip. I needed to take off my shoes if anything I did was to last more than a minute. My hands were so numb that my fingers had lost all dexterity, so I eventually gave up struggling with my double-knotted shoelaces. In the end, I wasted about 10 minutes and achieved nothing. At the next aid station, I asked for band-aids (the ones I started with were long gone in the rain, which had since stopped). The band-aids, which probably took another 10 minutes for the friendly volunteer to apply, quickly fell off again and I decided that the sharp pains in my heels would simply be part of the race.
It was 7.7 miles to the next aid station. It contained a climb, but the elevation chart had made it look so impressive that it didn't seem too bad while hiking it:
I probably went quicker than I should have on the uphill, running whenever I felt the grade was reasonable and hiking with some "umph." I was eager to reach the next aid station though, because it had drop bags, and therefore...dry socks! Once I arrived and found my drop bag (the struggle of this made me really appreciate my crew from past races), I changed socks and applied large bandaids to my heels. My left sock was soaked in blood all the way done to my midfoot. The new socks were wet again within about two minutes. The band-aids were so heavy-duty they may have lasted a half mile. But the key was that my new socks were too big for me and I pulled them way up, so there was no more shoe-on-skin the rest of the race.
The next section was miserable. Absolutely incredible mud. Mud with a mind of its own. Mud that slides intermixed with mud that slurps.
I like mud. It gives you something to show for the day and distinguishes you from road runners. This mud did not like me. It threatened to send me into the creek. It left me stuck in a split with the kind runner behind me propping me up. It slammed my arm into a root when I fell later in the dark (although I do appreciate having the scrape and bruise to show off). One runner asked me to step aside for her to pass in this mud. I gladly did, but I had to ask, "How it is possible to run faster than I am in this?" She shouted back, from 10 feet down the trail, that it was her shoes. Huh. Road shoes with 500+ miles may not always be the answer. Mercifully, we reached a point where there were leaves on top of the mud, or I would still be out there sliding around.
We climbed up a steep technical section that requires a rope to ascend, and the mud made the parts without the rope particularly harrowing. I knew what my goal needed to be: to get back down this rope section before dark. First there was more mud, and very narrow trail with the faster runners coming back. It was hard to get any rhythm while having to jump off the trail every 30 seconds. Eventually the aid station came, and there was just on quick 4.2 mile loop before last 11.8 miles of the course, which were largely the last (muddy) section in reverse.
Quick 4.2 miles. Ha! It went on and on. Great trails, but I finished it thinking "That was never 4.2 miles!" a la Monty Python's "Argument Clinic." I share this not because it's particularly witty, but because Nathan had the exact same thought when he hit this part of the course. Talk about made for each other (or at least both brought up in households with an appreciation for British humor, I mean, British humour).
I pushed it to make it down the rope before dark. It was so close that some of the folks who went down ahead of me already had their headlamps on, but I was able to wait to turn mine on until after reaching the bottom. I left the last aid station around 10:39 into the race-- over 2 hours before the cut-off time of 13 hours, plenty of time to cover the last 7.5 miles.
Of course, I had been planning to run most of those miles. My legs were tired, yes, but still up to a few miles of running. Unfortunately, the combination of darkness, mud, and sometimes technical trails meant that it really wasn't possible to run much at all. The pace we needed to maintain walking is quite easy on a treadmill, but in the mud it was another story. Runners who had been strung out in singles over the previous 45 miles banded together in groups and together we marched to the finish. Considering my lack of training, I was not at all disappointed with my slowest 50 mile finish time of 12:44. Nathan was there waiting, but I will leave him to tell you about his race.
I must have looked pretty rough at this point. I was covering in mud and thought I had 17 "boos boos" until I discovered a few more in the shower today I missed when counting yesterday. No pictures from immediately post-race, but here is what my heels look like 24 hours after finishing:
As I hobbled barefoot into the hotel, the security guard asked me, "Uh, ma'am, do you have a room here?" Thankfully he didn't ask for my room number, because I could not have produced that information at the time.
In spite of the struggles, I'm very glad to have done the race. It was a welcome break from interview season and a long over-due return to ultrarunning. As for the Kinvaras, they still have my love. They just may not be my top pick for the next rainy trail race.
-Jordan
In training for past 50s, I have run weekly mileages in the 60s with long runs every weekend working up to 6 hours or 36 miles. Since starting my clinical years, I have not been able to maintain this schedule. With a front-loaded fourth year schedule, I struggled to get a few short weekday runs in a week with long runs occurring every 2-3 weeks. I did manage a 5 1/2 hour mountain run 3 weeks prior to the race and I was counting on this to carry me through. I knew this training could allow me to finish, but no more, so I spent a lot of time preparing myself to be miserable for much of the race. As such, the pace chart I wrote on my arm was quite conservative:
This race was Nathan's first 50 miler, and he drove up from Charleston to meet me for the race. We were a little nervous about the weather: 39 degrees is perfect, but rain complicates things. We got to the race start, waited in the car awhile, dropped off our drop bags, and then decided to go back and sit in the dry car some more. Nathan was very excited to start his first 50:
He perked up once we hit the trail.
400 runners were signed up for the 50 miler. There were definitely not that many at the start. I heard rumors that some people ran a few feet in the rain and then said, "Oh, nevermind," and turned around. Not us. We were in it to suffer.
Much of the first section was single track along a ridgeline. The rain was falling and there were plenty of puddles. The options were to step in the puddle or on the slippery edge of the cliff. I chose the puddles. There was no hope of keeping feet dry anyway. The result was that when Nathan and I arrived at the first aid station at 6.3 miles, my socks had fallen down in my shoes and my heels were already bleeding. I tried to pull up my socks but they were not budging.
The next 8.5 mile section was impressively easy. It was about as similar to road running as wet trails could be, and largely downhill. Nathan's easy pace is naturally faster than mine and he started inching ahead, then he would periodically wait up for me. I needed to go to the bathroom anyway, so I thought this was a good time for us to split and each run our own race. I took this opportunity to go to work on my socks. They would not pull up and I couldn't get a good grip. I needed to take off my shoes if anything I did was to last more than a minute. My hands were so numb that my fingers had lost all dexterity, so I eventually gave up struggling with my double-knotted shoelaces. In the end, I wasted about 10 minutes and achieved nothing. At the next aid station, I asked for band-aids (the ones I started with were long gone in the rain, which had since stopped). The band-aids, which probably took another 10 minutes for the friendly volunteer to apply, quickly fell off again and I decided that the sharp pains in my heels would simply be part of the race.
It was 7.7 miles to the next aid station. It contained a climb, but the elevation chart had made it look so impressive that it didn't seem too bad while hiking it:
The next section was miserable. Absolutely incredible mud. Mud with a mind of its own. Mud that slides intermixed with mud that slurps.
I like mud. It gives you something to show for the day and distinguishes you from road runners. This mud did not like me. It threatened to send me into the creek. It left me stuck in a split with the kind runner behind me propping me up. It slammed my arm into a root when I fell later in the dark (although I do appreciate having the scrape and bruise to show off). One runner asked me to step aside for her to pass in this mud. I gladly did, but I had to ask, "How it is possible to run faster than I am in this?" She shouted back, from 10 feet down the trail, that it was her shoes. Huh. Road shoes with 500+ miles may not always be the answer. Mercifully, we reached a point where there were leaves on top of the mud, or I would still be out there sliding around.
We climbed up a steep technical section that requires a rope to ascend, and the mud made the parts without the rope particularly harrowing. I knew what my goal needed to be: to get back down this rope section before dark. First there was more mud, and very narrow trail with the faster runners coming back. It was hard to get any rhythm while having to jump off the trail every 30 seconds. Eventually the aid station came, and there was just on quick 4.2 mile loop before last 11.8 miles of the course, which were largely the last (muddy) section in reverse.
Quick 4.2 miles. Ha! It went on and on. Great trails, but I finished it thinking "That was never 4.2 miles!" a la Monty Python's "Argument Clinic." I share this not because it's particularly witty, but because Nathan had the exact same thought when he hit this part of the course. Talk about made for each other (or at least both brought up in households with an appreciation for British humor, I mean, British humour).
I pushed it to make it down the rope before dark. It was so close that some of the folks who went down ahead of me already had their headlamps on, but I was able to wait to turn mine on until after reaching the bottom. I left the last aid station around 10:39 into the race-- over 2 hours before the cut-off time of 13 hours, plenty of time to cover the last 7.5 miles.
Of course, I had been planning to run most of those miles. My legs were tired, yes, but still up to a few miles of running. Unfortunately, the combination of darkness, mud, and sometimes technical trails meant that it really wasn't possible to run much at all. The pace we needed to maintain walking is quite easy on a treadmill, but in the mud it was another story. Runners who had been strung out in singles over the previous 45 miles banded together in groups and together we marched to the finish. Considering my lack of training, I was not at all disappointed with my slowest 50 mile finish time of 12:44. Nathan was there waiting, but I will leave him to tell you about his race.
I must have looked pretty rough at this point. I was covering in mud and thought I had 17 "boos boos" until I discovered a few more in the shower today I missed when counting yesterday. No pictures from immediately post-race, but here is what my heels look like 24 hours after finishing:
As I hobbled barefoot into the hotel, the security guard asked me, "Uh, ma'am, do you have a room here?" Thankfully he didn't ask for my room number, because I could not have produced that information at the time.
In spite of the struggles, I'm very glad to have done the race. It was a welcome break from interview season and a long over-due return to ultrarunning. As for the Kinvaras, they still have my love. They just may not be my top pick for the next rainy trail race.
-Jordan
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Copperhead 50K
When Nathan and I decided that the 50K we were originally signed up for this weekend was no longer worth the trip (the government shutdown meant the course had to be moved to a 4 mile loop of what looked like jeep trail), one of my first thoughts was "Oh man, now I don't get to write a blog post." So, we decided to put on a low key, unofficial 50K here in Charleston so that I could write a report.
Okay, maybe there were some other reasons too. I had trained for a 50K, at least by distance (long run was 30 miles). My trail training was lacking, but all the more reason to get some miles in on trail. Plus, I had tapered, probably more than I should have, and now I needed an excuse for running very little the last two weeks. Nathan was undertrained due to plantar fasciitis, but he had still been looking forward to the race.
Howie helped me get the word out and soon Chad (Eagle Endurance) and Andrew (from Try Sports) were volunteering to bring water jugs, tables, tents, etc. It was much more than I had expected! I got together some snacks of standard ultra fare, Lana added homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, and we had a nice little aid station.
The course was 4 laps of an 8 mile loop of single-track at the Wannamaker North Trail. Or 3, or 2, or 1 lap as you like. Six of us started down the trail (others would join later), chatting about toenails and such. Lana had destroyed 9 of her 10 last month in the Georgia Jewel 100. I was a bit jealous, having never lost a toenail myself. I stubbed my toes as much as it may have been possible over the next 32 miles, but all I got was a lousy blood blister.
The first copperhead tested our spacing. We passed; no one ran into the person in front of them. With lap two came copperhead two, thick, head raised, and slithering toward us down the trail. I stopped a couple feet short of it, and the adrenaline rush helped muffle soreness that was already creeping into my legs. This prompted the christening of the run, "Copperhead 50K."
Nathan and Andrew stopped early in the third lap (Andrew had just run the North Face Atlanta 50 Miler last weekend and Nathan is still battling plantar fasciitis), but Howie had joined us so I still had company for the lap. Howie kept commenting on how quickly the miles were going by. They didn't seem quite as quick to me.
As I filled up my waterbottles for the last lap, Nathan asked me "Last lap another 1:30?" I told him I thought it would be more like 1:35 or 1:40. This was a silly thing to say. It showed I was planning to suffer, so of course I would suffer. Howie was with me one more mile and then I was on my own. In some ways I was glad Howie was gone so the suffering could begin. Makes a lot of sense, right?
The next few miles were the low point of the run. I was tired from carrying two water bottles for all but the first lap, and I was tired of stubbing my toes. It rained a bit, which is usually welcome, but it fogged up my glasses so I couldn't see the trail and stubbed my toes even more. Without the goal of passing other people in a race, I found it tough to stay motivated to keep moving. I had already decided I would allow myself to walk occasionally, so why not walk more frequently and for longer? Once I hit 3 miles to go, I was fine, but I think the last lap served to show me that my "ultra brain" is out of shape.
I ended up running the 32 miles in 6:23. A bit slower than I had planned, but I think it will definitely be helpful (especially mentally) on December 14th for Lookout Mountain 50 Miler. Thank so much to everyone who came out. You guys made it fun!
Jordan
Okay, maybe there were some other reasons too. I had trained for a 50K, at least by distance (long run was 30 miles). My trail training was lacking, but all the more reason to get some miles in on trail. Plus, I had tapered, probably more than I should have, and now I needed an excuse for running very little the last two weeks. Nathan was undertrained due to plantar fasciitis, but he had still been looking forward to the race.
Howie helped me get the word out and soon Chad (Eagle Endurance) and Andrew (from Try Sports) were volunteering to bring water jugs, tables, tents, etc. It was much more than I had expected! I got together some snacks of standard ultra fare, Lana added homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, and we had a nice little aid station.
The course was 4 laps of an 8 mile loop of single-track at the Wannamaker North Trail. Or 3, or 2, or 1 lap as you like. Six of us started down the trail (others would join later), chatting about toenails and such. Lana had destroyed 9 of her 10 last month in the Georgia Jewel 100. I was a bit jealous, having never lost a toenail myself. I stubbed my toes as much as it may have been possible over the next 32 miles, but all I got was a lousy blood blister.
The first copperhead tested our spacing. We passed; no one ran into the person in front of them. With lap two came copperhead two, thick, head raised, and slithering toward us down the trail. I stopped a couple feet short of it, and the adrenaline rush helped muffle soreness that was already creeping into my legs. This prompted the christening of the run, "Copperhead 50K."
Nathan and Andrew stopped early in the third lap (Andrew had just run the North Face Atlanta 50 Miler last weekend and Nathan is still battling plantar fasciitis), but Howie had joined us so I still had company for the lap. Howie kept commenting on how quickly the miles were going by. They didn't seem quite as quick to me.
As I filled up my waterbottles for the last lap, Nathan asked me "Last lap another 1:30?" I told him I thought it would be more like 1:35 or 1:40. This was a silly thing to say. It showed I was planning to suffer, so of course I would suffer. Howie was with me one more mile and then I was on my own. In some ways I was glad Howie was gone so the suffering could begin. Makes a lot of sense, right?
The next few miles were the low point of the run. I was tired from carrying two water bottles for all but the first lap, and I was tired of stubbing my toes. It rained a bit, which is usually welcome, but it fogged up my glasses so I couldn't see the trail and stubbed my toes even more. Without the goal of passing other people in a race, I found it tough to stay motivated to keep moving. I had already decided I would allow myself to walk occasionally, so why not walk more frequently and for longer? Once I hit 3 miles to go, I was fine, but I think the last lap served to show me that my "ultra brain" is out of shape.
I ended up running the 32 miles in 6:23. A bit slower than I had planned, but I think it will definitely be helpful (especially mentally) on December 14th for Lookout Mountain 50 Miler. Thank so much to everyone who came out. You guys made it fun!
Jordan
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Running Again
I haven't posted in over a year. There's a good reason for this: I haven't run a race of more than 10 miles since starting my third year of medical school. My third year started with surgery, and while one of the scrub nurses at the VA advised me that I could make time for my run by skipping dinner, I was too lazy and hungry to make this happen. Over the six weeks on my surgery rotation, I ran between 5-15 miles, not per week, but total.
I got a few more runs in over the course of the rest of the year, but I rarely ran more than 3-4 days a week with occasional runs in the 10 mile range on weekends. Some rotations were lighter, but there was always a tough rotation looming that discouraged me as I looked ahead. I couldn't sign up for any races because I could never be sure of getting a given weekend day off. And I felt any time off needed to be spent studying for exams.
It's a lot of excuses-I know. I have classmates that maintained their mileage over the year and I have so much respect for them. It did not happen for me. And I am moving on.
Now, it is fourth year. Glorious, "best year of your career" fourth year. I've been enjoying it for nearly three months and have not yet had to come into the hospital on a weekend. There's one busy rotation ahead, my acting internship in the PICU, but the rest mostly takes place during weekday daylight hours. So I am running.
10 days ago I ran 27 miles. My weekly total that week was 50 for the first time in over a year. This weekend, 30 is on the calendar for Saturday. I call myself ultrarunner again. It feels good.
The race calendar for the next year is taking shape. Oct 6: FATS 50k with Nathan. Dec 14: Lookout Mountain 50 Mile with Nathan. Feb 1: Uwharrie 40 Mile. A spring 100 with plenty of singletrack (Massanutten? Rock Creek Thunder Rock?) Maybe head back to Bull Run Run 50 Mile if there's time. There are a lot of opportunities. I'm excited.
So that's where I've been the past year, and where I hope I'm going in the next year. I'll do my best to have tales of massive blisters and clutch slices of pizza in the coming months. I can't wait to get back on the trails!
-Jordan
I got a few more runs in over the course of the rest of the year, but I rarely ran more than 3-4 days a week with occasional runs in the 10 mile range on weekends. Some rotations were lighter, but there was always a tough rotation looming that discouraged me as I looked ahead. I couldn't sign up for any races because I could never be sure of getting a given weekend day off. And I felt any time off needed to be spent studying for exams.
It's a lot of excuses-I know. I have classmates that maintained their mileage over the year and I have so much respect for them. It did not happen for me. And I am moving on.
Now, it is fourth year. Glorious, "best year of your career" fourth year. I've been enjoying it for nearly three months and have not yet had to come into the hospital on a weekend. There's one busy rotation ahead, my acting internship in the PICU, but the rest mostly takes place during weekday daylight hours. So I am running.
10 days ago I ran 27 miles. My weekly total that week was 50 for the first time in over a year. This weekend, 30 is on the calendar for Saturday. I call myself ultrarunner again. It feels good.
The race calendar for the next year is taking shape. Oct 6: FATS 50k with Nathan. Dec 14: Lookout Mountain 50 Mile with Nathan. Feb 1: Uwharrie 40 Mile. A spring 100 with plenty of singletrack (Massanutten? Rock Creek Thunder Rock?) Maybe head back to Bull Run Run 50 Mile if there's time. There are a lot of opportunities. I'm excited.
So that's where I've been the past year, and where I hope I'm going in the next year. I'll do my best to have tales of massive blisters and clutch slices of pizza in the coming months. I can't wait to get back on the trails!
-Jordan
Monday, August 12, 2013
Sometimes, It's Supposed to Hurt...
It's official; the fall racing season for the Garris family is
about to begin! With the arrival of football and the promise of
cooler temperatures comes the expectation of longer trail runs and
excitement of new race goals. I've always thought of distance
running as a fall/winter sport, and living here in the low-country
has only reinforced that opinion. Having officially signed up for my
first 50 miler, I wanted to collect my thoughts and bridge from the
end of my running season last year to what lies ahead.
I've been loathe to write about or even discuss my DNF at the Tsali Frosty Foot 50k in January. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what went wrong. After a consistent 22 miles with some really enjoyable moments, I found myself struggling to walk up a non-technical, gentle climb to the aid station at mile 24. The day had been surprisingly hot for North Carolina in January (mid 70s and sunny), but I didn't think the conditions were to blame. I ate my remaining food, hoping that I was just bonking and would recover after consuming some calories. I continued to feel worse as a number of runners passed me, offering words of encouragement (we all know it's easier being the one doing the passing...). I convinced myself in those two miles that I should quit. As I stumbled into the aid station, that's what I did, despite the encouragement of Jordan and the aid station volunteers to continue. I sat down in some bushes, and just cried.
On the way home, and in the weeks after, I tried to figure out why I quit. I'd like to think it was because I wasn't “having the race I wanted.” I ran 4:45 for the same distance just a month before. While that was a significantly easier course, I felt I had adjusted my expectations for the challenging terrain of Tsali, but at mile 22, the race was suddenly not panning out the way I'd planned. Could I have walked the last 7 miles? Maybe, but I didn't know how long that would take, and Jordan and I had to get all the way back to Charleston that day (a six hour drive). Did I train enough? Hills are hard to come by here in the low-country, but we have treadmills and a bridge. Did it hurt too badly to continue? My legs were cramping on the mile walk back to the car, and I remember thinking, “there's no way I could walk 7 more miles feeling like this...”
Did it just hurt too badly?
I've been thinking a lot about pain recently. One of the first things Jordan told me as I began to contemplate running the Last Chance 50k was, “sometimes, it's supposed to hurt.” I started my running life as a 'fragile' runner. My triathlete friends stressed that “pain is your body trying to tell you something.” I think I went a little overboard, slowing down or even stopping my training at the slightest tweak in my knees or feet. What I didn't realize is that the sports I enjoy hurt. No matter how fit or fast or young or old you are, it hurts to push your body over the distances and at the speeds required to be competitive in distance running and cycling. It's unrealistic to run 5 or 20 or 50 miles and expect every moment to be pain free. What defines those that succeed are how they deal with the inevitable pain inherent in pushing one's body to its potential. That is not to say that we ignore our bodies; the trick is to be able to distinguish between injury-related pain and effort-induced pain. As Greg Lemond said, “it doesn't get any easier, you just go faster.”
I don't know if it was injury-related or effort-induced pain that caused me to quit at Tsali. For the next four months, common notes in my training log were 'brain not in the right place' and 'pain in R knee.' My running was sporadic and frequently frustrating. Only by late April, after completing a 14 mile run with local running friends, did I finally start to feel like a runner again, and begin to think about goals for this season. Even now, I'm still not sure if it was my muscles that gave out, or my mind. But one of those possibilities hurts just a little bit more...
So here's the race schedule for the fall; along with some shorter local races, Jordan and I are planning on running the FATS 50k (http://fats50k.com/) in North Augusta as a warm-up for the Lookout Mountain 50 Miler, (www.rockcreek.com/lookout.rco) in Chattanooga in December (our Christmas present to each other). I'm understandably anxious; it's almost 20 miles farther than I've ever run before, and features over 6300 ft of climbing. I don't know how my body will react to this challenge; I will train it the best way I know how. But this time, I will be damn sure of how my mind will react. I know it will hurt, but now I know it's supposed to.
Nathan
PS – I want to plug two books I've recently read that have formed the basis for my mental preparation for this season. The first is Scott Jurek's Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness. While not fantastically written, it's an interesting look into the mind of an elite ultrarunner, his preparation, and his mental strategies during races (it also includes a number of vegan recipes I'm interested to try). The second is A Life Without Limits: A World Champion's Journey by Chrissie Wellington. Chrissie (I think the entire triathlon community refers to her like that) had just begun dominating ironman distance competitions when I was first introduced to the sport, and to hear the story of races I followed online and in magazines from her own words was fascinating.
I've been loathe to write about or even discuss my DNF at the Tsali Frosty Foot 50k in January. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what went wrong. After a consistent 22 miles with some really enjoyable moments, I found myself struggling to walk up a non-technical, gentle climb to the aid station at mile 24. The day had been surprisingly hot for North Carolina in January (mid 70s and sunny), but I didn't think the conditions were to blame. I ate my remaining food, hoping that I was just bonking and would recover after consuming some calories. I continued to feel worse as a number of runners passed me, offering words of encouragement (we all know it's easier being the one doing the passing...). I convinced myself in those two miles that I should quit. As I stumbled into the aid station, that's what I did, despite the encouragement of Jordan and the aid station volunteers to continue. I sat down in some bushes, and just cried.
On the way home, and in the weeks after, I tried to figure out why I quit. I'd like to think it was because I wasn't “having the race I wanted.” I ran 4:45 for the same distance just a month before. While that was a significantly easier course, I felt I had adjusted my expectations for the challenging terrain of Tsali, but at mile 22, the race was suddenly not panning out the way I'd planned. Could I have walked the last 7 miles? Maybe, but I didn't know how long that would take, and Jordan and I had to get all the way back to Charleston that day (a six hour drive). Did I train enough? Hills are hard to come by here in the low-country, but we have treadmills and a bridge. Did it hurt too badly to continue? My legs were cramping on the mile walk back to the car, and I remember thinking, “there's no way I could walk 7 more miles feeling like this...”
Did it just hurt too badly?
I've been thinking a lot about pain recently. One of the first things Jordan told me as I began to contemplate running the Last Chance 50k was, “sometimes, it's supposed to hurt.” I started my running life as a 'fragile' runner. My triathlete friends stressed that “pain is your body trying to tell you something.” I think I went a little overboard, slowing down or even stopping my training at the slightest tweak in my knees or feet. What I didn't realize is that the sports I enjoy hurt. No matter how fit or fast or young or old you are, it hurts to push your body over the distances and at the speeds required to be competitive in distance running and cycling. It's unrealistic to run 5 or 20 or 50 miles and expect every moment to be pain free. What defines those that succeed are how they deal with the inevitable pain inherent in pushing one's body to its potential. That is not to say that we ignore our bodies; the trick is to be able to distinguish between injury-related pain and effort-induced pain. As Greg Lemond said, “it doesn't get any easier, you just go faster.”
I don't know if it was injury-related or effort-induced pain that caused me to quit at Tsali. For the next four months, common notes in my training log were 'brain not in the right place' and 'pain in R knee.' My running was sporadic and frequently frustrating. Only by late April, after completing a 14 mile run with local running friends, did I finally start to feel like a runner again, and begin to think about goals for this season. Even now, I'm still not sure if it was my muscles that gave out, or my mind. But one of those possibilities hurts just a little bit more...
So here's the race schedule for the fall; along with some shorter local races, Jordan and I are planning on running the FATS 50k (http://fats50k.com/) in North Augusta as a warm-up for the Lookout Mountain 50 Miler, (www.rockcreek.com/lookout.rco) in Chattanooga in December (our Christmas present to each other). I'm understandably anxious; it's almost 20 miles farther than I've ever run before, and features over 6300 ft of climbing. I don't know how my body will react to this challenge; I will train it the best way I know how. But this time, I will be damn sure of how my mind will react. I know it will hurt, but now I know it's supposed to.
Nathan
PS – I want to plug two books I've recently read that have formed the basis for my mental preparation for this season. The first is Scott Jurek's Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness. While not fantastically written, it's an interesting look into the mind of an elite ultrarunner, his preparation, and his mental strategies during races (it also includes a number of vegan recipes I'm interested to try). The second is A Life Without Limits: A World Champion's Journey by Chrissie Wellington. Chrissie (I think the entire triathlon community refers to her like that) had just begun dominating ironman distance competitions when I was first introduced to the sport, and to hear the story of races I followed online and in magazines from her own words was fascinating.
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