A mountain run

No rules. Speed doesn't matter and miles don't count. Or maybe they count double. It's almost 4pm. Diner is in 2 hrs when I write my name in the book. Two hours to get up and down Guadalupe Peak. Can I make it in two hours? Normally I'd think yes. But today? Today was a challenge I like.

This morning I ran 8 miles on the Permian Reef Trail. Over 2100 feet of climbing up single track, rocky trails in 3.1 miles. Then around and down a bit before getting to stand, arms open wide, at a look out point and just shout down over the amazing view of my campsite in the distance. Wow. Going down Permian was equally great. I was just fighting back giggles that I'm sure had hikers thinking I might be crazy. But this place was like Bandera on steroids. Bliss.

The day before was a 30 mile Joe run. Anyone who knows Joe knows what this means. How this man manages to find ass-kicking trails and string them together in a way that will have even then nicest runner cussing is a gift beyond measure. Oh how I love doing a Joe run.

My quads are sore, my hands are cold, and my back is dripping sweat under my fleece and Nathan pack. It's time for up. I feel like I'm running, in a way. My arms are swinging and my turn over is quick. But moving is slow. Still, the feeling is, again, bliss. 18 minute mile bliss.

After 1.4 miles two hikers pass me on their way down. "There are 2 guys ahead of you. You have a long way to go," one says.
"Less the 3 miles," I reply with a smile.

More up. I was breathing hard from the get go, but the climbing never got harder. 2 miles up. Three. Getting close to four. By this time I'm surrounded by cloud. A mile back the wind blew pieces of cloud over me as I climbed, drawing out more laughs. Now the fog is almost thick. Wisps of cloud cover the rocky trail and the smell in the air is sweet and ethereal. I've been climbing for over an hour, taken two wrong turns, but I know I'm close to the peak. This climb is billed as a tourist trail, but a few of the turns are hard to see. At least in the fog. Still, I know I'm close to the top. Hugging a turn I hike the last bit of trail up, climb a few rocks, write my name in the book and give a happy whoop into the thick clouds. This mountain offered me no view from Its top. But the 77 minute climb was reward enough. I slapped the monument, climbed off the slippery peak rocks, filled my lungs with the cloudy air and started the run down.

My GPS died after just over 8 miles in 2:01, about .5 miles from the trail head. But I don't care. On the mountain speed and time really don't matter to me. I made the climb.

Mad City 100k 2010

When I registered for Mad City, I had decided to run this year's race as a practice run for next year's race. The goal: to get on the USATF 100k team in 2011. This is a BIG goal. Especially being I had never raced a road ultra before today. My training for the last 2 months has been much different then what I am use to. Faster stuff on pavement vs. slower stuff on trails. But I've LOVED training like this. I love running hard and I've loved feeling like I'm getting faster while improving my endurance with crazy tempo runs and track work. My time goal for this race this year was to run close to eight minute miles...8 minute miles are slower then pretty much all of my training has been. But being this was a 62 mile race, eight minute miles would be good.

Mad City 100k was the USATF 100k Championship race for 2010. Meaning it draws fast runners and offers prize money to the top 5 male and female USATF finishers, along with a chance for the winner to get on the USATF 100k team. This race is a rolling hills 100k made up of 10 10k loops. I actually expected the course to be flatter then it was. I would call the whole thing rolling, with a nice flat run way coming into the starting/loop/finish area.

At 6:30am the race began. I ran the first 30K with 3 great running women (Kristin Moehl, Angie Radosevich, and Jenny Capel). It was fun getting to meet some awesome runners and talk while running along for those first loops. But after 30K I was ready to pick it up a bit. So I did. Truthfully I am a bit of a loner when I run, and I was ready to just zone out and run. No more talking. Lap 4 was my fastest loop of the day, with lap 5 taking 2end for a "clocked" 3:58:10 50k. I say clocked because the aid station was just before the time mats. Meaning I stopped for maybe 1 minute to eat, drink and take an S!Cap before running over the time mats.

By the end of lap 6 my legs were starting to cramp. I did a mental check list of the possible whys and decided these cramps were racing cramps. Nothing to be done but push on. Also on this lap, I caught the 2end place lady, Annette Bednosky. We hit the aid stations with in seconds of each other for a couple laps before my legs decided I was going to slow down.

The clock said 7:25 when I left for my last lap, in 3erd place. My legs still felt bad, but I pushed them anyway. I kept telling myself "8:20 or less. 8:20 or less", as I did my best to run up those long (though not steep) hills. At 8:02 I hit the 3.8 mile (of 6.2miles) aid station, downed some water and Mt. Dew, and pushed in to finish in 8:18:24. 3erd female, 10th person. Talk about thrilling! The website says I averaged 8:01.3 minutes for every mile. Woo-hoo! Not only that, but I now have a chance of getting selected this year to run in the USATF 100k World Championship, because I ran under 8:40. Exciting Craziness!

I still want to train for this race over the next year. I feel like I have a great shot at running quite a bit faster, if I put in the miles right. A GIANT THANK YOU to Joe, for helping train for this. I would have never done those workouts w/o someone having put them on my training plan. And I can tell they helped me out a lot. :)

Oh, I am sure some of my running peeps are just dying to know what I was eating and drinking today. Well, I tried something new. In a race. I drunk like 10 cups of Mt. Dew today, a lot of water, about 2 cups of Heed, took 10 S!Caps and 10 gels. Nothing more, nothing less.

Easy runs for FUN

I have finally figured out how to love my easy runs!! For years I've almost dreaded easy days. I'd look at my training plans and think, "Blah. An easy run Wednesday. I have to run slow and that is boring." But no longer! For the last few weeks I've planed to do easy runs at parks, on snow covered trails, or on new trails to do exploring. Instead of thinking running 5-8 miles isn't worth driving somewhere to run, I think of my easy runs as play-dates for myself. A few miles just to have fun doing something I love. Today I ventured onto a part of a trail that I've used as a turn-around spot a few times in the past. Instead of turning around when I hit the part that plunges into a creek, I slashed on in. WooHOO! Cold fun! And the water was much deeper then I expected. It got up to my knees in the middle. About .5 miles later, I turned and ran thru more water that let out into sand. Then I went up a .8 mile crush granite and muddy in spots hill before the trail hit a road. So fun! On the way back, there was a small (about 1.5 feet long but slim) snake sunbathing on the trail. Being it was 40 degrees out, I wasn't watching for snakes and almost stepped on him. Silly snake! But for some reason I see lots of snakes on the trails here in Colorado when the sun is out, regardless of the temperature. I guess it is warmer in the sun then under a rock.
The only mildly disappointing part of today's run was the knee length yoga pants I wore. When they got wet, the bottoms sloshed around and were obviously not really for running in. There was a 30% chance of snow while I was running, so I didn't want to be in shorts. But 40 degrees isn't cold enough for pants, so I wore the only Capri's I have that are made out of workout material. I can't wait to get my Patagonia Capri's to run in! And maybe I'll use my Northface gift card for another pair of Capri's. I think running in knee length pants is the way to go most of the winter up here. Much different then Texas!

Next week I hope there is snow on the trails again. Snow runs might be my favorite!

It's 6:23am here. And so far today I've made three kid's lunches, made a pot of oatmeal, done my reading, loaded the dishes left from last night, swept the downstairs bathroom, washroom, and what I have started calling "the mud hall". Lots of houses around here have a Mudroom. But we have an area where we hang jackets by the garage door that is a hallway. Half-bath straight ahead, laundry room to your right, and the way into the house to your left. Being the kids will come into this hall, take of snow boots, and then toss the boots into there buckets in the garage, this hall of ours gets quit muddy of late and makes me think "Mudroom-hall".

All 3 of my little treasures are still sleeping. The boys will be up in maybe 5 minutes and Seren about 10mins after them. Oh the comfort of a quit and mostly clean house.

Today Caedmon has all day school. In our school district kindergarten is a half day. But they give you the option to pay extra and have your kindergartner go to an all day program called Kindergarten Enrichment. We asked if we could send Caed all day 3 times a week instead of all five. They said yes, so that is what we started doing last week. Caedmon loves his all day school days. And so do I! Mondays are extra nice because I don't workout on Mondays. I get to clean house, run errands, study my ACSM stuff, read books...Mondays are great. This Monday a friend of mine is coming over for yoga and healthy living encouragement. And yipy- it's snowing! A pretty, light, dusting of steady snow this morning. The only thing that could make this Monday better is Einstein's.

Oh. I hear my treasures coming down the stairs. Have a great week to anyone who reads this!!

For my fellow runners: This past week of mine rocked for running! 73 miles in 9:08:45 total. 45 miles that I'd call hard-ish. My favorite 2 workouts: Thursday's 10 miler of 321's on rolling hills at a park and Saturday's 20 w/ 2 10ks @ 7 min mile pace in the middle, also on rolling hills at a park.

What next?

Woo-hoo!! Dan has a new job!!!!!!!!!!!!! He got an offer from a company he had been doing contract work for, accepted their offer, and became an official employee this past Monday. Happy days for us! I feel like 2 tons are lifted off my shoulders. :)

Also in this past week, I decided to train for the next 13ish months for the 100k. But not just any 100k. I want to train hard, risking crossing that line that separates the fit athlete from the injured athlete, and see how fast I can run the Mad City 100k in 2011. The Mad City 100k is this year, and likely will be next year, the USATF 100k championship race. Meaning it draws the fast runners and offers prize money. I'm running it this year on April 10th to have a solid point to train from. And let me just say, I AM PUMPED! This past weekend I did a 31 mile training run with 4 10k intervals at what I would call an "engaged" pace. A pace I could have held longer then the 31 miles I ran, but I'm not at the point of racing a 100k and hitting those splits right now. The whole 50k, warm thru cool down, took me 3:52. Super exciting! I ran almost right at a 7:30 mile average for 31 miles and ended the run feeling good! Like I could have run much faster! Woo-hoo! Sure it was a flat 50k, but it was fast and felt good. The next day I ran 16 miles (on a treadmill at 1% incline-that is my normal TM run incline) in 2:02:40 and that run felt super easy. I exercised self-control and didn't allow myself to push the pace until after 13 miles...and then I forced myself to take a super easy .5 miles for a cool down. So I will race the Mad City 100k this year and plan on running faster next year. This year will be all for fun, as I have absolutely no expectations going into this race. Goals? Of course! But I know that my goals are very un-solid. I've never in my life tried to run a pace that felt anything other then easy for more then 26.2 miles. And I haven't raced a marathon in years. So that makes this year all fun. I can't wait to see what happens, take the results and plan for next year!!

More RR 50 miler

Opps. I left a lot out. For starters, I won the race and set a new course record for females! Very exciting for me. :)

Going into this race, what I was really wanting to do is run as best as I could on that day, all obstacles being tackled as best as I could figure out how to take them on and run well. I knew from training runs that I had a good shot at running in the low 7 hr range and maybe under 7 hrs if things were going close to how I thought they could for me. I have done a lot of long runs (over 20miles) well over 7 mph and ended those runs feeling great- Not at all beat down. So that was my plan. Run around 7 mph for 50 miles. I started out a bit slower then that but by the end f loop 1 was running over 7.5mph. Close to the end of loop 2 I was running just over 7.1 mph. I am very pleased with having averaged about 7.14 mph for this race and look forward to trying for a faster 50 mile sometime in the future! :) :) :) :)

Rocky Raccoon 50 mile race

When my wake up call came at 5am Saturday morning, I knew that today would be a good day for me to practice laying it all on the line under not so great circumstances. So much had not lined up for me to race well at Rocky Raccoon, but running is a mental game. I was ready to tackle this 50 miles with my mind...physical situations and the past weeks stress not counting. I know some of you want to know what was going on. Most of that takes way too much explaining and will have to be another blog. But I will fill you in on some of it. But BE WARNED. What follows is of a personal nature and some readers (especially males) my want to skip to the next paragraph now. I am going to write a little about this because I was actually looking for info on my situation and unable to find much...so maybe some ultra runner lady really does want to know. I know from training that I tend to run and feel crappy in the days leading up to my period. And luck would have it that I would be running this race either right before or during my period. But I knew this weeks back (that is a lot of why I didn't sigh up for the 100. Planing that type of bathroom break during a 100 mile race was very unappealing to me). So I woke up Saturday morning still unsure of how to handle this race...no period yet. But what about in 3 hours while I'm suppose to be running? I decided to play it safe and act as if this was my day one. I also told myself that I could still run well. Training isn't racing. I WILL race well regardless of how crappy I am feeling.

After a warm shower I dressed in my tinniest black shorts, black sports bra, Team Traverse jersey with the cap sleeves, Green Injinji socks and New Balance 100s. I ate a bagel with low fat strawberry cream cheese and plain fat free yogurt on top and drunk a Non fat Mocha from Starbucks w/ only 2 pumps of chocolate. I also took an S!Cap and drunk about 2 cups of water. My parents and I left the hotel at about 5:30am. I thought it would take us 45mins or more to get to the starting line b/c of the fact that over 700 runners were going to be at this race this year. But I have got to hand it to Huntsville State park. They did an amazing job of directing traffic. We were at the starting line a few minutes before 6am. Just in time to see the 344 100 mile runners start their race.

I chatted with a few runners as I waited for the next hour in the starting area. Joe (the race director and my coach) assured me that this course is still fast when wet. It had rained lots in the last few days and there were a few puddles on the course and mud. Joe said to just plow into the puddles, as the stickiest mud was on the outside of the puddles. Ok, I told myself. Run IN the puddles (so fun!). I also chatted with my friend Meredith about our goals for this race.

Before too long we were all off. I started towards the front, as the trails narrow out some and there were several hundred runners in the 50. The first 3.1 miles went nice and easy. My plan was to let my legs get warm and then just run at a comfortable pace that was almost hard. The aid-stations were (in miles): 3.1, 3.1, 2.68, 3.4, 4.4. Then repeat three times. I wore my waist pack so that I had easy access to water, gels and electrolytes. I was also very fortunate to have my Mom crewing for me. Meaning that she would be at 3 of the 5 aid stations with a new water bottle, more gels and electrolytes waiting for me to just grab and go. Having her there saved me several minutes over the course of this race. When I hit the 2end aid station (called Dam Road), a running friend of mine named John was there refilling runner's bottles. I asked him if I could leave my empty bottle for him to fill and pick it up on the way back thru in 2.68 miles (this aid station is sorta an out and back loop). He said sure. Being the Dam Road was BY FAR the busiest station, having John's help on all 3 loops probably saved me another minute.

This was my favorite section to run this year. Not only because it had the most mud, but because of the good sized puddle of water across the path. This puddle was about 2 cars long and came up to my mid-calf at the deepest part. When I saw it up ahead, I picked up my pace and plowed straight in. The cold water splashing on my thighs felt awesome! Especially during loop 3 when my legs were cramping. And my NB 100s draind just magically.

I finished the 1st 16.7 miles in about 2:08 and was feeling awesome. Loop 2 was over about 4:28 into this race and went by much the same as loop 1 had. I was still feeling good, but my legs were getting tight. By the time I hit 36 miles, my legs were cramping pretty bad. While I am sure I still have room to improve my race nutrition, I think that these leg cramps were coming more as a result of the push I was giving my muscles racing. I am soooo hitting the weight room harder in my next training cycle! When I had about 7 miles left to go, I told myself "That is shorter then a tempo workout. NO GIVING UP- NO SLOWING DOWN!" While I wasn't running close to as fast as I do for tempo runs during those final miles, the effort was there. I was pushing hard and my legs were cramping bad. When I hit the last aid station, I knew I could still finish under 7hrs. But I would have to push HARD! With less then 4 miles to go, my GPS died. But I just ran on as if that GPS was telling me I could still make it if I pushed.

I crossed the finish line in 6:59:40. I had made it!! Under 7hrs!!! And I had worked hard to do it. But the most exciting thing to me was the feeling of "I did well. I pushed hard. I can still do better." I have lots of room for improvement. From weight training and nutrition to long runs and speed work. I am so excited to get back to training and race again! If I can get my mind to attack future races like I did this one, then racing will be something I love as much as I love training. Why? Because it isn't about the end result for me. It is all about the process of getting there.