Just when you think you've got nothing left

It's been a while since I've done hill intervals, following pulling something in my back in early December. I think hill intervals are key to getting me faster, and my back got better, so it was time to get back into it.

I was dreading it - they hurt and are really hard!!!

This hill, near our house, is about 336m and about 175 ft up or just over 800ft of elevation gain/mile. Pretty healthy as far as hills go.

Anyway, after having a rough day at work (despite it being from home!), I was now looking forward to the hill as a way to leave that all behind.  I wasn't sure how my back was going to react and wanted to do at least 4, and ideally 8.  The most intervals I've ever done on any hill interval work out is 6.  So 8 would be uncharted territory.

I felt pretty sluggish from the start and I think having a stressful day certainly was resonating in my body.  Despite that, I did it in 1:48!!!!  Besting my previous record by perhaps 7 seconds.  I forgot my watch in LA and kept time on my phone, running with it in my hand.

It slid from there to 2:01 and 2:06.

On #4, I died.  The latter part of it I was reduced to shuffling and barely kept myself from walking. Negative thoughts coursed through me, about how this is a terrible day for hill intervals, how I'm not feeling it at all, I'm not having fun, everything hurts, things are not right.  I comforted myself knowing that I would have accomplished my 4, the minimum, and could go home when I'm done.  Needless to say, the time sucked, at 2:31.

And felt exhausted.  I was pretty sure I was going to go home.  After catching my breath at the top of the hill, I started trudging down.  It sucked.  My quads were complaining at every step.  I felt weak and dizzy.  But a faint voice in the back of my mind pleaded with me not to quit yet.  It said, "take a jogging break, as you were going to, then see how you feel."  This voice also said that you don't get better by quitting when things get tough.

So I got down, went to the car to put on a warm jacket (I was so slow going up and down I started getting cold), and started jogging.  I felt so shitty that even jogging was hard.  I walked a big part of it.

But as I was getting back, I found myself not wanting to end it yet.

So I found myself back at the start line.  Uttering "what the fuck are you doing?" I pressed the "Start" button on the phone's time and went up the hill.  My goal was just to make it up the hill without walking.  Just to prove to myself that when I thought I had nothing left, I can squeeze out one more.  So I took it pretty easy.  It didn't feel like a sprint anymore, but a moderate uphill jaunt.

Well, moderate or not, I got 2:27, beating the previous time.  And it didn't feel too bad!!  Well, now this was a lot easier than I expected, let's do one more.  And so I did, in 2:26.  My first negative split!  And still feeling not too bad.  Maybe the first 4 were just warmup, and now I'm actually in gear.  Now I knew I was going to do 8.

The next one was another negative split at 2:21.  And still feeling not too bad.  So I knew I could do better.  My goal for the last one was a 2:15.  I decided to take it easy on the first half, so I could floor it on the second.  It's the second half where I found myself losing a lot of time.  So that's what I did... and got a 2:07!!!  A far cry from the first couple of times, but those don't count for much thanks to fresh legs.  What a comeback!

I felt so happy at the accomplishment and still do.  My day went from bad to awesome in a heartbeat!  And motivating myself to bounce back without anyone else being there to push me is a big confidence booster too.  The Ultrarunning mantra of just keep moving forward really helped.  Right when I felt the shittiest, I told myself that I would just do a little jog instead of quitting.  When jogging got hard I walked.  And then I told myself I would just do one more.  And then I caught my wind.

Right when you feel the worst, just keep going just a little bit longer, and you'll discover that you have more than you think you do.

Bayfront Park - new training ground

Took a little over an hour after work to bike over to the Bayfront Park for a quick workout.  I can already see how it's going to become my default training ground/terrain park.  Created over a landfill and Cargill salt mines, it's not nature's most wonderous wonder.  But it's got gorgeous views of the bay, beautiful sunsets and a plethora of birds of all shapes in sizes, ducks, geese, and even herons.  Most importantly, it's only a 12 minute bike ride away.

A hundred roads, paths and trails spiderweb this fairly small space (about 2 mile perimeter), so I can have a different run every time if I wanted to.  Just go randomly in any direction.  The fun part is that it's got a few good hills, even if small.  So I can really have fun here sprinting up and down the mounds.  There is also one little hill with two paths going down it which are steep and technical.  So even though the hill's only like 25 feet, those would give me some technical downhill/balance practice close to home.  I can already envision sprinting up and down like 10 times in a row.

I'm back!!!

After practically taking a month off due to pulling something in my back at the Death Valley Marathon, I'm finally back on the trails!  So excited to be running in the mountains again.

Did Black Mountain today - 10 miles, 2500 up/down - in 1:50, which was either my best time or second best.  Was super stoked to be up on the mountains again.  Physically, didn't feel particularly great during most of the run... but I suppose the time speaks for itself.  Made it down in 39 minutes and my back held up despite pushing it hard.

Ice ice ice!

Death Valley Marathon... CANCELLED

I ran about a half on the course anyway - it was GORGEOUS.  Really amazing canyon.  A bunch of people from the race came out and ran too, so everyone was there just to run and have fun.  Everyone was really friendly and it was a great time.  I wanted to do more, but my work buddies were waiting at the mouth of the canyon.  It was a bummer to turn back... yet a relief too.  Because the winds really did start getting nasty.  I understood why they cancelled the race.  And that was only about halfway up to the highest point of the race.  It got to the point where I was running uphill and AGAINST the wind which probably came as much as 50 mph gusts with windchill temps probably getting to below zero.  It felt like I wasn't moving much at all... on the other hand, the wind was so strong that it felt kind of cool to really lean into it, like being in one of those wind tunnels.  And then the wind would change and I would almost tumble.  Or get thrown to a side.  

Hilloween

Wow, our ideas of fun have sure changed over the last year.  Instead of finding some crazy costume party, we headed out to Auburn for Hilloween.  The idea is to cover the maximum number of vertical feet in one day.  Whoever goes up the most, wins.

So we stayed at with Elke, our favorite ultra-runner, and went out early morning on Saturday.  Set up camp on the edge of a canyon with a few more crazy people, many of them in costumes... and there it goes.  Down we go to the bottom of the canyon, over the bridge, all the way up to the other side, then turn around and come all the way back to camp.  Rinse and repeat as many times as you want to maximize vertical gain.

Each trip there and back is about 6 miles and 3000 ft.  Sarah and I did two, and then had to go back with Elke. Some other folks did three.  Hilloween is a "virtual" event, so other people participated too with their own hills in other places.  So it's still unclear who won.

It was my first serious trail run since Wasatch and it went pretty well.

Quick Wasatch Recap

Well... I'm really happy to say that we somehow pulled this thing off, and with no small thanks to your guidance in those early days!  

I psyched myself up so much about how ridiculously hard it was going to be, that it didn't turn out as hard as I expected.  I never hit the wall or thought of dropping. It was certainly the toughest thing I've ever done on the whole, but there was never really like an intense moment of pain/misery or what have you.  I think this is probably because 1) Sarah had a really tough race (massive blisters, cramping, pulled hammy) so a lot of the time I wasn't running at my full, and 2) we came in with the mentality to finish instead of going fast or pushing for a particular time.  I think both of those things helped ensure that we didn't go out fast or took risks.

I think that really helped in training too.. when we gave up any ambition to get sub-30 (hah!) and just went for finish.  So much was riding on the race, that we didn't push hard in training (at least pace-wise) and just focused on staying injury-free and on getting our bodies ready to take 100 miles of punishment. This resulted in doing many really long runs (40+) at really slow pace!  We figured with a 36 hour time limit, if we can only keep moving, we should be able to finish, which is about what happened!

I did so great shifting my schedule to go to bed by 9 and wake up really early leading up to the race... and then I couldn't sleep well like the 2 nights before.  Ah prerace jitters!  So I think that affected my energy levels.  Though the first like 25 miles we made good time and then the adrenaline wore off and came a low... which went away after a 1/2 caffeine gu!  And then came my favorite section around mile 30 where we ran on top of a ridge with gorgeous views on each side, and that made me really happy. 

Getting into Big Mountain and seeing our crew, Sarah's family and a few friends was a HUGE BOOST!  I almost broke down crying.  They even made wedding shirts and were all wearing them!  We were SO good at not spending much time at aid stations and treating them as a buffet.  I was really proud of us.  I think we averaged 2-3 minutes and even skipped some... EXCEPT for crew stations where we averaged like 20 :).  We were all new at this and sometimes there were too many cooks in the kitchen.  Brighton was probably the craziest aid station I'll ever have.  It was so crazy getting in there feeling pretty shitty in the middle of the night, after being out there for a long-ass time, and a bunch of our friends and my co-workers are there all high energy and happy to see us.  It was kind of surreal.  I enjoyed double-fisting a Red Bull and a chicken soup :).

Another low point came sometime between Lambs & Big Mountain.  Sarah decided to stay behind a guy that I thought was going way too slow, and I started fretting about time, and that made me feel more tired, and there was a lightning storm in the distance that looked beautiful and ominous.  So I think there was definitely a little bit of running-partner tension going on there, but we both did a good job of mellowing out and encouraging the other person.  And having a pacer helped too.  

We started slowing down going towards Brighton.  Sarah had a nasty cramp before Mills, which turned into a pulled hamstring, and the long walk on the road to Millcreek really exacerbated her blisters.  So that was a long slug through the dark... I remember seeing that Scott's peak campfire from the distance.  So alluring and so far.  We did a good job having our pacers run ahead and refill us so we didn't spend much time at the aid stations, even the ones with campfires :).  Somehow we wound up getting to Brighton within our time frame of 5-7, just after 5.  

So at that point we knew we should be able to make it unless something bad happens.  After spending 25 minutes (!!!) at Brighton getting fixed, eating, and hanging out with various folks that came out, our crew ushered us out.  Elke, whom you've met, the only ultrarunner on our crew, got us at this point. While all of our pacers were awesome and helpful, it was particularly comforting to have all her experience during that last stretch.  Ironically we did not let our pacer set the pace.  Already feeling really beat and knowing that we didn't have to move particularly fast to finish, we were happy to slog along.  

Mile 90 was the lowest point for me.  After taking one of those Plunges or Dives, and then seeing the ribbon point to an uphill just as nasty and just as steep, oh how I was cursing the race organizers.  THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE ALL DOWNHILL NOW!!! WTF?!  It was getting hot and I was still wearing my tights from the night.  So I had to yell for Sarah and Elke to slow down.  All in all it took 10 hours for the last 25.  We could have been a bit faster if we wanted to... but at that point we just wanted to finish and get married :).

And after we hit Pot Bottom... we just became really happy.  At this point we knew were were going to finish even if we crawled.  We got lovey-dovey and I called a couple of people at the finish to give them an ETA.  I felt giddy... which was an interesting feeling when combined with fatigue from having run 93 miles.  Elke made one last valiant attempt to set the pace... we tried to follow, but it was too hard and painful... and what for?  Just to get an extra 15 minutes off our time?  Na... let's just finish and get married.  

And having everyone out there throwing rose petals at us as we walked down "the aisle", oh it was the most magical moment of my life.  The whole thing was a dream at this point.  It got captured pretty well here: http://connect2utah.com/news-story/?watch=1&nxd_id=163277.

Oh and my stomach had no problems at all, luckily.  I mean at the end, I didn't want to eat anything but soup, and just took my gel and perpetuem as medicine every 20 minutes.  But no troubles.  And the sleep thing worked out OK too.  I think being a high-strung person, skipping one night of sleep wasn't a huge deal.  Finishing the race, I was SO stiff... I needed those hand rails in the bathroom to sit down (which weren't there!!!  Don't older couples ever take the honeymoon suite??).  But the most amazing thing was that the next day... I was able to jump around, dance wildly at our wedding, and pretty much do whatever I wanted!  I felt like there was a price that I should pay soon for putting myself through that... but it never came.  I was certainly fatigued the first few days of our honeymoon in Bali, but nothing prohibitive.  Sarah had a much tougher recovery, with elephant legs, 4 toenails coming off, and the pulled hamstring... but on about day 6 of the honeymoon, we couldn't help it but uprooted ourselves from a paradise beach with corals and snorkeling and climbed the island's highest volcano (5000ft climb in under 2.5 miles), so I guess we recovered OK :).

Yeah, so I think I'm sold on this 100 mile thing.  I'm right about to pull the trigger to sign up for AC. I definitely want to do this one while I'm still in LA.  And I also want to put my name in the bucket for WS.  In the likely event that I/we won't get in, I think we'll shoot for Wasatch or TRT.  My goal now is to get fast.  I really want to do one of these races where I push hard and give it my all.  Go to the brink.  Run more and faster!  Feel the wind against my face.  I'd shoot for under 24 if I get into WS, and def. sub-30 for Wasatch.  And Sarah and I will do a race or two together, perhaps a 100 and a 50.  We really do enjoy running together.  

Back into it

Well... we did it!  The quest from running 400m to running 100miles in just about a year.  I'd like to write a longer recap of the race... but never got around to it.  But I think the pictures and videos that are being put together by Michael Shlain will suffice for now.

On the whole, Wasatch was the hardest thing I've ever done... but it wasn't as hard as I expected.  I think because running together, there were times Sarah had to wait for me, and I for her.  Which means neither of us were running at our hardest.

And I think I'm hooked!  I'd like to run two 100 mile races this year.  Definitely the AC100 (Angeles Crest) in LA, and one more (Western States? *fingers crossed* - only 10% chance to get in through the lottery).  But more importantly... my goal this year is to get faster.  I want to push hard and go to the brink.

If I run Western States, I'd like to do sub-24.  If I was to do the Wasatch again, sub-30, perhaps 28-29, would be the goal.  Also I want to get faster to feel even more free on my run.  To feel the wind in my face more often than not.  To have more unbound energy instead of trudging up the hills.  That would be fun!  Oh, and if I'm faster, I can have more of a life while getting my runs in.  Running 30 miles in, say, 6 hours, would be much better than 10.

So to get there, I decided to push hard on my workouts and do more sprints/intervals where I push hard.  Now that I got the base mileage under my belt and my legs can take the punishment, I can focus on going fast.

Today I ran a 45:10 10K, which is by far my best time, though I never tried that hard before.  My previous best time was maybe 49 or 50.  It was HARD.  My legs performed just fine but I couldn't get enough air. Just panting and panting while occasionally able to get a full breath in which felt SO good... for about 10 seconds.

I could have squeezed a bit more out of me, though it was a good workout on the whole.  That's the hard part about running distance is figuring out early on how much to push now vs. how much to leave for the final lap.

Solo run

Sarah was still not feeling well, so I set out for a fast sol run (and I had a time constraint to be back by 7, so I can have time to shower and pack for my bachelor party, and then make it to a 9 p.m. flight).

This was my first long solo run in a while.  One big difference between running with someone or a group vs. solo is the ability to really micromanage ones body.  One moment I'm feeling pretty good, so I pick up the pace.  Another moment  I get winded on an uphill so I walk for a few moments.  Then I'm feeling dehydrated, so I slow the pace way down and drink.

I went up Black Mountain, and then down into the canyon and to Skyline, where Sarah met me as my aid station and bandaged up a blister on the back of my heel while giving me a burrito and refilling my water.  Sweetest fiance ever!  I also met a cool Russian optics physicist on the way and talked to him about cell phone cameras.

Then it was back down into the canyon, and then back up to Black Mountain, and then back down to the parking lot where Sarah arrived just as I got back.

I was able to keep a brisk pace, moving at roughly 12 minute miles on average for 21.5 miles, despite about a 5000-5500ft elevation gain.  Not bad at all!

I felt great at the finish and still feeling good now.  So I suppose this is my peaking workout.  I got one more hard run coming up - going to do Mt. Wilson up and down on Wednesday, and will try to run as much as possible on the way up.  And after that is tapering.  Probably an easy 20 miler in the Marine Headlands 2 weeks pre-race, and then bring it to maybe 10 miles the last weekend pre-race.

So excited!

Rattlesnake Scare

On Saturday Sarah and I drove out to Mt. Diablo to practice technical downhills.  It was a scorchingly hot day which made me understand why the mountain is called Diablo even though, on the whole, it's not that diabolic.

Sarah was still battling a weeklong sickness, so we cut our run short and turned back.  I was leading the way on the downhill, happily hopping rocks, sliding on pebbles and joyously running.

Until I hear a terrible dissonant screech.  It sounded like the hiss of an extremely upset cat mixed with nails on chalkboard.  Instinct took over as I braked, stopped dead in my tracks and started backing up.  Only to see an already coiled rattler drop onto the trail from the mountainside on my right.  Everything happened so fast, I barely remember catching a glimpse of him, and next thing I remember I was already backed up a safe distance away.

Shit, that was scary.

I've seen rattlers before, but never one so angry.  In fact, I've never heard them rattle.  I expected it to sound more discrete, with each beat clearly discernible.  I guess now I know.

He continued to lay there on the trail, all coiled up.  I walked a little closer to take a look, and he got all uppity and started rattling.  So I backed up and left him alone.

After waiting for a few minutes and determining that he wasn't going to move, we trekked around him, higher up on the hillside.

What I like about seeing rattlesnakes is that they're a sign that the ecosystem is healthy, being on top of the food chain.

Sarah assured me that rattlesnakes rarely kill.  Apparently there has only been one rattlesnake death in the whole State of Utah's history.  But they can sure do a lot of damage:

Well, after all my miles on the trails, I was bound to run into a rattlesnake sooner or later.  And then I saw another one on my run today, but that one was peacefully chilling on the edge of a wide fire road.  So I respectfully passed by it on the other side of the fire road.

Not bad for a bad day

We set out to do a 40 mile run today on the Ohlone trail through the Mission Peak Wilderness near Fremont and all the way to Rose Peak in the east, then back.

The highlights of the run for me was the hundreds of ground squirrels running around and playing.  I chased after them screaming gibberish.  Also we saw like 15 vultures.  I suppose something big died.

Oh and there was a poor lady who sprained her ankle and got carried out by rescuers on a stretcher :(

The other interesting thing was using salt in a ziplock baggie to replenish my electrolytes.  I was almost out of Salt Sticks and there was no time to go get more.  I kept thinking of all the other products I could use instead.  The Nuun tabs that dissolve in water had lots of salt...  but Sarah likes them and we were down to two.  The Margarita Clif Shot Blocks had a decent dose.  But I don't like the gummy-bear like texture while running and they stick to your teeth for a while.  The Clif Electrolyte powder had more sugar than salt, and requires washing out the CamelBak bladder.  Then finally it hit me... what I really need is SALT!  So I filled up the ziplock, threw in a 1/4 teaspoon measure spoon for more precision.. and off we go.  It's not as convenient as the capsules, and doesn't replenish other stuff like magnesium, but it worked!

I digress.

The main reason I wanted to write was that I didn't have a particularly great day out on the trails.  While my body performed reasonably well with no significant aches or pains (other than a few complains from the shin), I was low energy most of the run and not in particularly great spirits a lot of the time as a result.  While there were some good points, a lot of the time I was trudging along. The heat was quite brutal for me today too and at one point I had to stop under an oak and regroup.

Yet when I got home... I realized that this is the best I've felt after a run of this magnitude (and we've now done 4).  Nothing hurts, minimal stiffness, no blisters and my feet look great. The realization that I've come such a long way - when on a bad day I can go out, run 40 miles (with 10,000 up and down), come home and feel pretty damn good... well that's something :)