30 November 2015

pacing Lucca at the Seattle Marathon

In what has become a most excellent annual tradition I ran with my sister Lucca at the Seattle Marathon today. For a change I was officially entered this time. :)

The first time I paced her was in 2012. I ran the entire course and it was am Amazing experience! In 2013 I was injured so just ran the last four miles. In 2014 I was again recovering from an injury but this time managed the last 18 miles, carried all of Lucca's nutrition and helped Lucca to an all-time marathon PR. Nice! That year was FREEZING cold. This year I had signed up myself long ago to take advantage of the early bird pricing and originally the plan was for me to try for my own marathon PR but (a lack of) training and a vacation (I know, pity me) conspired against me so we ran together yet again. In retrospect, I'm really glad it worked out this way.

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Lucca's husband Bil Vandegraff came along this year too to run/walk the half marathon, it was a family affair!
I recently read Being Mortal and in it the author mentions the "peak end" rule of pain and suffering. In short, this rule claims that what affects your memory of pain and suffering the most is the peak of suffering and whether or not you felt pain or if you felt relief (or at least a significant decrease in suffering) at the end. He claims that if the last memory was not so bad then you will describe the entire ordeal as not so bad. That's the long way of saying that our smiles above bely the suffering we just endured.

Lucca had not done any marathon-specific training for this event and the longest run she had done recently was around three hours. Then she went on vacation for two weeks during which she ate lots of everything. Then she caught a cold. I'm still trying to recover from a hip injury and the longest run I have completed in ages is about two hours. I also went on a two week vacation where I ran not at all.

So of course we both still opted for the full distance. :) It must run (pun intended) in the family.
That said, Lucca was already over the worst of her cold, the weather forecast was pretty good and for a change my hip wasn't making any noise so we figured let's go for it.

Every time that I run with Lucca she impresses me. Her pace is consistent and unrelenting. And unlike me who starts to look pretty haggard when things get tough she's always smiling! Lastly, once the run starts she doesn't waste time or mental energy talking about upcoming hills, etc. and the Seattle Marathon course is not flat.

Some things to ponder.
  • The first three times i paced Lucca she got a PR. In spite of her self-professed "lack of training" this year she was again on PR pace until close to the end. And when she slowed down she did not blow, she just slowed a little. Awesome experience on her part or perhaps I should start a pacing for hire business?
  • The last two years i carried all the nutrition. Not having to stop, ever, is awesome!
  • Lucca's all time marathon PR last year and her stellar run this year were fueled by Hammer Nutrition. Causal relationship or coincidence?
  • I had stop at a porta potty on the course. Catching up to Lucca is not as easy (read: it was tough!) as it was several years ago.
The start is always cold!

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Running into the I-90 freeway tunnel always feels surreal.



Lucca has never walked the E Galer St hill.

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Lucca always puts in a strong finish.



Who is more tired?

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Priceless.

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I will cherish these memories for a long time. If you ever want a pacer Lucca, I'm your man.

Here are all the pictures and video.


Sleep
Waking HR
Body Weight
Body Fat
Breakfast none
Lunch
Dinner
Nutrition 2 large Water Bottles each w/2 scoops Perpetuem and 2 Endurolytes, Hammer Gel, water
Recovery 3 scoops Recoverite
Injuries
Therapy
Time of Day 8:15 AM
Workout Type
Weather low to upper 30s
Course Seattle Marathon
Results Another great run with my sister!
official results
Time Lucca - 3:50:13
Me - 3:50:14
Distance 26.2 miles
Pace
Equipment Brooks Launch 2, Ultimate Direction SJ Ultra Vest 2.0
Clothing Brooks Essential Low Quarter Sock, 2XU Compression 3/4 Tights, Craft Active Classic Long Sleeve Baselayer, Brooks long sleeve shirt, buff, Brooks Vapor Dry Glove II

12 November 2015

Mount Merapi - climbing up an active volcano in Indonesia

As Shelley will attest, I have a hard time sitting around while on vacation. I know, right? "Relaxing" means something different to everyone and to me it usually means doing what I like (running, hiking, cycling, exploring) without all the usual life stresses (work, paying bills, cleaning house, taking out the garbage - super stressful stuff like that). So while on vacation in Indonesia I decided to run up a mountain.

Albeit Mount Merapi is a pretty small "mountain", it was the highest peak within my reach. And there was a trail to the top. And there was the chance to catch the sunrise. And it was an active volcano. Talk about an awesome dawn patrol opportunity.

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This adventure actually started at 10:30 the night before.

Since most people take about four hours to reach the summit and since the sun rises at 5:30 when you are this close to the equator and since the mountain was a two-hour drive away I met my driver at 10:30 PM the night before.

The drive was half of the adventure! As we left town and headed into the country the roads got even more narrow than usual. Then the road tipped up. Finally we encountered a massive repaving project.
Turns out the original road was never meant to handle heavy trucks. It also turns out that the volcanic rock and sand from this volcano is in high demand for construction. I was told the sand makes superior concrete and the rock is nice and light so easy to carry and in Indonesia where much of the labor is manual, this is a premium. The demand means there is a string of trucks that pour down from the mountain every night and each truck is fully loaded with rock and sand. Even volcanic rock and sand weighs a lot when you are talking a full truckload and these heavy vehicles had buckled the asphalt road.

The road was in shambles. There were sections where the pavement was totally missing and we were driving on dirt. Other sections were full of massive potholes. At the same time that we are trying to navigate this deteriorating road, the government is trying to replace the asphalt with concrete. The upshot of this is much of this twisty, turny road which was already very narrow and had frequent grades of 15-20% was now mostly just one "lane" wide. And trucks full of rock and sand were still streaming down the mountain. Exciting stuff.

Around 12:45 AM we pulled into the driveway of my guide's house. These guides are just farmers that make a little cash on the side leading tourists up this trail. Not surprisingly - most tourists that want to hike up this volcano are not well prepared to do so. Here I was with my trail running shoes, shorts(!), high-tech layers, a bottle full of fancy pants sports drink (Hammer HEED of course), some Hammer Gel and they simply could not believe me when I said I would be okay. In the end they insisted that I carry two more bottles of water, a package of cookies and a trekking pole (they could only find one). They even wanted to give me long pants but I managed to decline that offer.

ASIDE - full disclosure, the hotel my friends and I were staying at (Alamanda Villa) where I booked the guide gave me a puffy jacket, fleece gloves and a backpack so it wasn't like I brought all my own gear from home but it must have been pretty funny listening to me trying to convince these locals that I had a clue about what I was getting myself into.

We had a cup of tea and chatted and at 1:15 AM my driver drove my guide and I up the last km of pavement to the start of the trail.

Which was also paved!

I asked my guide why this was the case and he told me it was so "motorcycles could go up the trail". My Indonesian was nonexistent and his English was not fluent but I suspected this wasn't what it sounded like... More on that later.

At 1:30 AM we headed out. This trail was STEEP! So steep that my heels could not touch the ground. And the grade didn't ease any when the concrete turned to dirt. I was having flashbacks to the Power Line climb at the Orcas Island 50k.

Some interesting facts.
  • This trail caters to tourists. Every km or even half km in some cases there is a "resting station" which consists of a raised platform under a roof. It rains a ton in Indonesia and this ensures you can find shelter from 1) the water running down the mountain and 2) the water falling from the sky.
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  • There are signs/progress markers all the way up the trail, until you get to the scree slopes near the top anyway. These signs tell you just how far you have gone and how far there is still to go. Each red dot on the sign is one of these covered resting stations.
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  • As you climb you work your way through lots of micro climates. At the bottom it's the usual hot and humid you would expect from Indonesia and as you move up the air gets dryer and dryer and you are more exposed to the wind as you climb above tree line. On the way down when I could finally see I noticed that the top was just scree, then you hit small bushes and then you enter a forest of 30' pine trees. Toward the bottom the trees turned to palms and local farmers had cut terraced fields into the hillside and were actively tending their crops. It was like a mini Haleakala on Maui.
  • Every so often my guide would ask me what time it was and when I would reply he would appear concerned. More on that later.
I suspect my guide did not identify as a "trail runner" by any stretch of the imagination but I started up this trail at a pretty good clip and he had zero issues keeping up. His hands also never strayed from the shoulder straps of his backpack meaning as he climbed up the technical trail that was sometimes literally just a root ladder, he was always perfectly balanced. It was awesome to watch.
I on the other hand - someone who has never used trekking poles - was realizing that only ONE trekking pole just kind of gets in the way...

At a couple of these resting stations my guide would insist that we stop. At first I was a little impatient but then it slowly dawned on me that we were taking literally half the time it normally takes tourists to get up this trail and if we hit the summit too early it might be a bitterly cold wait for the sun to rise. So in short order I mellowed out. Let's just say that we had lots of time to talk and I got to learn some cool facts about life and my guide.
  • He really is a farmer.
  • Farming in hilly Indonesia is a crapload of work.
  • He used to carry 70-90 kg bags of grain on his head.
  • His brother (who is "much stronger") could carry 110 kg bags of grain on his head.
  • Now he's "taking it easy" leading tourists up this volcano part time.
  • Griping about how your "training" trail shoes are 2 oz. heaver than your "racing" trail shoes is a 1st world problem.
The last climb up the scree slope to the rim of the crater was not easy. For every two steps forward you would slide one step backward until the very last few hundred meters where the scree changed to solid rock. My guide told me most people take about one hour to scale this last .5 km. We did it in about 25 minutes.

It was beautiful up here! And still very dark!

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As the sun started to give us some light I explored the rim of the crater. This was an active volcano that erupts about every five years. When was the last time? In 2010 of course. :( There is sulfur smoke billowing out of mountain and it was pretty cool to see. And smell!



It got a little windy at the summit but luckily not as cold as my guide had made it sound. Still, I appreciated my warm jacket.

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And then the sun started to rise above the clouds... There is no substitute for being on top of the world at this time of day. And as it turns out, my guide had some experience posing people in these moments. Awesome!

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This crater looked like Mount St Helens in that one side had been blown out, that's where the lava usually flows. We had climbed up the other side. I suppose this was (a tiny bit?) safer. Up here - and dotting the peaks all around us - are seismic stations that make up an early warning system in Indonesia. And I guess the system works! In 2010 people had 20-30 minute warning before the eruption. I had to walk out to the one up here on the crater.



Before we packed up I offered my guide a Nicciola Hammer Gel and he loved it! I have learned that Nutella is an international language. I got some last shots before it was time to head back.

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If you look closely you can tell that my guide is wearing two jackets (over two long sleeve shirts), a buff, a warm hat, long pants and ski gloves. I guess "cold" is always relative and when you live in a warmer climate you tend to need more insulation.

Finally it was time head down.



On the way down we didn't really hold back. :) Once we got off this rocky crater and hit the scree slopes my guide sped up. And of course so did I. Soon we were running/skiing down the scree a la Kilian Jornet and I suddenly noticed that we were going about as fast as I was able. It was 1) a freaking blast and 2) impressive to see this non trail runner go quicker than 95% of the people I know who identify as trail runners. It was a powerful testimony to what living in these conditions will do for you.

This time there was no stopping at the covered shelters and we ran not just the scree but also the dirt trail. Again the balance of my guide was flawless! So fun to watch. We finally got down to the paved section of trail near the bottom and I tried to get some footage to illustrate how step it is, I was only marginally successful.



But I did find out what my guide meant by the pavement helping "motorcycles". Turns out farmers drive their scooters up here to work the fields and then either walk or scooter their crops back home. I'm surprised that scooters could even make it up this grade but they sure did.

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Since we had bombed the descent (and the ascent) and since my driver had no way of knowing we would be so much faster than the average customer we had almost FOUR HOURS to kill before the car showed up. Oh well. :)

It gave me the chance to soak in some things and contemplate some others.
  • The trailhead was littered with trash! There were some college kids meeting up here after a hike and when they had finished lunch they simply tossed their trash next to a building. This is 100% the standard thing to do in Indonesia. I honestly don't think there is any trash collection service in this country. To illustrate this, I never saw a single garbage can.
  • Garbage attracts flies. I was swatting them incessantly unless I kept moving. Let's just say I had an extended cool down.
  • I could not believe the size of some of the loads farmers were driving and walking out of their fields...! One older woman, barefoot, carried a bundle of firewood on her back that would have broken me in half.
  • I was out on the trail for over five hours with just a bottle of HEED and some gel. And I hadn't eaten since dinner last night! I had zero issues. I'm always amazed (but I shouldn't be by now) at how well Hammer Nutrition products work AND how they keep your blood sugar nice and level. Most other brands of nutrition would have left me starving after a blood sugar spike and crash. That's not to say I didn't enjoy my package of recovery cookies though. :)
Good times! I'm so fortunate for the opportunities to explore places like this and that my body is able to do so. It never gets old.

Sleep none
Waking HR
Body Weight
Body Fat
Breakfast none
Lunch
Dinner
Nutrition large Water Bottle w/2 scoops Hammer HEED and 2 Endurolytes, 1 flask of Hammer Gel, water
Recovery cookies, water
Injuries
Therapy
Time of Day 1:30 AM
Workout Type
Weather
Course Mount Merapi trail
Results
Time
Distance
Pace
Equipment
Clothing on the way up - Hammer Nutrition Men's Sleeveless Running Shirt
at the top and on the way down - lots of warm layers

10 November 2015

prison fitness | walk

Figured I couldn't just sit around during the two weeks of this vacation so I manufactured a little workout.

Today we explored Yogyakarta - wow!

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300 squats
3 x 10 push-ups
2 min plank
60 leg lifts
30 hip raisers each leg

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Time 30 min
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06 November 2015

Madrona run | walk | Green Lake run

Nice!

I did my first morning/pre-work ruin today and it was great. A little misty but it wasn't cold. Good times.

At lunch I did a lap around Green Lake with Steven Kurle. Nice to double up and nice to have good company.

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05 November 2015

04 November 2015

lots of walking

This morning I walked down to FootWorks PT and then from there to work. Good stuff! But man, walking takes a lot longer than riding. And in spite of trying to keep the pace mellow, walking with a messenger bag is warmer than riding with one.

Sleep 5.5
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03 November 2015

Breathe Hot Yoga | Breathe Hot Pilates

Boom. And boom again!

This has become my Tuesday ritual and it's freaking awesome! Thank goodness Breathe Hot Yoga is on the way home as I tend to just not do stuff unless it's really damn convenient.

60 minutes of sweating followed by another 60 minutes of sweating. It's so much sweating that I have started bringing two yoga mat towels so I have a fresh one for each class. Otherwise I'm lying down in a lake. I know, lovely image, right? And I don't even sweat that profusely. This shit just works you over.

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Time of Day hot yoga - 5:45 PM
hot Pilates - 7:00 PM
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Time 60 min each class
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02 November 2015

Howe Street stairs | UW lunch run | walk

November is the traditional start of stair season for Jim Kodjababian and I. This year travel and some work/life issues are going to majorly interrupt our schedule but I am determined to give it a go anyway. We'll see how it progresses.

At lunch I got out for a nice recovery run with the UW Run crowd. And we ran a new (to me) route that was super fun!

This was the first day that I have needed a long sleeve shirt during our lunch runs. Fall is here.

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Time of Day stairs - 6:00 AM
run - 11:45 AM
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Weather low 50s all day, calm, dry
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Equipment stairs - Brooks Transcend
run - Brooks Glycerin 13
Clothing stairs - The Balanced Athlete Fitsok CF2, Brooks 5" Essential Run Short, Hammer Nutrition Long Sleeve Running Shirt
run - The Balanced Athlete Fitsok CF2, Brooks 5" Essential Run Short, Brooks Podium LS shirt, trucker hat
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01 November 2015

Rampart Ridge + Mount Margaret this time of year = first tracks in the snow!

What a blast!

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Today I connected with Gavin Woody and we headed up to Snoqualmie Pass for some fun in what we hoped might be snow. And luckily it got cold enough because it was WET below 4000'.

Starting any run in the pouring rain is a crapshoot for me. On occasion I'm psyched up and ready to go splash around in the mud but sometimes it's a really drain on the old spirit. As we jogged away from the car I hadn't yet made up my mind what today was going to be.

In my favor it was relatively warm and I had on a great jacket. The only thing bothering me was the jacket hood acted like an echo chamber and some cord kept slapping against it almost driving me crazy. But the rain would wax and wane so every few minutes I was able to take the hood off which was a big relief.

After two miles of dirt road we hit the trail. And it was a river! Right away there was no avoiding getting your feet good and wet and Gavin quipped, "Well, that's out of the way."

The trail up to Rampart Ridge is pretty steep so we were mostly hiking and at this speed the cord didn't slap against my hood so my mood was improving. Did I mention that we had just switched from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time? In spite of the early start I was feeling well rested and we didn't have to start with lights. Bonus.

Suddenly we noticed that the trees were getting dusted with snow.

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And then boom!

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And BOOM!

Thank goodness my feet and legs were feeling fine (as was my core) but after a bit my hands started to fail me. Rats.

The wind was really howling up here and since my gloves were fairly wet I had to eventually ask Gavin to turn around. Knowing my hands like I do it was just a matter of time before I caused some damage and I only had fun on the agenda today. Luckily Gavin was fine with turning back a little early.

Once we got back in the woods the wind was a non-issue. We found the fork in the trail, headed over to Mount Margaret, my hands started to feel better and the smile on my face just kept growing wider and wider.

Here is me filming Gavin, who when he realized it, started to film me.

Note big black shadow over lens, it was tough to work my camera with gloves and lobster overmits. It was also tough to keep the lens dry. Oh well.

Running down the snowy trail was incredible. You hardly had to watch where you foot was going to land because the snow filled in the gaps.

Two words: good times

Four more: Martin needs better gloves

Here are all my pictures and video.

Sleep  
Waking HR  
Body Weight  
Body Fat  
Breakfast nothing
Lunch  
Dinner  
Nutrition large Water Bottle w/2 scoops Perpetuem and 2 Endurolytes, Hammer Bar
Recovery 3 scoops Recoverite
Injuries  
Therapy  
Time of Day 6:30 AM
Workout Type  
Weather maybe 50 and raining at the start, blowing wind and upper 20s at the top
Course  
Results  
Time  
Distance  
Pace  
Equipment Altra Lone Peak 2.0, Ultimate Direction SJ Ultra Vest 2.0
Clothing Injinji Trail 2.0 Midweight Mini-Crew, Patagonia Strider Pro Shorts - 5", Patagonia M10 Jacket, Patagonia Merino Midweight Zip-Neck, Hammer Nutrition Short Sleeve Running Shirt, Patagonia Capilene gloves, OR shell lobster mits

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