Okay, time to start fresh and hopefully put yesterday's suffer fest out of my mind. Ditto for all that heart scaring nonsense... :)
ASIDE - I find it amazing how people can be so selective about what they believe. INCLUDING ME. People sure are stupid at times all the time.
First of all, a big shout out to one of my newest readers: Angel Rossi Mathis. That means at least two people read this blog; if you count me. Angel was in attendance today along with her husband Tim Mathis and not only does she read this blog but she kept up JUST FINE, she also told a very touching story (while running uphill!). Nice.
The story was prompted by me asking her how long she has been running. I'm always curious to see what kind of progression is 'normal' as I am nothing if not super shallow and need to compare myself to others constantly. Turns out Angel has been running for three years almost to the day. THREE YEARS. And she has already completed what seems like exponentially more ultras than I have. Three years ago she and Tim were sitting on the couch watching some triathlon on television (they spent a lot of time watching television apparently) but this particular event was for some kind of special athletes that were not as able as the average guy. As they were sitting there living vicariously through others they sort of turned to each other and said, "We could do that..." Watching these people with challenges that you and I don't have apparently was an inspiration.
How easy was it to get started? Not very. Their first run was like 10 minutes long and it ruined them but now three years later they are entering a 100 mile trail run. Nice.
I had no desire to go fast today so as we left the parking lot I let Win Van Pelt set the lace and I just tucked in behind. We went all the way to the top of the mountain. The pace was very reasonable and I was feeling fine but suddenly on the way down I started feeling empty. Not so good.
I had only brought one bottle and two gels with me today as the max distance was going to be 14 miles but when you take longer than expected to run that distance and when you are tired from the previous day I guess you need more food. When we got to the bottom I knew the climb was going to be hard so I did a prompt about-face and headed back up.
I actually started walking - that's how tired I was - but soon I found myself jogging and if I kept the pace mellow I was able to keep it up so just kept it up. Not much later I heard some sounds behind me and as I glanced over my shoulder I saw Brian Morrison and Kevin Smythe closing fast. Lucky for me the effort required to chase me down was sufficiently hard and once they caught me they were happy to sit on.
We ran up to the last intersection/steep pitch before the summit and then decided to wait for everyone else. Judging by the pace of the group earlier in the day I figured they would only be a couple of minutes back but both Kevin and Brian said that they were walking from the bottom so that did not bode well... We waited and waited and got cold and stretched and waited and finally decided to carry on as Brian had a time constraint and I was starving. Oh MAN was starting up that last pitch hard. Our legs were like blocks of wood.
At the top we looked at the time and opted to take the road all way back down to the cars. Whoosh...! That is one fast descent. I was curious how my thinnest trail shoes would deal with this relatively firm surface at speed and when we got to the bottom I was pleasantly surprised to feel fine! Awesome. I think I just decided what shoes to wear for the Orcas Island 50k.
It was a bummer to split the group up but I guess that kind of thing just happens. And it wasn't like we left anyone behind, both groups had people very familiar with the trails.
| Sleep | 7 hours |
| Waking HR | |
| Body Weight | |
| Body Fat | |
| Breakfast | 5:30 AM - applesauce, banana, walnuts, Udo's Oil, 1 scoop protein powder, 2.5 scoops Perpetuem, tea |
| Lunch | |
| Dinner | |
| Workout Food | bottle w/1.5 scoops Perpetuem and 1 Endurolytes, 2 GUs |
| Injuries | Both my left ankle and my right side felt slightly better but I am worried that I am doing too much with my left ankle and not letting it heal as fast as possible. |
| Therapy | |
| Time of Day | 7:30 AM |
| Workout Type | endurance |
| Weather | low 40s |
| Course | |
| Results | |
| Time | 3:01 |
| Distance | 13.5 miles? |
| Pace | |
| Equipment | Brooks PureGrit |
| Clothing | Teko organic SIN3RGI Light Minicrew, Brooks 5" Essential Run Short, Craft Active Extreme Short Sleeve Baselayer, SmartWool NTS Micro 150 Zip T |
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