The Last Run of the Year

Here it is New Year's Eve and despite being by myself on this celebratory evening for the first time in many years, I've got a smile on my face. Yesterday I took my son to the snow for the first time and it was a blast. Unfortunately for me, my first hike up a hill through fresh powder aggravated a knee strain, which I believe came from over compensating for a recent calf strain! Seeing the look on my son's face as he got ready to take his first sled ride, I knew there was no way I would cut the day short. On the way up he literally choked on his words when he saw snow on the ground for the first time! By the time we got home yesterday evening, I noticed a twinge in my knee that got sharper as night progressed. As is my habit, I jumped on webmd.com to see if they had any advice. I wrapped my knee with an ACE bandage and woke up with no pain.

All day my knee seemed to be fine, so I figured I would do a short run close by to test my legs. As I warmed up the first mile, I felt a little tight, but no pain. When I crossed over Highway 50, I could see the sun setting over the coastal range and I said a few silent words of thanks for how lucky I am to to be a few short feet from the American River Bike Trail. In addition to the bike trail, there are several horse trails adjacent to it that gives the aspiring trail runner plenty of opportunity to get off the pavement. Since I was only planning on doing 4 miles to test my joints I took off at a comfortable pace, but as I got rolling, I felt good like I wanted to finish the year off in style. If I was Ryan Hall of Bernard Lagat, this would be where I would throw down a couple of 4:15 miles, but since I am a 4 1/2 marathoner, the best I could do is hit the two mile mark at 18 minutes even (hey, it's uphill!). I made it back in 16:30, which is a really good pace for me and outside of a little tightness in my injured calf, it felt really good. I am not sure what 2008 will bring, but I can't wait to see.

Coming Back Slowly

Okay, last night I hit the gym for the first time since my muscle strain and it all went well. I was able to warm up on the eliptical, hit the stair climber and get in a half hour on the treadmill with no pain and only minor tightness. I am walking a fine line, because I need to get the miles in if I have any hopes of completing my first ultra, but I also have to make sure I don't make a minor injury a major one. Maybe I am just getting old, but I really can't afford too many days off before I see it along my waist line and in my stride. Hills have always been challenging for me, so I think I am going to incorporate stair climber sessions into my 2X a week core workout. Of course, there isnot substitute for hitting the hills so I'll have a weekly hill workout as well. My buddy Rick has devised a course from hell at just about 10 miles long. Being that we are entering the rainy season, trails are sometimes not an option, so I have to hit the streets as a back up and this run goes from Folsom up into El Dorado Hills and back. While it might not be the Himalayas, it's quite the adventure. I am leaning on the power of positive thinking and stretching more with my foam roller, here's hoping that my little injury is a thing of the past.

1st Injury of the year on 12/23!

On Saturday I did the Lake Natoma Loop, a 12 mile run around Lake Natoma, starting from the Fish Hatchery and looping all the way around and back. It is not too strenuous as far as 12 milers go, rolling most the way, with a few short hills. Running with Rick Santos, it was bound to be challenging as his best marathon time is about 1 hour and 20 minutes quicker than mine. Luckily he did a monster hill work out the previous day which left him happy to chug along at my barely sub 10 minute pace. Since we are both aspiring to do our first ultra at The Way Too Cool 50K, we were trying to just get some hours on our feet. Mission accomplished. The weather was pretty chilly, the car thermometer read 38 degrees in the parking lot of the hatchery while I was waiting for Rick, great weather for a Mid-Westerner, but a bit chilly for this California boy. After a relatively uneventful first 8 miles, the muscle (tendon?) just inside and at the base of my right calf got "that" feeling. The one where you feel like it's about to blow if you don't ease up right then and there. Luckily, I was able to stop before it fully tore (blew?). It was kind of like that feeling where you feel a night cramp coming on and are able to stop it before it fully seizes. Up to this point, we were running on the dirt trail adjacent to the paved bike trail as much as we could. Thinking that the varying terrain may have caused the discomfort, we went back to the paved trail where I was able to hobble back the last 3 1/2 miles. Fortunately it never got worse and though it was tender the rest of the day and yesterday, I will attempt a slow easy run today to test it. Seeing as how it is Christmas Eve and I asked for a running GPS for Christmas, it would be similar to O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi. if I were unable to use it. I'll keep up my good thoughts and hope for the best.

Cool training at the Olmstead Loop

This morning I hit the Olmstead Loop in Cool with two of my much faster co-workers, Rick Santos and Brian Miller. We were going to do the full 9 mile loop, but about 100 yards into the run, we came across a quagmire. Since you expect to get a little dirty on a trail run, we went to where the driest path seemed to go, which cut off about 2.5 miles of the run. Though I was a little bummed not to get the whole run in, it was still challenging. I really need to work on some hills, so I will be back out there soon. Since we finished earlier than I had anticipated, we decided to head over to the Auburn Running Company which should be a required stop for any endurance runner in Northern California. ARC is a relatively small shop in the downtown part of Auburn and on the way there we saw a runner on the side of the road who looked a lot like Tim Tweitmeyer, as we got closer we saw it was the King of the Western States out for a Saturday morning run. Seeing as how I had two potential future Western States competitors in my car, I told them that this had to be a sign from the Ultra Gods. The store has the perpetual trophy for the Western States Champions, so just looking at all the names on there was pretty damn cool. They had a good number of copies of Ultra Running Magazine and I noticed that Scott Jurek had signed the cover photos of all the September issues, an added touch you wouldn't probably get at our neighborhood shoe store, unless you live in Seattle. At any rate, the guys in the shop were great and if you are ever in Auburn, they have things that you would typically have to order online, just a great one stop resource for the ultra runner (or aspiring ultra runner!) in your life.

Since I didn't get in near the amount of miles I was hoping to, I am going to hit the bike trail tomorrow with my 8 year old son. These runs are always an adventure since my son (like all 8 year old boys?) can't go 50 yards without asking a question or making an observation. I have repeatedly told him that it's easier for him to ride then for me to run, so daddy can only answer the occasional question. As much as it makes my recovery runs challenging, I honestly wouldn't trade it for anything. My little guy gets so excited when I ask him if he would like to join me, it makes me feel that I am sharing my love for running and the outdoors, which I hope counter balances some of the less savory male habits I have passed along. Time to get some rest.

Training Starts

I have only done a couple of runs since the California Internation Marathon on 12/2. With work, late sunrise and early sunset, I have had to resort to the "dreadmill." For some reason, my body really doesn't like running indoors, but I've got to get my miles in where I can. This week-end I am hitting the Olmstead Loop with some co-workers including two guys with a goal of qualifying for Western States this year. As is typically the case, we will start out together and then they will slowly (if I am on a good day!) leave me in the dust. Over the last two years, I have done some experimentation with my training and have come to the conclusion that my body needs to remain active. If tapers are too long, I feel like I lose too much of my hard earned fitness. Days off are harder to come off of and missed runs seem to really set me back, so I guess it just going to take incredible self discipline, something I am not known for. This blog is probably the most extreme example of "If I tell somebody I am going to do something, I have no choice but to make run of it." Though I have yet to have anybody come across this, the fact that they could makes me want to show up at the Way Too Cool with enough fitness to finish it before they sweep the course for corpses. This week-end, I am going to play around with this a bit to see if I can put something that someone might get something out of, something a little bit appealing and maybe even a little bit entertaining.

How did I get here?

At this point, I am strictly writing this for myself, but even I ask myself how did I get to the point that I want to run an ultra marathon? Not just that, but actually want to do well enough to want to do another and eventually qualify for the big daddy in these parts, The Western States Endurance Run. Being a realist, I understand that I may never get the point that Western States becomes a realistic goal, but a couple of years ago, a marathon might as well have been 100 miles. I've got 3 marathons under my belt now and it seems as good a time as any to step up in distance. Probably the biggest inspiration has been the beautiful, challenging trails within driving distance. Outside of the sheer joy of running, there were a few things that really got me to thinking that it would be pretty cool to do something like an ultra. The Ultramarathon Man book by Dean Karnazes opened up the culture of the ultras to me and it just went on from there. I attended a talk Tim "The King of the Western States" Tweitmeyer gave at a local Fleet Feet and it blew me away how much of an average guy he was (and I mean that as the highest compliment possible). Talk about incredibly down to earth and matter of fact about his awe inspiring accomplishments. After listening to Tim, I went to the Forresthill School aid station during the 2007 WS 100, then down to the finish line in Auburn to see Hal Koerner come across in first place. Then, shortly after Hal, Eric Skaden from my neighborhood came in second place. I don't know Eric at all, but I have seen him a couple of times on the trails and the amount of inspiration I have here locally never ceases to amaze me. Currently I am acquiring as much information as I can on ultras, from training plans to equipment, trails to races, anything I can find that might assist me in making a successful transition from marathoner to ultra man. Wish me luck! If I find anything I think would be beneficial to anybody, I will be sure to post.

And so it begins

Day 1 of my training for the Way Too Cool 50k which will be run on March 8th. This run is well known in the ultra community for rapidly filling up on the first day registration goes online (as in 7 minutes last year). Since this was my first experience trying to get in to a run like this, I'll share my experience.

Since this run fills up so quickly and has an incredibly high finish rate, it seemed like the perfect choice for my first ultra. Registration did not open until 8:00 a.m. yesterday morning, so I was logged into Active.com at about 7:45. At 7:50, I went to the registration page just to make sure I was ready and much to my surprise, it let me in and I registered. My confirmation was time-stamped at 7:53, so I sincerely hope all the people who logged in at 8:00 were able to get in.

To most ultra runners, a 50k, particularly this one would not be too intimidating, but as a runner who just completed his third marathon, I have a great deal of respect for the distance. The run starts at the Cool Fire Station where I have done some runs and had my lunch handed to me by the Olmstead Loop. Everything I read online about the Olmstead Loop is that it was a nice, well groomed, moderately challenging 9 mile loop. It is a great trail, but there are a couple of hills, particularly the one leading out of the creek canyon that left me questioning the term moderate when talking about this thing. I guess it is all about perspective and since I do the majority of runs on the American River Bike Trail, my biggest hills are the bridges and overpasses.

As this is my first blog entry, I'll keep it short while I figure out how all this works. My hope is to chronicle my transition from back of the pack (4:30) marathoner to back of the pack ultra marathoner.