Groovy Weekend

One mean looking bird

Finally found myself getting back into the groove of solid mileage after Oil Creek 100.  I know I jumped back into my high mileage lifestyle too quickly, as after taking 1 week fairly easily, I logged over 100 miles in the week starting only 7 days after OC100.  After that it was crash and burn for the rest of October, and besides a PR 2:23ish on the 18 mile Potawatomi aka Poto (on my birthday none-the-less), I had a pretty hit and miss month of running. 

Searching for motivation, November has found me running more roads with my mind focusing on turn over and legspeed.  I have been mixing it up with other workouts on the treadmill, with a mind to keeping the incline turned up and the speed moderate.  This seems to be a better workout for me than really cranking between 8.5-9.5mph, which almost always leads to an injury of some sort. 

This weekend I did not record a huge number of miles, but I found myself happy to just be running.

The Poto is relentless in its rolling nature - an excellent trail system

 Jason Robertson and I met up Saturday morning for a nice outing on the Poto, and like usual, we had a great time.  I really want to get a large group of people together sometime and do a "fatass" style 50k on these trails.  Maybe I can get organized and make it happen this spring.  This loop is a gem and we managed 22 miles without ever having to travel the same trail twice.  Even better, it has a solid 2300 feet of ascent and 2300 feet of descent to keep ones mind occupied.  Oh and did I mention its very technical and rocky? :)  A trail runners dream (or nightmare)...

I followed up Saturdays AM effort with a light 5 mile shakeout run in the PM.  The next morning my Dad told me about a cyclocross route he had envisioned and invited me along to run it.  Looking at a topo map, I was excited by the amount of hills and looked forward to running some completely foreign roads.  Despite losing my map about 5 miles into the run and having to back track for an extra 2 miles, I had a great time and saw one of the biggest red tail hawks I have ever seen.  It was great to do a long road run - in fact this is the longest road run I have done in almost a year - and I was even more pleased to hold a 7:30 pace without too much stress for the entire jaunt.

Suh-weet Sunday run followed up by a Detroit Lions victory!!!

I really think I need to incorperate more fast pace road runs of this nature into my training in order to keep my leg speed up when I am running mostly trails.  While I have great stamina, I have never been a particularly fast runner.  Maybe this is because I never ran XC or Track in my youth and have no formal running training.  I like to think so.  I generally avoid long road runs due to the increased chances of hurting myself, but I think by finding dirt roads to run on, I may be able to avoid this problem.  I wonder if other ultrarunners maintain leg speed by doing road runs or if they are just naturally fast.

Oil Creek Prerace Jitters

I always get nervous before a race.  Part of that nervous energy goes towards making my race kit, studying the different sections of the course and choosing different shoes.  Looking back at my training log, Ive put in more miles, more long runs, and longer runs than I did preparing for the Kettle Moraine 100 mile.  That being said, logging miles isnt everything.  I spent some time on the stairmaster last week, working on my steep power hiking skills, maybe that will help.  A huge portion of this race is going to be mental fortitude (for me anyways) and keeping my feet and stomach happy.  I think I have the stomach thing under control during a 50 miler - I am basically a garbage disposal who can run- but I am planning trying something slightly different at Oil Creek than Kettle.

Dont ask me how much this all cost

Having run a very happy Ice Age 50 mile 3 weeks before Kettle using soley gels as a fuel source, I figured I would just do the same for the 100 miles at KM.  Bad Toe.  I learned after bonking out kinda hard around mile 83 that I get super sick of gels after about 100k, and need to use more solid food.  After the race I spend some time reading peoples strategies for Western States, and noticed super fast veterans like Andy Jones-Wilkins eat mostly "solid" food for the first 50 and then switch over to gels.  This will be my approach for Oil Creek.  Ive been practicing eating clif bars, candy bars, chips, power bars, muffins, and PB&J sandwiches as I run the poto.  I hope to do something similar this weekend.  Solid food will consist of Honey Stinger waffles, Clif Bloks, Power Bars, Clif Roks, mini snikcers, and the occasional aid station food.  I am aiming for 300-400 calories an hour - yes this is a lot, yes I can eat this much, I hope I dont over/under do it as solid food is more difficult to track consumptionwise than gels. 


Onto my feet.  Those who know me well know that I have some pretty cool feet.  I was lucky enough to have some wicked surgeries on my left foot when I was in 6th grade, and as a consequence of damage to my growth plate, my 4th toe has not grown since.  Running shoes are hard to find for me.  One foot is wide and short, the other is long and skinny.  Blah blah blah.  Im gonna rock my new favorite shoe, the MTE101 (European version of the ever-so-popular MT101) for as long as I can, and switch over to my new Speedcross 3.  Being the self proclaimed shoe nerd that I am, I will also have my Fellcross, Mtn Masochist, Kinvara, and MT100s either in my car or in the drop bag.  Socks - drymax pro are the best socks in the world.  hands down.  period.  but if I need something softer, I will have some smartwools somewhere.

Yeah, I know, awesome

Notice the long scar on the 4th metatarsel

There is still some last minute planning to do.  Exactly which gels go into which drop bag.  Which socks to put where.  What shorts will I wear, etc.  These will be things that I think about over the next couple days.  Importantly, I made some humungous Banana Walnut muffins for Hagy, Jason, Chris, and anyone else I deem worthy of a delicious muffin.

I thought I would end this post with my mileage that I ran in preparation for the race (hopefully it will inspire some confidence).  **note**  this is probably not a wise amount of miles to run week to week, but hell, it makes me happy :)  If anyone is actually interested, I usually run 2x a day.  mostly a short 3-6 mile run in the morning/lunch time and then however long I can muster at night.  These daily total reflect both runs.

Month

Date

Miles

June	27	14
June	28	3.5
June	29	21
June	30	17
July	1	9
July	2	18
July	3	17

Week total - 99.5

July 4 July 5 13 July 6 14 July 7 15 July 8 July 9 31 July 10 9 Week total - 82
July 11 15 July 12 18 July 13 15 July 14 15 July 15 15 July 16 27 July 17 15
Week total - 120
July 18 15 July 19 15 July 20 15 July 21 0 July 22 22 July 23 12 July 24 29
Week total - 108
July 25 10 July 26 18 July 27 18 July 28 15 July 29 13 July 30 5 July 31 32 Week total - 111 August 1 August 2 18 August 3 18 August 4 20.5 August 5 15.5 August 6 36 August 7 18 Week total - 126 August 8 0 August 9 15 August 10 20.5 August 11 15 August 12 15 August 13 20 August 14 24.5 Week total - 110 August 15 16 August 16 16 August 17 17.5 August 18 13 August 19 15 August 20 15 August 21 12 Week total - 104.5 August 22 0 August 23 6 August 24 9 August 25 0 August 26 0 August 27 50 August 28 6 Week total - 71 August 29 10 August 30 12 August 31 0 September 1 18.5 September 2 12 September 3 13 September 4 23 Week total - 88.5 September 5 18 September 6 15 September 7 0 September 8 15 September 9 6 September 10 50 September 11 0 Week total - 104 September 12 6 September 13 12 September 14 15 September 15 18.5 September 16 19.5 September 17 29 September 18 20 Week total - 120 September 19 0 September 20 21 September 21 22 September 22 17.5 September 23 18 September 24 26 September 25 25.5 Week total - 130 September 26 13 September 27 11 September 28 12 September 29 14 September 30 11 October 1 13.5 October 2 13.5 Week total - 88