What I did on Summer vacation

the above is an article that appeared in UltraRunning magazine.

Dude, Where's my car?

This story really starts on Monday evening…

I head out on a run in a city which I was visiting for the 1st time… Meriden, CT

I will often research an interesting route or locale to run in when I’m on the road but this time I was just doing a quick trip… only one night so I was just going to wing it.

I went out the front door of the hotel, hung a left, and just started running… w/in a couple of miles I was feeling pretty loose and already kind of out in the countryside. Beautiful evening… 80F or so… greenery all around… canopy road… I was having a good time..

I’m not sure what it is tho… my Cherokee ancestors… RATS… or what but I seem to have developed a trail running soul… anytime I run on the road… my eyes invariably roam to either side of the road looking for a trail.

I’d gone out 3 miles and turned around to head home… I picked it up a little on mile 4 and just past that point I came to a road that I thought might loop back to my route. I took the road… it did not curve as I expected but it did lead to what looked like a park… closer inspection showed a nice reservoir and a board on which a trail map was pinned under glass…

Kismet I thought and without much of a glance at the map I launched myself at the trailhead.

I enjoyed the twisty, turny, bed of fir needles… with roots running every which way. A smile spread across my face. A quick glance at my watch told me that I could add a couple of miles without risking stumbling around in the dark. A mile or so in… right where the trail forked I turned around… and a plan began to form in my head… I’d come back in the morning and run the whole thing.

Tuesday

0415 – as usual my alarm goes off…. Too early.. no sense bumping around in the dark

0515 – finally quit hitting snooze

0530 – get up

0554 – standing in front of the trail map… based on the faded image in front of me and my recon from the night before… I made a plan. White trail… to red… then catch the blue trail all the way back around the reservoir… 5ish miles I estimate… or SWAG

0619 – I reach the top or the ridge… the sun is fully up now and the view is spectacular… I’m sweaty and smiling… so glad I’d come back.

0635 – Following the blue trail now… it is super technical… slow going… but I know I’m going in the right direction. Over half way methinks

0705 – I’ve left the technical section behind… nice doubletrack… just as I expected from the map… only a mile or so now.

0707 – I emerge from the woods and find myself in a subdivision… WTF? “hey, lookie there. More blue markers. Along the road” a slight detour I think…

0708 – no more blue markers.. I have no idea where I am. Yet I keep running down the road… exit the subdivision… think about flagging down a motorist then… I see it! More blue markers leading me back into the woods!

0711 – this trail looks mighty familiar… but the direction *feels* right

0725 – still on the same doubletrack – have not seen a “blue marker” for a half mile or so… I just keep running

0744: I skirt around a gate… look back over my shoulder at the sign on the gate “Private Property – Keep out” it reads… I am now on a dirt roads with houses… and moving in a direction that dos *not* *feel* right…

0745 – standing in the road with my hands on my hips… wish I had a GPS

0745 (a few seconds later) – realize I have a GPS on my wrist

0747 – figure out how to get my GPS to show me where my car is.

0747 (a few seconds later) head off in that direction – and (eureka!) find a trail – life is good

0752 – realize that there are dozens of trails… dirt bikes and 4 wheelers must teem in these woods on the weekends… keep heading in the general direction of my car

0757 – Civilization! – I see parked cars… Yes!

0757 (a few seconds later) – I realize that it is a junkyard

0759 – Apologize to the junkman for trespassing… and ask for directions… he chuckles as if he’s heard this before and points me to the road…

0802 – I know where I am at last! I have found my turnaround from Monday’s run.. the old canopy road

0814 – I’m back in my car… dirty… sweaty… tired… and late. I still have to get cleaned up… packed up and check out of the hotel…

0849 – I get a call… from the guy I’m supposed to interview at 0900 telling me that he is in the lobby. I tell him, “I’ll be there in 10 minutes. I got a little lost this morning”

RR -- BFAST Sprint Tri #3

I resolved... before RATS even started that I was going to quit ultramarathoning and take up sprint triathlons...

And... I did.

I think I'll copy a graded format someone used on TRI-Drs

Summary -- sprint Distance Tri -- 1:10:41; 6/32 AG; 52/500 OA

Long report --

a photgrapher captured us holding hands walking down the beach to the start (awww)

*Swim -- 11:24; 23/32 AG. *

I have been swim training lately... and expected improvement. Felt great... strong, slippery

I even caught a couple of pink swim caps... wait! They started 3 minutes *behind* me

in the picture the girl in the pink cap was explining to me who caught whom...

Funny

Grade -- F - I sucketh

*T1 -- 3:01 - long run from beach to bike... but I'm slow here too

*Bike -- 31:55 -- 25.5 mph avg; 4/32 AG.*

No computer on my bike... just rode as fast as I could... nobody passed me but... all the fast guys finished the swim ~3 minutes ahead of me...

Grade -- B+. Wonder what the race looks like for people who know how to swim

*T2 -- :51; take of helmet and change shoes... even I can't eff that up too much

*Run -- 23:32; 7/32 AG.

Ran steady... only passed 2x... once by the female OA winner. Felt strong at the end and caught someone in my AG just before the turn for the finish.

Grade -- B- If I don't feel like I'm going to puke on the last mile... I'm obviously not trying hard enough.. need to work on motivation for the run when I have no one to chase/run from...

*Summary and Overall Grade.

*C - the fact that I can ride a bike does not make up for my mediocrity on the run and pisspoor swimming ability

I either need to race bikes or seriously learn to swim.

My GF, however, took AG hardware... as she had in the first two races of the series.... it's her first season racing too... I think I pulled off acting happy for her success...

RR - Scenic City Trail Marathon

As I am walking up to check-in… I see these two fit looking dudes talking to who I assume is the Race Director.. Both are carrying packs.. and both have these high zoot flippers attached to the webbing of their packs… the one with long hair… who looks suspiciously like Spicoli (of “Fast Times” fame) says “yeah dude… we are going to totally rock the stream crossings this year”

I think to myself… “I had no idea there would be stream crossings but... I have been training in the pool”

And just then… I hear music… “is your bed made? Is your sweater on?” Vampire Weekend’s “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” cranking right next to my head…

That would be my alarm… and Spicoli’s flippers were just a dream…

And thus began my morning…. Coffee dressed… out the door by 0630….

The race was held at the Raccoon Mountain Reserve… with a 13 mile trail loop up/down and around the ridgeline surrounding the man-made preserve…

The place was beautiful… and mountainous for a Florida Cracker such as I.

This race was a combined ½ Marathon and Marathon running simultaneously. The loudspeaker announced before the race that the race had doubled in size this year… I would guess that 500-600 folks toed the line.

I was really just doing the race as RATS training and towards that end had my Nathan hydration pack loaded with 150 oz of fluid… and some other junk in there as well. They had stakes to mark off where folks should line up based on proposed finishing times… I seeded myself with the 4 hour group… never dreaming that I might finish in 4 hours but… I knew that soon we would leave the road we started on for the trail and I did not want to be at the back.

I ran the first ½ mile pretty hard… trying to hold my position or even improve it… ½ mile in and we, the entire field, came to a complete stop… and waited in line to get on the trail. When my turn finally arrived I started running down the trail following, well, it looked like everyone… we were like a nation of Indians… then… ¼ mile later… we are all walking again… frustrated I yelled… “c’mon you dang Galloway runners” I think someone laughed…

And so it went… the trail was beautiful… but I dared not look around… the few times I tried I either

a. Ran into someone in front of me
b. Tripped over a rock
c. Ran into a tree
d. Ran off the trail.

The race was like a big slinky… breaking from time to time in to smaller tribes of Indians… and I, well, I got impatient… and kinda went Leroy Jenkins… vaulting from group to group… running up inclines I’d be better off walking just to get some daylight… 8 miles or so in I began to see some daylight but… I felt cooked…. I knew I’d be able to finish but was already tired and wanted to stop…

I did slow down a little and started walking some of the steep uphills… but the down-hills… I ran them like Carl Lewis… I never did eat it but… I also started paying a little more attention to nutrition and stuff…

I was still a little obsessed with passing people and tried to run down everyone I saw ahead….

Just before the halfway point the ½ marathoners turned off to the finish and we turned for another loop. Here I caught a couple of college age girls and ran along with them and talked a bit… it was their 2nd marathon and first trail run. Nice kids… I eventually dropped them to because I was on a mission… not to finish or run fast…. Nope I had to um…. Go.

At the next aid station I inquired about facilities. They said that there were some at the mile 20 aid station… well.. maybe a mile from that… of course… great! Now even tho the race was in the woods… there was not a whole lot of… ummm… cover. Well I found some brush and ran off into it to try and see if #1 would make me feel better.

Okay… here gentle reader, is where I am going to leave the factual story and instead tell an alternate one I made up..

I knew that #1 was not enough… I had to have some blackberries! I saw some and squatted down to pick some… when I stood back up my pants got caught in some briars and the force might have yanked them down a bit… now my cover was great from the approach down the trail… and this was confirmed by the rustling and voices I heard coming up the trail… what I did not take into account was the view from the other side… I realized my error in judgment as the two college girls got past me on the trail and to my horror one looked over her shoulder… saw me in the “briars” and not knowing the whole story said “Oh God”…. Well sh*t!

I started back to running and then realized that I was going to catch these girls in the next mile or so… that is when I invented the blackberries story…. Much to my relief, we did not touch on that subject when I passed them…

When I got to the next aid station I asked how many miles were left. They said that I was at mile 20… since I’d been eating and drinking like I should and thanks to the blackberries, I was feeling much better and thought for a few minutes about running a 3rd lap… I might have made it but I didn’t want to miss my flight… so I decided to just run as hard as I could to the finish.

I started passing a few more people. One dude… in a blue singlet I chased for about a mile. I finally passed him and said “you were hard to catch”… he told me “keep running strong”… so I looked back over my shoulder and said “well come on with me then” he informed me that’s just what he planned to do.

Well.. I was tiring… and might have wanted to slow down but… I’d just thrown down a challenge.. and the dude stayed a few steps behind me… I ran a little harder thinking that if I dropped him we could both ease off a little… and so it went for the next few miles… by I finally got away from him at around mile 25 but not too far as he finished only 15 seconds back.

I crossed the line and stopped running and just as I was turning away one of the volunteers ran up to me… “hold on” she said “I forgot to give you this” I was afraid that it was going to be a medal but much to my delight it was an ice cold rag… awesome.

My finish time was 4:29 and I’m pleased with that… once again more than a little surprised how much I like running trails…

Hot Like Wasabi

Well.. Summer is here!

Kinda snuck up on us…

Saturday

Leaving for Saturday’s ride I remarked to my training partner “Ya know… the warm weather is here… I think that this is the first Saturday ride I’ve started for a long time without arm warmers”

That was a harbinger of things to come.

This was the second Saturday I’d done this ride/route. I like to ride with the St John’s county Hammerheads but… I’ve been trying to up my mileage, and they are all training for ½ Ironman events this year… so I figured a way to ride from my house, met up with them for 80% or so of their ride, then ride home.

Along the way we picked up Jeremy, a friend of mine from work. The Hammerhead boys were a bit late so we me them further along than usual… which in essence added 5 miles to our ride. The ride was smooth and uneventful, which is the norm with these guys, until one of the guys stopped with a mechanical… we all stopped with him and the conversation immediately turned to the heat and specifically where/when could we get some ice…

We stopped and loaded up… and finished up the ride 80 miles in all… drenched and with empty water bottles.
I had dinner pans Saturday night but I did manage to squeeze in a quick 5 miles in the afternoon… the warm moist air felt so god in my lungs… I ran pretty hard… composing summertime sonnets in my head… but I think I was still sweating an hour after my shower.

Sunday
Rode 40 Sunday morning with my friend Mark… nice steady ride but once again easily went thru 80oz of fluid in 2 hours.

My main workout of the weekend was supposed to be 4 hours on the Ft Caroline trails… That was not to be.

The kids wanted to go to the beach… so… I mapped out a plan.
I decided to ride to the beach with them then run home. I mapped a course that would be close to 20 miles. The idea being that a few hours out in the hot Florida Sun might begin to simulate my future in the desert.

We got to the beach… the kids headed for the surf… I headed home.

What a fine idea I’d had I thought… beach cruisers, babes, bikinis, folks having a good time… everything that is 1st Street in North Jax Beach on a summer afternoon… that ended all too quickly, however as I soon turned to the west. I still felt good…

I’d knocked out a couple of sub 10s.. So far which considering the heat and my 11# pack was fabulous… we can discuss fabulous a little bit more later.

Here’s a quick shot looking back towards the beach.

Soon I got to the Beach Blvd Bridge over the Intracostal… my only real hill of the day… I felt so good that I had thoughts of running it a few more times… good sense intervened and I decided to just keep running and I’d get fancy later if I felt good.

Leaving Jax Beach…

The next section was along Beach Blvd… Busy road on a summer day but… they are putting in extra lanes which meant that I had a nice graded dirt road all to myself… I felt good… ran steady.. Having quite a good time. I even tried to eat a little… managed to choke down 2 cookies… as it turned out the only solid food I attempted all day. I was enjoying the sunshine and sweat.

I left Beach for Hodges… and a few miles of sidewalk and sunshine… this was about an hour in and I started to slow my pace a bit… I saw shade on the other side of the street and abandoned the “desert acclimation” plan for a smidge more comfort…. I was trying to hydrate as much as possible… I knew it was still a long way to go.

The next section was through a golf course community that I’d never before visited. I’d pictured trees and a nice path… not to be… lots of sunshine… some sidewalk. Another thing I noticed was the lack of any players out on the course… I got a glimpse of more than half of the 18 holes and saw nary a golfer.

By the time I got to the UNF campus I was… decidedly not… fabulous… low on water… my 1st bottle of Gatorade long since gone… and my thirst seemed unquenchable. I got in the shade of one of the bus stops on campus and pulled out a polar bottle full of Gatorade from my pack… Gatorade never tasted so good… I had to stop myself from drinking it all at once.

I did dink it all in the next mile and finished my water in the mile after that…. I’d started taking walk breaks… at first because of the heat… running to a shady spot, then walk… I kept drinking because I was thirsty… and soon I was taking walk breaks because I had stomach cramps. Needless to say I was happy to see the Publix sign.

I grabbed some G2 Gatorade from the cooler… all they had… I just don’t get G2… I mean it’s Gatorade… why not get some glucose for my muscles along with fluids and electrolytes? But I digress… Bought a bag of ice too. Got some strange looks outside Publix… haggard middle aged dude stuffing ice in a backpack.

When I got it all together… I felt better… ran for a mile straight… but I was thirsty and soon was waterlogged again… back to walking until I burped or my cramps settled down.

I was within 2.5 miles from home running, once again, on a freshly graded roadbed and came upon a huge lake of a puddle… no good way around so I hopped up onto the unattached curb… ran down it for 100 meters or so until I spied what I took for dry land…. Jumped off the curb and sank mid-calf into the mud… luckily my shoe came out with my foot… and after I snapped a couple of pix I was back on my way. Shoes full of grit, stomach full of G2 I trudged home walking some… running some… caring very little which.

Despite the fact that I had ingested close to 250oz of fluids I was down about 11# of bodyweight…

In the end it was only 18 miles… and only just about as much as I could do…

Another weekend of RATS Prep

I knew that I had a few complications in my normal wide open weekend plan

I had to help my sister move Saturday…. And the Prom was Friday.

With that in mind I decided to do 20 miles on Friday. I couldn’t run it concurrently because I wanted to (of course) be there when my daughter’s date came to pick her up… and take pictures etc….

So I ran 10 miles at lunch…. I felt good… easy and smooth.

Got home… about the time the Prom thing all came together … corsages and boutonnieres… smiles and pictures.

I’d let my daughter and her date take my car… which was fine… because I was going downtown to run and wouldn’t mind too much getting my sweaty butt in her boyfriend’s hoopty.

The plan was to loop the downtown bridges for 10 miles… hitting the bigger bridge, the Acosta, as many times as I could stand it. Downtown was hopping on a Friday night. I was not expecting that… but it was not a really big deal. I did this run with full pack… which I weighed.. 9 lbs and change. Between the uphills… general fatigue… and the pack… I was crawling relative to my smooth even splits I’d put in earlier in the day…. Walked a few uphills… and stopped numerous times to answer touristy type questions… I guess folks figured a sweaty guy running with a pack would likely know his way around downtown Jacksonville… and I do… and I’m a bit biased of course but I do live in a beautiful city… and running through downtown… watching the sun set on my city… and the lights come up… and the stars come out… was pretty cool.

Saturday was move day… but… since I was chief mover… I decided that we’d start at noon which gave me an opportunity to ride with my Hammerhead (triathlon club) Buddies… 45ish miles… and these fellas ride 22mph… all the time… not 21 or 23… Twenty-two. Good group of guys tho… and a good ride.

Moving was the weekend activity that brought the most soreness….

Sunday time for another double

Started the day with a 37 mile ride with my two best friends… their fitness is coming on… and we beat our best time for our ride course by a couple of minutes… then cooked a big breakfast for everyone.

It’s funny… how sometimes… someone’s offhand comment can burrow it’s way under your skin… more so than even sage and sober advice… or a voice raised in anger… I’d remarked on the tri list something to the effect… that I ran loops around my side of town because there was really no place interesting enough to drive any distance to experience… My old Friend Lee C replied and remarked… “well then, I feel sorry for you” Lee is a gentleman… and meant nothing mean… but those strong words… made me rethink… and doo a little googling….

And in so doing I found a trail.

Sunday afternoon was the workout I’d been looking forward to… Susan and I were planning to hit the trails at Ft Caroline. Susan’s friend Bobby met us out there and acted as our tour guide… My planning was not so great, however, the park closes at 1700… I’d never even thought of that…. So I only had time for one loop… but man! Was it fun… Roots, and dirt, and hills (yes hills!), and more roots… I carried my pack once again which only added to the challenge but all too soon 5PM was upon us and it was time to leave…

Since Susan knows me pretty well.. she was less than surprised when I asked her to drop me off about half way home. I simply got out, shoved my wallet and a couple more items in my pack… said goodbye and started shuffling home.

During the first mile I rough sketched in my head a route that would give me ~18 miles for the day by the time I got home… then shuffled my way across town. Since my pack was full I had plenty of refreshments… and unbeknownst (no, I had no idea how to spell that word and had to Google unbenounced… see the urban dictionary definition for that...) to me to me at the time I ran pretty even splits and came in right at 18 miles.

The best news about the weekend, however, is what didn’t happen… no major Achilles flare up. J

Running QOTD

One reason I run is because I love the idea of the “journey.” Like life, running is a journey, not a destination. Like jazz, running is filled with limitless routes of discovery and self-expression. I enjoy running because it provides me an opportunity to spend time with friends in a physically and mentally productive way. I run because I love seeing the world outside my door. But most importantly, I run because, like life, it presents the chance to defeat, however briefly, my most formidable opponent – myself." - Rob Ulon