RATS 2013 - I've been through the Desert carrying a horse with no name

Well I guess I should begin with an explanation of the title

 

I have a my little pony shirt… I bought it at Target because I thought it was funny…

  

Then we found one while driving around before the race

 

 

Then I made a new friend (She thought it was sooooo cool that we were both "pony" fans)

 

 

So I carried it with me

 

 

We probably went a little too hard on day 1:

 

Photo Credit Glen Delman

 

Shortly after this picture was taken we hit a monster climb out of the canyon… as I was powering up it…  I felt a twinge in my lower left leg and yelled "motherfugsher"…  it was the first twinge of a cramp… and it spelled the end of any chance I had of doing this race fast.

 

I really wanted to go easy for the first 13 miles… and I thought that I did but…

 

Despite the issues and the cussing I did finish the stage in 10^th place but…  the ominous writing was on the wall..

 

The plan for day 2 was to take it easy and hold off the cramps as long as possible…

 

 

And I did… lots of walking…. and I finished the stage before the cramps got me… 

 

Photo Credit Glen Delman

 

but only just…

 

5 minutes after crossing the line I was puking my guts out

 

Photo Credit Glen Delman

 

Then spent 3 hours in the med tent with cramps…  the doctors were very nice…  and they seemed to have a good time videoing my muscle spasms and cramps.

 

Day three found me still dizzy and nauseous but with buoyed spirits because I had a better looking running partner

 

Photo Credit Glen Delman

 

Or walking partner as it were…

 

Day 4 – 52 miles…  and I had a plan…. 

 

It's hard to explain really…  I was having a really good time at RATS…  at the same time that I was having another poor race…  I was feeling better… but not great…  I felt like I could finish but not like I could kick some ass…. 

 

So… the plan:

 

Walk… walk the flats…  walk the uphills…  jog the downhills

 

Photo Credit Glen Delman

 

Listen to an audiobook… Just cover the distance…  until it gets cooler

 

I know, I know…  I was in the middle of some of the most beautiful scenery in the US…  surrounded by cool people and I just tuned it out?  Yes I did.

Photo Credit Glen Delman

 

When the shadows got longer and my book ended… I began to pick it up…  shade and gathering darkness is especially sweet in the desert on the longest day of the year.

 

I managed to pass 8 or 9 people in the closing miles….  And ran pretty strong on the final downhill section.

 

Day 6 was to basically pour out whatever I had left…  and I felt pretty good going uphill… but I had some issues trying to run the steep downhill grades.

 

Photo Credit Glen Delman

 

Pony and I were happy to finish

 

Photo Credit Glen Delman

 

Closing thoughts:

 

This was my third attempt at this race…  two finishes…  one DNF but really the script for each was alarmingly the same…

 

Day one: suffer a bit but do okay

Day two: suffer a lot and end the day in a quivering mass of cramps unable to move without seizing up… and barely able to take care of my essential needs

Day three: struggle to complete 9 miles…  finishing the stage at or near DFL

Day Four: perform well above my "sinking since day one" expectations

Final Day: Finish fairly strong

 

Yep…  same results all three times…

 

But this time I had trained my ass off…  and I am and was a bit disappointed that my body let me down….

 

But… make no mistake…  I had a fabulous time preparing for this race….  And a blast being there…  and love my RATS family

 

I may go back there one day as part of the staff…  but…  I'm finished with trying to Race Across the Sand.

 

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

          Theodore Roosevelt, 1858 - 1919

 
 

after months of training....

my feet are a mess...
 
 (and I'll spare you the pictures)
 
I'm dog tired... (actual picture of our lazy dog)
 
 
I hate my pack... and the HR monitor strap

(I still love coke icees)

 

 

And now…  finally…

 

  
 
 

"I have slipped the surly bonds of earth"

I went out for a 10 mile run at lunch today… 

 

I left behind the pack… and the heartrate monitor… and training plan for the day…  and I just ran…  just me shirtless in the Florida sunshine with just an iPod shuffle clipped to my shorts…

 

And I just ran…  and ya know… it was awesome. It was one of those runs where everything felt good… even upping the pace only smoothed out my stride.

 

Now some folks run for the medals… or the T-Shirt…  or the camaraderie of friends.

 

For me…. It's the joy of movement…  the sun on my bare skin…  moving with the rhythm of the music in my ears…  thoughtlessly repeating the steps to a dance I know so well… and love so deeply…

 

And now hours later… I have a slight fatigue in my legs…  and joy in my soul

 

The poem below was written by John Gillespie Magee, an American pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. He went to Britain, flew in a Spitfire squadron, and was killed at the age of nineteen in December 1941 during a training flight.

 

I kinda turned the words of his poem over in my mind today while I ran… I may never pilot a plane…   and this fella may not have been a runner but I think we both get it.

 

High Flight
By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

"Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God."

 

 

Cinderella, the Kool-Aid man, Subaru, and some Coke

Pretty interesting weekend…

 

And I was looking forward to the challenge.  The plan called for a big long Friday:

 

1 hr stairmill and 25 minute weight circuit at lunch

5 hour run after work (basically a nice easy marathon)

 

The lunch workout went okay…  I swear I could stairmill in my sleep

 

The evening workout…  what I was really amped about well…  The Cinderella Marathon was how I had it billed in my head…  just run 26.3 and get home by midnight

let's just say that other life commitments pushed the starting time back to 8PM (2000 for you military types).  Noww if you know mw even a little bit you would have already assumed that would just mean that I would be finishing 5 hours later…  and if you are good at the maths you would soon summate that I would be running until ~ 0100 without glass slippers…  and hopefully not turning into a pumpkin.

 

In the meantime I ate supper…  turkey and roast beef sub…  etc

 

So off we went…  yes that's right us…  Judi came along as well to run with me for the first hour then run walk for 4 more hours with the plan being that we meet up in the last few miles and finish together.

 

 

A couple of miles in we took measure of ourselves…  Judi said she felt okay…  I concluded that I felt a little full but thirsty.

 

Let's just say that I don't get out much…  the route I chose went through the bar district at the beach and the drunks on bikes were out in force…  for those of you who are cycling activists…  "bikes belong", "Share the road", etc… you would hang your head in shame at the crazy, erratic, deathwishish, display put on by these citizens on two wheels.  And all of this on streets that I thought would be pretty well lit with streetlights….. oh, nay nay

 

 

Traffic thinned by the turnaround…  but so did the streetlights…  it was dark as a sack of black cats out there…  and I was drinking a lot…  and still thirsty

 

I noticed I had missed a call… repeated calls…  Judi was lost…  somewhere out in the darkness…  after running a couple of more miles I finally got in touch with her…  by then she had used her phone to Magellan her way to safety. Whew!

 

She was a good bit ahead of me but nothing to do but run… and eat… and drink like a camel.

 

I stopped and refilled my water at about 18 miles…  then caught Judi with just about one to go.  Overall a very happy ending.  I nailed my Time/pace goals…  managed my GI issues… . and ended with the fastest mile of the day.

 

Saturday was a day off…well except for the other life stuff…  I did get in a nice nap, however.

 

Sunday had this on the agenda:

 

 

And guess who decided to show up to the Sunshine State on Sunday?

 

That's right… summer, sun, and humidity finally arrived…  about a month late but…  it's all good training for the desert I figure.

 

I decided to break the run up as follows:

 

12 mi to the gym 5 @ 10:30 and 7 @ 9:30ish – this went okay but the effort level was pretty high…  I had cottonmouth again…

 

Interesting that I had just read these two articles… 

http://www.irunfar.com/2012/07/waterlogged-a-dogma-shattering-book.html

http://www.irunfar.com/2012/08/waterlogged-part-ii-trials-questions-and-suggestions-regarding-hydration-and-ultramarathons.html

 

reviewing the Noakes book "Waterlogged" the premise of which is that we (endurance athletes) often drink too much and that dehydration is not an inhibitor to performance.  He states that we should drink to thirst…  well I was a thirsty mofo… I wanted to just yell "Hey Kool-Aid!"

 

 

I did make it to the gym and close to being on pace… 

 

6 miles on the stairmill

I have had good results of late doing stairmill work in the middle of a long run… not to mention this is a good race simulation…  on Sunday however…  I was gassed…  and proceeded to drink about 80oz of water on the stairmill (to thirst, right?)…  by the time I was finished I was a little waterlogged but still thirsty… 

 

9 miles home at 9:30ish pace

 

I walked out the door to the gym and just wanted to lie down…  but I hitched up my skirt and just started to move…  no care for pace… or distance I just pointed my feet towards home.

 

A couple of miles later…  while feeling like I was dragging a cinder block I met the Subaru people

 

let me tell you how cool Subaru drivers are... so there I am.. cutting across a parking lot.. because... you know the shortest distance between two points and all... and to say I was running would be almost condescending... so anyway a Subaru Outback comes by with his-n-hers mountain bikes on it... they slow way down... I guess to see if there was anyone home behind my groovy white Oakley's... a couple of minutes later I see them driving back my way... hanging out the windows on both sides yelling and ringing cowbells. yep that put a bounce in my step... for a couple of minutes at least... thanks cool Subaru drivers!

 

Soon after the cowbells faded a kind of frenzy came over me… 

 

I needed a Coke…

 

 Ice cold…  yes…  that was the ticket…  but the nearest store was a couple of miles away…

 

 

I began to think of all the ways I would like to ingest a Coke…  on ice… bottled…  yeah, yeah, the 6 ½ oz bottles are the best…

 

 

Then I started thinking that I really needed that syrupy goodness in my bloodstream as quickly as possible and though…  man I'd even freebase that shit…  then I started thinking about that a little bit…  then I started thinking about what that really meant…  I think I would need a Bunsen burner… and a crucible or something… and then I came to the conclusion that I really knew very little about freebasing and what I did know I probably got from a 60 minutes interview with Richard Pryor back in 1983…  I have lived a sheltered life.

 

 

When I got to the store…  not only did I buy a coke (it ended up being a fountain drink w/o ice – less fizz) I also got a snickers bar…. and for some unknown reason I smacked the veins in the crook of my arm... I have no idea what that was about...

 

Heaven-on-earth tho... absolutely delicious

 

And that's not all…  a few minutes later I did feel better and could have continued on but…  26.2 was enough…  and I was home.

 

J

 

 

RATS

I know...  I haven't posted in a while... April was a rough month

 

more on that later...

Yep…  on occasion I look at my own blog…  and right there on the right hand side is the countdown…

 

Looming close…

 

That's okay…  I'm getting ready (aka tired of the training)

 

Now don't get me wrong…  I love the challenges of running the equivalent of a marathon on each day of the weekend…  but I'm running out of convenient yet adventurous ways to get the miles in…  and I'm getting better at the running and the recovering…

 

Well…  I could stand to lose a few pounds…  it's a southern tradition to fatten up the survivors when someone dies…

 

There I said it…  that's the real reason I haven't posted in over a month…  my mom died…  kinda unexpectedly..

 

us

 

 

I had a couple of low mileage weeks last month but came back pretty strong…  still doing about 75 per week but only 50 or so on the road…  the balance on the stairmill

 

my Iron Maiden

 

My injury problem is better…  oddly…  it's still there… but I have been very careful to do nothing but running that requires core strength…  that's right…  totally avoiding anything remotely like core work…  including spin class and most stretching

 

Can't lie tho…  I miss my mom… we were very close…  running screaming through the woods does help

 

she was always the life of the party

 

And yes…  the desert awaits…  as does our RATS family…  heaven on earth…  suffering on the trail only makes it better.

 

Counting the days

 

  
 

recap

Saturday:

 

The prescription

 

 

Haha

 

It was later in the day but…  pouring down rain and 55 degrees.  I took Jimmy for the first 7 miles

 

 

Us during a brief break in the storm.

 

Most of the time I felt like Forrest Gump in Vietnam

 

 

 

I tried to avoid the puddles for a while…  after a couple of hours there was standing water pretty much everywhere. 

 

Although my training log reflects the fact that I nailed the prescribed pace and distance with a nice even sub MAF heartrate…  I must confess, however, that this run suckethed…  I love running in the rain… I mean more than like…  well a lot… my legs hurt from step one to step last… and for the slow pace…  and *only* 20 miles it should have been easy but…  I spent more character building HTFU points than I would have thought possible.

 

Finished at 7PM…

 

Just time enough to shower and eat… and lay down to sleep…

 

Didn't sleep well… 

 

Sunday Run #1:

 

I had to leave the house at ~5AM to fit it in before church…  and got up (I was already awake) at 0415 so I could move around some and do some foam roller & lacrosse ball work

 

It was  overcast but muggy…  tired and slow but consistent and not too terribly taxing and relatively pain free…  felt better at the finish.

 

Sunday Run #2:

 

Exact same route as the morning run and pretty much the same pace…  the difference being that I felt better at the start and worse at the finish…  the heat cooked me good.  It was in the low 80s with high humidity to boot.

 

Started with 100 oz of water…  stopped ~14 miles in…  out of water.  Hunted around a business that was closed until I found a hose to refill my bladder…

 

Lessons learned etc:

 

Loosen up with the ball or roller before running…

 

 

One thing that I see definite improvement at…  in the past I would run myself into the ground..  and if I started walking it was O-V-E-R  I have learned to take a walk break..  pull myself together and get back on track.

 

Hydration is good…  but… I Should have planned for a water stop Sunday afternoon

 

Nutrition is going pretty well too…

 

I like these

 

And these

 

 

 

 

I can't drive 55

 

Cue the Red Rocker Sammy Hagar!

  

 

But…  this past weekend over Saturday and Sunday I did run 55…  miles

 

It started Saturday morning… 

 

The training schedule called for the following:

 

Run #1 10 miles

5 @ 10 mpm and 5 @ 9:30mpm

Stairmill 7 miles

Run #2 9 miles @ 9:30 mpm

 

Now let me tell ya…  I am good at the maths

 

And I did a few quick calculations…

 

Assuming that the stairmill was at a 10mpm exertion level…  I was basically setting out to do a 4:15 marathon…  for training…  NBD

 

Riiight.

 

To say that I have been running slow would be a bit of an understatement.  At this point 9:30s = speedwork = flying

 

I went so far as to go back into my training plan and count the number of 9:30 miles (there have been no sub 9:30s planned in 2013)

 

Here's the tale (all other runs were slowerer pace):

 

2 x 6  mi on March 2^nd (a Saturday as part of a 19 mile run)

 

5 on 2/27 ( a Wednesday)

 

12 scheduled on 2/9 (a Saturday)

 

So…  I had butterflies…

 

Here's a selfie I took before I donned my pack and took off

 

 

Now I have known about Jeff Galloway…  and heard folks swear by the method…  even ran a successful first 50 miler once

 

http://allaboutpace.blogspot.com/2010/02/ironhorse-race-report-like-sidecar.html

 

a couple of weeks ago I was "coaching" a couple of my friends who are looking to do some longer stuff this year..  basically encouraging them to employ this method on their long runs…  later that day I began to wonder why I had never really tried my own advice.  Last Sunday I tried the walk run… and I liked it…  more importantly my legs liked it.  So…  I'd been doing it all week…  and now on Saturday I decided to try and do it for speed

 

I'll leave out the deets on run 1 and how I missed hooking up with Judi (c'mon not like that…  we are both married) and how all heck broke loose at work and I had to talk to my boss on the phone for 5 minutes in the middle of my run…  let's just suffice it to say that I hit run 1 on pace.  J

 

Here's a quick shot I IM'ed to illustrate to my lovely wife my location….

 

 

On to the stairmill…

 

Not much to report here… another work related call…. Oh, almost forgot…  never eat these:

 

 

I must have masticated for a half hour on the stairmill…

 

Well..  the energy blast experiment and the stairmill time came to an end and the real test began…

 

To run the 9 miles home all at a 9:30 pace…  I did the walk run thing and one mile at a time I knocked that run out…  in the heat of the day no less…

 

 

On Sunday two 3 hour runs were on the agenda…  the first was slow, abbreviated (2:45), included some time with our dog Jimmy, and ugly (the run was ugly not Jimmy)…  but…  I actually felt better when I got home than I did when I left.

 

Neat trick.

 

The second run included 6 @ 9:30 pace during the middle hour…  although I didn't really think this out too well my "speedwork" ran through the Jax Beach St Paddy's Day party…  more drunks on bikes and skateboards than you could shake a stick at….  Although I didn't nail the 9:30s I was able to run a decent pace

 

So…  added all together that's 55 baby!

 

 

The weekend would not be complete until the day of suffering or "Monday" is over…  for me that means two  6 mile runs… (oh, and the aforementioned employment situation)

 

The first of which was only 5.8 miles because I got dropped by the running group at work and cut the course in order to finish when they did…

 

Lovely

 

For the last run of the weekend… I ran home from my daughter's place of employment..  I did so mainly because I was too tired and lazy to drive and pick her up from work at 8PM…

 

It looked like this:

 

 

I felt a little better… and actually enjoyed it…  although I didn't enjoy dodging 5 PM traffic on a busy thoroughfare.

 

Well that's it…  I need a nap