Countdown to Vermont

More than one month ago I promised a more complete race report for the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 shortly. Well, this has yet to happen. I am still trying to compile my thoughts (which I am loosing almost as quickly as I am gathering), but I do promise to compose a race report...at some point. The issue I am running into is that my next 100 is next Saturday (!) after which I will be expected to write a race report for that race...

Next Saturday is the running of my third straight Vermont 100. The course is beautiful and very runnable. My times on this course are around 20:20 in 2007 and 21:20 last year. Last year the weather was hot and humid and I was not in the greatest shape. This year I have addressed most of the issues I had last year and feel much stronger. My A+ goal is to break 20 hours. B goal is to PR and C goal is, as always, just to finish.

After the Massanutten 100 on May 16, my training slowed down dramatically and I went into an extended recovery. This was not out of any desire or plan of mine but rather because I just didn't want to train. My motivation and energy were rock bottom. It was only until about two weeks ago (right before heading off to California to pace Jamie in the WS 100) that I felt completely recovered. It was a remarkably abrupt change; one day it was a struggle to get out the door to run and the next I felt as strong as I had all season. I now feel ready for Vermont and I am happy for it given that it is quickly approaching.

Since Massanutten I have done a few long runs in the 2-3 hour range and this past weekend I did an early morning 4-hour run on the trails at Pineland. I would really have liked to log some more long runs but I just didn't feel like it. Forcing oneself to do too much is a sure way to end up on the bench on race day. At any rate, I feel strong and confident about my chances of PRing in Vermont.

Looking beyond Vermont, I really want to go for a third 100-miler this year. Given vacation and financial restrictions, my choices are limited to east coast races (you guys out West are wealthy with races!), including the Iroquois 100 in New York and the Grindstone 100 in Virginia. Any suggestions would be helpful, and if anyone is interested in pacing/crewing, let me know. Now I am off to work on my MMT 100 race report!

Interim Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 Race Report

My pacer, Jamie Anderson, has threatened me with bodily harm if I do not post my race report from the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 in something less than the three months it usually takes me to get these things done. So here goes...

The race was held on May 16th. I climbed a mountain and then many more that felt just like it. It was blistering hot and then chillingly cold. I went from near heat stroke to near hypothermia during the first thunderstorm of the day. I almost stepped on a rattlesnake who introduced himself with a robust rattle. I witnessed and almost touched my first whip-poor-will. And I finished in 15th place with a time of 26:29:17, right after seeing my second sunrise of the race.

I hope this will satisfy my buddy Jamie until I have the time to properly craft a race report that you, my readers, will find worth your time. Until then, keep running.

Tough time at Pineland and the Camden Hills

The antibiotic treatment I was on after Boston took its toll. It wasn't until this past weekend, almost two weeks after Boston, that I started feeling like myself again.

The Saturday following Boston was my planned long run for the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 (on for next Saturday) - the apex of my training and the doorway to taper. The day started rough as I missed my alarm and awoke an hour later to a call from Jamie wondering where I was. Dohhh. While I consoled myself with the rationale that I needed the rest to get better, I was still frustrated knowing that today's run was all or nothing. After that I was in the inner sanctum of taper and there was no violating the rest rule.

I arrived at Pineland at 20 minutes to 6 AM and headed out for a short jaunt before returning after a couple miles to join up with my buddy, Jim G. We ran for an hour and half before coming upon Jamie and his neighbor and friend, Kate. After running with them for a short bit, we arrived back at the YMCA parking lot to meet up with the rest of the Trail Monsters.

My plan all along was to start at 4 AM and run until noon, regardless of the miles I got in. I was estimating I could get in 50 miles in this time, which is typically the max distance I run in preparation for a100-miler. Well, I started shortly before 6 AM and had promised Kelly I would be done at noon, so 50 miles was not in the cards. This was all the better as I started to feel terrible around 11 AM and the last hour of the run was terribly difficult (good training for the last hour of the 100...). I did not come out of this run with any confidence. In fact, it may have even shattered any hopes I had of doing really well at Massanutten. Now, that is not to say I am not going to attempt to do well. I just know that my training did not go according to plan, starting with my failure at Boston, and continuing on to my inability to go long at Pineland the following weekend. The only solace I take is that I gave Boston my all and then five days later I was able to run 32 miles in 6 hours on very tired legs and week dose of antibiotics. That has to count for something!

The week following the Pineland "long" run found my training back to normal. I was able to run daily and hit my morning workout class for each of the three days it was offered. On Saturday I met Jim G. again out at Pineland at 6 AM and we got in a couple hours of running on the most perfectly idyllic spring morning. We got in about 13 miles at a pretty even and good pace, and I started to feel better. I had finished my antibiotics the day before and I was starting to feel like my old self again. After Kelly met me at 8 AM at Pineland for her run and to hand the kids off to me, I headed home to pack for our trip up to Camden (the pictures included in this post is from this trip).

Last week the Trail Monsters had suggested a run through the Camden Hills. I started formulating plan that would enable me to do this run, somewhat as vindication for the poor training over the prior two weeks. By Friday my plan was cemented and included Kelly and I dropping the kids off with my most gracious and helpful father-in-law, Phil, and his lovely partner, Thea (Boo Boo). After the drop off Kelly I headed up to Camden and took a room at the Camden Windward House B&B in downtown Camden (we would recommend it). We spent a great afternoon shopping around Camden (where amongst other things we found a very excellent Van Gogh action figure for Jamie's 29th birthday) and had a great dinner on the water. A bottle of wine helped us to an early retirement and an equally early placement at the breakfast table on Sunday morning.

After breakfast and finishing John Parker's legendary running novel, "Once a Runner", Kelly and I made the quarter mile trip up the Mt. Battie trailhead to meet the Trail Monsters. Joining us for the run was Jeff "Professor" Walker, Ian "Giant" Parlin, Floyd "Robot" Lavery, Jim "The Mouth" Dunn, Ryan "Sushi" Triffit, and Jamie "The Pacer" Anderson. Kelly joined a group of the ladies for a hike (she ended up doing over 7 miles through the hills, which was quite impressive). The start of the run was straight up Mt. Battie, an 600-700 foot climb in one half mile. Quickly we were sweating while our hearts cursed us for robbing it of its oxygen so quickly and without warning. Once on top of Mt. Battie, where we took in a most marvelous panoramic of Camden and Penobscot Bay, we headed down the trail where we were going to scale Mt. Megunticook. Before we made it to far, Jeff's foot caught under a root and he took a gnarly looking spill. As I was right behind him, I witnessed it in all its gruesome detail. The fall would have been minor if Jeff had not have landed with his mid-section on an erosion break of rocks. In my opinion Jeff came away from this fall very lucky. What should have been a series of broken ribs was nothing more than a little blood and some "road" rash. Lucky dude.

After Mt. Megunticook the run pretty much was just up and down with spectacular views sprinkled in. A couple hours in we all decided that to achieve our goal of 20 miles would require more time than any of us had so we decided to cut out a 2.5 mile out and back to Frohock Mountain. Well, that is except for the hard core among us..."The Mouth" and "Sushi" decided they were going the whole distance, so we separated from those animals I think on Carey Mountain (???) and headed for home, which we guessed would take us another couple hours. (the hard core among us, "Mouth" and "Sushi" ended up calling in the cavalry from Frohock Mountain and almost beat us back to the parking lot, courtesy of the shuttle van!)

The ups and downs, coupled with some harder runs the day before, started wearing on some of us. I for one was getting tired, hungry, and thirsty. On the way out the door Saturday I had grabbed the wrong camelback (an old one) so my water tasted like freezer burn (or as Floyd, "Robot", described it, "an old Swanson" dinner) which made it less than palatable. While I was feeling much better after flushing most of the antibiotics out of my system, I still was a little beat and hopefully tired from the accumulation of effort over the training season. I am hoping my renewed health and a couple weeks rest will make all okay with the world and Massanutten a success. At any rate, after four hours of being on the trails, we made it back down Mt. Battie to our cars. The tally for the day was 15.26 miles and lots of elevation gain/loss. I am expecting Massanutten to be 85 more miles of this same type of terrain. Boy am I in for a hurtin'.

Post run we all headed into town and collectively we consumed an entire cow in the form of hamburgers. Beer was had all around (well, Jim took care of most of it, leaving some for the rest of us), and many laughs shared. To me, this day was what running is all about. Meeting your running buddies, sharing some grueling moments together tackling hard terrain, pushing your limits, and sticking by friends who are hitting low spots. Following these runs is a shared disregard for swine flu while you consume ground beef laced with bacon and drink your weight in beer. These types of shared experiences are hard to come by in this lazy, anti-septic world. Long live the Trail Monsters!

Boston 2009: My Comedy of Errors

It started innocently and logically enough; I would do a double Boston on marathon day. This would serve as the defining long run for my upcoming 100-miler in Virginia (Massanutten Mountain Trails) and save me the time I would otherwise spend on the bus ride out to Hopkinton. Also, as a family guy, I am always looking for ways to reduce the time lost with the family. This was an ideal plan and met that criteria. Little did I know of the trouble and heartache this simple plan would cause me.

On Easter Sunday I came down with cold. I was jubilant. This was perfect timing, as it gave me a full week to get rid of the virus and render myself theoretically bullet proof to another virus before the big show on May 16th in VA. Theory does not always pan out. Five days later on the Friday before the race I was actually feeling worse. And to add insult to injury, my wife, Kelly, now had my cold. This consisted of a sore throat (persistent and nasty), headaches, stuffiness, and aches and chills. Our plan was to head down to Boston Saturday, spend a couple days tripping around Boston, and enjoy the pool at the hotel. Well, to add another insult to the injury, my daughter, Riley, seemed to have other ideas Friday night as she started vomitting when I was headed to bed. As of Saturday morning, it looked like the trip was over.

As noon time rolled around and everyone was up and about, we decided to give it a go. As we are a family that shares everything, Kelly and I were sure one of us would get the stomach bug. As luck would have it, we avoided this (at least we have to this point). But better to try and maybe succeed than to doom ourselves to immediate failure by staying home. Once in Boston we hit the expo, did our part to support the profit/loss statement of Adidas, had dinner and were back in the hotel by sunset. As we were all dragging to this point, we hit the sack early.

On Sunday, we took the kids to the Boston Children's Museum (two and a half thumbs up) and did the usual of walking way too much on the day before a race. (In theory, if one was to add up the miles we walked in Boston the weekend before the race, this effort combined with the marathon would probably qualify me for an honorary double Boston.) By Sunday night I was a mess. The cold seemed to have intensified, I was exhausted, and totally stressed out about the run I had committed myself to the next day. It is one thing to run a casual trail run over 50 miles. There are usually no timelines, no directions to worry over, and no roads. In this case I was supposed to run 2.5 miles to the start from my hotel, run 26.2 miles of asphalt, and make sure I did not get off course while ensuring I made it to the start on time for the wave 1 start at 10 AM. I admit in retrospect none of this seems like that difficult of a task, but having carried a cold for the week while thinking through all this had worked me into quite a state.

Kelly had been trying to talk me down from the ledge for a few days before the stunt. I had brushed her suggestions off because I have never bagged a run or race (except Ironman Wisconsin which was held the same week as my son was born and I wasn't allowed to leave home). If I said I was going to do something I did it. Until Monday morning I was still holding out hope that the symptoms would abate and the cold would flee. No such luck.

I awoke Monday morning, race day, at 4 AM and got dressed for a long run. Shortly after waking I received a text from a running buddy, James, who was supposed to meet me on Boylston and join me until Natick. James had been running since midnight with John O'Connor, who was running a quadruple Boston (that's right, four Bostons, or 104.8 miles). The plan was to meet James and Jamie at the start line for company on my way out to Hopkinton. The text read that James had gotten cold waiting and had started the return trip slowly, with the intent of me to catch him. This was the first straw to killing the run. I still headed out to run but had started doubting my ability to complete a return trip given the way I felt. It was then that I received a call from Jamie. He had bailed due to a flare up of plantar fasciitis. This was the second straw. The instructions were written in the heavens: go back to bed, rest, and get healthy. This fool's quest is done. So I obeyed.

I hit the sack at quarter to five for a couple more hours of rest. At that point my teeth and jaw started aching, so much that I couldn't sleep. Not even a bunch of Motrin hid the pain. This was the first sing of the sinus infection settling into place, but I did not know it at this point. Instead, I ignored it. I am lucky enough to have a very supportive wive who loves running as much as I do and who knows how special Hopkinton is on Patriot's Day each year. She and the kids drove me out to the start and hung around until the gun went off at 10 AM.

As with all Boston starts, the first few miles are crazy fast. The course is famously downhill (severely at this point) and the energy that has built up in the corrals needs somewhere to go. My splits for the first 10 miles were roughly 7:10 on average. I felt great. Maybe I was operating on muscle memory and a lot of adrenaline. This is my usual marathon pace and in the beginning I thought "since I am out here, I might as well see what I can do". And then the wheels came off.

A bright point in the race came around mile 10 in Natick when I saw Jamie, James, Ian, and Carter, all fellow Trail Monsters who had come out to help John achieve his quadruple Boston. It was after this that things went south. The first sign that something wasn't quite right was that I kept having to clear my throat. This was due to the post-nasal drip and other "junk" in my upper respiratory. The second issue was the aching in my jaws and teeth had returned. The pace from miles 10-20 slipped a bit to around 7:35. I did go through the half at 1:36, and while not near my best, this is a competent half split for a marathon, for me at least. This pace put me on a qualifying time (3:15 for my age) with time to spare at the end for a beer outside Fenway. By the time I got to Fenway I felt awful and the only beer I got was the one that the crazy dude next to me spilled on me as he smashed a beer can on his forehead.

The walking reprieves began on top of Heartbreak Hill in Newton. I got a nasty stitch in my stomach that was digging in deep up the hill, so I had to slow to try and get rid of it. I walked for about 30 seconds while kneading my side and this helped a ton. I started running again, all the while searching out the statue of Johnny Kelly. I have now run Boston three times and not one time have I seen this damn statue. That streak continues. Despite feeling terrible, I was more pissed of being robbed of a view of this thing again. Maybe next time. The pace at mile 21 was the slowest of the day at 10:04, aided by the hills and walking break. The final five miles were split between walking and running and netted an average pace of roughly 8:45s. To the credit of Boston sports fans, they were very supportive and helpful. Not once was a barb thrown my way for walking, only words of encouragement. I fell in love with Boston again at that point.

The final stretch of the race is down Boylston, and while I have not participated in many grand moments in sporting history, I would have to say that this finish has to be near the top of the most dramatic conclusions available to the average marathoner. The roar of the crowd is deafening and there is so much energy as to make it feel alive and available for all the runners to harness for an almost out-of-body finish. No matter how tired you are as you turn the corner from Hereford Street onto Boylston, the finish feels like that first sprint down the Hopkinton hills. My finish time of 3:29 (average pace of 7:56) qualified this race as my worse ever Boston and worse ever marathon (excluding those that I have done to pace others or with a group). But that did not make it any less meaningful. Boston is special, no matter how fast or slow you run it.

The funny thing with bagging this race is that it seemed that my intent to run a double Boston had captured the imagination of a ton of people. My email and voicemail contained comments from friends and families about how they couldn't believe I had done two Bostons, and run the return trip to Boston so quickly given the fact that I had already run the course once. I received a call from the Portland Press Herald's running columnist, John Rolfe, asking to talk to me about the "crazy thing" I did in Boston. At work an email was sent around to myriad people before I returned announcing my feat and congratulating me. I was now left with the very unenviable position of deflating all these peoples' thrill with what I had (not) done. Even today I had to correct a bunch of people and notify them that I bailed on my double. The interesting thing is that no one has ever been that excited about the 100-milers that I have done. No one gets running 100 miles through the mountains or woods. They don't get the perspective of it. What they do understand is how "big" of a race the Boston Marathon is and to do it twice is "incredible". I can assure them that running the equivalent of four of them in the mountains while covering 20,000 feet of elevation gain/loss is a much tougher.

So on the drive home from Boston I still had not put two and two together that I had a nasty sinus infection. All I knew was that my jaw and teeth ached. I was hurting so much that I was unable to eat dinner on the ride home. I literally called my dentist and scheduled an emergency appointment for him to check my teeth. It wasn't until we were nearly home that Kelly suggested my problem might be my sinuses. As a guy who has been fortunate enough to avoid serious colds and illnesses for a very long time (yeah, except cancer), I haven't dealt with an infection or cold like this for a very long time so I had no idea what the symptoms are. As a test, I doped myself up on sinus medicine and loads of Motrin and felt relief a bit later. The rest is history and antibiotics. While I am still dealing with some pressure, I am starting to feel better. Two and a half weeks to Massanutten so I am hopeful I will be 100% by then.

On a final note, I want to salute and applaud John O'Connor for his courageous accomplishment and for his selfless effort on behalf of the Wounded Warrior Project. Four Bostons is amazing and awe worthy. If you would like to donate to John's chosen cause, it isn't too late. Use the links above.

Long Hiatus Redux...Double Boston...About One Month

After this past weekend's run of just under 20 miles I was humbled. I had just run a little shy of three hours and I was wiped. In five weeks I will be racing my first 100-miler of the year, and here I was whipped by less than 20 miles. Of course I talked myself down from the ledge with all sorts of excuses for the tough run...sleet and snow in April is not motivating, lack of sleep, beginning of a cold, no food or coffee before the run nor any during...but I was still humbled.

This coming Monday I will attempt my first double Boston. It isn't a quadruple Boston like my acquaintance John O'Connor is running to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project (you can read about him at his blog, http://www.johnrunslong.com/cblog/), but is still a long run on pavement. I am dreading it a bit, but it will enable me to get in a long training run with little impact to family time (if not running to the start, I would have to leave Boston a few hours before the race anyhow to get to the start). I will post more about my run afterwards. If you want to follow my progress during the run, text message "RUNNER" to number 41234, and once you receive a reply text requesting the runner's bib number, enter 6425. This will let you get updates of my progress at the 10K, Half, 30k, and Finish.

While I am somewhat dreading this paved run, I am looking forward to being joined by my buddy Jamie (www.mainerunner.blogspot.com). Speaking of Jamie, I just booked my flight to California to join Jamie as his pacer at the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run, to be held smoke free this year at the end of June.

So while I have not posted in awhile, I have been running and living life. I got another tattoo (really enhanced the Tree of Life tattoo on my left arm), celebrated my 35th birthday, watched my kids grow even more and do many more amazing things, and celebrated my 10th Wedding Anniversary. I also got in some great runs, including the Trail Monster Fat Ass 50K at Bradbury Mountain State Park a few weeks ago. The course consisted of 8 loops of 4 miles (the last loop was shortened to get to 5oK) around Bradbury Mountain. The course was very hilly, the trails were wet, snowy, icy, muddy, and generally nasty. As a point of reference as to how slow the trails were, I have averaged roughly a 4 hour, 10 Minute 50K at Pineland during the race there each May. The Fat Ass at Bradbury took me 7 hours...

So, I am now at four and a half weeks to the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 Miler. While I am nervous and doubting my training every now and then (as I am oft to do), I am looking forward to getting back home to VA where my soul is strongest and spend a long day and night in the place which I feel is in my DNA. It's gonna be fun!

Big two weeks

Starting Tuesday, Feb 17, I ran 13 straight days and accumulated 120 miles. The week before last my weekly mileage was 67 miles, the most weekly miles I have run since last summer. This is actually the most miles I think I have ever run in a winter week. For me, my weekly threshold is in the 70-80 mile range. With the stress of work and the care of two high energy toddlers (not to mention not enough sleep), my body just can not handle much more. All this is put into perspective when i consider that in just less than 12 weeks, I will run over 80% of my recent 13 day total mileage, non-stop in a bit over 24 hours. All this in mountainous terrain in the blue ridge mountains of VA.

Now if I really want to get technical and all inclusive, I need to consider the impact of the 3x a week workout classes I am doing into my run total. I am now spending 45 minutes, three times a week in the gym doing a combination of plyometrics, core, and weight training, which I have not done in any of my past running seasons. So I could convert the time I spend in the gym to miles I could have run during that time, and add them to an adjusted, or "fully weighted", mileage total, because those 2 hours and 15 minutes I spend in the gym do weigh on my running heavily, forcing my legs (and body and mind) to run more tired than I otherwise would if I wasn't going to the gym. So to put this theory into numbers, last week I ran 67 miles. My fully weighted mileage last week, assuming I would have run five miles in the 45 minutes I spent in the gym (this is conservative, since my typical training road pace is 7:15-7:30), was 82 miles. While this is all fun with numbers, I am definitely doing more than I did last year and my training is more effective than a couple years ago when I was training for my first 100 miler, so I am going to throw out there the statement that I should do really well this year racing. While I can guarantee that I will not break any course records or win any races, I would bet that I will be happier on my long runs and feel stronger from start to finish. That's the real point of all this, isn't it? Winning doesn't account for much in my mind (and not because I am not fast enough to do it). It's the trying and doing that matters.

Last week I was in a training down cycle (for recovery) and will start ramping the miles back up this week. This cycle of training will culminate with another Fat Ass 50K at Bradbury on Saturday, March 28. after that will be a slight taper for the Boston (double) marathon, where I am still planning on running from Boston to Hopkinton for the start of the official marathon, and running back into town for the official finish.

Trail Monster Fat Ass 50K, sort of

Yesterday morning I joined fellow Trail Monsters in Freeport for a Fat Ass 50K around Hedgehog Mountain. While I did run 50K+, I did not do it all with at the Fat Ass "fun run". I decided to get part of my run in during my "commute" from Cumberland to Freeport.

I left home at just after 6 AM in a very light drizzle which quickly changed to sleet and then snow. The temps were very pleasant at around 33 F but there was a headwind that stayed with me the entire run. Other than a couple bio breaks, the run went well. I followed the same route to Freeport that I have taken on all my past runs to Freeport: Rte 9 through Cumberland Center to Rte 115 into Yarmouth across Bridge Street to East Main Street to Old County Road to Webster Road and then Desert Road. Instead of turning right on Desert like I do when running to work, this time I hung a left and then the first right onto Merrill to Katy and Chuck's house, who hosted the run.

I arrived just as everyone was suiting up to head out, having already amassed 13.5 miles. The crowd was impressive, more than I expected. It was nice to see some running friends I had not seen for awhile. The course planned for the run had been adjusted from the original 7.8 mile loop due to the warm weather and rain that had visited the day before. The new loop was an almost exact 5 mile loop from Chuck's house out to Hedgehog Mountain, up the mountain, and back the same way we went out.

The group stayed pretty tight during the first loop with very little drama. Once on top of Hedgehog, we paused to take in the the beautiful day from the high vantage point. On the way back, the fun started. There is a field we crossed twice on each loop, once out and once back, that contained a number of tricky spots. First, there were a couple low spots where post holing was nearly impossible to avoid with cold water at the bottom. I deposited my feet in them on the way out, which provided a very frigid wake-up call to my feet. On the way back the group left the main snowmobile route in search of a better way across the field. This search was unsuccessful in every way, leaving the group strung out across the field post holing everywhere. The going was slow (and bloody) for some, but soon enough we were back on the main trail and did not make the mistake again.

Once back at Chuck's house everyone went about refueling and addressing other needs. The first loop and each subsequent loop was taking about an hour. Considering the mashed potato consistency of the snow, this was good going. After a brownie, half a boston creme pie donut and some caffeinated high fructose corn syrup, I was on lap 2. I spent a good part of the day running with my buddy Jamie, who has been suffering from some plantar fasciitis issues. Fortunately, it seems that he is becoming a success story of active release therapy and stretching. He is a source of great inspiration for me, and I am thrilled to see him improving. It is my opinion that he should vanquish from his mind any fear of not running the Western States 100 this year. He is all but there now.

Lap 2 and 3 went by pretty quickly and by the time I knew it I had logged 31.4 miles in just over 5 hours. I felt great this morning and knocked out 10 miles this evening on the treadmill. I think my body is coming around to the long stuff. Bring on the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100!

A final note on yesterday's run. I want to send a big thanks to Chuck and Katy, and Katy's mom, for the great hospitality. The food was plentiful and yummy. Big shouts out to Alan, Emma, Ian, and Floyd for running all six loops (5oK). Great job to Mindy for achieving her longest post-injury run. And two high fives to my boy Jamie. Great run to Danielle and Ryan, Jim "PBR" Dunn, Blaine, and everyone else. Spring running is almost upon us!