Yes, I'm Still Alive

I received an email a few weeks ago from somebody who came across my blog, and at that point I realized I haven't updated it in a while. If you're going to have a blog you might as well keep it up in the event somebody actually finds something you write interesting, or at the least readable....

The second half of the year has been pretty low-key for me. No huge races, just a few smaller ones here and there. I've mainly been focusing on just accumulating steady and consistent mileage while trying to work out a few minor health things; first, taking care of the iron deficiency/anemia I found out about earlier, and more recently some sinus and respiratory stuff. Again, nothing major but rather more inconvenient, although it does really suck when you're racing and all of a sudden you can't breathe momentarily.

As far as races, I've been just having fun and varying things around a lot. I did a mountain race up the slopes of Mt. Hood, a trail half marathon in Bend, a road half marathon in Bellingham, and a spur of the moment 10k in Kirkland. Both of the races in Oregon I did unremarkable in. I was 7th at the Mt. Hood race, and I think 27th at the Bend race; I honestly didn't bother looking. I started out too fast and just blew up after the first couple of miles, and jogged it in. Although the race was a bust, I have to say Bend is one of the coolest towns I've been to, and the first place I've ever thought I could live in besides the Seattle area. I also got the chance to met and talk with Max King at the race. Max is one of the runners I admire the most because of his remarkable range in racing, and the fact that he's an internationally competitive runner while still working as a research scientist, coaching, and spending time with his wife and child.

Since both Oregon races were kind of disappointing, I decided to run the Bellingham Bay Half Marathon to have some fun and see if I could work out some bugs. It turned out to be a good decision, because even though I had to slow down for a few miles due to a cramp I was able to pull it back together and climb back up from around 10th place to 3rd. The time wasn't the greatest but given the race didn't go so well I'll take it.

In October I found out Bill Rodgers was doing a book signing at the Seattle Running Company, and couldn't pass up the chance to met him in person. Shannon and I drove there early, expecting there to be a long line but were amazed that only a few other people were at the store. Bill was incredibly friendly and tried talking me into running the Pace Race 10k with him the next day. At first I wasn't planning to do it, but when I woke up on Sunday morning I thought "How often do you get a chance to run with Bill Rodgers?".

I drove to the start of the race and paid my entry fee, then lined up at the back of the pack with Bill. I didn't bother warming up since I figured he would be running probably around 8 minute pace or so. Well, I was wrong...Bill was taking it easy and we started out around 9-10 minute pace, and it felt really awkward to be running that slow. After about a half mile I decided I would just go on ahead and see how many people I could catch without pushing too hard, and started to run a little faster. Since I had started at the back of the pack, I passed a lot of people at first, then slowly started to pass some of the faster runners a couple at a time. By the end, I had run a very comfortable 38:something for 3rd place, without really trying. It was an absolute blast to just run for fun without any stress or thinking about results, and to place was icing on the cake. I even won some free stuff from Brooks. After the race I ran another 8 miles to make it my long run for the week and it started raining really hard...I guess it can't always go your way!

Right now I'm just running easy mileage, building a base for next year. My first tempo run is actually this Saturday, as long as my ankle feels okay. Oh yeah, I should probably explain that; last week I was running a workout at Woodland Park with Uli, and on the 2nd or 3rd repeat I stepped in a hole covered with leaves and rolled my ankle. It's been tender since then, especially anytime I try to push off with any force or on hills (especially downhill), but it is getting better. I tried to run the Community 4k at the PNTF cross-country meet on Sunday at the same park, but after the first kilometer it just hurt too much and I jogged the rest, getting handily beaten by Mr. John Berta (John, our record now is 3-2, your lead).

So, what's next? If things go okay I'll be running a 10k in Kent in December (if the Green River doesn't flood...racing in waders is overrated), and then the Bridle Trails 10 miler in January again. After that, I'm hoping to be at Way Too Cool in March, but that all depends if I make it in when the registration opens in December...last year it filled in 8 minutes. Hopefully I can type fast enough to make it!

My Favorite Shoes....

Run Well Trisha!

My coach and great friend Trisha Steidl is traveling today to Connecticut to run in the Hartford Marathon on Saturday. While the course isn't pancake flat, according the elevation profile it is relatively flat, so it should be a fast course. I have a lot of faith that she will return home with a new marathon PR. And Trisha, I'll end this with a quote from Christopher Kosgei; "Believe you can do it". Run well!

 Trisha after winning the 2007 Seattle Marathon in 2:59:20

Rest, Rebuild, and Repeat

Now that I've finished racing for the year, it's time to rest for a few weeks and then starting building a base for the next event, which will most likely the Bridle Trails Running Festival in January. For rest, I'll take a couple of weeks of easy, lower mileage, and then just gradually work my way up. While base building can be fun because you don't really have to worry about what you run (like making sure to take today easy because you have a workout the next day) and can do whateer you want, I actually miss running workouts. I've ever momentarily day-dreamed about sneaking in some workouts for fun, but then I remember the important thing now is to let my body recover and to become aerobically strong so I can support that hard running when it really becomes time.

Not that this is really interesting, but below is what I ran for my first "recovery" week. It's always interesting to take a couple days off, because you're both glad to have the time off but miss running at the same time.

Monday: 2 miles easy (just a "shake-out" to loosen up) in 15:00
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: 6 miles easy with Trisha and Amber in 45:57
Friday: 10.7 miles easy in 1:16:50
Saturday: 12.3 miles easy  (first 8 with Trisha & Uli, last 4.3 w/Uli) in 1:30:44
Sunday: 12 miles easy at Cougar Mountain w/Seattle University team in 1:41:09

Escape from Bellingham Bay

On Sunday I ran the Bellingham Bay half marathon, my consolation prize to myself for screwing up at the National Trail Championships in Bend two weeks ago. Having two terrible races in a row where I just didn't feel the competive spirit that had always been there inside me was not how I wanted to end the year. I decided to run Bellingham and not worry about time since the last two races that I ran poorly in I was completely focused on time. Instead, I planned on just running for place and following what the group did, rather than try to just hammer from wire to wire.


In the end, I got third place overall with a rather slow time of 1:19:xx (don't remember the seconds). I was happy to get top three, but not entirely thrilled with how slow we ran. The lead group started off at 6 minute pace so I decided to just sit back with them and worry about it later. However, around mile 5 or 6 I got a really bad side ache that forced me to slow down quite a bit, dropping a couple of 6:30+ miles. Why'd I get the cramp? Most likely because I was dehydrated; I wasn't feeling well before the race, and threw up at a rest stop outside Bellingham. Even though I felt lousy, I forced myself to eat a Clif bar and drink some water after leaving the rest stop, only to throw everything back up again right before my warm-up. Anyways, back to the race; it was frustrating to see the lead group of 4 that I was in pull away, and even more so to start getting passed. By the time I worked through the cramp, I had fallen back to 9th.


Now this is what I'm actually most happy about; if this was the last two races I'd been in, I would've just thought "the heck with it" and just coasted in the rest. But on Sunday the competitive fire I'd been lacking since Capitol Peaks returned, and I wouldn't let myself give up. I focused solely on the person in front of me, and made sure to patiently reel them in. Once I passed them I set my eyes on the next person, and did the same thing. I passed the guy in 3rd place around mile 11 as we climbed up from the pier onto 10th Street. I felt great now and actually remember thinking "wish I had signed up for the full". After passing the guy in 3rd, I could see the 2nd place runner (Mr. Red Shorts, I called him) about 400 meters, maybe a little more, in front of me. I figured there was no chance I would have time to catch him, but slowly I noticed myself getting closer and closer; he was running about the same pace as me on the flat sections but he was slower on the hills.


In the end I ran out of road before I could catch Mr. Red Shorts, and he beat me by 16 seconds. The guy who won ran a 1:16:xx, apparently making a break from the group when I was struggling with my side ache and nobody thought he was going to keep it up. It was a fun race, beautiful weather, nice (hilly) course, and I'm glad I'm feeling the competitive spirit again. It'd been way too long. And while I didn't run close to my full potential I'm still okay with how it turned out; I just would've been a bit happier running around 1:15.


So what's next? I'm not entirely sure. I'm going to run easy for a few weeks, than start building a base for next year. While I know I want to run the Way Too Cool 50k in March, I don't know what (if anything) I will do inbetween then. I'm thinking I might return to the Bridle Trails Running Festival to take a shot at a couple of goals I have there; either running the 10.4 miler in under an hour since nobody has done that yet, or taking a swing at Greg Crowther's 50k course record. Greg's CR is a pretty solid 3:19:40, and while I think that's possible it would depend a great deal on the weather and condition of the course, since Bridle Trails gets extremely muddy. Who knows, maybe I can talk Uli into running it again and I can chase him around.

Ready to Race

In just a few days I'll be heading down to for the Trail Half Marathon National Championships in Bend, Oregon. I've had a big change of heart since my last post; I'm ready to go! The last several weeks of training have been going much better for me, and I've been nailing workouts. As I type this I'm overflowing with energy and am so antsy to get out there and race; you know, the typical feeling most people get as they're tapering and race day draws nearer. That feeling was something I didn't get for my last race (the Great NW Mountain Race at Mt. Hood); the excitement just wasn't there. However, that's not the case this time; I'm having a hard time keeping myself from running down the hallway screaming.

So on Sunday when the gun goes off, I'm going to run my ass off. I don't really know what to expect in terms of placement or times; I'm just going to run as fast as I can and try to have an awesome race. I'm going to push myself, because that's what I really want to feel. It's going to be hard, but I'm in the mood to kick some ass.

To make things even awesomer (yes, I know that's not actually a word), I just found out that our hotel is basically across the parking lot from the start and finish of the race. I'll be able to basically just roll out of bed, go for a warm-up run, and don't have to worry about anything else.

On another note, Uli just got back from Europe, where he was running in the 2009 World Mountain Running Championships. He finished a highly respectable 54th out of about 150 finishers, with a time of 1:02:34. Full results can be found at http://www.wmrc2009.org/results/File_Iaaf_SM.pdf.


Also, the Seattle University Alumni Dual that I'm managing went off without a hitch. The weather cleared up just in time for the race, and the men responded by setting a new course record. The women's team also did really well and put in some solid performances. It's going to be a good year for SU cross country! More details can be found here. Next up is the "West Coast Preview" at Pier Park in Portland, which is actually being held tomorrow. I'll end this post with the cool team photo this nice guy on top of Sun Top took for us during the SU cross country camp at Crystal Mountain, complete with an epic cloudy backdrop.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Sorry I haven't been updating more frequently; I've just been really busy as of lately. I've been busy at work, with running, and with some extracurricular activities I've undertaken. I'll skip over the topic of work (because that's boring) and talk about some of the other things that have been going on.

Running: After the tune-up race down at Mt. Hood, I've just been continuing to train for my next race, the Trail Half Marathon National Championships (or something like that, I can never get the moniker in the right order) on September 13th in Bend, Oregon. That's only two weeks away, so basically most of the hay is already in the barn and right now I'm just maintaining until then. I'm going to be completely honest and admit I'm not sure how confident I am of how I'm going to run. I just feel like my training hasn't been going as smoothly as it did at the beginning of the year for Chuckanut and Capitol Peak. I've had a lot of issues that have accumulated; dealing with anemia, the heat of the summer, and some cramping issues during workouts. I'm hoping to not completely bomb the half marathon like I did at Mt. Hood, and then start to rebuild for next year.

The week after the Mt. Hood race, I spent three days in a lodge at Crystal Mountain with the Seattle University Cross Country team. All we did over those three days was run, eat, sleep, and relax. I got in some really good runs, both in terms of training effect and scenery. The first day we climbed up past the Crystal Lakes to the Pacific Crest Trail, where we continued along the PCT for a while before dropping back down to the lodge. It was about 12 miles with a good-sized climb from the start, with a lot of running above 6000 feet.

The second day's run was supposed to be easier; just an out and back on the 6 mile Skookum Flats trail. Things started out well enough, but about 20 minutes into the run we were attacked by wasps, who followed us the rest of the way to Buck Creek, turning our easy run into a fartlek. We'd just be running along until one of the invisible assailants would sting someone; their exclaimation of pain would signal the start of the fartlek as everyone would suddenly start running hard to escape. When we reached Buck Creek, we were hesitant to start back to the vans because we had to run back through the war zone again. We decided it was worse anticipating it, so just started on our way back. In the end I only got stung twice; once in each calf muscle. One of the girls supposedly received seven stings, so I consider myself lucky. We decided to rename Skookum Flats to "Sting 'um Flats".

On the third and final day, we drove up to Sunrise at Mount Rainier for our last run of camp. I ran a sixteen-ish miler with Uli up and over the ridgeline, dropping down to Granite River, before continuing on towards Mystic Lake and turning around. We got in a little over 4300 feet of climbing and a lot of running above 6000 feet again, on a pretty hot day. I drained my lone water bottle pretty quickly, so I refilled at one of the streams on the climb back up from the river. In hindsight though, I wish I would've taken more than one gel for a decently long run because I bonked pretty hard towards the end. I couldn't believe the scenery on this run; simply amazing. I really hope I can come back out here for some more runs soon.

Besides running, I've been busy working on the two meets I'm managing this fall for Seattle University; the Alumni Dual and the Emerald City Open. The Alumni Dual is the team's time trial for the cross country season, being held this Saturday at Green Lake. The current team members will also be facing off against some of the SU Track & Field and Cross Country alumni. The Emerald City Open, on October 4th, is Seattle University's home cross country meet at Lower Woodland Park in Seattle. I've just been occupied making arrangements for both events and coordinating with the other people involved. I'm also hoping to develop a system for organizing these types of events for next year, so that anyone can more easily do so and know what resources they have available and what processes to follow.

So, in a nutshell, that's what has been going on with me!