Running Free

Pitching a Tent for Running

2011-11-29T09:43:00.000-08:00

As I write this, I am sitting inside of a tent with my two dogs. We're not huddled beneath some mossy old-growth forest nor situated on a snowy slope in the Cascades: instead, we're in the living room of our home. Why, you ask, have I pitched a tent in my living room? Well, despite the fact that doing anything in a tent makes it funner (sort of like adding bacon to any dish makes it better) I actually have a practical reason. In a few weeks my wife, dogs, and I will be camping out at Deception Pass State Park. Setting up our tent ahead of time is a little preparation ritual I like to do in order to make all the bits and pieces are in order: the last thing you want to do is get to your campsite and realize you left the rainfly at home.

We will be camping at Deception Pass because I'm partaking in Jame Varner's Deception Pass 50k/25k race on December 10th: I'll be running the 25k. I must admit this race is not one I had originally planned to run but James kindly offered me free entry because he had to cancel his race in Cle Elum earlier in the year (due to flooding) for which I had already registered. I'm looking forward to Deception Pass: I'm fat and out of shape so why wouldn't I? Joking aside, like most Rainshadow Running events the scenery looks to be quite beautiful. I plan to just run for fun and take in as much scenery as possible, something I unfortunately miss out on quite a bit when I run races competitively. Who knows, maybe the venerable Glenn Tachiyama will make an appearance and I'll get a photo that's Christmas-card worthy.

You may have noticed that I snuck in a quick self-deprecating dig at my current level of fitness. I've going to violate the "invincible tough-guy athlete" code and admit my efforts at training have been less than stellar over the last couple of months since I got second place at the Mount Robson Trail Marathon in September. It's not from lack of desire but instead from lack of sleep. I believe you need to do three things well in training (I call them the 3 R's): Run, Refuel, Rest. Unfortunately, this quarter of school has been very time-consuming for me and I find myself often burning the candle at both ends. It's not uncommon for me to work on homework until almost midnight and then have to get up for work at 4:30 in the morning. When I am able to find time to run, I'm often too tired to make it out the door. The fatigue also affects the "Refuel" aspect as well: it's harder to make good food choices when you just want to eat something quick before you pass out. These two factors have had a pretty negative impact on running: I've gone from running a consistent average of 75-85 miles a week to running about 25-30 miles a week (usually only running four days a week instead of seven).

Luckily, the school quarter is almost over. I have only three more weeks before winter break. My goal is to just make it through the Deception Pass 25k without requiring a piggy-back ride and the final weeks of school before using winter break to regroup. I'll try to rest up, get my habits back under control, and then figure out what's next. Fortunately for me, winter is my favorite season so my motivation is still pretty high despite all the set-backs. To me, there's nothing cooler than running through the forest when everything is covered in a fresh blanket of white snow and everything is so completely still and silent, the only sound your feet going crunch, crunch, crunch on the snow. In fact, I think I'll go find some right now....

Preliminary Angel's Staircase "50K" Report

2011-08-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to write up a good race report for the Angel's Staircase 50K race I just ran on August 13th but I'm a little busy with school right now so this will be just a quick excerpt; I hope to get to the full report this weekend.

First off, you may be wondering why I jokingly put the 50K in quotations; it's because it turns out the race was a little longer than 31 miles (34.2 according to the map), but what's a few extra miles among beautiful scenery? The Methow and the Sawtooths certainly are beautiful; the only place I've been that I think was more scenic is the Mount Rainier area, and maybe parts of the mountains outside Cle Elum. There's a lot of vertical to be had in the Sawtooths too- a little over 9000 feet of vertical gain for the 50K. With that much climbing and the additional 3 miles added on, I planned the race would take about 6 hours.

Everything was going well heading into the race; my training had been good and I had reached a level of fitness I was happy with given the amount of time I had to train. Unfortunately, the night before the race I started to feel unwell, and didn't get a wink of sleep from when I went to bed at 8pm to when the alarm went off at 3am. As you can imagine, I was quite tired but was determined to make the best effort I could. After arriving at the trailhead I went for a quick warm-up run and the feelings of unwellness increased; I promptly threw up my breakfast (all those precious calories!) and my stomach started to cramp. As the race started, I just tried to manage as best I could but unfortunately I dealt with terrible stomach cramps, vomitting, and frequent bathroom breaks behind the trees for the first 4 hours of the race. I faded to 6th place and was running the same pace I'd run for easy runs because that was all I could. Luckily around the 4 hour mark I started to feel better and started to race. I was able to catch up and pass several runners, ending up in 2nd place with a time of 5:42:18. When life gives you lemons....

Please stay tuned for a full report with a lot more details, times, and a few pictures taken by the amazing Glenn Tachiyama. See you on the trails!

Solid Workout at the Soaring Eagle 10 Miler

2011-07-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

It’s exciting when a race happens to occur on the same day I have a workout scheduled because it gives me an opportunity to get my workout in while having some fun at the same time. I also feel that running a race as a workout is a good way to practice controlling your emotions for when it comes down to the real racing; learning how to avoid getting caught up in the maniacal dash at the start, running controlled and even, and staying focuses on your pacing. For the past several Thursday I’d been running Mount Si as a tempo workout but on Tuesday I injured my foot at work and decided to run something with a lot less vertical to prevent any more harm (my foot is fine now, by the way). Thus when I saw that Evergreen Trail Runs was having a 10 mile race at Soaring Eagle Park in Sammamish on June 21st, my interest was peaked because it would fulfill a training goal and allow me to rest my foot.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from myself at the race for a number of reasons; first and foremost I’d never been to Soaring Eagle Park so I had really no clue what the park was like. Second, I’d be running the race in the middle of an 83 mile week (including having already run a 15.3 mile tempo that Monday). Lastly, I wasn’t entirely sure how my foot would feel; it had felt fine on Wednesday when I ran a few easy miles but running easy and running hard are two different things.

Anyways, in the afternoon I took a break from my homework and Shannon and I drove out to Soaring Eagle Park. Before I started warming up we took a quick walk down the Pipeline Trail and came across a bobcat that just sauntered casually down the trail about 50 feet away; that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a bobcat. Now getting back to running, I felt a little tight in the warm-up but once I shed the extra layers of clothing I was wearing I felt better. The race director Roger gave a short speech about the trail markings, and then we lined up for the start. I took a spot a row back from the front because I had no intention of killing my workout early by starting out too hard. Three, two, one…and we’re off. A couple runners quickly sprinted ahead as if we were running the 800 and I just let them go because I know they’d be coming back shortly. Sure enough two of them faded within about a minute and I found myself in second already. I just maintained my pace and slowly the runner ahead of me started coming back. I didn’t want to get stuck behind him once we turned off the wider Pipeline Trail onto the single track and fortunately I passed him right before we turned onto the narrow and windy trails (at .86 of a mile into the race, according the map).

At this point I found myself ahead of everyone else and still within the effort level I wanted to stay at to keep the race at the appropriate pace for a tempo run. Within 30 seconds of turning onto the single track I was all alone and it’s not even a mile into the race yet. From this point on I didn’t see another runner until the out-and-back section that’s around 7-8 miles. I passed through the aid station at mile 4 at a little over 25 minutes and just kept focusing on my effort level (and staying on course- Soaring Eagle Park is a spider web of trails). I re-entered the Pipeline Trail in 1:00:07 and ran the last .86 of a mile in 4:47 to finish first in 1:04:56, taking ten minutes off the old course record. After the race I went for a short cool-down to make it 15 miles for the day and then it was off to home for dinner, some more homework, and bed.

All in all, it was a good workout and a fun race. I was able to accomplish my goals for the day and that’s always a positive thing. Going into Angel’s Staircase I’m happy with where I’m at training-wise given the amount of time I’ve had. I still feel like I’m missing some leg turn-over but I know that it will come back once I have time to train more. When I have a workout or race (whether it’s good or bad), I always think afterwards about what I can do to improve even more. It’s this curiosity in our limits and our desire to keep getting better that I think drives all runners, and that’s what I think is so beautiful about running. See you on the trail!

Update from Base Camp

2011-07-15T20:56:00.000-07:00

I’d like to start by asking you to excuse my absenteeism from writing new posts for this blog; it certainly hasn’t been my intent to go this long between posting. I’ve simply been way too busy to find the time due to training, my school schedule, and work, but I have been brainstorming several ideas for new posts over the last several weeks that I’m hoping to write up in the near future. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming:

A Scientific Approach to Nutrition
Mo Farah: An Inspiration to Dedication
The Emergence of Galen Rupp on the International Scene
Ode to a Clif Bar – an original poem
A Look at my New Training Principles
Gender in the Sport of Running

As you can see I have plenty of ideas that I promise will come to fruition in the form of literature on this blog, so please stay tuned!

I’ll also be giving a more detailed update on how my training has been going. As far right now I’ll just quickly say that things have been going well and my fitness is progressing in the right direction. This week I’ll be hitting 75 for the week for the first time since I started training again so in terms of volume I’m close to were I was before I took my mini-sabbatical; however I have to be realistic and realize there’s still a difference between one or two weeks at 75mpw and months of running 75-85mpw. Even though I’ve had limited time to build volume, I have been able to get in some good quality work in the form of 10-13 mile tempo runs, tempos up Mount Si, and some decent long runs out at Tiger Mountain (like today’s 26-28 miler with over 7500 feet of climbing). But enough on this for now- more to come later!

Lastest Race Plans

2011-06-02T21:46:00.000-07:00

This Friday I was planning to drive out to Cle Elum to preview the Cle Elum Ridge 25K course since it's been several years since I've been there and I felt it would be useful to re-familiarize myself with the terrain. However, on Tuesday I called the Cle Elum Forest Service and found out that the road leading into Taneum Junction has been heavily damaged due to flooding and that whole sections of trail have been washed out or are under water (pictures available here; click on the Flood Damage tab). After talking with them I emailed James Varner, the Cle Elum Ridge Race Director, and let him know what they told me. James has been very busy keeping tabs on the progress being made on the trails, and today all the entrants for the race received an email from him notifying us that there is a strong probability the race will be postponed to September 17th or cancelled; an official decision should be announced next week.

This latest news leaves me in a slight conundrum because it’s right about the time to start to taper for the race, but if the race is postponed or cancelled then obviously there’s no need to reduce the volume of training. Ironically, if the race is postponed it might actually end up being beneficial for me because I’ve decided to run the inaugural race at the Angel’s Staircase 50K in the Chelan Sawtooth Mountain Range because I fell in love with the course as soon as I saw the details and the pictures. Not only is the scenery beautiful but parts of the course appear to be pretty rough and rocky, and if there is anything I excel at it’s running technical trails, especially technical descents. It's also pretty remote and I'm looking for an adventure. The race is coming up pretty soon on August 13th, so if Cle Elum is postponed that gives me a couple additional weeks to build volume.

After Angel’s Staircase, there was another race I couldn’t pass up: a one-time marathon at Mount Robson in British Columbia on the famous Berg Lake Trail to celebrate BC Park’s 100th year. I don’t know much about the trails themselves but again the scenery is on another level of beauty and the location is also pretty remote, adding to the sense of adventure. Don’t get me wrong, I always love running on trails but there’s nothing that compares to running in the true mountains; it’s what attracted me to the sport in the first place and what I’m the most passionate about. The race is on September 10^th so I should have enough time to rest and recovered from Angel’s Staircase before making the long trek up the Mount Robson.

It's exciting to have found two races in two amazing locations; I'm eagerly anticipating being able to toe the line and run through some of the most beautiful scenery that nature has constructed, and to go places I've never been before. The only thing to do now is to make sure I'm as ready as I can be!

Lord Hill Park 10K

2011-05-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

Times flies fast sometimes- I can’t believe it’s already been a week since I ran the Lord Hill Regional Park 10K and I’m just now getting to writing up a race report. The race itself went well for me, allowing me to take first place and set a new course record of 41:36. However the most important thing for me was how it felt, both fitness-wise and mentally, because I hadn’t raced since the Chuckanut 50K in March of 2010. Lord Hill was a good for me to get my feet wet again and to give me a chance to work out some of those butterflies before getting myself into something bigger. The race itself came after my biggest week of running since I started training again (about seven or eight weeks prior); I broke 50 miles for the week, had a good tempo up Mount Si on Thursday and a good long run at Tiger Mountain on Friday. The Lord Hill 10K was a positive and fun way to cap off a solid week for me.

As you can imagine, I was pretty nervous the morning of the race on the drive to Lord Hill Regional Park (just outside Monroe, WA). However, when we got there I started to relax and prep for the race. After a quick two mile warm-up it was time to line up at the starting line. The race director said a few last words and then we were off- here it goes! I knew the most important thing for me was not to get too excited or nervous (which is very easy to do when you haven’t raced for so long) and go out too hard. Fortunately I was able to hold back and felt comfortable enough letting a few people go up front; I was in 5th or 6th position and I knew that while races are never won in the first couple of minutes, often times they are lost in the first couple of minutes from runners going out too hard. This strategy worked out well for me for as we started the first climb of the race (about two and a half minutes in) I quickly passed a few runners and found myself in third place, about 10 meters behind the lead runners. I’ve been doing a lot of hill work in my training and so I found myself making contact with them reasonably quickly without really pushing myself too much, and decided to just stay behind them. By the time we finished the first climb (about 9-10 minutes in) our lead group was alone; there was nobody within sight behind us.

As we continued to run I was surprised at how manageable the pace felt to me. I had been worried that after a full week of training that I wouldn’t have much spring in my step during the race, but I was actually pretty comfortable with the pace we were running; it felt similar to a moderate-effort tempo pace. I probably could’ve run faster had I decided to try to break from the lead group but I felt the wisest thing was still to wait since it was still relatively early in the race, and I knew that at least one of the runners in the lead group (Sven Arne Gylterud, a runner from Norway here on vacation that I had been talking to during my warm-up run) was running the half marathon and would be splitting off at the 2.4 mile mark. When we reached that point (17:34 in), Sven split off and it was just me and the other lead runner, Christian Frazar. I continued running just off his shoulder until we came to a short downhill in which I passed him briefly, namely because it was more comfortable to run the downhill a little faster (and not “brake” my stride as much) but he quickly caught back up and we ran side by side heading into the out-and-back to the aid station at 3.14 miles.

The out-and-back to the aid station has a couple very short but relatively steep climbs on the way out, and as we worked our way up these climbs I had a feeling that Christian was struggling just a little bit; I could be completely wrong, but I noticed his breathing was a little more uneven and that his stride slowed just a tiny bit when we started a climb. When we got to the aid station turn-around (in 22:29), I felt him hesitate a little as we started back down the trail and knew that now was a good time to start racing. I surged down the hill and quickly had separation from him, and continued to keep my pace up as I turned onto the Beaver Lake Trail. After three or four minutes I could feel the oxygen debt starting to creep up so I slowed back down to a more manageable pace. My move worked partly as I now had a lead on Christian but I could still hear his footsteps behind me whenever we ran downhill; I estimated he was about 20 meters or so behind me at this point.

Having not done any real sort of speed work in training, things started to get a little bit uncomfortable after my quick little surge. However, I just kept telling myself that what’s most important is how you manage the low points of a race, not how fast you run during the high points, and thus kept pushing myself to keep the pace up consistently regardless of how poor I felt. I was also obviously concerned that I only had a small lead on Christian and that the finish line was still a ways off. However, I think this is when all the strength work I’ve been doing in training paid off; the second half of the Lord Hill course features rolling hills along the Pipeline Trail. The climbs are short but relatively steep, and the downhills are just the same. With each climb Christian’s footsteps were getting quieter and quieter to my ear, meaning I was increasing my lead. By the time I had run down the gulley and crested the last climb at the Pipeline Loop Trail, I looked back and Christian was not within sight, meaning he hadn’t crested the previous hill yet. As I started down the final downhill that takes you all the way down to the finish, I estimated my lead was probably about 100 meters. Knowing the rest of the course was downhill now (and that downhills are my strength) and that I had a decent lead, I let off the gas just a little and cruised down the trail towards the finish.

I crossed the finish line in 41:36 with a big smile on my face. It’d been so long since I’d raced and I had so much fun that I couldn’t stop smiling; I was just exuberant. I love being outside in the mountains or the woods, I love to run, and to be able to win just sent me over the top. Christian finished strong shortly after in 41:59 and third place went to Mark Hanson in 47:53. Afterwards I went for a cool-down run and then I hung around for a while to see my friend John Berta finish the half marathon (taking second place in 1:33:20). Also, I’d like to say that Northwest Trail Runs put on a great event; the course was well marked and everything seemed very well organized. All in all, it was a great day that was full of fun and just created more great memories for me. Now I can hardly wait to race again!

No Backing Out Now

2011-05-04T14:42:00.001-07:00

I finally committed myself to officially registering to race again. Right now I’m feeling excited about the prospects of competing again, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling a little bit of nervousness as well because it’s been so long since I’ve raced. However, I think that nervousness is normal when you’re embarking upon something you haven’t done in a while. I’m sure part of it also has to do with taking pride in your performance; you feel pressured to do well, but it’s a good kind of pressure- the kind that makes you want to take yourself to the next level.

The first race I’ll be running is the Lord Hill 10k at Lord Hill Regional Park in Snohomish on Sunday, May 22nd. I’ll be “training through” (meaning I won’t be reducing my mileage or intensity that week) the race because I’m using it for two main reasons: first, to check my fitness as the race will coincide with the end of my fourth week of training since I started running again, and second to get my feet wet with racing again so I can get adjusted to the feeling of it again before my target race. Lord Hill will just be a stepping stone to give me an idea of where I stand.

The second race is my focus, and I’ll be actually racing it. I chose to register for the 25k at Cle Elum Ridge on June 25th. The Cle Elum Ridge 50k was the first ultra I ever ran and I love the course. The 25k shares much of the same course so I’m looking forward to some familiar (and beautiful) scenery. In addition, James Varner is the Race Director and he always puts on a good event; being an experienced trail runner himself, he knows how to plan races from the perspective of an athlete. I chose the 25k instead of the 50k because of the limited amount of time I have to train; it simply wasn’t feasible to go from running zero miles a week to running the type of mileage necessary to race a 50k, but I figured I would be able to build up to about 55 miles per week by race day and that’s a plausible amount of training mileage for a 25k.

At this point I have no concrete plans for after Cle Elum, except to continue to build my mileage back up and hopefully get fitter (including slimming up a bit- not running for a year has caused my weight to move northward). I’m definitely planning on running a lot more 50k’s, and I’m also starting to consider some longer distances as well. Seeing as how I’ve had a good run at Capitol Peak twice running the 55k, maybe I should try the 50 mile and see what happens…

See you on the trail!

Minimalism

2011-04-21T12:40:00.001-07:00

Today I’m going to do a little word-smithing over a word that’s currently very popular in the running community: minimalism. I’ve been hashing this word out in my mind for some time, because I feel like it is being perverted by a specific demographic of runner, namely the “barefoot” runners. My views on the topic may be considered blunt or incorrect by some but they are mine to give; it is up to the reader to choose whether or not to receive them.

My view of minimalism has always been shaped by the sentiments Henry David Thoreau expressed in his work “Walden”. I won’t attempt to summarize “Walden” in any way since it would be impossible to do so, but one of the passages from the book helps to form my personal definition of minimalism. Thoreau, in simplifying his life, reduces himself to just the essentials “so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy ever attempt to do without.” It is from this sentiment that I originally formed my opinion of what true minimalism is and thus how I feel that it differs from the way it is currently being used by the barefoot runner.

Minimalism is about reducing one’s life or a given task (in this case, running) to the simplest it can be. It has very little to do with wearing rubber-soled socks on one’s feet while running. That in itself is not minimalism; too frequently I have witnessed someone running along wearing an $80 pair of “minimalist” footwear while their ears are assaulted by their earphones, their eyes shaded by the latest polarized sunglasses, the legs constrained by pseudo-compression socks, and of course their thirst quenched by the omni-present water bottle belt. One should hardly toss about such idealistic terms as minimalism while they’ve burdened themselves with so many artifacts as to remove themselves from the simple reality of the task at hand; that to run only requires shoes, the bare necessity of clothing to avoid violating societal standards, and the actual act of running itself. Running in true minimalist form is void of philosophical footwear, accessories, supplements, or any other nonessentials that pervert the simplicity of the task at hand.

Before we continue, I need to state that minimalism and barefoot running are not exclusive; just that one does not necessarily equal the other. To interject a quote from modern pop-culture, Jerry Seinfeld joked that “not all khakis are chinos, but all chinos are khaki”. One can be a minimalist and wear barefoot footwear so long as they refrain from adding any unnecessary complications, but as soon as anything enters the picture that complicates the simplicity of the task it ceases to be true minimalism.

Going forward, I think a more accurate word for the barefoot runner to use instead of minimalism is “naturalism”. One of the main arguments for their cause is that running barefoot allows them to run as nature intended and like man ran thousands of years ago. If this is indeed one of the cornerstones of their belief, then naturalism is a much more befitting term than minimalism. I know this may seem pedantic to some, but ideology is not something that should be misconstrued as to give a clever-sounding name to an incompatible task.

When I think of runners that exemplify true minimalism, the first two runners that come to mind are Anton Krupicka (an obvious choice) and Uli Steidl. Anton lives in a way that is very true to Thoreau’s original sentiments; that is simple and without unnecessary complication. I won’t profess to know him well, having only met him very briefly at White River one year, but from his writings on his website it’s clear he leads a very simple life. He’s not only reduced the task of running to the necessities (shoes and shorts, refilling a lone water bottle at streams…) but also his life itself, often spending summers sleeping in the back of his pick-up truck. His training also lends itself to simplicity, typically finding fitness through sheer mileage and speedy vertical endeavors in place of formal speed work.

Uli I know much better, and while the minimalism of his running is a little more subtle and conceptual than Anton’s it is no less deserving of the ideal. Again, Uli has reduced the task to its true simplicity; a run requires no more than shoes, shorts, and a shirt. He also expresses minimalism is his training by focusing on running and forgoing some of the supplemental clutter that others undertake such as weight lifting or yoga. Lastly, anyone that knows Uli can attest to the simplicity of his diet; he’s renowned for his giant Tupperware containers of oatmeal and towering plates of pasta.

The examples set by Anton and Uli are to highlight what minimalism truly means, and that is reducing a task to the simplest it can be, whether that task is running or life in general. Running barefoot does not make one a minimalist unless the other factors support it, and frequently they do not. In one wants to undertake a life of minimalism or apply it to a task, then they need to take the time to contemplate the full ideological concept that it stands for, and then ask themselves the simple question Henry David Thoreau posed so many years ago: how much is enough?

Awaking from Hibernation

2011-04-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

It seems like I'm finally coming out of hibernation running-wise. A few weeks ago I had an impulse to go for a run, and next thing I know I've put together three weeks of running. It's interesting how relative everything is; since I started getting back into a groove, I've run about 35 miles per week for the last three weeks and compared to what I've been doing for the last year (nothing) it seems like a decent amount of work. However, then I look at old training logs where I consistently ran 75-80 miles per week and maybe 65 on recovery weeks...well I think you get the point. So how am I doing? Well, I seem to have retained at least a modicum of stamina (or else I just remember being stubborn) but I'm certainly slow as all get out. After a run yesterday I did some strides on a grass field and it was a little disheartening, but I know that will come back with time.

So what's the plan from here? To be honest I really miss competing, so I'm looking to race reasonably soon. I won't have time to build a huge base and work my mileage and long runs up high, and thus I've decided that it'd be good to get my feet wet again on something a little shorter than an ultra. Looking at the calendar, I've decided to run the 25k at Cle Elum in June. I've run the 50k course twice and I love the area, so it feels like a natural choice. June's right around the corner, so I better start getting ready!

Two in a Row?

2011-03-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

Two runs in the last three days. Let's see if I can start putting some together....

Michael Van Winkle?

2010-07-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't actually been asleep for 20 years, although it does feel like I've been gone for a while. Certainly this blog has suffered, but hopefully I can post more frequently. So what have I been up over the last couple of months? Well, when it comes to running...not very much! Since running Chuckanut in March, my focus had shifted off of running onto some other things: mainly school and my motorcycle. I've been running a little; about 30-35 miles a week, but the main focus has been to get healthy again (physically and mentally). Since before the 'Nut I'd been falling down the slippery slope of poor health due to some health issues that brought on overtraining that I wouldn't normally have been as susceptible to. I'm still dealing with them now but I think I've finally started the climb up. I've also gotten a chance to mentally refresh, so I'm eager to get back out there and run some miles in the beautiful mountains of Washington!

Speaking of the mountains of Washington, on Sunday I'll be riding up to the Crystal Mountain area with my friends Trisha and Uli to run the first half of the White River 50 miler. The run is 27 miles with some really long climbs. I'm looking forward to it because the White River course is the most beautiful course I've ever run. I'm also really apprehensive because this one run will almost equal my total weekly mileage for the last three and a half months and I'm certainly not fit at all right now. However, I'm going to take it easy, enjoy the scenery, and hope that my love of running the mountains can overcome my lack of fitness!

2010 Chuckanut Results

2010-03-20T18:07:00.000-07:00

This is going to be short and quick; I'll post a race report in a day or two (hopefully). I ran 4:17 for 13th place. My feelings about the race are kind of hard to explain...it sucks to have run slower than last year, but at the same time I exceeded my expections based on how sick I am right now so I'm content with it. I know that is a contradiction, but like I said it's hard to explain. Hopefully some of you understand what I mean, I'm sure plenty of other racers have had the same feelin!

Really quick, the top three were:
1. Andy Martin 3:49
2. Erik Skaggs 3:52
3. Adam Campbell 3:52

Tumbling Down the Rabbit Hole

2010-03-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

Holy shit, it's been a long time since I've posted. I guess I get the award for blog-related laziness, but to be honest I just haven't felt the desire to talk about much. Blogging still seems kind of odd to me because it's part of that "me, me, me" mindset that I desperately try to avoid but at the same time I think it's awesome that anybody can put themselves out there on the internet.

While not much has been going on racing-wise for me the last several months, enough has been going on in life and running that I have at least a few things to jabber on about. Let's start with something that combines the two: health. Your health is kind of like air; you usually don't think about it until it's not there. Unfortunately for me I've stumbled across the ogre of poor health and am trying hard to wrench free from it's clutches. For months I've been battling some chronic and often disgusting sinus and throat problems (I'll spare you the details) that gradually progressed to the point of occasionally preventing me from breathing. I don't have to tell you how much it sucks to be running and all of a sudden your airway becomes blocked. The doctors had multiple theories, the main one being allergy-related, so I was relegated to all sorts of medievel nasal passage spraying torture devices (ever see the Neti-Pot commercial where the lady is smiling as she's pouring salt water out her nostrils? Liar!).

After months of treatment with not only no improvements but worsening symptoms, the doctor thought maybe I'd had a sinus infection all along, and prescribed me a course of antibiotics about three weeks ago. Mentioning this to my coach Trisha, she pulled a big "I told you so" because she had thought that was the source a long time prior. I guess I deserved it; after all I did expose her to months of snot rockets and lugee hacking. Now it's been about a week since I've finished the antibiotics and the symptoms are starting to alleviate, which is a good sign. However, my premature celebrations were cut short as I quickly came down with some sort of virus that I'll still fighting off as I write this. It's pretty much wiped me out, so I'm hoping to recover enough for Chuckanut this weekend. A gnarly side effect of my health issues was a decrease in appetite and energy levels which I'm still working on. Needless to say, I easily hit over-training because I've been unable to eat enough and everything has spiraled out of control. I dropped my supplemental training (core and yoga) months ago because I just don't have the energy.

That's why I feel like I'm tumbling down the rabbit hole towards Chuckanut with no clue what's at the bottom. I've gotten occasional glimpses of fitness on the seemingly random days where I have energy; a few weeks ago Uli and I ran the first 25 miles of the Chuckanut course as our long run, running it pretty easy in 3:55. I felt so good on that day, everything just felt so relaxed and easy, but then I returned to the normal drudgery feeling for the rest of the runs that week. Then last Friday I ran a 5 mile shakeout on the road in 28 minutes, running fast but pretty relaxed and controlled...but a few days later I ran a planned "three miles at a faster but relaxed pace" and ran only 6:20's, feeling like I couldn't have run any faster if I was chasing a bus full of naked swimsuit models needing a sunscreen boy. It's this inconsistency that has me frustrated and completely clueless as to which side of me will show up at the 'Nut.

Speaking of Uli, he has a new blog (linked at right) to replace his old website, since the cruel IT demons at UW banished their site support. There's a good write-up of the North Face race, but to me the best part so far is his response to a spammer in the comments of his "How Old Am I" post.

Outside of running, I've been busy working on my motorcycle and getting ready to return to college next quarter. I've been out of school for a few quarters while dealing with stuff at my previous job and am looking forward to returning and working towards my mechanical engineering degree. I felt it would be a good idea to brush up before returning, so I've been diligently studying my old math books so I can jump right back into calculus. As far as the Suzuki, it's in pieces right now but almost all the parts are in so I'm hoping to have it running in the week or two after the race. The most time consuming part so far has been doing all the work on the new gas tank, but I took a break from that today to disassemble the carburetors so I can clean them before putting them back on.

What are my plans beyond Chuckanut? At this point, there are none. I really need to take some time to recover and get healthy again, and I feel that I can do that the best without some deadline imposed upon me. I'll probably take the week after the race completely off (a rarity for me), then just slowly building back up and just having lots of fun, easy runs while I work on getting back on track with eating healthy (and enough) and my supplemental activities. After that, who knows?

What's Up?

2010-01-21T13:14:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've posted...just haven't felt the need to write about anything. I figured it's probably about time to get off my ass and at least post an update as to what's going on.

I ran the Bridle Trails 10.4 mile trail race on January 9th for the second time, improving my results from last year to place 2nd behind John Berta. However, the results are a little misleading as I actually ran slower than last year as I ran 1:03:39, compared to 1:03:25. Not a huge difference really, but rather disappointing to me because I am much fitter now than I was last year (thanks to consistent, smart training under the guidance of my coach). I knew I wasn't going to be smoking fast this year because I was training through, focusing on building a base for whatever race I was going to be running in March (more on that later) and haven't been doing any interval work at all, just some tempo runs and hill repeats. However, two weeks before the race I ran a 6 mile tempo on the road in 33 minutes so I figured I would at least run a little faster than last year but that just didn't happen, and I only have myself to blame.

The cold, honest truth is that I didn't push myself on race day; I wasn't mentally there. I could've run faster than I did, but I got locked into a comfortable pace and stayed there. As the first lap was almost over, I was closing slowly on John and Kevin (Kevin finished 3rd), trying not to make up the distance too quickly (and risking overextending myself) because they didn't seem to be changing pace at all. However, when I was about 30 meters behind them John suddenly took off right on the crest of a hill where the trail switches from double to single track and due to the distance between us there was nothing I could do to respond. I passed Kevin a minute or so later and then ran the entire second lap by myself, occasionally catching glimpses of John but never pushing myself to make up any distance. John won, of course, and I finished second. However, if I have to lose there really is nobody I'd rather lose to more than John; him and I have a very friendly rivalry that stems from a great race we had at Capitol Peaks in 2008 where we basically battled for 55k. He's a great, down to earth and hardworking guy, and earns what he gets.

So what's next? Well, I didn't get into Way Too Cool this year which was a total bummer...I was really excited to run there because the course suits my strengths. I'll just have to try again next year. Instead, I'll be returning to race at the Chuckanut 50k, where I placed sixth last year, running 4:09. I'm hoping to improve on how I did last year.

Outside of running, I have a new project that I'm pretty excited about; I bought a 1994 Suzuki GS500 for next to nothing because the bike had been dropped on its side and has some damage. Basically the right side of the gas tank, handle bars, and right hand controls were all destroyed, but besides that the bike is in amazing shape. It only has 10k miles and is so clean I could eat off it. The handlebars have already been replaced and I have a new (used) tank and I just ordered some other parts. I'm going to try to post pictures of the progress as I go along. I'm really happy to have something to work on again, because it's been much too long. Below is a picture of the undamaged side, more to follow....

Yes, I'm Still Alive

2009-11-12T16:08:00.000-08:00

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....

2009-11-12T15:21:00.000-08:00

Run Well Trisha!

2009-10-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-31T14:34:00.001-07:00

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!

Race + Me = No Good

2009-08-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

I'm going to keep this short. Sunday I raced for the first time since April, at the 6 mile Great NW Mountain Run. Basically, I totally bombed it and ran lousy, finishing in seventh place with a time of 52:52. There's about five reasons (also known as excuses) for why I ran so poorly, but essentially I think it boils down to a lack of desire to push myself at this event. I just wasn't feeling motivated to go out and hammer it.

Hopefully this experience will motivate me in a positive way for my next race.

Great NW Mountain Run this Weekend

2009-08-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

This Sunday is the Great NW Mountain Run (formerly called the NW Mountain Running Championships) at Mt. Hood. It will by my first race since Capitol Peaks in April, and I'm looking forward to competing again. I'm keeping my expectations modest since I'm using the Great NW Mountain Run as a tune-up for my goal race in September and therefore I'm training through it. It's also going to be my first true mountain race; we just run up Mt. Hood to the Silcox from the Timberline Lodge, then back down for a total of 6-8 miles. The competition should be quite fierce as well; Uli Steidl and Max King are both confirmed entrants, and there are strong rumors that Joe Gray, Erik Skaggs, and some of the "Ashland crew" will be racing as well. Given the experience and skill of these runners, I'll be estatic if I can squeek away with a Top-10 placing.

Mt. Hood Weekend, Part 2

2009-07-30T11:43:00.001-07:00

Before we all went to sleep on Saturday evening, Uli, Trisha, Shannon, and I agreed we would sleep in on Sunday morning since it's an infrequent opportunity for all of us. Well, I have to say that was wishful thinking on my part because I'm so used to getting up at 6am every morning that I rarely can sleep past that point. Sunday morning was no different; I awoke shortly after six without the aid of any sleeping-robbing device (commonly referred to as alarm clocks) and groggily sauntered like a zombie out into Rich's living room. Luckily he was already up too, so after eating several bowls of (organic!) corn flakes I plopped down on the sofa to join him in watching the Tour de France on television.

Eventually the rest of our goof troop woke up and accumulated in the living room in various states of awareness. After everyone had eaten breakfast, Rich, Uli, Trisha, and I headed out the front door towards Forest Park. One of the reasons Rich bought his home was because of it's close proximity to the park; in fact, in less than 10 minutes of easy running we reached the start of the trails. We ran for a few more minutes on a connector trail before coming upon the Wildwood Trail, which runs the length of Forest Park (aproximately 32 miles). At this point Rich headed back home since he is diligently recovering from an injury, and the rest of us continued on our way.

The Wildwood is a great trail for easy runs; it mixes some relatively flat sections with small, gentle rolling hills. I think the longest "climb" we did was only about 2-3 minutes long, but on a completely runnable grade. I can't think of anything around Seattle to compare it to, except for maybe a slightly hillier version of the Pratt River trail. Anyways, we ran about 9-10 miles out on the Wildwood to Firelane Two (I think...it's been a short while) before turning around and heading back.

After the run, all six of us once again piled into Rich's Subaru and took a short drive down to a local bagel place of which I can't remember the name. I had an absolutely awesome tuna sandwich made with a salt bagel, then polished it off with a delicious day-old (50% off!)macaroon. We checked out a local running store, then headed back to Rich and Kelly's house to pack up and head out.

Shortly after leaving Portland, we stopped in Vancouver for dinner with Gisela, who is Uli's "adopted" grandma. Gisela and Uli met at a race back when he was attending the University of Portland and became friends due to their shared German heritage. She treated us to a delicious dinner of fresh-caught salmon, rice, and broccoli she grew in her own garden.

By the time we headed out from Gisela's, it was already around 7:30-7:40pm. Thanks to some random traffic, we didn't get home until about 11pm on Sunday evening. The car right back was a lot more subdued than the one down due to the fact that everyone was tired and it was past my bedtime, but we still managed to have some laughs to pass the time. After all was said and done, it was another busy but totally awesome weekend I got to spend with my wife, my friends, and some beautiful locations. I can't wait to go back in August....

Mt. Hood Weekend, Part 1

2009-07-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

The weekend after going to Mount Rainier and Crystal mountain, I went down to Oregon with Shannon, Trisha, and Uli again to preview the course for the NW Mountain Running Championships race in August. Once again we all piled into the Steidl's Prius (this time minus the sleeping bags) and began the relatively long drive down to Portland to meet up with Richard Bolt. Richard is a friend of Trisha's and is both an accomplished mountain runner and a member of the "MUT" division of USATF. We got to Richard's house just in time for lunch and as soon as we got there I was mightily impressed. His house is perched on the hillside above Portland, suspended in mid-air upon big support beams, with views that just go on forever; downtown Portland, the port and train yard, Mount St. Helens, and more. In addition, mere minutes away from his front door is Forest Park, a huge wooded park that includs the 30 mile long Wildwood Trail. For comparison, Forest Park is 2000 acres larger than Washington's Cougar Mountain State Park (5100 acres vs 3100).

After a quick lunch, we all piled into Richard's Subaru for the drive out to Mt. Hood, with Richard and Trisha in the front, and Shannon, Uli, and me crammed in the backseat. This was a start of a trend we repeated a few more times over the weekend; including a couple of short trips in which Rich's wife Kelly was also forced into the backseat with us (look mom, no seat belts!). Driving down the really windy roads from their house with four people jammed in the back was pretty entertaining.

Anyways, back to Mt. Hood. We arrived mid afternoon to a parking lot full of "bros and dudes", which is the affectionate term we gave for all of the snowboarders there who could've doubled as the cavemen from the Geico Insurance ads. As we applied some sunscreen I realized I hadn't brought my sunglasses and that there was quite a bit of snow still left on the mountain, so I was going to have to practice my squinting while running technique. Then off we went from the parking lot, going down a short downhill before turning up the ski slope towards the top of the chair lift.

I was a little suprised by the footing on the course. It was really loose sand and dirt, and in some wet parts it was like running in quicksand. When we got higher up the mountain the course was lost underneath all of the snow, so we just guessed roughly where the trail actually was and did out best to follow it. As I mentioned earlier I had forgotten my sunglasses, so I was forced to squint to reduce the glare from the sun reflecting off all of the snow. This method worked okay until I got within a few minutes of the top, at which point the sunscreen on my face had sweat into my eyes and I couldn't see. I wasn't wearing a shirt so I had nothing to wipe my eyes with, so I just stopped. A minute later Trisha caught up to me and I told her I couldn't see. She was only wearing shorts and a sports bra so she didn't have any sleeves I could use to wipe my eyes but was able to direct me to a nearby stream of water to rinse them out. After rinsing my eyes, we ran the last few minutes to the top to rejoin Uli and Rich, then started our descent back down.

We never found the trail back down that the course actually follows, since it was under a lot of snow. At one point we actually had to run across a narrow snowfield with snowboarders riding down, almost like we were playing a game of Frogger. Once we crossed into the "Out of Bounds" area and were safe from the bros and dudes, we just ran down the snow slope (which is the funnest thing to do in the world) until we connected with the PCT trail. Once on the PCT we could follow the rest of the course back to the car.

Once we got back to the parking lot, we hit the restroom one last time while Uli helped a woman figure out if she needed a climbing permit to hike or not, then all got back into Rich's Subaru for the drive back. On the way we stopped at the Full Sail Brewery restaurant and sat outside on their patio, which overlooks the Columbia River. After stuffing ourselves we finished the drive back to Portland, then promptly faded into the typical sleepiness that befalls runners in the evening after a good run. In the evening we took a short trip to get gelato from a little shop in Portland, then agreed to sleep in the next morning and went off to bed.

Later I'll post about Sunday's run on the Wildwood and the trip home.

Rainier Weekend, Part 2

2009-07-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

After spending Saturday morning running up to Camp Muir, we all spent that afternoon convalescing around Scott's cabin in various states of fatigue and satisfaction about the completion of that day's task. All of us, that is, except for Uli. It turns out Uli has as much of an affinity for chopping fire wood as I have for sweeping floors, both stemming from some positive youthful memories. I sat outside on a homemade wooden bench watching as he split round after round of fallen fir, the sound of the axe striking the wood developing into almost a rhythmic melody luring me into mindless contentment. The forest canopy above us offered shade from the heat of the afternoon sun, and in these condition Uli showed no sign of tiring. After a while I went back inside the cabin but could still hear him chopping wood outside, which he did until early evening. Uli's enthusiasm provided us with a lot of good fodder for a healthy dose of teasing all weekend, as we all descended into a juvenile state of encouraging him to split any piece of wood we spotted the reminder of the time.

On Sunday we all awakened in pretty much the same state of grogginess it seemed, and after breakfast made the short drive from the cabin to Buck Creek. The plan was to do the first half of the White River 50 miler course, which is actually about 26 miles with a very long, sustained climb. I will readily admit I wasn't looking forward to it, since I still felt unwell from the day before and because I hadn't run longer than about 18 miles since mid-April.

I won't go into a long, boring recap of a training run, but basically I felt fine up to about the Ranger Creek cabin, and everything after that felt terrible. If I was smarter, I would've turned back at Ranger Creek and shortened the run to a more appropriate distance. In the end, it was a big weekend of running in which I felt pretty much bad for the entire time but still managed to have fun thanks to the location and the company from my wife and friends.

After the White River run, we all headed back to the cabin to eat and shower while Uli split a few more rounds of fire wood. Then everything got packed up, turned off, locked up, and we were on our way home, all a little more tired and with some new memories.

Rainier Running Weekend, Part 1

2009-07-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I drove out with Shannon, Trisha, and Uli to Rainier for a fun weekend of running. After a couple hours sharing the back seat of the Steidl's Prius with Shannon and some cushy sleeping bags that provided us with some entertainment during the sharp mountainside turns, we arrived at our first destination of the weekend, Paradise (elevation aproximately 5000 feet). After lathering up with generous amounts of sunscreen, we started out from the parking lot to complete the simple yet challenging task ahead of us: to run from Paradise up the Muir snowfield to Camp Muir, elevation 10,080 feet. Starting out, Uli was quickly gone, with me following a few minutes behind, and Trisha a few minutes back behind me. The snow was relatively sloppy and slippery in the tracks where most people climb up, so it made it a bit slower. After a while I decided the footing was actually better off to the side and just paid attention to the bamboo wands that mark the way up, since the trail is indiscernible.

After a while I started to not feel so good; I've been having recurring issues with a severe muscle cramp on my right side abdominal muscles, and it started to act up again. Trisha quickly caught up to me and took the lead. I tried to stay with her while I worked through the cramp, but it wouldn't go away and within about 5 minutes she left me in her dust. The remainder of the run was pretty uncomfortable due to the unalleviating cramp, and I was forced to run at an excruciatingly slow pace. By the time I reached Camp Muir, I had slowed so much it took me 1 hour and 44 minutes, to Trisha's 1:39 and Uli's insane 1:21. That has to be the slowest 4.25 miles I've ever run.

After about a half hour at Camp Muir enjoying the views, Idecided my cramp wasn't going to go away and that we should start our decline. Uli took off again because he wanted to see if he could run down in half an hour, while I started off conservatively with Trisha. After 5 or 6 minutes I started to feel a little better, and parted with Trisha. Running down the Muir snowfield has to be the funnest thing I've ever done; it was like a combination of running and skiing at the same time, because you slide a little with each step. Since gravity was doing all the work, it was really easy to fly down the mountain with almost no effort. The same climbers who gave us incredulous looks on the way up were even more astonished to see us running down. I got back down to Paradise in 37 easy minutes and wished the descent was twice as long. Uli had only taken 27 minutes to get down and decided to ambush me with some snowballs, one of which hit me squarely in the butt that I blamed on Shannon before I spotted the true culprit. He tried the same tactic with Trisha when she arrived (45 minutes) but she was able to defend herself better.

Afterwards, we drove an hour or so to stay at Scott McCoubrey's cabin, located a few minutes away from the Buck Creek Trailhead by Crystal Mountain. After a quick lunch of multiple sandwiches, we went out for a 3.5 mile recovery run around the airstrip at Buck Creek before settling in for the night.

On Sunday, we ran the first half of the White River 50 miler course. But that's for part two of the story, along with the wood-cutting extravaganza.

Great Northwest Mountain Run

2009-06-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

No posts for a while, I've just been busy running. Sorry if I disappointed the three people who read this blog with my laziness! I just signed up for the Great Northwest Mountain Run (formerly called the NW Mountain Running Championships) at Mt. Hood on August 16th. I had planned on running this race (and the National Trail Half Marathon Championships in September) to close out my season, but it adds some firmness now that I've actually paid my entry fee. No backing out now; can't believe I got talked into this one! I'm looking forward to a completely new experience and to getting my butt kicked (in a good way).

Freakin' Ferritin

2009-06-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update; last week I found out I was borderline anemic; my ferritin level was an 18, and 16 and below is considered anemic. My iron saturation was also really low, at 17%. What's really odd is that I didn't really feel fatigued or tired but I understand that it occurs gradually so I just didn't notice the decline. My running didn't seem to be suffering, but now I wonder how much better it would've been if I was completely healthy.

My doc devised a simple treatment plan to get my iron levels back up; eat red meat one a week, and take two prescribed iron supplements a day. Hopefully I'll see some improvement in the numbers when I get retested in about a month, and that the improvement will carry over to my performance.

I See Skies of Blue....

2009-05-28T09:29:00.000-07:00

The long, dreary winters here in the Northwest sometimes really get me down. Running, while still enjoyable, becomes much more complicated than it should be; determining what to wear, where there is no snow, etc. Just around the time I get fed up and start to mumble about moving south, spring hits and the sun pops out, and if there is one thing everyone in Seattle knows it's that the summers here can't be beat. It's always great going for that first run in a while wearing split shorts, showing off your Pacific Northwest tan; that blinding whiteness that almost requires people to wear sunglasses just to look at you. As the temperature warms up, more and more runners emerge from hibernation. Running also gets less complicated; when it's 70 degrees and sunny out you don't have to contemplate how many layers to wear. You just pull on a pair of shorts and shoes (shirt optional) and fly out the door.

I've been taking advantage of the weather by starting to build my base for my next race. After Capitol Peak, recovery weeks of 38, 50, and 62 followed. Last week was my first week of base building (which isn't really much different from a recovery week; all easy pace runs):

Monday: 8.3 miles at Bridle Trails
Tuesday: 9.2 miles w/Allen & Tanya through Greenlake and UW
Wednesday: 11 miles at Bridle Trails again; I love this park
Thursday: 9.9 miles w/Trisha from SU through UW
Friday: 13.5 miles at Tiger Mountain w/Uli, Joe Gray, & Trisha.
Saturday: 10.6 miles through Kenmore & Brier
Sunday: 14 miles at Tiger Mountain
Total: 76.5 miles

Speaking of races, I'm still not 100% committed on what I'm doing next, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to run the Northwest Mountain Running Championship on August 16th and the Xterra Trail Half Marathon National Championship on September 13th. Both races will feature excellent runners, and I want to run against the best. I originally was thinking of doing a fall marathon, but I just couldn't seem to get excited about any of them. While running with Joe, he said I should try a mountain race. I honestly hadn't really contemplated it before, but thinking about it afterwards I got really interested, and decided to try something new.

Saving the best for last: on May 16th I got married to my lovely girlfriend of 6 years, Shannon. Shannon is the kindest, most generous, hardest working, and most supportive person I have ever known. She's the reason I've become who I've become, and I wouldn't have reached many of my goals without her beside me. The wedding was awesome; everything went smoothly and all of our friends and family were there. Everyone had a great time and there was lots of laughter, which is all we really wanted. Here's to a long life together, Shannon!

Steidl Wins Kirkland Half Marathon

2009-05-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

On Sunday my fiancee Shannon and I made the short trip over to Juanita Beach to cheer on Trisha Steidl as she raced in the hilly Kirkland Half Marathon. Since I grew up on the Eastside and was very familiar with all of the streets along the course, it was really easy for us to hop into the Scion and drive around along the course, popping up every mile or two to cheer and offer encouragement for Trisha (not that she needed any).

Trisha led the entire race from start to finish; at the three mile mark she was already twenty seconds ahead, and the gap just grew from there. The early challengers who tried to keep up ended up fading about halfway during the race and were passed by Erica Hill. At the 11 mile mark Trisha was 90 seconds ahead of Erica, with one big hill left to climb up Market Street. By the time she crossed the finish line, Trisha's lead had grown to 3 minutes. I have to say she made it look easy too; she looked relaxed through-out the entire race. The top five women's results were:

1. Trisha Steidl 1:23:49
2. Erica Hill 1:26:49
3. Amber Morrison 1:27:47
4. Cara Dils 1:28:07
5. Jeanine Stewart 1:29:18

After the race I went for 5 mile cooldown run with Trisha and Shari Brennecke, who came in 5th in the 5k run, then ran home to Kenmore to get my run in for the day. All in all, it was a great day; I got to experience what Shannon does when she crews and cheers for me at races, my friend did awesome at her race, and we were all blessed with gorgeous weather for the day.

I took some pictures at the race, but I haven't even had the time to look at them yet to see if they came out okay. I've been a little preoccupied since I'm getting married this weekend, but will hopefully post them in the next couple of days.

Update: Pictures added since Trisha yelled at me for being lazy (just kidding!). The first is at around mile 3, going uphill by LWTC. The second is around mile 7 I think, by Houghton Market. And the last (strangely psychedelic colored one) is at the finish. As you can tell, I'm a very amateur photographer.

Rest and Recovery

2009-05-05T11:11:00.001-07:00

I feel it's really important to give your body time to rest after a race, even if you don't feel particularly tired or beat-up. If you launch right back into things too quickly you risk not recovering fully, which can have a negative impact on your performance when you get back to the hard stuff. Muscle fibers need time to repair, connective tissues need time to heal, etc. I also think it's helpful to have a mental break from hard training for a while; you spend so much effort focusing on it that it can wear you down if you don't take a break.

Here's a look at what I did the week after Capitol Peaks (on Saturday):

Sunday: 2 miles easy. This was just to loosen up and remove some of the lactic acid from my legs.
Monday: Rest day. No running, although I did take my dogs for a walk.
Tuesday: Rest day. Walked my dogs again.
Wednesday: 5.6 miles easy.
Thursday: 4.8 miles easy with Forest. Running with a dog is a great way to keep it relaxed and easy.
Friday: 6.4 miles easy with Forest again.
Saturday: 11.4 miles easy with Trisha.
Sunday: 10 miles easy at Cougar Mountain.
Total: 38.2 miles (all nice and easy)

Even though I felt really good after the race, I still made sure to keep it relaxed all week, and kept everything pretty short. I don't worry about the mileage or the pace; instead I just go on what feels good. This week is pretty much the same, except I'll probably run a little more (around 50 miles).

On a separate note, it was nice to get out on Sunday to the Seattle Running Company run at Cougar Mountain. I hadn't been out to one in a long time and it was nice to see some familiar people I hadn't seen in a while. It was rejuvenating to run through Cougar totally relaxed in nice weather and taking in the differences between the seasons; pretty soon the ferns will be growing rapidly, until they start to overtake parts of the trail in summer. All in all, a great day to be running.

Road Runnin'

2009-05-04T15:55:00.000-07:00

After Capitol Peaks, it was time to pick out what my next race was going to be. After considering a lot of choices, such as the Siskiyou Outback 50k (too soon) or the Xterra National Trail Half Marathon Championships (whoa, that's a mouthful), I've finally settled on the Portland Marathon on October 4th. While I'll run a few shorter races inbetween now and then, Portland will definitely be my focus for the second half of the year. When I know what those shorter races are, I'll be sure to let you know. Until then, it's time to go running....

Second Time's the Charm

2009-04-27T08:28:00.000-07:00

Woo! My second go at the Capitol Peaks 55k turned out great; I got the overall win and a new course record of 4:28:40. John Pearch put on another awesome event, and the weather held out (for the most part). I'll probably post a detailed recap in the next few days, but for now here are the preliminary top-ten results for the 55k:

1. Michael Havrda 4:28:40
2. Jesse Stevick 4:45:13
3. John Berta 5:20:31
4. Jerry Peters 5:33:51
5. Alison Hanks 5:45:40
6. Juan Dominguez 5:48:04
7. Kevin Douglas 5:48:30
8. Hunter MacLean 5:49:12
9. Brock Gavery 6:06:03
10. Shawna Wilskey 6:11:33

The men's 50 miler was won by Ron Gutierrez in 7:41:20. On another cool note; James Varner originally signed up to run the 55k but felt so good he ran the 50 miler- and PR'd by almost half an hour, coming in 4th at 8:04:41!

Full results can be found here. The photo is courtesy of Glenn Tachiyama.

Six Days Until Capitol Peaks

2009-04-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

It's only six days until the Capitol Peaks 55k, and I'm ready to go. I'm feeling all the extra energy from tapering and I'm itching to put it to use. Training has been going really well for me; my calf injury from the week prior to Chuckanut has healed and nothing else is bothering me in the least. I'll be looking to improve upon my time from last year (4:50:00), and I'm pretty sure that should happen.

The entrants lists are still pretty small; approximately 55 people for the 50 miler and 35 for the 55k. I'm anticipating some people to sign-up the day of the race, but you never know; it might be a small field this year.

Can America Win Boston?

2009-04-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

Monday is the 113th running of the Boston Marathon, the world's oldest annual marathon. While I typically try not to get caught up in the Boston hype, this year it's different for me for two reasons: Ryan Hall and Kara Goucher. The American mainstream media has been doing a great job of promoting their participation at Boston, saying that it's likely for both the men's and women's races to be won by each respective athlete. While it's definitely not as easy as the media is making it out to seem, there is still a good possibility that at least one American can walk away with a long-overdue overall win on Monday. In fact, the overseas odds-makers have Hall at 7-2 odds (after Robert Cheruiyot at 6-4 and Evans Cheruiyot at 5-2).

However, I'm going to buy into the media frenzy and pray that both Hall and Goucher win on Monday. Why? I'd really like to see American distance running make some improvements in the grand scheme of world competition, and to have the two most promising American distance runners sweep the top spots at Boston would be a really positive step in the right direction.

Taper Time!

2009-04-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

Ah, the taper. Perhaps the least understood (and most dreaded) part of racing but also one of the most important. Striking the perfect balance between maintaining your fitness and letting your body recover is a delicate art that can take lots of time to master. Luckily for me I am surrounded by runners much more experienced than I and by listening to them I can take advantage of the knowledge they've learned through their own trial and error. Their advice is certainly is going to make the next two weeks easier for me. I only have two more workouts before the race; it's going to be on me before I know it.

Speaking of the race, the entrants list for Capital Peaks is still pretty short. Hopefully some more people will sign up in the next few weeks; otherwise it's going to be a small party! I have to say I have an honest concern about the new course (necessary changes due to a trail blow-out) because of the out-and-back up and down Capital Peak. People will be screaming down the peak back to the finish at Falls Creek while others are coming up. Hopefully everyone will be safe and yield the right of way to the downhill runners. Momentum is hard to stop!

My Secret Weapon

2009-04-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

Since Greg Crowther came clean about using a "performance enhancing drug" in his blog, I thought I would make an admission of my own. Part of the reason I've been running well lately is because I've also started using a P.E.D.; in this case, a Performance Enhancing Danish.

That's right, a danish. I've recently started eating a cherry danish from Hoffman's bakery in Kirkland before my long runs and races. Hoffman's is a really cool German bakery that my family has been going to ever since we moved here in the mid 80's. They're more famous for their cakes, but they also make delicious pastries and sandwichs. Everything is made from scratch, with real ingredients; cream, butter, milk, sugar, etc. I've settled on their delicious cherry danish to supplement my breakfast prior to long bouts of running.

Hopefully letting the cat out of the bag won't come back to bite me....

Kara Goucher and Bill Rodgers in Runner's World

2009-04-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

I just got the latest issue of Runner's World in the mail yesterday, and there's a good article about Kara Goucher in it that's well worth reading. Those in touch with professional running know Kara is touted as the "next big thing" in American distance running, even though she's already accumulated an impressive running resume. I'm personally pretty excited about her potential; I think the early performances she's had, such as her 2:25 marathon debut at New York or 1:06 half at Newcastle are just an indicator of what she can achieve. The article touches briefly on her history and some of her past races, includes some interesting sidebars (like the fact she'll run the last 4 or 5 miles of a long run wearing a weight vest), and also talks a tiny bit about her training with Alberto Salazar as part of Nike's Project Oregon.

There's also a really good article about Bill Rodgers, one of the greatest American distance runners ever. The article is a conglomeration of history and an interview with Bill, and has some pretty interesting stories and facts. One thing I found entertaining was his eating habits; spooning mayonnaise on pizza or dunking forkfuls of peanut butter into a bag of bacon bits, among others.

If you have a few minutes to spare, I'd recommend reading both articles.

Peak Training

2009-04-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

This week is actually my peak week in terms of mileage for the Capital Peaks 55k race on April 25th. I'll hit about 80-81 miles this week, including two workouts and a long run of about 24 miles. Then, after Sunday, my mileage will taper down a bit for the two weeks leading into the race. I'm running a little less mileage than I used to, but it's all about getting myself healthy and training consistently.

Speaking of consistency, how poor has the weather been this year? It's now April and we're still getting snow, plus the rain seems to have permanently moved in. I'm really looking forward to being able to run in shorts and short-sleeves again. I'd also settle for not having to run and get drenched.

Capital Peaks is little more than three weeks away now. I have to admit I'm excited to go back and see if I can improve upon last year, but it's honestly going to be hard to tell since they had to change the course due to a wash-out. I think the changes will actually make the course faster, since it's all downhill after cresting Capital Peak, but it depends on how the course conditions are. Given the amount of snow and rain we're getting, I have a feeling it's going to be quite muddy.

I hadn't been giving much thought to what I plan to do after Capital Peaks, but knew that I wanted to race again in late June or July. Right now I'm leaning heavily towards running the Siskiyou Outback 50k. The course is relatively smooth and on the flatter side (around 4200 feet of elevation gain), and is run mostly above 6500 feet. The competition is pretty steep too (which is exactly what I want); last year's top four were Max King, Eric Skaggs, Hal Koerner, and Rod Bien. I haven't quite made up my mind yet, but the race is filling up quick....

Feed A Dog In Need!

2009-03-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

I just read an article about a 12 year old girl from Bend, Oregon, named Mimi Ausland. Mimi has been helping out animals by volunteering at animal shelters since she was 9, and learned that many animal shelters deal with severe food shortages. With the help of her parents, Mimi recently created a website called FreeKibble.com, which with the backing of Portland-based company Castor & Pollux Pet Works has provided meals to over 900,000 needy animals.

Here's how it works, and how you can help: when you go to FreeKibble.com, you're asked a simple daily trivia question about dogs. It doesn't matter whether you get the answer right or wrong, but for each question answered Castor & Pollux donates 10 pieces of dry dog food to an animal shelter in need; so far they've donated almost 95 million pieces of kibble.

Check it out, and spend a minute to help a dog in need: http://www.freekibble.com/

Easy Week...Busy Weekend

2009-03-26T16:10:00.000-07:00

This week's training plan has been filled with nice, easy runs since Chuckanut to help encourage my recovery, let my calf muscle heal, and to relax my brain a little bit. It's a nice, short break during the peak mileage of my training for Capital Peaks. My quads were quite sore and stiff for a few days after too, and doing some nice easy runs really made them feel better. I think I'm almost back to normal! Saturday will mark the return back to "normal" training, starting with a tempo run on Saturday and a long run on Sunday.

There's also quite a few things I'm trying to squeeze into this weekend; after my run on Saturday morning I'm planning to stop by the Dizzy Daze 100k/50k at Greenlake to cheer on the runners and see if I can help out for a little while. The race is being directed by an ultrarunner and friend of mine, Jonathon Bernard. I can't imagine running 100 kilometers at Greenlake on a 3.1 mile loop, so I respect those who can do so while staying awake! After Dizzy Daze I was hoping to stop by the Club NW Track meet at King's High School in Shoreline and volunteer, but I don't know if I'll have time; my brother and his wife are moving to a new apartment that day, and I'm going to try to help them out too.

Sunday is a little slower; after my long run, Shannon and I are meeting with the wedding photographer to go over what we want for the wedding. After that though...hopefully lunch and a nap!

Don't Be Shy!

2009-03-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

A lot of people (at least a few, I swear!) lately have mentioned they read my blog, which is totally awesome because I had no idea anyone actually did. If you visit please don't hesitate to post a comment or question; I'd really love to hear from everybody!

Normally after a workout, long run, or race I take an ice bath or soak in a river/stream/lake, but after Chuckanut yesterday it slipped my mind and I am paying for it today. Strangely, the calf that was giving me problems prior to the race is not the worst; my quads are just super stiff! I'm waddling around home like a penguin. Luckily I'm getting some relief from one of my Christmas gifts, the Stick. The Stick is great for rolling out your muscles when you don't have the energy to use a foam roll, plus you can hit certain areas better.

This morning Shannon and I went to cheer on Trisha and Uli Steidl at the Mercer Island Half Marathon. We drove around the island trying to keep up with them, and just barely caught the finish. Uli won in around 1:09 and Trisha was the 5th woman. Great job guys! I took a few pictures but unfortunately our digital camera is acting up so some of them didn't come out, including all of the ones of Uli. At the finish line we bumped into Francis Agboton who was also out braving the weather to cheer people on.

Next weekend is the Dizzy Daze 50k and 100k at Greenlake, directed by Jonathon Bernard. I'll be running a workout at Greenlake in the morning so afterwards I plan to pop over to the outer dirt track to cheer on the runners. Good luck to everyone participating!

Chuckanut Results

2009-03-22T07:24:00.000-07:00

Chuckanut went well; my calf wasn't much of a factor, the weather was amazing, and I only minor stomach issues (during the last 10k on the Interurban). It was a great day for everybody it seems; lots of PR's all-around. Turned out awesome for a training race!

Top 10:

1. Aaron Heidt 3:53:56

2. Greg Crowther 4:01:04

3. Hal Koerner 4:02:17

4. Peter Ellis 4:05:21

5. Adam Lint 4:07:46

6. Michael Havrda 4:09:58

7. Brian Morrison 4:13:06

8. Chris Twardzik 4:16:52

9. Keegan Rathkamp 4:17:43

10. Aaron Pitt 4:23:24

Thanks to all of the people who volunteered; you put on a great event, and everyone appreciates your enthusiasm. And of course, thanks to Krissy for directing a class race as always! Special thanks to my wonderful crew (Shannon); aid stations went seamless. I'll post pictures when they become available.

Chuckanut Tomorrow....

2009-03-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the Chuckanut 50k, my first ultra of the year. I don't really have any expectations as far as results, but hope to get a little insight into how my training for the Capital Peaks 55k in April is going. Unfortunately, on Tuesday during an easy run I developed what I thought was a cramp in my right calf muscle, but the sensation is still there now. I've talked to a few different friends about it, and theories range from a muscle strain, a muscle bruise, to dehydration from my long run on Sunday (3.5 hours on Tiger w/20oz of Gatorade). Whatever it is, it's preventing me from being 100%. I'm hoping that it won't be too much of an issue on Saturday but it's definitely going to be a factor on the hills.

The field is pretty stacked; Adam Lint, Brian Morrison, Greg Crowther, Hal Koerner, James Varner, Brian Dayton, Scott Jurek, Peter Ellis, Chris Twardzik, John Berta, Brendan Trimboli...I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody (no offense meant!). Plus you never know who is going to come out of the woodwork, and I also heard some rumors that some more of the Ashland crew might be coming.

Chuckanut 50k Around the Corner

2009-03-04T08:39:00.000-08:00

The first race of my season is only a few weeks away; the Chuckanut 50k. I'm looking forward to Chuckanut because I'm made some pretty big changes in my training, and I'm anxious to see how they're going to translate over to racing. I've been doing a lot more track work, long tempo runs, and progression runs, while running less overall mileage and less vertical. As I'm trying to peak for the Capital Peaks 55k in April, Chuckanut won't be an all-out effort but more of a fitness test to check how everything is fitting together. I don't want to burn myself out on the first race, let alone a "non-target" race. My plan is to race parts of it (Chuckanut) comfortably hard, but pull back on some parts so I'm not wrecking myself. As Chuckanut tends to be a fairly competitive race, hopefully I can still squeak in a top 10 finish.

On Saturday, March 7th, I'll be going to the UW Last Chance track meet to support Seattle University's track team, which has been having a record-setting indoor track season. Information for the meet can be found here. Then later that evening I'll be attending the Seattle University Track and Field Social, which starts at 7pm at the Pyramid Alehouse in Seattle. If you have the time and want to come, your support is always welcome!

Anthropology!

2009-02-23T14:18:00.000-08:00

I'm really excited about a course I'm taking during Spring Quarter, Anthropology 206; "Cultural Anthropology". The catalog description states:

"Students in this course examine the dimensions
of human culture, including kinship, politics, and
religion, and evaluate the interrelationships between
geography, environment and cultural forms. Students
explore the effects of globalization on indigenous peoples
while developing critical thinking skills through the application
of essential anthropological approaches, theories,
and methods."

It sounds like a really cool class that's right up my alley in terms of interest. I really love reading and learning about different cultures, their sociology, and their history. Hopefully this class will give me a chance to further explore my interests.

I need your help!

2009-02-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

As some of you may be aware, I do charity work for Shoe4Africa. This entails mostly shipping gently used running shoes to Africa, where they give them to people who need them. Anyways, it used to be much easier and much more inexpensive, but unfortunately the USPS recently changed their policies and shipments can no longer go via surface mail; instead they have to be sent via air mail, which has increased my expenses about ten-fold.

I currently have about 15 pairs of shoes that are just sitting in my office that I really want to be put to good use, but it's going to cost about $80 to ship them, and unfortunately I don't have that amount of extra money to spend on my limited student income. While I try to find a permanent sponsor for future shipments, I thought "I'm sending shoes to Kenya; why not try a page out of their book?". In Kenya, they have a concept called "harambee", which means to "pull together" as a community. This is such a big part of their culture it's actually inscribed on the Kenya coat of arms.

So, my plea is to my community of friends and family; if you can donate anything, even $5, to help ship this current shipment of shoes to people who really need them, please email me (my email address is available on the "About Me" page) or leave me a comment; we'll figure out a way to make it work. We'll be practicing harambee on our own!

For more information on Shoe4Africa, please click the logo on the right.

No New News

2009-02-17T13:54:00.000-08:00

I haven’t posted in a while, so I thought I’d give a quick update. All is well; I’ve started training for the season (a little later than usual) with the plan to race at the Capital Peaks 55k in April again. In March I will be running at the Chuckanut 50k, with the intention of using it as a tune-up for Capital Peaks. I’m making some changes this year to my training, so Chuckanut will be a good test for how it’s going, although it is also too early to really tell; I don’t really expect to get into the swing of it until later in the year. Hopefully by the time Capital Peaks rolls around I’ll have made some ground.

Speaking of Chuckanut, Brian and I went up and ran the first 25 miles of the course on Saturday. The course was actually in really good shape, except for a few spots on Cleator Road where the road itself washed away. Krissy was also there and saw the damage first-hand, so I know she’ll figure out any changes she needs to make; there’s no need to worry when Krissy is in charge!

Bridle Trails Running Festival 10.4 Miler

2009-01-16T15:07:00.000-08:00

On January 10th I raced in the Bridle Trails 10 miler, taking 4th place overall with a time of 1:03.25. James Moore took first place, tying the course record in 1:00.23. For the race I wore a pair of cross country spikes (which I love to run in) with some new ceramic spikes I had gotten for free- big mistake! Even on the soft dirt trails at Bridle Trails, the spikes were worn down to nothing after a 20 minute warmup. I didn't have time to change them before the race, but I think the footing was decent even with just the nubs; I can only remember a few times where my foot slipped. I was hoping to run a little faster, but all in all, a good first tune-up race for the season!

Discovery Park Fat Ass

2009-01-16T14:50:00.000-08:00

A few weekends ago, Linda Barton invited me to an impromptu "Fat Ass" that Devon had put together since the Tiger Mountain FA had been cancelled on account of snow. Not having run much at Discovery Park much, I decided to partake in the run. We ran three easy, enjoyable loops around Discovery Park and it gave everyone a chance to share what was the latest in their life. I saw some new parts of the Park I'd never seen before (like taking the stairs down to the beach) and got to spend time with some awesome people. I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday morning.

New Year's Update

2009-01-02T10:20:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to post a quick update about what's going on. I'm mostly recovered from my incident with the broken beer bottle; my foot is healing well and I'm back to running as usual for the most part (I still have some occasional discomfort because of the deep bruising resulting from the cut) including a nice 87 mile week last week.

I was planning on running the Bridle Trails 50k on January 10th but have decided to forgo it, as I don't want to stress my foot so early in the healing process and because my fitness is not where it needs to be due to the couple of lost weeks of training.

The Shoe4Africa drive is going well; I've received about 6-7 pairs of shoes and have a few to add myself. I have run into an issue with the shipping costs however. Due to some new restrictions by the USPS, the cost to ship to Kenya has gone up quite a bit. I am still determined to ship the shoes I already have but until I can figure out how to finance the costs I've put all future shoe drives on hold.

School starts again on January 5th. This quarter I'm also trying out an online class to see how I like it. If it goes well, I might consider taking more classes online in the future. Shannon and I have also picked a location and date (May 16th) for the wedding, so we're making progress there as well! However, I still can't convince her to let me wear a bow-tie.

Litter Can Be Dangerous

2008-12-09T11:00:00.001-08:00

Monday morning I was out about 35 minutes into a short easy run on the rural streets around my home when I suddenly stepped on something that caused a sharp pain in my foot. I hopped over to a railing and lifted up my foot to see a 2" piece of glass sticking out of my shoe. I pulled it out and started untying my shoe, hoping it hadn't cut me, even though I knew it had. Pulling off my shoe, my sock was already soaked with blood and the insole of my shoe was turning red. I was still about a mile away from home so I put my shoe back on and hobbled home.

When I got home, I changed out of my wet running clothes (it was around 6am, and it had been raining out), and then called Shannon at work to ask her to take me to the emergency room. I then pulled off my blood-soaked sock and rinsed my foot (which now seemed to have stopped bleeding) with warm water in the bathtub, stuck a non-adherent gauze pad on my foot and wrapped it will a roll of gauze.

I then hopped into the kitchen, grabbed a delicious Pear and Apple Strudel Clif Bar for breakfast, and laid in bed with my foot raised eating the bar while I waited for Shannon to get home. After she picked me up, we drove to the hospital ER. At the ER, they x-rayed my foot to make sure there was no glass left inside, then irrigated the wound and gave me stitches.

Now I'm out for running for around 10 days, hopefully no longer. I tend to get stir-crazy and grumpy when I can't run, so Shannon is trying to keep my attitude positive. We went back to the site of the incident, and swept up the bottle (it was a Budweiser bottle, in case you were curious) so that it didn't happen to anyone else.

Shoe4Africa

2008-11-27T14:30:00.000-08:00

This week at work I started a monthly drive for the charity Shoe4Africa. Shoe4Africa is a nonprofit that, among other things, provides running shoes for people all over Africa who don't have the means to obtain them on their own. They also work on increasing AIDS awareness, and the charity recently created the first AIDS awareness pamphlets in native African languages. Shoe4Africa's latest and most ambitious project is to raise $15 million to build a hospital in Kenya.

Back to the shoe drive. I sent out an email to everyone at the university to ask them to donate their used (or new) running shoes and running apparel for the cause by dropping them off at my office. I then will ship all of the donated items to the organization in Kenya, where they'll distribute them to the people who need them. My hope is that I can make a shipment every month.

For more information about Shoe4Africa or to get involved, please click on the Shoe4Africa.org logo on the right side of this page. If you live in the Seattle area and would like to drop off some shoes with me please send me a comment or email. Anything helps!

Stone Bruise

2008-11-20T13:55:00.000-08:00

I'm going a little stir crazy right now because I haven't ran for two days. Last Sunday out at Cougar Mountain I stepped on a rock wrong and caused myself a case of metatarsalgia, also known as "stone bruise". For the last two days I've been resting and icing my foot, and tonight it finally feels like it should be safe to run on again. Just as an added measure I'll leave my X-Talons in the closet and wear a thicker shoe for a few days.

Luckily I don't have anything planned right now as far as races, besides the Seattle half-marathon next week. Allen Skytta and I are running it for fun since I received two free entries. I figured that at least I could have some laughs and collect a free tshirt.

I'm pretty sure I'll run the Bridle Trails Running Festival 50k and the Chuckanut 50k next year as tune-ups for the race season. Bridle Trails is one of my favorite places to take easy runs at because of the soft ground and flat loop. As far as Chuckanut, I haven't actually been on the course- the North Face race I did there last year was in the same vicinity but didn't share any of the same trails. However, I really like Bellingham, especially the Fairhaven area and the potato burritos Brian introduced me to at Casa Que Pasa. Plus, I have some friends who live up in Bellingham and go to Western.

It's also starting to get close to Christmas time. Christmas is one of my favorite holidays because I love winter; I just hope that we get some snow this year to really make it feel festive. I started shopping for family and friends last month and have already accumulated a fair amount of presents for them. I'm looking forward to the good times and good food.

Speaking of food, I have developed a strong affinity for sweet potatoes. They're really simple to prepare and are delicious, plus they have a good amount of Vitamins A and C, a fact I use to justify having (baked) sweet potato french fries occasionally.

Sorry this post is lacking a bit in substance; there's just not that much going on right now.

The Enchantments

2008-10-31T16:07:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we headed out to run through the Enchantments in the Leavenworth area. I have to say that this was probably the most beautiful place I've ever seen while running. The trail starts out around 3000 feet, and quickly winds its way up through the forest. After passing a few sparkling aqua colored lakes we reached the bottom of Asgard Pass. If you've never seen Asgard Pass, just imagine a boulder field nestled in the side of a steep mountain. I don't really know how else to describe it but than as something you'd imagine seeing in a fantasy movie (in fact, Scott made a few jokes about Orcs).

After weaving up through Asgard for a while, we finally reached the upper plateau at 8000 feet (see picture above), which I believe is referred to as the Enchantments. If so, the name is apt: the area is a mix of granite slab, sand, snow, and frozen lakes in peculiar colors. The imagery is surreal, like you've stumbled into something Pink Floyd dreamed up. There is not really a trail to follow but a series of rock cairns leads you through to the other side. Then a long, gradual (and very fun) descent drops you down to the Snow Lake Trailhead at around 1300 feet.

It was an amazing trip. I enjoyed the good company of my fellow runners, the gnarly scenery, the long descent, and running in the snow again. I also struggled a bit; since my ultra season ended in September I've done very little hill work because I've been running XC instead, so the long climbs hurt. However, it's only temporary, and now that XC is mainly over I'll start getting back into the swing of training for ultras.

See you on the trail!

When Owls Attack

2008-10-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

On Monday I was running an easy 10 miler at Bridle Trails State Park in the evening. I’m enjoying my run when suddenly something thuds into the back of my head. I stopped running and started looking around thinking that a branch had hit me in the head, but there are no branches on the ground, only pinecones. Having supposedly found the culprit, I continue running again.

However, another 20 feet down the trail something again smacks hard into the back of my head. I stop, and look around, thinking that someone is the bushes messing with me and they just happen to have great aim at throwing pinecones. To my astonishment I spot an owl perched on a branch about 10 feet away from me. I looked at him, and said “Was that you?” aloud (give me a break, I just got nailed in the head) and he suddenly swoops down at me again. I ducked and started running off down the trail laughing because a crazy owl attacked me.

As I’m running away, I touch the back of my head and find that I’m bleeding, which only makes me laugh harder. The crazy owl was nice enough to leave me with some talon marks on my head, which has helped me prove the validity of this story to the many astonished (and laughing) people I’ve told it to.

To continue the story, on my second loop through the area that night I decided to swing my arms above my head and make lots of noise, hoping that would deter the owl from taking another shot at my apparently appetizing scalp. It worked, but only until I stopped waving my arms (seemingly too soon, I guess) as I received a third and final BAM to the back of my head. Point taken, Mister Crazy Owl.

On a side note, I’ve run two additional cross country races since my last post: the Western Washington Invitational and the BCC Invitational. I did poorly in both due to a bad case of the flu, which I’m hoping has now passed.

Emerald City Invitational

2008-10-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

I had a blast running in my second cross country race on Saturday, the Emerald City Invitational. The Emerald City course at lower Woodland Park is quite hilly (in cross country terms) and even features a nice plunge down a 20 foot ravine. Every lap I looked forward to screaming down the slopes of the grassy hills at Woodland Park.

I also faired a bit better this time, finishing in 31st place out of 51 overall (15th in scoring), with a time of 32:05. It felt much easier and slower than at Sundodger, which was either a result of the slower course or maybe some of that new speedwork paying off.

Sundodger Invitational

2008-09-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

So on Saturday I ran in the Sundodger Invitational, a cross-country event put on by the University of Washington. It was my first ever XC race, and I had a lot of fun. I'll start out by saying that I'm definately not a short distance runner, but I thought that running XC in my off-season was a good way to get in some speedwork and have some fun. I've also never run a race that was less than marathon distance before, so running an 8k XC race would be a whole new world.

My goal was to not come in last place, and I suceeded: I came in second to last place, with a time of 30:39. Normally it takes me about that long to get warmed up in an ultra, and here I was, finished already. However, I don't feel bad in the least that I got my butt kicked because most of the runners were Division 1 collegiate runners.

I am running on the Seattle Running Club XC team which is run by the owner of the Seattle Running Company, Scott McCoubrey. Because I was waiting for my size 9 spikes to come in, Scott was nice enough to let me borrow a pair of 8.5's for the race. They felt fine but left me with quite a few blisters after the race...more than I've ever gotten from an ultra. Funny how that works; run for 8 hours and develop no blisters, but run for 30 minutes and get six. It's all good though, we all got a laugh out of my mangled feet afterwards and they'll heal quick.

The ever-amazing Uli came in 6th place with a time so much faster than mine I won't embarass myself by posting it (24:11), and the rest of the team faired just as well, all with times under 30 minutes. Full results can be found at http://gohuskies.cstv.com/sports/c-xc/stats/2008-2009/mensinvite.html.

5th Place at 2008 Cle Elum Ridge 50k

2008-09-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I ran the last race of my first ultra season; the Cle Elum Ridge 50k. The course is both beautiful and challenging, with the first 16-17 miles all ascending a grinding uphill climb that never seems to end. After the climb, the course drops down pretty quickly down some nice, long switchbacks for a couple of miles before settling into rolling terrain for the remaining 10 miles.

The pace from the start was pretty quick, and I started out a little bit too hard. It took me a while to find my rhythm on the climb, and by then I was suffering. Pushing myself too much too early was a mistake, and now I was starting to get passed by people on the climb. Jim Kerby caught up to me, and we ran together for a while, helping each other up the climb. I’ve never raced with Jim before; he is a genuinely nice person with a great attitude, and loads of ultra experience (something that I was envying on Saturday, having made another rookie mistake).

I was feeling pretty bad by the time we reached the climax of the final climb, but I knew that I could ran the downhill hard (I like to call downhills my specialty, because I can bomb down them!). During the climb I had fallen to something like 12-13th place, but as I ran down the wide open switch backs I started to pass other runners. After the downhill ended, I ran the rolling section pretty hard for 5-6 miles before slowing down a bit because of a nasty blister that developed on my heel.

Hitting the last stretch and seeing the finish line was awesome; I’d recovered from the hardship I’d experienced earlier in the race during the climb and finished strong in 5th place, with a time of 5:07. First place went to Gary Robbins of Canada in 4:31, and in second place was the ever-smiling James Varner, in 4:37, both blazing fast times for this course!

It felt great to end the race strong, something I hadn’t felt in any of my previous races. Now if only I could combine starting strong with finishing strong, maybe I’d be on to something…but I’m not complaining! Finishing the race like this was the perfect positive end to my first season of ultra running; now I am looking forward to next year!

Both photos taken by Glenn Tachiyama (http://www.pbase.com/gtach/) Thanks Glenn!

5th Place at Cle Elum Ridge 50k

2008-09-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

This is just going to be brief; I'm going to type up a longer race report in a few days. I got 5th place at the 2008 Cle Elum Ridge 50k with a time of 5:07. It was a hard day, but I'm happy to end my season on a positive with a good performance. Gary Robbins snuck in from Canada to win the race with a time of 4:31, and climbing beast James Varner took second in 4:37. If you've run this race before, you know that those are two blazing fast times.

Now it's time to relax a bit and recover, and then start working on building a base for next year's season. I'm hoping that next season I can continue the improvements I've made and keep inching my way towards the front.

Cross Country

2008-09-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

I've decided to run cross country with the Seattle Running Club this fall/winter. I've never run cross country before, so it's going to be a completely new experience for me and I have a lot to learn. I know nothing about strategy or scoring, but it seems quite interesting. I also do not know if I need to get XC spikes or XC flats.

Can anyone offer some opinions, based on their experience? It would be much appreciated!

Cle Elum in 6 Days

2008-09-08T09:20:00.000-07:00

Nothing much to report today; I'm just tapering for the Cle Elum Ridge 50k on Saturday the 13th. I'm looking forward to the race because I feel better than I did at White River, plus the course itself is totally awesome. Cle Elum is the last race of my 2008 season, and then it will just be maintenance time until next year.

I'll post a full race report and season summary after Saturday. Wish me luck!

Found: Bears in National Park, No Pic-a-Nic Baskets

2008-08-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I went to Cougar Mountain for my long run of the week, and got quite the surprise. I've seen quite a bit on wildlife at Cougar, mostly deer, owls, and the ever present squirrels and field mice, but I'd never seen either of the elusive predators that are supposed to occupy the forest; the black bear and the cougar. Well, that changed on Saturday. On my first loop through I went around a corner on the Shy Bear Trail (what a coincidence) and about 30 feet ahead of me on the trail are two black bears, one adult and one cub.

As soon as I saw them I stopped immediately and tried to remember what to do, my mind flashing back to all of those survival guides I've read. I decided the correct action was to stay still and talk calmly, so that the bear wouldn't be alarmed or think I was going to get aggressive. The big bear sat up on it's butt and looked at me, and we stared at each other for about 10 or 15 seconds, both of us unsure of what to do. After a short while, both of the bears took off into the brush and quickly disappeared.

I waited a few more minutes before proceeding, walking slowly down the trail. I kept talking out loud because I remembered reading that black bears really only get aggressive if they get surprised and feel threatened. After a few minutes of walking, I felt secure that Yogi and Boo-Boo weren't going to pop out again, and resumed running. What an experience!

The run itself was pretty awesome; I ran two of the standard 14 mile SRC loops for a total of 28 miles with 5200 feet of ascent and actually ran the second lap two minutes faster. I felt really strong throughout the whole run, especially at the end, so I ran the last 20 minutes at tempo pace. It's been a while since I felt that strong on a long run; I'm hoping this is a good sign for Cle Elum!

Highs and Lows at the White River 50

2008-07-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I ran my first 50 mile race, the White River 50 Mile National Championship (named so because it is the USATF 50 mile trail national championship, generally meaning that the competition is pretty fierce). It was definately the hardest thing I've ever done.

So first, here are the lows. I came into the race feeling a bit unconfident because I hadn't been able to train the way I had wanted to, due to some health issues I'd been having. I had wanted to run the splits from Nikki Kimball's 2004 race, which would have given me a finishing time of around 7 hours 45 minutes. Now, back when I set this goal for myself I was in better shape and was confident that I could actually run a 7:30, but then I got sick and things kind of degraded a bit.

When the race finally started, I was actually right on pace through the first two aid stations, but I lost 15 minutes going into the third aid station at Corral Pass, which is at the summit of the first major climb of the race, about 17 miles in. I had made the mistake of only carrying one water bottle and was starting to get dehydrated, and I paid for it. About a mile out of Corral Pass I went to take a drink and choked on the water a little, which then caused me to empty all of my stomach contents out on the side of the trail. I felt a little better after, but about 500 feet later I had to stop to throw up again. I walked for a little bit after, happy that I now had two bottles, and sipped continously for the next 10 minutes to start rehydrating. The damage was already done though: I was dehyrated, had just lost most of the fluids and food I'd eaten, and by the time I got to the aid station at Buck Creek I was 33 minutes behind.

On the downhill into Buck Creek I recovered a bit, and was drinking a ton, trying to rehydrate. After a quick stop at the aid station and some encouraging words from my fiancee Shannon and buddy Chris, I headed out. The one advantage to having run so slowly in the first half was that my legs were feeling pretty good still; besides the 10 minutes of walking early when I was sick, I actually ran pretty much the entire course, including both climbs.

Now on the second major climb of the race, up to Sun Top, I looked up to see someone walking down the mountain towards me. At first, in my hazy dehydrated mindset, I thought I had made a mistake, but when the person got closer I realized it was my friend (and one of the runners I look up to the most), Brian Morrison. He said that he felt pretty bad and had made the decision to drop. He also told me that Michael Sanders, another one of my friends and a very underrated runner, had dropped as well earlier. I felt really bad for both of them; Brian's had bad luck this year, first with Western States being cancelled, and then this. Michael was set to pace Brian at Western, and was really fit; I'd seen them both easily tear up the second half of the White River course a few weeks prior.

The rest of the race was less eventful. I didn't get sick again, but I was pretty wiped out from my earlier hydration mistakes, and by the time I reached the summit of Sun Top I was spent. I ran the 7 miles downhill from Sun Top at an agonizingly slow pace because my body just felt beat up. Normally I'm a strong downhill runner, but I just couldn't open up my stride. I got passed by about 4 people and lost about 20 minutes on the descent.

I was relieved to get to the final section of trail on Skookum Flats. It was a more technical section of trail than the rest of the course, which is generally where I'm at my best. I opened up a bit on Skookum Flats, or at least I felt like it, but in reality even though I was still running, I wasn't going that fast. The 6 miles took me about an hour, which was really disheartening considering I'd run that section before in 45 minutes during training at an easy pace. Along the way I passed Hal Koerner, who was leaning up against a tree stretching. Hal had some sort of foot injury (sprained? broken?) but was determined to grit his way through it (he did, finishing in around nine hours).

Once again, I was relieved when I came out of Skookum flats onto the final stretch before the finish line. I tried to smile as I crossed the finish. After 50 miles, and many lowpoints among the high, I finished with a time of 8 hours 44 minutes, in 35th place overall, an hour behind my original goal.

So what were the highs, you ask? Well, the most important one was that I finished. There were quite a few times were I felt like I wanted to lie down on the side of the trail and take a nap, but I forced myself to keep pushing, even after it was obvious that I was no where close to my goal. I also learned a lot about myself and my mind and body, and that experience will pay off in future races. Finally, coming into the race undertrained and missing my goal because of that has lit a fire in me for my next race, because now I have something to prove to myself.

Both photographs were taken by Glenn Tachiyama. Thanks again Glenn, for more awesome pictures!

I will add finishing times for the winners (1st place was Mike Wardian, in 6:52) when they become available. I'd like to give an honorable mention to John Berta, who placed 6th overall with a time of 7:14. This was his first 50 miler as well. John and I had a great race against each other at Capital Peaks this year, and once again he beat me, this time much more handily. Great job John!

MMM, 2 Days and 50 miles until Pizza

2008-07-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

So the White River 50 miler is in two days. I'm looking forward to my first 50 miler, with equal parts excitement and nervousness. I'm excited because it's a new challenge, and the course is beautiful. I'm nervous because it's 50 miles and I've never ran that far before, and also I haven't trained as much as I'd have liked to.

I do, however, have a fun post-race tradition that I'm looking forward to. After a race, after I've had the necessary recovery food items (my favorite: Ultragen and a couple vegan morning glory muffins), I allow myself to eat whatever I want for the next 24 hours. It's a reward for racing, and it also helps me avoid junk food during training cycles. My plans for after White River? A large pepperoni pizza from Pagliacci's, a burger with fries, Ben and Jerry's Phish Food, and maybe a big brownie. My mouth is watering already!

After that, it's back on track to training for the Cle Elum Ridge 50K in September. That was my first ultra ever, which was last year (2007). I'm excited to go back and see how much I've improved (a lot) and I'm focusing the bulk of my running around it.

My last thought today: how much I love running. During a taper week, I go nuts because I miss running as much. I actually find it easier to put it more miles in a week than less, just because I enjoy running so much and I have so much fun. Even though I call it "training", to me it really is just running because I'd be doing it anyways, even if I wasn't racing. I can't wait to get back to lots of running again!

White River 50 Course

2008-07-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

So today I ran the first 27 miles of the White River 50 course (having ran the last 23 of the course last Sunday) and I have to say the course has the most beautiful scenary I've seen at any ultra I've been a part of. It winds its way through the forest and mountains, topping out at around 5700 feet along an semi-exposed ridgeline. When you're running on the ridgeline you have amazing views of Mount Rainier, which looks so close that you can reach out and touch it. You get even closer to Rainier than you would at Paradise, or at least that is how it seems.

The course itself is a blast. It features a lot of fun singletrack, and has two major sustained climbs that go on for miles. The climbs aren't particularly steep, but they're very gradual; you gain thousands of feet in elevation over 8-10 miles of sustained climbing.

I'm excited for the race. It's certainly going to be a challenge, not only because it's my first 50 miler, but the course itself is not easy and it will definately be a hot day. Hopefully I'm up for the challenge!

2008 Western States Cancelled

2008-06-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

I just found out that the 2008 Western States 100 has been cancelled, due to all of the wildfires that are occurring in the area. From the Western States website:

It is with deep regret that we announce today that the 35th running of the Western States 100-mile Endurance Run has been cancelled, due to the unprecedented amount of wildfires that have struck northern California in recent days and the health risks that have been associated with these wildfires. The Board of Trustees of the Western States Endurance Run has consulted with many of our local and state race partners, including the U.S. Forest Service and the Placer County Air Pollution Control District, in coming to this decision. We apologize to our runners for any inconvenience this decision has created.

For more details, visit http://www.ws100.com/latestnews.htm

I just wanted to offer my sympathy to all the runners who have been putting in hard months of training for this event, eagerly anticipating their participation in such a great tradition the race is. Hopefully everyone will be able to find an alternative race to show off the fitness they earned!

On that note, I'd like to specifically offer my sympathy to a friend and amazing runner, Brian Morrison. I know all the hard work he put in and how excited he was to be running Western States again this year. I've seen the great shape he was in and saw the strong mental sharpness he had, peaking right in time for the race.

Here's looking forward to next year for everybody!

Training, Music, and Life

2008-06-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

So training for White River is going well; today I ran a double on Mount Si, my usual Saturday morning run. I was pretty happy with my performance on my Si runs until I read Greg Crowther's blog, and he said his PR up Mount Si is like 40-41 minutes. Jeezus, that makes my 52 minute best seem like I walked up! I did notice that my down times are pretty quick though, average around 26-27 minutes (best 24). Not world class, but decent.

This week I also ran my first interval session. I'd never done them before so it was kind of an exploratory thing for me. I did an easy 20 minute warmup run to a school that has a natural track the next neighborhood over, and then ran 3 1200 meter intervals at Vo2 pace. It was actually a bit fun trying something completely new and I look forward to next week's interval session.

Earlier in the week I discovered a new (at least to me) musician named Mason Jennings. I really like his music; it's kind of a funky, laid back mix (think Jack Johnson's attitude mixed with, um, Joss Stone? I dunno...). I'm finding my music tastes vary a lot, but I tend to be drawn to easy, mellow, fun stuff. A while ago when we actually had warmth and sunshine I was in my office reclining on my yellow sofa, eating Ben and Jerry's Phish Food while listening to the new Jack Johnson cd and enjoying the summer weather. It was a perfect moment...one that I'd like to repeat again sometime!

As far as life, I just finished another quarter of college. It's been a bit hectic trying to work, train, and go to college all at the same time so I'm looking forward to some down time. I find I'm missing those moments of life where you just get to sit back and do nothing. It's even harder sometimes when all you want to do is be running on a trail somewhere, wandering through the trees lost in introspection.

I read an article about a really interesting runner named Gabriel Jennings. He's a world class 1500 meter runner who enjoys reading classics (even listening to audio books on his iPod), majored in all sorts of interesting stuff like African dance and music, and is just a really cool guy in general. It was nice to see that you don't have to be a cookie-cutter, corporate logo type personality in order to be successful at running.

Until next time, keep running world.

Mount Teneriffe: It's Okay....

2008-06-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

So Saturday morning I got up late, and decided that I wasn't in the mood for my normal Saturday run up Mount Si because by the time I would get there it would surely be covered with human bananas. Instead, I elected to try Mount Teneriffe, which is right next to Si (you can actually cross over to Si at one point if you'd like), just a smidge taller (4800 feet), and a little bit longer (14 miles round trip instead of 8). I'd never been there before so I was excited to try something new.

However, the excitement faded pretty quickly. The Teneriffe trail is almost completely on old logging roads which sometimes passed by walls of rock, which had shedded down onto the trail making it quite rocky and hard. The rockiness didn't really affect the run up, but I didn't think about the run down (more on this later).

And then, at around 3000 feet up, my summertime arch nemesis: snow. I was not expecting snow, given the fact that Mount Si was completely snow free all the way to the summit the week before. I didn't want to turn around, so I kept going. Luckily, I'm actually a really strong runner in the snow. By the time I got to the summit, there was about 6-7 feet of snow but it was pretty dense, so I was only postholing a few inches at most.

What goes up, most come down. I started the run back down, and was doing fine in the snow. The real problem came when the snow ended. As soon as I got out of the soft, cushioning snow, I realised something I hadn't considered on the way up: that heavy, completely soaked wet shoes and rocky hard trail are a bad combination. At first it was so uncomfortable that I had to run downhill at a seemingly agonizingly slow pace, but eventually the trail softened and my shoes dried out some and I was able to pick the pace back up. In the end, it took me about 2:32.00 to run the 14 miles and 4000 feet of gain.

So my final word: Teneriffe would be a great trail to hike because it offered some amazing views, and was virtually human free on a day when Si's parking lot was overflowing, but it's not really a great run. Combine the longish 7 mile downhill with a hard, rocky trail, and it's not worth the punishment your body will take versus what you will gain. I guess next weekend it's back to Mount Si, to become another human in the congo line to the top.

Nuun...and Aaron's Birthday

2008-05-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

So at lunch on Thursday I went to Nuun and met the founder, Tim Moxey. They're located in a really cool building in Belltown, one of those loft style buildings with brick walls, old wood floors, and timber ceilings. Anyways, Tim and I chatted for a few minutes, then he gave me a lot of Nuun stuff, like water bottles, tubes of Nuun (including the new Orange Ginger flavor), etc. What a cool company! And speaking of the new flavor, it's really good. It has an incredibly light (bordering on not there) taste and is quite refreshing. I think it's going to become a good companion flavor for my favorite, Tri-Berry.

I followed up this lunch with a good run after work, a 10 miler with 1800 feet of ascent. It feels good to finally be back into normal training after the recovery week; I can only run so many easy pace runs before I get bored and just want to go all out.

Anyways, last night I was out until 2am celebrating my friend Aaron's 25th birthday. I don't drink or care much for the whole bar scene, but I enjoyed hanging out and being the designated driver (as always). I normally go to bed at 9 0r 10pm, depending on if I have class that night, so I was pretty damn tired and fell right asleep when I got home. I wanted to sleep in, but for some odd reason I woke up at 7am and couldn't fall back asleep. I'm heading out to run Mount Si in an hour or so and I'm hoping that this lack of sleep doesn't make it too miserable. Good to be back to it, though!

North Face Endurance Challenge Results Up

2008-05-17T19:27:00.000-07:00

The highlights are up for the North Face Endurance Challenge event. I think it's pretty cool- I'm in the video for a total of like 3-4 seconds! You can check out the pictures, results, and video at http://www.thenorthface.com/endurancechallenge/races/2008/swa_recap.html

Argh! More Snow at Granite Lakes

2008-05-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

So today I was planning on running up to the Granite Lakes in the Cascades because the trail is mostly out in the open and with the beautiful weather I wanted to run in the sun. It started out great, just me, a pair of running shorts, a water bottle, and of course some nice hot weather. At first I felt a little fatigued because I hadn't really run any hills since the North Face last Saturday but soon enough I got into a grove. However, that was soon interupted at about 2200 feet up: snow, and lots of it (about 2 feet). I thought I'd give it a shot and see how it was, but about 200 vertical feet later I realized I was going to be postholing all the way up to the lakes, so I decided to turn around and just run back to the car. It was an okay run, but much shorter than I had been hoping for (only about 8 miles in around 1:20, with just 1600 feet of ascent). It seems I can't get away from the snow!

However, my legs are starting to feel back to normal after the race. Tomorrow I'll go out for the usual SRC run at Cougar and then my recovery week is over so I can get back to some normal training.

In the Mood...for Camping

2008-05-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but suddenly I'm struck with the urge to go camping. The good kind of camping, where you carry everything in your pack and hike to someplace. My buddy Chris and I went hiking to Granite Lakes last summer and we both felt like that would be a great place to camp out for a day or two. It was sunny, hot, and the alpine lake water was so cold and refreshing. Maybe this can all happen once Spring and Winter stop fighting over who gets to control the weather.

3rd Place Finish at North Face 50k

2008-05-11T08:50:00.001-07:00

Well, I got 3rd place at the North Face Endurance Challenge 50k in Bellingham, which was quite a surprise. Going into the race my expectations were pretty low because I had two weeks of mediocre training after Capitol Peaks on April 26th and I felt like my legs still hadn't recovered. I felt pretty good on the flat sections and the downhills, but on the uphills (especially later in the race) I could really feel the fatigue still in my thighs from Cap Peaks.

Once again I started out too hard and bonked early on, then resolved to just set a comfortable pace for the rest of the race with the hope of finishing in the top ten. Part of me had an inkling that everyone ahead of me had started out hard too and that they would tire on the incessant hills of the course. I ran with a guy named Ryan (I don't know his last name yet, but he finished 2nd) for pretty much the entire second half of the race at a comfortable pace. The company was well welcome; our banter helped pass some of the time.

Surprisingly, at our easy pace we started to pass by the race leaders, and eventually we had moved from around 7-8th place into 1st and 2nd. About a half mile or so after we took the lead, Krissy Moehl came up from behind and passed us right before the last major climb. Her experience paid off; being smarter than us, she had started easy and as a result she was running incredibly strong at the end. I'm happy for Krissy (who got 1st place overall!) because she's such a fun and nice person, and has incredible talent.

The last climb was very steep and rugged, which forced us to hike up it. For some reason, I can't walk uphill as fast as other people seem to be able too. Is it technique or leg length? I don't know, but it puts me at a disadvantage. Krissy and Ryan pulled away from me hiking up the last climb, and after that point I didn't see them until the finish. I was more than happy with 3rd place because I had no expections for this race, and was thinking of it more as gaining experience for the future.

The course conditions were quite varied; the first 3.1 mile section (which we were forced to run 2.5 loops on) had pretty bad trail conditions, like stairs cut into the mud that crumbled under your feet. It made it hard to run, especially the downhill sections. Also, a little after the half way mark there was a section of forest trail that was all on dead forest growth, so it was like running on sponges.

One cool thing was the close to $300 in prizes that I came away with, including all sorts of North Face junk (backpack, clothes, etc) and a red 4gb Zune mp3 player, which I promptly gave to my fiance Shannon since she's been wanting one for a while.

Also, Brian Morrison won the 50 mile event and netted a nice $1000 check. We got a laugh out of it because he actually got one of the gigantic checks that you see at lottery prizes. Congrats to Brian for another great race!

Now it's onto a week of recovery running, then back to training for White River.

Craving...Mighty-O Donuts

2008-05-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, so right now I'm having a craving for Mighty-O Donuts. For those of you who aren't from Seattle, Mighty-O is a quaint little donut shop that makes vegan donuts (http://www.mightyo.com/). They're quite delicious, and because they use all natural ingredients (and no animal products) they're a tiny bit healthier than normal donuts. I don't treat myself often, but right about now I wish I had one of their raspberry glazed chocolate donuts. Maybe after the North Face race I'll get one....

North Face Endurance Challenge This Weekend

2008-05-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

The North Face Endurance Challenge is fast approaching; in fact, it's only 3 days away. I'll be traveling up to Bellingham the night before to check out the town since I've never been there.

I will be running in the 50k, which has a lovely start time of 7am. That means I won't have to get up at 3am the morning of the race. I'm not entirely sure how I'll feel racing again only two weeks after the Capitol Peaks 55k so this is new territory for me. I don't have the experience yet like all the veterans to know how I've recovered, but I guess I'll find out.

It's kind of strange that North Face doesn't publish the entrants list. It would be nice to know who is running. On one hand I figure that since it's hosted by North Face there should be some strong competition, but on the other hand there is no prize money involved in the 50k (the 50 miler has a $1000 purse, I believe) so probably most of the great runners will be running the 50 miler. No matter what, I'm just going to run my race and see what happens, and gain some valuable experience along the way.

Second Place at Capitol Peaks 55k!

2008-05-07T09:08:00.001-07:00

So the first race of the season for me was the Capitol Peaks 55k down in Olympia, on April 26th. After not racing for six months, I was pretty eager to get out there and compete again; counting down the days before the race seemed to go agonizingly slow. When April 25th rolled around I was bouncing off the walls.

My fiance and I had decided to drive down the morning of the race, so we had to get up at 2:30am in order to make the 6am start. Once we got to Capitol Forest, time seemed to fly and it was time to start. The race director yelled go, and I was off.

Since this was kind of like an "exploratory race" for me, I had wanted to go out hard to see if I could handle the pace, since I usually take about 30 minutes to warm up. For a while I could hear John Berta and Brian Morrison (who was running the 50 miler) talking behind me, but since they were starting out easy eventually they disappeared behind me. I ran by myself in the lead up until Aid 2 at around 10 miles, at which point John popped out of nowhere. We continued to run together until about mile 14 when I accidently inhaled the Nuun from my water bottle instead of drinking it, started choking, and threw up. John Berta passed by me, gave me a pat on the back, and said that throwing up "would get it out". He was right, and I followed him into A3 at the 15 mile marker. John headed out of A3 about 15 seconds ahead of me, and quickly pulled ahead. By the time I reached Capitol Junction (around miles 21 and 23) John was 5 minutes ahead of me. It was at this point I pretty much resigned to second place because I didn't think I would catch him, plus my stomach was upset and I had stopped eating (big mistake!).

Anyways, after Aid 5 I headed out onto the ridgeline, which I knew was covered with a couple feet of snow. I plodded along in the snow for what seemed like ages, and then when I went around a corner there was John Berta 20 feet ahead of me! I think I was as surprised to see him as he was to see me. He politely let me resume the lead down into the final aid station at Wedeking.

Now, I was pretty out of it at Wedeking. I had stopped eating about 30-40 minutes before, and even water sounded unappetizing. Both Jove and Mike Adams mentioned seeing me at Wedeking, but I was so out of it I didn't even notice they were there (sorry guys, but thanks for volunteering!).

I lead John out of Wedeking, and we ran at a pretty easy pace through the forest. At around the 4 hour mark I looked down and realized one of my shoes had come untied. What lousy timing! I ran with the lace flapping around for about 20 minutes, not wanting to stop, when John said that if I wanted to stop to tie my shoe, he'd wait. I thought this was an incredibly gentlemanly thing for him to offer. I tied my shoe, and we were off again.

About two miles or so from the finish, John was right on my heels and I could sense he had more energy than me, so I asked if he wanted to go by. He accepted, and quickly shot off. I had been running for about an hour and half without eating or drinking and didn't have the mental energy to push myself to chase him down (which is something I regretted not doing after the race, but I paid for my mistake of not forcing myself to remain hydrated and fueled). I could hear him let out an exuberant shout when he crossed the finish line in first (in 4:47:30), and I finished in second two and half minutes behind with a time of 4:50:00 . Third place went to Kendra Ralstin of Tacoma, with a time of 5:22:35. Full results can be found at http://www.capitolpeakultras.com/CP50mile.htm

Congratulations to John for a great race, and for beating his previous course record of 4:54:00. I actually learned a lot from this race and it's always great to race against runners that are better than you, otherwise you'll never strive to get better yourself. Also, thanks to RD John Pearch and all the volunteers for putting on a great event!