50K PR

After we returned from Fairbanks, I caught a touch of the training panic. Sled-towing was so hard, and I felt so slow, that I came back to California with a number of resolutions. I need more running! Less biking, more time on my feet! More back-to-backs! More hills! More weight! The weight goal is still in progress. I opted against running with a heavy pack because it's so hard on my knees. Then Beat acquired a bike cargo trailer that he is going to outfit with disc brakes to add resistance, and today I purchased 60 pounds of kitty litter for the purpose of hauling around in the trailer. As soon as he gets the brakes set up, we'll trade off a weight-training session here and there. If I can add just a little more strength-building and volume to my routine in the next three weeks, I'll feel more confident about my conditioning for the ITI.

On Saturday we ran the Crystal Springs 50K, a pleasant trail run through the redwoods along Skyline Ridge. The course is almost identical to the Woodside Ramble 50K that I ran a month ago (directed by a different race organizer), but I do love running these trails, and Beat and I enjoy participating in these events as fun, well-supported training runs. When I caught up to Beat on the first long climb, he had already found a cute girl to run with, Celine (Beat often makes friends during races, both male and female, because running makes him happy and thus chatty and friendly. I find this endearing, even when his new friends are cute girls.) Celine looked to be in her early 20s, was running her first 50K, told us her dad worked for Google, and seemed enthralled with Beat's tales of derring do. We all ran together for about five miles before they dropped me on the descent into Wunderlich Park.

As I padded the soft dirt along Salamander Flat, it occurred to me that I was nearly 15 miles into this race, and yet hardly felt it. Somehow the first half just coasted by, so I decided that for the second, I was going to put in a decent effort. Nothing crazy — I'm not trying to injure myself with untrained speed. But I could work a little bit for it.

Beat teased me when I passed them again on the second long climb. "I can't descend worth anything so I might as well run the uphill," I called out as I motioned them to follow. They nearly caught up when I was snacking at the 20-mile aid station, but I didn't see them and took off again before they arrived. The next section is six miles of rollers. I passed quite a few people during this segment, some running the marathon distance at a slower pace, but at one point I passed a woman who had slowed to walk one of the short uphills. She blazed past me on the next downhill, and after that I noticed that any time I got close to her again, she'd speed up. "She's racing me!" I thought, and then, "Okay, it's on."

We passed each other a few times — she couldn't quite hold me off on the longer ascents, but she was more willing to let go on the descents. Finally I started to feel embarrassed about our leapfrog game, and decided just to keep her in sight. As such, I sometimes got a little rest on the climbs, and her downhill speed would spur me to take a few more risks on the descents. It was a lot of fun — relaxing and thrilling at the same time.

The final five miles has two short climbs, but it's mostly a long descent. I assumed I'd never see her again, but thought I should at least try. I managed to maintain the shadow all the way through the final mile, a much more gradual descent on a gravel road. When it was nearly flat, she started to slow. My legs felt surprisingly fresh. I pondered engaging a sprint to the finish, but the prospect of racing a random woman for one less notch in the standings seemed too embarrassing. I just can't bring myself to behave that way, which is one of many reasons I'm not much of a racer. As we coasted into the finish, I noticed the clock read 5:36. My initial reaction was that I'd mis-read the number, because that would be 15 minutes faster than I've ever run a 50K, and that didn't seem likely. You have to run hard to run fast(er), right? But as I strode back around to watch for Beat, the clock was still in the 5:30s.

Celine came in a couple minutes later, informing me that Beat was a minute or so behind after she surged to the finish, wherein Beat accused Celine of disrespecting her elders. "Mid-fives, is that pretty good for a 50K?" she asked. "It's fast for me," I answered, "and I think it's great for a first 50K trail race on a hilly course." Beat came in at 5:42, and we headed to the barbecue table just as Celine's dad approached to pick her up. Beat recognized him instantly because he was Patrick Pichette, Google's CFO. In all those hours Celine didn't share that detail. She was very down-to-earth — just a young woman from Montreal who was studying in Scotland with aspirations to become a surgeon, visiting her Google-employee father at their home in San Francisco, and running a 50K for fun. She would be running a 15K with her dad in the city the following day. I encouraged her to check to see if she won an age-group award, and that's when I learned she was 19. Nineteen! Girl's going places.

Oh, the woman who finished 8 seconds in front of me was third female, 12 minutes behind first place. Missed the podium by that much, ha!

The plan was to finish the 50K with plenty left in the tank, and then put in another moderate run on Sunday. I fluctuated with my ambitions but ended up running a 13-miler on the steep PG&E loop at Rancho San Antonio. This "tired-legs" run mainly suffered from flagging motivation and subsequent laziness, but for the most part I felt good. Little to no soreness in the legs, no issue at all with feet, some "bonkiness" (sudden blood sugar crash, felt fine before and wasn't thrilled about low-energy running this time around), and subsequent minor gastro issues.

I am pleased that I was able to run a personal best 50K time, comfortably, having fun the whole time. Tonight I was able to meet with "Sea Legs Girl" Tracy, who was interviewing at Stanford, for dinner in Palo Alto. Amid engaging conversation about overtraining patterns and life in the Bay Area, the topic turned to what part of my winter training could have helped me become faster when my entire focus has been long-term endurance building. I speculated that I'm still feeling the after-effects of the Fairbanks training, where pulling around a 30- to 40-pound sled on difficult terrain helped build uphill strength. I can actually go back and compare mile-for-mile splits to previous races on the Crystal Springs course, and almost all of my extra time was gained on the climbs, and by effectively negative-splitting the final half. If pulling a sled makes me a stronger uphiller, I still wonder whether running lots of hills can make me a stronger sled-puller. My brain expresses doubt but my heart wants to believe. Mostly because I just want to keep running. 

Like rolling waves

This week, I have been experimenting with "bonk" running. This wasn't entirely intentional — basically, I got caught up in what I was doing during the day, skipped lunch, and then headed out in the late afternoon for a run without snacks. Monday was eight miles of one long climb and descent, running on what felt like the fumes of a long-ago-incinerated breakfast. Tuesday was six with Beat, and for two of those miles I was downright dizzy. "What a hopeless carb burner I am," I thought. "But at the same time, it's not really that much worse without carbs."

Beat is still considering the experiment of walking unsupported to Nome, nearly a month on only the supplies he can carry in his sled. It's a baffling goal but also a potentially valuable learning experience toward becoming an expeditioner, for which Beat has aspirations. This has led to multiple discussions about high-calorie density foods — such as pounds and pounds of peanut butter — and the art of burning fat for fuel. Like most people I carry plenty of this around, but consider fat a terrible energy source for strenuous exercise. It's like looking at a pit of smoldering coals and saying, "You know what would really get this fire going — a huge, wet log!" Body fat or dietary fat — it's all slow-burning and sluggish.

Still, becoming a more efficient fat burner — or at least developing more confidence in what my body can already do — has the potential to enhance my own long-distance experiences. In the case of the Iditarod, I could lighten my load by subsisting on more energy-dense foods, and I potentially wouldn't have to stop and eat as often — always an intimidating chore in the deep cold. My mouth wouldn't get as torn up by constantly gnawing on frozen sugary foods, and the slow burn might aid in keeping my body temperature more consistent. It's a little too late in the game to switch to a low-carb plan. But at the same time, I would benefit from slightly curbing my carb dependency — if only to get a feel and an appreciation for running on fumes, which, for better or worse, is likely to become my default state in the Iditarod.

On Wednesday I set out a little earlier than usual, only about five hours after breakfast instead of eight, which, — after I'd defined my early-week runs as goal-oriented, rather than simply being too lazy to make lunch — felt like cheating. I laced up my Hokas and filled up a 20-ounce bottle with water, stuffed a camera and wet wipe in the hand-hold pocket, and set out. The plan was six miles. Dark clouds settled over Black Mountain as a mist of light rain wafted on the breeze. It's getting to the point of drought here in California that I tend to become irrationally excited about "bad" weather and irrationally grumpy about "good" weather. By the cut-off,  I was buzzing with happy hormones and feeling a strong desire to chase those dark clouds up the mountain. Instead of turning left, I continued climbing.

The grade steepened, and even as these undefined urges drove me forward, a haze settled over my brain. This is the real benefit of a bonk run; there's less glucose to fuel my over-active imagination, and all of the little nagging voices and unsettling or distracting thoughts begin to lose steam. What remains, interestingly, is persistent forward motion, as though that were survival instinct — "keep going." Fog obscured the top of the mountain, and I kept going.

My little water bottle was almost empty by the time I reached the summit,. The dark fog had lifted, but small pellets of rain still drove through the wind. I was only wearing a T-shirt and knee-length tights and it was fairly cold, plus I was thirsty, but still I opted to skip the half-mile spur to the backpacker camp and continue the long way down the mountain. The nearest water fountain was eight miles away. "Sometimes it's good to see how far we can go with just our shoes and our water bottle," I thought. "Or, you know, a sled filled with forty pounds of survival gear."

I enjoyed the descent immensely. There was a kind of lightness to my body, a fluidity to my movement, a freedom to simply run unburdened by anything but an empty water bottle. Hunger gnawed at my stomach and thirst trickled into my patchy thoughts — but there was no immediate danger and thus no immediate concern. We can't go forever without food and water, but in most situations, we can go a lot longer than we think.

I filled up my bottle at the farm and drank with deep satisfaction — I wasn't dehydrated yet, but just thirsty enough to truly appreciate the water. Ten minutes later, the run came to an abrupt end at my car, 15 miles after I started. It was somewhat disappointing, because I felt like I could keep going and wanted to.

I did feel slightly guilty for spending an unplanned two hours and 45 minutes of a Wednesday afternoon, just running — but at the same time, grateful for the ability to do it. "Yes, it is amazing the places one can go with shoes and a water bottle," I thought. That kind of fluid, seemingly effortless motion — rolling over terrain like waves in the ocean — is the reward of not getting too weighed down by the process. 

Weeks 6-8, Dec. 16 to Jan. 5

Mountain biking singletrack in the California sun. Okay, I did miss it.

I'm far behind with my training log, so I'm attempting to catch it up here will the workout-specific notes that I wanted to record. Most likely only interesting to me, but then again what is a blog for?

Monday, Dec. 16: Zero. Somewhat forced rest day after running 66 miles over the weekend. As often happens after big mileage push, I was still buzzing with endorphins and wanted to get back out there. This whole week was intended to be an easier week, to rest up and prepare for Alaska the following week. I'm hitting more of a stride with distance running in general. No physical issues from the weekend.

Tuesday, Dec. 17: Run, 1:07, 7.3 miles, 659 feet climbing. Average pace 9:15 min/mile. I do all of my runs based on feel, so it's interesting to see which random routine trail runs generate a faster pace. I tend to perform better after rest days, who knew? Not that it makes any difference over the haul of a seven-plus-day effort. Strength is something I should have spent more time building; I'm trying to decide what I can or should do about it at this point.

Wednesday, Dec. 18: Run, 0:57, 5.7 miles, 622 feet climbing. Average pace 10:10 min/mile.

Thursday, Dec. 19: Road bike, 2:44, 33.9 miles, 3,281 feet climbing. Highway 9 to Page Mill Loop. As usual for a winter afternoon, the well-shaded Page Mill descent was frigid. More frigid than Alaska? Maybe.

Friday, Dec. 20: Run, 1:02, 6.2 miles, 980 feet climbing. Average pace 10:12 min/mile.

Saturday, Dec. 21: Zero. Travel day to Fairbanks.

Sunday, Dec. 22: Sled-drag, 3:34, 10 miles, 83 feet climbing. Mushing trails in Fairbanks, temperature 11F. About six inches of fresh powder. Average pace 21:53 min/mile. Let the real training begin!

Week 6: 9:24, 29.2 miles run, 33.9 miles ride, 5,625 feet climbing

Oh yeah, I'm attached to this thing.

Monday, Dec. 23: Sled-drag, 1:55, 5.5 miles, 53 feet climbing. Mushing trails in Fairbanks. Temperature -16. Average pace 21:13 min/mile. By the second day I was beginning to feel some strain in my hamstrings. Some shoulder soreness, but if I adjusted the straps on my harness often enough, the variability was enough to reduce strain on any particular spot, and back soreness was minimal. I decided that minute for minute, hiking while towing a loaded sled through soft snow is at least as hard as running steep trails uphill. And it's even slower. Without downhill relief. This is beyond intimidating, but I'm going to try not to dwell on it.

Tuesday, Dec. 24: Sled-drag, 3:11, 9 miles, 259 feet climbing. Goldstream Valley. Temperature -34. 21 min/mile. Some packed trail and some soft snow. When it's this cold, any physical strains definitely take a back seat to survival instincts regarding staying warm. Had no physical issues and felt comfortable. Even still, even the slightest pauses during the effort sparked awareness of the deep cold settling around me, similar I think to the awareness of an ocean diver acknowledging that he's a long way under water.

Wednesday, Dec. 25: Sled-drag, 4:15, 10.8 miles, 1,509 feet climbing. Hike in to Tolovana Hot Springs. Temperature -15 to -20. 24 min/mile. I became quite overheated on the climb up the Tolovana Hot Springs Dome, which was strange given the low temperature, and my efforts to vent resulted in semi-frozen small body parts (ears, eyebrows froze without a hat, and shoulders became cold with only the base layer.) Bundled up again for the wind blast at the summit. Figuring out heat and moisture management is a big challenge.

Thursday, Dec. 26: Sled-drag, 3:12, 7.2 miles, 1,560 feet climbing. Day hike with fully loaded sleds, a climb to the gale. Temperature -25, wind chill likely -55. 27 min/mile, ouch. Once again I felt overheated and vented heavily on the climb, then was reduced to panic dressing into a shell, mittens, and goggles at the wind-blasted top. Valuable lessons were learned.

Friday, Dec. 27: Sled-drag, 4:50, 11 miles, 2,603 feet climbing. Tolovana out. Temperature -25, similar wind chill. Lots of fresh drift over the trail, some knee-deep postholing. Also 27-28 min/mile. Hard work day physically — for me the toughest of the trip, especially the final climb. Steep climbing + wind-drifted snow + loaded sled = Something more strenuous than anything I do at home. Probably no way to effectively train for this.

Saturday, Dec. 28: Sled-drag, 6:15, 19 miles, 1,539 feet climbing. Borealis in. Temperature -3, hot! Without the windchill it really did feel 50 degrees warmer than it had at Tolovana. The Monkey Fleece might be too warm at times, so I plan to take two interchangeable mid-layers. The Patagonia Nano-Puff or NF ThermoBall jacket should work well when it's warmer but not base-layer-only warm. Both seem to be large enough to wear over my Monkey Fleece for deeper cold with no wind, but I'll have to do some more testing. I worked quite hard on this hike, heart rate was likely 140-165 the entire time, which is 50K pace, for six hours, so effectively a 50K effort. 19:45 min/mile. Better.

Sunday, Dec. 29: Sled-drag, 4:10, 11.1 miles, 376 feet climbing. Day hike with fully loaded sleds, temperature -25. Soft snow, felt good, worked hard. 22:40 min/mile.

Week 7: 26:48, 73.6 miles "run," 7,899 feet climbing

Monday, Dec. 30: Sled-drag, 7:10, 19 miles, 2358 feet climbing. Borealis out. Garmin finally died about 1.5 miles before the trailhead but estimated pace at 22:24 min/mile. Similar to Sunday's speed but a much more relaxed effort, even with all of the climbing. Definitely my most comfortable march of the week, as I'd finally hit a stride of strength expectations and moisture management, even with fair fluctuations in temperature (started out near -30, valley temps around -18, as high as 0 to 5 above on Wickersham Dome but with light breeze along the ridge.)

Tuesday, Dec. 31: Snow bike, 2:25, 13.7 miles, 154 feet climbing. Borrowed a Salsa Mukluk and took it out for a New Year's Eve joy ride on the mushing trails. Temps around -10, possibly -15 at the lower areas. I thought this would be an easy spin; I was wrong! Trails were decently packed but for various reasons the resistance was set to 10 — I even let a bit of air out of the tires and this only made the riding slower. I tried to make up for it and ended up expending a huge amount of effort and getting soaked in sweat, which I deemed acceptable because I was close to "home." I met Liehann and Beat out snowshoeing about a mile from Joel's house, and traded tools with Liehann so he could try the snow bike. The short hike back to Joel's house was very uncomfortable; I was surprised how quickly I cooled down and only very slowly got my core temp to climb back up as we tromped through shin-deep powder. Anyway, it was another valuable lesson in "Don't get sweaty, no matter what."

Wednesday, Jan. 1: Zero. Travel day back to California. An overnight work session on Monday followed by a red-eye flight on Tuesday left me feeling completely empty on Wednesday, with something similar to jet lag. It was good to take a rest day after such a big week, and in truth I was pretty much nonfunctional.

Thursday, Jan. 2: Road bike, 1:30, 17.5 miles, 2,739 feet climbing. Mellow ride up Montebello. Legs did feel sluggish and hamstrings still tight. Funny, because I thought my hips and ankles would give me more issues during the sled-dragging sessions, but this time it was my hammies. Need to work on those.

Friday, Jan. 3: Run, 1:03, 6.2 miles, 995 feet climbing. Wildcat loop, 10:14 min/mile. I didn't feel awesome on this run thanks to the heat. It always takes time to re-acclimate after time spent in winter conditions, and even 60 degrees feels mid-summer oppressive right at first. When I set out in the early afternoon, it was 62 degrees — although still fairly cool in the shade, and it had been in the high 40s earlier that morning. As I ran up the hill feeling like I might collapse with overheating, I passed a hiker coming down who was wearing a full winter shell, hood up, and cotton mittens. I am not joking — this really happened. It provided some perspective and comic relief. Ah, California. It's good to be back.

Saturday, Jan. 4: Run, 2:20, 13.2 miles, 2,180 feet climbing. 10:37 min/mile. Ran the main Rancho loop with Beat and Liehann. I did the entire route from my house which just happens to be a half marathon distance. For the first three miles or so I felt overheated, but then we started climbing the shaded PG&E trail, and suddenly I felt like I was floating. Running is effortless with no sled! I felt like I could just go bounding up the steep hill, but restrained myself to my usual shuffle, although for the first time in a while I didn't walk any of the climb. I also descended slower than usual, not wanting to exacerbate any of my still-tight leg muscles and possibly tear something. But, wow. I did hold back, but as it was, this run felt surprisingly easy, which was eye-opening in its own regard. I have to accept that trail running, even hilly trail running, is for the most part inadequate training for the Iditarod. Which is a shame, because I really enjoy hilly trail running. I gave some more thought to dragging a tire, but to be honest I don't think I can go through with it. Not only would I be creating an annoying obstruction on trails, but I'd have to field endless questions about it. I'm considering preparing a 25-pound backpack to run with. But it is a question of how much stronger I can even get in the next six weeks, and the answer is, probably not much. I might just end up risking injury in a workout that's still fairly nonspecific to what I'll actually be doing in Alaska. We'll see.

Steven's Creek Reservoir, now almost entirely dry.

Sunday, Jan. 5: Mountain bike, 3:45, 30.7 miles, 4,040 feet climbing. So, training here is not that effective. Oh well. At least it can be fun! It had been a while, way too long, since I went mountain biking. I rode trails in Steven's Creek Canyon and along Skyline Ridge, which were in surprisingly decent shape considering it still hasn't rained. Personally I am disturbed by the lack of rain and deepening California drought. If it doesn't start raining soon, the hills may not green up at all this year, along with all of the troubling climate and water resource concerns therein. Knowing California, we'll probably just demand to start siphoning more water from the Rockies and Oregon. Sigh. But that's off topic for a training log. I enjoyed this ride and do need to build a base for summer, so I'll continue incorporating mountain biking into my routine.

Week 8: 18:13, 38.4 miles run, 61.9 miles ride, 12,466 feet climbing