Santa Monica Mountains 50K

It's amazing what a difference 25 degrees and proper nutrition will make in a race! I went into last Sundays 50K a little nervous due to my first experience in an Ultra Marathon. Last Mays race pretty much wrecked me so I went into this race with the goal of finishing without bonking. My theory was that nutrition, mainly not taking in enough calories, had a significant part in my troubles. And then obviously the heat (in the 90's) was the largest reason that I and everyone else had such a rough day. The theory sounds obvious, but it was possible that the distance of 31 miles was just too much for me or maybe the 5,000' + elevation change. So, not knowing precisely why I felt like dying last May and having to do it all again, was both intriguing and a little intimidating.

Unfortunately the weather is something we have no control of. Fortunately, the weather was perfect. Well, perfect for the race that is. We camped Saturday night and it was FREEZING!

OK, camping is really cool, but camping the night before an Ultra Marathon isn't the best time to enjoy the great outdoors. You're supposed to get a good nights rest, not sleep with a rock jammed into your femur and be so cold that you lay there weighing the cost/benefit of the temporary warmth you might gain by peeing in your jammies vs. leaving your tent to relieve yourself the more civilized way. Due to my stellar pre race hydration plan, I was able to ponder that decision multiple times (I chose the 2nd option). In any event, it was nice to be 2 miles away from the start of the race.

So, it looked like the weather was shaping up to be perfect. I am gonna guess that it was in the low to mid 50's by the time we got to the race start at around 8:00 am. With about 30 minutes till the start of the race, I made one last check of my nutrition for the day. I would do a Power Gel every 30 minutes along with Nuun tablets added to my water. This part of my nutrition would be carried in my Nathan hydration pack and would be supplemented by aid station food approximately every 6 miles.

Besides nutrition and weather, I also planned to keep my heart rate at a level that I felt I could sustain for 7-8 hours. I picked a number that was, perhaps, a bit on the conservative side, I went with 170-175 bpm. That may seem high, but my max heart rate is 210 and 170-75 is my usual marathon range, so it would seem logical. But, when going up steep inclines, it is really hard to not let the old heart rate creep up. So to keep it in check will mean walking a good portion of the uphills and running the flat and downhill portions of the course.

With all of these details on my mind, I didn't get to enjoy the start as much as I would have liked to. I gave a quick wave to Wendell and Sarah (the most AWESOME race directors AND insane ultra runners). I talked briefly to my running buddy Lori

who I met at the race back in May and Phil, with whom I did the MT. Disappointment training run for the race that never happened.

Off we went! It's funny, I have built this story up so much, I feel like there should be more of a payoff. The truth is, the race was pretty uneventful. I felt really good the majority of the time. Maybe too good. Lori and Phil did the 30K and they waited for me when I came in to the aid station and said I looked like I just got home from work (yeah right, haha) I think I could have gone a little harder on the uphills. By the way, Lori and Phil are FAST! Lori got 3rd place in her age group and 1st in her AG for the series. Maybe trying to keep up with her in May is what did me in haha. Anyway, I kept to my plan, according to my Garmin I had an avg. heart rate of 170 and finished in 8:03. thats an hour and half faster than the last one. But most importantly I felt really good and am no longer intimidated by the distance. Next time I will race it and try to knock a whole lot more minutes off my finish time. Then I will most likely start this whole process over again with the 50 mile distance.

Here are some pictures from the trail. Notice the real technical parts of the trail where "running" is next to impossible. I think I could have shaved a good 10 minutes off my time had I not snapped so many pictures. But, it was a beautiful day on a stellar course with amazing people. What more could you ask for?

This is where I had problems last race.



This is the view from the place I sat for an hour. Notice that the only potential shade seems to be around that mountain.





This was the view for the last 2 miles. It's amazing how GREAT you can feel at the end of 31 miles when this is the scenery!

Paul

Again...... With the 50K

I have been meaning to sit down and write about my next race in the Santa Monica Mountains. I like to fill my blogs with as many links and pictures as possible, but that requires writing it on my laptop, which also means setting aside a block of time dedicicated to ONE thing. In a perfect world, I would NEVER multitask. We do not live in a perfect world, so I am tapping this into my iPhone while getting my miles in on the stationary bike.

I will be running the "Santa Monica Mountains 50K" next Sunday, Nov. 23rd. It will be an important race in terms of dialing in my nutrition and pacing, but at the same time, I will be running it with the top priority being "to have fun". The course is run on the same trails as my first 50k last May. The Sycamore Canyon 50k was a VERY challenging race for me and I go back with the goal of finishing in better shape than I did the first time. Brittany and I will be camping on Saturday night so I don't have to make the long drive Sunday morning.

Camping and running, sounds like a perfect weekend!

Paul

Long Beach Marathon

My dreams of a sub 4 hour marathon were smashed again. But, I came a lot closer on what was an amazing day in downtown Long Beach. The weather was perfect! Clear, with a nice cool breeze. The course is spectacular with over half of the race routed along the coastline. The course goes inland for about 8 miles or so and goes through CSULB's campus, where there are plenty of college students to cheer you on through some increasingly rough miles.

I stayed on (or a minute or two ahead) of my planned pace through mile 22. I slowed a bit, but not too badly, and finished 4:07:51. I was able to keep my heart rate under control and didn't feel like I bonked. I just couldn't quite stay on pace. I PR'd by over 13 minutes so I feel like my training has been effective. I will just have to wait till the LA Marathon to break 4 hours.

Paul

When 4th becomes 3rd

I received an email from the Race Director of the Run Through The Pines 1/2 marathon today.

“Yes, you did place third.  Someone ran with the wrong bib.  We will be sending the trophies out on Friday.  You should receive by next tuesday.  Congratulations.”

I have been waiting to hear back from them as I was confused by the official results. At the race it was posted that I had placed 4th and the results said 3rd. I’m stoked! This is my first top 3 finish in my age group and although I had a finish time close to 11 minutes slower than my fastest 1/2 marathon time, the race was at a much higher elevation than I am used to running in and there were a lot of hills. I still don’t know how many people were in my age group, but I do know that I did race this and feel like I earned my 3rd place. About mile 11, I was feeling pretty spent and was starting slow a bit. I saw a guy a good 400 meters ahead of me and did my best to not let him pull any further ahead. By mile 12 I started to use some of the mental tricks that I have read about, like imagining a rope pulling you toward the person. I kept my cadence high and thought about anything BUT the discomfort I was feeling. The course turned around and doubled back onto a trail for the last mile. All of the trail running I have been doing helped in this part and I slowly gained of him. I caught up to him and passed him at around 12 1/2 miles. I had a feeling that he may have been in my age group. After I passed him it took everything I had to maintain my lead.



The last 1/4 mile was a nasty uphill section that we had done 4 times already, since it was a 4 loop course. I had to walk up the hill this last time even though I had run up it easily the other 4 times. I was scared that the guy was gonna catch me. I looked back and he was hurtin’ too. Once it leveled out I was back on pace and had a pretty good sprint left for the end.



I ended up finishing 9 seconds ahead of him and sure enough he was in my age group. So, although I don’t know the complete statistics of my age group, I do know that I had a pretty good race with this guy and I was pleased that I had a taste of what is is like to compete, even if it was 47 minutes behind the leader :).

I am now completely focused on Long Beach. The marathon is less than 2 months away. I have a clear goal of finishing under 4 hours this time. According to this with my recent 5k of 23:26 and my recent 1/2 of 1:48:08, I could finish in 3:48. I know that these calculators can’t predict what you can do especially if you don’t have the fitness to a run much longer race and maintain the same relative pace. Besides, anything can happen in a marathon. However, I am training at the recommended paces in all of my training runs and if I handle my nutrition right, which I have a much better handle on in road marathons, I am hopefully on track to break 4 hours.

Along with marathon training, Brittany and I have been hitting the weights hard. It feels great to do strength training again. It’ll really come in handy next year when I start training for Triathlon again. We also did some Yoga this morning. It has been a couple months since I went and I sure felt it. It was Brittany’s first time and she really enjoyed it. We’ll probably try to go 2 or 3 times a week.

I haven’t had much time to ride my bike to work the last few weeks. It seems work is really starting to infringe on my training... ha ha. But seriously, If I could find a way to make money while I was running, cycling or lifting, perhaps I would. Oh, wait..... thats a lot of peoples dream. Dreams, I have plenty and in typical fashion I move too quickly. Therefore I am concentrating on fulfilling (and living) some lifelong dreams of mine that I have already invested a lot of time, energy and yes, money in. I am entering into the “write it down, and make it real” stage. It is really important to be specific in what you want and since I know that I need to be careful what I wish for, I want to be very clear and sure of WHAT I want to do. Once I get more specific, I look forward to talking about it here. I’m sure it will be refreshing to hear about something other than running once in awhile.

Paul

Another obsession

One of the coolest things about the iPhones v.2.0 software is the ability to have applications on your phone. There are over 1,000 applications available at the App Store on iTunes, some useful and some not so useful. I recently found a really cool application called “Absolute Fitness” by Aqua Eagle. It is a really great nutrition and exercise diary that not only has an extensive database of nutrition info, but also allows you to add your own “favorites” to its database. Since I am a creature of habit and tend to eat the same things day after day, I don’t think it will take me too long to get everything that I eat into it’s memory.



So far, tracking what I eat has been enlightening. I have found that I ingest WAY TOO MUCH SODIUM! Not enough potassium and not enough calories in general. The main reason I wanted to start tracking my nutrition is that I am trying to eat more protein. Brittany and I are weight training and she is touting the benefits of more protein in the diet. After doing some research, I agree and am making the necessary changes. With all of the training that I do, I have never felt that I had a good handle on the nutrition part. Logging what I am eating is really helping me see where I am at. So, I am feeling pretty good about it.

The official results for last weeks “Run through the Pines” race came out. Ummmmm, it says I placed 3rd in my age group instead of 4th. Needless to say I was very excited to hear that. But, of course I am not sure that it is right. I emailed the Race Director but have not heard back from them yet. This would be my first 3rd place. If I had known, I would have stuck around for the hand carved awards they were giving out. But, the paper we looked at said I was 4th. So, ......... I wait ........ Yes, I do obsess .......... About everything .......... And Brittany said she is already tired of me obsessing about my nutrition ............. Argggg!!!!!!!


Paul

The Great Outdoors!

Saturday’s race was great! I have been very busy the last couple of days so I am just now getting a chance to report. I placed 4th in my age group! That’s the closest I have come to getting hardware. It was a great half marathon. The elevation was tough and there were plenty of hills, but the lake was beautiful! We ran around it 4 times and by the time the last lap rolled around I was glad I didn’t have to see the same landmarks again.



Brittany ran the 5k and had a great race as well. I am still waiting to see the official results for more detailed stats. Nonetheless, we went to have a great weekend and we really had a great time.





We camped about 20 miles away from the race venue, about halfway between Crestline and Big Bear. We spent most of the day Friday and the second half of Saturday at Big Bear lake. It was really cool to see all of the signs and posters for Ryan Hall plastered everywhere. The town is really proud of their local hero and I am looking forward to watching him race in Beijing.



Congratulations to everyone who ran at Mt. Disappointment on Saturday! I really wish I could have been there. However, the weekend turned out rather nicely and I rediscovered my love of camping and “The great outdoors”. I will be making a trip to REI in the near future to buy some camping gear and plan to do as much camping as I can fit into my schedule. There is nothing like going to sleep under the stars.



Paul

Procrastination

procrastinate |prəˈkrastəˌnāt; prō-|
verb [ intrans. ]
delay or postpone action; put off doing something : it won't be this price for long, so don't procrastinate.

Uh, yeah..... We all know what it means. And I have been meaning to stop doing it, procrastinating, that is. But, well..... In another stellar example of a bad character trait. I put off registering for the race this weekend. There was a semi valid reason other than sheer laziness. You could only register via snail mail. No online registration available. You had to print out the form along with proof of a prior marathon finish, to the Race Director. Arghhh! So many details. I finally sat down on Saturday evening at 10 PM to fill out the form, when I saw this...



Needles to say, my heart sank. I had NO idea this race would sell out. In fact the website mentioned registering the day before the race. I feel like such an idiot, ashamed almost. I trained for this race for the last 2 months. I did the training run on the course. My daughter Brittany, her boyfriend and I planned a camping trip around the race, and now.... nada, nothing, ZIP!

Well, after feeling sorry for myself for about an hour, I decided to come up with a plan B. I found a race at Lake Gregory this weekend. It is a 5K (which Brittany will do) and a half marathon that I will run. We found a really cool campsite in the area and are going to have a blast for 2 days in the mountains.

I haven’t decided for sure yet, but I am strongly considering doing the BullDog 50K on Aug 23rd. It is in the same area as The Sycamore Canyon 50K I did in May.

Well, this was a hard post to write, I feel stupid, and I have been so busy it has been tough to find the time to blog. So busy in fact that I still need to register us for this weekends race..... Yeah, that’s right, it’s Wednesday and I still haven’t registered. Sheesh, some people never learn.

Paul