How to make friends, influence people, and finish a 25mile race

Me hiding under the trail awning waiting for the race to start

Two weeks ago I ran the Quad Rock 25 mile race at Lory State Park in Fort Collinish. It's one of my favorite races, I think one of the races I've run the most since I started distance running, and a race that proves my point: if you can't win races at least make sure the race has a sweet finisher medal at the end. Quad Rock does not disappoint. Rather than a metal clangy thing that I'll wear once and then remove it and look at it each time I have to move as I place it into a different box to totally hang up later, they give you a sweet ass coffee mug that can double as a beer mug.

The weather was not ideal. It was reminiscent to the last time I ran this race although this time it was most definitely raining. So we were running in the rain while also running through the cloud that was raining on us. This is the plot of Inception 2.

Erin Bibeau photography got some great action shots!

Oddly enough, I think the interesting weather played a significant part in my finishing and not feeling horrible. My final time was 6:42:14. Not amazing, but I didn't want to die at the end. The race was so wet, that there were parts unrunnable, at least for most people, which slowed everything down. Maybe I could have shaved 10-15min off with dry trails, but the forced slowness likely contributed to my lack of pain. I'm used to being on my feet for long stretches, but not as great at being on my feet for long stretches going fast. I had to take it slow, which translated into not feeling as fatigued when I'm at my slowest; uphill. I was woefully undertrained for this race. Very few trail miles and very few consistent weeks of runs. On paper I should have crawled across the finish line, but here I am, all smiles and mud.

Coming through the last stretch of trail before getting my mug!

I'm not saying that my training should be mimicked. Having the experience of finishing long races, including this one, in the past mentally I knew I could finish. In distance running, physical training only goes so far. Mentally training your body to continue despite [fill in the blank] is the key to connecting it all through the last mile. It is also something that doesn't leave you as quickly as physical ability. I knew going in I wouldn't break a PR, or win my age bracket, and this time I was ok with that. I never once thought, I can't do this, I can't finish. That took years of hard miles and harder races to develop. That spark that makes me want to beat myself the next time I go out did get a little stronger.

Another significant part of my success comes down to three things: honeystinger, pickles etc, and PBR. I realized after my less than steller half marathons, that maybe I needed to revisit my fuel and calorie intake. I kept thinking "13.1 is so short I don't need to eat". False. Food is fuel and without fuel you putter around. I made a commitment to eat every 30min, with something more substantial at least every hour or as I got to aid stations. I stuck with Honey Stinger gummies while I was on the move and whatever I put in my mouth at the aid stations. This came out to be M&Ms, chips, pickles, cokes, bananas, and a quesadilla. I also celebrated the awesomeness of aid station volunteers, but drinking a small cup of PBR at mile 10. Definitely helped me get up the second big climb.

My next race is the North Fork 50k. Thanks to Wrong Way Ryan for getting me a free entry for being hands down the best aide station volunteer ever. I'm also not in the best training state for a 50k, but conquering Quad Rock give me the strength to know that I can physically get it done. And the chance of being covered, head to toe in mud, is highly unlikely. I think I have my fuel worked out more and keeping my body stocked with the energy I need to finish will be priority number one.

On a more feelings based note, while traveling for work this week, my coworker and were having general discussions about running and my upcoming race at North Fork. I was discussing my use of audio stimuli on road runs vs. trail runs (I do when I'm training miles on pavements, I never use it when I'm racing or running on trails). This brought up one of my joys of trail running and trail races; the people. You meet the best people when you're 4 hours into 32 miles and haven't seen an ice cube in what feels like days. Our discussion brought up a great memory I had a few years back running the North Fork 50k. In the stretch leading up to the last aide station before the finish, I ended up spending a lot of time with 2 women as we slowly made the climb up out of a gully. We were tired, almost 25miles into the race at this point. One of the woman was 70, she was worried about finishing within her goal time. Her goal time was important because her husband told her that if she couldn't finish this race within that time frame, she shouldn't (or couldn't) do a 100 miler she had planned on later that year. That got all of us focused on getting her to the finish so she could keep her goal alive. We talked about races, how running affects our partners and our social lives, how the other woman paced her friend while she was 7 months pregnant. We got to the last aide station and as she got her needs met and I sat down under the awning drinking the beer Wrong Way Ryan saved for me. I wished her well and told her I'd try to catch her on the way down. I did end up catching her about a mile before the finish and we finished that last leg together. As we rounded  the corner into the finish I told her to go for it and she sprinted ahead to her husband cheering. I'm not going to lie, while running tends to make all of us weirdly emotional, this time I really had to hold back tears because it was just so awesome.

I'm really looking forward to North Fork. My time goal, yes I'm taking a leap and putting one out there, is 7:30. Hopefully that includes some beer before the last downhill. It's going to be hot, it always is. I got a good run in today, sweating through about 9 miles in 90 degrees. No stomach cramps and an ice cold Coke when I finished. Here's to new friends, cold beer, and 32 miles of smiles!

Making Running Great Again

Oh hi, it's been awhile...

Basically this is how I've felt about running, races, and training in general going on almost 2 years:

Honestly I haven't really been running, I haven't been motivated to run, I haven't even been motivated to sign up for a race. I can probably list pages of excuses and some of them would be super good and convincing. Some could even pull on your heart strings a little or a lot. But that's not why I've dusted off the old blog.

It's almost too fitting that my last post was almost exactly 2 years ago. Showcasing a picture of me running Quad Rock in my unplanned telly-tubby outfit for the conditions. I looked back at some past posts and realized what a champion I was for getting out there and running despite [fill in the blank]. And here I sit, 2 years since I ran a marathon, a few months after some rather disappointing half marathons, and looking Quad Rock in the face.

I could dwell on why I didn't run seriously for so long, but that doesn't do much for me now.
I'd rather focus on motivation, what to do when you lose it, and my struggle to find it again.

It's not like one day you wake up a runner and the next day you wake up a couch potato. The opposite isn't true either. I don't remember when my motivation started to disappear because it wasn't a single event. It just became easier and easier each day to not run. Signing up for races is a big motivator and I could just as well say I didn't sign up for any races so it's hard to train when you're not training for anything. But in one case I actually signed up for a race, paid, and then didn't run it. Weeks went by where I promised myself I'd start next week, tomorrow, soon! Weeks went by and I didn't. I picked up some other outlets, signed up for more frisbee leagues, even loosely committed to a lifting/strength program I could do at home. I wasn't being lazy, I wasn't even getting that out of shape. But I was missing something, I knew it, I just didn't know how to get it back even though my running shoes (and there are a lot, for someone not running races I still managed to accumulate shoes) were sitting right there by the door.

In the past I've stressed finding a balance between running and life. Don't let it take over, but also don't let it be something so easily replaced. In the present, I've been consumed with the guilt of not doing this thing I supposedly love to do (and write about) and not sure how to over come it. As I work my way back into running I am digging deep for some motivation. It was so much easier 4 years ago! I've managed to get myself slowly back into a training schedule and race schedule and am proud to say that I've gotten out and bagged some miles more and more each week. It didn't happen over night. This post and this plan have been in draft form for about a year. I'd go on a run, think "I've got this again" and then give it up a few days later. I'm proud to say for almost 2 months now I've been getting after it and having a little bit of fun too.

So here's my guide to making running great again.

1. Forgive yourself

I gave myself permission to be ok with taking time off. With no qualifiers.

I am allowing myself to be ok with not running or racing for a big chunk of time because I just didn't. It was ok to tell my inner voice it was for this reason or that, but in the end it's ok and there's no more explanation, self reflection, or justification to others I need to make. I didn't race or run much, I did other things there were a lot of fun. Running, frisbee, happy hours; those are not activities to be weighed against each other. I didn't run for awhile and now I'm trying to again. Cool.

2. Go back to the basics

For me, it was Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. On some of the hardest days to get out and run, when my legs were tired or my eyes were heavy, I convinced myself that I deserved the treat of my favorite podcast. I was so behind too so I have a wealth of episodes to listen to. Yes, even the simpler pre-November 2016 time episodes. What once was my occasional crutch became my semi-permanent prosthetic. But it works, it gets me excited to at least get outside and put in some miles.

3. F*ck Expectations

I have no goal time for my race this weekend other than finishing. True, finishing comes with expectations - you do have to do it in a certain time. But I'm not going for a PR or anything. I know it will be hard, I'm so poorly trained for a hard hilly race that it will also be hard for the days following, but I know I can do it. I've tried to have this mentality as I've slogged through training runs. It hurts, it's hard, I'm slow, just keep going. But I'm running a 16 minute mile, so what? All that means is in 16 minutes you check off another mile. Do enough of them (5, 10, 15, 25) and you're done. I remember running Quad Rock one year and having forgot most of my running shit, including a watch. I think that was the year I ran my fastest because I didn't really expect much, I had no measure of whether I was meeting an expectation, I just went out and had fun.

4. Avoid Extremes

One thing I learned from my pendulum swing back to running is that it's hard to exist on the extremes. You can do it for awhile, years in fact, but it's not easy. I realized for a bit I was on the running extreme. You don't have to be winning races to get there. You just have to put yourself so much into something that you forget to remember to do it for the right reasons. And as pendulums work, if you swing far on one side it's super easy for the momentum to swing you pretty far to the other. I'm trying to be more mindful of avoid a zero sum game of activities. I don't have to do more of A to counter B. I go run sometimes, I go to happy hour sometimes, I play frisbee sometimes, I do all three sometimes. 

5. Suck it up Buttercup

It's so easy to think about how hard it is to go on a run. And most runners will tell you, the first 2-5 miles suck. Not the in the bigger picture. The totality of the run can be great. But taking the first couple steps, heck putting on stinky running clothes, can just seems really super hard most days, impossible others. Currently, I have to give myself a pep talk and admit to myself that I'm not going to feel great at the start. But I know that if I suck it up I usually feel great a few miles in and I always feel better that I did it after. Even when I've had a horrible run, where I felt sick the whole time, I never think to myself when I get home, I wish I hadn't done that.

So that's what I got. It's not a perfect list, it's not complete either. All I can say is, I'm trying. I'm putting myself back out there. I'm trying to get back to a time when running was great, there was a chicken in every pot, and American Democracy worked. I'm ok with one out of those three to start.