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!

You do You

Red, White, and Blue

I'm still alive. I survived the North Fork 50k (what a difference 18 fewer miles makes) and I'm feeling good. I'm eating food, drinking beer, playing frisbee; a true American Success Story.

In all honestly the 32 miles flew by. I felt like aid stations showed up much quicker than anticipated and my smile never really left my face. The 50k portion of the 50 mile course went so much better for me that every step felt exponentially better than a year ago.

I had the usual moments of tiredness, soreness, stomach upsetedness - that's to be expected on long races. I honestly felt like I was better equipped to handle these and let myself feel the feelings and move on. Speaking of feelings; what is it about races that make you feel all the feelings. ALL THE FEELINGS. Especially odd is the overwhelming feeling of my feelings leaking out from my eyes. I'm not sad either. It's more like I feel so much stuff that my body decides to just let some of it leak out through my eyes.

One mantra that I kept on a loop in my head (when it wasn't Taylor Swift) was You Do You. I wanted to keep reminding myself that the race was about me running a good race; not about beating someone up a climb or at an aid station. Nothing reminded me of that more than when I ran into Sandals. I named this guy Sandals because he was wearing sandals. He was also carrying absolutely no water. I get the sandal thing, once Born to Run came out a lot of people jumped on that bandwagon, but no water? Personally I like my shoes and have no interest in barefoot running. I kick a lot of roots and rocks on accident and my toes already hate me from ultimate cleats I don't need to aggravate the situation. Initially I was annoyed that Sandals was ahead of me. But then I thought, who cares. He's doing his thing, I hope he finishes, let me just do me. He did finish, after a wrong turn at some point near the end. I passed him on the last climb and I'm guessing he regretted not having water on this hot, sweltering, course. I did offer him some of mine when I passed him and he refused.

Where's my sponsorship BLL?

I met some amazing people during the race who also helped keep You Do You in my head. In the middle of the race I ran with two lovely ladies named Randy and Claire. It was Claire's first ultra and Randy was a 70+ badass woman who has many ultras to her name. The three of us trudged up the hill on Tramway to the Shingemill Aid Station and joked that there was no way the high today was "low 70's". I ended up losing Claire at the last aid station (more on that later), but I ran with Randy for awhile after she had some hamstring/quad issues. We talked about running and her worry that her husband (an young 76) would try and convince her not to do a back packing trip if she didn't finish this race with a good time. Randy and I hung out at the final aid station for a bit and she took off while I continued to goof around. I caught her in the last mile and we ran into the finish together.

I drank some weird beer. I know, past stomach issues + weird beer = disaster. Quite the opposite. Turns out past stomach issues + Bud Light Lime + tequila shot + weird beer = a really fun and slightly tipsy 3ish miles to the finish. No I wouldn't say that you should make it a habit of running ultra marathons while drinking (or drunk). I only managed about half of that BLL. Ryan did give me a shot of tequila mixed with lime juice which I drank. I also tried some Cucumber/Mint/Kale Sour beer from ODD13 brewing. That beer...you do you...I don't think I'll drink it again. Out of everything I consumed that day the only thing I really remember burping is that beer the first mile out of that aid station. Oof... Food wise I made the great decision to start eating a lot early on. Not a lot at one time, but I started taking in calories from the get go. I think that made a big difference for the latter part of the race. I had some nausea around mile 18 - 22 and was able to kick it by the time I got to the Buff Creek Aid station. I think my nausea was due to too much coke. Having a good caloric base for my body to feed on helped tremendously at the end of the race.

Overall I'm really pleased with my race. I was hoping for under 7hrs. I knew I wouldn't make that cut off once I got to the last pass through at the Buff Creek aid station, so I just decided to have fun. I could have pushed it and made it pretty close to 7 hours, instead I hung out with Ryan and his awesome aid station crew for 20ish minutes and finished 7:34. Being in such a different place, mentally and physically, from the year before was the highlight for me. Being able to run the entire last section of the race was awesome and coming into the finish with a lot of cheering people made my day! I can't gush enough about how great this race is, how great of a job Janice does organizing, and how awesome all the volunteers are. They even had pickles at all the aid stations! (Side note, frozen pickles loose their structural integrity).

I'm gearing up for something this fall, not sure what the race will be but I'm shooting for a 50. I think it's about time I take on that beast again.

Salida Run Through Time Preview

Race season has officially started! Despite the road races I did earlier, I feel like my first trail race of the season marks the start of running season for me.  What better wait to start than one of my favorite marathons: Salida Run Through Time.

Currently the weather is looking awesome. Per the race director there's snow on the course which might stick around this week. I'm ok with that. Snow, mud, ice, rocks to trip on, that's all part of the fun of trail running. It is nice to not have to post-hole, but I can manage a little muck on the shoe. Snow and ice make downhills a challenge which is frustrating. I've become accustomed to running as fast as I can downhill to make up for some slower uphill climbs. The word of warning on the email was "no records will be set" so that sort of sets the tone for my expectations.

My training, as I'm beginning to realize at this point of the season, is minimal but doable. I again didn't get in as many long trail runs as I would like and in all honestly I've been a huge slacker the last few weeks. Largely due to being out of town so much. So it is what it is. I would be lying if I wasn't a little disappointed in myself, but I can't change that in a week so I just need to move forward with the current tools in my toolbox.

My time last year was 5:32. I'm hoping to beat that time. Optimistically I would crush it and get 5hrs, realistically if I run a 5:31:59 I'll be happy and count it as a win. I feel physically stronger than last year. I crushed Quad Rock, but that was with the benefit for several more months of training. That training doesn't carry over to this new year, but I am definitely stronger so I don't think it is unrealistic that if I feel good I can do it. I'm more worried about the fatigue that sets in at mile 18 and if my knee is going to do that weird thing where it hurts a lot from mile 17-20 and then mile 22, and then mile 24...etc.

I am also in a much much better mental space than I was last year. I think I literally made it to Salida and ran the race on fumes in 2014. Said fumes also carried me through a night of drinking and loud closet discussions with Tower. (Yes we literally sat in a closet and had a discussion, I don't really remember why). My brain was all over the place, emotionally I was drained and physically I was unprepared. It's actually pretty amazing that I finished last year in retrospect. Being fueled by stress, WTF am I doing with my life, and pure adrenaline doesn't usually last an entire 26.2 miles. So I'm headed in to this race feeling pretty positive about life in general and pretty pumped to run some trails with some awesome people.

Speaking of awesome people:

I'm extra excited because there's a good crew of newbies joining me. I unintentionally started a mission to convince ultimate frisbee players that trail running and distance running is awesome. I think it's working. There will be an awesome crew running the half marathon and I think they are going to love it! Wait until they see the bounty available at the aid stations: M&Ms for everyone (except for the 2 milers you just get to chill at the finish and drink beers).

It's going to be a great weekend to cap off 4 weeks of traveling every weekend. I get to stay in Colorado, run on trails, drink beer, and be with friends. Woop Woop!

Salida recap

I didn't realize he took the picture until it was too late.

Final time: 5:32:53

Well the first marathon of the season is in the bag and my body is telling the tale and likely will be for awhile. There's no getting around it, this was the toughest marathon I've done. I experienced a lot more discomfort and pain during this race then in any of my other races - the 50k included. Here's my assessment on specific parts of the race for me:

Nutrition

I actually feel like I did pretty well on the nutrition front. I think that played a big part in me being able to finish semi-strong and keep my time similar to last year. I ate a lot more gu then I have in the past. Largely to do with the Honeystinger fruit smoothie gu, it was so delicious! That aside, I felt like I had good energy, it was other parts of my body that broke down. I kept my salt pill intake up, but could have probably done a bit more near the end. As the tendency in races, you start to forget about good nutrition intake near the end because you rationalize that you just need to get to the end and it's so close. In retrospect, I think I should have kept my gu/salt pill intake going in the last 7 miles. My water intake was good and I was fully hydrated using a mix of water and Acclimate. On a final note, the M&Ms at the last aid station helped me power through the last two miles of downhill and for whatever reason I saved a cookie in my pocket from mile 8ish until later in the afternoon while watching TV. Tower was jealous.

Training

Yeah, I didn't train enough for this race. I did train enough to finish the race and power through some pretty painful moments. But I did not do enough long runs to keep the pain monsters at bay after about 3 hours. Which, coincidentally, was the longest duration of running I did leading up to the race. I'm pleased that my past experiences and overall badassness overcame this deficiency enough to keep me in the same time bracket as last year. However I would like to see what I can do next year combining all of that with dedicated training.

Pain threshold

They say women have a higher pain threshold than men. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. But I learned a lot about my pain threshold over 5 and a half hours and I passed a couple dudes in the last 3 miles so maybe that says something. Here is a run down of what hurt:

• Ankles/Achilles/shins. This felt more like an impact related pain response. Which makes sense, when you are pounding on your legs for that long things get sore. I am surprised that I haven't felt that more in the Quad Rock race which has way more punishing descents. I do think more overall running will strengthen this area up over the next few months and I'm not too worried about it.
• Hamstrings/Quads. Pretty obvious that these things hurt. Just your typical soreness, but I definitely felt them for a lot longer during this race then in previous races. Again I point to not enough long run training. I also experienced a lot of Quad fatigue and that made other muscle groups work a lot harder throughout the race.
• IT Bands. Holy cow, I have not experienced this level of pain in a race before. Usually after a race or a hard frisbee tournament I get the usual tightness/soreness. But this go around I felt them starting at mile 13 and pretty much on and off the rest of the race. It was physically difficult to move my legs forward because of the pain. I actually think a contributing factor to this was playing ultimate the Thursday before the race. Although I wasn't playing 100%, there was some sprinting, and quick changes of direction which are all the things that contribute to my IT Bands hurting. So in the future...no ultimate 2 days before a race.
• Knee. Ugh, my knee gives me trouble in every race. It's something that I've just gotten used to, but it still hurts just the same. I don't know much more that I can do about it except for just dealing with it. It hasn't hurt so badly that I've been sidelined in either running or ultimate so I'm calling it a symptom of being old.
• Pelvis. (Insert some lame sexual innuendo joke here). This was a new one. I have never had my pelvis hurt while running and it didn't hurt so much during the run, but after and through the next day. My theory on this pain is related to the IT Band and Hamstring/Quad pain. Because of the fatigue in my muscles and the tightness in my IT Bands, other muscle groups were working to keep my legs powering forward. I feel like I've gotten a stronger core over the last few weeks, but this race required me to activate muscle groups I haven't had to depend on as much in the past and I felt it.

Mental toughness

There are a few things that contribute to finishing a race and Mental Toughness is just as important as physical ability and proper nutrition. I was feeling pretty bummed near the end and had to give myself several pep talks to keep going. Thankfully, when those pep talks were not working, Abby (an amazing ultra runner) came bounding past me and kept me going through the hardest part of the race. She's been having her own running woes and to see her push through it and encourage me to keep going helped me climb out of the abyss of miles 20-24 and let gravity do the rest for the final 2 miles. 

I'm proud of myself for pushing through the pain and frustration to finish the race. Realistically my time is much better than it probably should have been, and for that I have been physically paying the price for the last few days.

Conclusion

Marathons are hard. If they were easy they'd call them 5ks (am I right? hahahaha). Anyways, long distance racing is tough and there are a lot of factors in play that lead to success. I'm really proud of the other runners who were out there running and killing it. There were some PRs and that's awesome. When you feel good you feel good and just rip it. I'm thankful that I had to survive this challenge because it's only going to make me that much stronger when I tackle 50 miles in a few months. It's almost guaranteed that at some part of a 50 miler you're body is going to want to break down and quit and I'm thankful to know that I can at least get through 13ish miles of body breakdown to finish a race. So it's onward and upward. I predict many long training runs in the next month and a half as I prepare for Quad Rock.