Running is just controlled falling

Running and walking is just controlled falling, at least that's what I've been told many times. It makes sense, we propel our body  mass forward only to catch it with our feet, absorbing the shock into our joints only to do it again with the other foot. If you have ever watched the start of a sprint race (think 100 meter dash) you will see the athletes barely catching themselves, driving their knees forward just before they would actually tumble to the ground. It's actually a really cool thing to watch in slow motion. Here's a video I found, look at how far forward they lean into the start!

Sometimes I'm better at the falling than I am the catching myself.

I am not sure if I would say I'm "known" for falling a lot. But a few friends have made the comment once or twice that I do seem to fall a lot when running. I wouldn't say that I fall a lot, but I do fall on occasion. I remember telling my friend Ryan that I was proud when I fell for the first time on a trail run at Salida. I felt like a real trail runner. Many races later I feel less like the graceful video above and more like this:

QWOP just do it, for your country.

If you haven't played this game yet please try it. You will get a great ab workout from laughing.

No I don't fall constantly, but I do fall sometimes. Falling and faltering are just part of the game. Thankfully I haven't fallen and been unable to continue. That's something I can really thank running for showing me. Life can really trip you up and knowing that you can fall, gash your knee, and finish a race is actually a pretty big deal. 

You have to have the courage to put yourself in that position. Yeah, yeah you have to sign up for a race and all that jazz. But it's more than that. You have to take some risks. If you recall from my Quad Rock Re-cap I had a pretty epic fall at the end of the race. I was tearing down this downhill section feeling pretty confident and then ate shit on a rock on the flat section. I didn't think much about it at the time, but I was charging that hill pretty hard and tried to keep that rolling. I can think back to me running even a year ago and I would have been much more tentative and careful on that type of terrain. This time I put myself out there, literally, and went for it. So I fell, I also got up and finished the race faster than I've ever run it before and...didn't shed one tear as the EMS people cleaned out and taped my knee back together. Sometimes you have to take a risk in a race like charging up a steep incline early in the race risking blowing up at mile 18. Sometimes that risk pays off and you kill it. Sometimes you fall, but you finish, you dust yourself off, you feel bad for what happened, but you finish.

So you have to keep going. Falling sucks. It hurts. I fell at a snow shoe race last year and spent 10 minutes trying to untangle myself on the side of the trail after my snowshoes somehow knotted themselves together.  That wasn't physically hurtful, but it did a bit of damage on my ego. But I eventually got up and kept going and finished the race. 

Sometimes I do wish I wouldn't fall so much. But, I'm so glad that I'm the type of person that can put myself out there and risk a fall. 

Quad Rock re-cap

I have so many awesome things to say about this race and have struggled keeping it concise and interesting. I think the biggest take away I have from the race is improvement. In running sometimes it's hard to see your improvement when each training run blends into the next. Races are great, especially repeating races, because you have a quantifiable time to tell you if you've improved or not. This year I feel like I had that tangible "heck yeah you're getting better at running" moment and an intangible "you're figuring out what you need to do in a race" moment.

The tangible...

The most exciting part about this race for me was beating my time from last year by 32minutes! I finished

with a time of 5:37:58. I cannot tell you how surprised I was to see that time when I came into the finish. This finish gave me a huge confidence boost in regards to the 50 miler, knowing I can conquer such a tough course and do it so much faster than I even planned was awesome.

My finish time is also the most concrete way I can communicate to people outside of the running community how I've improved. Trail running and trail races are difficult to explain to the outside world. Road races, for the most part, have set times that allow you to judge how fast of a runner you are. It's also easier to relate to someone who has done some races. You finished the marathon in under 4 hours is easy to relate to. Trail running depends so much on the trail, the weather, the elevation. You can run one in 5hours, the next can take you 7. So being able to say I took 32 minutes of my time is easier to grasp than I finished in 5:37.

It was awesome to have such a concrete symbol of all the hard work I've put in the last few years and it makes some of those really horrible training runs finally seem worth it. I would have been happy to finish with the same time as last year, but it tastes a little sweeter knowing I kicked last years time in the butt.

The intangible...  

Here's how race day started for me. I got up at 3:30am to make coffee and eat a burrito. I took a selfie with a stuffed tiger named Raja, packed up my bags and headed to Liz and Becca to carpool to the start. We got to the start with plenty of time and with rockstar parking. Quickly I realized I left an entire bag of post race clothing along with my head sweatband, various hats, and watch back in town. There was no chance we could go back and get it so I had to forget about it and move forward. I was more worried about managing my food/fuel without a watch but had to rest of the fact that I could judge when I needed to eat based on the aid stations

The beginning of the race is about 2 miles of flat mostly dirt road to spread out the crowd. I didn't think much about where I was in the pack and just tried to use that time to wake up my legs and get warmed up for the first climb. The first climb put me right in the middle of a big pack of people. This is where I made the best decision I think I made all race (and in my running career) - to walk. I didn't realize it at the time, but making a strategic decision is something I never really thought about in regards to improving myself as a runner.

I'm a slow walker, I usually justify running as much as I can because I believe my walk is even slower. However, with the 50 miler in my  mind, I thought practicing walking fast uphill wouldn't be such a bad plan. I didn't have a watch to gauge my time, but I was in the middle of a pack going uphill on single track so now was as good of time as any to give it a try. I employed this tactic throughout the rest of the race. Walking anything that was steep enough to make me resort to my tiny slow uphill run/shuffle. I committed myself to do the walking fast, with larger steps, and if I could to keep up with someone ahead of me.

This seemingly small insignificant decision translated into a huge victory. My legs did not implode after 3 hours or at mile 16 - 18 like usual. My legs actually felt great. I had some moments of knee soreness which usually goes away after I finish running downhill but I did not suffer from any tightness in my IT bands, quads, hamstrings, or shins. I also had zero chaffing, which is a miraculous feet unto itself.

I'd like to give a special shout out to my friend Donny (aka Donald Roguelstein) for some advise he gave the bearded wonder during his 100 miler on walking fast: concentrate on using your arms and really swinging them to push your legs up the hill. Whenever my legs felt tired I focused on moving my arms and before I knew it I was up the hill.

In the past forgetting my watch and all my stuff would have taken a mental toll on my for the race and I could have easily rested on that mistake as a reason I didn't do well, or felt poorly, or finished slower. Instead I put it in the "irrelevant" box in my head and ran. It's hard to measure or show that improvement because it was a lot more than a number like 5:37 or 32 to me. My improvement as a runner has gone beyond just getting faster and stronger. I feel like I'm smarter and more strategic about what I need to do to feel good in a race and can let the other stuff roll off me if it won't help me keep putting one foot in front of the other.

*a quick note on my leg injury. It's doing well, I didn't get stitches, but I'll have a gnarly scar I'm sure. It happened near the end of the race so it was a lot easier to just suck it up and finish rather than worry about it or look at it. I looked at it once and it almost made me puke so I tried to ignore it. Trail running...it's not if you fall it's when.