To the fella over there with the hella good hair...

Quad Rock 2015 in the books. And to answer Jessi and anyone else who's asked recently what I think about when I run; I apparently think about Taylor Swift songs on repeat in my head.

What a difference a month makes! Despite the race starting at 5:30am the heat was already a factor early on in the race. Great training for North Fork, but oof, I'm not used to such high heat for this race. I swear the "shady" areas I remember from last year turned out not so shady this time around. How I missed May and it's cloud cover. Again, I did not envy the 50 milers I saw slogging their way back up the course, except for Ryan, he strolls along chatty and happy as always as if he didn't have another 20 miles to run.

First and foremost, I finished. Albeit not as pretty as I would have liked. No, no stitches this year. I had a couple "oh shit" almost falls but managed to save it before body connected to rock (I did sort of bounce off a tree at one point, much to the amusement of the person behind me). My achilles held up for most of the race but had a temper tantrum about 2 miles shy of the finish. I rolled in, sneaking by the Catt cheer squad, but sort of awkwardly running trying not to put any weight/pressure on the ball of my foot. Yes I know, not running and resting would have been better. Despite that I do feel 100% ready for the North Fork 50k, I don't think I'd have that feeling if it wasn't for this race.

I'm really happy with my uphill work. I focused a lot on strong uphill running/walking and kept really great form for most of the race. This is probably the first time I've run Quad Rock not hating myself halfway through one of the big climbs. I actually felt strong after each climb. I ran the first down hill pretty hard and then committed to taking it a bit slower for the rest to make sure I wasn't killing my body. All in all it was a really great race. I'm not happy about my achilles, but "thems are the shakes" as they say and all I can do is ice and rest as I get ready for North Fork.

Catt and I relaxing in Jessi Witt's
back yard post race with
Lory State Park in the background.

Catt really killed it this race. We had a great discussion about nutrition and bonking. I was skeptical about his fueling for the race. He's decided to eat V's (his 16 month old son) mushed up baby food pouches. To his credit they sounded sort of delicious and savory, none of the sickly sweet Gu combinations. My concern for him was the three pouches combined only had about 180 calories total (versus one of my bars that had 180 on its own). He did supplement with Vfuel gel which didn't make his stomach feel good but probably helped give him the calories he needed.

I want to acknowledge again why I choose to run despite being injured. In running, and ultra running, there's a fine line between pushing your body past being comfortable and doing serious damage. I wholeheartedly admit that runners often get this wrong. We are usually the first to tell someone else to rest and rehab and the last to actually do it for ourselves. Becca Hall (an amazing runner and winner for the Bucket Hat division at Quad Rock) posted a great article recently from outdoor magazine called Running on Empty. It looks at a condition called Over Training Syndrome (OTS). It has made me think more about the choices I make running, when to run, when to rest, etc. I am proud of myself that despite my stubbornness, I did not put on cleats and play frisbee Monday or Tuesday. It is really hard to take time off when all you want to do is train more and get better, but it's a lot better in the long run and I know this. I choose to run Quad Rock because I knew that not running it would have resulted in me making worse decisions the next two weeks feeling like I needed to get ready for North Fork. The lesser of two evils I suppose.

Final Results: 6:08:39, 127/197 and 39 overall for women. They only had 3.2 beer at the finish so Catt and I hydrated with that and then got real beer on the way home.

running without a rope

*I had a really hard time with this post. It's been rewritten so many times I finally just decided to throw it out there.

Molly Brown spent a lot of time on the mental game of Ultimate. To help we asked Scott Gurst to give occasional talks to our team about training your mind. I love all of his talks, I've heard a lot of them several times, yet each time I find something new to ponder or implement in my life; both in ultimate and beyond. One of his talks is about fear and "climbing without a rope" and it seems even more relevant to me at this stage in my running career and life.

sometimes ropes are helpful when river crossing

In rock climbing there's a style of climbing called "free soloing". It basically means you climb without the aid of a rope. If you want a more in depth description you can google-fu it. There is no room for error, all you can do is climb up. If you read impressions from free climbers you'll hear similar assessments of the challenges. The difficulty is not the physical challenge of climbing, but the mental difficulty of staying focused. With a rope you have something to catch you, a safety net in case things go wrong. What do you do when that net is gone?

Running solo is less risky than free-soloing but there are more similarities then you would expect. I think one of the biggest ones is the idea of letting go and just running. It's easy, especially when you're feeling fatigued or frustrated during a race, to stop the free rhythm of running and focus on everything else. You start to think about your past training, your food intake, your pace, your clothing choice, how long you've been running, how much longer you will have to continue running. While there is a time and a place for some thought (nutrition, pace, and clothing), the rest is stuff you cannot change and therefore need to push it out of your head. It's really hard to stay focused and not let your mind wander to things that hint at failure. You can't worry about your training because you're there, you're running. The best thing you can do is just keep running. If you don't just believe you'll be able to run uphill forever then it's easy to just want to give up on running that hill in the first place.

Another similarity I see is the concept of being solo. Running, in itself, is a solo event. It makes sense, your mode of transport is you. If someone is carrying you, it's not really running. Do they have marathon piggy-back races? But many runners will tell you that the act of running is often a very social experience. We depend on each other for motivation, for intel on trail conditions, or for an extra gu when we've run out. Although we runners pride ourselves in the self-propelled nature of our sport, running solo is often a scary thing.

Not piggy back, but I doubt Eric would have carried me around the whole tournament

I start running, really running, 8 years ago. For the entire time I've had the same running partner. Having someone else to depend on to make decisions on where to run, what to wear, what to eat, when to eat, even what shoe to buy was a pretty secure rope and safety net. Someone to complain about the weather to, to share in the misery with, to celebrate a good run with, and to drink a beer post run with. If I failed it wasn't really my fault since I didn't make any decisions without his input. If we got lost on a trail I had someone to blame. I didn't have to just go out and run and see what happened, I depended on a safety net to guide me to what I needed to do. It was really nice to not have to make decisions, all I had to do was show up. It was also nice to know there was someone right there who know exactly what you were going through. Plus, everyone knows a celebratory beer tastes much sweeter with friends. Now that I'm running without a rope I have to make all the decisions.

Ok, I admit, that sounds a little overly dramatic. Yes I can still ask people about trails, I can still go running with people, I can probably still bum food off of people if need be. But there is a sense of loneliness when you start venturing out on runs on your own. You lose that safety net and it's easy to say no to a challenging run or route. A safety net, which could be a running partner or even a familiar route/trail, allows us to stop focusing on our individual goal and the motivation to challenge ourselves can be lost. I was in charge of my own training now, coupled with a race distance that is completely new to me, so I had to figure out on my own how to approach it. It is way too easy to bail out and skip a new run or a new running partner.  But I didn't sign up for a race to bail out, I signed up to work towards running 100 miles.

So how do we move forward? How do we run without a rope? Scott Gurst shared another important piece of advice during this talk, borrowed for the author/athlete John Bringham. Bringham wrote a book called "The Accidental Athlete" and in it he wrote:

"We never know what is going to be our last best day. the race that turns out to be our last best day can't be recognized in the moment, it can be seen only in retrospect."

You never new what race will be your best, your peak, until after it's happened. If we continue to run and train with a bail out, a rope, we might never reach our goal and run the risk of looking back at our running career with a lot of missed chances. This doesn't mean go out and try to win every trail run and race, but if you move forward always thinking that you can save it for the next run or the next race, there might not be one. Maybe you'll get hurt, maybe life will happen and you can't sign up for a race. I look back at my ultimate career and wonder was 2012 my last best chance at a nationals title? I probably won't know that for another few years, but I want to do whatever I can to not wonder that about running.

Looking at my training as an opportunity to put it all out for the next race, so if it is my last best chance, I know I put it all out there. This helps overcome the fear of failure or the unknown. If Quad Rock is my last best chance to run that race well, then I'm going to put in the work leading up to it. That means planning on some good hard trail runs to get ready for it, packing my own food, bringing my own water, and double tying my own trail shoes. Luckily I know there will be some awesome people at the finish line ready to imbibe in that celebratory beer with me.

Was 2013 my last best chance for ultra running? I don't think so. I've just dipped my toe into this field and I'm excited about all the strides I've made thus far. It's scary to go at it alone without a veteran ultra runner by my side all the time, but sometimes that rope can also be a weight that holds you back from your real potential. The weight has been shed, the rope is gone, whether I was ready for it or not and there's no where to go but up.

You sure are fast! - Yeah it's because I'm four

I went to surprise my nephew and mom 2 years ago for their birthdays (they share the same birthday) and while visiting with Braden we were walking to our rental house and he was doing these little sprint bursts down the road. I told him "wow Brado, you're really fast" and his response "Yeah, that's because I'm four". So in the spirit of speed I'm deterring from my recent philosophic ramblings and I'm going to talk about my new fast trail shoes I just got.

I don't know if my new shoes are really the "speed demon makers" that I think they are, but if you consider them under the realm of my total "quiver" of trail shoes they make me feel fast.

My first pair of trail shoes were Mizunos. I just did a quick check and I couldn't find the exact shoe anymore, but my guess is they are similar to the Wave Ascend 8. My road shoes are the Mizuno Wave Alchemy and I've had good luck with them on pavement. They've been good at alleviating knee pain on longer runs and hold up pretty well. I apparently turn my knees in so these shoes correct it. It made sense that I would then get a similar pair of shoes for my first pair of trail shoes. I really liked them, they are sturdy and strong and I felt good running in them. However, as I progressed in my running I found them to feel clunky and slightly unstable running downhill. The instability is probably from the more structured base of the shoe. I felt pretty separated from the trail and not in a good way in a "I'm not sure what's under me" way. However, I am very pleased with this shoe as my initial trail shoe and it's proven to be a great hiking shoe in its second life.

PROS: good intro to trail shoe, sturdy
CONS: heavy, felt less connection to unstable terrain

My second pair of trail shoes are (because they are still pretty new) the La Sportiva Helios. I initially wanted a shoe that was a little less focused on over correcting my weird running style and also lighter than my current shoes. I tired on a pair of Altras, but they did not have the correct size for my freakishly small feet. They did have the correct size in the Helios and I immediately fell in love with how light they felt. I've been running on them for about a year and am overall pleased with their lightness underfoot and the closer I feel to the trail and the ground. Unfortunately...they started to wear immediately. There is a piece that comes over the toe and after one day on the trail it was already peeling off of one of my shoes. Now  I know that trail running is going to result in stuff getting dirty and ruined. But I was disappointed that it happened so quickly. It was like buying a new car and then someone door dinging it the first day you park it at the grocery store. I am pleased with the weight and the swiftness I felt running, but not pleased with the overall construction of the shoe.

PROS: light weight, responsive to the trail
CONS: started falling apart after the first run. <---I will note that it hasn't fallen apart any more so I guess it is good construction after it sort of fails...

My current and newest pair of shoes are the Pearl Izumi EM Trail N1. This is probably a way premature post on this shoe because I've only run on them twice (and one time was on the road), but I really really liked the shoe right off the bat. It is light weight but still has a sturdy sole. It responds really well to whatever your foot lands on. And it is freaking FAST down hill. I'm serious! I didn't believe the guy at the running store (Denver Run House on Tennyson shop local!!!) that I would notice a difference but I did. I flew downhill in these shoes to the point that I felt like the shoe was just running downhill and I was along for the ride. Beyond that I also felt really strong on the uphill. It's true that I'm better at running uphill, but I do believe the way the shoe is constructed it allowed me to strike the ground at mid foot which allowed me to use my butt and quads more on the uphill and rely less on my calves. I'm really excited to to see how they handle for the long haul and will get my chance in March at the Salida Marathon!

PROS: light weight, responsive to the trail, good foot striking
CONS: I didn't get them for free :(