Numbers

2892.7 miles, 400.49 hours, 143,120 feet.
67 run days off.
31 work travel nights (8% business travel), 14 non work travel nights, 19 camping nights
7.66 hours of running a week on average, 55.32 miles a week, average pace was 7.2+mph, 67.7 miles a week average if counting just the days run.

2015 for comparison was 3451.5 miles (averaging 66.19 miles a week), 236,905 vertical feet, 478.53.15 hours (averaging 9.18 hours a week), 40 days off and 65 travel nights for work (18%) and then 14 nights of camping. 

2014 – 3436.9 miles, 172005 vert and 459.7 hours
2013 – 3493.6 miles, 272300 vert and 512.1 hours
2012 – 3367 miles, 236,110 vert and 529.92 hours
2011- 3629 miles, 264,848 vert and 543.37 hours
I know 2010 was 4100 miles …

This December 2016 was 296.2 miles, 40.55 hours, and 13875 feet.  It is the second highest month for me in the year, and being about a replica of November, represents the first time in a over a year that I have put together two months of good base work.

Plugging along

My legs felt pretty beat today.  In addition to the regular miles yesterday, I tried to roll a bit for the last few miles – nothing crazy but just working a bit.  All in all it is what I have been calling “getting ready to get ready.”  I consider it a sort of a preseason before I get to work.  It has been 70+ mile weeks, strides, and mixing in some gym work (planks, lunges, ABC skips, and squats).

It is going well.  I can feel the benefits of regular mileage coming back (3 or so ish weeks on that).  I need to be careful on tagging that faster stuff (overreaching on strides) because that tends to leave me with some concerns about my right calf or right hip (not the lawnmower side but I think that is because the right side works harder).  I did 5 x 30 air squats on Tuesday, skipped doing them on Wednesday because I was sore from them and then 4 x 30 yesterday and it was not as bad today.  I got in another 4 x 30 today.

I partly know that things are going well because even though my legs felt a bit beat today, I still managed an okay easy pace versus falling into a horrible slog. 

I had a good conversation with Bob the other day about goals and training to them for 2017.  He brought up a good point that a 5k or 10k or even a mile might not be a scary enough goal to get us to shift things up too much … signing up for Leadville or Pikes is a BHAG (look it up) is enough of a kick that is more likely to get you to do things in your training that focus for that event.  That can happen with the shorter stuff, but it is not as necessarily moving as much for guys at our age.

On a side note, TZ said I can do a 100 again once she gets one done (“its my turn”).  That solves that.

Introducing Sheba

My hammies were tight enough from the squats yesterday that I decided to skip doing those today … while tempted to crack at them for 2 days in row, I’d probably bust something.  I’ll come back at them tomorrow I hope.

In the afternoon, Bob and I headed down to Waterton Canyon to meet Amber and Brad … and Sheba.

We ran up the Colorado Trail a bit with her.  I ran with Jack.

She seems like a real sturdy and able donk.  Bob was rather smitten.

A possible personal challenge

Great podcast from HOR with Sweat Science guy Alex Hutchinson on the Nike play at breaking 2 hours.  Alex is a pretty insightful guy and he was part of the RW team that was invited up to Beaverton to break the story. 

I have seen a few folks do push up challenges in recent months.  The typical goal is to get 3000 in a month, or about 100 push ups a day. 

I don’t think the physical is the bulk of these challenges.  Instead the challenge is to have the discipline to do something different and look to make some sort of habit of it.  It just doesn’t need to be a physical thing – you probably have seen things where folks list what they are grateful for over the course of a month.  Or even just straight up list 50 of them in an effort to shift perspective.

I suck at doing something different.  A push up challenge won’t be a huge challenge for me and it is not really aligned with the gains I am looking for.  So I am considering a squat challenge.  I suck at squats, and I could gain by doing them regularly.  I was thinking 3000 squats would be a nice number but Shad called me weak and said I need to make that 5000 – particularly since I’d probably just do air squats. 

I decided to test myself a little bit and see if I am actually physically ready to do this.  I did 5 sets of 30 today.  Not bad, but I’ll have a better read on it tomorrow.  Been getting some good consistency as of late … 210 plus miles over the last 20 days, even with the interruptions.

Butter my what?

Latest ATC – always a good listen.  Two thoughts:  60 ounces of liquid in an hour is not much when you think of it in the context of a beer mile.  And junk miles … good conversation in there on that.  I remember talking with Dieter Bauman (look him up) and he said there was no such thing.  I am inclined to agree with him but I can see how my 10 minute mile jogs with the dogs or some friends are not doing much to move fitness (for me).

A few recent pix … first some books my family was contemplating reading on a recent trip to the book store.

JZ in line to get his license.  Welcome to waiting in line at the DMV (actually not bad and people were pleasant)

This reminded me of some guy who makes bike seat covers:

This is the time I beat a Nolan’s finisher at a pull up contest … he also has a 4 hour faster finish at Leadville than me.

JZ making a ginger bread house from scratch … really … no kit.
I dig the star in the church.

JZ modeling some PJs I got for Christmas and then hanging out in his pouch couch.

Been doing some AM jogging and scheming on 2017 plans for the team with Greg.

2016 was a slow down

I am also not a huge fan of “the year in review” or “New Year plans” posts but I understand why they are done (simply because now we are getting more hours of light daily), and I have certainly been kicking around such thoughts in this regard for the last 12 months.

This year has been different for me.  On the running front that is quantified with the lowest miles on a year in probably a decade plus (I will come in around 2800 high), the most days off (67 as of today) that came with injuries, vacations and other typically dealt off days, and no real “A” races like a Pikes or Leadville.  I had a major job change with a leaving of the corporate world and starting of my own business.  I got involved with assisting the coaching staff of the distance squad at the local high school. 

Some of this is good, in fact even great.  But on the running performance front, I have seen the results shift to be slower … or as I like to sometimes joke – the watch runs faster now.  It ain’t too hard to figure out why this has happened, but nonetheless, I will jot some of that here as a record …

The thickening:  a more appropriate way to put this is I have gained weight.  I don’t have a pot belly though but I can see the subtle thicker arms, more rounded shoulders, and a few less ribs and veins showing through.  Most folks in our society would describe me as skinny but I can see a slow increase of mass that has come about with a slower metabolism, a few less miles … keep the same aerobic fitness and try to move a greater mass and you are likely to go slower. 

The thinning:  while I see a thickening in some areas, I can at the same time see a loss of muscle mass in other areas – namely my quads.  I do nothing to regularly work my legs other than run and it shows as my gams get more and more old man looking. 

The lack of a goal:  with no goal race picked to keep me honest and on a training plan, I have not had a training plan.  When I have no training plan, while I will look to get out regularly because of the habit of it and the head space health I gain from it, I am not regularly getting to a key workout each week.  When I was looking to get on Pikes I was at Green a lot, or when I was looking to get after a 10k I was doing road or track work regularly.  I still do that stuff, but it is ad-hoc and not regular. 

There was of course the burro thing, but that is different even though there is some cross over.

Paying attention to other things:  I remember hearing that it is was really tough to be a good coach and a good runner.  I have a new appreciation for that.  When focused on the results of other people, even if you are running with them to some degree, or hanging out at the track, it does not necessarily mean you are doing what you need to do improve your performance.  There is clearly a benefit of course to being involved in the success of other people’s athletic endeavors, but for me, with limited hours in the day, personal improvement on the running performance front, is not one of them.

There were other things I paid attention to in this area … like getting a new business going (which has been a big learning exercise to me, I have called it my own MBA program), hanging out in Canada in a canoe for 2 weeks, etc. 

Oh yeah, this aging thing:  yeah, 47 ain’t 35.  The degradation in those 12 years is way more than the 12 before it.  At least the degradation of the body … the brain often thinks things are just fine and so I ended up doing stupid stunts like jumping on the track for a mile in spikes even though I had not worn spikes at all leading up that.  That ended up messing my calf up for a while.  And then my right hip wanted to fall out later in the year.  Injuries happen, but I was not dealing with these like this in my fourth decade of life like I am in my fifth (or at least in this last year).

2015 leftovers:  I’d say that I was still reeling in a good part of 2016 from Leadville – and I do actually believe that – but I won’t really say that because all the ultra community that does a bunch of these hundreds every year will just mock me for that (appropriately so too).  I do think I was on a bit of a cascade effect there though in the first half of the year of trying to come back a bit too soon, mixed in with all the other items above.

Add this stuff up and you get a 47 year old guy that is sort of fit but not really reaching his athletic potential.  Each off the above have a pretty simple opposite that I could leverage to address (well except maybe the aging).  I sort of know better to say I will make those happen because my hit rate on that is probably 1 in 5. 

I really don’t see this step back in performance as all bad.  It just is.  Maybe there is even some good in it if you think that a down year is necessary to relight the fire.  I am not sure I believe that either but I recognize that the choices I have made have got me here and I am pretty good with all of it.  That itself might actually indicate that the fire is not ready to be relit.  I have wondered if that thought is an outcome of age due to nature (biology) or due to nurture (been there and done that). 

I have also seen that edge of wanting to succumb and give up on it because I am not what I was.  I have seen guys go through this over the years:  once a big fish in the small pond, once they started to lose that edge, they got out of the water and just stopped competing.  And then they often stopped running.  I can understand how that can come about when the 400s that you do in a workout are what you used to hold for 10k … maybe that frame of mind will come around for me someday but I am still willing to chase some stuff, pin on the bib and get thrashed a bit. 

I am pretty sure that 2017 won’t hold a true ultra race for me (like a 100) as I am just not willing to prepare, recover and hope for good execution on that day but I will figure out some not to amazing goals for it soon. 

Tough to run in this …

Back when we were luddites

Brandon’s night runs are going to have the best bands going forward.  "They talk about how diverse they are, and things like that, and it's fine if you're diverse like them. But showing up with a deer on the bumper doesn't fly in Marin County. My form of eating organic doesn't vibe with theirs."

I guess going a bit more with the technology muttering I was going through yesterday … a decade ago, so called FKTs were pretty much just a declaration … you could be called out to “prove it” by putting up a similar performance, but it was pretty much based on your word.  I recall a certain run up Green Mountain where a guy claimed to have broken a half an hour, even though he did not have a watch but based it off a watch someone had at the summit and then the difference in seconds he got from the next runner behind him.  No GPS, no Strava.  Given the guy would break an hour on Mount Washington, we assumed he probably did that.  These days though, you need the GPS.

Busy days as of late … Christmas prep, running, the boy getting his license, working with him to push through some stuff (e.g Scouts) that he has put off to the holiday break  and work.  The good news about being your own boss and having your own business … you can take whatever time you want off.  The bad news is – particular in the internet world - is that you can work whenever you want. 

Rupp is doing Boston.  As is Meb.  And Ward.  And Shalane.  And Desi.  And a host of other Americans.  Its the trials part duex.

Boy got his license today. 

Here he is talking to his sister in Germany via a video call recently.

Boing boing goes the shoes

It is hard not to dig what Salomon does with their “TV” episodes. 

“I love to be out many hours suffering.”
”You fail like 50 percent of the time.”

So the Nike sub two hour marathon project seems to be very much tied to the shoes.  There is a lot of chatter on the Twitterverse that the shoes could be something like a mini Pistorious blade with foam around them.  It becomes pretty easy to see how this could be a very marketable technological advantage … if a 2:03 becomes a 1:59 guy in the marathon, maybe for a pair of 300 dollar shoes, you can get your Boston Qualifier or a PR at Pikes and heck, who knows what you can do at the 100 mile distance?

It introduces the concept of “doped” shoes … but frankly the technology advance is not hugely different than what has been going down with swim suits over the last couple of decades. 

So it is funny (not funny haha but funny as well lets think about that) to watch the Kilian video and see how there is this embracing of the simplistic “mountain” off the grid lifestyle, but how he is embracing certain technologies (e.g. ski tuning) … and then there is some consideration of the technology and the ethics of that in the Nike project.  The technology he has available to him makes these projects possible in a way that perhaps folks could not do even a couple of decades ago.  And clearly the camera on his head brings it to us in a way that was not even around 10 years ago.

I get there is a difference.  There is a difference for as long as we think there is one.  And if we all have access to that.  Or if it is considered within some moral ethical boundary.  Consider the tennis racket.

Still on the 90s rock kick on runs as of late:  Fuel, Candlebox, Live, STP.

Solstice Slog IV

So this idea of a run that hits several of the local establishments that first started in 2013 has continued on for its fourth year.  Each year gets a little bigger in regards to participation.  We had as many as 18 folks in the mix this year.

Thankfully, nobody lost their phone or got stuck in trying to climb a link fence or was hit by a car (it was close) or passed out in a bathroom.  There was a dog found and returned to its an owner, a pull up contest where a Nolans finisher could not do a single pull up, and a showing of donkeys.  The round trip of 20 miles and 7 stops was finished by four.  Along the way there was the usual good dishing of trash talk, laughs, surges, discussion on how I have an old man stride, consideration of next summer race plans and memory of races long ago. 

I feel pretty fortunate to know so many wonderful people that I can share some miles and beverages with.  Chatter is that there could be a summer edition of this event, but it seems the desire there is with less miles but more stops per mile.  Hoo boy.

Clip clop clip

Good run this morning with Shad and Neeraj that had me re-realize for the millionth time the value of the group run.  Had I run on my own, I’d probably would have averaged 30 seconds a mile slower and would have run a couple less miles.  In the group however, the quicker pace just rolled easy and without significant thought.  Between laughs and busting each others chops, we hit those points in the run where there was just the quiet synchronization of our footfalls hit the road.  Yeah, the group thing is the way to go.

Big theme topic today was whether older guys like us ought to take a last crack at a PR (or at least a masters PR) at a shorter distance or roll with the risk / reward of the ultra scene.  I tend to favor the former of those options (even if the shorter distance is a marathon) simply because the days to set PRs become even more fleeting as the gray hair.

As I was reflecting on this, I saw Benji D’s pictures of his race log from 1979-80:

Wow, just wow.  That is just bad ass.

Finished reading “The Revenant” last night.  Lucho lent that to me this summer.  I have become a bit of a horrible reader of books, as I end up consuming lots of other articles which are more a scan and peck operation.  In the close of the book, the author has provided an additional chapter to reveal what is believed to be historically accurate versus what he made up.  It sort of reminded me of “Life of Pi” where the main character is asks his interrogators if they like the story with or without the animals.  They choose the one with the animals as it is more interesting.  “And so it goes with God.”

I started the Revenant movie on my last travel flight but it is a two and a half hour affair the flight was only an hour … which gives you about 40 minutes of watching time because of the various interruptions to tell you that you are now at 38,342 feet and that you will arrive on time and please keep your seat belt fastened because your safety in this metal tube hurling through the sky is paramount.  So I got to about the bear scene.  Leonardo is great in the flick but the bear is a great actor and should have got the Academy Award. 

Is it true that we burn the same number of calories per mile regardless of how fast we go?  So while we may run faster and expend more heat doing a five minute mile (or trying to do that) we burn as much for that distance as we do at a slower pace because while we are not working as hard, we are taking longer.  If that is true, I have toyed with an idea of heart beats per mile.  Could you also extrapolate a number of beats it takes to cover a mile?  I know this is not wholly true as the heart rate to effort relationship is not entirely linear … which makes me wonder if the calorie one is as well.

Mindsets

Ran with Greg some this AM and then added on a bit.  The additional sole liner in the right shoe of a Hoka seems to be helping the hip some.  71 plus miles in the last seven days … I am enjoying the feeling of being a jogger of sorts again. 

This morning’s run with Greg (5A Girls XC COY) had  good conversation:  what had been accomplished with the XC squads over the past six months, building on that, looking to track and considering longer term possibilities. 

You can’t have a conversation about women’s NXN without considering the stranglehold Fayetteville-Manlius has on the top of the podium.  They have won the title there 10 out of 11 showings.  This year they won by scoring a ridiculously low 41 points – a full 140 points over the second place team.  The school has also had success on the guys side but not to the same level that the girls have had.  There is no lack of chatter as to how F-M is accomplishing this under their head coach, Bill Aris, including glowing endorsements of his Stotan philosophies and internet blasting of him (then again, who with some degree of running success has not been blasted on the LR MB?).  F-M is a XC national powerhouse and appear to have built an environment where they are going to look to continue that run for a while. 

We all know this environment thing is important, right?  Winning in teams is as much a cultural and mental mindset as it is (maybe more?) a physical commitment and talent.   We see this not just in XC running but in other team sports, in the private and public sector and probably even in whole countries.  There are all sorts of texts on this in coaching, management, organizational effectiveness.  There are quips from coaches, blogs, And capturing it and making it happen is one of those things that seems simple … but not necessarily easy.  Except when it is easy with the right people. 

I have certainly witnessed losing mindsets in a variety of places in my life, but I think the more frequently observed culture of teams, organizations and people is “good enough.”  Good is the enemy of great as has been said … I know I have personally succumbed to this as well.  You get to a point that is just that level of good that you have most of it covered, not doing the extras to become great.  It is simple to see what those are, but not easy to accomplish them.  Or all of them or all the time.  Actually coming to terms with those things are and what I want to do versus what I can do is a pretty large part of my background thinking.  And has probably been a brewing lesson since I was a HS runner.

Even your ridiculous scheme might market positive

My hip started barking again yesterday, almost as if on queue to Greg’s asking “so are you no longer banged up?”  It came completely in the hours after my run – a run that was not particularly hard or fast.  I am going to put the wedge back into the right shoe to see if that helps.  I suspect the increased overall mileage as of late, a particular pair of shoes, and the harder strides I did on Monday are what flared things up this time.  Given today was 19 degrees when I headed out for a jog this AM, bike rides are not preferred.

I get the issues folks have with Nike and their project to break 2 hours … it won’t happen in real competition, it will only cast more doping suspicion on the sport, it will be a contrived affair using moon boots, sub sea level altitude, an army of pacers downhill,  etc … but, I also see it as MARKETING.  I can’t help but wonder if there would be a degree of less muttering on this if Brooks or Oiselle had come up with this marketing scheme rather than Nike.  I also wonder if some folks at New Balance or Saucony or Skechers are kicking themselves for not thinking of this.   The obvious point:  getting your product or company  talked about – even if that is negative talk -- can often be a marketing positive.

That said, Ross Tucker says it won’t happen regardless of what Nike comes up with.

And Ross’ mentor, Tim Noakes gets some interesting coverage in this piece.

On the jogs today I caught up on a couple of episodes of Crimetown and the latest of Homecoming.  Great podcasts. 

I am considering a couple of different tools to manage posting to multiple FB, Twitter, Linked and Instagram accounts.  Some of that is for personal stuff, but some of it is for work.  Suggestions are welcome.  I have been playing with Tweetdeck and the freemium version of Hootsuite but both seem fairly limited in what you can do (maybe because they are free) in posting across multiple platforms or across multiple accounts (like a personal v. work account).

I can’t figure out why about half my pix that I post on the blog go broke a few days later.  Any suggestions there are welcome.

Eye exam yesterday … apparently I officially “could use” reading glasses and the doc noted the tiniest sliver of a cataract in the lower left side of my left eye.  Nothing worth doing on today or this week, but a nice preview of what is to come in a decade.

The typical Slog run is coming this weekend.  Let me know if you want in.

Adding a banner

There was a nice ceremony over at the high school today to recognize the girls for winning state. 

Their banner will get added to a wall of other banners.

It was pretty cool.  The kids got marched in, cheered for, some words were shared by Greg, the principle, the mayor pro tem and one of the team members and plaques and medals were given.  It was a nice capstone to an incredible season. 

I feel really lucky to have had a small part in it.

Broomfield had four teams advance to state finals this year.  Cross, football, soccer and softball.  The XC girls were the only ones to pull out a state win, but the depth of athletic prowess at the school is rather amazing.

Of course, I had to get some goofing around shots with the coaches.

End of week update

Okay, so this is pretty impressive.

Number 1 son made some bones in a FBLA competition. 

With some of JZ’s night driving we did the annual check in on some of the local Christmas lights.  Tincup is always a highlight.  And there is house you have to “tune into” that is always a hit.

KZ enjoyed a weekend up in Nuremberg doing some Christmas shopping.

Apparently things over there are a touch different with Knecht Ruprecht.

A bit of an off week for training for me with the travel to Two Harbors, MN.  It ended up being a bit more of a “meh, maintenance week” sort of thing.  I did get a dozen plus with Shad on Sunday and then another four with JZ later that afternoon … 16 plus in a day made me realize how I have not touched that sort of stuff in a while. 

Two Harbors

Good interview with running coaching wizard Joe Vigil.

Nice blast from the past on Webb and Ritz.

Up in Minnesota and a sneeze away from Lake Superior at our so called corporate HQ for a few days, meeting with my business partners to do some face to face work.   Stock photo here from the summer:


Getting out for some runs in the AM.

We checked out the Castle Danger Brewery in Two Harbors.  The foam is 100 percent USA Eagle baby!