Humble Pie

I recently asked someone how I needed to be prepared for an activity I’d do with them.  They gave me some of the expected details, but also said, “just have the beginner’s mind.” 

I felt a need to recall that over the last couple of days with my running.  I was a bit sore on Monday from my Green outing on Sunday with JV.  My legs were not super eager to jump into a workout of repeat 200s with the XC kids, and my mind was taking a beating as I pretty much was smoked on each repeat. 

The 200s started at 39 and I got a few of them down to 36, but I probably averaged 37 or 38 over the ten of them. 

This morning, I took an invite from JV to meet up with several of Green Mountain’s regulars:  Buzz, Homie, Bill, Derek as well as Jeff.  By the first turn up Amphitheatre, their headlamps had started to disappear into the pre-dawn darkness and I felt a bit embarrassed they came back down from the summit to check on me when I had not arrived in what was an expected normal time. 

I managed the ASG climb in 48:25. 

So I am not fit, or at least not fit by what standard I have set previously.   I have to keep the “beginner’s mind” and just keep plugging away.  The alternative is to not and that certainly won’t make anything better.  

Saturday 051813

Joined JV for a lap on Green.  We started at 5, and hoped to catch up to Homie.  He had started doing laps on Green at midnight, doing work that would emulate the ton of vertical and a lack of sleep that he’d see at Hardrock.  We caught him as he was coming down off his fourth summit of the day and towards the bottom of the last set of stairs on Greenman.  JV and I kept on, tagged the summit and then came back down ASG but did not catch him (I was moving really slow on the rock this AM).  Just above the Gregory lot, we did connect with him and Eric Lee.  JV headed home and I headed up with John to the Greenman cutoff.  He I cut back down to Flagstaff Road and with 3500+ vert in my legs I looked to push the down.  I was able to average below six for the run back to the park, but I felt fairly fried.  10.3 miles.  33rd Green of the year.

Never felt great on this run, and was hiking most of the up stuff today.  I really had no legs, but guess I got something out it in mustering a push on the down.

Some stuff about Strava is really funny.  This month’s contest, the “May Massive” has the leader slightly ahead of the “competition.”

Monday 123112

Green.  A couple of miles beforehand, then Gregory-Ranger.  Easy going, getting up in just over 50, hanging out for a picture or two before coming down via the front side.

Great to get together with this croo of JV, Homie and Brandon.

24th run on Green this year.  Homie and JV were talking it was their 130th each or something to that magnitude.  Then again, Homie did 10 in a day back in March.  Beautiful day out there with snow just beginning to fall, and fun conversation.

Shot of the croo on the summit from Brandon.  I look like I am piggy backing on Brandon like some sort of odd gargoyle.

   

Annual stuff …

Saturday 102712

Headed out for a run this AM and had the great luck and fortune to bump into Buzz, Bill, Jeff V, Tony K, Burch, Mike H, Brandon F, Tim L, Rob T, Basit, Dave M, Justin M, Homie, Sandrock, Wes T, Kendrick C.  Crazy how that is in here… you can’t head out for a run and throw a rock without hitting someone in the face.  Just another day in this wonderful place we live.


               

I clearly and quickly knew that I had not visited the hills as of late.  I could feel the small of my back give off its tell tale “bark” when I have been away from them (the snow seems to magnify this, along with yesterday’s workout).  No bother at this point.  Flagstaff and Green for the front half and then coming down via Bear Canyon to round it out to 11.5 miles.

All that however was really the footnote to this run.  It was great to share a few strides with so many of the wonderful people in this community.  Common topic that comes up is how folks’ heads are churning on their ‘13 plans.  Interesting to hear the different takes. There are so many wonderful stories.  Yeah, cheesy as Swiss, but it lifts me up.  It might be that I don’t do a lot of it and so it is a novel thing, but it leaves me buzzing for hours afterwards.  I probably am buzzing too much during these sort of runs too, feeling like a kid at Christmas, and talking too dang much.

Couple of shots from a Halloween gig we went to last night.  What is scary is that I actually use to sort of look like this when I had hair.  No, seriously …

Off to Seattle tonight.  Listened to the Endurance Planet show, Ask The Coaches.  This show by Lucho and Tawnee, along with TalkUltra are pretty much the only two fitness, endurance, ultra, training podcasts that I listen to anymore (although occasionally I will queue up Marathon Talk. .  It has been fun to hear how this show has matured, being a bit of ultra, a bit of marathon, a bit of tri, a bit of all the stuff “we” talk about.  I dig it.   When not listening to this “genre” I go with Carolla’s stuff for laughs.  Most the time though, it is purely music – everything from Winston to Foo Fighters to stuff KZ turns me onto.  Go to Pandora when stuck.
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Solid post by Ian S regarding flat 100s.  Without a doubt, I am still thinking about the 100, but I am not focusing on it in 13 (given my Pikes goals).  And without a doubt, I am still amazed at what Bob did at the Boulder 100 in his last lap.  Reading Ian’s post leaves me nodding my head, because it is clearly not how you run the first half but how you can run that damn second half – and really how much from 70 miles to the finish.  As I was crushed to a point of “running” a 17 minute mile in my last couple of laps, I clearly have a lot of possible improvement …
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Started getting back to a little bit of core work.  Mostly push ups, planks and reverse crunches.  I have not done them in a bit so it is leaving me a bit sore.  I imagine that as the weather starts to degrade a bit, I will look to get into the gym a bit more.  Maybe some rope work.  I tend to get a bit nutty with bench press and that sort of stuff when I go to the gym.  It is a left over from the AF days I guess.  I can’t say that I will totally eschew that stuff, but I think I will try to focus a bit more on some core and leg work (dead lifts, squats).  Eh, easily said.   
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While I will be focused on Pikes in 2013, I am pondering the burro thing again.  And I’d like to finally coordinate a Fairplay to Leadville run (and back) with Fuller.  And I am thinking of hosting up a FA type event … my house to Bear and back … whatever route you want with a few checkpoints along the way.  Not the cup of tea for everyone with the flat before the climb, but a good 35 miler (ish).  Pancakes galore at the finish.  Maybe in March. 
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I saw a commercial today while on the plane for testosterone applied via a stick to the arm pit.  Of course there was the list of all the possible side effects at the end of the commercial.   When driving into work, I hear commercials on the sports radio all the time about “low T” this and that.  "Are you a middle aged man who is tired of being tired?”   This is not new of course, but it seems that this stuff is nearly as readily available as coffee (when is Starbucks gonna provide the Low T Latte?).   The question that I am trying to get out of my head (kind of like a bad song that gets stuck in there) is this:  with this stuff apparently being so available, is it really okay if someone just gets a  therapeutic use exemption (TUE)?   Apparently I don’t have low T (but I have not been tested), but if I suddenly did and I got some prescription to bring my levels to some “normal” range, would it be doping if I competed with an appropriate TUE?   According to what I understand from USADA, the answer is no – that would not be doping.  

This sort of sounds like an argument that I hear pro’s who have been caught making:  “I did not use it to enhance my performance, but just to recover.”  Uh, enhancing your recovery is enhancing your performance.   The guy taking testosterone to get it to some level within his TUE is doing it “to just be normal” – but he is also enhancing my performance.   Then again, I enhance my performance too – I drink coffee and I know it will help my performance so it is obviously a performance enhancer … just happens to be legal when I have my two cups in the AM

This leaves me a bit stuck with the conundrum of how everything is a drug of some sort (uuh, yeah, I), and how we legislate and regulate what is normal.  And that is sort of arbitrary.

Thursday 082312

Got out this AM for a run with a co-worker up here.  All pretty easy.  I feel good, but there is a little residual soreness in my glutes. We were clipping sub 8s without it being hard (but that might be more an outcome of being at 10 feet AMSL).  I don’t feel a huge need to take a lot of down time with running right now, but life will set me up to do that.  I have a good amount of business travel the next two weeks and so with that, the shift in the seasons, and coming off of four weeks of racing – I will fall into a break of sorts.  If anything grabs my attention though, I might do that. (6 miles this AM).

So, let’s see … in the running news today … the beer mile WR falls to 5:19 by way of a guy who just ran a 1:42 800 (if that is not an awesome way to come off the Olympics where you set a PR, I don’t know what is).  Thanks to JT (surprised?) for the tip on this.

I wonder what Rupp could do it in?  I imagine Salazar would have some super scientific approach to opening the can, etc.  Got to get all the advantages that you can.

KJ broke the Teton FKT just over a week ago.  Now, a NPS Ranger breaks that record by a minute – and stays on the trail.  That is right.  It had been at least a day since I had mentioned KJ cutting courses, so off this tip from Mock, I am putting this story up there about a guy who got the FKT by doing it the American way.  Skyrunning however has elected to continue to recognize KJ’s FKT, as they docked Anderson 4 minutes for staying on the trails.

I find the face-kini to be wrong on a few levels.

Homie has started his attempt at the FKT for the 14ers.  That is ALL of them.  54 or 58 or 50 something depending on how you count them.  There are few guys I know that I think could break this record, and Homie is right there in the forefront of this list.  I expect to join and assist him as necessary when I return next weekend (Labor Day weekend).   You can follow his SPOT tracker here.

Monday 032612 Flagstaff, Green and a brew started.

Good thing I got the run in down south yesterday.  Not good down there today.

Met up with Dr. NMP for some easy running.  Well sort of easy running.  Easy in that we would keep the effort easy.  Not so easy as it had a good amount of vert (for me).  I was lucky to catch Nick after a weekend where he did like 50 miles with over 10k.   Legs were a bit tired, but the biggest issue is that my feet are a tired, and my ankles are irked some.  But all good. 

Saw Homie on the Ranger trail and chatted with him some.

Chautuaqua, Flagstaff, Rangeview, Ranger, Green, Bear Canyon (ish), Mesa.  11 miles

Great to catch up with Nick.  No one should be surprised at anything this guy accomplishes in the MUT space.

Got a batch of brew cooked up last night.  Fermentation started this AM.

Evening, dog jog. 4 miles.

Sunday 112011

Something that cracks me up is when folks tell me “how athletic” I am. 

Seriously people.  I got into running (in part) because I outright SUCKED at other sports.  Thankfully I had enough coordination to get through track.  Cross country was a little bit of a gamble, but I was able to fake it there.

I realize how how uncoordinated and how unathletic I actually am when I run with guys like I did today. 

JV put up the bat signal, and Homie, Tony and I took the bait.  I should know by know that this means that the run will be the most vertical in the shortest distance possible, but for some reason I forgot that.  I also thought with Tony in a recovery state, I’d be able to keep up.  Given the route selection, with grades in at times in excess of 40%, I watched Tony walk away from me.  Literally, he walked.
Kindly, the mountain goats would periodically wait for me … probably mostly to assure I was not left for dead by some mountain lion.

But the climbing issue is not athleticism.  That is fitness.  The athleticism and coordination, or perhaps my lack of it, was reflected on the down.  These guys danced the down easily, while I looked like I was wrestling  an invisible version of myself with every step – all in an effort to assure I did not end up on my ass.  I still took a spill or two on some of the ice stretches.  I am after all these years – still a klutz.

All in all, great to be out with some of the strongest mountain guys in the area (nice guys too, but I like ‘em more on the flats – except now JV is also kicking my butt while pushing a baby jogger). 5 miles (and that is with the extra I tacked on with Chautauqua in the mix), and my 22nd run of Green in 2011. 

The steep power walk climb is something I may reconsider as a tool in the training arsenal.  It is not really necessary for the racing I am considering next year, but it is challenging, something I suck at, could be a good mix up recovery workout.  Today felt more like I went to the gym and did squats than run 5 miles.

Solid week for me, and my best since the Boulder 100.  73 miles on the week, and 10.5 hours (my first 70 plus, 10 hour plus week since B100).  I will aim to continue to look to up the overall volume a touch next week, but hopefully in a way that does not compromise the quality.  Given a choice at this point, I will look for quality over quantity.  This next week will be a bit of a challenge with me being off from work (harder to carve time). 3220 on the year and just shy of 250k vertical.