State XC

I had the privilege of attending the State XC meet today with my family.  Short of it, Broomfield HS girls won 5A (in a tight race with Cherry Creek and Fairview, scores ending up being 112-120-125)  boys were 9th.  Jake Mitchell was “that close” to winning the 5A title outright but came up 4/10ths short in a helluva finish.  No id in the top ten brought themselves to their limit as much as he did.  If you saw him after the race, you know what I mean.

I love this sport.  I love seeing the kids improve, the camaraderie, kids learning from tough finishes, kids enjoying great finishes, the coaches motivating the kids in different ways, the pure guts of this entire thing.  Few sports have you standing at the start of the event thinking that what you are going to do is just gonna freaking hurt for the next 15-20 minutes and that you want to do that.  I even love watching crowds at XC – how they all hit a spot to watch a part of a race and then all race to another part of the course to do more of the same.  My voice is shot.  KZ made fun of me a couple of times when she looked at me and asked if I was crying.  No, I was not but watching the joy of the kids win the State meet may have made my eyes a touch wet.  So stoked for the kids and their coaches.

I’d say no running for me today but that would be a touch of a lie as I did run around at the course some.  The calf sort of held up but it still is on the mend.  October finishes around 200 miles but spiraling down quickly.  2961 on the year.  Hard not to run today because I was so amped off of watching the races today.

Friday 101615

Fall Choir Concert last night.

League meet – which for my kids means the end of the season.  Both of them ran great, and PR’d.  KZ was a bit downtrodden that it was her last HS meet.  Of course I shared with her that there is always another race.  JZ was pissed that he did not break 20.  I promised him we could get that done at a 5k on T-Day.

Much to the delight of folks like Lucho and I who put away a pot a day:  coffee is the new water.

Dakota’s writing is truly entertaining.

Mass participation has hurt the sport, in my mind. It’s made a lot of people a lot of money. I have to be careful what I say because I get called out on it sometimes, but I don’t believe that starting and finishing a marathon makes you a marathoner. I don’t believe that. If you’re racing it to go as fast as you can, that’s completely different than being part of an event and just wanting to get from point A to point B. Interesting point by Jonesy – and one that Bob and I have made talk about in the ultrarunning world.  There is a bit of a more acceptance of “completion” versus “competition” in the MUT world because simply getting to the start and finish in some of those events is a helluva accomplishment unto itself.  However, for some, it has seemed to turn into a complete disdain for the competitive – and Bob and I take issue with that. 

In my jog with Steve M yesterday (a LT100 vet) he told me that he thought I went out too fast to Mayqueen and that this set me up for the challenges that I had later in the race.  A Unabomber rebuttal: 

I thought of this on the dog jog today.  Probably a bad idea.

Five and change on the AM with the dogs and nearly a baker’s half dozen at the meet running around.

This is what running around at the Pat Patten XC meet to cheer for BHS runners looks like

I fired up the watch later in the morning to see what sort of distance I’d end up with running around the Pat Patten XC meet.  I was having a blast bolting around the course yelling for the kids, watching the action, and just enjoying a beautiful day in Boulder.

JZ’s streak of PRing in every meet ended.  He was a bit disappointed but he only missed PRing by 8 seconds.  On this course with the heat the kids were running in out there, I told him that I saw it as improvement.  Take his performance today and translate it into any of his other races prior to this and he kills that time.  Telling him that got him to grin, but he still said, “yeah, thanks … but …”

Morning reads:  Andy’s report on RRR, can a 50yo run sub 4:20?, an older article on Vitamin I’s impact on kidneys, and if you can’t help but continue to watch the soap opera train wreck that is PEDs in sport, check out Craig Vigin’s post. 

As a side note, while I was on Letsrun, my eye was caught by the video from the recent World Championships.  While I have a personal appreciation for a good 1500 or 10k, I figure that if I was going to bring someone to a track meet the event I would have them watch as the most exciting would have to be the high jump.  Watching what those dudes do is pretty insane.  I’d put the pole vault and the steeplechase (at the water pit of course) right behind that.  In other words, watching people run, be it for a 10 seconds or 30 minutes is only so interesting for most people unless you are truly dialed into the sport.  Most folks can’t relate to what the people are doing (and this is why when I was running 4:30 miles non runners thought I had a shot at the Olympics)  Nearly everyone can relate to some guy jumping over something twice as high as your fridge.  Okay, if I had to pick a running event – it is the 800.  It is a bearable amount of time for the novice to watch.  And sorry, the throws are just not appealing. 

But … if you can get this guy to show up at your meet and do the hurdles, that trumps all of it.

Listened to the Skurka ‘cast on URP.  And I saw him at the Pat Patten meet.  We didn’t get to talk because we were both buzzing around watching the races, but we promised to catch up. 

In the ‘cast Andrew throws out the thought that there is a maximum average HR that a person can hold for an event like that.  I want to explore that a bit because I think another way of saying that is a person only has a fixed minimum number of heartbeats they can get the event done in.

To play with that idea …  if you are going to have a max average 120 bpm for 25 hours for 100 miles that turns out to be 120x60x25=180000 beats.  That is the minimum number of beats you are going to need to finish the race.  How you use those beats is dependent on how you are going to exact your effort. 

So if you crank up the effort to 160 for 10 hours (which may not even be doable) you use up 160x60x10=96000.  So you only have 84000 beats left to use.  But since the average is gonna say you have swing back to 80 bpm, then that second half would take you 17.5 hours. 

I have to play with this idea a bit more to model out the math correctly.

Skurka also makes the statement that nearly everyone goes out too fast for 100s.  While I think he is generally right, I can see a couple of cases for exceptions.  In some cases, the front of hundreds for the so called elites has become similar to the front of a true elite marathon.  In an elite marathon guys go out fast and just run until they pop.  Or contend for a podium spot.  The Kenyans almost look at it as a roll of the confidence dice:  “I am going to go with the leaders for as long as I can.  Today will be my day for the win.”  In a similar way, I can see how the front runners of 100s act that way as well.    In other words, they are racing for the win, not necessarily executing to a performance goal.  There is a difference.

The other exception might be that I think that some folks are going to encounter some degree of muscle failure at some mileage regardless if they go out in 8 minute pace or 14 minute pace.  Those folks are probably not well trained for the long long distance (either physically or mentally or both) and they are going to pop at mile 60 or 70 or whatever regardless of how easy they start.    In this case, a runner might be better off starting off a bit too faster than what might be suggested, because it is their only shot at making some time cut off goal – as they are gonna blow anyway.  There is probably some truth in that they may stave this off a bit with a slower start, but I am not sure it gets to dialing that into a difference of say 10:10 or 10 per mile and more about PE.

AM (before the meet) – six miles … came home and there was a melt down before the XC meet … freaking out about where someone had left their team uniform.  I was pretty much expecting that this sort of stress did not set up well for prerace attitude. 

Leaving London

Been “watching” RRR.  Weather looks a bit challenging with the cold.  Good on those all there … glad I did not have to deal with rain and snow in my go at that distance this year.

AM – an easy hour exploring around, and over in the Primrose Hill Park.  I listened to the latest Endurance Planet ATC.


Lucho mentioned that I am wreck still.  Looking back, the first two days I was a mess.  Like the flu except without the puking.  But I couldn’t really walk or eat.  I pretty much fell in and out of sleep the entire Sunday and Monday after the race.  The impact was so big that I found my ability to control myself emotionally was compromised.  I’d have conversations with people about people that supported me and I would start to tear up.  I was riding on a thinner thread than I was used to.

After that, the week started to get a bit better but I was still dealing with the constant urination / jack kidney thing for two weeks after the race.  That seems to have cleared up.  I don’t have to wake up five times a night anymore (and in fact not at all at night) and I actually will get some “yellow” to my urine now rather than it being very clear.

At this point, four weeks post race, I feel generally okay. I am going for jogs, not for the purpose of training, but because it gives me a bit of headspace or it gives me a bit of time to jog with TZ or some time to go look around (like when I am here in London).  But there is no “pop” in the legs in these runs.  They are not sore, but there is just not that feeling ever that they are wanting to go.  And I am not (yet) looking to push that.  

I had zero miles of any movement the week after the race.  In the second week after the race, I had 26 miles (ish) but that was super slow and came off a 1-2-3-3-4-6-7 week.  The next week was 40, but again slow (but quicker than the last week).  I may have had one mile that was under 8, and it was not because I was pushing it but it came.  This week will probably be 50 something but it is mostly because of these exploring runs I have been doing here.  Yeah, I did 7.8 last night but that really took me an hour forty because I was easy jogging, stopping for pics, take in sights.  It is all relaxed.

I have heard from some folks that the recovery is 6 weeks, or even three months.  I have heard from others that you get better at the recovery thing too.  And clearly for some recovery is hardly anytime at all. There are certainly folks that can handle it.  Hats off to them.   I saw that Liza H (woman’s Leadville winner) was doing something like a 14 miler a week after Leadville.  And then of course there are those folks that do the Grand Slam. 

For me,  I dunno what it will be.  But it does leave me wondering if I will do one of these again.  There are really three parts to consider to that:  the preparation, the execution and the recovery.  I am not sure I can line up all three, but the one that pushes the needle the farthest away from doing another one is the recovery.

After this AM’s jog, I watched the Camden Lock at work.  Pretty fascinating.  I wanted to take my own time lapse but my phone has no room so here is one that someone else took to give you the idea (toggle it to HD)

Getting word over here that JZ PR’d again at the Broomfield XC Invite (although his slicing a minute off of his time each time streak ended).  Pretty impressive given it is a much tougher course than the Liberty Bell “road race.”

RnR is done with the Denver Marathon after this year.

I am not sure that this is the sort of exposure that the Minions may want.  While this sort of thing has been going on for a dozen years, it has been pretty much on the DL, and ignored by authorities.  I wonder if this sort of article gets them unwanted looks by open space “authorities.”

Headed over to Dublin today.

I took the Underground (aka what the locals call “the Tube”) to Kings Cross and then to Paddington.  I meant to pick up the Heathrow Express there but was then informed that it was not running due to some issue down the track.  I navigated the Underground (District to Piccadilly line) that took me out to Heathrow.  It runs a lot longer but it can be done.  It is a lot cheaper however. 

I find it amazing how there is this incredible mash of people in such close proximity, but THERE IS NO EYE CONTACT.  Every one takes on the thousand yard stare or the 4 inch stare into their phone.  I see these people and I wonder if I will ever cross paths with them again, and if I did, would I even know it?  Everyone has these flat expressions … or no expression.  I can’t help but wonder what their story is, where they are going, what has happened to them today …

This is a great article on 5k workouts.  My head is starting to consider cross (once recovered) and so these may be very applicable soon.

Number of US men that have made the marathon Olympic standard:  14.  Women:  39.

September 11-13 weekend

Friday - Mid day – easy forty five minutes listening to the remainder of the Ian interview on ET.  Good listen. 

On Friday, we headed down to Heritage HS for the Liberty Bell XC race.  Seems like folks either love Liberty Bell or hate it.  It is not really a cross course and a lot of folks call it a road race.  But some kids love it because it gives them an opportunity to measure themselves year over year, and get a faster time.  And for some kids, that is a big deal because they often can stack up on times against kids at lower altitudes.  It is a zoo of an event though because there were 89 schools there … and so thousands of runners.  Both KZ and JZ PR’d and that made for happy kids.  JZ PR’d by over a minute and about by 50 seconds in the race before that.  At this rate he will be the WR holder in about a seven or so more races.

JZ and I bolted for Peaceful Valley early Saturday AM for a weekend with his OA chapter.  I got in an easy hour of running, exploring some of the old trails down there that seem to be growing over.  It was good to get away from it all and into the quiet that is PV. 

Ended up peeling a bunch of lodgepole pines down there for some teepees they are gonna build.  We soaked them in the lake for a bit to make the peeling easier, but it was still a good back breaker of work after a few hours.

Got wind that Justin won the Victor race.   Glad to hear that he secured another win for LVR.

This is entertaining, even though I am not a U of O guy.

Sunday afternoon I got out for about an hour with Bob.  We caught up on a variety of topics, including the Russian uniforms at the 100k Worlds. 

I ended up with about 40 on the week. 

The last of my lab results came back:

I exchanged some emails with the doc and basically it is that I am dealing with some decreased kidney and liver function but given that the issues seem to be improving, there is no action that will take place at this point.  I actually had urine that was yellow versus clear this weekend.  The overnight thing seems to have passed.

Imogene results.   Good to see Scott S back at it after not racing PPM.

Other weekend pix.

Centaur XC

The urinalysis results from yesterday

Kids has XC meet up at Waneka Lake / Centaurus today. 

The kids seemed generally happy with their races, but KZ was a bit irked over her performance in the last mile.  She simply described it as “I couldn’t keep it together.”  Both kids improved their times over last week – and this race was a quarter mile longer (although with a lot less vertical). 

The more I watch kids race at HS XC the more I see how their headspace impacts their physical performance.  Yes, there are great difference in physical abilities, but how a person performs within the tools they have varies dramatically based on their state of mind. 

Saw Shad over there.  His kid ran well. 

At the meet, I got questioned by a parent.  “Are you that guy who runs with mules?”  “No ma’am, I run with burros.  See the difference between a mule and a bur-“ “Sounds like animal abuse to me.”  “Well, no, they seem to like it actually.  Whenever I go to the paddock to get one out the others want to come too.”  “Yeah, I think 100 miles is too far for a donkey.”  “Oh, 100 miles?  Yeah.  We don’t go that far with a donkey.  The longest we go is 29.”   I am not sure she completely believed me because I still got a firm look.

Afternoon – I agreed to run with Bob with the understanding it would be slow, short, and that we would exchange some Leadville stories.  6.3 miles of mind blowing analysis.

Saturday 100414

AM – 9.5 miles before we headed to the airport.  Legs were bit tired from yesterday’s sprints, but moved fairly well.  Chilly (34F) compared to what I was dealing with earlier in the week.

Lighter week – 70.5 with the travel and a day off expected (tomorrow).  Next week is expected to be the lightest in a bit.

I have regularly marveled at the depth of high school running these days – particularly in comparison to when I ran.  While the top end times of kids have not changed significantly, the number of kids running times that at some “next tier” seems to have moved.  Frank Shorter supposedly once said, “Of course you ran the mile in 4:30 in High School.  Everyone did.”  That seems to be 4:20 today.  The sub 10 3200 kids of the 80s are sub 9:30 of today. 

It is not a huge shift but it is noticeable, particularly to a guy who ego was and is tied in some part to his performance in the sport (today and 30 years ago). 

So of course, I have wondered why this is the case.  I have no hard facts but a couple of hunches.  Here they are:

1.)  The number of kids that do XC and track probably has grown.  There is probably some data there that I can go look up to determine that objectively, but I can see slight evidence of it.  Fairview HS apparently has 100 kids on the XC team.  Cherry Creek put some 50 girls up in the open race yesterday. 

These are big teams.  I think my HS XC team back east was maybe 25 kids at most. 

Of course, if you have more kids, you essentially have more lottery tickets to where you are going to get a kid that is talented, willing to work hard, and put up some fast times.  Perhaps  if you on a squad of 20, you might not need to work as hard to get to be on the top seven as if you are on a squad of 60. 

Perhaps more kids are in XC as well given the decline of youth football, the increasing exclusivity we see in other sports like baseball and soccer.  By that I mean, if a kid today wants to be playing HS ball, they usually are dedicating themselves to that sport in a “specialty” manner at a young age.  JZ saw this when he was playing baseball a bit more competitively.  It was practice 3-4 nights a week year round … as a 9 year old.  Whether that is right or wrong is probably a different post and probably specific to the individual kid, but I am sure it drives some kids away from those sports that would have otherwise continued to operate on its fringe.  They might walk onto the ultimate participation sport come their freshman year … XC. 

2.)  Okay, increased participants means more kids that could be fast.  But more kids are fast (4:30 to 4:20, 10 to 9:30).  I heard a new wrinkled on the why on this on a podcast Jay Johnson recently did on his highschoolrunningcoach website.  In interview the NXN champ coach from Gig Harbor, they discussed how a big focus of their training is LT efforts, with little emphasis on maximal efforts.

Okay, what does that mean?  Jay went so far to describe that the standard workout HS kids did in the 70s and 80s was 8 (or 10 or 12 or 16) x 400 on little rest.  I recall looking to “rip” these workouts.  They were full on melt your face off sessions against your team mates. 

And I loved them.  I still love to do them today.  When I am not scared of them.

But, they probably were not good for us.  They often left us injured (4 of our top 7 were out injured or completely thrashed by the end of the season my senior year) and … more importantly, why that workout has some translation into good running over 4-5k in XC, it is not really specific.  It might make you a good miler, and yeah it might make you a good XC runner too.  But it is not the best workouts to do that given the risk and lack of specificity.

In the interview, the discussion focused on that more efforts at sub maximal, LT and fartlek type or tempo type efforts that are of the stuff that is making more kids faster these days.  They get the specificity necessary for longer efforts, they don’t go to the well as much and can manage a longer build of a season (more build means more progress), they don’t burn out.

Again, I don’t know if that is true.  It smells like there could be truth in it over large populations, and certainly individuals will see a variety in results.  The case of one does not make for a good case. 

I will keep thinking about it.  In the interim, we made it through airport security.

Friday 100314

Was able to sneak in one more run with #GOM crew before heading off to Europe.  Always highly intelligent, articulate, and serious discussion with those guys.  Lucho called out the workout – 20 on the diagonals.  Different than the longer intervals or tempos I have been doing so challenging.  Clearly hitting some top end stride stuff.  12 miles.

KZ had an XC race today.  A couple of days ago she tweaked something in her hip during a workout, but finished the workout.  But then during the warm down, it flared up and she was pretty concerned.  She took the last few days down, in hopes that it would clear for the meet today.  It felt less than great at the start, but she decided to give it a shot.  I could clearly tell by the first mile she was working with a bad wheel.  By a mile and a half she was going out the back and barely running, instead seriously gimping. 

She wanted to finish the race, but she also knew that any chance at having a good race was gone, and continuing to run on it would be more damaging.  I had told her before the race if she was gimping, she needed to step off.  She did not want to, but looked at me and I gave her the nod that it was okay.  It was a pretty sad and emotional moment for her.

Of course we can all relate – but none of us want to hear it in that moment – particularly the first time with injury.  Why did the injury happen?  Why couldn’t it happen next week?  I was not even sweating or breathing hard!  I don’t want to talk to or see people on the team – they will think I am a quitter.  Crap, is that the coach.  I don’t want to have him see me like this. 

More lessons for her in running.  While I tried to comfort her, and give the logical view … well I totally got it and I felt sad for her. 

And in the great dog squirrel war – score one big one for the squirrel.  Lucy got her front left paw ripped pretty good.  Some tendons tore in there too.  Surgery required but her frisbee days may well be over.

15 and change on the day with the jogging around at the XC meet.

Friday 091914

News related stuff:  Kastor presses on as a #GOL, the Boulder Marathon cancels on short notice, Nan gets a spontaneous high five,  and a new episode of ATUC.

After a hard morning of attacking the sprinklers, Bart takes a siesta in the sun.  Yesterday I thought the great dog squirrel war had reached its pinnacle because he was barking insanely.  It was actually at the hot air balloon floating just over our house.  Airspace to him over the house is important.


She is getting better.  Either that or my senses have dulled.

Mid day – hot again (I actually lit the sprinkler back up after shutting it down after last week’s snow).  10 miles.
I love watching cross.  Today I had the added benefit of being the lead bike on all the races.  The only real challenging part of that is that, well, I can’t bike for crap.  So when I hit the grass sections or the one significant hill I had to work a bit to make sure I was not overtaken by the kids.  Ended up with some 14 plus miles on the bike. 

Greg had the guys run as a pack to start, holding back his best kids to help move the pack along.  At two miles, he let his kids go, and it was off to the races from there.  The top Broomfield kid was not even in site when I hit two miles on the bike.  At 2 and quarter, I could see his blond head in the crowd moving up.  And then with 400 to go he was third.  He kicked for the win.  Awesome stuff.   He must have been 200 meters down at the mile to go mark.  Amazing. 
Why amazing?  Obviously it illustrates a kid who has some talent and has done the requisite work to take advantage of that.  It also shows something we can all learn from.  WANT.  This guy WANTED to win.  He did not WANT second.  Or even third.  He could have walked away from this race with 10th and been content with that as it was a race his coach set up as a workout.  No.  He wanted to win it and was going to find the way to make that happen.  Rock freakin’ on.

Shots I got of KZ before her race. JZ showed up to watch. 
I was riding the bike so I asked if he could take some pictures of the races.  This is absolutely the best part of having a digital camera.