It is December already?

The best time and place to see the elusive mountain creature known as the Lucho is at the crack of dawn, on a track glistening with frost.

Good luck catching it though because it moves pretty damn quick.

It was good to see him as it has been too long – and it is always fun to share conversation with him.  He did a sprint workout, I did a few strides.

Later in the day, I got in some jogging and then did 8 x 200m+ hill repeats at 5k pace (flat 5k pace, so faster that what I would do those hills in a race).  I was definitely getting wobbly towards the end of the latter repeats.

We caught NXN mid day.  Nike-Runnerspace did a good job of covering the event.  In fact, it was about a million times better than any televised marathon or any Olympic track event you see on regular TV because there was no cut away from the races, they gave mid race team scores, kept the focus on the races … it was good. 

I found out George Bush died last night.  He was the only guy that was Commander-in-Chief while I served in the Air Force.  I saw this floating around today on the interwebs as people considered his passing.  I am not sure if it is real or not, but it does leave me a bit nostalgic. 

Friday 21JUL2017

I only have so much tolerance regarding bitching about flights.  Even from myself.  It is never a far stretch to think of set of circumstances that are significantly worse than a flight delay or seat that won’t recline one inch or late luggage. 

Nonetheless, I am on a good streak of bad flight luck.  In the past week I have had at least five flight delays, with one that turned into an outright cancellation.  This week it was one of those affairs where you get on the plane, and then are told to get off the plane to go to the other end of the airport for a delayed flight.  Last night I got the message my flight out of DCA was delayed by two hours, and then got word it was cancelled.  As I was in the DC area, I was able to get rerouted out of IAD (Dulles), but that too was delayed.  Then we sat in the plane as for an additional half an hour as we waited for passengers making a connection.  And then when we got in we waited another 15 minutes for someone to come out and connect the jet bridge. 

All this sort of thing goes with the travel for business territory.  It’s not a big deal but getting in at 2AM was a bit on my mind as I departed for the morning XC practice that was a trail run out of NCAR.

It was good to be home.

I could grumble about my Garmin, but that falls into the same category of “really, if that is your gripe, you are doing pretty well.”

4 and change miles on the Mesa trail.

The good man Lucho and I put out a podcast on the EP network.  It is not quite ATC, but more a chat between TL and myself.  About half way through it I realized we were talking more like we would in a regular phone call to each other rather than us doing a show.  In any case, I’d welcome feedback … topic suggestions, name of the show, questions, and input on my performance.  I am a bit annoyed with my interrupting of Lucho that I seem to do and I will work on that (I think it is a bit of a cadence thing with VOIP calls, but given that I do that all day I should know better).

Afternoon – 5.8 miles, with some fartlek to beat the rain

Sunday 02JUL2017

10.2 miles, sloppy and snotty … blowing crud out of my head.  Ick.  My head just aches from all the blowing and coughing I am doing to move this schtuff. 

80 point on the week over 10.5 hours.  The travel this week helped the cause as I was able to sneak in a couple of longer doubles.  Ticked over 1900 miles on the year today. Nothing fast but some of those runs in Pitt were pushing the strength a bit.

If I can get my head to stop pounding from this crud, I’ll take a shot at the Superior Downhill Mile on Tuesday AM.  And I am fairly likely to jump in the BRR meet on Thursday night.

I don’t post a lot of thoughts regarding races in the MUT community anymore.  I think it represents the continued mindset that I am more interested in what people that I actually know are doing than someone who I am only connected through in hearing about via the internet.  This is not to say that I don’t have some level of interest on how MUT races go, but I feel a bit less compelled to spout off about it here.  I am not sure if that is maturity or just laziness.  That said, if you were to jog with me, I’d probably offer an opinion on some result (or lack of a result).  You’d probably have to hear me talk about several HS athletes I know first, but I’d get to it …

But a guy I know … and thus someone I can blog about and yip yap about  …Lucho … I have to say I really admire how he has taken to this 400 meter thing.  Or dash.  I guess its a dash and not a run. 

I can’t help but finish a mile race and look at it and think “gee that would have been a bad mile in the midst of a 10k” rather than just seeing it is where I am now.  I am not sure that sets up to be the most appropriate or healthy mindset.  Lucho on the other hand … he seems wonderfully accepting of where he is and just improving on that, even though his 400s would be considered “too slow” splits enroute to a 1000 meters (which is way more different than just 600 meters more) not so long ago.  That sort of “agnostic” nature to older success might seem obvious, but I think it is harder for masters athletes than it sounds.

He has put the chips in on this and is really going for it – and I love that.  I am loving to see the enthusiasm he has for it, his geekery he is pumping for in the event on his blog and his pursuit for improvement in it.  I admire that and I am glad to see the fire stoked in him that way again. 

Back to the track Thursday 01JUN2017

I knew that a 1500 meter race would be a less than wonderful affair for me.  While I have been getting in decent mileage, my embracing of work that brings me discomfort has been inadequate:  as in I don’t do it. 

But I also knew that I had to do something like this – something to force me out of my comfort zone and to break the ice.  To not would just allow me to continue to dance with excuses and make up stories as what sort of fitness I thought I was in versus what I actually was in.

2 miles and a couple of strides to warm up.  Conditions were about perfect.  Conditioning was not.  There was a heat for sub 5:20 runners (for 1500) so I went into that.  The gun went and I was out the back real quick.  Lucho photo.

I came around in 78 but was way back.  I knew it was too fast for the shape I was in.  By 600, I was pretty well awash with thoughts of “okay you still have a long way to go.”  Lucho photo

Lap 2 was 2:38, so an 80 split.  I was surprised that it was actually only an 80 because I felt like I was running in a sand dune.  I could start to see that a group of ahead of me was starting to splinter and perhaps I’d have a shot at catching one of those runners if they faltered.  Lap 3 was 4:02 – or an 84.  Ugh.  Todd Straka shots.

5:06, meaning a 64 for the last 300, or about another 84. 

Well, a baseline and something to work from.  I was hacking like a 2 pack a day smoker for a good amount post it all.

JZ did the 400 a little later.  It was nice for him to do an off event.  Lucho was also in this.

Lucho also did the 100. 

It was a fun night, getting out with JZ, seeing Lucho, getting in some jogging with Bob, yapping with Shad, and seeing a lot of faces from the BRR that I have not seen in a while.  Ran into Kevin B as well, so I got to meet him in person versus just through the interwebs.  

Lucho and I joked that the track is a lot bigger than it used to be.  Clocks seem to run faster than they used to as well.  I lodged an informal complaint but I only heard empathetic snorts back.

Monday 08MAY2017

Lucho came down and we did one of his workouts on the track.  Or I watched him as he sped away from me.  In less than four minutes of work, my legs were effectively thrashed from the explosive work.

It is always fun to see Lucho.  It is especially fun to see him amped up for an event again.  He has shifted his game from the ultra stuff to the 400m … where that m is meters, not miles.  Topics discussed were Kipchoge, Kipchoge, and Kipchoge.  Of course.  200s for me were 33s.  150s were 24.

Afternoon – easy four in the rain with the coaches as the lightning eased up.

Tuesday 18APR2017

10.2 mid day with Bob and Lucho. 

Snakes are back out.

Wednesday 06JUL2016

AM – headed up for a run with Bob and Lucho.

Can I say the run kicked my ass?  The run kicked my ass.  That Bacon Strip hill has obviously got more steep over the years.

We talked about kittens, unicorns, our inability to choose what Presidential candidate we want to vote for because they are all so wonderful and inspiring, our favorite Wham! album (might have got a little argumentative there for a tiny bit), what the best parts of the vegan – Paleo – ketogenic – gluten free barefoot diet are, and recalled very silly high school crushes on Molly Ringwald.  Then we all tried out a roll of aero tape. 

Gold medal or World Record … if you could have one or the other, which would it be?  (Q of the day for the kids).

Linky stuff

• Sharman’s WS write up is entertaining.  I can’t say that I would wear all my winter clothing in summer time to do heat training.
• You really get the sense that Jeff knows how to ride the line just right.
• “A few weeks ago, I almost quit the sport. After having a difficult, unsatisfying two years it no longer felt worth it.  “When I decided to run this race as a chance to have some fun doing what I love, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would win my first national title.”

Today’s listening:

Easy cruising 40 something minutes in the afternoon on the canal – Lake Link – Ridgeview loop.

KZ sent me this pic today.  She says she walks by this everyday.

Monday 14MAR2016

AM – I headed up to Lucho’s place to catch up with him and get some jogging in.

It has been way too long since I have seen this guy – and it was just great.  We yammered nonstop for 90 minutes on everything from how to make a souflee to knitting patterns to types of homeopathic remedies for peanut allergies.

If one were doing Pikes, this is a good read of what to consider in training now.

This is sort of nuts (and probably sez something about genetic talent).

Afternoon – the wind picked up like crazy and was probably gusting up to 40mph.  I did strides back and forth as the kids did their workout.  Good for 3 miles. 

Weekend

Friday - got together with Lucho’s to shoot the crap with him.  We jogged for a half an hour but mostly yapped … easy chatter.  It was good.  I have not seen him since Leadville (and that was on the course) so it was nice to catch up.   It was a day where there was definitely a shift in the air … a bit more of that taste of fall ending and winter on the edges.  There is rumor that I attempted to do some overhead squats but video evidence of that has been destroyed.

On the way to meet him I almost hit this guy.


Later in the afternoon, I jogged with JZ over to his practice and worked with one of groups as the kids did 5 x a kilo.  It was pretty windy out so the times were all over the place, but it was good work for the kids, and good for me to blow a little bit of the chaff out.  Then it was out for some local evening fun:

FKT article.  What it takes to make the national 24 hour team.

Saturday – 10 miles easy.  Found an entry to the new bike path adjacent to 36 behind the Best Buy (which is going away at the end of the month) and rolled that east for a bit.

Nice wrap up on the Shootout.   Here are the results.

Latest ATUC and ET.

Sunday I slept really late and hard – partly from driving kids around at a late hour, but I also think because I needed to catch up on sleep.  I fgot out for 80 minutes or so, super easy.  I still feel okay for the first 30 minutes but then I am being stubborn and not listening to my legs as they begin a low protest about the activity.  The time of the year is just too nice.

Saturday night was HomecomingI saw this baby snake at Chautauqua.

End of week – 71 miles and 4000 feet. 

Friday 31JUL2015 Walker with Lucho and EOM

An article on burro racing, with a lot of the characters that are a part of it today (footage from the Georgetown race this year).

AM – got up early and headed up to do a lap with Lucho on Walker.

I asked Lucho for last minute advice on Leadville and he said something like this:

Not really.  The first of that 1:40 conversation was pretty much it WORD FOR WORD.  Except he handed me MAP instead of an envelope of cash.  Or maybe it was like this one below.  I can’t remember.

July end of the month stuff … 318.5 miles,  50.63 hours and 35805 vertical feet with 2 days off (travel days to and from Europe).  A good number of treadmill days in there so while the vertical is the most it has been in a month thus far this year, it is “treadmill vertical” (going up a moving flat grade is different than self propelling your body over rock step ups).  On the year I sit at:  2277.3 miles, 326 hours and about 160 k vertical.  Almost time to shut it down to cruise in smooth, healthy and ready for PPM and LT100.

A more serious question I have been kicking around and getting dramatically different answers on:  “should time between Pikes and Leadville be spent up high (Leadville, Fairplay) to acclimatize or down low (Broomstock) to recover?”  Weigh in with your opinion.

Sunday 05JUL2015

Jager is amazing.  Amazing in that this is an American kid taking it to the Africans that dominate this sport.  My favorite part is how he bangs on the steeple with his hands after the race because he is ABSOLUTELY PISSED.

Athlétisme - Meeting Areva - 3000m Steeple (H)

Up early.  I headed up to Lucho’s get some easy jogging in with him and to catch up a bit. 



Today’s topics covered falling down in the steeplechase, getting bit by a pig, pillow cases, bananas, monster trout, how porn causes ED and risk management in humans (or how we suck at it).  The wisdom in these conversations is beyond measure.

We saw a baby deer that must have not been more than a couple of days old.

10 miles.  REALLY fun running.  It felt good to run and laugh like that, watch the sunrise, and be away from it a bit.  Chatting with Lucho is good training for me, in my head and my heart. 

Got home and jogged with TZ for a bit.

I debate whether to count this stuff as running in my log.  In some regards it is very easy for me, so easy I may not count it.  But then at the same time I am moving faster than when I am going up Shadow.  This is all a stupid brain question because my body keeps its own training log … and that is where it really counts.

The week ends with 87.3 miles, 15 hours, and 13710 of vertical.  While I made a big deal of hitting 34k of vertical in all of June with those days off, I have had nearly that much in the last 15 days (32.79k).  On the year I sit at 2019.3 miles, 286.6 hours, 135.4k feet, and so averaging 76 miles a week and 10.6 hours in 2015.

If you are a track geek, you might be interested in this stuff on the 10 second barrier for the 100.

Six weeks to Pikes, and seven to Leadville. 

While traveling, in terms of running it will be a fair of treadmill but also exercises like this:

Saturday 04JUL2015

AM – 16.3 miles.  Over Flagstaff, Green (up Ranger, Greenman), Bear and SoBo, and then back on the Mesa.  I was dragging from step 1 and it was not pretty.  But I managed.  It was never really bad, just not great.  Good for another 5k of climbing. 

I saw Bigfoot.

I caught the latest ATC … I get mentioned about 20 minutes in.  Here’s a response of sorts.

Downhill mile results in Superior.  Handful of guys go under 4.  There are those folks wo do that and then go do the 4k a bit later in Boulder.

Mountain Marathon – women’s results, and men’s results.  Not particularly surprised by KJ and Forsburg.  I take away being most impressed with Ostrander.   Not sure how long it is going to be up, but there is a site with video coverage that is excellent (even after the race).  Definitely gives you the feel of how wonderfully local this race is.

Looks like the men won the silver at the long distance championships in Zermatt, and the women took silver.  Men were led by Wacker with a 2nd place, and women were led by Kremer (4th).

A broken leg does not stop Grohl on his “Dave of Thrones”

Tuesday 30JUN2015

This guy blogging again gets me giddy. 

I am enjoying Beck’s stuff on NOP.  Particularly his last point in that post.

Jogged over to the kids summer practice this AM.  Greg does a great job in meeting with the kids over the summer and encouraging them to jog easy.  It just nudges the concepts of consistency, and it builds a great culture with the kids.  They hang out afterwards stretching, doing strides, but more importantly they are building a community.  I love that.And of yeah, JZ – the kid who refused to run with me for more than 12-15 minutes this summer has suddenly found it to be within his abilities to run 35 minutes a day with this crew.

It is good for me to run with this crew periodically.  It gets me out in the AM, gets me to chat with Greg and bumps me out of the 8 minute mile pace I would probably fall into.  Yup, there we are … one mile away from the high school on the way back and the kids fall into a sub six pace without a word.  I need a bit of that to remember it is running and not hiking that I like.

Afternoon –7.3 miles with a fair amount of climbing in a beautiful quiet set of pines off the beaten path but not far away.  The smell of pines, the quiet burn of the sun, and then a quiet mountain rain … bookend with some smiles with a friend… what a gift.June ends with 242.7 miles, 40+ hours and 34+k feet and 8 days off.  That means it has been my lowest miles in a month on the year but my highest in terms of vertical.  On the year I am at 1958.8 miles, 275+ hours and just shy of 124k feet of climbing.  It averages out to about 10.6+ hours a week and 75+ miles a week.

Bart actually likes to sit outside in the rain storms.

In long ultras it's vitally important to know why you want to finish and to have extremely good reasons why you'll push rather than fade, why you'll still care about the race when you feel like death. In general, a couple of good reasons for me to keep trying are that moving faster means the suffering ends sooner and that if I give less than my best I'll have to live with it for months or even years. It's a character test - are you as tough as you'd like to believe?

 Stories like this hit a bit too close to home and I find myself thinking of that family.  

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.

Thursday 092514

Had team #GOM going this AM.  Conversation was like this (NSFW).  13 miles. 

News stuff – this might be the closest thing that Dr. Nick has to a blog post (and no – a race that has finish times in the hundreds of hours is not a race for me in even the darkest corners of my imagination), and an excellent PPA write up by Peter M.  And again, no.

I have been kicking around a theory.  Or maybe it is a hypothesis.  Or even a hunch.  It is around the once a runner types I have come across.  Most that I knew in high school, or even college, don’t do it any more.  And in fact, most are probably a far cry from navigating around a local track in anything other than a walk.   Sure there are exceptions.  But most hung up the shoes and don’t even hobby jog anymore. 

So why did they leave?  And why do some guys stay with this competitive running thing?   A lot of these guys who left were pretty damn good at some point.    And then, they were good-um-okay.  And then maybe just another “C” level runner.   They went from being the big fish, to not such a big fish.  And the structured competition (HS, college) faded away, life crept in and they let it all slip.   Age plays in there as well of course. 

The hunch?  Maybe they let it go because when the limelight faded, the sport was not as appealing.  And so perhaps it was less about the sport after all.   And perhaps some stuck with it because they never had that benefit (curse?) of being quite that good.  Maybe back to yesterday’s musings on ego tie in here as well (and the things I am still chasing).

Of course, there are a lot of stories, a lot of reasons, but there is theme I see in there.  It ain’t some unifying law of running, but it some stereotype I can draw from (and yes, I do make those judgments even though my daughter tells me coming to such conclusions on little evidence is really a wrong thing to do and I tell her it is the benefit of getting old).

Monday 092214

AM – early.  Connected up with Tim for hard jogging (hard to believe my mancrush started some almost seven years ago now).  Great to see him as it has been too long.  Man is inspiring on many levels, athlete, father, man.  Gorgeous sunrise while a light rain blew in.  Coyotes, strong smell of sage and deer and stuff.  Conversations on calculus and ego.  Can’t beat it.  12.5 miles. 

No harder stuff for me today – a slight break over the last couple of Mondays but I feel it was baked in yesterday’s run to some extent. 

News stuff:  a post on FKTs on various long stuff.  Nice read on Laura Thweatt.   A coffee focused interview (?!) with Tony.  The Denver Post takes on the Nolans runs.  Some recently posted cool photos from the Fairplay race.  Strava has an interesting view of stuff if you look at your training log. 

Various folks have asked me how KZ is doing at XC.  Usually somewhere in the conversation, a question like this comes up:  “is she running varsity?” or “do you think she will run competitively in college?”

No, she is not running varsity and she is probably not going to run competitively in college.  KZ was a kid who would say to me (before HS) “why do people run?  It seems that is something you do when you are being chased or chasing something – like a ball.” 

And then she came to me the day before the actual season started of her freshman year and said she was going to run XC. 

Not the summer program where you prep for the season.  No, she came the day before the season actually started.

I didn’t really need to say anything.  I figured the lessons of running themselves would be strong enough.

And they were.  Sore legs.  Deep fatigued.  Not being able to discern between an easy pace and a hard pace because it is ALL hard.  She went through it all.  It was not easy for her.  Her first race 5k, which required some walking on her part, was 45 minutes.

And that is where the lessons came back to me.

See – I took to running because it was something I enjoyed, and from the get go had some modicum of success with.  It was EASY for me to run.  Sure, it hurt like anyone else when I was running hard, but I could pin on a result of some time, or even ego of beating those kids who all played soccer or football.  Those were sports I quit because I sucked at them.  I stuck with running because it clicked with me.  I dropped other sports because they kicked me in the teeth.

KZ got that shot to the mouth with running and stuck with it.  That is pretty ballsy to me.  She carved her 5k down to under 40 minutes and then under 35.  She was hugely upset when she failed to crack 30 in her last race of the year last year. 

Now, of course, she is a kid.  No Rocky story here.  She did not get up at 4AM every morning after XC to put in 3 miles and come back to win state.  No, she went back to the other aspects of her life and let running go.  She even skipped the summer training program again before her sophomore year.  But she still ran XC.  She struggled, she learned.  I felt that odd juxtaposition of pride when your kid does something like that, concern when you see them in pain, frustration when you see what you can do to help them and helplessness because you know they need to find their own way. 

I chose never to push her into running.  I’d encourage her, but I was not going to drive her. 

This year she decided to do the summer training program.  And for the first time, at the Saint Vrain meet, she broke 30. By. one. second.  And then at Liberty Bell she crushed that by running 27:27.   The glee on her face was palatable.  It is no varsity time but I could not give a crap about that in the slightest.  She was happy.  She is learning about some basic life principles in this sport.  Maybe she will forget them, maybe they will cement something in her head for life.  I dunno. 

But I am still amazed by her sticking with it when it was not easy. 

She won’t read this.  She does not read my blog.  But maybe she will.  Love you and proud of you crunch and munch.

When I was in the USAF in ME the kids would miss school this time of the year to go harvest potatoes. I was telling my crumb grabbers about this (after the were grousing about how hard school was, and how early they had to wake up)  I even sung the "Tater Raisin' Man" song to them and they thought I was making it up. Had to show them ...

Every morning the ONE radio station would play that song and then they’d go into telling everyone where they needed kids to head to harvest.  And Dick Curless, the Baron of Country … a one eyed cowboy.  Wow.