Saturday 010414

Made my third foray over to the Southside FatAss (in its fourth year).  I have never run the full route, and had no intentions of doing so this AM.  A winter storm blew in (apparently over the continent) bringing a fair amount of snow, and that only further cemented my resolve to keep this run short.

I had considered jumping in an indoor track race today, but my memory of those meets is that the schedule often runs amuck.  As they can’t really know ahead of time how many heats of the 60 meter youth sprints they are going to have, you can often wait 3 hours to race for 5 minutes.  I figured 10 with the ultra crowd would be plenty for me today.
Early arrivals. 

There were about two dozen at the start, including some familiar faces with Mike H, Ray C, and Neeraj E.  We fell into an easy pace, slowed by the side slipping of the snow, and typical conversation:  what is on tap for ‘14, UROY, and fat adapted diets.
About the time I considered turning around, and making it a bit more than 10, I heard the familiar but unexpected heavy breathing of Bob.  Bob had started late but was hellbound to catch me. 

At that point, I figured we’d be up for the Dirty Bismarck loop (14.5) but ball roped me into heading up a bit out of Flatiron Vista to assure that we’d get 16.  I protested, but Bob has a long history of making me do things when I don’t want to (uh, like pacing me at the tail of my sole 100).

It was good.  The running was not fast, nor elegant because of the snow but it made for a nice longer (for me) effort. Conversation with Bob is always fun as we old man grump on a variety of topics. I got rewarded with another nice ice beard of the season, probably my last as I expect to clean up for work this weekend.
 

That blue coat by the way is great for some stuff, but as I was sweating in it today, the sweat was beading and freezing into snowballs in the lower sleeves.

16.4 miles.  Longest run in about 9 weeks.

Can a vegetarian be a fat adapted athlete?

Nick Symmonds nude post on Instagram when he was between sponsors (Nike and Brooks) is pretty hilarious.

Pretty cool pix of abandoned places.

Kids wanted to go to the rec center and swim in the afternoon, so I got in some gym work.  Pull ups, lat pull downs, seated rows, tricep overhead extensions (with push ups in between), bicep curls and close handed bench.

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.
=============
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 …
=============
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.   
=============
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. 
=============
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.

BRR Track meet 071912

About 15 minutes after JT’s finish at HR, we were in the Silverton Brewery.  He declared he would make the trek from the Springs up to the People’s Republic to race the mile and the steeple.  On the track.  5 days after doing the toughest 100 miler in the US.

In my one feeble attempt at such a distance – one in which there was maybe 12 feet of vertical gain over the entire run – I was barely walking 5 days after the stunt.  Mile?  Maybe I could run one, but I’d be lucky to break 12 minutes downhill.  Steeple?  I’d rather belly crawl on razor wire.

But the mayor of Old Colorado City was up for it.  Heck, I was not even sure I wanted to do it and I only had 42 miles in my legs from pacing Tim L.   Now I just had to make sure that I did not get my arse beat by him, as the stream of taunts would never be ending after that.  I ain’t gonna lie – I was not sure getting to the line before him was a gimmie.

Showing up to watch the fun was Mike H (who also ran the mile) Patrick G, Kendrick, Rob, Jeff V.   TZ and JZ also swung by to have a laugh at me in the later event (the steeplechase).

I got to the mile pretty close to the start – a bit too close.  I managed only a one mile warm up, and one stride.  My legs felt like bricks.  While the pacing duties in the San Juans did level me to the ground like they may have a decade ago, I certainly was not feeling spry or full of pop.  While I had put down a 4:51 in the 1500 a couple of weeks ago, I was seriously wondering if a sub 5:30 was in the cards.  Whatever, we lined up and went.  Video courtesy of Patrick G and pics from Rob.

I sort of forget how MUT dudes have no idea as to what is occurring on a track.  Things like where the start of the mile is (it is 9 meters behind the regular start finish on a 400 meter oval), or that you don’t say 1:20 for a split but “80.”  The opposite holds true as well when track guys go to MUT races and they try to use trekking poles and look like they are throwing a javelin at themselves.

Anyway, I got out in 78 (I actually clicked the first split about 5 meters pass the 409 spot at 80, so I am guessing 77, 78) and it felt way too fast.  Mike had got out into third and I thought those guys were flying.  I looked back at about 600 yards and made uncomfortable note that Brownie was not disappearing that quick – and so cruising was not an option.  I hit the half in 2:36, which I found surprising because it felt like I had slowed significantly.  The third lap is always hell, so I tried to focus a bit because I was not sure how close JT was and I did not want to have to face the roar of the crowd in a last lap kick off (3:55 so a 79).  I heard a guy right behind me the whole way – and managed to muster in a relatively stronger last 100 and not get caught.  Mike H ran 5:01, I did a 5:12, and JT came in at like 33 minutes or something (nah, 5:21, which is nuts considering his weekend). 

I think the guy behind me kicked me down two weeks ago so I felt good about that.  I am still a good distance from a sub 5, but I feel with some focused training (versus exercise), I could get there. 

After an hour of coughing our brains out (typical post the mile), we lined up for the steeple.  I had no goal here other than to not get beat by the guy who just did a 100.  After a lap of stepping up on the hurdles, and jumping off them, I elected to “hand vaulted” over all of them (which was actually probably quicker for me).  Knowing there were folks up at the water pit, I tried to have a good time with it.  On the first lap, Brownie gave me a tap at the water pit that would not have impacted any normal person, but my lack of coordination did not fail me – and I bit it in the water.  (By the way, according to prior agreement, I did this race in Hokas). 

Not very pretty, my first steeple in 20+ years, but worth some good laughs.


I think Brownie actually tried to cannonball into the pit on one of his laps.  I ended up catching some guys who went out way faster than me.  I caught one kid with a lap to go and was putting some distance on him, but I gave a good amount of that up when I did a self elected full submerge on the last water pit.  After the last hurdle I could hear the click of his spikes picking up.  I tried to outkick him, but I was laughing at the prospect of a 42 year old in Hokas in his second event of the night outkicking a kid half of his age.  As would be expected he nipped me for third at the line (I should have made him go wider to lane 3 or 4 rather than just 2).  13 minutes something I guess.  I have no vertical in me whatsoever and it showed.

       

Guess where the hurdles were …

More video to be posted later.

All pix from Rob from the event.  Good time.  Warmed down with JZ for a bit and then joined Rob for an après track party at his pool.