I did some some sampling my latest IPA last night. This is the one that I looked to up the ABV on during fermentation, so I upped the sugar content. While not completely bottle conditioned yet, it has a pretty damn big kick. A good night of holiday cheer.And I felt that on the run today. Hooboy. Well, nothing like a run to sweat that out. 10.5 miles, a good amount with the dogs.
Extending a bit on what I posted recently on addressing weaknesses, this episode is revealing of another one: my diet. And candidly, another one is my general strength. I will look to get on those as well, but I believe that if I try to address too many weaknesses at once, I will lose focus and address none of them. Alternatively, as I start to build success in some of the others, that will serve as a spring board for these.
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I don’t think I am a resolution guy, but my “list” mind has been considering quite a few projects … here are some related to running in some fashion.
1.) I think someday, and this might be many years out, I want to direct a 100 miler …on the track. This project at this point is just exploring the idea and determining the feasibility.
2.) I’d like to see if I can coordinate a trip to the San Juans with my son’s Scout troop. Getting a handful of boys and adults to do a backpacking trip down there for a week will bring its own set of logistic challenges. I sort of have a half hair brained idea that this could be some how parleyed with Hardrock in 2014 (yes 14), with the boys working an aid station. This project is also just doing some research at this point.
3.) I still want to attempt to take a pair of outsoles from LaSportiva shoes and attach them to Hokas.
4.) Obviously my big running project for 2013 is Pikes, and I am already kicking around the project ideas for that. The vertical month project for example (currently thinking 50k in a month, which is not a lot for many folks but is much bigger than anything I have done in a month ever). I might for fun explore a “corporate weenie tempo run project” where I have to go from an office meeting ending at the top of the hour, change into running gear, hit the roads, bang out a tempo run for as long as I can, get back into the office, showered and changed within the hour. Stupid project but an interesting challenge. Another variation on this could be how much vertical I could get in that window on the office treadmill. At a 15 percent grade max, could I get six miles? Hmmm … that would be over 4k of vert in an hour.
5.) There is the chainsaw camp project in May, June and I do want to put together a project of running from Fairplay to Leadville and back. Given we have just seen The Hobbit this might be called the There and back again project.
Variety of other projects in hopper related to guitar, family, finances. A bit off topic for this blog for the moment – and frankly as easily formed.
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Listened to a slightly older Talk Ultra podcast today with Max King as an interviewee. He is firmly of the belief that training for ultras does not mean you need to lose speed. Clearly supporting his argument is his PR at the steeple and the marathon this year at the highest national level. Obviously an argument could be made against him as he has yet to tackle the 100, or have the same level of success on the bigger mountain stuff. But he is working those projects.
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Reavis makes some interesting and perhaps controversial points about eliminating the marathon at the Olympic level. I get Tony’s point but I have a slightly different take on it (isn’t his rationale exactly why they dumped XC worlds to every other year?). In fact, I kind of disagree that one or two nation dominance is reason to pull a sport, but I guess those are the guidelines they use (better pull the steeplechase as well) (and Reavis does state he is not wholly serious).
If “your” sport’s highest honor is something other than the Olympics, than you probably ought to not be in the Olympics. A gold medal in tennis seems to be a foot note to winning Wimbledon or some other major. Baseball, World Series so out. Soccer – World Cup so out (although there seem to have tried to make it so that amateurs, younger players are part of those teams). For most Track and Field events, the Olympics are the highest level of the sport. And it used to be that for the marathon. But not so much any more.
Arguably with the Marathon Majors, and the money they provide, a medal at the Olympics in the longest distance is also a bit of a footnote to winning London, Boston, NY (umm), or Berlin. I’d say drop it and make either a XC race the games (although this is in contradiction to Reavis’ logic) (XC was there way back when Nurmi won it but so many people were jacked by the event they decided to pull it in future Olympics) or a good road ultra.
So I am not looking to drop the marathon because of 1 or 2 countries dominating the sport. Nah. If anything I’d say drop it because the marathon, like other sports, has transcended the Olympics being its highest proving ground. Of course this is not going to happen. No biggie.
I’d probably pull all the “judged for a score” sports as well but that is a different chat.
Sounds like you did a bit more than just 'sampling' your IPA ;-)
ReplyDeleteCome on Nick. You know sampling has to be statistically significant of the population size. There was five gallons down there.
DeleteYou'd tip over with the narrow LS soles on the fat hokas.
ReplyDeleteI want to be around for the chainsaw run.
Max King (and the likes) are the new wave of ultra runners that will bring speed BACK to ultrarunning and make our current stars of the sport go bye-bye.
50k vert a month is a lot.
Yeah, that is what I told him about the outsoles. Maybe a Sportiva outsole on a Brooks race flat?
DeleteYeah, I can see the difference in the sole size as the Hoka is like an oversize parabolic ski (which is why I think they are pretty grippy ... greater surface area). But I think I will play with it as both sets of shoes are about done for me. See what I can get out of it. First up is firing up the sawzall.
DeleteYeah, 50k will be significant for me. I only have 220k of vert on the year, so not a lot at all. I might come short, but hey - if it were an easy goal, why do it?
DeleteI figure if I can get a 30 day stretch where I get out for 20 of the days at 2500 then I get it. Some of those 10 days lost might be business travel, etc. Maybe a few days at 3k, and the occasional day of 5k. Pretty big commitment from me.
Hi GZ,
ReplyDeleteI think the 50k vertical is a reasonable goal for a (rolling) monthly total vert. This was my first year of training for ultramarathons and I was able to about hit that value fairly consistently, particularly early in the season when I was building up for two UM races. Both races had substantial vertical (7000 in 53 km and 11,000 in 70 km) and I did not want to be caught unprepared. Mind you, I am retired and am able to focus on the running but I am also old (56).
The "corporate weenie" project is a great one. I did a bunch of these back in my cubicle/inner office days at mega corps. With days packed with meetings it was great way to challenge one's self to the task of getting a good workout in. My problem was that I had significant "latent sweat" that was a bit of a hassle, particularly when head honchos or board members were in attendance at meetings after the workouts. But great fun!
Le Manchot - yeah, I think I can swing a six miler in there with a cold shower to bring the core temp back down. 5-7 minutes to change, 40-45 minutes to run, leaving 8 to 15 minutes to shower and change back.
DeleteSeven might be doable with better transitions. 4 minute change, 45 minutes of running, 11 minutes to shift back. Easily said ...
You could take your shoes to Rock and Resole in Boulder. I bet they could either put your LS outsoles on, or get you a pair that would work. One question on your 2013 training, why a two week cycle?
ReplyDeletePeter - thanks for the tip on the shoes.
DeleteThe two week cycle is really to show how I think I will juggle five key workouts being 1.) the long run, 2.) flat longer tempo, 3.) flat intervals 4.) hill tempo and 5.) hill intervals.
Arguably there are at least two elements missing from this and that is altitude work and downhill work. I think those can come in the context of the above as things progress through the summer.
Thanks, that makes sense. I guess I just thought the long run every week was sorta a cornerstone, but it does depend on what you are training for. You can incorporate a lot of altitude work in the various workouts as you state (lots of good, flatish dirt roads/trails you can do tempo/intervals/etc. on just outside of Boulder off the Peak to Peak). Nice to see downhill mentioned. Last year was my first year racing, and late race downhills is one area that really hurt me.
DeleteI generally think the long run is a cornerstone, but I push it out to every two weeks versus weekly. The long run is a bit more damaging to me than other workouts. It is a bit of a risk reward balance that I am playing here.
DeleteCandidly it is also how much time I can dedicate to training (or that I am willing to dedicate to training). For what it is worth, this is part of the reason why I have left 100 milers on the table for the moment. I think to adequately train for them I'd need a LOT more long runs and some back to back ones. I am just not comfortable committing to that sort of training at where I am in life right now.