You must do a lot of running

Saturday I participated in the USO Mud Run. It is a 5K cross country obstacle course race. I’ve never done an obstacle course race before, but I’ve run plenty of muddy trail races. I thought, I can run a good 5K, I love cross country, I love muddy races. The obstacles were the unknown here for me, but I figured I could probably do them as well as anybody else.

Making the event even more interesting was the heavy rainfall on Friday night, and continuing rainfall during the race. Without the rain the course probably would have been pretty dry except for the mud mountains. With the rain the entire course (except a gravel road section) was wet and muddy, and there were a few sections of deep water.

The ~900 participants started in three different waves. I was in the first wave with all other individuals. The other categories of participants were female teams, male teams, and co-ed teams. Each team had five members and they had to finish together.

As was typical in a road race, a handful of slower runners sprinted off the starting line to get a big lead for about 200 meters before slowing drastically. After working my way through them I was alone at the front with a high school aged boy.

We stayed together for the first half mile through the wet and muddy grass until we reached the first series of obstacles, about six mud mountains in a row. Each one started with about 20 meters of thigh-deep water, followed by a steep pile of dirt/mud we had to climb over and down, followed by another 20 meters of thigh-deep water. It was impossible to run through the water, we just had to walk quickly and hope our shoes didn’t get sucked off our feet by the mud at the bottom.

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Photo from here

Next there was a runnable section of shin-deep water for about 100 meters. After that was the easy section of the course, which was a long straight gravel road. I had a small gap on the other guy after the obstacles and I tried to open it up on this fast part of the course.

At the end of the road we had to make a sharp left turn and go down into a big steep ditch filled with water and back up the other side. I had to laugh. I was the first person of the day to reach this part of the course and as I made the turn one of the volunteers said to me, “Be careful. We actually have no idea how deep the water is.” So I used a bit more caution. It up to my chest and wide enough that I could have swam across.

Once up the hill there was a mud crawl where (I think) we were supposed to go under the flags strung across the mud pit. I don’t know for sure because nobody explained it before or during the race and I didn’t have anyone in front of me to watch.

The final mile had some more muddy cross country, a few more ditch/water crossings, and one more mud mountain. The final obstacle was a huge plastic tarp slip-n-slide. Which was great.

I finished 1st. It was a super fun race. I was done before the 2nd and 3rd waves even started, so I was able to go back out to watch (and film) a lot of the team participants, which was just as fun as running the race myself. The vast majority of the people there weren’t really competing, they were just there to have fun. And I can see the appeal of that. This was not the typical crowd you see at a road race. There were a lot more smiles here.

I ran another 5-6 miles after my race. After the Nth time I passed one of the race volunteers (before, during, and after the race), he says to me:

You must do a lot of running.

He had me pegged.

May 2013

Running

Sure, 40% of my monthly mileage came in one day, but I recovered from Berryman pretty quickly and I’ve been getting some good training in since then.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 131.5 Mile 13 10.1154 Mile
February 87.4286 Mile 10 8.74286 Mile
March 162.84 Mile 17 9.57882 Mile
April 169.12 Mile 16 10.57 Mile
May 133.61 Mile 12 11.1342 Mile
Total 693.749 Mile 69 10.0543 Mile

Running 2013 5


Cycling

I certainly got off to a slow start with cycling this year, but the last week of May things really started to come together for me. I should be in race condition in no time.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 3.7 Mile 1 3.7 Mile
February 15.2 Mile 4 3.8 Mile
March 123.14 Mile 16 7.69625 Mile
April 114.22 Mile 12 9.51833 Mile
May 157.33 Mile 14 11.2379 Mile
Total 413.59 Mile 47 8.79979 Mile

Cycling 2013 5


Swimming

My times keep getting better, though they may be reaching a plateau. I’m approaching the point where I can swim 1000 yards at nearly the same pace as 200 yards. So in order to keep dropping my 1000 yard times I’m actually going to have to do speed work. Yuck.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 0 0 0
February 3950. Yard 3 1316.67 Yard
March 18900. Yard 11 1718.18 Yard
April 15600. Yard 10 1560. Yard
May 13200. Yard 8 1650. Yard
Total 51650. Yard 32 1614.06 Yard

Swimming 2013 5

Walking/Hiking

I did lots of walking and hiking as active recovery from Berryman, and it seems to have worked really well. I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from an ultra this quickly.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 37.64 Mile 12 3.13667 Mile
February 50.6 Mile 21 2.40952 Mile
March 92.9 Mile 37 2.51081 Mile
April 41.5 Mile 21 1.97619 Mile
May 91.75 Mile 33 2.7803 Mile
Total 314.39 Mile 124 2.5354 Mile

Walking 2013 5

Berryman

I’ve lived here in St. Louis for almost three years now and I still had never run an ultra put on by the local SLUG running group. That was going to change this spring. Registration opened January 1st and I tried to sign up for the Double Chubb 50K. The race filled up in 20 minutes and I missed out. Without really thinking matters through I instead signed up for the next SLUG race, the Berryman 50 mile in May. Berryman is farther than Chubb, the trail is more difficult, I had never run the trail before (so I wasn’t as familiar with it), it was later in the spring (so it would interfere more with my cycling/triathlon schedule, and it would be much hotter). It would be a bigger challenge, but I was ready.

After a brief recovery period following Fuego y Agua I focused all my attention on this race, and aside from the silly fall I had just before the Frisco Railroad Run everything else went perfectly. I had my biggest months and several of my biggest weeks of training as far back as my records go. I made two trips down to Berryman to train on the course and familiarize myself with it.

During the three week period between Frisco and Berryman I intended to do a bit more moderate training and a short taper. It didn’t work out that way. My knee hurt so much after Frisco I didn’t run for 10 days. By that point, only 10 days out from Berryman, I was freaking out about the problem. I saw a doctor who took X-rays and assured me it was just a bad bruise. I should be fine to run as long as I could take the pain. After Frisco I knew I could race through almost any pain.

My first training run back was a disaster. It was like I forgot how to run. I couldn’t get comfortable. My pace would vary from 10:00/mile to 6:40/mile completely unintentionally. My knee hurt. A lot. But each successive run went better, and after a week the knee pain was slight enough I could completely ignore it.

IMG 7834
The start (photo courtesy of Shannon Drohan)

I’m not an expert at running 50 miles. I have covered that distance one time previously, but it was on a much easier course with more frequent aid stations. I planned for the worst but hoped for the best. I made a point of starting the race extra slowly. If I start a short race too fast I might have a half hour or hour of misery before it ends. If I start a 50 mile race too fast I could have 5-6 hours of misery. For the early miles there were seven people in front of me and I was at the back of a pack of four. I was running very comfortably, breathing through my nose for the first 7-8 miles. The temperature was in the low-mid 60˚s, but it was rising rapidly.

IMG 7849
7.5 miles (photo courtesy of Shannon Drohan)

I skipped the first aid station, passing my three companions in the process. I had plenty of water and I would have had to wait behind the first three guys in my group to get any food… and I had plenty of food. Every mile divisible by two I ate a Medjool date. Every mile divisible by three I took an S!CAP. I had my only real mental lapse at the mile 16 aid station where I completely forgot to pick up more dates from my drop bag. I was out by that point so I had to switch to my backup plan of Clif Shot Bloks and Hammer Gels, and I had a few of each with me. The first loop was mostly uneventful. I continued on at a steady effort (though not a steady pace, due to the hills on the course). I gradually passed three more runners to move into second place at the end of the first 25.7 mile loop, which I completed in exactly 4 hours.

Race food

I was hot and starting to fatigue rapidly. I had been hoping to finish in 8 hours, but I knew that was out of the question. It wasn’t a very realistic goal. I had to slow down. The first 5 miles of the second loop took forever and I ran out of water. My mouth was too dry to effectively chew the dates I picked up at the start/finish line, so I had to switch back to my backup foods. The first half of the second lap was just brutal. I was baking in the sun.

Halfway through the second lap I started walking up some of the hills. Walking up hills is pretty standard procedure in ultramarathons, but I had been running them all. The weird thing about the Berryman trail is that despite the numerous hills, none of them are very steep. They’re all completely runnable. And since several are quite long, and there’s often not a clear start or end to the hill, it’s a bit awkward to arbitrarily start walking and then later arbitrarily start running again. But I did it anyway. I still had enough energy to run, but I was overheating.

Melissa found her way out to three of the aid stations on my second loop, and it was nice to see her and Will. I feel bad for not paying more attention to them, but I was really focused on getting this thing finished.

In my tired, dehydrated state I had a couple of hallucinations (this happened to me 5 hours into my very first ultra as well). Through the trees I would see fragments of a shape and my brain would fill in the missing bits with what I thought should be there. One time I saw a couple of mountain bikers on the side of the path that weren’t really there. Unfortunately, since I really wanted there to be an aid station up ahead, that’s the thing I hallucinated multiple times. I even got so excited to see one of the aid stations I opened up my water bottle and dumped the remaining contents over my head to cool down (knowing I would refill it at the aid station), only to look up and realize the aid station wasn’t really there.

The last 5 miles of the loop are a roller coaster of constant ups and downs. Knowing I was so close to the finish line I began running the hills again. I still had energy left. After I came out of the woods and approached the finishing line I even noted to myself that I still had pretty good form. I finished in 2nd place in 8h59m. The winner was almost an hour ahead of me, and much to my surprise the 3rd place finisher was only 2 minutes behind me. It’s a good thing the race ended when it did.

Rob finishing Berryman 50
The finish (photo by Melissa)

IMG 7997
The finish (photo courtesy of Shannon Drohan)

So it was quite an experience. A few things went wrong, but most things went right. I’m quite pleased about that. I started out very conservatively, and I still had energy left at the end. My nutrition plan went quite well with the dates, and even my backup plan of Clif Shot Bloks and Hammer Gel worked for me. I never had any stomach problems. I stayed on top of the S!CAPS and I never had muscle cramps. There were times when I struggled in the heat, but there was never any doubt in my mind that I would finish the race. I did have a bit of residual knee pain in the first couple miles, but it went away and didn’t return. Despite one close call I managed to stay upright the entire 51.4 miles on a very rocky trail. The race was well organized and the volunteers were great.

If I searched hard enough I could probably find things to complain about, but I’m not going to. The race went as well as I reasonably could have hoped. This was the race I’ve been looking forward to all year and I’m not a bit disappointed with it (which is as close to pride as I’m willing to publicly admit).

Dirty car

April 2013

Running

Most miles in a single month since 1996-1997.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 131.5 Mile 13 10.1154 Mile
February 87.4286 Mile 10 8.74286 Mile
March 162.84 Mile 17 9.57882 Mile
April 169.12 Mile 16 10.57 Mile
Total 550.889 Mile 56 9.8373 Mile

Running 2013 4


Cycling

Moving the wrong direction here, mostly due to terrible weather.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 3.7 Mile 1 3.7 Mile
February 15.2 Mile 4 3.8 Mile
March 123.14 Mile 16 7.69625 Mile
April 114.22 Mile 12 9.51833 Mile
Total 256.26 Mile 33 7.76545 Mile

Cycling 2013 4


Swimming

Several new 1000 yard PRs in April.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 0 0 0
February 3950. Yard 3 1316.67 Yard
March 18900. Yard 11 1718.18 Yard
April 15600. Yard 10 1560. Yard
Total 40100. Yard 25 1604. Yard

Swimming 2013 4


Walking & Hiking

Down a bit on account of more running and bad weather.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 37.64 Mile 12 3.13667 Mile
February 50.6 Mile 21 2.40952 Mile
March 92.9 Mile 37 2.51081 Mile
April 41.5 Mile 21 1.97619 Mile
Total 227.24 Mile 93 2.44344 Mile

Walking 2013 4

Catharsis

I limped to the starting line. Literally. I’ve never been in this much pain at the start of a race before. This was a bad idea.

I haven’t run a road marathon in over three years. I suppose this isn’t a road road marathon, as it is on a mostly gravel rail trail, but it’s definitely not on single track. Melissa found the Frisco Railroad Run and wanted to do the 50 mile race. They also had a marathon, which was around the distance I planned to run for training at this time leading up to the Berryman 50 mile race next month. I’ve already done two training runs this distance.

I didn’t taper for the marathon, but I did ease up a bit on my training a few days beforehand. Then on Thursday, two days before the marathon, I was doing one last easy four mile run when, for no discernible reason, I tripped on a straight, flat, smooth sidewalk and face planted. I bruised and scraped my left knee, hip, and elbow. I also managed to tip over the jogging stroller in the process, which scared me far more at the time. I got up, calmed Will down, and dropped him off at daycare, trying very hard not to think about how badly my knee hurt. A quarter mile from home I had to stop and walk the pain was so bad. There goes the marathon.

Banged up

I couldn’t walk the rest of the day. The next day was a little better, but not much. I decided to make the trip down to Springfield, MO anyway so I could be there to crew for Melissa. And maybe my knee would feel better by race time. Who knows?

I gave myself a 50% chance of starting and a 25% chance of finishing. My knee didn’t really feel any better by Saturday morning, but maybe it would be better running than walking. I already paid the entry fee. If this was a running injury that would threaten future events I wouldn’t have considered racing. But since it was just bruises and cuts… I’ll go ahead and start, then drop out after a few miles if it doesn’t improve. It didn’t improve.

FriscoStart
Photo courtesy of Fun Memories Photography

Pre-fall I figured I could easily cruise to a 3 hour finish, so I started around that pace. I kept a close eye on my heart rate to make sure I didn’t overdo it early. The pain in my knee was intense, but the rest of my body felt superb. I was still breathing through my nose comfortably at mile 7.

FriscoRob
Photo courtesy of Fun Memories Photography

FriscoRob2
Photo courtesy of Fun Memories Photography

Until that point I had been slowly catching up to the leader, but then he picked up the pace and started to pull away. Ignoring common sense I went into race mode and sped up to catch him. I passed him around mile 11 and he stayed with me. I sped up to try to drop him, but he remained. I continued to lead until mile 18-19 or so when I needed him to share some of the wind breaking duties. So we took turns in front for a few miles.

IMG_1780

It was raining hard now. I was anaerobic, but nowhere near my red zone. I started to have some serious muscle fatigue in my legs around this time and the pace which was previously downright easy for me was becoming more and more difficult to maintain. When I started to notice other pain in my body besides my knee I knew I was in trouble. I slowed. He slowed as well. I slowed more. He slowed slightly less. And that was all it took for him to pull away from me. I chased him the last 5-6 miles, while he gradually gained.

Weaving through half marathon finishers I eventually crossed the line in second place at 3:02, about 1½ minutes down on the winner. Despite averaging 6:58 per mile my last two miles were over 8:00. I’m a little disappointed at my spectacular collapse at the end of this race, but I’m not too concerned. I didn’t train for this race, I didn’t taper for this race, and I was in excruciating pain the entire time.

My time of 3:02 was good enough for a new marathon PR. Here’s a comparison of my splits compared to my previous PR. What I find most striking is my significantly faster pace at a consistently lower heart rate.

Rockford Marathon 2009 Frisco Railroad Run 2013
Time Split HR Time Split HR
Mile 1 00:07:24 07:24 145 00:06:57 06:57 142
Mile 2 00:14:48 07:23 153 00:13:51 06:53 148
Mile 3 00:21:59 07:11 156 00:20:41 06:50 151
Mile 4 00:29:20 07:21 156 00:27:34 06:53 152
Mile 5 00:36:45 07:25 158 00:34:28 06:53 155
Mile 6 00:43:51 07:05 159 00:41:15 06:47 157
Mile 7 00:51:00 07:08 161 00:48:07 06:51 158
Mile 8 00:58:04 07:04 159 00:54:49 06:42 159
Mile 9 01:05:11 07:06 160 01:01:23 06:34 161
Mile 10 01:12:22 07:11 160 01:07:58 06:34 164
Mile 11 01:19:38 07:15 158 01:14:30 06:32 163
Mile 12 01:26:48 07:10 161 01:20:59 06:29 161
Mile 13 01:34:03 07:14 164 01:27:29 06:29 161
Mile 14 01:41:11 07:08 165 01:34:04 06:35 169
Mile 15 01:48:18 07:06 167 01:40:46 06:41 169
Mile 16 01:55:17 06:59 168 01:47:30 06:43 167
Mile 17 02:02:29 07:12 167 01:54:10 06:40 167
Mile 18 02:09:28 06:59 169 02:00:58 06:47 166
Mile 19 02:16:30 07:01 172 02:07:53 06:55 164
Mile 20 02:23:33 07:02 170 02:14:43 06:50 167
Mile 21 02:30:43 07:10 169 02:21:49 07:05 165
Mile 22 02:37:46 07:02 172 02:28:58 07:08 164
Mile 23 02:45:06 07:20 172 02:36:29 07:30 165
Mile 24 02:52:10 07:03 174 02:44:00 07:31 164
Mile 25 02:59:38 07:27 174 02:52:02 08:02 162
Mile 26 03:07:04 07:25 175 03:00:10 08:08 162

And now for a dark turn. Why did I bother racing so hard for so long through so much pain? I don’t really know for sure. It was dumb. But I was in a very bad place emotionally last week. I lost a dear friend to colon cancer. He was in his mid-thirties, the prime of life. I was thinking about him throughout race. I don’t recommend contemplating issues of life and death while running a marathon. But running is my coping mechanism. I was so distraught that all I wanted to do was run. And I was enduring so much emotional pain that all I wanted to do was suffer physically to try to mask that pain. I guess I just did what had to be done. I had to face my demons. I don’t know if I will ever get over the tragic loss of my friend, but at least now the healing process has begun.

March 2013

Something has to give. In order to increase training time in one endeavor I typically need to decrease time in another. For example, this past winter I ran more and biked less. At least I thought that was the case.

I’ve broken the rules. By taking time away from other activities (mostly watching TV) I’ve been getting in some good (if brief) swiming and running workouts during my lunch breaks. Furthermore, by multitasking (walking while working, more on that below) I’ve gotten a few more low-impact miles on my legs.

So in March I was able to achieve the largest total walking volume of any month since I started recording it, the second largest total running volume, and a local maximum in swimming volume (more than all of last year). All with lousy Smarch weather.

Good month, or best month?


Running

Fully recovered from Fuego y Agua and training hard for the Berryman 50 mile in May.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 131.5 Mile 13 10.1154 Mile
February 87.4286 Mile 10 8.74286 Mile
March 162.84 Mile 17 9.57882 Mile
Total 381.769 Mile 40 9.54421 Mile

Running 2013 3


Cycling

Weak, but at least the trend is moving in the right direction.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 3.7 Mile 1 3.7 Mile
February 15.2 Mile 4 3.8 Mile
March 123.14 Mile 16 7.69625 Mile
Total 142.04 Mile 21 6.76381 Mile

Cycling 2013 3


Swimming

I swam as far in March 2013 as I did in all of 2012 combined.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 0 0 0
February 3950. Yard 3 1316.67 Yard
March 18900. Yard 11 1718.18 Yard
Total 22850. Yard 14 1632.14 Yard

Swimming 2013 3


Walking/Hiking

I bought a cheap treadmill to go under my standing desk and I’ve been walking (sloooowly) a couple extra hours most days while I work.

Month Distance # Workouts Avg per Workout
January 37.64 Mile 12 3.13667 Mile
February 50.6 Mile 21 2.40952 Mile
March 92.9 Mile 37 2.51081 Mile
Total 181.14 Mile 70 2.58771 Mile

Walking 2013 3

Swim Tech II: Garmin Forerunner 910XT

I’m a data junkie. I have a log of every workout I’ve done for the past 11 years, not to mention years worth of GPS tracks. When I run or bike my GPS records my distance and time. Even if I have technical difficulties and the GPS malfunctions for some reason I’m still pretty good at estimating distance. I don’t have that skill with swimming.

My new waterproof iPod Shuffle has been great for my swim training. It helps me deal with the boredom of swimming laps in a 25 yard pool. I can just let my mind go while the laps fly by. But I still need to know how far I’ve gone. I just can’t not know. That’s where the Garmin Forerunner 910XT
comes in.

Swim mode

The reason I bought this GPS watch was for running very long distances (it has much longer battery life than Garmin’s other GPS watches). I didn’t need it for cycling, I have a different Garmin GPS for that. I didn’t need it for swimming, I can count laps (though that does become difficult past 400 yards) and look at the timer clock on the wall. But now that I’m listening to music and swimming longer intervals (up to 1000 yards), not to mention I’m getting old, I can’t reliably count laps.

I really just stick to the basic swimming features of this watch. I tell it I’m swimming. In a pool. Which is 25 yards long. Then I swim. At the beginning and end of each interval I press the Lap button. The watch uses a built-in accelerometer to determine which stroke and which direction I’m going, from which it keeps track of how far I’ve gone.

(I tested the distance features a couple times last year and it was occasionally incorrect, but after a firmware update this year it’s always been correct for me).

One neat feature I’ve just started using is the distance alert. I have it set to notify me (the watch vibrates) every 200 yards. When I feel the vibration right before a turn I take a glance up at the wall timer clock to get my 200 yard split during a longer interval.

When I get home the data uploaded to Garmin Connect shows the distance and duration of each split, and duration, stroke type, etc. for every individual 25 yard length of the pool. If you’re into efficiency you can see your stroke count for every length. It’s a remarkable amount of data. I can easily pinpoint the lap that was 1.5 seconds slower due to a botched flip turn.

The downside is the high price. This has been my go-to watch for running for the past 14 months, and now I use it for my swims as well. I’m not sure I’d buy it for the swimming features alone (GPS would be overkill for indoor swimming), but since I already owned the watch I’m glad to be extracting even more value from it.

Highly recommended.

★★★★½

Donny You’re Out of Your Element

Take Steps for Kids 5K

Just before the start of the Take Steps for Kids 5K on the Washington University campus on Saturday Melissa asked me, “So… what are you doing here?”

It was a fair question.

While a road 5K was right in my wheelhouse 10 years ago, I’ve been doing fewer and fewer as I advance in age. That’s not to say I’ve been doing worse at them. The two road 5K’s I ran last spring (including this one) were my two fastest ever. But that was last spring. My last four foot races have been:

Melissa rightly pointed out I was a bit out of my element. And as soon as we started I was inclined to agree with her. The first 200 meters were just about as fast as I’ve ever started. I was sucking wind. Sure it’s been a while since I’ve done this type of race, but I knew this was all wrong. Fortunately the leaders eased off a bit and I got back on terms.

Start

We ran the first mile in 5:30, which was a bit slower than I expected. Just then a guy emerged from the back of the lead pack and forced the pace. I was the second person to follow the move.

One lap to go

In 3rd

Then came the stairs. Which sucked.

Stairs

It took me a minute or so to recover. Around this time I think the bike who was leading our way took a wrong turn and cut a short distance off the course. Well, at least the entire lead pack went the same way. I passed the number two guy and made chase for the leader. I narrowed the gap a little bit, but it held steady at five seconds for the entire third mile. It was frustratingly close, almost like I could reach out and touch the leader, but I couldn’t close the gap. He looked back (normally a sign of weakness or lack of confidence) three times in the last half mile. I just couldn’t come up with those five seconds.

Finish

I finished second place, again. While my time of 16:37 is the fastest I’ve finished a 5K, it probably would have been a few seconds shy of my fastest time if we had run the full distance. But I’m quite pleased to have run faster than last year regardless.

Last year I had been doing speed work leading up to this race, while this year I’ve done none. One difference in my training is that I’ve been spending a lot of time doing easy runs just below my aerobic/lactate threshold. This threshold has been steadily increasing over the past 12-18 months, and (I believe) taking my anaerobic threshold with it. So not only can I now run 7:30 miles without building up lactic acid (i.e. all day), I also have a little bit more top end speed.

All by training slower (for my easy runs).


(Thanks to Melissa for the cheering and photos)

Swim Tech I: Waterproof iPod Shuffle

I’ll just come right out and say it: of all the athletic activities I take part in swimming has always been my least favorite.

I started swimming long after running and cycling in order to compete in triathlons. When I joined the UIUC masters swim team it became a little more enjoyable. At least there were other people there with me doing the same workouts.

After my son was born I didn’t swim for over two years. Then after we moved to Saint Louis I’ve only ever swum by myself. Boredom ensued, so I avoided swimming. Last year I practiced just barely enough not to drown while racing.

But all of that has changed this year, thanks largely to two new (to me) pieces of technology. The first seems fairly ridiculous, but I swear it has made all the difference in the world:

100% WATERPROOF Apple iPod shuffle – waterproofed by UNDERWATER AUDIO

That’s right, thanks to this waterproof digital audio player I can now listen to music while I swim. For a premium over the normal cost of a 2GB iPod Shuffle directly from Apple, there are companies who will purchase a standard Shuffle, coat and seal the inside of the device with waterproof material so the device itself will continue to function when submerged underwater, then resell it to you. Combine that with waterproof headphones and you get a swim workout that isn’t mind-numbingly boring.

Waterproof

There’s no bulky case. In fact, from the outside it looks just like any other Shuffle. I clip the iPod onto my goggle strap. The waterproof headphones have an extra short cable so they don’t drag while swimming. Then I tuck it all under a swim cap. You can barely tell it’s there.

Since getting this I’ve been swimming more frequently, doing longer distances, and improving at a dramatic rate. In the past three weeks I’ve taken 90 seconds off my 1000 yard time, and I think I’ll be able to take another 60-90 seconds off in the next month or two.

It’s worth every penny. Highly recommended.

★★★★★


As an added bonus, I also use this iPod while running. You might ask, wouldn’t a normal iPod work for that? Well, if you’ve ever seen how much I sweat you would understand why the answer is no. I’ve ruined more sets of headphones than I can remember, and I’ve been utterly terrified of ruining my devices as well. For the past year or two I’ve been carrying my (much heavier) iPhone in a waterproof case and combined that with sweat-proof Bluetooth headphones. I still continue to use this setup for longer training runs when I really want to have my phone with me, but for shorter runs (and potentially for races, where weight matters more) I’ve been using this thing (clipped onto my hat/visor).

When can we do this again?

(Forgive my pop song references. Will and I watched Wreck-It Ralph on Saturday and the song from the closing credits was stuck in my head the entire race.)

Quivering Quads Half Marathon

If you would have asked me a week ago how I thought I’d do at this weekend’s Quivering Quads Trail Half Marathon I would have responded: DNS. I was looking forward to this race for quite a while. Never having run the trail before, I wanted to go out there and take a peek at it before race day. Last weekend was the first chance I had.

The trail is only an hour away, but despite the fact that all the snow here in the city had melted days earlier, there was still a good 6″ of snow on the trail. Now, I don’t mind snow (I’ve run in plenty of it), but this snow was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was layer after layer of alternating crunchy and mushy. It was almost hard enough to support my weight when I landed, but then I sunk. As my foot rolled forward I sunk more. As I pushed off I sunk a lot more. I had planned to run the entire 13.1 mile course at an easy 9-10 minute per mile pace. After working my ass off for 3 miles, struggling to maintain 15-16 minute pace, I gave up and walked back to my car. This was the worst, least enjoyable run I’ve had in years. And I wanted no part of the race the following weekend.

I vowed not to change my mind as the week went on. But after a few good runs during the week, and some lovely warm weather at the end of the week I was having second thoughts. It was looking more and more like the snow would all melt and the course would just be exceptionally muddy. I’ll take exceptionally muddy over the crap I ran through any day. Race is a go. Of course, on top of the huge quantity of melted snow, it also poured down rain the day before the race, and it was raining on the day of the race. Exceptionally muddy turned out to be an understatement.

Quivering Quads

Quivering Quads

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It’s just a matter of time before we learn how to fly

The race starts in waves of 25 runners based on a self-estimated finishing time for a road half marathon. I haven’t run one in 9 years, so I made up a time (1:23) that was actually faster than my old PR, but that I knew I could do. It was probably a bit conservative. What was funny was that the race numbers were ordered based on seed time. I was #9, and I could estimate roughly how fast everyone else was based on their bib numbers relative to mine.

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We began with a 1 mile out-and-back on a (muddy) fire road. Everyone was soaking wet from head to toe instantly. By the ½ mile turnaround I was in a group of four (#1, #2, #3, and me) who had a small gap. We turned onto the (muddy) trail and got down to business.

I’ve done plenty of trail races, and I’ve had a few stream crossings before, but never more than 2-3. This race had, I’m guessing, somewhere around 25. And given the massive snow melt in the past couple days, the water was frigid. Early on the water was ankle deep and the streams were narrow. As the race went on (and the rain continued to fall) the streams grew wider and deeper.

After 2 miles we hit an uphill section where #1 and #2 pulled away a bit. At the top I moved around #3 and caught back up to the leaders. Now we were a group of three. I felt good. I was running fast to stay in contact with #1 and #2, but I wasn’t killing myself. I wondered how much longer I could sustain the pace. On a few of the uphill sections #1 and #2 opened a small gap on me, but I easily caught back up with them on the downhill sections.

Around mile 4 we hit a long uphill section and #1 and #2 pulled away from me like I was standing still. So much for being in the lead group. At the top of the hill I took some water at the aid station (#1 and #2 both skipped it) and I started to refocus. Then came a long downhill. I remembered back a few miles to how I so easily closed relatively small gaps on the short downhill sections. I began to wonder if I could possibly close the now-large gap on a bigger downhill. There’s only one way to find out. I bombed the hill, and by the bottom I was back with the leaders. But for how long?

When can I see you again?

This became the status quo for the next 5 miles or so. The two leaders opened a gap on me on every uphill section. I held the gap steady on the flats. I bombed the downhills to catch back up. It was clear these guys were stronger runners than me, yet I gained time on the downhills and some of the more technical flat sections of the trail.

By mile 8 I could barely see the two leaders, their lead over 30 seconds by that point. I put all my effort into one last kamikaze descent to come within 10 meters of them at the bottom, just as we reached the widest and deepest stream crossing of the race. I heard them shouting a bit at the crossing, but I wasn’t sure why. Moments later I found myself balls-deep in frigid snow runoff and it was suddenly clear.

Oh oh, oh oh

I can’t imagine what they must have thought of this guy who they kept dropping, yet was right on their tail again. After seeing me on the other side of the stream I think #1 had finally had enough of me and he took off. He gained so much time on us so quickly that I seriously wondered whether he had taken a wrong turn.

I yo-yo’d behind #2 for a few more miles. With slightly more than 1 mile to race I once again came within 10 meters of him before hitting an uphill and losing contact again. Once we hit the (muddy) fire road (now rained on for hours longer and trod upon by 350 people) for the final out-and-back, I could barely move. I had no hope of catching back up. The gap went out to a minute in the last ½ mile. I finished in 1:46:09 for 3rd place.

Third

The winner also won the race last year, though he was over 10 minutes slower this year due to the trail conditions. The second place finisher also finished second last year. I don’t know what their seed times were, but #2 has a half marathon PR of 1:12 (!). These guys are so far out of my league I’m still a bit stunned I was able to stay with them for as long as I did.

Then again, my last two first place finishes were sloppy, muddy trail runs in the rain.

Maybe this is becoming my thing.


Update: Here’s an awesome video one of the runners made:

And here’s someone’s photos of the course during the race.

Life is way too short to take it slow