2016: Day 31

I was sick last weekend, so that was lame. It was intended to be a heavy volume weekend, unfortunately couldn't just load up this weekend as my mom was visiting for the weekend. So, rest week it is. Next weekend is a holiday long weekend, so I've been daydreaming at work about long run plans. Who doesn't day dream about where you're going to run on the weekend? It's starting to stay light out, on Wednesday night my run was only half in the dark, so nice.

I played hockey twice this week. It's really hard to get going the next morning after hockey, especially when I run after hockey as well. Winding down and getting to bed is hard sometimes.

This January was my second lowest January in terms of mileage in the last six years, but the first time in four years my mileage for January wasn't less than the last year. Even though I didn't run much this month, I am ok with that. My goals throughout the month was just easy running. I had hurt something in my right ankle mid December either running or at hockey and that seems to have gone away. So it's been a nice gentle start to the year. I stuck to running roads with very little elevation gain on purpose for the month.

February I plan on running a long run of between 50 km and 50 miles on the roads on Sunday coming up, the monday after is a holiday so if there is still very little snow I was planning on bushwacking through the sage brush in the hills by my house to mt mara, a very nice lookout point. Beyond that specific weekend plan the rest of February will be a slow restrained build on time/volume/elevation gain. Plan on tagging the radio towers near my house on daily runs, which is either a 200 or 500 metre elevation gain run, Aiming for around 250-300 kms in around 35-45 hours, and maybe around 2,000 metres elevation gain per week or so. I only have hockey three time in February, so that shouldn't interfere with running too much.

I stare out my window every day at Mt Peter waiting for it to look like it's ready to run. El Nino is leaving us with an early spring, if the melt keeps up I think I can get my first summit of Peter by February. 

2016: Day 18

Running in the ever present darkness of winter feels like I"m running in the shadows. Like the mountains are out there, inaccessible, and I"m stuck down in the valley in their shadows just biding my time working myself up to the summer time when I can meet the mountains again. Sometimes it gets rough in the dark, but the thoughts of exciting futures always get you going again.

2016: Day 16

Operation wake up before work and exercise is continuing to be a massive failure. Mornings are so hard in the winter.

I was planning to run long this morning, but it was snowing so instead I was lazy and sat on my couch watching soccer until it stopped snowing. Then I started running at 3:30, ran 44 km in 4:30. It was a rather hard run, I thought it would be nicer because it had stopped snowing, but apparently very few people got the memo today about shoveling the sidewalk, but it made for a real hard run which was a good workout. Hockey will be tough tomorrow. Tonight was my longest run since my DNF in September, and so far I"m at 87 km for the week and that will also be my longest weekly total since then as well. I won't hit 100 km, as I'm running short in the morning hopefully, and then hockey. No hockey next week (I think), so I should be able to get time to get up to 100 km and/or 10 hours next week.

I think starting in February hockey is scheduled for every Sunday, if I do go every week I think I'll skip practices when they happen. I need to remember to get to seeing a massage therapist on a regular basis again.

2016: Day 12

I only ran once on Sat/Sun, although I played hockey and ran on Friday night. I was rather tired come Sunday.

I've failed at waking up to exercise both Monday and Tuesday this week. I think the fault mostly lies in that I'm not going to bed early enough to get up early and have slept while.

I still haven't made up my training log excel spreadsheet for the year, that might be awhile as i feel I need to update last years first. I fell off the wagon the last quarter of the year, I really had a difficult time getting motivated to run after I DNF'd at Lost Soul in September. My goal for December was to tray and get back into the habit of running, On my strava I recorded 22 days with exercise, not as much as I would hope, but way more than my 3 days of exercise in November. So progress.

2016: Day 7

I planned on running in the morning before work, I was even nicely awake at the appropriate time. But then I went back to sleep. This isn't going well at all. I guess I'll try again next week, because tomorrow isn't happening as I already have to start work an hour early to leave for hockey early.

I ran 9.5 km last night, still snow to run in. No exercise today, I got home just tired from work. I've had to actually move at work this week, no sitting on my ass at my desk all day. Hockey Friday and Sunday, and I'll run twice on the weekend as well. I'm ok with that.

Super stoked to be planning on crewing and/or pacing for a friend at a long race in the summer again.

2016: Day 5

I intended on getting up early to run before work, but when the clock went off and it was dark out I preferred the warm bed to the freezing cold outside. I managed to do some squats and pushups though, babysteps. The goal of trying to do some sort of exercise in the morning is a think it will help my metabolism go faster, and that's a good thing I think.

I ran 13.3 km on snowy sidewalks at night in 70 minutes. My right ankle area is hurting less. Still haven't decided why it got hurt, whether it was from hockey or from running.

More snow shovelling, yeah cross training!

2016: Day 4

I mean to run in the morning today, but I slept horribly so I didn't. I ran at night on snow covered roads. The moments of zen were fleeting, and more present were the moments of unzenlike interaction with vehicles. Also, got in some sick cross-training via snow shoveling. Tomorrow I will try again at waking up to run before work.

New years resolutions are dumb, but I have decided to stop purchasing lunch from the catering truck that comes by, it's just a waste of money.

Today at work I was doing some tedious tasks and my mind wandered, and I was thinking about running the KVR trestle from Kelowna to Penticton. I think I could probably do an out and back, get my mom to meet me in Penticton, There is a camping site halfway where I could fill my water. Totally doable.

2016: Day 3

It's been about 15 months since I posted last, and I've decided to start posting again.

When I first started this blog it was because I needed a means to keep myself motivated to keep running towards what seemed like a monumental training goal at the time, but the main focus was to turn my life around. At the time, I needed running as a means to keep myself from addictions, and publicizing my journey (although few people read it) was a way to keep myself on track. I went on to finish my main goal race of 2010, and have been running ultras for 6 years now. I've successfully run a couple 100 mile races as well. But I find myself always never realizing my potential.

One of the reasons I stopped writing this blog was due to the reactions I got from people, I suppose more the reactions I had to other people reactions. Some peoples responses used to annoy me, but that's dumb.

The purpose of me writing here, hopefully most days, will be for me to have an outlet for my thoughts. Hopefully, writing things down will help me think through things better, help me stay focused. I would like to flesh out a training plan for the year. Right now I have fallen into sub optimal fitness for the second winter in a row. My goal for the next two weeks is to be active every day, no speed goals, or distance goals, just to be active.

I just wasted 10 minutes watching buzzfeed videos because I wanted to watch the video I posted here.

I think I have a mild stress fracture on my lower right shin, it started hurting after hockey in mid December. 

Year in Review - On Sepember 1st

Just like in 2012 I shall think of September as the end of my race year, mostly because I'm unsatisfied with my years worth of races and want to mentally start over. What follows shall be a breakdown of the year, and an expression of my plan for the next year and how I shall succeed.

At the end of 2010, 2011, and 2012 I would write out my thoughts on the year and goals for the next year. These included thoughts on running, life and the combination of the two. I would put down my goals and laid out some sort of plan how I would accomplish this.

For the 2014 year I made no such effort. No plans were specified, no goals were expressed, and nothing was laid out. Not surprisingly I did not succeed at many of the races I entered in.

In 2013 I ran what felt like was a very good 100 mile race in march finishing in 19:57, and completed a 100 mile race in September finishing in 27:45. The September race included an injury that added a fair bit of time to my day, and I had enough other decent races, coupled with races that I could rationalize as good considering the level of sandbagging that went into them, and I felt like I was a strong runner. I thought at the time I had got myself as good as I could get, and so I searched out for a coach thinking that would take me to bigger and better things.

I had a rather un-enjoyable experience with online coaching. I stuck it out for a few months, but it left me disliking the concept of training and running in general. About six weeks before I attempted a 100 miler in March I was so displeased with my daily run that I took two weeks off from running.

The 100 miler in March was intened to be a redo of the previous year, except with a faster result. The reality was that I went in to it not enjoying my running, undertrained physically, and mentally not ready for any possibility that may come at me during race day. The race day was horrible weather and rather than toughing it out I gave up.

In February I ran a 50 km race that I had run the year before. I had hoped that I could do better, but basically hated every moment of the race. All I thought about was how much I wasn't enjoying the current training process I'd been on for the winter. Needless to say, the race was slower than the year before.

At the beginning of April I began doing more exploratory runs and started to get the joy back in my daily run. So I thought I would sign up for a local 50 km race for May. I had done the 25 km race of the same event the year before in 2:16 and thought I could surely beat 5 hours. I ran the race in 5:53 and felt like a load of garbage physically. At the end of 2013 I had signed up for the 120 mile race in August. After this 50 km race I decided I wasn't going to be ready to run 120 miles in August.

May/June continued along with me being purposely unplanned in my running as my way of rebelling against the disdain I felt for my winter experience. There was much exploration happening in the hills and it felt good - so I decided I would go for 120 miles after all in August. I signed up for a 50 mile race in late June, and a tough 60 km race in July and thought that would be good, all the while telling myself the 120 mile would be ok because I would just go slow, go for the finish and that's all. The race in June went great, I didn't break any records at all, but I started slow, paced well and finished strong with my mind on 120 miles.

At the race in July I decided to knee drop the top of the mountain - it blocked with a rock and I was busted open. I had a rather nice gash on my knee that needed stitches. This happened at 21 km. My body went into shock and my calf was covered in blood, I used the snow to clean my cut and tied a shirt around my knee, ran 8 km to get first aid, then finished the race (the race was shortened to 50 km).

I required stitches. I didn't run for two weeks. When I did start running it was only easy running, and it wasn't until a couple days before the 120 that I wasn't experiencing noticable pain while running. I didn't stretch my left leg once for the 4 weeks leading up to the 120.

During the 120 race everything was going great. At mile 68ish I was approximately 4-5 hours ahead of my time from two years ago.I was doing the best mental focus ever during the night portion of a race, it was just fantastic. Then I was running down a trail, stepped off the side with my right foot, slipped and fell on my left knee and re-opened the gash on my knee. I dropped out of the race at mile 73. Could I have finished the race? Perhaps. But my desire to do so and risk making an even uglier mess out of my knee wasn't that high.

I took another week completely off running, and signed up for a race on Aug 31. The race went not well, it felt like I had no energy in my legs. My knee had healed enough that I felt comfortable stretching it for the first time in ages, so after the race I stretched properly for the first time in 6 weeks.

I feel like I'm at the same point mentally and physically at this time in 2012. I've not done well in most of the races I did this year, just like 2012. And I'm feeling broken down just like I was at this time in 2012. I did a very good job building from this point to a relatively successful 2013 run year, so I will model my plan from here through next year in a similar fashion.

My dissatisfaction with my races this year is because I feel like I have not raced to my potential.

Why did it all go wrong? (random thoughts)
- The whole coaching thing through the winter of 12/13 made me not enjoy running, which lead to undertraining.
- I don't like being told what to do.
- I failed to make any solid plan for the year, or to make any specific goals.
- I stopped tracking my workouts, this lead to even further breakdown of planning.
- I didn't have fun with my training for most parts of the year.
- I use running as a means to exert control over myself, by relinquishing this control to another person (coach) it bothered me. I want to spend the time planning, and over analyzing my journey to figuring this ridiculous level of running out.
-  This year even during the times when I was enjoying the running again, I wasn't working in enough runs that would help me improve athletically.
- I need to race seldom enough that I can plan in both the type of runs that will help me improve athletically as well as the 'adventure'ish runs that I enjoy.


Blah, Blah, Blah. I didn't enjoy my winter, which lead to not enough training, which lead to not being ready. I want to be able to reach my potential during races. I need to race seldom enough that I can fit in the type of random adventure runs I enjoy as well as have enough time to properly train for the races. I need to plan, "if you fail to plan you plan to fail". I stopped tracking my running after the 50 km race in February, I don't think it's a coincidence that I didn't recover from my winter of discontent and turn it around.

On to some goal making:

Races: I want to redo the March 100 miler, and the August 120 miler. I also want to do a mid summer shorter distance race.

List form goals:
1. Run the August 120 mile in under 36 hours
- or just finish the thing.
1b. If a friend wants me to help her do this race instead I will do a 100 miler in Lethbridge instead - goal of finishing under 22 hours
2. Run the march 100 mile in under 20 hours.
- or finish it feeling good
- or at least just finish it
3. Run a June 50 mile race in under 9 hours or better.
4. Run the same December 50 km race in under 4:45.
5. Run no other races during the year.
6. Volunteer at races.
7. Dont do drugs. Seemingly no longer needed, and yet still so necessary.
8. Dont drink and angry. Does that even make sense.
9. Be a better, politer automoton at work.
10. Tact.
11. Pray.
12. Other stuff.

A plan will be built shortly, the focus will be on duration, and effort levels for each run. I will plan proper rest after races and I will allow time for random runs into my calender.

State of mind thoughts.

i intended on writing down some deep thoughts about how stain of mind affects race performance, but the thoughts seem to have left me

durka durka durka

I felt like writing, instead I sat up reading for an hour. I've been sick for a few days. I went to a gwar concert the weekend prior. Drank too much and treated the old body so poorly I got sick... or it was just a coincidence.

Within a week of running my last race I had constructed a race plan for next year in my head that included only races 50 km or less. Well, before taking a mini vacation and getting sick I was starting to get back at running finally, and the thoughts are turning back to 100's. If I have the plan for the year outlined at the start I can do a better job of training and rolling from one event to the next? I think so.

I mostly never get bothered by my asthma until I get a cold, then as the cold fades asthma symptoms linger. Dislike. Ventolin inhaler: makes it so you can breathe normal, but makes the tremors come.

I think I will do Badger Mountain in March and Plain in September. Specifically I think the schedule is fixing up to be something like this 50 k race in early Feb, 100 mile late march, 50 km early May, 100 km late june. 50 km mid august, 100 mile mid sept. Race less other races than I did in 2013, and don't do a few less intense training runs (keep the races as the most difficult runs) and I should have the energy to roll from one race to the next.

I was thinking about getting some sort of coach situation set up, accountability and all that. We shall see.

What to do next year?

I really don't know what to do for race thoughts next year. I think I'd like to continue to improve my 100 mile race, but I really don't know if I want to spend the amount of time training that I think I need to in order to get there. Maybe I will just race mostly 50 km races, or even shorter. Or just race a lot less and focus on the slow progression of athletic growth.

race thoughts

I ran the Lost Soul 100 mile race last weekend. Still not sure what to make of my thoughts about my race performance. This will be a rather scattered assortment of thoughts about my race and a few stats mostly in point form. Will be scattered because I'm not sure what I want to get out of writing this, but at some point will want to maybe learn something from the race day but not sure what I want to learn from it.

- the course was fairly hilly, pretty darn steep up and downs on the coulees. overall there was 38ish coulees we ran up and down.
- hard to get momentum going during the much of the course as there would be a steep hill followed by steep decent with no break in between, definitely easier to do extended climbs and descents
- here are a couple charts

Aid Station	Distance	Total Time	Segment Distance	Segment Time	Segment Pace min/km
HQ	7	42	7	42	6.00
Peen	14.7	90	7.7	48	6.23
Pavan	24.2	156	9.5	66	6.95
Pavan	40.7	267	16.5	111	6.73
Peen	47.7	321	7	54	7.71
HQ	53.9	372	6.2	51	8.23
HQ	60.9	430	7	58	8.29
Peen	68.6	504	7.7	74	9.61
Pavan	78.1	597	9.5	93	9.79
Pavan	94.6	747	16.5	150	9.09
Peen	101.6	818	7	71	10.14
HQ	107.8	881	6.2	63	10.16
Hq	114.8	956	7	75	10.71
Peen	122.5	1055	7.7	99	12.86
Pavan	132	1181	9.5	126	13.26
Pavan	148.5	1472	16.5	291	17.64
Peen	155.5	1575	7	103	14.71
HQ	161.7	1665	6.2	90	14.52

Section	Lap 1 Time	Lap 2 Time	Lap 3 Time
South Loop (7 km)	42	58	75
HQ - Peen (7.7 km)	48	74	99
Peen - Pavan (9.5 km)	66	93	126
North Loop (16.5 km)	111	150	291
Pavan - Peen (7 km)	54	71	103
Peen - HQ (6.2 km)	51	63	90

-  maybe went out a bit too fast
- the third lap was just almost the same time as my first and second combined
- either excessive amounts of boiled potatoes or excessive amount of boost gives me horrible farts
- total time was 27:45
- disappointed with my result, felt I could do better
- I spent over an hour at the pavan aid station before going out for the north loop for the last time
- not sure if I feel any sense of accomplishment about gutting out a finish on a rough day, considering I was being such a whiny bitch for much of the last lap
- my head was definitely not in the game at the race, perhaps think I would have been better not doing it
- should I just DNS a race if I don't think I'm heading into it in the right mentallity?
- my Dad was originally going to be my crew at the race, he passed away in July and I chose to not replace him and came to the race by myself. although the volunteers were fantastic and I stayed with a runner and his wife and they were fantastic I was extremely distracted during the race. I let my head drift to sad places, and was completely unfocused. If the goal was to have a great result, and not just finish, I should have either not gone or found another crew so that I would have had something else there to distract from my head space
- I knew I was going to have a horrible race in terms of mentalness (?), but it turned out worse
- they gave us this timing chip system. one chip for the wrist which we would swipe in and out of aid stations, and one for the ankle that would track us across the start and finish line.
- within 5 km of the race I felt like my lower right calf area was tight. I didn't think much of it and attributed it to the steepness of the hills, I was starting the first loop with a 1/2 size smaller shoe, and I had ended my last 100 mile race with a black big toe on my right foot. So thought that maybe it was my stride perhaps and put no more thoughts on it. Changed my shoes at start of second lap and that was that
- start of third lap I felt absolute crap in my lower right leg, pretty much had given in to walking the majority of the last lap
- fell apart mentally in the dark
- at aid station at km 132 I felt like an absolute bag of shit, I tried to sleep, was considering dropping. I kept thinking I would wait until the next runner.... oh he came in. wait until the next one... oh he came in. wait until it gets light out again.... fuck that shit, I got up and decided to stop being a whiney bitch, slam food into me and got up and started walking.
- the coulees after this it felt like my lower right calf area was screaming with every step
- walked about 6 km, and decided I was going to lie down in the early am and nap until the sun came up, left a headlamp on so I wouldn't get run over by other runners. I put my right foot up on my left knee to scratch myself
- at km 140 for the first time since I felt it bothering me I actually physically inspected the part of my leg. my lower calf was swollen to about twice its size directly above wear ankle bracelet holding the timing chip was. it would seem as though I had done the velcro up too tight and reduced blood flow or whatever. I don't usually have cankles, but I looked like I had one fat cankle. as soon as I took the strap off I felt instantly better
- I felt like such a dumbass. my leg was bothering me and I didn't look at it until 140 km into the race.
- I didn't look at my leg that was bothering me until 140 km into the race
- it took me 140 km to actually physically inspect the part of my body that was distracting me
- 140 km is how long it took me to actually address the part of my body that was hurting
- in some respects I so desperately wanted to quit this race at points in the last lap, but I didn't and that's something I guess
- not sure what to learn from this race in terms of things to do better for a possible next time
- don't tie a velcro strap around my ankle too tight? don't race unless I'm able to go in with proper mental focus?

- I'm not sure if I want to run 100 mile race again. Yes I would like to come back to LS and do better like I think I could. Yes I would like to do Fat Dog 120 mile, because I dropped out in 2012 and feel like I am capable of doing it. But the way I want to approach 100 mile training it takes so much time and I'm not sure I want to spend that much time. While in university I had tonnes of time, while working in restaurants I felt my working afternoons allowed a different work schedule that even though I didn't get in the time per week as I do now, felt like I had more energy remaining after work and run.
- the coming year I had planned on doing badger mountain again, and fat dog and also some shorter distance races. this year I had sandbagged pretty much every shorter race than 100 miles, with the goal in mind of mental training for the 100 distance. whereas this coming year I had intended on doing no more sandbagging and trying to kick ass at shorter races as well as at the 100 miles
- I don't think I'm capable of having a 100 mile race on the horizon without trying to get in excessive amounts of time on foot. it feels to add pressure. and to what purpose? a 6 month cycle starting in october of heavy running just to try and cut 1-2 hours off a time?
- very much considering not running a 100 mile race next year. I did it, i set out what I accomplished to do. In march I ran a fast 100 mile race, and this last weekend I ran a tougher race that went not so well but I still finished. Last year I would have DNF'd so fast. So I proved to myself that I can successfully run a fast 100, and that I won't give up in tough conditions. Two things I am definitely better at than last year, and I don't think those are small things, and those were definitely pretty heavy on my mind in terms of my training this year. Perhaps even I would say my training was all encompassing with these two themes in mind. Finish a 100 mile and erase the DNF curse. I did it, and the way I feel inclined to train for 100's I like to occasionally brutalise myself, and I don't think I want to do that for another year.

- I feel like I'm on the verge of being a good athlete
- I am definitely not sure right now what I want to get out of running long term.
- I want to have energy day to day
- I want to feel achievement at every race I do if I do races
- I think I want to step back from heavy distance, work on speed and run shorter races (like mostly 50 km or shorter)
- perhaps get faster first, and then much later if I get faster in races reconsider the thought of 100's
- I do not want to have to feel like I need to run up to 16 hours per week, heck I ran just under 20 hours one week, and that was a full 5 day work week, I pretty much did nothing but run, eat, sleep, and work that week
- I do not want to feel like I 'need' to do anything in regards to training

- I think I feel burnt out mentally
- maybe I am just still thinking sad thoughts and just shouldn't have gone to race
- I think I'm ok with the idea of not pushing to get to 100 mile related goals next year.

Race on friday; strategy?

I've come up with a good strategy. Run until they tell me I don't have to run anymore.

Race is 100 miles, 3 loops of 53.3 km. Course is a loop, a double figure eight where we hit each aid station twice, I have no crew but I will have drop bag access 17 times (these include major aid stations as well) plus an unmanned water station that we hit once per lap. So 17 aid stations / drop bags, plus 3 water stations.

The course consists of coulees for the first 32ish km of the loop, then river valley flat sections for the last part of the loop. There is about 1000 metre elev gain per loop. And supposedly its all short and steep, so apparently hard to run. Lots of exposed areas (very few trees) so that part is just like running at home, and it is expected to be relatively hot, which I've done a fair bit of heat training this summer. Looking at google earth I feel like the trail conditions are all fairly easy stuff, not much in the way of rocks or roots at all, lots of trail cut into grasslands, just like I'm used to at home. And I don't assess the steepness of the climbs to be all that tough from satellite imagery, but everyone else seems to say it is.

before I did badger in march, I assessed the elev profile, the satellite images, the frequency of aid stations and all that I felt like I was comfortable with the course. The way I assess Lost Soul based on these similar things I feel like Lost Soul is only slightly harder; except as a loop course I shouldn't lose a tonne of time at the end because in theory I shouldn't get lost in the second or third loop. I feel like I can achieve a similar or better result than I did at badger mountain. Either way I will start out the first lap easier than necessary and then start to push once I have a sense of the loop. Fast walk the coulees first lap, faster second lap, hopefully run them third lap. Ramp up the effort level starting after the coulees in the second lap and then hopefully fast finish the last 10-15 km.

I am feeling a little nervous. On one hand, I feel like the way I would on my own assess the race and set out a plan I think I can achieve a result I am looking for. But on the other hand, very good runners tell me this is a harder course than I perceive it to be.

We shall see.