DNSing a race feels kinda weird.

I had registered for a 10 km race on Sunday, paid a whopping 20 bucks in advance to register. On the Thursday before the race I worked with someone at work who was sit, and then surprise I got sick on Friday. Massive head cold. Pounding headache, aching everything and buckets of green mucous. Couldn't get my shift covered at work on Friday night so I was even worse on the Saturday. But I thought as I didn't work on Saturday I would drive to Penticton anyway, stay overnight and see if I felt good enough to race. Well I woke up a good hour after the race had started and felt absolutely awful still and didn't do the race.

I am so glad I didn't do it, I'm sure I would have managed to wobble my way to a 45-48 minute 10 km time but I would have felt absolutely ten times worse than I did. Even without running the race work on Sunday night was a mess, I'm pretty sure I blew a litre of mucous out my nose that night.

I've never not run a race that I was registered in before. I figured it would happen one day due to an injury, but instead it wsjust the common cold that knocked me out. I feel like I have a much more enlightened view on the DNS because of this. Pushing yourself to do something when it will only cause detriment to your body wouldn't be a wise decision.

I went for a walk in the park...for 54 km.

Sunday of the labour day weekend I participated in the 54 km "Walk in the Park" trail race in Kamloops. The event was held at Kenna Cartwright park and consisted of running an 18 km loop three times (there was also a 18 km and a 36 km race). During the 54 km there was 8,500 ft elevation gain. Most of the trails were single track with some double track mixed in as well. No sections with particularly technical footing, but the hills were fairly intense.

I stayed with family friends the night before the race. In fact, somehow managed to convince the runner of the house to join me on the run, he's a much faster runner than I having posted a 3:06 marathon time but he maintained that he would run my pace as he hadn't done any serious marathon training for 3 years.

We started out too fast for my liking on the first lap, but away we went. We did the first lap in 1:51. It felt good, the second lap is where pain started to creep into my feet, well just my right foot. I didn't realize it at the time, but during the race the ridge of my shoe was constantly rubbing against the area under the ankle bone of my foot, which made it hurt every time my foot struck the ground (I think thats what happened at least) and the next day I was limping around at work because of this. The second lap was slower 2:11 it didn't feel horrible but I just felt sluggish in general. At the end of the second lap my friend chose to drop out as he was experiencing some cramping that he'd never felt before and didn't want to risk it turning into something worse. I walked the first bit of the third lap (it was all uphill) and then found some energy to kick a little harder once I crested the mountain. I had come in to the end of the second lap just as the 18 km race was starting so I was catching up with some of them as well there was another 50 km racer that I could see. I felt great at this point so I started passing a few people. Then at the 42 km mark I had a massive charlie horse under my left ass cheek. I lost a good 5 minutes clutching my leg and then walked it off for the next 10 minutes. The last lap ended up being a 2:33 for a total 54 km race time of 6:35:22 which got me 7th place. In my three local ultras I've done I've been 7th place every time. If I were religious I would take this trinity of seventh places as some sort of sign.

I think I'm going to stop my short lived trail shoe experiment and go back to just doing all of my running in my asics. They've worked for the last 4 years so I might as well keep on with them. And I need to figure out how to fix my cramping issue that I've had in my last two races. Was a fun race, I'll definitely do it again next year and hopefully prepare better and maybe I can beat 6 hours.

On Sunday I'm running in a 10 km race. Well, I plan on it. I''m going to see how my ankle feels in the next couple of days and we'll see.

Keep on running.

Nazzer

Runing at night

Daytime temperatures have been around 30-35 degrees lately; and with starting work at 3 pm every day I find it so much easier to run after work. So I`ve been doing some midnight runs after work. It is pure heaven! No more than 20 degrees, perfectly clear skies, so little traffic that on the side streets I could run in the middle of the road to avoid camber if I wanted to. When I'm running at night I feel like I'm a step away from heaven.

I get some odd looks though. Guys between the age of 16-25 seem to enjoy hanging out of their car windows to scream at me; little do they realize that while they drive by I can`t understand a word they say nor do I care what they have to say.

I seem to have scheduled myself into a busy September. On the 5th I`m running in a 54 km trail race in Kamloops, the 12th I`m running in a 10 km road race in Penticton, and then on the 19th I`m going to volunteer at the Peak to Beak in Kelowna. Should be fun.

I`m not really sure how I plan on approaching the race in kamloops. I`m not taking much time in front of it so I might not be well rested. I`l l probably still do a long runs the next two weekends and do a tiny bit of a taper. I`m running the race with a family friend. He`s older than I am but has been running much longer and has a much faster marathon time than I do. And yet he is telling me that he`s worried about keeping up with me for the distance; I feel the completely other way around that I`m worried about trying to keep up with him.

The 10 km run the week after will be my first 10 k race I`ve participated in since May of 2009. I will set a new personal best in that; two days ago I ran 10 km whicih included a steep 2 km uphill section and a 3 minute rest in 49 minutes so I`m pretty sure I`ll beat my best of 56 minutes.

Should be fun,

Keep on running.

Nazzer

Thoughts on now and later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs&feature=channel

Watch this video, it's pretty neat.

When I run in a race I like to run with and talk to other runners; perhaps because I am doing something that I have put so much work into and that I am happy that I have got to that point and I feel like it's the culmination of so much effort.

But when I am on a training run I like to be alone. I put myself through pain and suffering, I go out in conditions that I shouldn't and run harder than I should and I push my limits. There are days when I destroy myself. I have to go places deep within myself to get through the ways I push myself when I am training and I want those to be my alone moments.

Iin the two weeks since the death race I haven't done much running; I ran to the beach to swim once, did some treadmill running once, and then two days ago did a 33 k trail run which was rather rough considering there isn't running water on the mountains anymore. I've done a fair bit of biking though. Biked to the gym a couple times and then did a 40, 32, and 67 km bike in that time. The 67 km bike was really hot, like 33 degrees outrside hot; I wanted to go further but I didn't want to get sunburnt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpunQZ4cUyI&feature=related

I'm not sure if my body is still a little fatigued but now that my goal for the summer has been completed I am feeling underwhelmed and difficult to motivate myself to run. Going back to work the day after I got back from Grande Cache was not good at all; for the first time this summer I had thoughts about how much I hated my job. Yeah it's a bad job, but before I would aimlessly coast through my day happily able to distract myself with the thoughts of running 'running' through my head. But now that I am done the big goal it's as though I had, temporarily at least, purged all thoughts of running from my head and was left to face the reality of my life situation. And then there's the deal that University classes begin again soon and that isn't doing anything to make me feel motivated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB4w_g1hMJ8&feature=related

I really do think I depend on running. It is very cleansing for me, and unfortunately I was left unable to run hard for a week (well I"m sure I could have but better judgement won out). Thursday I ran 33 km of trails, intending to go further but stopped by not enough water. I had no goals other than to push hard, stopping when I felt like it and enjoying the outside. It was wonderful. And then the next day I was on my road bike for just under 3 hours. Which is the longest I've been on my bike this year.

Next year I think I'm going to run at least one 100 mile race, perhaps two depending on the schedule. I think I need a goal to train towards, so that goal will be to do a 100 mile race in under 24 hours. I learned a lot from the death race and even though I am happy with finishing it, I know I can do better and push harder.

Now if only I could figure out what I want to do with my life that doesn't revolve around running. Oh well, I guess I'll keep stumbling my way through new paths. And I'll keep running while I do that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e4rNp7vk5I&feature=related

Nazzer

Race Report

Saturday July 31st I ran the Death Race in Grande Cache.

Here's the short summary: Took 10 hours to drive there, stayed in a tent, ran for 22 hours 45 minutes, struggled in the night, possibly should have dropped out from muscle cramping, finished!, and was really sore after for days. It was great!


I left Kelowna on Thursday morning and drove for ten hours to get to Grande Cache. It is an incredibly small town. We got into town and stopped in at the tourism centre hoping to find out where the tent city was located. It was closed, seemed a little odd for the biggest weekend of the year for the town. Ended up driving through town asking random people where to find tent city. Found it and got set up. We spent the Friday checking out the transition areas so my Dad would know where to find them on race day, packing up stuff for the race, meeting up with other racers, and kit pickup and all that jazz. Slept horribly nervous the night before. And woke up at 5:45 am the day of to get ready for the 8 am start time.


The race is 125 km long divided into 5 legs. Leg 1 is 19 km with relatively smaller climbs. Leg 2 is 28 km long up and down Flood and Grande mountains, up the mountains is horrendous footing and down the last mountain is super steep quad killer hills. Leg 3 is 21 km of flatter running, but again with some sections with difficult footing, this leg looked way easier on the map but due to the footing was harder than expected. Leg 4 is 36 km long climbing up Hamel mountain and then down. Leg 5 is 22 km of single track trail descending down to the river and then back up into town. There were several cut off times throughout the course, of which the one I had planned the most for was the 11 hour cut off time at the end of leg 3. I knew that according to past race results if you made it here safe, you were likely to finish.





Above is Flood and Grand Mountains which make up leg 2. Although leg 2 is shorter than leg 4, I would say it is much harder.

Pictured above is Hamel mountain.

This is where we stayed for four days. My Dad and I shared the tent on the far left, of the four nights in rained two of them. But it hardly rained long, being so close to the mountains the weather would change so quickly. The day before the race I had packed all my clothes, gear and food up into the back seat of the car and had written up lists of everything I wanted available to me at each leg for my Dad to use on race day.
Before the race we checked out the start line.

The race was supposed to start at 8 am. It started a few minutes late, at the time I had no idea what was happening. I was in the middle of the pack of the starters and couldn't hear a thing.

Later I found out this (I can't seem to be able to copy and paste, but check out "Purple Monkey Flash Mob" on youtube). Pretty cool.

Leg one started out with several km running through the streets of town. I had started out in the middle of the pack and had been told that once you got onto the trails there would be quite the bottle neck of runners and you would be better off to find yourself as far out to the front as you were comfortable with. By the first half of the leg was over I had run past several runners I recognized talking to them along the way and I was feeling good. I was power walking anything that was steeper than I was tall, I knew that I didn't want to burn out later in the race. The second half of the leg went through a trail that was very close to the highway; and there was quite a few spectators lining the trails. All the kids were putting out their hands for high fives, it was pretty rad! And then at the aid/exchange station there was a very big crowd, very cool! I finished the leg in 1:47:46. Which was 63rd amongst the soloists and 110th overall. My body felt good at this point.

On to leg two, climbing up Flood and Grande mountains. The first part of the climb was double track (maybe ATV track) at an easy incline. And then it turned into crazy footing that was impossible to pass, impossible to control your own pace, for several km it seemed like a stairway of tree roots. Very challenging.

And then we made it to the top of Flood mountain. I tried to take a picture of myself, but then someone asked to trade pictures. So they took mine and I took theirs. Ha! Maybe I should have been running faster instead of taking pictures, whoops. About 500 metres from the top of the mountain I got my first real bad muscle spasm in my left quads. Totally frozen for a couple minutes. Running downhills become very painful all of a sudden.

Up next was what the race calls 'the slugfest' which is the section that has the worst footing in the race, and considering what I had just been through getting to the top of the last mountain I was a little apprehensive of what was to come. And it was harder than they said. But at least I was feeling good to do uphills. My legs cramped up two more times in the 5 km stretch here.

We crested a hill on the course and were treated to this beautiful view; so it was snack/picture time. Rested up and felt a little better. By this point I was also starting to have stomach issues and was could tell I was not peeing enough. Later I came to the conclusion that the perpetuem I was drinking was the culprit of my stomach upsetness. I was the king of the massive burp this day and either I just shouldn't be using perpetuem or having it sit out warm in my cooler all day while waiting for me does somethiing bad to it. I'm not sure, but once I switched to gatorade only for my electrolytes and stopped using the perpetuem I started peeing more and started feeling better. But I still couldn't comfortably run anything downhill without massive pain.

Between the two mountains there was an aid station. You know it's a long race when you aren't surprised to hear the volunteer ask you "are you peeing regularly"

Felt damn good to make it to the top of Grande mountain! Awaiting us on the way down was the powerline trail. Very steep descent with not very good footing. It made trying to go down fast rather hard. If I am to try this race again I think I will definitely get poles to use. That way I could have comfortably built up speed and felt safe at the same time.

The second aid/exchange station was at the start finish line in town. Right before the aid station these two young boys said to me "man you gotta catch that girl, you can't let a girl beat you". It was Margaretha whom I would end up running the ascent of Hamel in leg 4 with... and she would beat me on the day by 2 hours. She did fantastic! I undressed, showered down with a water bottle, dried off, vaselined my moving bits which I had forgotten before, put sunscreen on, changed shoes, shirts and socks. All the while I was doing this two teenage girls were watching me with the strangest look of disgust; I felt like no one was watching and was in a world of my own at that moment getting ready to hit the trails again while thinking of my time goals (I had 4 hours to hit the 11 hour cutoff mark and was very comfortable but still nervous) and then all of a sudden I notice how many people were watching me. It was surreal. I did that leg (28 km) in 4:54:05 which was 97th amongst the soloists for that leg. At this point I had been on my feet for 6:41:51

About a km into leg three I started running with Laurie. She was doing the race as part of a two woman team. Her team mate had just told her to 'take her time' on the leg. So she ran with me and I am so thankful, having someone to run with helped me forget that I was in a fair amount of pain in my quads. At one point I remember saying to her that I felt we were running fast, but she thought it was slow! Too funny. About 75% way through the leg Laurie took off at a faster pace than I could maintain and I walked for a bit with Cyril, a guy I recognized from the races facebook page. We walked together for a bit. This leg had been extended by two km for some reason this year, and the last two were on a rail bed and I was tired at this point and very tired. I finished the leg in 3:05:50, which was 113th amongst the soloists.

I was now at 9:47:41 for the first 67 km. An hour and thirteen minutes under the cut off time for the end of leg three. I breathed a sigh of relief at this aid station, even though I felt rough I knew I could do it. I had only 58 km left and over 14 hours to do it.

Heading out onto leg 4 I megt back up with Margaretha and Cyril, we did the ascent up Hamel mountain together. We would take turns taking the leading hiking up the mountain. It was awesome, we pushed each other faster than I'm sure any of us could have gone individually and made up some great time, even passing some relay team runners (and having time to stop for snack/high five breaks). I couldn't have made it up the ascent without those two wonderful people.

Margaretha had powered on ahead of us just before the peak of Hamel. I took a picture of Cyril and I at the top of the mountain.

.

A volunteer at the top of the mountain told us that we were three km away from the next aid station (which would be at the Ambler loop and would also have our drop bags waiting for us). I took his words as truth and timed my water intake such that by about that distance I was almost out... the only problem was that it was actually 10 km to the next aid station. So I then had 7 km of climb left with hardly any water and I definitely felt like crap at the aid station as a result of this. I had hoped to get to the Ambler loop station before it was dark, but I missed that by about 30 minutes. At the station I put on my jacket and gloves, loaded up on food and water and was on my way. I took me a long time to get to feeling better, and I struggled mentally once I came out of the loop again and was in the dark alone. My mind was starting to feel tired; it was almost like I had gone a little bit loopy. I must have peed six times during the 9 km stretch from the Ambler loop to the fourth exchange area. I felt rather odd. I finished that leg (36 km) in 8:15:04, 110th amongst the soloists. Total time at this point was 18:02:45.

.

The last 2 km leading up to the aid station I was fighting thoughts of dropping out of the race. My Dad said I looked like hell; I rememeber telling him that I wasn't sure if I could make it. I guess that was where I hit the wall in this race, but I got through the exchange with fresh clothes on and headed out. I told my dad that I would be at least four - five and a half hours to the finish. I knew that I had just under 6 hours to go the last 22 km and I felt like I might not make it. I was destroyed mentally at this point, I just felt awful. But I couldn't give up. Even though I had been saying to myself that I would consider quitting, when it came to possibly do that it was no longer a real option in my mind. This was a thought that went through my head several times during the last leg also, when I felt like shit I thought about quitting, but when it came time to actually quit and hand over my timing stick to someone I just couldn't even get close to doing. I fail at quitting! Ha!

.

The first hil heading out onto the last leg was a very minor hill, but it took what felt like an eternity. I almost fell down going up it. Throughout the first several km I felt like i was disconnected from time. It was very strange. Time felt like it was standing still but I kept moving. A relay runner that had passed me told me to keep on plugging away because "the last seven km were a dream" as she said. Eventually I caught up with a couple soloists that I had chatted with at the end of Leg 4 (while it was still light). Lori and a guy that I had never caught the name of. I don't know how I managed to catch up with them, I think I had seen their headlamps and desperately tried to catch them knowing that I would feel so much more comfortably having the company of others. Lori was leading and keeping a great pace! I wish I could have kept with them further, but nature called and I was on my own again. Soon enough I was at the aid station before the river crossing, went right passed it and headed to the boat that took you across the river. It was magnificent! I don't know what it's called but where we crossed the river was a divide where each side of the river had a massive cliff/embankment on each side. It was so peaceful and beautiful on that 30 second boat ride.

.

Off the boat it was right back to climbing. 1000 ft uphill in about 5 km distance. Somehow I ended up catching up with a group of racers. I seem to go uphills faster than people that finish around the same times as I do; I guess that means I'm going slower than them on the downhills or the flats. I finished this leg in a time of 4:41:42 which was 140th amongsth the soloists. Only 150 soloists finished, so I was almost last amongst them for this portion. It's interesting looking at my time breakdowns at each leg of the race seeing where I lost and made up time around me. I fell apart a little bit physically during leg two, and fell apart mentally at the end of leg 4 and the first hald of leg 5.

I finished in 22:44:27!!!!

.

I was so happy to have finished this race. It was definitely the hardest thing I have ever done, and likely will be the hardest thing I do for quite some time. Never before have I ever thought about quitting during a race; although when it came down to it I was incapable of putting these 'quit' thoughts into action. I pushed myself through a tonne of pain; I'd like to say that was something I learned about myself but I already knew I could do that and that I would when the situation arose again. I thought that I was prepared for this race, I trained on mountains and thought that I was close to matching the elevation gain that the Death Race would give me. But I was wrong, and I don't think it was even the elevation change that was the most difficult part, it was the technical aspects of the footing that came along with it that made it so hard. There were absolutely no easy sections on this course. The parts that I thought would be 'break' sections from the topo maps had insane footing. The parts that were flat road came when it was dark out and so the ease went away. Nothing about this was easy; as advertised by the race "it's a killer" and I am proud just to have finished. My Dad did a fantastic job as my support, at the beginning he said he can't imagine that I would be running 125 km, and I still think he doesn't quite fathom it. Heck, sometimes I don't think I fathom it. I just ran/walked 125 km and was on my feet for around 23 hours. And yet I am not surprised, I am to the point in my training that I knew I could do it. Yes I thought I could do better, but I knew I could do it. And I did!

.

Keep on running.

.

Nazzer.

Clothes and gear for the race.

Here is a list of all the gear/clothes that I will have for the race.

Mandatory:

-tuque, rain jacket, fingered gloves;

List:

- 3 under armour skin tight shirts
- 3 technical running shirts, + 1 long sleeved technical shirt
- 2 spandex running shorts - 1 full length spandex legging
- 1 pair running shorts
- 1 rain jacket - 1 wind breaker
- 2 tuques, 1 woolen skin tight skull cap
- 4 fingered pairs of gloves
- 1 hat
- 3 head lamps - spare batteries for each
- 1 watch - 1 garmin (only has a 10.5 hour battery life)
- 1 pair sunglasses - 1 pair clear glasses
- sunscreen - lip balm
- duct tape - band aids
- vaseline - mole skin
- bear spray

Carry at all times:
-1 under armour shirt, 1 technical shirt, undershorts, shorts, sockes shoes, hat, sunglasses (clear glasses at night), bear spray, watch, garmin, ipod, fingered gloves, tuque, rain jacket

Available at every aid station:
- sunscreen, lip balm, duct tape, band aids, vaseline, mole skin
-dry undershirt, dry shirt, dry under shorts and long leggings, dry socks

For aid station 3 (before leg 4):
-clear glasses, headlamps, batteries

Shoes:
-Road shoes for legs 1/3/5
-Trail shoes for legs 2/4... but I might just keep the trail shoes on once I get them on.

Food for the race

Finally got around to planning my food for the race...

Leg 1 to Carry:

- 1 bottle perpetuem
- 1 granola bar
- 1 trail mix bar
- 1 clif bar - 3 clif gels
- 1 protein bar
- 2 litres water in pack, plus gatorade bottle of water

At first aid station:

- 2 gatorade, refill water (4 bottles)
- 1 protein bar
- 2 cookies - 50 g beef jerky

Leg 2 to carry:

- 1 bottle perpetuem
- 3 granola bar
- 1 trail mix bar
- 1 clif bar - 5 clif gels
- 1 protein bar

At second aid station

- 2 gatorade, refill water (4 bottles)
- 1 protein bar
- 2 cookies - 50 g beef jerky

Leg 3 carry:

- 1 perpetuem
- 2 granola bar
- 1 trail mix bar
- 1 protein bar
- 1 clif bar - 3 clif gels

At third aid station:

- 2 gatorade, refill water (4 bottles)
- protein bar
- 2 cookies - 50 g beef jerky

leg 4 carry:

- 1 perpetuem
- 1 protein bar
- 3 granola bar
- 1 trail mix bar
- 1 clif bar - 5 clif gel

Drop bag for 4th leg:

- power bar - clif bar - 1 gatorade - 1 clif gel

At fourth aid station:

- 2 gatorade, refill water (4 bottles)
- protein bar
- 2 cookies - 50 g beef jerky

leg 5 carry:

- 1 perpetuem
- 1 protein bar
- 1 trail mix bar
- 1 granola bar
- 1 clif bar - 3 clif gels

That should be enough, maybe even too much. I will make sure to eat all the granola, trail mix, gels, and perpetuem on each leg at minimum. The rest will be as I feel I need. At the aid station I will take in at least all the coookies, the beef jerky, one gatorade. More if I feel I need it.

It should be good.

Smoke... oh no!

I work 3 pm - 11 pm most days now, and with it being so hot out I've decided to run at night after work. A couple nights ago I was running through some mountain trails and got scared out of my mind by some animal eyes that I couldn't see what they belonged to; but I didn't panic and kept running along the trail, hoping it was just a deer... that's all I ever see where I run. That night I ran the first mile of the run in 6:52

Today I was running and it was so smoky, I thought I had smelled smoke in the air earlier in the day when I was out shopping, and reading the news today it turns out there was a forest fire that started around Peachland. There are some pretty intense images of the flames right beside the highway on drought hill between Peachland and West Kelowna, one house was already destroyed. They said the fire is now considered 'contained' at 30 hectares, I hope they get it out; for the people living near it... and for my asthma.

Today I ran the roads (and in the middle of them cuz there's less camber there) for 17 km at night. Stopped and talked with a couple drunk folks that seemed amazed I was out running.

Ran the first mile in 7:36, hit 5 k at 22:42; did the second 5 k in 22:44 for a 10 k time of 45:26, and hit 10 miles at 1:12:40.

The 1 mile time from a couple days ago was the fastest I've timed myself at so far, and the 10 k and the 10 mile are the fastest that I've recorded. The ten mile time is 20 minutes faster than the race I did at that distance last May, that feels pretty rad. I'm pretty sure right now at this fitness level I could maintain that pace for a half marathon... maybe even a full marathon. I know it's a long way away, but I was thinking about the Kelowna Marathon in October and maybe, just maybe I could get under 3:30.

Keep on running

Nazzer

PB's

Today while I was running I ran a half marathon in 1:53... in 33 degrees, and horribly hungover. It got me thinking about where I was as a runner a year ago. In March 2009 I ran a half marathon race in 2:12, and in May 2009 I did on in 2:02. I run a half marathon feeling like absolute crap in 1:53 today, heck I eve walked for at least 3 km from the heat today. It's amazing how much easier you run when you do it regularly... and I think doing so many hills helps my speedwork, but I don't really do any flat speedwork.

I think I will try and test myself at distances of 1 mile, 5 km, 10 km, 10 mile, half marathon, and full marathon at least once a month. Then I can use it as a barometer of my improvements. Until then I thought I would compile a list of pb's; for both races and training runs. The info for the training runs is skewed to more recent stuff as a month ago my garmin log got wiped clean somehow and I have to go off my runninglog which isn't very accurate sometimes.

Race Personal Bests: (number of races at that distance in parenthesis)

1 mile:
5 km: March 5, 2009 - 27:01 (1)
10 km: April 5, 2009 - 56:43 (2)
10 mile: May 11, 2009 - 1:32:44 (1)
Half marathon: March 28, 2010 - 1:42:30 (9)
Marathon: October 11, 2009 - 3:58:10 (3)
50 km: May 2, 2010 - 4:47:28 (1)
50 mile: June 26, 2010 - 10:05:09 (1)

Training Runs:

1 mile: July 8, 2010 - 7:02
5 km: June 6, 2010 - 22:05
10 km: January 31, 2010 - 48:30
10 mile: July 8, 2010 - 1:25:54
Half marathon: January 31, 2010 - 1:49:30
Marathon: February 21, 2010 - 4:05:02
50 km: May 20, 2010 - 5:40:04
50 mile:

Tomorrow or Saturday I will break a sub 7 minute mile, and will also try and do a sub 1:47 half.

Hot weather musings.

Today I ran a half marathon (didn't plan a specific distance but it turned out to be exactly 21.1 km). I ran with a horrible hangover, in 33 degree heat. Running in the heat is a great way to get rid of a hangover, and in general I just love running in the heat, it's like you're doing a cleanse by sweating everything out. Growing up in the Okanagan it's all I've ever known is the heat. Yeah you can't really do really long runs in the heat, and you often have to adjust your runs to make sure you can always refill your water bottle plenty of times (and even better if you can take a dip in the lake or a creek).

Yep, keep running.

Nazzer

My Soles are so Scorched! And snow covered...

Today after running the Scorched Sole 50 mile course (shortened by 4 km for safety reasons) I feel like I fell down into a pit of hell and slowly dug myself out of it and climbed all the way up to heaven, absolutely super duper!

The maps of the courses can be found on thescorchedsole website.

Here's a rough summary of the course. Starting at 530 m elevation, uphill for 4.8 km to elevation of 870 m (Aid Station 1). Then uphill another 4.9 km to elevation of 1225 m (aid station 2). Then 3.2 km along flat old rail bed to aid station 3. Then 6.1 km to elevation of 1760 m (aid station 4, water on the way up full aid on the way back). Then there was a 4 km bit up to the summit of Little White Mountain which was 2171 m (this is the section where a flat 4 km out and back loop was omitted on the Highland trail due to bad snow conditions. Next was a 6.1 km section with some elevation gains but an overall descent down to 1715 m, followed by a 16 km out and back with a loop along a forest service road which went from elevation of 1715 m to 1640 m to 2142 m down to 1472 m and back up to 1615 m. Then we climbed back up Little White Mountain on the other side back up to 2172 m, then 23 km downhill the way we came. So the total distance ended up being 75.2 km (I think).

I planned on doing lap times on my Garmin for every 10 km section. Except I forgot to start the thing for at least 1 km at the beginning, and I fell twice and both times I fell the power went out on the garmin and funny stuff happened, I ran before the signal came back blah blah... took forever to get signal so my garmin only has 71.2 km on it although the map on my garmin looks the same as the map for the course (except with a few gaps in it).

Start:

Race started at 6 am. Temperature was 10 degrees. 40 runners were lining up for the 50(ish) miler. Some lady named Ellie was in the race, she won, I wonder if she led from start to finish. Does it count as getting chicked if you never got passed if she led the whole time? Saw a few familiar faces from the local running club, chatted with a few other people I've met at Ultras. I was feeling good. I took Friday off of work, slept well on Thursday night (only 5.5 hours of nervous sleep Friday night). Ate well on Thursday and Friday. I felt ready.... for something. I had on my 3 litre water pack which was filled with water with 4 litres worth of powder perpetuem, 1 gu gel, 3 clif shots, 1 clif bar and an eat more in my bag. And I had one water bottle in my hand, really for not other reason than to be able to fill up on runoff water (which is delicious) in between aid stations.


km's 0(ish) - 10 km: All the km's following are what my messed up garmin displayed.

I started out middle of the pack not knowing what to expect out of who was there in terms of how fast everybody would be going out. Actually I think I might have started right at the back. So up Lost lake Trail we go. I think it was good that I started at the back, even though I passed half the feel within the first 2 km, I paced and chatted with a couple different runners at a medium pace which helped me ease my way into the long run. Felt good coming up to the KVR trail (about 10 km) just past aid station 2 in 1:13:42.

km 10-20: From around the second aid station on the KVR, through the third aid station to just past the fourth aid station. At 7 am it was 16 degrees around the start of this section.
Coming out of the second aid station I was doing what felt like an easy 5 min/km pace (for reference sake when I run roads, which is rarely, my easy running pace is 4:30 /km). I passed a couple older looking ladies as they stopped to pee in the bushes (I didn't look but I can only assume that's why they stepped to the side). The first three aid stations were nicely stocked with water, gatorade, fig newtons, jujubes, chips cookies and fruit. I would eat a bit, and refill my water bottle. I tried to use my water bottle and my perpetuem so that I could refill the bottle at the aid stations. At km 13ish we started another steep ascent, by this point the runners had spread out quite a but there was one guy close to me ahead. At this point I was alternating run/walking and caught up to him. We ran together for a bit, he was popping his 50 miler cherry also. This section has a 4-5 km stretch that is big boulder filled river runoff, it's my favourite downhill trail to run.... ever... of all time. So running up it brings joyful anticipation to me. The guy I was running with ran into a tree stump straight into his shoulder. He was ok though which was good. I took the lead between the two of us up the river and he dropped back soon. I was just leaving the aid station at 19 k as he was arriving and we chatted about the rest of the ascent up the mountain. The aid station only had unmanned water pumps, which was a slight disappointment but I was glad that I hadn't depended on the assumption that there would be food there and I had a full pack of supplies that would have to last me another 21 km. The last km of this stretch was some heavy mud. My foot would hit, turn, smoosh and leave prints an inch deep. This 10 km stretch was done in 1:20

km 20-30: Ascent of Little white... then descent down to the Canyon Lakes,

At km 20 I had a 3 km ascent up Little White mountain. The trail had lots of snow on it, but there was sections where there was cleared areas from melt and from the runoff clearing the snow. All in all the ascent of Little White was probably 50% 2 foot deep snowpack, 30% river run off (yeah wet), 10% big boulders and 10% mucky trails. the ascent took a long time, I realized that I wasn't going to be breaking any land speed records this run so I decided on power walk strides the whole way up (other than the few flats that I ran). There was two runners ahead of me on the ascent, they were jogging and it looked like it was incredibly painful. They were taking such short hard pounding strides on a super long steep ascent. I passed both of them with distance to spare on the ascent using nothing more than long powerful walking strides. The emergency aid station at the top of the mountain was only ever going to be water jugs with pumps... but they had no pumps in them (at least that I could see) and I wasn't going to try and tip over a 40 pound jugs to fill my bottle. So alas, a half full bottle and a hope that I wold come across a creek soon as I headed into the 30 km loop which was the only part of the course I'd never run on. I had already run on a good 3 km of snow, and now I was going to do another 5 km of snow. Shimmying along the top of a second ridge of the mountain with a cliff on the side while run/sliding on snow is scary... and I'm afraid of heights, but it sure was beautiful. There was some solid downhill here, it was even to the point that they set up two ropes tied to trees for you to use while going down the mountain on the snow. For large chunks of distance I was literally alternating between sliding down the mountain (imagine you have socks on a gym floor) and dropping two feet down through the snow pack. After the snow ended I came to the descent on highland trail down to the Canyon lakes. It was steep, and I wasn't ready to commit to running down the hills hard yet as I still had plenty of running to do. I found a rather large creek, so stopped to eat a bit (one of many eating stops along the way, scenery breaks are so wonderful) and filled my water bottle and drank some wonderfully cold mountain water. Around 28 km I tripped on absolutely nothing and slid, landing on my left shoulder, and face. Somehow I managed to take most of the face shot to the top of my head so my ball cap protected me. But my eye socket was sore for a bit. This lead to the 'THE WALL'. I had trouble restarting for a bit, mucked around with my garmin and was a little disorientated. Time on this portion: around 1:45, by the end of this leg the temperature was 21 degrees and I'd realized that I forgot to sunscreen my neck and only had done my arms.

km 30-40: Forest Service road, with some elevation gain over long distance and then drop over a short distance leading to the aid station where our drop bags were. I hadn't seen a single person since passing the last guy on the ascent of Little White. I was starting to feel a little lonely, the heat was starting to get to me and I was almost out of water. I pushed hard to the aid station. The older man and lady there were super nice (all the volunteers were but these two were extra wonderful). At the aid station I replenished my water pack with 3 litres of perpetuem mix, added the same amount of food I had at the start (I had eaten all of it), filled up my water bottle, ate some fruit, changed my socks and shoes (even though they would be wet again within 15 km it was still nice). The lady decided to tell me that I was 7th place and that the two guys in front of me had left 9 minutes ago and I could catch them. gee thanks lady, I'm taking a turn for the worse mentally right now and you're telling me to go faster, not happening! This stretch was done in 1:16. That felt good to see that time on my watch.

km 40-50: Uphill on the FSR for a few km, back to the canyon lakes trail, then to the ridge of the mountain before Little White. Definitely the hardest part of the course. Went from 1450 m or so, up to around 2000 m in 10 km. After seeing no one but two aid station volunteers I saw the first racers I'd seen in over 25 km. I saw what I imagine would end up to be the last 4 finishers as they were coming into the loop while I was leaving. I waved, clapped and said good job. At this time I was starting to feel a little loopy from the heat at the when I saw the other runners and it felt like I had come up against 'THE PIT" (the wall version 2). I jogged my way through it, but boy did I take a hit mentally. I got back to the Highland trail to begin the ascent back up Little White and didn't do anything faster than a speed walk the whole way to the summit. In the last 5 km of this section I stopped 5 times, these were the only times I completely stopped moving other than to open my bag for food (which I would eat while moving) or at aid stations. I had a long stretch where I was suffering mentally, but at this point the comment the lady at the last aid station made to me about being in 7th place kept me going. I was so proud to be in 7th place, amongst a group of runners who many of them have done these distances multiple times, and I was ahead on what I thought was a really hard course. I know every race is nothing but a race against yourself, but I was just using the fact I was in 7th place to self talk myself into thinking that it was ok to struggle because the fact that there were so many good runners behind me must have meant that it was a really hard race, so struggling was acceptable. So I pushed through. But there was still worse to come as this was only how I was feeling during the part of this section that was dirt trails. There was a 3 km ascent that was snow covered. Insanely hard! I had just self talked my way out of my little 'pit' only to come across snow that I had to climb up where I couldn't take more than a few steps without sinking in as it was now up to 25 degrees and it was getting softer. I lost all forward momentum and it turned into a step at a time affair. And then came the two rope sections. The first climb they had put a rope on was not so bad, it was just a short rope, but still difficult. A km later I got to the second rope, the climb was even more vertical, and even more loose snow, and the rope was a good 40-50 feet long. 3 of the 5 stops I mentioned happened on this rope, I was mentally frozen. I literally started screaming. Yelling nonsense like GRRRR, and other beastly sounds to motivate myself, pounded my chest a few times and finally pushed on through "THE ABYSS" with renewed vigour. At the end of the section the snow started to recede and I got to scale some large boulders, the summit was near. This section took over 2 hours.

km 50 -60: Just before the summit, past the 4th aid station and down the river runoff:

I made the top! I got some food out and slowly walked along my way as I enjoyed the view. It is just beyond words the beauty of being on the top of a mountain and being able to see the entire valley in a 360 degree view. Headed down the mountain with unbounded excitement that I was on my way to the finish, only 23 km to go! the 3 km down the mountain, and the 1 km of mud weren't as fast as they could have been but I wanted to make sure I came down the mountain safe. Aid station 4 was now fully stocked, stopped and got some food. The guys offered me a hot dog... seemed like a strange offer, I can't imagine any runner being able to have that feel good in their stomach. They told me I was now behind the runner ahead of me by only 9 minutues. I told them I didn't care as I just wanted to finish my own race. But I'm not sure if that didn't affect me more. As I then hit the downhills that include the river runoff with massive boulders at full speed. Perhaps I was subconcsciously inspired to catch the guy, or perhaps its just that this is my favourite stretch of trails to run ever that made me run full steam ahead, but I busted out. My legs were feeling good, I was feeling on a high and I was pumping out 5:15 min/km splashing through the river in not very safe footing.... I damn well love that bit, nice wet feeling to cool down, covered from the sun with the trees. Best 6 km stretch of trail EVER! I then got to aid station 3 and they told me that I was 3 minutes behind the guy. Holy gees I made up 6 minutes in 6 kms. I'm guessing he took the section of treacherous a whole lot more carefully than I do.... but reckless abandon is far more fun. Then came flat on the Kettle Valley Railway bed. And I could see the guy in front of me.

km 60 - finish: more failing of the garmin, descent down to the finish.
The second aid station is at the KVR trailhead to the Lost Lake trail. The guy in front of me left a minute before I got there and I only spent a minute there. I felt like I could catch him. I ran fast as I could at that point. I was running consistent 4:30 min/km until 1 km before the last aid station... and then proceeded to trip, land hard on my knee, muck up my garmin and it hurt. I got up, but I was limping. I think I was running too fast for my energy levels. I must have limped my way for a good 6 minutes before trying to fix my garmin (not sure why, didn't really matter, I was a little disorientated a bit). Then I started jogging to the aid station where I cleaned up the cut on my elbow. Then had a nice run in for the last 4.8 km, nice 5 min/km pace.

Finish:

finished in 10:05:09. 7th place.


I chatted with the guy that finished just ahead of me, he ended up 6 minutes or so in front. Apparently he looked back when he was at the bottom of descending Little White the second time and he saw me coming down, and he could see me several other times. So he felt me coming up, but he had a darn good kick at the end.



It turns out he is from Kelowna as well, so I just missed out on top local finisher which would have been kinda neat.



I brought along a 6 pack of beer, I only had 1 and shared the rest. Damn it tasted good after the race. There was hot dogs and such after the race. Stayed around and chatted with some of the other finishers. The guy that finished in 9th place was talking about the Death Race with me. He did legs 3,4,5 last year which was the same distance as we did today and he says that today was more difficult which was interesting. The guy thaht finished 6th place will be running the Death Race also. And then the 5th place finisher said that he had tried the Death Race twice now but didn't make the cut off on both times. It was an interesting conversation. Still feel like I'm preparing for the unknown with the Death Race though.

All in all, it was one fantastic day. The race course was awfully sadistically planned, and I'm awfully masochistic for appreciating that.

Keep on Running

Nazzer

Summitting Little White Mountain

On Saturday I run the 50 mile course of the Scorched Sole race in Kelowna. I've run the trails that make up the first and last 13 km many times, and have done the 13 km - 19 km section a couple times. But I wanted to summit Little White mountain to have that down to make sure I knew what I was up against. I figure why not considering I live in the city the race is in.

The course starts out with 9.7 km of trails that are pretty steep, (course starts at 470 metres elevation) but dry and with good footing. Followed by about 3 km along an old flat rail bed. Then we get to the Upper Crawford trail. (Upper Crawford trail starts around 1200 metres elevation)

The first 1.5 km are like above, dry trail. (In the picture is a hawk, my camera died the last time just before I could take a picture of the rabbit it killed).

Then up to the 19 km point is trails that are about half river runoff with boulders in it.

And the other hald is forest areas that was burned to a crisp from the forest fire in 2003.

Then we hit an area that was covered in snow just two weeks ago. So there is 1- 2 km of very solid muddy trail. (This is about 1700 metres elevation)

That is Little White mountain

Now we hit some snow, which there shall remain snow from 19 km or so until the peak of Little White which is 25 km.

Up we go.

Every third step I sunk knee high into snow.

The orange paint is markers for the course.

This is the Highland Trail that leads up to the summit.

At the Summit.

View from the Summit.

I think that's Crawford Lake in the distance. Which is part of the 30 km loop that is added onto the 50 km race to make the 50 mile race distance up.

The 30 km loop continues along that ridge. I didn't go there, but I imagine there will be more snow, rocks to be run on. The elevatioon drops down to 1600 metres at some point of the 30 km loop, and then back up to the summit to return back the way we came.

View of West Kelowna from the top, the trails we come up are viewable in the distance.

Don't need to worry about drinking water very much as there is plenty of running water along the course.

Back down we go.

If the river was any deeper here I would have crotched myself pretty badly.

Shoes are shiny and clean again thanks to the river.

Running down these rivers is so much fun!

.

I don't really know what my goal is for the race right now. Run hard, run smart, pace myself so I have energy to run downhill strong the last 25 km, stay hydrated well, prevent my stomach from growling. That's about it really. In terms of a time... before I realized there was so much snow and mud on the course I thought I could shoot for around 8:30, but I don't see that happening now. Maybe 9:30 is a more realistic goal. Maybe my worst case time goal will be to finish before my Garmins battery dies which is around 10:15. We shall see. All I know is I'm gonna be so sore on Sunday, but oh man it's gonna be fun.

.

Super Duper!!

.

Nazzer

Snow Run!

I ran up Little White Mountain as far as I could before I hit the snow line! It kicked ass! Peeing your name in the snow in June is pretty awesome. On the way I saw a Hawk attack, kill and claw the head off of a rabbit. Pretty awesome stuff!

Once I left the KVR trail and headed up the Telegraph trail up Little White the trail basically turned into a run off river. So my run up consisted of jumping from rock to rock through a river. Pretty neat stuff. The run down was intense. Soaking wet by the end of it. I am nature and she is I and we are one. I think I'll start to taper for the 50 miler coming up soon, but I got Wednesday and Thursday off so I'm sure I'll do at least one more 5 hour run before I get around to tapering. It's so easy to procrastinate a proper off day.

Keep on Running.

Nazzer

Deer still scare me, a lot, a whole lot!

I only have a few different trail areas that I run.
-Knox Mountain (up and down gives a total elevation gain of 1580 ft, and is about a 11 km run total)
-Trails at Glenmore Mountain (only about 5.5 km long, a couple long hills, but mostly slow rolling hills)
-Myra Bellevue Park (my favourite place to be these days). So many trails, can go up and down different trails without touching the same place for a good 4 hours. Lots of elevation gain to be had here.

Even though I really enjoy the trails I run,, I am constantly seeking out more new (to me) trails. Earlier this week I went to Okanagan Mountain Park for the first time. It is a 25 minute drive so I probably won't go there very often. But it is a nice challenging run. Virtually every tree in the park was burnt down in the fire back in 2003. And it seems not many people hit the trails, either that or I just naturally gravitate to the less tread upon trails. In lots of areas of the park the trails are very narrow with very overgrown bushes, trees, and grass along the sides making it hard to watch my footing. Also, there is plenty of areas with large, loose boulders which make it a nice challenge to run on.


Here is a view of one of the wider trails. It really is like heaven running in trails like this. In many of the places the trails no longer were dirt trails, but merely a line in the grass that you could barely tell was less grown in than the grass on the side of it. I guess I need to do my part to maintain the trails by running on em more to make sure they don't grow over.

Some of the loose rock there is to run on. Not very stable.

The view of Okanagan Lake from one of the scenic lookouts on Wildhorse Canyon Trail. So wonderful; I often lose track of time staring at the scenery at moments like these. When I look back at the gps of my runs and see sections where I didn't move for five minutes or so, those are my Zen moments. I love it.

I run into so many deer on Knox and at Myra Bellevue Park, almost every single run in fact. Of course I never remember to take my camera with me there. I saw this doe running down the lookout point. She stared at me forever, I kept getting closer and she just kept staring. I was about twenty feet away when I took this picture. It chased me, it was a little scary.

There is still a little bit of run off in some sections of the park. I was staring at the lake when I came to this; and promptly fell on my ass and covered in mud. Rolling in the mud is so fun.

I was running along a trail that was had really over grown grass on each side and I stepped on this fawn! It started doing what I can only presume would be the fawn equivalent to screaming as loud as it can for its mother. Just the most awful noise I have ever heard. I was scared shitless; all I could think was "where's the mother, I bet the mother is the doe I had a run in with earlier, oh shit leave, run, get out before the doe gets back" but of course I stopped to take a couple pictures first! Then I got the hell out of dodge as fast as I could. The fact the fawn was clearly scared of me was no comfort with the thought of the doe coming to the rescue.

I'll probably be running the trails again soon, but like I said not very often as it takes so long to get there.

.

I was thinking about running the High Rim Trail next time I get a couple days off in a row. If I get dropped off in Vernon it's a 50 km run to Hwy 33 near Rutland, the only problem is that the end of the trail is another 30 km away from home in Kelowna. Hope I get a chance to do this before the 26th, if not it'll be my last massive run before the Death Race.

.

I fixed my road bike yesterday, so naturally I went for a nice ride. A nice 53 km in 1:50. I didn't push too hard but I could still feel it in my quads pretty good. Maybe wasn't a good idea to do that the day before a planned long run.

.

Today I went running in Myra Bellevue Park. I wanted to do about six and a half hours of trails, I would've had to leave early to get that in as I had to be somewhere by 4 pm. I slept in and didn't hit the trails until 9 am, so I only got 5 and a quarter hours in for 44 km. Did a loop along the Fairlane trail and then to lost lake and back to my car, then a loop up Pink Hwy and back down to my car, up lost lake and down Fairlane back to my car and then a short loop halfway out Fairlane trail and up to Lost Lake. Total elevation gain of 6447 ft (which I'm beginning to question as I've been told by someone else that the garmin 305 doesn't accurately measure elevation change). This was a very hard run on my quads during the run, and I'm sure I'll feel it tomorrow. Around the 2 hour 45 minute point I was coming down big drop trail, which is a rather rocky trails with lots of overgrown bush which makes seeing where I need to step difficult; I saw a deer and was staring at it, all the while being an idiot failing to notice the turn coming in the trail. I stubbed my big toe on a massive boulder, tripped and slammed right into a tree, right into my chest. Ow! Forgetting to watch my feet... bad.

.

"Give up hope once and for all. That way your expectations won't drive you crazy and you'll appreciate what you have now."

.

Keep on running

.

Nazzer