Where’s the peanut butter?!

I had no idea a little 50k could fill up and fill up so fast. The Chuckanut 50k (which had 270 finishers last year and almost 300 in 2008) is apparently full. And it filled up in 5 hours! I had no idea this was such a popular race. I’ll remember this in 2011, I guess…

People who pay attention to ultras probably know this but holy jesus this blows my mind.

• June 25 Scott Jurek runs Western States in 16:40:45, 27 minutes ahead of second place - and gets his seventh consecutive win at Western States.
• July 11-13 16 days after stepping up to the Western States starting line Scott runs Badwater in 24:36:08, wins the race, finishes nearly 2 hours ahead of second place, and sets the course record.

He’s also a 10 year vegan.

So it’s been ages since I’ve written anything in this blog and if I’m going to pick running there are definitely more interesting developments like my recent marathon, ultra marathon, or even forgetting my shoes at the Cougar Mountain race this weekend, but instead, dedicated reader, you get ibeatjohncurley.

Apparently John Curley is some local news personality, who’s willing to pay thousands of dollars on wheels for his bike, one-upping me in his stuffwhitepeoplelike quotient. All I know is there’s this deal where you can run some upcoming race and if you sign up to beat him, he gets a 3 second handicap on his start and if you *do* beat him, you get a free Brooks technical shirt and get entered in a raffle for $1,000 to go to a charity of your choice at the awards after the race.

He ran the Fremont 5K last Friday and finished in 22:50 after what appears to be about a 2:00 handicap (40 challengers earn a 3 second handicap each for a net of 2 minutes). Seafair has 46 challengers at the moment, which means Planned Parenthood has pretty good odds on getting that $1,000 on race day.

The Eugene marathon is under two months away now and this has me thinking about what to do in this last window leading up to the big day. My training schedule calls for the following on my long weekends: 20 miles (this weekend), 17, 23, 20, 20, and then the taper starts with 15, 12, 10 and then it’s go time.

A couple other things intersect, though. The 17 miler in a week is the day before the St. Paddy’s Dash which I’m registered for. And I thought about doing this (the 17 mile weekend) as my long hard run where I’d aim for about a 7 minute pace and go uninterrupted. This should be a good training exercise as well as a good confidence run so I’ll probably do it and then just do run the following day at St. Pats however I feel, but not really race it.

However, the following weekend (which is the 23 mile day) is also the Mercer Island Half. That’s a race I’m not yet registered for and if I do it, it’s $60 which honestly seems like way too much. But I could do that and just aim to PR which would also be a good training pace/distance for the marathon.

The only obvious mistake would be trying to race all three (or to do the LHR + race the next day). But however I slice it, there’s not much time left for the marathon. I’m really feeling a lot better going into this one than Portland two years ago now, though (jeez - was that really that long ago?) and even than when I was aiming for Victoria last fall. I’ve done 20 mile long runs for probably the past three Sundays and every time have been at or very close to an 8 minute pace and managed to finish every one feeling strong and last fall I was definitely struggling with just finishing the 20 miles at a (ballpark) same pace.

The other thing on my mind is the ultra I’m doing the following month. I think as long as I just take that nice and slow, it’ll all be fine (but very long and still hard). I asked Joe about last year’s course, though, and was pretty surprised. He said that the course does something the following: two 5K loops, then out on a big loop for the remaining 40k. How fast should somebody run it? He indicated that he did those 5k’s in ~58 minutes (which comes out to something like a 10 minute pace) and that in hindsight, that might have been going a little fast. Oooookkaaaayyy. It’s certainly helpful to have that perspective!

I’m not sure what’s going to be in store for me, running-wise, after this. If I don’t qualify for Boston in Eugene, I’m probably going to feel like I absolutely have to run another marathon because the rest of my running and pacing definitely indicates that that should be in the cards for me. At the same time, I’d much rather feel some flexibility to not follow the marathon training schedule to the letter so much - to be able to take my dog on more runs, to not worry if it’s late on a Wednesday and be thinking “great - I still gotta get 90 minutes in…” and to be able to do different sorts of races or types of exercise without worrying about it screwing up my schedule and volume or other goals.

So at last Tuesday’s track workout my leg was acting up again.

To recap: about four weeks ago I started pushing into the higher mileage weeks (mid-50’s). This turned out to be bittersweet since I did a couple runs with headphones and was really turning in some very gratifying runs of like 8-9 miles at a low 7ish pace (they were probably just about exactly at my Boston qualifying pace which is about a 7:10-7:15) and it felt really, really good, however around this time I also started developing a new pain in my right quad. I felt it in the time trial this month but did that anyway and still coasted to a fairly comfortable 11:47 and negative split, but this was kind of strange since the pain had stayed with me and felt deeper than normal (not quite in the muscle) and also wasn’t responding to ice like most soreness. I talked with my coach who suggested it could be a stress fracture, which was surprising since I always expected such a thing to develop around my shins but I looked online and many of my symptoms lined up.

Fast forward through me getting more concerned but not totally quitting running, noticing more of the pain if I hustled down the concrete hill to the bus in the morning, and an x-ray by a pretty suspicious tech whose nametag (”Sunshine”) didn’t really reassure me (but where the x-ray didn’t prove that I do have a stress fracture developing) and I made the kind of difficult decision last week to rest. So I hadn’t run in a week and continued to ice my quad. The symptoms *still* haven’t subsided, but I’d started going a little nuts and last night was too perfect for running to think about staying in so I went out for a blissful 6 miles at what turned out to be a 7 minute pace (telling myself the whole time “easy, fella…”). I’m finally scheduled for a bone scan (tomorrow) which should be conclusive for the stress fracture or not.

But for me, the key, is that I really, really don’t want to have an injury. A stress fracture would be just about the worst thing evar since it typicalyl means 6-8 weeks of rest. I could bike or something and wouldn’t be on crutches, but no running or impact. So I’ve got my fingers crossed. But I *am* excited about getting the scan done. This is MR technology, so I go in in the morning to get an injection (not the part I’m excited about), come back 3 hours later and get scanned for about an hour and then should have some cool 3D imaging of the interior of my leg.

Sometimes I hear criticism when I tell people that I “run” where they say that nobody really “runs” and that basically everybody jogs. Obviously I disagree about this - I’ll let T settle the record on this topic:

I got props from the coach today for helping setting up some run maps for the weekly long runs. Woot! Right now the maps are all for 10+ mile routes since that’s about my threshold for the “long” in “long run” but I’ll try to throw together a couple other popular routes that leave from the store since I know there are lots of people whose interpretation isn’t quite the same as mine. Heck, it was barely a year ago that I went out for my first long run with the club for an hour and a half and I can remember thinking to myself “I’m sure I’ll die any minute now and this will all be over.”

There’s an interesting idea in the latest Runner’s World that they call finish strong points. If you’re running a race and care about the best results you can achieve then you clearly want to wind it up feeling like you don’t have any energy left. This probably won’t be achieved by everyone using the same tactic (go out strong and try to hold on, progressively work your way up to a fast finish, or something else) or for the same distance, but the article describes tabulating these points by starting to keep track at the 2/3 point of a race and then gaining a point for every person you pass and deducting a point for every person who passes you. Regardless of specific splits, this should help you understand whether you were more or less able to sustain whatever you were trying to do in the race than other people in the field.

I know at my last 5K I was hoping to finish at a sustained pace of faster than 6 minute miles. I hit the first in about 5:55, the second in 6:00 flat, and when I saw my watch in the third at about 6:14, I felt discouraged and started to not care as much about the remaining leg. So clearly, I slowed, but I don’t think I was getting passed by tons of people, so maybe I should have felt more satisfied on the whole. Or maybe if I’d paid closer attention I would have realized I was getting passed, and then I might think that the next time I’d be better off starting at or above a 6:00 pace. In future races where I’m trying to race hard, I’ll try to pay attention to this.

Also - this isn’t about the kick at the end of the race. I’ve learned over the past year that whether you outkick or are outkicked has a lot more to do with whether you (or someone else) put forth a consistently hard effort leading up to the finish and also your mental state about the finish and doesn’t provide enough information to really be meaningful toward analyzing the race. It is, however, the a great indicator of whether and how awesome you’ll feel about yourself after the finish!

Chicago, Twin Cities, Marine Corps…I better make up my mind before my only choice is an ad hoc Trishathon!

Here’s the next installment of hydration and running - this time covering the types of paraphernalia available while running. Outside of getting hydration along your run (from drinking fountains or support on a race course) you basically have to carry your drink. Henceforth, I’ll refer to this as “water” but secretly of course I really mean “your carbohydrate and electrolyte replenishing sports drink,” mm-kay? There are three basic options for this: carry it in your hand (bottle), have it around your waist (belt), or bring it on your back (camelback). I’ve used all three and each have their pro’s and con’s that I’ll discuss.

• Bottle: You could just buy a bottled drink but there are a couple hand held bottles on the market that I think are preferable. One is made by NathanNathan and the other is made by NathanAmphipod. Both (usually) come with a strap which can make carrying them significantly easier (regular bottles tend to feel very cumbersome, IMO), and there tends to be an integrated small pouch, which can be handy for carrying money, extra gels or, ahem, other things. The strap/pouch convenience is one reason I think these are preferable over drinks you’d buy in a convenience store, but the other reasons are that they tend to have a better drinking spout and you get to mix your own drink. You can mix in and shake up a gel, nuun, concentrated Gatorade or whatever you want. Basically, you get more flexibility over what you drink. The major drawback I feel that bottles have is that 16 fluid ounces of water is 16 ounces. My understanding is that if you start running with this, it will eventually feel like an extension of your regular routine but I’ve never gotten past that hump and so the bottle always feels uncomfortably heavy for me to carry until it’s about down to about 8oz. Until then, I’m changing hands and basically distracted by carrying it.
• Belt: There are a bunch of variations of these on the market - some hold a water bottle, some hold multiple little gel flasks, and there is also a single gel flask option. The only one I have experience with is gel flask and this is what I use for my long runs, half marathons, and what I expect I’ll use for future marathons. It’s small enough to only slightly impact my running and it can accommodate about 1-4 gels (with varying amounts of water mixed in). The downside is that you obviously can’t rely on this alone for hydration for a run of any considerable distance, but if you can combine it with water along the way, you can get everything you need in one convenient, concentrated device. The other belt options are probably pretty similar to the backpack, which I’ll describe next, however I don’t really like the idea of a giant belt of water sloshing around my waist. Ymmv.
• Backpack: Finally, you could choose a backpack. These tend to be way more expensive than the above options (bottles and the flask run $10-20, a camelback will be at least $30) but they can be (IMO) very comfortable, the reservoir volume can be a huge plus, and they usually have (relatively speaking) tons of storage space for snacks, first aid, or whatever else you need. When I was doing longer runs in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska or when I’ve been on trail runs, I’ve relied on a Camelback and been very happy with the results. The only thing I’ve needed to watch out for with a backpack is ensuring that the shirt I wear it over has a snug enough collar so that the shoulder straps don’t rub my neck once I have the backpack at a comfortable adjustment such that movement is minimized. I’ve worn my Camelback with some shirts that did not have a high enouch collar and it earned me another stamp in my Passport of Running Related Chafed Body Parts. Finally, compared with the water bottle, you have both your hands free, which is nice if you’re doing trail running and need to brace in a fall, grab a tree, or swing from a vine. They do get hotter than a bottle, but when adjusted properly it will flop around a little (mitigating the negative impact) and is sufficiently more convenient than carrying a bottle that I like this option.

So those are my opinions on the available options. In a nutshell, for supported races I’ll almost definitely always go with the gel flask. If there were ever a moderately long race where I need some, but not a ton of hydration and I couldn’t get it on the course I might take a half-filled hand bottle, but generally I’d choose a camelback.

Lastly - I mentioned to a friend that I planned to write about running hydration paraphernalia and I should mention that I don’t know enough to weigh in on the pros and cons about bringing bongwater.