Pineland 10k

A bit of a delayed write-up here, just trying to get back in the swing of things, and this is still not a race report for Stone Cat.

Following Stone Cat I decided to take a full week off from running to let myself recover. Normally I like to have an "active recovery" but given my work schedule during the following week, and the severely strained right calf muscle I was feeling for several days, taking a full week off seemed like the right thing to do. At about mile 14 of Stone Cat I tripped and manage to catch myself before falling but in the process made a sudden movement that caused my right calf muscle to completely lock up and I ended up falling down anyway. I massaged the muscle, swore a lot and managed to get back on my feet fairly quickly, but for the rest of the race (36 miles) it didn't feel quite right. As soon as I finished it got very tight again and didn't want to be forced into moving right away. It was actually pretty tough to take that much time off, and I almost didn't manage to go the whole week. I really think that a couple of easy runs would have helped.

But the way things worked out I didn't get out for a run until Saturday morning when I met Jim, Shauna, Jamie, Lily, and Dom at Pineland. My plan was to get in as close to 10k as possible. Erik and I are cooking up plans to expand upon the Pineland Farms Trail Challenge and turn it into a multi-day event with the addition of some shorter distance races, so I wanted to check out a possible 10k course. We started the way all the races currently do, basically from the YMCA onto the Campus Loop, up by the Visitors Center, down to the River Loop to the Yurt. This was about 3.5 miles of mostly downhill running, a great fast way to start a short race.

At this point everyone else was running longer and continued onto the Valley Farm Loop. I turned back on the other half of the River Loop and began the long gradual climb back up towards the YMCA. By this point I was starting to feel some tightness in my calf creeping up on me, but everything else was feeling fine. The pace was pretty comfortable, a little under 9's but that felt pretty easy on the mostly dowhill trails. By the time I reached 5 miles on the back side of the Camups Loop (with some steep climbs) I was really feeling some discomfort in my calf but decided another mile or so wasn't going to cause any damage and I really wanted to know how close this route would be to 10k.

It turned out to be just over 10k by my Garmin measurement, which might actually be a little longer than the race course because I started and finished from the YMCA parking lot and not from where the race would actually start and finish. But to be honest, I'm not really concerned if my 10k course is slightly long. Anyone who cares that much about precision course measurement shouldn't be running trails.

Although my calf acted up it still felt great to get out for a run, good weather and good company (at least for half my run).

time: 57:01
distance: 6.3 miles
pace: 9:02

weather: upper 40's, overcast

conditions: mostly dry, leaf covered trails

gear: Inov-8 Mudroc 280, Smark Wool socks, shorts, t-shirt, Moeben Sleeves, hat

Stone Cat 50 Miler - Not a Race Report

Last weekend I ran the Stone Cat 50 Mile Trail Race. This is not a race report. I wish it was but I just can't seem to find the time to say everything that needs to be said about this race. I will summarize by saying two things:

1- This was probably the best race of my life.

2- I couldn't have done as well as I did without the help of a lot of people.

I should clarify that I may have an unusual definition of what makes a good race. The 50k race that I ran three weeks ago was not a good race, despite finishing first. Stone Cat was a good race because I set myself a goal that I honestly didn't think I had any chance of coming close to (breaking 8 hours) and even though I didn't meet my goal I came closer than I thought I really could. I usually go into a race with three goals, one very optimistic, one very realistic and one to cover my ass. Typically I fall in the 'realistic' range, but many of my races so far this year have fallen in the 'cover my ass' category. This is the first time I can remember where I actually came close to my optimistic goal.

The other part of what made this such a great race for me is related to #2 above and will take a long time to explain, and will eventually appear in my full race report, but for now I want to thank all the people who helped me come close to reaching my optimistic goal. My fellow Trail Monsters have provided amazing inspiration and have been the best training companions, helping push me to places I never thought I could go. I was also grateful to see so many TM's come down to the race to support me and Mindy as we ran. It makes such an incredible difference to have friends lending a hand and providing encouragement during a long race.

This is a photo that Emma took at mile 45 of the race, just before she started pacing me to the finish. I am very lucky to have her as my wife and in many ways I feel like I owe everything I have achieved in running to her. She was my inspiration to start running, she paced me at my first 10k in 2001 and has been there for every milestone I passed since then. If it weren't for a lingering knee injury brought on by her stellar performance at Pineland earlier this year she would have been out there running with me, or more likely in front of me. For now she still holds the 50 mile record in our household, she has set the bar high but I'm still reaching for it.

Running the River

For somewhat selfish reasons I decided to have our Saturday run start only a half mile from my home this week. It wasn't entirely selfish because there are some great trails around here and I'm sure other people enjoy running them as much as I do. I realized though that it's tough leading a group run when no one else (apart from Jeff) knows the trails. We did have a pretty good sized group show up today including Emma, Jeff, Mindy (+ Pete on a bike), Tim, BJ, Erik (+ Django), Stephen, Erik, Rachel (+ dog), Don, Jim... I think that's it. Of course I think it helped that we started from Bernie's and planned to have breakfast after the run.

I had hoped to get in 10 miles today but I had never run the route I planned so I wasn't sure how it would work out. Turns out to be only just over 8, and I could have extended it but after almost an hour and a half we were all ready for breakfast. The route we ran started from Hannaford on the North side of the Presumpscot River, we ran down to the river, crossed over to the south side and ran downstream for about 2.5 miles, turned around and came back to the north side, then ran along the Piscataqua River, turned around and headed back to Hannaford.

Although it was overcast it was actually a great day for running, pleasantly warm for a fall morning, and it was great to be running along the river.

time: 1:27:18
distance: 8.24 miles
pace: 10:36

Here comes the taper!

I'm so glad to finally be tapering now. Not because I'm looking forward to doing less running, but it means that my big race is not that far away. Just over two weeks until Stone Cat!

I just counted, I've done 11 ultra-distance runs so far this year but I haven't raced a trail ultra. My only ultra race was the 50k last weekend and that was more of a training run, and it was on pavement. Yuck. It didn't turn out to be as much fun as I had hoped, mostly because I was in the middle of a bad cold and I ended up running most of the race alone. But I still think it was good training, particularly mentally, for Stone Cat. For the last 12.5 mile lap of the 50 miler I will probably be on my own.

My recovery from the 50k seems to be going well, although my cold is still lingering. It's hard to say if 4+ hours of running had an effect on my cold, it didn't make it any worse but it may have slowed the recovery a bit. Following the race my calves were pretty tight, my right femur felt a bit jammed up into my hip and my right foot was sore from the ankle down to the arch. Two days off from running and everything seemed pretty much back to normal thanks to a little stretching, icing and pulling on my leg.

On Wednesday evening I ran from work and did a lap of Back Cove. It was a beautiful evening, perfectly cool and comfortable shorts and t-shirt weather with a nice sunset. I could have happily run longer but knowing that I'm in taper/recover mode right now definitely didn't want to push it too much.

time: 29:14
distance: 3.85 miles
pace: 7:36

Tonight I ran from home on a "new" loop, mostly roads but got in 2 miles of hilly trails up the back side of the Three Bitches and down the front. I had forgotten that a stretch of the power-line trail that I ran doesn't get much traffic and is very overgrown, it slowed me down for a bit and got my feet wet but it was kinda fun. Once I got going on better trail there were still plenty of wet and muddy spots to jump over or run through. I went up to my knee at one point, which caught me off guard.

The steep downhill of the Three Bitches was a bit treacherous, I was wearing my Brooks Cascadia which aren't very good on wet rock. I wished I'd worn my sticky-rubber Inov-8 295. Interesting to note that this 7.8 mile run had more elevation change than the entire 50k I ran last weekend.
time: 1:04:03
distance: 7.81 miles
pace: 8:12

Maine Track Club 50K

As my last long training run for the Stone Cat 50 miler I decided to run the MTC 50k in Brunswick this morning, another one of Erik's races. Even though it's a road race I thought it would be a good opportunity to get in some relatively fast-paced miles and not have to worry about carrying my own aid or making long stops to refuel on my own.

I had the somewhat foolish notion that I might be able to break 4 hours on this course, which under "normal" circumstances I might be able to pull off, but since I ran my ass off last week at the Mtn Epic race, and then followed that up with a nasty cold I wasn't really at the top of my game. I should have adjusted my race plan accordingly but didn't, and still set off with the intention of averaging a 7:44 pace for the whole run. At 18 miles my average pace was 7:45, pretty much on target, but things went downhill from there and the last 13 miles I averaged a 9:01 pace. Ouch!

The format of this race is a 4 mile loop that you run too many times (especially if you choose to run the 50 miler). To get to 31 miles everyone starts the race with a 1 mile out-and-back, 50k runners do 7x four mile laps, cross the finish line and then have to do a half mile out-and-back. I decided that this race was more about mental training than physical, since my physical race fell apart it was a real test of my mental ability to keep going when things became unpleasant and my goal was slipping away. And it didn't help that every 4 miles I crossed the finish line and ran past my car which provided an easy opportunity to drop out. By 22 miles I had already thought about the title for today's blog post: "My First DNF"

don't be fooled by those little lumps, this is a flat course

Here are my stats from the race, unfortunately my Garmin crapped out just after 25 miles so I guessed at my final lap splits, and I'm not sure exactly what my official finishing time was:

First 2 - 15:54 - 7:57 pace
Lap 1 - 30:43 - 7:40 pace
Lap 2 - 30:26 - 7:36 pace
Lap 3 - 31:17 - 7:49 pace
Lap 4 - 31:26 - 7:51 pace
Lap 5 - 33:05 - 8:16 pace
Lap 6 - 36:00 - 9:00 pace - ESTIMATE dead watch
Lap 7 - 39:00 - 9:45 pace - ESTIMATE
Last 1 - 9:00 pace - ESTIMATE

Total - 4:17:xx - 8:17ish pace

For the first half of the race (I was told) that I had a comfortable lead. No offense to the other runners taking part today but this race is very small, low-key and doesn't attract a lot of really fast runners. And I think most participants choose to run the 50 miler, or at least they set off with that intention. I have no idea how many people ran the 50k today, but at last year's race there were 18 finishers and the winning time was 4:23.

On my 4th lap, around mile 16, I started to slow down. Not significantly at first, but I was definitely starting to feel less good. My watch stopped displaying my mile splits and I couldn't read my total time, which was probably a good thing because it meant I didn't stress about how much I was slowing down. I hoped it was just a passing low spot, but despite consistently drinking and snacking during the run my energy was fading and all the hard road miles were beating the crap out of me. I did try to run as much of the race as possible on the dirt shoulder, and probably managed 1/4-1/3 of the race in the dirt but it was still my longest road run in well over a year.

At the end of lap 5 (22 miles) I was pretty much ready to drop out, but after taking a few minutes at the aid station talking to Erik - "Your races are killing me!" - I thought I'd do one more lap and call it a marathon. Of course when I finished the next lap I knew that I only had 5 more miles to go and figured I could continue on for a bit longer. That last lap was really not fun. My calves were tight and felt on the verge of cramping, my right hip was sore from the camber, my lungs felt like they weren't fully inflating. There's no way a 9:45 pace should have me feeling out of breath.

With about 1.5 miles to go I felt so bad that I decided to walk for a few minutes. Even though I was so close to the finish I just didn't see the point in pushing myself too hard on what was supposed to be a training run. Unfortunately someone else did see the point in pushing it and the woman who right behind me (2nd place in the race) took the opportunity to pass me. I totally lacked the motivation to put up a fight but I did start running again. I stayed about 50' behind her hoping that she was doing the 50 miler, but it didn't make sense. When we got to the 50k turnaround point with 1/2 mile to go back to the finish she turned and it was confirmed which race she was doing. I still lacked the motivation to put up a fight.

With about 1/4 mile to go Ed from GAC who was running the 50 miler passed going the opposite direction and shouted to me: "Don't let her do it to you Ian." This was just the motivation I needed to put on as much of a sprint finish as I could muster. I'm sure it wasn't impressive to look at, but it was just enough to regain the lead that I had held for the first 29.5 miles of the race. With a little guilt I finished about 3 seconds ahead of the first place woman.

While I was pretty excited to win the race I was pretty dissapointed at how much I slowed down over the last 13 miles. I was definitely still recovering from last weekend's race and the nasty cold I had... still have. All good training.

RESULTS and PHOTOS by Don Penta (as well as those above)

time: 4:17:24
distance: 31 miles
pace: 8:18
place: 1/17

weather: uper 30's to mid 40's, overcast, windy

conditions: flat-ass roads

gear: Saucony Grid Sinister, SmartWool socks, 3/4 length tights, long sleeve shirt, sleeveless shirt, hat, handheld bottle

Mtn Epic 8 Peak Race

First of all, congratulations to Erik for putting on a great race. I had a blast and I think most other runners did too. Erik was in charge of organizing three mountain races at Sunday River this past weekend, 1-peak 4 miles, 5-peaks 8 miles and 8-peaks 12 miles. I guess one race just isn't enough for him any more.

On Saturday afternoon after the Wife Carrying Championship Emma, Jim and I helped Erik finish off the course marking for Sunday's races. This was the first time Emma had seen some of these trails and even though she hadn't planned to race, wasn't feeling 100% (lingering knee trouble) and had vowed not to participate in a race until next summer she couldn't resist and signed up for the 4 mile, 1 peak race. I was doing the 8 peak race, Jim the 5 peak, and Shauna the 1 peak. There was a big contingent of other Trail Monsters who came up to compete in each of the races including James, Stephen, Bob, Tom, Jeanne, Chuck, Katy, George, Don, as well as many other familiar faces from the Bradbury Series.

I was feeling good about this race, after a summer of fairly disappointing race performances due to my lack of ability to cope with warmer humid weather I was really looking forward to racing in cooler temperatures. I've learned that 30-50 degrees is my optimum racing temperature range and that's just what we got on race day. I had also done a fair amount of mountain running/hiking this summer, and plenty of hilly trail and road runs that had me feeling confident about this race with about 3,800' elevation gain (and equal descent) over 12 miles.

My race strategy was to go out hard and keep pushing hard the whole way. Not too different than my usual approach to racing, except this time I actually thought I had a better chance of pulling it off without burning out near the end. Given my recent long training runs there certainly wasn't any reason to burn out in a 2-3 hour race. It also helped that I was just about the only person racing who knew the course. I set off fast and was surprised to find myself leading the way with Stephen for the first quarter mile. It wasn't long though before we hit the really steep climbing and the really strong mountain runners picked me off as we made our way up about 1500' in the first 2 miles. I knew that I had no right to be leading this race so I really didn't mind giving up those places early on, I just hoped that after we reached the top of the first peak I wouldn't lose any more.

Chuck was one of the runners who passed on the way up, and I knew that once we got to the long downhill stretch he'd pull away from me so I tried hard to keep close to him. Chuck credits years of downhill skiing for his amazing ability to run fast downhill, I guess when you stop being afraid of killing yourself going down a mountain it really allows for some fast running. Of course it helps having the strength to back it up.

From White Cap it there wasn't much up or down as we summited Locke and Barker peaks, but there was some nice rocky trail and single track. From Barker there was a good steady drop down to North Peak along dirt access road, a short stretch of Scottish looking hillside and then more fast running down dirt road to the base of Jordan Bowl.

Around mile 5 I caught up to Chuck and Stephen, who had gotten away from me on the downhill, now that we were starting our second long climb of the race. James also caught up to us, as well as Billy whom I had met at Bradbury this summer (or did we catch up to him?). The five of us stuck together, more or less, moving up the hill like an accordion, spreading out and then bunching up again. I don't think anyone was modifying their pace for the sake of staying together but as soon as someone fell back a bit there was always the motivation to push the pace enough to avoid getting left behind.

This second climb was easier than the first, covering only about 1000' in two miles to the summit of Spruce Peak, then an easy run on single track to Aurora Peak. We dropped down a little bit and then made a very steep climb up 400' more to the summit of Oz which is the highest point on the course, a little over 3,100'. As we approached the summit of Oz we were passed by another runner coming towards us who had already tagged the turnaround point on this short out-and-back stretch. I hadn't seen him since he passed me early on in the first climb but it looked like we were making up ground on him and I hoped we'd be able to catch him on the long downhill that was coming up. The course took a little dip down, then another very short climb to the final peak of the race Jordan Bowl. 4 more miles to go, 2100' all downhill.

The first 1.5 miles of this descent drop 1300' with an average grade of about 16%. I've decided this is just a little bit too steep to run comfortably for the amount of time it took. But races aren't about being comfortable, so I let gravity do it's thing and tried to keep my legs turning over as fast as I possibly could. Chuck and Stephen quickly pulled away from me and James passed me somewhere near the bottom of this crazy slope. I kept them in my sights and as the dirt road leveled out I began to close back in on them. It felt like I'd dislodged a kidney and perhaps a few other internal organs but my legs were holding up reasonably well to all the pounding.

Most of the last two miles of this race (all three of the races in fact) are on tight single track trails with plenty of tight turns and bumps and a few muddy patches. Based on all the running I've been doing at Bradbury this year I figured this kind of stuff ought to be my strength so I went to work catching back up to James, Stephen and Chuck. Many of the slower 4 mile runners were still on this stretch of trail (they had started an hour after us) which made for an additional challenge trying to get around them. I did end up passing James and Stephen but once we left the wooded single track for the final push on easier trail the order changed again, but we did stick pretty close together. Since none of the others knew exactly how close to the finish we were I instructed the other Trail Monsters to "put the hammer down" when I knew we were about 1/4 mile from the finish.

Of course this race wasn't going to end in an all out sprint, we had to negotiate the obstacle course of the Wife Carrying Championship before reaching the finish line and we all knew that we would be judged on our performance, not just our speed. I hit the log hurdle, planted my hands and did a sideways cartwheel, ran up to the edge of the mud pit and did a somersault flip into the waist deep water, dove over the sand pile and did a barrel roll landing and somehow managed to get back on my feet just in time to cross the finish line. What a brilliant way to end a race!

Jim after executing a perfect "laid out ass flop" into the mud pit

I ended up finishing in 2 hours 3 minutes, coming in 10th place overall. I actually think that this was my best race of the year. I ran hard, felt good, had good company, and turned out a time that I was really happy with. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Oh yeah, Emma finished first place female in the 4 mile race so that was pretty sweet too!

MORE PHOTOS and RESULTS

Splits:
11:21, 17:47, 7:47, 7:20, 9:35, 15:57, 10:30, 14:06, 6:48, 6:56, 8:28, 6:50

time: 2:03:27
distance: 12.04 miles
pace: 10:13
place: 10/54

weather: mid 40's to mid 50's, mix of sun and clouds, windy

conditions: mountains, rocks, gravel, grass, dirt, mud...

gear: Inov-8 Mudroc 280, Balega socks, shorts, sleeveless shirt, Moeben Sleeves, hat, handheld bottle

2009 NAWCC

This past Saturday Emma and I took part in the North American Wife Carrying Championship at Sunday River. We beat Joe Decker, "The World's Fittest Man". You can see him eating sand in this VIDEO.

This was our fourth year competing in the wife carrying competition, we traveled up with Jim and Shauna who were competing for their second time (they took most of the photos below). Non-married types are allowed, and of the participants who are married I doubt many have been married as long as we have (10 years). I've noticed that there's something about marriage that makes many wives un-carry-able by their husbands after a few years (or husbands unable to carry their wives), so I've always thought that if they are going to call it the Wife Carrying Championship that participants should be married to each other.

Game face.

As soon as we arrived we heard the buzz going around that "The World's Fittest Man" was here competing this year. After checking in we went to check out the competition and not only did we find "The World's Fittest Man", we also found another team comprised of a guy who looked like he could beat the crap out of the "The World's Fittest Man" with a wife just about as tough. I decided that after last year's performance, and given the apparent level of competition, I'd be happy just to get through this race without dropping Emma.

I don't think out matching tops were going to do anything to help us win today.

Fezzik and Buttercup about to start their race.

We were up against a guy wearing antlers, who didn't look fast but he did look strong, and those are the types of guys that do well in this race. I decided that being a runner does virtually nothing to improve my chances at winning this race.

I ran the first 100 yards at a "comfortable" pace while moose-man sprinted out of the gate incredibly fast. I knew that there would be plenty of opportunity to make up ground once we hit the obstacles on the course.
The first obstacle is a 36" high log hurdle. We had been practicing going over wooden barriers in a local parking lot so we had this technique down pretty good and made up a little time here. (that's not us in this photo)

Moose-man ran into the waist-deep water pit way too fast, did a belly flop and dropped his girlfriend. It was a classic tortoise and hare scene, I just kept a steady pace through the water and passed moose-man while he tried to get his wet and pissed-off girlfriend onto his back.

The final obstacle was a 4' high pile of sand, and we had also practiced traversing similar terrain so we were able to cruise over this without any trouble and "sprint" to the finish. I'm pretty sure this was our fastest time ever, one minute and five seconds. It was definitely our highest place finish, 8th out of 40 teams.

RESULTS