Road Miles

I wanted to get in at least 10 miles today, since I wasn't running the race in Cape Elizabeth I wanted to do my 10 mile "recovery" run following yesterday's 15 mile trail run at Bradbury. I opted for roads to give my ankle a break from the abuse of icy/snowy trails.

I couldn't resist picking a route that got in some good hills which did aggravate my achilles a bit, but most of the uphill was out of the way by 3.5 miles.

I had originally planned to do this race, but when I realized I didn't have much of a chance of improving upon last year's time I didn't think it was worth it. Different races have different meanings to me, and this one is about running as fast as I can and trying to improve upon my previous time. If I had really wanted to I'm sure I could have focused on shorter, faster runs over the past few weeks and come close to last year, but I'm trying to stay focused on the big picture here of running 95 miles through the Scottish Highlands in June. I don't need a lot of speed for that.

time: 1:21:22
distance: 10.74
pace: 7:35

weather: mid 20's, windy

gear: Saucony Grid Sinister, Smart Wool socks, tights, 2x long sleeve shirts, buff, gloves, mittens (off/on)

Sweatsicle, IceSpikes, Ankle Recovery

After the recent climax in ankle pain last week I was a little skeptical about being able to get in a decent run this weekend but things worked out better than expected. I took three days off after last weekends 21 mile run, then did an easy 4.25 miles on Thursday which felt okay. Not great, but okay. On Friday I went to see Dr. Jamie Raymond, a chiropractor and runner who has treated a handful of Trail Monsters. He did some manipulation, ART, scraping and kinesio taping, just the right combination to get my ankle feeling a lot better. Not 100%, but much better than when I walked into his office. I'll go back for another treatment or two and that should get me back to normal.

So not knowing exactly how I was going to feel today I set off with the goal of completing the 15 mile Beautiful Loop but had prepared myself mentally in case I needed to turn around early. Jamie, Lily, Sara, Blaine and Erin made up today's group, but by 5 miles it was just me and Jamie, and luckily we were both feeling good (Jamie had also been suffering from an ankle sprain). Up to this point the trails were mostly hard packed snow with a little ice, very runnable and we managed to keep most miles under a 9 minute pace. Actually each mile from 2 to 11 was sub 9, that doesn't sound fast but but it felt like we were moving along pretty quickly over the hilly terrain.

Along the 6 mile stretch of power lines we encountered a lot of ice, stretches of 100 feet or more at times and I was grateful for the IceSpikes I was wearing. A few weeks ago Erik hooked up a bunch of Trail Monsters with free sets if IceSpikes he had acquired and I've now had the opportunity to get in some good miles with them. For years I've been a fan of good old fashioned screw shoes and at first was skeptical of what seemed at first glance to be little more than sheet metal screws in a fancy package with a jacked-up price. But God is in the details:

The deep groove in the head of the IceSpike definitely provides better grip than an ordinary sheet metal screw, I found today that I was able to run across ice, up and down icy hills without any worry of slipping. Today's conditions were actually more icy than I'd ever seen before, and for today's conditions I don't think ordinary screw shoes would have been good enough. The only thing I haven't really tested with these is how they hold up on roads, if they can last through a few road miles on a regular basis without wearing down then I really think they'd be worth the money.

It's also worth mentioning that I put the IceSpikes into a pair of shoes that I had screwed last year and the result is that they didn't stay in place quite as well as I assume they would have if I had screwed a virgin pair of shoes. In three runs totaling about 30 miles I think I've lost a total of 12 IceSpikes. That's my own fault, I suspect the same would have happened if I'd used sheet metal screws.

I made the rookie mistake today of not protecting the hose of my hydration pack, within two miles it was frozen and it took another 10 miles for me to get it thawed by shoving the hose down my shirt and wearing my vest over the pack. It was a funny kind of cold today, at times it felt pretty warm and I was sweating pretty heavily, but it was cold enough that my sweat was freezing. Most interesting was the sweatcicle that formed at the edge of my buff, I didn't even notice it until Jamie pointed it out:

It felt like Jamie and I were moving along at a pretty quick pace for this run, and I was surprised to find that it was only a few second faster than when we ran it 3 weeks ago. We did make fewer stops along the way, so while our running pace wasn't significantly faster our overall time was a few minutes better. I was really happy that my ankle wasn't in any significant pain and certainly didn't slow me down today, even with some of the gnarly terrain we came across.

time: 2:13:18
distance: 15.06 miles
pace: 8:51

weather: 9-16 degrees, mostly clear sky, light wind

conditions: crusty packed snow, sheer ice, bare ground

gear: Inov-8 Roclite 295 with IceSpikes, sock liners, Smart Wool socks, tights, 2x long sleeve shirts, windbreaker vest, gloves, mittens, buff, Nathan HPL #20

January Summary

For the first time in my life as a runner I've actually documented every run for an entire month. Probably not a big deal to most runners, but I've never really cared that much. So what changed? I'm not sure. It may have something to do with training for a big race (WHW) and wanting to better than just finish. But that doesn't totally explain it.

Whatever the reason, here's my stats for the month

Total Miles: 181.21
Total Time: 28:26:16
Average Daily Distance: 5.8 miles
Average Pace: 9:25

What does this mean? Since I've never tracked a whole month of running before it doesn't mean much, but as go through the year it will definitely give me something to compare to if I keep up with it. For now, it's just a starting point for the year.

A few reflections on the month:

Following a good run at the Stone Cat 50 miler in November I really slacked off for the rest of the month and through December, so in January I was determined to kick off my ultra training with a solid month.

Unfortunately I started the month with a very minor ankle sprain, chose to ignore it and it turned into something a little more significant. Not that it slowed me down or held me back much, but it's just not good to start a year with any kind of injury, even a minor one.

One of my goals for the year is to run a marathon or longer distance run at least once every month, I got it in this month in some very difficult conditions at the GAC Fat Ass 50k.

a few cold runs and a messed up ankle

It seems that all the hills and rugged icy trails I've been running lately haven't been too good for my ankle. I've been having minor pain since rolling my right ankle in late December, didn't think much of it at first but now that it's been 5 weeks and it's not getting better I guess I better do something about it.

Here's a little summary of my last few runs:

Friday night I wanted to get out and make sure the local trails were in good enough shape for the Saturday morning run. I was going to just do about 5 miles (round trip) to the top of Leighton Hill and back home but when I got there I decided to mix it up a little bit and make a loop out of the run. I was feeling good and it wasn't as cold as I was expecting, and the trails were in pretty good shape. There was some running water in a few places and it was interesting trying to find good routes across the thin ice at the stream crossings, but I managed to keep my feet mostly dry.

It was a beautiful night to be out running, full moon and a clear sky, still enough snow on the ground to catch the light and allow me to run without my headlamp on for a little while. My right achilles was sore at the beginning of the run but it loosened up and felt fine for most of the run.

time: 53:19
distance: 6.0 miles
pace: 8:53

Saturday morning Jim was the only one to show up for the group run. It was cold, like 5 degrees or something. I think everyone else was saving themselves for tomorrow's Fat Ass run at Blaine's. I had originally hoped to get in close to 10 miles but neither Jim or I were feeling particularly ambitious so we decided to save the effort for Sunday and just did a short run.

The trails were in okay shape, everything was firmly frozen but there were a lot of icy irregularities that were taking a toll on my ankle. Things never really loosened up and I was glad to stop when we did. No significant pain but it just didn't feel that good to be running.

time: 43:44
distance: 4.59 miles
pace: 9:31

On Sunday Blaine was hosting a Fat Ass 50k to cap off the 1 More Mile For Sunshine challenge he'd been running all month. Each day of the month he was running one more mile than the day before, and made it all the way to January 24th before nasty conditions and the possibility of injury kept him from finishing the last week of the challenge. Luckily Blaine was able to bounce back after taking a few days off and planned to run the whole 31 miles on January 31st, I hoped to join him for the full distance but suspected before I even started that my troubled ankle wouldn't hold up for the more than 5 hours it would take to run 50k.

There was a good turnout of Trail Monsters for the event and we planned to collectively run the 196 miles that Blaine was unable to finish in the last week of his challenge. Between 18 of us we were able to cover 229 miles. Blaine, Jamie, and Danielle wrote up reports of the run, and as i write this (4 days after the run) I don't have the enthusiasm to elaborate. I ended up getting in 21 miles in some very cold weather, on trails that weren't always easy so I was pretty happy just to get the mileage in. I stopped (far) short of the 31 mile mark, mostly because of lack of energy, my ankle wasn't that bad, although it was tight the entire time and I did worry that if i pushed myself much further I would end up doing some real damage.

It was a good run, with great company. Thanks to Blaine and Erin for hosting a great event.

time: 3:28:25
distance: 20.94
pace: 9:57

Following Sunday's long run my ankle and achilles were sore enough that I decided to take three days off and to take a more aggressive path to treatment. I'd also been having some plantar fasciitis-like pain so Jamie let me borrow his night splint. I've been wearing that in the evenings, the strassburg sock overnight, icing, ibuprophen, stretching... I've finally decided to pay a visit to Dr. Raymond to see if he can sort me out.

Better than expected

The Leighton Hill Lollipop is becoming my favorite route to run from home these days, tonight was my third time running it in 8 days. I've finally refined it to 1.7 miles of road at the beginning and end with a 4.3 mile trail loop in the middle.

It was still unseasonably warm this evening which made for very comfortable running, and despite the rain we had earlier in the week the trails were in very runnable shape. I knew there was going to be ice on the trails, but the roads were dry so I set off from home wearing road shoes and carrying my screwed trail shoes in a backpack. This was my first time running with Ice Spikes in my shoes instead of sheet metal screws, I must say that I was very impressed. I'll give a full review once I've had a chance to get a few more miles on them, but for the 4.3 miles I ran in them tonight they provided incredible grip on hard ice on steep hills.

Despite postholing a dozen times or more, and having frozen ledges of ice breakaway beneath me I still managed to move along at a pretty good pace. The downhills were very fast, at least for icy night time running, and I was able to run the flats at a consistently quick pace between the convulsive interruptions of postholing. As long as it stays cold enough this loop should remain runnable until we get another decent snowfall and more snowmobile traffic on top of that.

As nice as it is to be able to run with a little exposed skin this time of year and not have to worry about frost bite this springlike weather is a terrible tease, because we're still only in the first half of winter and surely there will be a lot more snow to come.

time: 1:05:50
distance: 7.71 miles
pace: 8:32

weather: upper 30's, cloudy

conditions: dry road, packed snowmobile trails, ice, dirt, puddles, mud

gear: Saucony Grid Sinister, Inov-8 Roclite 295 with Ice Spikes, Smart Wool socks, short tights, t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, buff, gloves, Camelbak (for carrying shoes)

Shorts in January?

Yup. It was that warm tonight.

After a crazy amount of rain (for late January) I knew that the conditions would be pretty nasty at Twin Brook, but I hadn't been able to make it to a TMR TNR in many weeks so I wasn't about to let bad conditions hold me back when I finally had the time to make it there. Erik and Jim were the only others to show up, and we tried to make the best of it despite the conditions. We started out by heading towards Val Halla with the intention of running the snowmobile trails, but one of the Brooks was severely flooded and it didn't seem like a good idea to try crossing it. We realized that the ski trails were completely trashed (for skiers) so decided just to run them. Turns out they weren't any good for running either, lots of deep slush and icy water.


About two miles into the run, just after exiting the A loop I looked up and had absolutely no idea where we were. I've run these trails so many times, I always know where I am but for some reason I was completely disoriented. I guess I'd been away for too long. Hopefully I'll be able to get back into making it there every week.

time: 45:15
distance: 4.5 miles
pace: 10:04

Sunday Double

Sunday I decided to join Emma for a run, wrapping up her first week of post "stress reaction" recovery which included four 15 minute runs. Whooppee! Having been injured since Pineland in May I don't know how she has managed to stay sane, and now that she is running pain free I don't know how she manages to hold herself to just 15 minutes at a time. Anyway, it was nice to run with her again, even if it was just a short one around the neighborhood. We did manage to work a little hill into it:

time:15:57
distance: 1.75 miles
pace: 9:08

Later in the day, after it got dark I went out for another run, this time hoping to get in a few more miles on the local snowmobile trails before the rain hit. Although I could have got the run in during daylight hours I purposely waited until after dark, as park of my training for the WHW I want to get in a fair amount of night running on rugged terrain.

I decided to run pretty much the same route as I did on Wednesday, but do the loop portion in reverse so I could run up the Three Bitches. 2 miles of road, 1/4 mile of dirt road then a 3 mile loop on snowmobile trails. On the way back I discovered an alternate route that replaces 1/2 mile of road with more snowmobile trails. Sweet.

There are some excellent hills on this route and a nice variety of terrain, although it's pretty much smoothed out by the snowmobiles. When I reached the top of Leighton Hill on the way out there were three snowmobilers there, just cracking open some beers and I think I caught them by surprise. I thanked them for making such nicely runnable trails, but being dressed in tights I decided not to hang around too long.

The rain started before I finished the run but it was still in the mid-30's and very comfortable winter running weather.

time: 1:06:05
distance: 7.45 miles
pace: 8:52

weather: mid 30's, a few rain showers

conditions: wet roads, nicely packed snowmobile trails

gear: Inov-8 Roclite 315 with screws, Smart Wool socks, tights, t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, gloves, buff