Peak week of training

I finished training for the Indian Creek 50m with my hardest weekend of training ever. Saturday – 21 mile trail run with 4500ft of climbing (Deer Creek) We started off at 6:00am on the trail with headlamps. This was my first time running in the dark up a trail with headlamps. The beams of light from the different runners bounced off the rocks and casts weird shadows. About 3 switchbacks up I started to feel dizzy because of the lights. We watched the sunrise around 7:00am. I dropped my friend off in the parking lot at about 8-10 miles and then headed up the mountain again for lap 2. Sunday – 16 mile trail run with 3700ft of climbing (Mt Falcon) My legs and feet ached when I woke up and I started the run very dehydrated. I took in lots of liquids and ate a lot on the trail. After a few miles I felt much better but the overall tiredness stayed with me. Just like yesterday I ran with my friends and then dropped them off in the parking lot around 10 miles and then headed back up to the top of the mountain. Weekend totals for the last 2 runs 37.4 miles 8:11 total running time (13:10 pace) 8,200ft of climbing It helped that I was spoiled with great trails and great weather.

2014 Equinox Half Marathon

Ft Collins Colorado 13.1 – 1:36:30 This is going sound less like a race report and more like a training diary. With my ultra marathon looming in the future this half marathon that I signed up for months ago just felt unimportant. I haven’t done any speed work in weeks and I really needed to get in another ultra marathon training weekend, the solution… race sabotage. Saturday – Long run It was my son’s birthday and we were due at chucky cheese by 10am. I had to skip the group run from home to save time. I got up at 4:30 am with the goal of running as much as possible by 8:30am. I left the house around 5:30 so I basically had 3:00 or about 20 miles. Early on I was grumpy and nearly called off the run at 10 miles when I stopped back at the house to get a new bottle. On my second loop I bumped into my friends and then ran with them from about 17 to 19. They are training to run twin cities in 3:15 so we were running pretty quickly. I ended up running 21 miles in about 3:07 the entire run felt like a giant progression run. No food on this run only liquids. 0-7 miles @ 9:42 pace, Grouchy and thinking won’t have time to get 20 miles done 8-12 mi @ 9:03 pace, Feeling better and the sun came up 13-16 @ 8:35 pace, now I was attacking the course and making up time. 20 miles is looking possible 17-19 @ 8:09 pace, trying to keep up with my friends for 3 miles they were 8 miles into their run 20-21 @ 7:54 pace, burst through that pain barrier, my friends turned around and I somehow went faster back home. Sunday - Race It was about 30 minutes before the race when I bumped into an old friend that I hadn’t seen in years. She convinced me to run a short warm up with her up the canyon 1.7 total miles. My feet freaking ached during this short warm up but my muscles felt really good. The original plan was to take it easy and hope for a sub 2:00 but now I had this stupid idea that 1:40 would be pretty awesome. Miles 0-4 Avg 7:28 min/mile Not planning for the race at all I had no idea what pace I needed for 1:40 and I still had my Gatorade bottle which I wouldn’t have minded at 9:00 min pace. I calculated in my head that I needed about a 7:35 (actually I needed 7:3 and I knew that my watch would be off so the plan was to run in the 7:20’. My feet hurt so bad those first few miles but my breathing was easily in check. They didn’t have an aid station till mile 4 so it was handy having my own drink at mile 2. I ended up tossing that bottle at the mile 4 aid station. Miles 5-8 Avg 7:21 min/mile Now that my hands were free my shoulders relaxed and I felt much faster. This course is in a beautiful canyon that drops 800ft from start to finish. The clouds and the canyon walls blocked us from most of the sunlight. My feet stop complaining in this section and everything seemed perfect. Miles 9-12 Avg 7:22 min/mile At an aid station near mile 9 I ate my only gel of the race. The road started to flatten out and the clouds went away. The temp went up a little but it was still an awesome day. I began flying passed people and I looked and my watch and I was only running even splits but everyone else was falling off the pace. Around mile 10 was first time I felt out of breath. From then on I felt like I was working really hard and actually in a race. Miles 13 and the last 0.1 Avg 7:04 pace Suddenly I realized I had a little over a mile left and I dramatically picked up the pace. I was surprised to hear a friend of mine cheering me on, I didn’t know she was going to be there and she didn’t know I was running. I ended up clocking the last mile in 7:09 and then kicking it into the finish at 6:10 pace for the last bit. The 35th mile of the weekend was the fastest. No pictures this time so I borrowed one from the main page of the race website. Most of the race looks like this but sometimes the canyon walls were vertical cliffs. This was by far the most scenic half marathon I have ever run and it’s very fast. I might have to come back next year and go for a sub 1:30.

American Discovery Trail Marathon

Colorado Springs, CO
26.2 – 3:41:24 

Pre-Race, Goals and Strategies. 
I was sick off and on all last week and I cut both of last weekend’s runs short because of stomach problems. During the week I thought I was getting better but Saturday and Sunday were not good, I felt like I was pre-race hydrating with pepto bismol. Needless to say any plans and goals I had made for this race were off the table. I didn’t take any medicine after about 3 pm the day before the race because I didn’t know how it would react to long distance running and I don’t want to run races that way. 

Surprisingly I woke up race morning feeling good. Because of the point to point course I now had a 30 minute bus ride to figure out today’s race plan. I decided that I needed to go out fast enough that a PR would be possible but if anything went wrong just back off and call it a training day (no gutting it out today). Really I decided that I would make the call on the run but I want to keep that PR door open. I was ready for a nice flat fast marathon… 

Miles 0-8 (8:02 pace) 
I saw my friend at the start of the race who was pacing the 3:45 group. I looked at his pace chart and saw that the mile spits were all over the place to account for the hills. I did look at the race profile and saw that it dropped 1200 ft over 26 miles. I was pretty shocked that there were any hills on this course. My buddy reassured me that they were small hills but to watch out for mile 9 and 22. I took off running many of the first miles under 8 min pace. If I hadn’t stopped at the bathroom this section would have easily averaged sub 8:00 pace. When I got out of the bathroom the 3:30 group had caught me and I spent the next few miles near them. The course had been 100% dirt so far but it was not the nice hard packed dirt I was also expecting. It was soft and almost sand like in places, other runner and I shifted back and forth across the 8ft wide path trying to say on hard packed dirt. The course featured a lot of little hills very short but steep hills. Enough to knock you off your comfortable pace and make to need to accelerate to get back on pace. With the hills, trail surface, possible illness and warm weather I called it off right there and started enjoying my day. 

Miles 9-20 (8:32 pace) 
As my friend warned mile 9 did feature a long slow climb. But to tell the truth I would gladly take this over those short steep climbs. The short hills kept coming but now that I was in cruise control they didn’t bother me so much. This part of the course went through the air force academy it was gorgeous out there lot of trees and huge mountains. The race began to spread out and it got a bit lonely it felt like just another long run. I forgot to mention all those short steep hills where also accompanied by a short steep downhill’s. The downhill’s might actually be harder on your quads then up but downhill fatigue sneaks up on you and all the sudden I noticed at mile 18 that my legs felt trashed. 

Miles 21-26.2 (8:50 pace) 
Suddenly the race wasn’t so lonely and I was running with people again (only about 400 in the race). The final miles were on a bike path in town which was paved at times. At this point I was feeling pretty good although overheated. I was thinking that I could run 3:38-3:39 if ran a little harder. All that was left was another mystery hill at mile 23. It was a big hill and this time I attacked passing a bunch of people on the way up all while laughing at the handmade signs. The signs were staggered every 20ft or so with 1 word per sign “Shut”, “UP”, “Legs!” it was just so fitting. After the hill I coasted down an equally big downhill and then some flat miles to the finish. I kept trying to calculate how fast I needed for 3:39 but my brain refused to work. I actually had a small kick coming into the finish my watch said 7:35 for the last 0.2 miles not much but it felt good to know I could speed up. 

Post Race – and pics 
Mini milestone - this was marathon/ultra #20 when I joined Loseit I had 2 completed. 
Lesson Learned - I run lots of hills and trails but not at that pace. This hills shouldn’t have caught me off like that, I should have done my research and known what was on the course. 
End of the day - After the race I felt about as tired as a hard long run which is fine because I have other long races I need to run this fall, “Live to fight another day”. 

I think this is at about mile 8. Good shot of the loose dirt I was talking about. 
 

I took this one around mile 12 while running 
 

On the pavement somewhere around mile 22 
 

I only look like I am walking, still moving at sub 9:00 pace 
 

Evergreen Town Race 10K

6.2 Miles – 41:32 (6:42 pace)
32nd overall and 7th in 30-39 men’s

First off I have a confession. I have gained back a chunk of weight and I have been in denial but I am ready to own up to the fact that I need to fix my diet. I am proof that you can’t out exercise a bad diet, I ran 230 miles last month and put in some good races recently. My running fitness feels really strong and it makes me wonder how fast I could be if I weighted as much as I did last year at 180lbs vs my current 196lbs.

I had a crummy running week and decided to write this race off as a workout. On Saturday I felt good and ran a hilly 10 mile course at 8:15 pace not something you should do the day before a race, but I wasn’t going to race. I should know when I am lying to myself I cannot “not race” but it does seem to take the pressure off.

Mile 1 – 6:28
I feel very marathon geared and not 10K geared. I decided that the best strategy was to go out at PR pace and then see how I feel. I wasn’t sure if I was in shape for a PR but I wanted put myself in the right place that I could get a PR (40:45 on this course in 2011).

Miles – 2 & 3 (6:45, 6:47)
That was a blazing fast first mile, my fastest single mile this year was 6:14 and I was paying for it the next 2 miles. I just tried to hold on to a decent pace while suffering. The crowd began to thin out and everything just kinda relaxed. This course has a fair amount of downhill and I was defiantly taking advantage by coasting and recovering. I completed the first 5k in about 20:41 not bad at all but I would be hard to match.

Miles 4 & 5 (6:54, 6:42)
Running a 10K (and shorter) is a lot different because pacing is so different. I feel like you take what each mile gives you and try to do the best you can each mile. After the 5K mark I defiantly felt recovered from mile 1 but now the course was harder and hotter. They started this race a 8:45 am, I think I was blind the majority of the race from all the sweat in my eyes.

Mile 6 & 0.2 (6:41, 6:05 pace for the last 0.2)
Like a lot of the races I have run, if you can hold your pace even you are going to pass a lot of people eventually. In this last mile I was passing people like crazy but looking at my watch I saw that I was going exactly the same speed. When I hit the last mile marker I did speed up a little but there was no sprint to the finish today.

I felt like I had slowed down a lot during the race but my second 5K was only 0:10 slower at 20:51. I missed my PR by 0:47 seconds but I can’t help but think that I could have beaten that time if I was lighter. Looking at the guys I finished around I am least 40lbs heavier than most of them.

Roxborough – Scouting an upcoming race course

I logged 68 miles last week which was a little more than I planned on running. I wasn’t planning on running a double long run this weekend. On Sunday our trail group split in two a short group that was looking for 8 miles on out and back section and the long group who were going to run the entire loop (14 miles we thought). I wanted 10-12 so I stuck with the long group on this huge loop that ended up being 16 miles. Another runner and I stopped our watches at 15 miles and walked the last mile to the car we were out of water, exhausted and agreed that we had plenty of miles for the day. This week I have another 60 miles planed but next week I am going to break the streak with a rest week.

Hope you guys don’t mind a few trail pictures:

Here I am around mile 5, it was my first time running this trail. We were doing recon for a possible race this fall that uses this 16 mile loop.


We are heading down to those red rocks in the valley. I think they are about 1000ft below us at this point. Once we got there we took a left and climbed over the mountain back to our cars on the other side.


Here is one of the smaller red rocks from the previous picture. We turned before we got the really big ones (I have run that section before). I think his one is about 50 ft tall, the bigger ones are hundreds of feet tall.

2014 Slacker Half Marathon

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/530317078
13.1 – 1:33:28
46th/1100 and 4th in age group 

In 2009 I ran the slacker half marathon as my first race back to the sport. I weighed about 220lbs and finished in 2:15:30. I was pretty happy with that time because a few years earlier and I couldn’t run faster than 12:00 pace for 3 miles. 2002 was the last time I was a competitive runner but even by then I had gained a fair amount of weight and lost a lot of speed. 
The slacker HM is an interesting race it starts up at 10,800ft and drops 2,300ft over 13.1 miles to Georgetown CO at 8,500ft hence the name Slacker. But that name is a little deceiving because the race also has some uphills and on any flat or uphill section you quickly remember that you are at high elevation. 

Miles 1 – 10 1:11:55 (7:11 pace) 
It was freezing at the start 28F and the roads were wet from snow that had fallen over night. During the week and the on the way to the race I decided to scrap my plans of running a 1:40. I still had some sore muscles and I was a little worried about pulling something but after a few successful workouts this week I felt confident in running 1:35. That would be a 7:15 pace but that’s not what happened when the race started I had no problem running 7:00-7:10 except on the hills. I got into this rhythm of attacking the hills and then recovering on the downhill. With every mile I felt stronger and stronger. I kept getting flashbacks of how I felt at that exact same location on the course. Each flashback ended with a tingle in my spine, my body telling me “let’s go faster” (probably adrenaline). My emotions kept growing as the race continued as well. I found my getting choked up thinking about all the battles I have overcome to get to this spot in my life. At this exact spot (mile 10) 5 years ago I was melting in the heat, my quads couldn’t handle any more downhill and I wishing for it all to end. Today I was running 3:00/mi faster and holding back, I was attacking the hills up and down and enjoying every bit of the race. I wiped away a few tears (of perhaps just sweat) and decided it was time I showed this race what I was made of, I wasn’t holding back anymore. 


Miles 11 – 13.1, last 3.1 in 21:14 (6:51 pace) 
-Mile 11 started with a portion of uphill but I was so fired that I went for broke. This would be my first sub 7 mile of the day. 
- Mile 12 had an amazing downhill with nothing uphill or even flat. If your quads survived this long then you could really crush this mile. My quads hurt a but I didn’t hold back and ran this downhill mile in 6:33 
- Mile 13 was mostly flat and this is when I remembered that I was still at 8500 ft. I was in the zone but the best I could manage was 6:57 pace. The last 0.1 was uphill and at the pace I was running it was a real lung burner. 

Post Race 
I had been feeling burned out the last few months and this race was exactly what I needed. I needed a reminder of how far I have come and why can’t stop now. I feel like I am right where I need to be to kick of my training for my goal half marathon in September. The goal is to final break the 1:30 mark. 


Elevation profile. Crazy Downhill


Here is my picture from the 2009 race at 220lbs. Race reporthttp://allenrunsfar.blogspot.com/2009/06/slacker-half-marahon.html


Uphill to the finish


It was so cold I had to wear my finisher shirt after the race around town

2014 Leadville Marathon

26.2 miles – 6:35:48 (not a PW, Last year at Pikes Peak finished in 7:03)
6,021 ft of elevation gain with the lowest point on the course at an elevation of 10,184 ft 

So this was an interesting adventure. About a month ago I realized I was in full mental burnout. I had a couple of hot long races in May that spelled doom for my trail marathon and ultra-marathon over the summer. Letting my friends know that I was out was the hardest part and they ended up convincing me to stay in the marathon, after all I was trained up for an ultra so I could easily handle a marathon… 

Trip out to Mosquito pass, miles 0 - 9 
Any marathon is tough and if your mind in the game it it’s going to be a rough day. Add to that brutal climbing and crazy elevation and you have the perfect recipe for misery. The race started in Leadville CO, which sits high in the mountains at 10,180ft. First climb on the list was 2,000ft of vertical over the first 5 miles of the race. I was walking 1 mile into the race which wasn’t too surprising and I was the only walker. My body felt fine but my mind just couldn’t seem to get into race mode. In those first 5 miles most of my friends left me in the dust. Going downhill I could easily run 90% of the time. I kept an eye on the giant pass in front of us that we would eventually have to conquer. 

Mosquito pass, miles 10 - 17 
From the aid station it was about 4 miles and 2,000ft vertical to the turnaround point. I walked up the whole thing which isn’t as easy as it sounds. Trees don’t grow above 11,500 and without them the wind was very strong and cold. It was so loud that I was unable to talk with people right next to me. Hiking became so hard that I had to start pacing myself (Hiking!). It’s a little scary when it feels like your breathing is accelerating uncontrollably (like you can’t catch your breath), it’s not a good feeling so you slow down. But I am happy that I never stopped moving, I continued on with relentless forward progress. Nearing the top I was so cold especially my hands I couldn’t wait to get off that mountain. Coming down wasn’t much easier the trail was so technical and in places covered with mud or snow. I tripped and almost went down, I caught myself but my already tired ankle and knee got twisted. They both felt funny as I spent a minute walking it off and then I was back running but now a little more cautious and slower. 



Back to town, 18 – 26.2 
Arriving back at the aid station I felt good about the race or the first time. I had survived the pass and I was heading back to town. In the back of my mind I knew I wasn’t out of the woods yet because there was big climb around 20 miles. I enjoyed the downhill this time, no more giant rocks so I could free my mind and enjoy the scenery. The climb at mile 20 was very hard even though it was only 1,000 ft again I ended up walking the majority of that section. Arriving at the final aid station I felt relived I knew the finish was 5 miles away and almost all downhill with one little blip along the way. This was my best section of the race. I recorded my fastest mile running back into town mile 26 was a blistering 8:50 (and my only sub 10 min mile). Over the last few miles of the race the clouds rolled in and about an hour or so after I finished my friends and I got snowed on at the finish line. 

Post 
While reflecting on this adventure and reading my own report I feel the burnout really shows. So many times in this race I was weak and willing to just go with the flow. This has to be the least competitive I have ever seen myself. One by one my friends passed me and I didn’t even try to chase them down. At the same time this race showed me that perhaps I am stronger than I think. For six and half hours Leadville striped me down to nothing. During that time I was more miserable than I have been in a race in a long time. But quit never crossed my mind. 


At the start of the race with my friend Tim (he won this crazy race) 
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Course Profile 



Just out of town 



Mile 9, Mosquito pass in the distance 
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Halfway up Mosquito pass 



Almost to the top 



Top of the Pass 13,170ft 



Heading down the pass 



Mile 26, fastest mile of the day 8:50!