Month: July 2014

Mt. Hood 50 miler race report – https://gobeyondracing.com/races/mt-hood-50/

http://www.strava.com/activities/165172284
(Watch died a few times during the day…)

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

tl;dr
I literally enjoyed every second of the race. Truly enjoyed it as in, I relished the entire experience… except for the falling… but I’ll get to that part.

It was close to 32 / 90  deg on Saturday and very dry and dusty on the Pacific Crest Trail. I brought along 6 frozen bottles of Tailwind, carried them with me in a cooler and divided them at the start among 2 drop bags. I only swapped one of them at the first aid station and didn’t touch the others the entire race.  My strategy for the day quickly moved to 1 bottle of water, 1 bottle with Nuun (electrolyte drink) and sodium caps.  I was checking my hands to see if they were swelling at all (too much sodium, retaining fluids) and if so, I skipped an s-cap delivery and drank water or diluted Nuun. The best thing that I learned is that my stomach is like a thermonuclear reactor…meaning – I took in calories all. damn. day. Half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a piece of banana at every aid station worked for me all day with no issues. A theme I gathered from a few other runners was that they were getting nauseous. I felt that a little bit early on when I was only drinking Tailwind – I think it was because I was intaking too much sugar and it was too hot. My body couldn’t both process the sugar and sweat off the heat. That’s my theory anyway. When I switched to water I was good to go.

I was most concerned with my stomach going into the race. If I couldn’t keep calories going in, things can go pear-shaped quickly unless you puke and reset (I’ve heard). I started with a couple of gels and some Clif blocks, then found that the PBJ’s were what my stomach wanted. It was like throwing logs on a roaring fire all day.

Highs:

• After tagging the 40 mile aid station (furthest aid out on the figure 8 course), I pulled out my shuffle and burned down a huge climb – probably my fastest mile of the day. I reeled in quite a few people in that section.
• Thermonuclear reactor for a stomach. This may not always be the case, but I’m pleased that I assessed the situation quickly, adapted, changed strategy and got my game on. OODA loops.
• Mundo legs. The last 10 miles were rolling descent to flat terrain all the way back to the finish. There were some runners who would run and stop – I think it was from being very tired, but also the pounding rocky singletrack descent- it completely trashes your quads to the point where it’s too painful to run – I know b/c I felt it  running into the finish at Beacon Rock 50k. I think commuting with a kid on the back of an 80lb bike has worked my quads. I had no issues bombing down very technical singletrack. So fun.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddC6GEHAlkg]

Lows:

• The first 25 miles were relatively flat… a few steady climbs, but on the way back in to the start/finish to begin the next big loop, I must have fallen about 5 times. I remember one particular tumble that ejected both bottles from my vest as I landed on my side. There was a guy behind me who sympathized that he had taken a tumble too – but it was really no consolation as I did the same thing a few more times (sans ejecting the bottles). In retrospect I think I was going through a mental low and I was being lulled into a really efficient running gait where I was keeping my feet just skimming the ground – and each time something got in the way I would catch a toe and down I went. The running wasn’t difficult, but it was hard to maintain mental focus as the terrain was kind of boring. I can’t stress how frustrating and difficult it was to dig myself out of this mental hole I was in. I kept asking if there was something wrong with me… was I really that exhausted? The worse part was that each time I fell, I worried that I was going to do it again. When I stumbled and caught myself my feet skidded in my shoes and I could feel the bottoms of my feet burn – super painful for a few seconds. I started to worry that I was going to hit my head or break my wrist… all dark/negative thoughts. Once I realized what was happening, I upped the self-talk about being in control and getting my shit together… that worked and I was back and into the start/finish and back out again.

The volunteers were phenomenal. Rolling into aid stations and having your bottles filled with ice and being sprayed down or having cold water dumped over your head – it was like having the best crew evAR. The long climb up to the aid station at Warm Springs was particularly grueling. It’s such a relief to finally see that aid tent and hear some music and roll up on some friendlies. Every aid station was a power-up.

When I saw the final course markings back to the finish, I stashed my headphones and listened for the cheering and the cowbells. I passed a few hikers at one of the final turns and a women said to me, “almost there – enjoy it!”. I took a deep breath to take in the moment and then climbed up out of the forest onto the road for the final 200 yards into the ranger station and finish line.

Sunset on Friday night rounding the bend on 26 just before Gov’t Camp. I bivy’d near the start on Friday night, set the alarm for 4:30 to make coffee and oatmeal on the Jetboil for b’fast.

It was a good day to run in the mountains.

Reading The Pale King and – specifically the interviews with (the wigglers) – and pondering the parallels between designing and writing. DFW’s writing is so … ummm… “constructed” … it’s designed (well). From the word structure to the underlying theme all the way to the concepts in a larger paragraph/chapter.  It’s not so much that the fiction is written, but the entire (fragmented) narrative is designed. I cannot think of another way to describe the technique.

A good example is this one (I don’t feel like typing it):

This is the core idea that encapsulates the entire book.  Picking apart the structure of this passage, we have the narrator telling the story of a contrived story (the play **) that has no “action”.

Imagine designing something that had absolutely no utility (or no use that anyone could determine). Is it art? Or is it an object that has no utility other than to delight? Isn’t this the best kind of design? (I think so).

The book is about boredom. Holding the concept of boredom in your hands and investigating it, exploring it’s nuances – trying to understand this “thing” that we take every measure in every action of our lives – to avoid.

Sometimes when I’m telling my daughters bedtime stories, I’ll play a game and begin to tell a story within a story within a story etc. and then back my way out of the stories to end exactly where we started.  “A totally real, true-to-life play.”

**DFW used the same technique in Infinite Jest. It was a film that Himself created.  The point was to make all the theatergoers leave in disgust.

$5/bunch

Bonjour Hoodwand

Adams peeking out from behind a cairn on the summit of Observation Peak.

And of course some mountain running 🙂
Up and over Hamilton Mountain:
http://www.strava.com/activities/162620543

For ~2500 ft of climbing, the reward is a spectacular view of the Columbia River Gorge from Washington (and an ice cold beer back at camp).

This is my last burn down week before tapering for Mt. Hood. I think I reduced mileage too much for Beacon Rock 50K, with weekly mileage preceding the race of 38, 20, 25, Race. I’m trying a different strategy this time and plan to maintain mileage this week – landing somewhere around 30 for the week with a medium weekend run somewhere around 10 miles.

I ran (and rode) through the recovery coming of Sunday’s 20 miler. Last night I stretched and spent quality time with the foam roller – my legs felt good this morning and I ran into work with my pack on (sub-8 minute pace). My plan is to keep foam rolling and stretching this week – and keep the sleep hours consistent (~8).

I’m still really nervous about the race. When I was feeling bad on Sunday’s run, I thought about bailing, telling myself I wasn’t ready. But after I recovered and got some food I felt a lot better – and felt good after. The scary thing is that when I think of 50 miles, I think of Frank from Donnie Darko. When I raced my first 50 miler my body was so broken afterwards that I couldn’t sleep and Donnie Darko was the movie I watched at 3 in the morning – sitting on the couch in pain.

I was walking out of a meeting with a colleague yesterday and that’s when I made the decision. Completely uneventful really.  I’m ready to bring it.

On my run into work this morning I was pondering this concept of forging, like metal forging, blacksmithing. A hot fire and a 10 pound sledgehammer and a piece of steel on an anvil.  I think a lot of people have a misconception that people are fragile and delicate – but it’s not true, people are malleable and resilient. But the material being forged is difficult to define – its characteristics, how malleable it is, how much effort or force or energy it takes to form it.  The answer is … more effort than you think. More like steel and a sledgehammer than say sculpting with clay or working with wood.

I was reading this article yesterday (so much amazing knowledge here), but this part stood out to me:

Tanaka Shozo, a famous Japanese conservationist, said:

“The question of rivers is not a question of rivers, but of the human heart.” Ultrarunning is to a very large degree a question of the heart. Make yours big and you’ll always be a winner.

Running is a thinking sport – it’s about strategy. Ultras even more so – they can’t be run on pure adrenalin or anger or being “pumped up”. You need the big love. I really like that quote.