Training Log Archive: Funderstormin

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Usually don't log ARK but I was racing the kids a lot last night. Loved Patrick's course and the new location and the kids loved all the puddles and mud to jump around in.

RPM then a foam rolling / stretching / exchanging of recovery stories with Mrs. Tiny.

Mrs. Tiny and I headed to Michigan this weekend for the Trail Marathon (not a very original name for an event!). Stephania and I had been down for this a few years ago, and I had only happy memories of the course - 95% singletrack with enough climbing to keep things interesting. Even though PYP would have been closer, I did that event last year and did not enjoy it at all. We made the extra drive all the more worthwhile by heading down early to hit up a REI, Whole Foods and a craft beer store (of course!) plus an amazing seafood dinner in Ann Arbor.

Mrs. Tiny was doing the 50K as a training event for Cayuga, and I was using it as a training event for the Born to Run 50K in three weeks. Mainly, I just wanted to know that I'd hold up for a longer distance than 25K. I set what I thought was a reasonable goal of 5:30 and to try to keep my splits as even as possible. This was probably close to the best I've felt in a race mentally and physiologically. I felt like I was running very focused and consistently, eating and drinking as I was supposed to. In the past I've had a bad habit of only putting water in my pack bladder and not supplementing with electrolytes enough. Last weekend in the Grand Canyon, I used a small bottle up front with electrolytes in it and that worked well, so I alternated between Perpetuem and Nuun in a small front bottle (one of each per loop) with water in my bladder.

Finished the first lap in 2:38 and spent 90 seconds or so swapping out food and drink before the second lap. I enjoyed most of this lap much more than the first as the field had spread out and the trail was less congested. I actually found I ran more hills on this lap because I wasn't in a pack and taking cues from the other runners. Felt really good energy and leg-wise until about the last three miles. While my Achilles has been fine with any activity I've been doing lately, in a cruel twist of fate, I've been having PF pain on the bottom of my OTHER foot. It wasn't painful during the race, but it was distracting / annoying most of the time. Towards the end of the race I found I was running very carefully downhill to protect it. After a bit of icing last night, it feels fine this morning but I know it's something I need to be addressing.

While I felt that I dilly-dallied a bit during the last few miles, in the final one I looked behind me and saw a woman I'd passed midway through the second loop closing the gap between us and while my initial reaction was just to let her pass I decided to try to fend her off to the finish. Was glad that I did as it turned out that she was in the same race and my age category and I squeaked ahead of her for the age group win (by some miraculous twist of fate) by about 15 seconds! One benefit to a small race where most of the fast folks were in the 50K.

I knew that Mrs. Tiny would be coming in soon after in the 50K so I waited to change until I saw her come in. Hung around the race finish for a bit then started the trek home with a stop en route at Chili's for a post-race feast.

Super fun weekend and definitely worth the drive down there to run on such lovely trails!

C • Nice 7

Brought back a cold from the GC so that + a lot to catch up on has resulted in a crappy training week! I never do well with time changes and even though I felt I never adjusted to the 3-hour difference when I was over there, I didn't seem to adjust well to coming back either and my sleeping has been wonky all week. Finally seemed to get it right last night!

On the drive up from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon had seen a bunch of cool looking trailheads in the Cococino National Forest. Had all day Monday to wind my way back to Phoenix so decided to make a couple of run/hike stops en route. Other than some stiffness in my calves and glutes in the morning, legs felt surprisingly spry given what I'd sprung on them the day before.

First stop was Red Mountain trail - a 3 mile out and back where I was the only car in the parking lot and enjoyed running on the red dirt trail. Gentle uphill on the way out made for a lovely run back.

Had lunch in Flagstaff at the Lumberyard Brewing Company which had come recommended to me, then headed to Sedona where I'd been told to check out Cathedral Rock. In hindsight, I was pretty sure I'd been there when Andrew and I went to AZ a few years back, but it was wonderful to hike up to the saddle in the 90 degree heat! Would have liked to have done the trails around Cathedral rock but was starting to be pressed for time.

So all in all, a wonderful long weekend adventure with great people and amazing trails!

C • Great weekend adventure! 7

C • amazing weekend 3

Early to bed on Saturday night for a 3:00 a.m. wake-up call to be on the trail by 4:00 so as to miss the mule train down to Phantom Ranch. The whole group started together at the South Kaibab trailhead and ran down to Phantom Ranch. Pretty surreal experience being on the trail at the hour and watching the sun come up. Was cool when we started but layers were shed quickly.

With a few pauses to ooh and ahh along the way, got to Phantom Ranch about 7:00 and refilled water. Everyone ran up North Kaibab aways together, with the plan to break off into groups when people wanted to turn back. Somewhere in the box canyon, myself and a 62 year old fellow named Greg turned around to head back. Another group was going up to Ribbon Falls, but that would have put this distance around 50K which I thought was a bit ambitious a week before a race. As it turned out, Greg and I were perfectly paired. We ran back down to Phantom Ranch, waited for the store to open for lemonade, then headed across the bridge and along the river trail beside the Colorado towards Bright Angel.

Temperature was getting pretty hot by mid-morning and the halfway point up Bright Angel at Indian Gardens was a welcome spot to rest. Grabbed a picnic table in the shade and sat for a half hour or so, fending off the aggressive squirrels. Up until that point, we'd been running as much as we could but the trail got steeper after Indian Gardens and it was hotter and we were much more tired, so we hiked the rest of the way up, taking breaks out of the sun every little while. Hit the top of the Bright Angel trailhead around 1:00 and found the nearest bar for a couple of beers, then back to the campground for a few more and a shower.

Distance was between 22-23 miles which was perfect in terms of feeling like I'd pushed myself but not done anything stupid. Legs were pretty pooped from the climbing by the time we were done but the trouble zones were all feeling good.

8 or so completed the R2R2R in about 17:00, arriving back to the campsite around 9:00 p.m. or so. There were some tales of some pretty epic bonks and 30 minute miles being shared around the breakfast table the next day.

Deducted time for stops (we were out 9 hours total) and tried to estimate run/walk split but who knows. Was a great, great day!

C • memories 3

Had the opportunity to join a group of Mas Locos at the Grand Canyon for a weekend so off I went. Originally the plan was to do a Rim to Rim to Rim...until I found out what that entailed and realized I wasn't quite up for it yet and didn't want to do anything dumb with a few races and adventures planned in the next month.

Flew into Phoenix Friday, rented a car and drove up to meet the others for dinner. I was the only one who had flown in but most had driven a long way from the Santa Barbara area. We had a few campsites all together in the Mather campground. Yummy dinner in Tusayan and then a campfire and beers (this group really likes to drink...maybe that's why we get along so well!).

Saturday morning after breakfast we all headed out for a group hike along the Grandview trail. My first glimpse of the canyon and was as awestruck as expected. We hiked down for a few miles, took a break to enjoy the view, then hiked back up. I'm not great at elevation (south rim is 7000 ft, which is enough to affect me) and the steeper stuff definitely had me huffing a bit, but it was great to have this as a warm-up for the next day's Rim to River.

It wouldn't be a Luis Escobar organized event without a beer mile...

When we got back from the hike, there was considerable interest in a beer mile. We bent the rules and allowed a few hesitant folks to put in a relay team. Measured out the distance on the campground road and fortunately it was a quiet afternoon and no rangers interrupted us. I have no idea what my actual time was since no one timed it, so I'm probably being optimistic in saying about 10 minutes. I didn't want to buy more beer than I'd already had so used the Maui Brewing Company's Where's my Ukelele that I'd bought for campfire sitting. A 5.5% pineapple flavoured wheat beer was not the greatest choice but also not the worst and it was the least close I felt I'd come to throwing up. I feel like I'm getting better at these and it was good training for the Born to Run beer mile in a few weeks.

The two guys who suggested this in the first place finished second to last and last, both without their pants on having run the last two laps in their underwear for some reason.

C • Pineapple flavoured wheat beer.. 2

C • Have fun! 5

New instructor with some great new poses.

Event: Hard Rock Enduro
 

On Tiny's recommendation, Mrs. Tiny and I decided to do a long run on the Bruce in the Waterdown / Clappison's Corners area. Neither one of us were feeling particularly motivated, so we were good company for each other in that regard. I'm not sure if it was standing all day at the festival yesterday or what else, but my legs felt very tired (okay, it might have also been all the beer I drank on the job) today. Still, it was so gorgeous out and the trails were in great shape - only a few patches of mud here and there. Ran the Bruce main trail out for 90 minutes or so and then added some side trails on the way back. We both agreed that even though we might not have been at our finest, we were super glad to have gotten out and gotten it done.

Early road ride before heading to Simcoe to pull beer all day at the Norfolk food and drink show. Was a bit tough to be stuck inside on such a beauty day, but at least I was doing something else that I love!

SHRED class at lunchtime.

Short run to test out a new pair of kicks.

C • What did you get? 1

First outdoor ride of the season - what a day for it! Mix of paved and unpaved roads in my 'hood. Only niggle from yesterday is the bottom of my left foot - had some work done on it last week as the osteopath but think I'm going to have to pay closer attention to it.

Event: Laura Secord Memorial 100k
 

On Friday Stephania suggested that we run the race together and knowing that it would be mucky and cold, I thought what the heck. From a race perspective, may not have been a good decision but from a let's have fun in the mud perspective, it was. Having been up on the course the week before, I was mentally prepared for how muddy it might be, so I could be the only one who says that the course was better than I expected it to be. The sections that I knew would be muddy certainly were, but I thought there was lots of really nice sections as well, and it was certainly the first time I've seen that much not snow covered trail in a long time!

Let Steph choose the pace and she was consistent throughout. Legs and stomach both felt good. I was hoping that after this event I'd feel confident about adding distance for the longer stuff I've got planned in the next 4-6 weeks and I definitely do. The injury formerly known as Daniel did not say boo before, during or after.

Post-race, we had a nice lunch, took the shuttle back to the car and then drove out to Mountainview where we only had to wait a minute before seeing Rob the superstar hitting the 62.6km (well 71km for him...but I'll let him tell that story!) mark and heading back to the camp. He was in great spirits for someone who had already been running for over 9 hours! After that, we hit the Salomon store near Steph's parents' place where I walked out with a pile of ridiculous deals. The day only got better as from there we cleaned up then went to the Real Canadian Craft Beer Festival (Steph's idea...I swear!) at the convention centre where I found a handful of beers that even I hadn't tried before.

Aside from waiting for a shuttle at the parking lot until 8:45, I thought that the event was very well run, and trail conditions weren't nearly as bad as some early season races I've done like Seaton. I'd do this again for sure!

C • congrats 8

Post-work run on Puslinch trails. Knew conditions would be mixed but hadn't been on the trails there in a while and it was so lovely out. A bit of everything out on the trails, sheer ice, deep snow, and the occasional 10m stretch of dry trail!