Training Log Archive: Funderstormin

Morning run on Puslinch trails before heading to Brantford to pour beer all day for Grand River Brewing at the Grand Delicious Festival.

My boss' daughter organized a fun run to raise money for a mission trip to Nicaragua, so I ran it with our summer student. Nice little course on gravel paths at Columbia Lake.

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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