So, I've been running my longer runs off-road on the weekends as well as doing some mountain biking which has reminded me how much I love off-road stuff. I love the smell of the fallen leaves, the quiet of the woods, even in the city, the songs of the birds, the rustle of the squirrels, chipmonks, etc. I love the solitude of trail running. I was running on Saturday morning, along Buttermilk and Belle Island, and I was completely alone, and it was great! I did not see a single person for the majority of that loop. The weather was a little crisp and the river was a little high, so it was roaring along in the background, but I didn't hear a human voice or even cars or planes. As I huffed and puffed up and down hills, all I could hear were my footsteps and breathing. I think that is a pretty darn cool thing about Richmond, I was running in the City, but in the woods and by myself!
I'll be running the Bear Creek 10 miler this coming weekend, which has continued to kick my butt for several years, and I am not getting any faster, but I love the race because it is in the woods. Last year it snowed the night before, so the run was through the quiet snow and that was great! I hope to continue to trail run and mountain bike through early next year, and I encourage everyone to get some trail time!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
11/17/2009-Off Season!
OK, the off season training has to begin, and sort of has begun with some indoor cycling and circuit training at a new shop along with guppies swimming which comes with a track workout. Sounds doable, right? The spin/cycle is good, different than what I am used to but good nevertheless. The circuit training is kicking my fatass, which is also good...but hard. It is amazing how much body weight excersies can hurt. Doing them over a minute at a time, with multiple minutes can cause some suffering, in a good way. My training plan is to do the weekday schedule and then try to get off road on the weekends for some variety. I do like trail running and mountain biking!
My race plans for the next year are not quite finalized, I am currently freaking out about the Turkey Trot 10K next week, since I basically stopped running after IMUSA. Trotting may be all I can do, but I'll still be out there! I also have the Bear Creek 10 mile in early December so I am trying to concentrate on trail running when I run.
Since I am either off season or pre-season training, I needed to think of my mantra for the coming year. I've had the "Any done run is a good run" mantra for 2008, and had none for 2009, so I thought that 2010 needs something to get me through. Since I have foolishly signed up for another mountainous IM event, and since I am in my 50s (WTF????), I've decided that I need to stop shying away from the suffering that IM training brings and my new mantra for the 2009-2010 season is "Embrace the suffering".
We'll see how long it lasts!
My race plans for the next year are not quite finalized, I am currently freaking out about the Turkey Trot 10K next week, since I basically stopped running after IMUSA. Trotting may be all I can do, but I'll still be out there! I also have the Bear Creek 10 mile in early December so I am trying to concentrate on trail running when I run.
Since I am either off season or pre-season training, I needed to think of my mantra for the coming year. I've had the "Any done run is a good run" mantra for 2008, and had none for 2009, so I thought that 2010 needs something to get me through. Since I have foolishly signed up for another mountainous IM event, and since I am in my 50s (WTF????), I've decided that I need to stop shying away from the suffering that IM training brings and my new mantra for the 2009-2010 season is "Embrace the suffering".
We'll see how long it lasts!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
11/10/2009-Post IMFL Sherpa Report
Many people have asked me why do IM events, when they have resulted in interesting physical issues (shingles and bruised bladder-so far) and are hard as shit and pretty much take up your life. The answer for me, was standing at the finish line for a time between 11 pm and midnight, watching and cheering my lungs out for the finishing athletes at the back of the pack.
I have been to 4 previous IM events, participating in 2 of the 4, but I had not been at the finish for the last hour. It was amazing, moving and motivating. I stood along one side of the finish chute, pounding on the placards that line it, keeping time with hundreds of other people, singing, shouting encouragement and mentally willing each athlete across that line. It was crazy and beautiful. Earlier finishers lined up with the families of those still out on the course and volunteers and others that were simply spectators and cheered and screamed and pounded along with the music as the athletes turned the corner and ran, walked, staggered, danced, hopped, skipped and jumped through the final few yards to complete their 140.6 mile journey.
There were the happy finishers, taking the time to hand slap on their way to the finish. There were the serious ones, whose determination clearly carried them across. There was the very tall and thin man who, with a slightly vacant look, somehow walked across, swaying from side to side, with a medical person beside him. One fellow stopped to mime out Y-M-C-A in time with the song on his way across. Family members cried as their athlete crossed, tears of joy and relief. I got choked up a few times, watching it all unfold, as the clock ticked closer to midnight.
I hear that the last person had some 16 seconds to spare. I wasn't there, but I am sure her last few yards were the most memorable.
Congradulations to everyone who completed that journey in Florida on Saturday, especially to Molly, Mary, Tim and Sarah, the Ricks and the Todd, Jill, Jackie and Trish. You are all an IronMan!
I have been to 4 previous IM events, participating in 2 of the 4, but I had not been at the finish for the last hour. It was amazing, moving and motivating. I stood along one side of the finish chute, pounding on the placards that line it, keeping time with hundreds of other people, singing, shouting encouragement and mentally willing each athlete across that line. It was crazy and beautiful. Earlier finishers lined up with the families of those still out on the course and volunteers and others that were simply spectators and cheered and screamed and pounded along with the music as the athletes turned the corner and ran, walked, staggered, danced, hopped, skipped and jumped through the final few yards to complete their 140.6 mile journey.
There were the happy finishers, taking the time to hand slap on their way to the finish. There were the serious ones, whose determination clearly carried them across. There was the very tall and thin man who, with a slightly vacant look, somehow walked across, swaying from side to side, with a medical person beside him. One fellow stopped to mime out Y-M-C-A in time with the song on his way across. Family members cried as their athlete crossed, tears of joy and relief. I got choked up a few times, watching it all unfold, as the clock ticked closer to midnight.
I hear that the last person had some 16 seconds to spare. I wasn't there, but I am sure her last few yards were the most memorable.
Congradulations to everyone who completed that journey in Florida on Saturday, especially to Molly, Mary, Tim and Sarah, the Ricks and the Todd, Jill, Jackie and Trish. You are all an IronMan!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
10/6/2009
Recipe for suffering: lay off running for a couple of months, get sick the week before, be too stupid to bring nutrition, and then try to complete a 10 mile run on a fairly humid morning. Suffering will follow. I stupidly did the above this past weekend, somehow thinking that 10 miles is not much, given my IM finishes. Well, I think that freakin race was harder than either IM, mostly because I am an idiot as indicated above. Not only did I kind of blow off really thinking about the race, I had not run more than 10 miles since Labor Day weekend, in fact, I rarely ran at all since IM USA. Whew, the suffering began pretty early and I staggered through it, finishing not quite last, but pretty darn close. Not a PR, unless one counts really slow times as PRs. It is now Tuesday, and my quads are still sore...I could barely walk on Sunday...this from covering only 10 miles. And, to top the morning off, I did not bring any nutrition on the run, how many times will I bonk before I get it? Evidently, a lot of times. I guess I am that stupid person that we all see and wonder why they don't get it. I cannot tell you why. I just do not think correctly about running. I get the bike nutrition, but somehow remain stupid for running. Something to work on.
Guess I am now officially out of shape, so maybe I'll consider beginning training again!
Guess I am now officially out of shape, so maybe I'll consider beginning training again!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
VentureQuest Race Report
OK, the super short summary: we finished, we are all pretty much unscathed and we got first place in our category. We were the only team in our category, but hey, we did finish the long course so it was a hard-earned first place.
I don't eat enough, which is weird given that I could lose about 10-15 pounds, but evidently I chose to eat too little at the wrong times, like before a long day of running, biking and paddling. But, more on that in a bit.
The race was in Fountainhead Regional Park in Fairfax County. Nice park on the Occoquan Reservior (which, by the way does not allow swimming at all, and which one should not drink--even though it is a water supply--go figure).
The team was 2 Filly's (ProK and MyK) and a Nag (me). It was purported to be 28-35 miles of trekking, mountain biking and canoeing with some special test(s). It ended up being a shit ton of mountain biking (took us around 4 1/2 hours for around 18 miles of biking--don't smirk, mountain biking is much harder than road riding--, about 8-9 miles of trekking (running and bushwhacking) and probably 4-5 miles of canoeing. We did well on the trekking and canoeing parts. The part I usually like about adventure races is figuring out how to get to the check points, but this was not that kind of adventure race. At one point early on, we were in dead last place, but we did not end up there! Yeah!
The biking was following arrows, around and around and around for ever, which is a bike race, not an adventure race. ProK's tire got a flat about 1 mile from the end of the first bike segment, so she runs it in about as fast as we were riding. I bonked big time on the bike, huge bonk, bad bonk, whiney pants bonk. So, of course there was some fighting between MyK and I...enough said, we still like each other which is good. The first bike segment took 3 hours, I ran out of water and energy and was ready to throw my bike down one of the many ravines. But, I didn't and somehow we got to the end of that segment.
Then, we had to run to the next checkpoint by 1:30 pm or we would be dropped from the long course to the short course. We had 14 minutes. Thank god it was mostly downhill and ProK was pushing me (yes this was trekking) and we got to the checkpoint with 1 minute 30 seconds to spare. Did I mention this was supposed to be a fun race? After that, we were on target for the next several points which we reached via canoe and trekking. Then it was back to the bike, to finish. We fixed ProKs flat, but didn't put enough air in the tire, and it went flat about 1/2 back...so she runs the damn bike for another 2+ miles. We didn't have another spare tube. Never seen anything like it. We finally finished (9 hours+), tired and sore, and got our first place prizes--pint glasses!
Our reward was stopping at 5 Guys for bugers and fries. I am still sore. I don't think I'll do that race again, unless I do a whole lot more mountain biking ahead of time.
I don't eat enough, which is weird given that I could lose about 10-15 pounds, but evidently I chose to eat too little at the wrong times, like before a long day of running, biking and paddling. But, more on that in a bit.
The race was in Fountainhead Regional Park in Fairfax County. Nice park on the Occoquan Reservior (which, by the way does not allow swimming at all, and which one should not drink--even though it is a water supply--go figure).
The team was 2 Filly's (ProK and MyK) and a Nag (me). It was purported to be 28-35 miles of trekking, mountain biking and canoeing with some special test(s). It ended up being a shit ton of mountain biking (took us around 4 1/2 hours for around 18 miles of biking--don't smirk, mountain biking is much harder than road riding--, about 8-9 miles of trekking (running and bushwhacking) and probably 4-5 miles of canoeing. We did well on the trekking and canoeing parts. The part I usually like about adventure races is figuring out how to get to the check points, but this was not that kind of adventure race. At one point early on, we were in dead last place, but we did not end up there! Yeah!
The biking was following arrows, around and around and around for ever, which is a bike race, not an adventure race. ProK's tire got a flat about 1 mile from the end of the first bike segment, so she runs it in about as fast as we were riding. I bonked big time on the bike, huge bonk, bad bonk, whiney pants bonk. So, of course there was some fighting between MyK and I...enough said, we still like each other which is good. The first bike segment took 3 hours, I ran out of water and energy and was ready to throw my bike down one of the many ravines. But, I didn't and somehow we got to the end of that segment.
Then, we had to run to the next checkpoint by 1:30 pm or we would be dropped from the long course to the short course. We had 14 minutes. Thank god it was mostly downhill and ProK was pushing me (yes this was trekking) and we got to the checkpoint with 1 minute 30 seconds to spare. Did I mention this was supposed to be a fun race? After that, we were on target for the next several points which we reached via canoe and trekking. Then it was back to the bike, to finish. We fixed ProKs flat, but didn't put enough air in the tire, and it went flat about 1/2 back...so she runs the damn bike for another 2+ miles. We didn't have another spare tube. Never seen anything like it. We finally finished (9 hours+), tired and sore, and got our first place prizes--pint glasses!
Our reward was stopping at 5 Guys for bugers and fries. I am still sore. I don't think I'll do that race again, unless I do a whole lot more mountain biking ahead of time.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
9/15/2009
OK, not much to say about training, since I've taken the low road and told ProK that I am sooo burnt out on training that I need to do the absolute minimum to get to and through Longhorn 70.3. So, I am not doing much and it is soo nice! Spent a week in Duck with MyKaren and her sister and financee and her dad. The potential for funny stories with her dad was very high, but he more or less behaved so nothing on that front. It rained every day, with high winds and the beaches were closed for swimming due to the really, really angry sea, but it was relaxing and I got to read a lot. Good times.
This weekend is the VentureQuest adventure race in NoVa that I foolishly signed up for...with MyKaren and ProK as teammates. While they have both assured me that this will be a "fun" race, somehow I am worried. Obviously, they are both so much faster than I, I think I'll wear a shirt that says "anchor" since that is what I'm going to feel like. Silly me, I just had to sign us up and then recruit ProK. WTF? Yes, it was my idea. Yes, I am somewhat stupid.
The race is 28-35 miles long and includes mountain biking, trail running, and canoeing, which doesn't sound bad compared to 70.3 or 140.6...but off road is a whole different animal, and as I said earlier, I've been dragging on the training front. If I survive, I hope to have a race report on Monday.
This weekend is the VentureQuest adventure race in NoVa that I foolishly signed up for...with MyKaren and ProK as teammates. While they have both assured me that this will be a "fun" race, somehow I am worried. Obviously, they are both so much faster than I, I think I'll wear a shirt that says "anchor" since that is what I'm going to feel like. Silly me, I just had to sign us up and then recruit ProK. WTF? Yes, it was my idea. Yes, I am somewhat stupid.
The race is 28-35 miles long and includes mountain biking, trail running, and canoeing, which doesn't sound bad compared to 70.3 or 140.6...but off road is a whole different animal, and as I said earlier, I've been dragging on the training front. If I survive, I hope to have a race report on Monday.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
O Canada! IM Canada 2010!
Ok, crazy train stopped last night, and I got back on the darn thing. I'm signed up for IM Canada in 2010, some 363 days off. WTF? It all happens so fast! SO, more torture to come. Yeah! Sad thing is that now that I know what I am doing next year, I am much happier. What has happened to me?
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