just fine now...

I took the weekend off and ran less than usual so far this week. My foot/knee/hamstring issues are all gone. Tapering for Saturday helped me heal.

I'm pretty sure the weather forecast can't get any worse for Saturday's race. Humid, low of 71, high of 94. I was hoping to average an 8:00 pace for the first 26 miles of the 50K. I'll be running by heart rate so all I can predict now about my pace is.... nothing. The weather conditons will trump my fitness level. Therefore, I won't worry about it. I'll just stay hydrated and have fun with friends.

--Mark

dealing with a little injury

I ran a tough hill workout on Tuesday. Not Julie B. tough, but tough for me. Running on Wednesday and Thursday were hard to get going. A touch of pain in my right knee and hamstring and achilles tendon area. Basically all over. It would go away after a mile or so of running. The problem is that later in the runs I would add a few hills and hit it hard. Then all day long I would think that my issue wasn't just a little soreness, there was some damage in there.

So... no hills this morning and I ran a nice 6 miles. About 4 miles into the run we merged into a large, spread-out, group of guys running a 15-miler as part of their U/M wrestling camp program. There was only so long that I could run my normal pace, which generally matched their pace, until I increased my speed. Running fast and flat didn't seem to aggravate anything and after I got back to the club I went back outside to walk a mile with a friend. At this moment I feel good. I'll be skipping running on Sat and Sun and do an easy 6 on Monday.

My weekly mileage (previous 3 weeks) is right around 40. I want to raise it up into the 60's but now I think that after my 50K it will take me to September to get there. Oh well. I think what will happen is that I will make it up to the low 50s and then hold until my taper for the Twin Cities Marathon.

--Mark

next up: 50K

I'll be running the 50K version of Patrick's 100K ultra on Aug. 2nd. I plan to run it, by heart rate, as a practice marathon prior to the Twin Cites marathon 10 weeks from now. I believe my max HR is 182 and my AT is 167/168. I plan to run the first 13 miles at a heart rate of 154, the next 7 at 157, and the next 6 at 160. I'll back off a bit for the final 5 miles. It's a loop course so I'll get lap splits every 5K. It will be interesting to me how my pace is per loop per HR. I'll know on the 2nd but I'm hoping to average an 8:00 pace. The major factors out of my control will be heat and humidity.

--Mark

shoe test

Several weeks ago I had an extensive shoe fitting done. I ended up with a new style of shoe as well as some supportive inserts and a heel lift. In the past I would get some foot pain after a hard/fast run that took a few to many days to go away. My new shoes should take care of that problem. I wore my old shoes at Afton with my heel lift and didn't have any problems there (except for my new black toenail). :-)

Until this morning I had done no speedwork in my new shoes. I warned my running partners last night that we would be running fast this morning. It ended up that we ran the first 3 miles in a fast 21:00. I never run that fast except in a short race. I'm very happy that my feet felt great during and after that run. No pain whatsoever. I think my new shoes will work out perfectly.

--Mark

So close, but so far...

On July 25th I'm going to Duluth for a wedding the following day. The day of the wedding falls on the same day as the Voyageur Trail Ultra 50 Mile Foot Race in Carlton, MN. Since Saturday at the Afton 50K, I've taken a liking to ultras. Hmmmm.

So I'm doing the math... 7am start. 21 miles from Duluth. 11 hours to finish. 12 hours to finish. I gotta finish in under 13. Wife. Kids. Family. Wedding in the afternoon. Reception later. I'm supposed to go the the wedding. I'm supposed to both go to, and be awake at, the reception. Ugh. The math just doesn't work. Bummer.

Maybe next year. :-)

I'm not sure how many weeks away the Twin Cites Marathon is, but I need to start focusing on that race.

--Mark

3 days post-Afton 50K

I'm feeling pretty good. My right hamstring has been sore but feels much better today than yesterday. I took Sunday off, ran 3.4 Monday, and ran 9.3 this morning. It felt good to run today.

I was telling my running partners this morning that the race ended up, for me, being more like a really l-o-n-g training run. In hindsight, I ran with an average heart rate a few beats lower that I planned but that is better than running a few beats too high.

If I was to try to fine tune anything, I would think about increasing my water consumption per hour. 22 oz seemed fine for the first 3+ hours but later I really needed more. Also, I'm not really sure why I didn't want to take in any more of the Hammer Sustained Energy mix after 4 or 4.5 hours. It's neutral in flavor so it's not bad or anything. The orange slices were good later on. Maybe I should have grabbed some gummy bears to suck on for the last 6 or 8 miles. If I'm going to do a 50 miler next fall, I'll need to sort out what to do for a very long run.

Overall, I'm very happy with how I did. I don't see much to improve or change. Just a little fine tuning is all.

Oh yeah.... It wouldn't hurt to get my weekly miles up a bit more. I averaged 42 per week leading up to the Fargo Marathon. I increased up to the low 50s before tapering for Afton. I plan to average in the mid to upper 60s before the TC Marathon. I hope to be up in the 70s weekly training for a 50 mile race. That may be light, but with a family, there is only so much time I can take for me.

--Mark

Afton 50K (cont.)

I posted earlier on my race day hydration/fueling plan and how that worked out. Now a little on the race.

The race organization was great. I arrived very early and walked around for 15 minutes until 5am. I got my race packet and awesome shirt. I just love the shirt. Can I wear it every day? I went back to the parking lot and chatted with a few folks. Some were old-timers at ultras, others were first-timers like me. Everyone was nice. I was nervous for the day but ready too.

I organized my drop bag with two bottles of a Hammer Sustained Energy mixture and a water bottle filled with ice and water. A nice woman showed me where to stow the bag. By race time I already went pee about 3 or 4 times. My running partner Jim showed up early and picked up his packet for the 25K. We talked about the race and other things and it was time for me to get to the starting line. I tried to place myself somewhere between 30% and 50% back from the start. That was likely where I would finish. Julie B. was right behind me and I said Hi. RD John said his pre-race stuff and off we went.

I felt OK but not really good as the race got going. My plan was to keep my heart rate just under 150 most of the time. My anerobic threshold is approx. 167 so I figured 150 would keep me aerobic and able to process the fuel I carried as well as helping prevent me from crashing and burning as I had done in the Fargo marathon.
Here is my heart rate chart for the race.

There were times I let my heart rate go a few beats over 150 but that was mostly going up hills. I had to walk all the hills to keep my heart rate down. My average heart rate for the first and second loops was 145 and 147, respectively. The overall average was 146 and watch recorded that I burned 4636 calories. Yikes. Did I run the race a bit conservatively? Maybe, but as a first timer at a 50K, I wanted to be as successful as I could be.

When I hit Aid station 3 I needed to fill my water bottle. I'm new at this but I took the top off before I got to the station. A nice woman there asked me if I wanted water and she filled my bottle in about 5 seconds. Awesome. I screwed the cover on and off I went. I couldn't believe how fast and helpful the aid station volunteers were. Just great!

By mile 8 or 9 I was feeling good. I was doing well and hydrating and fueling. Also I was taking an S-Cap every hour. I got to run with several people during the race. It was nice to talk to the guys on the course. There were other times I would look back behind me and in front of me while up in 'Africa' and not see a soul. I would wonder.... am I last?

Eventually, I passed what I thought was 26 or 27 miles. Now I have gone longer than ever before. My plan of racing by heart rate was paying off. My pace would suffer, though. I did the first loop in 2:34 and would do the second in 3:16. I think for this race it was better for me to hold my heart rate constant that to try to pick up the pace and have even splits. I wanted to finish without needing to walk. I mean, I wanted to finish by walking up hills and running everywhere else. I met that goal. Also, although I was trying not to set a hard time goal, I wanted to finish in under 6:00 and possibly in 5:30. I was so happy to cross the finish line at 5:50:33.

Now it is one day later and I can say that I'm looking forward to ultra races in the future.

edit: Now that the race results have been posted, I finished 54/129 overall and 12/29 in the male - 40's category.

--Mark

Afton 50K fueling/hydration experiment results

I ran my first 50K on Saturday. I'm new at longer distances and am trying to correct as many of my mistakes as possible from my earlier race. I say race because my only long distance race before Afton was the Fargo Marathon in May. My issues from Fargo that I wanted to focus on were: GI problems, dehydration, muscle cramps. I know that some, if not all, of these problems are inter-related.

I read much of the available info from Hammer Nutrition. As a guideline, I decided that 22 oz of water per hour was a good place to start. I didn't drink anywhere near that much at Fargo and I have also read it is not good to drink too much. I bought a hand-held water bottle and have practiced with it three times at Afton and other long runs since May. My plan for the race was to down one hand-held per hour.

Fueling. I determined that any breakfast before a race, especially when I have GU or Hammer Gels while running a race or training run, can upset my stomach. I'm not a fan of finding a porta-potti on short notice so I'm skipping breakfast on race-day and not using any kind of GU or gel during the race. I settled on Sustained Energy (SE) from Hammer. I have a belt that hold two 10 oz bottles. I also have an extra two bottles. I planned to take about 220 calories per hour of SE. Assuming about a 3 hours 25K loop time at Afton, I mixed 3 scoops of SE per bottle. The calories per hour would work out just right if I finished both bottles by the end of a lap. I had anther two bottles (on ice) in my drop bag to swap-out when I finished lap one.

For electrolytes my plan was to take one S-Cap every hour on the dot. I kept to that plan throughout the race. I don't know if this means anything or not but I did not ever see any salt accumulating on my skin or shirt. I think the one S-Cap per hour was just about right.

I felt just OK at the start of the race. About 4 miles in, I had a little pain in my foot. At that point I was wondering about a DNF. I wasn't wearing my new running shoes but wore my old ones with my heel lift in the right shoe. I was questioning that choice of shoes for the day and then told myself the pain was just temporary and things clicked back into place and I was pain free again. I was up in the sun of the Africa loop now. Still I only felt just OK. About mile 8 or 9 I started to feel good. I kept to my plan of 22 oz of water per hour and finishing one of the SE bottle about every 1.5 hours.

At around the 4 hour point in the race I was nearly finished with my 3rd SE bottle. I was becoming more dehydrated and a little hungry and I was dreading one more taste of SE. I was just fine with the SE up to that point. Somewhere around this time I was at my final pass by Aid station 4. I had refilled my bottle a little while earlier from the other side (Aid station 3) and drained it. My thirst had been increasing so I let myself consume more water. My stop at aid station 4 was my first time I had stopped for food. I had 3 orange slices and a big piece of watermelon. Yummy. My stomach wanted to switch over from SE to fruit. I let it.

Now I just needed to make it to the finish. I'm still feeling good. I took a bit more SE up the meatgrinder hill but it didn't taste good. But does SE ever taste good? :-) I stopped at Aid station 5 and filled my water again and ate three more orange slices. I was fishing for encouragement so I told Jeffrey that every step I take is a new PR. He told me I was doing very well and will have a good finishing time. I don't remember what my time was then but I was on track to finish under 6 hours.

I said I felt good since mile 8 or 9. I felt good up to mile 29. Then I got some minor cramping in my quads. I changed my pace a tiny bit and fought with my mind again to make the pain go away. It did just as my foot pain had disappeared 25 miles earlier. I was lucky to just have that minor cramping for only one or two minutes. I steadily worked my way through the last two miles. As I approached the finish, a few runners were passing me and more were stacking up behind me. I let my heart rate go up beyond that soft-limit of 150 I held for the nearly 6 hours and ran as fast as I could towards the finish. I am very pleased with my 5:50 finish.

No major GI, Cramping, or Dehydration problems. This experiment was a success.

A few hours after the race I went to my health club to use a foam roller on my hamstrings and shower. The foam roller was not the best idea at the time. Using it put me on the edge of hamstring cramps. When I tried to get up off the floor from my mat, both hamstrings would cramp and I had to sit down. After a minute or so I tried again, cramped up, and sat down. I just sat there for a few minuted wondering if I was doomed to sit there all day. Maybe I would have to crawl my way to the locker room. :-) I had an idea. I rocked myself up onto my feet in a squatting position and then stood up. Hurray! No cramps.

I can't wait for my next 50K.

--Mark

Saturday...

I hope to meet a few runners on Saturday at the Afton Trail Run(s). There will be at least a couple of dozen runners there that I know about because I read their blogs or I read about them in other people's blogs. There is a pretty good chance that I won't recognize anyone that I haven't already met. Thinking about it, I think after the run will be the time to socialize. I'll be too nervous/excited before the race.

I went on a 45 minute walk with my wife this morning. Tomorrow I'll run just 2 miles with a fellow Afton runner. I'm thinking about goal times for the 50K but if I can just get through it without cramping up it will be awesome.

--Mark