All posts by TREX

While ginger is a great thing for both runners and #notarunner s alike and has many benefits I’m actually referring to another ginger right now.

I’m not sure why she didn’t come up in my feed before but I came across Wild Ginger Films youtube channel while doing a search for packing for an ultra marathon.

I think she has a great perspective on running and especially ultra-running and her channel has a number of good videos, videos that I’ve found directly relevant to my training and planning for running.

Because she currently has a lower number of subs than many bigger channels this I think keeps her from showing up in suggested/recommended lists and that’s a shame.

I highly recommend you check her channel out and if there’s something there that you find useful then go ahead and sub to the channel.

“To the pain…” is such a great quote don’t you think?  From a movie filled with great quotes.  “To the pain and beyond” is how I deal with running.  I was having a talk today with someone who runs 3 to 5 miles and she says after mile 1 and until that last mile running is fun for her.   I had to acknowledge it’s not quite that way for me.

The first half mile for me is running through the minor aches and pains of getting things moving again, ankles, shins, knees, abductors, glutes, back or whatever.  At any given time there is something or somethings bitching for attention and complaining about being forced to move at all, much less move at a pace faster than a slow walk.

It’s a whole lot of boring painful foreplay for each singular, brief happy ending.

And after I beat those into a dull murmur then I have the effort of moving my large forward on a continuous basis.   At no time have I had an experience that was ‘effortless’ where I ‘felt like I could run forever’.   The runners high is a lie to quote Portal.

Yet I continue to do this an average of 4.2 days a week over the last 2.5 years.  Why do I do it?  Because of the sense of satisfaction I get out of doing something I didn’t think I could do and that the vast majority of people will never, ever try to do.  It’s a whole lot of boring painful foreplay for each single, brief happy ending.

And in reading race reports and books and blog posts and talking with runners that seems to be why most do it.  To take everything they have and haul it up to that giant wall of pain and then punch through it.  The pain doesn’t get any less, it doesn’t go away, once you break down that wall and you may get hit by falling bricks and you claw your way through the hole but for most of us just getting through that wall, even though we know another wall is coming up, is enough.

The end justifies the pain so to speak.

Ever since I met Rabbit and learned of her accomplishments… well she made me question just how far I should go on this crazy journey I’m on.

Hand to heart when I started I had no intentions of doing any races. None, zero, zip.   That was two years and 3 months ago (June 2016).

“You could do that.  You can’t do that.  You can do that.  You can’t do that.  You won’t know unless you try.”

18 months I had no intention of ever doing more than maybe a half marathon.  I even designed and 3D printed a PR display that only went up to half marathon.

And then I met Rabbit who, as I’ve mentioned before, the first question she asked after we met for the first time in person was did I run or something like after she saw me wearing a pair of Altra Lone Peak 2.5’s as my daily shoes.

Since then we’ve shared stories of runs, opinions of running, gear and training.  In spite of our 1500 miles of distance apart we’ve even run together albeit in a virtual race.

Somewhere in there after I made her acquaintance, I find myself signed up, cash paid and travel plans made for not only a 50K in 10 weeks (OMG) but a 50Mile in 5 months (OMFG).

For those of you for whom these are mere training run distances now, do think back and remember a time when you weren’t quite as awesome as you are now and what you went through to get to where you are now.

And now I’m reading race reports of 100 mile races.  I’m skimming and moving on from the race reports by runners who talk about their PR’s and 8 minute paces for 100 miles and their place on the podium.

I’m not ‘casting shade’ on these runners, their abilities are awesome, no doubt about it.  But there’s absolutely nothing relatable to their reports for me.   I can barely hold a sub 9 minute pace for a 5K and it had better be cold and non-hilly that day.

No the race reports that resonate with me are the ones by the folks who worry about making the cut offs.  The ones who push through enormous, soul shattering amounts of pain both mentally and physically to cross that finish line before the last seconds tick off.   I read how they trip and fall, wrenching body and mind, their battles with darkness, hallucinations, nutrition, hydration and boredom.  Their tales of everything that goes wrong, travel plans, forgetting to pick up their head lamps, trying new foods and really regretting it, but most of all the walls they have to break through to keep putting one foot in front of another make me try to figure out how, when, if this might be me one day.

And my association with Rabbit and her endeavors in this ridiculous sport we participate in and there’s an ear worm in my head that plays over and over, “You could do that.  You can’t do that.  You can do that.  You can’t do that.  You won’t know unless you try.” make me believe it might be possible one day.

Note I have my own walls to worry about in this regard, age, weight, training time and let’s face it sheer physical resources.  But you know what?  I’m pretty sure that if such a time comes that I let this flight of fancy take root and become a reality some day that Bunny and Rabbit will be encouraging me the whole way and I’m pretty sure one or both of them will be there force feeding me liquids and calories, making sure I don’t leave an aid station without everything I need to keep pushing forward.

Altra Trail 2.0 Shorts

In my seemingly till now never ending quest to find a pair of shorts to go really long in I’ve come across the Altra Trail 2.o Shorts.

I ordered them in the Extra Large (of course) size just on the off chance they would fit.  The official sizing is for a 37 to 41″ waist.   I’m happy to report they fit at the waist just fine for me at 6′-4″ and 240lbs.  YMMV of course.

#GingerRunner likes them and they made his top 5 shorts lists for 2018 and I’ve found over the last couple of years that we tend to have the same opinion on various pieces of gear that we have used in common.

Overall the fit is good, loose but not baggy. Which was a relief.  Although I did buy them from Running Warehouse which has a good return policy.   The waistband is slightly elasticized and there is a drawstring that ties on the outside in the front.  That means no knots, bows or strings inside your shorts to cause a potential chafe point.

The material is soft and on the light-medium weight side.

There are two slanted mesh pockets on the sides that are rectangular and about the size of an iphone 5-6.   They are stretchy so you could stuff a fair number of gels in them.   In the front left is a shallow horizontal pocket that’s big enough for a credit card, a key or two or something of that ilk.  But this pocket has no closer on it, no zip, velcro or overlapping flap.   Use it at your own peril.

In the back is a open sleeve that could be used to hold a light jacket or a pair of gloves or arms sleeves or something like that.  Under the sleeve is a zip pocket that holds a Pixel 2XL quite easily.

One minor thing I found is because the waistband is soft and only a little elastic after 5k my phone had pulled the shorts down a bit after the material had gotten soaked through with sweat.   This could be fixed by tying the drawstring tighter.  BUT… because it’s your typical string based drawstring this might cause a potential chafe line for you if you really load down the shorts with loot.

These trail shorts have a built in boxer liner which I like and the ends are hemmed just right for my quads to be tight enough but not too tight so that the liner doesn’t ride up.   Pretty important for someone like me.

I ran them for the first time today, just a 5k though.  But other than near the end that after sweating them through and them stretching a bit that they were getting pulled down by the weight of my phone they really just disappeared during the run.  And pending issues showing up on a long run these look like a very real candidate for being my 50 shorts.

I also have a pair of 2XU compression tights that I’ll be testing to see if they will work for me for long runs.   With the potential temps of the Dead Horse 50K we’re doing in November ranging from 30 to 50, dressing appropriately may be tough.   I have a feeling it’s going to be a cold start and being a bit underdressed so as to be comfortable for most of the run.   Still not sure if I’ll be doing shorts or tights for it, probably take both.

It’s not a serious title as I’m fully aware that my body size and shape is in the 1% of the 1% of folks trying to be long distance runners. I know that myself and the few other folks like me are not a profitable sector for anyone making running clothing.

But seriously what the hell is up with running clothing apparel makers sizing being so out of sync with the rest of the clothing industry?   For example a “XL” in running shorts is roughly a Medium or at best a Large and that’s being generous.

Literally my hip bones without any of that flesh and muscle that goes on them is too large to fit these.

I’m trying to find long long distance running shorts.  The same thing that every other long distance runner looks for, chafe free, fast drying, light weight, pockets for the key things etc.   But primarily shorts that are comfortable and can go long without leaving a person screaming in the shower after their super long runs as the water hits the chafing.

You find all these articles and videos for the top recommended shorts and…. I can wear none of them.

Right now I’m going to end up running my first 50K in a pair of UA Launch shorts that I cut the liner out of and a pair of UA compression shorts.   What’s the problem you ask? Well those compression shorts soak up sweat and end up weighing a bazillion tons.  The waistband ends up chafing me after about 15-20 miles.  Their so called ‘flat seam’ technology also ends up chafing me in other locations that should not be chafed.

I’d really like to try some of these awesome no seam having, no chafing after 100 miles, super light, fast drying shorts with the cool pockets but alas, I’m stuck with stone age technology.   Which I guess a dinosaur should be used to after all…

There’s no real point to this post other than to piss and moan a bit about things if you’re a runner you’ve probably never had to deal with.

Early Morning Carl

So… Week 7 of the training plan has come and gone.   Tuesday was a 12k trail run where we did our usual Snake / Pink trail out on Turkey Mountain.  Thursday was a M/E run with a 8K in the morning and an 8K in the evening.   Saturday was a 25K LSD which we ran the first 6 miles and then did a R/W of 7/1 (mostly).   Sunday was supposed to be a 25K as well but we need the vertical so we spent the morning going up and down on Carl over and over.

One thing I’m concerned about, at least in the heat of Oklahoma summers is I sweat faster than I process water.  I drink water and drink mix (currently Ultima sugar free) over the course of the run continuously but after 15 miles my need and ability to urinate ‘dries up’ to make a bad pun.   Today for example I drank 96+ ounces of water.  For those doing the math that’s a gallon and a half of water.  A gallon and a half…  And by mile 12 I had no desire/need/ability to urinate.   I didn’t pee until about 2 hours after the run.  During that time I consumed another 36oz of pedialyte and coke.   So 2 gallons of liquid consumed and during that time I urinated maybe 8 oz worth.

It’s normal for me to go on a long run during the summer and come back 4 to 8 lbs lighter in spite of drinking 6 to 12 lbs of water on run.   That means I’m literally sweating out up to 2 gallons of water on a hot run.

Over the distance I’m getting more and more dehydrated and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.   I drink enough that I end up with sloshy belly syndrome by the time I’m done but it just backlogs in the system and meanwhile my sweat glads are working their collective asses off trying to cool me down to the detriment of the machine.

Its kind of like having a 2″ hole in your radiator but you’re filling it from a 1″ hose.

Big ol’ grain of salt….

Found a mention of a low carb option called Spike-Free (not currently avaiable as they’re researching new recipes) that included a document that has some interesting information in it.  As always take anything you read on the Internet (including this site) with a very large grain of salt.

The purpose of the document is to obviously support their theories and coincidentally their products on the best option for fueling.  It’s the same thing that eFuel and [insert your favorite fuel company] does.  Note that pre-low carb my favorite fuel was the eFuel gels and drink mixes.   They worked very well for me, better than anything I’ve tried and I’ve tried a lot (most commercial and DIY options).

But now that we’re doing low-carb, me primarily as it’s the easiest way for me to lose weight which I’m trying to drop lbs for our 50’s, sugar based options are off the table.

But the interesting thing in their proposed science for me was that after 2-3 hours of training/racing your body will have consumed all free glycogen in the system which makes sense even for people who are carb loaders.   There’s only so much storage room in the human body and 3 hours of running burns through that for the average person.  This is the source of the 20 mile wall/bonk (for the average elite).   For me I burn through glycogen stores a fair bit earlier, it takes a lot more energy to push a Semi Tractor up a hill than a Porsche.

But your body needs carbs/glycogen.  This is why if you were to cut out every carb down to 0 intake your body has a mechanism to start turning protein into a carb substitute, even consuming itself if it has to.   So you do need to intake ‘some’ carbs when you burn them all out because during extreme exertion your body has a hard time doing everything at once.  There’s only so many resources to allocate to keeping you moving, your organs functioning properly, your brain working right, processing nutrition and water, cleaning your blood of toxins.

Long story not very short, the folks at Spike Free allege that once you’ve run the tank dry then you can consume carbs to some degree, need to in fact.  And most importantly they allege that at this point certain carbs are processed directly into energy and bypass the insulin reaction with all the bad things that brings to a low carb running on fats and ketones type runner.

And this is what I find interesting as we’ve discussed how we’re going to fuel low carb on our long runs/races.   The Spike Free’s folks thoughts that we should be able to add some basic carbs like potatoes or a banana an hour, need to in fact, could prove pretty important in our abilities to do these ultra runs with some measure of enjoyment.

We’re already at the the 3-5 hour long run point in our training and those are just going to keep getting longer so we have plenty of opportunity to test it out.

If it works we’ll let you know.  And if it doesn’t work we’ll let you know that as well.

Switched themes and then customized the CSS a bit to get a new, arguably better but at least different look for the site.  I decided to go with a Polaroid effect for any images which took some doing with custom CSS to override the theme’s default CSS.

I think in general it’s a a little more elegant, could be wrong.  I may not know elegant but I know what I like as the saying goes.   I’ll be playing around with things, tweaking them slightly as the whim and whimsy strikes me.

The base of the theme is the SpicePress freebie.

Today is a split run day, 8K in the morning, 8K in the evening with the run being a 2K warm up, 4K fast, 2K cooldown.   One of the things I’ve tried to do with my training plan is have T&T runs mix it up and be more focused on faster shorter runs.  For a number of reasons, one I don’t want the whole day tied up with work and running.  Two speed builds economy of form.  Three it stresses lactate waste systems so they work better. Four I still like to run 5K’s and see if I can beat my existing PR (27:45) so speed running helps.

But then you always remember your first time.

Of course I can’t help but find it a little… funny? that a 5 mile run is a short run these days.  I remember very clearly the first time I successfully traveled for 3.109 miles without dropping to a zombie shuffle at any part of it.   But then you always remember your first time.

This mornings run went a lot better than Tuesdays, 3 minutes faster pacing and I was in zone 2 most of the way, fluttering around the edge of zone 3.   It was also 23 degrees cooler.  And 2 days more recovery time from the big Saturday run.

I do note that Bunny ran her training run 45 seconds per mile faster.   See what happens when she doesn’t have to drag a old dinosaur around behind her?

I was also able to confirm the calibration for my Stryd foot pod,  at both the 6K and 8K mark my watch started beeping about 8 steps away from the line and marked the distance at 4 steps away from the line.  Over the course of 8000 meters it was 4 meters off the mark at measuring the distance exactly.    I was on a 400 meter track this morning that I use most of the few times I have to get up early and run during a weekday.  It’s just down the street from my house and the sidewalks in the neighborhood aren’t in the best shape for dark running so it’s just a fast safe way to get my run in.  And it lets me check my calibration.

If you’ve looked at Stryd in the past but the price tag was off putting then they did release a cheaper option in the last few months.  It’s literally the same footpod they just have all the metrics locked behind a license but if you just want pace and speed there’s literally nothing else out that will give you this level of accuracy.

It really depends on just what you’re looking for in training and running and racing if a Stryd or your watches GPS or just trail markers are enough for you.

This has been a 150 mile month with longer ones to come.   Let’s hope I survive it.

Stress pipe…

There are tons of articles online about stress and accumulation of stress and over stressing and over training.  That’s one of the reasons I’ve cut our Wednesday cruising run, is to try to reduce stress load.

The tricky thing is stress is very much a single bucket that is filled from all kinds of sources.  Those sources might be just an annoying drip in the night because you wake up 3 or 4 times or it might be a fire hose of impending job loss that threatens to wash you down the street.

Stress from your professional and personal relations and environments, stress from the daily commute, the volumes of bad things going on in the world, the 28 miles you ran over the weekend, insomnia, health issues, running conditions, hydration levels, weight changes; none it is singular and it all impacts our abilities to ‘do it’.

Whether it’s at work, play, in bed or on the trail, stress can and does have major impacts on our lives and potential.

Personal reference point, yesterday’s run, not that great, 2 minutes slower than an identical run last week…

————

Weekend 6 was a high volume week with 28 miles done on Saturday followed by Sunday and Monday being off days from running.

Yesterday was the first run after the long day with a 12K run scheduled dividing into a pyramid of 4K zone 2, 4K zone 4, 4K zone 2.   That was the plan anyway.

And it’s only going to get longer. That’s what she said…

When the plan met the dirt it kind of fell apart.   Bunny was at Zone 4 for the first part while I was in Zone 2.   For the Z4 stuff my push fell apart and I ended up hiking a fair bit of it instead.

It was also roughly 100 billion degrees Kelvin out.  Or a 100F.  One of those two is correct.

I also wore my slightly too short Lone Peak 3.0 size 13’s.  They’re a quarter inch shorter than my Escalante Size 13’s.  FGS Altra the sizing ridiculousness is just… ridiculous.  They’re okay for shorter distances but the heat accelerated my foot swelling so by the end of it my toes were just touching the end of the shoes.  I guess I’m going to have to retire them permanently.

Intellectually I know this failure was in large part due to just accumulated stress from the weekend, that it was OMFG hot, but emotionally it still feels like a bit of a failure.

The loop we were on, the Snake aka Pink trail, at our nearby trail refuge of Turkey Mountain, where I’ve never seen a turkey but I’ve seen several bobcats, rabbits, snakes, frogs, a bazillion mosquitoes and spiders from hell, measures right around 3.5 miles, at least the route we take.   There’s a small loop on the way back to bring it up to 3.5 miles and as we were coming back the second time I was sorely tempted to bypass that loop and just be short but Bunny wouldn’t commit to doing it so as always “when it’s a run day you run”.

We still ended up about .33K short of our planned 12K distance but I deemed it good enough, the heat and W shape of the elevation was enough to make up that slight lack in distance.

Tomorrow is another double morning and evening run, just 8K each for a total of 16k.  “Just 8K”.

It’s interesting how what things change over time.  I was thinking about that on the way home yesterday, how when I started my Couch to 5k plan, my first sessions were 20-25 minutes long and maybe 2k to 3k total.  Now any run less than 90 minutes / 15k is now considered a “it’s just xxx”.

And it’s only going to get longer. That’s what she said…   At week 6 in a 18 week long plan, the long days and weeks are only getting started although we do have a 2 week taper so really it’s 16 weeks that we have to ‘worry’ about.