All posts by TREX

Yesterday was the end of Week 6 of my training schedule for our 50/50 training.  This week ended in a double long run day.   We did a 30K in the morning and a 15K in the evening.   The 30K went better than I was expecting, we cut 2 minutes off our last pace times for a measly 25K.

Now with that said, we did a 7/1 run walk today for the runs.   One of the things I’ve experienced which backs up like a bajillion other folks who’ve tried it is that my average pace goes up in a significant way when I intentionally run walk.

I tried a new fuel today, crunch peanut butter+Swerve+cocoa powder+ginger powder and coconut oil as well as a new drink mix, Ultima in Orange and Raspberry.

I’m not sure if it was the experimentation of different fuels, but for the 30K and around mile 10 the heat got up to 90 and kept going and the humidity was off the chart but by mile 15 I was feeling pretty queasy which is pretty unusual for me.  I don’t do queasy much.

Bunny is having some issues with her knee, might be time for new shoes or less running or more core exercises.  I’m always having issues so it’s just par for the course for me.

Overall we’re keeping up with the schedule with only a few minor issues.  I pulled the Wednesday run out of the schedule as it just didn’t add anything and the extra recovery day is useful.

Barring major catastrophe we’re going to go to Dead Horse and see it through to the end.

I thought I’d throw some notes out there about myself.  First, where did the T-Rex come from?  Firstly when I first started pretending to run I would sometimes look like the proverbial dinosaur with short little arms trotting after some tasty triceratops.

Secondly because of my smaller group I’m quite the older of the lot.

How did I become a #notarunner?

My athletic history for most of my life has been pretty much a roller coaster of peaks and valleys of participation.  More valleys than peaks.   As a kid it was the stereotypical, run around the neighborhood and woods all day till it was too dark to see (no street lights in the tiny little town I grew up in).

Then we moved to a ‘big’ city and for a few years it was fairly quiet on the exertion front then sports came into play, wrestling and football which occupied the school year and part of the summers.

Then it was time to move on and get a job but at the same time I got involved in the fledging sport of Paintball.  So early in the sport that we were still using the same paint that they used to mark trees for cutting down.  Yes, that’s where the paintball came from, marking tools used by lumberjacks and rangers and the like to mark trees.

Paintball involves a lot of running, sprinting really followed by periods of not moving all at random.  A kind of martial fartlek going on.

During this time I also took up running for fun with a good friend of mine.  Together we were able to always prevent the other from just going to the ice cream store instead of running when it was 110F and -10F.  My running was a fairly consistent 25-27 minute 3 mile run 3 times a week, rarely went past that and when I did it was because of some random pretty girl who was amiable to the company on the trail.

Then marriage came and went and came again along with kids the second time and during this time there were moments of lackluster engagment in strength training, weight loss and no running.

It wasn’t until 2 years ago, June 2016, that for a fairly random reasons, the primary one I got a Fenix 3 HR watch which almost demanded that I try to use it for it’s purposes, i.e. tracking running.

To say it was a couch to 5K would be generous.  It was a sleepy sloth to a slow turtle to be honest.

I ran my first 5K 4 months later clocking in a speedy 39 minute run.  But I ran the whole thing without stopping even if my ‘running’ was barely above walking.

2 months later I ran my first 10K in training, not well, on Christmas day.  2 months after that I ran a 10K as a race.  It was during this period that I started running with someone else, my partner in crime on this site who became RW Prime.  At the time I’d been running for about 8 months and she was probably at the same state I was 4 months in.  It didn’t take her long to catch up to me and then of course surpass me.

While at a local running store a pleasant lady by the name of Olga introduced me to the concept of the “Running Spouse”.  And thus T-Rex’s running wife club was formed which has been quite a source of humor.   The only qualification to be a member is you have to run a race with me.  To date this gives me 4 running wives, although one of them, Rabbit, is more honorary because while we ran the same race, it was 1200 miles apart.  I’ve had a shot at a couple of other random wives who approached me during races but we ended up not running together for whatever reasons.

2 months after that I ran my first half marathon.

I didn’t run my first full until March 2018, the Little Rock Marthon 2018.  Prior to that my longest distance was 20 miles, on a day so cold the water froze in our bottles and bladder lines.  Literally froze next to our bodies.

Then 3 months later I ran my first trail run, the Mowdy Mustang Run, in June.  A marathon distance, on trails, in Oklahoma summers.   Not my brightest decision but looking back it was a great experience and certainly pushed me to my limits in keeping moving forward in spite of adversity.

Which brings us to the present and looking back.

In the 2 years 2 months I’ve been running, as of right now I’ve run 2320 miles.  With Run being a pretty generous term, let’s just say that I’ve tracked 2320 training miles over the last 26 months.   That includes a 2 week down time due to injury but other than that every training day I’ve run.  Regardless of temperatures, weather, pain, stress, mental condition, life, work, whatever.  If it’s a run day, I run.

And that I believe is why I continue to run.  Because a run day is the same as a breathing day.  Once you let yourself miss a day, of anything, it doesn’t have to be running, but once you miss a day, the second day is easier to rationalize a reason to miss, the third time is easier until you realize it’s been 3 months since you’ve done whatever it was you were going to do.

My current roadmap is racing against time to reach my goals.  Time is my enemy at my age.  The older you get the harder it gets and I’m starting a bit behind the 8 ball in that regard.

I’m going to attempt a 50K this fall, a 50Mile in Q1 in 2019 (barring major injury) and potentially next fall there’s a race I’d like to try, the Cave Creek Thriller 50K + 30K double.  You run a 50K in the morning and a 30K that evening.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?

I’m not sure when, where, if, a Hundred is in the cards but as Rabbit has stated publicly she’s going to do it with us if and when we do that it certainly adds to the draw.  Although she’ll be bored silly I’m sure at the pace that we’d be doing.

I took my Olympus 4.0’s out on Carl yesterday and have a couple of follow up observations.

Carl is pure vertical and technical vertical at that.   It’s a ‘granny gear’ slope of typically 45 degrees or sharper with loose shale, slick rock and loose rock.

After 4 loops I came away less thrilled with the grip of the Olympus. Granted these were rough conditions.   But in general I found them to be slightly less sure footed as my Lone Peak 3.5’s.   Slightly more slippage on loose material and I partially slipped twice while descending on large rocks (boulders).

At the end of the day I came away feeling less sure on bad surfaces than I do in my Lone Peak’s.   This isn’t necessarily a bad thing since it makes me more aware of footing and balance and potentially avoids over confidence that my LP’s might put me in.

Part of the problem I think is the Vibram outer ring on the Olympus is harder material and while I’m sure really durable, it seems less secure on smooth hard surfaces at dramatic slopes that may not be as dry as they could be.

They’ve also had more stretch to them them I’m used to in a trail shoe and after lap 2 I had to retie them, starting at the base of the laces all the way up to get them to lock back in.   This ‘should’ be a problem that resolves itself over time as all the stretch is taken out but the increased volume this is causing in the midfoot has me pulling the eyelets closer and closer together.

I’m going to have to get a pair of the Lone Peak 4.0’s sooner than later so I know what I’m going to be training with from now till spring.

6.2 down, 293.8 to go.

[Follow up here]

Ran my Olympus 4.0 from Altra for the first time yesterday.  Just a short 10K on mostly single track dirt paths with a few moderate technical sections.

My prior trail shoes have been Leadville V3’s, Altra Lone Peak 2.5’s, Altra Lone Peak 3.0’s, Altra Lone Peak 3.5’s.   My current trail shoes are the Lone Peak 3.5’s that have distances up to a full marathon on them.

Sizing Note:  I wear anywhere from a 12.5 to a 14 in Altra shoes.  In Lone Peaks I’m a 14, Paradigms a 13, etc.

I initially ordered 14’s in these but they were just clown shoes so I swapped them for 13’s.  For trail shoes with descents the 13 is about right.   But in a 13 they’re noticeably longer than my size 13 Escalante 1.0’s when you put them next to each other.   One thing that is rather annoying about Altra’s is how flexible the ruler is they use to measure their shoes.  Because no one typically carries much above a 12.5 locally I almost always have to order shoes either though the local stores or online and just hope that a given model fits me in the size I ordered.  I’ve had to send back half the new to me Altra’s I’ve ordered because I guessed wrong on the sizing.

Initial impression was “Wow, soft and wow, I feel tall” after putting them on and walking on them.

Over the course of the 10K I was left with a fairly pleasantly neutral outlook on them.  While I didn’t walk away with a “OMG these are amazing.” I certainly didn’t walk away with a “These are going back.”

Honestly after the first couple of miles I kind of forgot about them and, again honestly, isn’t that a good thing?

By the end of the run they had loosened up a bit and if the run had been much longer, say a half+ I’d of likely stopped to tighten the laces but it wasn’t enough to be an issue.

Grip wise they handled everything, sand, dirt, mud, rock that I was on and I always felt like they were stuck to whatever the surface I was on.

The lugs I think are wide enough that they probably won’t cake up as badly as my Lone Peak’s do going through exceptionally thick clay type mud that we occasionally encounter, the type of material where you gain 2lbs, per shoe by the time you’ve gone 20 feet over it.

The laces, a bit of a pet peeve, weren’t too long nor too short.   I was able to double knot them without an issue and there wasn’t enough dangling to bother me.

The arch support was just about right for me, if you have flat feet these shoes may not be to your liking so try them before buying them or may sure you can take them back.

Overall, with only 10k on them, I think they’ll do to replace my 3.5’s when they wear out.   My current pair has about 150 miles on them and I have another pair LP 3.5’s NIB waiting their chance to come out and play but I’ll be rotating these Olympus 4’s in as well.

At this point barring any surprises in durability or fitment coming up I can see myself in a new (but broken in) pair of these for the at least half of Dead Horse 50K, if not the whole thing.   A race I was worried about as I still have 600 miles or so of training to do before them per our schedule and a pair and a half of Lone Peak 3.5’s isn’t going to get me there and leave enough to do 50K in.

With only 5 weeks into our 50 plan I’m half hoping Dead Horse Ultra has a DFL* award… I mean that only half in jest.

Dead Horse Ultra

Right now in the middle of Oklahoma Summer, 6 weeks into a low carb lifestyle, and being a year older than when I decided I wanted to do a 50K this year, I’m not anticipating this being a fast run even for me.

But barring life threatening injury I do fully expect finishing it and since there’s a 50 Mile run going on at the same time with the same cutoff time for both and the same start time I don’t expect getting a DNF*.

One of the things this plan which is more than really needed for a 50K that I set it out to do was get us to a point where we can enjoy our first 50K.  My first races of all types I didn’t really enjoy them as I attempted them right at the cusp of my ability to do them.

But 31.5 miles is a long time to be on a trail and not enjoy it because you’re at the edge of your ability to keep moving forward.

I did pick up a new travel pack on my employer’s dime. No I’m not ripping them off, we have a system where you can cash in awards that you’re awarded by other employees for doing your job and get gift cards at various online merchants.

Yes it’s an environment where just doing your job well is enough to earn an award due to comparison to people that half ass phone it in.

* Runners Jargon (Random website found while googling but it included the values I wanted and isn’t asshattish like some others)

Gnash Gnash

Rabbit has deigned to occasionally participate in our little running blog.  In spite of her unassuming attitude and modesty, she’s a #realrunner and has been running Ultra’s for a very long time.

I’ve cyber stalked her records and frankly she’s a #badass.  No she’s not Stephanie Howe but she finishes strong and quite frequently ends up in the top 25%.

We met quite by accident, she was the Project Manager for an professional services team that my company employed to help get us through a M&A that frankly I had no resources to deal with internally in our company.

I had to go out to California for reasons I won’t go into but we’d talked over the phone quite a fair bit before that obviously, almost daily for other reasons I’ll refrain from.  I’d bought a pair of Altra Lone Peak 2.5’s about a month before (cheap as they were the year before model) and while I enjoyed them the heel cup was too loose for me on ascents and it always felt like I was on the verge of popping out. But they were otherwise comfortable and I liked the coloring so I took to wearing them as my casual daily shoes.

So I show up and head into a meeting room and the first thing she commented on was my shoes and asked if I ran.  One of the things I’ve noticed is a #realrunner could see someone naked in shoes and they’d check out the shoes first.

So out came the story of how I was trying to become someone who maybe kinda sorta ran sometimes in a #notarunner way and we’ve kept in touch ever since even after our year long project was over.

Rabbit’s been quite a joy of running comradeship and if she’s any indication of the ‘normal’ ultra runners of California, they’re a great bunch just by extrapolation.

A couple or three weeks ago Rabbit and Bunny got to run trails together and Bunny was quite effusive about how much fun it was.

One of these days there’s hope that the three of us will manage to be in the same place at the same time and get to get dusty or muddy together, depending on how much moisture in the air there is at the time.

Week 5 has come and gone of our trek to doing our first 50.

It was an interesting week, Thursday we had a split 10k, 5K in the morning and 5K in the evening.   In spite of differing conditions, flat versus a little hilly, warm and humid versus warm and torrential rain and wind, I ran both 5K’s only 4 seconds apart in time.   On Friday I had a 5K race which I managed to cut 30 seconds off my Thursday runs in spite of being hillier.

Bunny’s Boat Anchor

Bunny on the other hand cut 3+ minutes off her evening run versus her morning run but then she’s a badass who suffers from significant #boatanchor status.

Over the weekend we had back to back long runs, a 15K and a 25K which went… slowly and badly but the distance was done and frankly at this point I’m okay just getting time on feet and distance on the long runs.

I’m thinking though that one of the three regular training weeks of the month cycle I’m going to drop the back to back weekend and just make the Sunday run longer.  5K or 10K longer than the currently plan.

This week our runs were –

• Tuesday – 3K Pyramid which is run 3K at zone 2, 3K at zone 4, 3K at zone 2, cooldown.
• Wednesday – 6K zone 2
• Thursday – 5K Z4 runs in the morning and evening.
• Friday – Special 5K run for a race in the evening.
• Saturday – 15K
• Sunday – 25K

The Wednesday run I skipped as I had the race on Friday but I also plan on skipping this run more often depending on how I feel the week is going because a slow 6k run I’m feeling doesn’t gain us a lot in terms of performance or conditioning and skipping it gives us some more recovery time during the week.

We’re both feeling the heat of constant training and I’ve not had a break in training in over 2 years, just keeping upping the target distance after reaching a milestone.  Although I’m feeling it more.

I’m really honestly not sure if KT Tape / Rock Tape provides ANY real benefit per science.  The claims border on questionable to say the least and smack of witchcraft and voodoo.   “It lifts the skin away from the muscles and fascia to promote blood flow”  Uh… huh…

But… with that said I can’t say it doesn’t work.  And mentally for me, and your mileage may vary, it doesn’t hurt anything and potentially could help so… why not?  And sisters and brothers I need every speck of assistance I can get.   Other than your giving money to someone for something that may be a waste of money.

With all that said the last three rolls of KT Tape “Professional” that I’ve purchased over the last year have all sucked at adhesion.  Two from a local sporting goods store, one from amazon, all purchased at different times and in three different colors.   I apply them in the standard per KT positions to assist with ITBS on my left leg.

The roll or two I had prior to that from 2016 stayed on not only for the full duration of a run but literally days and 2 or 3 runs and it was only after they started to look a little faded or I thought it was time to let my skin breath did I take them off.   And peeling the tape off took effort.

Not so much with these new rolls, within a half hour they’re loose at the ends, within an hour or two they’re flapping  and by hour 3 on a run they’re just dangling and annoying so I pull them off.

Now it’s possible these days I could have legs covered in petroleum jelly or astro-glide but you’ll have to take my word that’s not the case.  The tape goes on clean dry skin, I’m not any more hirsute than I was before.  So the logical answer by Occam’s Razor is the adhesive on the newer issued rolls is not as good as the older ones, or quality control has gone to hell.  My money’s on KT as manufacturer finding some way to save money to increase profits for the tippy top of the profit sharing food chain by using a lesser adhesive.

Last week I ordered a roll of Rock Tape through Amazon and picked up another roll at one my local running stores to try out.

A couple of immediate observations, Rock Tape isn’t precut strips, just one long roll.  Secondly a new roll of Rock Tape doesn’t quite fit in a KT tape plastic container indicating the tape or center spool is thicker by a fraction of a degree.

I cut three strips out of it, the usual size I use with KT tape, one precut strip cut into two for an X and one precut strip left whole to go over it.  The method as offered by KT in their videos.

Another observation is the edges all stuck down well pre run.  With the KT tape I’ve been using there was always a little bit of ‘not quite’ sticking going on at the ends.

I ran a 5K this morning right around 30 minute pacing in warm humid as water world hell setting and then took a shower.  So far the tape is remaining stuck down on all edges.

I’ve got another 5K this evening and obviously a shower after that so we’ll see how it goes and I’ll post an edit on this afterwards.   But so far while more expensive $19 versus $16 the Rock Tape is even with just a single short run’s results sticking far better, much like the 2016 versions of KT Tape Pro did.

Week 4 has come and gone.   Week 4 is a ‘light’ week with only 27 ish miles in it.   The weekend had a 10K and 20K run.

Over all things didn’t go too badly although even a light week was still a little on the hard side. With only a month into this training plan it’s been going okay but I’m leaning toward dropping the Wednesday run.   It at most is just to get rid of that “something is missing today” feeling.   That will leave Tuesday and Thursday as the various tempo, interval, threshold, hill repeats, speed etc runs.   Saturday and Sunday will be the back to back training and long slow runs.

A problem I’m trying to get ahead of before it’s a problem is over-training.  Wear and tear is cumulative if you don’t have time to recovery.

And a reminder that this plan is a hybrid 50 plan.  A bit more than needed for a 50k and a bit less than a 50mile plan.

Also to be remembered is this is our first attempt at going beyond a marathon which we’ve done a whopping 2 of, one road, one trail.

Next week will be some solo training runs as B won’t be available most days.  The difficulty ramps up a bit with Tuesday being a ME day, where the run is done in the Morning and Evening which for this first ME day is a 5K.

Thursday is a 3K pyramid which is a 3K z2, 3K z4, 3K z2.

The weekend is a 15k and 25K weekend.

Total distance is thus 59K or 37ish miles.  That’s assuming we skip the 6k on Wednesday which I’m pretty sure we will. Otherwise it would be 40+ miles.

Today as part of my 10K training I participated in the Tess Charity Run, a run for which the proceeds go to assist battered and abused women in seeking help and counseling.

The race was a 5K trail run that ran over the blue and yellow tracks of Turkey Mountain.   It had a M shape elevation chart with some reasonable technical pieces, mostly the vertical ups and downs.

A smaller turn out, only 81 participants were in the race.   There was also some larger race going on at the same time that probably pulled folks out because a) it was larger and b) it was street.   It’s been my experience and I’m sure everyone’s that trail runs pull quite smaller fields.

I’d like to say I held back knowing this was just the first 5K of the day for me but I ran it about 90% effort.  Enough to place 2nd in my age group but let’s face it, 2nd in your age group when there are 81 total runners isn’t all that.

Let’s just say I finished near the 66 percentile on the wrong side of the halfway point.  There were a fairly good set of speedsters there today with  winner turning in a 22 minute 5K trail run.   We actually picked him out before the race as the person that was going to win, he showed up in racing flats and ran in just a pair of shorts.

But overall I felt decent for the race, running the 5K on trails with a fair bit of vertical 5 minutes slower than my last flat road 5K last week that I ran about 95% effort.

After the race I caught up with a friend who ran it as well albeit faster than me (but a minute slower than my road time) and we went up the hill to do another 5K on the Pink aka Snake Run trail although we cut out that right hand out and back as you’re coming back up on the official Snake Run route which makes it 3.5 miles instead of 3.1.   Leave that short out and back off and it’s almost exactly a 5K.

We had a good time on both the race and the training run afterwards but with only a couple of exceptions I’ve had a good time with races and even those that were ‘bad’ aka my first marathon, Little Rock, my first 25K, Pumpkin’ Holler, my second half marathon, T-Town Half were still not bad.  Yes the last few miles of each one of those was pretty bad but everything leading up them was enjoyable so a few bad miles due to injury, dehydration, whatever isn’t enough to detract from the overall experience.

And if you don’t push right up to and even a bit beyond the breaking point, you won’t ever know what your really capable of.