Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

Today is a rest day. After my run yesterday morning, my legs felt pretty trashed in the evening, but today they just feel a little stiff and heavy. They should feel much better after an easy run to shake them out tomorrow.

Less than one week till the Buffalo Run 50K.

I hardly ever remember my dreams, but I remembered one this morning. Unfortunately, I had forgotten most of it by the time I finished my run. Now all I remember is that it involved binge eating, a neurotic AT ski guide, a bizarro marine corps, and an unbeatable Nigerian hockey time. Sounds like a good time.

Easy run this morning. To and from Liberty Park plus three laps on the cinder track.

Average pace - 7:39/mile 

Anyone who checks this blog regularly has probably noticed a new theme in the past few weeks--running hills.

I was self coached for the beginning of my cycling career. The first year I did plenty of made-up workouts in which I would go as hard as I could for x minutes, rest, and repeat. Primitive interval work, really. My go-to workouts were 3x10 minute intervals and 60 seconds all out, 30 seconds off for 30 minutes or until incapacitation, whichever came first (for the record, incapacitation always came first).

This was my first attempt at training (as opposed to just riding), and I got much faster. But not as fast as I did the next year, in which I didn't do a single timed interval. Instead, I went nuts in the hills and mountains around Utah County. My go-to climbs were Squaw Peak, the Alpine Loop, and Creamery on 9th, a brutally steep stair-step climb from the creamery to Rock Canyon Park. (Fun fact: the Creamery on 9th is where my wife and I went on our first date. She doesn't remember it.) I would climb the Alpine Loop in about 45 minutes, Squaw Peak in about 25 minutes, and the creamery in about 8 minutes. I rode each climb several times per week and spent the rest of the time racing or putting in mellow miles around the valley.

Riding those three climbs all out, I built anaerobic strength (the creamery), developed my threshold (Squaw Peak), and put in plenty of quality tempo miles (Alpine Loop). Throw in at least one race per week and I had my speed covered, too. It was a nearly perfect plan, and it showed in my results. The best part was that there was no structure--I didn't really understand the principles that made my training work. I was just having fun.

Not understanding my training proved to be my downfall, however. The next year I tried to replicate the training that had worked for me the year before, but without understanding why it worked, I got things wrong and wound up burned out, overtrained, and much slower.

After a disappointing season, I found a coach and worked with him for the next two seasons. And for the most part, I was successful with him. I won races, I received my category 1 upgrade, and I earned a chance to ride with my team in the Tour of Utah. But each year I found myself mentally fried by the end of the season, and my performance suffered noticeably.

With my coach, the approach was very scientific. When I was training myself, I rode with a stopwatch or nothing at all. With my coach, I relied heavily on a power meter and an HRM. By myself, the terrain and perceived exertion determined my intervals. With my coach, every minute of every workout was prescribed before I headed out the door. In fact, in two years of coaching I think I only got to go out and go nuts in the mountains once or twice.

Interestingly, although I got into great shape with my coach, I never felt as good or climbed as fast as I did when I was self coached. I'm not sure if that's because I gained a couple of pounds, because I didn't practice my climbing, or because I lost power. But whatever the real story was, I never felt like I did when I was self coached. I think it's because all the structure of coaching made training feel a lot less like fun and a lot more like . . . well, training.

Anyways, I can't remember what point I was trying to make. I think it was to say that this year, I'm going to focus on getting out and having fun in the mountains while trying not to worry too much about intervals and training plans. Or something to that effect.

Squaw Peak was always my testpiece. My times to the top were a fairly reliable indicator of where my fitness stood and how I could expect to perform in a race. I think I'll try to use the climb up the west side of City Creek Canyon in the same way. The "offical" interval starts at the switchback where the trail leaves the canyon and finishes at the saddle on the ridge. It's 1.2 miles long and climbs somewhere between 600 and 700 feet (Garmin altitude measurements have been fairly inconsistent). Someday I'd like to be able to climb it in 10 minutes, although I'm not sure how realistic that is. Today I climbed it twice: once in 13:04 and once in 12:49. For now I'd better just worry about breaking 12 minutes and call it good.

Average pace - 8:12/mile

Total vertical - 1,902 feet 

Today was another easy run at Liberty Park. To and from, plus three laps on the cinder track. Catherine got up early this morning and ran when I did. The timing worked out well, and we both arrived back at the house at the same time. 

Average pace - 7:27/mile

I went to the gym with Catherine and ran on the treadmill this evening. I ran five miles at a mellow pace, except for three quarter-mile bursts at a 5:30 pace. 

The Buffalo Run 50K is tomorrow. I think I'll take today off.

This was my longest run ever by about 10 miles and nearly 2 hours, and I'm feeling it right now. We stopped by Catherine's parents' house in Bountiful on the way to the race, and I missed the freeway on ramp, a mistake I compounded by not doubling back, and as a result we made it to the race ten minutes before the start. I was lucky enough to make it to the bathroom and still get to the start with a minute to spare. 

I tried to stay near the front from the beginning, but I didn't want to dig too deep too soon. A few runners broke away early on and I didn't think about chasing them. Some of the other runners in the lead group gapped me and I thought about chasing, but I decided to let them go, too. It turned out to be a smart move, because I caught and passed most of them on the climb to the first feed zone.

Eventually, I wound up running with two others up the big switchbacks on the south end of the course, and I decided to stay with them because the pace felt comfortable. Just before returning to the second feed zone, one of the runners pulled out because of an injury. The other continued straight through the feed zone while I stopped to eat a gel and drink a few glasses of Coke, but I caught back up with him a mile or two later, and shortly after that I pulled away on a small climb.

I was feeling pretty good at that point, but as I approached lap 2 I didn't realize I was supposed to drop down to the start before starting my second lap. So, I continued straight ahead. I was still felling great at the second feed zone until the volunteers started congratulating me on leading the 50K and I started to suspect something was wrong. Shortly after that the real leader past me and I figured out where I had gone wrong.

At that point, I pretty much lost the will to run. I figured I would be DQed, and I was afraid everyone would think I had tried to cheat by cutting the course, so I decided to start walking until my wife, who was running the 25K, caught up with me, at which point I would finish my run with her.

But as I walked I decided I would try to finish the course. Instead of crossing the line, I would turn around at the feed zone, run back up the climb I had missed at the start of the second lap, and then run right back down to the finish, thereby covering the entire 50K course, although not exactly in the traditional sequence. I hoped that if I did that, the race directors would consider my time official and all would be well.

Of course, as I already mentioned, by then I had lost the will to run, and my legs were killing me, so the final miles were a miserable mix of walking and shuffling. Miserable enough that I considered not rerunning the part of the course I had skipped. But my brother-in-law was waiting for me near the finish, and he was willing to run back up the hill with me, so I turned around and ran back up before limping back to the finish. I think I ran back down the hill at the end slower than I ran up it at the beginning.

Anyways, I crossed the line with an official time of 4:32:37, and although it was a little out of order, I did end up running the entire course. (And I made a point of telling the race director and anyone else who would listen what I did and why, because I would hate for anyone to think my race was anything but on the level.) I wound up first in the 20-29 age group and seventh overall. My race was far from flawless, but whatever the official results, I think it was a pretty respectable first (mini) ultra.