Westy's Running

Facing Reality

2012-01-16T22:27:00.001-06:00

What is my reality, it's the realization that I was heading down the path that some say might indicate that I am suffering from training insanity. Why training insanity, well based on this definition: "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results" that is indeed my current training path. What's going on that causes me to say this, well.

I want to have a healthy successful running year in 2012 and finish 2 or 3 50 mile events, a couple of 50ks and maybe a marathon or two. What I have done to ensure success? I went out for a few runs, did no cross training, core (stability) or flexibility. So what's going on? I am extremely tight and have struggled on my last 2 attempts for longer runs. I went into them feeling a bit beat up, my calf was tight which took miles to loosen up which led to my lower back tightening up. Which led me to say, what the @#X@ is going on and what am I doing?

So since I believe in the saying, "a goal without a plan and action is nothing but a daydream". I obviously need a new plan that I take action off of.

I should mention a few other reality issues. I am switching jobs, same company just a new role with a new boss, so I am winding down my old job and getting started with my new one during January. Plus I am volunteering at AVHS for their robotics program, it's just an extra few (think up to 8 hours) out of my week. I have also noticed that when I do have a run that feels good, it seems to leave me drained on my next run with tired legs and low energy so either it's age catching up with poor training or something else going on.

My current thinking is that Zumbro will be out and so will Chippewa if I can't get into a balanced training program that includes core, flexibility and runs that serve a purpose. If I proceed without making changes and insist on beating myself up, I will end up injured, hobbled or will burn out.

So what's all of this mean, well here is the new basic plan

Monday - Core & stretching
Tuesday - Run - 3 to 5 miles
Wednesday - Core plus stretching if recovered then maybe Run - 3 to 5 miles
Thursday - Run 4 to 7 miles
Friday - Core & Stretching
Saturday - Run - 5 to 10 miles
Sunday - Run 10 to 20 miles

I know for some you might think I should be more specific but if I simply get started on core and flexibility and make it my routine, that would be huge for me and might be just enough to help me turn the corner on what is holding me back.

So I will work on stretching and core starting tomorrow and then see if I can follow this schedule for two weeks. If I need to adjust the time of day when I run or stretch or work on core, then I will need to do that. If I am successful (schedule adherence with decent results), then I will talk about my other goals for the year and who knows maybe Zumbro and/or Chippewa will still happen, if not, then I need to say no to my daydream and focus on something else for this year.

2012 races

2012-01-08T06:48:00.000-06:00

I would like to say that I have given a lot of thought to the races I am going to do this year and how each one connects together to accomplish something significant but alas, my goal is simply to run a few races, staying healthy and to enjoy myself.

Zumbro 50 - about 60% there mentally, about 10% physically, good thing ultras are mind over body.
Chippewa 50k - Signed up, just need to get to the start line
Afton 50k - That's the plan but I did enjoy volunteering last year
Turtle Trot Triathlon - An annual tradition
Superior 50 - I need to finish it
Surf the Murph 50k or 50 - depends on the other races
Rails to Trails Marathon - fun running the 1/2 last year
Tecumseh Trail Marathon - this might be the year to click off Indiana

A couple of other races might pop up depending on our vacation and college plans and if I can stay healthy but between Chippewa and Afton and Superior we will be focusing on our baby girls high school graduation and getting her off to college. So no additional running plans will be made until everything has been figured out and all of the dates become clear. We also hope to do a few local 5k to 1/2 marathons too.

Not to get ahead of myself but I did have a few thoughts for 2013:

Run my 13th Grandmas
Runs 13 marathons or ultras
Maybe even toe the line at a 100 mile event

100 day training plan to a 50 mile event

2012-01-03T21:00:00.002-06:00

Well, I just looked at my upcoming race calendar and saw that as of Thursday I will have 100 days to figure out my training schedule and then officially start my training for a 50 mile spring event.

Assuming I don't change my mind and simply volunteer at Zumbro which is an interesting thought too. Of course regardless of a spring 50, I am committed to Chippewa which simply means I need to be 50k shape in 114 days, a bit easier but no gimme as I don't like running this time of year. One thing that I finally figured out this winter is that I don't like snow, yes I hate snow. This winter has been ideal almost no snow and very warm temperatures for us. Because of this, I have found that I enjoy my runs in darkness and don't have issues on cold days but it is snow that saps all of my motivation.

Ok, back to my 100 day training program, first I checked out a post from when I first thought about training for a 50 mile event, that plan ramped up over 21 weeks, so that would be 147 days, so I needed to chop off a few days from that plan. With that in mind, here is the modified plan:

Week	Ending	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
1	01-08	x	-	x	2	x	12	14	28
2	01-15	x	2	x	2	x	4	6	14
3	01-22	x	2	x	2	x	14	14	32
4	01-29	x	2	x	2	x	14	16	34
5	02-05	x	2	x	2	x	16	16	36
6	02-12	x	2	x	2	x	4	6	14
7	02-19	x	2	x	2	x	16	18	38
8	02-26	x	2	x	2	x	18	18	40
9	03-04	x	2	x	2	x	18	20	42
10	03-11	x	2	x	2	x	4	6	14
11	03-18	x	2	x	2	x	20	20	44
12	03-25	x	2	x	2	x	20	22	46
13	04-01	x	2	x	2	x	22	22	48
14	04-08	x	2	x	2	x	4	6	14
Race	04-14	x	2	x	2	1	50	-	55
		Easy Run		Off or X Train			Long Run

Week 1 looks doable the remaining weeks look a bit problematic as I would need to allocate more time than I would like on both weekend days. Hear is another plan that I had:

Week	Ending	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
1	01-08	-	-	-	6	3	13	7	29
2	01-15	-	5	3	6	-	9	13	36
3	01-22	-	5	3	6	-	10	15	39
4	01-29	-	5	3	6	-	13	17	44
5	02-05	-	5	3	6	-	10	19	43
6	02-12	-	5	3	6	-	13	21	48
7	02-19	-	5	3	6	-	10	13	37
8	02-26	-	5	3	6	-	13	23	50
9	03-04	-	5	3	6	-	10	13	37
10	03-11	-	5	3	6	-	13	25	52
11	03-18	-	5	3	6	-	10	13	37
12	03-25	-	5	3	6	-	13	27	54
13	04-01	-	5	3	6	-	13	31	58
14	04-08	-	5	3	6	-	17	10	41
Race	04-14	-	4	3	2	-	50	-	59

A bit more to my liking, one thing that I don't see are any recovery weekend days. I might want to adjust that and give myself at least one or two. In case your curious, Plan 1 comes in at 469 miles (33.5 miles/week) and Plan 2 comes in at 612 miles (43.7 miles/week).

Another comes from the ULTRAMarathon training site and is from their Mountain Masochist 50 plan:

Week	Ending	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
1	01-08	rest	7	4x	6	rest	7 pace	16	~44
2	01-15	rest	7	4x	6	rest	7 pace	18	~46
3	01-22	rest	8	5x	7	rest	8 pace	20	~50
4	01-29	rest	8	4x	6	rest	3 hour	4 hour	~60
5	02-05	rest	8	4x	6	rest	3 hour	4 hour	~60
6	02-12	rest	8	4x	6	rest	2 hour	1 hour	~40
7	02-19	rest	8	4x	6	rest	3 hour	4 hour	~60
8	02-26	rest	8	4x	6	rest	3 hour	4 hour	~60
9	03-04	rest	8	4x	6	rest	5 hour	4 hour	~75
10	03-11	rest	8	4x	6	rest	5 hour	4 hour	~75
11	03-18	rest	8	4x	6	rest	10K	1 ½ hour	~35
12	03-25	rest	8	3x	6	rest	2 hour	2 hour	~50
13	04-01	rest	8	3x	6	rest	1 hour	2 hour	~30
14	04-08	rest	3	6	3	3	3	1 hour	~24
Race	04-14	rest	rest	rest	rest	rest	50	rest	50

One minor issue is if I estimate my pace and add up my mileage for the 1 to 5 hour runs, guess what I don't come close to their mileage estimates. So this plan I think would require a bit more modification or I will need to get a lot faster in the next 14 weeks. Well that ain't gonna happen. Maybe by summers end, but not by April fools day.

I did look through one more plan (Can Lake 50 Training info) which modified the Galloway marathon program but decided it was not worth adding in as I would need to find the right Galloway marathon plan and then adapt it, it basically added back to back long runs in the last few weeks before the 50. They did have a few words of wisdom worth noting:

The 50-Mile training plan should include the following:

Do your long runs on terrain similar to the race -- pick routes that include some big hills
Go longer and slower on the long runs
Walk uphills, run downhills,and run/walk on flat terrain
Use back-to-back runs (e.g.,on weekends) to get used to covering longer distances
Take training breaks when needed to all for adequate recovery and reduce the risk of injury
Practice with the same hydration system, drinks, and snacks that you expect to use in the race.

Keep in mind that the most important part of running hilly terrain is to train your legs for the downhills. Review the course description and pay attention to the leg profiles. Use this information to plan your training runs.

So now my choice is clear, within the next few days, choose one of these plans or ad hoc one or change my focus to Chippewa in the spring and Superior in the fall. I love these kind of decisions.

2011 Re-cap

2012-01-02T11:43:00.003-06:00

2011 is behind me which is ok with me. No marathons, no ultras and for races only a 5 miler, a 1/2 marathon, a 25k and a sprint tri. I was able to volunteer at a couple of events and really enjoyed helping out so much, that if I was smart I might just retire and become a full time volunteer but no need to worry I am not smart enough to do that :-).

I did learn that running through injuries doesn't work and that sometimes you do need to seek medical assistance and it does pay to follow their advice. That is my one big lesson from 2011, if you have an injury you need to deal with it. I failed to do that in the fall of 2010 and ultimately lost out on most of 2011.

I also rediscovered running shorter distances which allowed me to get in more runs each week and to focus on different type of workouts (speed, repeats or hills and occasionally just a short recovery run). Later in the year, I started to transition to minimalist running with my VFF's which I plan to continue into 2012. The good news is that I learned a lot (I think) and ended the year running relatively pain free so I am looking forward to some successful events in 2012, more on that later.

There were a couple interesting statistical things that showed up.

Average run distance was down (5.95 vs 8.8) , yet days run/week (3.15 vs 2.92) was up
Mileage down for the year (975 vs 1338), yet days run (164 vs 152) up for the year
May in 2010 was my high mileage (168) for the year, May in 2011 was my low mileage (20) for the year
Set all time mileage for December at 95 miles, it's my statistical lowest mileage month
Consecutive days without a run - 19 days

Here is my summary:
2011 miles - 975 miles

High mileage month - March, 122 miles
Low mileage month - May, 20 miles
Weekly Avg. - 18.75 miles
Longest run - 40 miles
Average run - 5.95 miles
Consecutive days - 6
Max days run in a week - 6
Average days run/week - 3.15
Total days run this year - 164
Weekday runs - 31.5% of available days
Weekend runs - 76.4% of available days

Events Participated in

April 9th - McNaughton 50 - dropped at 40 miles

July 16th - Turtle Trot Triathlon

October 29th - Surf the Murph 25k

November 6th - Rails to Trails 1/2 Marathon

November 24th - Gobble Gait 8k

First race entered for 2012

2011-11-28T20:37:00.000-06:00

It's official, I have signed up for my first race in 2012 as I couldn't resist the Black Friday weekend prices. How can you go wrong with paying just $30.00 for a 50k? So Chippewa Moraine 50k, we are coming back to see you again. I say we, as my wife and daughter are signed up for the 10k, how you can go wrong with paying just $15.00 for a 10k?

For me, I have some unfinished business as last year I was a DNS at this race as I had to face the reality that my injuries were not going to let me run. It was a touch decision to not give it a try as I had run it the previous two years and had hopes of keeping my streak going. Ultimately the decision to not run led me to get the medical help for my injuries that I needed which got me back to running. I still remember the amount of time I spent agonizing over not running this event so I am glad to be able to put it back on my race calendar. One question that comes to my mind as I am contemplate my 2011 race issues, is do I go back to Potawatomi and run the 50 mile event? It would be fun to do that event pain free, ok maybe pain free at the start as the hills of McNaughton will cause pain before the day is done. An intriguing idea to set things right in my running world and I have until December 31st to avoid the next price increase ;-).

Regardless, it's time to start training with a purpose for 2012 and to map out the other events for 2012.

Afton Fun Run (amended on 11/28th)

2011-11-27T11:57:00.000-06:00

Ran yesterday out at Afton State Park, it was the annual post Thanksgiving FatAss put on by John Storkamp. The pace was slow even for me which was good as almost everyone there was fast and it would be easy to get lost from each other as we weren't on any of the traditional trails. We were on deer trails that are only visible once the leaves are down, actually I am pretty sure some of the trails we created during the event. Actually we did get separated a few times but we always ended up finding each other or they circled back and found us.

I updated this post with some comparison info to the normal 25k loop course per Wayne's request. Take a look as it does add some interesting data.

Take a close look at the summary and note that we were out for 3:53:34 with a total stopped time of 1:58:43, that pretty much sums up the event. My Garmin said we went 9.3 miles but when I synced it in SportTracks it jumped up to 9.9 miles, so we probably went a little over 10 miles as I forgot to turn it on at the start (you can see the gap from the start to the finish). We were in areas of the park that I have never seen before nor would be able to find again.

Afton FatAss Summary

Afton 2010 25k Loop Summary

Did you notice how the elevation summaries are similar in climb even though the mileage is markedly different?

Afton 2011 FatAss course

Afton 2010 25k Loop Course

Afton FatAss Loop

Afton 25k Loop

What a lot of fun, the aid stations, the company, the trails and the pot luck afterward were all great. My pictures didn't turn out, hopefully some of the others who took pictures post them. As for me, I plan to do this event every year (or at least those years that we don't have snow :-).

Vacation - Squaw Valley

2011-11-25T09:56:00.000-06:00

This is a bit overdue but I finally noticed that I had never posted it. It is from mid September and the funny thing is that 2 weeks after we left they got 10 inches of snow. It was a great time for us to visit as the weather was great and the tourists were not there in force, I can't imagine this area in the winter or summer and what a congested mess it could be. On to the post.

This year my wife and I did something we haven't done in many years. We went on vacation with no kids. Our kids are 24 and 18 and weren't all together happy that they didn't get to go but it wasn't just a vacation, it was an anniversary present to ourselves. Last summer when we approached our 32nd anniversary, my wife and I decided a trip was a good idea.

She did the research on location, I was open to anywhere except for a cruise and preferred to stay in the US. She came up with Lake Tahoe. I knew very little about Lake Tahoe before the trip but it was a great place to go. We hiked, we biked, we boated, we went horse back riding, we watched the tough mudders and we had an epic last hike.

Our first hike was from Donner Pass towards Anderson Peak, we debated hiking back to Squaw but hadn't made the arrangements in advance so decided against it. We instead enjoyed an 11 mile out and back.

Our next day we rented bikes and rode from Squaw along the Truckee river towards Lake Tahoe. We rode into Tahoe City where we turned south along the lake towards Sugar Pine Point State park approximately 32 miles round trip. I loved this sign at the park: We took off our shoes and went into the lake, I would say it felt a lot like a normal Minnesota lake, odd I have never seen this sign up in Duluth.
We were a little concerned about the ride and how we would feel on the way back to Squaw. As it turned out it was a nice scenic easy ride.

The next day we rented a boat and took in the lake. I even went for a quick swim in the lake. The clarity of the water is unbelievable and the color is unique. We drove the boat back into Emerald Bay which is gorgeous, actually everything about the lake is.

Day four we took in the towns (Tahoe City, South Lake Tahoe, Kings Beach) and went horse back riding at Camp Richardson. One of the highlights for me were the restaurants we ate at, Karyn had done research and they were all low key places (not tourists traps) with great food.

Our last full day, we took the gondola up to High Camp. They had the Tough Mudder event going on and it was an interesting event to see first hand. A few of the participants looked like they had no idea what they had signed up for but the majority were smiling and having a blast. If you have a few minutes take a look at pictures from this years Squaw Valley Tough Mudder event, one thing that is safe to say is that these are not the same folks who show up for ultra events.

After walking up the hill from High Camp toward Emigrant Peak we planned to hike out to Granite Chief. It was funny as we weren't sure where to pick up the trail, a Squaw Valley Ski Resort employee who was monitoring the touch mudders, swung up and started telling us everything we ever wanted to know, the only problem was he didn't know what he was talking about. We were standing near a monument and we thought it might be the Watson Monument but he said it was a few peaks over. Who knows there might a Watson mountain but this was the Watson Monument. He pointed to where the trail was, (wrong again) as he sent us up to the top Emigrant Peak but form there we thought we saw the trail so we descended down. It was not a trail, a bit rocky but when crossed over a gully we saw the trail and headed towards Granite Chief. The trail was hard to keep track of and we kept getting off of it (at least we thought we were) so after an hour or so of some interesting trekking we turned around and headed back.

We decided to hike down through Shirley Lake to get in a few more miles of hiking. Of course we didn't check how many miles it was nor the type of trail it was. Turns out it was an adventure, the trail was barely marked in many sections and there were a few sections where you simply were scaling boulders and granite faces. If only we had looked at this description, I think we might have been a bit calmer during the hike or we may have take the Gondola back down..

High Camp to Shirley Lake; down Shirley Canyon (approximately 4 miles)
This is a great half day hike through a mountain canyon that passes by waterfalls and spectacular granite boulders. Hikers begin on either the Shirley Lake trail (a dirt road) or the Solitude trail (a narrower single track trail). Once the trails meet and you reach Shirley Lake hikers can either hike back up to High Camp and ride the Cable Car down or hike down the canyon. Please Note: This trail may sometimes be hard to follow, so remember the general rule is to keep the creek on your left side and follow it down until you arrive at the base of the mountain. There are also some steep sections to negotiate through the granite so hiking boots are strongly recommended.

But alas we did not, there were blue markings occasionally that marked the trail, we weren't aware of that but some people on the trail advised us. There were times though where we couldn't find any blue markings and just kept moving down next to the creek. By the end of this descent both Karyn and I were worn out more mentally than physically. I had visions of being lost on this trail into the night and kept thinking do we turn around and head back to High Camp. Karyn had slipped multiple times, her running shoes did not make good hiking shoes, my trail shoes did better but that hiking boot recommendation sure makes a lot of sense now.

We had a great vacation and will remember Lake Tahoe until we get back at some future point, maybe when we go back to run Western States :-).

Occupy what?

2011-11-19T22:35:00.000-06:00

A picture I saw on someone's Facebook a week or so back that I thought was worth preserving in a post:

Here is another one:

Ultramarathon: Pushed to the limit

2011-11-14T18:23:00.001-06:00

A great article from Sunday's Star Tribune on ultrarunning, my only concern is that thousands may start showing up, nah that won't happen, at least I hope it wont. It is a well written article and captures some what I love about running ultra events. Here is a link to the article, I captured a couple of the quotes and pictures below in case you don't want to check it out but check it out, it's worth it.

Surf the Murph 50 mile start

Ultramarathoners must be willing to deal with a little, or a lot, of discomfort. They must be expert problem-solvers, often making adjustments on the fly. They need to have tenacious work ethics and be OK with lots of alone time. They have to look at the glass as half full -- even, according to Taylor, "when the cup is bone dry." Great quote from John Taylor.

I think this was looking back towards the southern section from the horse trail aid station

"For every bad moment in a race, I'd say there are five or 10 great moments," she said. "When you've trained really well for something, it's the sense that you feel very strong, mentally and physically. It's a real sense of accomplishment." quote from Helen Lavin

Rails to Trails 1/2 marathon

2011-11-06T20:01:00.002-06:00

My wife and I joined her brother and his family and her parents for the Rails to Trails Marathon this weekend.

The night before we ate lots of german food at the Gausthaus and I carbo loaded with some very good german dark beer. It was our annual get together of my former Sperry/Unisys co-workers. We have gotten together for many years at the Gausthaus, this year we had around 35 folks. Always great to get together with old friends but it is also a reminder of how old we are all getting.

I decided to run the 1/2 with my wife (yes the carbo loading helped make that decision along with my training and a bit of uncertainty about my heal). For some reason this year we have not run together as often as we did in the past so it was nice to be able to share this event together. Karyn did really well considering her longest run coming into this was a 6 miler. We took walking breaks every 10 minutes or so and she had no issues finishing. Her time was slower than past 1/2 marathons but considering the training and that she is dealing with plantar fasciitis, she did great. He 2nd fastest mile was mile 13. I did have heel pain that was increasing as the run went on so not doing the marathon was a wise choice, time to heal up and do some winter training.

As to this event, it was a really well organized event and we were able to sign up on race day which was nice otherwise we would not have been able to do it as it was a last minute decision to head over and join her family. The course is run from Norwalk towards Sparta on the Elroy-Sparta bike trail. The marathon starts an hour earlier and my brother-in-law ran that today, it was his 3rd marathon. He did very well, he wanted to go sub 4 but ended up 5 minutes over. The weather was good (~45 to 55F) but windy.

I think I might add this one to my calendar for next year, great logistics for getting to the start, great volunteers, easy surface to run in, nice long sleeve technical shirts and not too many runners. The 3/4 mile long tunnel is interesting to run through, they had lights throughout the tunnel but having a light was still needed. I forgot about all of the water dripping from the ceiling and walls (we used to bike this trail when our girls were much younger), that made for some colder moments when it hit you. The one thing that was kind of nice is that for the 1/2 marathoners we got to see the faster marathoners come by. I think they liked picking off the slower 1/2 marathoners, at least I know I would, of course by the time I would come through they would all be done :-). The race entry includes the spaghetti dinner the night before and a chicken dinner and beer afterward (we didn't take advantage of either but it's good to know for next year). You just gotta love a Wisconsin event.

Surf the Murph recap

2011-10-30T20:05:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I ran the 25k at Surf the Murph and had a blast on an absolutely beautiful fall day.

I got there early in order to see Wayne and Rick off on their 50 mile journey. It was a crisp 28 degrees but nary a cloud in the sky and the stars were out in force. I was a little jealous I couldn't join them but knew the 25k was the most I should and probably could do. I ran into Lisa at the start and we talked for a while and watched them take off. Rick with his finish at Surf the Murph would accomplish his goal of 1000 race miles for the year. An amazing amount of race miles. I then went to my car to relax (and get warm) since I still had 2 hours until my race.

After a half or so I went looking for some folks I thought were running the 50k. I found Lisa and talked with her a bit more and talked with Steve and Elly, they were running in their VFF's. If only I had gotten my mileage up I might have joined them in my VFF's. It was funny as the 50k got close to starting I decided to go pick up my packet. I gave them my name and said 25k, they didn't find me but then found me with the 50k group (I had registered for the 50k but when I hurt my heel I emailed requesting to drop down to the 25k). I had a brief thought that I should go grab my stuff and go for it, that it was fate but quickly decided that would be really stupid.

Soon enough I was getting ready for my race, I had like 4 pairs of shoes with me and was trying to decide which ones would cause the least pain. I ended up choosing my Montrail RockRidges as they seem to fit my feet although I was a little concerned with their stiffness as I had placed inserts in them to stiffen them up when I bought them. I debated taking them out but they had caused the least pain of my shoes so I figured I should stick with them. Then we were off, it felt great to finally be in a race again. I went out probably a bit too fast but it felt so good to be running again that I just couldn't help myself and I kept thinking I am only doing a 25k, granted a long 25k, as the loop was just short of 17 miles. The course at Murph has us running in the hilly northern section first, then we loop to the flat southern section and finish in the northern section. What the northern section has are hills, steep but not long hills, just a lot of them. As the miles unfolded I tried various ways of running down them to minimize heel pain but I never really found a good way to go down.

As we left the northern section, I was feeling good and went to the aid station to say hello to Londell and the other volunteers. I had chosen to carry my Nathan so I knew I could skip most of the aid stations. Not sure why other than I am used to wearing it and I figured it would save some time as I did hope to beat last years time. I figured I was hurt worse last year and even had hope going into the race that my heel wouldn't slow me down. I continued to run well through the next aid station which was around 8.5 miles. I again skipped the aid station and continued on my way. It was about at this point in the race that my heel pain was getting stronger. I had felt pain on every step from the start but it had started as more of an ache but had gotten a little more intense as the run had gone on. Then I tried to run the section along the road where they had mowed down high grass. It was very uneven and after a few too many sharp pains I had to walk. It was now very clear that my heel did not like uneven surfaces or downhills. After I got through that section I tried to resume running but I had lost it, my thinking looking back was that it was a combo of going out too fast, the increased pain taking it's toll over time and in insufficient training coming into the race. From this point on I just ran when I could and walked when I had hills or uneven surface. It was such a beautiful day that I just kind of soaked it in but I was ready to be done after about 10 miles.

I have to mention the smurf village, it was new part of the course that they added, it goes through one of my favorite short single track sections of the park. I had always wanted them to add that section to this race so I was glad to see that they did even though the entry and exit points were different. I kept making forward progress and finally finished, I ended up finishing about 15 minutes ahead of last year so I made my goal of beating last years time.

After the race I took off to watch my brother-in-laws soccer team play. If they won they would win their conference. Turns out they lost but the second place team tied so they ended up in a tie with the team they lost to and are co-champions. Congrats to him, it is I think his fourth conference championship in the last five years. I then returned to the race to help out. I basically just talked with other runners. I talked a lot to Bill P. and John T. I was basically asking John a lot of questions about 100 mile races. Lisa made it back and we waited for Rick and Wayne to finish. They made it around 8:00 PM, Rick had done it and completed his goal. Congrats to him. It was fun to watch the 50 miler finish, I do hope to return to that distance next year.

My thanks to Les, Cindy, Molly and all of the other volunteers for again putting on a first class race. Can't wait until next year.

Today, I went for a recovery run in Lebanon Hills. I ran my 3 mile out and back section from Jensen lake. I chose to run in my VFF's and I really felt good. It was my farthest run to date in them. I kept the pace easy, no garmin, no watch, no hurry. I was real glad I made it out. I told my wife afterward that I figure it counts as cross training. She didn't agree but I still think it qualifies :-).

Surf the Murph Forecast

2011-10-28T19:10:00.001-05:00

Better late than never, here is the forecast for tomorrow's Surf the Murph. One thing is for sure, it looks like another great day for runners. What a fabulous way to finish out the year. Thanks, Les, Cindy and Molly and all of the rest of the volunteers for putting on a great end of season event.

Last year, I ran Murph injured, I thought that I had made the wise choice to drop down to the 25k, turns out the wise might have been a DNS as it took another 3 months to get over the injuries and then another 4 months after I re-injured myself. So for me the goal is simple, don't get injured and enjoy myself.

50M Start

6 am

30°F
Clear

26°F

78%

From W
4 mph

50k Start

7 am

30°F
Clear

26°F

82%

From WSW
4 mph

25k Start

8 am

32°F
Sunny

29°F

78%

From SW
3 mph

9 am

35°F
Sunny

33°F

73%

From SSW
3 mph

10 am

39°F
Sunny

39°F

65%

From S
2 mph

11 am

43°F
Sunny

42°F

55%

From S
3 mph

12 pm

47°F
Sunny

45°F

48%

From S
4 mph

1 pm

50°F
Sunny

48°F

41%

From S
5 mph

2 pm

52°F
Sunny

50°F

36%

From S
6 mph

3 pm

53°F
Partly Cloudy

51°F

34%

From S
7 mph

4 pm

52°F
Partly Cloudy

50°F

34%

From SSE
7 mph

5 pm

50°F
Partly Cloudy

47°F

36%

From SSE
7 mph

6 pm

48°F
Mostly Cloudy

45°F

41%

From SE
7 mph

Sunset 6:07 pm

7 pm

46°F
Mostly Cloudy

42°F

10%

46%

From SE
7 mph

8 pm

45°F
Mostly Cloudy

41°F

10%

49%

From SE
8 mph

9 pm

44°F
Cloudy

39°F

10%

53%

From SE
8 mph

Running again

2011-10-26T20:47:00.002-05:00

I ran Sunday and again today, only 3 miles each time but it felt good to get back out there. I am not pain free but I think I could tolerate it for awhile. I will find out on Saturday what awhile is but I am not expecting to have major pain.

The one thing that I am happy with is that I have had no additional pain after my runs so I think it is safe to run, at least within reason. I need to watch my downhill running as that causes the most pain as it's harder to land without hitting the heel. Yes, I could just put the head down and fly down the hills but I am not there mentally, at least I wasn't there this morning in the dark.

I did have a nice pre-work run today and I did something that I probably don't do often enough which was run entirely by feel. I had my Garmin but chose to not look at it. After a couple of miles of running neither hard nor easy, I thought to myself "what do you think the time will be?". I predicted my time in my head and at the end of the run, I looked and I was a minute off. That was disappointing, I thought I had it nailed. I then looked at mile pace and saw the first mile was slow by 30 seconds, that made sense I was adjusting to the darkness even though I had my headlamp but it took a few minutes to feel like I had hit the pace I wanted. I then noticed that an additional 30 seconds was after I completed the 3 miles. So upon further reflection, I was only 30 seconds off and it all came in the first mile. That is cool, nice to have a feel for your pace.

I plan to run tomorrow with Wayne at Terrace Oaks and then run the long 25k at Surf the Murph, my plans for Murph are to run easy and enjoy the day. Oh and beat last years time ;-).

Surf the Murph - 1 week out

2011-10-22T15:43:00.002-05:00

Some good news, I am almost able to walk with shoes without pain. I am hoping to run tomorrow and see how it feels. I almost went today but when I was starting to get ready to go, I felt pain and told myself to wait one more day.

On Thursday, I did get in a run around Jensen Lake with Wayne but I was wearing my VFF's. It was my longest ever run in my VFF's, probably about 2.2 miles versus a mile but I needed to run and to just run a mile didn't seem like it would be worth it. If I had a few more miles in them I would probably wear them for Surf the Murph but I am pretty sure that might lead to a few other issues. Nice thing is that they put absolutely no pressure on the heel. Wayne and I talked about the heel drop in shoes and it occurred to me that the shoes causing me the most pain have the greatest differential from back to front. It was a duh moment and really allows one to see how much our shoes do promote heel striking. I think tomorrow I will run either in my Saucony Peregrines (Stack Height: Heel (24mm), Forefoot (20mm)) or my Montrail Mountain Masochists (Stack Height: Heel (28mm), Forefoot (18mm)), if my theory is right I will like the Peregrines the best.

I think I have done a decent time this time taking care of the heel, regular icing, no running and I tried to minimize my walking at least with shoes. I was tempted to cutout the inside of one of my shoes to see if that would relieve the pressure from the shoe but thought better of it.

Another nice thing at least as of today, the weather for Surf the Murph is looking great, no rain or snow and temps from the mid 30's to mid 50's. For October 29th in Minnesota I sure will take it.

Hard to believe we are heading towards winter already, summer and fall seem to always fly by and spring takes forever to get here. Oh well, just one of the realities of living in Minnesota.

Change of plans for Surf the Murph

2011-10-18T22:02:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I faced reality and emailed Les, Cindy and Molly and asked if they could move me to the 25k. I really wanted to do the 50k this year and I thought was working my way back until last week. I can't remember what I posted about it but I tripped and have bruised my heel. Sensitive to touch but the bigger problem is I can't walk without a pain and putting on a shoe adds pain as the cushioning is too hard.

So the thought of running almost 34 miles in less than two weeks on rocks and down steep hills seemed like a recipe for disaster. Today a 5k would be a problem. So can I do a 25k, yes, well maybe, it may be a hike versus a run and it may take 5+ hours but I will get through it. The real issue may come next week if I am not able to be back running by then but I have a week to heal and now only need to worry about a 25k, granted a long 25k but still probably doable.

So I am not happy but my reality is what is and I need to try and get back to running pain free as soon as I can. If I didn't learn anything this year it should be running in pain does not help you get healthy. Instead deal with it, get healthy and reset your plans as there will be another race. The way I am looking it at is if I can get to the 25k pain free then I will be ahead of last year and if I can't, well so be it.

Making Lemonade

2011-10-16T14:06:00.002-05:00

Well today I had planned on running for 20+ miles to get in my last long run before Surf the Murph 50k but that didn't happen. My foot/heel is still too sore. I am walking on it again but have issues with putting the heel to the ground so running long seemed like a bad idea.

Instead I took out my VFF's and ran a mile in them. I knew I could run with my vibrams without putting the heel down too hard and I was right. Too bad I am not up to 20 miles in them, I was really tempted to go 2 or 3 miles today but having done all of 2 runs in vibrams, I let my rational mind win out.

So what to do for Surf the Murph, who knows but at least I can do something over the next few days as I take it one mile at a time and day by day.

2011 woes continue....

2011-10-14T22:32:00.003-05:00

This week I got in 3 consecutive morning runs all in Hyland and all the same course. I kind of like the course it's only 3 miles but it's perfect for a quick run before work. You start at the parking lot by the ski jump, cut through the woods, across the dock, out to bush lake road, loop back. I added the course to the Southern Minnesota trail club website, here is that info:

My first run was on Tuesday and it was slow by design. I didn't want to push it after the long run/hike on Sunday. I started in the dark so I used my headlamp for the first half of the run, except when I was under the trees the moon was so bright I could see without the light. It felt good to run before work. On Wednesday I repeated the loop I kept it slow again but worked on my form. I was 45 seconds faster which was good to see even though I lost some time to some coughing attacks. On Thursday, I decided to push it and continued to work on form. I ended up 3 1/2 minutes faster than Wednesday. I was pleased with the improvement. Still too slow but a nice improvement. The nice thing is that for the last few weeks I am really starting to make progress again. It is so nice to be running pain free.

From that point on my day took a slight twist. I had taken a 1/2 day off from work so we could head out of town to visit a college with my youngest daughter. Before we left I was doing some clean-up when I caught my foot on something that sent me flying, I caught myself but landed hard on my right foot on the concrete, specifically my heel. I was barefoot and it felt like I did some damage but I figured it was just bruised or at least I hoped it was. I chose to ignore the pain and just tried to walk it off as we had to get going. Yes, it may have been denial as I just couldn't be hurt from something like this.

We left shortly after that and as we drove along the foot pretty much throbbed, after we dropped our daughter off for her overnight visit, my wife and I did some shopping. I couldn't walk without pain and she noticed me limping and walking slowly so I told her what I had done. I had the least amount of pain by staying on my toes and I was happy to have a cart to lean on but struggled even with it. I was never so happy to ice it after we got to the hotel. Today it was a little bit better, I can push on it but do get pain to right at the base of the heel or when I squeeze the side of my foot by the heel. At least I am able to walk with less pain. I am hoping to see more improvement tomorrow and then get in my final long run on Sunday. Yes, I know that it is probably not going to happen but it still might, you gotta have hope.

The question that will be interesting is if I can't get in the final run and see good improvement next week do I still try to run the Surf the Murph 50k or do I drop down to the 25k or do I volunteer?

VFF run #2

2011-10-03T19:45:00.001-05:00

After my long run yesterday I decided to get in a short run tonight. It was run #2 in my Vibram Five Fingers Treksports and it went just fine, actually better than fine.

My initial run in my VFF's was over 10 days ago and for that run, I went 1 mile and thought I might have gone a little far but I got away with it as I had no ramifications afterward. For tonight, I again just went a mile but I felt like I should have kept going. I felt really good considering everything which led me to wonder, can running in my VFF's be considered cross training?

Normally as I ramp up my mileage the day after a long run I have soreness especially if I try to run through it. So I decided to run in my VFF's and see how they felt, the answer was no soreness after the first steps, no strains, granted it was just 12 minutes of running but I like the early signs. I have read a bit about transitioning to barefoot running and I am still reading about it so I am not really too sure how I should use them or how fast I should add mileage. My plans are to use my VFF to help strengthen my feet and ankles and build slowly up (over then next few months) to 3 mile runs but even then the majority of my runs I plan on wearing trail shoes. I do hope to transition to lighter weight versions with the lower heel drops but I like the protection they offer. I may build up strength and confidence over time but for now I am taking it slow. I have my 50k in 4 weeks and need to ramp the mileage up for that, after that my plan is to use them more often during the fall, winter and into next year.

Here is a youtube video on the Treksports (except mine are black).

6 week training program to Surf The Murph 50k

2011-10-01T20:29:00.001-05:00

Since I have been struggling with a few injuries for about a year, I decided it was time to get back into the ultra scene as my legs are healthy and I feel like I just need to do it. So on September 23rd I signed up for Surf the Murph 50k. Last year I did the 25k and it was a struggle with the injuries but I took my time and enjoyed being out there. For this year, I wanted to do more but plan to use the same strategy, just enjoy being out there, run when I can, walk when I need to. Even with that in mind, I still had to use a slightly more aggressive training program than I would have preferred as I only had 6 weeks to the race, yup, your basic 6 weeks to a 50k training program. Now I did have a little base going into it (ok, make that very little) but the expectations are set correctly.

To give you an idea and to record for my reflection this winter (in case things don't work out as planned), here are my previous 6 weeks training.

Week	Mileage Total	Long Run/Hike
08/14/11	14	6
08/21/11	16	8
08/28/11	16	6
09/04/11	19	6
09/11/11	12	6
09/18/11	19	11*

* - actually a hike on the Pacific Crest Trail and yes it's included in my weekly mileage

My 6 week training plan to get me to the starting line and hopefully through the day.

Week	Mileage Total	Long Run/Hike
09/25/11	27	15
10/02/11	28	19
10/09/11	36	22
10/16/11	39	25
10/23/11	26	9
10/29/11	44	33

So although it is a bit of a ramp, I am getting in the distance and time on my feet that I think I need even though there will be as much walking as running.

Part of my thinking to do the 50k was based on the fact that I have run a marathon or beyond every year since 1993 with the exception of 2005 when I dropped out of Twin Cities at mile 22. I still have a few regrets about that one and I wanted to keep my pseudo streak to only the one exception.

My other reasons are I did the 25k last year, the 50 miler the year before, the 50k before that so by doing the 50k again I am keeping my streak at Murphy going with the twist that I never do the same distance two years in a row. Yeah, that might be a stretch but I like it.

Western States Video Inspiratons

2011-09-25T07:43:00.000-05:00

Having been at Squaw Valley, hiking on the western states trail and driving around Placer High School in Auburn, my desire to do this dream race has increased even more. I have years of work ahead to even have a chance at qualifying but I now have a feel for what it might be like. In order to help further my inspiration I found these videos on YouTube and thought that they were worth stringing together to help keep the motivation going.

VFF, my next race, great XC story and our vacation

2011-09-23T19:59:00.001-05:00

A couple things to comment on.

For my birthday, my wife got me a pair of Vibram Five Fingers. I have wanted pair but could never rationalize them in my mind. Thank you, Karyn. I ran in them tonight and even held back by only going 1 mile and then stretching out afterward. I plan to use them to build up the foot strength and to help motivate me on a day when I need it. She got me a pair of TrekSports from REI.

Second thing, I just signed up for Surf the Murph 50k.

I had been debating whether to do the 25k or 50k and I decided I just had to do a longer race this year. Having been injured all year and missing all of the events, it seemed like the right thing to do. Although, I probably should have checked the number of weeks to the race, just 5 so I will be ramping up my long run from 10 miles to at least 20+ miles over the next few weeks. I have committed to myself to run this race slowly, I mean very slowly and to enjoy myself, the volunteers and the course. I will not race it and injure myself, let me repeat that I will not be stupid but will make good decisions and soak it all in.

A really neat story from a local cross country meet. Our daughter had run her race ahead of this one and hadn't heard about it.

or you can read the story from the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper

Last thing, my wife and I just returned from a vacation out in Lake Tahoe. We stayed in Squaw Valley and really enjoyed ourselves. We hiked, biked, boated and just really had a good time. The weather was great and the views were unbelievable. I won't bore you with all of the details or pictures (at least in this post :-) but here are a few pictures that will give you a flavor of what we experienced.

Pacific Crest Trail heading from Donner Pass towards Anderson Peak

Looking down towards Emerald Bay

Another look into Emerald Bay

Shirley Lake Trail coming down from High Camp at Squaw

Lebanon Hills Trail Series Ground Rules

2011-09-07T20:54:00.002-05:00

On tonight's run in Lebanon Hills it all became clear. I started the run feeling stressed about things. I told myself give it a mile and see what happens.

Well, the magic happened, I started processing things and got to thinking about the Southern Minnesota Trail Club sponsored Lebanon Hills Trail Series.

I thought about how should I get this virtual group going and it became clear. I will post courses for folks to run, when 3 people post a comment/time that they completed the course on the post then it's an official race in the series. The time limit to post that you completed the course will be the calendar year so take your time but get the courses run.

So I plan to post a lot of courses and we can see if 2 other people take up the series. I say 2 as I count as 1 and yes I will rerun the course after it is posted. So the plan is to do it as a test case this fall with a full series to begin in January. Who knows if I get three people we may have to go for T-shirts and prizes to participants in the series. One thing about the courses, in the summer I plan to avoid the horse trails and in the winter we will avoid the XC trails. I thought I should be a good citizen and honor the park rules. One other thing, I will occasionally post other course sites, the rule is that they need to be south of the Mississippi/Minnesota Rivers or 94/494 and in MN.

The goal of this series is simple, motivation and something to do for those of us that live south of the river. So look for future courses to appear over the next few weeks.

UltraRunning Podcasts

2011-08-26T14:51:00.002-05:00

As any who follow this blog know, I listen to podcasts almost exclusively. I generally have anywhere from 50 to 125 podcasts waiting for me to listen on my Ipod. Some are sermons, some are about finances, some on fitness but the vast majority have been on running. One thing that has changed over the past year is that it seems there has been a huge growth in the ultrarunning podcasts.

Here are a few that I enjoy, check them out if you get a minute.

Ultra Runner Podcast
Great interviews - recent examples - Julie Fingar, Sunny Blende, Marshal Ulrich, Don Freeman, Ellie Greenwood, Jimmie Dean Freeman, Mike Wardian plus quite a few more.

3 Non Joggers - 2 runners, 1 mailman, 3 microphones, all discussing the crazy-ass sport of long distance running. A very entertaining podcast and they occasionally talk about running and ultras. Also you can find them on Facebook.

100MileUltraRunning Listen to the TrailSlammer's reflections as he works through the Grand Slam, the Barkley and other runs from the trails. It was very interesting to hear how he prepared for the events. I also enjoyed hearing how his day went, he is a good runner who had some struggles which make his podcast even more interesting to listen to. Also you can find him on Facebook.

Running Stupid Coach Ken is a back of the packer so I can definitely relate to his podcast. He lives out in California and he has attempted many ultras over the years. His challenge is making the cut-offs. His show has a kazoo occaisionally and always if he mentions Dean Karnaze. Also you can find him on Facebook.

Running in the Center of the Universe
Join Ashland Dave as he runs in the center of the universe, which happens where he lives, Ashland, VA. He is an average everyday runner who does marathons and ultras and his podcast always ends with the National Anthem. I think is a bit like me, a larger runner who does it simply because he enjoys it and he likes the challenge.

I love that podcasts on ultrarunning are appearing although I would like to say this is good, the truth is I am not sure I want more ultrarunners. I like the solitude of my trails, where else can I listen to all of these podcasts. I even left off a couple more ultradad and ultramarathinrunning that you might check out too. Oh well, time to share what I love and these podcasts may inspire you or motivate you to check out the trail running and ultra scene.

If you want to listen to runs on running in general there is a blog that has a great list of running podcasts, if you get a chance check them out as well.

Turtle Trot Race Report - a bit overdue

2011-08-23T21:27:00.000-05:00

Well year 6 of running the Turtle Trot Triathlon was not a great time but as always it was a great time yet again.(ok, this was from back in July but I forgot to post it oops)

We again did the run first, then the swim followed by the bike. As a reminder it is a 5k, 1/2 mile and 10 mile respectively.

The run went ok, the calf tightened up during the first mile but I was able to keep running, I did slow down each mile as I had to take a couple of short walking breaks. I wasn't sure if it was going to break down or not so I didn't push it as I didn't want to have go into a spasm. I ended up with my second slowest 5k (at the TT) but I was still happy as I had no ankle pain and the calf wasn't as bad as before.

The swim, well I didn't drown, that is about as much as I hope for. It was harder this year then past years as the lake was up and there were times I couldn't touch so I had to swim more than normal :-).

The bike, first though I should give proper credit as during the swim Karyn caught and passed me but we ended up getting out of the water still fairly close together. I did a slightly faster transition which allowed us to bike together. I thought about trying to pedal away but the truth was I am not sure I could have. Karyn had a good day, if not for a huge puddle, she might have PR'd. The huge puddle was fun they got a few inches of rain before the race and the street was flooded out so we peddled through it, it came up to my gear train.

We were both happy we did it and I am sure we will look forward to doing it again next year.

Double Red Blood Cell Donation

2011-08-21T15:05:00.009-05:00

Last Tuesday I donated blood actually I did a double red cell donation. If you are not sure what that means, here is the definition:

Double Red Cell Donation
What is it?
Double red cell donation is similar to a whole blood donation, except a special machine is used to allow you to safely donate two units of red blood cells during one donation while returning your plasma and platelets to you

During your double red cell donation, blood is drawn from one arm and drawn through a sterile, single-use needle set to a machine. The machine separates and collects two units of red cells and then safely returns the remaining blood components, along with some saline, back to you through the same arm.

Why am I posting on it, well I ran over the weekend and I got tired quickly during my run, my original intent was to get in a run up to 16 miles. I barely got through 3 miles before feeling exhausted with dead legs. The 3 miles felt like 12 miles, I muddled my way through 8 miles on Saturday and then tried again this morning, same issue almost immediately so I again just did 8 miles. So my question to myself was, is this just related to the blood donation or do I have something else going on? Normally after giving blood, I take it easy for a day or so and have never noticed anything like this.

So in doing some follow-up research per the Red Cross, I can't give blood for 112 days versus the normal 56 days beyond that they don't say too much. In looking around the web, I saw that others seem to have said that they have had similar issues so I am guessing it is just a by product of the donation. In order to understand this better, I figure I will monitor my upcoming training and see how long before I feel normal on my runs. My guess is I will be back to normal within a few weeks.

Do I regret doing so, absolutely not. I have O+ blood (universal donor), it's always needed, I have always been able to donate and there are many people who can't donate so I always will.

Will I do the double red blood cell donation again? Absolutely.

Camping in Lebanon Hills

2011-08-15T22:13:00.015-05:00

This past weekend we met some old friends for our annual camping weekend. This years location, Lebanon Hills. Normally we go north, not this year, which it made it really easy for my family. Great camping, hard to believe we were in the middle of a city.

We stayed in the east loop, some of the sites are fairly sheltered by trees and a few are in the open I think all of the sites have electric even though we were camping. A couple of our friends had large trailers and the others camped. The west loop is RV central while the north loop is tents only (no power). For those not familiar with the campground it is located on the western side of the center section of the park just across from the Zoo off of Johnny Cake Ridge Road.

On Saturday morning, I got in a 6 mile run and stopped to take a couple pictures from the trail. If anyone recognizes this section of trail, feel free to post the location otherwise I will keep it hidden away as it's one of my favorite sections in Lebanon Hills even though it's not a real long section. It was raining lightly when I left the campground, it picked up as I went but running in the trees kept me mostly dry and besides I love running in the rain. All in all a great weekend.

Odds and Ends

2011-08-07T15:07:00.000-05:00

I was able to get through the 25k loop at Afton this weekend. I ran with Wayne and Karen and am surprised that I made it through. We ran the loop backwards and there were times where I felt really good and times I felt pretty bad. So all in all a normal longish run and for me completely pain free from my long plaguing injuries. I wore my calf sleeves which I think helped protect the calf both internally and externally as the snowshoe section was a bit thick in places. By the end of the run, my hamstring had gotten tight and I was very close to cramping up everywhere but I think that was nothing more than the distance combined with the heat.

I ran today and was very sore in mile 1, less sore in mile 2 and felt good in mile 3 and was able to even push it a bit. For the week I ended up getting in over 30 miles, the first time for that since McNaughton.

Now I just need to find some fall races to sign up for to get me to Surf the Murph where I am planning on running the 50k. I thought I would be running the 13.1 Minneapolis as I received the email about a free entry but alas I have heard nothing back. She probably read through my blog and figured out that I am not worth giving an entry to :-). Giving my desire to do the 50k at STM, I would love to find a marathon in late September or early October not too far from home.

The goal for this week is to continue to get in my runs and have another 30+ mile week.

Lebanon Hills Virtual Running Group?

2011-07-31T14:14:00.022-05:00

I was out for my run this morning and I had one of those moments that occasionally occur where a few thoughts come floating through my head and evolve into a new idea.

First some background, earlier this year when we were running in Lebanon Hills, Wayne, Karen and I discussed how we need to have a south metro club that could rival the Duluthian's - Northern Minnesotan Track Club series of races. Now our motives weren't entirely pure of heart which may be why we did nothing with it. The discussion was based around Rick B. and Wayne's 2011 race mileage contest. You see Rick is shooting for 1000 miles of race mileage this year in celebration of becoming a Senior Master and Wayne kind of decided to see if he could keep up with and maybe even run more race miles than Rick. Our discussion was all about the fact that Rick has the advantage of the NMTC series and Wayne has nothing similar to add on the extra race mileage. So we chose a name - Southern Minnesota Trail Club, I volunteered to set up a blog which I did but I did nothing more (if you go to the link you will see what I mean about not doing much with it :-). I think what held us back, ok me, was the time and commitment of organizing, just too much work and I am not always a group kind of person.

Then today, it all came together, as I thought about that idea and then thought about a blog that I have been part of called "Whats a Few Miles Among Friends". This blog tracked our high mileage day for the weekend and was intended to allow a virtual group to encourage each other as we got our runs in. I have to admit it that occasionally I would get out the door to get in my run as I didn't want to post a 0. This worked especially well for me during our winter months but alas that virtual group appears to have run out of gas.

I had a few more ideas pop into this thought thread, does anyone else ever have these kind of mental threads? You know, when disconnected ideas and thoughts keep colliding with one another, merging, separating, etc.. and turning into really neat ideas, usually I forget the result but today I think I have remembered it.

During today's run I was really struggling to muddle my way through as it was hot and humid but I also knew it was because I have no race in my near future to force me to run with a purpose, usually I sign up for a marathon, check the calendar, say "oh xxxx" and then force myself to get in the mileage as I only have x weeks to get in shape. I thought to myself that I need to find a race to give me some focus to my running.

My last thought in the thread was around a conversation I had with John K. (a member of the Upper Midwest Trail Runners board) at the end of my run in Lebanon Hills yesterday and his. He passed me on the short hill out of Jensen Lake and we introduced ourselves. He said he reads my blog and that he liked all of my Garmin data from Lebanon Hills.

So as all of these random thoughts converged in my head it became clear I should create a virtual running race series for the south metro. I will post a route and anyone who wants to join me for the race can simply send me their time when they complete it.

Granted this virtual series will require you to run my route or at least say you did but since there is no prize money or awards, I think it will work. This also avoids needing to get permission from the park as we can all run when our schedule allows. We can worry about all of the other details later as I realize I could be the only one to do these virtual races but heck that's ok, as it still might motivate me to put in a harder workout. We could also have routes from the River Bottoms, Hyland, Murphy, Afton, Terrace Oaks, well I think those on the south side get my drift. If anyone wants to run it together, no issue they will just need to organize themselves to do so. Now this series may not help out Wayne but something tells me he will be doing every race in the series.

If you like the idea, let me know. I plan to map out the first race with a few basic rules later this week.

It all comes back.........

2011-07-28T21:07:00.002-05:00

I was having some cellphone issues which forced me to go back to an old phone. After I got it activated, I was checking out my ringtone and realized that I had an Eagles song on it and after I listened to it, I decided to keep it as my ringtone. The song is called "How Long" and it was on the Eagles 2007 album called "Long Road out of Eden", this song has always bugged me as it sounded so familiar and I now know why.

First though, here is the lyric that I like:
Like a blue bird with his heart removed, lonely as a train
I've run just as far as I can run
If I never see the good old days shinin' in the sun
I'll be doin' fine and then some

When I heard it in 2007, I thought that it was a new song and I really liked it as it reminded me of the songs the Eagles did in the 70's. So as I looked into it tonight, I saw it was written by J. D. Souther and I figured that they must have had him write a song or two for the new album and since it was a Souther song that must be why it seemed like a song from the 70's. If you want to watch or listen to the song, here are the Eagles performing it at the 2007 CMA awards.

As I continued my looking around You Tube, I found this version and it all made sense.

I am pretty sure that I had heard the song when I saw the Eagles back in the 70's as the above version seemed right to me, while the new version always seemed familiar but just a bit off and that's probably because it was missing some of the harmonies of the early Eagles which you can hear in this version.

Here is some additional info from Wikipedia on the "Long Road out of Eden" Album and Tour.

On August 20, 2007, the song "How Long," written by J.D. Souther — who had previously worked with the Eagles co-writing some of their biggest hits including "Best of My Love," "Victim of Love," "Heartache Tonight" and "New Kid in Town" — was released as a single to radio with an accompanying online video at Yahoo! Music and debuted on television on CMT during the Top 20 Countdown on August 23, 2007. The band performed the song as part of their live sets in the early to mid 1970s, but did not record it at the time due to J.D. Souther's desire to use it on his first solo album.

And if you want to hear the original, here is a copy of J. D. Souther's version

Great run in Lebanon Hills

2011-07-19T21:33:00.025-05:00

Ran in the far western section of Lebanon Hills tonight, it was a deer fly free run, sweet!!!!!. I always run this section of the park when the deer flies come out, the hiking trail is only about 2.5 miles around the outer loop but it is the hilliest section of the park and fairly enjoyable to run an out and back loop. I never do run on the mt. bike trails as the park is a single use trail system and besides there are too many bikes to mess with.

And for me it was a great run. No, not my physical effort that was fairly pathetic based on time but the mental aspect was fabulous, it was around 92 when I went out and still a bit humid and if felt absolutely wonderful to be sweating with no concern about it freezing to my clothing. I will take 90 over -10 any day of the year. I could live with this weather for a few more weeks, no make that a month or two and to have no deer flies attacking me, now that was a nice bonus.

I also had no calf pain, unbelievable that one ART treatment has helped that much. What's funny though is that earlier today I noticed some ankle pain, nothing to be worried about just another sign that the calf is doing better and my mind moves to the points of my body that have pain. On tonight's run it was my knee that had some twinges, what a wonderful type of pain.

So I think it is almost time to try to get myself back in running shape by easing my way back into becoming a long distance runner again.

Calf update

2011-07-14T21:19:00.006-05:00

This morning, I had an appointment for my ankle, it was supposed to be a 3 week check up. I debated cancelling the appointment as my ankle is doing great, no pain and seems to be getting stronger each day. On the other hand, my calf has been a huge nuisance so I kept the appointment and had the Doctor examine the calf.

I now completely and fully understand the pain that Active Release Technique (ART) can bring to someone. I was in tears as he worked on the calf, he isolated my injured area almost immediately (think caused me pain). After the initial injury isolation he continued to work on it he caused me major pain, as in the tears I mentioned above. He then continued to work on it even more and he said I should be at a 5 or 6 on the pain scale but if I get to an 8 (on a 10 point scale) to let him know. He blew through my 8 and hit a 10, all I could do was let out a groan. He backed off a bit, then finished the treatment and said I should come back for one more next week so I headed into work. What a great way to start the day.

After work, I ran with Wayne and Karen, we went almost 6 miles and I had no pain from the calf, some tightness but no pain, it is the first time since Superior that I felt like a real bona fide runner, so I am very hopeful.. So perhaps after 9+ months of hobbling my way through runs my pain can soon be over, I sure hope so.

So if someone tells you ART can hurt they would be right but with a healthy ankle and a calf that seems to have responded, suffice to say I am a believer in it and hopefully soon, I will truly feel and actually be a real runner again..

Minimalist Running Update

2011-07-11T18:15:00.031-05:00

As I continue my path to adding miles with a more minimalist shoe, I have of course been doing a bit of research to find out what is out there on the subject.

First though, for me, I am easing into minimalist running with a once a week run of 3 miles (or at least every 10 days for sure) in my Saucony Peregrines. I have noticed no issues but with my calf still hurting it's hard to tell for sure but it seems that when on trails I land pretty much mid or flat footed since I have yet to notice my heel hitting. I am hopeful that soon the calf issue will be behind me and I can get a better test of the shoes. One thing that I should mention is that the calf doesn't bug me anymore with the minimalist shoes, not sure what if anything that means. For those not familiar with the Peregrines they are a like a beginners guide to minimalist running so they aren't that extreme.

If you are looking for information on minimalist running here are couple of links I came across. The first link is to website called "The Minimalist Runner", lots of good info, mostly shoe reviews with a handful of other articles. I also found this website called ZeroDrop, it's fairly good as well. If you want shoe info check out this link on "Minimalist and Barefoot shoe guide" or this link from the minimalist runner, "Shoe Matrix and Shopping Guide".

Here is a link to really good review from The Minimalist Runner on the Saucony Peregrines or take a listen to the short video from an iRunFar review of the Saucony Peregrines

Along with a video on comparing minimalist shoes with "standard" shoes.

Motivation?

2011-07-06T22:18:00.008-05:00

Motivation downer - Not much of note going on for my running, I am struggling to get over a recurrence of a calf strain. The calf issue has me continuing to have to walk during every run, when I first started running after the ankle rehab I walked then as a preventative not because I had to. For the ankle it was to keep from overdoing it and even with my taking it easy I still re-strained the calf somehow. Last fall when I had both looked at, my Doctor told me the torn calf would bug me longer than the sprained ankle. I thought he was wrong since the ankle took almost 9 months, now it appears he may be right. I must have tightened up after the 5 weeks off of no running and PT for the ankle.

Motivation upper - I volunteered at Afton Saturday, what a tough looking course. I am sooooooooo glad that I didn't try to do the 25k, it would have probably ended my season. For all those that participated great work, for John and all of the volunteers (the ones who did all of the work, not me), wow, an impressive recovery from an unfortunate venue change. (The state is shut down thanks to the inability of a Governor to lead and the legislature's ability to do their job, you can see my Independent streak, I blame all of them but last time I checked I expect the most from the chief executive to provide the leadership).

Motivation future - After Afton I was thinking I needed to do something to get my act training towards something when I received this email:

I'm reaching out to you and other bloggers for a different reason and yes, it's related to the upcoming 13.1 Minneapolis race on August 21st.

In fact, I'm contacting you for two reasons: The first one is awesome, but the second reason really rocks! Ok, first: I have discount codes for race entries that you can give to friends, family, blogger readers, etc. for both the 5k and the half. Additionally, for mentioning the race on your blog or writing about your experience, I have a FREE entry for you and one additional freebie to give away as you see fit.

Let me get this right, a free entry to a 1/2 marathon that starts in Minneapolis and finishes at Lake Nokomis?

So I have around 7 1/2 weeks to get myself healthy enough to enjoy a course I love (even if it's on the roads :-). Safe to say that I am now a little more motivated to get myself back in the game.

So stay tuned for additional details on the upcoming race and potentially a free entry for someone else.

Learning from mistakes

2011-06-22T19:57:00.017-05:00

Actually, I may not of yet have learned but I might be starting to wise up. I have had a history of running through injuries and a history of minor and a few major injuries. All of my major issues have happened away from running that is until last fall when I messed up my ankle and my calf..

Here is what I have proven by running through these injuries, I did not heal as quickly as I could have and might have caused myself some other compensation injuries. Because of these injuries, thus far this year I have not been able to run any races. My latest race to miss is Afton. What if I had done a better rehab, would I have been able to race?

I thought I was on track to run Afton by dropping down to the 25k but it is not to be.This weekend when the calf tightened up after 3 miles and then again yesterday before the first mile, I have had to face my reality, I am not yet healthy and need to work the calf back into running shape. Since I have worked to get the ankle back working right it only makes sense that now that it is almost healthy my calf is an issue. I am sure some stretching and maybe some PT will get it stretched out again. Last fall, my Doctor told me that the calf would probably be more of a problem than the ankle. Well, he was wrong for 6 months but it appears he now may be right. Ugh.........

So today, I emailed John S. and said do you need another volunteer for Afton? He emailed me back and said sure he could use some cleanup help. I knew when I sent the email that his race was almost full so I wouldn't have much time to make my final decision. Tonight, during church, I decided I should go ahead and sign up for the 25k, since he needed post race help, I might as well gamble and go for it as I would have plenty of time and heck it's only a 25k.

Ok, you might be thinking to yourself that this is the thinking that has gotten me into trouble and fate intervened, I just checked and his race is full.

So for this year I will not risk additional injury at Afton instead I will volunteer.

Walking the plank - Proprioception

2011-06-14T20:52:00.000-05:00

I was planning on running tonight after work, two things got in my way. A thunderstorm and a reality check. I had to admit to myself that I may have overdone it a little over the weekend as my ankle is sore. Not painful just sore. So an extra day off of running will probably be a good idea.

What do I mean by walking the plank, well that is the exercise activity that I have been doing that I think has helped the ankle. The Dr. that I saw that suggested that I work on improving my proprioception

Definition of Proprioception from Dictionary.com

The unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself. In humans, these stimuliare detected by nerves within the body itself, as well as by the semicircular canals of the inner ear

He said I should pick a 4" x 4"x 8' cedar beam, since I had 4 2" x 4" x 8's I went low cost and nailed then together and now have16 feet of plank to walk.

I walk forwards and backwards and am just starting to get a feel for doing it with the eyes closed. Ok, I should say that I can stand on the beam with my eyes closed as I have yet to be able to walk the entire length and back with my eyes closed. I can stare at a distance point versus looking down at the beam which is an improvement. Since I first started doing the beam, I have made quite a bit of progress and considering the cost and how I can't do it very well, it's well worth the investment and time.

So instead of a run, I walked my plank for 5 minutes. Hopefully tomorrow the soreness will be gone and I will get in a run.

Minimalist Running begins

2011-06-12T12:36:00.004-05:00

Stopped at TC Running on Thursday and checked out their trail shoes. Kurt D. assisted and I ended up getting a pair of Saucony ProGrid Peregrines. These are kind of an intro to minimalist running since they weigh around 9 oz although they do only have a 4 mm drop versus the normal 10 to 20 mm drop. They fit and feel like a slipper. I probably went farther than I should have yesterday but I didn't have any issues, actually I was surprised as the lower heel didn't seem to matter at all.

Here is what they looked like at the start of the run

Here they are after 5 miles

Potawatomi Recap 2

2011-06-09T21:54:00.003-05:00

Ok, I wasn't going to publish this report but I decided I should for a couple of reasons. First I did take the time to write it back in April and it was a different experience for me that I think is worth noting meaning trying to be a pacer versus a racer. At Potawatomi, I had planned to run one loop by myself as I wanted to give a bit of thought to things from my past, my reason for that is that the race was on my Dad's birthday. He died in 1983 and I thought it would be good to take the time to remember things. This is a long post so sorry about that but I debated breaking it up and decided since it was personal most folks would understand.

As to the race, my plan was to pace Wayne and Karen for the first 2 loops, run loop 3 on my own for myself and reserve 2 more loops for them. As a reminder, Wayne and Karen were doing the 100 and I was hoping to do 50 miles but my main goal was to help them and give my ankle a reasonable test. It was Wayne's second attempt at a 100 and Karen's third attempt at McNaughton. On the drive down we went through many race scenarios all of which were contingent on things going well. If the weather and the course were good, I knew that they would both finish. If conditions turned bad at McNaughton, well it is a tough course and that would be a problem was our conclusion.

The weather when we arrived was in the mid 60's with a forecast for upper 70's the next day. The water in the creeks was low, so we were expecting very good running conditions. Our plan was to try and mimic the pace from last year plus about 10 minutes, that meant a 2 and 1/2 hour first loop followed by a 2 hour and 40 minute second loop. Not too fast, I think we thought that the initial part of the race would be easy, relatively speaking. One thing not in the forecast was the rain we got right before the race. Unfortunately, the rain made the course almost un-runnable. Part of the issue was I chose to run in my Brooks Cascadia's, not a good mud shoe at least with the steepness of the McNaughton hills. The hills were scary on the way down and very slippery on the way up, grabbing small tress and branches was required. With regards to our plan, the mud made it not happen, the first loop took 2 hours and 50 minutes and it felt like we pushed it a lot harder than we should have had to. The second loop took almost 3 hours.

I wasn't happy that I failed to get them through the first two loops any faster and that it took a little more out of me than I had hoped. I sent Wayne and Karen on their way and took a chair. I was hoping that I had slowed them down and that without me slowing them down that they would find a nice pace. Rick said he was going out on his own to take some pictures. I liked his idea and decided to do the same thing except I grabbed my phone to take pictures. As I started the third loop, I could tell the heat was coming on but it also was drying up the course which was good. I had even more ankle pain. To quantify the pain, during the first two loops every step hurt a little when I landed or pushed off and occasionally the steps hurt a lot. The third loop seemed to be more of the "lot" versus a "little".

To take my mind off of my own issues, I started to try and remember things about my dad, he died in 1983 at the age of 54, he was overweight, smoked, drank too much beer, loved to play golf, listen to the Cincinnati Reds and IU (Indiana University) basketball, he was a caring man and I wish he had lived much longer. He died of a heart attack while in his Doctor's office. He was in a preventative program to reduce his risk of a heart attack and had just completed a stress test when his heart went in a-fib but they couldn't get it stopped (to be honest, I may be wrong about it being a-fib but that is what I remember). On a related note, his father died the evening after he did a stress test (back in the 70's). My older brother has told his Doctor he will never do one. Not sure how I feel about doing one.

I then thought about my mom, she died in 1989 of colon cancer. She was alive when our first daughter was born and I still have strong memories of her with Katie. We have a picture of them together with the Easter bunny. I do wish that my parents could have lived to see our girls grow up but it wasn't meant to be. I have the memories but my girls do not. I also thought of my niece Sarah who was born 6 months ahead of Katie but died before her first birthday. She had neuroblastoma, was diagnosed in 1986 and we thought that part of what kept my mom from recognizing her colon cancer was the time she spent trying to help my brother and his wife as they dealt with their cancer stricken daughter. Those were not easy days on my family and for me living in MN, I felt even more removed and helpless to help out. Thankfully I have 3 brothers and a sister who carried the load of dealing with Mom. I should really write a bit more about my mom but will save it for another post.

Next up in my thoughts was our daughter Kellie who died before she was born. She would have been our second daughter but was stillborn at 25 weeks. Needless to say my wife and I were devastated when she no longer felt movement and then we went in for the ultrasound where no heartbeat was heard. They were able to determine what might have caused her death, my wife has a blood clotting issue (it is called anti-phospholipid syndrome - her blood clots too well). After the diagnosis we decided to try again right away to have another child which led to our miracle baby, Kristin. I remember my brother and his wife the Christmas after Kellie when we discussed her, how one of them said that our loss was harder than theirs, we had no time with Kellie but they were given almost a year with Sarah. That made me feel better but I still can't imagine their loss.

My wife had to give herself heparin shots throughout the pregnancy to manage the clotting problem, we dealt with many Doctors, she endured nose bleeds when the heparin dosage got too high, hematoma from one of the 3x daily injections. It was not an easy time but the result was worth it, our baby girl is now looking at colleges as she finishes up her junior year. I still remember our eldest daughter saying that she hoped that this baby would live. Katie has now graduated from college, is working out in the real world and has developed into a great young lady. Needless to say we are quite proud of both of our girls.

My mind wandered and the miles floated by, the ability to have this happen during an ultra is one of my reasons for loving ultras, it just doesn't happen for me during shorter runs. It was a surreal experience and I struggled to keep it all together. Meaning, there were times I just stopped and had to take a deep breath to hold back the emotions. I kept thinking how blessed I have been with a wonderful wife and my daughters. Part of my struggle, I admit was that my ankle was killing me, the downhills were brutal, the uphills hurt and the flats weren't much fun either so I was forced to walk more than I ran and I had doubts about if I would be able to help Wayne and Karen. I knew I had committed to do it so I was going to give it my best shot.

I then started remembering the homes that I lived in when I grew up in Columbus. My mind moved through every room at our housed on Pearl street, I remembered friends and things I did in that neighborhood. Then I moved my mind towards our house on 734 California where we moved when I was in high school. Then I remembered my Grandmother's house which was on 732 California. My parents moved into it after my grandmother died. A weird thing was that I was able to remember the house when my Grandmother and Grandfather lived there but my parents redid the house and I could not for the life of me remember it properly. I kept thinking about where the kitchen was and the back porch which got transformed into my parent's bedroom. I think part of my issue was that they redid the house after I was in college or was it after I graduated, anyway the memories I should have had, I struggled to remember.

About then, my loop was coming to an end and it was getting hot, real hot. The forecast had changed to the upper 70's/low 80's. Since we had had 0 days over 60 to train in, it was going to be hard on Wayne and Karen. I made it back chatted with Rick, his dad and his friend. I hung out until Wayne and Karen came through and then I went into the tent to try to get some sleep. Rick was going to finish out his 50 with them and then I would continue. I had a heck of a time dozing off but finally did. They got me up before they arrived so I had time to get my bearings and get my mind back into it. As they came into at 60 miles, Rick told me that they had gotten pretty quiet and that I should just keep them moving.

The ankle was hurting but I was going to try and do my job as pacer for the second time. I asked them what they wanted and they really weren't too talkative, I moved ahead of them, stayed along side of them, asked occasional questions and tried to help at the aid stations. We were mostly walking which was ok by me, it was pretty at night, peaceful and the temps were still very pleasant, not hot but definitely warm like on a summer night. We continued around the loop, I was trying to keep the pace quick and tried to keep our stops in the aid stations short. Frankly, pacing is hard (meaning I am not very good at it, much easier to run your own race). During this loop I kept having an internal debate could I do one more loop with them? Should I do one more loop with them? The battle within went from yes you can, no you can't and as we crossed the last creek, I was really struggling. I moved up ahead of them to try and pull them along. As we came up over the last hill, they started to talk amongst themselves which was odd as they had been quiet during the entire loop. I had decided that I should/couldn't go on and was trying to decided how to tell them, I didn't want to let them down but I didn't think I could make another loop. Turns out their discussion was that they were quiting but they wanted me to finish my 50 so they were discussing that they would do one more loop with me. I told them no and we called it an evening.

We were all disappointed but the course conditions and the weather had been brutal up to that point. If they had continued, the temps on Sunday got up to 86 with a very strong wind. I think they made the right call.

I have to end this post with an update, Wayne finished his 100 at Kettle where he figured out how to tolerate another tough weather day. Karen went down and helped pace him, she was far more effective than I was. I am thrilled that Wayne got his first 100 except knowing Wayne he might now be thinking about running the Potawatomi 150 next year and be looking for a pacer, I think I will recommend Karen :-).

Running thoughts - future choices?

2011-06-07T19:37:00.024-05:00

Now that I am slowly becoming a runner again I have been giving a bit of thought to what do I want to accomplish for the remainder of the year? If I sign up for races like the Afton 50k, Twin Cities marathon and Surf the Murph 50 miler, I will hurry myself to ramp up the mileage and end up injured which is what I want to avoid.

So over the weekend I did a couple of test runs and here is my conclusion - I am in pathetic shape but I did not have ankle pain. I know part of me being pathetic was the heat since I have had zero days running in it and both days when I went running it was in the 80's but realistically, I have a lot of work ahead of me. So all things considered what do I want to do?

First, I have to say kudos to Wayne for running and finishing a 100 mile race over the weekend, yes the same weekend day when I couldn't make it 6, unbelievable and a well deserved kettle. Looking forward to add a link to your race post :-).

Back to me, I thought more about focusing on TCM but I would rather take the $100 and run a few more races like Wild Duluth and Big Woods and Walker or ...... well, you get my drift. So what am I going to do?

Well, I have given it a bit of thought and here goes. I am going to work on the things that really are holding me back. Which in my opinion are two primary things, make that three: My work-life carryover, my weight and my injuries. I personally think the injuries and weight go together at least a little but realistically I have been injured since last September and did less than 10 days of cross or alternative exercising. Heck my wife does 10 days of alternative training in 2 weeks so I have to get realistic and do a better job of identifying and doing alternative workouts. The work life thing is about priorities and is something I have to work on, I could now run almost every day before work yet I haven't, why? The answer is I have had a lot of things going on at work and have hurried in and had to stay later to get the projects done, I need to invest in myself. So I am thinking that if I only try to run 3 miles before work, then most of my excuses on time go away. I historically have only wanted to do runs of 5 to 7 miles or longer, why waste my time for 3 miles? Well, I am slow enough that 3 miles takes longer than it used to, meaning years ago 3 miles took between 20 and 25 minutes, today it's like 35 minutes at least on trails and you know what that's a decent workout.

So where am I heading with this? I am thinking about working on aligning my desire to do shorter workouts with something that might help me on the injury front. And what does this mean, it means I am going to venture into the world of minimalist running and invest in a pair of "somethings" that help me (ok make that they will force me to) work on my form. Right now, I am doing the research at the link above (great reviews on some of the minimalist shoes) and various other places and blogs on the net and then I am planning on heading over to TC Running to take a look at what they have. If I end up buying a pair, I will post about the learning curve it takes for me to convert to a midfoot running form. I have read many of the books on minimalist running such as Chi Running, Born to Run and others and I think there is merit in mixing it into my routine. So for me, this can be my alternative exercise and don't worry as I go down this path, I will ease into it as I don't want it to cause other injuries but it would seem like a natural thing to do for a 3 mile run before work run.

One last thought or maybe it's a bitch, I have now run 2 days before work in Hyland and both days I ended up with a wood tick on me (I hate when I feel something crawling on me). I have run in Lebanon Hills for years without any, go figure.

On a different note

2011-05-31T19:51:00.001-05:00

I love things like this, saw it on a yahoo site and couldn't resist posting it. I kind of enjoy figuring things out like this even if some of them take me a long time to figure out.

If you can't figure them out, go to the yahoo site or feel free to post your conclusions.

Running is getting back on track

2011-05-30T10:52:00.000-05:00

I am becoming familiar with running again. I have now run 5 out of the last 8 days. I did back to back runs on Saturday and Sunday with my long run being 6 miles. To be fair, my running is not of great quality, meaning no speed and I take walking breaks whenever I think I need to. My thinking is that if I take it slow than I will be back to training for a longer race soon enough. I really do miss my long runs in Lebanon or Murphy and look forward to doing them in the coming months.

As to races for the year, right now I will only focus on possibly doing the Afton 25k. Since I have dropped the last two years during the 50k at the 25k split it doesn't seem to make sense to try and ramp to the 50k distance in a month. I did have a goal of entering it healthy which I think I can do for the 25k but for the 50k, I might be able to do it but I am pretty sure I shouldn't so it is definitely out.

One issue I still have is the inability to push off strong with the right ankle. When I try to sprint or accelerate I get pain of some sort. I feel it when I am sitting sometimes, it just feels like someone is pressing on the top of my foot right below the ankle or like you have a shoe with no padding and the laces are cutting into the top of the foot. This may be nothing more than something I need to work through by running and by continuing to make sure that the ankle is stronger and that I have full flexibility. I would like to say that I didn't have this pain before I started the ART and Graston treatments but I think the truth is I don't know if I did or not as the ankle was hurting elsewhere.

So for the moment, I continue one day at a time and hope to be back in decent running shape by the end of June.

I ran and am hopeful :-)

2011-05-23T22:01:00.001-05:00

I went for a run on Sunday morning in Lebanon Hills. I only ran a total of 3 miles with no significant pain during the run. I used a run 4 minutes/walk 1 minute strategy to make sure I took it easy and I was ready to flip the ratios or modify the ratios if issues developed but none really did. I did have knee pain which has happened to me at the start of many runs ever since I had knee surgery years ago. It was a delightful pain to feel knee pain versus ankle pain.

I delayed posting for a day in order to see what the ankle felt like a day later. Well, the answer is, I think ok. The ankle was a bit tender after the run but not really painful. So tomorrow I will try to run after work and see how it goes but as of today I am hopeful.

4 weeks and counting

2011-05-18T20:14:00.000-05:00

Quick update, still not running.

Long update, still not running.

I was really discouraged last week and into the weekend. The ankle did not seem like it was getting any better. I am pretty tired of it but I am following the advice of the guy I am seeing for it. He has said if I can't walk without pain I shouldn't run. A concept that I have to admit has some degree of merit.

Last week played 2 softball games, not able to run to first without significant pain. I can't push off and accelerate at all. What I end up doing is simply pushing through it and then hoping I don't have to run too far or stop to quickly. If it didn't hurt on the first steps I would say softball is making it worse but it hurts before and after, and the after doesn't seem to be that much different. Now my shoulder that's a different story, I hate rotator cuff pain and it's a big reason I didn't want to play last year. A year off hasn't helped oh well. I am better off than a buddy who broke his leg in 2 places sliding into second. I didn't see it as I was scoring but it's safe to say that a broken tibula and fibula plus 9 screws can't be good. Made my ankle pain seem pretty minor.

Over the weekend, the pain seemed to change when I was walking. On Monday I had it worked on again, it continued to feel better, Tuesday saw some additional progress (able to go up and down stairs almost pain free). Had another treatment today, where he did the Graston technique again but he focused on my achilles, heel and arch. It was not pleasant at times but no sharp pain. It just felt like he was rubbing me with a metal bar, oh yeah that is actually what he was doing.

He also did ART on the ankle but added a few additional movements that really didn't feel too good but I left with hope. I am thinking (ok hoping, praying) that in another day or so I will be able to walk without pain and then this weekend become a runner again.

I have pretty much abandoned any hope of doing any significant races this year. Chester Woods is out, Afton is fading. Basically any goals I had for this year are just not going to happen. After Afton, I haven't looked ahead, who knows, maybe I still shoot for TCM (I keep expecting it to close) and Surf the Murph. Not much of a running year but if I could do those two healthy that would be the way to go into winter. Now doesn't that thought just basically not settle very well at all. Oh well, first things first, walking without pain.

Proprioception?

2011-05-12T06:01:00.001-05:00

So what does "Proprioception" have to do with a running blog. Hold it, I am not even sure I qualify as a runner since it has been 2 weeks with no running.

First about the running, it has been really tough but I decided to quit running until the pain was reduced. I have been getting the ankle treated by a Doctor who specializes in ART (Active Release Technique) and here is how it has gone.

Treatment 1 - Last Thursday - ART and Graston

Pain during treatment - not as bad as I thought, only during one movement was it somewhat intense and even then it seemed like a good kind of pain.

Pain a day after treatment - could barely walk, the pain was different but I had pain on every step.

Treatment 2 - Monday - ART

Pain during treatment - less than the first day, just some minor twinges.

Pain a day after treatment - could walk much better, the pain was less, almost felt like I could run.

Treatment 3 - Today - ART and exercises

Pain during treatment - almost none, just once did I even notice some Before he did the treatment he had me do exercises for about a 1/2 hour, more on that below.

Pain a day after treatment - still not 100% but hopeful.

So for the first time in a while, it seems like the ankle is on the right track.It seems stronger overall and I haven't had stabbing (as in very sharp and intense) pain that would happen when it would seem to catch during movements. He seemed to get that resolved during the first treatment. After the treatment he said he could feel adhesions between the ligament and muscle as he moved across the Deltoid ligament, right where I had had the pain last fall. To me it felt like he pulled something apart kind of like, they were released from each other. No idea if that is what he did, just happy to not have that sharp pain anymore.

Ok, what the heck is "Proprioception (HealthLife definition)" and what does it have to do with me?

He explained to me that I had very poor Proprioception (wikipedia definition) and that he believed that once I improved on that, my ankle would respond and get stronger fairly quickly. He said a trail runner having poor proprioception, well that's a really bad thing.

Here is a definition I came across that seems to make sense (it's from an about.com article on "Balance Training and Proprioception")

The term proprioception refers to a sense of joint position. Proprioception training is highly common in rehabilitation of injured athletes, but it can just as easily be used to prevent injury. Even a strong ankle can sprain when running on uneven ground if the runner hasn’t trained the neuromuscular system to react appropriately. Slight deviations in terrain require slight adjustments of balance to avoid injury.

So he said I needed to do some exercises to make long term improvements with the ankle. He initially just had me stand on a 4 x 4 inch by 8 ft beam. As I tried to stand on the beam he explained what I needed to work on. I could not believe how much I struggled to stand on the beam. After a few minutes he had me walk down it's length, basically taking small controlled steps until I reached the end of the beam, then I had to walk backwards and repeat. He emphasized that speed didn't matter only maintaining my balance. He had me go sideways down the beam and back. He then had me do lunges the length of the beam and back. He said normally he would like me to repeat all of the above with my eyes closed but I wasn't ready for that instead he had me focus on the wall to reduce my visual clues. He said that in a month most people would have it mastered, of course for me he said it could take one to three months. He clarified fairly quickly that was only because my ankle was in bad shape, not because I have no sense of coordination and balance. Sure....

My balance did get better throughout the exercises but still was pretty pathetic and I couldn't believe how much I was sweating just trying to stay on a beam.

As to getting a beam for myself, he suggested going to Menards/Home Depot and buying a cedar beam, sand it down a bit and have at it. He said not to use a green treated beam and that another alternative would be to use a couple of 2 x 4's except that they would probably warp which was fine, it just might would make it harder to compensate for the bowing.

Hopefully I will be running again soon.

Buckeye is back

2011-05-07T06:17:00.003-05:00

I have posted more than once about using online running logs. My favorite has been BuckeyeOutdoors, not sure if everyone heard about this but a week or so back I couldn't get into my Buckeye account and then this appeared:.

Buckeye Outdoors has suffered a major outage. A series of electrical storms first knocked out the backup servers that were located at the backup up location. Then the unthinkable happened 4 days later and a second electrical storm caused an extended power outage at the datacenter where the primary Buckeye Outdoors servers are hosted. The current situation is pretty grimm and I'm despritly trying to recover the data that has been lost. If I am un able to recover the data I will put the application back online but right now I am holding out hope and I even might send the Hard Disks to a data recovery place. If you have any questions please email here: questions@buckeyeoutdoors.com

The data recovery was only mildly successful. First the bad news, all our data is not recovered enough to peice it together into something we could use. That being said I do have enough to bring the site back up but it will be completly blank. I am currently working on rebuilding the server and it should be ready by this weekend.

I had a couple years of data on Buckeye, I guess it's good that I use multiple sites but I am still kind of bummed as Buckeye had the most info. So when Buckeye went down, I started using RunningAhead along with DailyMile and SportTracks. I like RunningAhead, it's closer to Buckeye than the other ones so I will continue to use it but based on Buckeye, I think I will still take the time to load my data and run summaries to a couple of places, odds are two sites both won't die on the same day or maybe I should go back to that good old MDRA logback. In case you are wondering, here are a few summary charts from RunningAhead, ignore that I have almost no data as although I am not running now I haven't bothered to move data into RunningAhead whenI was actually still a runner.

Weekly Run stats

5/2/2011 — 5/8/2011:	0 mi	0:00
4/25/2011 — 5/1/2011:	4.9 mi	1:05:32
4/18/2011 — 4/24/2011:	11.1 mi	2:34:05
4/11/2011 — 4/17/2011:	0 mi	0:00
4/4/2011 — 4/10/2011:	0 mi	0:00
3/28/2011 — 4/3/2011:	6 mi	1:31:11

Monthly Run stats

May:	0 mi	0:00
April:	22 mi	5:10:49
March:	0 mi	0:00
February:	0 mi	0:00
January, 2011:	0 mi	0:00
December:	0 mi	0:00

Overall Run totals

2011	22 mi	5:10:49
Total	22 mi	5:10:49

Treatment update

2011-05-05T22:14:00.002-05:00

Went in to get the ankle looked at, by a chiropractor near work who does Active Release Technique (thanks to those who sent me info on who they went to). He checked it out and thought that ART was a good idea and he also did the Graston Technique on it. He said many things concerning what he thought about my ankle, most of which means a few more visits to work on it more along with a slew of exercises.

Experienced some minor pain during the process except for one movement which he did that caused some pain, I was surprised a bit as I figured it would hurt more than it did. Then again, I am used to having it hurt. It felt ok during the day but it is really sore tonight, although it is different so maybe it's a good pain.

He did advise me that swimming would be a good choice right now for exercise, not sure what he meant by that :-). I mentioned running Afton and he didn't say it was a dumb idea although he did give me a funny look. Back on Monday for more.

Choices

2011-04-30T16:40:00.005-05:00

When it comes to my running I have been known to make questionable choices as least when it comes to injuries. The one choice I have never made is to rest until an injury is pain free. It is possible upon reflection that they may have led to longer injury rehab periods.

So as of this weekend I am shutting down my running, I will walk, bike or figure out something else to keep me sane. For how long? I am intending to wait until I am pain free. I am hopeful that it will only be a week or two.

What led me to this, well last Monday I saw my Doctor, we had a good conversation. He told me to run with a brace as he knew I would not stop running based on our past conversations concerning my running rehab patterns. I think his preference was for me to stop running or if I insisted on running, run on pavement for no more than 3 or 4 miles.

It was also influenced by my Thursday run with Wayne and Karen, I wore the brace but I had pain the next day. It may have been complicated by playing two softball games after the run. Not sure about that but I guess it is possible.

So I will try to play softball this week (Thursday, only 1 game) and see if that increases the pain or makes no difference. If the pain changes then I will have to take time off from that too. I had retired from softball last year so that I could focus on running without complicating it with softball aches and pains. That didn't work out quite as planned. So I agreed to play again with my old team since I knew I shouldn't be running long for a few weeks. I have to admit I had fun playing a game again that I have played for over 35 years.

Good news is I am up over 5 seconds for balance on the wobble board.

Wobble board blues

2011-04-27T21:04:00.007-05:00

I started to title this post as you have got to be kidding me but instead went with the wobble board blues.

Why, I just read this about using my wobble board:

"Once you can stand on the wobble disk for three minutes without falling, you are ready to move on".

Three minutes, are you kidding, me I can only balance for 3 seconds and those are not of the one mississippi type, they are more like 1,2,3 if you know what I mean.

So I guess I have a lot of work to do.

One other thing I bought the GoFit Wobble board from buy.com

and it comes with a core performance DVD that "provides challenging exercises led by Mark Verstegen, trainer of professional athletes", can't wait to watch that to see how much more this humbles me. That is if I watch it. Will keep you posted.

Doctor's prognosis

2011-04-25T18:37:00.005-05:00

I went in this morning to have my ankle looked at and got some good news.

My Doctor said that the ankle is stable but weak. His theory is that I re-injured the deltoid ligament when I sprained the lateral side of my ankle. Probably not as bad as before but enough that with my ramping up my trail mileage it is irritated and causing swelling which is leading to the pain.

He tested it in all directions and only found issues along the deltoid ligament (slight pain but no indication of a complete tear). He said my ankle is basically not strong enough to manage the minor tweaks of trail running without it complaining by swelling and hurting. Apparently the deltoid ligament helps stabilize the ankle against plantar flexion, external rotation and pronation and prevents external rotation and valgus stress to subtalar joint (he said some of this but I got the rest from a presentation on Deltoid ligament injuries, way beyond my limited understanding of the body). So running on the trails was causing too much rotation and by increasing the trail mileage it just added to more wear and tear that the ankle couldn't handle. All of that aside, the good news is that it is stable so I can run on it.

Ok, there were a couple of caveats, he said I need to run in the ankle brace for the next 6 to 8 weeks and I should pretty much wear it all the time over the next few weeks while I work on tightening up and strengthening the ankle by using a wobble board or a boso ball. He wants the swelling to go down (no unsupported and/or unnecessary ankle rotations). Since I just bought a wobble board, guess what I will be using? I would be remiss to point out that I can't stand on it without hanging onto something so I have some balancing work ahead.

He also said I could get a MRI and it should confirm his beliefs but he didn't think it was necessary and mentioned it might show some other issues such as early arthritis or other soft tissue issues concerning cartilage and the ligaments. He said it was up to me, I asked what would change by knowing and he said assuming no surprises probably nothing. So I skipped it for the time being, he said if after a few more months of following his instructions, if there are still issues then he will want a MRI.

So my ankle brace and wobble board are my prescription, I just need to follow his orders and I will be back to normal soon enough. Looks like I will be shooting for the Chester Woods 50k followed by the Afton 50k. If it takes me longer than I will just focus on Afton. If it takes even longer, well than Surf the Murph but I am betting on Chester Woods.

Future plans?

2011-04-23T09:05:00.006-05:00

This morning instead of running Chippewa I am looking at races I can do in May and June with the goal of hitting Afton trained and healthy.

So what races am I looking at:

Stillwater Marathon (5/29th)
Chester Woods 50k (6/4th)
Minneapolis Marathon (6/5th)
William O'Brien 10 miler (6/26th)

So there are a few races between now and Afton that might be interesting to run or I may just hit the trails and avoid the masses.

Granted the precondition is I need to get the ankle figured out so I also looked up the Doctor I go to and will call for an appointment. I have a few theories as to what is going on but I will ultimately let him make the diagnosis. I do know that the last four races I have run in, the ankle has been an issue (one of the races was when I first injured it, the other 3 are ones I hobbled through) and I am kind of tired of dealing with it. If he tells me something that precludes being able to get right back to training, then I will focus on a fall event.

Long term, this injury has been a set back but that is ok as my goals over the next few years are only to get back into marathon to 50 mile shape. Then in late summer of 2012 run Superior and then maybe in the spring of 2013 see if there are some longer events I want to go for. I will remind myself to be patient

and to remember that my goals are to be running for the rest of my life not just a race in 2011.