A Great Rise to 50 (Redux)

Welp, my 2014 DC season is wrapped up.  Last day of work for the year yesterday + last DC run of the year this morning.  

Aileen and I celebrated a successful first semester last night by heading to the local outdoor ice rink.  Since it's been in the low 40s most of the last week, the ice was pretty soft, which lead to a few skate snags while stopping/turning/whatever.  My groin felt it in a few places.  Ugh.  

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My groin still felt it this morning, so today's 2hr run was a little uncomfortable.  I haven't been good about stretching my hips at all lately, and they've been a little tighter than normal, so the ice skating foray just compounded the issue.  Nothing too bad during the run, but now lifting my left leg (as in a running stride) is definitely tweaky.  Will have to stretch it out the next few days.

14.4xmi total.  

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Back to sunny CA for just under a month tomorrow AM.

Looking good, Mike. Just be careful to not power through some of those niggles.

A month back in Cali? What's up with that?

BTW, thanks for your thoughts on my blog. If you check back, you may notice a bit of a change-up in my plan. (I swear your groin issue is not related to that voodoo doll I bought of you, honest!)

Mark - Me, ignoring niggles?  NEVER!  And the month is due to Aileen having a long winter break.  

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Things that matter: CAAAAAAAAALIFORNIAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Things that don't matter: Got maybe 2hr sleep last night.  Flight cancelled at 2am today.  People were largely rude during our 10hr of travel.

4.6mi in 45min around the local lake with my dad and Aileen.  The last 2 hills killed pops (he hasn't run much since his half on Memorial Day) but the run seemed just right for Aileen.  Ave HR of 129 for me.

17.95mi today.  Why didn't I go for 18mi?  Because I went for 2hr30min on the nose instead.

DC lacks long stretches of 1-3% gradient, so my legs had a fun time today.  Most of the run was on steady incline or decline and the splits were either in the mid 7s or high 8s depending on which was I was going.  Hamstrings were pretty tight by the end, discomfort had set in, but that's kind of the point, I guess.

1hr recovery run this morning, first 35min with my brother.  Left hip flexor is still pretty sore and pinch-y.  Gotta keep on it, though at least my groin has loosened up.  

6.7mi with ~400' gain/loss.

Cold/flu wiped this week for me.  

20min yesterday.
1hr today.  

Both were bad ideas.  Feel pretty beat to shit.  Ugh.

Ok, it was probably the flu.  I'm at about 80% this morning.  Felt like a million bucks last night.  1hr run told me I'm still catching up, but at least it wasn't a disaster.  

6.75mi.

I feel human again.  What a pleasant surprise.  Holy crap.  

2hr3min, 13.9mi, 1500' gain/loss, mostly trail.  Still can tell I had a bug, but I don't feel like death.  This is good.

The week so far:

45min Monday.  Was supposed to be an hour, was tired.
85min Tuesday.  2x2min @ VO2max.  Legs pretty weak still, so only 2 reps instead of 4.
60min today.  Just easy miles.

Definitely still have residual fatigue - whatever this thing was, it did a number.  I'm getting ~10hr sleep per night and slowly feeling normal.

Okay, two weeks later, I'm back.  No headaches, no fatigue, no blah.  

Jesus, that was rough.  I was ready to completely quit running on more than one occasion.  

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Christmas day was 45min including 4x 8sec hill sprints.  I haven't been doing those, and my turnover and strength (or lack thereof) shows it.  My legs are stuck in a comfort zone from 8:00-9:30 pace and can hardly get outside of that.  Time to incorporate small amounts of form/strength work via burst repeats and fartleks.  

Loot-wise, most of the gifts from my parents were somehow backpacking related, and Aileen was given a gift card for a pack, so it looks like we'll be getting acquainted with the Appalachian Trail come spring.  

I had jokingly mentioned I wanted an RC plane for Christmas, and Aileen's parents ended up getting me a little quadcopter with attached camera.  For being on the very-inexpensive end as far as drones go, it's been pretty fun zipping it around the street and is reminding me how much I used to like flying RC stuff.  

Lastly, to keep this all running related, my gift to my brother was pretty cool, in my opinion.  I made him a pegboard for his medals with a 8x16" chalkboard surface for writing his PRs above the hanging medals.  I admittedly stole the design from an etsy.com link I found, but I wasn't going to pay $70 for that when it cost me literally $10 to make with scrap wood/masonite.  

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Now for the meat of this post...  Yesterday's run.  I'd been planning this one for months, pretty much since getting to VA and realizing there were no mountains after growing up in the shade of OC's two tallest peaks (Modjeska and Santiago, collectively called Saddleback).  

Mapping the run proved only slightly tough, as both mapmyrun and Strava wouldn't recognize the side trail to Modjeska's peak as a trail, and I didn't want to manually click the zig-zag out and back, so I had a 26.4mi route mapped and new it'd be slightly longer than that.

Fortunately, my recent bout of death forced me into a two-week taper for this one; "fortunately" because I'd only run one hilly/mountainy run here so far, so the 5500? 7000? feet of elevation chain was gonna hurt.  

We (my brother and I) set off at 8am, hoping to miss the insane winds that coursed through the area all night.  It was dead calm at the start, and only mildly cool (low-mid 40s), so a tech tee and shorts were enough... we thought.

The first 6-7mi of the run were an average of 8% incline (including a small dip at mile 1), so we warmed up with 10min of power hiking before attempting any kind of running.  We settled into an easy 11-12min/mi pace while walking the particularly steep parts, leap-frogging each other a bit to bank time for photo and pee stops.  Around mile 3, a woman my mom's age, clad in maroon sweats and a maroon sweatshirt, came hammering down the slope with a huge smile on her face.  Very obviously a runner.  She said we looked cold, to which I replied, "nah, just warming up now."  Stupid stupid stupid.  Less than a minute later, her husband and their 3 dogs came chasing after.  Gotta admit, seeing a couple that easily qualifies for AARP running down a mountain was somewhat of a magical experience.

We'd been admiring the wind's work for much of the first hour of the run; even at low elevations, visibility was as far as the eye could see (downtown LA, ~50mi away, came into view as soon as we crested the foothills and had an unobstructed line of sight - San Clemente Island looked as close as Catalina normally does, and Catalina was so clear we could see the texture of the cliffs on its south end).  With the recent rains, the whole Orange County basin was lush and green, looking more like New Zealand than a southern California desert. 

Except that the wind wasn't done yet, and for the next 2hr, we'd be running into a near constant headwind of up to 30mph...  And it was still only in the low 40s.  I quickly became thankful for the extra 5% body fat I have over my brother - his leanness cost him dearly as he froze and felt miserable until we finally got sun and shelter from the wind at mile 16.  I got cold, but only for 1 or 2 miles did my hands refuse to make tight fists.  

We made great time to the top of Modjeska, hitting the peak in around 2hr20min (~12mi and 4000' net gain).  Only spent about 5min there, as it was still breezy and the sun's help was minimal.  The next mile back down to the main trail was just sub-8 and felt more like barreling down a rock field than running down a hill.  

The saddle was the one part of the run I'd never hiked before, so it was a neat journey.  It also had some of the best views of Orange County I'd ever seen.  By the time we hit the incline again, my legs were pretty much out of any hill-climbing gas, so I powerhiked much of the 1.5mi to Santiago peak.  Santiago was a bit more protected from the wind - being developed with a number of cell towers and antennae on top - so the 5min up there weren't as bad as Modjeska.  We were at just a hair over 3hr in (~15mi and 4300' net gain) by the time we set off for the reward of our efforts - a screaming 8mi descent.  

Given the beauty of the day and the fact that it was the weekend after Christmas, we weren't surprised to see hordes of hikers coming up the trail as we descended, the majority of which were accommodating and/or in awe.  I was happy to see that my descending legs are still there from my Auburn days, as even the most technical mile (average decline of 16% and some questionable terrain) zipped by with minimal difficulty.  

The remainder of the descent was relatively uneventful, with a moderate level of discomfort creeping in and miles clicking off in a steady fashion.  We reached the trailhead ~mile 23.5 and had a few (4? 5?) miles to get to the road where we'd be picked up. 

Every mile from this point onward became progressively more uncomfortable, then more painful, then more agonizing...  Okay, I'm only exaggerating a little bit, but the wheels fell off by mile 25 and I was ready to start negotiating with God by mile 26.  

My reprieve came at mile 28 when the road came into view.  Less than half a mile to go, I could finally breathe a sigh of relief.  Then it was all over.  Road to road, we'd crested two mountains and run for 5hr.  

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Lessons learned:

1.  Still need to work a little on pacing.  The plan was <15min/mi pace to the peaks, then 9min/mi down.  I held back quite a bit for the first hour, but I let myself get too comfortable during the 2nd hour and spent too much energy.  I could definitely feel my HR rising from time to time, but didn't think anything of it.  We averaged just sub-12min/mi pace to the peaks.  Too fast.

2.  Need to work on fueling.  The plan was 100kcal/hr or 5mi, whichever came first.  I was bonky coming up the saddle, so I doubled up and had a GU plus the salami I'd brought.  That helped, and I didn't feel the need to fuel again until I was starting to fade near the trailhead.  The biggest problem, though, was the volume of food.  I finished with such an empty stomach that I felt nauseous.  Need to figure out a way to keep something in the stomach while running.  That'll be tough.

3.  Hydration.  I ran this one with a race vest (Christmas present) with 2 bottles each holding ~24oz, so my fluid intake was 10oz/hr.  This was fine for the first 2-3hr, but once we hit the sun and I started to sweat, I needed lots more.  Coupled with the descent requiring full body coordination, I wasn't able to hydrate much for those 8mi coming down.  This shouldn't be a plan for the race, but for training it might.

7.4mi recovery yesterday.  First half VERY slow and easy with my dad, second half on my own and slightly faster.  Quads were laughably stiff at the beginning and laughably weak at the end.

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10mi recovery today.  Downhill running is still really stupid, but flats and uphills are reasonably comfortable.  Still slow, but I'm not complaining.

Two runs and a resolution to catch up on here.

Tuesday brought an easy hour (just under 7mi) on the riverbed/streets around Aileen's house.  Flat and a good opportunity to get the legs moving again without worrying about those pesky quads.  I noticed after finishing the run that my right heel seems to have a little bout of tendinitis.  Tried to grind some of that out throughout the day.

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Yesterday was a very cool, very challenging run out near the hills we used to ride to with Aileen's dad.  A mix of fire trails (which had, ironically, the steepest parts of the whole run) and single track, sun-drenched ridges and tree-covered gullies...  Good times.
The first mile had me climbing 650' with sections of 25-35% gradient, so brutal that I almost just turned back when my calves started cramping.  But with the number of people on the trail, I couldn't just give up.  
12.8mi w/ 2450' gain/loss (that's almost 200'/mile!), giving me 58mi with 9000' gain/loss in the last 4 days.  Fortunately we've got an off day today.

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Finished off the year with a 3x3 from In-N-Out (that's 3 patties + 3 cheeses, a whopping 780 calories when ordered with just grilled onions), a Ducks vs. Sharks game (poorly ref'ed and sloppily played by the Sharks, but they still took a decisive 3-0 win), and a party at Aileen's sister's house (resulting in a 3am bedtime).  

Overall, pretty happy to see 2014 go, as it seemed to have more challenges than any year I can remember, but I'm starting 2015 in a good place and hope to see my running continue in the direction it's going.

2014 stats:
1951mi (average pace right around 9min/mi) + ~200hr cycling.  

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Oh, and resolutions?  I got rid of Facebook.  Mark doesn't believe I can do it, but it's just a huge time-suck - one of many I'd like to reconsider.

A solid year, Mike. Well done!

And I'm sure you can show enough restraint to not get sucked back into the Facebook universe. Just don't stop visiting here, okay?

I'll do my best.  Just gotta make sure I don't get injured again

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Two runs today.

First was a 7mi trail run with Aileen, brother, and his girlfriend.  Had 950' gain/loss and Pacific Ocean views... and knee fucker-upping descents.  

Second was 6.1xmi including 5x 8-10sec hill sprints.  Run felt harder than it "should" have, but nothing much more than steady effort.

20mi and change today to meet my family at the beach for my brother's final California hurrah.  I can't say that a single mile of the run was enjoyable.  I had a pretty excruciating side stitch for the first hour, felt pretty bonky the second hour, and the wheels fell off for the third hour.  Definitely a gut-check run, definitely considered calling it in and getting a ride the rest of the way.

Mike MacLellan wrote:20mi and change today to meet my family at the beach for my brother's final California hurrah.  I can't say that a single mile of the run was enjoyable.  I had a pretty excruciating side stitch for the first hour, felt pretty bonky the second hour, and the wheels fell off for the third hour.  Definitely a gut-check run, definitely considered calling it in and getting a ride the rest of the way.

But you didn't and you gutted it out. It's runs like these that give you the confidence to do most anything! Good work!!

I'm sure I'll see the benefits of the run later, Nick, but definitely not yet.  

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After a celebratory birthday dinner for Aileen's grandma and brother-in-law - as well as a cutthroat game of Risk - I promptly passed out at 8:30 last night.  

Body is feeling the wear as I approach a cutback week starting tomorrow.  

Instead of the planned semi-long run today, I decided to listen to yesterday's signals and take today easy with a 3mi recovery jaunt with Aileen.  I may do 4ish later with my dad.

Wise choice on the early cut-back, Mike.

Also, I hope you managed to keep hold of Kamchatka....

Mark B wrote:Wise choice on the early cut-back, Mike.

+1

Mark - I did not.  I was quickly wiped as three of us battled for Africa and I started my turn with about 10 remaining armies.  I did, however, have Kamchatka for a bit and kept Aileen from getting her bonus 5 for North America for a few rounds.

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1hr recovery today.  Since Saturday's run (mile 1), I've been getting stitches (side/abdominal) during my runs.  No idea what gives, but it's getting old. 

Run felt kind of long as I was just doing variations on a 1mi loop for most of it.  Still, to run in 3" 3/4 split shorts with no shirt in January is nice, and I'll miss it.

Just one more run in CA tomorrow...

Welp, it comes to an end...  Much in the same way it started.  My first CA run was shirtless in short shorts around the local lake with Aileen and my dad, and yep, the last was the same.  I added 5x 2min hill sprints (120' gain each) at the end for good measure.  That took a bit out of me.  

1hr total.

Not looking forward to the single digit and teen temperatures.

Sorry you have to leave the SoCal weather Mike. Pretty damn nice out the last couple of days, huh?

Tim - Tell me about it...

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Speaking of weather, how's 80 and sunny ---> 25 and windy in 24hrs for ya?  At least I can't complain about lack of variety.  

We got in at midnight last night/this morning to a snow-covered DC.  After a long winter's nap, the snow was still there, which makes sense, given that the temps haven't gone above 30 yet.  

1hr run today learning the ropes of winter running - take the path less traveled to avoid ice, wind plays a huge role in temperature, etc.  Got to try my new tights I got for Xmas - a success - and actually kept a beanie on most of the run.  Gotta say, it was pretty fun, so I guess this white stuff can stick around for a bit, if it wants.

Dang, that's quite a transition! Glad you got tights for Christmas... you're going to need them.

Wimp - that's nothing I went from 78F in Florida to teens and snow - so there.  And remember, I walked to school up hill both ways in blizzards.

Couldn't resist - aren't you glad to be back east?