UBER Rock 50k Race Report, et cetera

Its been a long time since I've blogged. Even longer since I've run a 50k; which is what I did this past weekend. This is not to say that there haven't been any house projects to blog about since last October (there have been tons!) or that I haven't run any interesting races since my last 50k in August 2008 (I have!), but "running" thirty-one miles through the mountains provided me with ample time for introspection and prompted these reflections.

Still standing...!

Saturday morning started just before 5 AM, with a "shower" in Bodyglide. A friend showed me the stuff before the 2008 Death Valley Marathon and any run over 20 miles since then hasn't been pleasant without it. I ate half a Bodos bagel and poured two huge cups of coffee. My dad, who drove down from New York, and I jumped in his truck and were off. The race was being held at Wintergreen which is about an hour from where I live in Charlottesville.As we approached the Blue Ridge Mountains the fog started to descend on the mountains. The pre-dawn temperature was in the high 50s, fantastic for a long run. It had poured throughout Central Virginia the day before, which also helped cool things down. 

The big event on the day was the UROC 100k race. Some of the best runners from around the country were at Wintergreen to compete in what was being billed as the Superbowl of Ultraracing (one of the many reasons I stayed away from the 100k!). The elites were off at 7 AM; the rest of the field at 7:15. 

Something strange happened during the half-hour or so between the start of the 100k and 7.30. My dad, who hadn't run in some 6 weeks due to an injury, suddenly felt well enough to do the 1/2 Marathon. He had signed up in July but was "injured" in August. He took inventory of the clothes / gear he had brought up the mountain. If he wanted to run, he'd have to do it in a pair of hiking shorts and needed to borrow one sock and a running shirt from me. Other than that, and though he hadn't done a 10 mile run in over two months, he somehow figured he could run/walk his way through the whole thing.

While he was changing into my "backup" gear, I noticed that the race course had changed, A LOT. Apparently on Wednesday (three days before the race!) the directors decided to double up on some of the 100k course and avoid a grueling final 5-mile, 2500 foot climb. Luckily, I was fairly well acquainted with the revised section as it had been part of the the 1/2 Marathon course I'd run in the previous two years.

At 8 AM both the 50k and 1/2 Mar races took off. As part of a new strategy, I took off very slow. In the last 50k I ran, the Mount Disappointment 50k in Southern California, I started way too fast. By mile 10 I was exhausted and walked a good portion of the last 20 miles. This time would be different; I wouldn't get suckered into expending all my energy on the first climb. Admittedly however, I was a bit jealous of the general abandon with which the bearded-shirtless guy sprinted out of the gate.

In hindsight my strategy was probably off by 30 seconds, though I couldn't have known it at the time. Right after the first mile mark I was in roughly 20th place out of 200 or so runners. Accidentally (?), someone in those first 20 people set off a hornet's nest-booby trap that would entangle runners all the way back to my dad, who was running towards the end of the pack. Without warning, a swarm of hornets attacked me from the right side of the trail and I was swatting them off with two very ineffective, water-bottle holding hands. I felt stings everywhere and started hearing shrikes up the trail behind me. The stinging on my own body stopped after 100 years or so. And after another 1/4 mile I was mentally clear enough to take inventory: six stings, including the one that crawled up into my hat. My dad, about 150 runners back, got 5 stings. I hoped mine weren't enough to trigger an allergic reaction. The only other time I'd sustained multiple bee-stings was while mowing the lawn in high school. That adventure ended with me passing out in the ER. I didn't want a repeat. It would be 4 more miles to the first aid station (if I needed to drop), though it would definitely have sucked if I had trained all summer only to be taken out at mile-one by some pesky bees. 

Whether due to the multiple stings or the 1500 foot climb in the first few miles, by the time I reached Wintergreen summit, I was feeling pretty loopy. No hives, I just felt "off." I choked down a Cliff Shot and was thankful for some downhill. Most of the next section was made up of randomly strung together trails, roads, and connecting paths that wove their way between various vacation homes high up on the mountain. People gathered in small groups to watch the race--drinking coffee, wearing warm clothes, and not nursing hornet wounds. I was slightly jealous.

As the downhill continued and we came out onto Wintergreen Drive, I started to get into a groove. Hornets be damned, I was going to keep running. After a fairly steep uphill to Reeds Gap (where I finally caught up to a 3-month pregnant woman who had passed me on the downhill!), I buzzed through the second aid station at 9.8 miles feeling pretty good, especially after I dumped a dozen or so rocks out of my shoes. The pregnant woman went screaming by me again after briefly describing her desire to turn around and only do the 1/2 Marathon. Ultra runners are of a different breed...

The second 10-miles felt great. They were largely a rolling descent into Lake Sherando via the Blue Ridge Parkway and some nice single-track. I started catching people in the back of the 100k pack who had taken off 45 minutes earlier. I kept up the 10-minute per mile pace I wanted to hold through to the final climb. [For those uninitiated with mountain running, take your typical road pace and add 50% (at least!) to your time. In a long road race, my pace is generally around 7-minutes per mile; in the two 50k races I'd done previously, I hovered around 11-minutes per mile. Between rocky trails, steep mountains, and aggressive wildlife, the pace slows appreciably (at least, those are my excuses!)]. For this race, my hope was that in the three years since my last 50k, I had somehow learned how to pace myself rather than burn out early.

At 18 miles, I hit the second "lake" aid station and started what would be a long, rolling 9-mile ascent back up to Reeds Gap. My pace slowed but I still felt good. Around mile 20 I found the pregnant woman and bearded-shirtless guy down in a stream off the trail. Apparently her foot had swollen pretty badly and she had it sitting in the cold water. She had twisted it on a rock heading down and ran a few more miles before calling it quits. The bearded guy turned out to be her fiance. They both dropped. The race didn't really matter to him anyway; he was using it as training for the 100 Mile Grindstone in two weeks. Sheesh... Their child is going to be born with running shoes on...

By the time I got back onto the Parkway the mountains were completely socked in with fog. For the final 9 miles I didn't see another runner. It was somewhat lonely, but also relatively relaxing; as relaxing as a 9-mile run after you've already done 22 miles could be I suppose. I rolled through the aid station at mile 27 on pace and with only one mile of "running" left. The final 4 miles were 1 steep mile down, 3 steep miles up. My strategy was to run the downhill mile and powerwalk the final three. I'd been here before. The Mt Disappointment 50k ended with a brutal three-mile uphill. I only hoped that the Ibuprofen and salt tablets I'd choked down at mile 26 would help me not feel the searing pain in a portion of my lower-quads that I'd never known existed before I started "running" 50ks. Halfway up the hill I started running a bit. Strange... I actually felt good.

The final 1/2 mile or so was, generously, downhill. No one was cheering as I came in, in part because there are no crowds like there are at even the smallest marathon. And even if there was a crowd you could only see only a 100 feet or so anyway due to the fog. I think I only saw the timer when I finished. The one person who did see me within 10 seconds of finishing was my dad. He'd since changed into my spare hiking shorts after finishing his race. "Injured" though he was, he managed to win his age group in the 1/2 marathon! I hope I can hang like that when I'm in my late 50s! While writing this post, I received a text from him that said: "trouble walking BIG time today; feels good in a strange kind of way. hope you are ok."

Dad and I following the 50k.

Hobbling around this morning I feel similar to my dad: "trouble walking BIG time...but good in a strange kind of way.". For the first time ever, I had finished the 50k and felt good. I maybe even could have run a few more miles. I even had enough leg strength yesterday to stand on my feet for a few hours and paint some trim on the front porch. My 'go-out-slow' strategy seemed to work. I finished 12th out of 120 starters (apparently, 40 people dropped out, whether due to the bees or mountains or being pregnant, I don't know). And I took over 20 minutes off my 50k PR. Next up: the 50 miler in March? Maybe in 3 more years...

Rehydration strategy back at the house. Poured from a growler purchased at Devils Backbone.

From the Archives: Ode to Los Angeles

A year ago last week Emili and I ended our seven year sojourn in Los Angeles and moved back to our historical roots on the East Coast. As I sat in a coffee shop in West LA last February, between beating rush-hour traffic out of downtown and waiting to arrive at my last construction site visit, I wrote the following in my journal:

The last three months have been incredibly hectic. Since taking the Structural Engineering Exam in late October I finally decided to return one last time to academia, selected a school, found a new job, gave notice at another. Today is my last day at that job--Structural Focus. As this day has approached I've often wondered whether we are making the right move. I love my job, my co-workers, Los Angeles... Right now Charlottesville feels very provincial by comparison.

In many ways I've learned most of my engineering skills--career related ones anyway--while at Structural Focus. I'm extremely thankful to have worked there these last 2-1/2 years. I'll truly miss the friendships I've formed with my coworkers. And I'll probably never find a work environment with the same mix of professionalism and freedom--relaxed professionalism--ever again. 

Beyond leaving my current job, moving out of Los Angeles is the end of an era. Shortly after getting married Emili and I moved to a city that was 2500 miles from our closest family members. We moved with many friends to a city that none of us knew. In our seven years here many of our friends have moved on, moved up, moved away, left the bonds of fellowship. Now is our time to move.

Last week while driving to Big Bear to go snowboarding with my coworkers we drove by the hotel where Emili and I spent our second anniversary, past two different campsites where we spent weekends with friends from kairos, past scores of burned acres from our first close up encounter with wildfires in 2003.

 I definitely miss having a mountain like Big Bear so close to home.

Emili and I had dinner recently with Amy Murphy and Michael Maltzan, a fantastic couple who have shaped our story  in so many ways... We also shared a few hours with Gary and Pam Hilliard, who took the daring step into homeownership in Southern California with us and who re-taught me the joy of trail running... We had a meal wtih Ben and Lauren Thompson--a couple we have grown up with individually and together for 12 years. And tomorrow we'll share our final meal on the West Coast with Kevin, Annie and their son Luke for his 2nd birthday. Our sons will say goodbye and probably never remember this best friendship they had for two years. 

 Photo from an annual Kings Canyon trek. This is at the 'summit' of Glen

Pass, 2008. Relatively close to Los Angeles, a bit further from Virginia.

So many times I've second guessed. Not completely, but deeply second guessed whether moving "home" is what will make us happy. Obviously no place will completely make us happy; our choice to move East is what we want for our family. We have wonderful friends who have already gone East before us and are hoping to reconnect with them. But its impossible to live somewhere this long and not put down roots. I assume we're going to feel uprooted and unstable for months to come...[] For now reality calls me back to my last site visit on this my last day of work--to look at the nearly completed construction of a house I started designing my first month at Structural Focus.

We've been in Virginia a year now. Roots are starting to grow. This second year will hopefully see the inauguration of annual traditions. And while Los Angeles and California now feel worlds away, on occasion there is a strong call to return and "Go West...", again.

Born to Run?

On a trip to Los Angeles last month I read Chris McDougall's Born to Run. The book is an amazing piece of narrative-meets-investigative-journalism that tales why the knees, ankles, and feet of technologically advanced runners (i.e. those wearing expensive running shoes) are injured more frequently than runners wearing little or no supportive footwear. Throw in an incredible story of a race in the Copper Canyon of Mexico between the Tarahumara Indians and some of the best (and quirkiest) ultrarunners in the United States as well as a little evolutionary biology claiming that humans were born to run and you have a fun summer read. It definitely made me want to hit the trails each time I put the book down.

Considering my current bout with running injury one of the most helpful concepts from the book was McDougall's description of the foot's arch:

"Your foot's centrepiece is the arch, the greatest weight-bearing design ever created. The beauty of any arch is the way it gets stronger under stress; the harder you push down, the tighter its parts mesh. Push up from underneath and you weaken the whole structure."



The analogy of a Roman Arch is helpful. If we were to add a column directly under the keystone of a Roman Arch--hoping to provide it with some support in its old age--it wouldn't be long before the compressive action of the arch was destroyed and the entire structure crumbled. McDougall similarly claims that expensive running shoes eventually destroy the natural arching action of the foot.

The take home for me is my need to strengthen the muscles in my feet. McDougall's argument was the specific impetus for my current experiment in barefoot running. Over the last three weeks I have increased from 100 meter stride outs to 3 mile grass runs completely barefoot. The experience has been exhilarating, especially in the early morning when the grass is still wet and the air is cool. This past weekend I got up to 5 miles in a pair of Vibram Five Fingers (KSO model). As of yet I have no discernibly stronger feet but its been a fun experiment. My ultimate goal is to be able to hang with this guy: