Peacock pt 2

Just finished my Peacock loop. Yes, they caught me in the middle of a weird face. I've got tons of photos, will upload more when I get a chance.


A Few Facts:

51 people started the race, 21 finished the 'trail marathon' of 30+ miles (one loop), 30 finished the 100k (both loops), only 3 DNFs (Didn't finish the first loop, Brent was one).

Kert St. John was probably the runner Susan and I saw way out ahead of the pack. Pretty sure he's not a regular with HURT but maybe I've just never noticed him at a race before (I'm usually pretty far back so it's definitely possible). He finished in 13:09, more than an hour ahead of second, then everybody started coming in. If this is his first HURT race I'm blown away by how talented he must be to fly past the home team like that, on their home turf, in such a difficult race.

I've posted a question about Brent and tried to look him up without luck so far. If I hear anything I'll post it.


Not So Factual Summary:

There were some things I learned from the race that really encourage me and I wanted to share some thoughts.

First off, for all of my concern coming into the race my conditioning wasn't an issue. I was definitely huffing and puffing up some of the hills and took more breaks than I wanted to, but overall I have no complaints. I ran a very conservative race, as I planned, and I STILL kept up with my pacing plan. Had I not trashed my feet on the long road of the first loop I would have felt confident doing another loop, physically I was feeling that well.

The pre-race speed work definitely paid off. When I could run I was running faster than usual (5-6 mph instead of 4-5) and even when I was walking I was pushing a decent pace (3+ mph). Even with the conservative race plan, taking generous walking breaks, I was maintaining my original pacing goals without pushing myself. One of my biggest fears pre-race was being able to run the route but not being fast enough to make the cut-offs, which was why I started the speed work. Even stopping to help Brent out, and walking most of the ten miles back from the long road, I was still under the cutoff for the first loop. Not too shabby.

And lastly, compared to a few other races this year, I felt really good the week after the race. I've had some residual soreness but nothing bad considering the how rough the race was. I'm sure if I'd done the full 100k I'd have been on crutches, but considering the lack of long runs the month leading up to the race I am amazed at how good I feel. Apparently, having run the entire trail series this year I built up enough of a base to pull off this race without killing myself.

Anyway, I'm incredibly happy with how well the race went. It was a blast and I can't wait to start training for another ultra.

The Accidental Taper

I have had the worst luck with my long runs over the last month.

1. Got totally lost at Peacock Flats (12 mile run instead of 20+)
2. Experimented with Powdered lubricants AND tape, bad idea (10 mile run instead of 20, and blisters)
3. Forgot my GPS and my Sunblock (8 miles instead of 30+)
4. Had to work a weekend. (3 miles around the area instead of 30+)
5. Bleach residue in my Camelbac (8 miles instead of 22, sick stomach)

And the list could go on...

I'm incredibly far behind on my miles for the month and am rapidly coming up on the longest race I've ever attempted. Luckily, my mid-range miles have been excellent. I've fit in a lot of faster, shorter runs more frequently. It's just the time-on-the-trails that I'm seriously lacking.

Last weekend it kind of 'came to head' for me, I was freaking out. I'd signed up for DailyMile, which is kind of a cool gadget to stay motivated, and I happened to look at my monthly summary. Here, I thought I was doing half-way decent on my miles and that one look totally disabused that notion. I was so down that I considered backing out of the 100k. Seriously, if I can't fit in a 30 mile training run, how the heck can I run a race twice that long? I had only completed about half the miles per week that I had scheduled in my training plan.

Mentally, I was done. It was a week before the race even started and I knew I couldn't finish it.

Then I was at Runner's HI picking up a couple things for last weekends long run (forgot the GPS and sunblock) and I had a conversation that changed my perspective. I was telling the sales guy about the twenty miles I had planned for the weekend and the 100k next weekend. He looked at me like I was nuts, "Aren't you supposed to be tapering?" he asked. That little statement snowballed down the slopes of my brain.

It wasn't missed training, it was an accidental taper!

I'd been looking at my lack of miles as "I'm totally unprepared, totally under-trained, and way over my head" when I should have been thinking "Wow, what an awesome taper! My legs feel amazing and I won't be over-trained come race day. I'll be totally rested up!"

I might not be as prepared as I wanted to be, I might not have gotten in the work outs that I wanted to, but as long as I can keep my wits about me... that is, not shooting myself in the foot before the race even starts... than I at least have a chance.

Obviously, I'm planning a very, very conservative race. I'm not under any illusions that I'm going to breeze through this thing. Honestly, I don't know that I can even finish it, but I'm going to go out there and run as smart a race as I can, do as much of it as I can, and have an incredible learning experience no matter what happens.

The 'accidental taper'. It sounds like a cheesy comedy starring Leslie Nielson. It makes me smile, which is far preferable to quaking in my shoes.

Little Surprises on the Trails

Trail running in Hawaii is awesome. The views are gorgeous, the trails range from fun-little-jaunt-in-the-woods to 10-mile trails that take four hours to "run" and you end up completely covered in mood and blood by the end. There's no poisonous plants, no snakes... pretty much the only thing that might pose a threat would be stumbling across a large boar. In short, Hawaii is paradise for trail running.

Of all my runs here I've only been nervous a couple of times.

A few months ago I was getting ready to run the Maunawili trail, a 22 mile out and back. I'd just parked my car, gotten my pack on and was getting everything ready. When I say parking 'lot' I mean small stretch of gravel on the side of a rural road in the country. A very large black truck did a slow cruise past the lot. Boar-hunters. Locals packed into large trucks, with guns, and about a dozen barking dogs in the back. I didn't think too much of it at the time, they're pretty frequent sights around the trails.

I started walking to the trail head and I noticed the truck coming back. The driver called out to me.

"Hey! Where you going?" He was a late twenty-something local guy. He didn't sound angry, but there was a weird tone to his voice which kind of put me on edge. There's a lot of stories that go around about people having problems with locals, but the only guys I have ever personally known who had problems were the kind of people that tended to create problems. I'm really easy going and I'd never had any sort of issues.

"Up there," I replied and waved at the trail.

He stared at me for a moment. "Is there anyone else up there?"

I tried to hide how nervous that question suddenly made me. His stare was seriously creeping me out and the cold way he asked the question was borderline threatening. It would be like a woman answering the door in the middle of the night to find a stranger there, who then asks if there's anyone else in the house...

"I guess, there's a couple of other cars here." I was quick to point out that there were other people on the trail.

He stared at me for a minute, then slowly took his foot off the brake and the car idled down the road.

I went up the trail and started my run. Logically, I knew the guy and his buddies were probably just frustrated and trying to find a place to go hunting. If there were hikers and trail runners than there probably wouldn't be any boars around to go after. They'd probably been cruising around for hours trying to find a quiet place to set up.

But as I ran the scene kept playing over and over in my head. There was just something off about it. The vibe was wrong. Logic kept saying one thing but in the back of my mind some animal part of me was freaking out. Here I was, in the middle of nowhere, no witnesses and spotty cell coverage. If something happened to me I would probably never be found. What if on my way back I ran into the middle of a real life version of The Most Dangerous Game? Dogs, guns, creepy local guy, in the middle of the woods... there's too many pop-culture references to make here. It's like the beginning of every creepy movie ever made in the woods.

At that point I actually got out my cell phone and called up my ex. I told her it was probably nothing but to take down a description of these guys and the exchange. Basically, if I disappeared I wanted someone to look at it as more than just a lost runner.

The entire run I kept my eyes and ears pealed for any sign of them.

I never saw those guys again and obviously nothing happened to me on the way back but to this day I still get creeped out just thinking about it. I'll never look at all those boar hunters the same.

So when I was doing a practice run at Peacock flats a couple months later I was a little unnerved to find myself again in the middle of nowhere, on a dirt road, that was apparently in prime boar-hunting territory.

Every half hour or so as I was running I would hear the distant roar of a massive diesel engine. I'd grab Abby, my Ex's dog and my constant running companion, and get off to the side of the small road. There were a lot of sharp, blind corners, so it seemed safer to just get out of the way when we heard them. The roar would get louder and a big truck full of guys with guns in the front and barking dogs in the back would come around the corner and cruise slowly past us. A couple of them would give us a brief wave, most of them seemed to ignore us.

Then as we were headed back we heard the now familiar sound of a truck coming. Abby was getting used to the ritual and ran over to me. We got off the road and waited.

The truck came crawling around the corner ahead of us. As it drew closer it started to slow down until it stopped even with me. Something cold settled into the bottom of my gut. One of the passengers asked something but I couldn't make it out.

"What?" I asked.

"You need any water?" He repeated. I'm sure I looked startled by the question. I felt my camelbak which was still half full.

"No, I'm good." I replied.

"Alright," he said, waved, and they pulled away.

Yes, I felt like an idiot.

Before my first encounter with the creepy hunter I'd never felt threatened in Hawaii, and nothing came of it, so I realized how stupid it was to cling to the feeling when all of the evidence was to the contrary.

So, thank you to the Good-Samaritan boar hunters for reminding me of all the reasons that I love Hawaii and it's perfect trail running.

Family Fortunate

My Wife of eight years and I got divorced at the beginning of this year. To many people this would have been an incredibly traumatic event, a minefield full of emotional, financial, and mental issues.

I consider myself extremely fortunate, however, we somehow managed to avoid all those pitfalls and move through it pretty painlessly. Our daughter was our priority, making sure that whatever our issues we maintained a healthy friendship for her sake. We went through the process without even having to consult lawyers or go before a judge. To any considering divorce I really recommend doing whatever it takes to avoid the lawyers as they seem to make everything even worse (and more expensive). We settled our issues amicably and the rest was just filling out some paperwork.

I am extremely proud and pleased to report that we still support each other in every endeavor, the most recent of which is my upcoming Peacock 100k race. Neither she nor my daughter have been to any of my races this year, usually they start extremely early in the morning were over pretty quickly. So, I wasn't sure what her reaction would be when I ask if they wanted to meet up during my race.

The Peacock consists of two loops of a little more than 30 miles each and I figured that it would be really cool to see my daughter and Cari at the finish of the first loop/start of the second loop. Failing that, having them be there for the finish would be really meaningful. They didn't have to hang out for the entire race, just getting to see them at some point would really lift my spirits (and inspire me to keep moving when I want to give up). I should also mention that the race takes place on the other side of the island so it would involve a minimum hour and a half round trip drive.

That was where it got interesting. I called her up and Cari was instantly supportive and wanted to know what else she could do (even volunteering her new Husband as a pacer for the last ten miles and he immediately agreed to do it). Over the course of the conversation the plan blossomed into everyone camping out Friday night a short trip from the starting line, then making an entire day out of the race.

How cool is that? Seriously! It would have been enough to have them pop in for a quick visit at some point, but to have her jump in head first really, really means a lot. When I finish the 100k, it will be in no small part due to her.

DNF lessons

After my first DNF, at the Tantalus Triple Trek, I was more devastated than I thought. At the time I was disappointed and a little confused but not overtly upset. A couple of days later though, I was still pretty down. I felt like I had prepared well, was ready for the race, and yet I didn't finish. What was going on? I thought I'd done everything right.

What was really bugging me was not knowing what I did wrong. I had completed every race in the HURT trail series up to the Triple Trek, and the only race I had left in the series was the Peacock 100k, which I'd already signed up for before my Triple Trek DNF. After the Triple Trek I was seriously doubting my ability to run the 100k. If I can't finish a 50k than how in the world was I justified in competing in a race twice as long.

What started my mental recovery was reading a race report about UTMB and Western States 100. Over the years I've started to recognize and idolize many of the successful American Ultrarunners. Anton Krupicka, Geoff Roes, Scott Jurek, Jez Bragg, Topher Gaylord, Michael Wardian... and many others (there are plenty of inspirational female athletes as well).

As I was reading these race reports I noticed something that I'd previously ignored, many of these ultra-athletes have dropped during recent races. This isn't an unusual occurance, these people have intense schedules, intense training, and really intense races, it's not that unusual for a talented athlete to drop from a race.

What?

I'd seen these reports before and just never really paid attention to the list of the names that didn't finish. Once I had my own DNF experience the names suddenly jumped out at me.

I would never equate myself to these amazing runners, that would be like a weekend pick-up player comparing himself to Michael Jordan.... there is no comparison. And yet it made me feel a little better to realize that even these supreme beings of the running world have had a bad day, have problems, have issues. It makes them more human, and therefor makes my own humanity a little more excusable.

One of the things that I've learned in the interim is how difficult it is to explain the mental aspect of ultrarunning. When you're hurting in a 5k it's pretty easy to rationalize pushing yourself through it, 'only a couple miles left', 'only ten minutes left'... etc. When you're running marathon and beyond it becomes a little more difficult.

I ran 20 miles in the Triple Trek and started to fall apart. If I'd had a couple of miles left it wouldn't have been too hard to push through it, but when you know you have AN ENTIRE LAP left, TEN MORE MILES (of mountainous, muddy trail= 3+ hours)... that becomes a little more difficult. Then you look at these amazing endurance athletes who run hundreds of miles, every little difficulty becomes harder to push through. The mental aspect is something that I've learned (now) that you can't do much to train for. If you aren't very used to running these extreme distances than mentally it can be very difficult on race day when problems pop up.

It's been said in many places that the effort it takes to run an ultra is not linear. If you can run 10 miles in 60 minutes than you should be running 100 miles in 10 hours, right? Yeah, no. Even the best athletes have their performance gradually degraded over long distances. The better the athlete the longer it takes, but it still happens.

In the time since the race I've been able to rationalize the race and my performance more. I figured out a couple of things, and in doing so realized some pretty large faults in my pre-race planning and training.

First, I was not mentally prepared for the distance... mostly because I had never run that distance on that difficult a course before. This also resulted in more knee problems because of my unfamiliarity with the difficulty and the distance. I pushed myself too hard too fast and my knees paid for it.

Secondly, after much internet research I have realized that I 'decouple' during these long difficult races. That is, after a while my heart rate was much higher than it should have been for the effort I was putting out. I had a feeling this was a cardiovascular issue but it wasn't until I found the books and blogs by Joe Friel (http://www.joefrielsblog.com) that I learned some of the specifics of this issue and ways to address it.

I ran a lot, right? So, my cardio should not have been an issue, right? Except for the fact that I pushed myself harder on race day and therefor spent more time in my 'cardio' zone than in my 'fat burning' zone. Which meant that I wasn't training my cardio as hard as I should have been. Or I should have forced myself to slow down on race day.

After looking at some of the race reports and having some time to learn from my mistakes I am feeling a lot better about myself and my abilities. I've learned a lot about what I'm doing wrong and the things I could be doing better.

I'm looking forward to putting my lessons to the test, though I really wish I'd done better at Tantalus. I really wish I had the confidence of a finish behind me going into my next race.