50k Training Progress

I don't know if this news has reached other parts of the country. It seems Micah True, the runner known as Caballo Blanco in "Born to Run" has been missing since not returning from a planned 12 mile run this past Tuesday in Gila, New Mexico. Let's hope for the best.

Having the week off for spring break has allowed me to run a bit more than I might have if I had been working, but there are only so many hours that one should train at a given point. Late yesterday afternoon I ran the hills on the open space nearby for about an hour and a half.

On Tuesday I ran about 3 hours and 25 minutes. I started at Chautauqua Park, ran south along the Mesa Trail to Bear Canyon, and then north up around the back side of Green Mountain to its summit for a net elevation gain of about 2400 feet. The descent took about 25 minutes less than the run up. I wanted to put about five hours together between two days, so the following day I ran for an hour and a half choosing a route similar to the one mentioned in the previous paragraph.

On the previous Saturday I ran trails in Eldorado Springs including Rattlesnake Gulch to the railroad tunnel. On a couple of runs recently I have experience an irregular heartbeat. I can't say that it has been atrial fibrillation each time or not, (something I have had diagnosed in the past). My impression of a-fib is that the rate goes to a flutter, which has occurred, but on this run it seemed that it was not so fluttery, but definitely not steady. I had to hike a couple of times on some of the 15% grade. At some point on the descent the beat returned to normal. It's strange, I can start a run with the beat irregular and at some point it converts to normal and now recently I have had it go irregular on a run which started out with a normal heartbeat. I have cut back on the caffeine although I typically drink half-caf anyway. This morning I'm at 1/3 caf and have done just 1/4 on some days. It may be best just to wean myself from it completely.

Muscle-wise things feel good; I never get sore, but I can feel some subtle tendon issues in the heel and plantar area in the left foot and some sensitivity where I've had stress fractures in the right foot. I think it will all hold up ok if I maintain a regimen of some rest days and stretch a bit during non-running times. My weight had gone up in February; I was caught off guard to find myself at 185 when I had been 178 at the new year. I'm back to 182. It seems to make sense to have as little extra as possible so that I'm not carrying that weight for 31 miles, but it may not hurt to have a little to draw from for fuel.

A nice surprise is that my running-resistant son Alex expressed an interest in doing the 50k. Actually, he expressed an interest in the 12 mile version of the same Dirty Thirty event but it is already full. He ran cross country in high school, does parkour, runs intermittently, and has 9 miles in the bank for training. He's 21 though and figures he can catch up quickly. My concern is that he has running-induced asthma which seems brought on by cold temperatures or altitude; this race takes place between 7900' and 9400'. We live at 5200' but some added acclimation may be in order.

Do as you're gonna do

A simple rule for training has evolved for me over time based on observation. Do in training what you're going to do in the event. A notable breach of this axiom occurred last winter when Anton Krupicka came in second in the Rocky Raccoon 100. He was in great shape from having maintained a almost unfathomable plateau of training intensity; His training for January 2011 had almost 700 miles and over 100,000 feet of ascent and descent much of that on ice, snow pack, and rocky trail. The Rocky Raccoon is a flat course; in effect he still hasn't recovered from that race. His body wasn't trained for the flat. He certainly had the horsepower, but the suspension wasn't designed for the angles of impact.

The Dirty Thirty 50K is almost all single track mountain trail with long ups and downs. Only eight percent is considered flat. I figure I am going to be there for somewhere around 7 1/2 hours after some period that will be considered a taper. My training so far has mimicked that scenario. I have run once each of the last three weekends without any midweek running. Yesterday I ran for just shy of three hours on icy, snow-packed, and rocky trails with most of the incline between 6 and 15 percent. Oh, and it was windy.

If you haven't spent sometime along the Front Range of Colorado you may not know what windy is. Pressure gradients can cause wind velocities of over 100 miles per hour. I don't know the wind speed of yesterday, but there were times that heading into the wind I was almost held to a standstill, running perpendicular to the wind caused my trailing leg to blow behind the other leg and strike the heel of the lead foot as it came forward, and with the wind at my back I couldn't synchronize by legs to the pace that the wind wanted to carry me. Fortunately, steep mountain sides and trees protected me somewhat. Any trees or branches that would blow down would already be down from previous winds. I was still vulnerable to the wind even when I got back to the car. I was sitting with one leg out the door as I drank some water; suddenly, a gust whipped the half-open door against my shin. At the moment I thought ooh, that was hard, but I think that in my endorphin-infused state I didn't feel it. Today it looks like someone tried to raise a purple baseball under my skin by striking it with a bat.

The point I was leading to earlier is that I see myself running the 50K on June 2nd without being able to rack up the miles typically expected for such a distance because of various obligation but I figure that if I can continue to run progressively longer distances on steep terrain each weekend I should be able to go thirty miles or so by June. I anticipate adding a shorter long run on Sundays as I move through March and April. I may even begin that today with an hour recovery run. I expect to insert a 5 to 10 miler on Wednesdays.

I'm not saying that one should exclusively mimic the anticipated activity; some speedwork makes sense to have a faster marathon and some longer runs help with endurance in a shorter race, but I believe it makes sense that the bulk of the training should be geared toward the nature of the event.

Yesterday's run took place in Eldorado Springs. About 12 miles from the house, it is the closest access I have to mountain trails. I had planned to include Rattlesnake Gulch in the course but as I turned onto its trailhead I could see its north facing incline was a river of ice. I continued west and took the sunny snow-barren trail up the south facing side of Eldorado Canyon. Pictures below show the cold shady gulch with its reddish scar where the railway passes between tunnels. The railway is about 1000 feet above the creek at the bottom of the canyon that lies between where the photo was taken and the railway.

I have one physical concern so far. I've had a metatarsal stress fracture each of the past two summers in my right foot. First it was the second metatarsal and last summer it was the third. I don't feel pain when I run, but I notice pain the day after if I step with pressure directly under them. My impression is that bones end up stronger at the break, but in light of my experience of the past two summers and what I anticipate doing to it over the next three months I am concerned.

Dirty Thirty 50K on the Horizon

For the next three months I intend to chronicle my preparation for the Golden Gate Dirty Thirty 50K race which takes place June 2, 2012 in Golden Gate Canyon State Park a bit to the east of Blackhawk, Colorado. I've never run an ultra before, nor a marathon, although I have run 27 miles and I have run for six hours in the mountains summiting three peaks. Most of my runs last an hour or two, but I occasionally I go for three or so.

I registered for the race last weekend after having let a month slip by without getting out once for a run. A combination of sniffles, snow, and snags made it an effort to get out, so I allowed myself a break. Last Saturday I inaugurated my training with a two hour and twenty-five minute excursion on sloppy snow, ice, mud, and hardpacked dirt. It took about four days to not feel the effects of the run. I had a pleasant run yesterday afternoon; for a little over two hours I ran up and down hills on the North Louisville Open Space. I felt good running, but can feel the effects today, although I think running for an hour today would certainly be within reason.

I do not intend to follow a training plan, although I do have a plan. I intend to do at least one long run per week, increasing in distance as time progresses. I also intend to run uphill climbs as much as possible since this race has 9000 feet of elevation with many of the climbs of significant length. I plan on three or four rest days per week, partly because of my schedule and partly because I think rest days, after a three or four hour run, may be of more value than a couple of five mile jogs. I'd also like to drop about ten pounds in the next twelve weeks just so that I'm not carrying the weight with me. I'm at the high end of my running weight and the low end of my sedentary weight which is 181 lbs.

Yesterday was an important day. I was amused at the ambiguity of being signed up for a 31 mile race and not wanting to run because it was chilly out. The temperature was about 42 degrees and the wind was steady making for a raw day; just going from the car to the grocery store entrance was jolting. About ten minutes into the run though I was already warmer than I wanted and pulled off a fleece top and ran the rest of the time comfortable with a thermal top and windbreaker.

At this point my goal is to finish, and looking at the times from last year I expect to do that in under eight hours, but I'd like to get in a position to amend that to something closer to seven hours as the date nears. The winning mens' time from last year was 5:01 and the last place male finisher came in at 9:44.

Weekend Warrior

Months have passed since my last post. The catalyst for the hiatus was simply a technical problem; the last post I wrote would not upload and I did not persevere in investigating the cause. I still don't know why; I hope the problem has resolved itself. I didn't return to posting because I wasn't running more than a couple of times a week and didn't have much to say about it.

I had another stress fracture back in August and spent much the rest of the month and some of September recovering. Following that I was busy with teaching and I also fell into a little business of making and selling firewood. I spent a lot of spare time splitting, stacking, loading and unloading wood so I had some good upper body workouts but not much running. I typically ran a two hour trail run on Saturday or Sunday and a 3 to 5 mile run once during the week. I kept hoping to increase my overall mileage but it just wasn't happening. I've had the last two weeks off from work so I've been able to get out more. We had a big snow storm the first week which impeded my running somewhat. This past week I need 55.2 miles to reach 1000 for the year. I ran 55.3 in six outings. Evidently, I was in shape for it, but I don't think my body is conditioned to maintain that level without risking an injury. This week will have to be a blip statistically. I had been averaging about 16 per week.

I'd like to run 1500 this year. To have a chance at that, I am going to try maintaining a 25 mile per week average until our daylight hours lengthen and then I'll work up to 35 or so per week. Another goal is to avoid an injury that would put me out of commission for any length of time. Weeks with zero miles are hard to make up. I also hope to complete an ultra-length event.

Fingers Crossed for Return from Stress Fracture

After having to stop running on August 10th because of a stress fracture of the third metatarsal I have ventured to test the foot with a run this past Saturday and this evening. I had been having pain and strange sensation in the foot a good part of the summer but after a hard run on August 9th I felt as if I was one run away from a complete failure at the fracture site so I decided it was time to give it a rest.

I didn't run at all, but went for a few walks between one and two miles and participated in regular activities in regular footwear. I tried to hasten my return to running on August 21st by going out for three miles, which was clearly an error. On Saturday, Sept 3rd I ran 5 trail miles with a fair amount of up and down terrain, favoring the right foot a bit, but it felt OK, but I still want to give it rest. I went out this evening for just 3 miles on pavement at about 9:30/mile pace doing a low impact heel strike and the foot felt fine. I am happy that on both outings I felt as if I had the energy to run for a couple of hours. Three and a half weeks of inactivity did not wipe out all of my conditioning.

I'm sure people who break arms return to many normal activities before the arm fully heals, but they don't repetitively do the action that caused the break as a runner with a stress fracture does. I speculate a stress fracture needs to be fairly close to 100% repaired before it can handle the repeated load that caused the fracture in the first place. I hope I'm close to 100% and for now when I run I hope I am able to change up the stride somewhat to not load the bone with the same stress over and over and over.

I plan to not run for the next three or four days and try a longer trail run this weekend.

Bones Heal Slowly

A watched pot never boils.

Waiting for the third metatarsal of my right foot to heal feels like waiting for water to boil. At least with a pot of water, one can see some bubbles form on the side or maybe a little water vapor rise from the surface; I don't have much I can observe.

As mentioned in a previous post, I believe I heeded all the signs of a fracture in process and was able to avert a complete failure at the site of the fracture just in time. I assume that it should heal in less time than the seven weeks it took for a stress fracture last year when there was a clear instant of bone failure.

Part of the problem is not experiencing much pain. I wore a post-op shoe for about four days, then I was careful to wear a supportive shoe with an orthotic for several days, and lately in the house I haven't bothered with shoes. I would like to put some direct pressure on it to test it, but if I do enough to cause some pain aren't I also doing enough to cause some damage? And could I even be causing damage when there isn't pain? That's how a stress fracture develops in the first place, damage occurring little by little, step by step without pain until there is enough damage that the nerves are irritated and pass this information on to the brain of the always-in-denial runner.

Meanwhile, in 11 days I'm 3 pound heavier. Hmmm, maybe I should go for a run; the load of an extra three pounds can't be good for the foot, right? Must work that off. Maybe I shouldn't have put butter on those pancakes; well, too late to change that.

The plan is to not run or stress it for another week and then try it out with some easy runs. The most optimist time frame for recovery that I read from authoritative sources was 3-4 weeks for an incomplete stress fracture. 18 days is about three week.

Avoiding Rehab

For the past three days I wore a post-op shoe to protect the stress fracture in my right foot from progressing. While the shoe was suitable for protecting the foot, it was causing problems in the ankle (turning), calf muscle (tightness), and knee(stresses). The shoe is probably designed for someone who's recovering from foot surgery and needs to get from the bed to the bathroom, not for going about ones daily life.

The doctor had suggested I could probably wear a sturdy supportive shoe, maybe something like a hiking boot, so I decided to kick the post-op shoe last night. I switched to the most supportive running shoe I have and inserted some orthotics that I have from years ago which seem to direct much of the weight to the heel. I am able to walk normally with this combination. There is no pain, but since there is some flex in the sole I need to be careful about what I do.

My brain makes me laugh. I'm sure a drug addict doesn't think much differently. As soon as the pain wasn't present I found myself thinking I'll run one place or another. An addict might do some self-talk about rehab when in the scary throes of a high or crash but once in the clear seeks the next high. I have to be strong; I have to keep coming to my senses or I will have that overdose; I will complete the fracture and there will be rehab.

Hmmm, I was thinking three to four weeks, but if I can already walk ok....