100 Days of Stupid: Day 15

Cool (67F), dry (48%), and breezy today. Made for a fast (18:19) ascent of Marion Davis (year's best: 16:54). Unfortunately I can't say anything analogous about work today, which was a real kick in the teeth (the old 'turns out it ain't so simple as you thought problem).

100 Days of Stupid: Day 13-14

Hit the two week mark. Nothing special, just two runs up Pack Monadnock this weekend. Turned my ankle for the second time in two weeks on Saturday's run (stepped on an acorn!). Iced it down, took some NSAIDs, and it felt fine today.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 12

Not much of a video, but it gives you the idea.

Headed up to the Northeast Kingdom of VT yesterday for a long planned weekend of riding at the Kingdom Trails. Unfortunately the whole trip was cut short due to rain, but we did get a night ride in. It's a long way to drive for just over two hours of riding, but when the weather is cool and dry, and the trails are this good, it's still worth it.

Thanks to Shawn and Loralee for letting Chris, Dale, Ray, and I stay in their barn. Sure beat packing up a wet tent this morning.

The Turner gets ready to roll out.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 11

A simple caveman runner:

See mountain. Weather good. Run up mountain. Life good. That is all.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 10

Felt lazy today. It's starting to be a recurring theme. Maybe that's the lesson I'm supposed to learn? At least I scored some oral antibiotics to battle my ear infection. Hoping they don't make me sick this weekend. Anyhow, back to the laziness, I did the easiest thing I could do today: A 3.5 road run around town.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 9

Today was the first day I would have definitely taken off if not for this ill-advised, self-imposed challenge. I have a painful ear infection and barely slept last night. But the weather was decent and a couple of Advil kept the pounding of the ear at bay. So I headed over to Pack for some mountain running. Took the Wapack trail to the summit for a much needed change of scenery. I don't usually run this route as it is more technical than the Marion Davis trail and all the rocks and roots make twisting an ankle a much greater possibility. Felt fine once I started though...More proof, if any was needed, that starting is 90% of the battle.

100 Days of Stupid: Day 1-8

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business"

-T.S. Eliot

"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."

-Yoda

Blatantly ripping off an idea from Inspired by an old PCHS classmate's goal of practicing her musical art for 100 straight days, last week I decided to attempt the goal of 100 straight days of workouts.

In part I do this because I don't plan on doing any other major races this year; the Wildman will likely have been it for me this year. Now I don't race to win, there are plenty of people faster, younger, and/or more motivated than myself, plus I am fundamentally too lazy to train enough to win anything. I race because it forces me to prepare to race and preparing to race injects some healthy struggle into life -- If you think struggle is all bad then I weep for you. I'm doing it for other reasons too, some pragmatic some quasi-spiritual, but to talk about those would be either boring or would exceed my daily allotment of philosophical mumbo-jumbo.

So I'm trying to engage in a moderately hard physical activity each day for 100 days in a row. What's a "moderately hard*" activity? For me it would be:

• A road run over 5k
  

• Any track workout totaling 5 miles or more

• A trail run or hike equal to or better than my regular 2.56 mile 1000' vertical climb up Pack Monadnock

• Any mountain bike ride over 15 miles

• Any road ride over 20 miles

• 30 minutes or more of the Ashtanga primary series

* Please, spare me tales of "some guy you know" who has only one leg and ran the Obscurity 200 Nightime Ultra Marathon in January while juggling flaming chainsaws. Unless you are Dean Karnazes, Lance Armstrong, or Chris Sharma, then stuff it, because there is always somebody doing something harder than you :-) If you on the other hand are doing something, then let's hear it!

I'm fairly confident I won't pull this off without some luck and an unhealthy doses or self-deception since I face at least four daunting obstacles:

1. Injury (both my Achilles are creaky these days)
   
2. Vacation (a week at the beach in two weeks...in the middle of which is the Bride's opening)
3. Work (busy as always)
4. Going to the Kingdom Trails this weekend for a long Saturday day ride *and* a night ride. Sunday looks grim.

~~~~~

I had to get several days into this before I wrote about it (in case I fell in a hole on day 2). I've been at it eight days and so far, so good:

Day 1 - 6:

Starting last Monday August 17th I ran my regular run up the Marion Davis trail on Pack Monadnock and then down the access road. The heat and humidity here have been off the charts, with 90F/90% not being uncommon. Still it was pretty easy as I've been doing this regularly for a couple years now. I even managed my third fastest ascent this year on Thursday when the heat wasn't that bad. I'm already feeling cocky, this is going to be too easy!

Day 7:

I was pressed for time so went right out the front door for a 3.5 mile road run. Again the humidity was crushing, but it was easy motivation-wise because I don't want to deal with the self-loathing that ending the streak so early would entail. How long till that well runs dry and I simply don't give a shit?

Day 8: Nicest day so far, so why did I have the hardest time getting out? Somebody said this was going to be easy right? Couldn't face another trip up Pack so I went to the track and warmed up for 2 miles, then ran a hard 3 mile @ 6:32 pace. Sadly it really felt faster, but clearly I am getting old. The brain perceives pain consistent with 6:10 pace, but the legs can't deliver that.

Wildman

Friday night the Bride and I headed up to Gorham, NH as we have on this weekend for the past 5 years. But this time we weren't headed up for the 24 Hours of Great Glen, but rather the Wildman Biathlon. I was looking for something "easier" to than the two-man team Todd and I have fielded these past 5 years as well as a race that would better leverage the mountain running I've been doing regularly the past two years. I also wanted to spend less time training, and I figured something that lasted about as long as a marathon had to require less time training than the 24HoGG. That only proved partially true...

Coming into the finish of the first leg in Shelburne, NH
Looking Good & Going Slow :-P

In its 21st year, the Wildman is a 10k road run, 22.3 mile road ride with a stiff uphill finish up the "easy" side of Pinkham Notch, and finally a 3 mile uphill-only mountain run to the summit of Wildcat Mountain. A few competitors run the race as a relay, but the bulk, like myself, were doing it solo.

The weather was close to perfect when we arrived for the 8:00 race start; the humidity was low and it was about as cool as it could be without needing to wear warmup jersey.

I didn't want to cook myself on the first leg, a fairly flat out and back with a couple short hills. I figure I'm good right now for 6:30 pace in a standalone race, so my goal was a sedate 7:30 pace. Things didn't go quite to plan as my first mile was way too quick, but I calmed down and finished in 45:20 at 7:18 pace. If felt odd to be leaving so much in reserve, but I still managed to be in 36th place, out of the 96 solo entrants.

Leaving T1 for a quick "lap" before heading to Wildcat.

Having dogged it a bit on the first leg I had a lot left in the tank for the bike. I got through the first transition quickly enough, at least by my own very low standards. Before heading to Wildcat we were required to make one 7 mile lap around some local Shelburne roads and return to the first transition area before heading out to Gorham. The lap was typical rolling New England hills, no big climbs. For those first seven miles I just tried to get into a consistent rhythm, knowing there was plenty of climbing at the end. I passed a fair number of people and was passed in turn by the better cyclists.

Here's how you know you are dealing with a mountain biker out of his element:

1) Full fingered gloves*

2) Earth tone socks

3) MTB shoes

4) Giro Xen helmet

5) Cheap no-name road bike
6) Crazy Mountain Man Beard
7) Loose and flappy shirt

* Probably the only person who bothered with gloves of any kind! I am Safety Paul after all.

After the local lap we headed for Gorham and then turned onto Rt 16. The course stayed the same with no climbs of note until the 12.5 mile mark. At that point the course climbs from approximately 800' to 2000' feet in less than 10 miles, with the last two miles climbing 500'. Hardly Tour de France numbers, but enough that you're going to feel it.

With the start of the real climbing at 12.5 I my legs felt good, surprising since I'd only ridden about 200 miles in preparation for this race, so I started to reel people in. My slack pace thus far paid off I was able to pass several riders before I reached Wildcat in 1:19:29, the 28th best bike time of the day.

Coming into T2 is a quick turn onto loose dirt with jelly legs. Fun.

T2 was a bit pokey as my legs were quite wobbly when I got off the bike and I grabbed some Sport Legs pills from the Bride. When I started the 3 mile 2000' trail run to the summit of Wildcat, my legs felt awful, forcing me into a painfully slow trot, but they would soon feel worse.

The Final Insult

After about a quarter of a mile my legs detonated and started cramping uncontrollably. If I straightened my leg my quad would seize, if I bent it too much my hamstrings locked up.

Master of the "Power Limp" (tm).

I gave serious consideration to quitting the race since I had barely started the last leg and could barely walk. Clearly I'd overdone the bike leg. But then I came around a corner and glanced at the other "runners" strung out up the trail. Almost all of them was doing some variant of the limp I was doing. Then I realized, "Ah ha! This is how it is supposed to be!", and I plodded on.

The merciful end!

Occasionally I was able to start trotting again (I hesitate to call anything I did on that last leg "running"). The one mile mark passed and I didn't feel any worse. I kept waiting for the 2 mile mark, thinking I'd try to run the last mile.

The finish area.

My thinking wasn't very clear and even as I approached the summit and saw the Bride snapping my picture I thought, "Gee, she (having taken the gondola to the summit) hiked down an awfully long way".

The course elevation profile...you get the idea.

"How much further?", I asked her dejectedly, that stupid 2 mile mark couldn't arrive soon enough. She looked at me with a puzzled look, and said "Only a hundred yards or so." I wasn't sure if I should believe her, since her distance estimation abilities are quite dubious, it might be 1600 yards. But I started running as best I could and sure enough, around the next bend was the merciful end.

Added another 4000-footer to my list today...the hard way.

I finished the last leg in 51:05**, the 37th best ascent of the day. Overall I finished in 32nd place and even beat 11 of the relay teams.

** For some reason my splits for the first two legs were missing in the race results. The splits listed above for the first two legs are from my Garmin 405 so the totals don't foot exactly. The total time per the 405 was 2:55:48, per the race results 2:55:49.

The Bride likes working support for races that last only a few hours and take place while the sun is shining.

If I was to do this race again, beyond the obvious of more miles training on the bike, I would definitely go harder on the 10k, something under 7:00 pace. I don't think it would effect my cycling too much and I don't think I could do the last leg any slower without going backwards. The main thing I'd do though is to train more for the second transition. My body was simply not prepared for getting off the bike and running. I'd done two shortened dry runs of the race in the past month but clearly this was not remotely enough. After every other bike ride I think a run, no matter how short, would be what is needed to prepare for this race.

I've only taken in this view previously with skis on.

And as to this race being easier than Great Glen, I'd tend to say it is, since it's certainly shorter, and mountain bike racing at night when you are exhausted is unrelentingly trying. But I've never done any race where my legs felt as awful as they did on the last climb; mentally I came pretty close to folding then. I suppose the real lesson is that while the race is shorter, you till have to train just as much!