“The cells needs to learn how to get there.” ~Vinnie Tortorich
“When you think that you are done, you’re only 40% into what your body is capable of doing. And that’s just the limits we put on ourselves.” ~David Goggins
Intro:
So here I was. Approaching 40. I had a planned another ultra distance run for the summer of 2013. I had drafted a training plan at some point, but in the end life, work, and family proved how any well-thought out plan is simply that, a plan or a guide. Plans change. The goal didn’t. I was fine with it all. I used to freak out if I missed a specific planned long run like when I trained for my first (and only) marathon. Back then the thought of the 26.2 distance scared the crap out of me.
There is something special about the solo mission or the solo run. The beauty of the solo run to me is flexibility with the training schedule. Basically, I had no training schedule. I ran when I was able to run. You get what you can get. For the big run, this time around it came down to either a Saturday or Sunday run. It depended on what the family needs were around the run. The run day’s weather kind of mattered, but I had no control of it. I would either have a hot day or a slightly less hot day. You definitely have to be able to operate without the adrenaline rush of a huge paid event. No medals or shirts. Simply run for enjoyment and the time on the path.
Months had gone by from the drafting of a training schedule and I blew past its estimated written run date. After that point I never really locked down on the actual run date, but I was pressed. Ideally I’d put in a few more “long” runs to build up. All I had done were 1-1.5 hr Z2 runs during work lunch breaks. Plus, I would have to get the run done while my lovely and pregnant wife capable of driving from city to city meeting me at specific areas along the run. I never really locked down a run date. Life did it for me and I realized it 1-2 weeks before the run. I know. That’s plenty of time to up my miles and taper. 🙂 I wasn’t worried. My confidence was high and my body wasn’t beaten up from over-training.
What: 40 mile solo run.
When: Aug 31, 2013. After turning 40 yrs old.
Why: A cool challenge to do 40 miles for turning 40. Heard a guy do it the year before and it stuck to me as a goal. Seemed like a totally do-able goal. Just do a 50k and add 8 more miles to challenge myself. Plus a bonus of seeing what I’m capable of on an fat-adapted NSNG approach.
Another reason to do it is to celebrate my youth at 40.
Where: From home and head north along the Iron Horse Trail several cities up and back.
Who: Me, and crew of my 7 months pregnant wife and 5 yr old son.
How: Trained whenever I could. Had set a training plan based on a 50k training schedule, but it never panned out. So got what I could get as far as run days, which usually ended up being 1-1.5 hr lunch runs 1,2, sometimes 3 times a week and no real long weekend run. The longest training run was maybe 12 miles.
I figured my body and mind knows how to get to 32 miles already. Or as Vinnie Tortorich would say my “cells need to learn how to get there”. The real run would happen after mile 32.
Body and nutrition: Trained to be fat-adapted for about a year. Eleven pounds lighter than the year before.
What I carried:
1- 24 oz mixture (plain Generation UCAN, 1 tsp coconut oil, 1 tsp Jarrow plain whey protein, water, and ice)
1 snack zip bag of raw almonds
70 oz water in a Nathan’s Hydrapak
1 package of fruit flavored TicTacs
Salt Sticks in a Nuun bottle.
What was waiting for me in a cooler and van:
1- 24 oz mixture (plain Generation UCAN, 1 tsp coconut oil, 1 tsp Jarrow plain whey protein, water, and ice).
Jar of almond stuffed Spanish olives (Safeway brand).
4 frozen plastic bottles of water.
1 gallon bottle of water.
Fueling strategy and what was actually consumed:
The strategy was to use fat and UCAN and to consume them when I felt I needed the energy. I would only drink water when I felt thirsty. I would take in salt sticks if it got too hot or if I found myself taking in a lot of fluid. A tic-tac as an experiment it case I was really in a funk and needed some sort of sugar to trickle.
Half a short Starbucks black coffee (4 oz) after mile 33.
Comparison to a sugar strategy,for this distance would have been consisting of gels and sports-drink of about:
Bagel with peanut butter
15 Hammer Gels
118 oz of Heed
40 miler notes:
At 7.83 miles Danville
Miles to six almonds.
At mile 8. Warmed up and ready for a 50k.
In 10.2 miles and I’ve only had almonds and one sip of UCAN mix..
11.09 miles I’m feeling a little high.
Mile 14 I took the seconds sip of you can.
Watch my footing at mile 14.16 almost tripped.
Mile 15.2 after two salt sticks.
Mile 16.78 near the got swiped by a cyclist zipping by my left from the rear.
Mile 17.5 met up with the family and had to Olive’s with almonds.
Mile 19 I got to Treat Boulevard bridge and I took my third swig of Ucan.
At mile 20 took another swig of UCAN mixture.
Mile 20.5 I had UCAN mixture.
Mile 25.67 miles stumbled and nearly fell.
Tried trickle sugar (1 tic tac) 32.7 miles.
Mile 33 GPS watch died. Slipped into an aid station Starbucks.
After Starbucks, switched to iPhone GPS. Switched on some tunes.
Met up with family at Central Park.
Injuries:
Sore outside my left foot at the base of my small toe noticed sometime after mile 30 and general sore feet. No blisters. No black toenail. Did develop some forehead acne from the heat, sweat, and visor.
Recovery:
1 and 2 days post run felt a little sore in the morning in the legs, but usual loosened up as the morning carried on an I got coffee in me. Generally felt healthy and fine.
I started and ended the run at 144lbs.
I noticed after a week, I was down 5 lbs in weight. Not sure why. Perhaps it took a week to reduce any sort of inflammation in my body and release any excess fluid it may have kept?
Thoughts & what I’ve learned:
Felt this run was not that big of an accomplishment as I thought. It could be I only feel this way because it was not a battle with my nutrition or body. My body held up and if it weren’t for being fat adapted I would have come apart.
If I was able to switch shoes after mile 30 or at least loosened up the lacing a bit , my feet would not have hurt as much towards the end.
Despite my sore feet, I felt I finished stronger .
Gratitude:
Thanks to following supporters and inspirations.
My crew: wife and son (Zee & Kaleo)
My trainer and friend: Vinnie
Podcasts and Facebook groups:
America’s Angriest Trainer Podcast
Vinnie Tortorich’s No Sugars No Grains Facebook group
Endurance Planet Podcast: Ask the Ultrarunner, Ask the Coaches, & Sports Nutrition
“[D]oing the 50k is not the hard part; training for the 50k is the hard part.”~Matt Sims, Rock/Creek Race Team
Intro:
In 2011, I planned my first 13.1 and quickly decided it was to be a scheduled long run for also completing my first 26.2. Actually I had three 13.1 events before the marathon. Registering for races was becoming an addiction. Typical. I scheduled a couple more 13.1 events after and only did one of them. I gave up my bib for the one I didn’t do. I couldn’t do. Life with two little boys was getting pretty hectic and could not afford all the away time on weekends doing these types of events. So I gave up signing up for races so I can be with my young family when they need me the most. It was also a good decision financially. Races aren’t cheap. Plus spending quality time with the family is a better investment. With this decision, plans of participating in the 2012 Diablo Trails Challenge 50k as a first 50k run was thrown out the door. Maybe some other time. I wasn’t going to give up running though. I just needed to create my own 50k distance event. So My Fat Ass was upgraded to a 50k.
Goal:
Complete my first ultra distance in 2012. General idea was do what I did before on previous 20 mile fat ass, but just longer.
Night before the 50k run:
Too busy preparing gear and food to take with me and also for the sag wagon at the last minute. I wanted to make sure the kids’ evening routine went on as usual with dinner, bath, PJs, and usual tuck-ins. Managed to get a couple 10 minute naps before my alarm. When I got up at 3:00a, I manually flipped-on the coffee maker despite having set the auto timer.
Food:
Baked potatoes in some olive oil and lots of salt. Safeway run for some pretzels, chips, v8 juice, Safeway brand of Pedialite.
Pack:
A previous 20 miler the previous year climbed to 95 degree F temps and sucked. This time I cameled-up an carried as much liquid as I could.
70 oz water hydrapak
2 handhelds 270 calories each of HEED.
Bunch of Hammer Gels (vanilla and espresso)
Salt sticks
Run nutrition plan:
Throughout each hour take a salt stick, sip approximately 100 calories from a handheld and take 2 hammer gels.
4am start
Plan:
Head north from home in San Ramon to Walnut Creek (~15miles) and back mostly via the Iron Horse Regional Trail (which I once ran last year in my first 20 mile training run) and make up a couple more miles around the neighborhood to wrap up the full 50k distance.
How did it really go down?
Was too busy to get good sleep. After all the packing and while finishing last minute instructions for my crew (my wife), I nodded off. Must if been a couple minutes of a power nap. Despite having less than an hour till I was scheduled to wake, I laid in bed anyway just to feel it. I nodded off another few minutes and woke up to get ready.
I bypassed the auto-setting and manually started the coffee maker.
Gearing up is wonderful. The minutes spent doing it is somewhat meditative. Back when training muay thai, the time spent wrapping my hands, warming up with wrist and ankles rolls, stretching and skipping rope was no different. Focus and meditation. The calm before the storm knowing something epic and totally painful was going to go down.
Once geared up and sunblocked, I kissed my wife who was asleep in our bed. She woke and noticed I was about I head out. She bid me a safe run and I told her to kiss and hug the boys for me. “Tell them I love them”, I whispered. “I love you all.”
I stepped out of the house and into the cool and dark 4am morning. All was quiet except for a little breeze against the trees and the four consecutive beeps from my GPS watch which read “READY”. A quick small prayer and without any fanfare, I put one foot in front of the other and my inaugural 50k run began.
I ran the sidewalks and empty streets. First over a local hill, which offered a gorgeous view of the nearby city light under the moon hugging up against a cloud. Since it was dark, I ran on well lit streets. I knew at a particular point in the run, Norris Canyon, the morning sky would light up and that was when I’d hit the trail. I remember little about the first several miles in the dark. I remember seeing what seemed to be a California king snake, but flat. Must’ve been roadkill that some other creature dragged onto the pavement to try to wake my ass up this early in the run or get my heart rate jumping. It didn’t work. For some reason, my heart rate was lower than I was used to hitting. This also meant my pace was extremely slow. I figured the cold temperature and the fact that I haven’t begun to warm up was the cause. Not even my additional 7 pounds of liquid, nutrition, and iPhone from my hydrapak and handhelds caused any stress or strain. Since I was going to be out running for quite awhile, I was ok keeping my effort ultra conservative, because later in the day the sun was going to roast me and spike my heart rate. After all, the goal was to complete the distance. Going out above aerobic threshold was a sure fire way to blow-up in a bad way.
Trail to Danville.
Pete’s for a quick unload.
Trail to Walnut.
Light drizzle overcast. It never got hot and was overcast, windy, and rainy at times.
Felt like if I tried, I could fall asleep while running, but didn’t want to wake up in a ditch or bush.
Walnut back picked up nutrition felt little lightheaded.
Going back is a roughly a 15 mile grade within the valley.
Rain at Danville with my wife Zee as support crew.
Leg problems at 22.
Primary GPS dies after 26.2.
Last climb.
Crazy 14.5 loops cold and wind.
Hill and loops:
After I got the back up GPS (iPhone) switched on, I had a sense of urgency to finish. I knew I wanted to finish strong in the final 10K regardless of the left leg causing problems. Part of the urgency had to do with not wanting to run out of power on the iPhone and lose the ability to track my miles. At the same time, by choosing an alternate path, I wondered, did I just increase the distance I’d have to make up after the final climb and aid stop? From the start, I had estimated I’d only have to complete two miles from the base of the last hill. Knowing I turned-around sooner in Walnut Creek, and the course change in San Ramon, while maintaining a super slow shuffle, I quickly launched my iPhone Google map app to calculate the distance from my current position to the start of the final hill. It didn’t take long to get it calculated and …Crap! I killed the app and texted Zenaida who was waiting for me at the soccer field parking lot at top of the hill. She managed to text me first and wanted to let me know she had Starbucks coffee and a banana waiting for me. Yes! I can’t wait for that cup of coffee. Then I messaged her back and told her that I’d have to make up 4 mile after we meet up. I figured I could run a couple loops around our neighborhood, then later decided to run an unknown number of laps around the soccer field. This way she could keep track of me without without having to drive around.
By the time I started up the hill, I knew my legs weren’t going to allow me to run. So instead I power hiked in an Anton-esque kinda way. Hand to help drive is legs down like trek poles by pushing down on thighs. See Anton in action here. Before I knew it I was at the top, crossed the road, cut the field, and climbed over a fence to get to the park where Zenaida should have been waiting. I texted her that I go to the soccer field and was now starting the laps. She pinged back that she had to hike it back to where I was. It turned out, she was waiting at the side of the road by the entrance to the parking lot to snap a view pics of me running towards her. We met up by the truck where she presented me with the coffee and I ditched the handheld. I didn’t feel I needed anything to snack on and was anxious and impatient about finishing.
Last 2 miles:
I was ready to call it quits. I knew my mind was giving up control to my body. I was trying to give myself permission to quit 30 miles in. With my pace so slow, a bum set of legs, Zenaida watching and waiting, and the thoughts of a post run steak lunch, I told myself I could call it quits now and just be thankful for having accomplished this much. Then another part of me thought about how close I was to completing my goal. I also thought about all the time spent leading up to this day. Plus all morning friends and family were chiming in on Facebook cheering me on. I knew deep down I could finish, I just was at the lowest point of the run, where I could teeter off or stay on. My equivalent of ‘the dark place”. After one of the laps around the field, I hobbled over to Zenaida and asked her if she thought I could finish. I’m sure she thought it was a stupid question. Then I admitted I was losing it and was ready to be done with it all. Then I told her I needed to hear her tell me I could complete the last two miles. She not only told me I could do it, but she ran with me between mile 30 and 31. She helped me get my confidence back. She’s awesome and helped me get it done. By the final mile my attitude had changed. I never visualized what finishing my first 50k would be like, but on this day, on the final mile, I told myself “Ahh f*** it. Just get it done. ” LOL.
Post run soreness.
Day after soreness.
2 days after soreness and self-diagnoses of strained popliteus muscles. On ibuprofen.
3rd day wake-up feeling much better. Some leg tightness. Able to do brief job from parking lot to preschool. On ibuprofen. Bought foam roller and worked on hamstrings and right IT band.
4th day feeling normal. Right knee feels unstable but walking close to normal speed.
…
I logged close to 40 miles since my last post. It’s been good coming out of a back injury in October and GI issues in November. Being sidelined sucks and makes me appreciate every chance I can get to run, which has mainly been in the middle of the workdays. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on what kind of running I’d need to do to have balance in my life. Moving forward I will pursue running outside of races. That way I:
• won’t spend on races, registration & fees
• won’t deal with commuting to an event
• will always keep my runs local
• will run at times that don’t take me away from family time.
There is an addiction to running which is likely tied to the endorphins highs. Once in the state, you’ll find yourself signing up for other races quickly. A wise Facebook ultra runner friend, Don Freeman says he has a cooling off period after completing an event, which means no signing up for any new races till after a cooling period. Another FB friend, Micah True, often posts “Run Free”, which to me is pure running.
Basically, until my kids get older, I’m committed to be close and available. To not have running take me away from them I their early years. Eventually I’ll use the jogger more and continue to expose my little ones to this wonderful sport.
As midnight draws closer to the start 2012, I do want to commit to completing a 50k in the new year.
Ru El is not only a funny and interesting dude, but he knows a lot about running and ultra stuff. He talks a lot about setting goals and how to achieve what you want...great stuff no matter if you want to run a 5k or a 50k. I COMMAND YOU TO LISTEN TO THIS SHOW
