After a postrace cooldown with Stephen Peacock, I spent a few uncomfortably gross minutes changing clothes and shoes in the car and later forced myself to take advantage of yet another rare opportunity, running a few laps around Lake Union with local elite runner Greg Crowther. As part of his training for an upcoming 100 miler, Greg was doing a horrendous-sounding 49-55 mile run around Lake Union (eight or nine 6.1-mile laps) and invited anyone interested to join him for any part of it. Where I come from, if an elite person in your field of interest invites you to come along and join him/her doing that very thing at which he/she is an "elite", you fucking do it. It'd be like if Chase Utley tweeted/blogged that he'd be at the Greenlake baseball field and "hey, if anyone wants to throw me some BP or take some hacks, come on out!" What baseball fan is turning that down?! Not this one.
I can only assume the 2nd half of Greg's run went swimmingly after my departure and for his trouble I send him ultimately unhelpful but well-meaning good luck wishes as the Rocky Racoon 100 approaches. N.W.A. penned a classic during the all-too-brief ultramarathoning phase of their career called "100 Miles and Runnin'" that I would probably take with me and play on a loop if I'm ever brave enough to tackle the triple digits.
A 100 miles from home and yo, it's a long stretch.
A little sprintin' motherfucker that they won't catch.
***********
Next month (Feb 6th) I'm heading up to Orcas Island to do a 25k race. They also have a 50k I would otherwise probably enjoy, but I just don't think I'm ready for that quite yet. I'm probably not technically "ready" for a 25k either but I'll just treat it like an enjoyable and partially competitive long run. Other than the not-very-technical "trails" of Lincoln Park, this will be my first trail run in quite awhile. I hope my little fem-ankles* have had time to recover from their embarassing showing at White River, aka the last time they've been tested on technical terrain. At least it'll probably not lead to cankles.
*No offense to all my women readers/admirers. I don't mean to suggest women's ankles are weaker than men's...or mine. That was just the first term that came to mind, and it almost made me lol, so I have to use it. Be assured ladies, your ankles are tougher than mine.
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( 3 / 23 )
The last few steps of my 2009 racing season, White River 50 in late July.
I was thinking earlier today about the past year I had in terms of running, and trying to decide it was a "success" or not. On one hand, I ran my first 50 miler, and while I didn't run as well as I was hoping, I ran well enough to look back with at least a shred of pride. I also ran another 50k and had much better success than I did at the same race in 2008.
On the other hand, I only ran three other races, none more than 10 miles, and zero of the five races occurred before May 16th or after July 25th. So there weren't many notches for the ol' 2009 belt buckle.
On the other hand, two of the five notches were pretty big and awesome and I can definitely look back fondly at them for years to come...as opposed to running a bunch of 3Ks and 5Ks that all tend to blend together, bleed my pocketbook dry, and impress nobody except my mom, and her only barely.
On the other hand, again, only five races in one year? At least it will shorten this screed, right?
On the other hand, those three non-ultra races went really well, aside from a quarter mile stretch at the end of one where I lost any respect I had earned in The Swede's eyes. Speaking of, can't forget the joy of running with/against The Swede for another summer, even if it was only briefly. I always knew XC skiers were a different breed, it's always a lesson to see it firsthand, behind the scenes.
Anyway, let's do this shit.
Race 1: Cougar Mtn Series #1 - 5 Miler - May 16, 2009
Yes, it took me until mid-May to finally put the racing shoes & bib on, thanks to the 2008 Portland Marathon putting me on the shelf. After a seemingly-long winter of maintenance running and nothing more, no races were really grabbing my attention. Especially not those ridiculous road races, and before I knew it, it was time to head out on I-90 to Cougar Mtn for the first of a set of four races that I had no intention of shrugging off. The 2008 series was too good to me, I owed them another stack of that hard-earned paper.
Though it is easily the least hilly of the four Cougar Series races, the five miler is probably my least favorite...and by that I mean the most terrifying. Speed still tugs at my nerves. Lining up for what I knew would basically be a half hour sprint was among the scariest things I did all year. As I noted the next day, my starting HR when the gun went off was in the 120s and within about a minute was well above 170. The average HR for the entire race was 179. Just thinking about that while sitting on the couch right now makes me feel a little ill. To contrast, my average HR for the 50k I ran one week later was only 158, or about what I average during normal 60 minute runs around West Seattle. 179 is what I hit when I'm doing windsprints uphill into a headwind while a dog chases me and it's hailing on my scalp, or when I'm playing GTA IV. It's not fun.
Still, I ran this race faster than the year before, and it was a bit longer of a course, so I was happy. I finished 6th overall in 33:31.
Race 2: NorthFace 50K - June 6, 2009
I traveled up to Bellingham the evening before the race with Patrick, who was going to be debuting in the ultra scene and was therefore a ball of nerves while driving. He continually criticized my negative outlook on life, which while justified was somewhat hypocritical, as roughly 80% of the facebook status updates he's made since then have been him complaining endlessly about things that usually need not be complained about, like the lines at coffee shops, the lack of good deals on newegg.com, or people finishing ahead of him in races he does with his friggin dog and how they possibly cheated him and his dog out of some chew toy or something. In this specific instance, I was complaining about all the problems I saw with the to-be-released "Project Natal" motion sensor thingamajig for the Xbox 360, and Patrick, a tireless proponent of all things Microsoft even though he doesn't work there anymore, was criticizing my criticizing. By the time we got there, we both wanted to tear each other's faces off, the only thing holding us back being the chance to marvel at Dean Karnazes' glistening quads at the pre-race expo.
Sadly, Dean was seated throughout most of what we saw (about 3 minute's worth) and all I took away from it, aside from my goodie bag, was Patrick's not-glowing critique of Dean's speaking voice.
Luckily a solid 4-5 hours of sleep at the luxurious Travelodge enabled us to clear our cache and we were soon itchin to tear it up on the course. Patrick was consistently alerting me during the drive up that he was not exactly a harbor of high hopes for himself, but the morning of the race even he was looking chipper as we waited for that guy with the gun to tell us we can head off the course now.
Myself, I just wanted to run a good clean race, an improvement on the year before (my first ultra), but nothing debilitatingly hard since this was in essense a 31 mile training run for the 50 mile 6 weeks later. And that's exactly what happened. Only occasionally did I catch myself thinking about the leader, and when Krissy Moehl's good friend Ellen Parker passed me ~1/3rd through the race, I simply tagged along for as long as I could, not thinking about beating her, just hoping to put up a better fight than I had against Krissy the year before. I learn quickly not to mess with the women in these races. As opposed to 5Ks and whatnot, where I toy with them mercilessly.
Can someone please get Dean some pants?
During the awards, I was much relieved to find that I would indeed get to shake the hand of the ultra marathon man himself, though to be honest I was a little discombobulated by the clothing combination he had chosen to wear to mark the event. I suppose you run a marathon on Antarctica, you have license to do whatever the hell you please. I would expect myself to get beaten up if I ever presented myself in public wearing such an ensemble. If you got it, flaunt it tho, amiright?!
Race 3: Cougar Mtn Series #1 - 7.75 Miler - June 13, 2009
One week after the 50k, I was extremely pleased with how well my legs recovered. In the first half of '09, as I prepared for the 50 miler, I was dealing with on again/off again shin problems. I simply wanted to get myself to the starting line of White River in good enough shape to run with dignity and let the chips fall where they may AFTER the race. The Cougar races are short enough where I didn't feel too at risk getting after it, but the 50k left me worried about how my shins would feel in the immediate aftermath. Seven days later, standing on the starting line in Issaquah, I could feel them but nowhere near where my "worst-case scenario" had them potentially being. I was able to hit it hard at Cougar #2.
Sadly though, this was the first low point of my brief racing season, at is was this race's final 1/4 mile that saw me basically concede 2nd place to The Swede and cause him to almost divorce me...in a very benign, Scandinavian way of course, but still a bit of a rude awakening. Looking back, I think it was simply a case where he wanted to race me, I really had no desire to race him, and I got my wish. After he browbeat me as I stuffed watermelon into my face afterward, we headed back onto the course to make fun of religion and add some miles where he dropped the challenge again. At close to a mile from the finish and the end of our run, he basically ordered me to race him again. Never wanting to disappoint anybody, the least of which world-class athletes who are better people than I am, I obliged. And really the only thing that changed the 2nd time was a delay of his inevitable sprint past me in the final 100m, despite my noodle arms' attempts to fight him off. Seemingly satisfied that he beat me legitimately this time, I drove home realizing I had faced firsthand the mentality of a world class athlete. Sure, I've watched the Prefontaine movies and seen all the inspirational athlete profiles during the Olympics, but to see that mentality up close and personal was a different beast. The Swede was not going to leave Cougar Mtn until we raced for real, and he wasn't going to let himself lose to me. Myself...I couldn't have cared less about beating him; I just enjoyed getting to race WITH him. But that's the difference between him and I. He HAD to beat me, and he did.
Race 4: Cougar Mtn Series #1 - 10.3 Miler - July 11, 2009
The final race (ie, "tuneup") before the climactic 50 miler in two weeks was the 3rd Cougar race, the 10.3 miler. There would be no Swede to drag my carcass through the final couple miles, and sadly there would be nobody else to assist me either as I ran the entire 2nd half of the race by myself. For a brief few glorious opening miles, I could see Greg Crowther in front of me, but he disappeared soon enough to find the company of better runners, and the guy behind me must have found my scent repugnant or something for he also wanted nothing to do with me. As a result the only memory I really have of this race is trudging through the seemingly unending uphills in the 2nd half, which if I were to actually look it up probably amounted to a couple weak climbs.
My excuse would be the afore-mentioned being alone as well as the two weekend White River preview runs. Still, it was ~2 minutes faster than the year before. Just because I was curious to see how my three Cougar times compared to three contemporaries, I looked up three people and listed their time, and calculated the difference between our times. Here are my times, along with Jeanine Stewart (womens series champ), Patrick Neimeyer, and Mark Henderson (mens champ):
Cougar Mtn 5 miler Joe Creighton 33:31 Jeanine Stewart 38:24 = 12.7% slower Patrick Niemeyer 39:09 = 14.3% slower Mark Henderson 35:48 = 6.4% slower Cougar Mtn 7.75 miler Joe Creighton 54:14 Jeanine Stewart 62:50 = 13.7% slower Patrick Niemeyer 65:16 = 16.9% slower Mark Henderson 58:40 = 7.6% slower Cougar Mtn 10.3 miler Joe Creighton 1:19:12 Jeanine Stewart 1:28:41 = 10.7% slower Patrick Niemeyer 1:38:51 = 19.9% slower Mark Henderson 1:25:50 = 7.8% slower
Looks like despite my feeling cruddy during that 10.3 miler, I must have felt no more cruddy than Patrick or Mark did, and I slowly put distance on them as the race distance increased...though Jeanine sure kicked our asses in that 3rd race.
In other words...not very illuminating. Oh well!
Race 5: White River 50 Mile - July 25, 2009
I believe my race recap speaks of it better than I'll be able to here, but having been able to sit and stew about it for what...over 5 months now, I can safely say I am no more disappointed or impressed by my effort. It was what it was. Not the greatest day a runner ever had, but probably what one could expect from his first foray into a distance 60+% longer than anything he'd ever done before. I did not go into that race 100%, and the last five months of no racing and barely any running tell me I sure as hell didn't leave anywhere near 100%, but I think I did the best I could have done under the circumstances, which include my being a first-timer and not really knowing what the hell I was doing.
Looking ahead to a 2nd one, I'd probably wear different shoes...and that's pretty much the only thing I think I did wrong here. Any other improvement I see will simply be from smarter training in the lead up, being closer to 100% physically, maybe the weather being a little cooler, and my possessing less brittle ankles. I would like to think I can control three of those to a certain extent, and it rarely gets much hotter up here than it did that day, which gives me confidence that not only can I handle this distance, I can excel at it and perhaps handle going further. Not having the Swede around though in the spring/summer to kick my ass might negate all that though. I suppose we'll see.
As for the race itself, I think it speaks highly of it when I get put me on the shelf for going on 5+ months now, but I still regret nothing about running it and am thinking seriously about running it again in 2010. Imagine how much I'll be slobbering over it next year when it doesn't give me cankles and I'm able run the final Cougar Mtn race!
Let's just not talk about those cankles again tho, huh? Ya with me? I've already mostly forgotten about it as I look forward to a cankle-less 2010 racing season. Though I don't know exactly what I'll be running, I very well might run the exact same five races I did in '09, only this time I hope to extend the season a bit longer than the mere two months it was this year.
Which probably just means I'll be padding my total with a number of those quick & easy 3Ks and 5Ks. It all counts in the end though.
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( 3 / 26 )
Nate Ogden is the guy on the far right, wearing the blue Vikings jersey, which just skyrocketed to the top of my wish list to Santa. It's the jersey we wore in high school. He just won his 3rd straight "Run For Food" charity 5k held in Chico, CA. It was his 1st time under 15:00 for a road race as he hit 14:50. His sister Kristen also won for the 3rd straight time, finishing in 17:30, or about 2 minutes faster than I'd probably run a 5k right now. She also recently PR'd in the marathon distance, running a 2:55 at the St. George Marathon back in October. Bam:
Nate and I had one of our bi-weekly facebook chats this morning and it's as good as official: I'm running St. George...in 2011. He's gonna make his marathon debut there following his final year of track at BYU, and I'm hoping to convince Kristen to put in a little effort and get down to sub-2:50 shape so I can chase her down the course. It's in my google calendar, we may as well set it in stone. It'll either be October 1st or October 8th.
I'll be 31 years old.
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( 3 / 62 )So as you may have gleamed from my twice-monthly posts, and maybe by reading those twice-monthly posts, I haven't been running much these days. Only 2-3 days a week, 20-25 miles per. A couple weeks ago I tried my hand at an 18 mile day (two 9ers separated by about 3 hours) and I can safely say I hit the "wall" at about mile 13-14, the final 4 miles being torture. It was a clear & expected sign that my fitness had slipped considerably, so I didn't worry too much about it. And I felt okay the next day (of course I didn't run, haven't done back-to-back days since before the 50 miler).
I realized that today when running out to Greenlake to do some mile repeats with Patrick. He was going on (and on) about some training theory involving speed one day, and a moderate-level distance workout the next day being some sort of recommended practice. I was like "that's great, but I won't be running tomorrow." He then asked when the last time I did sub-6:00 miles was, and again I realized it was probably the final speed workout before the 50 miler in late July. In other words, quite awhile.
While making the 5.25 mile jog from my apt to the area of the loop we agreed to meet on, I realized it would be folly to try and run the 4 repeats he was planning on running. I told myself there I'd do two, hopefully. And then make the jog back in reverse, giving me 12-13 miles, a considerable accomplishment for me nowadays.
Mile repeat 1: 5:50 (3 min rest)
Mile repeat 2: 5:53
It was nice to prove to myself I could handle running sub-6:00 miles still, but it was not nice to find out how goddamn difficult such a task is these days. My back was racked with shots of pain and my form surely turned into slop. I suppose to silver lining is my shins didn't seem to give me any of the grief they had been giving me the 1st half of this year.
Like the 18 miler a couple weeks ago, the jog back to the apt was a wreck. My groin was acting like I'd never asked it to do this crazy thing called "running" before, and I'm not sure if it's still an issue or it's just caught being rusty in its time off. I trudged up the Queen Anne hill and then shuffled down Queen Anne Ave, where I surely wasn't inspiring anybody to pick up a pair of running shoes. A mess.
But I made it back. The back 5 miles was a crisp 8:10 pace or so. Overall, call it 12.25 in 94 minutes.
You asleep yet? Posts like this make me want to defecate on myself.
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( 3 / 99 )Hey wow it's been a month+.
I'm feeling somewhat liberated at the moment, primarily because I have no urgency to jump into any specific distance's training regimen. Sure, this could lead to my feeling directionless in an hour, but we're not there yet. Next year I could be happy running anything from 2 milers to 100 milers. Roads or trails, flat or mountainous. At the moment it just feels good to think I might be able to once again compete injury-free. Which is why I must insist on taking it easy for the time being. Which of course leads to my not having much to say on my BLOG and not being as quick to notice that my spammer friends have left a few new (and mostly unhelpful and irrelevant) comments to posts I made 3 years ago.
This is the calm before the storm though as winter fast approaches. Soon it will be dark at 4:30pm and I'm going to have to play tricks on my brain to remind him that no, it's not bedtime, it's time to go dust off some 6 minute miles.
What I do not know is what kind of killer instinct I will possess when I think I'm ready to return to "racing". Will I even want to race if I can't summon the desire to beat people? Will I lolly-gag my way through a handful of races, leading to the entirely predictable post-race frustration since I could have taken the race fee and instead purchased a week's worth of taco truck burritos? I'm not entirely sure. I believe eventually I will need to have a couple concrete goals and specific races I want to train for. And of course I need to find a way to keep it fun.
I do have a couple things on the to-do list for next year that can serve as a base for planning. I don't see myself not wanting to do the Cougar Mtn race series...how many I don't know. I was beseiged by The Swede to make a trip out to Sweden in the summer and do a trail marathon out there (or something to that effect)...which in all honesty I think would be FUCKING AWESOME based on nothing more than making more ABBA and Commie jokes at his expense, but with my partner and I on a house-hunting search at the moment, who knows what the funds will be like in 10 months.
Over the dark period of winter, I'd like to start some weight training in prep for the spring running training, in the hopes that maybe it'll give my frame a better apparatus to withstand the pounding. This may come down to whether buddy Wattenberg will be willing to write me up a schedule. As it is now, he seems to be more interested in ignoring my emails on the matter rather than giving me a firm "no" on the idea. You'll know when I know!
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( 3 / 103 )I've been running a little bit here and there recently, mostly enough to maybe maintain the semblance of fitness, or at least stave off a precipitous drop into obesity and softness (and cankles!), but I have to come to grips with the fact that I am quite simply banged up. Running these few miles are keeping me able to dust off mid/high 5ish minute miles should the mood strike me, but that's probably the best-case scenario. A marathon would be torture right now, an ultra even moreso, and where I'm at health-wise, I don't see that improving with my 5-10 miles every other day. I'd just float in that limbo, always in a little bit of pain, and unable to ratch the training up to the proper level to get in true shape.
In other words, I'm gonna have to scale back even more, maybe even down to nothing for awhile.
What this will allow me to do is pontificate poorly on any number of running-related things that have nothing to do with my own running. IE, things I know very little about and would otherwise have no business speaking on if this wasn't my own website.
For starters, did anyone besides Claire and Terry (who I made watch) see Usain Bolt break the 100m record? And by "break" I mean OBLITERATE.
If you have 9 and a half seconds to kill, give it a look:
I can't stop watching it.
I've always had a type of antipathy towards sprinting...I can appreciate their talent and strength, but I always hated the fact that these races, for something that's 10 or 20 seconds long (in the case of 200m races), can take upwards of 10 minutes of TV time to wrap up, if you include the prerace blathering by the announcers, the 1-2 obligatory false starts, and the postrace preening by winners, more blathering by announcers, and interviews with the out-of-breath winners and losers (which are even more worthless than most other sideline interviews). I distinctly remember the Maurice Greene era with particular loathing. Maurice liked attention, but his attempts always seemed so contrived and forced, like he felt obligated to be an arrogant dick in order to boost ratings and exposure. His smiles were always dickish cocky smiles, at all other times he was sporting the intimidating sprinter scowl that until now it seemed all sprinters felt obligated to display.
Now Usain Bolt comes along with the total package. He's faster than anyone ever before, by a LOT, he's roughly a foot taller than most of his competitors, he's got a name that seems almost dreamt up by an ad agency in New York City, and he drips with so much natural charisma that it immediately dates every sprinter who came before him an extra 10 years. Maurice who? Sure he's cocky (he has to be, for what he does), but with him it seems so innocent and fun, and best of all not forced at all. And maybe it's because the only time I seem to see him run he's breaking a record of some sort, but he seems like a genuinely happy person, who knows he can do what he's about to do, so he's gonna have fun doing it and he's gonna make you have fun too. I've yet to see him scowl at all, unless you count the look of intensity on his face at the 85m mark. At all other times, before the race or after, he looks like the life of the party.
My favorite part of the above clip isn't the 9.58 seconds of the race, it's actually a really brief shot of him galloping along the edge of the track immediately after winning the race...(the 0:19-0:22 mark) he's in his cool down mode, yet it looks like he's holding a 4:00 mile pace with absolutely no effort whatsoever, just gliding on the track.
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( 3 / 127 )Sadly, I missed the final iteration of the wonderful Cougar Mtn Trail Series, the 13.1 miler, because I accidentally scheduled a motorcycle training class for that weekend, so from 7:00am - 5:00 pm I was booked solid. At first I was only thinking I was missing out on a fun race (though sadly one I had already paid for), since I didn't intend to beat Ben Haber and therefore would have had little/no shot at the series title. I was pretty hobbled by the 50 miler and I would have just been trying to get through this race without further injuring myself.
Then I found out Ben Haber himself *also* missed the 13.1 miler, meaning had I simply shown up and run it at even 75%, I would have won the title, which I believe included a Suunto watch and store credit at SRC. Oh well, there was really no way of knowing this. Would have been a nice feather in the cap though, even if it only came because the guy beating me no-showed. As it is, I heard Uli Steidl laid waste to the course, breaking the course record and winning the race by ~6 minutes, the same amount he beat me by in last year's 10 miler, only this time finishing second was a MUCH better runner, Chris Charles, who won last year's 13 miler in near-record time.
But hey, I passed the moto riding test and am finally legal! Yay for silver linings!
As for what's next (the 13.1 miler was planned to be my final real "race" of the summer), I don't know...I need to talk to certain parties to see what, if anything, they're willing to do. I'd like to avoid training for something alone if at all possible, and I can be somewhat particular as to who gets the privilage of running next to me.
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( 3 / 131 );)
The star-studded start
Photo courtesy Glenn Tachiyama
Somewhere in between miles 35 and 36, I hit a breaking point of sorts, and I threw my water bottle down in a brief fit of disgust and frustration. I had just twisted my left ankle for a 3rd time during the brief mile or so reprieve from the 2nd and final climb of the race. After roughly 7-8 miles of climbing, we got about a mile or so of flat/downhill before taking the legendary final march up to the top of Suntop Mountain, where in addition to the most sought-after aid station on the course (aside from maybe that at the finish line), Glenn Tachiyama waited for us with his camera, capturing us in all our glory as we crested the course, so to speak. I wasn't there yet though.
After a few seconds of feeling sorry for myself, I found my water bottle and got back on the course, first limping, then walking more normally, then limp-jogging, and finally getting around to what hopefully looked like a normal jog. All the while I was asking myself "what the HELL am I doing?" I was upset, not just because the race wasn't exactly going according to plan, but because I was in a lot of pain and didn't need to be, and my ankle seemingly could not stay in proper position for any stretch of downhill (where I was hoping gravity could counteract the withering mess my quads were starting to resemble).
About six hours earlier I started the race, the White River 50 Mile, feeling, surprisingly, relatively relaxed. It IS the difference between "ultra pain" and "5k pain". Short distance pain is the type of thing I dread and think about and know will be upon me almost instantly. Ultra pain is somewhat akin to the famous quote by, I think, John Farrington:
You dip into the pain so gradually that the damage is done before you are aware of it. Unfortunately, when the awareness comes, it is excruciating.
About 3 minutes in, I thought of that exact quote and how true it was. As I started the jog with Adam Hewey, I wasn't anxious or nervous at all, though I knew the pain would eventually come and it would in fact be excruciating...more excruciating than the 5k pain I fear so much, but for the moment I could enjoy the scenery and soak it all in. After all, who knows how many times I'd be doing this again? I went out of my way to take notice of all the elite runners in the field and enjoy the period of the race where I could somewhat "hang out" with them before the hills began and separation ensued.
;)
Corral Pass, mile 16.9
Photo courtesy Glenn Tachiyama
I came into the race planning (or shall I say "hoping") to run the race with Adam Hewey, who had run the race the year before and also had an "8 hour" goal. We met at the two training runs on the course a couple weeks back and he seemed like a genuinely happy person who would emanate positive vibes, an ultra veteran whose coattails I hoped to ride. From the Ranger Creek aid station (mile 11.7) to the Coral Pass aid station (16.9 miles) and back (22.1 miles), I hung with him and admittedly felt pretty darn good and remained in good spirits. At around mile 21 though, in the beginning stages of what would be about a 6 mile downhill, I mildly twisted my left ankle. This made the downhill more painful and rendered me even more pathetic than usual. Quickly Adam was off and gone as I tried to merely enjoy gravity's assistance without much success. Around mile 25, I twisted my ankle again, this time worse. I had to stop for a couple moments and walk it off and quickly thought of my threat to Claire that when I saw her at 27.2 (right next to the start/finish), part of me would be ready to just jump off the trail and into the car to head home.
Despite the two ankle twists, I was pretty healthy-feeling coming into the 27.2 mile aid station. I did have one mildly annoying blister on my right heel that some (helpful) guy attended to as Claire gave me some food, but I was off in a couple minutes, right on 8:00 pace. It was the brief flat section on this part of the course that gave me what I would later find to be my only "2nd wind" of the race. It lasted maybe 2-3 minutes and soon enough just jogging at all became the challenge du jour. And before we knew it, the 2nd main chunk of climbing was upon us.
;)
Cresting Suntop, mile 37
Photo courtesy Glenn Tachiyama
About a half mile before reaching the final aid station and the final stretch of (mostly flat) miles (about 6.5 of 'em), I was passed by Ben Cruzat. I didn't recognize him in the moment but saw and recognized his name afterward while looking at the results as someone who typically finishes near me at the Cougar Mtn races. His wife/girlfriend was there at the aid station as well as what looked to be his kid, so while he talked to them, I filled my bottle, sponged my head, and departed a short while in front of him.
While I couldn't run *well* during Skookum Flats, I found I at least *could* mostly run. I eventually caught and passed Ellen, caught another guy, who then passed me back, and about 4 hours later I got back onto the main road, at which point I heard there were only 500 yards left. About 45 minutes later, I crossed the finish line, too tired and uncaring to notice if they pronounced my name correctly. According to their clock it was 8:47:46. 32nd place out of 195. A really excited guy handed me a steel water bottle signifying my finishing and I cherished being done.
Not long after finishing, I ran, or should I say meekly walked into Adam Hewey. I was confident on no other basis than watching how quickly he pulled away from me at mile 22 that he broke 8 hours. I asked anyway. He proudly held up his watch, which read 7:43. TWELFTH place overall, 2nd among masters.I also found out the winner was Anton Krupicka (aka Jesus in the image above from the start), who broke the course record by ~30 seconds. Throughout the rest of the evening he casually walked around with no shoes on, showing no signs of having run 50 mountainous miles at a sub-8:00 pace. Unbelievable.
Finishing over one whole hour behind the guy I was previously hoping to finish WITH, and well over TWO hours behind the overall winner, was a pill to swallow, but every minute that passed, the more I became content with simply being able to say, despite the twisted ankles and the frustration that came with it, "I ran a 50 miler."
Other race recaps I've come across:
Anton Krupicka (#1)
Greg Crowther (#3)
let me know if more arrive...
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Wanna see something gross?
My feet are usually veiny and very attractive, offset by thin, brittle ankles. Now I have fat person feet, soft and shapeless, like one of those obese kids with their sausage, ankle-less feet. If you only saw my feet/ankles and were told I was 5'8, you'd probably guess I weighed about 375 lbs. I'm not entirely sure why. The obvious reason would be the race on Saturday, but I didn't notice this terrifying development until today at work. The first day or two after the race I noticed the swelling on my left ankle, but now the swelling seems to have been extended to both whole feet. In other words, I have cankles. The left foot is worse than the right foot, which leads me to think it's race-related, but the fact that it didn't really occur until today makes me wonder if it's also heat-related, as we've had a couple consecutive days of 90+ weather.
Needless to say, it's been all kinds of lulz here at the apt tonight as friends and family got a good look at these beauties.
;)
;)
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