Dallen

4 easy miles this morning before starting the carb part of the carbo load.

Since the race is only 70 hours away I can staqrt to look at the weather with at least a mild level of confidence. Currently the conditions look perfect. Low of 35, high of 48, mostly sunny, 8 mph winds. Unfortunatly the situation looks precarious - rain on friday and sunday with 28 and 16 MPH winds. I really do not want to run 31 miles on a cold, rainy, windy day.

50K tomorrow. Looks like the weather is going to cooperate. Race conditions should be 40 degrees, sunny and only 8 MPH winds.

Having never run anything longer than a marathon I am not exactly sure what sort of results to expect. Therefore I am stuck with several goals.

First, some background. This is the worlds flattest 50K. Pancake flat. 3 out-and-back loops along the lake. Kinda boring, but a good way to jump into the ultra-marathon world. Previous recent winners of the race have been in the range of 3:12-3:40.

Goal A:  Time of 3:20 = 6:27 pace. I highly doubt that I will achieve this. Why? Because I don't really want to start out quite that fast and I would end up having to do a negative split race, something that I don't really see happening. More likely I am shooting for a 3:22-3:23. I think this is a legitimate goal based on recent long runs of 22 and 24 miles at 6:29 and 6:42 paces. The other slight problem with this goal is that I intend to go out with whoever wants to lead this race. I don't really want to take off solo unless I have to. This could result in a somewhat faster or slower pace.

Goal B:  3:30 = 6:46 pace. This would be a nice finishing time on a day that didn't go exactly as planned. Assuming a goal pace on the first 2 loops I could do the third loop at about 7:30 pace. I would still be happy with this.

Goal C:  3:40.  As slow as I could go without experiencing absolute disaster. Disaster is always possible, especially considering that I have no idea how my body will react to those last miles.

For completeness I should summarize my recent training. Over the last 12 weeks I have averaged about 70 miles week. I have done long runs of 14, 16, 18, 20, 20, 22, 24 and 20 miles. Verly little speedwork thanks to an unhappy hamstring, only about 6 tempo runs in the 3-4 miles ranges with a couple other random workouts. Incidentally the hamstring feels perfect now, but I expect to reinjure it during the race. Short taper 75, 60 and 15 miles for the last 3 weeks.

Lakefront 50K. 3:29:15 (6:44 pace). The weather wasd almost perfect for the race. Low 40's and sunny, but there was a 15 MPH wind coming from the north. This means tainwind on the out segments and headwind coming back. 3 loops. There was a very laid back atmoshere at the start. A couple hundred people just standing around. Only about 5 of us lined up within 5 feet of the starting line. A couple of guys next to me were discussing the prior year. Apparantly one guy went out at 6:20 pace last year but faded after mile 26 to 7 minute pace. I figured that I might be able to handle that type of competition if I was having a good day. Then they discussed that he ran another race whose name I did not catch. He said he did it in 38 hours and was 21st. I figured they were talking about a 100 miler and that isn't all that great of a time for a 100 miler. I figured I could possibly take him. (I looked him up after the race, turns out that the 38 hour race was Badwater. 135 miles through death valley. That is a good time.)

 Anyway gun goes off and we take off. I wore my Garmin and was glad I did, otherwise I would have had no idea what pace I was going, especially near the end. I went with Badwater guy and nobody else joined in. About 30 second in I looked at Garmin and it said we were doing 5:40 pace. I figured it was off. After a minute it still said we were at 5:40 and so I wisely let Badwater guy go. By mile 1.5 I couldn't even see him anymore. He was going to have to seriously crash for me to beat him.

The problem with him being out of sight was that I had no one to follow and he took the lead bike with him. Luckily I got the course map yesterday and scouted the course on the google satelite photos. I had a couple near misses including once where a volunteer had to yell at me as I went the wrong way.

With the wind at my back I am doing miles in the 6:17-6:25 range. A little ahead of 6:27 goal pace, but I will need it coming back into the wind. At the 5.17 mile turnaround Badwater guy has a lead of 3 minutes on me and I've got about 2 minutes on the next pack of 4-5 guys.

Aid stations are set up at both ends of the course and in the middle. I stopped at every one to chug a glass of gatorade. I carried 2 gels and 3 bags of sport beans with me. I took a gel at mile 5 and tried to eat a bag of beans between mile 9 and 10. I got it down, but they were harder to eat in a race than they were in training and they seriously interfered with my breathing. They also made annoying sound as they shook in my pockets.

The headwind between miles 5 and 10 was tough. I slowed to about 6:40-6:45 pace despite a stronger effort. Hit the end of the first loop about 30 seconds behing goal pace, but feeling good.

I picked up the pace on the second out segment. 6:15-6:25's. The gaps between me and everyone else kept growing. It looked like a sure second place. Hit the halfway point probably right near goal time. I don't know the exact time since garmin doesn't give seconds after passing 1 hour. By this time I was feeling some soreness in the legs, but not too much. Cardiovascularly felt fine.

I pushed it pretty hard in the second headwind segment. I was really trying to stayt in the 6:40-6:45 range. I succeeded, but it took a toll. At the end of then 2nd loop Badwater had about 8 minutes on me and my lead on the next pack was about the same. Planned on taking my second gel at this point, but it was no longer in my shorts. Not sure if it fell out, or if I never put it in there. I didn't even feel like attempting to eat more beans.

 On the third out segment I could only manage 6:35-6:45 pace despite the tailwind. I knew the A goal of 3:20 wasn't going to happen, but I knew a good time was still in the cards. At the turnaround Badwater was about 2 miles ahead of me. No chance of passing him. I don't yet know his finishing time but it was a good one. Still had about 8 minutes on the next guys, but they were no longer in a pack.

Passed the marathon mark a little under 2:53. I was wearing out and miles 26 and 27 were 7:01 and 7:03.  Somewhere around mile 28 I hit the wall. No more energy in the tank. Each mile I calculat how fast I had to maintain to finish under 3:30. Each time I barely made it. Was starting to worry that I would get passed, but it never happened. Finished somewhere around 3:29:14. Still need to see the official time. 3rd place was about 5 minutes behind.

Mile splits:

 6:15, 6:28, 6:27, 6:31, 6:23, 6:33, 6:28, 6:38, 6:41, 6:44

6:21, 6:17, 6:25, 6:29, 6:16, 6:34, 6:28, 6:33, 6:47, 6:44

6:51, 6:36, 6:46, 6:44, 6:46, 7:01, 7:03, 7:14, 7:39, 7:52, 8:06, 0:17.

Aftermath and analysis tomorrow.

After the race I was feeling quite exhausted. It took all of my energy just to walk back to my car. After a couple minutes I started shivering excessively. It was cold, but not that cold. I think it was somehow hormonal, or neurologic, somehow related to the end of severe stress. That fixed after a few minutes in my warm car.

After the race I had a really sore right knee. Somewhere in the region of the pes anserinus. The tendon on the top of my right big toe also hurt. Both of these went away after a few hours. Strange. I didn't feel either of these during the race.

By the end of the day I was feeling a similar level of tiredness to a hard long run, just a little exagerated. This morning I found that I was not nearly as sore as after a marathon. However the soreness that is there feels like muscle damage and tendon pain rather than normal soreness. Suprisingly I did not reinjure my hamstring.

Only one blister. Under my right second toenail.

I think I will delay my analysis until tomorrow. I need more time to analyze.

Time for some analysis.

I think I ran about as good a race as my training allowed. No major mistakes to slow me down. This is a little suprising since it took me three tries at the marathon before I managed to do things correctly.

I am glad that my ultra debut went well since I have been strongly considering jumping in headfirst. Now I am convinced that I can do it. My opinion is that I will be able to do well in ultras because I have a short efficient stride that should minimize the effects of repetitive pounding. Now I've got my eyes o nthe Squaw Peak 50 miler next June. If that goes well I will try something even better.

Lesson #1. I think the major thing that prevented me from running a little faster was lack of training. I only went over 10 miles 7 or 8 times in the several months preceding the race. I averaged about 70 miles a week for the 8 weeks before the race, but the weeks prior were much lower. Also, a fair amount of that milage was done on the elliptical since it didn't aggravate my hamstring. I suspect I was only in shape to do a 2:45 marathon, if lucky.

Lesson #2. I ran too slow in training. most of my training was in the 7:30-8:30 pace range. I did very little speedwork and I really only ran race pace on a few of my long runs. I needed to do more of my daily runs at the planned 6:30 race pace. I realized this when about a week before the race when I did to 10 miles at 6:30 and it made me rather sore. If I can't do 10 miles easily, 31 isn't going to happen.

Lesson #3. I'm going to need to do some strength training if I am to try longer races. I failed to mention this earlier, but my shoulders and neck were and still are really sore. As for my legs, they seen to mostly be suffering form tendon weakenss which weight training would help.

Lesson #4. I did pretty good with my water intake. The 4-6 ounces of Gatorade every 2-3 miles didn't upset my stomach and I only dropped 3 pounds during the race. I probably could have taken in a few more calories, but I carried the wrong stuff in my pockets. I need to try a bigger vriety of stuff in training. Gels work OK, but after a while they are not very palatable. As a side note my body can handle GU, but I think powergel upsets my stomach. 

Lesson #5. Blisters. I didn't get any on my feet, but I did get then under both of my second toenails. Same thing happened in last marathon. I'm gonna have to figure out how to deal with this. They didn't bother me in the race, but I bet they would have become a problem if I had kept going.

I suppose that's all I've got for now. I'll add more as I think of it.

10 easy miles. I haven't made a entry in over a week. Oops. Recovery from the 50K was easier than a marathon, but still took a while. I'm probably 95% now.

2 mile tempo run on the treadmill at 5:44 pace. This workout was really just meant to see if my body was recovered and ready to handle some quality. I think it went OK.

easy run. Felt really good for the first time since the race.

6 on my own then picked up Jonah and the stroller for 5 more and a total of 11 miles.

Did 10 miles with 5x90 second fartleks. The point of this workout was to get back into the groove of speedwork. I really haven't really done anything faster than the occasional tempo run for quite a while. Seemed to go well. Hopefully next week I can start putting in some serious training.

10 miles with Jonah and the stroller in 73 minutes.

This has been a terrible spring. So far I have only been able to go out with the stroller 4-5 times and taoday was really the first time that it was legitimately warm enough to do so. I am not going to miss Chicago.

Took the day off

10 + 5

PM run on the treadmill with a couple miles in the 6-8% grade range.

AM: 9 on treadmill with a 2 mile tempo run. Didn't go that well. Just didn't have the energy i needed. Was completely spent after two miles at 5:49, 5:46. Planned to do 4 but wisely cut it short.

PM: 4 miles in a praking garage. I need to get some hilly running in to prepare for the terrain in Utah, and this is the biggest hill around.

14 mile runn on a hilly path outside of town. Hilly is relative. I think this is a good at it gets around here, but it's not much. Left the legs feeling like I did a long run.

5 alone, 5 with the stroller.

10 miles, half of it with the stroller including 4x0.3 miles.

Fribsee workout. 4 miles there, 4 miles back and a little over an hour playing.

10 easy miles. Feeling really sore all over from frisbee yesterday. Not unexpected. Also got rained on.

10 more easy miles. I got rained on again. At least it wasn't as bad as yesterday.

8+8

For the PM run I went to the treadmill for a tempo run. Wanted to be able to do 4 miles. Last week this didn't go too well and I had to stop after 2 miles. Today was the exact opposite. Felt great the whole time and ended up adding an extra mile. 5 miles in about 28:30. Increased the pace 0.1 MPH each mile going from 10.3 to 10.7 MPH. 5:50, 5:46, 5:43, 5:40, 5:36. At the end I felt like I probably could have managed a few more miles (except that I really needed to go the the bathroom).

10 easy miles.

AM: 4 easy miles

PM: 10 miles with 8x400. Did the first 3 on the track in 80, 79,78. Then the high school people showed up so I left and did the rest on the roads so I don't have any more times. The track doesn't belong to the high school, but these guys are not really good at sharing. Sprinters.