I just ran 14 miles on Saturday at a 7:20min/mile pace then on Sunday I ran 10 at 7:42min/mile.  With adaquite prepa

A.  Have an awesome time!
B.  Goal 3:30 or less finish
C.  Goal Maintain a 7:40 +/- 10 pace

If I succeed at Goal C then I happily get B as a prize.  Regardless if I fail B & C as long as I keep A in mind, B & C won’t matter as much.
Since my current Marathon PB is 3:52 I have a large delta in my hopes & dreams in comparison to past results!  I can’t wait to see what this Sunday brings.  But since this will be my 3rd Marathon I know how it will end regardless: I’ll be a sad, emotional mess of a runner who is lucky to have a loving and supportive family!

I was about to attempt my 2^nd Marathon distance race, and my first Ultra Marathon distance race.  Psycho Wyco Winter is a 10.35, 20.7, or 31 mile race (1, 2 or 3 loops).

I have read others race reports listing around 5000ft of incline per loop.  For those who don’t feel like doing the math only 22% of the race is flat or 2.277 miles are flat and almost 1 mile of climbing PER LOOP!

Sarah and I woke up at 5:30am. 

Kansas City, Ks weather was reporting: 48F/26F (High/Low)

Race will begin @ 8am. 

We had to leave the hotel round 7am HOPING we could get a parking spot (we were wrong).

I got out my Garmin 405 out only to realize in my haste I forgot to grab the charger and consequently it had fully discharged overnight.  That was so very frustrating but lesson learned.

We had breakfast at the hotel.

I had a bagel with peanut butter, banana and a coffee.

The girls had some cereal and Sarah had something (sadly I didn’t pay enough attention since I was getting mentally prepared for what was about to happen)

I was dressed in tights, shorts, compression long sleeve, and technical mizuno long sleeve shirt, injinji smartwool socks, and my NB MT101’s.  I figured I’d be cold/cool in the early hours then hot later.  It was a calculated risk I was willing to take.  I also had 2x handheld water bottles, my older Nathan, and my newer Ultimate Direction both full and ready to roll.

We arrived at Wyandotte State Park in Kansas City at 7:20am to find the entire parking lot was full and Sarah and our two little girls would have to shuttle to the starting line if they wanted to see daddy.

Race directors: it doesn’t matter how many aid stations you have, what food or drinks you have, if my wife is pissed at me and the race itself before I even come close to toeing the line, I have lost.  So please plan on more than you expect then be pleasantly surprised when you have TOO MUCH parking.  I know there are a lot of things race directors and organizers go through and I appreciate and respect their sacrifices!  But I need my support team happy!  Even if that means you have separate parking for racers (Especially for out of towners) .  Heck I’d PAY to have a space available stress free, hassle free.

As a result of the parking stress I really didn’t expect to see my family until after the race.  I met up with another awesome runner and good friend, John Mossman. JoMo, Super Moss, UltraMossman, we have so many names for this guy!  John and I sat in his car after I got my bib, shirt, and then had my shoes screwed. (3/4” sheet metal screws for grip on ice/snow covered trails.)

I took a GU Roctane at 7:40am in John’s car.  

We got out and wandered over to where the runners were collecting.

John said last year they started over there in the snow (pointing about 50ft away).   At 7:55am Sophia (race director) announced that everyone needed to move to the starting line down in the snow.  So the 20 and 30 milers moved into place to toe the line.  The 10 milers would start @ 9:00 am.  Yah!  Let’s ROCK!

So everyone shuffled down into the 6-8in of snow.  We all listened to Bad Ben and his wonderful (fiancée? I think they are engaged…) Sophia announce the last minute race info.  Trails are still snow covered, and we should expect them to not remain that way for too much longer.  When we started running the temperature was in the 30’s and by the end of the race it was in the 50’s.

Initially John and I were together but within 10 minutes I realized I had lost John somewhere behind me!?  I was a little sad considering it was my first Ultra and I was hoping to run WITH my friend.  But what occurred on the trail made up for it in spades.

The distance to the Triangle (named due to its Bermuda Triangle like impression since all the twist and turns make you feel like you’re either right on top or right below the other runners in the Triangle.  I was running at this point with a VERY jovial and kind runner in front of me wearing a yellow shirt.  He was calling out technical trail conditions.  We were joking around about different things like how great it is to have someone taller than you in front to find all the low hanging branches.  About 2 or 3 minutes after that joke the guy in front of “Yellow Shirt” got clotheslined by a vine right at neck height, and almost dropped to the ground.  “Yellow Shirt” guy and I made sure he was cool and we all kept going.  That is really badass!  This runner in front of “Yellow Shirt” guy almost sustained a serious injury but got up and continued the race.  That is pretty damn cool and NOT something you’d experience in a road race!

“Yellow Shirt”, clothesline guy and I all dropped through a crazy set of switchbacks that dumps runners below the Wyandotte County Lake Dam.  We MISSED the turn towards the dam and started going off the race course.  I was in the back and heard the other runners YELLING at us that we had gone the wrong way…  “Yellow Shirt”, clothesline, and I give a collective OH F…  Turn around and are quickly out on a nice flat stretch below the dam.

“Yellow Shirt” guy and I pass several people having to posthole though the deep snow.  I realized this was really taxing my energy but I wanted to stay with “yellow shirt” guy since I was having fun so I didn’t care about the loss of energy in preference to increased spirits.

Just before we started climbing up to damn dam aid station (mile 5), I BIT OFF the nozzle of my Nathan water bottle!  Wow.  I tried reattaching it by pounding my other handheld onto the nozzle after I jammed it back in with my mouth.  It SHOT off my bottle into the snow.  Thus the end of my Nathan bottle for Psycho Wyco 2011!  RIP buddy!  (It was ditched @ the main aid station…)

We made it to the top of the dam at the 5 mile aid station and I started falling behind “yellow shirt” guy.  I was very sad to see him go but I wanted him to go kick some trail ass and not worry about me so I put it out of my mind and started running my own race.

I finished my first loop and crossed the finish line.  The clock read 51 minutes!!!  HOLY SHIT I am a freaking running GOD!  I am a ROCKSTAR!  I was 9 minutes ahead of even the 10 milers start time!  It took me until mile 15 to ask another runner (just after the damn dam aid station) what time it was.  He told me it was 10:45am.  I was VERY confused at this point.  What happened?!  Did I really slow THAT MUCH!?  Then it hit me.  I am so stupid, so so stupid.  The 51 minute clock time was for the 10milers!  Not me…  I crossed my first loop in 1:51!  Wow what a big blow to my seriously overinflated ego!  No I’m not a running GOD or any kind of running stud, just doing what I wanted to do, run each loop in 2 hours.  Well I was 9minutes ahead but I was hoping I could be closer to 30 ahead at this point.

I finished my 2^nd loop in 2:11:52.  There went my little 9 minute buffer!  I was now OVER my 2 hour per loop hope/dream time!  4:03:22 still not bad for 20 miles!

At this point it was 12:00, and I was HUNGRY!  At the main aid station I found pbj wraps and started shoveling them as fast as I could.  I didn’t want to hang out here with just one loop left but I also didn’t want to run hungry either!  Yet another humbling experience: stuffing my face like an 8mo baby with its first jar of sweet potatoes.   The volunteers refilled my one bottle while I fed at the pbj trough and I was off.

Loop 3 was quiet, almost peaceful to a certain degree.  It was dangerous at the switchbacks and along some of the ridges due to melting snow and ice which made running seem crazy…  It took 2:33:16 and I finished in 42^nd place overall of 78 finishers at 6:36:40.  If I hadn’t slowed so much in my last loop I believe I could have easily dropped 10-15 minutes but I was drained.  I walked in MANY of the areas I knew I had run in the last 2 loops.

Lessons learned:

1. Bring the Garmin recharger.  Then at 1:51 I wouldn’t delude myself and I might have fought harder in the next 5 miles knowing it was very close to my 2 hour per loop goal.

1. If you don’t find someone jovial on the trail, BE the jovial one.  Who the hell wants to spend hours in the woods surrounded by a bunch of runners who are silent?  Feels like a death squad, or a zombie raid

1. Eat, keep eating, and eat a little more.  I probably lost 10 minutes at the main aid station before the last loop.  If I’d eaten a little at a time at a few of the aid stations I probably could have saved 5 or 6 minutes.

1. 26.2 miles in 4:00 is not bad…  But 26.2 FLAT miles in 4 or less SHOULD be easy for me now with the memories of this race in mind! 😉

I had a great time!  “Yellow Shirt” guy and I shook hands when it was over and I never caught his name.  I used the race photos and his bib number with the race results to find him on Facebook.   We are now friends there and will hopefully run together again in the future! 

So in order:

Thank you Sarah, Amber, and Katelyn for supporting my running and making the sacrifices that come with my hobby.

Thank you to the Race Organizers!  Ben and Sophia you guys put on a FUN race!

Thank you to John Mossman.  I would probably NEVER run an Ultra if I’d never met you.

Thank you to YELLOW SHIRT GUY!  Farhad Zarif your spirit shines into everyone’s lives connected to you.

Anyone interested would need to move fast to get in on this giveaway, but if your interested check it out!

http://blog.262quest.com/2011/04/road-id-review-and-giveaway.html

Caveat: If you don’t like introspection and philosophy then please don’t read this.

If this comes across as arrogant/rude or elitist then I apologize in advance. Some of this touches on sensitive subjects that are polarizing. I won’t allow others to suppress my thoughts or opinions without a serious intellectual effort on their part. So if you feel my thoughts or opinions are wrong or need some sort of reconsideration PLEASE comment!

My brief running history: I started running last year. I had never run before for anything other than for fun (<1 mile).

This is a never ending argument in the running community along the lines of how a FAST or SLOW runner is defined.

Jogging VS Running

“Jogging” is for those people who needed to lose weight but will probably never find it in running. These are what I consider “joggers” now. They are people who dip their toes in the running world, and like a fad diet it fades out of their life. Every time I see them I see a brother or sister runner, with potential to find what I have found. I have hope for them and always smile when I see them. My heart yearns to tell them what they will discover if they keep going. As with other things, it’s the journey not the destination. If you lose weight as a result of running then you should be happy! But if you are only running to lose weight and never see the light at the end of run?

Then there were the other people.

These were the runners. These are people I have genuine respect for. They don’t run exclusively to lose weight; they don’t run because they just feel like doing it occasionally. These people run because they know deep down what I know now. Running resonates my soul like a tuning fork that was smacked against a rock. I have an elliptical that I never use now. Running on the elliptical is like smacking that tuning fork against a rubber mat. It might cause a reaction but it’s in my soul a waste of my body’s effort. I’ll use a treadmill if I had one because I believe that is the middle ground where my tuning fork will resonate but the tone will not be a pure.

My Transition

At the beginning of 2010 I would consider myself a “jogger”
I ran my first 5K on 5/11/2010 in 26:43 and it was a real effort. For a complete list of my race history check here:
http://www.athlinks.com/myresultsadv.aspx?rid=79096361

The next month I ran my first 10K in 1:03:30 with an injury which really frustrated me.
Still a “jogger” I went to a doctor’s appointment about my injury. There in the office a random nurse took my pulse and looked at me with a smidgen of respect and (without knowing what I was there for) said “You’re a runner aren’t you?”
From this day on I considered myself a runner. Not because the nurse labeled me as such but when asked, I simply smiled proudly and said “Yes!”. It was locked in my heart and soul. I was in love!

My next big race was on Sept 18th 2010 a Half Marathon I ran in 1:45:25.
To make a capstone for the year I ran my first marathon on Oct 3, 2010 in 4:01:09.

I followed the marathon with my second 10K I ran in 47:09 and my last race of the year was a 5K I ran in 21:43 placing first in my age group!

I logged well over 464 total miles in 2010 between races and training from September to December. Time to start 2011!

Hello!

Anyone interested in running and want to enter a contest for some cool trail running shoes?!?!

Check this out!
running and rambling

People have asked… So here it is, my 2010 Christmas wish list (yes primarly all running supplies):

CLOTHS STUFF:
These are around $16/pair I’d like a couple pairs of these since I’m wearing them all the time and on runs!:
Large (Slate or Forest) Injinji Socks!
Vibram Five Fingers KSO Treks Brown/Black Size 41

WATER BOTTLES:
These are $16.99ea:
Ultimate Direction Fastdraw Water Bottle! – Any Color (Not Blue)
Ultimate Direction Fastdraw Extreme – Any Color

“Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.”
– William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Julius Caesar – English poet, playwright, dramatist, regarded as greatest.

Forbes Includes Vibram Five Fingers as a name you should know in 2011

Well I ran for the first time over the weekend in my Vibram Five Fingers! It was only a little over 2 miles and it was a slow pace but the entire family was with me so I had to hold back. This was probably a good thing.

Sarah even ran! Although she only ran (almost) one loop around our local middle school track (1/4 mile) and then gave up. DAMN!
I really want Sarah to run! I tried to help her, but most of the time my help comes in the form of criticism. Which tends to have a negative result.

I can only hope she does not give up completely.

I ran again Monday morning in my VFFs! The run is in the DailyMile on the right ->>>>
It felt pretty good. My achilles was sore and HURT after about 3 miles. I think it was the scar tissue breaking down because now it feels better.

Then I ran today! Now up to 11 miles in my VFFs. Much better pace today.
Only real problem has been blisters… But I don’t blame my VFFs. I blame my form, I think I was “pushing off”
Afterall I am an experiment of one..

Favorite running poster: “That’s NOT SWEAT. It’s your fat cells crying!!!” HAHA

Favorite shirt in a race: “Pain is just weakness leaving the body”

Googled the quote and found this....

This year has been all about minimalism! We are watching our $ I started watching my weight…
Then I started running.
Every time I ran in the rain I got injured.
Every time I went out and hauled ass I got injured
Until a friend of mine (Ultra marathon runner and all around superman John Mossman) let me read his “copy” of Chi Running

Chi Running set me down a path I never saw coming. Since reading it I started increasing my weekly mileage at an alarming rate. It made both my running friends Mel and John to caution me regarding increasing mileage 10% per week (I went from 20, to 30 and topped off at around 40 miles/week).
Chi Running allowed me to move without focusing on muscling my way through a run. It helped me focus on my form, stride, and just enjoying the movement itself.

When I ran the Lewis and Clark Marathon I hadn’t run anything over 13.3 miles. BUT to me 13.3 miles is and was “easy” It’s not something I am concerned about anymore since I’ve done it so much now…
Aug 29, 2011 10.18 Miles
Sept 7, 2011 13.27 Miles
Sept 11, 2011 13.14 Miles

To cap it off on Sept 18th I ran the McKendree University 13.25 mile “Super” Half Marathon and finished in 1:45:25 My Athlinks Page!

After I started reading Chi Running, I also started reading Born to Run.
If you’re a runner or even slightly interested in running I highly recommend reading it. But it is considered the “bible” of the barefoot running and minimalism running movement.

I don’t see it that way. Some people are fanatics about it, some swing the polar opposite of it and wouldn’t ever give up their “floating” across the ground feeling. I feel the true answer lies with both camps. Running barefoot will not make/allow you to BQ (Boston Qualify)

But I think it’s very important to realize that shoe companies are interested in 1 thing above all else $$. Otherwise they wouldn’t be a COMPANY they’d be a charity, or a government organization…… I am not that all they are interested in is money only thing they are interested in, but it is a major factor in many regards.

After Lewis and Clark I had a swollen left ankle and then Achilles tendonitis. The ankle took 3-4 days to heal, the tendonitis is ALMOST fully recovered.

During my recovery period I am making the transition to minimalistic footwear.
I have Vibram Five Fingers KSO’s and Terra Plana Daharma’s

For my ultra-marathon in Feb next year I purchased New Balance MT101’s

So I’m back to walking my lunch breaks and when my tendonitis is gone I’ll start building up my base in my VFFs. This will take a little time but I think it’ll be worth it!