Well since my last post I have been nursing a pretty bad case of runners knee AKA Patellafemoral Pain syndrome. After the Bobby Bell 5 miler my left knee felt worse than after the punishing downhills of Killington last month. I had tried all sorts of stretching, NSAIDS, heating, and icing with little luck. Further, I have spent probably over $100 in gimmicky knee braces from sporting goods stores. The ultimate healing method was....REST! Since I'm not a doctor and not educated in any sort of medicine/therapy, i will never suggest how to fix an injury in any other way aside from good old fashioned rest. Sometimes resting can come at a painful price but it is necessary. That being said I was able to run a somewhat quick four miler today at a 7:00mi. pace and 0 pain thanks (maybe) to one of the above mentioned knee braces.
Bay State Marathon
Bay State Marathon was today. I wasn't there. I didn't start, yeah, D.N.S. It's a disappointing process to look forward to something (that would likely have been a good race by the numbers) and not be able to start due to a nagging injury. Alisha and I went to the expo at Lowell High School to pick up my bib and race packet anyways. I had never been to a marathon expo, and had high hopes that all wasn't lost with my $60something registration fee. Well Bay State Marathon isn't as big as I had expected (It gets a lot of focus from Runners World as one of the fastest in the country due to cool climate and flat terrain). I have read about the large expos for Boston, Chicago, NYC etc. and just expected more. Had I known it would be a small gathering of vendors I may have just not shown up. While I was there the thought of volunteering crossed my mind but over the last couple of weeks I have been pretty bummed out about the whole knee that I thought better of doing something else. That something else came in the form of a trip to the Portsmouth, NH dog park.
Mount Tecumseh
By yesterday morning my left knee had been painless for about 3 days. I wanted to do something physical, and anything more than a light job was out of the question. I decided Friday night, despite the rainy forecast, to tackle another 4000 footer. At short notice a Solo ascent was my only option. Luckily for me Brodie the dog had a clear schedule too. We made the 109mi trip up to Waterville Valley Ski Area and arrived around 10AM. Mount Tecumseh's trail head was pretty hard to find and my TOMTOM doesn't speak "Appalachian Mountain Club". We drove around for about 45 minutes trying to find the trail head. I was so frustrated about not being able to find it I almost decided to tackle another nearby peak (Osceola or Tripyramid), which would have been a poor decision since I hadn't even glanced at a map for either of them. The hike was a fairly short 5.1 mile round trip, and I only saw 4 other parties all headed for the summit while Brodie (Trailname "Wonder Dog") and I were on our descent. Brodie, like most of us would prefer to walk downhill rather than up, and on two occasions I had to carry him because his speed was less than impressive. We Summited around 12:20 in complete cloud coverage (seems like the clouds know when I want to hike). We were able to enjoy the view a couple of times when the sun poked out. Brodie enjoyed his home made cookies, for lunch and I ate my Clif Shot Blocks, originally purchased for today's marathon.
The Foggy View from 4003'
I decided on Tecumseh, since it is the smallest of NH's 4000' peaks and seemed like an easy day trip. I definitely didn't want to have to turn around and add to my growing list of DNF/DNS! We came down in just over an hour because Wonder Dog's four legs and incredible agility proved superior to mine on the downhill. I guess I deserved to look like a fool running behind him dragging me since I carried him a half mile or so. We met a few people and stopped to chat, Brodie also Befriended a GIANT dog, that scared the shit out of both of us, but turned out to be an incredibly well behaved pooch with her owner in tow.
Big Girl!
Running behind Wonder Dog
So my weekend was pretty eventful. I'm grateful the weather was nice and I was able to accomplish SOMETHING, at least something worth writing about!
SPARTAN FTW!
I was going to write about my opinions on the "Outside magazine" article by Scott Keneally. The article really speaks for itself and contains a lot of little known information about the competition between Spartan Race and Tough Mudder. Matt Davis from www.mattbdavisruns.com interviewed both Joe Dessena (of Spartan Race) and Matt Johnson (Tough Mudder) in the same show, and TM had very little to say about the article. It exposed some of the business practices used by Tough Mudder to bully other OCR (Obstacle course races). It also tells the story of Billy Wilson (the originator of OCR) who started his Tough Guy Challenge in the mid eighties. I am not in a position to trash any of these companies for business practices or stolen concepts. The Harvard Business School CEO of Tough Mudder seems an awful lot like another young entrepreneur in the social networking (coughFacebook!cough). I can only tell you from a competitor standpoint how I think these companies compare. Spartan Race is where the competition is at. Spartan has harder courses, and organizes their events much more thoughtfully. For example Spartan times their course and won't try to tell you it isn't a race. TM has no competitive agenda, with the exception of World's Toughest Mudder (once a year). When I say Spartan is more organized the best example would be how Tough Mudder sends waves of 600 runners at a time, and you pay for it while waiting in LONG lines at obstacles over the 10ish miles. I ran a Spartan Beast course twice, and was on the mountain for nearly half of a full day, and didn't have to wait even one time over the course of 30+ miles. Event prices are about the same and both companies donate a considerable amount to charity, although TM leaves fundraising to the member AFTER he or she has paid the $200ish event fee. I won't say I will never do another Tough Mudder or shun anyone who does. I do think that Spartan has more value and is a tougher challenge.
Brodes on the Summit, his first 4000 footer
Tecumseh Peak after He conquered it.
Until next time.
