Days Off are for the WEAK!

So I took a day off today. I can't remember my last day of inactivity but I feel good about a little rest. I spent time with my Four legged friend Brodie. I'M convinced he is a Jack Russel/Italian Greyhound mix with only the best of each side. I slept late 0830 (8:30AM), and played with the pooch for a while. Although today was a day "off" from physical preparation I still did a little shopping for the "drop bag" which will be my ONLY acceptable aid station during the Ultra Beast. I also picked up a nice pack for one of my last workouts prior to the Ultra Beast (Mt. Washington Day Hike).
Brodie's facebook...yeah it is real...

Drop Bag
So below is a list of items (not all inclusive since I have a 20 ga. tote to fill up...and i will) that i will leave at the Start/Finish line (halfway for us Ultra Beasters)
-Camelbak Octane XCT (modified for 2 bladders)
-NUUN electrolyte Tabs
-Pedialyte (orange for smaller bladder)
-Ibuprofen (unflavored)
-Mint Chocalate Chip CLIF bars (X4)
-Clif Shot Blocks (X12 servings)
-Spring water (2 gallons to refill larger bladder)
-4 GU pouches (theseare a last resort sugarbomb Espresso love/vanilla bean)
-First Aid kit (Blood happens...be prepared)
-headlamp 9it was hintedthat this would be required gear otherwise glow sticks)
-A change of clothes and a "real" meal will be added but I don't intend to add them until later for obvious reasons.

So far.....

Training
I have been pretty satisfied with the training I have been able to accomplish. I am lucky to get a few days off at a time so I CAN dedicate a half day to training. Three weeks in a row I have been able to run the CRUCIBLE course 20.xx miles on trails that have no shortage of hills. The fact i havebeen able to run a single 20 mile workout on back to back to back weeks may explain my boisterous confidence on facebook and in general. the Hal Higdon marathon plan (one of the most followed marathon training plans I know of) requires athletes to reach this 20 mile distance only one time about 2-3 weeks prior to a ROAD marathon. In the spirit of being "SPARTAN" I will use this singular workout as my meat and potatoes until the Ultra Beast. During these trail runs I have noticed that mean people don't hang out on marked trails. I am yet to run/walk past another person in the woods without some sort of friendly salutations being exchanged. This is not the norm while ducking cars in downtown Haverhill and dodging mirrors (most of the time). 20 miles ion a training setting usually takes 3-3:20 to complete (this is a huge block of time and I understand that people with "grown up" jobs and other obligations usually can't afford). I am hesitant to take Brodie since he is a "street pup" meaning he will not pass up any; trash, food, pitbulls(prevelant around these parts) or curious smells, therefore making him "difficult" to walk/jog/run with. His company would be much appreciated when I encounter SNAKES (my arch nemesis) I know...Snakes are not that bad...but they scare ME! This most recent adventure I decided to take my IPOD...While I don't listen to music while working out (exception: books on tape), I brought it to take afew pictures of the trail I am most fond of as of recently.

Kenoza lake

 

Turn Around Point I circle this bench three times in a 20mi run.

Turning right at this ridge trail climbs about 30' but will avoid knee deep puddles after A rainy day.

 

There is a spike in elevation (60-70' est) this is the top looking down, the photo may not do it justice but I call it "Tower of Tears" in three laps you climb it six times.

 

"The Witches Staircase" It's funny how nature can make something seemingly man made.

 

Days off..

While days off are important I feel lazy on days like today (10 pullups and couch commando). The word "overtraining" comes to mind every time I head out feeling tired/sore/achey from the previous day. By no means do I think that pushing through pain is a good/safe idea, however knowing your body is very important if you plan on going beyond that point. While I have much to learn on that topic I feel like I can at the very least avoid disaster (in the form of injury).  The Hard and seemingly endless training has been agreat confidence booster. I will not win the Ultra Beast...But I WILL finish and that is a victory in my book!

 

Mount Washington

Next weekend a few friends and I will be tackling the highest peak in the Northeast. This will be a walk/hike but I will be counting it as valuable training. It's hard to admit as an endurance runner that i WILL be walking a lot (if not MOST) of the Ultra Beast, therefore a hike with a moderately heavy pack over 6,000' will be beneficial. Until next time! 

 

(spell check didnt work for me tonight...go ahead and correct my spelling/grammar...)



Amesbury Sprint ....Ouch...

Hello, I'm back for another round of UB & Beyond. This entry is following a 20 Mile trail run on a loop named "THE CRUCIBLE" (I thought it sounded cool, and got the name from the USMC basic training obstacle course). I set out today partially to ease the frustrations of a disappointing finish in the Spartan Sprint this weekend. The trail was a really nice refuge from the sun, AND rain. In a little over three hours the weather changed from downpour to sunburn pretty quickly. The trails were actually very crowded for a Wednesday morning during a rainstorm, but MUCH weirder shit happens in Haverhill so no huge surprises there. Twelve Muddy miles (2 laps) was the goal but goals change quickly cause I'm generally a moody person. After the first two i figured I would keep going since I haven't gone beyond 20 miles in a month or two. I sought out as much elevation gain as possible and sadly 630ish feet was all Kenoza Lake had to offer. The hills are steep enough however, to get a repeat or two before carrying on. What kind of Sicko does hill intervals on a long run?...This Guy! 

THE CRUCIBLE

So Today I wore the "new to me yet so last year" Brooks Pure Grit's. It's a semi minimalist trail shoe that I recently decided would be my "go to" for trail racing. I like that they have a modest heel stack height, paper thin mesh upper, flexibility, and most importantly protection from my sloppy gait. I find anything beyond 12 miles causes me to run like an unsure baby just learning to walk (stomping around and what not). The Brooks took good care of me in the Spartan Sprint this weekend, if only I could have changed out the dude wearing them.

Brooks Pure Grit $60.00 at EMS!

AMESBURY SPARTAN SPRINT 8-12-12

So Now that I am done voluntarily advertising for Brooks Running (As if anyone reads this shit), I'll tell all about the killer 22nd place performance on Monday. I decided after Tough Mudder Vermont I won't be entering any obstacle/adventure races unless to be competitive. This comes after standing in long lines of beer runners in Tough Mudder, Rugged Maniac,  & Spartan Races.  I hope it doesn't sound arrogant, because I understand that not everyone has a competitive drive, and paying customers are just that... paying customers. I signed up in November for the Sunday "Elite Heat".  This Heat is the first group to toe the line so the course is completely clear. The Spartan Sprint may not be suited to my longer distance style, but I wanted to really do well to prove to myself that I deserve a shot at the Ultra in September. While waiting in the gates to take off I had the pleasure of meeting a fellow "Ultra Beaster" George, who like me wanted to be in the 40-45minute range. I promised to bullshit with him after and we took off running. The first 300ish yards were a relatively steep uphill. I really like to climb and have this terrific habit of burning myself out trying to gain position on starts like this one. At the Tough Mudder in May, I decided I was superman and climbed the first black diamond hill fast enough to wait 4 or 5 minutes, dying mind you, for Randall and Matt who were (at the time) 2nd and 3rd for the heat with nobody in sight. I have since learned that this does me NO good whatsoever, so I was Conservative for this race. I decided that the "follow the leader" approach would do me well at conserving energy and keeping the leaders within sight. One of the first obstacles were "over-under walls". Pushing shoulder to shoulder with the front of the pack, I caught my right shoulder on one of the "under walls" causing a fist sized bleeding scrape. "Great! first half mile and I'm already bleeding!" The next obstacle was weighted pulleys strung across the trees, in last years event my entire body weight wasn't enough to lift the weight off the ground so I was expecting to do my 30 burpees and move on. For whatever reason, I had no trouble this year and carried on with same pack. I lost the most time at an obstacle that was a lilly pad of logs about 5' apart stuck into the ground. The objective was to balance from log to log for about 75 yards. I fell off the first log and started my 30 burpees and watched the leaders disappear. The same thing would happen at the "wall traverse" (i made it the whole way and got overexcited and missed the bell at the end) and the "spear throw". After a total of 90 Burpees, a barbed wire cut (yeah another wound) and vomiting the contents of my stomach around the halfway point I crossed the line in 51:20 good enough for 22nd MALE (I got what's called "Spartan Chick'd, in the Barbed Wire by the eventual women's winner, and I have no shame in regards to it, especially after watching her DESTROY the tractor tire flip!)overall and 7th for 25-29 year olds.

Sad Face after a discouraging Finish

Yep.

ALL WAS NOT LOST...

Even though I wasn't happy about my lackluster performance I had a great time. I got to meet some awesome people, including a group of guys who jokingly made barf sounds when I caught back up and passed them...apparently they had witnessed my momentary step off the trail, and were extremely encouraging even as i was opening the gap between us. "We're gonna try and get you a trophy!" said one of them . At the start Chris Davis, the man who WAS 650+lbs before Joe Dessena and Spartan HQ got him into shape, gave a quick motivating speech about his battle with weight loss. Alisha was at the event and she spent the following hour or so trying to convince me i had done well.  On top of her encouraging words she also served as a taxi driver, event photographer and my personal bag drop, luxuries that surely only I had!

BACK TO WORK!

My response to this rough day at the sports park was to, on the next day, put on my 20lb weighted vest and crank the incline up on the treadmill  (on duty at work I usually can't stray far from the station so being a mouse on a wheel it is) and jog uphill for an hour. The rise/run calculation told me I had climbed in excess of 2,300'. Getting smoked in a game of volleyball on Tuesday would be my only workout, keeping in mind that I had planned to "go long" today. That's it for now.

I probably gained 4-5 spots on the final downhill this was the last Obstacle before the Finish

"Mr. Grumpypants"

Thanks for your help Alisha! here's a $6 Beer for your troubles!

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday! Well happy for me as I finished up a very eventful 72 hour shift around 8:00AM. Packed within that shift was a black tie ball held by the Newburyport Mayor for the USCG CITY dedication, Coast Guard Open House (which entailed giving tours to hundreds of guests), a parade and most importantly protecting Americas coasts! A long weekend of duty, unfortunately left me short on ambition so my evenings included Cheering on Team USA in the Games, and a not so great diet of energy drinks and coffee. I was super pumped to see both of Alberto Salazars pupils take Gold and Silver in the 10,000M, I'd really like to see what Galen Rupp can do in the Marathon, but I would imagine we'd have to wait for that.

2012 Lions Club Bed Race

 

2011 "USCG 1"

I promised to explain the "Bed Race" last week and haven't forgotten. While still in recovery mode from the Yankee Homecoming 10 Miler I had the pleasure of Joining 5 of my co-workers in racing a custom made "Bed" a quarter mile down Federal st. in Newburyport. If you are a facebook friend you probably already know of Last years lackluster 4th place finish. With a few familiar faces, and a fully re-designed death wagon of a bed (All GO no SHOW) we set out for victory this year. We competed against 25 other local organizations, some out for speed others set out to entertain. Sitting at the top of the hill we put on our war faces and proceeded to talk strategy. At the "gun" our intentions were quite clear to the onlookers. Crossing the finish line in 1:10 the race officials proclaimed "The Coast Guard has the fastest time so far". We watched and waited as 10-12 other teams tried to knock us off the top spot. The closest anyone would come would be 1:13 by the Plum Island lifeguards who literally "ran it til' the wheels fell off" (about 5' before the finish line they lost a front caster wheel). Call it luck, or poor engineering on their part but we took the "W" and I couldn't be more proud.
Newburyport Daily News "NO SLEEPING"

2012 "Champs"



As I said Earlier, this weekend was a bit of a training lull to say the least. Still feeling sore and dehydrated I went out for a short road jog. I left with every intention of taking it easy since nothing really felt good and hit the road (yeah I know...roads suck). The plan was 5-6 easy miles to  get back into the swing of things. I left the weighted vest and water bottles at home. As I ticked off a couple of pedestrian like miles i started feeling better physically and worse mentally about such a low mileage week. Somewhere along the way 10MI. sounded like a better idea. Conveniently enough i happened upon a nice semi steep half mile climb about 4 1/2 miles from home to tackle before turning around. A nice "Long Slow Distance" run really felt good. Hopefully I can get a few trail miles in tomorrow.

AMESBURY SPARTAN SPRINT 8/12/12

The next race is the Amesbury Spartan Sprint on Sunday, I'm really hoping for a decent finish this time. Last year I ran the non-competitive heat with some friends and crossed the finish in 4th place having never intended to really race (not to say i didn't put forth my best effort). This particular event last year was what really got me hooked on obstacle racing so I'm looking forward to what Spartan HQ has in store. Unfortunately I missed the deadline for the Saturday competitive heat, which offers cash prizes for top finishers, and the chance to chase the seemingly invincible Hobie Call. I'm sure some other tough competitors are in my shoes and running the Sunday event as well.

2011 Spartan Sprint Amesbury

Finish with Randal T.

Until next week..

OK. So here it goes. This is my first entry in "Ultra Beast and Beyond". Reasoning behind my blogging...I'm really tired of annoying the following people with my ramblings about my acceptance to the Spartan Ultra Beast in Killington, VT; friends, family, co-workers and social media acquaintances . It looks like a field of about 300 nutbags will be taking on this 26.2 mile obstacle race on September 22. We have a small "E-community" on facebook where we ponder the unknown share training and gear advice among many off topic conversations to which I will spare the details. Spartan HQ is very good about keeping secrets but here's what I know so far:
-26.2ish miles
-Fully unsupported (meaning all supplies are carried and NOT supplied)
-2 loops of the main beast course will be the race.
-A team option is available for considerable prize money (also considerable risk of DNF'ing).
-Starts at 8AM


So far my training regimen has been pretty relaxed. By relaxed I mean around 35-50 miles a week and plyometrics every other day depending on work schedule. I have been keeping the mileage light since last fall I had acquired a tibial injury on each leg. Suspecting stress fractures, the ordered MRI showed multiple signs of trauma but no current fractures. The diagnosis was the bones had healed from "trauma" and left large lumps (AKA bony islands) which caused muscle irritation. Good enough for me.

Since I don't know shit about the Ultra, I thought this would be a great place to re-cap my experience at the Yankee Homecoming 10 mile road race this Tuesday (July 31).

Yankee Homecoming 10 Miler

So this Tuesday was the Yankee Homecoming 10 miler. I was hesitant to sign up since my race schedule will be relatively busy over the next few weeks. 10 miler, Lions club Bed Race (I'll explain later), and the Amesbury Spartan Sprint all packed into two weeks . The entry fee was an incredibly reasonable $25. How could I say no? This year brought nearly 3,000 runners between two races (5k/10m). The weather could not have been better, for the 6:10PM start, cloudy and upper 60's. I decided to walk about a mile from the Coast Gard station where I work to the starting line, which served as a nice warm-up. This walk also served as a preview to all of the local elite runners from GBTC, Whirlaway, etc. who were using High street as a drag strip effortlessly sailing up and down the bike lane at a pace I couldn't hold for more than a few minutes. regardless I had my race/nutrition plan and was satisfied with it.

At the start the volunteers held up signs showing where to line up based on pace, so naturally I lined up with the "average Joes" at the 7:00min/mi mark. At the gun it took about 15-20 seconds to cross the start line. I settled into a comfortable 7:20 pace (originally planning a first mile of 7:45). Mile one went off well with the exception of a botched water stop, but who needs it in the first mile anyways? I enjoyed the nice flat stretch of High street before turning down Marlboro st. for a long downhill stretch. The two mile marker was along water street just before American Yacht club, where I watched a Club runner accept a shot before carrying on through a two mile split of 14:15 or so. Mile Three was my fastest to this point, Mainly because it was through the busiest section of Newburyport. Right on the eastern edge of the village sits U.S. Coast Guard Station Merrimack River, where I saw 5-6  uniformed Coasties from my duty section chanting "Heat Wave Dave" (a nickname that some days I'd like to escape, originating from holding a Domino's pizza delivery bag AKA "Heatwave Bag" for ransom in return for breadsticks in the 9th or10th grade...It wasn't as dramatic as it sounds and I had accomplices and promise this is the extent of my life of crime if you could call it that). A funnel of high fives and excessive use of energy resulted, but the morale of the whole thing paid off, and I was all smiles down Water st. Just before the beginning of Mile four my lovely Girlfriend somehow made her way through the most crowded section of town ( I say somehow, but I'm certain she had pushed her way through), to offer up her support as well. Approaching the longest hill on the course the mile four volunteer shouted out "25 minutes" The small pack that I was in all immediately looked at their watches, as did I and we all had a good giggle for momentarily we thought we were much faster than we actually were. Mile 4 split was closer to 28:30. The course would take us over RT. 95 towards Maudslay park (a favorite of mine for trail That section was relatively uneventful with the exception of a young boy who insisted I take water from him (I must have really looked like shit when an ten year old was insisting I hydrate). I refused the water but had to dodge him as he sprinted in front of me, running me 4-5 feet off the course into a nice set of hedges on somebodies front lawn. Lucky for me I am not going for a record here and even if I were I appreciated the amazing effort from all of the volunteers. At mile 7 is where I decided I had plenty of fuel in the tank to start separating myself from the 7-7:15 crowd. Knowing there were a few hills to come I tried to get into the sub 6:50mi. range which was surprisingly comfortable. I felt like I rode that pace to the finish line but my Garmin would later tell me otherwise. At mile nine I really felt like I could get into my 5k pace so I tried to "kick" for a whole mile, my garmin would once again prove me wrong, but it felt good! The rain started at mile 9.58 (i know cause i looked) which was once again perfect timing. I grinded out the last half mile with a couple of club runners one of which would pass me about 8 feet from the finish line where the final result was 1:10:22. I was satisfied since the goal was just to set a better pace than my last half marathon and finish sub 1:13.

This was the best adherence to a race plan I have ever been able to manage and it seemed to have paid off. I suppose the goal time was conservative but attaining it felt good so who cares? Splits were as follows:
Mile 1: 7:10
Mile 2: 7:02
Mile 3: 6:43 Thanks to some awesome encouragement
Mile 4: 7:04
Mile 5: 7:16
Mile 6: 7:18
Mile 7: 7:07
Mile 8: 6:52
Mile 9: 6:44
Mile 10:6:25
+0:45 (.09)

I will try not to be so long winded next entry. No promises.

Yankee Homecoming 10 milers results 2012

Yankee Homecoming 10 mi. map