Finding a Cure for Urban Pavement Fatigue

I've been spending the last few days moping around, lamenting at how long it takes my legs to recover from seemingly easy workouts and generally being nervous that the MCM 10K in a few weeks is just not going to feel good. 

Take Monday. I wanted to head to an early morning yoga class and then chase it with a 3 or 4 mile run around town. Except when I jogged the third of a mile to yoga, my quads protested with each step and let me know that they were tired. Seriously legs? Just wake up. I figured yoga would do the trick.

Except it didn't. 

After yoga, I ran a quarter mile and realized pretty quickly that there was no way I was going to get any run resembling "quality." I resolved to rest for ~36 hours until Pilates tonight.

One of the things that I've had to get used to the last few days is figuring out a schedule where work is not the centerpiece. Then someone looking out for me sent me the weather forecast for DC this week.

My nature fairy godmother is an early riser...

I needed to get outside, stat. So much for resting the legs for 36 hours.

It turns out my legs (and I, in general) were suffering from a combination of urban pavement fatigue and nature deficit disorder. The moment I turned my car onto tree-lined approach for Sugarloaf Mountain, I breathed easier/felt a weight lifting off of me/insert your favorite cliché.

Then I stepped onto a trail worth trying, and the legs did not protest.

Yes, it really is subtitled "A trail worth trying."

Okay, I didn't exactly run up these, but the plan was to warm up with a walk to the summit and then do a 5 mile loop.

At the summit, a view of...emissions from a power plant!

And then on to the parts of the trail that I'd actually run. Ahhhhh.

The miles weren't the best, physically, and the overwhelmingly rocky terrain wasn't the best for a trail running noob, either. But dragging myself out of the city and into the woods for a few hours? It was just what the nature doctor ordered.

And I skipped Pilates tonight.

Trail Race #1 is in the Books!

Yay! After nearly causing a slow moving car wreck in the business park where we were directed to park and pick up the race shuttle, after having a lackluster training cycle, and after having downgraded the "race" to a "training run" in my head (does anyone ever successfully do this?), my body proved to be in better condition than I gave it credit for. It carried me over the North Face Endurance Challenge 10K course – 5.85 miles (more on this later) of dirt, mud, asphalt, crushed gravel and a few large puddles – all with very few complaints. It kind of makes me wonder whether I should have pushed more, but even as I look back, I think the only thing I could have changed on Sunday was where I lined up.

Crazy storms blew through Friday evening, leaving in their wake cool temps and low humidity both Saturday and Sunday. This is such a rarity in northern Virginia in early June. What a treat!

The shuttle bus dropped me off at the race course about 10 minutes before the half marathon was schedule to start. I bee-lined it to the port-o-potties. I kind of felt bad to be on line with the half marathoners about to toe the line, but my body had decided to keep things exciting: apparently I had a sensitivity to something I had eaten the night before. And it had been close to 45 minutes since I'd left home. So, a huge GRACIAS to the guy who let me go before him. I'm pretty sure I cut the line.

I can't remember the last time I had such a mellow pre-race. I mean, I actually pulled out a book and read! Maybe I was a little too laid back about things because when it came time to line up for the race, I put myself in the middle to back. Granted, I wasn't entirely sure what my body was capable of.

Before.
[All race photos are screen grabs from UltraRacePhotos.com]

This is where I admit that on Saturday I did the anti-taper. My confidence was so shattered after running with the stranger on Thursday that I needed to make sure I could hold a pace. My pace. So I did an early morning 3-miler on Saturday and chased it with yoga – taking one class and teaching another. So the legs probably weren't the freshest for racing. Good thing this was a training run.

Although I crossed the starting line running, everyone slowed to a walk as we began to wend around a congested loop circling a playing field. I walked for about half of that loop before being able to take regular strides. 

My plan – to the extent that I had one – was to use the wider asphalt golf cart path and crushed stone path (where runners could actually run two abreast, and where the surface was firmer) to position myself behind people roughly my pace before heading onto the single track portion of the course.

Executing the positioning plan.

This worked out pretty well for me. Once on the crushed stone path, I stayed mostly on the left, passing. We came up to the aid station, where I expected to turn onto dirt single track, except it was asphalt. Weird. It eventually became a dirt path, and I found myself passing on the single track until runners started coming back toward us on the out and back. At times, the group would chat. The taller runners among us would call out when there were on-coming runners. In general, we weren't a chatty group, but I also think that the trails were a new thing for most of us.

Somewhere in the midst of mile 3, I started wondering whether I could keep this up. "This" being hanging with the latest pack that I'd run up to. We were on single track, looping around a wooded area near the Potomac before heading back on the trail we'd just left.

Coming out of aid station, ~1.7 miles to the finish.

Once we returned to asphalt – and later the crushed stone path – I found that my strength had been running on single track. I could hang with the runners in front of me on the trail, but they pulled away on the more even and regular surface.

Back on the crushed stone path, the 10K course and half marathon course were one. Half marathoners began to pass me, but having them on the course was actually great motivation because I think the 10K runners were really spread out by this point. Not that the half marathoners weren't all spread out, too. I'm sure they were glad to be able to pick off the slower among us. It was probably a symbiotic relationship. But, the half marathoners definitely paced me for a strong last mile or so. Plus, I have them to thank for leading the way through the puddles/water crossings on the way back in. 

Back on golf course, getting chased by a half marathoner.

The last stretch of the course was on the asphalt golf cart path. It's crazy how an imperceptible downward slope helps me immensely. At about a quarter mile to go, I stalked down two 10K runners and shot past them just as the path sloped down. It looked like a bigger move than the energy I used – I promise – because about 10 strides later, 2 half marathoners zipped by me.

Ahhhh! Can't! Hang! On!

What's up with my arms?

But, it was a great finish for me – I actually had a kick!

Here's the thing: I'm a trail running noob, and I completely understand that distances aren't as precise for trail races as they are for road races. The trail 10Ks that I know about have always run long. When the 10K course guide listed the distance as being 6.4 miles, I mentally braced myself. Nearly 6.5 miles on dirt was not going to be easy with the training that I'd had. But I was as ready as I was going to be.

So, I was not expecting to look down at my Garmin at the finish and see that it had measured the course to be 5.85 miles. I mean, that's half a mile shorter than advertised. It's not even 10K.

Yes, my Garmin has been finicky at times, so maybe it measured the wrong distance. But off by half a mile?

The course guide stated that the turn north toward the Potomac,
 just past Sugarland Run (bottom right) was at mile 2.4...hmmm...

And, yes, while it would be awesome to have run 6.4 miles of trail in under an hour, given that I'm not in great shape right now and my best 10K on asphalt is just under 58 minutes, 5 years ago, I really doubt the race course was 6.4 miles.

In the end, I don't mind that the course was shorter than expected. But at the same time, I thought I'd be running at least 6.2 miles. I guess I mostly have mixed emotions – I don't feel like I can say that I ran a 10K trail race.

I'll just have to register for another one, right? And wear a shirt that doesn't ride up.

Hill Repeats on a Mountain Trail = Not My Brightest Idea

Last Monday, I woke up with a sore throat. Right when I needed to be buckling down to train for my first trail 10K, the North Face Endurance Challenge, my body went on strike. Great.

On Wednesday, when I was scheduled to do 6-8 hill repeats, I came home after work, exhausted, and packed for a 7:30am flight to New Hampshire. I had decided sometime during the day that hill repeats weren't going to happen. Instead, I'd try them in New Hampshire the next day, on a trail.

The trail goes uphill. Definitely not flat. And 
all rock.

Great idea, right? I'd get in my workout and climb a hill. Uhm, hill repeats on a New Hampshire trail was a dumb idea. Or at least on this particular trail. My trail of choice was the Winslow Trail up to the summit of Mt. Kearsarge in Merrimack County. Like nearly every trail in New Hampshire, it has more than its fair share of granite. I ran for nearly a tenth of a mile before slowing to what can be most charitably described as vigorous stairmastering.

So I didn't do hill repeats. I did, however, pass four people (five, if you count the infant being carried in a pack) on the way up, and I left the summit before they arrived. Given that I regularly struggled up slopes that were 1,000 feet of elevation gain over a mile while I lived in Seattle, I was amazed at how easily I cruised up the Winslow Trail, even though my cold and allergies had me wheezing. Yay.

Roughly 39 minutes after leaving the parking lot, I was treated to this:

And this:

On the way back down, I opted for the slightly longer Barlow Trail in hopes that it would have a lower pitch, and therefore, be more runnable and not have huge slabs of wet rock.

Again, the views were awesome. 

And then I wended back into the trees. 

Somewhere in here is a trail. Or creek.

In general, it wasn't easy for me to run down until the last quarter mile of the trail, when the conditions dried out. It had rained in New Hampshire for the last week, and while I'm not afraid of stepping into mud, running through mud where there may be buried roots or rocks, and sliding on wet rocks is not my cup of tea. I'm not sure what that says for my trail running prowess!

After this Herculean effort on Thursday, I enjoyed a Friday rest day and bailed on my Saturday longer run because I was exhausted. So exhausted that I slept for 11 hours on Sunday and only got out of bed because I thought that was the responsible thing to do. And because I had to teach yoga in the afternoon.

With any luck, the cold will go away this week, and I won't have lost too much fitness. Fingers crossed, at least!

Back to "racing" . . .

My first road race of the year is coming up, although I use the term "race" loosely. Over the winter, I registered for this Sunday's Race to Stop the Silence 8K as a way to keep myself somewhat accountable and to make sure that I didn't go into June's North Face Endurance Challenge 10K completely unprepared. So instead, I'll go into this weekend's 8K unprepared.

"Training" for the 8K began right after I got back from Oregon in the beginning of the month (see "eking out what I can from the 2011-2012 ski season"). I'd be super motivated on Mondays to wake up and run. And practice yoga in the evening. And I'd do both. Then I'd plan on heading to Pilates Tuesday mornings, but instead, I found myself hitting snooze and convincing myself that rest was better for me. Wednesdays, I taught yoga in the morning and had every intention to do speedwork in the evening. Except then the afternoon would arrive, and I'd be dead tired, so I'd scrap the speedwork. Then on Thursdays, I'd be scheduled for another evening workout, but because of other yoga commitments earlier in the day, I was – you guessed it – too tired to run. Notice the theme: unbalanced yogini! Ahhh! Strike a tree pose, quick!

Finally, Fridays would come along, and between Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I crammed in all the missed and scheduled runs. Then I'd feel so bad about beating up my body that I'd take a couple yoga classes over the weekend, too. Rinse and repeat for three weeks. Obviously, this is not ideal.

Then last week, I amazingly got in a tempo run only one day off schedule. I completely scrapped a scheduled weekday run, but over the weekend, I got some things dialed.

First, I received bodywork, sort of. On Saturday, I went to a Yamuna Body Rolling workshop at one of the local yoga studios. Whoa. It's like foam rolling, but with a softer apparatus, and for the entire body. The instructor's eyes lit up when I told her I was a runner. This was a good thing. She showed us a number of techniques for working on muscles along the spine, hamstrings, quads, calves, and glutes. What more could I possibly ask for?? 

The other thing that I tried out over the weekend was a long run in a new locale and with a group! On Sunday, a local running store – Potomac River Running – and Saucony hosted a trail run with sample Saucony Peregrine 2 shoes for people to try out. And, not so coincidentally, the run was at the location of the North Face Endurance Challenge. Given my propensity to take wrong turns on trail runs when left to my own devices, I had already intended to check out the 10K course at some point before the race, but this was serendipitous. Who cares if it was over a month before race day, and I'll probably forget everything between now and then? I could kill 3 birds with one stone: do my longer weekend run, try out trail running shoes (which I don't own), and check out the course. It even stopped raining for the hour that we were on the trail.

I swear this was a group run. There's just no one around me.
And I look knock-kneed.

Check out the fancy sample Peregrine 2s on my feet!

So the verdict on last Sunday is that for the longer run, the group pushed my pace, but that's not a bad thing. For the trail race course scouting mission, I really have nothing to compare it to, but I was struck by how long it took to get to the singletrack, probably to space out all the runners. As to the Sauconys, I didn't get blisters, so that's a plus, right? And, they're purple! They were lighter than anything that I've run in, and my left arch (because my body is imbalanced that way) felt somewhat unsupported. I don't think they're the right shoe for me, but they've definitely turned me on to finding a grippier (and lighter!) shoe for the trails.

With only four weeks of haphazard training, I'm not expecting the upcoming Sunday to be anything more than a timed run through a small section of the city. I expect to be faster than I was at the Jingle All the Way 8K (same course), but then again, at the December race, I basically had a conversation with my running buddy, so being "faster" is not a stratospheric goal!

Hey, Are We on the Appalachian Trail?!

Merry Christmas!

For a Christmas Eve day treat, my brother and I bagged the highest peak in New Jersey. Actually, we drove up there. I know, utterly thrilling. Contain yourselves.

No snow? Go trail running on cross country ski trails!

Our plan: run the Monument Trail, or what turned out to be our bastardized version of it (sorry trail planners), at High Point State Park. Within half a mile of starting the run, which we decided to do by heading south-ish first, my brother noticed that we were following white blazes, and not the green/red ones (how timely!) we had originally started following.

Red and green blazes we were supposed to be following.

"Hey!" he called out. "Are we on the Appalachian Trail?! We're going to wind up in Georgia!" 

Uhm, yeah, so here I was, lost on another trail run. For the record, I rarely get lost on hikes. When running, though, I get caught up with trying not to bite it – which I did anyway 2 miles later – that I miss less than obvious blazes. So that's how I found myself, on a lookout tower on the Appalachian Trail...

We made our way back to the trail junction where I got derailed and then rerouted ourselves back onto the Monument Trail. Woohoo! Back on track! Oh, damn, a glacial lake...what direction do we go around this thing? Really, it could have been better marked. Just saying. After figuring out which way to go, the trail crossed a paved park road and headed back into the woods. That's we started hitting the hills.

Hills are not my strength. Looking down at my shoes and hoping that it ends quickly is. So that's how I noticed some neat ribbons of ice on the ground that my brother just plowed through.

Ice ribbons.

We tooled around for about an hour and crossed paths with two other parties, and we were the only runners. Now we're toasty warm and waiting to see what the evening has in store! Hope you and those dear to you are enjoying a wonderful holiday season.

Tales of a Flatlander at Altitude

Yesterday, I woke up at sea level in D.C. and slept at over 7000 feet altitude, in northern New Mexico. This morning, I ran my 3 first miles ever at altitude...and they were surprisingly okay.

I decided to do a hybrid trail run (read: trail run + approach to trail head on paved road). Per my 10-miler training schedule, I had four miles to do yesterday, which got delayed in the shuffle of traveling to the Land of Enchantment, acclimating to altitude, and hydrating.

On acclimating: Arid climates are confusing to me. I sweat so much when I'm just standing around that when I'm in an arid climate, I freak out and think that I've gotten heat stroke because it's wicked hot, but I'm not sweating. I'm not sure if it's related, but my first time at altitude, I had spectacular altitude sickness while hiking up to the Maroon Bells in Aspen. Thirty-six hours earlier, I was at sea level.  Not ideal. The Aspen Valley Hospital ER is awesome, by the way, when you are oxygen deprived and barfing up all shades of your favorite sports drink.

Since then, I've been at altitude countless times in the winter without incident. I've also followed a ridiculous hydration and ibuprofen regimen and limited the alcohol intake. So, starting Sunday, I hydrated like I was going to run a marathon the next day, and after flying in to New Mexico yesterday, I had one measly wheat beer.

Wildflower Wheat

It was in the low 60˚s when I made my way outside at 6:30am this morning. After noticing first the chill in the air (fingers were soon cold), I then noticed how tired I felt. Fatigue is sometimes a sign of altitude sickness. In my case, it was hard to tell because I got 5 hours of sleep before waking up at 5am Eastern on Monday, zipped over two time zones, and didn't go to bed until 10pm Mountain. I could have been just generally sleep-deprived.

Rather than run a relatively flat loop, I decide to do the beginnings of a trail run, which meant climbing.    

The first .75 miles felt hard although my heart rate monitor thought I was cruising. This was pretty consistent with the rest of the run but also puzzling because the night before, I thought my heart was pounding pretty quickly. On the run, it was hard to breathe, but over and over, the heart rate monitor was throwing out completely reasonable numbers. Nevertheless, four miles started sounding ambitious, and I decided to truncate the run by a mile. Interestingly, I did cruise on the way back in (aka, downhill) and felt pretty decent, despite the altitude.  I guess I wasn't working that hard.

Seen on today's run...

Nota Bene: When Reading Trail Descriptions...

For a Fourth of July treat, I decided to go on my inaugural trail run of the season this morning.  I also decided to test out the RunKeeper app again, as I was less than thrilled at its functionality in the city.  I drove out to Difficult Run, right outside of Great Falls National Park, and figured I'd run into the park, check out the falls and then head back to the lot.