My Track Record

My parents say that clear, effective writing is in decline, and not just among instant-messaging teenagers. My dad's favorite examples of this include the messages penned by Robert Redford for his Sundance catalogs. The latest one is a doozy. (Read it aloud for maximum effect.)

Holidays again. Forgive me while I dodge the rumble of the million footed throngs that have succumbed to the marketing ether for Christmas and its days.

Holiday. Can we, without disappointing the children and others who long for the surprise of gift giving, just look to a different value to digest, wherever you are? Those details that are natural and sometimes hidden? That have a satisfying and long lasting lifespan? Things that you miss when you're away? That when someone might remind you, you say, oh yes, how wonderful. And of course the most vivid of details: loved ones who are there in body and spirit.

Happy holidays from all of us at Sundance.

Didn't that go down about as smoothly as a sixth serving of pecan pie? Personally, I was so distracted by Redford's clunky syntax and questionable grammar that I almost missed the irony of seeing these anti-commercial sentiments in a holiday catalog of luxury items.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and your most vivid of details.

Posted by crowther at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

As I ran along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath in yesterday's JFK 50, my right Brooks Racer ST racing flat felt kind of squishy, as if it were waterlogged from a river crossing. I periodically looked down but didn't see any obvious problems. Finally, during my third or fourth visual check, it occurred to me that, on this red-and-white shoe, the red color of my toe box seemed awfully bright. I glanced at my left shoe for comparison; its toe box was white. I thought back to the big rock I had kicked at mile 15, just before leaving the Appalachian Trail, and realized that the damage had been worse than I thought.

The realization that my troubles were not confined to my right big toe sank in more gradually, between miles 22 and 30. My initial 6:40-per-mile pace on the flat towpath slowed to 7:00, then 7:20, then 8:00.... I'm not sure exactly what the problem was. I usually attribute this sort of meltdown to microtears in my muscles, but my relatively decent last-three-miles split of 21:30 suggests that the muscles held together better than on some occasions. A diagnosis of dehydration or insufficient caloric intake doesn't quite fit either, since it was a cool day and I consumed the usual mix of Gatorade, water, and gels that has worked for me in the past. All I can say is that I was exhausted.

Since I don't know exactly what happened, I don't know exactly why it happened either. But here are some theories.

A. The Curse of Howard Nippert. Howard only does one or two ultramarathons per year, but he has attended three of my races this year as a handler/coach for other athletes or as an assistant to the race director. I performed well below my expectations in those three races (Mad City, Western States, and JFK), whereas my other four ultras went reasonably well.

B.The Germ Theory. Last week I had a cold; this week I had strep throat. My throat felt fine by race day, but perhaps these illnesses took more out of me than I thought.

C. The Overracing Theory. As previously discussed on this blog, I've had a very busy year. Perhaps the demands of this schedule caught up to me.

Howard has always been friendly and helpful to me, and I think we can safely leave him out of this. The other two theories are not mutually exclusive; trying to do too much (C) probably increases one's susceptibility to illness (B). At any rate, yesterday's dismal time of 6:41:09 (link to preliminary results) reinforces my suspicion that I need to stop racing for a while.

* * * * *

Between miles 35 and 42, I came very close to dropping out. The conversation that I had with myself went something like this.

"Why don't I stop? I'm having a horrible race, and I'll get no pleasure out of finishing 10th or 15th or whatever. I've already committed to taking it easy for a while after this race; why don't I just begin the taking-it-easy period right now?"

"Yeah, but since I have no plans after this, I don't have to save myself for anything. I can trash my legs now because I won't be needing them again anytime soon."

"Yeah, but let's be rational. If I suffer through the next couple hours, what will my reward be? Nothing other than an unwanted finisher's medal and the satisfaction of being able to say that I finished. Which won't be very satisfying."

"Yeah, but don't you owe it to the race director to finish? He gave you a complimentary race entry, hotel room, and admission to the pre-race dinner."

"Yeah, but who am I running this race for -- myself or him? I need to do what's best for me."

"Yeah, but people say that you learn a lot when you force yourself to endure these experiences, rather than cutting them short. Maybe it's time to learn something."

"Yeah, but what exactly am I going to learn? That miles 35 to 50 can really suck?"

"Yeah, but do I really want to get in the habit of dropping out of races every time that I get into trouble?"

"If the alternative is voluntarily subjecting myself to hours of pointless suffering, maybe that isn't such a bad habit."

I continued in this way, unable to make a decision, until I only had a few miles to go, at which point the debate ended. The worst was over; I would finish this bloody thing. The race director greeted me warmly at the finish and thanked me at length for gutting it out. I was moved by his words and glad to have run far enough to hear them.

Posted by crowther at 3:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

The JFK 50 Mile is my kind of course -- mostly on smooth paths and roads. I'll be disappointed if I don't go sub-6:00 on Saturday, and if I can indeed run 5:50-something, I should contend for the overall win. Nevertheless, this year's field is an outstanding one. Entrants such as the following may give me all I can handle, and perhaps more:

Pete Breckinridge (bib #1). Shocked everyone last year with a surprise victory (6:04:40) -- apparently in his first ultramarathon ever and first serious race since the mid-'90s. Could be tough to beat now that he has another year of training and a few more races under his belt.

Dave Mackey (bib #834). Won the 2003 JFK in 5:55:30, the #4 time in the race's 44-year history. Completed a Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim traverse in a new record of 6:59:56 this past Sunday, according to the Ultralist, so may not be at his absolute best on Saturday.

Michael Wardian (bib #7). Known to some as the former owner of the treadmill marathon world record (2:23) and current owner of the baby jogger marathon world record (2:42). May have the best raw leg speed of anyone in the field; should do well if he has recovered from the Olympic Trials marathon two weekends ago, his 12th marathon of the year.

Mark Lundblad (bib #62). Placed 4th (6:20) in 2004 and 5th (6:24) in 2005. A breakthrough performance at last month's Tussey Mountainback 50-Miler, which he won against top-notch competition, suggests that he's ready to have his best JFK race yet.

Eric Grossman (bib #81). A professor of education at Emory & Henry College in Virginia, Grossman has also taught his fellow trail runners a thing or two, with wins in such major races as the 2006 Mountain Masochist 50-Miler.

Zachariach Miller (bib #92). Four years ago, Miller tied for 2nd with Grossman, each clocking 6:10. Two weekends ago, he eked out a 2-minute victory over Grossman at the Mountain Masochist 50. Both men will be factors here if they've recovered from that last duel.

Mike Morton (bib #837). Placed 5th in 6:08 way back in 1994, the year Eric Clifton set the JFK course record of 5:46:22. Subsequently set outstanding course records at the Vermont 100 in 1995 and the Western States 100 in 1997. I have no idea what he's been doing since then, but if there's anyone with the talent to launch a Breckinridge-like comeback, it's this guy.

I don't know as much about the women's field, but Mark Lundblad's wife Anne (bib #5) is the women's course record holder (6:29:42) and has to be considered the favorite. Krissy Moehl (bib #69) has 18-minute 5K speed, which could allow her to keep up with Lundblad, but she may may tired from the recent Masochist race. 2005 Western States titlist Annette Bednosky (bib #22) is yet another runner who will place highly if she's recovered from Mountain Masochist, where she was 2nd behind Nikki Kimball. Hillary Biscay (bib #2) has the coolest website of anyone in the field, and it documents her considerable success in Ironman triathlons. Dr. Carol O'Hear (bib #19) could do well if her residency is allowing her some time to train.

Other past champions slated to return this year are Ed Ayres (1977; bib #77), David Horton (1985; bib #85), 4-time winner Eric Clifton (1991, 1994, 1995, 1997; bib #839), and Sue Johnston (1999; bib #4).

Ian Torrence (bib #832) has never snared an individual victory at JFK, coming closest with runner-up finishes in 2004 and 2005. However, he's been a scoring member of the winning team -- the team whose top three finishers have the lowest combined time -- for at least the last nine years in a row! It's as safe a bet as any that his squad this year -- The Langoliers, consisting of himself, Mackey, Scott Wolfe (bib #833), and Mark Godale (bib #835) -- will keep the streak alive.

Update for November 15: Krissy Moehl and David Horton have scratched, according to race director Mike Spinnler.

Posted by crowther at 6:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Every so often you get ambushed by a song that you really, really were not expecting.

When I went to Scotland in June, Continental Airlines celebrated the arrival of my flight in Edinburgh by playing Madonna's "La Isla Bonita." It was like, "Welcome to Scotland -- here's a song about how much fun you'd be having if you were in Latin America right now."

A more recent example occurred today, when I centrifuged my bacterial cell cultures in order to separate the cells from the medium in which they were growing. The centrifuge, a Sorvall RC-6, punctuated the completion of the spin with a quick verse of My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean.

It's cool to have a centrifuge so enamored of its work that it sings to you. But couldn't it offer a ditty more relevant to the task at hand? Perhaps these lyrics, set to the same tune, would work better:

My microbes lie in a vast ocean --
A broth that is known as LB.
To harvest my cells from the ocean,
I spin them at ten thousand g.*

Spin down, spin down,
Spin down my microbes for me, for me.
Spin down, spin down,
Spin down my microbes for me.

[*that is, a relative centrifugal force of 10,000 times the gravitational constant, g]

Posted by crowther at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The essence of the training principle of specificity is that one's training should simulate one's target races. When I'm preparing for an ultramarathon, long runs at race pace are my top priority, since they are reasonable approximations of the race itself; tempo runs of 4 to 6 miles are a secondary priority, since they're much shorter and faster than the race; and interval workouts are a relatively low priority, since those involve running even shorter distances at even faster paces.

I think this general approach makes a lot of sense, but there's a catch: the way I rank these workouts in terms of their presumed importance is also the way I rank them in terms of the amount of damage they do to my body and the length of time needed to recover from them. After a long and fast run, it might be a full week before I feel normal again.

Thus, as a race approaches, I invariably find myself choosing between (A) squeezing in one final long/hard effort and (B) skipping the long one in order to start the race with fresh legs.

Up to now I've tended to favor the former strategy, but it doesn't seem to be working for me. In two of my last four ultras -- the Miwok 100K and the World Cup 100K -- I've sensed a bit of muscle fatigue as early as 8-9 miles into the race and had to slow down to keep further fatigue at bay. In the other two -- Mad City and Western States -- my quads simply shut down long before the finish line.

Time to try something new? I think so. In my final 4-5 weeks before the JFK 50-miler (on November 17th), I'm not doing any runs longer than 21 miles. My training is on a three-day cycle: a speed workout or short tempo run followed by two easy days.

It's the kind of nonspecific regimen that my brain disapproves of, but maybe my legs will like it.

Posted by crowther at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Put on some Team USA apparel and adorn yourself with a random road race medal and you have a passable "Olympic Champion" Halloween costume.

For sheer cuteness, I'll never be able to match Phil in his "Handsome Devil" costume, or even the family of pumpkins carved by my wife. But I do what I can.

Posted by crowther at 6:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)