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October 31, 2006
This Was Not That Hard
That is not to say that my first 50K was a walk in the park. But it wasn't that hard. Here are some notes about this race:
1. I didn't sleep much the night before. We camped out in a c-c-cold night in the Utah desert. I never got really warm all night long. It didn't seem to bother me during the race, though I fell asleep in the car immediately afterwards.
2. Utah is beautiful. I forget this even though I've been there several times. There is something about that red slickrock that I just love. Though you could see the course in front of you (and behind you) for miles and miles, the scenery was just awesome.
3. I went out too fast. I tried to keep the eventual female race winner in sight, and I did until a little over the half-way point. Then my pace dropped off while hers stayed steady. Had I just run my own race, I would have finished several minutes faster (I wouldn't have won.). I knew I was running faster than my goal pace, but I consciously decided to use this strategy on the off chance that I could maintain that pace. I failed, but I'm okay with it.
4. I finished third. Early on, I thought there was only 1 woman in front of me. However, the course is an out-and-back so I got to see everyone in front of me at the turnaround. I was surprised to see 2 women in front of me at that point. The woman I was chasing was actually in second place, and another woman was in front of both of us. She ended up passing the woman in front of her, and I never did.
5. I had 2 low points. One was shortly after the turnaround, perhaps around mile 17, when my pace wasn't coming easily anymore. I was starting to fight to maintain it. I felt somewhat low knowing that I was going to have to slow down in order for things to feel smooth and fluid again. The other was at about mile 27. I didn't die like I thought I might, but I was fighting a mental battle. I was on a steady, not steep, but grinding uphill section. I was fatigued and ready to slow down even more. There was a guy about 50 meters in front of me, so I vowed to pace off him. Once I stopped whining internally and started focusing on staying with that guy, all systems were go again.
6. I became fatigued, but I never bonked. Between the start and the half-way turnaround, I drank 24 ounces of Gatorade and 3 Gus. At the half-way point, I took 2 ibuprofen and 2 Endurolytes. Between the turnaround and the finish, I drank 24 ounces of Gatorade, about 6 ounces of Heed (I took this from the last aid station as I thought I would run out of Gatorade between there and the finish. I did run out, and I appreciated the Heed. Notably, it tasted like bubble gum.), 3 Gus, and 4 more Endurolytes.
7. I had a lot of high points. I was very pleased with the way I ran the hills. I succeeded with my nutrition, just the right amount at the right times. I recall topping out on one hill along the way and new view of the desert that stretched for dozens of miles came into view. It was breathtaking, and I rode that high for a while. Ultrarunners are so danged friendly, and I had a great time chatting along the way.
8. My aching feet issues have dissappeared completely. And, I didn't ignite any new feet issues either. I debated steadily until about 15 minutes before the race started as to what shoes I would wear, road or trail shoes. The course wasn't that technical, but there were supposed to be traction issues in some long stretches of mud and goop. I opted for the road shoes and it was a perfect decision. My feet got wet and muddy through a few sections, but by far the road shoes were lighter and faster for the rest of the course.
9. I was miraculously not too sore after-the-fact. I took 2 days off from running, but I really felt like I could have run well on the second day off. Today I ran 40 minutes easy, and it felt awesome.
10. Overall, I had a great time. This race was well done, the people were fantastic, the location was amazing, and my personal experience was outstanding.
What I'm thinking about now:
1. My long run schedule worked well. I've eased into doing long runs every 10 or so days, rather than once per week. I felt I had good endurance in this department. Continue at this level.
2. Continue with hill workouts and mile repeats. Add more volume to both of these staple workouts. With the hill workouts, I was previously alternating between shorter, faster intervals and longer, steadier intervals. If I am to succeed at these longer distances, I think I need to focus more on the longer, steadier intervals.
3. Add more at-race pace running. This is pretty cut and dry, no need to elaborate.
4. Work on nutrition stuff. Learn about Heed, and perhaps try training with it. Learn to carry a water bottle in my right hand (For the life of me, I cannot do this!). Experiment with other nutrition stuff in training.
5. Get mentally prepared to battle training in a nasty winter. My training wasn't that great last winter because I was scared of the cold and snow. Buck up mentally and get out there.
6. Work on the feet thing. I think the source of my feet pain from weeks ago were my street shoes. If you know me in person, you know that I only wear running shoes and sandals. When it started to snow, I had to start wearing closed-toe street shoes. This seemed to coincide with the beginning of my sore feet. Once I made this connection, I stopped wearing these shoes. However, there's snow on the ground and I'm wearing sandals, so I can't continue this. I need to find some good street shoes that treat my feet well.
Posted by Meghan at 6:24 PM | Comments (6)
October 25, 2006
On A Southbound Bearing
Tomorrow I'll be on a southbound bearing for Utah and the Goblin Valley 50K.
It seems that my excitement to panic ratio is gradually increasing beyond its low point 3 days ago.
The weather forecast looks outstanding, about 30 at the start and a high in the 60s for the day. I've figured out my race hydration and fueling scheme, Gatorade, Gu, and chocolate-covered espresso beans exclusively (Do you think I might become diabetic with that type of diet?). The shoe thing is still an enigma as my feet have been generally unhappy with all my shoes in the last few weeks. I'm just going to wear the appropriate shoes for the course and they are going to make my feet hurt. I've got a race plan, and I hope it's a smart one (I'll save the deets on the race plan for the write-up afterwards.).
It appears that she is going to be at this race. She sounds like a fun person to meet, so I hope I have that opportunity.
Wish me luck, I might need just a little! And thanks to all for the well-wishes I've already received. I think I'll be alright, though, as they always say that a 50K doesn't even count as an ultra because it's too short. See you on the other side.
Posted by Meghan at 8:49 PM | Comments (5)
October 23, 2006
If You Want To Know What I'm Thinking...
..read on, with caution. It ain't too pretty. I've officially worked myself into a tornadic madness of prerace worry and self-doubt.
#1. I suck at running and I'm unprepared for this challenge. I must be crazy to think I could run 31+ miles well. I should have done, like, 17 more long runs and 14 more hill workouts. Seriously, who do I think I am?
#2. All my shoes suck, so I might as well race barefoot. I don't know what the hell to do about shoes. Currently, every shoe I own makes my feet hurt. Whatever I wear this weekend is going to make my feet fall off.
#3. The race sucks because I now have to do it alone. I was going to have company in crime out there on Saturday. Unfortunately, my company sprained an ankle on a trail run last week. While I've now acquired my own mini-cheering section, I have no one to share the misery with anymore.
#4. My race plan sucks as I have no idea if I'm capable of it. I want to run a pace that puts me in the top 3 of last year's results. Who do I think I am planning to do this? I have nothing similar with which to compare and predict my abilities. Thus, alternatively, I might die at mile 27.
#5. It sucks that I'm addicted to Gatorade. This will be the second off-road race that I have run that serves Heed drinks at aid stations. I train with Gatorade, so it creates an annoying logistical problem to provide myself with Gatorade. What is this Heed crap anyways? Should I be training with it?
Sigh, I know I'm being childish and silly. I'll come around and out of my funk in a day or two. I'll race this race and it'll be what it becomes. The world will proceed on. Actually, I think it will be kind of fun, if I could just stop worrying.
Posted by Meghan at 7:28 PM | Comments (2)
October 21, 2006
Other People's Running
I'm pleased to spend a few unselfish minutes (since I think that a personal blog is an inherently selfish undertaking) talking about other people's running. The cross country team I coach returned from the Montana State Cross Country Meet today with the following results:
Boys' Class C State Team Championship
Boys' Class C State #2 Individual
Boys' Class C State #4 Individual
Boys' Class C State #11 Individual
Girls' Class C State #5 Individual
I am having a very proud evening. My kids did great. Mo' later, I'm exhausted.
Posted by Meghan at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2006
Sunnier Days
It was a beautiful day today: sunny, cloudless, crisp, and a bit chilly. I ran in shorts and a single, thin, long sleeve shirt. I ran 45 easy recovery minutes on a pancake-flat dirt road. I am remarkably not sore from yesterday's remarkable run. Definitely fatigued, but not sore. I could have run a lot further today as it was beautiful and I felt good, but I wanted to fully recover from yesterday's effort.
During a portion of this run, I gazed up towards Sheep Mountain, the mountain that I climbed on my long run yesterday. The weather had cleared out and the mountain glowed bright white in front of a turquoise sky. I couldn't help but think that it almost looked appealing up there today. However, Sheep Mountain was a very different place yesterday.
So it appears that sunnier days have returned, literally and figuratively. The weather was beautiful today and I am in high spirits again. Thank you all for your "buck up/keep your head up" comments on yesterday's blog entry! It's been a fun ride getting ready for this next race, but I am tired. I'm hoping that the easy mileage of the next 11 or so days will produce a strong, rested, ready girl at the starting line on October 28th.
For anyone who cares, the following is a copy of my running log from the last 3+ weeks (I won't bore you with the details of all the "other" crap, lifting, core, strides, plyos, and etceteras. This entry would get ridiculous.):
Week of September 25th
Monday: The Kama Sutra Hill Climb (see earlier entry regarding this workout), about 1:00 total running on Old Gardiner Road (dirt road)
Tuesday: Run #1- 1:00 easy hilly dirt road above Jardine, Run #2- 45 minutes easy flat Yellowstone River Railroad Bed below Gardiner
Wednesday: 1:00 with 5x3:00 uphill intervals at high intensity (The goal was to start out with a fairly difficult first climbing interval, then to climb higher with each subsequent interval. I didn't succeed in the goal to make it higher each time.) on Eagle Creek Road (dirt road)
Thursday: 1:10 easy hilly on Yellowstone River Trail
Friday: Run #1- Mile repeat workout, 4x1 mile at 6:47 average with 2:30 jogging recovery, about 8 miles total on Old Yellowstone Trail (dirt road), Run #2- 1:00 easy hilly on Emigrant Canyon Road (dirt road, followed by soaking in some hot springs!)
Saturday: rest (high school xc meet)
Sunday: Wacky Table Mountain trail run/hike, 9.5-ish miles, 4000-ish feet elevation gain and subsequent loss
Week of October 2nd
Monday: 1:00 easy flat on Yellowstone River Railroad Bed below Gardiner
Tuesday: 1:10 easy hilly on Lava Creek Trail
Wednesday: Run #1- 1:45 trails (via the Hoodoos Trail and around Bunsen Peak), hilly, about 1200 elevation gain and subsequent loss (saw black bear prints), Run #2- 45 minutes with 8x50 second hill climbs at full speed on the Beattie Creek Road (dirt road)
Thursday: rest (high school xc meet)
Friday: Run #1- 1:10 easy hilly on Lava Creek Trail (muddy!), Run #2- 40 minutes easy hilly on the Yellowstone River Trail (So very tired during this run.)
Saturday: Mile repeat workout, 5x1 mile at 6:51 average with 2:30 jogging recovery, about 10 miles total, on the Old Yellowstone Trail (dirt road)
Sunday: long run, 2:50, Ash Mountain logging roads, hilly, approximately 20 miles (turned around aftering seeing black bear prints)
Week of October 9th
Monday: 45 minutes recovery hilly Rescue Creek Trail
Tuesday: 1:20 hilly strong effort on Old Gardiner Road
Wednesday: 45 minutes easy flat Old Yellowstone Trail (dirt road)
Thursday: Run #1- 3 mile hill climb at tempo effort in 22:high, 3 miles easy jog downhill, on dirt road above Jardine, Run #2- 35 minutes on the Yellowstone River Railroad Bed below Gardiner
Friday: Run #1- 1:00 hilly with 5x3:00 uphill intervals at high intensity (This is the same workout that I tried a few weeks ago. The goal was to start out with fairly difficult first climbing interval, then to climb higher with each subesquent interval. I succeeded and climbed about 8-10 meters higher on each additional interval.), on lower Eagle Creek Road (dirt road), Run #2- 55 minutes easy hilly on Travertine trails (saw 3 weird guys playing frisbee golf in the middle of nowhere.)
Saturday: rest (high school xc meet)
Sunday: 1:20 up and down the Emigrant Canyon Road (dirt road), 1500 feet elevation gain and subsequent loss, approximately 9 miles (canyon was gorgeous with fall colors, followed by soaking in hot springs!)
Week of October 16th
Monday: 1:10 easy hilly on trails above Jardine (saw fresh alk carcass, worried about wildlife!)
Tuesday: long run, 3:5?, hilly, Eagle Creek Road up Sheep Mountain, 2500-ish feet elevation gain and subsequent loss, approximately 25 miles (Snowstorm, joints ached on the downhill, not fun.)
Wednesday: 45 minutes easy flat on Old Yellowstone Trail (dirt road)
Posted by Meghan at 7:23 PM | Comments (1)
October 17, 2006
Exquisite Misery
From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:
"Main Entry: mis·ery
Pronunciation: 'mi-z&-rE, 'miz-rE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -er·ies
1 : a state of suffering and want that is the result of poverty or affliction
2 : a circumstance, thing, or place that causes suffering or discomfort
3 : a state of great unhappiness and emotional distress"
That is to say that my long run was the circumstance that caused me both physical suffering and discomfort and that induced mental unhappiness and emotional distress. I suppose I'm about to fill an entire blog entry with complaints regarding long run misery. In all reality, I have just one good thing to say about this run: it is over.
I was supposed to do this run on Sunday. However, due to miscommunication (all mine), my running partner showed up ready to do a 90 minute run, rather than a 4-ish hour run. This is a strong disparity, and I couldn't exactly drag an unprepared person out on such a long run. Thus, my schedule next allowed me to do this run today. While I feel I'm pushing the physical helpfulness of this long run, what with my race only 12 days away, I figured it might help me find some mental toughness.
However, at the moment, after the fact, I feel like a physical and mental wimp. I suppose I shouldn't because I completed the run despite some exquisite misery.
It was a positively miserable day weather-wise for a long run. Temperatures were hovering right around 30 degrees, but there was a stiff wind and the weather forecast said it felt about 11 degrees out there. It was cloudy with intermittent snow showers, some very light, others somewhat heavy, giving me no visibility and laying down multiple inches of new snow. This is by far the poorest weather that I've run in so far this fall. Additionally, I had no company today. This run was even too long for my border collie. I was by myself for 25 miles, and it felt most lonely.
I began by climbing for over 2 hours on a logging road. It was all uphill. For 2+ hours. Into the clouds. Into the snow. Into the wind. I don't know how far up I climbed exactly, the large scale map with little detail says I climbed at least 2500 vertical feet. Then I turned around and came all the way back down again. I made it back to my car somewhere around 3:50, but I forgot to stop my watch at the time.
Simply said, climbing up into a snowstorm was mentally miserable, and pounding downhill on achy joints was physically miserable. Don't worry, there are gory details.
The climbing just wouldn't end (I knew it wouldn't; I planned this run and studied it on the map beforehand; I knew it was all uphill on the way out.). Each corner or each new switchback led me higher into the inclement weather. I was, literally, in the clouds, and it was getting colder and snowier. This was when I felt the full effects of mental misery. I stopped looking at the valley below because it looked like a paradise that I wasn't ever going to return to and I certainly stopped looking at the winter wonderland around me because I was already acutely aware of the snow. At this point, I just tucked my chin into my jacket and ran.
I felt supreme relief when I knew I had climbed for at least 12 miles (The map later told me I'd climbed between 12 and 13 miles.) and I could turn around and head downhilll. I looked down off the mountain and into the valley: it looked like a warm, tropical, sunny, snowless destination. I couldn't wait to get there. I think I felt good both mentally and physically on the early downhill miles. However, the last 40 minutes or so turned into a death slog with the downhill taking its toll on my body. The downhill pounding induced a physical misery that made me want to cry. During this portion, I saw 2 trucks (the only people I saw the whole time), and I was seriously tempted to ask for a ride. Additionally, I could see my car for about the last 3 miles of the descent, and it looked so far away. I never cried. I never asked for a ride. I just kept running. Eventually, perhaps by some miracle, I made it back to my car.
However, it's over now. I'm in my nice warm house, in dry clothes, with my feet propped up on the couch, and I just ate a ton of sweet potato stew. The world did not end, so I think I can cease with my complaining. Thank you for listening.
And now, The Taper.
Posted by Meghan at 6:28 PM | Comments (4)
October 13, 2006
Oh It Hurts!
I will readily admit it, my body aches. It's just plain tired. My knees are creaky, my ankles are stiff, my abs come close to cramping at least once per trail run. It's been three weeks of hard training (at least by my standards), but now it's almost over. Tomorrow is a rest day (if you can count running around a cross country meet all day as rest), then Sunday is the capstone of this three week misadventure: a 25-26-ish mile trail run. Then, then, oh the beauty of rest, pure, unadulterated rest. If/when I make it to the other side of Sunday's long run, I'll post a recap of what I've been up to in the last three weeks. Until then, I'll continue to hobble around like a 28 year old elderly lady.
Posted by Meghan at 10:10 PM | Comments (2)
October 10, 2006
Bringing Down Ash Mountain
In high school and college, I was an obscenely idealistic environmentalist. It was the 1990's, when it was popular to lament the gaping ozone hole above Antarctica, the leveling of the Amazon rainforest, and Alaska's toxic oil spills. I was supremely caught up in this movement. I read and re-read those passionate, heart-wrenching Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, and Rainforest Coalition publications about environmental degredation in our country and internationally. I attended large public events in the winter in Minnesota for the sole purpose of handing out PETA's anti-fur literature to women wearing fur coats. I took a picture of myself hugging a tree, framed it, and placed in conspicuously on my father's desk at work (My dad worked as a salesman for a large paper corporation. Incidentally and ironically, he recently revealed to me that he kept the picture on his desk until he retired and chuckled with his customers about it over and over. My dad used humor to make big sales, so I'm sure my picture somehow contributed to North American logging.). As a study abroad student in western England, I took a bus to the Wales coast one weekend to participate in a protest regarding the poor clean-up job that Exxon did after a small oil spill off the coast. I boycotted McDonald's because they grazed their cows on clearcut rainforest land in South America. I refused to wear animal products, like leather shoes (Try finding running shoes in the 1990's that didn't have leather uppers.). Once, when my mom put chicken on the dinner table, I presented her with a book about poor conditions at chicken farms. You might think I'm kidding, but I lived and breathed for feeling passionate about causes like these.
These days, I think I've calmed down just a little. I no longer try to push my own beliefs onto others, like trying to offend nice women in warm jackets at professional hockey games. I now believe that we are all entitled to our own ideas and beliefs. However, I still consider myself having strong personal environmental values and beliefs. The issue of logging on Ash Mountain is something I've been thinking a lot about.
Ash Mountain, located in the Gallatin National Forest, is perched just outside the northern border of Yellowstone National Park and just west of the Absoroka-Beartooth Wilderness. Years and years ago, portions of it were logged, so the mountain is laced with now-decrepit logging roads turned jeep trails that switchback and wind all over the mountain. Thus, Ash Mountain is one of my personal running playgrounds. For example, I did my long run up there last weekend, and ran all over that mountain. Logging is, again, occurring up there even as I write this.
The logging history of Ash Mountain is way, way complex and now a part of wive's-tale-local-speak that we relative newcomers to the area only learn about in hushed bits and pieces. Apparently, it's an old and new history that still continues to divide the locals, and talking about it often incites long-winded and not neccessarily polite debates. I do think the story is important because we're considering lands that are part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecoystem (a collaboration of millions of acres of federal and state-owned lands in and around the Yellowstone National Park area), nearby Yellowstone National Park, habitiat to some pretty crucial animals like grizzly bears and wolves, and very near to many people's homes and land. I'll explain the little that I know.
Everyone knows that our national forests get logged, right? These days, national forest employees designate certain areas of national forests that may be logged according to protocols established on a federal level (Perhaps you saw the national news headlines during George W. Bush's first term regarding the passage of federal legislation that loosened regulations on national forest logging? The result of this legislation was that more roads could be built in national forests for better logging access, more national forest lands could be logged, and private corporations could use less envrionmentally-friendly logging techniques.). These areas are loosely refered to as timber tracts. Logging on these timber tracts is then contracted out by the forest service to the highest bidding private logging companies. When a company wins a timber tract bid, it's then loosely called a timber sale.
Ash Mountain is currently being logged from a timber sale dating back to 1999 called the Darroch-Eagle Timber Sale. The Darroch and Eagle creeks/drainages, which are adjacent to Ash Mountain, are the namesakes for this sale. Local and national environmental defense organizations spent 5 years, from 1999-2004, unsuccessfully protesting this timber sale through several lawsuits. These organizations argued that the area encompassing the Darroch-Eagle Timber Sale was too sensitive for logging. That is, they argued that the area was important grizzly bear and wolf habitat, and that logging this particular area would produce dangerous amonts of erosion. In 2004, it was finally ruled in the federal court system that the timber sale would be allowed. Resultingly, the tract was contracted out and logging began there this summer.
The logging company that's doing this sale has been up high on the logging roads since August. I've seen the logging trucks coming through town with big timber loads destined for the railroad line 60 miles away. I've seen the signs posting their legal rights to logging the area. I've seen the tracks of their bulldozers and 18-wheelers on the logging roads. Up until this weekend, I haden't yet witnessed the logging first-hand.
I don't wish to turn this essay into a driveling-whining-pity-the-little-squirrels-who-can't-find-their-acorns-bow-to-the-hippy-dippy-save-the-world-environmentalists-can't-you-hear-the-snowy-owls-screaming essay by any means, so I'll simply write about what I saw. The logging roads/jeep tracks were widened enough to support the passage of heavy machinery, so trees on each side of the road were cut/bulldozed and the roads were re-graded. They logged in selective patches (Generally, logging happens in 3 ways: 1) forest thinning where select types and numbers of trees are logged from a forest; 2) patch logging where small patches of forest are clear cut to top soil; and 3) clear cutting where large forest areas are clear cut to top soil. You may presume that these logging types are listed in descening order of environmenal friendliness and ascending order of cost to execute. Also, generally, true clear cutting doesn't happen anymore on federal lands in the United States, although it still happens on private US lands and internationally.) that seemed to be about 100-200 yards in diameter. I don't know how the patches were picked, but the outer perimeters were marked earlier in the summer by the forest service with flagging and spray paint on tree trunks. The trees are down in all of the patches that I saw, so I'm not positive of the actual process. It seems that the trees were felled with chainsaws from their bases. Then chainsaws were used to remove all the branches and cut the trunks in uniform lengths. It's probably at this point that the big 18-wheelers came up and the tree trunks were loaded en masse. Once they are gone, the rest of what's left is considered garbage to the logging company. The leftover branches and tree stumps were seemingly bulldozed to top soil with huge brush piles of this garbage remaining in the middle of the patch. This is the point at which I ran on Ash Mountain last Sunday and observed the leveled patches and remaining brush piles.
How do I feel about this? How do you feel about this? Me, I'm not so sure. First off, I'm not expert enough to know all the details and make a personal judgement. I know that forests need to be cared for in order to stay healthy, and that logging isn't neccessarily harmful. I don't know how the logging on Ash Mountain compares to the standards of treating a forest well. I know that large predators like grizzly bears and wolves need healthy territories to survive. I don't know what this patch logging will do their territories. I know that too much erosion is bad. I don't know if erosion from the Darroch-Eagle Timber Sale logging will be bad.
One thing that I do know, though, is that last Sunday up high on Ash Mountain, up one of the widened logging roads, on the wet, soft road bed, I saw small tracks that could only have been left by a youngish black bear. His or her tracks appeared on the road where a small creek crossed the road. Then the tracks ascended the road for about a quarter mile. After that, the tracks emptied off the road, right into one of the leveled, logged patches. I couldn't help but wonder what that bear thought of Ash Mountain, whether he or she cared that we humans are bringing down the mountain.
Just in case you are interested in reading about this issue more officially than on some random girl's blog, you may get more information here, here, here, or here.
Posted by Meghan at 7:47 PM | Comments (4)
October 7, 2006
"Big Money, Big Money, No Whammies!"
Did anyone else ever watch this show? I can recall my brother and I as kids coming home from school, scrounging up an afternoon snack from the kitchen, watching episodes of "Press Your Luck" on TV, and procrastinating on our homework. In the living room, next to the black, tan, and grey plaid couch, was a low-lying end table-type thing (The table opened from the top and housed my parents' collection of 8 tracks.). My brother and I would slide it out into the middle of the living room floor. Then we'd grab 2 plastic bowls from the kitchen cupboards and place them upside down on the end table. He and I would sit side-by-side next to the end table and play along with the show's contestants. We'd watch the screen go around and around, then we'd hit the bowls and yell "stop" just as the contestants did. The two of us would banter back and forth about the prizes on the screen that we most wanted to win. Good times, good times.
So, anyways, let's fast forward 20 or so years. Ahem, where was I? I was going to use this show as an analogy before I got briefly stuck in the '80s. I'm going for big money and no whammies right now. I'm pressing my luck just a bit, but it's all a part of the game I'm playing.
May I introduce my lovely, tiny blog readership to Step 2 (You may or may not recall the elusive and evasive earlier blog entries that described Step 1 and some other secret plans.). It seems that I am surrounded by ultrarunners. It is as if they seep from the woodwork around me. You whisper the word "ultra" and they surround you like grizzly bears on an elk carcass. So, fine, I'll run my first ultra. Then I can fit in with all these people and appropriately talk shop while chilling in the coffee shop. Why not, right? This one is supposedly easy, a good one for first-time ultrarunners to do, a great opportunity to see what the ultraworld is all about. In all seriousness, I'm totally excited about this race.
Consequently, I'm in Week 2 of 3 big training weeks in my preparations for this race. In these 3 weeks, I'm spending at least 10 hours on trails/logging roads per week, doing 2 long runs (about 20 and 26 miles each), 2 workouts per week (1 hill workout and 1 "other" workout), and a crazy run or two (such as last week's Table Mountain climb, albeit short but hella steep).
It's a lot of work to take on while working a crazy full-time job (The Real Job) and the uberfun part-time job (my coaching gig, which resembles a full-time job in the number of committed hours). Despite all this, I'm having an absolute blast. I feel incredibly strong, rock solid, both mentally and physically. It all feels very good.
To tell the absolute truth, I struggled my way along with life in the spring and beginning of the summer. When my dad died, my world turned a bit gray. It was as if color was temporarily stripped from my world. Here and there, I would get snippets of shiny flashes and bright streaks across this grayscale world. I think my grayscale world was a survival mechanism: I needed to remove the extremes of everything, especially the emotional extremes, in order to keep on keepin' on. Grayscale was a safe place to be, for a while.
You just can't stay in that crap for too long, though. You start missing out on all the fabulous beauties of the world, people, places, experiences.To get myself out of that grayscale world, I needed to commit myself to something exciting, something important to me. Running and other outdoor explorations were the natural mechanisms to facilitate this process. That is how this step-by-step process that I continue to be somewhat elusive about first developed. Plus, my dad has always been a fond running supporter of mine, so it seemed natural to develop goals that he would have dug cheering me on through.
I guess I'm going for big money, then, on several levels. I'm training real hard right now, looking forward to the prize at the end of the game on October 28th. I'm also going for big money in the grand-scheme-of-life sense. This process has brought vivid color and beaming light streaming back into my life in just the way that I hoped it would, in just the way that I needed.
Posted by Meghan at 12:50 AM | Comments (4)
October 6, 2006
The Complications of Inspiration
Often times in life, inspiration arrives to us quite simply. One particular thing, like an orange sunrise glowing on a loved one's face, a young puppy licking your hand with its rough tongue, or a little kid giggling uncontrolably, will incite moments of inspiration without any effort on our part. Occasionally, inspiration arrives to us amid a complex and developing network of details that is long-awaited and long-planned.
Throughout the summer and fall, my cross country team has been training hard, learning how to race, and developing confidence in their physical abilities. Here and there, I have seen glimmers of advancement among my team members: a 4 second PR, nailing a hill workout, or beating a team that we had previously lost to. All of these glimmers are simple inspirations for both my team and I.
However, today I was inspired on another, much more complex level. I witnessed everything come together for most of my runners in ways that they as individuals and we as a team have not yet experienced. I saw PRs ranging from 17 to 64 seconds; I saw fire lighting up my runners' eyes; I saw the relaxed, fluid gaits of my fit athletes; I saw my runners launching into new gears that they didn't yet have just last week. My small school performed strongly amid Montana's toughest high school-level competition.
I believe that it takes hard, dedicated training and careful, planned coaching for my team to reach the level that they rose to today. Our team is successfully negotiating the complex and developing network of details will hopefully allow us to succeed on both individual and team levels at state in a few weeks. As such, today has delivered our team a complicated form of inspiration.
Enough with that cheesy crap; let me make myself perfectly clear in high school speak. My cross country team killed it today. Their fitness is raging. They are becoming rockin' determined racers. They were lit up, on fire.
Posted by Meghan at 4:01 AM | Comments (2)
October 2, 2006
One Last Hurrah
This weekend was my last hurrah in the Teton Mountains for the "summer" season. However, I would be hard-pressed to call yesterday summer up there. While pleasant and fall-like at our starting elevation of about 7,000 feet, the summit we climbed to was downright cold, windy, and intermittently snowy. In fact, we crossed a few new, though still small, snowfields in the process of getting to the top.
We climbed Table Mountain, an 11,100 foot mountain due west of The Grand Teton (the crowning jewel of this mountain range). The summit of Table Mountain sits a good 800 or so feet above treeline in the Tetons in the Targhee National Forest. The summit is rocky and wind-blasted, but it provides perhaps the best view of the high Tetons that I've seen so far. The Grand Teton, which sits behind and to the left of my dog and I in the above photo, is nearly touchable, except for that 2,000 foot abyssal canyon between Table Mountain and it.
The lower flanks of this mountain were laced beautifully with trees and plants in their peak color change. Aspen trees flashed gorgeous shades of yellow in their isolated groves. Shrubs blazed red and orange in the undergrowth and open meadows between fir trees. It was almost as if some giant hand from the heavens reached down with an equally enormous paintbrush and painted rainbowy streaks up and down the mountainsides.
Higher on the mountain the landscape was dead, or nearly so, for the season. The tundra shrubs were brown and dormant, and the last of the dried-up annuals were still being swept away by a persistent wind. Snow patches and snowfields were beginning to collect upon the loose rock.
At the end of the afternoon, we had covered about 9 miles of trail with a 4,000 foot ascent and a 4,000 foot descent. 11,100 feet elevation is the highest that I have climbed this summer (Other peaks I've summited have been in the 10,000-10,900 foot elevation range.), and I was breathing close to normal at the summit. That is, I felt rather aclimatized to the elevation.
Then there is the case of my butt muscles. I wondered a bit about how they would fair on a steep descent (They suffered during the descents on my trail marathon.). This guy pleasantly got on my case about strengthening those muscles; since then, I've been diligently doing squats, lunges, and 2 other difficult-to-describe exercises targeted at both the larger and other accessory butt muscles. Additionally, I recently got lessons on downhill running from an ultrarunner who taught me how to rely more equally on the three largest muscle groups in the body, the quads, the hamstrings, and the glutes on descents of varying steepness. Resultingly, I practiced this new (to me) kind of downhill running on this outing. By the time we reached the trailhead, my quad muscles were feeling the most fatigued of any of my muscles. Today I feel fine, though, nothing is sore or tired.
And so, I believe this concludes my jaunts to high elevations for the year. With sadness, I will retreat to the lower-elevation trails and logging roads for running (and hiking). Those taller peaks will have about 7 months of peace and quiet without me trying to climb them.
Posted by Meghan at 9:40 PM | Comments (4)