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Running:
Marathon 19 is now only a couple days away. For this marathon I will have to rely on the volume of training already in the books and hopefully a little race day magic. At this point all training is completed and the only thing that can possibly help my time now is a couple days of complete rest. Last week I ran a total of 31 miles with only one longer run. On Saturday I ran 12 miles with most of the middle miles at expected race pace. This was a good run and gave me a little confidence for my expected time on Saturday. This week I only put in 14 miles with runs on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I will be resting tomorrow and Friday. My miles for this month are a little light, but that was on purpose. A high volume since finishing the 50k about 4 weeks ago would not have been helpful. For the year I've logged 1229 miles which is above where I have been the last few years. As mentioned I will be relying on this base to get me through Grandma's. Right now the weather is looking to be as good as I could ask for. Low of 50 and a high of 70 with a chance for NE to E wind.
Logistically this race will be a little tougher than usual. I will be staying overnight in Bayfield so I'll need to get an early start in order to make it to Superior were I intend on catching the bus transport to the start. If I get everything ready the night before I won't have to get up much earlier, just need to eat and get going right away. Hope everything all works out. Miles through today.
WTD 14
MTD 77
YTD 1229
ODO 28500
Hunting:
Not much going on here. I did manage to get the corn and sunflowers planted in the food plot. I got them in yesterday just in time for the rain today. I have some minor repair to do on my hunting blind in the back yard. The wind blew off one of the windows. The hinges were small and only into some thin particle board doors I had cut in half to use for the windows. Didn't hold up too well.
Gardening:
Right now I have everything in the garden planted except one more crop of beans. I saved a place to put in some bean towers to try growing pole beans for the first time. First I need to build the bean towers. I've seen a few model designs on the internet to try. I still have a few weeks if I need it to get this done. As usual there are a few seeds that didn't sprout requiring replanting of partial rows and to fill in squash and pumpkin hills. The carrots got the worst of it. They sprouted right when we had the three 90+ degree days. Not good for such small fragile seedlings. The strawberries are starting to come in. This is a couple weeks later that usual for here. There are quite a few though and they are quite large this year so far. After I return from the marathon I will have the rest of next week off to try and completely catch up with all the yard work. And there is a lot of it.
Running:
Since I’ve been on Facebook my postings have become much less frequent. Much easier to just post a quick status update that type a long blog post. First to recap the rest of May since my last post. Running has gone quite well since the IceAge 50k. Recovery was pretty quick from the longer effort. I remember discussing this with a couple other runners on race day that it is actually easier to recover from the longer trail race than a road marathon. Basically the weeks after the 50k were a reverse taper. A couple days off and then 38 miles the immediate week after, followed by 44 the next. No runs were longer than 11 miles. On May 30th I made it out to Lapham state park and ran 9 miles on the trails. It was a nice change of pace, and a great day for a run. I’m beginning to learn the trails a bit. There are a couple loops of the ski trail called “the rollercoaster” and “the wall”. These portions are properly described. After completing about 6 miles on the hilly east side of highway “C” I ventured across the road to the west side to see what those trails were like. This area is much more open and prairie like than the heavily wooded hills on the other side of the park. I added a nice 3 more miles before calling it a day. Adding on 5 more miles on 5/31 and I brought my monthly total to 206. A pretty good total considering there was a target race in the middle of the month requiring a reduction in miles both before and after. This is the 5th month in a row over 200. June 1 was the deadline for signing up for Grandma’s marathon in Duluth. With only a few hours left I decided to register. My dilemma now is to figure out how to train these two weeks until race day. I’m thinking now I have a pretty good base. I have 6 runs of over 20 miles in this year so far including a marathon back in April and the 50k last month. I will likely go for something in the 2 hour range this weekend and then 1.5 hours next. In between will be a few off days and runs of 5 to 7 miles. Probably just some race pace miles, short tempo, and fast finish thrown into the shorter stuff. If the weather is OK on race day I will try to tag along with the 3:20 pace group. If it is hot again like the last two times I ran this marathon I will adjust appropriately and also will never even think of running this again unless they move the registration close much closer to race day.
Totals through May 31:
WTD 14
MTD 206
YTD 1153
ODO 28424
Hunting:
The clover I put in my food plot is doing quite well this spring. My design will change a little this year. I’m going to leave the clover grow basically in a circle outlining the area. In the very center well within bow range I will plant several short rows of corn since this is what the deer seem to come in for come late season. Whatever room I have between the corn and the clover I will plant with a fall crop such as winter rye or forage oats. It is definitely fawning season now. I’ve seen a couple probably ony a few days old over the last couple weeks. You can also tell by the large number of animals on the side of the highways. During rut season or fawn drop you always see an increase in road kill because of the increased activity.
Gardening:
I always try to have the garden planted by the end of May. This year was no different. After tilling once more a couple weeks ago I took a few hours before or after work in the succeeding days preparing the rows. Then started planting this same way. Potatoes one day, onions the next, sweet potatoes and peas, then sweet corn, then last weekend finished everything else including carrots, kohlrabi, beets, beans, lettuce, spinach, three kinds of watermelon, cucumbers, summer squash, and 4 kinds of winter squash. Asparagus and Rhubarb harvests are well underway right now. I have some space saved for an addition few rows of sweet corn and green beans that I will plant in a couple weeks. My last thing to finish is my pumpkin patch. This year I will plant 20 hills of pumpkins, 16 of an orange variety and 4 white. As long as I get this done by this weekend there should be plenty of growing days left before we get a frost. Here are a few pictures of the garden before much growth or the weeds try to take over.
Running:
This update will mostly be a recap of the Ice Age 50K trail race I competed in 5/14. But first just a little catch up. The two weeks prior to race day were mostly just a taper period for me. I know not everyone who runs long distance agrees with the length or extent of the taper period. As I’ve gotten older I believe in more rest time than I had previously. My last long run was the 20 miler on the trails on May 1 with Dana and Chris. The following week I ran only 44 miles with the longest being 11 miles on Saturday. Half of these 11 miles were on the road and half on the trails. On Sunday I went out to Lapham Peak and was planning on an hour run. Shortly after I started, my GPS watch ran out of battery. I just kept running for what I thought was just short of an hour. To my surprise when I got back to the car I had already run 1.5 hours. This run felt easy and fun and gave me a little confidence for race day. I’ve run some at Lapham before, but I hit some new trails this time. What a beautiful park to run in. I definitely will have to do more running there in the future. The week of the race I took Monday and Friday off. On Tuesday I ran 6.5 miles, Wednesday 5, and Thursday 4. This is pretty typical for a marathon or longer race week for me. I read some time ago that you get no training benefit from the miles you put in from the immediate few weeks, and that in fact you can do more harm than good by overdoing it and not allowing recovery time for your legs to be strong heading into the event. No matter how you slice it the last few miles of a marathon or 50K are hard. I’d rather try to save a little strength in the legs and at least try to minimize the chance of injury. Sometimes I still wonder if I shouldn’t rest even more than I do.
Race prep actually started on Friday night. I got all my fluid bottles together along with all the race clothes and extras that would go into my drop bag. The weather looked like it would be pretty miserable on Saturday with rain and wind forecast for most of the day. With that in mind I packed more extra shirts, socks, and a pair of shoes just in case they would be needed. The layout of the 50k course allows you to pass by the start area where your drop bag would be, two times. This is great for a quick clothes change and also allows you to not have to carry a lot of gels or special fluids with you. Race morning went pretty smoothly. I slept pretty good for a pre-race night and got up around 4:30. This was plenty of time to eat my usual pre-race breakfast of pancakes and bananas and drink a few cups of coffee. I left the house around 6:15 which is the time I had intended getting out there, but it was still plenty early. Right after arriving I ran into Dana Schulz and Chris Ponteri, my friends I knew were running the race and training partners from a couple weeks earlier. After picking up my race packet we joined back up and shared some stories, talked a little strategy, and watched the first of the 50 mile runners come through on their first loop. They had started around 6am. Some of the fastest guys were going sub 7 minute miles at that time by our calculation. It’s hard to describe the feelings at about that point knowing the race start is not far ahead. There is nervousness, anticipation, excitement, and even some dread and fear knowing the difficulty of the task ahead and the pain that will come with it. About 20 minutes before race start I made the final clothing preparations and drop bag inventory and headed over to the start.
The race started right at 8:15. I'm in this picture in the blue shirt right center. Dana and Chris as expected took off well ahead of me. I started towards the front, but not right up there. Having done this race before I had hoped to run the first out and back (13 miles) in a little less than two hours. Ideally in about 1:50. What I tried to do was run 8 minute pace or slightly better when I could and then just take what I could on all the up hills. A couple miles in I ran into a guy named Todd. We were running a similar pace and talked a bit for a couple miles. I wasn’t real comfortable yet and found myself huffing and puffing more than I remembered heading up the hills. I did not walk, in that I used my arms and kept the running motion going. I’ve found that to be easier than actually walking the steepest hills like most people. Anyway Todd soon was out of sight and I fell into a no man’s land where there was no one either ahead or behind me for minutes. I was still a couple miles from the first turn around when the first place guy came screaming past going the other way. Several minutes back was a pack of 3 guys including Dana and again a few minutes back of that I saw Chris. It was good to see both of these guys running so strong on their first ultra events. Counting the people returning I was in about 25th place at that time. I hit the turnaround at about 57 minutes and took a decent amount of time to be sure I got a gel down and a good drink of water. I was a good minute into the return trip before I saw anyone else. On the return of the first out and back I started to feel more comfortable. I knew I wasn’t pushing as hard as I could, but at least I found a comfort zone and a pace I thought I could sustain. I ended up making it back from the first loop in 1:59. A little slower than I had hoped, but feeling strong yet. I stopped by my drop bag to get my special electrolyte drink and a couple more gels. I went without a shirt change and decided since it was cool enough I would forgo my fluid belt for the first loop. This stop must have taken longer than I thought. Looking at my watch a little down the trail I was already at 2:02. I knew now if I was going to equal or better my last 50k attempt I would have to run 1:20 or so for the first 9 mile loop and then still throw down a 1:30 or so second loop. I pushed on. I was still in a place where there were not any runners anywhere close to me. A few miles into the Nordic loop I ran into the place where the half marathon runners join the same trail. Most of these people were on their last loop and slower runners. It was nice to see people but I was continually running past all of them. Half way through the first loop, just past the aid station I ran into Todd again whom I hadn’t seen since early on. Apparently he had a cramp that had slowed him that he had worked through. We again started running together and were holding a pretty good pace. We decided we would try to stick together for the rest of the race and try to push each other to break the 5 hour mark. We finished the next 4 miles to the start area chatting and stride for stride. I was looking forward to finishing with someone. As we approached the finish of the first loop I was surprised to see Dana off on the side. He told me he had dropped out after taking a wrong turn. What a bummer this must have been after looking so strong in the beginning. This first Nordic loop took about 1:25 as the total time back at the drop bags was about 3:27. Now I know I needed a 1:30 final loop just to break 5 hours and that beating my last 50k effort was not possible. I grabbed a drink, took another gel, changed shirt and hat, and put on my fluid belt with one bottle of electrolyte mixture and another of flattened cherry coke. Todd and I met back up and headed off for the money loop. Within the first 50 yards Todd pulled up with a cramp, and encouraged me to go on. I wished him well and took off. This was 22 miles in. I was still doing pretty well considering, but knew the challenge this last loop brings. The hills on this loop are not overly long or steep but at least on part of the loop they are relentless. Up and down one after another. Here is an example of one of the hills (not me).
