Getting excited!

So just under 5 weeks to Fargo and I'm finally excited! Actually, that's a bit of a lie since I've been getting excited for the last couple of weeks - I just haven't been writing to tell you about it :) It's been fabulous to have Kelly to run with - someone training for the same race and looking to run the same speed. Means you never really have to worry that you're slowing your training buddy down or pushing them more than they should be pushed. I've tried to stay around on more weekends than I normally would (or wait to leave until Saturday morning) simply so I can get up crazy early on Saturdays since that's when she does her long runs.

So a couple of weeks ago, we did a nice 20 miler. The first hour was slower since we were running with other people but then we ran at or below goal pace (not on purpose) for the rest! I was gabbing Kelly's poor ear off and running comfortable and was super surprised when she kept telling me the pace. And then the next day I ran a 5K in 20:58. Granted, it was an indoor (and thus flat) loop course but I had essentially no warm up, it was gross concrete, there was a bunch of weaving going on to get around people, AND it didn't feel hard at all - I was trying to keep fairly comfortable and just let my legs stretch out and work a bit. Awesome.

So that was exciting. The next weekend was a solo 21 miles that felt tougher than it should have been but this weekend was a nice 21.5 with a speed up at the end and involved some pushing through weird pain.

I'm very happy to report that the Kinvaras have been working great for me. I didn't really expect them to but I just bought my second pair - pretty overdue, I think, since my legs have been feeling flat, despite my happy reports up there - and am planning to stick with them for a bit. I'm glad they work because they're SO LIGHT that going back to 'normal' shoes would be super hard. I brought out my racing flats for the Human Race 8K only to realize that they are now just a bit heavier than my training shoes!

I also bought my first ever pair (!) of strictly trail shoes this winter and have finally gotten to test them out. New Balance 110s, I believe. They look like space shoes they're so shiny and silver. Tony over at Duluth Running Company had raved about them on his blog so I checked them out. I've only done a couple of runs in them but like them so far. They fit really nice and were comfortable right away. I might have to be careful as I don't think they have any heel to toe drop so I should probably check out the Saucony Peregrines which I've heard are the trail equivalent to Kinvara. Research to do!

I found out some interesting news tonight . . . Looks like the Fargo Marathon has switched up their pace team times, most likely due to Boston dropping their qualifying times. Though, you would think they'd change their times back when the new times were announced well over a year ago. Urgh. So now the choices for running with a pace group are 3:25 and 3:35 when my goal is 3:30. Now, I have paced myself pretty awesomely before (see towards the bottom of the link where my splits are), if I may say so myself but I was rather looking forward to shutting the brain off and just hanging on a shoulder for the race. Now, my plan was starting to be to hang with the 3:30 pace group and see if things felt good enough to pick it up later in the race. This makes me very much not want to even start with the 3:35 group. And then I worry that those 11 seconds/mile faster for the 3:25 group will be too much. My mantra for a while has been "Don't fuck up Fargo" and so it seems like a big risk to drop my goal pace by 5 minutes less than 5 weeks out . . . So there's some thinking to do, I guess.

11 weeks to Fargo!

Oh yeah. That's what winter running is like. Bad sidewalks, slushy roads, needing gaiters that aren't put on your shoes yet . . .

So I was kicked out of work early during Snowpocalypse Wednesday. Now, usually Wednesdays are for running with a group at the lakewalk. However, I didn't much feel like driving again. And it was awfully nice to have some daylight. Then again, I really wanted to check out those awesome waves. What's a girl to do?

Clearly the answer is to RUN to the lake! So I hooked up with Lisa and we headed out for much fun. Lots of high stepping through deep snow through wind that put us almost to a standstill at times. I thought my feet were getting pretty wet as we ran behind the DECC on the sidewalk and the harbor was coming over the wall and onto the sidewalk as we went through deep snow with no gaiters. . . But no. Those were not wet feet. Wet feet were when we got to the lakewalk only to find the first part of it to be more than ankle deep of ice lake water and slush. Did I mention the part where I don't have my gaiters on yet? Happily, I do have a new pair of awesome pants that are long enough to help keep some of the snow/slush out of my shoes. So we danced our way out of that and admired the lake and took some pictures (see above) and ran about half a mile out on the lakewalk before heading back. My quads were surprisingly pooped by the end from all of the high stepping.

Oh! I am happy to report that my rubbed raw skin got better quite quickly. It kind of looks as though it's plan to stay as a scar, though.

Tomorrow is 11 weeks to Fargo and I'm feeling good about where I'm at. 8 more weeks of good training before taper. I did my first long run with some mileage at pace (about 10 miles of it) and pretty much all of it was under pace. Very exciting! I'm also happy about the part where we slowed down (ran this with Kelly) for a two mile cool down. When we looked at the splits at the end (she has a fancy Garmin), we didn't really slow down much even though it felt soooo easy at the time. Have I talked about where I'm staying for Fargo, yet? I booked a dorm room since they are tons cheaper than the hotel rooms. The best part? It's a 2-3 block walk to the start and finish. Fabulous!

Raw = Painful!

Running has been going pretty awesome for me lately. Yay! I haven't been this excited about training in a long time. Actually, I guess I haven't really trained for something in several months, not since Voyageur, so that could be part of it, too. My legs are tired and it makes me super happy! I've been getting really excited for weekends so I can do my long runs. I'm really liking double longs - especially when I do them in the right order and have my road long Saturday and my trial long Sunday. I've done my 'recovery' trail long the day before the run I'm supposed to be recovering for a couple of times and for some reason, it just doesn't work as well! Now, I'm a fairly antsy person and if I stay home too many weekends in a row (generally that just takes more than one!) then I start getting antsy and want to have an adventure. But I've stayed home a few weekends in a row now and am doing fine so the double longs must be staving off the adventure needs. This makes sense since all I really need to fulfill my adventure needs is a trail run up the shore . . . Anyway, I'm happy with where my mileage is at and I'm ready to add more and excited (and scared!) for when pace specific runs start happening. I'm very, very loosely following a training plan but mostly just doing what makes sense to me. I need to start looking at tempos/repeats, though, so I'll look to the Plan for those type of things.

My body seems to be pretty happy with everything and nothing is too upset with the mileage. I think I mentioned that right after I talked about how nice and un-tight my calves were, they instantly tightened up? Well they got REALLY REALLY bad. Tear inducing bad. Having to stop and walk part way up a hill bad. So I decided on a two fold plan - drop running in Vibrams for a while (even though I'm only running in them once a week) and bring my magical Mr. Blue Thing to work with me. The combination seems to have done the trick - huzzah! And having Mr. Blue Thing hanging out in my office gets a decent amount of comments, too. My job is to do things for a ton of different people so I always have people coming and going and so far only one person has known what it was and he's not even a runner! I'm not sure where this leaves me with the Vibrams, though. I'm thinking of maybe waiting until I'm doing shorter runs on trails (right now I really just hit them longer on Sundays) and ease back into them. But how much more 'ease' can I do when I was only at 4-6 miles a week with them? Or it could be entirely that I'm stretching a ton now and Vibrams would be fine . . . It didn't take long for the crazy tight to go away, so I think I'm safe to experiment with adding Vibrams back.

So! You've all heard the manta - don't do anything new on race day, right? Well here is why - you don't want to be 12 miles in when you suddenly notice horrific random chafing that you can do nothing about. Which is what happened to me on Saturday. I rubbed very, very raw kind of just above my arm pit - a good 6 inches long and over an inch wide. Ow. This brought me to a forced three days off of running since I couldn't do a normal arm swinging motion at all - I had to hold my arm out away from my body. I guess it looked pretty funny on our hike that afternoon (you'll notice I still hiking even though I could swing my arm right). I could barely wear a shirt the rest of Saturday and Sunday, I had to wear the softest thing I owned. I probably COULD have run on Tuesday, but ended up deciding one more day to let it heal was better than running and making it really bad again and having to deal with it for a longer time. Sunday, it was all kinds of mean looking, let me tell you. I actually thought about taking a picture but decided that was a little too weird. That didn't stop me from showing it to all of my running friends, though :) I think I figured out the problem, though. My Icebreaker top has a prominent seam that matches the shape of the rawness. Now, I've worn that long plenty of times with a camel so the problem was the rest of the layers. In the first place, I thought it was colder so I wore too much (t-shirt, plus light long sleeve, plus light jacket) so I was sweaty and I had never worn that particular long sleeve with a camel and that jacket before so I think things just got twisted and caught up just right. And then rubbed for almost 3 hours. Ow, ow, ow. So that, my friends, is why you never wear new on race day.

Need your help!

So back in December, Kyle and I got our third dog - this one from Animal Allies here in Duluth. We've tried very hard but he's just not working out and now we're looking for a new home for him. Why post it here, you ask? Because he's the best running buddy ever!

His name is Jake and I want so badly for this guy to go to another runner. He has so much energy! We've been doing between 4-6 miles and he treats them all: "That was a great warm-up! Let's keep going!" He'll be ready for more mileage with no problem. He runs great at your side (preferring the side away from traffic since buses and dump trucks are kind of scary) and hardly tugs. Loose dogs, leashed dogs, dogs in yards - they don't bother him a bit. He does want to check out people, so I try to run him on not crowded sidewalks/roads. He runs well when you're running WITH someone, as well.

Jake is about 4 years old and an English Setter and Brittany Spaniel mix. He's very cuddly and loves to be right next to you on the couch with his head in your lap. The two reasons we sadly can't keep him:

1) He is growl-y to our other two dogs. They are both very submissive and Jake should have figured out by now that they aren't a threat. Much of the time he's fine with them, walking alongside them with leashes and cuddling together but then he'll out of the blue have an issue - growl and bites (to grab and not to hurt). He needs to be in a house where he's the only dog since he has the need to control the situation around the other dogs. MAYBE one other dog. However, he was great with my two year old nephew over Christmas so kids don't seem to be a problem.

2) He's a runner and can't be trusted off leash unless he's in a completely fenced in area. So he must be on leash while you're running with him. He's gotten loose from us a couple of times and he's off like a shot. He comes back, though, so he might be okay in a country situation where he can be let out the door and allowed to run/wander/come back without danger of roads, etc. He Comes great within a yard or in the house but we can't break through to his brain when he senses freedom.

So. I know there's the perfect home for him somewhere. Please let me know if you are interested in getting a great running buddy and pass it along to anyone you might know who would be. I have more information for those who want it. We'll want to meet any potential owner and he won't be free (though he won't be expensive). Both of these are to make sure he gets to the right home.

A bit of 2011 review.

So now I know that I'm landing 'correctly' on my feet in my new shoes. After Sunday's run, the balls of my feet were crazy sore and felt beat up. So . . . good to know, I guess? They were fine by the next day, which is also good to know. I had a couple hours on trails that were hard and icy and a couple hours on roads so lots of hard surface running. That was also the longest I've gone in my new shoes, too - I've been a combination of lazy and being careful with the new shoes for the last couple of weeks and haven't done double longs. Enough of that - the shoes aren't going to eat me and no more lazy! Really what the biggest problem usually is is that it's hard for me to do a long run when I'm not at home and so double hard to do two of them. Usually, though, I just end up sitting around for the amount of time it would have taken me to run anyway! That did NOT happen last time, though, and it was a skipped long run weekend that I was okay with since I spent much of the time trekking through the woods. This would be less of a problem if I would just stay home but I still am loving having all my weekends off and adventure calls! Luckily, I have running friends who will go on close-by running adventures with me.

My calves have also been crazy tight this week. Clearly, this is because I was just telling my friend LAST week how my Vibrams and Kinvaras weren't making my calves any tighter than usual . . . Now, I do often have super tight calves going on, so I'm not going to outright blame my greater focus on not-heel-striking, but it probably contributes. How tight, you might ask? Well, so tight it hurts to run and hurts to break to stretch and then hurts more when I release the stretch but it usually relaxes out a few miles in. Time to spend more quality time on Mr. Blue Thing! Well, mine is actually a teal/green but since the one I used in college that made me want one to begin with was blue, they are ALL Mr. Blue Thing to me. Anyway. It's an awesome thing for calf stretching and I need to be using it more often during the day than just after runs. I should possibly bring it to work, now that I think about it.

On to a different train of thought - it's time to look at last year's goals and how they ended up! Maybe what I should do is look at these halfway through the year, too, and see if I'm on track, huh?

1. Stay injury free! Success! Happiness! Yay!
2. Keep that regular weight lifting. Well, this could have been better. But it could have been a lot worse, too. I ended up dropping my gym membership when it became too "out of the way" and more expensive than it was worth. But now I have a weight room that's very accessible and so I'm getting back in the habit.
3. Get a better handle on what my stomach wants/can take during longer races. S-caps proved to be fabulous and went a good ways toward my nausea issues. Though, I continue to go through aid stations and think nothing really looks all that great and I ran Voyageur on pretty much just gels. Which was fine but I imagine much longer than 50 miles and I'll start to get sick of gels (though I went through 12 of them with minimal problems) and my body's going to want something more substantial, too. So it's a constant experiment, right? But I'm definitely on the right track, I just need to force myself to slow down at some aid stations and take a good inventory of what is there and what might look good.
4. Be comfortable with signing up for my first 50 mile and finish said 50. Complete success! I felt confident going in and I loved Voyageur. Most of the time. I'm excited to go back and even if it's disgusting hot/humid again, I think I can still improve on my time now that I know some more about how my body reacts to it.
5. I'll be setting a marathon time goal but not right now. Which was just as well since it didn't happen anyway. But I DID have my fastest Grandma's, for what it's worth. A person can't hit a fast road marathon time without some more road training time, I think. Or, at least, this person can't. Which means lots of road running for me this spring.
6. Race a road 5K so I can chip away at the PR some more - I didn't run a single road 5K last year! Oops. Forgot about that one, I guess. I didn't run a single 5K last year, not even on a trial (unless you count any NMTC runs that were around 5K. Which I don't)! Which apparently makes two years since my last road 5K. Good thing I have one already planned in April, huh?
7. Yet again, log every run! I want a yearly total! Another year, another fail at logging consistently. I have yet another method that I've been using successfully for a bit now, so I have high hopes this year. I'm also keeping track of the mileage on my shoes!

Not a bad year, goal wise. I think last year I promised a race shirt picture and never posted it? I'll do my best to get last year's version up soon - the problem is that my closet is a ridiculous mess right now. Maybe that's motivation to get it cleaned out/all my clothes put away as opposed to hanging out in laundry baskets. Last year seems so long ago! I'll have shirts from running 3 50Ks (I didn't even blog about Wild Duluth!), a 50 mile, and one road marathon along with assorted smaller races. So what's coming in 2012?

The first main race for me this year is the Fargo Marathon. Kelly and I are both going for a 3:30 and Shane will be there going for his BQ time. We're all going to blast our PRs out of the water! Next up is Grandma's, which I plan to not take too seriously. Maybe by NOT having it be my goal race, I can finally have a good time there. I also hope to perhaps be done with Grandma's for a while after this year. So I seem to be starting my year with lots of road, which wasn't entirely intentional. Fargo is the same day as the Superior 50K and the Chippewa 50K is too close to Fargo to risk. I've already signed up for a couple short road races in the spring, too! But, like I said before, my plan is to keep trails in my training, not take Grandma's seriously and look to the second half of the year for my trail races.

I feel a bit silly posting goals for 2012 when I don't pay much attention to them after I post them but here goes some that I know I'll continue to think of:
1. Run at least a 3:30 at Fargo. My BQ time is now 3:35 (rules changed since registration was getting so ridiculous) but I want a 3:30. It's a nice round number. Plus part of that registration change was that people who beat their BQ time by x amount get to register first.
2. Stay injury free!
3. Get heat acclimated at least as well as last year/don't be afraid of the heat. I kind of feel as though I don't have a right to whine about the heat anymore but I know I'll have to work at heat acclimation again.
4. See what kind of mileage my legs can handle and confidently make up my mind by June about my fall running plans and train well for whatever the plans end up to be.
5. Log. Every. Run. I'm using Google Calendar as a log, now. The good thing about this is that it emails me every night to 'remind' me of what to run the next day and that works as a reminder to log my run for the day.

Celebrate!

Finally got the rights to runsamrun and will move over from http://minnesotarunner.blogspot.com/ after I finalize the look, etc.

Shoes!

A not so secret for you all: I'm kind of a shoe moron. I don't follow shoe guides or read up on new shoes as they come out. I tend to run in the same brand and model until the model changes dramatically and I'm forced to find something new. I rarely have more than one pair of running shoes going at a time and when I do it's pretty much never different shoes, just two pairs of the same kind. I don't have a different running shoe for every surface and season.

Now, as you know, I bought a pair of Vibrams in November since they've been peaking my curiosity. I love them still and have figured out how to keep away the blisters they caused at first so they're even better! So that's two pairs of very different shoes at once! Shocking in it's own. I've been running in Saucony Rides (at least, I think they're Rides I'm not even really sure. I usually bring my old shoe with me when I go to buy another pair. See what I mean?) - I love Sauconys as they've always been nice to my feet and legs and also generally nicely priced. The Rides are classified as a neutral shoe - I've made my way down over the last several years from motion control to stability to neutral (I started doing this after college. I used to have an orthotic for my left shoe and when it was wearing out, I realized I didn't want to have to keep paying a ton of money to get new ones all the time so I decided to try weaning myself off of them. Once that worked, I wondered if I even needed motion control, so I took the next step down to see, etc). I've run in the Rides for a handful of pairs, now, and was thinking about taking the next step down, since they seem to not be causing any problems with my kryptonite knee. I think I would have been happy in my neutral shoes had the minimalist craze not started but why not keep going as long as my body doesn't complain, right?

Now, I'm pretty sure I usually run my shoes into the ground - as I complain about often, I'm lousy at consistently keeping track of my mileage so I only have a vague idea of the mileage on my shoes and tend to not replace them in a timely manner. Usually, though, I'll try to buy the new pair and break them in, running on the old pair still a few times. So I don't do a drastic shoe swap most of the time. Well, I came home a couple Fridays ago to this:


Hmmmmmm. There's no toe box on that shoe. 99.9% of the time, my Penny dog is just fine if left out (ie, not in the confined dog space we have in the basement). Since we've been transitioning a new dog, we've been leaving the other two out to roam the house. Like I said, usually fine. The other .1% of the time., something scares Penny (not too hard to do) or makes her hyper or something and she finds something to chew on to comfort herself. Like a favorite homemade quilt that looks like Monet's Japanese Bridge, a nice wool graduation blanket from my college commemorating my four years on the cross country team, or a running shoe. At least she chose the pair without the RoadID . . . And they were pretty much due to be retired anyway. Now, could she have done this the night before a day off? Or at least before a shorter run that I could just wear my Vibrams for? No, of course not! It has to be the night before a super early morning long run. Which means the choice was to either jump my Vibram mileage from 5ish to 16ish on roads, run in the shoes that were already dead going into Voyageur and I haven't run in since (but haven't brought myself to toss yet, either), or dash to Austin Jarrow quick before they closed. Or postpone my run to later in the day, but that's just silly talk!

The problem is that I know Jarrow works during the day and, like I said, I'm a self enabled shoe moron. I want someone who knows what they're talking about to tell me what to buy. I checked to see if Duluth Running Company was still open but they closed an hour before. Not a big problem, I think, I'll just get another pair of what just got chewed up and wait to step down until the next pair.

So I rush myself up the hill and . . . my shoe is not in my size. The new model of my shoe is not in my size. Hmmmm. This is why I wanted Jarrow there. Or Tony or Clint at DRC. I like people who know more about shoes than I do to tell me what a good shoe is. Though, admittedly, as I'm sure you've concluded, that doesn't take a whole lot. But now I was on my own since I didn't know how much the girl working (who was really very nice!) actually knew. Though, in hind sight, she was able to get me the Brooks equivalent of my current shoes with no problem, so I probably should have trusted her more. Anyway. First I decided to try on a pair of Kinvaras (which I thought until recently were called Kinervas) and promptly freaked out. They're so light! I can't possibly be ready for running only in these yet! They feel like racing flats! I have long runs to do! On roads! So I call my poor friend Lisa, who's trying to volunteer at Tuscobia when I interrupt her for my important dilemma :) Hey, it's a long race, and I figured she wasn't going to be flooded with work the first night. So she tells me that Jarrow wears Brooks and has put her in Brooks and she likes them so I ask for the Brooks version of my Saucony Ride. This turns out to be the Brooks Ghost 4. I try them on. They're comfy. They feel like a shoe should. They aren't crazy expensive. The girl lets me know that there isn't really an in-between my Rides and the Kinvaras but Brooks has an in-between (See! She knew things! I could have trusted her!). However, these are also not in my size. So I take home the Ghosts with the intent of doing some quick research on them online before the run in the morning.

I fairly quickly decided they aren't what I wanted. With some descriptions of them as a stability shoe and after comparing them heel to heel with my Rides, I decided it's more shoe than I want, now. Especially if I'm trying to run in my Vibrams more - I figured going from nothing to big heel wasn't a great plan. Happily, I have fabulous friends who are also my same shoe size and who, though the power of Facebook, offered to lend me shoes for my run Saturday, which I took advantage of. After more online research, I headed back to Austin-Jarrow and traded in my Ghosts for a pair of these:

Everything I was reading made them sound like what I wanted. "True" minimalist runners (as true as you can be and still be running in shoes, I guess) turn their nose up at them and they were often described as a gateway drug to minimalist running. Perfect! I figured I'd give them a go and could always order a pair of my Rides if need be and I'll take a look at trail shoes come spring.

I've really liked them so far. They still feel crazy light when I first put them on but then I mostly forget about them. Except when my left foot goes to sleep. For some reason, that left foot is hard to tie a correct tightness in these shoes. They have enough support to help me ease into things more. I can feel when I let myself heel strike too much and am able to change my stride pretty easily but they aren't so abrupt that a single heel strike is bad. It's been a couple weeks, now, and I haven't noticed any rebelling from my legs or knees so I think I'll stick to them for a while. And maybe I'll start researching for my trail shoes now instead of right before I need to buy them.

24 weeks to Fargo!

Thursdays are run in Vibrams day? I ran in mine again this last Thursday so perhaps I'll start a habit. I did some more trails in light snow, not quite 4 miles worth, I think. I figured it was a good test of warmth since I haven't bought myself socks for them yet. I had my normal running shoes as back up in case my feet showed signs of freezing off right away but somewhat surprisingly, my feet stayed completely warm! Granted, it wasn't all that cold but I was running on/through snow the whole time. So maybe there's a chance of keeping in them all winter once I add some merino wool to my feet. My feet get cold super easy but since Vibrams let them move and flex so much, perhaps they have a shot at staying warm. So far, nothing in my body seems upset with running in them, which is great. I'm slower going downhill, right now, and tried to work on that last time. In high school, I was taught to stretch out my legs and kick out my heel as far as I could, in order to get a longer stride. We used to measure out stride length on flat and on downhills and I was always told that my stride wasn't long enough. I've since gotten rid of that habit but it's still strange to land in Vibrams right when going downhill. I have to think about it too much. My right heel started, well, not really hurting but just sort of feeling the impacts so I know I'm still doing some heel striking. Wearing them definitely help me have quick feet, though.

So . . . the plans for next year start already! Saturday marked 24 weeks to Fargo and time for my training plan to 'officially' start. I'm going to be using one of the plans from Pfitziger's Advanced Marathoning again since it worked so well for me for Green Bay. The plan has the first long run next Saturday at 11 miles. Well, this Saturday I run just over 16. And then I did a two hour run on the SHT today, though I kept that nice and easy. So perhaps I won't be following their long run progression for a while . . . It's exciting to be ready to start a plan instead of being behind. I'm slower than I want to be but there's plenty of time for speed to come.

I'm also trying a different method for logging my runs as well as having my plan written down. I'm using Google Calendar since I have access to it at work, too. It also will send me email reminders for what's coming up the next day. I've been messing with the order of days, though since I'm doing an additional long run and I'm still nailing that down. We'll see how this works!

Birthday present!

I finally jumped on the bandwagon and got a pair of Vibrams! They were on super sale at the Midwest Mountaineering Outdoor Expo down in the Cities so even if they don't work out for running, they'll be worth it for other things. I've been on one run with them so far - I'm being super careful since I want my knee to be happy with them but I've walked around them a bunch, too. So far I love them! They aren't so good with slippery surfaces, though, like hardened, slick snow or frost covered rocks and, I would imagine, mud. There is a new version of the KSOs out that have a sort of tread on the bottom, so those are probably better for slippery, but they weren't on sale so I went with the original KSOs. They are super comfortable on my feet, though, and it's very neat to feel what you're running on. My feet seem to stay much warmer in them, too, since they move around so much more than in shoes. I also suddenly understand my friend Marcus and his quick, short gait going down hills . . . I was, of course, in between sizes leading to almost 45 minutes of trying to figure out which pair to get. I went for the larger size since they were instantly comfortable, with the thought that socks would then fit in them, as well. I'll keep you updated with how they go.

So the big dilemma in my life right now is how I'm torn between the Fargo marathon and my spring ultras. Every time I run trails, that's what I love to be on and what I feel like I enjoy most. However, I have made plans to run Fargo with a friend of mine (hi, Kelly!) and we're going for a 3:30 and hope to go to Boston together. Running with Kelly is super exciting and I still want to get back to Boston and show it what's what or at least not have a miserable race there. Fargo looks like a fun marathon - it's run through Fargo, has lots of music, and it sounds as though there's lots of local support. Kyle will come with and camp and I'm friends with Kelly's husband who is awesome about getting multiple places in a race.

I'm pretty sure I'll be disappointed if I don't go for a fast marathon while I still am in my 'peak years' - like how I say that as though I'm sooooo old? I don't even turn 30 until next year :) I have this one fast marathon from a couple years ago and that's it. I need to do it again - I feel as though I haven't even gotten close since then, though, now that I think about it, I have run within 6 minutes of my PR since then. The only problem is that running a good road marathon requires, get this, road training! How silly. Winter coming will help that, at least, with snow forcing me onto roads more often. There's also the part where I have to get my road head back and I worry that I don't have enough time to do that, though I have 24 weeks come Saturday. So I know some of my indecision/hesitation is coming from fear - and if that's the main part then my only answer is to buckle down and do Fargo.

The other part is that running Fargo means not running the Chippewa 50K hard (if at all) and not running the Spring 50K at all as it's the same day as Fargo. However, again, it's not as though this is my last year to run races. I don't have to do the same races every year. Plus, I'm thinking that some road running/getting my road head back should help with my speed (or lack thereof) in ultras. And running two road marathons (I signed up for Grandma's with the cheap prices since we already reserved campsites in Two Harbors but right now I am not planning on going at it hard, especially if success comes in Fargo) in the beginning of the year could prevent me from running too many ultras in that first half and burning out/injuring myself for the second half of my year.

I plan on keeping long trail runs in my schedule and doing two long runs on the weekend, one road and one trail, as I'm heading back to Voyageur for sure. The trail run long will be secondary and shorter until after Fargo but it'll still be there. So I'm sort of following two different training plans at once and trying to merge them.

Also? I'm excited for track workouts!

So, thanks for listening to me talk things out. That seemed to have helped me quite a bit. Time to go register for Fargo. The next decision is whether running Chippewa at all is a good decision.

Voyageur 50 mile: Part Two!

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! I'm finally finished with part two! So without further ado . . .

The way back was definitely much better than the way out. Loads better. I looked at my watch 5 or so minutes out of the zoo and saw there was still tons of time before the cut off (well, maybe 30 minutes or so? That counts as tons of time) and from that point on, it was golden. I told myself that no mater what, now, as long as I kept moving forward, I would be fine. I wasn't racing the cutoff so everything was a-ok. It might have been a little early to be assuring myself of such things but I don't think it was a bad thought per se - it kept me very positive the rest of the way back. I didn't worry a bit and mentally ran the very model of how you're supposed to handle a long race - aid station to aid station only - without even having to force myself to think that way! I only once thought about total distance left before the last aid station - somewhere around 15 miles left it was forced upon me (gee, thanks, Tom!) but I was able to put it out of my mind :)

Anyway, I stopped at the creek again to do a quick wash off of the mud left over from my fall (festering wound, remember?) and on my way back up I found Kelly and Amanda walking their way back toward me. They accompanied me back up to the Magney aid station, which was nice. Kelly complimented my swift walking speed at that point in the race, which was nice to hear. Strong walking was something I'd been working on. It's tough not to when you have people like Marcus around, who can beat you walking up a hill when you're running up a hill. Punk. Anyway, I was able to do a lot more talking now, too, without feeling as though I was going to hyperventilate, which was good. I grabbed a lifesaver from the aid station (something about this aid station was making me grab things that wouldn't otherwise be appealing) and, saying bye to Kelly and Amanda, continued on my way.

Heading into the Magney-Snivley, I felt much better than I had on the way out. And I know I ran a lot more on the way back even though it was much more uphill. Things just felt a lot better, despite having to focus at times on not choking to death on my lifesaver. Someone caught up with me here and he helped the time go by talking to me. Silly guy kept asking me questions though - half of which I couldn't hear and needed him to repeat only to not feel as though I had quite enough breathing power for sustained conversation. He eventually skirted around me, though, after we traded places a couple of times and then it was on my way down Skyline.

About halfway down Skyline is where Tom Burr caught up to me and we stuck together for a long time after that. Some great things about Tom: He's done this before (both 50s in general and Voyageur in specific), he has a lot to talk about, he doesn't need you to talk a lot back if you don't want to. We ran down Skyline together and into Beck's Road where I lost track of him briefly.

Here I am getting more gels from Dad. At this point, he asked if I wanted more sunscreen. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Sunscreen? Nah, it's getting later in the day and I'm about to head through Zapp's Loop which is quite shaded. More sunscreen didn't seem necessary and I didn't feel like taking the time for it then, anyway. I headed out down Zapp's Loop only to find myself wanting fresh sunscreen maybe ten minutes later. But probably sooner. Ooops. I passed Tom while he was, um, paused for a moment and he passes me back and disappeared strong down the hill.

So - Zapp's Loop is one of the NMTC Wednesday night trail races. My favorite one, in fact! And it comes with an unexpected (if you haven't done it before) uphill that's riddled with trenchs/ruts/bad footing. I timed myself up it one year and found it's less than 5 minutes up so since then, I've used that as a way to make myself suck it up and push up the hill. Now that it was mile 30-something, I tried the same thing, only with walking fast up as opposed to running fast up. Lo and behold - I caught back up to Tom! He regaled me with all sorts of interesting things (if only I could remember more of them!) as we made our way around the Loop and told me good things about how strong I looked, which was nice. He was great to have right behind me at that point, even if he did seem to think I wanted to hear how far was left :) Coming into Fond du Lac, I finally realized that the green shirted woman I'd seen lots of was his crew (his awesome wife, in fact).

Tom pushed me quite a ways up the other end of Zapp's but then he started asking me questions. And expecting answers! Which brought my breathing way back up and my pace back down. Bummer. I let him by me and focused on getting my breathing back to 'normal.' Up the last hill, onto the Munger Trail and into Seven Bridges aid station. I focused on running the entire length of the Munger until I got to the aid station as long as I was on flat, even ground.

Heading into the Powerlines = ice in hat. I was also smart enough to ask for sunscreen this time and my dad was awesome enough to smear it all over my super sweaty arms and shoulders. What an awesome dad! I traded my handheld for my Camelback again and headed off. It seems especially cruel that in order to even GET to the Powerlines, you have to head uphill. Finally, I broke out of the trail and onto the Powerlines. I took a second to pause, have a sip of water, say hello to the Powerlines (and if you've run with me near here, you'll know that was literal) and headed off.

In case you've missed this announcement since: I now own the Powerlines! I can't believe how well I ran through them. I think when you're planning on moving slowly to begin with, moving slow doesn't bother you? In any case, I felt super strong and had no problems with them at all. Just one foot in front of the other. I even caught two (three?) people going through them! Tom was one of them, so it was nice to see him again, though I was sure he'd catch me again on the way up from Grand Portage. Fun factoid of that section: I have some sort of bug land right on my lips at the top of a hill. I had just finished a gulp of nice, sticky E-Gel and apparently, the bug decided I wanted to share. No go, bug, sorry. I was super excited coming into Grand Portage. I still felt pretty good and nothing gives you confidence like owning the Powerlines :) I knew it was going to be a long haul up to Peterson's but I felt as though I had gotten the heat under control (the extra heat in the Powerlines didn't even bother me!) and knew I had a couple of creek crossing to use for their cooling powers. Not to mention another opportunity for ice in my hat.

Mike's getting ready to join me for a few miles here as I'm getting my water refilled, putting more ice in my hat. Which I never felt, by the way. I figured I'd get a cold head at some point but I never felt the ice up there, even though I knew it was doing good. I'm also informing Dad (to the amusement of the people next to him) that I now own the Powerlines. Hey, it's important information for him to know :)

So then it's on to Peterson's. Ooof. That's a long way up and it was nice to have some company. Mike came along with me here and we talked a bit more than last time (I had more breath heading uphill here than downhill previously . . .). Grand Portage to Peterson's is a section that feels as though it's much longer than it is. You just get off the Powerlines and then keep going up and up and up. Even when it seems like it's leveling off, it's really still going up. Happily, there's a couple of creek crossings, allowing me to continue dowsing myself with water. At this point, I'd ceased to care about how dirty the water I'm pouring over my head looked as I scooped it up with my hat. As a side note, my hat was amazingly not super stinky at the end of the day. It just sort of smelled like lake water instead of smelling as though it had been on top of an active sweaty head for 12 hours in the middle of summer.

I think the worst part of the course might be when you come out onto the ski trails both the first time here and after Gill Creek. Something is inherently evil about ski trails after coming off single track trails. You get onto this nice smooth-ish (comparatively) surface. Nice and wide. Good footing. Maybe the hills aren't as steep. And . . . what's this? I'm still crawling that the same pace I was going before? Surely I should be able to go faster here! Add to that how your pace always seems faster on single track than anything that's wider open and everything suddenly feels very tough. Plus . . oh, yeah, you're still going uphill! I'm moving pretty slowly here, lots of walking. My legs haven't fallen off yet but they're feeling rather tired and not interested in moving very quickly.

Into Peterson's and mile 41.5. And it's Shaun! He was just about to leave when I came in and I gave him a quick hug before booting him out. I also got another hug from Rick who was working this station, too. More water over the head and pose for a quick picture. All smiles! Out I go to 'chase down' Shaun. I was surprised I was so close to him but he seemed pretty sprighty still, so I didn't think I'd see him again. I'm going to skip the part here, where I sent poor Mike running back for forgotten gels. Twice. Only because I wasn't clear the first time that I was going to be picky. And then ended up not needing one before the next aid station anyway . . . Thanks Mike!

Heading out of Peterson's is downhill. Yay! More down to Gill Creek (steep downhill. Ow.) and more water over the head. This water was so cold (or my body was so hot?) that I practically felt my heart stop from the shock of sudden temperature change. Which meant time to throw a capfull straight on my core and than another on my head. Up out of Gill Creek and . . . back onto ski trails. Uphill again. But now it's close enough to the finish to start sort of tasting it, just a little, even if I was still thinking just to Forbay Lake. At one point I promise myself that if I run all the way to the Munger, then I'm allowed to walk the ENTIRE Munger Trail section if I wanted to (which I didn't expect to but the offer was there). I didn't quite make it there, though - it was further than I originally thought. So then I decided that that meant I wasn't allowed to walk ANY of the Munger since it was flat.

And actually . . . Hmmm. I can't entirely remember. I know I had to stop and do something - fiddle with my camel? I'm not sure. Anyway, I walked just a tich but mostly ran the whole thing. And, of course, promptly forgot where it was we turn back into ski trail and thought I had a whole lot longer on the trail that I did. The guys a bit in front of me suddenly disappeared and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what happened to them because I KNEW we still had to go around the next corner too. Mike speculated a bathroom break and I decided I must have imagined that extra corner. And then we got closer and I saw the magical orange arrows spray painted on the tar pointing me into the trail and lo and behold - I HAD imagined that extra corner. Huzzah! That meant we were practically to Forbay Lake!

Into Forbay Lake and . . . Shaun again? He likes to hang out in the aid stations! I did a quick gel grab and water dunk, Mike ducked out and I headed out just behind Shaun. Headed out onto the longest 2 miles in the world. I was getting really excited here which probably didn't help this section feel any faster. I was still thinking 2 miles to Jay Cooke but allowed myself to think about the last section that would follow. Plus Shaun just kept running! No walking of uphills for him. Except for one where I was sure I was going to catch him. And I sort of did. Sort of. But then he took off again and I was all by my lonesome making my way through trail I didn't remember being nearly as muddy a mere 11 or so hours ago . . .

Coming up to the Highway 210 crossing, there was Shane manning the crossing for us. He was incredibly happy to see me since he was afraid I had dropped and it was nice to see a grinning face. He escorted me across the highway . . .

And there I was at Jay Cooke! I glanced at the aid table first (of course, when this picture was taken!). Then I saw my Mom, Sister and Nephew cheering for me! Well, Mom and Jess were cheering for me, the little guy looked a bit confused. Big smile on my part and a kiss on the head to the little guy who may or may not have recognized the voice of wet, smelly Auntie running at him. Dad was sitting down (I think) and I barely saw him here. I don't remember seeing Mike at all (I guess I saw them all day long and it was time to focus on someone else?). Beeline for the table. I handed my water bottle to Ron with a request for fresh water, please. I'm amused that I barely registered that it was Ron beyond briefly being amazed that he must have finished already and came back to help. Something I didn't even think to question until a different day! Even though he was changed, possibly showered, clearly hadn't JUST shown up and wasn't completely done in looking . . . ah well. Next up was Lisa, brandishing a plastic container of Heed.

She asked if I wanted it dumped on my head. I was momentarily confused, thinking about dumping Heed on my head but realized it was water and, though I wasn't ridiculously hot anymore, it sounded pretty nice. And it was. By the looks of things, though, Lisa was enjoying dumping water on me as much as I was. Hmmmm . . . But! There went Shaun and there was another women who was in front of me but looking like she wanted to leave so I better head out now! And away I went - Lisa yelling "Nice running" behind me. Come to think of, I was still moving okay (probably the same steady as she goes pace I'd been doing for much of the day) and felt alright. One good thing about the heat was that I didn't feel down on myself for being slow at all. Okay. I'm going to stick with Shaun! If for no other reason then to make the woman right behind me think that I'm so full of energy she might as well not even think about trying to catch me on this last stretch.

Last stretch! Less than 4 miles to go! More like a 5K, but I decided to think 4 miles instead. I can run 4 miles! Shaun was flying up the hills like a gazelle but I stayed with him . . . for a couple of minutes anyway and then he was gone for good and put way more ground on me then I want to admit. And then I was all by my lonesome. I knew that woman was back there somewhere and after a mile or so, I started catching glimpses of someone in white just going out of sight in front of me and I entertained fantasies of speeding up and catching her. And then my legs got very, very tired. The evil part of this section is how it keeps going forever. And the roots. And the rocks. And the part where it's uphill. Oh, and how I had no idea where on the trail I really was, just that you don't know you're almost to the Munger again until you come to the bridge. The bridge I was SO SURE was JUST around the corner. Ooof.

I dragged myself onto the paved Munger, determined to run the whole way in. After all, who knew how close that other woman was and I didn't want a sprint finish and I certainly didn't want to be beat right at the end. I made it about 10 feet. Walked some. Forced myself to run again - this time to the end! Or for another 10 feet, you know, close enough. You know that super high armed, arm pumping, determined power walking that you see some people do down the street? That was me. My legs simply wouldn't run any more. But they would walk fast! So walk fast I did! Arms high and pumping! But, by god, I was going to run the whole way in from the corner - a mighty two blocks. Slightly downhill. In fact, I was going to round that corner running! Round it running from a block before the corner! Okay, maybe round it running period was good enough. And I did run the whole way in from there, which shows my legs had more than they thought since I couldn't have run two blocks two minutes ago.

Now, you can't tell in this picture, but I'm grinning like an idiot for that last block. It's a neat finish line, with most everyone who's already finished still hanging out and cheering for those of us in back. And if it feels like grinning like an idiot after 50 miles, then I don't even want to think what it looked like to someone who wasn't just finishing 50 miles :) Anyway! I'm finishing 50 miles! And I'm running my way in! And smiling!

12 hours 22 minutes and 50 seconds. Definitely between 9:30 and 13 hours! So I'm happy. The more I think about how hot it was, the more I can't believe I did it. 109 finishers (I was number 95) and I'm not sure how many started but I heard 30 something or so dropped out. I no longer have any rights to bitch about running in the heat. Here I am, still rather soaked, collecting my awesome finisher mug and red beanie (new favorite hat!) from Andy and Kim.

Despite having requested a chair from Mike back at mile something or other (40 something, maybe?), a chair didn't look nearly as nice as hiking myself onto the cement border at the finish line with my friends. Christi finished almost 4 hours before me and was still there cheering in the finishers! That's how awesome my fellow ultra runners are. I sat until I realized I was shaking. Gee, how could I possibly be cold? I've only been soaking wet for much of the last 10 hours or so . . . So it was into the school to change. Now, I wasn't walking all the way across the gym to the bathroom so I settled for going around the corner to change. And promptly discovered painful chaffing. I highly recommend RE-applying any body glide you may be using if you plan on continuously dousing yourself with water for several hours . . .

Sadly, the finish line lasagna did not look good. I had some sherbert, though, and a bit of chocolate milk. I hung out as long as I could until my poor crew was definitely ready to be done. So it was back to the campsite for a shower and some pizza hotdish (I wasn't very hungry) and bed.

50 miles! I'll be back next year!