10 Miles of HURT

While visiting the ‘rents in Hawaii, we all signed up for the HURT running club’s informal 10 mile 4th of July weekend trail race. My parents’ had run this race before and from my dad’s description, it sounded like a pretty simple out-and-back on a fire road. The toughest factor in the race is usually the heat and humidity.

It was looking like we were lucking out as they’ve been having extended cloud cover lately over Oahu, which provides drastic relief from the heat of the sun. When it’s humid, the sun feels more intense, so shade feels to have more of an effect, compared to when you’re in dry heat. I remember Kansas summers were like this too – it’s humid there.

So the race starts and we go tearing off down the road. The first ½ mile was uphill, but I really wouldn’t call it a climb. What was challenging was the footing. The ground was damp, so your shoes started picking up clumps of the dirt as you ran, making your feet heavy. The other footing challenge was how uneven the road was. It was like we were running in and out of bomb craters. To keep a fast stride going, you had to look for the flat line, so we were all weaving back and forth on the fire road trying to keep out of the ditches. You couldn’t ever relax and get a good stride going because you had to look at the ground right in front of you so much. Falling on this dirt mixed with volcanic rock would be super sucky.

Once the road started evening out, the sun came out and damn it got hot fast. At about 2 ½ miles in, Mr. Ultra Runner here felt like he was going to throw up and didn’t know if he was going to make it. All I could think about was how I thought I must have eaten too much pasta last night and how hot it was. My legs weren’t tired, but my stomach hurt, either from what I ate the night before or from breathing so hard, I didn’t know.

Once we rounded the point we got into the shade of the mountain to our left and it felt cooler. I started feeling better and I noticed the guy who passed me during my I’m-going-to-throw-up period was coming back to me. Once I passed him that gave me a mental boost and I started to slowly real in the three people now in front of me. I watched those three hit the aid station/turnaround point about 30 seconds in front of me and they all stopped, gulped down a cup of water and at least one threw a cup of water over their head. Watching this I thought to myself, what are they doing? It’s a 10 mile race, why bother to stop for water? Though I was carrying a small hand-held, I had hardly drank any at this point. We’d only ran five miles. So when I hit the aid station/turnaround point, I just slapped the table and tore off in the other direction. Like in other races I’d done, a fast aid station transition helped me a lot with making up ground on other runners.

I was really feeling good now as I reeled in those three runners. Jay Z’s 99 Problems came on my iPod and it felt awesome to run to that song and pass those people, putting me into 9th overall. 99 Problems has a great tempo to run to, plus the song just has attitude and that gets me going.

When I got to the steep, little single track climb I looked back to take account of where people were. Two of the people were hanging on and were about 10 to 15 seconds behind me. I wasn’t pushing myself to run the pace I had kept, so I felt I had plenty of reserve if either of them put a move on me. But man, I was having fun and listening to my tunes on the iPod.

Eventually the trail started to change and I thought . . . I don’t really remember running on a trail like this with ropes on both sides and this much sand . . . . I stopped and looked behind me up the small hill I’d just ran down and saw no one. I waited for a second and still no one. Then I thought, fuck, I must have gone the wrong way. I ran back up the hill and saw other runners veering right when I veered left. Shit. I turned my iPod off and concentrated on picking up my pace and trying to run the people down who’d just passed me. Apparently the two people behind me yelled to me when I veered off the wrong trail, but because I had my iPod blaring so loud, I couldn’t hear them.

So now I was back in 13th place. I started running a pretty hard pace to try to re-catch these people, but three of them had put too much distance on me and were running too fast a pace for me to catch. That mistake of mine totally took the fun out of the race. I was pretty bummed and embarrassed when I crossed the finish line for making such a dumb mistake. The course wasn’t marked, but what I’m mad about is wearing that iPod which prevented me from hearing the shouts from the other runners. I’ve been in a race where a guy in front of me missed a turn and I yelled for him, but he couldn’t hear me because of his iPod.

So my finish really bummed me out, but otherwise it was a fun, tough 10 mile race. I’d look forward to doing it again, next year, but my parents won’t be living in Hawaii next summer. Damn it. My parents were two of the oldest runners in the race at 65 and with the rough turain, their knees got beat up and they had a tough time. My dad and a guy he was following made the same mistake I did and went down the wrong trail. He still finished, though. They're both tough, old, active seniors.

Some Days You Have It, Some Days You Don't

So this morning, I don't. As I've gotten older and delved into this ultra running thing, I've learned how recovery is so vitally important. You may be able to knock out a great run one morning, but if you don't recover well, you're not going to knock out another great run for some time.

This morning I wanted to do a hard half marathon distance training run, but instead settled for a not-so-fast 10 mile run. It was a struggle.

Sleep is so very important to recovery and I didn't get the best of sleep this week. It's tough for me to sleep during the summer because my body wants to wake up when the sun comes up. I wish I could nap during the day, but my current employer wouldn't care for that so much. I bet pro athletes sleep a lot. I spoke with a pro-mixed martial arts fighter a while ago and he said that his life pretty much consists of 2-a-day training sessions, a big meal post training session, then sleep the rest of the time.

I miss those high school days where practice after school every day was no big deal. Now, at 32, I don't think I'd survive a Tuesday track workout after a Monday track workout.

Ugh, getting old sucks.

2010 El Moro 50k

When a 50k was scheduled in my favorite place to run and mountain bike, El Moro Canyon, I was pretty excited about it. The race was directed by Molly Kassouf, who is also a member of the running club, SoCal Trail Headz. The race was going to be made even more fun by the fact that I would be running it with so many other club members.

Come race morning I felt great and ready to run. The field wasn’t too stacked for this race. Dean Dobberstein and Michelle Barton were the only two elite runners in the field that I knew of. Everyone else was like me – a regular person who enjoys trail running in their sparse free time.

When races start, I never go out hard with the elite runners because I know that’s dumb. I always start an ultra, ultra slow and build up my pace. Most of the first five miles were going to be a long climb, so I definitely didn’t want to blow my wad 30 minutes into the race. Dean and Michelle rocketed off from the start and a few people tried to go with them, but I let everyone go, even my running friends, Shannon Wagoner and Greg Hardesty. I figured I’d see them again soon enough.

I felt great all through the first loop of the race and moved into fourth place overall just before the turnaround point. This was the first race I was doing not wearing a camel pack, but just a hand-held as per the advice I received from Michelle. The camel pack never felt very heavy when I wear it, but I did feel lighter and faster without it during this race.



Iain Jones was the runner in front of me and at first I felt confident that I would run him down, no problem, but then the climb got to me. The climb from the turnaround point was tough and wears on you. After it peaks, there’s a bunch of ups and downs over the next several miles. I’d close on Iain during a few of the ups and think I’ve got him, but once I’d reach the top of the climb I’d see he’d put a good gap on me again until we reach the next climb. Damn, he was doing it right – easy on the up-hills to save yourself to run hard on the flats.

I was starting to wear myself out trying to chase Iain down so quickly. I had to remind myself I had 13 miles left to do it in, so I eased back on the pace and recouped some strength. Coming into the Ridge Park aid station (the biggest one on the course), I saw Iain was kind of dawdling and enjoying the company of the large aid station crew. I took this as a chance to pounce. I asked for a water refill of my bottle, ignored offers of food and other drinks, glanced over one table for a gel pack, didn’t see any, but grabbed an electrolyte tablet and I was off!

Leaving the aid station Michelle Barton’s dad gave me a big grin ‘cause I made a pass for position in the aid station. I jetted down the hill and back on the trail with a few seconds lead of Iain, but he made it back up pretty quick. He’s a tall guy with long legs and I knew it’d be tough for me to out run him on the flats. After we crested one hill and started going down a rough single track, Iain dropped off. When the course leveled out again, he caught back up. This is where I realized my strength over him as a runner – technical downhills. Coming up in another mile was the most technical downhill section on the course. If I could push on this flat section and keep him behind me, I could probably put some massive distance on him in the downhill.

I blasted down the trail like I was running a half marathon, all the while I could hear Iain’s big footsteps behind me, but I held him off coming to the peak of Rattle Snake. Then the technical downhill started and I hopped and leaped over those rocks as fast as I could in an effort to shake the big South African. Once I got to the bottom I looked back, and sure enough I had a good minute lead on him. I still kept my pace going, but made many a look over my shoulder to see where my adversary was. I normally never look over my shoulder, but I normally am not in the position for an overall podium and the chance to win some cool Oakley sunglasses, so I was really interested in keeping tabs on the people behind me.

When it came to the last couple of climbs, I was pretty tired, and my right achilies was hurting, but I had felt worse. Once I reached the final aid station I knew all the hard stuff was behind me and it was literally all downhill from here. I still did a lot of looking over my shoulder but was pretty relaxed and knew I had it. If need be I could push a tad harder. Once I rounded the corner for the final straight to the finish line I suddenly felt like I could run 100mph. I charged for the finish line pretty hard and could have broken into a full sprint, but didn’t because I thought that would have looked dumb. As I neared the finish line I glanced down at my Garmin and saw that I was going to break 4:30 – that’s a pretty fast time for a 50k, though this was a fast course.

After crossing the finish line I felt elated, but also that I could throw up, which totally sucks because I wanted to scarf down on all the food they had at the finish line. I did manage to get a veggie burger down and some chips, but not a whole lot else. Though when Molly handed me my new Oakley’s for finishing 3rd overall, I felt a whole lot better.

Why The Hell Do I Like To Run So Far?

Me becoming an ultra runner was a few years in the making. I picked up Dean Karnazes Ultramarathon Man book in the spring of 2006 after I heard about it on a morning radio show. I actually bought it for my mom as a birthday present, but read part of it because I was intrigued by the ever popular eat-a-pizza-while-running story. I love eating and if this was a way I could eat a whole pizza and not become a fat-ass, I was all for it.

It wasn’t until November of 2009 that I actually did my first ultra-distance race – the Santa Monica 50k. I finished 12th overall in a time of 5:36. That may have been my first ultra, but I’d been racing a lot the previous few years, but all short distances - 5k to 5 miles. I liked the short distance stuff because I was always a sprinter, but after doing an ultra, I loved how there’s so much strategy in it. In something shorter than a half-marathon, you just go out and run your ass off for whatever distance the race is, but the longer the race is, the more thought and preparation goes into actually running the race. You have to have patience, listen to your body and be disciplined.

Ultras have gotten me to take on new challenges that I never thought possible, before. I’ve run 61 miles in one 12 hour stint. I’ve run 30 miles in under four and a half hours. The training runs and the actual ultra races have allowed me to experience the beauty of the outdoors I otherwise would miss. I’ve also made some good friends as a part of the running club, the SoCal Trail Headz and I can eat by the shovel full.

The human body can endure some pretty amazing feats of endurance, but you have to get off the couch to experience it.