Duck-Farm

After looking at the new trail shoes for about three weeks, not wearing them out running because my runs were mostly road-based, I finally took ‘em out and got ‘em dirty this morning! Still feeling rather tired from my twenty miler last weekend, my heart rate was actually a couple beats high this morning, so I opted for something rather short and really sweet.

There is a new equestrian area about ten minutes drive from our house called “Cronan Ranch”. It was a 1500 acre cattle ranch that was purchased by the American River Conservancy upon the owners death a couple years ago. It has about twelve miles of trail, but they criss-cross each other so you could run short or long if you wanted. I went out really slow and easy and only ran six miles.

But it was a rather amazing six miles. The beauty of it is that for the time being, all the country around Cronan Ranch is still cattle country, so it looks like you are on the frontier, 150 years ago. If Holywood ever finds out about the place, it’s over. It will be a huge movie set. I had the soundtrack from “O’ Brother, Where Art Thou” on my MP3 player. It was awesome. The twangy, old time music was soooo perfect. I was really enjoying songs that I would usually flip right through in the car because they seemed to fit so appropriately to the terrain.

I got into a few places where I had to sing out loud because it looked like a perfect ambush site for a mountain lion waiting for a passing deer. And I saw litterally every type of animal track you could think of except lion or bear. There were tracks from horses of course, with deer, racoons, maybe a bobcat and defintely birds (probably turkeys) mixed in. This made me even more weary of a lion. Although it appeared they had other things to hunt besides humans, there have been two people killed by lions in the trails around here within the last fifteen years, so I sang out loud!!!! 

When I die, I want you guys to drag my body onto Cronan Ranch, dig a hole, and plant me there forever. Once you see it, you’ll understand.

Chris

Since I have long ago gone ‘native’ I often speak in the ridiculous measurement of meters.  Did y’all know that in the 1791 this was proclaimed to be one ten millionth (10^-7) the distance from the North pole to the equator via Paris, France (must have been a short stop for a glass of wine).  Like they could actually measure this.  I can just picture a pack little beret wearing cigarette smoking  Frenchmen dressed all in black dragging a string across half the world, with a brief stop at home for who knows what.  It is good to know that in 1983 this was finally replaced by the definition: ‘The meter is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second’.  This is equally useful. So, I’ll get out my stop watch… Good thing we still have old fashioned meter sticks available.

Anyway, I have included to following table to help decipher meaningless measurements.

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/meter.html

Steve

Hi All

I just wanted to drop a short note to let y’all know I have not been laying about the last few weeks. In fact while not trying to out do “Runs with Elk” AKA “Runs with Turkeys” I managed to stumble through three 11.6KM loops in 4:27:15 on last Sunday. At the end I could barely move. But I am now confident I can complete this marathon inside 7 hours. If this pachyderm can pound through 34.8KM in four and a half hours I can low crawl the remaining 7.5KM in the remaining two and half hours.

By the way, my leg is not 100%, but after two doctor visits and some better training I was able to complete this run without pain other than tired muscles.   I must also squarely lay blame with vitamin I.  250mg in the morning and evening has done wonders for my knee.  I will be going to see a specialist next week to video tape my plodding to see if I need inserts or some other sort of device to keep my leg stable.  The current diagnosis is ‘painful, not permanent’.  So, basically if I can stand the pain, I can finish the race.  How appropriate for this marathon.

By the way I plan to start MCM training in earnest next week by having the kids throw sand on me from their sand box after each lap of 5KM during training and 11.6KM on the big runs.  Not to worry, I sweat so much it will all be washed off in 100 meters.

Chris

I have been the media boy all week again. After having a good full look at the job, I have decided it is a job that I do not like and would not want on a permanent basis. There is a scandal brewing at the Sacramento City Fire Department. Apparently someone is addicted to morphine and they have access to it. Several vials have been discovered with the seal broken and the morphine removed. It appears that some of them were re-filled with saline solution so they would appear full. Since this a crime, the police department is doing all the talking. Which means I am doing all the talking. It’s a catch twenty two. I am the point of contact for the media, but they don’t want me to say anything! IT SUCKS!

The other thing that seems to have greatly slowed my number of blog posts is this class I am taking through Cal State Long Beach about “Stress and Family Coping”. It’s an online class that will bring me dangerously close to actually having a bachelors degree. Stress and Family Coping is supposed to teach you about coping with family stress, or how families cope with stress. If it is teaching me this, it is by the stress it is causing me! It is a horrible class that has nearly no connection to my real life.

Despite this misery, my 20 mile run was very good. I had hoped to be a little more rested than I felt when I started it, but when I think about how tired I was on Wednesday, two days before, I have to say I made solid improvement with three nights sleep before waking up to go 20 miles. I ran my ten mile route twice. This actually gave me a twenty mile run that had about 400 feet less climbing and descending than my 18 mile route. When I woke up it was wonderfully cool. In fact my hands were quite cold for the first couple miles.

My goal was to run the ten mile route twice, at a pace one minute per mile slower than I would run it if I was running only ten miles. I ran it at exactly that pace. I usually run the ten mile route casually in two hours. So I ran it twice in four hours and 19 minutes. I actually ran the first ten mile section faster than I intended. Then I ran the miles between 10 and 15 slower. There was a 700′ elevation gain in those miles.

At the fifteen mile point, I drank a Pepsi. This was a big deal because I had pretty much avoided anything with caffeine for about the last four months. I met with a sports nutritionist early in the summer, and she suggsted cutting caffeine so that I could use it on long runs to provide a boost instead of merely feeding an addiction. It worked. It gave me a moderate physical kick, and a strong mental kick, for the last five miles. So I intend to use it on long runs from now on.

One thing I did not do was carry my hand held water bottles. I went back to the camelback for this run. Mainly because those things really give the shoulders and back a solid workout. I have been carrying them on every run since I bought them and my analysis is that I was not ready to carry them for four hours and twenty minutes yet. It would have taken a lot more out of me than I wanted taken out on this run. I think I will probably carry them on the marathon though because I can just rest as long as it takes afterward. I think I run faster with them than I do with the camelback.

I could have filled my freezer for the winter if I had carried a pistol with me on this run! I happened upon many, many turkeys, and I got much closer to them than ever before. I may have to change my moniker from “Runs With Elk” to “Runs With Turkeys”. I also happened upon a lot of quail, but they were still very small. A girl I saw told me to watch out for mountain lions, which I already knew. But in light of how close the birds let me get, lions may have been closer than I knew. Figure, the birds may have been rationalizing that they were safer if there was human near by than if there wasn’t one. Anyway, I wear my mp3 player and when I get way out in the boonies, I sing the songs out loud as I run. I figure that will scare anything! Think of Eddie Murphy in the beginning of the movie 48 hours singing “R-O-X-A-N-N-E!!!!”

Relentless forward motion.

Chris

I don’t know whether I had a good run or a bad run yesterday morning! After running 35 miles carrying those two water bottles, I know this though: My back is feeling it! It is amazing how much of an upper back workout carrying those two bottles is.

It was nice and cool yesterday morning, so cool, I was sleeping like a rock when the time came to go running. I had to go early because I had to finish in time to make it to the kids soccer games in Georgetown. So I got up and jetted out for 15 miles. I could see my breath for the first time in many months. Between the cool air surrounding me while I ran, and the cool air making me sleep so deeply before I ran, it felt like it took me about an hour to warm up. I usually try to keep my heart rate under 159 beats per minute on my long runs. Yesterday, I don’t think it went much over 149 until the end of the first hour. I ran wearily along a fifteen mile course that had about 1000′ of climbing and finished in 3 hours and a couple minutes. That is actually a pretty good pace for me over that course. But it was the first run in a long time that I have felt rather ambivalent about.

Anyway, I took a camera along and snapped a few photos so people can see some of the views I see on my long run route. When I look at them, it makes me realize that there is no such thing as a bad run… it’s like that saying that the worst day spent fishing is still better than the best day spent working. Here are some views:

Walk out the front door and see this:

Go a little farther and see this:

Cruise a mile or so:

 One of my favorite views:  

A little less exciting, but still pretty good:

I really like this house. It’s a log construction:

I could have chosen a better viewpoint, for this, the best part really:

Chris

Wahoo! I accomplished something I never thought I would accomplish!

There is a nine mile loop from our house that has about 900′ of climbing and descending. It is a mix of paved road and fire road. When I first found it, it thought it would be a great goal to “run” all the way around it. So last year, after living here for about eight years, I was finally able to run all the way around. That was exciting for me because it seemed so daunting, I had looked at that course for so long and kept it in the back of my pea-brain as a personal goal.

Yesterday, I ran my long run, 18.2 miles. (18 miles for me. 385 yards for the corps.) In the process, I went around that “daunting” nine mile loop TWICE. Wahoo! It took me 3 hours and 53 minutes, including refueling and p-stops. Route Profile Here

Interestingly, I felt better afterward than I did after all of the long runs I did last year in preparation for the CIM. I was pretty much couch-bound after those runs last year, and they were all as flat as could be. Yesterday we went shopping and out to Spagehtti Factory for dinner. I think the largest portion of feeling better is because I got some important physiological things adjusted; Hydration and nutrition are way up while running speed was based completely on heart rate instead of ego. So I walked plenty on the steeper hills.

I also think that there was a psychological aspect that made the whole process more enjoyable too. There is nothing like running a panoramic course in the country. At one point I saw a snake that was as fat as my forearm (Just a big old gopher snake). I think the fact that the ground gave me some varying terrain was good too. It caused some muscles to be used while others got a bit of a break from time to time, like going up hill versus going down hill.

Ever since Erin ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 2003, she has said that she felt it was equivalent to running 18 miles from our front door. So this made me nervous about running 18 yesterday. I don’t know why really, except that it may have got into my head that going 18 miles was going to hurt really really bad. So I didn’t sleep very well on Friday night… I figure that was just some really good training for the actual event as well. Although I doubt I will be terribly nervous, there are still those “nerves” that come from finally reaching the event that you have thought about for so long.

Chris

We have a new guy! “Fireguy” is Charles G, the guy who just ran the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run. I told him about our little discussion spot. He just pointed out too me via email that he has been adding comments but not seeing them. I had not noticed this, so I approved his comments and he is in now.

Here is a photo. The background clock is showing hours and minutes!

Charles The Western States Runner invited me to run with him in the Canyon of the northern fork of the American River this morning. We didn’t run all that far, just under nine miles, but it was pretty steep stuff so my legs feel hammered. I was afraid to go out with him in light of his recent accomplishments, but I really wanted to see some of the great running routes that I live so close to so I took a chance and it paid off. He was easy on me.  I have attached the profile from our route here. He said next time he is gonna take me too some steep stuff! Uh, OK…..

I ran less this week than I did the week I screwed up my leg. Monday, I ran 4.5 miles at a 9:36 pace. Wednesday, I ran 6.5 miles at a 9:37 pace, according to GPS. I just saw that about an hour ago so it made me a little happy. At least I was consistent.

My right leg is still not a completely happy camper. But it let me run 9 miles on steep fire roads, so that’s better than it was. Charles recommended some guy who specializes in sports massage. He said that if I go see the guy, I better take a bite stick. I thought that was hilarious. That’s about how much pressure it seems it would take to get it out if it is a tight muscle. Interestingly, I noticed when we came out onto a paved section of road, the leg really felt the pounding a lot more than it did on the dirt trail. On the uphill trail, I felt nothing. On the downhill trail, I felt tightness. On the pavement, I felt pounding. 

I was kind of sneaking out to do this run. I am on call this weekend. Imagine my feeling when the cellphone rang in the middle of nowhere. Luckily it was not a call-out, but just someone who had been on a fatal traffic accident all night wanting to tell me the details in case I got asked by the media. Whew!

At the end of the run, there was an irrigation ditch flowing right by where we parked our cars. Apparently this is a popular spot for distance runners because there were stairs leading into the ditch so you could go in and cool your legs. Well, you know how phobic I am of cold water from our numerous backpacking trips, so I went right in. It felt great.

By the way, Steve, this is something we haven’t discussed here yet but as you start getting up to 12+ miles, SEVERELY cooling your legs immediately at the end of your run is a genuine recovery strategy. It helps reduce swelling that occurs in your legs from the longer distances. Leg swelling has never been obvious too me, however foot swelling has been VERY obvious too me so I guess it makes sense that my legs are swelling too. I did this cold water thing when I got into higher distances training for the CIM. I seriously poured a frigid cold bath after my long runs in November and sat in there until I couldn’t take it any longer. I’m not jerking your chain on this, although that would be wonderfully fun and very much like me to dream some bullshit like this up and convince you to do it, then tell you at the start line on October 29th that I had been messing with you about it…. Here is some independent documentation on it.

Meanwhile, I hope you guys had a good training week.

Chris

I intercepted a communique that includes accounts from a couple of people who were involved with the Western States 100 mile Endurance Run. If you are interested in reading it, click here. I especially like the guy who described his theory for finishing as RFM:

Relentless Forward Motion

Chris

I had another appointment at the UC Davis Sports Performance Lab again yesterday. I am starting to hate that place. It’s kind of like stepping back into the Marine Corps. All out effort talks. Bullshit walks. No lame-asses allowed. Consequently, they only let me in for very short visits . This time I went for a consultation with the dietician. Of course she is a Ph.D… and we met in Doctor Eric Heiden’s office. The walls are adorned with framed jerseys from world class athletes. All the jerseies are signed by the original owners, thanking the lab staff for helping their effort to kick butt over every other athlete in the world. Last time I went there, Eric Heiden himself yelled at me that I wasn’t trying, that I needed to get serious and start generating some sweat! So I have added him to the already long list of world class psychos who have yelled at me for not sweating as much as they wanted me too!!!

The visit was $75, and I would say that although some aspects of the visit may prove in the long run to be worth every penney, it remains to be seen if it was worth $75. It probably will prove to be a really good deal in the long run.

After analyzing everything I ate for several days, the doctor determined that:

1a) I seem to average about 3000 calories per day. She recommended I cut out my evening snack of peanut butter on toast and thereby reduce my daily average to about 2700 calories.

1b) She wanted to see me including more vegetables in every meal. Her exact words were, “Every meal should be colorful.” This would improve a couple vitamin and mineral deficits, most notably, I don’t take in enough potassium. There are plenty of others I need more of too though. 

2) My fat and protein percentages were both about four percentage points higher than she thought they should be to obtain optimal fitness. She recommended taking that 8 percent and converting it to carbohydrates.  

3) This will be the hardest I think…. she wants me to start eating BEFORE I work out, 200 to 400 calories! I am not sure that I will ever like this. I have always started my workouts on a completely empty stomach. I hate feeling like I have a wad in my stomach when I start running. I have however, felt ok when I started on an empty stomach and started consuming nutrients right away though. Curtis suggested this too me and I feel like it works better than if I eat before I take off.

4) She said I am not taking in enough nutrients while I run to support my goal of running a 50K. She said I need to double the calories I take in while I am running, and increase the water on hot days as well. This means I have to take in: about 240 calories each hour, 10-13 ounces (300-400ml) of water (I may have written that as a per hour requirement in a previous comment. It’s actually 900-1200ml/30-39 ounces per hour), with 300-500ml of salt per hour.

5) Post workout, she wants me to take in 160 calories from carbohydrate right away, and over the next two hours after my long run, she wants me to take in an additional 400 calories from carbs and 130 calories from protein. Additionally, for every pound I am down at the end of the workout, she wants me to consume and extra 24 ounces of water during that day.

Chris

After finally reading most of the document provided by hammer I started carrying a bottle of water with me.  This part is not rocket science, but I will spell it out anyway.  They recommend 500-600ML of water per hour for exercise.  While the upper limit is normally for extreme environmental conditions it can also be interpreted as a limit for people with excessive surface area to be cooled.  The also suggest you are better off with getting fluid when and where you need it. This seemed reasonable and fairly simple to incorporate into my workouts.  The calculations were pretty easy for me in Europe.  No ounce conversion required.  I now carry a 800ML bottle with me. Since I religiously have a walk break of one minute every seven minutes it serves as a reminder to take one mouthful at each walking period.    I am figuring on mouthful to be around 70ml.  Over the last week of testing this seems to be true as I normally arrive home after the run with an appropriate amount of fluid left in the bottle. A few things I have noticed though is that I sweat excessively now. I am not kidding.  My shirt is normally soaking wet when I finish now, as if I had been swimming with it on. Since it is white and plastered to my body I look like a mobile beer belly wet t-shirt contest.  I am considering asking for sponsorship from the local brewery…  I just tell everyone to cover their eyes as I chug past.   I think on multistage runs I will consider changing it at each stage.  I do feel a bit better at the end of the run, but conversely I feel hotter the entire way.  I also notice that I tend to run a little slower this way; this is a symptom of over hydration.  It may be because I am tired already or it may be because I have over hydrated.  I typically do not drink enough to get the sloshes but who know for sure with out scientific analysis.

–

Buford

It is good to hear that Chris is doing better.  Sounds like rest was exactly what was needed.  I have also been feeling worn out lately.  However, there is little light at the end of my tunnel.  Before booking the hotel and flight I took a long look at the Galloway plan.  I then worked back the plan from the event date.  Suddenly, I was no longer one week ahead of plan but on week behind the plan (again).  The one benefit to the plan change was that last weekend was only a 6 miler.  I did seven (one for the corps). I was thankful because the longer runs every weekend were starting to take their toll on my body.  This weekend I think will be the ‘make or break’ for me.  I need to run 13-14 miles.  Roughly, it is half the marathon in distance.  I have charted out a new course that is 11.33KM with the house being at start/finish line.  This Sunday I will have to do this twice to meet the required 13-14 miles.  I am pretty sure I will be wiped out after wards; the single shining light here is that it will be two more weeks before I will need another long distance run.  Once again it will be a big jump for me.  My last long run was at 16.x KM and this will be a 25% jump.  I have worked out a plan that should help.  I will start as close to 0600 as possible.  Lately, it has been hellishly hot by 0800 and I usually start paying for this towards the end of the run.  Next, I will figure out a way to drag along a bottle of hammergel and take hits off that every 20 minutes.  I will also take a bottle of water as well and refill at the middle point.  I am estimating the total time to be between 160-180 minutes.  According to the documentation available to me,  hammergel will work for the first 2 hours.  But, I should consider using perpetuem instead for runs longer than 2 hours.  The problem is that perpetuem is not openly available in Europe.  I will work on obtaining a supply for the longer runs.  In the mean time I will consider supplementing the hammergel with a few grams of some sort of easily digestible protein.  Probably powdered tofu (goes great with the brown rice and vegetables).

–

Buford

The pain in my right leg has been diagnosed by the coach at work. He is a contract-fitness consultant who also is on staff at UC Davis Sport Performance Lab. (Click here and then choose John Hansen, M.S. from the list of Sports Perfromance staff to see his resume.) He says I have a shin splint. Interesting diagnosis considering the pain is int he back of my leg and I never believed shin splints were real because I never had one and always thought they were just a convienent way for sissies to get out of P.T.!

Turns out a shin splint is actually a small tear in the translucent membrane that surrounds the exterior of the muscle. It is essentially the same material as tendons. So you can get the same type of injury anywhere on your leg, front or back, and even on your foot. The fitness consultant believes I probably tore it on a long run, and that my body had no problem with it and would have repaired it easily. Except that my running with the group of guys two days later put even more stress on it and made it worse before it got better. So now he has grounded me. He says I have to chill for a week, literally, icing the spot at least three times per day and doing no more than 60 percent of my average weekly mileage on a treadmill.

I have taken two days completely off and gotten a lot of sleep and interestingly, I was extremely ravenous this morning when I woke up! I think this happened too me before when my shoes were wearing out. It isn’t the shoes this time, it’s just excessive intensity.

Chris

I think I may have gone running in my sleep this morning. I could hardly open my eyes when the phone rang at 0520 hours. In fact, I initially could not figure out that it was the phone. I thought I had left my alarm set. Then I realized I was on call for media relations and thought my run had just gone out the window. It was only the traffic sergeant calling to tell me he had been up all night investigating a fatal traffic accident and he wanted someone to share his misery. No, actually, he wanted to brief me on it so I would be able to answer media inquiries. I felt like I could have slept until about noon, but it was a good time to drag myself out of bed.

In an effort to wake myself up, I walked outside and dove in the pool. It didn’t help. I got dressed, chugged some water, hit the head, and after a few minutes wake up time, I was on the trail. I was almost sleep running. Before leaving I weighed myself: 189 pounds.

After my miserable experience on the Tahoe Relay, Curtis commented that it seemed like I was unable to recover after the hardest climb. I had not thought at all about it until he said it, but I have thought about it a lot since he said it. Recovery, in the middle of the effort. I’ll come back to this.

A couple weeks ago, I started running with a couple guys in the morning before work. Both of them are younger than me.  One of them is very evenly paced with me. The other is able to go significantly faster. When the fast guy doesn’t show up, the other slow guy and I usually push each other a little. When the fast guy shows up, he pushes us both pretty hard, frequently leaving me feeling like I just had my hardest run since Marine Corps days. Wednesday, we ran 8 miles at 9:15 pace…. fast for me, possibly the fastest 8 miles of my life when you consider I didn’t run 8 miles when I was in better shape years ago.

So an interesting thing happened today, that either indicates I really was sleep running, or I am getting in better shape. I usually decide what my max heart rate will be for a long run and as I approach that heart rate on the climbs, I back off. Since many of the climbs are pretty steep, I frequently back off to a walk. Even still, my heart rate never drops much from the point where I decide to back off. The act of walking up a steep hill always keeps it going pretty hard. Click here to see a profile of my route

Today, that changed. I decided my max heart rate would be 170. As I approached it on the steep climbs, I backed off to a walk. And the strangest thing happened. My heart rate fell sharply every time. Sometimes I let if fall way off, other times I would run/walk as it got low. Only one time, on a 22 percent grade, did it fail to fall sharply, and even then it fell marginally. I’m thinking this is what Curtis is talking about when he refers to recovery in the middle of the effort.

As always I carried my fuel belt and my camelback. For the first time ever, I came close to emptying the camelback. It holds 50 ounces. It was full when I left and it only had 8 ounces in it when I got home. Between the camelback and the fuel belt, I drank about 60 ounces over 2.5 hours. (I also ate one Gu pack, 1 serving of Perpetuem, and two Endurolyte capsules.) When I got home, I weighed 186 pounds. This indicates that I was drinking less than I was sweating out. I should have taken in at least one more liter of water in that time.

In three runs this week, I covered 28.3 miles and spent five hours on my feet. You would think that a 38 year old guy doing that to get back in shape would be most likely to hurt himself while running. However, it seems that sitting, specifically driving in rush hour traffic, causes my right leg to bind up tighter than a banjo string. So tight it feels like an injury, so I am recommitting myself to stretching. When I got home this morning, I spent about 30 minutes stretching. I was surprised at how I could feel the tightness in my leg when I was actually stretching my back! It was pulling from the middle of my back to the ball of my foot!!!!

Chris

I rolled out for a casual 12 miles yesterday morning in the Lotusgebirge. It was a really nice run.

 Earlier in the week I thought I had seen a turkey hen with hatchlings in our pasture as I rolled out for my morning commute. That sighting was confirmed yesterday morning as I surprised them while I was running down  the driveway. The signicant thing about this is that the number of turkey’s I have seen on our property since we moved here is pretty small. And I have never seen hatchlings. So the predators must be in lower number around here right now.

I started early because it was forecasted to be over 100 degrees yesterday. I wore my usual war-gear with the fuel belt and the camelback. Before I left, just because Curtis had recently posted about doing it, I weighed myself. 190 on the nose. There were only a couple signs that it was unusually warm while I was running, and I didn’t connect the dots until I got home and weighed again. First, I noticed that I was drenched in sweat a lot sooner than I usually am. Second, when I got to the very top of climb, instead of getting a nice cool breeze, I got one of those drafts that is already warm enough for you to kind of smell dust in it… the kind that tells you it’s not blistering hot yet but it is going to be. I ran slow so that may be the thing that allowed me to get by without  dying on my run. But when I got home I immediately weighed again. 185 on the button. That is a significant difference for me. It tells me I didn’t hydrate well enough, but it also tells me that I am getting in better shape because I don’t think I could have managed pouring out so much sweat without feeling much worse a couple months ago.

So I am wondering if you guys think this blog is working so far, or do you think it would be better if I converted it to a bulletin board format?

Terrible Two:

My riding buddy, Scott McKinney, and I commuted to Sebastopol Friday night where we slept in the parking lot of Analy High School. At 4:20am, after about 3hrs sleep due to a loud party somewhere near the parking lot, everyone started arriving for a 5:30am start and waking up if they slept in the parking lot. The meal the night before was Chicago style pizza, a salad, an apple (with peel because the fiber helps make certain that pizza isn’t carried for 200 miles the next day) and a glass of red wine. Before bed I ate some peanuts and drank about 16 oz of water with my iron and anti-oxidant suplements. Hydration on Friday evening was not as effective as it should have been for a ride in 100 degree heat. So I changed the breakfast plan from a bagel to 20 oz of Perpetum, about 10 oz of water and a few Endurolyte tabs. Just before the pre-ride meeting I also grabbed a half of Costco sized chocolate muffin. On board at the start were 2 large water bottles of Perpetum and one 16 oz disposable bottle of water in my pocket plus 6 shots of Hammer Gel, 3 Powerbars and 2 Gu packets (in case the Hammer Gel stopped going down later in the day) along with a baggie of secret pills. (Endurolytes and Centrum – the multivitamin for old people.)

For the preride meeting Scott and I positioned ourselves near the speaker. Not knowing exactly what direction we were leaving the school, we managed to be at the back of the 316 rider field. That meant the first 10 miles were less relaxed than they should have been because we had to move up to the front during that early warm up from Sebastapol thru Santa Rosa. It was nice to see all of the different riders whom we’ve run into at other double centuries. The lesson we learned is to not get comfortable until you are where you want to be because although you can see the pace car up front it doesn’t mean the peleton is one continuous group. Several times I found we were jumping from group to group to get near to the front.

The ride through Santa Rosa was different and felt like a circuit at the end of race rather than the begining of a double century. I can only guess we were avoiding some obstacle in the main road or that Santa Rosa wanted to sell it’s downtown district to the peleton. In any case, the Terrible Two earned it’s reputation by heading uphill soon after leaving Santa Rosa about 12 miles from it’s start. One cool thing about the early morning was the frequent specators out in front of their house just to see the riders riding passed.

Scott and I got separated on the first climb called Trinity Grade. On the way up though I went passed Michael, who rode with Scott and I for 80 miles in Solvang and probably 60 miles in Davis this year. We keep track of Michael because he is also from Sacramento. I also went passed Craig and Jenny on their Titanium Tandem. Bad news: They flatted and crashed into a guardrail at 40+ mph maybe 10 miles later on the second decent, braking their forks and Craig’s collar bone. I didn’t see Craig and Jenny’s crash but I saw another crash on the way up Trinity that happened about 5 feet to my left when one guy had a chain issue at the same time someone in front of him changed lanes. The guy went down and displayed why colar bones are always the thing that breaks on cycling crashes in slow motion for me on the technocolor big screen. I think the lesson is, don’t put your hand out when you fall because it’s not going to slide on dry pavement. Another lesson learned on the Trinity climb is to find out where water will be handed out so you don’t carry an extra pound to the top of Trinity grade where you find out someone is passing out the same bottle of water you have stashed in your jersey pocket.

The back side of Trinity has a highly technical decent with hairpins posted at 10 and 15 mph. Last year this section was wet from the morning dew. This year it was dry. And thank God it was, because a dude who seemed to know what he was doing flew by me when I was doing about 40 mph. If that guy was going under 50 mph I would be surprised. I had never seen someone decend like that guy did and just hoped he sprouted wings if he flew off the side.

Not only did I loose Scott on the first big climb but I lost contact with the lead pack going up Trinity too. That wasn’t so bad because I found myself riding with Paul McKenzie. Paul is the captain of the tandem I rode with on the Devil Mountain Double that had Catherina Berge as stoker. Cat finished 7th in the 2005 edition of RAAM and was the only woman finisher that year. They were in the California Triple Crown stage race but Paul was sick during the second stage. Cat rode it alone and posted a time that kept her as the lead for the women, but it didn’t count because she was on a tandem for one leg. Paul is quite slender and rides sponsored by Cliff Shot. He and I were able to get back onto the lead group in the Napa Valley and ride with them to the 55 mile Calistoga rest stop.

The first stop was quick since a bunch of us planned to make a pit stop when we got out of town rather than stand in the porta-poty line. Probably 30 out of the 50-70 strong peleton that entered the rest stop left together. The bad news is that a missed arrow on the road cost me and 2 other guys to never get back onto the leaders after the pitt stop. Luckily for me, a different Michael that I have ridden with in about 3 other doubles, was wise enough to acknowledge that we were doing a huge effort and not reeling in the lead group. Secondly most of the leaders would just roll away from us when we hit the 9 mile Geysers climb to rest stop #2 at 85 miles. So, we took it easy.

At the second rest stop at the top of Geysers, now in 90+ degree heat, I thanked Michael for his wisdom and decided it was time to just enjoy the fact that I had been close enough to see the lead group rounding the first corner on Geysers, nearly 80 miles into the ride. After about 8 minutes at the stop, Scott McKinney rolled in and I thanked Michael again for being so wise. Scott, Michael, myself, and a team called Godsend with 5 guys from the Bay Area rode down from the top of Geysers to lunch at Lake Sonoma near 110 miles. Somewhere in this section we turned over the first 100 with 8000 feet of climbing in only 5 hrs 45 minutes. If only the second 100 were that fast. (Unfortunately the day did not cool off.)

After 20 or so minutes at the lunch stop we hit the infamous Skaggs Spring Road which rolls up and down for 30 miles before bottoming out below the El Rancheria climb that seemed to average 12% for about 2 miles. On Skaggs Spring my thermometer consistantly registered 103 degrees. I believe this is where I realized it was a good thing I hadn’t filled my bottles with anything but water after the top of Geysers where I left with one bottle of Perpetum and one of water. I was also thankful I had taken on a 6oz V8 at every rest stop along with eating a handfull of strawberries, water mellon, and Enderolytes. At one water stop on Skaggs Spring (the organizers put water on two of the major peaks on this road) they had iced towels to drape over your head and shoulders. I found this to be very refreshing.

Focusing on hydration at the expense of nutrients cost me a strong second half. But it left me hydrated despite the nano-water facets on the surface of my skin pouring liquid out of my body in a vain attempt to keep itself cool. At around 150 miles we hit the coast at Stewarts Point and headed south to Fort Ross with a tailwind for 10 miles, a pace near 30mph, and a temperature slightly below 70 degress. At the Fort Ross we were told we were about the 30th riders to come through. So, the heat had the same effect on most other riders as well.

From Fort Ross we headed inland again on the last big climb. Those who had never done the Terrible Two were probably disgusted to find out the climb out of Fort Ross at mile 160 was every bit as steep, though a little shorter, than the EL Rancheria Climb back at mile 145. From there it was onto Atazcadero and Occidental through some beautiful redwood forests before heading back to Sebastipol.

Unfortunately there was an 8 mile section before the last rest stop where I had miscalculated water supplies and was left riding for nearly 1/2 hour without water. Thinking it was mostly downhill after the Fort Ross climb I had emptied about 1/2 a bottle on my body for cooling effect. Well, it wasn’t all downhill and that 1/2 bottle was about what I needed to keep from hitting a slight dehydration. Luckily I took on another V8 (I believe my 8th for the day) about 10 oz of water and 1/2 a Coke. An hour later when we reached the finish I had recovered from the dehydration but not from the pains of having done 200 miles with 16,500 foot in 13 hrs 35 minutes. Climate variances, while contributing to the beauty, significantly affect to the diffculty rating of Terrible Two.

The results have not been posted yet but Scott and I should be in the top 30. That’s 1 hr faster than last year for me and 33 slots better in the overall standings. ( One heck of a job by Mr. McKinney on his first TT! )

I just got back from a very nice 10.5 mile run. I got up early and headed out before anyone else was awake at 0630. Got back at 0830. I went slow on purpose, for two reasons. First, because I was tired from last week. Second, because I was trying to apply a theory I have heard Curtis describe that became clear last week: the idea of leaving some throttle room on longer runs. In other words, running closer to the RPM power band than the RPM red line. I kept my HR under 170 the entire time, only nicking 170 a couple times on the steeper hills before backing off to a walk. Who cares if I am slow, at least I feel good! Better too feel good than to look good in this case, or else I would have to stay at home completely!!!  

I carried my camelbac filled with water and my belt filled with perpetuem. Unlike past runs of this nature, I didn’t force perpetuem into myself. I just used it as I felt like I needed it and it seemed to work really well. I am going to stick to this philosophy for a while and see how it works. Based upon how much I had left over when I got home, I could have probably run for four hours at the pace I was runnihng without running out of water or perpetuem. If you figure that I could have added some more stash stuff in the pocket on my camelbac, I think I could have run all day only needing water!

I discovered a wonderfully cheap and easy supplement this week that also came from Curtis: V-8 juice. WOW. No wonder people have said it cures hangovers for years. That stuff has what you need if you are a distance athlete: over 700 mg’s of potassium and over 800 grams of sodium in a little serving! It’s like playing with high octane gasoline! I especially liked that it has low calories considering I am at war with body fat.

Curtis is riding an easy 200 mile bike ride today called the Terrible Two. Click on the link and check out the logo. I love it! I’ll be staying close to the pool and cleaning the yard. It’s supposed to be about 100 degrees. Better yet, let’s try something new:

Since I am on a roll, here is the team photo from the Tahoe Relay. Some of us had time to take a shower before the last guy finished:

Chris

So much for the idea of doing 2.5 mile repeats up and down the steep section I described in my last post! It seemed the legs just weren’t up for that today. It was probably a combination of factors:

1) I’m still tired from last week. I didn’t run all that many miles in the last week (21 miles) but it was definitely the most intense 21 miles I have ever run.

2) It was unusually humid here this morning! It rained last night and I could see my breath when I took off this morning. It felt like Hawaii! I was completely sweaty in the first 2/10ths of a mile. Usually, I am barely getting sweaty at the end of the first mile.

3) I carried a 50-ounce Camelbak in addition to my Fuel Belt. I have never run with a Camelbak before. I think they restrict a lot of the cooling area on the back. However, I want to try to run with this a few times and see if I can get used to it because I need to build up to the point where I can carry Curtis on my back while running. I am sure I will have to carry him if he ever comes running with me in the hills! Hahaha…

Anyway, enough excuses.

I carried the Camelbak and my Fuel Belt this week because I want to try to find a set up that will allow me to run at least three hours without needing any re-supply. Accordingly, I have been using Hammer Nutrition’s Perpetuem drink mix in the Fuel Belt bottles and carrying regular water in the Camelbak. I mix 1 level scoop of Perpetuem to one seven ounce bottle on my Fuel Belt. Then I drink two bottles from the Fuel Belt per hour. I believe this equals almost 260 calories per hour, and the Perpetuem includes a very nice complement of minerals as well. However, I also take one Endurolyte mineral capsule every 30 minutes.

Hourly, this amounts to 260 calories with 20-25 ounces of water (14 ounces in the mix, 10 more from the Camelbak) and 2 Endurolyte capsules. This mix gives me a wonderfully smooth trickle of everything my body needs to keep going down the road, hour after hour. The difference between doing it this way and doing it the old-fashioned way of just drinking water is huge

Since I am on the subject of things that help keep me going down the road, I better mention Body Glide. It helps prevent chaffing really well. I always use it on my long runs.

My legs were just dying today going up the steep hill, called Marbro Road. (You might be able to find it on Google Earth. It’s a dirt fire road, but it has been there for a long time.) The last 1/3 mile is more than 20% grade. My only trip up it was slower than my second trip up it last week. After I realized that, I adapted my run and accepted that I needed to run slower this week. So I took a jaunt out Hallelujah Trail, which rolls gently between 1100’ and 1200’ elevation, and has a spectacular view toward the central valley. It was an excellent idea that probably resulted in nearly as much climbing without quite as much physical stress. Doing it this way, I managed to eek out 10.5 miles, which is more distance than I ran last week.

Chris

Progress with the weblog: There is definitely a learning curve for figuring out how to manage this thing. So for now, sweet and simple. I tried, unsuccessfully, to add a fancy deal on the sidebar that would allow us to post short snippets of info that would not move unless we moved them… for  example it might just have one sentence that says “Curtis is riding the Davis Double Century today.” Or something like that. But I couldn’t get it to work so I abandoned it for now.

Progress with fitness: Erin and I registered for the Marine Corps Marathon this past week. The Marathon is in Washington DC on October 29th. We registered as a five hour runners. That would be faster than I ran the CIM last year, and faster than Erin ran the Marine Corps Marathon three years ago, but I don’t really care about how fast we run it. I mostly care about having a good time while I am running it. Registering was the easy part! Now we have to do the training and then find the $$$ to get there and run it!

Fitness-wise , I am in a good position. I ran 10 miles last week in the hills around our house. I Actually did two one-mile repeats up a hill that climbs 400 feet in elevation in the one mile distance. Tomorrow, if I feel strong, I plan to do 2.5 repeats on that hill. I have only been running three times per week but my distance is not less than five miles each time, so it’s is solid training.

June 10th Erin and I will be running a relay race around Lake Tahoe. There will be seven people on the team, covering 72 miles total. None of the legs are easy. The shortest is 8 miles with 1000′ feet of elevation gain in the last three miles. The longest leg is 12.9 miles. This is why I am training so hard in the hills right now.

Chris