Another Minimalist Running Study, plus a Saucony Xodus mini review

Once again, Dr. Kram's lab has produced some interesting results about barefoot/minimalist running. And once again it got a shout out in the New York Times (here).

I must admit to a bias. I had the opportunity more than once to run for Rodger's lab at CU, and my sister worked for him during her graduate work. Still, interesting stuff.

I can say myself that I have noticed this phenomenon as well. In a shoe with just a bit more cushion, I find myself running faster than in one with less. Say my Peregrines (may they rest in peace) versus my Inov8's. My current go-to trail shoe is the Saucony Xodus 2, the newer version of which was recently reviewed over at iRunFar. I've run 350 miles in them so far, and the tread and overall structure is holding up well. The sidewalls are a beginning to break down and blow out, which is the same problem I've had with the Peregrines, but I anticipate being able to put at least 500 on these babies.

My one beef with these shoes is the grippiness on bare rock. I ran Longs in these three times this summer, and while for the most part I was ok on the upper sections (trough, narrows, etc) there were sections where I wish I'd had more grip on the bare rock. I've recently started wearing a pair of Inov8 Trailrocs, the 245 version with a 3mm drop, and find them to be much more trustworthy on rocks.

But again, they don't have the cushion of the Xodus. I may try the 255, but I'm not sure that would make much of a difference.

Back

I had intended to title this post “Back with a vengeance,” however, after this past Saturday it does not seem quite appropriate any longer. My vengeance, as it were, kind of fizzled out over the last couple days.

After returning, seemingly triumphantly, to running the past couple weeks, I’ve hit some setbacks. These are probably caused as much by overzealousness as anything else. I likely pushed it too hard, too fast, and may have hindered my comeback.

Last Saturday, it was raining and cold here on the Front Range, so I chose to forego my plan to run up in James Peak Wilderness and ran up Bear Peak in Boulder instead. I had not run this route since the fire earlier this year, and thought it might be interesting to see what the trail looked like.

Everything went well, leg-wise, and I was making good time on the climb from the South Mesa Trailhead. As I continued to climb, however, it got more and more icy. Past the Fern Canyon Saddle, ice covered every surface, and even in the flat, cloud-obscured light the forest looked like a wonderland of crystal. A single spider web hung from a rock, eye level due to the steep slope I was ascending, looked more like diamond than silk.

As I ascended yet further, though, what before had been merely pretty became dangerous. The ice thickened to upwards of a quarter of an inch, to the point where I could no longer reliably break through it with my steps. I had not thought to need screw shoes this early in the season.

The third time I slipped and slid backwards in an uncontrolled heap, I realized that, while I could likely get up the remainder of the trail, and still hit the peak in under an hour from the South Mesa Trailhead, I was not sure I’d be able to get down again safely. I opted to turn around and head back down, racing back down Mesa to my car.

The following week went well, for the most part. Over five days I put in 4 runs for about 22 miles and 4500 feet of vertical. Nothing too drastic, but then I was still just getting back into the swing of things. I did notice, though, that the ankle I had sprained a few weeks before was still somehow bothering me.

Friday afternoon in particular was an excellent run. I made it up Flagstaff in a reasonable time (I think, I was not wearing a watch but it felt like a good easy effort). On the way down, though, I finally got into a good downhill groove. I was fairly flying down the slopes. At one point, where the trail paralleled the road, albeit 15 feet higher, I startled a pair of cyclists heading down Flagstaff. I must have looked like quite the apparition, darting down the slope at nearly the same speed they were riding.  

Saturday, in a word, sucked. I struck out for the Mesa Trail, not thinking of getting a PR in or anything, but feeling good. The good feeling lasted from South Mesa until about NCAR: all of four miles. The remaining nine miles were punctuated every other step by pain from my left ankle. While I still finished the whole trail in 2:10, I was not feeling good, and I ended up a good 14 minutes of my PR.

Today (Monday) my ankles seemingly feel worse than ever. This has encouraged me to take the day off of running, at least, and maybe explore the trails around Standley Lake on my mountain bike.

Perhaps tomorrow will be another running day. One can only hope. 

A Much Needed Rest

Well, I’m back. And in more ways than one.

I took the last two weeks off of running. A month ago, I twisted my ankle running on, of all things, a paved bike path. The following week, I woke up one morning, hoping to go for an easy run, and found that I could hardly walk from my bedroom to my bathroom due to a sharp pain in my fourth metatarsal.

This, combined with a general listlessness, suggested that, after a summer of hard running and harder races, I should maybe take a little time off and let my body catch up a little bit. This I duly did, and it seems in general to have done what I hoped. If nothing else, I am now so anxious to run each day that there are times I find it difficult to sit at my desk all day at work.

Back, now, to before I decided to take time off. I had already been having a bit of trouble in early September keeping my running consistent. After Pikes, I did not recover as quickly or as well as I would have hoped. Combine that with trying to find a new place to live, and you have a recipe for poor running. Given that I had intended to run a marathon in Moab in early November, I was rather disappointed with this.

I have since dropped the plans to do the marathon, but enough of my friends are going that I may yet register for the half (expensive as it is) , and try to simply enjoy myself on what looks to be an awesome course.

We shall see.

Despite the time off, and the inconsistent running through September, I am actually feeling good about my fitness. The last run before I took my time off, a 12 mile jaunt up Green and Flagstaff after work on a random Wednesday night, I set a new PR up green of 37:31, despite feeling like I was not trying that hard. This replaces my prior PR, set a week and a half before, of 38:28.

Jumping forward again to the present, I woke up this morning, in my new house (rented, not bought), walked out to my car, and found about a quarter inch of snow covering the grass. This is the first snow of the year, and accompanies a drastic drop in the temperature around here. From Wednesday’s high of 85, it dropped to a high of 45 yesterday. While that might be discouraging for some, it gets my blood flowing, and I’m already planning a good long run up in the James Peak area tomorrow.

The high down in Boulder is below 40, so we shall see what it’s like up there. This will likely necessitate the first donning of my tights this year. 

A few new Pics

I have done a fair amount of high-country "running" lately. I use running in quotation marks because much of it, as is often the case with true mountain routes, was not done at a typical running pace. However, it was faster than most people would be able to climb, so I shall for now use the "moving efficiently over terrain" definition of running.

If it's good enough for Geoff Roes, it's good enough for me.

Rather than get long-winded about my adventures, I'll just post some pics. Two weekends ago, I took a shot at Square Top mountain, across Guanella Pass form Bierstadt. IT was a fun, if easy, thirteener, which had the distinction of being much, much quieter than Bierstadt and not having a trail to speak of.

Square Top. We took the route to the left (south) in this pic.

Cool Green Bug on the trail

Evans (L) and Bierstadt(L) from the top of Square Top

The next day, G and I did Democrat, a Fourteener in the Ten Mile-Mosquito Range. She climbed like a champ, given that she hadn't done any hiking all summer.

Climbing Democrat.

For some reason, I missed the opportunity for a summit pic of the two of us. This is looking back down at the Cirque between Democrat, Cameron, and Bross.

This past weekend, I took a shot at Meeker Ridge. This is the most prominent ridge on Meeker, and also lacks a defined trail. For the most part, at least. I discovered on the way down that there were, in fact, cairns leading you to the correct route: I just missed the cutoff for the correct route and ended up bushwhacking through the woods for a long time. This is a route I hope to do again, now that I know how to proceed.

From the Ridge, looking over Wild Basin, towards a peak whose name I cannot place right now.  

There was a bit of a trail, but nothing too impressive. 

Looking back up at the Ridge, from Lookout Mountain. those clouds came over me within 10 minutes of this pic.

Pikes Peak Marathon 2012: Race Report

Less than half an hour into the race, I knew it was going to be a long, painful slog to the finish. And I still had 23 miles, and 5000+ feet of climbing to go.

The ultimate goal for the day, illuminated by classic Alpenglow.

In retrospect, I probably could have seen it sooner. Two nights before the race, my friend, who is 4 years into a 6 year stint with the Navy, came into town. This meant, naturally, that we went out, and had more to drink than I usually do. The next day, the power went out right around the time we were going to eat dinner, and I ended up eating corn and chicken instead of my normal spaghetti. Add that to the general fatigue in my legs that had been present all week, and the Pikes Peak Marathon seemed a whole lot longer.

Three miles in, near the top of the famous "W's," I was still feeling ok, but I could tell that my legs were not all there. I could cruise faster than most on the following flats and mild uphills, catching many. I was still on and under my goal splits for this section of the race. I was still hopeful, but realization was dawning in me that this would not be a breakthrough race for me.

After Barr Camp, though, I blew up. I asked my legs for ore juice for the climb, and they had nothing to give. Far, far sooner than I would normally need to, at a shallow grade, I slowed to a hike. People started passing me, and though I intended to follow all of them, my legs refused to function.

At 12000', past the A-frame, Kilian Jornet flew down, smiling, laughing, and yelling "great job" at the people he passed. He had clearly not broken the record, but was just as clearly firmly in the lead and not in the least bit worried about the competition. Indeed, he broke his age group record for the descent while looking effortless.

Meanwhile, I continued my slow plod to the top. I had considered, every half mile or so for the past 8 miles, dropping out and saving myself for another day. But I quashed that thought, and continued. Even at 13 and 14 thousand feet, I was unable to push myself to the point where I was breathing hard. It says a ton about my acclimatization, but not much about my fitness on the day.

Nonetheless, I finished the ascent in a decently respectable 3:20, and turned to head down. Down past the A-Frame, I was feeling good again, and passing people while not being passed myself. But again, after three miles of the novel downhill section, my legs gave out.

I slogged through Barr Camp and back along the flats, struggling to hold even a 10 minute mile pace at times. Then, on an embarrassingly smooth stretch of trail, I found myself suddenly lying on my side with the taste of dust in my mouth. I had tripped over the only tree root within 50 yards. But lucky for me the next runner on the trail was nice enough to stop and give me a hand up before cruising by. At this point, another runner I had passed already on the way down trotted by as well.

Discouraging.

The remaining 6 miles to the finish is best left undescribed. I  made my way to the finish for a time of 5:22. My friends and training partners had come in at 4:22 and 4:39 for 10th and 18th place.

I have had many tell me since that, given the kind of day I had, coming in at 59th place overall and 9th in my age group is nothing to complain about. And I know they are right. But I am still frustrated and disappointed with the result.

Next time. I will learn from this and I will dial in my next marathon (or ultra?) that much better.

Edit 8-23: I have already decided on my next race: the Moab Trail Marathon on November 4. Between now and then I will be doing several shorter races, including a 2k and a 4 mile trail race, to up my tolerance for higher turnover.

Focus!

It's taper time once again.

Pikes Peak Marathon is on Sunday, the 19th, and my legs are, to put it mildly, not cooperating. My quads have been feeling out of sorts ever since a few days after my last Longs Peak run. I took it easy on the downhill, but I think I pounded my legs a little too much in trying to stay slow, trying not to a) injure myself or b) injure anybody else among the hordes on the trail that day.

Fortunately, I still have a good four days left, and my legs are starting to feel better after a few short, flat runs. Tomorrow will be a bit of a test, and then it will be short, flat runs until Pikes on Sunday. All I need to do now is focus on the race, and put my nonresponsive legs out of my mind.

Given the idea I have brewing, focusing on a marathon is proving difficult. But more on that post run.

I, for one, am looking forward to posting my own time with Matt Carpenter, Max King, and Kilian Jornet.  It should be an epic race.

Playing around in the Collegiate Peaks

Looking down Browns Pass towards Princeton

Two weeks ago, I was lucky enough to have my Mom's side of the family come out to Buena Vista, CO, for a week-long reunion. I had been excited about this for a long time, since the Collegiate Peaks are prime running territory, and the trip might afford me some great training for the Pikes Peak Marathon (now coming up in under two weeks!).

While I was excited, I also knew that, this being a reunion, family was first priority, and whatever good runs (beyond my normal daily routine) I could fit in would be an added bonus.

So, losing no time, the first morning I was there, while everybody was still settling in, I headed up to the Denny Creek Trailhead outside of BV, and up Browns Pass. This trailhead also leads to the trail up Mt Yale, one of Colorado's 14ers, but I decided to leave that for a later day. To my surprise and delight, the trail, after an initial, steep, half mile uphill, proved reasonably mellow and soft, save for a few technical sections. Five miles and 2200 feet or so later, I was halfway through a near-perfect run.

Marmot

I had, the weekend before, had probably the worst run of my life. A trip up James Peak, a lost, and eventually returned, camera, and poor nutritional choices had led to a 16 mile run taking 4:15, including some walked downhills. A quick, sub two-hour, beautiful run was exactly what I needed to come back from the disappointment that was the James Peak run.

The next day, my sister and her husband arrived, and we quickly headed back up to the same trail (at 3:30PM). My sister wanted to get some running and quiet reading in, and my brother-n-law and I decided to see what we could do on Yale in a reasonable amount of time. 3300 feet and a couple hours later, we realized there was no chance to make the summit, turned around, and headed back down the mountain to find my sister finishing Kara Goucher's book on running. This stands as one of my favorite hikes ever.

The sky near Yale was stunning

My brother-in-law would return to Yale a few days later to summit. That day, I headed over to the North Cottonwood Trailhead for a 2.5-hr run, to see what I could do on Harvard. Once again, I did not summit due to time constraints. I had a ziplining appointment at 2PM that I didn't want to miss. But once again, I had a fantastic run,  putting in a tempo effort up the trail, and then flying down it at, according to my watch, 5:40 mile pace.

All in all, an excellent week in the mountains. Part of me was inclined to be annoyed that I did not get to summit any peaks during the week, but I realized that, summits or not, I was getting great training in at altitude.

And the training paid off. Less than a week after I got back, I headed back to Longs Peak to get a final, big mountain training run in before Pikes. Despite again not feeling fresh, I took a full 18 minutes off my ascent time, bounding up the homestretch to reach the top in 2:18. And I did so in front of no other than Andy Anderson, Park Ranger and holder of the Longs Peak RT FKT.  I descended in a lazy 1:55 for a 23 minute PR on Longs.

Meeker from Longs 

Tons of people on the trail. Probably slowed my descent down from what it could have been. Andy is the ranger in yellow on the right.

Finally, this young bull elk posed for several pictures 3 miles from the trailhead.