Recovery

As the video says, it's a long road up to recovery.

After the Superior Spring 50k, I actually felt pretty good. Two days post-race, I ran three miles down Summit, and proceeded to run 4 miles the next several days. I didn't have much pep in my legs, but then that is to be expected after a race where you leave everything on the course as I did.

Over two weeks later, after a lot of 4- and 5-mile days, I still don't have all my pep back. More annoyingly, I've developed some definite ITBS symptoms. This is something I have never really had to deal with before, so I am a bit discouraged by the course events have taken.

Fortunately I have been reading "Anatomy for Runners," a book I highly recommend to any runners out there who think they might lack strength or flexibility in key areas. With this, I have a few ideas as to which exercises I can do to mitigate ITBS and be sure it doesn't come back again.

My assumption is that this is a result of my taking on a highly technical course after not practicing enough on technical trails. The mud and leaf sludge I ran through probably didn't help a whole lot. Going forward, in addition to working on the strength and flexibility exercises I've found to treat this particular injury, I want to work on more technical running as much as possible.

Difficult, but not impossible, here in the twin cities. I know one section of the river gorge trail that might be technical enough, and it has the distinct advantage of being on one of the larger hills on that trail, so I can work technical training and hill training at the same time.

I hope that I can get through this quickly.

(Mis)Adventures on the North Shore: Lake Superior 50k Race Report.

As you can probably tell from the title, everything did not go to plan this past weekend.

The short version: This post got long, as they tend to do, so if you don’t have a lot of time, here’s the short version. I wanted to mix it up at the front of the race this time, so I went out quickly. I ran through the halfway point, feeling strong, in 6th place, but at mile 17 or so my quads cramped and I fell off the pace. The next 5 ½ miles were a sufferfest, until a friendly fellow runner suggested I take in some serious calories. I ended up rallying over the last 8 miles of the course, passing two more runners while being passed by one, and finished strong  in 13th place in 5 hours, 10 minutes (a PR by over an hour for the distance).

And I learned more about these long trail races.

Friday: The day before the race we spent 1) getting to the North Shore, 2) poking around several state parks, 3) attempting (unsuccessfully) to start a campfire and 4) attempting (semi-successfully) to sleep.

Lutsen is a bit over 4 hours from my house in St. Paul. We took the straight shot up I35 to Duluth, where we stopped for lunch (smoked lake trout from the Northern Waters Smokehaus), wandered around Canal Park, and filled up the tank before heading the rest of the way up the Shore. On the way, we stopped by one of my favorite places: Gooseberry Falls State Park, where the eponymous falls were raging with the spring melt and recent rains. When I was young enough to live in Duluth, but old enough to drive, I used to make the hour trip on a regular basis and climb around on the various rock formations (occasionally startling unsuspecting tourists who were unaware of just how sure-footed I am).

After a brief stop in Lutsen to pick up my race number and shirt, we grabbed firewood and checked in at the Cascade River State Park campground on our way up to the Angry Trout in Grand Marais for dinner. If you ever happen to find yourself on the north shore, I highly recommend the Pissed Off Perch (as it’s known in my family). The meals are pricey, but the fresh lake trout, wild rice, asparagus, and salad was well worth it.

Once we set up camp, we turned to the firepit with the hope of getting a fire going, because what’s a camp site without a fire?

Not a chance of that. We tried for two hours to get the fire going. We eventually resorted to torching the wood over my Biolite Camp Stove in the hopes that we could dry it enough that it would light. When that didn’t work, I drove to the nearest town to find more firewood, only to find that the gas station was closed. The firewood was just sitting on the porch, but I just was not about to take it.

Finally, a bit before 10PM, we gave up and turned in. I think I slept until about 3:30, before I had to step out of the tent to dehydrate a bit. At that point, I realized that my pad had been leaking the whole night. And while I hadn’t noticed it while I was asleep, it did keep me from falling back asleep. I’m not sure my fiancee ever fell asleep at all. This is the last time I try camping for a spring race in Minnesota. It isn’t worth the money you save.

Gooseberry

Cascade River. Shutter Priority mode is pretty fun for water picks. Now I just need to find my little tripod. 

Again, shutter priority mode. I think this was 0.6s exposure.

Saturday (the race):

Despite the lack of sleep and other misadventures of the night, I still felt pretty good at the start line. After checking in, I chatted with a few of the other runners before being ushered up to the start line, mostly discussing (as ever) why I chose to leave Colorado, given that I am a trail runner. Some day I will touch on that here, but not today.

At the start line, the RD proceeded to quite literally call out the runners who had picked up their packets the day before but not checked in the morning of. Asking for “Eric Olsen” in a crowd of Minnesotans is, unsurprisingly, not specific enough. And then, with zero fanfare and no warning, it was “5-4-3-2-1-go!”

No gun. No anthem. Just the announcement.

Start to Oberg (7.75 miles, 1:06:30)

I had several goals for this race: number one was to mix it up at the pointy end of the race (the top ten or so) for as long as I could.  With this in mind, I took off for the first half mile of road with a group of 6 others who had sprung off the start line. The pace was quick, but felt sustainable to me. At the start of the single track, where the course hit the Superior HIking Trail, the group spread out a bit, and I found myself both passed and passing as we sorted out order by who was better at the uphills.

I found myself somewhere around 8th place for a bit, talking with a guy from Iowa named Andrew (he was behind me, and I never did see what he looked like). I mentioned having moved from Boulder, and he said “the thing that amazes me about you Western runners is how quick you are on the downhills.”

Bam! There was my strategy. I had passed fewer people than had passed me on the uphill. But as soon as we hit the first descent, I shot off the front of my group, and quickly caught and passed the next group ahead of me. I consider myself a mediocre descender in Colorado, but it seems I am comparatively much better here in the Midwest. At the bottom of the first descent off Mystery Mountain, I tacked myself onto the trail of a guy in Salomon gear and would stay on his tail until the halfway point. In the saddle between Moose and Mystery mountains, we encountered the first major stretches of mud, which would be our constant companion through the rest of the race.

The ascent and descent off of Moose Mountain went similarly, but being closer to the front of the field, I stayed in the same position the whole time, losing a bit of ground on the ascent and gaining it back on the descent. We (Salomon and I) ran into the first (Oberg) aid station together, with a spectator telling me I was in fifth position. I was in sixth, but either way was closer to the front of the field than I thought.

Oberg to Sawbill (5.5 miles 52:45)

With a quick refill for my 2x10oz water bottles and a quick gulp of water from the station, I was off again at 1:06 on the clock, chasing Salomon down what was supposed to be the smooth, runnable section of the trail for the day. It was smooth, and runnable, and muddy as all get out. I had kept my feet mostly dry up until this point, but quickly gave up on that as we splashed through (so far) ankle-deep mud in this boggy section of the course. The pace was still pretty quick this point, but I was well within my estimated splits for a 4:30 total time, and feeling remarkably fresh for the 10 miles or so we had finished to this point.

Sawbill-Carlton-Sawbill (4.5 miles ~33)

I continued running with Salomon through the Sawbill aid station, where I refilled my bottles again and he ran through onto a short boardwalk section. This stretch, with just about 2 hours on the clock, felt fantastic after the rough, muddy, rocky trails we had just traversed. I would guess I hit upwards of 6:30 pace on the boardwalk, slowing considerably as I hit the rocky, technical, and washed-out trail up Carlton Peak. This is also where the race leaders started coming back to me, likely as much as twenty minutes ahead of me and moving quickly.

The top of Carlton Peak, and the turnaround point at 15.5 miles, came with 2:17 on the clock and the race marshall at the top saying “you’re 3 ½ minutes late, and I have water, juice, and beer, but you’re too soon to be wanting beer, I bet.”

Have I mentioned I love goofy race marshalls? This was exactly the ridiculousness I needed at the halfway point of a long, hard race. I rounded the cone and headed back downhill, going for several minutes before I saw any more racers coming up behind me. Down the technical trail, along the boardwalk, I got the first inkling of what was coming: twinges in my quads suggesting I was heading for a major cramp fest.

In retrospect, at this point, I should have immediately taken in calories, salt, and as much water as I could before the aid station. But this is only my second 50k, and I am still learning. And let’s face it: I was surprised. I had been hitting my nutrition well, draining my bottles between each aid station, and taking water at each as well. But as I hit the station at 14 minutes or so down from the peak, I was not thinking clearly, and did not do enough.

Sawbill to Oberg (5.5 miles, ~1:11)

The next 5.5 miles over to Oberg were a sufferfest. This section took me 52 minutes on the way out, and would take me 1:06 on the way back. I had to walk anything beyond a gradual uphill, and the muddy patches had been churned up enough at this point that I had to pick my way through them as well, lest i lose a shoe. For the first half, I kept looking back over my shoulder, wondering where the heck the runners behind me were, since despite the encouragement from the slower 50k runners I felt like I was barely moving.

It was also in this section that I thought about DNF-ing. I was wobbly, and uncertain of my footing. I knew that, unless I turned things around, I would risk injury on the 7 ¾ mile section from Oberg to the finish: the most technical section of the course.

Eventually, inevitably, the runners behind me started to catch up. It seemed like there were trains of them passing me, and eventually, I worked up the energy go tag onto the back of a train of two. I talked a bit, and they gave me the (seemingly) brilliant advice of “Eat as much as you can, right now.” Thank you Peter and Cody, wherever you are. You remind me why I love trail running so much.

I followed their advice, eating my Honeystinger Chews and downing a VFuel. I immediately felt better and tagged after Peter and Cody to the Oberg Station. I lingered here a bit, downing a couple cups of Coke, and four blonde Oreo cookies. I also watched the lead woman run by, still looking pretty smooth and fast.

Oberg to the Finish (7.75 miles, 1:27:30)

I managed to pick it up here a little bit, losing about the same amount of time over an extra 2.25 miles of distance as I did between Sawbill and Oberg. I think the added food helped quite a bit. But this was also where we picked up the 25k runners, who had started two hours after the 50k. Passing runner after runner, who were after all running half the distance, gave me a huge mental boost.

I ran much more of this section than the prior section. I had scouted the route on the downhills outbound, and on the way back I ran everything but the steepest sections. Well, the steep sections and the muddy sections, which were now even more torn up from the added pressure of the 25k. It got to the point where I felt bad that we were tearing up the trail so much, but there we were.

I was only passed by one other 50k runner during this section, and I passed two, which is always a boost mentally. More than anything else, though, I passed one 25k runner who yelled “You look so good! You’re my inspiration!” at my back.

Up and over Moose, and over Mystery again, and I was on the final downhill into the finish. I really picked it up the last mile of doubletrack and roads, party due to one 50k runner I had passed passing me back. I was not going to allow that.

A few yards before the finish line, I patted a young 25k runner on the back, said "let's kick it in," and I crossed the line in 5:10, good for 13th place over all.

Reflections:

I did a lot right this time. I trained well for the distance, with more speed workouts, and one very long training run.  I knew I could go the distance, at the very least. And I knew I had some speed if I needed it.

I went for it. I wanted to go out there and try to mix it up at the sharp end of the field, and that’s exactly what I did for the first half of the race. But if I’m going to do that, I need to take in calories at a higher rate: on the order of a gel every 35 minutes rather than 45 minutes.

The other thing I need to do is find technical trails to train on in and around the Twin Cities. I had been lulled into complacency with regard to the trails around here, but the Superior Hiking Trail is a different beast entirely. I think that is where the cramping came from (combined with the inadequate calorie intake), because it was focused in my adductors. With a little extra training on the technical stuff, I think I have a chance at doing better next year.

I am happy to report, though, that I don’t seem to have lost any of my prowess at the technical trail, just my fitness. Three days after the race, my legs are feeling pretty decent, all things considered, and I’m pondering my next race. I am already signed up for a silly 5k (the Electric Run) in a few weeks, and am considering a 5k trail race a week from Wednesday.

Gear

Shoes: Altra Lone Peaks 1.5

Shorts: Salomon Exo Skins 2-in-1.

Belt: Ultimate Direction Jurek Endure

Fuel: VFuel Gels (5), Honeystinger Chews (1), Endurolyte Caps

Week Ending 5/13/2014

After taking easy last week, a necessity after my 29 miler the week before, I ramped it back up a bit this week. I wanted to get a few more intense workouts in before tapering for the race, primarily to see whether my legs had recovered from the long run completely. I think they did.

Monday: 5 miles, 40 minutes easy down summit. This whole week would prove pretty dismal in terms of weather. This day was no different.

Tuesday: 7.5 miles, 53 minutes. Hill/Fartlek. I felt quick on this one, and proved it running a 1:25 up the Ramsey Hill. That's another 5 seconds off my PR, showing that my training continues to progress apace..

Wednesday: 5 miles, 35 minutes easy down Summit. Yep. I finally decided to take the watch on an easy run this week to see how my times were. I hit a bridge that marked my 20-minute run turnaround point at 9 minutes, without feeling at all pressed. All in all, it was 5 miles at an effortless 7-minute pace.

Thursday: 5 miles,  with three miles of up-tempo in the middle. 33 minutes for 5 miles, with the last mile really slow.

Friday: Off.

Saturday: 10 miles, 70 minutes. Longish. Fastish. Again, this felt more like a warm-up than a long run. I felt fast, strong, and ready to run three times as long in a week.  Granted, I did take a short break in the middle, jaunting down to the river and poking around the fossil-covered rocks littering the bank. Given that I was in the middle of the Twin Cities (almost literally) it was remarkably quiet and peaceful at the water's edge.

Sunday: was basically a wash. We walked around for a few miles and generally took it easy before taking my mom out for Mother's Day.

I'm feeling pretty ready. I'm running about 4 miles a day this week, with a few striders/pick ups in the the middle of the runs, just to keep my legs fresh. The trail report says there are dry sections, muddy sections, wet sections, and sections with snow up to 20 inches deep. I doubt this is going to be a particularly fast running of the Superior 50k, but it should certainly be interesting.

I guess I've done everything I can. Next up: race report.

Someday

Someday I would like to do this.

http://vimeo.com/89120871

Week Ending 5/4/2014: Sick at the Right Time.

I have a cat on my lap, and he has usurped my computer's normal spot, so I am decidedly not in the best writing position. 

For those of you who are not aware, the cat generally wins arguments of this nature. The cute factor is the trump card. 

All that aside, last week was not the best as far as running goes. I had planned to take a day or two to recover from the Long Run the prior Saturday. In fact, when I ran on Tuesday, short though it was, I felt remarkably good. It was the rain, cold, and wind that kept me from running longer, not the fatigue. 

The next day, though, after closing down a restaurant with a running friend from church back in the day, I woke up with a cold. I still ran on Wednesday, but the next day the cold definitely won. When I took three tries to get out of bed without getting dizzy and stumbling into the wall, I knew there was no running that day. 

The cold is still lingering, but I'm definitely over the worst of it now. On with the summary. 

Monday: Off. 

Tuesday: 3 miles easy. 

Wednesday: 4 miles easy. 

Thursday: Off. (SICK!)

Friday: 5.5 miles. Easy. Still sick, but feeling a little better. 

Saturday: 5.5 miles. Easy. Still not feeling great. 

Sunday: 5 miles. Hiking in Afton State Park. 

Total: 23 miles. 

Looking back now, I could not have gotten sick at a better time. It made me take a decent amount of rest after the 29 miler and before resuming an intense training schedule. It also gave me enough time to recover fully from the cold before racing in another week and a half. 

In the last couple days (Tuesday and Wednesday of this week) I've had a few experiences that make me even more confident in my training. Tuesday, I did my traditional hill fartlek. My legs were still easily tired after being sick for a week, but even so, I ran up Ramsey hill in 1:25, another 5 seconds off my PR for that hill, and meaning I went up a quarter mile, 125 foot hill at 5:40 pace. 

Despite that, I had to cut the workout short. It was just too soon after the cold. 

Then today, feeling a bit better, I decided that, for the first time in a very long time, I would wear my watch on my normal easy 5-mile course just to see where I was at in terms of pace. I knew I would have no trouble taking it easy after Tuesday. Despite tired legs, I hit the first mile in 6:30(!), and ticked off each of the following miles in 7 minutes plus or minus a few seconds. That means that my stumbling, easy pace run is faster much faster than my goal race pace. 

I'm running low on excuses if things don't go well.

Week Ending 4/26/2014: The Long Run

From the beginning of this year, I had this week slated as the week to do the longest run of this training cycle. Not only that, I had already chosen where I would do the long run. Of course, this was my favorite River Gorge loop. I thought that, if my training progressed as I hoped, I would be able to do 4-5 laps of the 5.5+ mile loop (it is likely around 5.6, but I'm not entirely sure). So going in to this week, I planned to take it mostly easy, only doing one hill fartlek on Wednesday, taking Friday off, and then seeing where I was on Sunday.

I found out last weekend that there was a race planned on the roads circling the River Gorge: the Get in Gear 5k, 10k, and Half Marathon. I worried that it might interfere with my run, or worse, that my run might somehow interfere with the race (how? I'm not sure). In the end, though, I decided to press ahead with the planned run.

Read on to see how it went.

Monday: 4 miles, 32 minutes (or so) easy.

Tuesday: 5 miles, 39 minutes easy.

Wednesday: 8 miles, 56 minutes. Hill/Fartlek. I added on yet another hill repeat. This was much more of a tempo run than past iterations, as I didn't ease up quite as much on the downhills or on the flats. In the midst of a tough workout, I still managed to set a PR on Ramsey Hill of 1:30. Taking a solid 5 seconds off my previous best was a big boost of confidence.

Thursday: 5.5 miles, 43 minutes easy. I had to restrain myself in order to keep the mileage low. I figured I would need my legs to be as fresh as reasonably possible for Saturday.

Friday: Off.

Saturday:  29 miles, 4:07. 3500' of vertical. The longest training run, and second-longest run, of my life. (See below for full description).

Sunday: Off. Well, I wandered around the Mall of America for a couple hours, but I did zero running. My legs, however, felt (and feel) much better than I anticipated.

Totals: 51.5 miles, almost exactly 7 hours.

As I intended, I did 5 laps of the River Gorge loop (alternating CCW, CW each time). I parked my car on Summit, making it an Aid Station. My goal with this run was to make it as similar as possible to the race situation. The Superior 50k will have 2 aid stations on an out and back course, at 7.5 and 13 miles, approximately, which we will hit twice. By doing 5 loops and stopping at my car to refill my Jurek Endure each lap, I could come close to simulating race conditions (albeit at a slower pace) and test whether the belt would be sufficient for the course.

As it turns out, I did not pack enough water in my car, but as long as I'm at the pointy end of the field (and I intend to be. There, I said it) I anticipate that the aid stations will have ample water for all runners.

Lap 1: 51:55. I took it intentionally very easy on this lap. A secondary goal to just finishing the run was to try and keep even splits if possible, and ideally make the last lap the fastest. I took off about 45 minutes before the start of the 5k, and so completed it shortly after the first race started. While my legs felt ok on this lap, by no means did they feel fully rested, which again was part of the goal.

With the river higher again than it was last week, I did do a bit of trail-searching here, and one small stretch of bushwhacking, but I do not think that added significantly to my overall distance or time for this lap. The one annoyance was my shoelace: the outer casing had broken earlier in the  morning, which required me to retie it once on each of the first two laps.

Lap 2: 48:30. After a quick stop at the car to refill water bottles, I turned back the way I had just come for a reverse of the first lap. This one was pretty much a blur. My legs settled in easily to a faster, run-for-the-duration pace, and the lap sped by. I corrected my navigation error from the first lap, and now  lahad the route down pat for the rest of the run. This involved me dropping down a series of limestone ledges, which I would have to scramble up the opposite direction for two additional laps. I was rewarded after dropping in, though, with the glimpse of a Pileated Woodpecker that I roused while running by.

At the tail end, after crossing the Lake Street Bridge, I ran into the only other runner I would see all day. I would run into her two more times over the course of the run.

Lap 3: 47:40. Lap three I was fortunate enough to be bolstered on by the Half Marathon and 10k runners heading the opposite direction on each bridge. After overtaking the young female runner I had passed coming back to the car a few minutes before, I hit the Lake Street Bridge, and saw the lead 10k men taking the turn onto Mississippi Boulevard.

On my way across the bridge, I made sure to regularly cheer the runners coming towards me. I actually saw a friend of mine from Colby chasing down the lead women in the 10k. Sadly, I only realized who it was in time to cheer at her back, but that's better than nothing!

In my turn, I got a big mental boost seeing so many other runners working so hard. Bolstered again by the runners on the Ford Parkway bridge, Lap 3 was my fastest of the 5 laps. I felt bad overtaking the same runner again as I closed in on my car for the third "aid station," but I was not going to slow down.

Lap 4: 48:41. Surprising myself, lap four still felt pretty good. I began to feel the mileage somewhere around halfway through this clockwise lap, heading up one of the steeper hills of the lap. I still managed to push it hard up the hill to hit the Lake Street bridge for the fourth time. But I knew there that I was venturing into unknown territory on the next lap.

Lap 5: 50:34. Early in this lap, I got another big boost: students from St Thomas were out cleaning the garbage from the woods in the area. The exchange went something like this.

"How's it goin?"

"Lap 5, mile 23, I'm hurtin."

"You go!" "Usaiiiiiiiiiiin."

I assume he meant Usain Bolt? I don't know that he's ever run 23 miles in a row. I doubt it.

I needed that boost, as I was now in uncharted territory for me on a training run. Surprisingly, though, I felt good for most of my 5th lap, through the marathon or so. On the last straightaway upriver from the Ford bridge. I started to really feel it. I must not have slipped off the pace too badly, though, since I still managed a faster lap than my first.

As I said, this run was a huge confidence boost for me. With the runs back and forth to the car, this may have been close to 30 miles. And I felt good for most of it. Sure, I got tired at the end, but I managed to keep a relatively even pace (approximately 8:30) throughout the run. I matched aid stations to the race as closely as I could, and my nutrition worked out well.

I ran out of water on the last lap, because I did not quite have enough in my car. I anticipate this not being a problem during the race, as I certainly hope the aid stations won't run out of water.

Things are looking good for the race. Training has gone exactly according to plan, and better than I could have hoped.

The only problem now is that I have no excuses.

Week Ending 4/20/2014

Ow.

That's what I have to say about this past week. If you recall from my last post, I closed out the week finishing 4/13 with the longest (distance-wise) training run of my life on Sunday. It was also the longest week of my training cycle thus far. I had decided that I wanted to run tired this week, and put in some serious intensity while my legs were tired from the prior week.

And that's what I did. It's been a huge week for my confidence. Not only did I run the long run on Sunday, I put in three "intensity" workouts this week including my longish run on Saturday. This, as might be expected, left me exhausted on Sunday, still tired on Monday, and slightly off full form today (Tuesday).

Monday:  No running. I went to the gym and did thirty minutes on the elliptical trainer. The machine said I went approximately 3 miles (how it computes this I don't know). A decent way to get a low-impact workout post long run. Next time I'll probably try either cycling or rowing.

Tuesday: 7.5 miles, 55 minutes. This was the same hill/fartlek course I've been doing for the last month or so, but I added yet another hill repeat on this week. I have been running down a cobblestone street the last few times on this course, wondering why I don't run up it. So, naturally, I did. I kept it pretty easy on the flats and the downhills this time, which explains the longer time. But the hills themselves were still run at a sharp pace.

Wednesday: 5.5 miles, 42 minutes easy.

Thursday: 8 miles, 58 minutes. 3x800, 4x400, 3x800. First half was mostly downhill, second half was mostly uphill. I lost some of my splits, so the last few are estimates: 3x800 (2:47, 2:45, 2:49), 4x400 (1:11, 1:12, 1:16, 1:15), 3x800 (2:51, 2:55 (est) 2:42 (est)) .

I started not quite sure whether I would be able to get through the workout. My legs were not feeling particularly springy. So I took the first set of 800s out at a moderate pace. Then I blew it out of the tubes on the 400s, and picked up the pieces on the second set of 800s. All in all a very satisfying workout (particularly the last 800, which I think may have been yet faster).

Friday: 6 miles, 47 minutes easy. I've started finding it hard to keep slow enough on my easy days. I want to hit between 7:30 and 8 minute pace on my easy runs, but find myself holding back to do so. I'm thinking this is a good sign.

Saturday: 12.5 miles, 1:37. Long run with up-tempo sections. Took it out slowly from home down to the Mississippi Gorge, then went slightly up-tempo around the gorge loop that I do so often, and hit it harder on the way back up Summit. I ran the River Gorge loop (about 5.5 miles) in 45 minutes at an up-tempo pace, which did not stop me from pausing at certain points to explore places I had never noticed before during the winter (due to snow cover).

Strava says that my pace on this section was around 8:30, which is fair but not indicative of how quickly I was running where I could. It turns out (go figure) that the Mississippi is pretty high right now, and has flooded a few of the trails that I would normally run, leading to some interesting bushwhacking sections.

The final 3.5 miles up Summit and home I hit it at closer to half-marathon to marathon pace. Despite tired legs, I managed a 7:10 for the hardest uphill, followed by 6:50, 6:37, and 6:31 for the last half mile. Not half bad, for me.

River is running high. 

This next weekend I plan to push out the long run yet farther. I had a plan to run five loops of the River Gorge, which would make it mentally easier to quit (something I want to get through) and physically easier to deal with nutrition. It would also provide 4 aid stopes at my car, mirroring the 4 aid stations during the race. The only issue I can think of now is that there is a race going on at the same time, on nearly the same course. I am not sure how much that'll impact my running plan, but I'll have to keep it in mind.