Huaraches!
Today was my first technical run in the huaraches. So I remember saying that the MR790’s were light, felt like I was floating. Well scratch that. These guys are light! Though seeing that there is much less material between me and the ground I had to be very mindful of each and every step. The places where there were lots of pointy rocks I would walk, but I can really see myself running through such a section in the future.
The big thing to think about when running barefoot (or in a bare-footing type shoe, think Vibram 5 Finger) is you can’t just “run”. You can’t barrel down the trail like you would in a pair of beefed up running shoes with a thick sole and lots of tread. In shoes like that you don’t feel the rocks. You miss out on the all of the fine details of the trail. Where the soft spots are where the hard ones are. The little rocks the big rocks, the sticks and vines and leaves strewn about the trail. Being mindful while you run is very important, it keeps you from getting hurt.
I still find that the leather strap that holds the shoe on to my foot is still in the stretching phase. I’m not sure how much longer this will go, but eventually it’ll stop. What this means, though, is I have to stop now and then to re-tie the strap cause it gets loose. Aside from having to retie the shoes once, my pace was quick, and light. I danced through the rocks around the mud, and smiled the whole time I was running. These shoes bring me back to a time when running is joyful.
The trail wasn’t very muddy, but it was muddy enough. I found that I slipped only a couple times, probably cause I was being more mindful of each and every step. Making sure that a) it won’t hurt and b) it won’t slip.
The only down side to this run was there were a few little hills, which are to be expected when you’re out at Clinton Lake. The down hill running did hurt my knees, but thankfully the section I ran was mildly hilly, and more rocky/muddy. The flatter sections and the up hill sections were pain free and I loved every minute of it. Now though it’s time to go ice/rest and keep the knees feeling happy.
Knee Problems
So, I’m sure some of you Lawrence folk have been wondering, “Where is Nick?” Unfortunately, since Leadville I’ve been plagued with what I think is “runners knee”. This is essentially what happens when your patella tendon pops out of track and is rubbing on a spot where it’s not supposed to, and causes an inflammation of the patella tendon. Which to be honest, is kinda painful. Reading about such a disorder usually says that causes of this are: over training, pronation and an imbalance in strength between the quads, hamstrings and calf muscles.
My big goal at Leadville was to go out conservatively and not trash my quads, which is apparently a huge reason for people to drop. I had absolutely no problem with my quad muscles during Leadville, which I am quite happy about, though I did end the race with some very very sore knees. Since Leadville I’ve only run 3 times. First, was 3 miles and my review of the MR790’s. Knees hurt the whole run, but nothing to stop me from running, and didn’t not escalate (which made me rule out IT Band syndrome). My next run was the following week, and the pain was there from the beginning, and I decided to call it off after 1 mile. My latest venture was last night. I decided to do my loop around campus, which I call “Nick’s Jayhawk Repeats”, essentially it’s a loop around campus, followed by hill repeats on 15-10th streets. This can be repeated as many times as you please. During the first loop I found that my knees felt fine, was quite happy to see that they weren’t bother me. I decided to test my luck on the repeats, going down I noticed my knees starting to hurt a tad. When I finished the down and turned back up I noticed the pain going away, got excited and kept going. As I progressed through each repeat, my knees were recovering less and less, and I decided to do another loop to cool down. By the time I finished my run my knees were pretty hot and hurt-y. Not happy.
So anyway, I know, all this barefoot/minimalist running/midfoot striking, mumbo jumbo is supposed to keep me injury free. I think 99% of the time, yes, it will. I’m 100% certain the cause of all this strife in my running life is related to one thing. I did almost zero hill training for Leadville. This resulted in my body not being able to adjust to the demands of running up and down 12,600 foot passes. Now I’m paying for it.
Now it’s time to recover and fix my body. I know I don’t have pronation issues, I know I probably have problems with strength between the various muscles in my body from running Kansas trails only. So what do I need to do to fix this? I think the answer is fairly simple:
- Ice
- Anti-inflammatories
- Rest
- Short runs (hill-less)
- Stretching (calves, hams and quads)
Hopefully with this recipe I will be back to normal in a matter of weeks and rocking this bitch in no time! Rock Creek here I come!
Shoreline Shuffle is ON!
The first ever Trail Hawks race is on. We are hosting a race at Clinton Lake on Saturday, Sept. 26th at Shelter 4, Clinton Lake State Park.
Cost:$8/$4 for dues-paying Trail Hawks. Race day $10/$5 for dues-paying Trail Hawks.
Race entry DOES NOT include $4.20 per vehicle Kansas State Park entry fee for vehicles without an annual entry permit sticker.
For more information please go here.
MR 790
Today was my first run since I completed the Leadville Trail 100 trail run. Must say I’ve been looking forward to this day for, what seems like weeks! Not only am I excited to run I’m also very excited about trying my new shoes the New Balance MR790.
One reason I’m so excited to try them is cause they are new shoes, and what self respecting runner doesn’t enjoy the opportunity to mud up a brand new pair of trail shoes. The other reason for my excitement is cause of my minimalist experimenting. These shoes are essentially a racing flat designed for running trails. To give these shoes some credibility they are the shoes Anton Krupicka and Kyle Skaggs used to wear. It is the shoe Kyle wore to break the course record at the Hard Rock 100. This shoe unfortunately has been discontinued, the reason is cause Anton and Kyle have worked with New Balance to create the new MT100. But enough about shoe history, let’s get to the meat of this entry.
These shoes are light! When we hit the trail I felt like I wasn’t even wearing shoes they were so light. That lightness makes a person feel fast. I felt so quick dancing around roots and rocks floating up the hills and gliding down the descents. If it were not for my decision to take this first run light and easy for an assessment of the body, I could have easily seen myself running off till the sun set.
Now with every great thing there has to be a down side right? Well these shoes have a down side, to achieve this unbelievably light shoe, the sacrifice was made in cushioning. There is virtually no padding between your foot and the rocks. While most runners would feel this as a negative, I see it more as a chance to engage myself in the trail and the run that much more. You pay attention to every rock, every root, every crack, cause a misplaced step could lead to bruises or some other ouchie. Another note on these shoes is they lack some serious traction. The trail I ran on today had been rained on this morning, and has a pretty good history of being a muddy mess most of the time. I was surprised how well the shoes handled the light mud, but I could see where this shoe would really struggle when the trail just a tad muddier.
Aside from the two “negative” marks I see this shoe(or similarly styled shoes) as becoming a regular part of my arsenal.
Post Ultra-depression
When you run a race (of any distance) you feel almost euphoric at the end of it. That is no different with an ultra-marathon. When you run a race of significant distance, say something at least twice as long as your longest training run, when you finish the high you feel will last for days! This high, like all highs, will eventually fade.
For me, when I run a race such as Leadville, the feeling of accomplishment, the feeling of power, unbeatable-ness, is amazing! I found myself, I found a place in me that I never knew existed. I went into Leadville unsure, nervous, admittedly a little scared. I came out of Leadville stronger, more sure of myself, the boundaries that I thought existed pushed back even further.
Why is it then, that, days after those feelings of invincibility, get replaced with some sort of sadness? Is it a chemical thing? All that dopamine that was there, has now filtered back to normal levels? Is it a relativity thing? Is normal (when I say normal, I mean “daily grind” type of normal) life so mundane in comparison?
I can’t say that I know the answer to these questions. But I do know that if you keep running, the feelings go away. The feelings are replaced with drive again, the drive to find another race, to push your limits again, to find yourself.
New blog
So, you might be wondering, what’s with the new blog? What happened to skooshmagoo? Well it still lives. But it’s going to die soon. I’m not a fan of MobileMe. Especially the price, I also hate only being able to post blogs from iWeb. Also, I hate how nothing is customizable. Total waste of money.
So I moved to wordpress, why not blogger? I like the ability to make wordpress more, “mine”. Also wordpress offers a great iPhone app that will allow me to blog from anywhere and also interact with comments from anywhere. This is a very much needed freedom that I didn’t have with iWeb and MobileMe.
Please be patient with me while I try and get everything migrated.
LT100
Running 100 miles is hard. It’s not something you do, it’s something you survive. The Leadville 100 Trail Run is no different, if anything it’s more. The race starts at 10,000 feet and goes up from there.
After the morning rituals, we headed out to the Provin Grounds for some coffee and waited to meet up with the rest of the KS/MO contingent.
Pacers and Racers before the start
At the sound of the gun, everyone takes off. After about 5 min, I realized that the feeling that I needed to urinate was more than just nerves, it was the real deal. I am positive I was the first person to pee after the start of the race. I wanted to stay with Coleen, Willie and Gary for as long in the race as possible. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Coleen and Gary were out a little faster than I would have liked. So I ran with Willie and Adam for a bit. This was my first “official” meeting of Adam. I’ve seen him around at many races but never really had the chance to shake his hand and introduce myself. Soon after our introduction Willie made a pit stop, and shortly after that Adam did as well. I had to push it to catch up to Coleen and Gary. I found Gary taking pictures (like usual) and could see Coleen up ahead. By the time we made it out of the trees around the lake I’d caught up to Coleen and we both had to shit. We ran by the toilets and Coleen was the lucky one! I kept going that urge soon left and I wasn’t troubled by it anymore.
Going through May Queen, I was pretty much on pace. Felt great. I had a couple snacks, took off my headlamp put on some sunglasses and headed up towards the Colorado Trail. Coleen and I were pretty much inseparable for the next bit of the course. We moved up the rocky terrain without fail. It was smooth going we gabbed the whole way up. Before I knew it we were on the road up to Hagerman Pass making our way to Sugarloaf. Coleen and I just hiked up this hill, made a good pace. Tried not to push to hard cause there was still about 80 miles to go. Coming down Sugarloaf I didn’t want to push to hard cause I knew that I’d still have to go up and down Hope Pass twice, and come back here and descend this again.
Coleen and I moving towards the pipeline (course re-route)
We made it to the Fish Hatchery and I was feeling happy moving quick and light still. Leaving the Fish Hatchery I wasn’t looking forward to the paved road out to Treeline. I found that this section of the course was unnecessarily difficult. It’s long, flat, exposed and you can see forever! My dad’s friend Kevin caught me and Coleen on this section and passed us. Starting to feel a little down at this section. Not cause Kevin passed, me but because I was expecting to run this section a lot more than I did. Eventually we made it to the pipeline and Coleen had to make a pit-stop. Battling stomach issues I was hoping she’d be alright, I kept going figuring she’d catch me soon enough. My crew had set up a makeshift aid station a little further than the Treeline aid station, solely cause it was easier and closer to my fathers house than Treeline. Once I got there Laurie handed me a bottle of Heed (which was just what the Dr. ordered) also I got some food and my bladder refilled. I took off pretty quick and moved down the road. This section was still very exposed and it was getting hot. Moving as efficiently as I could in the heat I made my way forward.
Coleen and I made it to Box Creek, it was here I decided to put in a pad on my shoe to help protect the metatarsal in my foot. It was a nice relief the pain in my feet was getting worse and this helped make things better. I had to stop a couple times on the trail to adjust it but eventually got it zeroed in on the right spot. Once we got on the Colorado Trail we were both tired, I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me, but I know now. It was a lack of food. I had not been eating enough. I was out of energy and it was draining me. Coleen and I pushed on strong though (probably a little harder than we should have considering both of us were under nourished at this point). I could see Twin Lakes and knew we were close. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. The water, the mountains, meadows, trees, trails, I was tired and happy all at the same time. Descending down the jeep road from the Colorado trail to Twin lakes was a tad longer than I anticipated but it was smooth going. I made sure to remind Coleen that there was a really steep section that EVERYONE will be watching and that she shouldn’t trip on that section. As soon as I realized what I said I figured I’d doomed myself to fall down that trail! Luckily I made it without a problem.
Feeling pretty strong descending the hill into Twin Lakes
I knew here I would have to eat in order to make it over Hope Pass, what I didn’t realize was how low on fuel I already was, and the amount of food I ate didn’t cut it. I also decided it was time to lose any and all chocolate candies. It was way to hot for chocolate. I replaced that with hard candies and sour candy. But try as I might, I couldn’t eat either one.
Hope kicked my ass, short and sweet. It took me about an hour and a half longer than I planed to get to Winfield. I felt horrible going over. I was short of breath the whole way up. Once I made it to Hopeless Aid station I stopped to take some video of the Llamas on top. Ate some soup, drank some Powerade, found Rick suffering at the top. Rick’s been having a worse day than me, I felt bad for him but knew I couldn’t sit around and wait. I was late already and needed to get moving. I made it down Hope Pass feeling good. I think mainly cause I let gravity take me all the way down. Once I made it to the road towards Winfield I walked all the way. This road is where I started to have my breakdown. I was feeling shitty, beat, overwhelmed, (insert as many adjectives as you like here).
I wanted to sit. I had hot spots, I was hungry. I met “Good” Ben Reeves for the first time. My crew sat me down. Ben tended to my feet, Laurie pounded food down my trap. With 15 min to spare I Ben and I made it out of the Winfield aid station. It was at this point I was totally relived to be dragged by Ben. I just relaxed and let Ben take control. He’d ask me questions I’d answer, he’d tell me to eat I’d eat, he’d tell me to drink I’d drink. Faster than I could say recovery, we were passing people then we were on top of the pass. We stopped off at the Hopeless aid station I had a cup of soup, we filled up the bottles pulled out the headlamps and we raced down towards Twin lakes. At the base of the pass we found Coleen, she was looking good, she sent Debbie on ahead to get her crew set up and ready for her arrival. I made my way to the camp, checked in and out (in time) fixed up my hot spots, got my lights set up, and Shane and I headed out of Twin lakes. I was feeling strong, happy and ready to go.
Climbing the steep hill, we made it on to the jeep road. I was making sure not to go too fast. Eventually, Shane and I made it to the top of the jeep road, and back onto the Colorado Trail. We continued to pass people going up this hill. Making steady progress the whole way. My heart sunk when we saw Coleen sitting on the side of the trail. She was tired, luckily Shane had some caffeine pills on him and gave one to her. Shortly after I began to feel tired myself, and was lucky to find Shane has a “5-hour Energy” on him. I drank that and with in minutes I was a chatty kathy. I felt wired, wide awake, and alert. Making it quickly to Box Creek, we refilled, fueled and headed out. Passing more people on our way to the Tree Line aid station. Only 5 or so miles from here to the part of the race I was dreading the most, Sugarloaf in the dark. At Treeline Shane and I both drank a Redbull and we headed out on to the paved road to the Fish hatchery. Passing more people here I think Shane was feeling pumped! The whip was being cracked, viciously cracked. He kept pushing me, he’d run out in front and I just trailed on as long as I could. Eventually we’d have to walk the last bit (up hill) into the fish hatchery, but we made up so much time and ground I didn’t care about that walk.
At the Fish Hatchery for the last time I ate two cups of soup had my feet tended to again, and this time I was gonna run with my dad. I wanted him on this section cause he’s done this course before, and at night when things can go terribly wrong I felt he’d be the best person for the job. Sugarloaf ended up not being nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Lots of false summits, but I settled into the fact that the false summits would end when we were on the road downhill towards the Hagerman Pass road. Once I realized that fact, and stopped thinking every summit would be “it” Sugarloaf became easier. We continued to pass more and more people. They were always in groups. It was always 2-3 people at a time (that’s 4-6 if you count pacers). Getting back to the CO trail it was technical downhill. I wasn’t worried a bit. I knew I still had my legs with me and I was going to be fine as long as I didn’t trip on anything and fall over. Dad and I cruised down the trail, making great time, and pulled in to May Queen with plenty of time to spare. From May Queen to the finish I would be with Laurie. I noticed in the aid station for May Queen I had finally caught up to Mr. Gary Henry! I was so excited. Gary, when you read this, sorry you were my goal from Winfield, with motivation from Ben, I was out to hunt you down! When I finally got out in front of Gary, it was yellow hat all over again (inside joke with Gary, from my first ultra, Pyscho Psummer 08). Laurie and I made great time around the lake, through the boat ramp running the flats and the downs, walking the ups. All very very runnable. I was feeling unstoppable. Passing people who were limping along I couldn’t believe how good I was feeling to still be running. Not a “shuffle” per-se but really running. This run/walk pace continued till the the short jaunt from the paved road to the Boulevard. On that dirt road to the Boulevard the wheels fell of again, and fell of for good. Laurie kept feeding me every 10-15 min but it wasn’t enough. The pain in my legs was unbearable. Every step felt like needles, my hip flexors were flaring up and my glutes were angry. Every step hurt everywhere. Laurie took my pack from me and carried everything for me. All I had to do was walk to the finish line. Just more than 3 miles to go. I knew I was going to make it. Laurie asked if I could run a little bit more I tried, it hurt. I decided to save all my running for the last bit. Coming down 6th street and up to the red carpet. I ran from the top all the way to the ribbon. My feet at this point were numb. I can’t really explain the feeling in my feet, other than it felt like, wood.
As soon as my feet touched the red carpet, the pain went away. I was washed over with joy and accomplishment. I did it. I finished the Leadville 100. I was dragged from the depths, brought back to life and finished stronger than I started!
Pain evaporating on the red carpet
I could not have completed this race without the fantastic help of my crew and pacers. Holy shit, you guys are fucking awesome! I don’t know how to say it, or express how greatful I am for each and every one of you who were there to help me.
Ben, the Necromancer, if it wasn’t for you just taking control at Winfield and dragging me back to life we probably wouldn’t have made it back to Winfield.
Shane, you pushed me so hard on this section and we made up SO much time. I really think we ran more than 50% from Twin Lakes to Fish Hatchery. (I could be dreaming it, but I feel like we spent more time running than walking).
Dad, Thanks for the guidance on Sugarloaf, it was a great help to know when there were more hills, flat spots, giving me the motivation to kick ass and the advice on the CO trail, letting me know that it was going to be A LOT longer on the CO trail going down than one would expect.
Laurie, Thank you for putting up with me in my cranky, crabby, sleep deprived, whiney, grumpy, just-wanting-to-be-fraking-done state. I wouldn’t want anyone else to walk me to the finish line!
And the rest of my crew, Mom, Bonnie, Matt, Jenna, Boo, Angel and Roxy thanks for the food, the support the smiling faces, and the understanding that I was…well not really myself for those few minutes you’d see me every couple hours!
Leadville Trail 100 Finishers Buckle, under 30 hours
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