Panic Day!!!!!!

Today is Panic day! Have been pretty pumped about this one for a while....two nites at Fedex forum to rock out...got some good friends that I don't get to see alot coming in from out of town so I'm excited about that too....

Running this week has gone decent...sittin on 27 right now....gonna try and get in a run tomorrow mid day...def not gonna hit the early morning Shelby Farms crew.....I'll take 40 for the week and be satisfied....still feelin really good about Stumpjump!

happy running and share the trails!

Still Alive...

haven't posted on the blogger in a while...been meaning to, but keep getting sidetracked...all is well in running land....feeling really confident about Stumpjump...especially after a great weekend of running, camping, and good company at Sylamore where I was able to put up a 16 and a 28 back to back....

With the Sylamore trip I was able to get in right at 50 miles for the week before last and then this past week I did two hard days of speed work with an easy 10 miler to recover on Thursday...woke up Friday feeling really fatigued and lethargic so I have taken the last couple of days off....

School has really kicked in to gear as I am midway through my first 8 week semester...pretty busy with that but trying to find time to fit in all the rest....planning on knocking out one more long run tomorrow...I was originally concerned with going out for a fast one but at this point in the game I think I am just looking forward to taking a break from school work for a few hours as that's all I will be doing tomorrow so I'm not goo concerned about pace....

After this week the taper really kicks into gear as I will be getting fully prepped for Stumpjump which I am really really excited about....

happy running and share the road....

Another week down....

wow...seems I have been really busy the past two weeks...school is really starting to pick up and I'm having to spend more and more time outside of the classroom getting all my work done...however, still managed to get in pretty good mileage this past week....

Monday I woke up and went for a six miler that included 3 x 5 minute lactate threshold efforts with 1 minute of recovery between each....I was hurting by the last effort but definitely glad I was able to push myself through it.....

Tuesday I had a few hours in between getting off work and going to class so I took the opportunity to get out to the Farms and knock out 10....I started running at about 3:30 in the afternoon and even though it has gotten a little bit cooler, it was still reallly hot....I struggled through ten, pacing a bit slower than I normally would...

Ended up taking Wednesday off from running and riding completely...Thursday I planned to try and knock out a run but things didn't work out before work...I did end up riding in to and from work from Lauren's house which is about 7 each way...kept a pretty good pace so I at least got in some workout....

Friday I was off work and scheduled to do a long run...I usually knock out my long runs on Saturday but I had to work Saturday this weekend and its no fun to to stand on your feet all day after knocking out 20+ miles....The alarm went off at 4 am and I reluctantly rolled out of bed to start the run...I was starting out with Lauren and Elle as they were shooting for 18 for the day...I didn't have an exact number I was going for but I wanted it to be somewhere in the 24 range....

We took off from Elle's apartment (she lives in the apartments that back up to Shelby Farms) headlamps and all and knocked out a loop of the tour de wolf with the Patriot Lake trail thrown in...stopped back at Elle's apartment to refill and refuel and then took off for another loop of the Tour....Elle had to go to work so she left Lauren and I around 12ish (I think)....We finished our second loop of the Tour and then had 4 more miles for Lauren to reach her goal and longest run to date...We ran the back side of the Tour to get the next four and I was super proud of how Lauren pushed herself through those last two miles, as it was definitely a battle for her....

I was at 18 at that point and feeling super fresh so I refilled and refueled, threw some Panic on the ipod and took out for some more...I ran from the backside of the Tour to the paved Chickisaw loop (concrete = lame, but at that point I was looking for some variety)...hit the Chick loop, stopped off at the visitor center to refill and hit the Patriot loop and the rest of the Tour for a grand total of 27.5....

The entire run felt really good...the temperature on Friday morning was amazing...super cool...even when I finished it was pretty cool outside....came home took a nap, knocked out some school work and then refueled with massive quantities of chips and salsa at Los Compadres....

Ended the week with a total of 43.5 miles....not quite 50 but I'm pretty pumped about the long run feeling as good as it did....

Finally got my full suspension mountain bike in working order....met up with some guys from work Saturday morning before work out at Shelby Farms and got in its maiden ride...it was nothing short of amazing....a bit overkill for the trails of Memphis but I'm planning ahead with this one...I can't wait to test it out on some real trails....

Sunday I got out on the mountain bike again before work...rocked a couple of quick laps at the Tour...gotta wear the new out...

I was planning on racing the Six Hours of Herb Parsons mountain bike race this coming Saturday but I am off work on Friday and Saturday and there might be an opportunity to get in a good 2 day training stint at Sylamore where I can go long and get in some good hills running and take the bike to test it out on some real trails....hopefully it will pan out....I would much rather spend two days in the hills of Arkansas than six hours riding in in a circle in Fisherville....until next time...happy running and share the road!

The first week....

This past week marks what I am going to call the official start to my fall (though the temperature isn't quite there yet)....It was my first week of school at CBU and also the first week I have gotten back up in the 50 mile range in quite some time....

Started the week out last Sunday with an 8 miler in the midday heat on the Wolf River Trails...Monday I finally convinced myself to do some speed work...I actually live near a pretty big hill and from teh base of the hill to the very top is exactly 1/4 mile...the grade is pretty steep (for Memphis) except for the last .1 miles where it starts to level out a bit....I did 6 x .25 miles uphill and that was plenty for me....total of 2.5 miles with warm up, repeats, and cooldown....

Monday marked the first night of class and I was really tired going to school so I picked up an energy drink on the way....class went really well..I am really interested in what I am learning as it is what I want to do with my life....the difference between CBU and U of Memphis is incredible....I was not very impressed with my undergrad experience at U of M and I have been impressed from day 1 with CBU....however, after class (I go til 10:15 pm) I came home hoping to be able to fall asleep in order to wake up and ride to my Tuesday morning meeting.....not the case....the energy drink during class had me wired and I wasn't able to fall asleep until after 1 am sometime...


I took Tuesday completely off as I woke up feeling pretty tired...I also took Wednesday off because I had to take care of some classwork for Wednesday evening before going to work...

Thursday I don't work until 1pm and I don't have class so I slept in and I made the mistake of waiting until about 9 am to start my run....I knew from the start it was going to be a tough one but man, I was not expecting it to be that tough....I ended up slogging it out for 13 miles, probably walking at least 4 or so of those miles finishing the day with about a 12:40 pace but I was really more concerned with just covering the miles....

Friday I woke up at 4:45 because Lauren and her training partner Elle (both of whom will be rocking out their first 50k's at Stumpjump) were going on a long run and Lauren asked me if I would start out with them since it would be completely dark for the first hour....I agreed and they put me up front so I could knock out the massive spider webs with half dollar or bigger spiders in them on the Wolf River Trails....We ran from WRT and cut over to Shelby Farms to refill at the VC then we ran the Tour to the backside where we got on G'town parkway and ran back to the WRT traihead.....I stopped at 11.5 as I had to get ready to go to work and they kept on going for 15 or so.....

Saturday, I had another early morning, waking up at 4 am and starting my run about 4:45....I ran at Shelby Farms, as I thought there might be fewer spider webs than WRT, though there were still plenty for me to clear out for the later runners.....I ran one loop solo at a pretty slow pace then ran a loop with Daniel and we picked up the pace a bit....ran the third loop with Daniel as well but I dropped off pretty hard during the last two miles as I was pretty beat....Total mileage for the day was just over 20 which I am satisfied with....put my week at 55 miles which I hope to repeat again this week.....

Today I went out to cheer on Lauren at the Wolfpack Triathlon out at Shelby Farms....Her goal was to break and hour and to finish in the top 3 females overall...She did both, finishing in 57 minutes and some change and taking third female overall!

Today is filled with school work, possibly a late afternoon easy recovery run, but we will see...on a side note, my full suspension mountain bike is about halfway built...I am super excited and hopefully my bike mechanics at work will be able to help me finish it this week as I plan on racing it at the six hours of Herb Parsons in two weeks....

happy running and share the road!

week in recap

This week was kind of a recovery for me from Bartlett Park 50k...I took off Sunday and Monday completely, Tuesday I rode 12 miles to my store meeting which really felt like it helped me loosen up quite a bit....Wednesday I ran the mile from the house to the Wolf River Trails and met up with Lauren for a 4 mile loop..

I felt pretty good by Wednesday evening so I planned on getting in some decent distance on Thursday...plan was to run from home to the visitor center via G'town parkway and enter Shelby Farms by the abandoned farmhouse...right at 5 miles then meet up with Lauren for a loop of the Tour....I started out feeling really good and running was going well...got the the VC a few minutes before Lauren and I started feeling really queezy..I ate a few gels and sat down but the feeling didn't pass....Lauren rolled up and I had convinced myself that I was still going to run with her but when she got out of the car the first thing she said is "you look like hell"....so we sat around for a while before I decided that I wasn't going to run the loop because I knew if I ran it I would probably end up feeling bad for the rest of the day....

Friday I didn't run and then Saturday I got out for 10 at Shelby Farms...bringing the weeks total to right at 20 miles....ok by me for a recovery week....

Started this week off with an 8 miler on the Wolf River Trails around 10 am this morning...by that time it was really hot and all that rain we got yesterday made it extremely humid...I was soaked within a few minutes of the run and easily drained both bottles before the end of it.....

Last nite I was catching up on reading some blogs when I came across the news about Scott Jurek's post Hardrock interview on enduranceplanet.com where he knocks on Dean Karnazes.....basically, he (and a number of other ultrarunners I'm sure) is mad that the media is focused on Dean (a mediocre racer by elite ultra standards) because Dean has the financial and media ties because of his mega sponsorship by The North Face...he believes the attention should go to other athletes in the sports who are actually out winning races on a consistent basis (like himself and Karl Meltzer).....

I gotta say I agree with him....I believe Dean is a phenomenal runner, way better than I will ever be, but it is kind of ashamed that people who are actually far more deserving of media attention and big name sponsorship get passed up.....

other than the Dean comments, I found Jurek's interview extremely interesting....it contained alot about his diet (completely vegan) and his thoughts about diet in general which really interests me....I was also very surprised that his training mileage was as light as it is...I always figured that he would just be pumping out 100+ miles weeks all the time but turns out he says he usually averages about 50-60 per week and peaks out around 100-120 per week only occasionally when preparing for big races....

His training revolves around hard workouts followed by easier recovery runs...He said he typically does a hard speed workout once a week and a long run (25-35 miles) once a week that often incorporates some Lactate Threshold pickups in it....in between those runs he throws in some easier recovery runs and says he always takes at least 1 day a week completely off....he is also really into strength and flexibility training....

I have been reading a lot about incorporating Lactate Threshold training into the regimen and I think I'm going to go for it this week...I have messed aroudn with it before but I really think it will only really make a difference if I can be consistent with it....

so the plan this week is to do one speed workout day...either a straight up interval session or a 30 min LT session....I'm off work on Saturday and I'm looking to go long but we will see how that works out...

oh yeah, one final note, congrats to Les Jones, one of my Saturday morning running buddies who just finished his 6th Leadville 100 in 29:06!

happy running and share the road!

Bartlett Park Ultra

wow...that's all I can say about that one....this was definitely the hardest 50k I have run....up until this point Swampstomper back in January was the toughest because of how it was just a mud slog but the heat beats out the mud and even elevation gain in races like Stumpjump and Sylamore all day....

The race started great...it was relatively cool for the first lap and I took out with the lead group finishing the first lap in 1:06...I was feeling really good though I wasn't really feeling my premixed drink in my bottle....

I rolled through the aid station at the start\finish without stopping and tossed off one of my bottles as I still had one premixed one....second lap felt pretty good but by the time I got to the 4 mile aid station I was really glad to toss out my Hammer for some gatorade.....finished the second lap pretty strong...my total time was about 2:23 at that point....

From here my race went downhill....I took down some gel and refilled my water bottle at the beginning of lap 3 and about a mile into the lap the gel was not sitting well and I had almost completely drained my water...my pace slowed drastically and I was just hoping to come upon the 4 mile aid station soon I as I was really desperate for water...finally made it to teh 4 mile aid station, slammed a bottle or two of water and then got back on my way....now I was really starting to feel the heat...my pace dropped from running pretty quick miles to barely pushing out a pace that can be defnied as running...I even walked some of it.....felt like the lap was never going to end but finally I came up Mt. Bartlett and knew the end of the lap was in sight...

I was pretty sure I was going to have to sit down and take a break at the start finish line because I was hurting pretty bad....I sat down, ate a gel or so, slammed a few bottles of water and that's when I heard that the two of the 4 or 5 people in front of me had dropped from the race....that gave me a bit of a mental boost so I got back on the course as fast as I could...I think I actually hurt myself when I did this because I was pretty excited and I took out for the first mile at a really fast pace...by the 1 mile marker I was completely out of water....I was able to semi run to about 2 miles and that's when I really fell off...mile 26-28 was perhaps the hardest two mile section I have ever gone through....and I can't say run through cause I surely didn't run it....can't even say I power walked...I literally stumbled....I was extremely light headed and desperate for water at that point and I was having to take a break ever few hundred yards to sit down for a minute or so and get a grip on things....at this point in the race I didn't think I was going to be able to finish.....about a .25 mile or so out from the 4 mile aid station I took a seat right as a gentleman by the name of Darryl Green was coming up on me...i asked him if he had any extra water and he poured some of his camelbak into my bottle, saving me.....he also walked the rest of the way to the aid station with me just to make sure I made it....it's things like these that make trail ultras awesome!......

I got to the aid station at 4 miles and sat down for about 10 minutes...at this point finishing time had gone out the window and I was more concerned with simply being able to finish....I wasn't really wanted to drink any gatorade or take any gels at this point so I knew I needed some calories somehow....in the past I have always avoided this during races but for some reason Coke was sounding really good....I slammed 3 or 4 cups of it and within two minutes I was a completely new person....I was able to actually run the next 2 miles to get back to the aid station at mile 6 where I slammed 3 or 4 more cups of Coke....the last 2 miles I ran at a good pace and even felt like if I had to I could have kept going a little bit....so basically, Coke saved my day...without it, I don't know that I would ever have finished....

ended up finishing in 6:25...definitely not my best time and not near my goal time by any means...but I will take it, as it was a huge relief just to finish this one.....but I don't feel too bad as a guy in the lead pack I was running with has a sub 4 hour 50k PR and he finished over 5....

I am looking forward to the fall!!!...I can't deal with running long in these temps...it just totally drains your body....plan for this week is recovery for a day or two then getting back in it as Stumpjump is just under 2 months out.....

share the road and happy running...

week in review

Been kinda lazy the last week or so when it came to updating the running journal and blog....finished last week decent, struggled to pull out a decent long run at the Farms two Saturdays ago...

Monday I rocked out 10 from the house keeping a solid pace the whole time....Tuesday I rode to my work meeting at the warehouse and then rode 2 loops of the Tour de Wolf on my cyclocross bike (basically a beefed up road bike with slightly knobby tires)....

Wednesday I went on my 10 miles route from the house but I did sets of intervals along the way...I warmed up for two miles then put the hammer down for five minutes at near all out intensity followed by recovery for 3 minutes....I did four repeats of this and was pretty beat by the end but ended up with a pretty strong time for the total ten miles even though I was beat for the last two miles from my intervals...

Thursday, I went out for a semi-long run....hitting just over 16 for the day but keeping a good pace....hit 16 right at 2:20 which would put me at a 4:40 50k in a perfect world....but I have found that my splits usually aren't even at 50k distance...though they are getting closer (at Sylamore I was 8 minutes off a perfect split)....I'm pretty pumped for Saturday at Stanky and as of right now my goal for myself is to break 5 hours....

For Stanky, I think I'm going to start with 2 fastdraws each loaded with 200 calories worth of Gu2O and 2 hammer Endurolytes dumped in each one....that will be two hours worth of fuel so I won't have to stop for at least the first two hours...after that the plan is to ditch one of the bottles and use gel and water for the rest of the race....

Today, went out and ran 7.75 at Shelby Farms with Lauren....plan for the rest of the week is to ride tomorrow after work, run in the 6-8 range on Wednesday, and then do a really light 3 miles Friday just enough to keep the legs fresh....

other than that, all is well, tax free weekend was crazy busy as I expected...looking forward to starting school soon...and I got a new cookbook that I'm really pumped about...its called "The Passionate Vegetarian" and it has nearly 1000 recipes.....all I need now is the time to prepare my feast....

happy running and share the road!