Building Endurance and tolerance!

For the 2006 Psycho Wyco, I got at least one of my wishes. It snowed and the normally muddy course stayed somewhat frozen for much of the race. There were over 200 participants in the race with over 100 of them doing the 10 mile portion. AS USUAL, I went out WAY too fast (I have a bad habit of doing that) and ran the first loop in 1 hr and 45 mins because I paced off some of the 10 milers and ran some of the hills that I SHOULD’VE walked. For the first loop it was still snowing pretty hard and we had a decent ground cover. I stayed near the front (top 15 or so) for most of the 1st loop and enjoyed the soft beautiful snow. Others behind us didn’t enjoy it as much in the tight, twisty, single track portions once it became packed and much more slippery. At one point, a deer came crashing through the woods between myself and the runner in front of me missing me by only 15 feet or so. It looked to be about 150 lbs and a collision with that could’ve been bad. Pretty exciting! I should’ve tried to keep the first lap closer to 2 hours so that I’d know what kind of time I had to play with at the end AND I would’ve had more energy. On the second lap, I paid for not holding back more. I bonked hard for MOST of the second loop. In what Bad Ben affectionately called the Wyandotte triangle, I walked the last third of it (a one mile narrow twisty single track section)getting passed quite a bit and seeing some familiar faces. Shane Jones caught up with me and I decided to try to push a little and keep pace with him. He was looking strong and running pretty well and we ran together for about 4 miles until I lost sight of him toward the end of the second portion of tight single track that us Trail Nerds had built. My mind and legs were out of it for almost 10 full miles. I’ve bonked before, but never for that long. Even though I suffered through it, I never considered quitting the race, but I definitely need to evaluate why it took me so long to recover from it. That second lap took me just over 2hrs and 20 mins! As I struggled into the third loop and hit the first part of the tight single track section, (Wyandotte triangle) I began to feel better mentally and physically and was able to push a little more. The 2 Motrin I downed at the starting line going into the third loop began to kick in and helped ease some of the pain. Unfortunately, the snow had begun to melt and the familiar Wyco mud was back! Even WITH the mud, the trail was a LOT more fun to me for the third loop, but I’d already lost so much ground that I was still disappointed in my overall performance upon finishing. Still, the trail was VERY well marked and the aid stations were so well manned and organized that even though I knew a lot of what went into putting this race on, I was still impressed with it.
Allison also did this run. She did the 10 miler in a little over 2 and a half hours. This was the longest race she's ever done and her first trail run! I'm so proud of her! She had run this course with us Trail Nerds twice before in training so she knew what she was getting into and still did it anyway.
There were a few road runner weenies that whined a little here and there, but since the race, I’ve heard nothing but praise for it and have even seen emails declaring some trail converts! For my second 50k, my time was a little better than the first one on a MUCH harder course. The next one I do, I will have a better strategy and I hope my time will reflect some tough lessons I’m learning! One thing about this race that I forgot to mention is that I committed the cardinal sin by racing in brand new shoes that I had not run/trained in before nor had I really even broken in! Luck was on my side though as my new Vasque Velocity shoes performed flawlessly. They were very comfortable except for the top of the left shoe leaving a bruise on my instep where it was tied. The down hills forced it onto my foot and I’m thinking it may have been tied a little too tight. One thing I noticed about them was that after about mile 16 or so, I began to feel more of the trail through the soles so I think the Montrail Hardrocks have thicker soles than the Vasque, but overall, the Vasque’s are much more comfortable even if they are a tad on the heavy side.

Saturday’s and Sunday’s post race parties mostly included eating and drinking and recalling personal race stories, and drinking, and telling past race stories and drinking, and some more eating while thanking Ben for putting on the race and drinking some more. BTW, Ben makes some awesome beer!

So for now, I’m taking today off taking today off to continue to recover but will hit the weights tomorrow and begin replacing some of the running miles with biking mileage. I have a week and a half to train before heading off to ski for a week in UT and then a week after that before my first duathlon of the season so I have to continue training hard. Some dietary changes are still in order for me, but adding some glucosamine is definitely in order.