I Climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in December!

Source: www.smithsonianmag.com

I would have to say, for the most part, December training was some of the best training I have done in years!  I completed over 153 miles of running (I haven’t been over 100 miles in one month of running in 3 years) and that was with one week off for a flu/cold. I also climbed close to 20,000 feet, the most elevation I have climbed ever in one month!  That’s the equivalent of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro at 19,341 feet! 

I did have the benefit of taking a week and a half off for the holidays, and since we don’t participate in the festivities, it was pretty easy to wake up early with my wife and get the mileage in.  She also is training for the Way Too Cool 50K in March and is really working on building her base and endurance.

I will say, though my cycling during December was non-existent.   I normally put in between 150 to 250 commute miles per month; however, with the sub-arctic temperatures (in the 20’s and 30’s in the mornings – cold for this California boy) for most of the month, getting sick one week, and having the rest of the month off, well this means I will have to working back in this volume into my training in the short term.

So why all of the elevation gain when the first up race, the Surf City Marathon, is flat?  I am working on both strength an thinking in terms of the Way Too Cool 50K 5 weeks after and Diablo Challenge 50K in April.

This is the elevation profile of each race:

Surf City Marathon (February 2^nd)

Source: runsurfcity.com

Way Too Cool 50K (March 8^th)
 

Source: Way Too Cool 50K

Diablo Challenge 50K (April 19^th)

Source: Brazenracing.com

To be honest, I was a bit afraid that with my focus on trail and steep hills that my pace would be affected for road running.  I have made some gains in the past couple of months, especially when taking advantage of the Wednesday group runs.  However,  I found that my road pace has continued to drop, with the most recent 7.7 mile road loop on the Ygnacio Valley Canal trail averaging 9:22. Take out the first mile “warm up” and the pace is 9:02.  Much better than the 9:47 that I had settled into.  So the trail running actually helped instead of hurt this time.

While I felt that I might have bit off more than I could chew with this schedule, it is looking more and more as if things are going to work out fine.  Let’s see how January goes.

Is There a Benefit Running in a Group?

Pine Canyon Mount Diablo State Park - Photo Beth Latham

As I have stated before, I got into running with my wife.  First, simple jogs a half mile around our local reservoir up to our marathons. In fact I did most of my training runs with her, until recently.  And that change was more due to wanting to let each other go at each others pace than anything else. So running with someone is not foreign to me. 

That said, it has taken awhile to run with other people.  I am definitely comfortable running by myself, either on the trail or on the road.  With the advent of Strava, I have found that I can even challenge myself against other runner times along different "run segments." 

However, over the last couple of years, especially the last 12 months, I have found that I have settled into a consistent 9:47 road run pace and a 12:20 trail pace (depending on the terrain and elevation).  It has been really hard to break out of this pattern also.  For someone who had no problem running at a 8:30 pace at two half marathons, this has been troubling.

The reasons for this is pretty simple and basic. 

First, my volume up to training for the Surf City has been low, in terms of what I used to do.  My cycling had been averaging between 40 to 60 miles a week and my running about 20 miles a week.  I have since upped that; however, am not seeing the gains.

Second, my road running course has been pretty static for the past year and a half.  There are two basic directions I go: along the Embarcadero in San Francisco towards AT&T Park for an average 6 miles or towards the Marina Green through Fisherman's Wharf and Fort Mason.  Other than Strava achievements (which were coming fewer and fewer) there isn't much incentive to run the course fast. 

Third, I am a perfectly complacent trail runner.  Let me clarify.  I love trail running for the challenges and the adventure and variety.  It has really helped drive my love of running and more than makes up for the static road running.  I have seen gains in both my hill climbing and bombing descents.  If there has been any improvement to my pace it is seen there.  However,  having a 11 to 13 minute pace on a good trail run has kind of conditioned me to accepting a slower pace on the roads.  Does that make sense?

Anyway, this brings me to the title of this post.  

For a bit now, I have been trail running with a couple of my friends on Sunday mornings.  They are typically out every weekend beginning at 6 in the morning.  When I join them, about once or twice a month, I can typically keep up even though I am pushing it. 

 

One of the runners does run at my normal trail pace and it isn’t too rare to see him on other runs during the week at that same pace.  We started running at the same time; however, he has achieved running 50 and 100 mile distances.

The second runner is a jackrabbit. While he hasn’t completed to many long distances recently, he has been able to run some pretty fast marathons in his time.  There are a lot of times when he will continue on the run after I am long finished.

The point is, though; I have really not seen much improvement directly relating to these runs.  Perhaps it’s because we are comfortable at our pace (like when I run with my wife).  Perhaps the trail is an equalizer.  I don’t know.  But other than having company when I am running, I have not seen a performance gain.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy these runs.  And like I said, I do feel as if I a pushed to keep up, it just does not seem to have helped improve my runs.

In contrast, about a month and a half ago, a running group started where I work and now I am starting, finally, to see some improvement in my pace.

I knew the other runners for the last year but for the most part we all went our own ways.  We would even nod and say hi along the way, talk about our runs when we met at the coffee machine, and followed each other on Strava.  Sometimes I would try to keep up with one of them, just a short while, until I settled back into my pace.

Now that we have the running group, like said earlier, my pace is coming down.  This is partly due to the makeup of the group and partly because my pride – I want to keep up with the lead running group! The lead runners, have a good lunchtime pace, with one of the runners that has a 6:30 marathon pace (I could only wish to be 14 years younger!).  While he is at a leisurely jog, he has been able to push us (just a little) faster and faster each time.  I am now starting to see my Strava Achievements increase.

I can say, running with this group has definitely helped with my running.

There is a definite benefit to running with a group.  It helps break out of the doldrums.  When you pick the right group, it can test your ability while getting input from others.  The challenge though is finding the right group to help you get there. Besides picking a group, it is good to switch things up: from the type of group to the terrain and then ability of the members.

So the question really comes down, are group runs helping or just adding to my pace conundrum?  Well my road pace has now moved down to 9:20 which is great news!  But I have also increased my volume (on track for over 40 miles this week) as well as the distance of my long runs (18 miles scheduled for this weekend) has increased.  So has my pace come down because of the running group or because of increased volume?  Who knows?  But I will have to say I am enjoying the group running.

An Awesome Weekend at the Diablo Trail Adventure

We had an awesome weekend setting up and participating in the Diablo Trail Adventure!  This Brazen Racing and Save Mount Diablo event is held each November right in our back yard in the Castle Rock Regional Park and Mount Diablo State Park.

  

It started on Saturday where we meet up with the race directors, Sam and Jasmin, and the other volunteers for the setup.  If you have ever volunteered for Brazen Racing, you will know that they are an extremely organized well-oiled machine, which meant that we got set up relatively quickly.  Since this is a Save Mount Diablo event, there is a greater than normal number of participants especially with the family hike that started in Borges Ranch and finished at Castle Rock Regional Park.  All went well on the setup and we headed home to get our rest for the following day.

We awoke to a lovely chilly (41 degrees at the house) but sunny day.  Emma would be running the 10K (pretty much doesn’t run the 5K’s anymore), Sophie and Myles would be running the 5K, and I would be running the half marathon.  Beth would be Myles motivator so that he would keep moving and having fun so that he would be wanting to do another run.

This was Emma, Sophie, and Myles second run in as many weeks, so they were in a good mindset.  In fact they all PR’d over the previous week.  

My run, well, was a good run and I am happy with the results keeping in mind that I hadn’t really done any training, or exercise for that matter, for the previous three weeks.  In fact, figuring that I wasn’t a 100 percent from Strep throat as of Wednesday, finishing the half in 3:07 was good. 

Mind you, I had been telling Beth all week that my target was to beat my Lagoon Valley half time of 2:28.  That would in itself be a lofty goal since this course is 0.5 mile further and has 500 more feet of elevation gain.  I even downgraded my expectations to closer to 2:38, similar to a race I did a couple of years back; however, even with that time, that course was a little under a mile shorter than this one.

At the start line I positioned myself in the middle of the group.  My strategy was to power hike the climbs and make up time on the downhill.  I would make up the majority of the time on the longest climb in the last 4.5 miles reasoning that I could sustain my flat road pace of a 9:30 minute mile through this final section.

I can say that this strategy was working for me.  I made it to the first climb, Sunset trail, a nice single track I am normally running down than running up on time.  Arriving at the second aid station and knowing that the next would be 5 miles after the longest climb, I picked up two Gu’s.  My thought was that I would need to refuel twice on the climb and if I could keep my blood sugar levels up then my downhill strategy would be fine.

I also began the climb up Dusty Trail and then on to Wall Point ahead of schedule.  Here I met up with a fellow runner, Sam, and we talked about running.  This was his first trail half marathon; however, he was having problems with his knee going downhill (which I got really concerned for him knowing what mile 9 looked like).  He was making a good pace up hill and took off.

I made it to the Curry Station aid station at 1:50.  By this time I knew my 2:28 was out the window; however, I was still on target for 2:38.  I drank two Dixie-cups of Coca Cola and took another Gu for the run back.  When I look at my stop times, I spent no more than 2 minutes combined at the aid stations which I feel pretty good about.

When I made it to the point of the long decent, I had lost another 5 minutes.  I still felt this was ok since it would be easy to make up on the downhill.  Well after the first mile, pace going pretty good, I started to feel the drain.  Very subtle at first but about 1.5 miles into the decent I had lost my energy.  I started feeling a slight amount of hamstring tightness and pulled it back a bit. 

Once I got to the bottom of the steepest grade I was spent.  I was now being realistic with my finish time; however still wanting to be less than 3 hours.  I found myself alternating between running and walking trying to keep my overall pace under 13 minutes; however, was really finding that a struggle.  By the time I was a mile out and with 9 minutes to spare, I realized that I would be just happy with my time and finish.  I came across the finish line at 3:07, being met by my wife and kids as well as our friends the Berhens.

Like I said before, I am happy with my time.  I was sick a short time before, and even with the suggestion of my wife to downgrade to the 10K I went for it.  While it wasn’t my best performance, I have set a good baseline for the next time I run this race.  

Also, I have to (as I have done a lot with my runs lately) rethink my refueling strategy.  I was concerned with the distance between the second and third aid station which revised my normal refueling.  I also typically stay away from Gu’s unless it is a last resort.  I think in this case I started a cycle of carb loading that I wasn’t sustaining at the level of exertion and caused my blood sugar to drop.  In a lot of ways, if I had waited until I got to aid 3, then had a Pay Day Bar and the soda (like I normally do) I would have probably have done better.  I really need to nail my nutrition down.  If I am going to be carb focused I either needs to keep more gel’s or sugar with me or stay more fat adaptive and focus on lower glycemic options.

That said, this is an awesome event and a weekend that our family will be enjoying hopefully for years to come!

 

When the Body Takes a Holiday

So I have been on the sidelines now for over the last 10 days.  First it started with dropping off my bike for a long needed tune-up as well as to fix the front breaks.  Come to find out, there was a lot more work needed including replacing the drive train.  Next, the BART strike occurred on Friday, with me only putting in one lunch time run in during that week. 



The final straw came on Saturday.  The plan was that we were going to work on speedwork with the kids.  These kids are awesome, the run long distances and while not being overly fast, we have focused on having fun running.  The problem is that in California there is a grade system built around speed: an A means a kid is running in the 7 mile range, 8 minute mile gets you a B, a 9 minute mile (our oldest who has complete a half marathon and numerous 10K and 5K currently is running a 9:30) gets you a C, a 10 minute mile a D, 11 of course you fail?  Hmm...

I get it, for most kids my daughters ages are participating in some sort of organized sports, like soccer, which means they are doing speed drills.  So my girls are just getting warmed up at mile one when they are done.

Anyway I digress, I woke up fine only to succumb to fever that afternoon.  I guess, I came down with Step throat. So besides working at home, I have basically been sitting and doing nothing. This has been especially tough since my father-in-law was awesome enough to get me a Garmin Fenix!  Man its been tough not to be able to go out and test it out.  Expect a review soon.  Thank you Steve!

It wasn't until yesterday, when the kids and Beth ran Rocky Ridge yesterday that I got a little run in pacing my son.  Everything felt good even though my tonsils are still the size of walnuts.

But in reality, this has been the first time since I have taken this much time off from exercise since the calf muscle and toothpick incident back in January.  I had been suffering from Achilles bursitis for three months, but I haven't noticed any hints of it in days.  My body needed a vacation and since I was unwilling to take one,  my body took a holiday. In fact this is the fewest miles run since February.

That is good it happened now because I am one week out from beginning my Surf City Marathon training schedule.  To start off the training schedule, the Diablo  Trail Adventure Half Marathon is this coming weekend.  It is bound to be fun, first on Saturday we have volunteered to set up, followed by Saturday.  I will be running with fresh legs and the kids will be running the 5 and 10Ks. 

On to the Diablo Trail Adventure.....

 

Diablo Summit - Mitchell Canyon, North Peak Trail, Bald Ridge Trail, to Eagle Peak

Mitchell Canyon floor

Finally, with a day off and a wonderful and patient wife, I was able to make the loop to the summit of Mount Diablo - up Mitchell Canyon and Juniper Trails and down North Peak, Bald Ridge and Eagle Peak trails.  The temperature was just right and while a bit of smoke from a fire up at Lake Berryessa, the sky was clear.

Eagle Peak from Mitchell Canyon Trail

I am pretty used to summitting from Mitchell Canyon and Juniper Trails.  In fact, as I have stated before, Juniper has been my favorite trail on the mountain for some awesome technical single track.  However, having only run down North Peak (with some good single track) I wasn't sure what awaited on Bald Ridge or Eagle Peak trails.

Bald Ridge from Mitchell Canyon

My wife had run much of Bald Ridge and said I would enjoy it a lot and "was very runnable."  The clue should have been more that I would enjoy this trail since she knows my hankering for some really good technical.  I misunderstood the very runnable part.  It is, but beats Juniper in the technical category, a tough feat indeed.

The run was pretty uneventful up Mitchell Canyon.  All fire road, after the first 2 miles the real climb begins and continues to Juniper Campground.  This is a great place to fill up your water bottle.  Next is Juniper Trail, 1 mile and 900 feet of climbing to 3,810 ft. summit.  I spent a little bit of time here and then began my descent.

North Point Trail through the fire zone.

As short run down Summit trail will connect you with North Peak Trail.  This will take you through areas that were affected by this years Morgan Fire.  This is a bit of nice single track with the occasional drops and dips through loose rock and chaparral. Last time Beth and I ran through here we ran into some wild hogs.

After about 1.5 of descent you reach Prospector's Gap.  Here you are given the choice of either running up to North Peak, down the Gap Fire Road, down Meridian Trail (wide fire trail but has been torn up from the fire equipment), and Bald Ridge Trail.

Wonderful views from Bald Ridge Trail.

Eagle Peak from Bald Ridge Trail

Bald Ridge Trail is a wonderful roller coaster single track through oak and pine forests and is peppered with rocky outcroppings and loose rock.  Most of the trail is covered and, as my wife stated, pretty runnable.  Just note that there will be times when you will come to a grinding halt because the rocky sections.  Once you are through these forests you are treated with the trails name sake - Bald Ridge.  You are treated with some awesome views of Mitchell Canyon, North Peak, Eagle Peak, Clayton Valley, and the Sacramento Delta.  After you reach a slight climb to the little summit, you drop down into some nicely groomed single track that takes you to the Eagle Peak, Back Creek Trail, and Meridian Trail intersection.

I was pretty beat by this point and was tempted to drop down Back Creek or take Meridian Trail back to Mitchell Canyon Trail; however, I stuck with the original plan- take the Eagle Peak Trail to Twin Peaks and then down Mitchell Rock trail.

Bald Ridge Trail from Eagle Point.  Back Creek Trail is on the left.

Ever since we have been hiking and running out of Back Creek Trail and Mitchell Canyon trail I have wanted to take Eagle Peak.  Pretty much like when I graduated from the intermediate slopes to black diamonds in skiing, Eagle Peak seemed so foreboding.  I would look longingly at this trail every time we would climb up out of Back Creek only to settle on running back down Mitchell Canyon.  Today would be the day.

I would breakdown Eagle Peak Trail into 4 sections - the drop down across the ridge, the climb up to Eagle Peak, the and the descent to the Pine Trail cutoff, and then down to Pine Trail.  At the Pine Trail Cutoff you can take another trail to Twin Peaks which connect to Mitchell Rock Trail.  I took the first 3 sections then over to Twin Peaks.

The climb up Eagle Peak.

The first section went pretty well.  Keep in mind there is a pretty steep drop on the Back Creek Trail side and that it is pretty rocky.  The climb up to Eagle Peak was a little bit of a challenge.  It is steep and again pretty rocky.  It is worth the climb because you are treated with some very nicely groomed single track during the third section down Eagle Peak.  That said, you have to keep your wits about you since you are running in very tall chaparral and the trail isn't marked very well.  You will find that the trail may split into two trail, with one leading off to oblivion.  Other parts of the trail gets pretty rocky and drops a few feet.  But  again this trail is really fun.  

By the time I got to Twin Peaks my legs were pretty tired from what was the most technical run that I have had in a while.  From Twin Peaks, more single track along the Mitchell Rock Trail, mainly switchback through pine and grasslands.  We had taken the kids through this section back in the spring and the wild flowers were beautiful through here.  This part of the trail went pretty quick and dropped me back to the staging area.

With 13.6 miles and over 5,100 feet of elevation gain, this was an awesome run. Other than the Mitchell Canyon section, it was all single track and mostly technical.  This run has quickly ascended to one of my favorite runs!

My Daughters First Trail Half Marathon at Brazen's Trail Hog

Early this month, my family participated in Brazen Racing’s Trail Hog series of races.  Beth and my oldest daughter, Emma (our eleven year old) would be running the half marathon, Sophie would be running the 10K, and I would be pacing Myles (our seven year old) on the 5K.  This would be Emma’s first half marathon ever and she decided to run one with over 2,000 feet of elevation gain and with temperatures in the in the low nineties by the time she made it to the finish line.

The race takes place in the Joseph D. Grant Ranch County Park on Mount Hamilton.    It is a beautiful park with rolling hills on both sides of the valley with oak trees dotting the landscape.  The name sake of the race, feral hogs, can be found as well as other wildlife.  The Race Director the night before came across a bobcat on a run the night before.



Sophie heading up the first climb.

Looking on the elevation chart on the Brazen site,  my wife and I thought it would be an OK race for Emma to run her first half and that it would be ok to let our 9 year old daughter to run the 10K by herself.  My son ended up getting sick the night before; which meant that we ended up sitting through his race.

Well the hills were a bit more challenging for my daughters.  The first climb for the 10K (which was also featured half way through the half marathon) was pretty steep.  However, the girls both attacked the hill with much of the same tenacity that I normally see on much tamer trails.

I was expecting Sophie to finish her 10K around an hour and 45 minutes to 2 hours.  I figured with the heat and running by herself that would be a good time.  I started getting nervous a little after two hours; but after 2:24 minutes of waiting, in came Sophie with energy to spare!  The smile on her face was awesome!  She was gleaming in the accomplishment she had just undertaken.

I figured that Emma and Beth would be coming in at 3:30.  However, with the heat, most of the runners were coming in unusually long so I knew that I might be in for another nerve wreaking wait.  It was becoming too warm and I knew that they would be pushing their limits.  I made a couple of trips to check with Jasmin to see if they had made the cut-off, which they had.  This meant that they would definitely be finishing. 

Off in the distance I could see Emma and Beth coming over the rise.  My eleven year old would be finishing her first half marathon.  On the last quarter mile I saw them both pick up the pace to a quick run, with Emma and Beth finishing in 4 hours and 21 minutes.

I am so proud of my girls!  Emma said shortly after her race that she probably wouldn’t be running another half in a while; however, once the aches and pains dissipated over the next couple of days you could tell she is aching for her next.