Gear Review: Gore Windstopper Jacket

I'm not going to lie--I've been forced inside on the treadmill this winter with a little more regularity than I'd like.  Part of that is a new work schedule; after eight years of working the night shift, I've gone back to a mix of days and nights.  On days when I'm working at 7 or even 9 am, it's a lot easier to throw on a pair of shorts and stagger upstairs to the treadmill for an early morning run than it is to face layering up for an hour in single-digit temps.  And I don't want to complain, but it's been damn cold here!  I'm no big fan of the treadmill, but they call it the path of least resistance for a reason, no?

I have a new piece of gear this winter, though, that's been getting me out the door more consistently on those near-zero days: my GORE Essential Windstopper soft shell jacket.  GORE is known mostly for their cycling apparel, and I'm sure you could run in their bike stuff, or bike in their run stuff, or whatever.  This one is from their running collection, but it doesn't matter.  It's a soft shell jacket, which means it's nice and stretchy and flexible, without the limitation of range of motion you often find with windproof outer layers.  It is very lightweight.  It is, as the name implies, windproof, and though it makes no claims to be waterproof or even water-repellent, I've found it to be surprisingly moisture-resistent while running in a variety of conditions.  I did have a recent 15-miler with my friend Ian during a fairly steady downpour that overwhelmed it a bit, but I'll take it.

The greatest property of the jacket is its surprising warmth for its weight.  It is a very thin, very light shell, but due in part to its wind-blocking capability, it is incredibly warm.  How warm?  When I started today's run at 11 am, my phone told me it was 9 degrees.  I wore the jacket over a long sleeve and a short sleeve tech shirt and had to ditch the long sleeve halfway.  Put it this way.  On a day when my face looks like this:

I can wear the jacket

with a short sleeve t-shirt AND NOTHING ELSE.

The last thing I'll say about it is, it's damn sharp-looking.  I'm not sponsored by GORE (though I certainly wouldn't mind!); I bought this jacket with my own money.  You should too.

I'm in the process of putting together my 2014 race schedule.  I've got a pretty good sense of what I'd like to run, but I'm already wait listed at one of my target races, and a couple of the others haven't opened yet, so I'll wait a bit until I post a full 2014 schedule on the site.  My first race, though, will be the Mount Mitchell Challenge in Black Mountain, NC on February 22.  Mount Mitchell is the highest peak in the eastern US, and the Challenge is a 40-miler to the top of the mountain and back.  It's a great race that I ran for the first time in 2011, when I had a really good day,  and I'm hoping to have another good one in four weeks.  Plus the race is just outside Asheville, aka Beer City USA, so, you know.  I used to work Coach Roy Benson's running camps in Asheville when I was a collegian, and it remains one of my favorite mountain cities.  Actually, when I was a high school camper there, in 1991, my counselor was a local triathlon hotshot named Jay Curwen...who is now the race director for Mount Mitchell.

(A Very Short) (Sort-of) Race Report: Viking Run

Happy New Year to all!

It's been a bit of a lull on the blogging front.  Holidays etc.  Since my DNF at Tussey  my only race has been the Rockland Alumni Race, which is a 5K XC race that I've run every year I've been eligible, since 1993.  I write about that elsewhere, though, so just follow that the link to discover the greatest running event in the history of the world.  No need to overlap here, though, so it's mostly just been training, work, and family time.

The Viking Run is a very low-key 10K in Rosendale, NY, only about 10 miles from my house, held annually the weekend between Christmas and New Years.  Just $5 to enter, no frills, no numbers, no t-shirt, just a nice homemade post-race spread and a lot of hills.  It's an out-and-back over the hill that basically comprises the northernmost edge of the Gunks, making for approximately 1000' of climbing over 10K. It's a real kick in the ass.  It's a nice off-season race to stay sharp and get in a bit of hard work.

Viking Run start
photo: Martin Weiner

This year's race was held in a steady rain.  As usual a couple of high schoolers took off at the start and the rest of us old farts never saw them again.  I settled into the chase group with my good friends Mike and Alex and one of our new training partners, Mark Eisenhandler.  I tried to keep a nice steady rhythm going but found it tough to settle into a comfortable level of effort.  My legs felt heavy and I lacked any real pep, and I just resigned myself to gutting out a tough one.

Digging it out, with Alex right behind.
photo: Martin Weiner

At halfway I was in third place, with just a five-second lead over Mike and one other chaser.  Mike is a beast of a downhill runner so I knew I'd have to push the final uphill to build up as much of a cushion as I could for the last two miles.  Still it was almost impossible to find my comfort zone.  When I'm climbing well it feels almost effortless, but this was a slog the entire way.  I was able to stretch it out a little bit, though, to maybe 45 seconds at the summit.  It's no fun running two miles downhill when you know your training partner is running you down with every step, but fortunately Mike ran out of room and I held him off for third by about 15 seconds.  My time was nearly 50 seconds slower than the last time I ran Viking, in 2010, but I'll chalk up the difference to the weather and my ridiculous headgear hopefully more than any deficiencies in my fitness level.

What a stupid hat.
photo: Martin Weiner

I'll post some more about my plans for 2014 in the coming days, so stay tuned, I guess.

So long, 2013.
Photo: Martin Weiner

Race Report: Tussey Mountainback 50 Mile

As I drove down to Pennsylvania last Saturday in a steady rainstorm, I suddenly heard a tap-tap-tap on the rear window of my car.  I looked in my rear view mirror just in time to see my antenna, flapping wildly around and smacking the back window, fly off the car behind me onto I-80.

I probably should have turned around right then.

I came into the Tussey Mountainback feeling strong and confident, if a little ambivalent.  My training had gone quite well in recent weeks, with a nice 8-10 week buildup peaking with a three week stretch right before the race of 310 miles, with some solid hill climbs and a weekly tempo workout that had generally been acceptable, if not scalding fast.  I was having a hard time committing to the race mentally--I didn't even register until the very last minute--but as the race approached I felt enthused about the idea of mixing it up with some of the big dogs at the 50 mile national championship.  I set a goal of under seven hours, which I thought might get me into the top ten.  On race morning I scribbled the aid station splits for 8:15 pace, a 6:52, on my arm, and got ready to roll.

Pre-race selfie.

The race starts and finishes at the Tussey Mountain ski area outside State College, in the Rothrock State Forest, and climbs immediately after the start at a steady grade on dirt roads for the first 3.5 miles or so.  I settled into a very easy rhythm at 8:20 pace on the uphill, cresting the hill at AS1 with a group of four other runners in the top 15 or so, feeling very comfortable.  At that point the course dropped straight downhill for the next 5 miles or so, at a gradual, runnable grade.  Rather than put the brakes on, and tear up my quads even more trying to force myself to run the downhill slowly, I focused simply on floating a lightly as I could and not worrying about the pace, which dropped down into the 7:00-7:10 range for this stretch, until we moved into a rolling section with some climbing between 10-15 miles.   Conserving effort was the name of the game, and I felt like I was doing a really good job of it.  Everything felt very easy as we dropped back down another long descent to the 20-mile mark, which I reached in 2:33.

At this point I finally decided to make a pit stop, which cost me three minutes.  Of concern, this was my third trip to the restroom of the morning, which did not bode well.  In retrospect, I had started having some GI issues the night before, and had not thought too much of it; but in light of what happened later, I think I just built up too big a calorie and fluid deficit to recover from.

After leaving AS 5 at 20 miles, we started the toughest climb of the day, over 1300 feet of elevation gain at a steady unbroken grade for nearly four miles.  I came out of the port-a-potty expecting some tightness, but had none and quickly settled back into a strong tempo, alternating walking and jogging for the first part of the climb, but then just running at around 10:00 pace over the next couple miles.  I passed a few faster starters midway through, including Jason Bryant of La Sportiva, who would drop a few miles later.  I spent this stretch constantly monitoring my legs for any signs of tightness or distress, telling myself I had plenty of time and would walk at the slightest hint of fatigue, but it never seemed to come.

At least not during that climb.  And over the next few downhill miles, it seemed like it might not, as I passed halfway in 3:23 and 26 miles in 3:30.  But on a long downhill stretch on the way into AS 7, I started to really feel it.  I tried pushing some more calories and continued through AS7 and past the 30-mile mark at 4:04, but my struggles were starting, and despite everything I did--walking some spots, eating more, salt tablets, drinking fluid--I couldn't get my rhythm back.  I made pit stop #2 at AS8 (32 miles) and took an extra gel and a banana leaving the aid station, but the next three uphill miles to AS9 took over thirty minutes, and as I pulled into AS9 a string of runners went past me.  Another one-mile uphill to the 36-mile mark, which I walked the whole way in 17 minutes, then a four-mile downhill jog at 9-minute pace to 40 miles in 6:04, relay runners streaming past me; and a final half mile walk into AS10, where I officially confirmed what I had conceded privately for the past hour.

Lessons?  Sure, I guess.  My first instinct after a race goes poorly is to look at my training for some deficiency, but I don't think that was the case.  I came in fit (for me), with a solid mileage buildup and some good workouts thrown in.  The week before the race, in one of my last hard runs, I crushed a three-mile uphill climb that I've run hard countless times before in one of my fastest splits ever.  Maybe I didn't have quite as much of a taper as I should have, but the buildup was only two months long, and I don't think there was so much accumulated fatigue that a long taper was necessary.  I don't think fitness was the issue.

Race strategy?  To some extent, maybe.  I was certainly out quicker than I would have anticipated--about 10 minutes faster at the 20-mile mark than I had planned.  But that 10-minute cushion was due solely to the course itself, which presented a ton of downhill from miles 4-20.  I don't think holding myself back and incurring extra pounding on the downhill just to keep the pace around 8 minutes for the sake of hitting the right splits would have served my legs any better.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I screwed it up that way.

I keep coming back to two things: nutrition, and mentation.  As I said before, I think my GI issues put me in too big a hole to climb out of, in terms of calorie and fluid depletion.  Not much to do about that.  From a mental standpoint, I mentioned my ambivalence about the race coming in.  For some reason--fatigue? work stress? I'm not quite sure--I just couldn't get as excited and focused about this race as I should have been.  Even early on, when things were going well, I wasn't reveling in it or enjoying it; my attitude seemed to be, "Just keep this going and it will be over soon."  I don't think I blew up because of this, but when the legs gave out on me, I definitely didn't feel like I had enough incentive to dig deep and suck it up enough to get through.

And I'm not sure how terrible that is, necessarily.  I think if I can recognize it and try to learn from it, that might be OK.  I've now DNF'd in half of the 50-milers I've started--twice from real injuries, twice from just blowing up like this one.  There is a school of thought that says nothing is worse than dropping out.  I think to a certain extent that's true.  Dropping out sucks, it really does.  But I also don't know that there is alot to be gained, for me personally at least, by walking for two or three hours at the end of a 50 mile "just to finish."  Yes, I could have walk-jogged the final 9.5 miles of the race.  I probably could have maintained a 15-minute pace, which would have put my finishing time somewhere in the 8:30 range.  Which is fine.  Respectable even.  But I came to this race specifically to run fast and to compete with some of the best.  It didn't work out that way, but I'm not sure I'd feel any better about the experience if I had spent an extra two hours walking the final 10 miles.  I just don't think that gives me any added satisfaction.

As usual, I'll try to take these lessons and apply them for next time.  I can say with some certainty that "next time" will not be a 50-miler, at least for awhile.  I'm going to stick to shorter ultras for now and try to mix in some shorter, fun stuff.  Riding back to the start/finish with some of the relay runners really reminded me how much fun the sport can be, and I've missed that a bit recently.  For next year, I'll focus a bit more on races that suit me, try to run some shorter uphill races, maybe a relay or two, and maybe just one 50-mile, if at all.  

Race Report: SOS4Kids

Normally, I do the running around here, and while I know you all have come to rely on Lexi for nutritional guidance, I like to think I hold up my end of this blog with race reports and thoughts on the sport that are at least mildly entertaining.  But now it seems even this small niche has been co-opted.

As vibrant as local scene is in New Paltz, in terms of outdoor sports trail running is a distant third behind rock climbing and triathlon locally.  And among local tri-geeks, the biggest race on the calendar is by far the Survival of the Shawangunks.  Having just completed its twenty-sixth running, the SOS is a multistage triathlon that basically involves swimming the three lakes of the Shawangunk ridge and running the trails in between--a bike-run-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run.  It's a nationally known event that attracts elites from all over the country and also the best the local competition has to offer.  In the past few years the race organizers have added a kids' race, which this year took place the day before.  It was the first year Lexi was old enough to run.  She went into this summer without any real swimming background--or ability--but worked hard on learning the crawl this summer and even joined my for a mile or so of running here and there, mostly home from art class on Thursday afternoons in late spring.

I will say that watching her race, and especially waiting for her to start, was orders of magnitude more stressful for me than any pre-race jitters I've ever had in my life.  I'll also say that I was more proud of her effort and her finish than of any result I've ever had.

Anyway, take it away, Lex.

Lexi's Race Report: SOS4Kids

The SOS4Kids is a triathlon for kids that is a mini-version of the SOS triathlon, which is a big race in New Paltz.  You can only run if you are 7, 15, or in between.  This was my first triathlon.  When I started, I felt excited and happy that the water was warm!  But also, I was worried that I would be one of the last ones in the race.

 

The race started at Moriello Pool.  It was a freezing cold day, which made the water feel warmer.  I swam four laps.  Then I put on my shorts, race belt, and shoes, and started to run.  After the swim, I felt wet and cold, and my hands were numb.  I was tired!  I ran down a hill and onto the Rail Trail.  Then I went around a corner and into a big field.  In the big field there were fences to show you the way.  After that, I got on my bike and started biking.  When I was biking, I sort of forgot that I was actually racing!  So I biked slow, like I was just on the Rail Trail waiting for mommy and daddy.  And then I got off my bike and I ran back through the fences in the field.  Then I ran around a corner and there was the finish line.  Everyone was cheering for me and that felt embarrassing but good.

The hardest part of the race was running or swimming.  At the end of the race I felt wobbly because my legs hurt.  Then I had an ice pop and a bottle of water and I felt better.

I liked the race a lot because I got a lot of energy and it was fun and I got to swim a lot.  I want to do the race again but maybe in two years!

Mommy's Jam

My mom makes jam.  It tastes really yummy and it is good for you.  She makes it out of strawberries and blueberries.  We pick the strawberries at a farm and we pick the blueberries at Minnewaska Park.  I like eating the jam on toast.

Last night she canned plums which we picked from our backyard.  That wasn't jam, though.  Mommy says it tastes like ketchup.  Mommy is good at canning and I like her strawberry and blueberry jam.

--Lexi

Race Recap: Great Cranberry Island 50K

Best Race Ever.

A few months ago I commented that every ultra provides an opportunity for learning.  Last weekend I learned a lesson I already knew.  I suppose I needed reminding.

Before I get there, though, I should set the stage.  The Great Cranberry Island 50K in Maine has been named the "Best Race Ever" by Runners' World, for whatever that's worth.  The race earns this lofty status not from the course, or anything terribly special about the actual race itself, but from the festival, party-like atmosphere that surrounds the entire race weekend.  The 50K is run on the only paved road on GCI, a rolling two-mile stretch of asphalt that bisects this remote outpost, reachable by a 25-minute boat shuttle from Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park.  The race is the island's biggest event of the year, and the small but supportive community of island-dwellers turns out in full force to support the runners.  The action really starts when the race finishes, however, as runners, families, and volunteers pitch tents just a few yards from the finish line to enjoy a bonfire, lobster dinner, and outdoor dance party.  A bunch of friends from the Albany Running Exchange have been spreading the word about this one for the past couple of years and I was excited this year to fit it into the schedule.  I've been trying to build my race schedule this year around trips the whole family could enjoy, and this certainly seemed to fit the bill.

Jodi, the kids, and I made the eight-hour drive to Bar Harbor on Thursday, spent a very rainy Friday at our hotel's indoor pool, and made a 9:15 ferry out to GCI on Saturday morning.  Local residents with their pickup trucks and golf carts met us at the dock to transport our bags to the camping field, about a half-mile walk away, and pretty soon we had pitched our tent on the edge of a small tent city.  I checked in for the race and caught up with a few ARE folks before getting set for the 11:30 am start.  The weather was very promising: upper 60's and overcast, it felt like a great day to run.

Pre-race hug

Now, about that lesson.  It's so basic I'd call it a rookie mistake, though no ultra rookie would ever be so cavalier as to make it: RESPECT THE DISTANCE.  After two pretty-good 50 milers in the past eight weeks, it was all to easy to approach this 50K with the attitude of, "Been there, done that."  As race day drew closer, I found most of my energies were absorbed in nuts and bolts of the trip itself--parking, getting to the island, setting up camp, making sure the logistics of having the kids there went smoothly--and I neglected preparing for the little details of the race itself.  And the worst of it was, I recognized that this was happening, yet chose to ignore the problem!  I spent all of thirty seconds reviewing my nutrition plan, which was basically non-existent.  Knowing that I'm particularly susceptible to salt losses and cramping, especially in hot weather, I didn't even pack my bottle of S! caps for the trip to Maine.  Why?  Well, it's only 50K, and I don't usually need too much salt in a 50K.  That was my actual reasoning!  I fortified this belief with my experience at RFTH earlier this year, when I ran a 3:32 50K without any salt on only a couple of GUs.  Sure, that makes sense, it was 40 degrees that day!  I'm sure running with the exact same strategy when it's 80 degrees will work out perfectly! After all, it's ONLY 50K!  Not like we're going 50 miles or anything!

Getting some water from the girls.

Well, you can pretty much guess how the whole thing turned out.  After our anniversary trip to Spain (it was awesome, thanks for asking), my training hasn't been quite up to speed over the past month, so I knew going in I wasn't in peak condition, but I was quite sure that I could run in the 3:40-3:45 range on a paved course without too much climbing.  Judging from previous years' results, that would be enough to put me in the top three to five, possibly competing for the win.  I set out with a goal of running 7:00 pace for as long as possible and seeing where that got me.  The weather held for the first twenty minutes or so, and I got out significantly faster than I wanted, running 6:22 for the opening mile before backing off and letting Leigh Schmitt of the North Face open up a sizable lead through the first 5K; I split the 5K in 20:30, much faster than my goal of 22:00, and was already back in fifth place.  After that I quickly settled in to 7:00 pace, just as the sun came out and the afternoon heat started kicking in.  By the end of the first hour the temps had already climbed into the mid-80s and I was none too pleased.  My steady 7:00 pace became a bit of a struggle, but I backed off to 7:10-7:15s and was able to hold that pretty well, coming through 16 miles in 1:55, right on 3:42 pace.  Given my (lack of) nutrition plan, though, it was unsustainable.

By this time I was back in about tenth place, and it's a testament to how difficult the day was that I ran the second half of the race 20 minutes slower and yet moved up one spot in the standings.  Going back and forth on a two-mile stretch of road allows you to see your competition over and over again, and everyone else looked about as bad as I felt, with the exception of just a few folks.  Leigh was struggling visibly from about 10 miles onward, and several of the early leaders were later reduced to walking, or DNF'd altogether.  By 23 miles I was cramping so badly in my hamstrings and calves that I couldn't extend my stride past more than a shuffle, and I struggled to run 9:00 pace over the final four miles.  And all because I had no salt on me and hadn't even paid enough attention to the aid station setups to know where to find any.  (In my defense, there wasn't much more than the water, Gatorade, and GU that I was already using, but that's kind of beside the point.)  I finished ninth in 4:01:18, about two minutes in front of Leigh, who I passed just before the start of the final 4-mile circuit.

Not much more to say about the race itself.  I had a terrible race plan, I didn't commit mentally to preparing for it fully, I was more focused on everything else that was going on that weekend--and I paid the price.  A race where I could have run very well, been up in the top three on a course that suited me, turned into a lost opportunity because I didn't respect the fact that, even after running a couple of 50-milers, 50 kilometers is still a pretty long way to run.  A 20-minute positive split isn't the worst blowup I've ever had, which is probably the worst silver lining in the history of distance running, and feels pretty ridiculous to actually type like it's a good thing.  The fact that I still ran 4:01 shows that my fitness level is not terrible, I suppose, but this was a year where I planned to take a big step forward, and at this point trying to draw a bunch of positives out of a 4-hour 50K is pretty weak tea.

World's cutest volunteers.

The rest of the weekend day was great, which I suppose was kind of the point.  We ate ice cream, and went swimming off the dock in the ocean, which was insanely cold; we drank lots of good beer and ate a whole bunch of lobster and the girls had fun staying up until almost 11pm and camping out in the tent.  Overall it was a great experience.  The girls got to see alot of the race and had a blast handing out cups of Gatorade and GUs to the runners, and it was certainly great to have them there to cushion the blow of a disappointing day.  But, racing with the family around does present its own set of challenges, particularly in the ability to compartmentalize things from a mental standpoint, and I failed that test miserably this time around.

In camp.

It was particularly frustrating to have this kind of a race on a weekend when everyone else around the country seemed to be killing it.  Sage won yet again against an awesome field at Speedgoat, and my friend Jim Sweeney of Pearl Izumi had a fantastic race for third at the Burning River 100; on Sunday, my good friend Ben had another great day at the Escarpment, though was denied a mind-boggling 12th title (!) by another friend, Denis Mikhaylov, who continued his breakthrough season.  Congrats to all of them, and to everyone else at those races who I know and love (Max out at Speedgoat; HO at Burning River; Charlie, Jimmy, Joe, Mendy, all the ARE guys, and god knows who else at Escarpment, you're all nuts), all of whom seemed to have a much better weekend than I.  Oh well, onward and upward I suppose.  Let's look forward to a good month of training and see where the fall takes us, no?  Lexi will be back this week to post something about plums, I think.  Meanwhile, enjoy this clip of a very skinny man running up a very steep hill on Sunday:
 

Perverse, in a shoe way

Right now, as we speak, there are running shoes on the floor of my car.  Not one pair of running shoes.  Six.  There are running shoes on a small rack pushed up against the side wall of my garage, on the way inside the house.  There are running shoes in another rack to the left as you walk into the house, through the kids' playroom.  This does not count the shoe rack inside the hall closet next to the front door.  (There are running shoes there.)  Nor does it count the shoe rack in my bedroom closet, or the overhead shelf above my hanging coats.  Or the shoes that are stacked on top of shoe boxes, in my bedroom, three feet from my sleeping head.  You know what's in those boxes, the ones that all the running shoes are sitting on top of?  Running shoes.

I may have a problem.

It wasn't always this way.  In high school and college, I almost never changed shoes, and I never collected them.  My usual modus operandi was to acquire one pair of training shoes and run in them until they disintegrated.  I will grant you, I took this to extremes, some might say unhealthy extremes.  A single pair of shoes could last me upwards of 1200, 1500 miles.  My shoe maven friends cringed.  But I was happy.  Oh, was I happy.

It was in my post-collegiate years that I started, for lack of a better word, hoarding.  At first it was just the availability of the shoes.  I was hanging around the Haddonfield Running Company, a fantastic specialty shop in South Jersey, and sometimes running for their store team.  Shoes were plentiful.  I acutally started wearing racing flats for some track workouts.  I think that may have been what did it.  Then, I owned a shoe store for two years, which gave me an excuse to try all different kinds of shoes, all the time.  Now I can't go back.  Sometimes they're free, sometimes they're discounted. I almost never pay retail.  But somehow, I get them.

Right now there are thirty-four pairs of running shoes in my house.  I have thirteen pairs of Inov-8s, four New Balance, three adidas, three Brooks, two Asics, and assorted others. I have seven pairs of racing flats, including four brand new pairs of cross country or track flats that have yet to see the outside of their boxes.  I count nine pairs of shoes that are seeing some sort of regular use, and ten pairs that have been worn less than five times apiece.  I have seven pairs of shoes that have too many miles and too much mud on them for any further running to occur.  I have a pair of Brooks Adrenalines from 2008 with sheet metal screws drilled into the soles.  I have the black Nike Air Prestos that I wore to my wedding.  I have two pairs of shoes that I actually gave away to people and yet are somehow back in my house.  I have a pair of fell running shoes from Bolton, England that cannot be purchased in the US.  I have three pairs of Vibrams, for god's sake.

I can't help myself.  Two weeks ago I walked in to Rock and Snow to take a look at the Hoka One Ones (which I'll buy at some point, trust me) and left with an on-sale pair of New Balance 1010s because they were in my size.  Right now on my phone's "To Do" list, I have reminders to try out two other pairs of running shoes that I don't even own yet.

Which reminds me, if anyone wants to send me a pair of Montrail Fluid Flex or Salomon Sense Ultras, I wear a 10.5.