Guest Blogger! A Race Recap from Joe Puleo

One of the biggest influences in my running life has been Joe Puleo. I first met Joe when I was a medical student in Philadelphia and he was the owner of the Haddonfield Running Company, a specialty running shop in Haddonfield, NJ. I started taking the PATCO train out to Haddonfield on Wednesday nights to join their group runs and Joe and I became good friends. He was my coach through residency and for several years afterwards, guiding me to some of my best performances, including my marathon PR and my first few 50Ks. Joe is a fantastic coach, both for private clients and at the high school and collegiate levels; he is also the coach of the elite marathon team for the US Marine Corps. He is also the author of Running Anatomy, which is a must-read if you are a runner looking to build functional and core strength (and if you're not, you should be).

Joe has a long competitive history as a collegiate and post-collegiate athlete, including having been one of the top amateur triathletes in the country, and can still drop a sub-5:00 mile when he's fit, but until this year has always considered ultra running to be pretty stupid. However last week he ran his first ever 50K, and when he asked if he could commandeer the blog to share his experience, I was only too happy to say yes. I'd like to invite anyone else who has a story to share to take over the blog as well, as long as you also happen to be one of the ten most influential people in my life.

Anyway, here's Joe's race report. He sounds just like a real ultrarunner! But he probably still thinks it's stupid.

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On December 19, 2014 I began to think about my New Year’s resolutions.  I decided that besides losing a few pounds, doing bikram yoga, and incorporating more high fiber foods to my diet I would also run an ultra marathon.  All of the previous statements are false except for the final one.  The final is just plain stupid. I had averaged about 14 miles/week for 2014, and I had a long run of eleven miles in early November, yet I felt pretty good about my fitness.  So, why not run an ultra!  A lot of my friends do them, and two athletes I coached just finished JFK in approximately eight hours.  They reported it was not miserable. Why not run an ultra?

I reviewed a list of ultras on some website devoted to the silliness of running hours and hours, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, m&m’s, and licorice, (also Oreos) until I found the perfect race: The Frosty Fifty. Four 7.75 mile loops of a mostly flat hard-packed trail.  I don’t enjoying running on any hard surface, my 48 year-old body has about 45,000 miles of jogging on the odometer. Also, the temperature would be 45-50 degrees, not 75-80 degrees. After burning my hair (I think that is what I did. It smelled like it) in a race in the early 1990’s, I have an aversion to running in the heat, unless it is dry heat like in Sacramento where I ran last summer when it was 101 degrees.  Then, the heat is ok.  An added bonus was the race was in Winston-Salem, NC so I could visit two of my closet friends.

Perfect!  

So I signed up, and started planning my training.  I decided to run a few, easy, five mile trail runs and race a 5k (roads) as my prep.  I did not do a long run because it would unduly fatigue me for my race, which was two weeks away.  

Two weeks!  

That is normally the duration of a marathon taper, not the length of an ultra training program.  Actually, I think Dean Karnazes claimed in Runner’s World and Vanity Fair that he ran for two weeks straight.  No sleep, no solid food (just yak urine fortified with manna from the Gods), and no shoes (Christopher McDougall wrote the article), so running about ten miles a week for the two weeks leading up to the race made total sense to the contrarian side of my personality.

I re-read all of Jay Friedman’s blog posts to see if I could glean “magic” insights that could help me master the distance and enjoy the experience.  The most cogent piece of information was actually from Lexi , “Then I ran around a corner and there was the finish line.  Everyone was cheering for me and that felt embarrassing but good.”  

I couldn’t wait for that feeling.  It would be worth enduring running two weeks worth of mileage in one morning.

I packed my bags with my planned racing gear.  

Nike Air Pegasus 10.5

Open Eye Café’s Defeet AirEator socks md.

Hind wind briefs xl

Puma short tights lg

Nike clima-fit running pants md

Patagonia short-sleeve base layer md

Puma singlet-md

Saucony Razor jacket (water-proof) md

EMS sports liner gloves

PearlIzumi water shell gloves

Sugoi Waterproof jogging cap

(I felt a bit like Homer, in the Iliad, listing the roster of ships, but Jay Friedman describes all his clothing choices, so I figured that is what we ultra runners do).

I brought five GU’s of various flavors, a handful of saltstick caps, and a packet of Skratch to mix with water as part of my hydration plan.  The rest of my hydration plan consisted of water, Mountain Dew, and Coke at the aid stations during the race, and sampling a lot of the microbrews and coffees in Asheville after the race.

I flew to Raleigh on Friday, January 2nd, arriving at 11:20 am. A driver sent from the race picked me up at the airport (actually it was my best friend, Scott Conary, owner of Carrborro Coffee Roasters, the Open Eye Café, and Caffé Driade in the Chapel Hill area of NC.).  We had lunch at Mama Dip’s Kitchen.  I had the chicken potpie, cornbread and greens.  After gathering ourselves, we had dinner and then drove to Mocksville, NC to stay with friends, Dave Salmon, the former food service director at my alma mater Elizabethtown College, his wife Diane, and their daughter Amy, who lives next door.

Scott, Dave, and I ran together while at Elizabethtown, and our friendship has endured for thirty years.  Scott was planning to bike on the trails during the race, and Dave was planning to run with me for a loop.  At 72 years old, he still can muster up the energy to help me.  We caught up until 12:30am and I woke at 5:15am, but felt totally rested.  Diane, per usual (we ate at their home regularly after long runs or races while in college), fed us a hearty breakfast (oatmeal, eggs, toast, fruit, coffee) that I ate whole-heartedly (I was about to run 31 miles), and at 6:15 we began the: 45 drive to Salem Lake in Winston-Salem.

I get to the lake at 7:15, check-in, get dressed, and sit in the car until 7:50 am.  I walk down to the start, use the port-a-john, and join the 250 or so runners (about 125 in the accompanying 25k).  At 8:00 am the race director wishes us luck, starts the race, and off we go.  I immediately start jogging.  Unlike shorter races which I am competitive in (age-group wise) I have no interest in racing an ultra.  There is only one goal: finish the race, and enjoy the emotion Lexi felt upon completing her triathlon.

I naturally settle into a 9:35-9:45/mi pace.  Slower than my training pace for endurance runs  (8:35-9:03), but I feel comfortable, and my stride feels natural.  I spend the first five miles of the loop talking with a nice man from Winston-Salem who trains regularly on the loop we are running.  He describes the whole course and tells me that he wants to break 2:30 for the 25k.  I ask what pace that is.  He says, “I don’t know, but I want to break 2:30.  As a running coach I find that to be a strange approach to pacing.  But what do I know.  I still have three loops to go before I am an ultra marathoner and can make judgments on others race strategies.

The second loop starts and I find myself running with Jill Baulieu, a fifty-three year-old female 25k runner who began running approximately four years ago.  When I walk up the hills she scoots ahead and I reel her back in on the flats.  We are averaging 9:40-9:45 miles, and I feel fine.  Not cold, not hot.  No real fatigue despite passing 11 miles, my longest run in over two months.  She is a genuinely nice woman and the loop disappears in conversation about our life stories.

As Jill runs up the last hill in preparation to finish her 25k, I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and walk gradually up the same hill.  I think of how proud all my ultra friends would be of me, keeping my heart rate down and eating “fat-ass” food.  I am getting this ultra thing.

For the third lap, Dave, my 72 year-old friend jogs along side of me.  He has just come from leading a beginning runner’s group run where he ran four miles.  I forget that Dave is pretty old.  I am transported back 25 years ago when we ran together pretty much daily, a time when roles were reversed and I paced him through 18 miles of the Northern Central Trail marathon. As we pass an aid station a volunteer yells congratulations to Dave for being the top 70-74 ranked age group runner in Davie County.  Dave mumbles something back, Dave is good at mumbling, and then we march on through miles 19, 20, and 21.

We talk about how our lives have changed the past 25 years, but in so many ways we are doing exactly what we were doing then.  Running long and talking about the circumstances of our lives.  I stop at the aid station at mile 6.5 (approximately mile 24 of the race) and drink some Coke and Mountain Dew.  I don’t eat any more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  They are nasty.  I peel off my jacket in preparation for my last lap.  I am planning to run fast to get this over with!  Dave and I have been running 10-minute miles, and I am hoping to drop down closer to 9:00/mi.

Dave asks if I want to have him continue with me and I say, “No, I need to do the next few miles on my own.”  Big mistake!  As soon as I start the last lap my natural desire to run fast takes hold.  My best event is the mile.  I have fast twitch fibers that love to be used.  I had fought the desire to listen to my “natural” instinct to run fast by relying on my “wise” instinct to be patient (sort of like not succumbing to the siren sound, Homer again, of the fourth microbrew when three works perfectly well).  Why the hell at mile 24 would I change my mindset?  I admit it I am weak, a man of sin, I can’t control my impulses, but by mile 28 I find myself no longer able to lift my knees.  And as any runner knows if you can’t lift your knees, you can’t lift your feet off the ground.  If you can’t lift your feet, you invariably trip over pebbles and twigs on the course.  Anything higher than an inch becomes a steeplechase barrier.  I do not hurdle well, so I shuffle, walk, amble, meander, and sidle my way to the final hill, which I charge up like a champion!  Actually, I do nothing of the sort.  I whine like a sissy as my psoas muscles totally give out and I am reduced to a stiff-legged walk up the hill as my glutes join my psoas in picketing the endeavor of the final climb.  

Finally, with the finish line in sight I switch gears and remember the joy that Lexi described upon finishing her triathlon.  I can’t wait for the adulation of the adoring crowd.  I turn to Scott and Dave, and say I will see them at the finish, take pictures.  I throw them my running pants and t-shirt so I can triumphantly straddle jog down the hill, wearing a singlet and short tights, which I hope, make me look good in the post-race pictures.  They don’t.  I look tired and old which is exactly how I felt.  I forget to look at the clock, it is not relevant to my performance, but later learn that I ran 5:22:00, and finished 40th.

My takeaway from the race is that 50k’s are not difficult if you run slow enough.  I would not have changed from my 10:00 pace on the last lap if I had a do-over.  Also, I would have run a few runs of two plus hours in preparation.  Not in the two weeks leading up to the race, but probably in the two months before the race.  My psoas and glute muscles gave out because they were not trained enough (read, at all).

The rest of my body felt pretty good, and after soaking in a 40 degree creek in Black Mountain, NC the next day I went mountain biking in the mountains around Asheville the following morning.  I had some lingering glute pain on Wednesday when I went for a jog, but I don’t think it is an injury, just a welcome soreness.  It means that I ran well, and that my muscles are firing correctly.

Unfortunately, unlike Lexi’s experience at the kid’s triathlon nobody was cheering for me when I finished, but it didn’t matter.  I got handed a handmade pottery Christmas ornament that says I finished an ultra marathon, and that is pretty cool.

Will I do another one?  Not that the universe or anyone reading this cares, but the answer is a definite, “we’ll see.”  I have a desire to run JFK and Comrades for the experiences, so I need to qualify, but I also have many other challenges I want to take on, so I am not sure of how much a priority revisiting ultra running will be. For now, I am proud to have completed one, and to have joined the great bunch of people who have earned the moniker ultra marathoner.

Orange Mud: Ultralight Hydration

Photo: Joe Dean

Let me start by saying: I really like gear, but I don't often use it.  I love having stuff, but when I run, I'm usually a minimalist.  I generally race with only a handheld, unless the race is unsupported; in training, I won't usually carry anything if I'm running for less than three hours, unless the heat dictates that I carry water.  But last year I started using the Ultimate Direction AK Race Vest on some of my longer runs and unsupported FA-style events.  Honestly, it's a great product.  You can carry a fair bit of gear and two 16-oz bottles without any significant bouncing, and it's incredibly lightweight.  I had very few complaints; on longer efforts I did feel like I was adjusting the chest straps a little too frequently, and the sternal strap can be a bit limiting, but all in all, a huge improvement (from my perspective) over Camelbacks, waist belts, and the like.

The Orange Mud handheld

Last year a friend turned me on to Orange Mud, a small hydration company based out of California.  I first found their handheld, which is one of the better examples on the market that I've found: quite light, very adjustable, with a much more comfortable strap that my previous handhelds, and enough room for a few gels or small packable items.  It wasn't until the end of this year, however, that I discovered the HydraQuiver, the flagship product in the Orange Mud line, and fell in love.

The HydraQuiver is a vest, but unlike the UD vests, the hydration has been moved from the front to the more traditional alignment on the back.  At first, I was concerned with bouncing, as I was under the impression that the elimination of bounce in the UD line had come from shifting the weight to the front.  But the HydraQuiver, instead of distributing the weight in the small of the back, as you'd expect with a Camelback, keeps the weight centered in the upper back, between the shoulder blades.  The result is a completely bounce-free ride, with easy access by reaching behind you.  If you can scratch the back of your neck, you can pull out the water bottle.

When I first put on the Orange Mud HQ, it felt much too tight in the armpits.  But as soon as I started running and my arms came up into their normal carriage, all the tension vanished.  The pack rests comfortably with no bounce and no tension (and no sternal strap).  I have yet to tug on a strap to adjust it during a run.  As great an experience as the UD line provides, the Orange Mud HQ is better; I literally forget that I'm wearing it, and have started taking it on shorter runs of 60-90 minutes, just because it's so comfortable.  The back is padded for comfort, and there is a pocket that will easily accommodate a phone, some nutrition, keys, and other small sundries. It's my go-to choice for running hydration right now, and I anticipate racing with it this year, even in supported ultras, which I never would have thought possible before.

I'm proud to announce that I've joined the Orange Mud team as one of their ambassadors (or "am-badass-adors" as they like to say) and will be happily promoting their gear.  There are several other products worth checking out in the Orange Mud line.  The HydraQiver Double Barrel is the same idea, with two rear bottles; the VP2 has extra space for more gear, during longer efforts.  There are several new products launching this year, including a gym bag which looks very well-planned.  They also have some cool logo gear (including the super-hipster trucker hat, which almost never leaves my head now) and they also make a neat towel/car seat cover.  It's definitely worth checking them out.

How to be a Vegetarian

Hello.  It's Lexi.  You haven't heard from me for a long time.  Sorry about that.  I would like to tell you all that the reason that I have recommended foods to you is that not only do they taste good, but they are a healthy (and delicious) choice for you to make.  I hope you find them delicious too.

I also wanted to say that I became a vegetarian.  One difficulty with being a vegetarian is that I have to get enough protein.  I have some recommendations of foods that have protein in them that I find good:

• beans
• dairy, especially cheese
• tofu (I love tofu corn dogs)

--Lexi

Race Report: Recover from the Holidays 50K

Looking UGLY at the beer mile finish.
Photo: Mark Eisenhandler

Ack!  Haven't blogged in a month.  I've been thinking about blogging a lot, though; "New blog post" has been on my to-do list for several weeks now.  I wanted to throw up a post (haha, I just saw that pun while I was re-reading this, now I'm totally leaving that in there) about our recent beer mile, but there wasn't much news to report: I was sick, felt terrible the whole way, blew chunks at the 1200 mark and wound up running the extra lap, coming in DFL in 16:31.  A really horrendous showing.  The four-man race was won by Dr. Mike in 8:05, pretty excellent for a debut beer mile!

I had one last race in 2014 after the Wagathon, which was the Rockland XC Alumni Race, a 3-mile cross-country race I've run every year since 1993.  This turned out to be a big year, as my CHSN Rams won our record ninth men's team title.  But I also maintain the blog/website for that race, so just go there to check it out.  It's a fantastic race with a great tradition that I've tried to capture/enhance with my site.  But it didn't seem to make sense to post about it here too.

2014 Alumni Run Champs!
Photo: Brian Marks

I have some really exciting sponsorship news as well, which is going to be popping up on the blog in the next few days.  And believe it or not, some food stuff too, which we haven't seen here for quite some time, will be coming from both myself and (hopefully) Lexi as well in the next couple of weeks.

So I've been kind of putting things off on some of these posts, but it's a new year, and I'm ready to get back into it, especially because I've been feeling pretty good physically and I'm getting excited for running and racing in 2015.  I kind of unofficially kicked off my season with the Recover from the Holidays 50K last weekend, so I'm kicking off my blogging season as well.

Calling this a "Race Report" might be a bit of a stretch; RFTH is definitely fat-ass style.  You can start whenever you want, and run as many of the ten paved out-and-back 5K loops as you care to; of the seventy or so folks who turn up, maybe one in four are planning on finishing the whole thing.  But I'd argue it's less of a Fat Ass than a no-frills, minimalist race.  Sure, there's no entry fee, no numbers, minimal aid, no t-shirt.  But Pete Colaizzo and Charlie Sprauer count every lap and log every split; there are race results and records that go back twenty years.  Full results get published in Ultrarunning magazine.  A glance at the past champions reveals some true giants of the  ultra world: Bob Sweeney, Byron Lane, Brent Backus, Rainer Koch.  And yes, you can start early if you want, but if you plan on competing, you show up at the 9 am start and get ready to roll.

Stupid watch...
Photo: Charlotte Kopp

In my first two attempts, I had run to basically uncontested wins in 2011 and 2013, but I knew this year would not be easy.  I lined up with two good friends and training partners who I knew were ready to run.  Brian Hickey is a two-time RFTH champ himself (1998 and 2012) who has been logging some big miles and strong hill climbs as we gear up for Mount Mitchell in February; and Phil Vondra, despite this being his first "official" ultra, is a triathlon stud who regularly makes me hurt on our long weekend runs.  In addition, three-time race winner and former US 24-hour team member Byron Lane would be putting in an appearance.  This would be no cakewalk.

We started off on a fairly frigid morning in a pack of five, including me, Brian, and Phil; Byron hung back, but we had two people with us immediately, one chatty and one silent.  It's tough when you're not sure who is racing and who is just out for a Saturday morning run, so I was a little more aggressive than I would've liked.  Brian and I wanted to run about 7:30 pace, and Phil figured he'd hang with us through halfway and see how he felt.  But the presence of the other two spooked us a little bit, and Brian and I alternated leading the opening couple of miles in the 7:15-7:20 range.  Right at the start of the second lap, Phil and our chatty companion dropped back just a little bit, and our silent partner made an enormous move, suddenly running near six-minute pace.  Brian and I let him go immediately; by the turnaround halfway through lap two, he had already put over a minute on us.

At this point we figured he was either just doing a workout or was going to run near the course record of 3:21, which neither of us were prepared to do, so we didn't feel particularly bothered either way, just kept clicking off 7:20s.  Brian stopped to use the facilities after the second lap, and I slowed down to 7:30 pace to have him catch up.  Halfway through lap four he had caught and passed Phil and his shadow, and had closed within 30 seconds of me or so; I stayed relaxed and looked forward to him catching up so we could run together.  But he needed another pit stop shortly thereafter and fell further behind.  I was finding the 7:30s very comfortable and just continued to run them very evenly, coming through halfway in 1:53:50; with a pre-race target of 3:50, I was very pleased.  By this point, the breakaway leader had finished, after running three or four laps at 6:00-6:30 pace, and Phil's companion, who apparently was prepping for an upcoming marathon, finished up at 25K as well.  Suddenly I was in the lead, by about two minutes over Phil and maybe 3-4 over Brian, with fourth place another few minutes back and being stalked by Byron in fifth.  I asked Phil to catch up with me in the middle of the fifth or sixth lap, but he said he wanted to ease off the pace a bit, so I kept running my solo 7:30s.

It didn't look like I was going to have too much company, so I needed another mental game.  I decided I'd run 7:30 pace through lap seven, then run two hard laps and jog the last one.  Starting lap six I grabbed my Orange Mud handheld and focused on taking in some fluids over the next 10K, which worked well; finishing lap seven I was a bit tired but ready to try some hard running.  I dropped the bottle, grabbed my iPod, and immediately dropped down to sub-7:00 pace.  I put my external game face on, hoping to convince my brain that it was time to go; instead of smiling and exchanging high-fives with my friends as we passed each other on the laps, I simply grunted and gave them my best "I'm focused" look.  And it seemed to work!  For the eighth lap, at least, my legs responded quite well, and I banged out a sub-21:00 5K; following it with my second-fastest split on the ninth lap, though that was certainly a struggle.

By then, though, I had a ten-minute lead, and I was happy to go into cool-down mode, feeling as though I had really put a good effort in; I ran the last lap in about 24:00, finishing up in 3:48:05, right in line with my goals/expectations, and happy to run almost perfectly even splits (1:53:50/1:54:15).  My GPS screwed up something awful, so I needed to reset it during the first half of lap 3, but you can see my data for the last seven laps here:


Overall I was very pleased with the effort.  I accomplished my time and place goals, I ran a decent enough time with a well-controlled effort, and I confirmed that my fitness, while not up to the 3:32 standard I set two years ago, is at least where I need to be two months away from the big date with Mount Mitchell.  Mentally, I didn't really have any opportunities to go into the tank, so it wasn't much of a test from that perspective, but I felt like I did a good job holding my focus over what turned out to be a mostly solo effort.  Brian unfortunately struggled after his second pit stop as the effects of running on three hours' sleep took hold (that's another story), and he dropped after 40K, but Phil did a fantastic job keeping his pace pretty steady and running an excellent 3:56 for second place in his first ultra.  The race has been going for twenty years now, and Phil popped the #17 performance all-time on his first attempt.  As they say where he's from, "Good on ya!"  Or is that Australian?  I forget.

Quick gear report: I ran in the Salming Distance A2, a new road shoe that I'l have a lot more to say about in the coming days.  Clothing-wise: an old pair of tights; a long-sleeve base layer from 32 Degrees, which I think is technically long underwear but is my favorite running base layer; and an Orange Mud tech shirt and super-hipster trucker cap.  Hydration with the OM handheld; more details on that stuff coming as well.

WAG X!

As I mentioned in my post on the Shawangunk Ridge Trail Run, the Wagathon is my favorite fat ass run.  "The Wag," named after the rock-climbers' club Westchester Alpine Group, was started in 2005 by climbing legend Felix Modugno and was, in its early years, exclusively a climber's deal; the first three years featured fields of about 3-8 people, all climbers, none of whom ran with any real regularity.  But somehow people started to talk, and in my first year, 2008, we suddenly had almost 30 people at the start.

The start of Wag IV, 2008

The first four years, the course didn't vary much; starting in Sam's Point Preserve, the trail passed Verderkill Falls and Mud Pond on its way to Lake Awosting, Millbrook Mountain, and down to Trapps Bridge; after that, we followed mostly carriage roads up to Skytop at Mohonk Mountain House and then back down through the Preserve into the town of New Paltz, finishing at the Gilded Otter Brewing Company, a distance of about 30 miles.  I "won" the fourth edition in 2008, running a basically solo 4:07, and had a great time.  In 2009, the course changed slightly, adding the beautiful but difficult Gertrude's Nose trail and finishing outside town at the climber's haven, the Mountain Brauhaus.  By this time plenty of runners had joined the hardcore climbing contingent, and from that year on the run became more runner-dominated than climber-dominated.  I ran most of the 2009 race with Scott Willett, an elite triathlete and the founder of the Tri-Life training group, and we tied for the "win".  In 2010 the course changed again, now finishing in Rosendale at the northern end of the Shawangunk ridge; I dropped out with an injury halfway through, but returned in 2011 to share the win with Glen Redpath, my third "win" in four tries.

By this time, organizational duties had passed from Felix, through local ultra runner Joe Brown, and on to Mike Siudy, a climber in his past life who now passes his time running insanely difficult ultra courses through the Catskills.  Mike standardized the course, which had started to fluctuate quite a bit from year to year, and basically codified it into what it is today: a nearly 30-mile trip from Sam's Point to Rosendale, covering single track, carriage roads, and five rock scrambles, including the infamous Giant's Workshop, Lemon Squeeze, and Bonticou Crag.  Also starting in 2012, the structure of the event changed.  While it was always a fat ass event--no entry fee, no support, no awards, few rules--the run had, for the first seven years, had a mass 9 am start.  While the vibe was decidedly friendly and relaxed, there was certainly a mild competitive undertone, and part of the fun (for me at least) was trying to lay down a fast performance and be one of the first people sipping beer at the Red Brick Tavern at the end.  But after seven years in this style, people wanted a change--specifically, some of the faster finishers wanted to share drinks with some of the slower folks, but didn't want to have to wait several hours for everyone to get in.  So starting in 2012, the run became completely non-competitive: start whenever you want, just try to time it so you finish between 4 and 5 pm, so we can all eat, drink, and be merry together.

Phil and Brian at Verderkill Falls

I liked the thought, and admired the impulse toward mass drunkenness, but losing the competitive aspect did kill some of my interest in the event.  The logistics of the run aren't easy--Sam's Point is a good hour's drive from the finish in Rosendale, and it was hard to justify the headache of planning everything out for what now amounted to a long run on most of the same trails I run on every weekend.  Plus, I'm not exactly what you'd call "great" with heights, and some of the more exposed, tricky rock scramble sections are really not my cup of tea.  I never like feeling like I'm about to fall to my death, especially not 25 miles into a 5-6 hour effort.  So for a few years, I was out on the Wag.  But 2014 marked the 10th anniversary of this venerated event, and two of my good friends and training partners, Brian Oestrike and Phil Vondra, were excited to run it for their first time.  Glen was coming up from the city as well, running half the race as his longest run since Achilles' surgery in July.  Phil and I had the seemingly brilliant idea to stash a couple of beers out on the course, which we did the night before, and by 10:45 Brian, Phil, and I were heading off toward Verderkill Falls with the goal of finishing by around 4:30.

"W" is for Wagathon--at Castle Rock

We wound up with a near-perfect day of weather and had a great time chatting it up as we navigated the tricky single track past the falls and out to Lake Awosting.  From there, we followed carriage roads over Castle Rock and headed out toward Millbrook Mountain.  On the way, we caught up with Josh Burns, who had started a few minutes before us, and the four of us kept up a pretty solid pace to Trapps Bridge, 15 miles into the run and the site of our first beer stop.  We dropped a few hints to Josh about the beer, but as we approached the bridge, he announced that he was going to keep going up onto the ridge, and he was gone before any of us could say, "Hey, wait, there really is beer here."  Phil had left us a nice 750ml bottle of Aria from Perennial Brewery, which took us a good 15 minutes to plow through before heading back out on to the trail.

Beer stop #1.  Photo: Phil Vondra

From there, things got a bit wobbly.  The next few miles are a tricky traverse along the top of Trapps Cliff, and while we were pretty pleased with ourselves for having had the forethought to have a beer stop, we were clearly moving rather slowly and stiffly along.  After a few quiet minutes of slogging, Brian commented, "Man, we are really in the doldrums."  Apparently beer with 8% ABV is not a performance enhancer.

In the doldrums, at checkpoint #3.  Photo: Phil Vondra

The course gets worse before it gets better--we slogged our way through Giants' Workshop and the Lemon Squeeze, which Brian negotiated easily with his alpinist background, but I suffered quite a bit until we got past Skytop tower and started running again back downhill.  We hit a nice rhythm, though, and had cranked out a good couple of miles before we reached beer check #2, hidden behind the Mohonk Golf Course: a nice Yard Owl Dark Wheat:

No caption necessary.

There were no two ways about it after that: I was basically drunk, and Phil and Brian kept a pretty close eye on my on the scramble up to Bonticou Crag.  By the time we made our way back down the Northeast Trail and through the swamp at the bottom of the Widowmaker, I was almost back to normal, and all that was left was the final few miles racing the sunset.  We finished up in just over 6 hours, including the beer stops, with about 5:15 of actual running time--not too far off what we had planned, actually.  It was Phil's longest run ever, and all in all, we had a really fun day out.  I have to admit, it was fun seeing everyone at the finish, though I do miss the competitive aspect of it a bit.

Quick gear report: I used the Montrail Rogue Racer, the shoe I've been putting in the vast majority of my miles for the past few months.  They're only 9 oz, and billed as a racing flat, but they have a 9mm drop and a fair bit of cushion, and I've been very happy with them for many miles and several long efforts.  I wore my Pearl Izumi Ultra Split short which is a brilliant piece of clothing.  The pockets in the back of these shorts are actually sewn into the liner, which comes all the way up to the top of the short, so you can carry gels or your phone (the main pocket zips and holds an iPhone 6) with virtually no bouncing.  They're quite expensive for shorts but a fairly indispensable item.  And, as on most long unsupported efforts I used the Ultimate Direction AK Race Vest for hydration.  Though the day after this run I received in the mail the Orange Mud HydraQuiver, which may replace the UD vest as my go-to hydration system for longer runs.  More details to come!

Race Report: Tesla Hertz 50K

photo: Happily Running

This year did not exactly go as I planned, particularly from a racing standpoint, but one race that was on my calendar basically all year long was the Tesla Hertz Run.  I was drawn to this race from its founding last year, though I was unable to run it in 2013 as it fell just a week before Tussey Moutainback (which didn't turn out all that well).  But I was intrigued by the idea of a runnable trail race not too far from home, and a positive review from Brian Oestrike (third in the 50K in 2013) sealed it for me.  After struggling through much of the summer, but having a fairly productive fall, I made Tesla the focal point of my fall racing season.

Tesla Hertz is actually a festival of races taking place concurrently on a mostly flat, 10.4-mile singletrack loop.  The 100 mile, 100K, and 50 mile starts all preceded the 8 am start of the 50K, so that we were the last of the four races out on course.  As the fields were all relatively small, this was pretty fun, giving us the opportunity to see other runners (however briefly) all in various stages of their own races.  The forecast called for rain, and did not disappoint; it was raining steadily at 5:30, when I woke that morning, and did not let up at all until about 15 minutes after I finished, nearly seven hours later.  This made for some rather soggy conditions, though the course held up pretty well.  The loop, in Rocky Point State Preserve in northern Long Island, runs through a dense forest of pine barrens, which meant soft, sandy trails with plenty of pine needles.  We ran into a few puddles, but very little mud, and the footing was generally quite good, though certainly not fast; the ground was too soft to get any real return of energy, and it was hard to forget you were generally running on hard sand.  Still, though the course was almost exclusively twisting singletrack, there were minimal rocks and roots, and there were certainly long stretches of rhythmic, steady running over the course of the day.

Given the small field, I started the day with the goal of winning the race (this sounds silly--don't you always start with the goal of winning?--but in reality, I don't have a chance of winning the overwhelming majority of races I enter).  In the first few strides of the race, it became pretty clear it would be a two-man battle, as local stud Joe Marinaccio and I broke away and were immediately on our own.  Joe let me set the pace, which I did gladly.  I had been feeling great in my training for at least the past ten days, and as I set a relaxed but quick tempo, my legs responded quite well, and I was happy to establish the rhythm.  We ran together for the first mile or so, Joe right behind me, and I started to think about strategy, even at this extremely early stage.  The obvious thing was to relax and run easy, as we obviously had a long, wet day ahead of us, and there was no reason to do all the work and let Joe draft off me for the next few hours.  I could let him pass and follow his pace for awhile, turn the brain off, and worry about making moves later on.  But for some reason, I wasn't trusting myself with this strategy; I had a nagging feeling that, if I gave up control of the race, I might not be able to respond when the big move came.  Better to stay in front and dictate how the race was going to go.  And if I was going to lead, there was no point in letting Joe just cruise along for the ride; I'd have to make him earn it.  So, ten minutes into the race, I made a rash decision--I was going to try to run away with the thing.

Joe hung close for quite awhile, at first sticking on my shoulder and then slipping back by no more than a few seconds.  The course is basically a continuous loop with a short out-and-back spur, about half a mile each way, just past the halfway point, which led to the only aid station other than the start/finish area.  I turned around here without stopping, spotting Joe only about five seconds back, and continued to push on.  We got back onto the main loop without seeing any other 50K runners, meaning we had at least a one-mile lead at this early point.  By now I couldn't hear Joe breathing, so I continued to keep a steady, even tempo.  On a couple of long, straight stretches I checked over my shoulder and saw him about 30 seconds back, but by the time I finished the first loop I couldn't see or hear him at all.  I headed out for the second loop without stopping; I planned on taking off my arm warmers at this point, but it was still raining steadily and I was still a bit on the chilly side.  I kept rolling, trying to push my advantage.  I started doing some math in my head; if I could build a four or five-minute lead by the next time I saw Joe at the 15.8-mile turnaround, I could feel pretty comfortable over the last half of the race.  I hit the turn at right around the 2:02 mark, feeling pretty strong but starting to tire just a bit.  I knew the course record of 4:13 was within reach, but pushed that to the back of my mind as I focused on holding off Joe.

Unfortunately he was only 1:30 back at the turnaround, which started to play with my mind a bit.  This is the problem with talking yourself into a big lead--when you find out you don't actually have the lead you anticipated, it can be a bit depressing.  The next several miles were a lonely, depressing stretch: I was starting to fatigue, I didn't have the lead I had hoped for, and I was still an awfully long way from home.  I finished the second loop still in front, but as I left the aid station after refilling my bottle and dumping my arm sleeves, I heard cheers for Joe coming in.  My lead was holding but barely, and I still had ten front-running miles to go.

Still, I now had only one lap left; mentally, the game had just gotten a lot easier.  I was certain I was going to get caught, so I focused on the mantra of "Make him earn it."  If he was going to catch me, I was going to make him work his ass off.  This kept me going through the turnaround.  Every time I felt myself flagging mentally, I came back to that, and pushed the pace a little bit more.  I cruised through the turnaround again without stopping, glancing at my watch to gauge my lead.  Joe came by sooner than I wanted, looking very strong, and I looked down--still 1:30.  I couldn't lose him!

I now had two competing mental narratives.  My initial, negative thought was that no matter what I did, I couldn't shake my pursuer, and that being overtaken was simply a matter of time.  But I was able to quickly see the flip side: I'd been running off the front for a marathon, and had held the same lead for the past 10+ miles without giving up even a second.  Now, there were only five miles to go.  I had a cushion of nearly twenty seconds per mile; if I could maintain anything close to 8:00/mile pace, I could make it awfully difficult for him.  So that's what I did.  I ran scared, just like had had for the past two hours, and I must have checked over my shoulder ten times in the past thirty minutes, certain each time I'd see Joe charging up behind me, but it never happened.  I crossed the line first in a course-record 4:08:20.  Joe came in just about six minutes later; I had been able to add nearly a minute per mile over the final five miles.

All in all, it was a satisfying end to my ultra racing season.  Running from the front was a new and somewhat frightening experience for me, but I think it helped focus me mentally and really brought out the best in me on this day.  I was a bit bummed not to hang around afterwards, but I was very wet and couldn't wait to get back to Jodi and our weekend away in the Hamptons (and some dry clothes), so I hightailed it out of there pretty fast.  But I have to complement Vinny, Nichole, and the crew at Happily Running, who put on a great event that hopefully will continue to grow and flourish in the coming years.

I took an easy week last week and am trying to get back in the flow now.  Racing is probably done for the season; I'll run my high school XC alumni race after Thanksgiving, as I do every year, but otherwise I'll be focused on building back up for next year.  I'll come back in a few weeks to outline my plans for next season, which will start with a return trip to Mount Mitchell and hopefully go from there.

Race Report: Shawangunk Ridge Trail Run

I'm not sure at what point I realized it--maybe at the start, maybe five miles in, maybe after four hours--but at some point last Saturday, it dawned on me that running a technical ultra at the end of the highest-mileage week I've had in over a year was maybe not the smartest idea I've ever had.

I knew going in the that inaugural Shawangunk Ridge Trail Run would be a tough day.    Race organizers Ken Posner and Todd Jennings love their technical trails, and looking at the course map beforehand, it was clear that the race would encompass some of the most technical trails the area has to offer.  I love running point-to-point courses, though, and as the race was vaguely following the course of the Wagathon, one of my favorite fat-ass events, I figured I'd give it a try.  Plus, I liked the idea of a self-supported "adventure."  The date was pretty good as well, falling three weeks before my main focus for the fall, the Tesla Hertz Run, so I went in to the race looking for a good, long, hard effort.

As mentioned, the preceding week was the longest one I've had in some time.  I ran a nice long cool down following the Whiteface Uphill Race the week before, getting in about 17 miles for the day, and wound up getting in 16 on Sunday.  Monday was my friend Brian's 42nd birthday; in celebration, he decided he wanted to run 42 miles over two days, so we ran 21 miles both Monday and Tuesday.  Thursday I met up with tri-geek Mark Eisenhandler and inov-8 stud Laura Kline (who would win the SRT 20 mile division) for a track workout; while it went quite well, it was certainly the toughest workout I'd done in months.  Needless to say standing on the starting line in Sam's Point two days later I wasn't quite feeling my freshest.

Photo: Tom Bushey

The Shawangunk Ridge Trail is not a new trail per se, but is a new blaze by the NY-NJ Trail Conference that links up a series of pre-existing trails that, all together, run the length of the Shawangunk Ridge, from High Point, NJ, to Rosendale, NY, a distance of 74 miles.  Ken, the first person to run the entirety of the SRT, organized three divisions: a 74-miler over the full length of the trail; a 32-miler from Sam's Point Preserve to the finish; and a 20-miler, that started in Minnewaska State Park.  Only five intrepid souls took on the full beast this year (and only one finished), but the 50K+ had about 30 starters, and the 20 miler almost fifty.

Photo: Ken Posner, I think

As I mentioned, the course generally mimics that of the Wagathon, a local fat-ass which will see its tenth running this November.  In fact, the first five miles, from Sam's Point to Lake Awosting in Minnewaska SP, are identical.  After an uphill opening mile on an old carriage road, the course turns into a rocky, difficult single track for the next two miles to Verderkill Falls, then two more somewhat technical miles on an exposed rock ridge before passing Mud Pond and entering Minnewaska.  Generally, in the Wag, I will tolerate these opening miles, looking forward to reaching Awosting and running a majority of carriage trails the rest of the way.  The SRT, however, sticks almost exclusively to little-used single track and ventures onto the carriage roads for brief, interrupted stretches only.  I led the opening few miles but was passed by the eventual race winner near Mud Pond, about four miles in.  I was looking forward to reaching Awosting, but upon getting there, remembered that I had to negotiate the rock scramble over Castle Point and then down the tricky descent to Rainbow Falls.  I run those trails very infrequently, and got lost two or three times, once for several minutes, needing to bushwhack back though some thick undergrowth and up a dry stream bed to get back on trail.  Each time, I'd be caught by a group of three or four runners behind, only to pull away again almost immediately.  Finally I finished this section, only to be rewarded by starting the descent down Jenny Lane, one of my least favorite trails in the Gunks.  And then, after negotiating that, things improved only slightly, as the course then took us over the High Peters Kill Trail.

I won't bore you with the details.  It was just a very long, uneventful day.  I basically ran solo for the last six hours.  I had a nice stretch from Coxing Kill to Chapel Road on Undivided Lots Trail, a nasty little bit of single track that I actually don't mind too much; and the eleven miles or so from that point were, while hilly, pretty runnable.  But, by that point I was already 4.5 hours in to the day, and the final couple hours were no picnic.  I was able to manage 7:30 pace over the final five, flat miles along the rail trail and hang on for second.  It was a long end to a long 116-mile week, but the goal was to get a long, hard day out, so I guess I succeeded.  I guess I looked pretty crappy at the end, as Jodi seemed pretty concerned for about twenty minutes.  But once I pounded a couple of Diet Cokes and some chocolate milk, I was able to settle down and enjoy my reward:

So good.