Shoe Review: Salming Trail T1

BOOM.

I've been ramping up my training recently, trying to get ready to throw down with the big boys at the Cayuga Trails 50 in four weeks.  I had a bit of a struggle recovering from Mount Mitchell, and didn't bounce back quite as quickly as I'd hoped.  The mileage came back pretty quickly--it usually does--but it took a few weeks before I started really feeling my oats again.  We took a nice trip to Puerto Rico at the end of March, jumping straight from 30 degrees in NY to 85 degrees, and man did I feel sluggish!  But since returning I've been on a bit of an upswing.  The past three weeks have totaled 317 miles, with a couple of unspectacular but solid track workouts and some decent longer quality runs (what I like to call "Lydiard" runs, which are more or less marathon-pace efforts or a bit slower).  Last week I ran my usual 10-mile Lydiard course (which in reality is probably about 9.6 miles) in just under 63 minutes and felt pretty relaxed most of the way, so that's a good sign.

It's HOT in Puerto Rico.

Anyway, nobody likes to hear about other people's workouts.  It's boring.  So, I figured I'd share my thoughts on the newest offering from Salming, the Trail T1.  I've been putting in about 65% of my miles since Mitchell in the T1s, so I've probably run at least 300 miles in them so far, and to this point they have not disappointed.  Of course, I'm running for Salming this year, so I tend to think their stuff is pretty great.  But you should too!  Here's why.

First off, they're damn good-looking.  I know nobody buys shoes for that reason (actually, as a former shop owner, I know nobody ADMITS they buy shoes for that reason), but let's be realistic--it doesn't hurt.  The men's T1s are a snazzy electric blue with a red outsole, which is a great pairing.  The women's model, with a deep purple upper and a yellow midsole, is even better.

Women's T1: also hot.

OK, ok, what do they feel like?  The upper is nice and breathable, but not too loose that you're sliding around.  The platform is fairly basic, true to Salming's natural running ideals.  No medial post, no transition zone, no outer lugs--just a single density midsole with a 5 mm drop, perfect for mid-foot striking.  I found the toe box to be surprisingly roomy.  They're not extra-wide, and not wide enough for my funky foot to actually accommodate its real-life length, but they do not pinch at all, and the upper is snug enough without being cramped to hug the foot pretty well.

I felt like the midsole was a bit stiff at first, but after the first two weeks the shoe loosened up quite nicely on impact.  The transition through foot strike from rear- or mid-foot to toe off is very smooth and natural.  The outsole is not especially aggressive but is grippy enough in light mud and on mildly technical trails.  It's a versatile enough shoe that it's comfortable for moderate stretches on the road, which is great for me on days where I'm running on pavement for the ten minutes from my door to the nearest trailhead.

There's not a lot of downside to the T1.  They are on the heavier end of the Salming spectrum.  At about 10 ounces, they're still pretty light but the heaviest shoe Salming offers, which is a bit of a turn-off for racing purposes. At that weight, I'd prefer a bit more of a cushioned ride, but that's just nitpicking, really.  It's been a little while since I ran in something I could compare the T1s to; in recent years I've been wearing a lot of inov-8s, which are not a great comp, and have been dabbling a bit too much in "minimalist" shoes, which also aren't in the same category.  I would say they feel a bit like the Brooks Cascadia--lower stack height, less controlled, a bit lighter, but a similar ground feel and versatility.  Maybe a lighter, less clunky version of the Salomon XR Mission.  Probably what the XR Mission wishes it felt like.

The other shoe I've been enjoying quite a bit is the Salming Race, but I'm saving a review for a couple of weeks from now, after I've had a chance to actually, you know, race in them.

Team Mountain Peak Fitness/Red Newt Racing

I'm extremely excited to report that I've been invited to join the Mountain Peak Fitness/Red Newt Racing Trail Running Team.  This team is born out of the marriage of two amazing companies.  Mountain Peak Fitness is a coaching, training, and adventure company based right here in the Hudson Valley.  The group's founders, Elizabeth and Joe Azze, are both coaches and personal trainers who have grown this business out of their love of the outdoors and of endurance sports.  MPF offers coaching and personal training services, as well as leads adventure groups for runners, cyclists, and hikers. 


Red Newt Racing is the brainchild of Ian Golden, the owner of the Finger Lakes Running and Triathlon Company and the race director of the Virgil Crest Ultras and the Cayuga Trails 50.  Red Newt is Ian's race management company, which has recently expanded to include not only those two races but several other gnarly trail races throughout New York, including the first stop of this year's US Skyrunning Circuit at Whiteface Mountain.  Red Newt will also provide their expertise and support for Charlie Gadol's races: Manitou's Revenge, possibly the toughest 50-miler in the country, and the inaugural Cat's Tail trail marathon.  Ian is a fantastic race director who puts on a world-class event and has hosted the US 50-mile championships at Cayuga Trails, and Red Newt is quickly growing into a major player on the trail running scene.


The MPF/RNR team is supported by the FLRTC and also Run On Hudson Valley, a new specialty running shop in Croton-on-Hudson.  Both shops are excellent and you should definitely check them out.


I was a bit taken aback when Ian asked if I'd like to join, as I'm not quite up to the caliber of most of the other athletes in the group, and I'm humbled to be included on a team with such luminaries as Cole Crosby, Iain Ridgeway, Ben Nephew, Carlo Agostinetto, Ryan Welts, and many others.  Hopefully I can put up some performances this year that justify my inclusion.  Please, check out Mountain Peak if you are considering a coach, and if you're looking for a great race this year, pick at least one of the Red Newt events.  I'll be running in at least three of their races, including Cayuga, so hopefully I'll see you out there.

Race Report: Mount Mitchell Challenge: the Paralysis of Indecision

Long considered of the toughest races in the country, the Mount Mitchell Challenge presents runners with obstacles before even reaching the starting line--and I'm not referring to the September entry lottery, which fills the race to capacity on the day it opens.  The unpredictable and ever-changing course conditions tend to destroy the best laid pre-race plans.  Many of us associate North Carolina with Tobacco Road and year-round warmth, but western North Carolina is without a doubt mountain country, and February in Black Mountain can be as harsh as winter in the northeast.  Deciding what to wear and what to carry for a 40-mile mountain race with 9000' of elevation change in the heart of winter presents unique difficulties, even in a good year.

This was not a good year.

The ten days that preceded our trip down to NC this year--my third try at this race, after finishing fifth in 2011 and sixth (fifth male) in 2014--was filled with a whirlwind of texts between myself and the four friends I'd be heading down with, most of them variations on the theme "Do you believe this fucking weather?"  Reports from the course painted a picture of a mix of snow and ice, with high temps in the 20s-30s.  Race director Jay Curwen, who usually downplays any sort of reports as hyperbole, was warning us that traction devices would be necessary; coming from him, this was a shocking admission.  By Tuesday before the race, it became clear that the alternate "snow route" above the Blue Ridge Parkway would be utilized, shortening the course by about 2-3 miles and making the latter stages of the summit ascent a road race--albeit at a 7% uphill grade.  Thursday brought another 4-6" of snow to the course.  I packed two large duffel bags with clothing, four pairs of shoes, two different hydration vests, Nanospikes, and Microspikes.  I was about to pack a pair of Dion snowshoes before I decided that if it was going to turn into a 40-mile snowshoe race, I'd simply skip the race and drink a whole bunch of beer.

Decisions, decisions...

Upon reaching Black Mountain on Friday afternoon, I drove out to Montreat, where the course leaves the pavement after the first few miles and enters the trails.  After a short scouting run with different devices, I decided on the Microspikes, which would provide the most traction in the several inches of loose, unpacked snow that was covering the course; I planned to carry them until the trailhead, then to strip them off again after the trail for the run to the summit on the Parkway and the summit access road, and use them again for the descent back down to Montreat.  At the pre-race meeting that night, though, Jay reported black ice on the summit roadway.  Now worried that I'd need traction for the roads as well, I started to think Nanospikes might be the way to go; they'd be more versatile, I could run with them on pavement if necessary (unlike the Microspikes), and they would provide some help on the snowy trails as well.  The agonizing over this and many other gear decisions--long sleeve shirt or arm sleeves?  Cap or winter beanie?  Regular trail shoes or gaiters?  Handheld bottle or vest?--occupied our conversations, not only for several hours that evening, but even at breakfast on race morning.  We sounded like a bunch of fifteen-year-old girls getting ready for prom.  Having myriad options didn't help; in fact, it simply left me feeling much more vulnerable to second-guessing myself.

The weather seemed reasonable, though: high 20's at the start, little wind, no rain.  I was actually pretty comfortable as we gathered on Cherry Street for the start.  I had felt a little sluggish the day before, but our short jog to the start told me that I was primed and ready to go.  Training had gone very well.  I had a six-week, 600-mile block behind me, with tons of hills and several strong tempo workouts mixed in; after switching up my diet in early January, I was at my lightest weight in fifteen years.  I knew the field was as strong as I had ever faced at Mitchell, but I couldn't wait to get going.

Ready to go!
Photo: Mike Siudy

The opening pace was suicidally fast.  Several people fairly sprinted off the line, as if starting a 5K.  The marathon division has become more competitive in recent years, and this has contributed to some fairly insane starts for those of us in the 40-mile division.  In 2011, I ran in the lead pack for most of the first 15 miles; of the first ten people to reach the marathon turnaround on the Parkway that year, only one of them was actually a marathoner.  This year, however, several of the marathoners came to hammer, and they strung out the rest of the 40-milers as well.  I found myself exactly where I wanted to be pre-race: running with Shaun Pope (the Challenge runner-up in 2014 and this year's favorite) and Matt Roane (the 2014 marathon winner), though our small pack of about six runners was not at the front of the field but back in about seventh, over a minute behind the leaders by the time we reached the two-mile mark in Montreat.  Our pace was fairly aggressive, though, and we were banking on some carnage among the fast starters later in the race.  (We were right, kind of; five of the top eight finishers came out of our group, although Daniel Hamilton, the race winner, was one of the guys off the front who managed to hold on.)

After a very gradually uphill first couple of miles, the race climbs steeply for about 3/4 of a mile on pavement before entering the trail; I powered smoothly up this section, leading our group and feeling great.  I stopped at the trailhead to slip on my Nanospikes, losing about thirty seconds.  As soon as I stepped onto the trail I regretted my decision to leave the Microspikes back in my room.  The snow was mushy and loose; the Nanos offered minimal traction, and I was sliding all over the place.  I hemorrhaged time and places, giving up three additional spots within the first mile on trail.  I had already lost track of how many people were ahead of me--10?  15?  My legs felt great, but I was running in quicksand; it felt like every race anxiety dream I've ever had.

My man Brian, seventh in the marathon
Photo: Asheville Citizen-Times

By the time we reached the first aid station at Sourwood Gap, about an hour into the race, I had all but given up.  Beyond this point, the conditions improved a bit; the trail had been traversed by snowmobiles and ATVs at this point, and so was somewhat packed, allowing for stretches of decent running, but never for more than a few minutes at a time.  I stopped losing spots, but I wasn't making up any ground either; instead, I was in a back-and-forth with an unknown runner for a place in the mid-teens.  I was awash in negative self-talk, mostly directed at myself for, after all that agonizing, making the wrong decision on my traction device, which was clearly costing me minutes.  My only saving grace was that I still felt good, and that I knew an 11-mile stretch of pavement--when traction devices would hopefully be irrelevant--was approaching.

I reached the Parkway after a very frustrating 2 hours and 10 minutes--ten minutes slower than ideal conditions in 2014, when I had felt like shit; and nearly twenty minutes behind my opening pace in 2011.  I dug out a GU Roctane with my frozen fingers and gulped it down, vaguely registering that this was the first nutrition I had taken since breakfast.  I started up the access road with my Nanos still in place but ditched them after about a mile; the road was pristine, without an icy patch to be seen.  I was all alone, but periodically caught glimpses of Matt Roane about a quarter-mile ahead of me, locked in his own solo battle with the hill, and though it didn't look like I was making much headway, I tried to dig in and go after him.  About 1.5 miles from the summit, the road leveled out somewhat, and I pushed through the burn in my legs and started to finally gain some ground.  It took several minutes to reel him in, but finally I caught him with about 800 meters left in the climb.  Shortly afterwards the leaders started making their way down and we could see where we stood--we were sixth and seventh, about ten minutes off the lead but only about five minutes out of fourth and 2-3 minutes back from fifth.  The road remained clear until the final 400-meter push to the summit, which is a paved pedestrian path that in previous years has been plowed but this year had six inches of fresh powder on it, forcing a final hike to the top.  I paused momentarily to take in the view from the highest point east of the Mississippi, took a deep breath, and headed back down.

Matt is a wonderful downhill runner--he won last year's marathon with an amazing charge to overtake Mike Halstead in the final eight miles, himself no slouch of a descender--and I fully expected to get caught within minutes, but tried to push that out of my mind and instead tried to focus on the spots in front of me.  Cid Cardozo, an excellent masters runner and triathlete from North Carolina, held on to the fifth spot, and I set about employing my limited descending skills trying to catch him.  Which I did, somehow, and we ran in lockstep down the pavement for several miles, reaching the parkway aid station together where we stopped to re-apply our spikes one more time for the snow-covered trail.

Coming downhill, trying to find that rhythm
Photo: Asheville Citizen-Times

I was fairly certain Cid had left the aid station before me and started charging as hard as I could, but could not see him, so I settled into a solid, steady pace and focused on making my way to the next aid station.  The trail was now much more packed from having had hundreds of runners follow us up, and I was able to run the downhill at a nearly normal pace, avoiding marathoners all the way.  My energy levels still felt good; small cramps seemed to disappear after swallowing a couple of salt tablets.  Almost before I knew it, I was back on the pavement, hammering down the painful descent back into Montreat, not flying but moving better at this point than on any of my previous attempts at this race.  I left the spikes on for the last three paved miles back through Black Mountain, tiring but still moving well; I had given up hope of catching Cid, who I couldn't see anywhere; but I didn't see any Challengers closing behind me, and was fairly sure I had sixth place locked up.  I crossed the line in 5:22:26, about four minutes slower than 2011 and 22 minutes faster than 2014, on a shorter but infinitely more difficult course.  It was a nice surprise to find out a few minutes later that I was actually fifth and that Cid had been behind me the whole time!

In retrospect, I was quite pleased with the way the race turned out.  It was a frustrating day, made more difficult by my own second-guessing and ultimately wrong decisions on gear, and in the first half of the race I did a terrible job mentally, allowing my negative thoughts and frustrations to limit my performance.  But ultimately, I was as fit as I had hoped, and that fitness allowed me to regroup and salvage a satisfying performance.  Mount Mitchell is a difficult race on a good day, and given the conditions, I think this may have been the most difficult race I've ever run.  The second half of this race was very gratifying; outrunning a strong descender like Matt by several minutes was the sign of a strong performance for me.  It was a bit disappointing not to improve on my placing from previous years, but with the Microspikes, maybe that would have happened; overall, I had to take away mostly positives from this day.

In terms of the new diet, I have to report that unfortunately, it worked very, very well.  I took absolutely no nutrition for the first two hours of the race; I did the entire race on five gels and one bottle of GU Brew.  I did not stop once at an aid station except to put on or take off my spikes.  My energy levels were great; I rarely cramped and never bonked.  Whether I'm doing this whole LCHF thing correctly or not, I really have no idea, but for my first race as a purportedly "fat-adapted" athlete, it was an unqualified success.  Which is annoying; now I have to keep eating this way.  I took a little dietary vacation this week--impossible not to, in Beer City USA--but will be starting back on it tomorrow, so I'll have to crack open a few tonight.

Gear report: Orange Mud HydraQuiver Single Barrel (no bounce hydration, worked brilliantly) and trucker cap; Yard Owl race shirt from Verge; Pearl Izumi shorts; New Balance MT110 Winter shoes (the gaiters worked great).  Can't wait for the Salming Trail T1s to arrive.  Nutrition: GU Roctane and GU energy gels; GU Brew.

This is not nutritional advice

If you're a regular reader (and if you are, my apologies), you'll know that I try to leave the nutritional side of things to Lexi.  Nutrition is of course a huge facet of ultrarunning, both during races and in terms of daily consumption.  Many of us, myself included, tend to focus most of our time and energy on workouts and mileage, and give short shrift to eating, recovery, and the mental aspects of the sport, all of which are arguably more important than the actual training itself.  In the past, when I have concerned myself with nutrition, it is generally to examine my in-race intake--tweaking salt, fluids, and everything else to find that magic formula that leads to GI-distress-free racing.

Of course, our daily diet is paramount if we're looking to realize our potential.  Speaking for myself, I tend to neglect "eating right" because it's a pain in the ass, and the delayed gratification of doing it is hard to make up for the reward of eating whatever you want.  And of course, when we're young, we can get away with a lot.  But as I near masters status, I really feel like by not paying attention to my diet, I'm doing my athletic career a disservice.

Now, this is not to say I eat terribly; my wife is a very good cook, and I think my regular diet is generally pretty healthy.  I tend to eat out more than I should, particularly lunch during the week when I have days off, or late-night dinner working overnight shifts.  Obviously my IPA consumption is higher than might strictly be considered "beneficial."  But for the most part I eat fairly well.  I know, however, that I'm certainly not using my nutritional intake to my advantage, not molding what I eat to benefit me athletically.  I follow lots of sports, and the more I read about athletes as they age, the more I find that they are turning to different nutritional strategies to gain an edge and combat the effects of getting older.  It might be eliminating sugar, or eliminating fat, or going vegan, or eating more protein.  Whatever.  It's clear that athletes who pay attention to their diet have an advantage over those of us who don't.

So as I approached this year and this racing season I started to consider my diet more critically, particularly with an eye toward weight control.  Obviously the lighter we are, the easier it is to run fast over long distances.  Keeping my weight in an optimal range for racing has become progressively more difficult in recent years.  In college, I raced at around 135 pounds, with a BMI of about 21.5.  (Most elite US distance runners have BMIs in the 19-21 range.)  In the past few years I've tried to keep my weight under 145, which I've generally been able to do, and to sneak down near 140-142 for racing when possible, which has gotten much harder.  I've had to resort to significant calorie restriction, or brief bouts of eating nothing but fruit, or--heaven forfend!--completely eliminating beer.  All of which will work, in the short run at least.  But none of that has proven sustainable for me, and my weight has kept creeping upward (aided by my lack of willpower), kept in check only by copious mileage.

Like everyone else in the ultra world, I've heard a lot in the past few years about low carb diets.  If you're outside this fairly insular community, several ultra runners have had significant success with switching to high-fat, low-carb diets (LCHF), both at the recreational and elite levels.  One of the most well known is Zach Bitter, the WR-holder for 12 hours and the AR holder for 100 miles, who follows the Optimized Fat Metabolism (OFM) diet, a LCHF variant. Intrigued by the success of Zach and others, as well as reports from friends of mine who have successfully switched, I did some reading on the subject.

Basically, LCHF diets work by retraining the body to preferentially burn fat instead of carbs.  Since we have nearly twenty times the fat calorie stores than those of glycogen, if we can tap into those stores efficiently, we can perform much longer in a relatively carb-depleted state (as would occur during a long ultra), and therefore would need to take in much fewer calories over the course of a race--a huge advantage.  Unfortunately on a standard diet, the body can't access those fat stores with enough efficiency to make it viable.  But by restricting carbs and suppressing insulin release, we can, in time, ourselves to metabolize fat at much faster rates.  The FASTER study, performed at UConn last year, has yielded some interesting preliminary results along those lines. (The investigators aren't exactly neutral observers, having been LCHF proponents for some time, but the data looks reasonable.)

So I decided to try it.  Starting the day after RFTH, I started severely limiting my carbs.  I'm not keeping close count, but I'm estimating my carb intake to be comfortably under the 50 grams/day that Phinney and Volek suggest; probably closer to 20g a day or less, with very few exceptions. My experience has been consistent with most of what I've heard/read on the subject.  Without sugar, my energy levels have stabilized throughout the day; I rarely have intense crashes and keep a much more even keel.  For the first several weeks--probably the first month--I ran like shit.  I could do the mileage without a problem, but nothing fast; any attempt at a hard effort was pitiful.  But after those first four weeks I feel like my running has returned to normal, and I've been able to add in tempo work, MP running, and some progression runs with good results.  And for sure, the weight has come off.  I've dropped nearly 15 pounds in the last eight weeks, back down to 137 and a BMI back near 21.5, which has helped the running immensely.  It's certainly not for everyone, and as I've indicated above, I'm not suggesting that anyone try it themselves.  The jury on LCHF--the jury on most dietary advice, believe it or not--is still most definitely out, no matter what the ADA would have you believe. I'm just reporting a cool thing that happened in my life for the past two months, which maybe you find interesting. 

Will I stick to it long term?  I don't know.  It's not easy, and I do love my pizza and beer, both of which have basically been eliminated.  Right now I'm in Black Mountain, NC, getting ready for another crack at the Mount Mitchell Challenge.  This will be my first "fat-adapted" race, so we'll have to see how it goes.  Certainly I don't think I'll be as religious about the diet after this race is over, but I may use it from time to time, or continue with it long term with some "cheat days" thrown in to maintain my sanity.  A lot will depend on how it goes tomorrow, as well as the results of the bloodwork I'm having drawn next week.  (Most anecdotal reports indicate that, perhaps counter-intuitively, LCHF helps your lipid panels substantially, but we'll have to see.)  Check back next week for a report on Mitchell and pictures of the all the pizza and beer I plan to consume immediately afterwards.  

Salming: No Nonsense!

I've been lucky enough in my running career to receive support from some great shoe companies: from Nike, in college; to Brooks, when I ran for the Haddonfield Running Company during medical school and residency; and as part of the Inov-8 pro deal team in 2011.  And I'm thrilled now to announce a partnership with Salming, which entered the US market last year and is making great strides on the running, triathlon, and trail running scene.

The great Borje Salming.

Salming was started by hockey legend Borje Salming, the first Swedish player named to the NHL Hall of Fame and widely considered one of the greatest Swedish players of all time.  Like many industry giants, they make products for multiple sports: hockey, as you can imagine, but also floorball, handball, squash, and running.

The running shoes are borne out of Salming's holistic approach to evaluating running form, exemplified by their innovative RunLAB in Gothenburg, which incorporates real-time stride analysis, motion capture, and video to measure individual biomechanics and then derive coaching plans aimed at increasing performance and decreasing injury risk.  Salming's running shoes have garnered multiple awards overseas and debuted in the US late last year.  While the RunLAB has not yet reached US shores, the brand is committed to bringing the insights gained there to their shoe design.  Specifically, they focus on producing light, flexible shoes that allow for a "natural" foot strike and greater ground feel and proprioception.

Now, let's not get into a huge thing here.  Few things polarize a friendly running discussion more than the debate over "natural" running, heel-striking vs. forefoot striking, barefoot running, minimalism, maximalism, and Born to Run.  (BTW: They're making a Born to Run movie!  With Matthew McConaughey!  Tell me you're not gonna watch that.)  It's my blog, so I'll tell you what I think (and feel free to comment below) and then we'll move on: I think that the minimalist movement, although it got co-opted and taken too far, spurred some of the best advances in shoe technology and design in the past thirty years.  Whether or not you run in minimalist shoes, you've benefitted from the impact it had on the industry.  Without people talking about heel-toe drop and foot strike, you never see Hoka One One, Altra, Scott, or a host of great shoes from New Balance, asics, and the rest of the shoe giants.

So where does Salming fall on the spectrum?  They are certainly committed to the "natural" movement in shoe design, but in actuality the shoes do a nice job of walking the line between traditional and new-wave.  They have no zero-drop models; all Salming shoes (at least to this point) have a 5mm heel-toe drop, which is significantly less than the standard 10-12mm seen in most traditional designs, but obviously a big difference over the zero-drop offerings that have proliferated in recent years.  (For reference, that's right in line with many of the Hoka models--the Stinson and the Bondi are both around 4mm; the Conquest and the RapaNui are in the 5-5.5mm range.)  This does help to promote a more midfoot/forefoot strike, but without some of the strain on the calves and Achilles people notice with zero-drop models.  They are all light; the heaviest shoe, the new Trail T1, checks in at just over ten ounces.  Stack heights are low, which does increase the ground feel and responsiveness, to some extent at the cost of cushioning, but not overwhelmingly so.  They are modern shoes with a classic feel.  Overall, they embody the brand's tagline, "No nonsense."  These are no-nonsense running shoes.

The Distance A2.

So far I've been putting in miles in the Distance A2, which I've been enjoying a lot.  I tend to like low, light, flexible shoes, and these certainly fit the bill.  Salming hasn't quite yet mastered the "anatomic toe box" they talk about; the last is still fairly traditional, and it is certainly not up to Altra standards in terms of really expanding the toe box, but hopefully they will get there in subsequent models.  The Trail T1 hits the US in about three weeks, so I'm very, very stoked to check those out.

I couldn't be prouder or more excited to be representing Salming in 2015 with a fantastic group of athletes (including local legends Bec and Laurel Wassner!), who are all much, much more accomplished than I.  I'll be sporting the gear starting at next month's Mount Mitchell Challenge and throughout the rest of the year.  Please check them out and hit me up with any questions you have about the shoes or the brand.  Gonna be a great year!

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.

*********

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.