Month: June 2016

Highland Sky 40

Canaan Valley, WV

June 18, 2016

 

We had a bunch of first-timers out at HS40 this year, peppering me and Aaron with questions about the course.  Aaron’s won the race a bunch of times, I’ve got the women’s CR, and we have a house in Canaan, so I guess we know a thing or two about the race and the area.  So for anyone coming out here next year, here’s a summary of our best tips for HS.  It’s one of my absolute favorite races.  Not just for its beauty, but also for its challenge.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a race that gives you a taste of everything.  You’ve got the full trail challenge — tough climbs, boulder fields, the gnarliest technical trails through woodlands.  And you’ve got a full speed challenge, with the Road Across the Sky, and some run-able trails through open grasslands.

1.  So, #1, HS favors chimeric runners, the ones who can switch back and forth between trail and road running — folks like Aaron.  Trevor, who finished 2nd this year, can attest to the value of having a little road speed in you.  At mile 20, he hit the 7-mile Road Across the Sky in 8th place.  By the end of the road, he was squarely in 2nd.  A little spring from marathon-training made up a whole lot of ground there.
2.  A key piece of advice is to think of the race as two distinct halves, with the Road Across the Sky starting at mile 20 as the turning point.  Prior to mile 20, you have a pure trail race: gnarly terrain and big climbs.  The year I set my CR in 2013 it was an extra adventure because large swaths of the course were under a foot of water.  The Sodds are always a bit mucky, but in this case you couldn’t even see what rocks lurked in those jet black puddle-lakes.  My best advice for this section is to not look at your watch and just take the terrain as it comes.  It’s going to vary from year to year.  Don’t push the climbs, keep your heart rate in check.  Have fun on the rocks, but don’t push them.

   

3. Because in the second half, air it out!  The good news, is no matter how the first half goes, after the half-way point you’ll have ample opportunity to make up some time.  The Road Across the Sky is a mean old man, with endless long dips and climbs that you can see for a mile ahead.  And hot exposed in the sun.  But you can make up so much ground here if you didn’t bang your little system up too much in the technical first half.  Let ‘er rip.

   

4. The Sodds are visually deceptive.  For some reason, hills in the open plains of the Sodds look less steep than if the same ascent were in the woods.  It’s something to do with your visual field.  So don’t let it bother when you find yourself walking climbs in the Sodds that don’t think you need to.  If you had trees on either side, you’d be walking.

5. 

   There are great food options in the Valley for pre-race meals.  There’s great pizza at Siriani’s.  If you need some protein, head to Tip Top in Thomas, WV for Friday Grass-Fed Burger night (there are veggie burger options too).  If you’d like a home-cooked meal, Highland Market is like a housed farmer’s market, serving meats, fruits, and veggies from local farms.  Save Hellbender Burritos for post-race.

6. Nettles.  Yes.  In the first climb.  They sting, be prepared.  Some years are worse than others.  Some folks where calf sleeves.  Others realize that it’s the least of your problems on this challenging day.
7. Wear sunscreen!  Next time our aid station will have spray-on sunscreen and I’ll just spray it on cooking runners as they come through.

   

   

   

   

   

   ~                     ~                      ~

   

   

Aaron and I have a favorite game we play called ‘Who’s Life is Worse?’  After a long weekend in the Laurel Highlands, we found our game caught in yet another stubborn stalemate.  What was worse, getting injured two weeks before the race and getting to run 0 miles (me), or Aaron making it 40 miles and having to drop out because of the severe bursitis in his heels?

I concede that a DNF is more acute agony.  That moment of defeat, when you throw in the towel, letting your race dreams slip away — that’s gut-wrenching.

But Aaron will be up and running again by the middle of this week.  He’ll be well on his way to training for the Fat Dog 70 in August, his priority race of the summer.

While I won’t be able to hit the trails for another month or so, possibly more.

~                ~               ~

I had been talking about Laurel for a year.  I had turned down a paid trip (airfare, accommodation, food) to Oxford University because it would conflict with my plans to run Laurel.

Why was Laurel so important to me?  At one time, many years ago, I had come to Laurel bursting with possibility.  Back in 2009, the Laurel Highlands 50k was my first ultra.  We were having beer and pizza one Tuesday night after WUS and Keith and Mitchel were going up for the 70 that Saturday.  And the next thing I knew I’d signed up to do my first 50k that weekend.  Who needs training?

Race morning wasn’t auspicious.  I got lost driving to the shuttle bus that takes you from the finish to the start and missed it.  I didn’t have a GPS.  I stopped in gas stations at 6am to ask desperately, ‘How do I get to Ohiopyle?’  Laurel is a point-to-point, and driving is not nearly as direct a route as running.  By some miracle I got there 10 minutes before the start, all in a frenzy.

But fortunately Keith had told me everything I needed to know.  There was going to be a big climb at the start.  And I should just run it like a marathon.

And I had my tried-and-true Tom Cali Marathon Nutrition Strategy: 1 clif shot blok every 5 miles.  Took me to a 2:55 at Boston earlier that spring.  The miles along the Laurel Highlands Trail are marked with painted obelisks, so it was easy to pop a blok every 5.

As it turns out, marathon miles ain’t the same thing as trail miles.  One blok every 5 miles wasn’t even close to what I needed nutritionally.  The last 8 miles were so rough.  I felt sick to my stomach.  I stopped eating.  I felt dizzy and dehydrated.  I was barely walking at the end.

But I finished 1st woman, 2nd overall, and set a CR that still stands.  I was 28 years old, full of promise.

~                ~               ~

Seven years later, that promise had all but snuffed out.  I never did much at the ultra distances.  Sure, I had moments of life, a CR at Highland Sky.  But mostly disappointment.  I wasn’t totally dispirited as a runner — even as I aged into the 30s my speed on the roads held nicely.  I just never got it going over the longer distances, mostly because I never even made it to the line.

But two events last summer got my ultra blood rushing again: Manitou’s Revenge and the Teton Crest Trail.  I made a big dark circle on the calendar around the date of the Laurel Highlands 70.  I was going back to Laurel.  Nothing was going to deter me, not tantalizing speaking gigs in Europe, not the training required.

Everything was going great.  Promise Land 50k was a great training run at the end of April.  The next week I had another great training run with Keith/Phil/Julian/Aaron around DC.  Aaron and I got some seriously quality training runs in the Sodds the following week.  And I got one last long run in DC before I jetted off to Belgium.

My first day of work in Belgium was Monday.  I couldn’t walk.  Something in my shin, an injury I didn’t recognize.  It hasn’t stopped hurting since.  I went to the ortho and he gave me his Rx: some serious painkillers and a definitive DNS for Laurel.

~                ~               ~

My DNS and Aaron’s DNF kind of reflect the larger arcs of our running careers.  My ultra running career has been frustrating, but more in a DNS stillbirth kind of way.  I just never got it going.  Every time I sign up for a big ultra race I get injured and never even toe the line.

Aaron, on the other hand, enjoyed some wickedly good years of ultra running in the late 2000s.  He got out there, hit his stride, and had some monster wins, including Hellgate.  Everyone knows Aaron.  But just as he was flourishing, he came down with Lyme disease, and has never been the same.  Tough to say which is worse, my DNS running career that never even got its legs, or Aaron’s DFN running career that faded unfairly before its time.

Regardless of who’s right, next year we’re just doing the Laurel Highlands Relay.

 

 

In the short time that I have been cycling to work, I have realized that there is a great deal of confusion about the best way for cars and bikes to share the prized tarmac.

There have been efforts to promote the concept of ‘Share the Road’.  This entreaty has made some inroads in making drivers more aware of the presence of bikes and the need to accommodate them.  But the slogan also has emboldened some cyclists to imagine that ‘share the road’ means ‘we have the exact same rights as cars’, a mindset that may be legally valid but when taken literally will only increase long-term hostility between drivers and riders.

The best way to interpret ‘Share the Road’ is a framework in which roads are understood to be the principle domain of cars (the roads were built and designed for cars, after all), but one where bikes have visitor rights.  Visitor rights are important: bikes are not intruders, bikes are not hazards.  Aside from the Red Wedding, the Rule #1 for how to treat visitors to your home is: Try to keep your visitors’ blood and central organs inside their bodies.

At the same time, bikes should recognize that Rule #1 for visitors is that they should be respectful and grateful of their host’s hospitality.  A cyclist who treats the road like its his own dominion is akin to the guest that starts clipping his toenails on his host’s coffee table.

A Few Specific Clarifications for Cars and Cyclists:

(1) Cars: do not pass a cyclist around a blind turn.  This happens all the time, and the problem is that if a car happens to be coming the other way, the cyclist is no longer alive.

(2) Cars: if you are stopped behind a cyclist at a red light and you would like to turn right, do not speed in front of the cyclist and swipe around them to make your right turn.  Most cyclists get up to speed quickly, and it will just be a couple seconds before the cyclist is gone and you can safely make your right turn.

(3) Cyclists: you know those ambiguous sidewalks without traffic lights?  the ones where you technically have right of way, but where the chances that a car will actually stop is a game of roulette?  assuming that a car will stop is like dipping Little Red Riding Hood into the wolf’s mouth.

I deleted my Strava account yesterday.  All the data….poof.

I don’t regret my 18-month dalliance with Strava.  Knowledge is useful.  It corrected a grave misconception that I was a rock star when it came to training.  I went into races cocky, despite being woefully under-prepared.

But even if Strava was good at pointing out the inadequacies of my training, it did very little to point me on a better path.  This is the general pattern of how Strava has gone for me for the couple times a year when I decided that I’d like to train for something:

6 weeks prior to ‘A’ race: Ah!  Crap!  I’m not trained at all.  Look at what everyone else is doing.  I need to get my ass in gear pronto.

4 weeks prior to ‘A’ race: Okay, so I’ve tossed in a couple long runs.  Feeling good about this.  Wait, crap, I still haven’t done enough?  Come on, Strava!  Seriously, I need to do another long run??

3 weeks prior to ‘A’ race:  Um, it hurts to walk.

1 week prior to ‘A’ race:  Soooo….I guess I should get this checked out?

3 days prior to ‘A’ race: Why does it always seem like training just = never getting to actually toe a line?  When’s the last time I actually got to run my ‘A’ race?

day of ‘A’ race: Well, at least the kitty likes it when I’m a cripple.  More weekends sitting around watching tv = more pets.  But not getting to run the race you’ve been training for is kind of like failing to orgasm.  There’s all this build-up of energy and tension and then no release.  You can try lifting weights.  But nothing is going to substitute for that loopy relaxed feeling at the finish line of having entirely drained yourself.  Feeling like a loaded spring all day is way worse than just having a cruddy race.  

I realized I’d hit a crossroads with two stark choices:

(a) Step up my game, hire a coach who can direct me in how to step up my training in ways that result in something other than more couch time with the kitty;

(b) Shut it all down.  See if I can relocate that lovely state of ignorance when I fancied myself a rock star runner for frittering around in the woods for half an hour and finding a bunch of birds.

Do I even have to tell you which way the wagon went?