I've purposely stayed away the last few months. There's a very good chance that I'll have to shut this down or at least take a long hiatus so I didn't want to get back fully into the swing of writing just to have to quit later. I do miss the Saturday am Coffee 101 writing sessions with James though. I might not be in Coffee 101 but I drove a bit to find Cumberland Coffee Roasters for today's writing jam.
So, a lot's happened since I last wrote. Even more since I last wrote about running. My plans to run the San Antonio Rock n Roll 1/2 marathon were scrapped after an injury and then seeing the price. I dislocated my shoulder in November, throwing off my training right before the holidays. Over the holidays, I allowed myself to gorge on whatever I wanted. That coupled with the fact that I'd had to adjust any type of training to allow the shoulder to rehab meant that I put on close to 10 pounds over the last two months of the year. I can't completely blame it on my shoulder injury, I'm the one that kept shoveling food in my face. I was able to start back into training in mid-December and I further aggravated what I think is a groin strain while out on a 20 miler w/the homies.
I don't know that there was one exact moment that I hurt it, but in the fall I noticed that it hurt to get low in a squat. I had hoped that the time off due to the shoulder would clear it up but... nope. After that day I realized I would have to change things up. I laid off on any speed work and kept most runs to 3-5 easy miles. I changed my lifting to lower weight/higher reps and even went from the traditional back squat to a seated squat on Andy's advice. Some days I felt better, some days I didn't. During trail series race #1 I decided to take it easy since a) I had a PT test a few days later and b) I didn't want to risk injuring my groin more. There was a point at the end of the race where I saw that I could potentially run down the guy in front of me but as soon as I accelerated, it hurt. So I backed off.
Early this month I came to North Carolina and, with Crazy Desert Trail Race (100k) very much in mind, brought road and trail running gear. I hooked up with a local run club a couple days a week and generally enjoyed the runs. I noticed my groin would hurt when I woke up most mornings though. In an effort to enjoy and change up my training, I looked for a race to do as a training run. I was too late for the Raleigh half marathon (nice job on that race Tallman) but I found the BNP Trail Jam marathon outside of Wilmington. After confirming that I'd be free that day, I signed up. I figured it was 2 weeks before the "big one" but I'm not caring about time, am I?
I knew that I wasn't sufficiently trained to try and race it. Plus it's a training run, so why push too hard? If my goal is to simply finish 100k, there's no need to worry about hitting splits right? My plan was to run 10:30-11 minute miles when I could, walk the hills/when I needed to, and not worry too much about the clock. If I could finish under 5, that'd be tremendous, but 6 was more realistic.
As has become the norm here, I got a solid 5 hours of sleep and set off for the race.
The park was nice and the organizers had the music blasting (maybe that's where they get the name trail jam?) to get us pumped pre-race.
I actually started on time, thank you very much.
What I didn't know is that when I threw on my Camelbak, I started my watch. So, when I went to start it for the race, it'd already been going for nearly 2 minutes.
The first few miles went to plan. The first two miles in particular were eminently runnable. There had been a good deal of rain and snow over the last few week so there were tons of puddles but it wasn't too bad.
The trail for the first few miles was mostly sandy, mostly single track, and very flat. The volunteers, as with most trail races, were outstanding. While trying to keep my heart rate nice and steady, I noticed maybe 5-6 miles in that I was probably not going to go under 5 hours. No worries. I did took a couple falls, one for George and one for Kent. But, hey, the trail was sandy so, again, no worries. It was very rooty though. Is that a word? rooty... there were a bunch of roots all over the place and plenty of pine needles to cover them up. About halfway through the 1/2 marathon loop, I started passing some folks while at the same time we were getting passed by the front of the 1/2 marathon pack. You can't quite tell on Strava but there were dozens of times that I had to step off the course to let them pass. The course was well marked. However, it was hard to see a trail at times as the forest floor was completely covered with pine needles. You had to intuit where the trail should be in those sections. They said that no one got lost in 2019 and I'd be surprised if anyone did this year. I just had to slow and look around a few times.
Around mile 8 my groin started to hurt more than it had been. More so than during the 13 mile easy run I'd done the weekend before. It was probably a consequence of trail running with uneven and sometimes slippery or muddy terrain. There were a few spots that runners had to simply run through frigid 2" deep puddles. That was the point that thoughts of altering the CDTR came into my mind. "Are you really going to be able to run 100k just 2 weeks after this?" I slowed down a bit to try and recoup and also get through that terrain as dry as possible.
I'm honest when I say that it may have been partially psychosomatic, but at 12.5ish I had slowed to a limping walk. Any time that I started to run, the pain would go from a 2-3 to a 5 or so. According to the other markers, I was in decent shape. Sure, I was a little bit more tired than I'd want to be for a road marathon, but 5:30 had seemed doable and sub 6 was almost a foregone conclusion. That is, if the course was close to correct.
I had listened to a recent Trail Runner Nation podcast earlier this month. In the episode, a fast but "normal" runner in his 40s (Jason Koop) had embedded himself with NAZ Elite, a team of professional runners. One of the things that surprised him and stuck with me was the fact that runners would call off their training runs fairly often. The thought was that if the run wasn't going to improve or maintain their fitness/speed, there's no point in doing it. He wasn't surprised that they did this but more by the frequency of it.
That thought was playing in my head as I limped along during mile 14. At the same time there was that Tang Soo Do article of faith #10 that I'd yelled out every class for 8 years - "Always finish what you start!"
Intelligence won out and I decided to call it after the first half marathon loop. Now, where was that damn finish line?
Something that annoys me about trail races is when they're willfully mismeasured. I understand that trails aren't roads and, especially on single track, it's hard to get spot on the distance that you're going for. However, I get annoyed when the race director adds extra mileage for no known reason. At 13.4 on my watch (another runner said she had it at 14 even), we were maybe 100 yards from the finish line if we only stayed on the trail we were on. We didn't. We turned left and added another 3/4 miles. So, the 1/2 marathon ended up being 14.1-14.7 miles depending on whose watch you trust. Normally that's just an annoyance. However, I was trying to limp to some sort of finish. No, I wasn't going to finish a marathon but I at least wanted to finish the loop. Runners around me were asking each other if they'd heard the instructions right. It wasn't as bad as the 15.5 mile "half marathon" I did a few years back or Dennis' 60k "50k," but it added 20 minutes to my time and I finished around 2:56.
One of the volunteers at the finish line was nice enough to hand me a medal because "you earned this by finishing a loop."
That text notification of "DNF" hit like a gut punch. Looking at the results, there were 4 other DNFs and the two guys that I had been running just in front of (til I started walking) finished in the middle of the pack. I was actually doing better than I thought.
I'm still processing this. Mila and Dennis' support helps. I dropped to the half for CDTR instead of doing this DNF thing over again in two weeks. Trail Runner Nation always mentions that if you run long enough, you'll eventually have a DNF. I get it. I'm not going to ever be happy with this race and I don't know if I'll ever fully be OK with only doing half of what I set out to do. Mr. Nester might even say I'm a duck, not an eagle. I think part of my problem is that today, Sunday, I feel fine. My DNF was more about preventing what could happen vice not being able to continue. Prevention is hard to gauge. Maybe I could have finished just fine and not damaged anything. But, in the end, I wasn't willing to take that risk.
I'll be back at it. Who knows, maybe next year I'll come back to finish this exact race to try and exorcise any demons that might be lingering.
OK, so "demons" is a tad bit dramatic, innit?
Oh and I'll go see a doctor soon. Don't worry grandma.
So, a lot's happened since I last wrote. Even more since I last wrote about running. My plans to run the San Antonio Rock n Roll 1/2 marathon were scrapped after an injury and then seeing the price. I dislocated my shoulder in November, throwing off my training right before the holidays. Over the holidays, I allowed myself to gorge on whatever I wanted. That coupled with the fact that I'd had to adjust any type of training to allow the shoulder to rehab meant that I put on close to 10 pounds over the last two months of the year. I can't completely blame it on my shoulder injury, I'm the one that kept shoveling food in my face. I was able to start back into training in mid-December and I further aggravated what I think is a groin strain while out on a 20 miler w/the homies.
 |
| yes, I'm referring to men in their 50s and 60s as "the homies" |
Early this month I came to North Carolina and, with Crazy Desert Trail Race (100k) very much in mind, brought road and trail running gear. I hooked up with a local run club a couple days a week and generally enjoyed the runs. I noticed my groin would hurt when I woke up most mornings though. In an effort to enjoy and change up my training, I looked for a race to do as a training run. I was too late for the Raleigh half marathon (nice job on that race Tallman) but I found the BNP Trail Jam marathon outside of Wilmington. After confirming that I'd be free that day, I signed up. I figured it was 2 weeks before the "big one" but I'm not caring about time, am I?
I knew that I wasn't sufficiently trained to try and race it. Plus it's a training run, so why push too hard? If my goal is to simply finish 100k, there's no need to worry about hitting splits right? My plan was to run 10:30-11 minute miles when I could, walk the hills/when I needed to, and not worry too much about the clock. If I could finish under 5, that'd be tremendous, but 6 was more realistic.
 |
| the temp at start time was 25! |
The park was nice and the organizers had the music blasting (maybe that's where they get the name trail jam?) to get us pumped pre-race.
I actually started on time, thank you very much.
 |
| took this roughly 42 seconds before the start |
 |
| I'm lurking (photo credit: K-Ley Productions) |
The first few miles went to plan. The first two miles in particular were eminently runnable. There had been a good deal of rain and snow over the last few week so there were tons of puddles but it wasn't too bad.
The trail for the first few miles was mostly sandy, mostly single track, and very flat. The volunteers, as with most trail races, were outstanding. While trying to keep my heart rate nice and steady, I noticed maybe 5-6 miles in that I was probably not going to go under 5 hours. No worries. I did took a couple falls, one for George and one for Kent. But, hey, the trail was sandy so, again, no worries. It was very rooty though. Is that a word? rooty... there were a bunch of roots all over the place and plenty of pine needles to cover them up. About halfway through the 1/2 marathon loop, I started passing some folks while at the same time we were getting passed by the front of the 1/2 marathon pack. You can't quite tell on Strava but there were dozens of times that I had to step off the course to let them pass. The course was well marked. However, it was hard to see a trail at times as the forest floor was completely covered with pine needles. You had to intuit where the trail should be in those sections. They said that no one got lost in 2019 and I'd be surprised if anyone did this year. I just had to slow and look around a few times.
 |
| (photo credit: K-Ley productions) |
Around mile 8 my groin started to hurt more than it had been. More so than during the 13 mile easy run I'd done the weekend before. It was probably a consequence of trail running with uneven and sometimes slippery or muddy terrain. There were a few spots that runners had to simply run through frigid 2" deep puddles. That was the point that thoughts of altering the CDTR came into my mind. "Are you really going to be able to run 100k just 2 weeks after this?" I slowed down a bit to try and recoup and also get through that terrain as dry as possible.
 |
| GREAT job posing Gordo (photo credit: K-Ley Productions) |
I had listened to a recent Trail Runner Nation podcast earlier this month. In the episode, a fast but "normal" runner in his 40s (Jason Koop) had embedded himself with NAZ Elite, a team of professional runners. One of the things that surprised him and stuck with me was the fact that runners would call off their training runs fairly often. The thought was that if the run wasn't going to improve or maintain their fitness/speed, there's no point in doing it. He wasn't surprised that they did this but more by the frequency of it.
That thought was playing in my head as I limped along during mile 14. At the same time there was that Tang Soo Do article of faith #10 that I'd yelled out every class for 8 years - "Always finish what you start!"
Intelligence won out and I decided to call it after the first half marathon loop. Now, where was that damn finish line?
Something that annoys me about trail races is when they're willfully mismeasured. I understand that trails aren't roads and, especially on single track, it's hard to get spot on the distance that you're going for. However, I get annoyed when the race director adds extra mileage for no known reason. At 13.4 on my watch (another runner said she had it at 14 even), we were maybe 100 yards from the finish line if we only stayed on the trail we were on. We didn't. We turned left and added another 3/4 miles. So, the 1/2 marathon ended up being 14.1-14.7 miles depending on whose watch you trust. Normally that's just an annoyance. However, I was trying to limp to some sort of finish. No, I wasn't going to finish a marathon but I at least wanted to finish the loop. Runners around me were asking each other if they'd heard the instructions right. It wasn't as bad as the 15.5 mile "half marathon" I did a few years back or Dennis' 60k "50k," but it added 20 minutes to my time and I finished around 2:56.
One of the volunteers at the finish line was nice enough to hand me a medal because "you earned this by finishing a loop."
I'm still processing this. Mila and Dennis' support helps. I dropped to the half for CDTR instead of doing this DNF thing over again in two weeks. Trail Runner Nation always mentions that if you run long enough, you'll eventually have a DNF. I get it. I'm not going to ever be happy with this race and I don't know if I'll ever fully be OK with only doing half of what I set out to do. Mr. Nester might even say I'm a duck, not an eagle. I think part of my problem is that today, Sunday, I feel fine. My DNF was more about preventing what could happen vice not being able to continue. Prevention is hard to gauge. Maybe I could have finished just fine and not damaged anything. But, in the end, I wasn't willing to take that risk.
I'll be back at it. Who knows, maybe next year I'll come back to finish this exact race to try and exorcise any demons that might be lingering.
OK, so "demons" is a tad bit dramatic, innit?
Oh and I'll go see a doctor soon. Don't worry grandma.
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