Countdown to Ironman, Week 28: Running Doesn't Suck Anymore

I like to run. Sometimes I even love it.

I didn't use to like to run. I used to hate running. I used to say that running sucked, and that I sucked at running. But now I like it. Sometimes I think I'm maybe even not so sucky at it after all.

What changed? How does a person go from hating to disliking to barely tolerating to just doing to kind of liking to loving to run?


For me, there were several things that made a difference:


The first was Chi Running, which I've posted about before. That was my first introduction to a different style of running than the heel-striking, shin-splint inducing plod I had done for so many years. It was also the beginning of the end of my years of plantar fasciitis, ITB issues, knee braces, and shin splints. The twenty years before I found Chi Running were littered with running injuries and problems. The six years I've spent since then have been injury free. 'Nuff said.

After Chi Running came barefoot running and my first pair of Vibram Five Fingers in 2007. Now I run all of my weekly mileage, four times a week, in my Five Fingers. Pavement, trails, grass, concrete, dirt, bark. No matter, I run in them.

Two years ago I started trail running and that's when I went from "Like" to "Love" in my feelings about running. That's when I really started looking forward to runs. Being in the woods, away from traffic, noise, stress, and people really is the cherry on top of the running sundae for me.

Now comes Endurance Nation and their "Out Season" training plans. It turns out that I really like having some focus and work to my running. Now I wouldn't want to do this year-round because when the weather's nice, there's nothing like just getting out on a trail and going. But for right now in the dark part of the year, it's keeping me motivated and making me faster.

Granted, I started this year's off-season at a slower pace than normal. Breaking my arm meant very few running miles this summer, and the ones I did put in were S-L-O-W. No speed work, no track work. So when I did a 5k test at the beginning of my training plan seven weeks ago, it took me 27:11. Ouch. My PR is 25:00. Not anything like an actual REAL runner, but in the ballpark of decent.

I've been doing focused 1/2 mile and mile repeats in the seven weeks since that disappointing 5k test. They started out at an average 8:48 pace. Again, ouch. But look at the progress in the weeks since then!


Week1: 8:48
Week 2: 8:40
Week 3: 8:34
Week 4: 8:16
Week 5: 8:13
Week 6: 8:08
Week 7: 8:04

Now I don't think I'm ready to break my 5k PR just yet, but if this trend continues, it might be in the cards sometime this spring. As they say at Endurance Nation: "Work works!"

The Amazing Waldo Lake Solo Trail Marathon

A solo run through the wilderness. No cheering crowds, no aid stations, no banners, medals, t-shirts, no finish line other than the one in my head. A challenge I set for myself and accomplished solely because I wanted to. I've been looking forward to this all year.

I have wanted to run around Waldo Lake for a long time, but it's a daunting task. The trail ranges in elevation from about 5,500 - 6,000 feet, is almost never flat, and once you leave the campground you are on your own. In the middle of the Willamette National forest, adjoining the 36,000 acre Waldo Lake Wilderness, with one access road coming in, it is a remote and lovely place, one of the most utterly quiet places I've ever had the privilege to visit. The lake itself is one of the clearest in the world, with visibility at over 100 feet. From any angle above the lake, you can look down into its beautiful depths to see the rocks on the bottom.

Lucky for me, my hubby is an avid mountain biker and agreed to be my marathon support team and accompany me on this journey. He packed 110 oz. of water in his hydration pack, and enough Honey Stingers and Lara Bars to keep me in glycogen supply for the five hours we estimated we'd be out there (including stops to take photos, of course!) My brother-in-law Nick decided to come along for the adventure as well, and so on Sunday morning we set out from the North Waldo campground to circumnavigate the lake in a counter-clockwise direction.

Let's just say I learned a lot on this run. There were many lessons it taught me, about trail running long distances, about planning, about elevation, hydration, and how hard I could push myself without any kind of event to provide moral support. Leading up to the day's attempt, my longest training run this year was about 10.5 miles (partially due to breaking my arm in June, which curtailed my running for the early months of the summer). This trail was slightly over 22, though I would run 24 or so by the time the day was done.

Firstly, although we meant to leave by 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning, that just didn't happen. We had been camping for days, and between getting up and cooking breakfast for the kids, making sure they had everything they needed for the day's activities, it was 10:00 by the time I left the campground. It was still cool enough in the shade to wear my long-sleeved shirt starting out, but I knew it would be getting hotter by the minute as the sun cleared the trees. I decided to wear my Vibram FiveFingers shoes, even though I've never run more than 10 or 11 miles in them. Why? Because the trail is largely fine dirt and forest duff, because I can no longer stand to wear regular running shoes, because I thought they'd help with agility on a trail known for roots and rocks. I also wore some new pink compression socks, just to keep the old leg muscles together for longer. So here I am looking like a total dork, getting ready to set out.

Let's say this right off the bat: this trail is never flat. I actually did it in the opposite direction from this elevation profile above, which seems like a pretty stupid decision when you look at the fact that all those hills on the left side of the profile came at the END of the run instead of at the beginning when I felt a little fresher. However, I knew I'd be running through the Taylor Burn, a vast area of starkly beautiful charred trees, and doing that in the morning when it was cooler sounded better than finishing up in the hot afternoon sun with no shade.

So off I set, heading into the burn almost immediately from the North Waldo campground. The guys set off on their mountain bikes only 10 minutes behind me, but as I was running and didn't see them and didn't see them, I started doing the math in my head. If I was running at my usual trail speed of 5 - 6 miles per hour, and they were biking along this rocky rutted trail probably only making 7 or 8 miles per hour, it was going to take a long time for them to catch me! Maybe it wasn't such a good idea not to have my own water and food along. My watch had died during a lake swim the day before (curse you Ironman watches and your supposed "water resistance"), and so I only had my best guestimate to go on, but after about 30 or 40 minutes, I just ran down to the shore and drank the clear lake water. Giardia be damned, at least I wasn't thirsty anymore.

Finally I entered the shady forest and a lovely singletrack trail winding along the lakeshore. The guys caught up to me and I grabbed a bottle of Hammer Perpetuem off the bike and slugged some down. For the next couple of miles they hopscotched me along the trail until we ended up at this fabulous overlook and stopped to ask another mountain biker to take a photo. I'd allowed myself to get a little behind the hydration curve and was feeling parched so I glugged down some more fluid. But from there on out, I figured I'd never be far from my support crew and my water and food, so I wasn't worried.

Off we went again, this time through more densely forested areas with bridges over dry seasonal streams. The trail wound toward and away from the lake, providing lovely views from time to time and at other times the solitude of the trees. After awhile, I noticed that I could no longer hear my mountain biking escort behind me. No worries though, I figured they'd catch up sooner or later. The trail began to climb, turning south and away from the lakeshore views. Although I wasn't really keeping track of time, it occurred to me that it had been quite a long time since I'd seen Wayne and Nick, and I was getting quite thirsty by now.

I stopped, listened. Nothing but the silence of the forest. I pulled out my whistle and blew. No answering tweet from my guys. Then I noticed how far from the lake I was. Maybe I'd somehow made a mistake and took a side trail, one that climbed up and away from the lake? There were several, but all were well signed. I stopped again. What if I was heading away from the lake and the guys were still going along the lakeshore? I wasn't even halfway around and although I knew I could always get back to the lake for hydration, it would be a very long slog without some nutrition. I turned around and reluctantly started running back the way I'd come. Back downhill.

About a mile or so later, I finally ran into them. Turns out that I was on the right trail after all, but Wayne had a flat tire just shortly after I'd left them so they were a long ways back. No worries, I again took the opportunity to try to catch up my hydration and headed back up the hill (ugh!) again. But mountain bike support was not destined to work out all that well for this trail. Although we stayed closer through the rest of the run, we were again separated by Nick's brake failing, and then his derailleur, leaving him as a single speed bike with only one brake.

This is about where the bigger hills took hold, with bigger rocks to boot. Some of them were gnarly enough that I had to walk the downhills as well as the uphills just in order to not trip and kill myself. But these were interspersed with lovely green meadows and water-lily filled ponds that thankfully didn't yield up the bloodthirsty hordes of mosquitoes that sometimes plague this place. I felt really strong and although I was now past my longest training run, the legs felt fresh and I was really enjoying the beauty of the place and the peace of running by myself.

Somewhere around 18 miles, that dreaded Wall came to meet me though. I knew he might be out there somewhere. Beauty and trees and peacefulness are all fine and dandy, but this is still a long ways to run. I think if I'd stayed on top of the nutrition and hydration from the get-go, I might've missed the Wall altogether, but alas that was not the case. I got hot. I got thirsty. I tried to put more fluid and calories down but by now my stomach was feeling a bit rebellious. The altitude I'm sure added to the toll.

The last six miles were definitely challenging. The trail crosses the road and stays away from the lake, it's full of PUDs (Pointless Ups and Downs) that seem tailor-made to demoralize a poor trail runner. Luckily my hubby raced ahead to refill his Camelbak with water, and my brother-in-law stayed with me and kept up my spirits. We talked about that place I call The Dark Night of the Soul that reaches out for you in long distance events, and he reminded me of how we can overcome our body's obstacles with the power of our mind. By the time Wayne got back with the water, I could hear children's voices from the campground and knew I would make it.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, something that I've really looked forward to accomplishing and was so thrilled to get the opportunity to do. I'm grateful for my support crew, without whom I would've had to carry all my own gear. Being able to run unencumbered was such a freeing thing, and it was great to share the experience with them. I learned (or re-learned) those valuable lessons about not getting behind in my hydration and nutrition, something I really really need to keep in mind for the Ironman. Drink and eat early and often! As always, I find myself so appreciative of all that my body can do. I ask it and I ask it, and still it keeps giving me these amazing experiences. More than anything, I'm so happy to live in this beautiful place on earth. Literally 80 miles from my front door I can run through the wilderness, through silent forests and along majestic lake shores. What a lucky lady I am!

Aging Up: A Birthday Run Through The Primeval Coastal Forest

 What do you want for your birthday? A dreaded question from someone who doesn't really need anymore stuff in her life. Fortunately, my hubby doesn't take offense if I have no interest in some bauble or another (I'm convinced that he married me because I hate the mall). He knows how to treat a birthday girl right, which in my case means packing the kids and the dogs over to the coast for the day. And apparently God knew that after so many unending days of rain, I needed a clear sky over my head. So though it was not exactly warm or sunny, it was not raining, and that's all that mattered.

After some pleasant hours spent racing sticks down a creek, exploring tidepools, flying kites, and chasing the dogs around, I got to pull on my favorite Five Finger toe shoes and go for a run up this fabulous trail. It starts at the beach, winds up and over this big promontory, climbing high above the lighthouse, and down the other side to a wide stretch of largely inaccessible and empty beach. The forests are lusciously green and primeval, with gigantic wind-twisted trees and beautiful ferny mossy floors. I really can't say much more about it with mere words, other than that it was perfect in every way. And I would've run faster if I could've stopped myself from taking all of these photos with my cell phone. 

So here's a visual tour of my beautiful birthday run.

You go up and over this big ridge. The lighthouse makes sure the ships don't hit it in the fog.

 The trail is so steep that it's full of switchbacks. At some point, the trail builders just gave up on switchbacks and installed some rough stairs. Great for training those glutes, hamstrings, and quads! My dog Sophie takes it all in stride.

Trees grow out of "nurse logs", old fallen trees that have since disintegrated, providing food for the new young trees to grow up on.

Spectacular views of the rugged Oregon coastline are a trail runner's best reward. In this photo, you can see how much elevation the trail gains, since I started running down on the beach!

 The forest is unbelievably green and lovely. Here, the valley falls away beneath me in a sea of ferns, moss, salal,  and evergreens.

Eventually, the trail pops you out onto a windswept beach, where you feel like the only human alive on the planet, dwarfed by the massive Pacific Ocean, and soothed by its roar.

 If you pay attention, you find beautiful little Zen moments all around you. I could meditate on this tableau of a stick and a rock for hours.

Sandstone cliffs to the right of the beach are carved by wind and waves into intricate patterns

In some places, the soft sandstone has been carved out from under the very roots of the trees, leaving them suspended in space.

 

Seaweed tangles adorn the beach with the woven netting of a former kelp forest

Everywhere along the beach, you must leap across small streams. Each is patterned with beautiful swirls of different colored sand. Every one of these creek bottoms could be considered a work of art.

 I arrive at the end of my run tired but ecstatic. In a state of bliss unparalleled in modern existence. How often do you get to feel like the only person on earth? To run alone and silent through an ancient forest. To look across the expanse of miles of beach and see no one, hear nothing but wind and surf. My spirit is renewed.

We drive to Mo's, a staple of our coast trips. The best chowder house on the Oregon coast. Our friendly waitress snaps a pic of the family for us. I am so blessed to have this wonderful family around me on my birthday.

I have this marvelous Paleo feast of blackened salmon and steamed and seasoned green beans. Double yum! Plus some of Mo's awesome clam chowder.

Okay, so it's not Paleo, but I top it off with Mo's homemade marionberry cobbler with some local vanilla ice cream. Heaven on earth. A perfect way to age up and turn 45. My day could not be any better. I am so thankful to have a family who gave me what I really wanted for my birthday, a beautiful home state with gorgeous parks and trails, and a body that can do amazing things like running up and over mountains. 

I am truly blessed.

Sunday Snap: The Wall of Green

This is the north side of the hills that fringe my town, where the Ridgeline trail runs along through fern and fir-covered forests. Luckily, there are several trailheads within five miles of my house, a blessing since I've become a trail addict and rarely run on the street if I can help it.

A friend of mine once said that when she goes out hiking in the forest, it all looks like a "wall of green". But as a trail runner, if you know the types of local vegetation, it can help you orient yourself on the trail. Why is this important? It might not be on a well-trodden path like the Ridgeline, but a week ago I was running on an unfamiliar trail system further from home. With only a glance at the map at the trailhead and very little in the way of trail signage, I could navigate my way through the looping trails and end up back at my car an hour or so later. Why? A couple of skills that help make you a good trail navigator.

1. Which way is north? One of the things I pay attention to is what grows where. Where I live, a forest that looks like this is almost certain to be on the north of a hill. The sides with southern exposure get too much sun and heat for ferns and moss to grow like this. You're more likely to see oaks and pines on the southern slopes, and that's also where the poison oak mostly grows (an important fact if you're as sensitive to it as I am.) Even on an overcast day like today, you can also see the direction that the sky is lightest, and here near the 45th parallel, that means you're looking south.

2. What's it look like on the way back? I like to build a good mental map in my head of where I've been on the trail so far, and this map requires me to orient to the points of the compass. I know which direction I've started out and when the trail bends, the map in my head bends accordingly. When hiking with the kids, I try to get them used to this sort of mental navigation, as well as turning and looking behind us so that we can see how things look coming from the other direction. On a hike last week, we came to a small tractor that was being used for trail maintenance. It happened to sit at an unmarked crossroads where five trails met. I asked the kids to turn and look back and tell me how they would tell which trail we had come in on - which one led back the way we came? "It's the trail that's right behind the tractor" they said. But I pointed out that the tractor could be moved. Oh yeah. "It's the one with bark chips from a freshly cut log, and a sharp bend to the east in about a hundred yards." That's much better. Sure enough, an hour later when we got back to the crossroads the tractor was no longer there. We were glad we were observant enough to know which trail to take.

3. How far have I come? Becoming a good estimator of time and distance is extremely helpful in any kind of trail or off-trail navigation. It's another area I practice all the time, and get my kids to practice too. Every time we go to the grocery store, I ask them to estimate the total price of everything in our cart. We all take turns and see who gets the closest. If I get the question "how long 'til we get there?" in the car, I tell them the miles and our current speed and ask them to give me a ballpark estimate for an answer. I'll ask them how big, small, or far away something is, or how much it weighs. I have to say, I kind of pride myself on my estimating skills. I can usually estimate how long or far I've been running within a tenth of a mile or so. Sometimes I take a guess and then look at my watch to confirm. The more you practice estimating and checking your estimates, the better you get.

Sometimes I wonder if the availability of relatively cheap GPS technology will leave us with a generation of poor navigators. Think of the WWII navigators who were trained to use a sextant and navigate by the stars! That's only a couple of generations ago. I've got nothing against a GPS (and I'd eventually like to get one, especially for the elevation logging capability), but it can't replace knowledge and common sense. With a combination of these skills, you can assess fairly accurately where you are in the world, whether navigating the streets of an unfamiliar city, or the trails of a forest. You never know when that might come in handy.

Sunday Snap: How I Was Almost Killed By Marauding Cattle on a Trail Run

All's Well That Ends Well, at least that's what the Bard tells us. It was true for today's trail run, I did in fact make it to the top of the mountain on a day when a break in the weather gave me spectacular views all the way around.  Unfortunately, I couldn't lug my big beautiful camera around with me, so for today's Sunday Snap you'll have to be content with what I took on my cell phone. You can get a little taste of the dramatic sky and view however, just from this photo I shot at the top.

 However, here's what I had to slog through to get there! Background: I've been tossing around the idea of signing up for the "Mt. Pisgah Frozen Trail Run Fest" in two weeks. Doesn't that sound appealing in mid-December? The run I'm thinking of entering is "only" 14.6 miles, a decent distance for my first official trail running entry. I was thinking it would take me somewhere around three hours, since I've been timing my trail runs and found I'm averaging about 12:00 miles on anything with significant elevation gain. After today's "dry run" (note to self: there was nothing "dry" about this run) on the trails in question, I am revising my finish time estimate to closer to four hours or more. The trails aren't frozen, they're foot-deep mud bogs! It took me 37 minutes to go the first 1.4 miles. No, that is not a typo.

Even worse, after slogging uphill through these slimy slidy mud-slushees, I smelled the distinct aroma of cow manure. It actually smelled like I was running through a cattle wallow instead of just a trail-turned creek in the wintery rains. So it was no great surprise when we rounded the next corner and my dog Sophie surprised a..... Cow! I took this photo and then realized that there was more than one cow. Lots of them in fact. I was running right through their stomping grounds. A scenario flashed through my head almost as gruesome as the night I was almost arrested in my underwear: Being stomped to death on an obscure trail on the side of the mountain by a herd of cows, and being discovered face-down in a bog of cow manure several months later by some hunters (notice that it's always hunters who discover people like this?). This is when I begin to be grateful that my dog is the Best Dog in the Universe. One stern command: "Sophie! No Chase!" and she mercifully did NOT stamped the entire herd of cattle right over the top of me. It was close though. I had a moment of real panic there. That's okay, I'm rusty on panic.

After that, I turned back to the main trail and headed for the top of the mountain, an uneventful if challenging climb to those gorgeous late-afternoon views out over fog-shrouded valleys.

And so for today's Sunday Snap, I'll leave you with a photo that was not taken by my cell phone today, but one that I took from this same trail with my real camera on a New Year's Day hike last year. It's one of my all-time favorite black-and-whites.

Guaranteed Burn, Optional Hurl

Hubby and I did on a grueling mud-drenched seven mile trail run this morning, came across this sign. I love the "Guaranteed Burn, Optional Hurl" of this trail. It was strangely prophetical as the trail wound up a challenging grade covered with clay mud so slippery it was like ice skating up a 15 degree slope. Not to mention, our shoes had so much mud and leaves stuck to them it was like running with two-pound ankle weights.

Still, you can see the sun shining through the trees, and we took Sophie the AdventureDog along and got to have an uninterrupted hour+ of conversation doing what we love the most: being together, outdoors, active. Now that's something to be thankful for! So on that subject, yesterday's body part on my list of thankfulness had to be my mouth. What an amazing thing, to be able to taste all of those good foods, to savor all of the wonderful ingredients of the day, not to mention have the feast available to us that we had. Pecan-coconut yams, green beans in a maple-mustard-balsamic sauce, and a turkey roasted up just right. My mom even went to the trouble of finding a humanely-raised antibiotic and gunk-free bird this year, which was so thoughtful of her, and local cranberries from an Oregon bog that made a sauce so tart and scrumptious, it was just the right tangy counterpart to the turkey.

Today I'm grateful for my strong ankles. They carried me over roots, rocks, and slippery slide slopes of mud with nary an ankle-turn. I feel lucky to be able to be out in my childhood stomping grounds, running through the woods I played in as a kid, feeling the freedom of a body that moves just right. Happy day after Thanksgiving folks!

Runs With Dog

I'd like to think of myself as a Woman Who Runs with The Wolves. There's me, running naked and free through a primeval forest with my hair streaming out behind me in long golden waves and a pack of graceful beasts fanning out all around me, stopping to let out a wild high howl to the sky... Except that naked part. Okay, strike that. With forty-four years and two kids behind me, too much would jiggle. And let's face it, I got tired of my golden hair streaming right into my face when I run, so I hacked it down to a short 'do a few years ago. And well, the closest wolves in Oregon are the Wenaha pack near the Idaho border, but that's really a long ways from here.

I guess I'll have just have to settle for being a Woman Who Runs With Dog. Luckily, I can do that clothed, with short hair stuffed under my running cap, in broad daylight. For the past few weeks, I've been taking my one year old Heeler/Aussie Shepherd mix Sophie running on the Ridgeline trails with me. Unlike Evil Small Dog (my husband's Beagle/Jack Russell Terrier mix, the one who broke my arm running back in January), she is a terrific running companion. She doesn't chase squirrels or deer and she doesn't really care much for other people so she will  just skirt around them on the trail. Ditto for other dogs, she's not even into playing a game of sniffy-butt, she just keeps on truckin' down the path. If she gets too far ahead, she stops and waits for me with a very patient expression, understanding that my speed and endurance are limited compared to hers.

I know that in thirteen or fourteen years, I will repay her thoughtfulness as the tables turn and I walk with her into her old age. I may even put her into a trailer and wheel her along her favorite trails as I did with my wonderful Sabre, my best buddy and running companion of my twenties and thirties. Through the arc of our life together, we will have many adventures, but I know from painful experience that the times we can run together carefree down life's trails will be limited to about a decade. My years as a runner will far exceed hers, no matter how easily she springs ahead of me through autumn's leafy wonderland this morning. So I vow to enjoy this time we have together on the planet. She's all that I could ask for in a furry partner and more. Today we'll hit the trail together and run like we're wild and free.

Running With Giants

One of the best things about being a triathlete is that wherever you go, you interact with the local environment. You're out running at dawn when the shopkeepers are opening up, or you're biking through the fields and waving to farmers, swimming in a pristine mountain lake, or trotting through a grove of enormous trees that may have been standing since Julius Caesar walked the earth. You're never just a tourist when you're an athlete, because when you're out there doing your sport, you're part of the everyday life of a place. In some places you may stick out like a sore thumb, places where running or biking for fun and exercise just aren't common. But in other places, being in your running shoes or on your bike lets you see the scenery from a completely different angle.

On my camping trip with my son last week, I got to do some amazing trail runs. My favorite was an hour and a half run on the Hiouchi trail and Mill Creek trail in the Jedediah Smith Redwoods on the California coast. You really can't ask for a more awe-inspiring place to move your feet. The trail winds along the Smith river, turning away to meander through groves of giant redwoods. At one point you even run right through the middle of a burnt-out redwood tree, big enough you could make a small home inside. It was one of those runs where you never want to turn around, never want to stop. As my watch read :45 minutes, I reluctantly slowed and made my feet point back in the direction of camp. Luckily Mackenzie had a thoroughly engrossing novel to read and was happily ensconced in a camp chair while I enjoyed my traipse through the ancient forest.