Shirtless in February

Trail view from today

It's been an unbelievably warm winter in Missouri this year. The temperature went over 50 degrees today so I took the opportunity to take a few hours off of work in order to hit the trails. No hat, no gloves, just me in my shorts and long sleeve shirt. 1.5 miles into the run I became very warm and I had a long way to go, so, I stripped of my shirt and ran the next  5 mile loop shirtless! It felt great, but I was wearing my Camelbak and there is definitely some chaffing.

I am not normally a shirtless runner. I have had problems where my shorts will get really wet and my shoes will even start to sound like I ran through a puddle and get squishy. Yeah, I sweat that much.

I tried a couple of Honey Stinger products today. These were purchased and purely my own taste test. I will have to admit that I am a strong fan of and had the best luck with Hammer Nutrition Products. I should probably review them next.

Here are my thoughts on the three products I tried.

Honey Stinger Fruit Smoothie

The consistency of the Honey Stinger gels in my experience has been a little on the runny side. There is a fairly fruity taste to this gel, it's not bad but I cannot see anything exceptional about it in my opinion. If it was at an aid station, I might take one, but I won't go out of my way to purchase this product.










Honey Stinger Ginsting

This gel doesn't really tell you any flavor, and there is a good reason for it. There is a bit of a honey flavor to it, but in my opinion, it just doesn't taste good. I took this one about one hour into my run and I sucked it down quickly. If this was at an aid station, I wouldn't even consider taking it unless there were no other choice.










Honey Stinger Chocolate Waffle

This was the best of the 3 items I tried today. I have read many positive reviews about how much athletes like the Honey Stinger Waffles. Taste and texture are pretty decent. Lance Armstrong is on the front of the package, apparently he helped design it. I would likely eat these again.
There are 160 calories in one waffle which is great if you are going to be out on the trail for a few hours. At a $1.25 - $1.40 each, I may give these another try sometime.




What is your favorite form of calories while running?

Neighborhood Run

I decided to take vacation this week. It's pretty much a stay-cation, but it will allow me to shed some stress, catch up on some things around home, and get some good training runs started.

Today, my first day of vacation, was an absolutely beautiful day for a run; so I thought would share it here.

No fancy trails, no wildlife seen, just a good road run with some nice rolling hills. This run really gives me a chance to tune out and just enjoy the experience.

Another great part of running out here is the elevation.

I am really hoping that running these hills will help with my 50 mile training. Most of the Ice Age Trail is fairly flat as I recall, but there are some rolling hills.

The High

I didn't run outside yesterday, but I did get up early enough to get to the gym before work. I spent 40 minutes on the treadmill and I wasn't really into it for the first 10 minutes.

Then I got rolling along and just lost myself in my thoughts. Many people don't really care for the treadmill but I find that I can zone out and pretty much meditate through my runs. Treadmill runs also give me an opportunity to really focus on my form and cadence.

I had a great run yesterday morning and I felt fantastic from that run all day long, I definitely was riding the runners high throughout the day. It was an awesome day and now I am ready to begin an awesome weekend with family.

I have not made any progress on my weight so far but it has been difficult for me to away from the holiday treats. I need to plan ahead for healthy eating and as I increase my mileage the weight should drop fairly quickly. I weighed in at 185 this morning and my goal is to reach 170-ish. I have found that 170 is a pretty optimal running weight for me. I have noticed though, that as I get older, I can't just run the weight off like I used to.

I wish you all a happy and healthy new year!

133 days until the Ice Age 50!

Winter Trail

Winter trail is here again

Focus

I am putting a focus on fitness again. I have been running very little lately. Partially due to a nagging cold and congestion, and partially due to the work / life balance being out of whack again. Luckily I have started back with my early morning core fitness group on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; and now the gym is offering a boot camp class on Monday and Wednesday evenings. Yeah, I may be a little obsessive at times, but now that I have the first week's soreness behind me, it should all be loads of fun!

Last week I had a couple of short and early road runs just trying to ease back into things, then I hit the trails on Saturday afternoon. I bought some new trail shoes, Mountain Masochist 2, so I had to give them a spin. I ended up doing 6 miles out on the trails and had a great time.

I missed a lot of the colors, but the trails are still beautiful right now...almost picture perfect!

I initially planned to take it easy and avoid the hills, but halfway through I was still feeling good so I took the hilly route on the way back.You cannot see them here, but off to the left out of the picture were a couple of deer that watched me as I took this picture.

I took these pictures with my phone and the zoom isn't real great. The deer was about 100 yards away, I have him circled but it's still pretty tough to see it. He is hiding behind the tree, you can barely make out his head to the right and his rear end the the left.

Some areas of the trail are still calf to knee high with grasses and weeds. This time as I was cruising along and found something a little sharper than the average weed.

That's about the extent of things now. My plan is to run the Ice Age 50 miler in May and maybe  a 50K sometime in the very early spring before that. Beyond that, I really have nothing planned.

How is your training going? Any big races on the horizon?

Sunday Photo-fest

It was a cool foggy morning on the trails. 

I ran across a couple of bow hunters, this means it's time to start wearing my blaze orange running shirts for safety. The funny thing about this... it was the first time that I can remember not seeing any deer or turkey at all on the trails.

The fog made for some interesting navigation, the trails looked different, there were a couple of times that I wasn't sure where I was and then was totally 

surprised about where I ended up.

I love the variety that this trail had to offer.

Shameless self-portrait

It's not mountain climbing, but there are some great rolling hills

In some places you really have to pick your way through the trail

The fog made for some interesting navigation

Dry stream bed

Building a Strong Foundation

Looking back at last weeks Ice Age Trail 50K I think that there are three key factors that helped me complete this race.

First, I was under trained. It's easy to over-train and be tired going into an event. I was plagued with bouts of painful plantar fasciitis and had to take a couple of full weeks off from training earlier this month. My longest run going into this race was 22 miles. I felt good after the 22 miler which gave me confidence that I could go another 9 miles to complete the race.

Secondly, feeling good after my long runs rather than completely drained was another big part of my strategy. I slowed things down and incorporated a run / walk strategy. I removed the pressure of pace (mostly) from my training regimen and concentrated on building strength and endurance.

Finally and most importantly, I focused on building a strong foundation for core and strength. I know that I have mentioned this before, but I truly believe that this was physically what got me through my first 50K. Not only just finishing , but finishing strong and feeling good.

Since February I have been meeting up with a group three times per week for about an hour of some good core exercises. I try to change it up every few weeks for variety and add or subtract an exercise if it seems too easy, or even too complicated.

Here is our workout plan and I have also included a demonstration video for some of the exercises.

• Warm up by jumping rope for 1 minute. (great cardio jump start, if you have not jumped rope for awhile, give this a shot!)
• Forward lunges, alternating legs for 1 minute. We generally do this with weights in our hands, this is optional, you can work up to it.
• Reverse lunges, alternating legs for 1 minute.
• Squats - 1 minute. We started out using weights originally with the squats, we now do them without weights but hold the squat position for 10 - 15 seconds at times. Sometimes we have a little contest for some fun to see who can hold it the longest. This is awesome work for the quads, great for hilly runs!
• Push ups - nothing fancy, just do your max push ups. I personally can do about 30 on my good days. Some of the others in my group can do a few more.
• Flutter Kicks - 1 minute (it's great if you can do the full minute, if you have to stop a few seconds and continue that's ok too.)
• V-ups - I tell everyone that the goal is to do 30 and more if you can. Here is a quick video on how to do a V-up. Note: My form is not nearly as good as shown in this video.

• Russian Twists - 1 minute. Some members of our group do this with a weight in their hands.
• Reptile Push-ups - No time limit, just do as many as you can. Demonstration video below.

• Full Body Crunch - our goal is to do 30 or more of these.

• Bicycle Crunches - 1 minute
• Standard Plank - 60 - 70 seconds.
• Side Plank Rotation - Our current goal is to do 20 reps on each side. 

• Oblique Crunches - 1 minute on each side
• Plank with leg lifts - we raise each leg for a 10 second count and have worked up to 5 reps on each side.

• Stability Ball Leg Raises - goal is 30 + reps.

• Stability Ball Bridges - I don't have a completely accurate video of this one, we actually add a step where we roll the ball out to an reverse plank type position after the bridge. We do 30 reps of this exercise.

• Stability Ball Jacknife - 30 reps.

That's the end of round one, we do this entire routine twice. We do shorten up the second round for sake of time by reducing the Russian Twists, flutter kicks, and bicycles to 30 seconds rather than a full minute. This workout generally takes us about an hour and 10 minutes. This includes a water break here and there. Sometimes I try to push it and decrease the intervals between exercises. Sometimes we are a little slow transitioning to the the next exercise, speeding it up definitely increases the difficulty of the entire workout.

Disclaimer : Completing these exercises is difficult and certainly not for everyone. This workout is simply a conglomeration of exercises that I have put together from previous workouts and research over the last few months.

Ice Age 50K

I did it, I completed my first ultra-marathon!

So...here is how the weekend went.

I had been planning this event for quite some time with my partner in crime Tom. He is a great friend from Sioux Falls and a fellow DailyMiler. Tom is a strong runner with an awesome attitude and we had decided that we were going to try and run this (our first ultra-marathon) together. Coincidentally we actually ended up at packet pick up at the same time on Friday evening. This worked out great because we were staying at the same hotel. Tom brought his cheerleading /support crew, his awesome wife Sara, and I brought part of my crew, my mother!

After checking into the hotel we all went for a nice relaxed dinner and retired for the evening. I did my usual pre-race ritual of getting everything ready to go for race morning. The biggest difference for me this time was that I was mentally treating this race as more of a training run than a race. I really did my best to keep things simple. My main fuel sources were Gatorade in the Camelbak, Apple Cinnamon Hammer Gels, and Salt Stick Caps.

Race morning was a breeze. I wasn't nervous about the race, I was ready to take it easy and have a fun long run. I woke up a little early and was able to eat a little breakfast and relax before we left. It was a beautiful morning, nice and cool, with a slight drizzle when we left the hotel. We ran into a little bit of rain on the way to the start but it quit before we got there. Being in the high 50's, it was just about perfect!

The race is in the beautiful Kettle Moraine South State Park. I am not exactly sure how many miles of trails are in the part of the park, but I do know that it is well over 100! There are some great photos of the event located at Running in the USA Photos.

The race started at 8:15am. Tom and I started at about the middle of the pack. The first 13 miles was a 6.5 mile out and back on mostly single track trail with lots of rocks and roots. It wasn't crazy difficult but you had to pay attention, I came close to falling a couple of times and there was rarely an area where you were not going either up or downhill. I was grateful that this was the first portion of the race, it would have been a lot more difficult on tired legs. My plan was to stay well hydrated with my Gatorade and take a gel and a salt tab every 45 minutes. I was having so much fun that I had lost track of time, luckily Tom reminded me to take my first one. I knew that could cause a serious problem so I paid more attention after that. At the 6.5 mile aid station I downed a glass of Coke and had a bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I knew I wasn't going to be able to survive on just gels and Gatorade. We stopped a different aid station on the way back and I tried a cup of Mountain Dew. Let me tell you, it was very tasty at that time! Our pacing for this section of the run ranged from 10 - 14 minute miles. We stopped at the two aid stations probably a little longer than we should have but then again, we were not racing. Tom and I seemed to pace each other well on this trail, he really kept me in check and we had a lot of fun joking about the hills and chatting with other runners along the way.

At mile 13 we were back at the start/finish line aid station and I was feeling great. This area works out really well for friends and family members keeping tabs on their runners. It was awesome to get everyone's encouragement on the way through! I got to see my family and asked them to have a 5-hour energy ready for me when I came around the next time. I also let the AS workers refill my Camelbak with Heed. I have used Heed before but I had not recently trained with it so I was a little hesitant. But, I had gone through all of my Gatorade and probably close to 30 oz of water so I thought I would give it a shot. I knew I needed the electrolytes. Luckily it did not cause any problems with my stomach.

The next section of the course was 2 - 9 mile loops on the Nordic Trail. This is a cross country ski trail and I assumed that it would be fairly flat and a smooth sailing couple of loops. I was wrong. It was actually a mostly open trail but there were lots of small but challenging hills sprinkled throughout. This is the part of the trail that really reminded me of running in Missouri. Tom and I stuck with our plan and power walked up all of the hills and ran what we could. I knew Tom had been struggling a little on the first part of the run and I kept asking him how he was doing and he always replied back with a smile and said "fabulous!". Tom is the type of person that could fall and break his leg and would tell you that everything was great while he crawled his way to the finish line. He is THAT tough and has THAT kind of an attitude!

At around mile 15 I was ready to go, I felt bad leaving Tom but he insisted that he was ok with it, so I carried on at a comfortable pace. I mostly ran alone for the rest of the race. I had a few of the hardcore 50 milers pass me and I was able to slowly start picking off some runners ahead of me. Unlike road races, my goal really was not to pass anyone but to just keep making forward progress. I kept a conservative pace for the remainder of the first 9 mile loop. 

I cruised back into AS 2 and my family was there cheering me on and handed me the 5-hour energy that I had asked for. I refilled my Camelbak with a little more Heed and hit the trail again. My goal on this loop was to start pushing the pace a little more. I still power walked up the hills but I ran a lot more freely down the hills and ran strong on the flats. This allowed me to pass a few more runners too.

I was relieved to finally reach AS 1 which was 1.5 miles from the finish. It's funny how that last couple of miles can seem so long. I cruised into the finish at 6:14:25 for an average pace of 12:04. I had really hoped to finish in under 6 hours, but I am not disappointed in my performance at all.

I finished 73rd out of 155 finishers, 14/26 in my age group, and 53/109 for men.

Here is me smiling at the finish line. I had such a great time all throughout this race and I had awesome support too! The people directly behind me in this picture are most of my support crew. Thank you to my mother, father, sister, brother-in-law, nephews, and Tom's wife Sara. It would not have been nearly as much fun without your great support!

Finishing with a smile after 6 hours, 14 minutes,  and 25 seconds!

This was a well organized race with great aid stations. The volunteers were super friendly and helpful. The course was beautiful and challenging. I would strongly consider the 50 miler next time. Entry fee included a nice long sleeve tech shirt and 50K finishers received an Ice Age 50 key chain. 

My awesome sister and nephew!

The sweet looking blister I earned!

Last Ice Age Long Run

Today was my last long run before my first 50K, the Ice Age 50K Trail Run.

It was near perfect weather for a run, overcast, slight rain at the start, and 48 degrees. Finished up my 22 miles at 52 degrees, no rain and a light wind to keep things cool. Here are a few sights and some commentary from today's run.


We live out in the country, I told my wife that I think I might want a goat. She is not real excited about getting a goat. Today I ran through an Amish area and this house had a goat tied up to a tree in the front yard. If I had a goat I would call him "Buddy".

We had a decent rain all morning. I ran mostly on pavement except for miles 6-15. Miles 10-12 were on a road that had recently been graded. It was really soft and muddy, in fact I had to walk a large portion of it.

This is what my shoes looked like after this stretch of the road.

All done, the sign of a good run!

I finished 22.12 miles in 3 hours and 44 minutes and managed to pop out 27 push ups afterwards too. 

My reward for this run was a beer in the shower. 

Have you ever had a beer in the shower after a long hard run? 

Let me tell you, if you have not, you better try it, it is truly the way to recover!

Wife made a home made apple pie today.

The other part of a perfect recovery!

If you want to be an aspiring ultra marathon runner like me you must watch your diet.

Remember...beer, and apple pie are both key food items!

I am participating in a 100 mile ride in August to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Please consider donating to JDRF!

Self Diagnosis

As I stated in previous posts, I have been battling Plantar Fasciitis on my right heel. This was self diagnosed via the internet of course. Who needs a specialist when you can just "Google" your pain?

I have spent the last two months stretching my calves, rolling my foot on a golf ball and a frozen water bottle, wearing a boot type contraption to stretch my calf, and I even took a week off from running on two different occasions.

So the other day I am standing in the kitchen with my sore gimpy heel and I decide that I will massage the spot that hurts. I applied pressure around my heel and discovered that it was just one small spot on the inside/bottom part of me heal that was causing all of this pain. When I put my foot back down I put my weight on the outside of my heel and viola', the pain literally disappeared. I practiced walking around the house putting my weight towards the other side of my heel, and it worked! I tried the same method while running, it was not perfect, but it was definitely better.

In a nutshell, I have learned, as a Google Medical Non-professional, is that I over pronating on that side. WebMD has a great picture and explanation of excessive pronation here. Upon further investigation, something that I had failed to notice previously, according to Foot.com, one cause of plantar fasciitis is "over-pronation (flat feet) which results in the arch collapsing upon weight bearing."

This is a great example of over pronating.
Photo credit: Orthoticshop.com

My advice...

1. Be careful when working on your running form, small adjustments can create problems.
2. It's a good idea to self diagnose yourself on the internet before seeking professional help. It has the potential to save you a lot money, or possibly kill you if your seemingly minor problem is actually something more serious.

• Do you "Google" for answers when you are sick or injured?
• Has it fixed your issue?
• Did it make it worse?
• Did it kill you?

Training Again

Recovery seems to be coming along ok right now. I still have some fairly painful plantar faciitis off and on these days. But if I stay on top of it and keep my calf stretched it minimizes things. My plan is to run no more than every other day. This should allow me to recover well and be able to build back up to some decent mileage quickly (I hope). It went well for the first week so far. I had two 5 mile runs and finished up with 14 today. I will slowly lengthen each of my runs for the next 6 weeks and then do little to no running the week of Ice Age until the actual event. I truly hope this works out. 


I have continued my strength training, it has been a lot of fun and a great challenge being able to workout with others. It is interesting being the "teacher" of this group. I feel that I have to be the strong one and push everyone to improve, but not so much that anyone gets hurt or feels like they can't do it. I try to keep them all encouraged and point out their progress. They are a tough bunch, there are 4 of us men ranging from 42 - 54 and a young lady in what I would guess is her very early 30's who is tough as nails. They are an awesome bunch to meet up with at 5:20am  - 3 days a week!


 If you spend much time in a vehicle and are interested in ultra running, check out the Talkultra podcast. It is on iTunes and they have interviewed some real ultra-legends such as, Gordy Ainsleigh, David Horton, and others. It's definitely worth checking out!


Finally, here are some pictures from today's 14 mile run. Now that spring has arrived, the trail looks much different than it did just a few short weeks ago. I had the pleasure of seeing 3 deer and 3 turkey this morning in close proximity, I love it!

One of the muddy stream crossings.

The sweet smell of spring was in the air today!

Ultra Madness

It's official, I have caught the bug. 50K training started this week. Registration opens next week. The allure of running on challenging trails for 5 or more hours has proved to be irresistible. Care to join me?

How could you not want to run in a place that looks like this?

Photo Credit to dirtrunner100.blogspot