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

Stress

I had a great workout on the treadmill last night. When I am not able to run for a few days the anxiety seems to build up. I made some time last night and hopped onto the treadmill with my "Hard Workouts" playlist.

My song list contains a lot of "angry" music including Papa Roach. They really seem to get me pumped.

I put in an hour on the treadmill. Worked hard on keeping good form and proper foot strike.

All is better in the world now.

I weighed in at 182.4 this morning. I have not lost a lot, but it seems to be a steady progression and I am headed the right way.

Balance

I took off from work a little early yesterday thinking that I would go easy out on the trails and get a couple of hours in on my feet. I struggled a little from the start but kept pushing on, I figured that I would loosen up and   fall into a nice comfort zone in my run.
After about two miles it just wasn't happening for me. It was colder and windier than I had expected and had not brought a hat with me. I was in a hurry getting out the door and forgot to grab my trail shoes. I decided that maybe this run just wasn't meant to be.
Maybe I needed a rest day.
So I took it today.

I hired a coach a couple of years ago because I find it difficult to not over train  I was at a point back then that I was running twice a day and sometimes felt like it wasn't enough. I knew that I wasn't doing myself any good.

I have 142 days to train for this.

My first attempt at running 50 miles.

Therefore I must listen to my body, train smart, and do my best to remain injury free.

That may be the toughest challenge of all.

The Next 145

145 Days until the Ice Age Trail 50

6 miles mostly power hiking

There is a short window of training so I have do my best to be smart about it

183 lbs

24 miles for the week

Here are some photos from the trail today

No snow yet

Lots of critters on the trail, and a few hunters...

Lots of mud...

Even a little blood...

The Next Journey

I signed up for my first 50 mile trail run today.

The Ice Age Trail 50

I haven't been running or working out very regularly and have gained some weight.

146 days of training

184.6 lbs

I ran 8 miles on the trails tonight in the dark.

If you have never run the trails at night....put it on your bucket list.

Seriously, it's awesome.

It's time to become focused again.

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.

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!

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!

Training Notes

A little late on this post but I wrapped up a good week last week so I thought I would share some training notes.

First and possibly most importantly I have been lucky enough to find some training partners with my strength and core work. The first couple of weeks it was just me and one other person but now I have convinced (notice the word con in convinced?) two others to join us. Now 4 may even become 5, not bad for meeting up at 5:20am 3 days a week. The core workouts have been lasting about an hour, depending on how much slacking between exercises we do. I have been trying to change things up a bit every couple of weeks to keep us challenged, here is our current workout.

Each exercise is done for one full minute unless otherwise noted, we go through two rounds of this series.

1. Forward weighted lunges - alternating legs
2. Reverse weighted lunges - alternating legs
3. Squats - with a couple of 5-10 second holds and at time some jumps.
4. Flutter kicks
5. V- ups (30 reps)
6. Russian Twists
7. Push ups (good form until you can't do any more)
8. Full Body Crunches (30 reps)
9. Push ups (yes again, and at least half what you did the first time)
10. Bicycle crunches
11. Plank
12. Side Plank
13. Side Plank
14. Oblique Crunch
15. Oblique Crunch
16. Plank with leg lifts (10 count on each leg) x 4
17. Bridge on the ball (hip thrusts)
18. Bridge on the ball (rolling ball towards and away)
19. Ball lifts with ankles (30 reps)
20. Crunches on the ball

The great thing about our group is that we are each stronger in some areas than others and can push each other when things get tough. I have already noticed that my running endurance and posture have improved since I started consistently doing this for the last 3 weeks.

I was also able put in some solid miles last week. Although I was only able to run 3 times I still managed to finish the week up with just over 37 miles including 11 on  Saturday and 13 on Sunday. 

I have been practicing a run / walk strategy for the ultra, I think it will be good. Also working on getting my nutrition dialed in. This weekend I tried a PowerBar as fuel for each run. I had the cookies and cream and the peanut butter flavors, they are both pretty decent and pack over 200 calories per bar. 

Speaking of nutrition, I just received my order of the new Strawberry-Vanilla Hammer Perpetuem. Can't wait to give it a try!

Perpetuem has worked well for me in the past

That's about the extent of things for now. On my Sunday run I had the pleasure of scaring up 9 turkeys and 2 deer. I have been very blessed with the places I have been able to run. You may be tired of looking at these but I love running through this area and continue to explore new areas.

I Found a New Trail

I have to admit, I had a pretty awesome run on Wednesday afternoon. My goal was to go out for some ultra run/walk practice. My plan was to run for 9 minutes and then walk for 1 minute. This started out ok but once I got going I switched it up to walking up the hills and running the remainder. I happened to take a new route for this run, I wanted to check out a different entrance to a wildlife area that I had run previously.

This is a view of the road that leads 

to the entrance of the preserve. 

It's about a mile to the entrance.

This is the beginning of the trail.

Not far into the trail I had the pleasure of this view. 

Beautiful and humbling!

This section was very secluded

and it still looks like fall. It 

was almost like running through

a tunnel.

This is a small stream that I crossed.

Once I got close to the stream I

saw 7-8 deer running away.

They were all in the open area

in front of the trees ahead.

Once I crossed the stream and

made it up into the clearing, this

is the path I climbed.

Here is a look back to the clearing from the hill.

I followed the trail for about 2.5 miles

before I turned around and headed back.

Coming down the last road to our home

this was the view that I was rewarded with.

The sky was beautiful!

Since this blog is about running....

I ended finished the run with 13.1 miles at just over a 10 minute pace. Not bad in my opinion for walking up the hills and slugging through a couple muddy streams. 

A couple of training notes:

• Nutrition - I had a 20oz bottle of Gatorade and two gels with me. I drank most of the Gatorade and had one gel at about 1 hour into the run. At 1:43 I remember getting a little light headed (low blood sugar), so I took the second gel and felt better soon after.
• Run / Walk combo - Once I got over the mental hurdle of what it was doing to my pace, I began to enjoy this. It was really easy on my body, I was not sore or wiped out after this run or even the next day. I felt like I could have gone another 13 if I had the time and the food to do so.
• Trail Running - I love the variety and softness of the trail! It is much easier on my body than running on the road. Even after 13+ miles my plantar faciitis was very minimal.

I hope you learned something and enjoyed the pictures!

Sunday Photo Run 1-22-12

Any run in shorts in January is a great run. I ended up taking a short loop through the conservation area today. I love how quiet and peaceful it is out there.

Seven Days

The streak has begun. 

Not that kind of streak....this kind....

I have now run seven days in a row.

Not a big deal, but it's a start.

Pretty easy mileage, I am trying to build slowly and safely. So far I feel good. 

My foot pain is mostly manageable.

It's only been a week now, running every day takes a little planning, but knowing that I can get by with a one mile run if necessary isn't so bad. 

Most of my runs have been before 6am. 

Running before sunrise when the windchill is in the single digits or even below zero is not my idea of fun. 

But I still feel pretty awesome about getting it done.

Because of where I run,

sometimes,

 it's

 like

 I

 am

 the

 last

 one

 left

 in

 the

 world. 

• What is the longest streak that you have run?
• Do you mostly run alone or do you have running buddies?

Do You Love Where You Run?

Sometimes it get's a little lonely living out in the country and not having a running buddy. I have been pretty spoiled by having some great running buddies in the past. But I must say that I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunity to run in the area that I do. I gauge traffic by how many cars per mile I see, rarely is it even one.

I thought I would share a nice little 10K loop with you. Come run with me, I hope you don't mind a couple of hills, it's all part of the price you pay for the view.

This is the pavement after we get off a stretch of gravel about 6/10 of a mile.

After a short run on the blacktop we turn back onto the gravel.
There's a nice surprise at the top.

Pretty awesome view from  here!
We are just about to start having some fun now.

No traffic light here!

This is looking back at where we just ran, it's  almost a 2 mile stretch of gravel.

Back on the road again.
No ipods allowed, we have to be able to listen for traffic.

Uh oh...I think I see another hill around the corner.

Don't say that I didn't warn you!

We're havin' fun now!

Did I mention that there may be a couple of hills?

This pretty much sums up the views from my 10K route. 

My friends and I want to thank you for visiting!

My audience