#12 - Sign Up for Something

Training is hard. It's not easy to get up everyday and maintain the discipline of following a training plan. The daily grind is relentless, and in my experience having some general notion of "I want to start exercising everyday to get in better shape" is too vague and open ended to keep you going day in and day out. The first time a little laziness creeps in, the rationalization of "better shape can wait a day" will take over.

The easiest way to avoid this problem is to sign up for something. Something challenging.

I have 67 days until my first 100 mile trail race.

If I lose discipline and get lazy today, I might destroy my chances of finishing this beast. I can't accept that. The consequences of my actions today are very tangible and very real. Unlike "better shape", knowing that in 67 days I'm toeing the line at a 100 miler is concrete, measurable, and scary as hell. If you're goals don't scare you, then they probably won't motivate you out of bed either.

More on this to come...

Training - 5 easy miles today. Still sore from long run (5 hours) a couple of days ago. 5 miles today will push me over 60 miles in a training week for the first time.

#11 - Loading it Up

Thankfully the full-time school commitments are done for the year, so now is the time to take the training up a notch as I press on towards the Voyageur 50 in July, and ultimate Superior in September. I've been steadily running between 40-50 miles a week, and will slowly build on that as I get into July. For now, I have more available training time than I can dedicate to running (if I want to avoid injury, that is) so I'm adding some biking and running in as well. I'm heading to the BWCA next week, which will be my only break from training until after Voyageur, so I'm loading up on fatigue for the next four days in anticipation of some rest in the BW. Yesterday I did a nice 12 mile bike ride to my local trail running destination, ran trails for over an hour, then rode the 12 miles back home. This was a good way to pile on 3+ hours of aerobic work without the pounding of constant running (although my tailbone isn't used to the saddle, so I'm working through some early summer butt pain). Tomorrow I intend to wake up, swim laps for an hour, and then drive to the local big hill so I can finish my vert accumulation for the week.

Doing these combo workouts is great, it mixes things up to alleviate some boredom, and as I mentioned previously, gives you a lot of bonus aerobic and strength work without the pounding of running.

Training: Easy run, 7 miles.

#10 - Superior Hiking Trail Runs June 7-8 2018

Sorry it’s been so long since any updates, the end of the school year came hard and fast, and there were some early summer adventures that I had to get after. Including a running trip to the Superior Hiking Trail (SHT) on last Thurs and Fri, June 7th and 8th, which I’m going to spend this post documenting.

I wanted to head up early this summer and run a big section of this trail that I haven’t seen before in prep for Superior 100 this coming September. Before this trip I’d covered most of the race route from Gooseberry Falls SP up to Cty Rd 7 aid station in Finland. I wanted to see as much of the trail after Finland as possible before the race, since that section will primarily be after dark. I also wanted to cover the section from Penn Blvd (Silver Bay) up to Mt. Trudee, since I’d missed this section on previous hiking and running trips and heard it was difficult. And cool.

I started off Thursday afternoon, leaving the TC metro area at about 11:00 am. I drove straight through to Tettegouche state park, where I had a campsite reserved for the night. I checked in, pitched my tent and inflated my air mattress, ate a sandwich and headed back down to Silver Bay. My goal was to cover a leisurely 10 miles on Thursday afternoon, then follow it up with a harder day on Friday. I felt good leaving the Penn Blvd parking lot, moving at about a 16 min/mile pace, jogging and sightseeing. This section includes the Bean and Bear Lake overlooks, which is beautiful. I cruised easily, moving up and down and around the trail until I hit the peak of Mt. Trudee. The view from the top is beautiful, I stopped for a moment to eat some jelly beans, put some K-tape on my heels (I was wearing my old trail shoes and they were cutting up the skin on my heels).

I coasted back to Penn Blvd and hit my car about sunset, felt great and was surprised to have covered almost 15 miles, which was more than I anticipated.  I headed back to camp, showered, ate a sandwich, and hit the hay. Woke up about 5:30, broke camp, ate a bunch of oatmeal, and headed up to George Manitou State Park for day two. I had stuffed my bike in the trunk of my car, so I broke that out, loaded up my pack with all the necessities, and biked from the GMSP aid station back down the gravel road to the Finland Rec Center trailhead. By doing this 7 mile ride I avoided having to run an out-and-back, which I don’t like to do. After ditching my bike in the woods, I ran from Finland the 11.5 or so miles back up to GMSP. It’s a nice section of trail; despite being the highest section of the Superior 100 in terms of overall elevation, it’s devoid of any spectacular views, but you do get to see Sonju Lake, and it follows a beautiful river for a while.

I refueled and loaded up the water again at my car, then headed north on the trail. The run down to the Manitou river is fast and beautiful, especially since you’re running in the shaded side of the gorge this time of the day. After crossing the Manitou, the real fun begins. The climb out of the gorge is steep and long, with a few false peaks. I was so slow on this section, I really needed to dig deep and run fast for the rest of out and back. Which unfortunately meant I had to re-do the Manitou gorge. Despite the difficulty of this section, I was glad to do it twice so I have a better idea of what’s coming to me during the night at Superior this fall.

View from Mt Trudee

When all was said and done I logged 45 good miles of trail in a 24 hour span. My fitness felt good, even after getting worked twice by the Manitou river I was still able to keep running whenever the trail allowed it. I wasn’t even all that sore the following day. I know I’ll be physically ready for the 100, and I was glad to have another good opportunity to test my mindset as September creeps up.

#9 - My Running Watch

While being a slave to technology is the antithesis of trail running, purchasing a decent gps running watch has had a large positive impact on my improvement as a runner. While it is possible to run 'free', most runners prefer to know a little bit about their miles covered and time splits. Also, having a good idea of what your heart rate is doing is an important part of Z2 80/20 running. While it's possible to use a rating of perceived exertion to get some idea of the effort your putting out during a run, I'm guessing my notions of PRE would've been way off without a heart rate monitor to calibrate my personal PRE scale. Now that I've been running with a HRM for a consistent amount of time, I'm actually fairly comfortable leaving the technology at home and going free. Had I not put in the time to learn how my own PRE related to my heart rate, I promise I would've been training way too hard while trying to go easy.

In addition to making Z2 running much more effective, any decent GPS watch will give you access to some sort of training app, or can link to a free Strava account. Instead of having to constantly log your runs in a book or spreadsheet, you can let the app do the tracking for you. While I still tend to put some info into a spreadsheet as part of a whole training plan, it's nice to know that all my relevant data is stored in the Garmin Connect app, and I only need to spend a few minutes a week transposing and thinking about my data.

The watch I'm using is a Garmin Forerunner 230. Compared to other watches out there now it's a fairly low end device, but for a beginner to intermediate runner it serves me well. It wasn't a super expensive investment and it tracks time, distance, and heart rate. One thing I like about it is that it requires a separate heart rate monitor strap. All the reviews I've been reading of wrist-based HRM indicate that even now it's not accurate enough to be a reliable training tool. If you're getting precise with Zone training, a few beats per minute can be a big deal over the long haul.

I also like the Connect app that comes with any Garmin watch. Gone are the days of trying to combine the interval timer on my Timex with the stopwatch to run different workouts. With the 230 I can program my desired times, intervals, distances, etc into a workout in the Connect app, and then sync it to my watch. When I go out to do the workout, the watch keeps track of interval times, how many intervals I've done, recovery periods, etc. You start the workout, and when the watch beeps and vibrates you know it's time to switch intervals. Couldn't be easier.

The only drawback I find with this particular watch is that it doesn't give me real time elevation gain data, so if I'm targeting a particular amount of climbing for a workout, I need to know where I'm running, how much climb a particular section has, and how many times I need to repeat that section. This probably wouldn't be a huge deal if I lived near mountains and just had to run uphill for a long time, but here in the midwest my only reliable way to get sufficient climbing in is to run a lot of repeats on the few decent hills I can find. Tracking and planning this can be a pain, but I'm not sure it would justify shelling out more dough for a nicer model watch that can track this.

Overall, if you're serious about training, a decent GPS watch is almost a must-have in today's world. Sure you can get by with a regular timex or no watch at all, but most people find that it's hard to improve without data letting you know how your're doing.

Training - 5 easy miles. Go for a big volume week.

#8 - Listen To Your Body

After a hard workout Wednesday morning and an easy recovery effort Wednesday evening, I was feeling fairly wiped yesterday. Between a busy day of family and work activity I took an unscheduled but needed off day Thursday. I was very tired Thursday night and not super motivated to crank out a run when I woke up this morning. I prepped my gear last night before bed, slept hard for a good eight hours, but woke up still feeling stiff and unmotivated. Instead of hitting my morning run (the first of two I had planned for today), I woke up, fired up some coffee, did some stretching and voodoo flossing (see Starrett's Ready to Run for details on the floss) and then took some time to relax and catch up on some reading until my kids woke up.

As my day rolls on, instead of the heavy legs and flagging motivation I'd probably be experiencing all day, I'm feeling rested, and my motivation to crush the hill workout I've got planned for this evening has returned.

What's the point of this rant? Sometimes it's easy to get carried away by the idea of motivation, and that somehow if you don't get up and get after it everyday even if it feels like hell, you're a lazy sloth. I think that motivation is a good barometer. I know I'm motivated to do what it takes to complete my first hundred this fall; it's practically all I think about, sunup to sundown. So when my motivation flags, it's not that I'm lazy or slacking, it's usually a sign that I need to back off a bit and let my training sink in. When my body's ready to roll again, it usually gives me plenty of signs, like a giant craving to go out and get some wind in my hair while I hit the trails.

Training - Hill repeats at the local ski run, 10x up and down.

#7 - Mix It Up

One of the drawbacks of being a runner in Minnesota is December, January, and February. And March, and part of April. Actually that's five drawbacks. Often in the winter months running on either pavement or trails is a slippery, dangerous affair. After messing up a knee on ice in February of 2017 and nearly missing my first ultra, I avoided winter outdoor running like the plague this year. I stuck to the treadmill at the gym for most of the indoor months. I also mixed in some cross training, like staring at the bottom of the pool for an hour twice a week, or staring at my TV while perched on my cycle trainer for a few hours a week. Exciting stuff. By late March I couldn't take it anymore and started trying my luck on trails that were a complicated mess of snow, ice, puddles, and mud. Thankfully I pulled through unscathed.

All of this makes me appreciate the spring, when I can mix it up on trials, pavement, uphills, downhills, mud, grass, etc. Varying the terrain, as well as the type of runs or rides keeps it interesting, and helps strengthen different muscle groups and keeps repetitive motion injuries at bay.

Enjoy the summer while it lasts.

Training - 45 Min run, 6 x 1 min V02 Max intervals with 90 sec rest in between.