20131015 adventures

6 runs since welcome winter, and i thought things were going well.  After todays debacle, it seems there are somethings that need adjusting.

Just shy of 40 miles with a little less than 5,000' of gain, nothing spectacular, and nothing impressive either.

today's run was the coup de grâce.  it was supposed to be an easy jaunt, i knew i was a little light on calories over the past 2 days, and was planning on taking it pretty slow and enjoying the scenery.  When i got to Crowder State Park in North Carolina, it was too tempting to run to South Carolina (an easy 8 mile jog over Kings Pinnacle, and along a ridgeline), how could i resist.

Everything started out fine, a nice easy climb over just under 2 miles and some great views (pictures to come, i left my cable at home, so am unable to get the photos off my camera yet), then a fun little rolling 6.5 mile section dipping into south carolina for the turn around.  
At the turn around, i felt a bit tired, but figured i'd be ok, jogging back at the same pace i held on the way out.  After about 2 miles on the way back, things began to really fall apart.  At this time, i was beginning to think i could use some water and something to eat (it would have been good to think of this a couple hours ago when i decided to go without either).  The ups turned into walks (though none of them were terribly steep, nor where they long).  I was still able to cruise the descents pretty well, and found a little solace in that.  It's kind of like coasting down on a bike, is my body getting acclimated to just letting gravity do the work?  it seems as such.

But i pay severely on the climbs.  With about 3 miles left, things got even worse.  i was feeling extremely haggard, my legs were aching, and my body was depleted.  I don't recall feeling this depleted on any of my runs.  I was a bit dizzy, and looking for one of those many benches i'd seen on the way out.  on a couple of occasions, i sat down along the side of the trail hoping things would straighten out, and i'd feel better again.

this never happened.  i kept moving forward as i figured the sooner i get back to the car, the sooner i could get some water and calories.  as i came around the side of kings pinnacle (i was eager to avoid any climbing i could and anxious to make my way back down to the part visitor center).  I saw a sign indicating there were only 2 miles left, a glimmer of hope, though i was still sinking further into the depths of depletion.

I took a slightly different route back, hoping it would be shorter, and less technical (as i remember the pinnacle trail having 1 or 2 somewhat technical rocky sections, which i was eager to avoid in my wonky state).  i made it back to the visitor center, and sat in the rental car for several minutes before i could muster the ambition or energy to walk to the water fountain fill my bottle.

i drank a bit form the fountain and some from the bottle on my way back to the car.  i then sat down again, and felt myself growing nauseous.  i had no desire to eat, and was now feeling nauseous, great, i need liquid and food, and all i want to do is throw it up.

i laid the seat back and stayed there for 10 - 15 minutes waiting to feel like i could drive to get some food and liquid.  i made it to the grocery store about 3 miles away, and again laid the seat back and tried not to throw up.  i stayed there another 15 - 20 minutes before i was able to muster the ambition to go into the store and get something to try and settle my stomach and regain my strength.

I went in, grabbed a 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk, a box of mango juice, 2 liters of coke, some yogurt (planning for breakfast), some black berries, and a bunch of bananas.  The woman at the checkout looked quizzically at the blackberries, and asked "do you eat these", i was a bit surprised and responded "yes, they are super tasty".

I drank a bit of the mango juice, and some coke, and again laid the seat back and hoped it would stay down.  After another 10 minutes i started to feel a bit better, and actually found myself actually thinking about food.  a good steak.

on my way back to Charlotte, i stopped by Old Stone Steakhouse, and had a very tasty meal.  things contiued to turn around, and i was feeling back to normal, except i was strangely full with relatively little food.

Looking back on the previous week, it seems i have been neglecting eating.  thinking back, i can't remember eating too much, and the food i've been eating has been low grade.  maybe 1 or 2 meals a day of some eggs a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, maybe some pasta.  tonight i sat down to dinner, and had trouble eating a small salad, 20oz steak, a small yam, and a medium piece of cake (normally i am able to eat this and plenty more, especially after a 3.5 hour run).

Now that the house is in a pretty stable and livable condition, I'll be trying to focus on much higher quality and more consistent eating habits and see if that helps turn things around.

Welcome Winter

i had a couple short higher effort runs on monday and tuesday, neither was fantastic, both were pretty much on roads, and just to try to satisfy my desire to be out and running again.  then work and life (the temperatures are really starting to drop, 20's at night and 50's during the day, so getting a furnace and some form of heat took priority over running).  The good news, i have a gas fireplace, which is now working, and does a good job of keeping the house around 60 degrees.

Saturday was time for the welcome winter run, apparently an annual event in the making, started last year, and continued this year.  The group began to assemble at City on a Hill Coffee shop at a little after 6 am.  It was a bit cold (around 20), but spirits where high.  Due to the previous nights snow the original route was abandoned for what turned out to be a really fun loop from the fish hatchery over to hagerman pass via mt massive, and back.   John promised to run faster than everyone and flag the non obvious turns.

After a little food and drink, everyone began piling into cars, and off we went to begin our adventure. it was a little beyond brisk at the start, a small amount of fresh snow covered the ground as we began up the fire road our of the fish hatchery.  We carried on, Mike performing heel clicks and spinning off rocks.  we carried on up the initial climb into the mt massive wilderness area, periodically regrouping.

we took a couple wrong turns and lost on several occasions, but managed to find it again and continue on our way.  there were a couple creek crossings, one of which warranted balancing on a log, and resulted in milo (Ryan? and Leah's dog) over the creek:

and we were off once again.  after a couple more crossings of this creek, we were climbing up through the far sides of mt massive, and had some great views of mt massive as well as a group photo op, as everyone was once again together:

As we were cresting the ridge to head down into hagerman pass, we were above tree line, and greeted with a good bit of wind and rocky trail.  It was pretty fun to watch the snake of color ahead of me:

A little shaky, and blurry in the beginning, but it gives an idea of the wind and train of color.

After that there was another fun little descent and some deep snow sections:

 taking us down to the Hagerman tunnel, which once connected leadville and basalt via the midland railroad.

We again regrouped here and ate a bit enjoying the warmth of the sun, and discussing the remaining route:  we'd continue down hagerman pass, then start up towards sugarloaf on the leadville 100 course, hopping back on the colorado trail around the top of sugarloaf and following that to highline and rock creek trails back to the fish hatchery.

The group began to stretch out again here.  once we started up towards sugarloaf, most chose to hike up and enjoy the views of turquoise lake and the surrounding area:

Once on the colorado trail we were greeted with some fun little rolling sections.

All in all it was a great little adventure, and warmed up nicely.  The route was excellent, and the fact that there were so many great people and we all stayed pretty close together once we finished the initial climb made it all the better.

This year's route brought to you by John, Mike and Garmin:


Welcome Winter!

Some more photos can be found here:

Minimal running, but some fun adventures

and some new cold weather gear

There hasn't been a lot of running going on, to be honest, since finishing leadville, and a couple since completing virgil crest ultra 50.  Those few runs have proven to be pretty entertaining, looking back on them makes them even more so.

1 run in particular is worth a short story.  I was helping mark the UROC 100k course between Frisco and Copper Mountain, which happened to cross the 10 mile range.  The day started out pretty gloomy, with some snow and rain.

I headed down to Frisco to meet up with Mike and a couple others that were going to help mark the course.  around 12 we started out on the trek which would climb up over the 10 mile range, and take us up around 12,500'.  This promised to have some good weather in store for us, and it made good on the promise.

The first couple miles were spent climbing up a dirt road before turning into some pretty fun single track, that continued climbing.  the 3 of us (Brian, Sandi, and myself) were enjoying a leisurely climb, alternating between a jog and a hike.  Making sure to put surveyor flags every so often to make sure the runners would be able to follow the course tomorrow.

some comments were made regarding there being less snow then expected.  then we got above tree line, and were hiking through snow a little over ankle deep and making our way up to the ridge.  spirits were still high, though it was starting to get a little chilly (good thing i brought my patagonia houdini, a very light and thin wind breaker:  i'm getting better at this preparation thing).  once we were on the ridge, things got pretty real.

the banter stopped, the flags started to get placed a little farther apart.  the wind was howling, the snow was coming down sideways, and we were all getting cold.  everybody added all the layers they had.  Of course, in all my preparation, i had a hat (which was serving as a glove by now), an asics cold weather running shirt, shorts, and of course my magic houdini.  at this point we could see about 100 yards in front of us, and the pace was quickening.  everybody was ready to get off the ridge and out of the winds and snow.

Patagonia Houdini

The houdini stored in it's pocket for convenient carrying

ice covered my legs (literally, i had balls of ice all over my legs, on the windward side), the windward side of my face was starting to freeze, literally, ice was forming on my eyelashes and eyebrows and obscuring my vision on that side. I put my hood up and was thinking how grim things were beginning to look.  My hands were so cold, they stopped working correctly.

1 hand was wrapped in the glove to keep warm, the other i tucked under my shirt next to my body to try and warm it.  i would rotate the hands every so often to try to keep some dexterity.  I was looking around and hoping we'd come to the descent and get back into the trees for some shelter from this beating we were taking.

then about 1/2 way through the ridge section, we lost the trail, or rather re-routed the race course, along a ridge, then down through a rock field back to the actual trail.  at this point we were moving pretty good, the lead runner (yes we were doing everything we could to run at this point, despite the close to knee deep snow that we would punch through periodically) would place a flag, the other two would continue around.  wash rinse repeat.

this continued for what seemed like an eternity, in reality it was probably 1 - 2 miles of extreme discomfort and cold like i haven't experienced in a while (and i've been without heat for all of september).  finally we began to descend and the snow thinned out, revealing lots of rocks and a pretty steep descent on technical footing.  at this point the banter was starting to come back, things were warming up, and we were back to having a good time.

we enjoyed some really fun single track descent over the next several miles and a fun little flat section before crossing the 91, and making our way through copper mountain and into where the aid station would be.

that was a very tough and fun little section.  there were times i was thinking:

 i worked so hard to try and make sure i was prepared so i wouldn't be that guy that search and rescue was looking for, and now i'm galavanting over this pass in some pretty severe weather (temps in the 20's and winds gusting around 40mph with snow:  these are all estimates on my part, so i'm sure it's a bit off), at least i'm with 2 other people, both with tights, gloves, hats, and multiple jackets.  just keep moving forward and get out of this weather.

When it was all said and done, it wasn't that bad (definitely a hindsight thing).  I did learn a bit, and gained more respect for the mountains, and the weather they offer up.  I went out and bought some cold weather gear:

knickers (yep 3/4 tights)

Marmot Mica a more substantial shell than the houdini

Marmot Mica stored in it's pocket

The houdini in it's pocket, next to the mica in it's pocket for comparison

black diamond liner gloves (not as warm as i expected, but definitely has to be better than bare hands)

With that, I believe i'm prepared for this weekends welcome winter run, i forget the details, but its' something like 60k (37ish miles) over 3 or 4 passes, including hope pass (around 12,500'), and of course all the 50 degree weather we've had this week, is leaving.  Being replaced with some nice 20 degree weather, and snow.  looks like i'll be carrying some cold weather gear, good think i'm more prepared than i was last week.

if this goes well, maybe i'll actually get up on some of those ridgelines i've been eyeing??  one adventure at a time.