August 14, 2003

    One of the interesting things that I noticed was that as I started my hard training in June and July, I started eating a lot more -- I started getting very hungry quite often. So exercise definitely helps the appetite! This is also about the time that I started losing weight and body fat.

    All of my trail running miles are lumped in with hiking in this graph, but they generally represent non-flat mileage for the most part. Maybe next year, I'll keep track of them separately. I climbed my first 14'er of the season in May -- it was enlightening to experience the effects of altitude again -- this inspired me to do a lot more altitude training this summer.    

Two months before the race

    I received my race packet around the beginning of June. Now the race was starting to feel very tangible! I began my training in earnest. My goal was not to focus on distance (for instance, being able to run 20 flat miles) as would be typical for a flat marathon. Instead I focused on improving my cardiorespiratory endurance and  developing the musculature in my legs and upper body needed to ascend the 7815 vertical feet and then run down safely.

    My typical training week consisted of one or two trail runs up nearby mountains in Lory and Horsetooth parks, an occasional flat run (about every other week), some walking and biking on my easy days, and a long hike up a couple of 14'ers. Within a few weeks, I started noticing great improvement in my cardiorespiratory endurance -- going uphill was getting noticeably easier, so I started going faster, even throwing in some running on the uphills. As I ramped into my training, I started experiencing some problems when running uphill -- my muscles would get very tight and painful after running even a short distance uphill, plus it seemed like my Achilles tendon was getting pulled -- these are typical problems experienced when someone starts doing hill-climbing. The exertion of the muscles causes little tears which the body then repairs (that partly what causes muscle soreness). However, if you don't stretch, the muscles get shorter and shorter as these tears are repaired  -- this is not good since your bones don't get any shorter. This places more stress on your ligaments and soon injuries such as pulled tendons can become a problem (especially with the Achilles tendon). I started doing some stretches for about 15 minutes every night before bed and my muscles started feeling a lot better. 

    As my problems with soreness and tendonitis went away, I found that I still had a lot of pain in the back of one of my heels, which turned out to be due to the trail running shoes I had bought. I started running in my regular flat running shoes and found that the problem went away. These shoes soon wore out (and it was past time to replace them anyway). I bought a second pair of running shoes, but found that they gave me hotspots while running downhill. So I bought my third pair of running shoes -- this time I went back to the tried and true, buying the same brand and model as my old flat-runners, the Brooks Adrenaline GTS. These shoes are very comfortable for my feet, but don't offer a lot of ankle support.  Although it seems counterintuitive,  I've decided that this is a good thing for technical trail running. Here's why -- the more flexible the shoe, the more your foot has a chance to react to the terrain and balance as your weight rolls onto that foot. A lot of trail runner are very stiff, especially around the ankles (this is what was causing the pain in the back of my heel) -- the ankle support helps keep your ankles from rolling on most every step -- until the time when you really roll it bad. Shoes that are more flexible allow your foot and ankles to become stronger, and with practice, your foot-eye coordination can improve to the point where you can run strong on the downhills with minimal ankle support. Unfortunately I didn't figure this out until about halfway through the summer. My right ankle had rolled several times in my trail running shoes, and it has been weak for the rest of the summer.

    10 weeks before the race, I laid out my training schedule, adjusting it as needed. To view it, click here. One of the things that really helped my training was the fact that I had a great group of people to train with. During our mid-week trail runs, I often ran with Phil Klotzbach, Dan Turk, and Jotham Matabi. The camaraderie was great and I'm sure I trained more than I would have otherwise, especially since training often involved waking up at 4:30 AM so that we could get most of our run in before it got hot (July was the hottest month on record for Fort Collins).  My weekend training was great as well, as I had another great group to climb 14'ers with nearly every weekend. I ended up climbing 11 various 14'ers before the race. I'm sure all the altitude training will help on Pikes. Towards the end of the summer I noticed that I started to have much more power and endurance at high altitude. My best workout was probably 4 weeks before the race on Holy Cross. According to Phil, we climbed the last 3500 vertical feet to the top in only an hour and a half! If I could sustain this on Pikes, it would translate into to an ascent time of roughly 3.5 hrs!  I'm planning on taking it slower than that so I can have lots of energy on the downhill. The day before we did Holy Cross, some Eric Sigler, Dan Turk, and Phil Klotzbach ran up to the top of Mount Massive via the standard route (7.3 miles, 4400 vertical feet). Eric's time to the top was only 2h5m, and Phil and Dan were close behind. This was probably their peak training performance of the season. One of the best things about climbing the 14'ers this summer is that I've been able to calibrate how hard I can push the pace for an extended period of time without getting sick. I've found that pushing faster than 2000 feet per hour at altitude will definitely cause suffering, usually sooner rather than later. I think on Pikes, the key will be to maintain a steady rate of vertical climb, not a steady horizontal pace.    

Three weeks before the race

    According to some, your hardest training run should be 3 weeks before the race. This will allow your muscles time to heal and rest so that they can be at their prime on race day.  Unfortunately, this was just the time I took my summer vacation this year, so I substituted lots of low intensity walks and hikes, a training run, and a hike down into the Grand Canyon. Altogether I put in 43 miles and 10,000 feet of vertical that week, so it was a good base-building opportunity.  I was feeling really strong by this point.  In the middle of the next week, I was able to run all the way to the top of Horsetooth Rock (5.5 miles, 2000) without stopping, the first time I've been able to do that! In my exuberance, I immediately turned my ankle on the downhill!  Thankfully it wasn't a bad sprain (it didn't swell to the size of a basketball or turn purple), but it was still a major setback which has affected the rest of training regimen.

Two weeks before the race

    By this point, I am starting to avoid all extremely strenuous activity. Exactly two weeks before the race I did my last hard workout -- Longs Peak. I was hiking with some slower people however, so the intensity of the exercise was fairly low, but it was a long day. I'm also avoiding trail running to help my ankle heal. The last thing I want to have to worry about is trying to go 26 miles on a bum ankle, so I'm avoiding all hill running at this point. I may be sacrificing a bit of sharpness in my training at this point, but I think it will pay off. So instead I went flat running a couple times this week and ended up setting a PR for the 10 K distance -- it's nice to see all the training starting to pay off! Since the weather has been hot, I've been wearing shorts and I must say, I'm proud of how my legs are looking these days :)  But the real question is -- Will they be able to carry me up and down Pikes? 

One week before the race

    This week is the meat of the taper -- I'm avoiding all strenuous activity, but still trying to get some moderate exercise in most every day. This is the part of training that is not so physical -- much more mental. I've been reading a lot about the race online -- the first-hand accounts by people including first-timers, like me, have been inspiring.   I'm also trying to focus more on my diet to make sure that I'm getting a balanced diet. I've been losing weight for the past month (probably due to all my heavy training) -- I'm going to make sure that I don't skimp on food this week. I went out to Walmart and bought a bunch of my favorite foods, so I'll be eating the good stuff this weekend. On Tuesday, I went out to eat with Jotham at Taj Mahal for a birthday dinner -- I loaded up with lots of great Indian food (very fattening, hence very satisfying). I doubt Indian food is the ideal carbo-loading, but I figure the splurge might help me, as I've been feeling tired and anemic the past week.  

    Visualize success! It has been easy for me to get nervous about the race, so I'm concentrating on keeping a positive attitude. One thing that helps is to visualize myself on the course, imagining what challenges may come my way, and how I will successfully overcome them. 

    Stretch! Even though I'm not doing any heavy duty exercise, it is still important to keep my muscles from getting too tight by stretching.

Two days before the race

    The most important thing at this stage is to get lots of rest, something that has been difficult for all summer, and especially the past week. I'm not sure if it is nerves about the race, stress from work, or just my typically hectic daily schedule, but this week I've been getting around 5-6 hrs of sleep.  I've done several longs hikes this summer on only a couple hours sleep and it was not very helpful. Although I performed well on those hikes, I think I could have enjoyed it a lot more if I had been well rested. I'm going to try taking a Tylenol PM to ensure I get some good rest before the race. For more on the need for sufficient sleep during training, try reading this article.

    Another important thing to keep in mind is carbo-loading. I plan on eating lots of spaghetti, bread, and fruits the couple days prior to the race. But another thing to keep mind is not to overeat!  Eating too much before a race can leave you clogged up and feeling sluggish for obvious reasons. On the diet front, I'm also going to try a couple other things -- blueberries and raisins. Blueberries are supposed to help improve your balance. Raisins have lots of iron (which is what your body uses to manufacture hemoglobin which is what binds the oxygen to your red blood cells, if I understand correctly), plus they're loaded with antioxidants, which should help my body repair the damage caused by free radicals. I don't know if either of these will really help, but hey, I figure it can't hurt -- at least it will give me a mental placebo effect.  

    To help prepare on the mental front, it is important to make sure that I am healthy on the emotional front. I'm trying to make sure that I won't be carrying any added stress or emotional baggage up the mountain with me. Although I've been stressing about my Master's thesis the past few months, I'm putting that on the back-burner for the next couple days (don't worry Wayne, I'll be ready to hit it with renewed vigor next week, especially since I'll be too sore to do anything else :)  I've taken some time over the past week to reflect on why I run and race, and what I hope to get out of these (for more on this, see my personal running history). I've also tried to focus in on my interpersonal relationships with my friends and family -- starting over the weekend, I've been getting in touch with long lost friends.  The more people I know I have rooting for me, the easier it will be vanquish the mountain! Finally, I've been spending time to think about who I am on a  spiritual and personal level. I view the race as an ultimate test, not just of my physical abilities, but of who I am as a person. As such, it offers a chance to examine the core of who I am, and whether that is what I want to be. I'm asking questions like: 

    Have I been living my life the way I want to up to this point?

    If not, what things would I change?  

    Are there any people in my life that I have been keeping at a distance due to problems with our relationship?

    Who do I wish I could spend more time with?

    If I were to die today, what would I wish that I had done differently?

    This may be a morbid way of thinking, but I think such introspection is important in order to live a full complete life. I think it's good to ask these questions often, especially before a race, because you never know what will happen -- we all have a date with death. It may be today or another 60 years. No, I don't have a death wish -- I have a 'life wish'. To me the race is one aspect of life -- to not race would be to not be living life to the fullest. I'm haven't done this training just to reap some health benefits (although they may be considerable), but because I really enjoy the mountains. The scenery is just one aspect of mountain culture -- another is the social aspects -- I've had the chance to spend some quality time with wonderful friends this summer. Training for the race has been a good excuse to do lots of amazing things this summer.

The day before the race

    Obviously, I don't want to do anything to screw up the race, like wear myself out or get food poisoning. I'll be getting up early to drive down to Colorado Springs with Dan, Eric, and Jotham. We're planning on attending church, then taking an easy walk in Garden of the Gods or Florissant Fossil Beds NM). I'll eat a moderate amount of healthy food, and just generally take it easy and hang out with friends. At this stage, it will be hard not to think about the race, but one thing that will help to contain the stress is to remember all my training, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.  Just creating this race diary has been therapeutic in that regard. Finally, I'm going to get a good night's rest. 

Race Day!

Stretch!

    Eat a good breakfast!

    Keep a positive attitude no matter what!

    Go at my own pace!  Don't go too fast and don't go too slow!

    Remember that surfer girl is not in the mountains!

    Remember the joy of running! 

    Enjoy the views!

    Have fun!

Goals

    I think that I have already laid out my training philosophy, so by this point, you probably realize that going fast is not my number 1 priority. I've already accomplished many of my goals in my training. Here are my goals for race day:

    1. To enjoy the experience to the fullest.

    2. To feel well during and after the race.

    3. To experience the camaraderie of having 600 people all tackling the same huge mountain as me.

    4. If my pacing is such that goals 1-3 are being accomplished, I hope to ascend in 4h30m and descend in 2h30m for a total time of 7h0m.

Thus, my strategy is to push relatively hard going up, but still walk briskly nearly all the way (I'll probably jog a bit near the start and in the flat stretches). I don't want to push so hard that I become nauseous, because then I won't be able to effectively refuel and rehydrate which will set me up for a bonk later. I particularly want to hit the top with enough energy and strength to be able to run all the way down. Since downhill running is my favorite kind of running, I think I can excel in this part of the race, provided that I have enough energy and mental awareness at this point in the race.

Stay tuned -- here are the upcoming entries for my race diary.

August 15, 2003                    Today's entry will be dedicated to some of the people that I'll be running with

August 16, 2003                    Today's entry will be a final update on my thoughts -- we'll be heading down to Colorado Springs early in the morning.

August 17, 2003                    RACE DAY!  Please keep me in your thoughts.

August 18, 2003                    The day after . . .

Go to the next day in this diary