Mountain Monkeys - Mountain and road biking, trail running, skiing, and whatever else I do, mostly in the mountains (or hills)
 

Convincing Myself of Half Marathon: My Longest Run To Date

I am very happy with the outcome of yesterday's run.  I set out to do a long one, to get close to or do a half marathon distance, to see what that's like and prove to myself I can do that at the upcoming Haulin Aspen.  I wound up running even further than I planned, covering about 14 some-odd miles (my watch said 14.89, but it tends to overestimate a bit).  What I bummed about is that I simply can't seem to understand how I'm supposed to know how much ascent/descent I've done from my watch.  The watch tracks this, but I fail to see how to actually see the numbers!  The manual is not helpful.  I am curious because I'd like to know if I was at about the same as the Haulin Aspen will be (1300'), or more, or less.  VERY back of the napkin calculations would put me somewhere between 1000-1500', but with all the little ups and downs, it could be more.  

I felt really good during the run.  I didn't feel I was running a very fast pace, but I also didn't walk too much either.  My time was 2 hours 18 minutes, so that's a high 9 minute/mile pace assuming it was 14 miles.  That works.  Haulin Aspen will be harder for sure, simply due to the heat (my #1 concern), and the wildcard of the altitude (sometimes it affects me, sometimes it doesn't, thus "wildcard" status).  Yesterday I tried out a new hydration pack, the Nathan HPL #008.  This went a lot better than the other pack I tried last week, and this one is going to work really really well.  It fits great, was comfy to run in, and I really like the front pockets on the shoulder straps.  I was able to carry 50oz of water, of which I drank about 40-45 yesterday (was 75 degrees out), and carry some gels, and my iPhone.  The phone did start bouncing around a lot towards the end when I'd consumed the gels that it was sharing the zippered pocket with.  I'll have to think about the best way to alleviate that in the future.  Anyway, I plan to use this pack in the race.

Another thing I've surprised myself a bit with is how much I like Honey Stinger "gold" gels.  I normally don't like super sweet stuff, but damn if these don't taste just awesome on the trail! They are a bit like a somewhat more liquid packet of honey, and I am just loving them right now.  I would say my mainstays are still a variety of gels from Hammer, in particular the Banana, Espresso, and I'm now trying their new Montana Huckleberry.  But the Honey Stingers, especially towards the end, are great.  They're easier to consume as they're more liquidy (than most gels, except maybe those crazy 4x salt versions of the Powergels), and their taste just really hits the spot when you're worked (although so do the Banana Hammer gels).

This morning, I'm feeling good.  Just hanging around, I feel very little residual soreness or what not from the run, which is great.  I know if I were to go run I'd be feeling it for sure, but feel I've recovered pretty well.

Filed under  //   running  
Posted July 15, 2010
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Heat and More Heat

We've had a heat wave here in Eugene this past week.  Nothing like the temps of the last place I lived (Rocklin, CA), where things routinely hit 100, but still, quite hot for Eugene (upper 90's).  On Thursday I went out for a run in the morning, wanting to beat the heat.  I went in the morning, and it was only about 80 degrees.  However, I was definitely feeling it.  I had a bit of residual tiredness from Tuesday's run on top of that.  I had wanted to do a bigger run, around 10 miles, but it became evident early on that that wasn't going to happen.  I wound up doing 8.5 miles, and finishing a water bottle before the end of my run (have never done that before).  I was completely soaked in sweat by the finish.  And, upon arriving home, checked my weight, to find I was 4+ pounds down from the morning!  That includes having had more water in the car on the way home, and when I got home.  Ya, dehydrated for sure.

On Friday, I planned to take the day off, due to the very high temps (was supposed to hit 98), and the dehydration and such from the day before.  But, I was just restless, and had to get out.  So, in the middle of the afternoon, I went for a short road ride.  Temps ranged from 95-99 during the ride, depending on where I was.  I even chose to do the McBeth climb simply because it was tree lined/shaded, as compared to nearly every other road I could do on a shorter ride.  Strangely, this heat didn't bother me nearly as much.  On the bike it helps that you have a 15-20mph "wind" simply due to riding, but I was surprised the heat didn't get me as bad.  Coming back up McLean on the way home was quite hot, but all in all, not bad.  

Saturday I did wind up taking off, had a nice family day.  Weather cooled down a bit into the mid to upper 80's.  Spent some time outside, but just hanging out with my kids and relaxing.

Sunday I got to get on the mountain bike, and went off to do Goodman-Eagles again.  I started the ride at 11am, and it was in the mid-70's.  But man, I don't know if it was more humid in amongst all the trees or what, but it became a serious sweat fest.  It was in the 80's by the end of the ride, but even 20 minutes in I was sweating heavily.  This is a solid ride, with 2500 feet of climbing in the first hour and 15 minutes, getting up to the Eagle's Rest summit.  I hadn't really realized it was that much, and that helps explain why it's a pretty solid ride for a shorter ride (total ride time is 2 hours).  Met Ken and Scott at the base of Eagles, and then led them up to the top.  We hung out and talked for a while, about the relatively unknown, yet somewhat epic surfing on the Oregon coast, Eugene's difficult job market, and so on.  Then it was time to head down.

Somewhere on the first segment down, I had a very hard rock-to-rim hit on my front wheel.  At the base of Eagle's I thought it was fine.  Checked the wheel, tire, etc., all seemed ok, and I've had these before, so wasn't worried.  But, riding a bit more, realized the tire was going flat.  I stopped and assumed I just needed to inflate it a bit, it'd probably burped or lost a bit, and the tubeless sealant just needed a bit of air and a spin, etc., so I told Ken and Scott I was fine.  Of course though, the sealant didn't seem to be doing the job.  This sealant is quite old (more than 7 months), so I figured it'd probably just run dry or what not.  I inflated a bit, gave a spin, and figured I'd ride a bit more and see if I could get it to seal up.  But nope, a short ways later, air as getting low, and I pushed it too far, rolling the tire and sliding out.  At that point it was time to put a tube in.  To continue the good times, the tube I had was a 26" tube, so it took a bit of work to get it stretched around the rim, and then a lot of work, oddly enough, to get the tire back on (I hadn't recalled these tires being so tough to mount - maybe they too were feeling the heat).  Finally, I got it all put back together and headed down again.

By now though, the mojo, the flow, was gone.  I was riding somewhat lamely, and just had to take it down a notch or two.  No way I was going to catch back up to Scott & Ken.  Oh well. Made it back, and it was still a good ride.  I just can't seem to catch a break on Goodman's in terms of unusual mechanicals.  But, this is also a sign that it's time to do some real bike maintenance.  I need to put the new pedal spindles in, new sealant in the tires (and maybe replace that front one), a good cleaning and tune, etc.  Regardless, it's great to be riding my mtb again, and I hope I can continue to get some good rides in.  And now, on Monday, it appears our heat wave has left us for the day.  We'll see if I get out today though, busy day, and I'm a bit tired.  But, given that I see we're supposed to see temps back in the mid-80's again this week, I might have to get out there...

Filed under  //   cycling   running  
Posted July 12, 2010
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A Close Call On Today's Run

Today has been a warm day, currently it says 85, and just a bit ago when I was on a run on the Ridgeline trails, it said 83.  Luckily Ridgeline is heavily treed and I suspect was 5 degrees or so cooler along the trail.  I was running a bit slow-ish today, after taking 3 days off.  I was also trying out a new running hydration pack from The North Face.  But more on that later.  The, uh, highlight (not) of the run was when I nearly got shish-kabobed by a falling tree branch.

Running back towards Fox Hollow from Willamette, a dead tree branch, roughly two feet long, and maybe two inches in diameter fell straight down like a spear, landing directly in front of me.  It was close enough that it nearly hit my legs and I sort of had to jump to avoid getting tripped up by it.  Thinking about it, if I'd been literally 1 second faster in my run, this thing probably would have speared me in the top of my head.  Based on the deep thud it made when it hit the ground, I am extremely glad it didn't hit my head.  I like to think it wouldn't have cracked my skull, but I guarantee it'd have made a mess of my scalp, and (not having much of a clue medically...) maybe knocked me out.  It'd surely have knocked me down.  Of course, saying that if I'd been "1 second faster" also means that if it'd been maybe 2 seconds faster it wouldn't have happened, and one can extrapolate that to know that this "near hit" probably was possible a few times today (I could hear lots of stuff falling today for some reason, although this was the only solid branch I saw hit/on the trail).

I will say, it didn't really freak me out much, other than for about a minute to think about, holy crap, that thing very nearly skewered me!  But since it didn't, that was about the extent of it.  This was somewhat interesting timing, given I've just read the "Of Life or Limb" chapter in Mark Jenkins super book "A Man's Life", which is about Aaron Ralston's arm amputation, several other people's, and generally about survival in such horrific situations.  It was slightly interesting to note that I have had a vaguely parallel Moab experience - having a terrible mountain bike crash there in 1992 a few weeks before my 21st birthday.  I was carried, ATV'ed, and then ambulanced to the Moab clinic, and then airlifted to St. Mary's hospital in Grand Junction (same hospitals as Ralston), where I spent a week.  Not that my experience compares, just an interesting tidbit for me to read.  Fortunately for me, unlike Ralston, I remember nothing of my accident, and have hardly any residual issues from it (minor nerve loss and extra tissue in my left hip, overlapped healing of my broken collar bone).  These things do make you think, but hopefully just enough to be prepared when you're out there, know it's possible to survive some really horrific things, and use that to prevent you from being a shut-in and not getting to experience this wonderful world we have available to us, whether it's simply your local city trails, or exploring unknown lands.

Aside from that, a fairly routine run.  Tested out a The North Face Enduro Boa hydration pack.  I'll review it later.  I'm only so-so on it, but probably need another run or two with it to see if I'll plan to use it.

Filed under  //   running  
Posted July 6, 2010
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A Morning Trail Run & Evening MTB Ride!

Yesterday was a great day!  My wife and I did a trail run in the morning (Spencer Butte, Fox Hollow), in the nice cool weather.  Then, in the evening, I got a great mountain bike ride in at Goodman-Eagles Rest.  I think this is only my second or third mtb ride of the year, and boy was it nice to be back on the bike.  I'd just posted complaining about lack of mtb, so it was great to get out there and ride, and have a great ride at that.  Or so it was by the end, it didn't start out great...

Roland and I met up at the Goodman Creek parking area at 6pm, and headed out.  Not even 5 minutes into the ride, and I can't seem to clip into my right pedal.  I look down to realize all I've got there is a pedal spindle!  I jump off and we track down my pedal.  We find that the bolt that holds the pedal body onto the spindle has somehow come off, but manage to hand tighten it (didn't have a socket to really crank it down), and that seems to hold for the rest of the ride.  This was not a good start, given the last time I rode here was when I broke my frame!  Anyway, we continued riding...

About 10 minutes later, Roland feels his chain or hub slipping, and as a result, painfully slams his knee into his fork.  Ouch.  We start to diagnose.  I then notice that there are a dozen or so teeth missing from his Gates belt drive belt/chain!  No wonder it was slipping!  Roland has been training for the Cascade Creampuff 100, and apparently he's just become so strong, so manly that he's now sheering teeth of belt drives!  Badass.  But also bad in that that ended his ride.  I continued though.

It was a gorgeous night, temps maybe around 60 give or take.  I made it up to the summit of Eagles Rest in 1 hour 12 minutes of ride time.  It wasn't sunset yet, so the photos were a bit harsh:

Felt really good though, especially given I'd run in the morning.  Had a Honey Stinger (wow, those are pretty much just a more liquidy honey (duh)!), and headed down.  What a great descent!  I'd forgotten that this was really quite a good ride.  I was on my rigid Niner, and some of the descent was a bit harsh.  Between this and a couple of other rides, I've been starting to wonder if I'm "over" the rigid, and want to put a fork on this bike.  The main downside though would be that it'd add about 1.5-2 lbs (the Niner steel fork is 1100g/2.4lbs), and one thing I just love about this bike is how light it is.  It's not even that light when compared to what folks consider really light bikes these days (mine weighs about 27lbs), but compared to my suspension bikes, etc., it's light and snappy.  I'll think about it some more.

Overall, it was a great day out on the trails, and I was thrilled to be back on my mountain bike.

Posted July 1, 2010
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Enjoying Running, Missing Riding

I've been running consistently for a couple months now, post ankle breakage.  I've really been enjoying it.  My fitness and running have both been improving nicely, and I've done some races for the first time in my life.  What I haven't been doing much of is cycling.  I've done all of one, or maybe two mountain bike rides this year, and maybe a half dozen road rides, if that.  I both miss riding, but also don't so much, which is a really weird thing for me, given how long I've been riding and that I consider it my one true passion, sports wise.

Part of this has been my seemingly increasing disappointment with the lack of good close trails for mountain biking.  Road riding here is pretty good, although I'm a bit bored with it at the moment, and road riding has always been more of a fitness thing for me.  Trail running has become somewhat of a stand-in for mountain biking.  It at least gets me on trails, which is really where I want to be.  But, I feel like I'm losing riding, and I'm not sure what to think about that at the moment: I'm both quite mad and frustrated about it, but also sort of feeling like it's just this moment in life.

What I'm holding on to right now is that I'm pretty excited to go run - I really want to run, and run most days.  There are days when I really need a rest, or I'm having some ankle or other joint pain from a longer run, and need a break, but most days I want to get out there.  That is super healthy in my mind, and I'm glad to have that.  One thing I'm slightly worried about is that I've started to yearn for other trails to run, aside from the Ridgeline trails (which are awesome, but I'm the kind of person that really needs variety).  I'll be heading to Pisgah soon, and I'd like to see about running on some of the mtb trails, like Goodman, South Willamette, Salmon Creek, Brice, and so on but darn it if those aren't a good 45+ minute drive away, and just become the same problem as mountain biking...  Once I have to spend nearing two hours in the car, it just becomes a real buzz kill, not to mention it all of a sudden turns into a minimum of a half day time hit.  One of the reasons I took up running was to have a short time commitment workout.  When I was only typically running 3-4 miles, that worked out great, I could be  home and showering within an hour after a 5k-ish run on my local Ridgeline trails.  I guess the good part is that I can now run 1-2 hours, so driving a ways for a run isn't quite as bad if I do a longer run.

I look forward to doing some good mountain bike rides this summer, but I just don't know when those will be.  Summer is already getting busy, I don't have much budget or time to travel beyond what we're already doing, and the trails that really get my blood running are 2+ hour drive, or a day's drive (Tahoe) away.  Hopefully the trail running will keep me busy with some trails and help alleviate the pain of not getting to mtb much.  I just hope it's not something that I'll wake up one day and realize was a poor stand-in.  I really don't think so though.  I typically have WAY too big a grin when I'm done with a run, and am having a lot of fun seeing where I'll be able to take my running - getting into longer distances, and improving my abilities.  Now to figure out how to squeeze a run into a very busy day today...

Filed under  //   cycling   running  
Posted June 29, 2010
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Haulin Aspen Training Begins?

Yesterday my wife and I signed up for the Haulin Aspen trail half marathon.  This is in Bend, in August.  I've heard it's a great event - good trail, good food & beer sponsors, etc.  Looking forward to it.  Definitely have to get my wife's mileage ramped up, and really, need to up my own a bit as well, as I've yet to run that distance, and have only run over 7 miles a few times now.  

Today's run was a sort of hill workout.  I started at Fox Hollow, and run up to Spencer Butte summit.  This gets a nice even 1000' feet of elevation gain in about 2 miles.  The last pitches up to the summit (and much of the return down) I had to hike/walk, as it's too rocky and steep for me to be able to run it.  But, up and back took 47 minutes - 26 of that was up, about a minute of hanging out at the top, and then 20 down, if I recall properly what my watch said at those points.

Legs were pretty worked by the time I got to the top, but recovered fairly soon after finishing the slower/rockier/hiking sections back down from the summit.  Twas fairly warm, at roughly 76 degrees.  Got to try out a new Under Armor running shirt that is super super light weight, and has a bit of a mesh section down the center of the back.  This shirt was awesome!  Basically felt like I wasn't wearing anything, didn't feel soggy at all (even though it was drenched - probably cuz it's so thin and light that it's soaked but not that much water total).  Lightweight Smartwool socks FTW (tried running in some thin Defeet cycling socks the other day, which was mild fail - rubbed a bit, and not comfy).  Drank about 1/2 of my water bottle.

Good bit of training for the Haulin Aspen, which has 1300' of elevation gain in the first 8 miles, then down after that.  Clearly a much longer overall race, so the elevation gain will be more mild I assume (but don't really know how it stretches out yet - need to check their topo map).  It seems a lot like doing the first 10k of the Ridgeline Ramble (I clocked 1250' gain on my watch for that), and then running back down.  The downhills rarely bother me, as long as I keep good(? for me?) form, so I think it'll be more about getting up and finished with the ascent, and then enjoying the run back down.

Filed under  //   running  
Posted June 28, 2010
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Interviews with Scott Jurek and Hal Koerner

Just read a couple interviews of interest:

The Return Of The King: Exclusive Interview With Hal Koerner

Scott Jurek Says, “Come On, Do An Ultra!”

And, uh, no, I am not planning on getting into ultras (I've yet to do a half marathon, although got close (20k) on Monday :)  I am looking to get into a bit more distance, but it's still early for me, so I'm eyeballing 20k, maybe a 30k later on.  Thinking about the Haulin Aspen as a start.  I've heard that's a great event.

Filed under  //   running  
Posted June 24, 2010
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The Run After the 20k

After Monday's superb 20k run, went out today on a subset of the same trails.  But, clearly I had some residual muscle tiredness.  I ran for 55 minutes, roughly 5.5 miles, and just felt heavy and slow.  I wasn't hurting, but nowhere near the spring, lightness, and effortlessness of Monday's run.  Regardless, I was happy to get out there.

A slight note on distances.  My new Tech4o Traileader 1 watch seems to be fairly accurate, maybe overstating the distances a bit, whereas the iPhone is crap due to the heavy tree cover - if it even works.  Today is a good example.  My watch said 5.9 miles, iPhone said 4.23.  Along the way I was comparing my watch to the trail signs which state distances.  It was 0.1 miles over the first one at I think the 1.3mi mark.  The other day when I checked it, it was only 0.1 over after 3 something miles.  In general the watch seems fairly close, at most 10% over, probably more like about 5%.  I expect, since it bases it on stride, that it will vary based on how hilly a particular run/trail is, etc.  I intend to go calibrate it, but I'm not sure where yet, since doing so on a track will make it accurate for the street/track, but probably not quite as right for trails.

Filed under  //   running  
Posted June 23, 2010
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On a High After My First 20k Trail Run!

I am pretty dang stoked right now, as I managed to do 12.24 miles of trail running on the Ridgeline trails this afternoon.  Previously my longest run had been the 8.5 mile Gorilla Thrilla, so this was a nice jump up.  From about mile 5, I was clearly on the running high, because as I thought about it, I just got goose bumps with excitement.  I had gone out only thinking I'd do 9-10 miles (so I did know I was going to try to go longer than I had before), and it wound up being even longer.

I started at the Blanton trail head of Eugene's Ridgeline trails.  Through the rolling singletrack, to the Willamette trail head, up the steep hills there, and down to Fox Hollow trail head.  Did a loop around Fox Hollow, then headed back the way I came.  When I got to the intersection where I'd go right to head over to Willamette, I thought I needed a smidge more in order to get an even 10 miles, so I stayed on the trail toward Spencer Butte.  I figured I'd just go a ways up, but then I was getting closer and closer to the junction with the main Spencer Butte trail.  As I neared it and prepared to turn around before, I came across a hiker.  Well, I couldn't just pass this guy and 10 feet later turn around, so kept going.  This was good anyway, as I was clearly taking longer than I'd told my wife I'd be out, so at the top I sent her a quick text.  I have a bit of a history of bike crashes and so on, so I like to keep her knowing I'm safe :)

Anyway, from there, it was running back down one of my favorite sections of these Ridgeline trails, and then forking off back towards Willamette, and finally on the Blanton section.  I'd expected Blanton to be a real beotch at this point, but wow, I ran more of the hills there than I would even if I was purely doing just a Blanton run!  Awesome.  Back at the car, I snapped this photo for evidence:

It was a really nice day weather wise, 65 degrees, sunny (but these trails stay nice and protected by the trees).  The grasses are out in force, and did majorly irritate me, but I didn't really notice until I was home.  I drank nearly all of an Ultimate water bottle (20oz?), and had a Hammer gel.  Perfect.  It's a few hours later now, and I do feel the run a bit, but not even as much as I'd expect.  I think my goal of doing a half marathon by year's end is clearly attainable.

Filed under  //   running  
Posted June 21, 2010
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Great Running in Mammoth

I'm in Mammoth Lakes, CA right now for a company meeting (one of our guys, Ross, has a killer house here that we're using).  Yesterday, Sam and I headed out around 5:30pm for a quick run.  First Tough Mudder team training run (except Ross skipped it :).  We had planned to just do a quick say 2 miles, as Sam was really affected by the altitude (we're apparently at about 7000-8000' here).  We had some vague directions/idea from Ross, and wound up running some trail and a chunk of pavement up to the resort.  But, then from there we picked up the trails again and headed back.  Some decent hills, and a little over 40 minutes later we were back.  Nice easy pace (lucky for me I wasn't feeling the altitude at all), and just a real nice set of trails.

The particular trails we were on were singletrack, with lots of twists and turns through the trees.  Clearly sweet mountain biking trails too.  Smooth, but looking like killer flow with many banked turns and just a nice fun set of trails.  The other thing I noticed was that they seem to have two trails that parallel each other, and it appears it's so that bikes just go one way on each.  VERY nice!  

This morning I didn't want to miss getting out on these trails once more before we fly out tonight.  I really really like these for running, and the dry clean air, gorgeous setting, and perfect temperatures are just too much to pass up.  So, up "early" at 7am, after a bit of a fitfull night (stomach didn't feel great).  First 15 minutes of the run were a bit rough, but then got mostly warmed up (was 45 degrees), and went up the singletrack, turned around up near the resort, and back down.  40 minutes, maybe 3.5-4 miles (iPhone's RunKeeper said just over 3 miles, but as we found yesterday, all the twists and turns clearly had it coming up short on mileage).  Uphill for the entire first half, and then such a sweet downhill back, awesome.

I'd really like to have had more time here.  I originally planned to bring my bikes and spend more time, but thought the trails were under snow (ski resort is still open, but down here at the base, there isn't much snow).  But, maybe I'll have another chance this summer.

Filed under  //   running  
Posted June 18, 2010
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