Comrades - Ultra Fun Runs

Amanda and I did a course bus tour today, learned about the history of Comrades, saw all the hills firsthand (it's basically all hills), had an emotional visit children of the Ethembeni School, and picked up some last minute advice. This is truly like nothing else I've done before. Trying to wrap my head around it will be a game day, step by step effort. It's hard for me to size up a course of this magnitude, both its distance and elevation gain.

 Ethembeni School Children are about to perform.

When do I know that it's ok to go? I mean, at what point do I feel confident enough to lay it all out? For a marathon, that's usually mile 22ish for me. But I don't think the math works in a way that can extrapolate this point to Comrades. It would imply maybe 9 miles left, or 15k. That nicely fits the highest elevation point on the course, but still leaves three nasty hills until the end. In fact, even the last bit is an incline. I mean, go big or go home, right?

So tonight I'll think a bit about this and other things. Tomorrow I'll figure it all out. Do I have a race plan? Yeah, I kinda do now, but it really didn't come together until today, talking to veterans, reading the latest South African edition of Runner's World, and seeing all the hills. I'm feeling pretty good and before I start kicking tomorrow, I'd like to reflect on the runs that got me here, working around holidays, travel, and battling through that long cold winter.

Putnam Road & GTS Brooklyn
It was my first Long Slow Hill run and the first of my back to back longs. I decided to climb up Putnam Road, a very steep incline, rather than doing my usual Mariaville Road route. Definitely zapped my legs and the next day's 3 hour run with TNT was hard. This was a Friday night/Saturday morning combo. 1,200 feet elevation gain on first day, five hours total for the two days.

Putnam Road passed Rynex Corners and back

Daniel Webster & Williamsburg Bridge Repeats
You've seen the bridge chart. The first half of this back to back was a wicked early traditional Daniel Webster run with friends. Rather than take the subway up to Central Park, I ran there. 1,800 feet of elevation gain on the second day, 5 1/2 hours total for the two days.

Daniel Webster buddies. An unscheduled poop break made me too late for the photo.

Virginia Beach Half & Full
I ran to the night before pasta dinner, mapping out 13.1 miles. Then we all got up for the event itself, 26.2 more miles for me, my first ever marathon distance training run. Started bonking around mile 18 and realized it, thankfully, so I started eating more calories. I tried to keep it EZ pace, but with just a couple miles left, I just wanted to be done and sped up. I'll need to learn patience.

Though I ran at an EZ training pace, PRs were had! 

Tenerife Climbs
Just back from a calf strain, and hills all around me on my work trip to the Canary Islands (I know, hard life), I did a series of short steep climbs. Photos will come (didn't bring them to South Africa with me). Three runs in four days, 16.5 miles, 2,500 feet of elevation gain.

Lake Minnewaska & JFK 5K Plus
Went up to Coach Michael's place in New Paltz with the team and had an awesomely beautiful and hilly run, logging 26.2 on the trails and taking in the views. The next day I joined Amanda for the JFK 5K (where she took third place female) and added miles/time where I could- in the fenced off waiting area, going in a bunch of circles. I'm pretty proud of this one. 2,350 feet of elevation gain on first day, tons of circles on the second. Over six hours of running total. (more photos to come)

Third place female and her entourage.

5K on the run way, the remaining 10.5 miles in these loops.

Windy Friday & Ultra GTS Saturday
I must have been a sight that night, dressed in not enough clothes, freezing, and cursing at the wind.  I mean literally saying, "fuck you wind!" every time a big gust blew dirt in my face and threatened to freeze my fingers off. Winter was still clinging on during this late April run. The next morning I got up wicked early, knocked off 12 miles before GTS, then 12 more with GTS, and finished up my first ultra run. It was five hours and 32.4 miles long. Together for the two days I logged 7 hours and 46.5 miles.

Bear Mountain Weekend
It was the Bear Mountain Team's weekend to shine and shine they did. I went up both days to see them start and finish. And while they were out tackling the very tough trails, I took to the road, doing Bear Mountain Observatory repeats both days. 6,200 feet of elevation gain, 7 hours of running for two days. Definitely was a confidence booster. (more pics to come)

Three trail 50Kers and one road 50Ker.

This was my out-and-back repeat route both Saturday and Sunday.

Brooklyn Half Coaching
I logged about 16 miles while supporting the team during the Brooklyn Half. It was an awesome morning.

The awesome TNT Summer Season Brooklyn Half Marathon team

Thames River Run
Why didn't I take a picture? Regardless, running with James and Amanda along the Thames in London- what would be my last real run before Comrades- was awesome. What a great way to wrap up training and a fantastic way to start this vacation.

So tomorrow is Comrades. My bib is 26523. Apparently you can track me on the Comrades.com site. Also, you can track me if you download the UltimateLive App on your mobile device and enter in my info. And if I can figure it out, my Facebook wall will post updates.

Pietermaritzburg here I come!

Comrades - Healthy Calves

Yesterday was our last day of safari in Kruger. My focus now turns to Comrades. We arrived in Durban today, bib picked up, expo done, and I'm healthy. I feel fortunate about that.

Momma is trying to keep her calf (baby) healthy and so am I

Calf strains. I have a history. The first memorable one occurred a couple weeks before the 2010 NYC Marathon. That case of posterior tendonitis hung around for months. While switching to a midfoot strike, by calves felt constantly tight. Later, it was calf strains that sidelined me periodically from training, forcing me to skip events. More recently, my calf would get a fairly sudden, seemingly unprompted tweak during an EZ run shortly after I’ve raced some endurance event. Probably running too soon, I figured. I made it practice to try to stay diligent about mitigating these strains. They were usually minor and at least it was isolated. No more IT band or knee issues since changing my stride and posture.

But why did this latest strain happen? I was 6 miles into an EZ 10 mile run on a mild for winter evening. I was diligent about building a base unrushed and already I had a couple weeks of back-to-back long runs in the bank- all successful. My mileage wasn’t crazy high yet, and it actually would get to be at any point in the season. And the last week was basically a cutback week, since I caught a cold and took it easy. So what the hell is up? Frustration mounted as I stopped on Flatbush Ave to stretch a bit, tested it, and called it. I hopped on the Q train, cursing under my breath. This was my third strain in the same number of months- first left calf, then right, then left again.

It wasn’t the mileage volume. Could it be the workout choices? I hadn’t been doing speed work consistently, focusing on endurance instead, which consisted of back-to-backs and long slow distance (LSD), which I’m very familiar with, and long slow hills (LSH), which was fairly new to me. Could it be these LSH workouts?

I had only done two LSH workouts in the season at this point. Finding a hilly course- really hilly- in New York City is a challenge. I did the first one upstate while visiting my parents.  I chose my usual Mariaville Road route and added in Putnam Road, which was a fairly steep climb. It was real work, for sure. The second brought me to the Williamsburg bridge where I did repeats. Once over the Manhattan bridge on my way, 5 repeats out and back of the Williamsburg Bridge, and one more over the Manhattan Bridge on the way home.  What a workout. 22.5 miles, 3.5 hours of glorious climbing and descending.

 

Strava screenshot of the Williamsburg Bridge repeats

But both these runs occurred weeks ago. Perhaps the accumulation of them and other workouts still led to the latest calf strain, but I didn’t like it. I need these workouts and I did them right. I managed my weeks right, I felt. I needed to find a better solution.

Coach Michael and I were coaching Team in Training marathon summer season together- he in Manhattan and I in Brooklyn. About a month earlier in an exchange of emails, Conlon referred me to a book, Ready toRun ,by Kelly Starrett. I picked it up and read through it. I thought it was a good book, full of helpful exercises. I agreed with the author's philosophies and have mined running knowledge from many of the same sources. I immediately put some of his teachings into practice.

Kelly stressed mob (mobility) exercises, something that I do with my runners as well. He stresses proper hydration and warm up and cool downs, things I teach as well… but again, was I practicing what I preached? Probably not as well as I could have been.  I decidedly upped my mobility game, spending an hour rolling and stretching 3 to 4 times a day. I started wearing calf compression sleeves while I slept and at work to aid in recovery, and I paid much more attention to my hydration. By the time of this calf strain, I had been doing these things for only three weeks or so. Maybe it was still early for the benefits to pay out and keep me injury free. Or maybe there was still more to explore.

I looked at one more thing- my running shoes. I like to think that I am fit and nimble enough to run in any shoe. I’ve spent years getting myself to this point.But I wasn’t doing any crazy experiments and as I’ve mentioned, my mileage wasn’t crazy. I had been wearing the Sketcher GoRuns for over a year now, logging 1,500 miles in them. And though I just started wearing the GoRun4s rather than the GoRun3s, they were so similar, I couldn’t believe they’d cause such issues. But maybe…

I am part of Sketchers test wearer program and send them periodic logs and comments on their shoes. When I first put the GoRun4s on, I noted the wider toebox and nicer upper, which were benefits. The shoe also felt more sure-footed, but not bulkier, which was nice. And also this:                

“feels like the shoe is flatter than the 3s”

Turns out it was. In the GoRun3s, the drop if 4mm if you remove the insole. In the GoRun4s, I read that the drop was 4mm and assume it was such without insoles, so I removed them. I think I was wrong. So for the past 3 months, I had been running on basically zero drop shoes. Could 4mm make such a difference? Yeah, maybe. With all these other things I considered- my mobility limits and different workouts, maybe 4mm contributed to the issue. Swallowing my pride, I bought a new pair of GoRun4s a half size larger and kept the insoles in.

Other than one hiccup, I’ve stayed strain-free since. I can’t say what exactly solved the issue. Perhaps it was a combination of all the above. But as long as this trend continues, I’m ok with not knowing for sure. I've been able to log some pretty fun miles the last couple months, highlights of which I will share tomorrow!

Comrades - Long Run to Freedom

Inspired by Nelson Mandela and his autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom", and limited by the desire not to get eaten, I did a thirty minute running in place workout while on Safari. Mandela did this to stay fit in his cell during his time in prison. I did it because anything that runs out here in the African bush instinctively is food to the predators. With just one more shake out run on the schedule, to be run in Durban, sans predators, all the speed workouts have been done and all the base-building miles have been logged. In February, 16 weeks to Comrades, I had already fallen behind…

This beauty spotted yesterday is predator to no one (except douchebag poachers)

A calf strain after a hill workout in last week of January set me back. It seemed a spontaneous injury, occurring during a easy pace mile right after finishing up all the hard stuff. Of course, it happened on the far side of the park and of course I didn’t bring my metro card. So I walked home, which probably made it worse. I monitored it each day, tested it a week later, but it took about two weeks to be back to normal. I substituted strength work in and used my now free time to look at my schedule in more detail, or should I say, my lack of schedule.

The Runner’s World plan says I should be running 18 mile long runs by February 8^th. That was just a week away and even if healthy, this would be a big jump in mileage. By my estimates, I wouldn’t be doing 18 mile runs until late February, and that’s if the calf injury didn’t set me back to much. So once again I turned to my trusty friend Google. Perhaps a new search would turn up a new result. It did.

I found an updated Comrades-specific training calendar for January to race day. It was created by Coach Lindsey Perry, the official Comrades Coach. It seems I misunderstood the training offered during my last search when I turned up the July to December bit. The January to May portion wasn’t published yet, but also, there were multiple versions of the training calendar based on your medal target. Ah yes- Bill Rowen.

To obtain the Bill Rowen medal, I’d need to finish in less than nine hours. This training calendar had speed workouts, which I wasn’t surprised about. But what did surprise me is how light the mileage/time was on the weekend workouts. It was much lighter than the RW plan, by a lot. Though the longest single run was about the same (5 hours/50k), RW's plan called for 4-hour and 5-hour runs back-to-back while Coach Perry's plan called for 2-hour and 3.75-hour runs. Huh ok, so who is right?  Enter Coach Mike.

We had been coaching runners for the Bear Mountain Endurance Challenge for a couple months now. Mike came up with the idea of creating a unique training season focusing on this tough event. I assisted in Brooklyn while he led in Manhattan. Though I do have trail running experience, I have no ultra marathon experience. One evening after work, I bought him a beer and picked his brain. We went over the two plans and their differences. We talked about my strengths and weaknesses. And he shared his experience with me. But all his ultras have been on the trail. Comrades is a road running event, so very different. Mike believes in volume and suggested that if my body could handle it, I should go for the volume-heavy plan. 

And that is what is at the core of any nicely tailored training plan. This one key concept- do what your body can handle, recover from, and be ready for the next workout. I preach this to all my runners and I build their training calendars with the same philosophy. Why was I straying for from this concept for my own event?

Quite frankly, the distance intimidated me. How do I work up to and prepare for that kind of mileage? And why do these two plans so widely differ? My brain was going in circles. Ok, let’s review what all plans, including Mike’s advice, have in common.

·         It’s all about endurance development

·         Max long run of 5 hours/50K is sufficient

·         Back to back long endurance building workouts are key

·         Speed work is not crucial, but is nice if my body can handle it

And now add in the concepts I know to be true.

·         Only do as much as you can and still recover from for the next workout

·         Strength work makes a difference

From this, I created a hybrid Frankenstein-like training plan that included serious speed work and weekend mileage that split the difference between the two extreme plans. I incorporated a new workout type, Long Slow Hills (LSH), as suggested by the Coach Perry plan. I cut out heavy weight leg strength days.  And I would reevaluate at the end of each week whether I felt the mileage should increase or decrease. Finally, I had a plan.

First long run included a couple hours with summer season & Bear Mountain teams, then an extra hour solo.

I hit my first 18 mile run on March 7^th, a full month later than scheduled.  That weekend was also my first long back to back, totaling 32.4 miles in two days. The following weekend I did 3.5 hour and 2 hour runs totaling 35.8 miles. Following that, I pulled off a 2 hour and 4 hour run weekend which included a 13.1 mile EZ run and the VA Beach Marathon.

I did the marathon at an EZ pace rather than racing as I wanted to, worried that I would not come anywhere close to my goal and would just blow out my legs in an attempt, forcing a long recovery period and lost time. I was happy with my decision and my training seemed to be on a good track.

Beers and Beaches at Virginia Beach

But then a few days later on an EZ run from midtown to Ditmas Park, by calf tightened up into a knot… 

Again… ugh…

Comrades - Speeding and Seeding

If you happen to be drinking coffee with me today and asked what I am going to be doing this Sunday, it would take me a moment to pull myself out of this world Amanda and I submerged ourselves in, full of zebras, giraffe, elephants and lions to answer you that I would in fact be running 54.5 miles up hill and hoping to do so in less than nine hours. Maybe you’d be impressed. But I’d shake my head and tell you how you could do it, too… you just have to want it and put in the work. Training. That’s what’s going to get me to the finish… and the start…

Yes, we were really that close. It was awesome.

I was wrapping my head around the possibility of Comrades eight months deep into 2014, a pretty solid year. In fact, it was a year full of PRs. It was the year that would finally rival 2010, when I trained with James and was seriously aiming for a Boston qualifying time. Vienna Marathon worked out well for me in April with a two minute PR. Brooklyn Half in May with a PR of about the same time. It didn’t mean that I was finally matching my speed in 2010, but I was on my way. In July I knocked off the Lake Placid Ironman and my sights were set on another substantial Marathon PR in the fall. Speed. I was feeling a need for it.

Since 2009 I’ve had my eye on a speed goal- run a sub three hour marathon. Leaping toward that, I set a pace for 3:10 in the 2010 NYC Marathon, which would have been a 39 minute improvement over 2009. My time goal crumbled under muscle cramping issues starting at mile 16 and I finished (happily) with a 3:29. I’ve since figured those cramp issues out, thankfully. But my level of fitness and speed potential has yet to match that magical 2010 training year, partly because of injury and my desire to become a midfoot strike runner, and partly because I get distracted by shiny things, namely Ironman NY/NJ, Ironman Lake Placid, and now Comrades.

2010- the year of speed, PRs, and hotdogs.

But wait, would Comrades get in the way? Could I squeeze in two to three more marathons all while building a base for this 54 mile event? I did what any sensible person would do and Googled “ultra marathon training program” and found a 2005 Runner’s World article that told me I could do this with 16 weeks of training IF I already had a marathon-ready base (ie, I was already doing 18ish mile long runs). Of course, this article also gave the advice of a) Run something locally, and b) Do a flat race.  Hahahaha, oops. I couldn’t find much more on the topic, surprisingly, but it was enough to give me confidence to sign up and put the Comrades-specific training on the back burner. Because of this urgency I felt for velocity.

My training in the summer and fall was a bit rocky because of my health. I attribute this to the travel I was doing for work and the consequences of Ironman, at least for me- burnout. Though I wanted to race Mohawk Hudson in October, I deferred and instead raced Brooklyn Marathon in November. My training ramped up quickly because of the short amount of healthy time I had and I ended up  over-training.  Luckily, I recognized this, did a fairly sharp taper of almost no activity, and PRed Brooklyn! It was my best race yet. I felt amazing and the support I received from friends and teammates around Prospect Park made it my favorite marathon so far. I could easily devote a whole blog post to this and thanking the team- SCBkR and TNT- for their support. Too many fun things.

South Hill Cheer Squad

Where was I? Oh yes, Comrades… It was now late November, I had signed up for Comrades a few weeks earlier and was entering my qualifying marathon time when I noticed this: “All runners will be seeded according to their qualifying times.” I don’t know if this means waves or just corals, but the faster qualifying time I get the farther toward the front I’d be. Ok, cool. With a 3:24 time, I just missed Batch B, but my time was good enough for batch C, third batch out of nine. Still good, and perhaps I can improve my time with my spring marathon!

This also caught my eye:

Ok so, what’s my goal then? With a cutoff time of 12 hours, which is shorter than either of my Ironmans, I felt comfortable that I could somehow get this done ok, but hadn’t really thought about what type of time I would be aiming for, if any. Referring back to that Runner’s World plan, it estimated I would finish a 50 miler in 2 x Marathon time + 2 hours. Basically 9 hours for me. Bill Rowan. Crap. I think I have a time goal now…

Can I trust this training calendar? It’s so vague, clearly meant for a flat 50 miler, and I think a trail race as well. Turning back to my trusty friend Google and searching “Comrades training plan” did turn up some interesting things. I found specific schedules for the months of July to December. I wasn’t sure what to make of it exactly, since Comrades was in May and the workouts here were much easier than what I had planned. So I brushed it off.

I laid out my training and race calendar. Coordinating with friends, I took aim at Virginia Beach Marathon in March at my next attempt at a PR and getting into Batch B. Putting my faith in that Runner’s World calendar, I marked February 9^th as 16 weeks out from Comrades. It was five weeks prior to VA Beach, but I’d figure that out later. It’s not something I’d have to worry about immediately, and besides, I felt a longing quickness…

And then came my calf issues… More to come!

Comrades - Safari

Today I saw a baby hippo playfully practice being macho in front of a couple hundred thirsty cape buffalo. We sat on the opposite side of the watering hole, snapping photos, watching the sunset, taking the scene in. How did I get here and what does this have to do with eating miles for breakfast? Yeah, let me explain...

Scene from today's safari drive

Somewhere between completing my second Ironman in July in Lake Placid and deferring the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon in October, Amanda and I began brainstorming a vacation idea- her dream vacation- an African Safari. She had been saving her Delta miles for years and inspired by friends Katja and David, we started asking the hows and wheres and how much questions. South Africa was to be our destination, sometime between May and October (their fall/winter) for best animal viewing. That’s when the light bulb went off over my head.

Comrades.

Some years prior, Mark and I were talking those talks we do when we dream up what may be our next adventure. This is how the Northville-Placid Trail 5 day hike came about. That was also how the first seed was planted in what would fruit into an Ironman for me. You could say the same thing of my first New York City Marathon. We had both read about this race, whether in a Runner’s World article or in Bart Yasso’s memoir, My Life on the Run, and we were both intrigued. At this point we had done a couple marathons and projected that at some point in the semi-distant future- say when we are about 41 years old- we’d think about making this happen.

Comrades.  They call it a marathon, but it is 54 to 56 miles long, depending on the year. They alternate direction each year and the course usually changes slightly as well. It is 54.5 miles this year, due to some construction in a town we are running through in the last 12 miles or so. And it’s also an “up year”, meaning it will begin at sea level in the city of Durban and climb to about 2,600 feet to the city of Pietermaritzburg, with a total elevation gain of about 7,000 feet. It’s the oldest ultra-marathon distance footrace in the world, and the largest. When I first learned about it, the field was about 16,000 runners deep. It is now 24,000.

Scene from Comrades

So as we were planning for Safari, I started investigating if and how I could get into this race. I assumed it would be a lottery for entry or a time qualifier would be necessary. Maybe the time of year wouldn’t line up with our travel plans. And who knows how long I'd need for training. Would I even have time? I actively mitigated my hopes as I reviewed this list of considerations. 

• The race takes place on May 31st this year, in the fall. It is also just a week after Memorial Day, which is great for our vacation day planning. So time of year fit- check!
• Registration was not lottery based; it was sign up first come-first serve and was opening in a month or so. So there was a chance. All I had to do was sign up online and pay. That was a surprise, but… check! 
• And the time qualifier… to get in, one needed to run a marathon in under 5 hours between August and early May. Huh. I had Mohawk Hudson planned and hoped to possibly do Brooklyn and something in the spring. And running one under 5 hours should not be an issue for me, so yeah… check!
• Finding a training plan wasn't so simple, as I'll explain later, but I found this Runner's World article claiming that I could pull off a 50 miler in 16 weeks(!) if I had a ready-for-marathon base already built up. At this point, I had 6 months and felt comfortable I could get to that point within the suggested time. Huh, how about that? Check!

This could really be real, for realz.

I called Mark up to share this news with him. Though our dreamed-up adventures haven’t always materialized, I wanted to lay this all out and see what the chances were that he’d join us.  I mean, this is Mark, who is known for such things. He is the master of spontaneity and surprise trips, of flexibility and craziness. It was a good chat and I got his blessing to go ahead with planning a 2015 running, even if he couldn't make it, but he would see how the next few months goes. I was happy and hopeful that there was a chance he’d come, with family in tow, as well.

Amanda and I spent a couple months planning out the details of our safari trip and what other aspects of Southern Africa we wanted to include. Victoria Falls was left out; a night in Johannesburg was added in. We made Cape Town a must and broke our safari days into two 3 night stays at two different parks. Smack dab in the middle was a stay in Durban, with a day trip- on foot, for me- to Pietermaritzburg. By early November, we finalized our itinerary, put a down payment on the trip, and I registered for Comrades.

But wait, how am I going to train for this, my first ultra marathon event, exactly? More to come...