White River 50 Race Strategy

In doing my game-planning for the White River 50 this weekend, I like to break down the course in mentally digestible, conquerable sections. This makes it easier to approach the distance, thinking about just doing a handful of six-to-eight mile runs instead of one 50 mile run. It’s like the baseball adage  ‘don’t try to hit a 5-run Homer’, meaning you have to string together singles and doubles to climb back from a grand deficit instead of biting it all off at once. That’s how I feel one must approach any race from a half-marathon on up.

An accomplished field ran in 2010; including eventual winner Tony Krupicka, Ultra-legend Scott Jurek, and 2011 Hardrock 100 runner-up Dakota Jones.

The White River 50 course lends itself well to segmentation, which makes my strategizing (and hopefully, my execution) easier.

White River 50 Course Elevation Chart

Section 1: Miles 0 to 5.5 – The Warmup

This should be an easy, flat ‘warm-up’ stretch, run mostly on open road and wide trails before the course funnels into the single-track. This will be early enough that the weather should still feel balmy and cool, which will be nice. My idea for this beginning is that I can’t run it slow enough. I want to start at the back of the pack, and if I’m in middle-to-back of the field by the end of this stretch, I’ll be happy. I just want to get through this stretch with as little damage as possible.

Section 2: Miles 5.5 to 13.5 – The First Climb

Here comes the first, and largest, sustained climb of the race. I’ll go up more than 3000’ over the course of 8 miles, which will be a challenge for me as climbing is the weakest part of my running. I’ll gladly adopt a run/power-hike strategy here, and am hoping that my training in the altitude of Boulder will help me generate more power during my ascension.

Section 3: Miles 13.5 to 21 – Ridgeline Running

Next up is a reward for the climb: single-track, ridgeline trails with beautiful views (see below). This is where I hope to pick it up and gain some ground on the field, but still be mindful of saving as much in the tank as I can.

A scene from mile 17

Section 4: Miles 21 to 27 – The First Descent

What goes up, must come down, and here is the longest descent of the race. I’ll go down single-trail switchbacks, peppered with some steep drops. Again, I look to make up some ground here as I feel I have very good downhill strength.

Section 5: Miles 27 to 36 – The Second Ascent

This section begins at the start/finish area, which will be a little challenging mentally. I’ll probably be hurting pretty well by this point, and the thought of leaving this sanctuary for another 23 miles will be tough. However, once I get going, the course starts climbing again. According to the official course description: “Don't worry, it's the last hill on the course and it will only last 8.5 miles [and go up 2500’].” Oh good.

The only redeeming part of this section is the view of Mt. Rainier, which the race photographers are sure to capitalize on to try and garner $40 from me later on.

Section 6: Miles 36 to 43 – The Last Descent

The beginning of the end. Again, I’ll hope to tap into my downhill speed.  I’ll be exposed to the sun and running on dirt roads here, but that will just motivate and enable me to get it over with quicker.

Section 7: Miles 43 to 50 – The Finish

I’ll pass through the last aid station at mile 43, then I’ll be able to smell the barn. If I have anything left in my legs, this is where it will come out. There aren’t any major ups or downs, and it’s mostly shady trail. Some parts are technical and have tough footing, but that may be a legitimate reason to ‘gear-down’ and regroup for the next stretch of runnable trail. If I have to crawl these last 7 miles, I’ll do it happily.

Macro Strategies

Nutrition – The best advice I’ve heard about ultra-running nutrition is that this is a ‘calorie deficit sport’, meaning while I will be burning about 600 to 700 calories an hour, my body can only absorb 250 to 300 calories an hour, creating a larger deficit with each hour. Thus, the best thing I can do on race day is eat early, even if I don’t feel I need it. This will keep me out of greater calorie debt later on. On top of that, I’ll take one or two electrolyte tablets an hour to make sure I’m absorbing my water, and be sure I stock up at each of the 7 aid stations before the finish.

Pacing – As I mentioned earlier, I want to start slow.  If I can average 9 to 10 minutes/mile on the flats, 8 to 9 minutes/mile on the downhills, and maybe 14 to 15 minutes/mile on the climbs, I’ll be happy.

Gear – Trying to go as light as possible, so all I will take with me on the trail will be my handheld water bottle, sun glasses, and MAYBE a hat. Anything else will just weigh me down.

Motivation - I have invested a LOT in preparation for this race. I’ve averaged 65 or 70 miles/week for most of 2011; I’ve moved to Colorado for the summer; and I’ve given it most of my mental energy and attention in my free time. When I’m at my lowest on race day, I have to remember that all of that was for a reason. That the fact that I could showed up to the start line of the race says a lot about myself, and crossing the finish line will say a lot more. There aren't a lot of people who do these races, and for good reason.

Most importantly, I get the luxury of reminding myself that this is my last ultra. That’s it, I’m done after this race. Thus, I might as well expend every last mite of energy I have, even if it makes me hate running for the rest of my life. So what? I’m not running again anyways. I tell myself this towards the end of every hard & long race I do, and I tell myself I really mean it every time, but this time, I really mean it. I’m done with Ultras.

Mountain Running Roadtrip: Arches National Park (Part 2 of 2)

See Part 1 about my trip to Leadville.

After my short and improvised experience of running in the 10,000’ elevation of Leadville, I hit the road again and continued westward towards Utah and Arches National Park. I didn’t have much a plan for this leg, I had just been told that if I really wanted to take advantage of my time in the Rocky Mountain region, then I should be sure to visit this place – and that advice turned out to be spot on.

The drive from Leadville to Moab was a drab 4 hours, especially once I crossed into Utah, where it was all dark highway and no signs of civilization in any direction. After spending the night in Hotel Audi[i], I woke up at 6 AM Monday morning to get a jump on the activities[ii].

The entrance to Arches National Park is almost as if it were designed by a landscape architect on a biblical scale and with a flair for dramatic reveals of incredible vistas. The entering road curves up switchbacks carved into the side of a red standstone cliff that rises at least a few hundred feet. Once one reaches the precipice, the road turns into a vast landscape of valleys, rock spires, and geologic formations that look more like a backdrop on Tatooine[iii] than anything earthly. 

Stillframe from the 1999 Star Wars spoof: The Phantom Menace

From there, I drove about another 20 minutes on windy park roads, past incredible rock shapes formed from eons of wind and water erosion to the point where they looked geologically and structurally impossible, until I reached the trailhead I’d picked out before my trip: Devil’s Garden.

Having beat the crowds, I had the trail all to myself. I’d learn later this would be partially a very good thing, and partially irrelevant. Also, partial clusters of clouds on the horizon distorted the rising sun, both keeping the temperature cool, and creating some beautiful sunrise scenes. Thus, I set off on my run, looking to just embrace and enjoy my setting.

The first section was very well manicured and smooth trail to the extent that they could have won ADA approval and made it wheelchair accessible. This passed a few large rock faces protruding from the ground, which made for majestic views up close, but limited the kind of far reaching vistas that this park really excels in.

Landscape Arch and another smaller arch in the background

The fun really started once I got past the ‘tourist friendly’ section of trail[iv] and got onto the ‘primitive loop’. Very abruptly, the trail went from flat, hard packed dirt to a sequence of semi-smooth rock faces that just happened to not be perpendicular to the ground, thus constituting a ‘trail’. Consequently, my average pace slowed by about 5:00/mile at this point. I was working down a trail spur that was supposed to lead me to ‘Double O Arch’, but soon came to a point where the school bus-sized boulder I was climbing over came to a straight down 30 foot drop, and I saw no way around it[v], forcing my turn back.

Dead end. (The rock drops about 30 feet past where you can see from here)

From there, I turned onto a soft dirt wash[vi] that twisted through a valley created by the surrounding sandstone cliffs and populated by menacing desert vegetation that piled 10 feet high on both sides. 

A view of the wash and vegetation from above

This ‘easy’ section of the trail again quickly turned into a prolonged stretch of climbing over boulders, scaling steep rock faces, and just trying not to get lost in a remote section of desert with only half a bottle of water and one Gu to survive on. The trail was marked not with signs or any other man-made objects, but instead, with small piles of rocks; almost as if they were left behind by some pioneering hiker, erecting them as he went deeper into the remote expanses of the park so as to either find his way home, or lead the rescue party to his final resting place. 

This picture doesn't convey how steep and slippery this rockfaces that constituted the trail were. You can see the rockpile 'trail markers' in the foreground.

Some All of the views were amazing, and I had to force myself to lift my gaze up from the 7 feet of terrain ahead of me to take in the scenery.

By this point, I was about 5 miles in, and had done a substantial amount of vertical. Thankfully though, my energy levels only climbed[vii], giving me one last boost in the homestretch back to the trailhead. I was back on the soft-sandy wash, but running faster than I had all morning. I was blazing up hills, and propelling myself with vigor despite the soft, giving surface. Once I got back on the ‘handicap accessible’ main trail, with its smoother surfaces and surer footing, I really accelerated. There was a slightly higher degree of difficulty now as the tourists had started crowding the trail, and they were completely oblivious to everyone and everything beyond their digital camera’s viewfinder. My last mile home was almost a dead sprint, as I felt a stronger connection to the wilderness around me than ever before.

I’ll venture from my mostly objective recount of the experience to try and convey the primitive and savage form of elation that I felt overcome with at this point. I’m a firm believer in the naturalness of running. I believe that we, as a species, evolved and survived thanks largely to our ability to run long distances and effectuate the persistence hunt[viii]. We may have ostensibly lost this connection to nature with the proliferation of treadmills, ultra-cushioned running shoes, iPods, and Big Macs; but it’s still present deep in our DNA and in our most innate emotions. To get off the asphalt and onto the trail is to blow past all modern contrivances and satisfy many of the instincts we have suppressed with civilization and technology[ix]. This is what I felt on the trails in Arches – alone in the wilderness, with an overwhelming urge to move forward and explore, and nothing else mattered. It was an intense focus-on and connection-to the ground underneath me, one that I've rarely felt before, and reminded me that I’m an individual actor, but one in complex and vast ecosystem. I was essentially a dependent of nature at this point, as I was more aware than ever that it was providing me with the sensation of my heart beating and the air I breathed. The best thing I could have done was to embrace the energy and translate it into my run.

With that, I returned to the trailhead and reached the end of my run.

---

[i] The backseat of my car.

[ii] Travel tip: get to the park before the Rangers report to work (about 7:30 AM) and you can get in free – saves $10.

[iii] Nerd reference: Star Wars planet.

[iv] About 1 Km.

[v] This boulder was wedged at the base two massive rock walls, effectively making it dead end unless I was able to either drop 30 feet onto hard rock without breaking my legs, or scale the rock walls like Spiderman.

[vi] VERY soft and muddy from the preceding night's rain; almost like running on sand.

[vii] Partially due to the adrenaline rush after one instance where I thought I was completely lost and started thinking about what last message I’d write in the sand to stand as my last words, only to find my way back onto the main trail shortly thereafter.

[viii] Basically, our ancestors in Africa may not have been able to outrun a gazelle over two or three miles, but they could over twenty or thirty, which they did.

[ix] I hope this doesn’t make me sound like the Unabomber – I don’t hate technological and cultural advancement. I’ve waited in iPhone lines for hours and have debated the redeeming qualities of the Twilight Saga. However, I do believe in balancing the modern layer of our society with our most basic instincts – the perpetual adventure in nature for survival.

Mountain Running Roadtrip: Leadville (Part 1 of 2)

This past “weekend”[i] I took a little road trip to the west. I want to be sure I take advantage of my (now limited) time in Colorado and be sure I hit all the destinations that I consider sacred – and my judgment of sacred is likely quite skewed. The plan was to go to Leadville to pace a friend for the last 15 miles of the Leadville 50 Mile Trail Run, then continue westward to Arches National Park in Utah for some scenic, red dirt trail running. Read on to see how strange I am.

Leadville

The first stop of my excursion was Leadville, CO to pace my friend Tony for the last 15 miles of the Leadville 50 mile trail race. Our plan was to meet at an aid station, then climb about 1400' over the next 4 miles before we had a mostly downhill 10 miles to the finish. Tony’s goal was to finish under 8 hours, which would have easily been a Top 10 finish. His ambitious goal (and track record to justify it[ii]) combined with the respect I have for any linear stretch of earth with the appellation "Leadville" before it, made me apprehensive that I'd be able to get through the last 15 miles without being left behind by my friend – who would already have accumulated 35 miles of damage on his body.

Let me make an aside to convey to you why Leadville is the Pebble Beach [with Beth Page Black layered on top of it], of trail running. Leadville is an old mining town 10,000’ feet up in the mountains of Colorado. It used to be known for two things: mining and brothels. Once the brothels were shut down, the Army moved in and discovered that the mountains in the area were great for training its 10^th mountain division. To put it another way, the U.S. Army surveyed the rugged terrain and said “Great! This looks like a perfect place to make our highly trained, elite soldiers suffer”, then set up camp. Move ahead to the early 1980s, and the local mining industry is all but shut down[iii]. With the town slowly suffocating from economic ruin, a local man sought some new means of resuscitation. Creating one of the hardest footraces in the world was his solution, and thus, the Leadville Trail 100 was born. As described in the book Born To Run, first imagine the Boston Marathon course and take away all the spectators and crowd support. Now dump a whole bunch of rocks and roots on the road. Run it twice, but throw in a mountain pass at the end of the second repetition that will take you up 2,000’ and back down. Now, put on a blindfold (to simulate the total darkness of night in the forest), turn around, and do it all again. Oh, and you do this with a sock in your mouth since the air is so thin at 11,000’ you can’t exactly breath well.

Back to my weekend. Unfortunately, Sunday was just 'one of those days' for my friend Tony - the kind that shows up unannounced, unexpected, and at the worst possible time - like Cousin Eddie in the Griswold's driveway. About an hour before our expected meeting time, I started getting texts from Tony saying that his legs were ‘shot’ after 24 miles, and he was feeling nauseous. I tried to do my best ad-hoc pep talk via text message[iv], but to no avail. He dropped after 30 miles, and I drove up the backroads of Colorado mountain country to pick him up. Needless to say, he was more than disappointed, as this was only his second career DNF[v].

The lesson from my Tony’s experience? No matter how much of an endurance junkie you are, don't run 65 miles the week before you attempt a 50-Miler. Respect the taper, and respect the distance. 

Given this abrupt change in plans for the afternoon, I needed to get some miles someway, somehow. This run was supposed to double as an key workout in my taper to my own 50-miler two weeks away[vi]. I still needed to get some miles in for the day, and found myself at the race's start/finish line, so off I went into the out/back course. I wasn’t going to do a full 15 – I just didn’t have the mental agility to wrap my head around a 2+ hour run by myself at that altitude, and on that terrain. Instead, I did 3 miles outbound on the race course, and felt like I was at a good turnaround point. As I was heading out, I passed the leader in the race and the second-place runner on their way to the finish. This was a small thrill of its own, but as I was about to turnaround to go home myself, I saw the third position runner heading my way.

My thought process at this point was probably something like a good herding dog – I came to Leadville to help somebody get to the finish, and damn it, I was going to do it even if it was for a complete stranger. So as the third-place runner approached, I asked if he minded if I ran with him. I don’t blame him for being surprised, as this was an odd and perhaps creepy request. However, once he realized I was serious, he seemed very receptive to the idea. It turns out his name was Joe (you can read his running blog here), and he had won the 50 mile mountain bike race on the same trail the day before. He says he was struggling at the time we crossed paths, but I have to say the man was running very strong.

So off we went down the home stretch. When the trail was wide, I tried to stay a few meters ahead of Joe to be his rabbit; his target to chase. However, when the trail got narrower, I didn’t want to block him in any way or obstruct his vision of the terrain ahead, so I got behind and tried to apply a little ‘pushing’ pressure. As we neared the last turn of the course, I told Joe I was dropping back to make sure I wasn’t anywhere in the background as he approached the finish[vii]. Then, in maybe the coolest sequences of spontaneous synchronicity I’ve ever been a part of, Joe said ‘Thanks’, waved his water bottle at me, then flipped it 12’ straight up so that it would come back down to Earth, ready to be caught, just as I ran underneath it, which I did. With his hands free, Joe was ready for his perfect finishing photograph. I have to commend him on his power and determination over the three miles we ran together, he really showed me how to zip up your Man-Suit and finish like a pro.

With 6+ trail miles at 10,000’, I felt like I got a sufficient enough workout for the day, and said goodbye to Leadville. I can’t say for certain if I’ll ever go back as a racer and not just spectator/pacer, but I have to say the idea doesn’t strike me like the certain death that it once seemed to be.

To be continued: My run in Arches National Park.

---

[i] I don’t have a job, so in reality, every day is like Saturday for me. However, the purposes of this post, my ‘weekend’ was Sunday/Monday.

[ii] This guy is a marathon running machine; spending most of his weekends leading 3:10 or 3:20 pace groups in marathons across the country. He seems to only have a vague understanding of the words 'limitation' or 'sanity'.

[iii] By then, the town had become mainly reliant on the mining of Molybdenum, a mineral used in the making of stainless steel. The early fruits of these mountains were prescient of the hardening and refining of runners that would someday tackle their trails.

[iv] “U R GOING TO DO GR8”, “WTF can't quit!”, "GIT'R DUN". I didn't actually say this, but I can imagine that there are people who would actually send messages like this to somebody who had just run 24 miles and felt like crap. I am highly suspect of their effectiveness.

[v] It's fair to note that he has probably started at least 75 races of marathon distance or longer (rough estimate), and the first DNF (and only other) DNF was a 200 mile relay race he tried to run by himself.

[vi] White River 50 on July 30.

[vii] I’ll concede that all runners at this distance (yours truly included) are at least narcissistic enough that if there’s not at least one finish line picture that looks like it could be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the entire race is slightly tainted for the rest of eternity. Such is the permanent void created by the absence of good photographic evidence.

Article Response: Chuck Klosterman on the Limits of Human Speed

Original Article: Is the Fastest Human Ever Already Alive? (Grantland.com)

In his Grantland.com article, Chuck Klosterman[i] didn't take an opinion one way or the other, but an idea purported is that there are limits to human speed, and the fastest a man can possibly run 100 meters is 9.44 seconds. That’s it, no faster. I think that's a load of bull because it fails to acknowledge two propelling forces that will enable people to continue exceeding standards set by their predecessors: increasing global mean standard of living and the continuing evolution of our species. 

Standard of Living
If you know 19th c. British literature, then you know Oliver Twist; and if you know 21st c. network TV melodrama, then you might know J.D. McCoy. These two fictional characters have almost nothing in common, and that's exactly my point. Oliver Twist is the iconic street urchin of pre-Industrial Revolution England. He subsisted on a regiment of gruel and emotional neglect. His life may not have been the 'typical' life of a child in that time or place, but he certainly wasn't an outlier either. Conversely, if you haven't seen Friday Night Lights[ii], J.D. McCoy is the uber-coached, uber-put-upon son of a dad trying to live out his Joe Montana-dreams vicariously through his moody, hormonal son. There's lots of ways to benefit from the luxuries of the American middle class lifestyle-Joe McCoy (J.D.'s father) just chooses to do it by making his son run stadium stairs until the boy developed something Oedipal[iii]. The kid turned out to be a helluva QB, though.

Now, imagine putting Oliver Twist and J.D. McCoy on the same high school track team today. Poor Oliver's feeble, malnourished musculoskeletal system wouldn't even be able to cover 100 meters before J.D. McCoy crossed the finish line, drank a MetRX protein shake, and tweeted about how much he hates his dad. I have no evidence to indicate the genetics of these two characters differ in any appreciable way, I just mean to demonstrate this: the world today is richer, allowing us to focus on more frivolous pursuits such as running from one point to another with no obvious or productive purpose[iv]. J.D. McCoy didn't have to endure the hardships of life as a street-urchin. Instead, he spent his summers at passing camp and playing Madden. 

Meaning: with the same 'equipment', our world today can achieve better physical achievements on average than in the past[v]. It's a safer bet to assume this progress will continue than not. 

Evolution and Genetics

As a species, we will continue to evolve and accumulate better genetics for athletic pursuits, and we have the incestuous hook-up culture of individual sports tours to thank.

Though they swear they won't force their kids into playing tennis, would you ever bet against the Steffi Graf-Andre Agassi children in a junior mixed-doubles match against Jaden and Willow Smith? No, of course not. Even if the spawn of Graf/Agassi have never seen a Tennis court in their lives, the instant they pick up a racket would be like Harry Potter gripping a magic wand for the first time[vi]. These kids may not be guaranteed tennis deity, but they have a better chance than your kids. 

And with the closed social networks and high school social politics of international, dual-gender tours of international sports (tennis, track and field, swimming), it's only natural that more of these world-class athletes concede to the inevitable and produce super-mutant-freak-athletic babies bound to dominate the sporting world in ways we haven't seen. Andre Agassi/Steffi Graf, Ryan Hall/Sara Hall, I'll even throw in Maria Sharapova and Sasha Vujacic

[vii]. 

None of these children will be surefire record-beaters, but they will increase the probabilities of a super-Usain Bolt being created. And this effect of mutual attraction of high caliber athletes will trickle down to lower levels with the aforementioned proliferation of recreational sports. The more our relative global affluence allows one to do ridiculous things with one’s free time like run marathons, the better one can identify those with superior genes in these sports; and the better one can identify a genetic peer in the opposite sex, the more one will be compelled to jump their bones[viii]. For example, it was obvious from the very beginning that the “Saved By The Bell” wedding would be Zach and Kelly instead of Slater and Jessie

[ix]. Opposites attracting is B.S.

Other examples of mutual attraction of athletic attributes:

• A very fast-running woman who I work out with sometimes is married to a very fleet-footed man whom she met in college, and whom also ran collegiate track . She described her initial attraction to him as noticing his ‘cute legs’. What other type of person would think this, let alone be attracted to a male’s lower appendages?
• My friends Matt & Emily (married). Matt had already run a few marathon when they met, then ran with Emily as she finished her first 26.2. How could you not prove yourself as ‘spouse material’ after that experience together?

The consequence: More mutually-athletic couples -> Super-genetic babies -> Higher probabilities of Usain Bolt 2.0.  These improvements in the gene pool won’t be quantum leaps[x], but almost imperceptibly incremental. Don’t think about going from Henry Ford’s Model-T to a Lamborghini. Instead, think of going from a Lamborghini to a Lamborghini with slightly modified headlamps that reduce the drag coefficient by 0.1%. The progress is slight, but it’s still progress.

Putting It All Together

More athletes with good genetics + Better resources and knowledge of training = continually increasing athletic performance.

This trend will only stop once:

•  The entire world has achieved such affluence that robots take care of all our needs, freeing us up to engage exclusively in recreational activities[xi], and 
• We’ve bred out all of the ‘fatties’ in the gene pool.

Barring an epic technical revolution (like Google colliding with a Star Trek Warp Drive in the Large Hadron Collider) and Nazi-style eugenics coming back in style, I don’t see either of these conditions becoming satisfied anytime soon. Thus, 9.44 seconds for the 100 meters isn't an asymptotic boundary for performance. Rather, there aren't any limits until a human comes along that can literally launch himself from the starting blocks past the finish line in a single, 100 meter-long leap that nears the speed of light. However, the Sun will likely swallow the Earth before this happens.

---

[i] The best writer of the MTV generation.

[ii] And that is virtually everybody, which is a shame.

[iii] Author’s conjecture.

[iv] The idea of expending so much energy for ‘fun’ would sound as foreign to Oliver Twist as ingesting Uranium would to us.

[v] Or rather, we are more likely to be born into a family situation with the resources of the McCoy's today than we were 150 years ago. In fact, 150 years ago, the concepts of 'weight training' or 'sports nutrition' didn’t even exist. Who knows what we are completely ignorant of today that will be commonplace in 75 years? The article even notes that we have no idea why a sprinter applies as much force as they do against the ground. Maybe we'll figure out some day that is because of superior neck muscles, leading to a revolution in neck-exercising routines? Point: we just don't know, and what we don't know, we can't improve. 

[vi] I’m assuming. This can’t be proven because we all know magic isn’t real. Tennis genius, however, is.

[vii] This baby will surely be freakishly tall, feminine looking, and imminently unlikeable (a dominant genetic trait from the father). 

[viii] Term of science.

[ix] Oops, spoiler alert. Also, I seriously doubt Jessie could shoot a basketball, making her a poor match for BMOC A.C. Slater. This proved prescient as A.C. went on to host Extra and various shows on Animal Planet, while Jessie Spanos is MIA after she moved to Las Vegas and took her clothes off for money.

[x] The type purported in X-Men, which made the movies completely unenjoyable for me.

[xi] And we all know how that ends: Skynet.