Philosopher's Way 15k Trail Run "Race" Report - May 5, 2012

Well, apologies if you took me with a 45 second advantage over 2010 Shannon.  He kicked my ass today.  What follows is a (hopefully) brief "race" report.

I planned to leave the house with plenty of time to spare before the start, but realized as I was leaving that I left my shoes at work.  Oops.  This unplanned detour meant that I arrived about 3 minutes before the start.  Perfect timing! 

The race started fine - I started nearer the front of the pack than I did two years ago, and avoided much of the slowdown where the gravel road transitions to the footpath, creating a bottleneck of runners.  I did get stuck behind a group of 6 or 7 runners who seemed to slow down as they went downhill.  This can be seen as a smart move, ensuring good footing early in the race to avoid falling.  I am not encumbered by that sort of intellect and like to use gravity to my advantage and gain speed on the downhills.  I should note that this strategy has paid off in the form of many faceplants at Umstead Park, but I learn slowly.

After about a mile and a half, I passed this group and was by myself on the trail for a bit.  I soon reached the first aid station (at 18 minutes, which I think was a bit further than the advertised 1.7 miles). 

Ten minutes later, I was gripped by a sudden wave of nausea, and instantly felt like I had to throw up.  I didn't think this was due to increased effort - it didn't "feel" like that - but it did subside with a bout of walking.  To make a long story short, the rest of the race for me was dictated by the nausea.  Running to the brink of vomiting, then walking.  Energy gels and water seemed to make it worse.

This was the first time something like this happened to me, and I can only think of two explanations.

#1 - "The internal organ as a puppy" hypothesis. 
I had only one beer in the previous 4 days.  This left my liver with a lot of free time.  In the context of this hypothesis, a bored liver (like a bored puppy) is bad and will get itself into trouble.  It follows that my bored liver released a creative cocktail of hormones to the rest of my body, which did not react well.  I rate this hypothesis as slighly unlikely.

My liver, metaphorically. 

#2 - "The how the hell are we hitting the 90s in early May?!?" hypothesis. 
I simply haven't had time to acclimate to the combination of high humidity and race time temperatures in the high 70s.  Of course, this doesn't explain why none of the other 500 runners seemed to have this problem.  I suppose being in pretty crappy shape may have also played some role.  A good lesson for me.

I finished the 15k in 1:40:39 (by my watch), which is incredibly disappointing against what I was expecting - I lost by about 8 minutes to 2010 Shannon.  Regardless, it was good to participate in my first race in over a year.  It is both inspiring and motivating to be around a group of such good runners.  And the Trailheads put on a great race.  I'll be back next year.

Photo of me during the race.  Face blurred for your viewing pleasure.  I poached this from Michael Kelley's dropbox gallery - thanks Michael!

2012 Philosopher's Way Trail Runs 15k Preview - The Race of Two Shannons

Tomorrow is the Philosopher's Way Trail Run in the Carolina North Forest.  This is a great race put on by the Trailheads.  I don't know much about this organization, except they appear to be a subversive group of coffee drinkers that use their weather control machine to bring heat waves over central North Carolina the first weekend of every May.

This post will preview the Battle of the Two Shannons in the 15k:  Tomorrow Shannon (OLD) facing off against 2010 Shannon (slightly less old, or SLO).  This one's hard to handicap, so let's look at the factors:

Fitness

SLO has put 330 miles on his legs over the past four months.  This includes a completely unrespectable time of 4:43 in the Umstead Marathon. 

OLD has slacked off, logging 260 miles over the past four months with no races.  This 260 mile figure is inflated with a recent 4 day, 50 mile hiking trip to Arizona, where little running took place - and much beer was consumed at the conference he attended afterwards.  OLD is also two years older and five pounds heavier than his opponent.

Advantage:  SLO - 3 minutes, 30 seconds

Experience

SLO will be running his first trail race, and doesn't realize that there is a short stretch of road that's meant to allow runners who think they're fast to surge ahead and avoid being stuck behind a logjam of slower runners.  Passing packs of people on a trail is more difficult than the rookie SLO realizes.

OLD doesn't realize that he IS one of the slower runners, and will probably start with about 2/3 of the field behind him.  He prefers to be embarrassed by getting passed by about half the field during the race.  He is also bad at math, as he figures this will give him a finish in the 50th percentile.

Advantage:  Worth about 2:30 to OLD

Approach to Training

Sure, both have done some running.  Both have even been above 10,000 in the Western US in the past month, so they both have undergone high intensity altitude training exposure.  Nutrition is pretty even:  neither eats meat, they both believe in carbo loading far in advance.  SLO ran the Krispy Kreme Challenge the previous February.  OLD did too, but remained dedicated to this strategy by eating sensibly throughout each day, then detouring to the sweet and salty shelves of the pantry on his way to bed each night.  Pioneering genius or moron?  The jury's still out (as long as you exclude hundreds of thousands of dieticians from the jury).



Carbo loading three months before the race


SLO has been frequenting the rock climbing gym once a week, which doesn't help trail running at all but does help him pull down his competitors by their shirts.  OLD has been building leg strength by an esoteric form of leg lifts, and has not been to the climbing gym in a month. 

50 pound leg lifts, with a nice lung workout too.

This may help OLD, balancing a weak lower body with a weak upper body.  If symmetry helps, OLD is in pretty good stead.

Advantage:  This is too close to call

Intangibles

SLO has no clue that he's involved in this competition.  Actually, he has no clue about a lot of things.  Given both competitors' mental frailty, it's hard to tell if this is a positive or negative.

OLD will have his family there cheering him on.  They will be bored to tears, but this favors OLD

Weather:  Highs of 90 both days, with humid mornings in the forecast.  Both competitors are complete weaklings in the heat, but OLD has had 7 years to acclimate as opposed to SLO's 5.

Both have big noses, maximizing their oxygen intake.

Advantage:  Slight positive for OLD, we'll say 15 seconds

Summary

This highly comprehensive, well-thought out analysis suggests that 2010 Shannon will beat Tomorrow Shannon by approximately 45 seconds.  Race report coming soon...

Arizona Forest Fire Tour - Mount Graham, April 16, 2012

The previous night's most unwelcome interruption caused me - among other things - to throw up in my mouth and kept me awake for awhile.  That led to a late start Monday morning. 

I left the campground around 10, driving the remaining 10 miles up the scenic, windy Swift Trail Parkway to Forest Road 507, where I parked.  This old road - which is gated just a few hundred feet from the Swift Trail Parkway intersection - was pretty overgrown and there were pretty deep snow drifts - I started the hike at 9160' and the summit is at 10,720', the highest altitude I'd see during this trip.  It was a pretty typical road hike, with only two things of note. 

First, keeping to the theme of forest fires on this trip, huge tracts of land were burned here, and the ugly summit appeared not to be spared.

Some ugly pictures from Mount Graham thanks to a 2004 forest fire.

Second, I passed a sign at about 9600' on my way up, an non-descript black and white laminated sheet of paper.  I could tell it was a topo map from a distance, so I kept on the other side of the road, trying to make good time.  On the way back down, I walked right next to it and stopped - it appears this is a boundary for a red squirrel "refugium," and there was a small box of text that said "all entry prohibited."  Oops.  I did some research on this later, and apparently the high altitudes of Mt. Graham is the only place this species of squirrel still exists.  Unfortunately, huge swaths of this refuge are burned - I didn't see or hear any squirrels - hope some are still left up there. 

Trip stats:  10 miles, 1620' elevation gain, 4 hours 10 minutes - I was mostly slowed down by some of the big snow drifts, especially near the summit.  Not much to recommend on this one, unless you like Arizona county highpoints or are a 5000 foot prominence peak bagger.  I'm guilty of the second.



Not bad - 44.7 miles, 14,100' of elevation gain over 4 days and only one little blister.  And yes, I wore these pants (and feet) every day.  Sorry about your eyes.


After getting back to my car at about 3:00, I canceled plans for another boring 4 mile hike to the top of Heliograph Peak and instead headed for my Uncle Don's place in Tucson.  I don't think I cut a very impressive figure.  Upon my arrival, I think the second thing he asked me was "do you want a shower?"  I took him up on the offer, considering it had been over 100 hours since my last one. 

Had a great visit, some beers and a great dinner.  It was good to catch up with him and my Aunt Sheryl - I hadn't seen them in more than six years.  I also slept in a bed for the first time in five nights - highly recommended over the Crown Victoria back seat.