I was thinking that this wasn't writing itself and I discovered the Talk to Type function on my Google Docs so we'll give this a try. (yes, I know I’m behind the times!) If this ends up feeling way to string-of-consciousness, I’ll promise to not do it again...but for now, let’s give it a whirl.
I officially have less than a week to go before the 2017 Vermont 100. This is my second year running it, and I'm really excited. This is also my second year running as part of Team Run 2 Empower, raising money for Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports and all the programs they provide throughout the year. Participating as one of the “charity” runners has definitely molded this into a different sort of experience for me.
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Amy go all of us sweet Team shirts this year
I'll be proudly sporting this on race day.
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There are the moments where I’m feeling a bit low or less motivated or less capable within a race, or within my training, and knowing that I'm running for something bigger than myself gets me to push on. Having had friends and family and strangers support my efforts by donating to VASS has definitely helped to keep a bit of a spring in my step in the darker moments. I'm also pretty excited because this year I have exceeded my fundraising goal and I'll find out in the next couple of days where I landed so far as the overall fundraising went. Amy Rusiecki, the race director, laid some challenges out for us and who knows, maybe I'll be top 10 of something and possibly that top 10 will be in the fundraising department, which would be awesome! Our bib numbers will reflect our fundraising efforts. Last year my bib was #16, so here’s hoping for 15 or above this year!
The last that I wrote on here was to recap the Jack Bristol Lake Waramaug Race and in wrapping that up I also mentioned that my Uncle Mike had died. Honestly this year has just been quite the doozy for my family. Being barely halfway through the year and having three family members die since January is a little bit overwhelming. I’ve been moving through it, but I’ve been having a hard time being so far away (3000+ miles) from my family and feeling like I can’t offer much solace in the wake of these losses. And yet, I’ve been trying to gain perspective and to also reflect upon the gift that it is to be alive. Loss is not something new to me. I feel like my heart continues to get increasingly full from carrying the memories of those friends and family who are no longer here. I believe it has pushed me outside of my comfort zone at times, doing my best to honor the brevity of the lives of some of my loved ones by making the most of all of the time I’ve been given here on this earth. And this is the part of talking about loss and grief that I can’t find a way around without feeling cliche, or even trite, but life really is precious, and extraordinary, and I truly am grateful for each moment that I have here living and being alive, the painful times and the happy times, and everything in between... and you know, it's all we've got.
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| light before the dark of an afternoon storm in Shenandoah |
So this is me being grateful for being alive and being able to test my limits and test my ability to push through the hard times and persevere and just move forward and move on and that's ultimately what I love about ultra running and what I love about this community and this sport. We're all here for our own reasons- I feel I've said this a billion times- but we're all here for our own reasons and yet we share the bond of being willing to be uncomfortable and to push our bodies and our minds to move through that discomfort and to accomplish something and to grow from it or to excite ourselves or fill the stoke tank like never before. Whatever the reasons are that each person finds themselves out there for an ultra, you know it's an amazing, and a miraculous thing. I am grateful to be a part of this ultrarunning world and I'm really looking forward to racing on this coming Saturday and seeing folks on Friday at Silver Hill and spending this week tying up loose ends and getting my drop bags together and getting everything organized and then reorganizing it again probably a couple times and getting ready to go and to simply have a fantastic weekend.
In my last post I talked about my re-focused approach to training, and overcoming injuries. I have been continuing to improve from the residual injury from the fall down the stairs and I'm feeling good. I'm feeling fit and strong, like I'm moving in the right direction. I still feel like I have quite a ways to go to get to where I would like to see myself but I finally feel like I'm on my way there, whereas for the last year or so I felt like I was going through the motions to try and regain fitness, to regain speed and strength and just didn't feel like I was getting any return on on those efforts. Now I feel like I'm getting that return and that's awesome. I’m continuing to use some new tools to keep track of things and to hold myself accountable. I’m still loving the Compete Journal and I joined Strava in December-- ultimately I joined to participate in the Ginger Runner Gingermas scavenger hunt and I’m truly stoked that I am now on Strava. Through it I've managed to reconnect to some of my old running friends from Tucson Trail Runners and to connect to some other Ginger Runner patreon community friends and what I appreciate the most about it is that it's not only provided me with another form of accountability and record keeping soda speak it's also really made me feel like once again I am a part of a community of folks that genuinely want you to do well, to do your best, and that are interested in the fact that you ran that same route that you always run just a little bit faster on Tuesday and things like that. Strava’s been a really great tool to have in my toolbox and I'm very much enjoying it so, yay for Strava! I also volunteered once again at one of Ian Golden’s/Red Newt Racing events. This one was the Cayuga 50 IAU Trail championships so that was great. I saw a few familiar faces out there and had a blast being a course Marshall all day during race day and marking part of the course the day before.
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| Ready to mark the course |
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| Exploring lower Buttermilk |
Feeling connected to the running community in these parts has been nice and of course is happening when my head is turned West and I'm looking to the next possible move, but so it goes. I'm still happy to have made these connections and know that if and when I do come back out here, whether it's for a race or for work or for life or for a visit, that I'll be able to tap back into those communities and feel part of it.
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| Ithaca did not disappoint. Gorgeous Gorges. |
While at Cayuga, VT100 RD Amy and her husband Brian were both racing (Brian crushed it and took 2nd overall). It was great to have the tables turned and get the opportunity to cheer on a person who has been such a great and encouraging supporter of my own running. After the race I had the chance to catch up with them both. I told Amy that I was looking forward to this year’s race and that I had some of my own Goals that I was working towards. Amy's response was “you have to say them out loud so that others can hold you to it or they're not real.” I was, admittedly, nervous but still chose to say it out loud and I let it be known in that moment, and here I am saying it again, I really would love to go sub 24 hours this year at the race. Like I mentioned before, I'm feeling fit. I've been running up hills quite a bit and doing training that I feel has been more on point and more specific to things I'm going to encounter on the race day so that level of specificity I think is going to come in handy this year. Last year I had a sense of what the race was but didn't truly know, so I trained well enough to run 100 miles, but I didn't train with some of the specific knowledge that I now have. Also, I just had a bummer of a start last year. I thought that my shoes were broken in well enough and they weren't and my feet got destroyed in the first five to ten miles. Partially because of the shoes and partially because I was stubborn and didn't want to stop take care of my feet and I paid the price for it later in the race. After I was able to switch shoes at Camp 10 Bear, that felt great and I was stoked but at that point my feet were already rocked and in spite of wanting to move faster I just I couldn't without significant pain.
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| Broken in, for real this time! |
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Pieces of Big Hollow, connection
to Shaker Hill |
So, I feel I’ve paid better attention to that detail and I feel like I've done a better job of breaking in my shoes that I'm racing in this year. Hopefully that will translate into not having foot issues this year, however, I can assure you that at the first sign of any trouble I will most certainly stop and deal with it on the spot, not stubbornly push through and pay the price. The sub-24 hour goal, I believe that it is attainable. I've done the math in reference both to what I've been running on my training runs so far as pace goes and it adds up that it's reasonable for me to have a sub 24-hour race. Even if that is 23 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds I'll take it, but that's a goal so there it is. Something I'm running for and towards, and we'll see how it all shakes out.
Things that I'm doing the same this year:
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I am running solo once again so I won't have a crew so hence the need to have good attention to detail and preparing my drop bags et cetera
I've been going back and forth a bit about how I want to carry liquids with me and I'll have to do my last bit of kind of testing out variations and possibilities this week and dial it in hopefully by Wednesday but you know probably just stick to the same amphipod handhelds. I do have a couple of the soft flasks one is a Hydro Flask and one is a Solomon and I don't know, I think if they were to fit a little bit better in my backpack then I would be into it but they don't and I just don't feel like messing around with it enough in the next few days to get it in a way that I'm happy with so probably just the same old tried-and-true
Nutrition-wise I’m planning to keep things pretty much the same. I did successfully make my own home-made version of Clif-bloks, so I’m planning to use those during the race, as well as dried-fruit and nut snack mixes and the usual boiled potatoes and salt from aid stations, and Nuun tablets in addition to water. Teresa from the Cowshed Aid Station who I volunteered with 2 years ago and was awesome last year and remembered me and reached out after the race to see how things had gone and whatnot was apologetic for the fact that they didn't have vegan or veggie broth and, aside from being vegetarian and having lots of severe allergies one of those allergies is to poultry so I couldn't even take chicken broth if I wanted to unless I wanted to projectile vomit, which is generally ill advised within an ultra (though it happens!!) But there were moments last year where I was just soaking wet and cold and I really just wanted warm broth and I kept striking out at the aid stations. People just had chicken broth made up, I think they had veggie boullioun that they didn't have any made up so it's pretty awesome that this week Teresa emailed me to let me know that she's got veggie broth and she's going to I have a bowl ready and waiting for me at Cowshed. That is something that I am looking forward to this year, and hopefully I won't be as wet and cold (and late) as I arrive at Cowshed.
What are things that I am doing differently? Honestly as far as race day specifics go, there's not a lot that I'm doing differently. My gear and how I'm going into the race is largely the same, with a couple of differences. I usually will carry a piece of paper that I a poor man's laminate with clear packaging tape that has information about aid stations and cut-off times. This year I am taking a cue from Jenny, one of the people that I ran with last year for a handful of miles. She had this awesome temporary tattoo of the elevation profile where the aid stations were and everything for the Vermont 100 and I just thought that was the coolest thing. I found the website that creates them, Elevation Tat, and ordered one. I've got it and I've still got some open unadorned real estate on my right forearm, so this year I’ll put that on my arm and then mark the times that I would like to be at some specific Aid stations. I’ll create a window format so I’ll know the earliest time I would like to be there by and the latest time that I would like to be there by based on the math that I've done that will allow me to reach my sub-24 hour goal. That being said, I'm not going to be brazen about it. If something is not going according to plan I'm just going to keep putting my head down and moving through it, I'm not going to get stressed out if I start to slip from that window of the sub-24 race, but I'm also not going to just use that as an excuse of like “hey don't be stubborn.” I want to push myself. I don't want to just show up and run this race. I want to show up and push myself, to push my limits and to show myself that I'm still capable of surprising myself with my body's ability to accomplish a goal like running a hundred miles in less than 24 hours on a not completely flat course. There's 17,000 ft of collective elevation gain on the Vermont 100 and I believe that I can do this. I'm excited for that. Will I be disappointed if I don't go sub-24 hours? Yeah, there will be a part of me that will be disappointed. Will I be disappointed if I don't go sub 24 but I finish within the 30 hour cut off, no not really. I mean, in reference to the losses that my family has already experienced this year, I'm truly just embracing the miraculous thing that is life, LIVING life and on top of that to have the bonus of physical health to go along with just being alive is such a gift. I'm running with that in mind the whole time and just keeping that in perspective, and I’ll be happy with a finish for sure but yes, I'm going to show up and I'm going to push myself and I'm going to really make my best effort to go sub-24 hours and see what what that looks like, how that feels. Maybe it'll be 3:59 and change in the morning on Sunday that I'm coming into that Finish Line of Silver Hill, 3:45 or 3:59 I will be so ecstatic and if it's even earlier than that... wow, that would be incredible and it's possible! Like I’ve said, I’ve done the math. But the funny thing about math and ultra-running is that as useful as math is, and its quite useful, but it's also never as simple as doing the math seems. Because on paper, sure a 10 minute per mile pace sustained over a period of time doesn't seem all that extraordinary but things happen and sometimes the things that happened are in your favor and sometimes the things that happen are not in your favor and one way or the other it can make a 9 & 1/2 minute mile feel like a walk in the park and a 15 minute mile can feel like you're just putting everything you've got into it and you don't have anymore to give but you're pushing and pushing and pushing and you're still just moving at a snail's pace. That's just how it goes and that's part of the beauty of it; moving through all those emotions and moments. The thing is, I'm not an elite. Right now I think if I went to a track and tried to run a 5 minute mile, all out 5 minute mile around a track, I don't think I could do that right now. Probably the best I could do would be around a 6:15 to a 5:59 ish mile and afterwards, afterwards I would most likely want to puke my guts out. But, to be able to say that is still progress because last year if you had asked me before this race how fast I thought I could run an all out mile around a track, I would have best guessed that to maybe a 7:30 mile. So I'm making progress and getting faster and regaining my fitness. I'm still working on getting closer to my race weight and it's coming along. It doesn't feel completely out of my grasp anymore and I think that was the most daunting component was just feeling like I was Treading Water. Just not going anywhere and not making any progress in spite of all of my efforts and now that's happening and I think that a large piece of that really is just being whole, feeling whole, feeling at home in my own skin. There are a lot of studies out there that show that if you're carrying or holding a lot of stress that even if you're doing everything right you won't always see benefits in the sense of eating healthy or exercising... you're doing these things but if you're holding on to all the stress, your body still feels like it needs to hold on to it's reserve stores because it's waiting for the crisis because it just feels like it's constantly managing an impending crisis. Being fully out to my family and going through this transition process has made such a massive shift in my ability to just feel whole and it's magical. I've been recording voice notes, which are entertaining, to track the shift and change of my voice and I recorded one while there was a lull in the action at the Cayuga Trails 50 and there's just there's just so much joy in my voice and in my statement of what I was doing that day that I haven't had for a while. I am so stoked to have that I'm trying not to focus on being bummed that I didn't just do this a billion years ago and instead to continue to kind of pat myself on the back for being brave enough to do it at all, and grateful for my family for sticking by me and just feeling excited about the future. I know a lot of folks choose invisibility as their super power when asked, but I’m very grateful to no longer feel invisible every single day and navigating the world in a way where I feel seen is awesome.
What else is there to say? I'm grateful to be alive. The summer holds a lot of big races in the ultra running world which has been fun to keep tabs on and to watch unfold and to hear the stories of friends and the average runners and the elites and to see people putting it all out on the line and to see some folks just go until they blow up and have nothing left to give and other folks just running in really calculated ways and appreciating everything about all of those approaches. I'm so impressed with this community of people that are willing to just push themselves and to put it all out there it's pretty extraordinary. I'm really enjoying the Ginger Runner Live Patreon Community. I have to admit to really working hard to make sure that, in spite of my nomadic schedule and life, that I am somewhere that I have access to either wifi or a good cell phone connection on Monday evenings just so that I can watch and participate, to chat with the folks there. It's been really lovely and it's been fun to hear about people's adventures and races and things like that, and looking forward to more of that this year and after the race. The summer is sure to be a busy one and I'll leave it at that for now. I'll post some pictures from a lot of my training runs that I've been doing all over the place. I was in Virginia building trails and teaching folks how to build trails out there and was able to go to Shenandoah National Forest and run around there and run on parts of the Appalachian Trail which was beautiful. It was a little bit brutal, in that the temperatures weren't super high, it was mid-80s, but the humidity was through the roof and I finished my run and was completely soaked and there had not been a drop of rain. It felt a little bit more like swimming than running at some points and certainly made me miss the dry heat of the deserts where I’m from, but it was really gorgeous.
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| Stone staircases in Shenandoa NP |
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| Falls in Shenandoah NP |
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| Post-run reward of Cider and writing Postcards |
I did a loop from the campground I was staying in that took me out to a couple different falls enjoyed that time. I also did some running in Virginia around where I was working and in Ithaca, and Beacon, NY.
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| Fire Tower from Mt. Beacon, NY |
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| View from the top of the towe |
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| Looking down... |
Most of my training has been around the Starksboro area in Vermont where I've been keeping my home base for the summer. I’m still discovering new routes around here had a couple failed routes where it all looked good and verified with local folks that what I was looking at on a map kind of made sense and then ran into lots and lots of private property signs- the sort of ones where you think you'll probably get shot because there's so many signs reminding you that you're not supposed to be there, so I’ve not been pushing that envelope and instead heeding the warning and taking detours from those routes, which just led to more miles, which is good! One route I’ve regularly been using is along a road called Big Hollow Road. There's nothing particularly special about it but it's just perfect, and beautiful, and minimal traffic, packed dirt, and it just climbs up pretty gradually so one of those hills where there are moments where you feel like you're running flat, but you're still going up an incline and I think it's helped a lot in developing my fitness.
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| "Don't Trash Vermont" |
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| Big Hollow Road |
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| Big Hollow and its simplistic beauty |
I do have a good base for Vermont 100 so far as specificity in my training goes and I look forward to getting back out onto those routes and trails after my race... but that's looking further and further ahead and this is just to say that I am excited for this year's Vermont 100.
I’m ready for my second running of this race and my second year raising money for VASS and being a part of the ultra running community which, trying to think about it I think my first Ultra that I did was in 2004 or 2005... just a local fat ass in Corvallis, Oregon. I'm forever grateful to still be a part of this community and to hopefully continue to do this for a very long time, so thanks as always for reading and I will do my best to get a full race report up within a week from the Vermont 100. If you are feeling particularly philanthropic I still have my fundraising page up. The way it is set up all the money goes DIRECTLY to Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sport and I can actually receive donations on that page all the way through August 1st. So if you, or anyone you know, would like to contribute to the amazing programs of Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sport you can click this link here.
And it wouldn't be a blog from me without mentioning music...lots of great stuff out there and in my head at the moment. John Richards and crew from KEXP has put out another Runner's Podcast, which is definitely worth checking out. You can find it here.
I've also been listening to an incredible mix-cd made by my old friend (and musical curating phenom) Zuggy.
It's always interesting to see what ends up getting stuck in my head on race day, time will tell! You push, I'll go.
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