Training Log - Tuesday, September 28, 2010

What a great day to get back to running after an injury related 10 day layoff. I played soccer last Sunday and had no problems, so I figured my heel might be ready to hit the pavement again. I got rained out yesterday, so I waited until this morning to get a quick and short run in. I was going to go slow, but I felt pretty good, so I opted to try a negative split training run. I ended up running 4.3 miles in 32 minutes, which still isn't race pace, but it was certainly a nice pace. I figured short distance with quicker pace is not a bad training run. The temps were nice and cool, so I didn't start breaking a sweat until 1.5 miles into the run. My heel didn't bother me at all during the entire run, which was definitely a plus. I hated to miss the Hinson Lake 24 Hour run last weekend, but I really want to keep my eye on the ball, Pinhoti 100 in November. However, even that has become questionable with my low mileage weeks even preceeding the injury induced break. I am going to try to crank up the mileage this week and next and see how I feel before deciding how to proceed for the rest of the year. Race fees are already paid for a number of races and I really do not want to back out of any of them. Right now, I'm just glad to be back to running.

Training Log - Friday, September 17, 2010

We left my house at 5:30 AM for an easy road run. Well, it wasn't a good day for me. The pain in the bottom of my left heel has flared up for some reason and I felt the throbbing in my heel. This must still be related to the VFF trail run Richard and I went for a few weeks ago, when I lost my balance and landed hard on top of a rock with said heel. On top of that, my stomach started acting up as well, which never happens. So an easy training run turned into a short 4.4 mile run and walk, well, more walk than run, really. I am going to try to address the heel with some Ibuprofen and see if that helps. Otherwise, I am really going to have to start to worry. I have a 24 hour race next weekend and I won't be able to even attempt my goal, if this doesn't get better. I jsut hope it's not a fracture. On the side note, the temperature was perfect and cool with the humidity being unexpectantly high duer to rainfall overnight.

Training Log - Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Richard picked me up at 5:30 AM this morning and we had decided to switch it up, again. We headed for Wade Mountain to run the trails there for a nice little 6 mile loop. When we arrived at the trailhead, it was still dark. Usually, that's not a problem, but today, we did not bring our headlamps. So we waited for about 15 minutes and took off. The temperature was nice and cool. We still should have brough some water along the run, anyway. We headed up the Devils Racetrack and merged right onto the Wade Mountain trail to continue our loop. We knew we'd eventually dead end into a fence across the trail indicating a private property section, but not until after we reached the end of the cleared trail. First, we had to make our way down a half mile section of marked (but not yet cleared) trail. When we reached that area, I noticed something really strange or cool. I am not sure how describe it, so here is the picture.

It was a deer with 8-point antlers (or 4-point, who knows, I sure don't). Additional bones of its remains were close by. Not sure how this beautiful animal ended up in its current state, but it was definitely an interesting find on our morning run. We continued to make our way down the marked but unclerared trail until we got to the fence. Once there, we continued on what should have been a 200 yard section across private property until we could rejoin the Landtrust trail that would take us back to the parking lot. Well, no such luck, we missed that cutoff and ended up running a loop back to the parking lot, finishing our run on a half mile stretch of country road. Overall, a nice 5 1/2 mile run, but very slow.

Training Log - Sunday, September 12, 2010 (Destin, Florida)

Today, I chose to run the other direction (West) and back along Miramar Beach in Destin, Florida, again along the course of the Destin 50 Beach Ultra scheduled for next February, that I first scouted on yesterday's run. I also chose to go running earlier in the day, 8 AM to be exact. Opting to run in my VFFs, I had planned for another 6 miler that would be my longest run to date in my Vibram FiveFinger KSOs.

Today's run was a little easier and a little more entertaining. The tide had not yet covered much of the firm sections of the beach right along water's edge, so I was able to avoid much of the soft sections that I had to run through during yesterday's adventure. I had also had significantly more sleep prior to this run. I ended running with two of the guys that stayed at the condo with us, Tilo visiting for our friend's wedding from Germany and Ivan from Huntsville, Alabama via Mexico. Since all of us had varying backgrounds in running, we opted for a slow (10 min) pace that would keep everyone happy. Running West, we had the sun on our backs for the outbound leg of the run. That meant that the sun would be straight in our faces on our inbound leg. It makes a huge difference to be able to keep the sun out of your face since sunscreen will run straight into your eyes once you start sweating. Next time, a hat is a must have item on these runs. This run felt much easier than yesterday's, largely due to our ability to select firm terrain along the edge of the water for most of the run.

Having had the opportunity to run about 6 miles of the race course for the Destin 50, I am not so sure I am "up for the challenge". It is definitely a tough ultra. But who knows, I change my mind all the time.

Training Log - Saturday, September 11, 2010 (Destin, Florida)

Today, I experienced my first beach run at Miramar Beach in Destin, Florida. I also chose to go at the hottest time of the day, noon. I opted to run in my road running shoes instead of barefoot or VFFs. This run presented quite a number of challenges. First, temperatures were in the 90s and the sun was beating down on me with little to no breeze to speak of. Second, the terrain wasn't as consistent as I had hoped. I guess the tide had a lot to do with it, as there was very little firm ground to speak of. The water was rather high up on the beack and a lot of the firm sand sections were covered by algae. Which brings me to my third challenge, algae. Not only was a too slippery to run on the sections that were covered by it, the smell of algae baking in the hot midday sun was also quite bothersome. However, I did not witness any oil/tar balls at the beach at all.

After finding one of the firmer sections right at the edge of the water, I started my run slowly heading east along the course of next year's Destin 50 Beach Ultra. This was to be my first reconnaissance run to see if I really wanted to accept this challenge next February and what the most appropriate footwear would be. Because I only had little sleep the night before, I cut my run short, from 10 to 6 miles so I didn't quite make it to Topsail State Park and its dunes. Nevertheless, I did learn quite a bit on this section. Namely, this is going to be one hell of a challenge for anyone attempting the ultra next year. The terrain cannot be described as easy. Whenever you had to run on soft sand sections, it immediately felt like you were running one step forward and two steps back. Quicksand would be another word to describe the feeling. Actually, some of the beach sand was so fine and granular that running on it and sinking into the sand made the same squeaky noise you get when running on a gym floor.

However, the scenery was beautiful. While running along the beach was very tiring, it was rewarding as well. I ran a very slow 10 minute per mile pace, trying to pay attention to all the details of the course conditions. To sum it all up, I did not have any blisters form, but that was probably just due to the short distance of my run as there was plenty of sand inside my shoes and socks. The terrain is very challenging and running 50 miles here will require paying great attention to the details and possibly learning how to recognize and distinguish between the different surfaces as you are running to try to stay on the firmest sections of the beach. However, sometimes all a runner will have is the soft beach sand we all look for when we are just looking to lay at the beach.

Tomorrow, I will run West towards the start of the Destin 50 Beach Ultra race start location and give my VFFs a try on this terrain.

Training Log - Friday, September 10, 2010

Another great day for a morning run. The temps are finally getting lower overnight. I picked up Richard at 5:30ish this morning and we met up with James and Mike at the Blavins Gap Trailhead parking lot right off 4 Mile Post Road. Mike and Richard had run sections of this trail before, but none of us had every run the trail loop we identified using the set of maps that the Land Trust of Huntsville and North Alabama has posted on their website. We started up the Bill and Marion Certain Trail onto the Varnedoe Trail to the Sugar Tree Trail and finally onto the Smoke Rise Trail looping back to the trailhead parking lot. The weather was perfect, low humidity and almost a cool breeze accompanied temps in the high 50s or low 60s. I also took this short run as an opportunity to try out my new Montrail Mountain Masochists. They felt great. I stll need to tie them just a tad tighter before the next run, but I am hoepful these will work out. The loop added up to almost exactly 10K. This, of course, fostered ideas of creating a nice little 10K trail race out there. It actually has two really nice climbs right at the beginning and at the end of the loop. Anyway, it made for a great change of scenery since I am pretty bored with road training runs as of late and any change of scenery is quite welcome. Especially considering that I love trail running and I had never been out there before. I am heading down to Destin, Florida at lunch today to spend the weekend with friends. That will be a great opportunity to scout the actual location and run a section of the first annual Destin 50 Beach Ultra marathon scheduled for February 2011. I am planning Saturday and Sunday morning runs of 10 and 5 miles, respectively. The longer run will be in road running shoes and the short run will be in VFFs. We'll see how that works out, especially considering less sleep than usual;-)

Training Log - Monday, September 6, 2010

Richard picked me up at 6 AM and we proceeded to his house to pick up and fill up hydration bladders for our training run. We drove up to the hiker's parking lot at Monte Sano State Park to take on the first 12 miles of the Mountain Mist 50K course. We hit the trails around 6:30 AM at an easy 10-11 minute pace and kept it there formost of the 12 miles. We used the "locations" of the race aid stations as our excuse  to slow down for some food and drink intake. The weather was absolutely perfect for a run, in the low 50s when we started the run and barely in the high 60s when we finished. The only thing I was struggling with today was my footing. My left footket getting caught on roots and rocks and I barely avoided a nose plant multiple times. I'm not sure if it was fatigue or something else. I am also still experimenting with my trail shoes. I am going to continue to wear my Inov-8s, but I amalso going to start running in a pair of Mountain Masochists by Montrail to see if they keep me blister free on runs beyond 20 miles.