Buff - WTF?!?

We were first introduced to fabric tubes as clothing with the 80’s leg warmer rage. More recently, arm sleeves have taken over the athletic world, so much so that NBA players contesting in indoor climate controlled conditions now wear arm sleeves. Sometimes just on one arm. Oooh, now that’s cool! But even the uni-armed sleeve look is so last year, because athletes  - particularly ultrarunners - have a new fabric tube trend: The Buff.

Sure one sleeve is cool, but if he really wants to be the bomb, he needs a Buff, not a sweatband!

Now back when I was in college, running in the buff meant being naked. Of course, I also thought streaking meant running through the quad without clothes and not some obsessive-compulsive adherence to running at least one mile every day. But I date myself because that was last century. Now a buff refers to an oversized fabric loop, with numerous associated You-tube videos showing the infinite number of genius uses for such a seemingly simple design.

And yet I am left wondering, “Why the hell would ultra-runners want a Buff??” Ok, yes, if you are like some Killian Jornet freak who dances across two mile high mountain peaks where weather can change at any moment and freeze your face off, well, then, yeah, in that case, I get it. But American runners don’t just wear their buffs on high mountain peaks to ward off frost bite; they wear them at races like Way Too Cool and Western States, races you could run in the buff and not be in danger of frostbite! (Nevermind that I was hypothermic at Western States. We all know that was an anomaly and besides, no Buff would have saved me!).

Why have we replaced beanies and the more sensible-sized fleece headbands with some big cloth rag that looks like a turban wrapped around the head?? I don’t get it. But maybe that’s because I have never been a fashionista, especially when it comes to running. I choose my clothes for how they fit and function not how they look. I mean, did you see me at Western States??: A light blue overly worn hat from 2002, a fluorescent green freebie bandana from my kids 100 Mile Club, and a Goodwill cotton T-shirt! At least I had on cute Lululemon shorts, but only because I won them and because Ken Sinclair and Sean Meissner have forbidden me from racing in the shorts I like to call “my dumpy blue shorts.” So, yeah, I really need help when it comes to fashion, but I have watched those You-Tube videos and I still don’t know how I would wear a Buff.

A few years ago, Western States gave out Buffs as part of the schwag. My daugher modeled it as a strapless dress a few times, before I finally used it to wipe up some juice and threw it out. Great uses for my Buff and I didn’t even get them from a video!

Megan rocks a Buff

(Buff-wearers try not to get your fabric tube in a wad, this is all in good April fool’s fun...mostly. :) If you are a Buff die-hard, please feel free to clue me in on what I am missing!)

Pacific Rim One Day - Megan's Race Report

On March 15-16 Megan and I ran the Pacific Rim 24 hour race together for the second year in a row. We are a little late getting up a race report because we spent spring break in Cabo completely unplugged from the world. But we are back, and blogging as fiercely as ever, which is to say, completely sporadically. :) This is Megan's race report. 

On Saturday March 15-16 I ran Pacific Rim 24 hour race. It took place around Sacajawea lake in Longview, Washington. The course was a one mile loop around the lake. Part of the course had a bridge. I did cartwheels on the bridge almost every lap I did. The race started 9:00 Saturday and ended 9:00 Sunday. There was an aid station after every lap I did. My mom went with me. My number was 50 for my goal of doing a 50k. Mom’s number was 51 so I told her she had to do 51 miles.

Megan, on the bridge, *not* doing cartwheels

When the race started, me and mom did a slow jog for the whole 1 mile loop.Then we walked. I took a break to play on the iPad after 5 laps. Mom ran 2 more without me and then I continued. I did four more laps. At about my ninth lap altogether, I noticed some birds in the lake with a weird design of white on their face. There were signs with the names of birds around the lake so I wanted to see what the strange looking birds were named. Mom and I found out that they were called buffleheads. Mom and I used that as a joke from then on. For the rest of that lap we constantly called each other buffleheads. Also during that time I had a cookie eating contest with a guy named Zach Gingerich. I won 4-2 when they ran out of cookies! At dinner time I had a jelly bean eating contest with him. The jelly beans were served in little cups. Zach won this time, the score was 3-2. The jelly beans were too sugary for me. After that lap I took another break. That break I made friends. Their names were Joey, Nikki, Crockett, and Tass. Nikki was in the race and Joey supported. Crockett and Tass were their dogs. I got to give the dogs treats. Joey said they were all-natural gingersnap treats. Nikki ended up winning for the women with 69 miles.

Mom came back from her 2 lap run without me and then we were off. I ran 3 laps with mom and then we both went to take a break. We played 2 games of Ticket to Ride in the car. I beat mom once and she beat me once. After that I took a break every 3 laps. At the end of the day I had 30 miles! I had decided to get some sleep and do my victory lap in the morning. I went to bed in the minivan we had set up a mattress in.

All snug and warm in the minivan

Mom woke me up at 6:00 and we did 1 lap. At the end the people who were there congratulated me. I did more laps because I wanted to get 32 miles because I would beat all of the people who got a 50k. At the end I had 34 miles! Mom had 51! We both made our goals. My place was 32nd overall and Mom’s was 6th woman. She got an orange plaque. I had lots of fun.

                                                                            -Megan Smith, age 9

Megan hits the 50k mark!!

I Am A Douche Grade Jogger: Weekend Water Slides and the Hillbilly Half

I didn’t want to have winter babies; I wanted to be able to have outdoor parties and barbecues to celebrate their birthdays. My first kid was all set to be born in early September, but a miscarriage messed things up so Megan didn’t arrive till late January. Liam’s due date was a more reasonable late March, but then the little booger showed up six weeks early, still in the mid of winter. That left us with two birthdays to celebrate when there aren’t a lot of options in the Pacific Northwest; certainly we wouldn’t be having any picnics or barbecues!

Every kid would choose this over their mom. At least mine would.

So instead we headed up to the Great Wolf Lodge in the upscale metropolis of Grand Round, WA this past weekend. For those of you not familiar with the Great Wolf Lodge, it is a ginormous hotel with an indoor water park teeming with children hyped up on sugar and the excitement of donning bathing suits at a time when the outside temps hover just above freezing. And there are water slides! A weekend in a basic room is more than a monthly mortgage payment on the average American home, and yet, the hotel is booked solid every weekend, including all the fancy (and significantly more pricey) animal themed suites with miniature log cabins for the kids. But the kids wanted to go, and well, it was for their birthdays. Oh, and what a coincidence! There just happened to be a La Sportiva Mountain Cup race less than a half hour away! I am sure the kids wouldn’t mind; it is not like it was their actual birthdays. Plus, there are water slides; they’d never miss me!

So Saturday morning, I headed off to run and the kids headed off to the water park. Due to the torrential rain during and after the race, I think I ended up getting the wettest!

The race started on a gentle uphill grade and I was holding myself back to stay with the leading women. But a quarter of a mile in, the road quickly steepened and five women went flying by like I was dragging a tire! My quads were burning and I kept thinking, “Ah, man, this should be power hiking!” I did run every step, but you wouldn’t know it for how much time the front runners put on me. Starting around mile one, I was pretty much just waiting to get to the top so we could turn around and come back down.

It's much steeper than it looks!

Ironically, I think of myself as an uphill runner. If you ask me about Western States, I will tell you without a doubt in my mind, I won it on the uphills. But this race made me realize I am not really an uphill runner. There are some fast men and women out there who can eat up climbs like gravity doesn’t affect them!

About three and a half miles in, the trail came out on another road with just a gradual climb. In the next half mile I passed three guys and one gal. “This is the stuff I am good at!” I thought to myself. And then it hit me: this was “douche grade”, the not so kind name mountain runners give to the least challenging uphill grades. And honestly, I wasn’t going much faster than ultramarathon pace. Nope, I am not an uphill runner; I am a douche grade jogger!

I didn’t catch anybody on the downhill, but I only got passed once and my legs felt strong, so I was pretty happy with the latter half of the race. I held on for 5th women - nothing too spectacular but a solid effort in a race WAY outside of my comfort zone, plus some good early season quad pounding. And perhaps the best part: I still got a whole afternoon of water sliding in after the race was over!

Training Commences

I had a nice little break after Rocky Raccoon, but now it is time to get serious!! and I've got plenty of work to do. So it was back to Monday morning track work. My mile time is about 20 seconds off "normal"( 6:11 but we did run in crazy rain and wind). But the most disheartening thing was my strength - I struggled through 20 squats with the kiddos. Last year I could rip off 50, no problem! I am blaming it on my kids getting heavier!

But I have some serious motivators to get me where I need to be:

He yelled that at me while I was flopping on the ground trying to do push-ups (I made him repeat for the video) Worthless life?? Where does he come up with this stuff? Megan likes to remind me that I can't keep up with her. 

Meanwhile Megan is all set to attempt her second ultra. If you really want to do an ultra but you are afraid you aren't in shape or can't make the cut-offs, sign up for a 24 hour race. You have an entire day to get the mileage you want, which gives you plenty of time to walk whatever you need. And since most of these races are on short loops, the aid station is never far away!

Megan did 27 miles last year, but she says she wants the full 50k this year. So she started her training today, too.

She started a notebook! (Yeah, I might have one that looks just like this.)

She did the strength training with me and after dinner I found her running a mile on the treadmill. "42 R7" she says to me when I walk in. 

"What?!?" I ask her.

"It's 385 divided by 9. Liam's asking me math problems while I run." 

Ok, maybe we aren't that alike - I can't even add simple numbers like mileage between aid stations when I run! Being nerdier than me is definitely not a good thing! But it should serve her well to get to 50k.

Ok, so who else is back to training full force and what are you training for? And more importantly, do you have a notebook? Happy training. 

Mauled By A Raccoon

I headed down to Texas to pick up my 50th ultra finish, my ninth hundred mile finish and a shiny new belt buckle. Instead I came home with a DNF and a whopping dose of humility.

I was rapidly stripping clothes as I headed to the starting line at 6 am. As the start time  approached it was already 61 degrees with 93% humidity and it felt muggy. The first couple miles I was in a nice conga line, struggling to stay smooth. Being behind many people made it hard to see and there were a lot of roots in this section. My legs just didn’t have that strong feeling, and I had one minor ankle turn. But when I hit the jeep road, I could stretch out the legs and I felt a lot better. But it was already hot and sticky and I was asking for water down my back at mile 6! I must’ve been running pretty well on the jeep road because I soon caught up to Nicole Studer, Michele Yates, Gary Gellin, Ford Smith, and Jason Fingar, all of whom had gotten out ahead of me and were running together. I think my presence fired up the competitive drive in Michele as she quickly took off and the rest of the group strung out with Nicole and I hanging in the back. I ran the rest of the loop with her and enjoyed getting to know her and having someone to chat with for a bit.

As we came back down the rooted trail to the start finish I felt really good and figured I had just needed a bit of time to warm up. 2:47 was a bit faster than the 2:50-52 I was aiming for, but I also knew it was a slower first loop than several of the women’s winners in the past couple years and Michele was already 8 minutes up on me. On the out and back, Michele looked like she was already in focus mode and Connie Gardner assured me she was going to blow up and I just needed to stay steady. I wasn’t concerned if Connie was right or not, I just knew that Michele’s pace was definitely too hot for me and I needed to stick to my plan. What I didn’t know was that my plan wasn’t right for me either! 

As soon as we hit the roots once more, I was hurting and struggling again. Much of the Rocky Raccoon course is like an M.C. Escher drawing: you have to go up and down lots of steps, but your elevation really never changes. Spending September through December training for a track race and only getting two short trail runs in January, this was incredibly hard on my legs, particularly my hip flexors, which just weren't prepared to lift a few inches higher than usual to clear all the roots (not to mention I am a low clearance shuffler to begin with!).

The enigma of RR: there's really not much climbing or descending, but there sure are a lots of steps!

But I held on and kept pace with Gary and Nicole through this section and through the Dam Nation loop. Gary was pretty cheery as he announced us going through 50k in 4:26 (8:35 pace). It was a touch faster than the 8:45 pace I was hoping to keep up through 60 miles, but in theory it didn’t seem unreasonable to me. The reality was different: “Gary, my legs really don’t feel good.”

“Yes they do. They feel great!”, he answered. My nutrition and stomach had been good but I quickly chugged a bunch more drink mix to see if that would help. It didn’t.

I stopped at Dam Nation 2 and really took my time to drink, soak myself and eat more. But by the time that minute or so was over, my legs had completely locked up, particularly my hip flexors, which felt angry and inflamed. I let Gary and Nicole go and walked a bit. I figured I would jog as slow as I could for a while and I was aghast to find my slow jog was 12:45 pace, and even that was killing me! I had three miles on the road till the next aid station and I made a couple more jog attempts but they would all end after just a few minutes with cramping and pain in my hip flexors and a bit in the hamstrings. Neal Gorman was also having a major low and we walked in to the aid station. He had an impressive comeback from the dead to finish 5th, but my day was done.

You know you are in bad shape when your crew gets so bored waiting for you, that they have to start knitting!

I don’t like to be a quitter, but I don’t regret my decision. I was honestly in more pain than I have ever been in during any ultra. Could I have gutted it out to the finish? - yes, I am absolutely certain I could have. But I exorcised that demon with my 29 hour finish as Western States in 2012. I embrace a certain amount of suffering for these events (and even thrive on it a bit), but I am not out here to torture myself for 65 miles just to prove I can. I run because I love it, but at mile 35, I didn’t love running. In fact, I didn’t even like it in the tiniest bit, and so I am ok with my decision. What’s eating at me, though, is that I let myself get to that point.

***

Unfortunately, things didn’t go too smoothly for me after Desert Solstice. I did a little too much running right after the race so that I could be part of our group’s annual “Elf Run” leaving goodies on all our friends doorsteps, so my legs were flat and tired for longer than usual. At Christmas my sister came out with her three kids, and some mega- GI bug that knocked me out completely for three days. I had the toe surgery, which went really smoothly and I am completely happy with it, but there was certainly some stress and a few days of missed running for that. And then MLK weekend, I got hit with another crazy GI bug that took me out for a week after losing 6 pounds in three days (via numerous bathroom trips). What was meant to be my biggest training week went from 90 planned miles to 42 actual miles, and all of them slow; I did only three speed workouts and essentially no real trail running between DS and RR. My longest run in seven weeks was 19.5 miles. But the Monday before Rocky Raccoon I had one of my fastest 6x400 sessions ever (sub 80 sec on a couple- great for me) and I grasped on to the idea that the low training meant I was well rested and ready to run. But conditions at Rocky Raccoon were less than ideal; humidity can be brutal to run through and the only other race I have done at high humidity did not go well for me, either. It is just not something we are accustomed to in Oregon.

But I am not offering these as excuses to exonerate me, because the reality is that none of these were the true cause of my demise. Plain and simple: I messed up.

I have success in running lately and success breeds confidence. But there is a fine line between confidence and self-delusion or hubris, and I stepped over that line. I convinced myself that I was capable of running a certain time at Rocky Raccoon and even though my legs felt bad from the start, I stubbornly held on to that goal and kept pushing, hoping for things to get better. I don’t think the pace I was running early on was egregiously fast and in theory I believe I should be able to do it. Indeed, Nicole was right with me through 50k and held on strong for the win. But for where I was at on that day, with that training, it was too much. I have never had any kind of psoas muscle pain or cramping and can only assume they just weren't in shape to handle that terrain or the conditions. There was certainly a common theme: many of those pushing for a faster run succumbed to the oppressive humidity with only a 58% finishing rate. Those who ran more relaxed and focused on finishing over running a specific time fared much better, and there were many impressive performances in the 17-24 hour range, with lots of runners showing how an even, conservative pace will get you to the sub-24 buckle. I tend to be a conservative runner and I pride myself on pacing, but I failed at this completely on race day. I kept running the pace I so desperately wanted to run, until I just couldn’t run anymore, and sadly that was pretty early in the day. It’s good for me to get out of my comfort zone, but it is also good for me to learn how far is too far, and Saturday I got that lesson: if it feels too hard, it is too hard and it is time to back off and let go of time goals.

Perhaps the hardest part of dropping, is explaining it to others. It kind of feels like the walk of shame in college (not that I would know about that!). Even though I was convinced I made the right call for me, the guilt and the apologetic feeling was overwhelming. To explain why I dropped felt hollow and lame. I understand why you don’t see most people right after they DNF, but I wasn’t about to the let the pride get the better of me. While no longer running, I spent another 9 hours enjoying the race as a spectator, cheering folks on, and offering a little bit of help to those who were having a better day than me. And you realize pretty quickly that you’re the only one having a pity party and you need to snap out of it because there are so many wonderful stories around you - maybe not yours today, but you can still live vicariously and be moved by the people still out running. I loved hearing crews tell runners after their 4th lap that they were well ahead of 24 hour pace. Watching guys like Steve Moore and Neal Gorman rally to strong finishes was inspiring. Roy Pirrung blew me away with his steady determination. And my favorite moment all night: when Shaheen Sattar started her final lap and her crew yelled,”Keep this up and you’ve got Western States!” So many great achievements  out there, and while I was bummed not to have one of my own, I am still glad I got to be a part of it. Plus RD Joe Prusaitis made me a honorary Texan. He said it was because I have been to Texas seven times in the last five years for running events, but I think it is because I look so good in a cowboy hat! ;)

So, now I am going to take a couple easy weeks to make sure I am healthy and completely recovered (and to make sure I don't miss any of the Olympics - I am a sucker for them!). Then it heavy duty training time. The good thing is, I know what I need to do (ie. pull out last year's WS training plan and copy it exactly). Plus, I am motivated and hungry with a little something to prove once again - and that sure worked out well last year. A DNF isn't fun, but it's not the end of the world either. The failures are great lessons and a good way to grow for the future. So while I am disappointed, I am not going to beat myself up about it. Like I said to someone Saturday, "You're not a real ultra-runner if you don't have a few shitty races!" One more positive: My big toes feel awesome! No regrets on parting ways with my toenails!

The "elite" meet and great Friday morning: Gary Gellin, me, Ian Sharman, Connie Gardner, Ryan Ghelfi, and Dave James. Or more like "Club DNF." Seriously, what did they put in those sandwhiches?!? Thank you, Ian, for brining some credibility to the group!

Nutrition, Part 1: Your Perfect Nutrition Plan

There seems to be some belief that Western states needs drug testing, because it is quite lucrative to win, even in the absence of prize money. I did score two new sponsors - Injinji and Ultimate Direction - and La Sportiva generously upped the ante on their support. I am grateful for the support, but the reality is, it won’t even cover the costs of my racing and travel this year. Basically, I haven’t seen the bags of money pouring in since Western States! What I have gotten is 500 new “friends” (in the Facebook meaning of the word) and loads and loads of questions from people. I have no training secrets and I am happy to share what works for me. Since a good deal of the questions involve nutrition, I thought I’d write a post (or two!) about the subject.

Nutrition is a lot like politics or religion: there is a lot of conflicting information available, but many people have very firm beliefs as to what is right and wrong. To me, the only true “wrongs” of nutrition are habits that cause states of poor health, such as obesity, high blood sugar, and nutritional deficiencies. However, I do certainly have my own set of beliefs on what optimum nutrition is, particularly in terms of ultrarunning performance, based largely on what has worked for me and the changes I have noticed in the past year.

The first schism amongst ultrarunners are the camps of “eat to run” and “run to eat.” Certainly when you are running all those miles it is easy to feel like you earned a beer, a burger, a cookie or whatever. Besides not smoking, staying at a normal weight is probably the best thing you can do for your health. If running keeps you at a normal weight but you are eating a lot of junk food, you are still better off than you would be by not exercising. Medical literature also shows that normal weight individuals have much better glucose tolerance and higher insulin sensitivity than overweight individuals, so normal weight individuals are better able to process junk food and return to baseline. The literature also shows that people who lose weight see improvements in glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, triglyceride levels and cholesterol, no matter what their diet was. My favorite example of this is the so called “Twinkie diet” where a Kansas State University professor lost 27 pounds eating a high percentage of his calories from junk food, yet, many common measures of health actually improved. So if you are a normal weight runner and want a cookie after you run, your body can probably handle it without much consequence to your overall health.

However, many runners, and ultra runners in particular, are striving to be as healthy as possible and many are looking for ways to optimize performance. But what should you eat to be as healthy as possible and perform at your best? There are so many choices out there and plenty of highly successful runners in each group: Vegan, Vegetarian, Paleo, Low-carb, Gluten-free, ketogenic... Aargh too many choices and plenty of passionate (and convincing) people advocating for each one. The reality is that the human body is quite adaptable and can thrive on a variety of diets, ranging from 90% carbs down to about 10% carbs. So there is no One Perfect Nutrition Plan (sorry!). That being said, I’ll give you what I consider the most important nutrition elements for optimum running performance.

1) Eat lots of plant derived foods. Fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds are packed with vitamins and nutrients. They are high in fiber and anti-oxidants. Diets high in vegetables lower the risk of heart disease and likely lower the risk of cancer. Plus, most vegetables are filling while being fairly low in calories.

2) Eat a lot of protein. It only takes 0.5 g of protein/kg body weight to avoid protein malnutrition - that’s only about 35 g of protein a day for your average man. But this is a minimum and not necessarily the amount that promotes optimum performance. Studies on endurance athletes suggest 3-4 times that amount may be necessary for you to be at your best. That’s because hard training damages muscles and more protein is required to build them back up and to make them stronger. Vegetarians and vegans will have a harder time getting this much protein, but I certainly don’t think meat is a necessary ingredient for optimal performance.

3) Cut out the processed carbs. White flour and sugar provide a lot of empty calories, cause insulin to spike, and create wide fluctuations in blood sugar. Additionally, most prepackaged snack foods have a lot of chemicals and preservatives that you don’t need.

4) Have a source of iron. I am not a big fan of supplements as I think a well rounded diet is the best way to get all your nutrients. Plus, new studies show supplementation with anti-oxidant type vitamins (C, E, beta-carotene) actually increased cancer risk! Iron is important as it is a major component of heme in your red blood cells, which is the oxygen carrying molecule. Not enough iron means not enough oxygen! Some iron is lost due to cell turnover and perhaps foot strike trauma in runners. Premenopausal women lose more iron than men due to menstruation. If you eat meat, you probably don’t need iron supplements (carnivorous men should NOT take iron supplements). But vegetarians may need a supplement.

Basically, this list could be incorporated into any type of nutrition plan, again underscoring that there is no One Perfect Nutrition Plan. What is best for you depends on your ethics, religion, food allergy status, motivations, and personal beliefs about food.

Last year I made a lot of changes to my nutrition which primarily addressed #2 and #3 above. I ate too many processed carbs and I needed more protein. I tried Paleo, thinking I might jump on the low carb band wagon and I hated it. It was like running in a constant state of bonk. Plus, I have a serious sweet tooth, and while I was ready to cut down on my junk food, I wasn’t willing to give it up entirely. And I didn’t have a burning desire to cut out all grains. Eventually, I settled on Carb back loading (aargh - one more nutrition label to add to the list!).

Here’s how I described it to David Hanenburg at Endurance Buzz (Check out his Rocky Raccoon preview):

The best descriptor for how I eat is 'Carb Back-loading.' Basically, I eat the majority of my carbs at dinner time with some carbs coming in the form of a recovery drink after workouts. It is a reduced carb diet as compared to the standard American diet, but it is not truly a low carb diet. And while I have tried to cut out most sugar and wheat, I am not trying to be grain free. In fact, most of my nightly carbs come from grains such as rice, polenta, and quinoa. Potatoes, squash and a couple of desserts each week account for the balance of the carbs I eat. I don't ever plan to give up dessert entirely!

This is what my food intake looked like today:

Post workout: recovery drink

Breakfast: two eggs plus red peppers and onions sauteed in coconut oil and half and avocado

Lunch: Braised cabbage with carrot puree, a small halibut fillet, and a small handful of cashews

Dinner: Quinoa salad with half a chicken breast. No dessert tonight since tomorrow is an easy workout (and I don’t need as many carbs to get through it)

I cook a lot of my food in big batches on the weekend, so it is ready to go when I need it.

Bon Apetit!

(Part 2 is Race Day Nutrition, but this took me 2 weeks to finish - I actually had it half done a week before Geoff Roes published his piece on iRunFar, which inspired me to get this done! Anyway, part 2 is coming... but don't hold your breath! I've got a trip to Texas and a hundred miles to run before that happens!)

Lucky '13

What a year! To think all I really wanted to do was not embarrass myself at Western States!

Rather than regurgitating this year's race reports and running activities as a year in review, I thought I'd check in with last year's goals.

So here we go:
1) Run 3,000 miles. Check! Last year I ran 2,969 miles and was over 2800 the two years before that, but never broke the 3k mark. This year: 3051 miles. While my mileage was not all that different than last year, my big weeks were bigger and my low weeks were lower (or off altogether), which I think provided a "bigger bang for my buck" - basically, I was fitter with about the same number of miles. At this point, I am happy with this range and I am not really trying to push it much higher.

2) Race fewer miles. Well, by the letter, I did this: 563 racing miles in 2012 vs. 538 racing miles in 2013, but I wouldn't call this a significant difference. However, I did have a couple of races this year (Nueces and RunRabbit Run) which were not 'A' races for me and so I wasn't as drained going in or coming out. But really, this was a stupid goal - I love to race and I am going to keep doing it! Plus, I think my recovery has gotten a lot better. Good thing, as my race schedule is already packed for 2014!

3) Nail Western States. Yeah, nailed it! Fourth time is a charm. :) I feel like I finally understand how to run a 100 mile race. Will I nail them all? No, of course not, but I feel like I have a sense of what I am doing now and the idea of racing 100 miles no longer scares me.

4) Another gold for Team USA. Since the World Championships were cancelled this year, we didn't get a chance to defend our title. So this one is going to carry over to 2014 which will be August 31 in Latvia. Unfortunately, I am not even qualified for the team right now! I'll be at the  Mad City 100km national championships this April to hopefully rectify that problem.

5) Break the 200km American Record. Some goals change; this one did. This was a goal for me because I thought it was a respectable record/distance but something I thought I could easily do. I still do (my husband points out that I failed to get the record twice, so maybe it is not so easy). But I was selling myself short and I feel strongly that changing this goal to get the 100 mile track world record was the right thing for me and a much more meaningful record overall. So this goal has been tabled. Now I want to see how I stack up against the overall 100 mile world record!

6) Nutrition. I didn't have any concrete goal for this and yet, it may be the place where I made the most radical changes. I did way better with my junk food consumption, but I will likely always have a sweet tooth. But carb back loading has been a good fit for me. I cut out a lot of processed foods, plus added meat back to my diet after 17 years.

7) Do Yoga. I went about 20 times this year. It made a huge difference for me. I don't even hate it and all the stretchy people in the world anymore! This is no longer a goal, just something that is part of my training.

8) Address my lower ab/groin/hip pain. I never went to any doctors, physical therapists or other medical personnel. Basically, yoga and a few other stretches and hip mobility exercises were all I needed.

So on to 2014! Goals for this year:
1) Make the US 100km team. Help the team get another gold medal. I'd love to improve on my 5th place finish from 2012, too.
2) The 18/21 Western States/AC double. This is swinging for the fences, especially since I don't have any experience running 100's in relatively quick succession (five weeks). I feel like I could take off another 20 minutes from my WS time (18:37), but I am not sure where I'll find another 17 minutes (cooler temps??). I have nothing to go on for AC, and that may be an unreachable time, but it is a place to start for my planning. Times at both races may be significantly affected by weather conditions, so things aren't entirely in my hands, either.
3) 100 mile world record attempt - Ann Trason has a stout record which may be out of my league and that's ok, but no shame in trying.
4) Get blinds for the living room and remove the carpet from my son's bathroom. Ok, this isn't a running goal! But I try to be a model of how to juggle training, job and family and I've dropped a few other balls! Time for a few home projects to get done. And when you have carpet in a bathroom with a six year old boy... well, let's just say that's gotten to be a high priority home improvement project! And I decided three years ago we need blinds for the living room - maybe time to get on that!
5) Take a non-running vacation. My kids are at an awesome stage: they can do a lot of things we enjoy but they aren't old enough to totally hate us yet. :) Last year was a lot of fun with them and I am looking forward to another, but we probably should get to a few places just to enjoy the place itself. Yellowstone and Glacier are top possibilities right now. Time to make some reservations!

Tentative Race Schedule:
2/1 - Rocky Raccoon 100M National Championships
3/15 - Pac Rim 24hr with my daughter Megan, perhaps my best racing experience from 2013
4/12 - Mad City 100km National Championships
?? 5/11- Ice Age 50M
6/28 - Western States
July- family vacation!
8/2 - Angeles Crest 100
8/31 - 100km World Championships
12/14 - Desert Solstice

I hope you have many wonderful things to look forward to and many goals to challenge you in 2014. Happy New Year!