Summer Fun

My friend Debbie says discipline is like a muscle: some people are naturally stronger than others but you can work on it to get stronger. But like a muscle, if you overload it, it will fatigue.

After Western States, the physical pain was gone in a couple days. The full body lethargy took a couple of weeks to pass. But what lingered long after that was a lot of fatigue in my discipline.

Perhaps you are thinking of the term "burnout," but I don't think it was burnout in the classic sense of the word, because I was totally pumped up to go running. I just wasn't excited to get up at 4:30 every morning (and go to bed at 8:30 every night on these Pac NW glorious summer nights). I couldn't get excited about setting out three sets of clothes every night or cooking my week's food for three hours every Sunday night. And on my day off work, I just wanted a day off, not a day to squeeze in a run, a lifting session and a yoga class. I think I could have gotten psyched up if I had a race on the horizon, but I felt like the IAU and the local organizing committee was jerking us around so much about the 100K Worlds, that I couldn't get my head into training until we knew it was a definite go. And then Worlds got cancelled and I still didn't have an impetus to shift back into high gear. In the six weeks after Western States, I only did speed work twice, I never went to the gym, I did yoga only once, and I did not do a single air squat! But I had loads of fun running!

In July, Mac and I paced Dennis at TRT during his 6th place finish.

The blushing bride-to-be!

No male strippers, but we had this
hottie BBQ'ing for us!

Then I spent a weekend in Sunriver with a bunch of Salem women for a weekend of running and bachelorette celebration for my running partner Stephanie's upcoming wedding. We had a nice long run around Sunriver on Saturday morning. And then Sunday morning, a few dedicated partiers got up for a run to Benham
Falls. Speaking of falls, guess who completely wiped out on the smoothest, most non-technical piece of trail? Yeah, me, the trail runner! All of the road runners I was with though that was pretty funny.

Next it was down to California to pace Tia at AC for 48 miles. I was kind of bummed in the morning when the four Oregon runners were getting ready, because I was wishing I could be racing, too. But I got to have a great day sharing Tia's awesome run. During WS when I was doing so well, Dennis told me he'd take a bear for me to keep me in the lead. When I told Tia that she was doing so well that I guess I'd have to take a bear for her, too, she just joked back, "Don't worry, Ardilla (her nickname for me), if there's a bear, I know I am totally on my own!" The funny thing is there was a bear on the trail at mile 84 that the Idle Hour aid station warned us about. Fortunately, a group of volunteers were successful in scaring it off ahead of us so I didn't have to prove what a chicken I am be a hero.

The only other crazy incident came at mile 96 when we got to Millard and a volunteer asks if we know the course because it had been vandalized and flags removed. When we told him no, he frantically got ready to run with us with marking ribbon in hand. Being an older gentleman, he wasn't particularly speedy, but he was fresh and could run ahead of Tia, except he kept stopping to tie ribbons. I knew Tia was anxious to get to the finish, so I ended up taking the ribbon and marking the last three miles of trail. Most of the course had some residual markings but two critical turns had no markings at all. I doubt many people have paced and marked the course at the same time. But I think disaster was averted!

Tia came in 6th place overall, 2nd female, first master, and 9th best female time ever! She won a cougar for her effort, so now we are practically twins!! I am excited to go back next year and avenge my only ultra DNF.

Tia is ready to rock!

Then a week with my extended family back in Sunriver, where we got to finally meet Cousin Tessa (my niece). My brother decided to enter his first ever running race by doing the Haulin' Aspen trail half marathon. Yeah, distance crazy runs in the family! Mac and I joined the fun by running the full marathon and I even managed to win! But, Oh my god, it was so ugly at the end! My hamstrings were seizing up and I was dying!! Hundred mile running might leave the hamstrings a wee bit deficient!

Cousins Megan, Liam, Brooke, Luke, and Tessa

Smith women at Smith Rock!

Smith rock?

Two Monkey Faces!

Holy Cow - They match and they look like they are getting along! at Lava Butte

Paulina Creek Falls

This past weekend, I finally got the opportunity to do the Mt. St. Helens circumnavigation on the Loowit trail. And I had a front row seat for Mac's first "ultra-barf." He didn't think it was as awesome as I made it out to be at Western States. But he agreed the whole trail was pretty awesome. Though, he's a little more freaked out about the Volcanic 50k in three weeks on the same course.

Circumnavigators!

Masters of sterility on the Toutle River! ;) 

And this weekend, I have another summer "play date": 47 miles of pacing with Amy Rusiecki at Cascade Crest!

But all this play has revived my discipline and I am ready to jump back into training. Yesterday I fired up the quads with 100 air squats and I even cooked vegetables for two hours last night! My next major Big Goal was supposed to be Desert Solstice in December, but now it looks like the 100km World Championships are back on in Dubai on December 20th. But I've got one last little mountain "fun run" in the works before switching back to road running gear...

TRT: Exploration, Inspiration and Information

Things have been pretty low key since Western States. I took the first ten days off and have been getting back into running slowly. My legs had minimal soreness, but I was just really tired and I think my head needed a bit of a break, too. Aside from a trail marathon mid-August, I don't have any races on my schedule for the summer. That's 'cause I am trading in my racing bibs for pacing bibs! I am excited to explore some new trails, help friends, and have "relaxing" days hanging out at some big races.

First up: Tahoe Rim Trail 100 this past weekend, where I got to return the favor to my Western States pacer Dennis by crewing and pacing him with Mac. I had really been looking forward to this until we drove from Reno to Carson City. One side of the highways was a rocky embankment dotted with tumbleweeds and the other side was sun-baked rolling hills with a pathetic carpet of dead grass, and the thermometer was creeping up to 100. I remember thinking, "Thank god I am going to be running at night, because this is a hell-hole!"

Is this what TRT means when they say a taste of Hell?

Well, how quickly things change! As we approached Tahoe the mountains sprouted trees which were finally offset by the gorgeous turquoise water of the lake. "This place is awesome!," I gushed on my first view of the lake. So much for being a Hell-hole!

Ah, here is our glimpse of Heaven!

The only Hellish condition at all was the weather. In what seems to be the trend for summer races this year, TRT was threatening all time heat records with race day highs around 95 degrees (with the course almost all above 7000'). The combination of heat and altitude proved to be a major challenge for the racers, with a lot of "carnage" and slow times amongst the runners.

Oregonians Larry Stephens, Josh Marks, and Dennis Gamroth ready to run! 100% finish rate from these studs compared to the 59% overall finish rate

Unfortunately, Dennis was not immune to these obstacles and suffered from some pretty bad GI cramps. He came into mile 80 looking pretty forlorn and desperately searching for some stomach remedies. Mac was looking really beat up after just doing 30 miles! Dennis lost his top ten position and even watched the first lady go by while suffering with literal gut-wrenching pain. He stayed calm and took ten minutes or so in the aid station trying to get things back on track, before he and I took off for the last 20 miles to the finish in what was one of the most incredible displays of toughness that I have ever seen. He was power hiking like a champ, picking off three people including "unchicking" himself, and then absolutely crushed the last seven miles despite being in obvious severe pain. He finished in 22:27 for 6th place - nice work, Dennis!

Mac and Dennis take off after mile 50. Mac, the "safety runner," clearly staying behind Dennis. Nice cotton T-shirt, Dennis! :)

Notes, observations, and musings from the weekend:

- TRT had nearly the same elevation gain as WS, but stays above 6,500 the entire time and has a lot of hot, exposed sections, making it a tougher course that WS. The views are a lot nicer too, making this a great summer race for anyone disappointed by the December lottery gods.

- In the 20 mile section I paced, eight of those miles overlapped with runners going the other direction so I got to see a lot of the field. The race rules very clearly stated that pacers must run behind the runner at all times and are to serve only as "safety runners" and not true pacers. However, I would say nearly a third of the runners had their pacers in front of them and a couple more people just told me after the race they had their pacer run in front of them. There's even FB picture proof in a couple of cases. Am I just being a goody-two shoes, or is this an issue?? Most races don't make any distinction where your pacer can run, but to me it seems like if there is a rule about this, we should all be following it, be it front of the pack, mid-pack, or back of the pack. 

- People don't get wet enough. I said this about Western States and I noticed the same at TRT. The Spooner Summit AS had a sponge bucket and I personally spent close to an hour sitting next to it and making sure runners knew it was there before they left on one of the longest and hottest sections of the day. Almost all runners perked up when they heard this was available, but a good portion of them just put one sponge over their head before they left. (Happy to see a lot of people did put ice in their hats). At Diamond Peak, they had a sprayer hose, but many runners ran through it the same way I run through the backyard sprinklers with my kids, which is to say, they were quite timid of the spray. On a hot day, one of the most important things is keeping body temperature down, and that means getting completely soaked!

Dennis takes full advantage of the spray. I think my favorite example, though, was Larry, who grabbed the hose from the volunteer and sprayed himself down.

- And lastly we come to my real pet peeve: Salt tablet dosing! While waiting for Dennis at Spooner Summit, Mac and I eavesdropped on a conversation four ladies were having next to us. They sat around talking about how many salt pills they take an hour, how many they take per hour when it is hot, how one likes one product better because she only has to take one every 90 minutes.  Later a runner came in to the AS with a wonky stomach and he assured his crew that he didn't need any electrolytes because he had been taking two capsules per hour.

So if you want to play along, think in your head right now what your guideline is for salt dosing. Ok, do you have it?

I have talked to a lot of people (or read blogs, heard people talk) and their general guideline is almost always something like, "I take one or two salt pills per hour, depending on how hot it is." Here is my issue: salt tablet dosing should have nothing to do with how long you have been running and it is only indirectly related to how hot it is!

Don't believe me? Before going on, here's another little game for you:

1) You plan for a medium run without any water, but end up staying out three hours without drinking anything. How much salt should you take?

2) You go for a three hour run on a cool day, but because you are training for a hundred miler, you make sure you drink three liters of water during the run. How much salt should you take?

3) You go for a three hour run on a very hot day, and end up drinking 5 liters of water. How much salt should you take?

So in each of these examples the time is the same, but I would argue the amount of salt you take is very different. In the first example, if you don't drink water, you shouldn't take salt. The amount in the next two examples are dependent on a lot of personal variables, but I would think most people would take 0-3 salt tabs in #2. And for #3 you would need more than whatever you took for #2. So the amount of salt is not correlated with the amount of time running, it is correlated with how much water you drink! Yet, I think I have only talked to one other person who dosed salt based on how much they drank and that was Jon Olsen, a guy who is now a WORLD CHAMPION!

Every one has different salt needs, but I would like to see ultra-runners as a group talking about dosing salt tabs per bottle and not per hour. If it is hot, you drink more, which is why you need more salt on a hot day. If you stomach goes south and you can't drink much, you need to cut your salt back to match (even if it is hot!), so taking 2 salt pills per hour may be overkill and may be making your stomach issues worse. If your stomach is sloshy, it is because you haven't taken enough salt to match your fluid intake. 

Ok, so that's my speech on electrolytes. You can take it with a grain of salt. ;)

Me and my Trans-Rockies Teammate, Jenny Capel, out for a run on Friday. Ooo la La Sportiva!

Sunday I made Dennis walk the 2.1 miles around Spooner Lake with us because 100.4 miles really isn't enough. ;) There's a reason he calls me "the Ogress!" We walked slow and it was nice to be able to cheer for some of the final finishers.

Trail Stories From Western States

My race report is up at iRunFar (link), but I had a few stories from WS left to share.

At Dusty Corners there was a lot of shock when I came in leading the women's race as I was most certainly not one of the favorites. Craig Thornley was there joking around with me and giving me good advice. But after the race, my crew told me he asked them, "Does she really think she can win?". I guess he was a little shocked, too!

At the bottom of El Dorado canyon, I asked if there was any ice and a nice volunteer said yes, he had some and where would I like it. I held open my bra for him and he sheepishly threw in a few pieces. "Oh, you gotta do better than that," I told him, "Come on now, get friendly!" I left with a bra full of ice. ;)

At Michigan Bluff Mac was there to crew me alone because he left Dennis at Bath Road to make sure he was there ready to pace when I got there. No matter as so many great people stepped in to help Mac including Jimmy Dean Freeman, a couple of volunteers and Ken Sinclair. Mac expressed it best on Facebook, to say how amazing the ultra-community and how much they were like family, as Ken's wife Denise was running for a top 10 spot, and I was her competitor. When I thanked Ken, he said he was just there to give me a rub-down. Awesome sportsmanship, Ken, and the best rub-down on the course by far!

I mentioned my encounter with Karl Meltzer in my report and how he said to me, "Hey, Pam. You're gonna take my M9." What I didn't say is that I got a little cheeky with Karl and fired back, "Well, I just had to prove to you that I should have been on your odds list." I am pretty sure the Speedgoat can handle a little sass. But then I thanked him for leaving me off his list, because I've had three great races that way and the only one he ranked me well, I completely bombed. I told him I was ok if he wanted to leave me off all the rest of his lists, too. We did ask him if he wanted to run with us, but I don't think I made a good enough first impression for him to break his no pacer rule!

Running up Robie Point there was a rustle in the bushes just off the trail and I had a flashback to the stories of 2011 when several of the lead ladies got stopped by a bear. I told Dennis I couldn't handle it if a bear jumped out onto the trail and that that would be a sucky way to lose the race. Dennis told me not to worry because he would chase any bear that got in my way! The bears must've heard that because they didn't give us any trouble!

When I came onto the Placer High School track my daughter Megan was waiting to finish with me. When I got on the track, she took off running madly until Mac yelled at her, "Megan, run next to your Mom. Don't try to beat her!"

At the finish I finally met Gary Gellin, someone I had had an online debate with over the importance of speedwork in training. I think it is an important part of training but he is not a big fan. After I won, he congratulated me and said, "Well, I guess you can keep the speedwork."

At the award ceremony when Tim and I went to pick up the cougar trophies he very kindly warned me,"Careful, that thing is heavy. I nearly dropped it on my toe last year!"

And the funniest story: JB Benna and his crew were out filming again at this year's Western States, this time with more emphasis on the women's race. They had done a lot interviews with the top women before the race. But since I was not I favorite, I was not included in those interviews, so after the race, I had to do a fake pre-race interview. It was hilarious. He was asking me how I thought my training went and what my goals were for the race and did I think I'd be up at the front of the pack. And in my head I was thinking about saying, "I am feeling so confident in my training that I can guarantee a victory!" but even after winning I knew I couldn't pull that off, so I answered with these vague silly responses, and the whole time I had the dorkiest grin on my face because it just seemed so ridiculous. Can't wait to see the movie!

Redemption!

Wow! What a day at Western States. My head is still spinning on just how perfectly the day went. Since crossing the line, I have just been overwhelmed by the support and attention that I have been getting. Thank you so much. Every comment has meant so much and I apologize that I just haven't had the time to respond to each one individually. Race report is in the works and will be up at irunfar.com soon!

Everything's Super!

Well, while my Western States crew and pacer were off playing over Memorial Day weekend, I was at home being Suzie Homemaker with the kids, even going so far to use a sewing machine. In case you are as unfamiliar with this device as I am, there are these mechanical contraptions that stitch cloth together with the press of a foot lever. Amazing stuff! My kids were THRILLED (seriously - we sewed every material scrap in the house together). But there was serious business, too. Specifically, I needed to turn a $2.99 Goodwill camisole, a pair of Dollar Store trouser socks, and some painted fabric (leftover from Megan's curtains, installed in 2005, which may have been the last time I used the machine) into something SUPER.

 

What started as a bunch of junk and a little 6 year old boy was soon transformed into The Green Lantern, complete with power ring!!

Liam was thrilled. But he did tell me, "Mom, I need to buffen up my muscles to be more like a superhero." Yeah, you think, my little 6-week preemie runt who just barely cracked the 10th percentile for weight this year??

And I also made a little something for myself so were all prepared for this weekend, which was full of SUPER!

First off, Liam was SUPER! We ran the Superhero Dash together, Liam's first 5K. Liam runs more for the experience and definitely stayed in character.

Blasting bad guys.

Liam's idea of racing

Some people hit the wall when they run. Liam made a point of hitting every pole and touching every tree..."for energy". He would've needed a lot less energy if he just ran in a straight line! Nonetheless, he got it done - 49:18 and third place in his age group (woohoo!)

These kids were SUPER!

Mac runs the 100 Mile Club at Sumpter Elementary and he's got 36 people getting gold medals for hitting 100 miles this school year. Several of them came out to run on Saturday.

Our friends are SUPER!

 

 We had a good time hanging out with some of our fellow Superhero buddies.

And I was a SUPERMOM! (I told you I made something for myself!)

I ran a double Mary's Peak long run on Friday so that I could have the opportunity to wear my underwear on the outside run a 5k with Liam on Saturday.

Mary's Peak

Shout out to these SUPER guys on Mary's Peak. My first trip up I had to scramble over a lot of big blowdowns. By my second trip most of them had been cleared away.

All clear! This helped with my negative split effort tremendously, but I just happened to omit that detail when I told people about this run.

Ok, back to Saturday. The post race festivities were SUPER! Liam ate at least ten girl scout cookies, learned how to fence, got a free ride on the carousel, hung out with the Home Depot crew, and got his body painted...twice. Plus, my lucky little guy won in the raffle again this year (we did the 1k last year). Only last year, he was pretty psyched to get a free cupcake gift certificate. This year he won a yoga mat. It is a much nicer prize, but not to Liam. As he ungratefully told the lady,"The Green Lantern doesn't do yoga!"

SUPER painted!

Don't we look SUPER?

Afterwards, Meg-o and I had a SUPER time at the Salem Garden Tour (and possibly a trip to frozen yogurt) while the boys went to see Ironman. 

Sunday, I swept the Run For the Hills 30k course and got behind an injured runner who was determined to limp to the finish line instead of getting a ride back. That was not so super, but the course was beautiful and so was the weather, so it was still a super day to be outside.

A SUPER weekend, that kind of made up for last weekend at home. Though, I am still jealous! Hope you had a SUPER weekend, too!

So Unfair!

Memorial Day weekend: The unofficial kick off for summer and for Western States runners, a prime opportunity for some hard core training, with a good number of runners participating in the Western States training camp. Amongst the training campers are my husband Mac, aka My Crew, and Dennis, aka My Pacer, while I - the actual Western States Runner!! - am stuck here in Salem covering call.

They ran 70 miles of beautiful Western States trail, while I pounded out 46 glorious miles on the treadmill. They ran through the famed canyons, while I did 5x1200@10% incline (and lost three pounds of sweat in nine miles!). They enjoyed California sun; I got Hotel Transylvania with the kids.

The boys ran 52 miles and still looked like this:

I spent time in the playroom doing 100 squats, 100 lunges, 100 sit ups, 40 pushups (because 100 would never happen) and looked like this:

Yeah, so unfair! 

Happy Trails (or treadmills) to all the Western Staters out there. Not being at camp maybe made me even more excited for June 29th.

MacDonald Forest 50k (May 11)

The McDonald Forest 50k is the local race for all the Corvallis trail runners (and nearby Salem dirt seekers), and as such there is a lot of speculation and trash talking before the race. Of course, most of that trash talking is done by people who aren’t actually running the race! In the men’s field, Dan Olmstead was so heavily favored, that it wasn’t even worth talking about. Fortunately, this year’s ladies’ field had some good competition for the front spot. And if I wasn’t been aware of who that competition was, I sure knew by race day because I had a couple  of friends who kept sending me e-mails saying things like:

“[RD] Ken [Ward] only seeded you third, though I am not saying I would have ranked you higher.”

“You know Karen DeWolfe’s PR on the Mac course is a lot faster than yours.”

and

“Even though Laura [Hempel] isn’t seeded, you better watch out for her. She was a Div. 1 college runner and she is super fast.”

With friends like that, who needs enemies?? :) In the spirit of fun competition and jest, I admit I fired back,”No way am I letting a 22 year old Dartmouth 1500 runner beat me in her first ultra!”

No one really ever mentioned Becka Kem with her previous 5:02 McDonald Forest 50k time as her one and only ultra , but I kept informing people that I thought she’d be the one leading the charges. She used to live and run in Salem, so we’ve been keeping up with her accomplishments and I knew she won the Lithia Loop marathon on trails, won the Redding marathon on the road, and crushed the Peterson Ridge 20 miler with a CR.

Anyway, we all had our picks set to determine who might be buying post race beers. Let the racing begin!

Karen and Becka took it out fast. I was content a bit back catching up with Josh Zielinski, a Salemite runner who I met after he bested me by a couple of minutes at the Condor 25k. I soon caught up to Karen and had chance to chat with her before pulling ahead. At one point early on, Mike Rosling let me know that Becka could not be maintain her pace.

“I don’t know,” I warned him. “She is a 2:53 marathoner and she is in good shape.”

“Yeah, but you’re better than that,” he told me.

“No, “ I corrected, “My marathon PR is 2:55.”

“Yeah, but you are better than that,” he answered again.

I wasn’t as optimistic as Mike; Becka was running strong and already had a several minute gap by the first aid station.

Running the ups, but still not keeping up with Becka (Long Run Pictures)

The section known as “the maze” was some bad running for me. I always have trouble in the maze. Lots of twisty - turny trail with uneven surfaces just isn’t my forte, especially when you have to run down. By the end of the downhill to AS2 Karen had repassed me. But I was good to go and blew by the AS without stopping. Karen was the better downhiller, but I could tell I was better on the ups and put a gap on her on the way back to “the maze.” By the time we were exiting about 2 miles later at mile 16, there was about a half dozen runners who had either just passed me or were about to pass me, including a local friend, Sander. And, uh oh, there’s Laura!

Mac was working the AS. Actually, Mac and our minivan were the AS. It was supposed to be water only, but he went all over-achiever style and even made chocolate chip cookies. But I wasn’t stopping for cookies (besides, I had eaten WAY more than my share with Olga and the kids the night before). He had a new bottle for me and I was off on the 1.5 mile uphill slog on the road to get to the high point of the course at Dimple Hill.

Cresting Dimple (Long Run Pictures)

I gapped Karen again on the road and the rest of the downhills were smooth enough that I never saw her again. But Laura came out of the maze a bit ahead and I didn’t think it boded well that I couldn’t catch her on the grinder uphill. Uh oh, I may have to eat my trash-talking e-mail words!

Fortunately, I still had Sander to guide me down the back side of Dimple and I felt nice and smooth gliding down before passing Sander at the bottom. The course makes a small lollipop loop out to Chip Ross park, and right before I was about to leave the “stick” and enter the loop, I saw Becka headed back the other way, meaning she was over 1.5 miles ahead and she was still killing it! Plus, I hadn’t even seen a glimpse of Laura ahead, so I got a bit discouraged thinking about my pathetic age of 38: too old and slow to hang with the “young whippersnappers” ahead of me, but not old enough for the master’s category. I had been ruminating on this for a couple of minutes, so that when I saw my friend Alinna at the intersection, I blurted out, “Why do I keep doing the Mac? I hate this f*cking race!” (sorry to tarnish your innocent ears, Alinna!)

But the funny thing was that I was all smiles and joking around. I wasn’t feeling bad at all and really I wasn’t hating any of it. And I felt like I was running pretty strong. I think I got over it by Chip Ross when I heard I was four minutes down to Laura, because then it seemed like the gap was actually big enough to let it go in my head and just run. Plus, by that time I knew it should be pretty easy to get under 4:50 so I knew I was running my best race on that course, and really that was all I could hope for.  That sentiment boosted me for the run up Horse trail, which seemed easier by far than any of my three prior races here, and I didn’t think my run down ridge trail was too embarrassing. I guess it couldn’t have been too bad, because Laura was leaving the last AS right as I came in.

I caught her (and about 4 other guys, including Josh) on the last little hill - newly added this year with about 100 extra feet of climbing. I did hike a little the very steepest part, but still seemed to be faring much better than those around me. After the top, I was hauling to the finish, feeling great and psyched with my 4:41 finish, a good 13 minutes faster than my last two years. And ahead of Laura, so I didn’t have to take too much crap, but she should be congratulated for an awesome first 50k. Becka, however, broke the course record by 14 minutes (after I said I didn’t think anybody would break it anytime soon since the course has gotten so much harder!) and bested me by 16 minutes, for a 4:24 and a 37 minute improvement! My only consolation was that I didn’t lose anymore time to Becka after the last aid station. See - I just needed another 50k to have a chance!

Pushing to the finish (nice belly!) ( LongRun Pictures)

Anyway, it was a great run for me and also a great ass-whooping. But even better it was a great weekend with friends. I always enjoy hanging out with the Corvallis crew, but this year I got especially lucky and managed to get a fun weekend with Olga, who was visiting from Texas and had a great race of her own at the Mac.

And now that I finished #4, I guess I have to go back to run that “f*cking race” at least one more time for #5.