McCollough repeats / Training update

            According to the Western States participant guide one of the most commonly cited reasons for runners dropping out is trashed quads from all the downhills.  With this in mind I set out to do repeats up the biggest climb in the MacDonald Forest.  With a net climb of ~1670 ft spread out over ~3.8 miles, McCollough Peak is nothing to sneeze at.  Up till yesterday I had never done it more than twice in any given workout.  I don’t know if it was the unexpected sunshine or the early bedtime on Friday, but I just felt great on Saturdays run.  I did four repeats from Oak Creek to McCollough Peak up and down via different routes each time, with each one taking about 1:40.

Saturdays McCollough Peak repeats

Needless to say I am not exactly thrilled to be living on the 3^rd floor of my coop house today, but the run was great downhill training for Western States in June.  I also found the true South Side Slip trail, which is basically a lower Lupine Letdown, and should not be confused with the South Ridge Trail higher up on the mountain.  South Side Slip parallels a creek for most of its length, and is absolutely amazing.  It’s definitely my new favorite trail in the Mac. After the four repeats, and with only an hour left the last time I got back to car/aid station, I opted for Face trail up to Bald Hill where I was treated to an amazing view of the Three Sisters and well defined nearby cumulus cloud with significant vertical growth. The last stretch up this way was a bit rough, but not unexpectedly so.

Looking down Face Trail at the town of Corvallis:  eccentric contractions anyone?

            All the same I am quite excited about how strong I felt all day yesterday.  I think I managed about 9,000 ft cumulative elevation gain on the day, and significantly bumped up my number of cumulative summits of McCollough.  I have in fact been keeping track of all my summits of the most prominent peaks and ridges in town as plotted below.

Cumulative summits versus Week

Sunrise over the Cascades from the quarry adjacent McCollough Peak

For those local runners interested in the nitty gritty, here is a table comparing each climb by mileage and elevation gain.  Dimple Hill is via Dan’s trail starting at the bridge, Bald Hill via the backside prarie trail, McCollough is an average of many different routes from Oak Creek trailhead.

Comparison of Corvallis local climbs

            Point of it all is this:  I’m very happy to get be getting 8hr 40 mile long runs in this early in the year, and I’m very happy to be getting 50+ mile weeks in as well.  My long runs so far this year have been 25, 30, 35, and 40 miles, all averaging about 175-250 calories per hour.  All of these facts bode well for training for Western States, and hopefully as well for Chuckanut 50km, which is on 3/20.  I am a little bit anxious about how slowly my speed is coming back to me, but given my intention to get in at least two 50 miles training runs, plus a few 60+ mile weeks before June, the speedwork will just have to wait.

Weekly mileage and long run mileage versus Week

Early season slowness

I feel slow. More so than any other year. I shouldn’t complain since its obvious that 100 days of hiking on the Appalachian trail (read our journal here) would result in decrease in my speed. I just wasn’t really prepared for how slow I would come back. To be fair my weekly mileage and long run mileage are a few weeks ahead of where I thought they’d be when I restarted running at the New Year, but my pace is well off. This fact was brought to bear as I took a bandit lap around Hagg Lake before my volunteer duties began at the race yesterday (read the Hagg Lake RD’s recap here). My time for 1 lap was significantly slower than either of last years, when I was running the full course. Despite my dismal informal effort on the trail on Saturday I did really well working the cowbell (the volunteer work is required for entry into Western States, which will be my first attempt at 100m this June), and April not only PRed at the 50 km distance (her 3^rd), but also won an award for the cutest trail bunny.

April shows the Mud who’s boss at Hagg Lake (photo from Brian Conghan photography)

I really enjoy running ultras. I’m sick of running them so slowly. As in every case, ‘slowly’ is defined in the relative sense. Point being I’d like to be faster. After grading a minor mound of Intro to Atmospheric Sciences homework this morning I headed out Bald hill for some unstructured speedwork. The sunshine was too much to ignore and plans for recovery day went out the window. What an awesome run! I tried to do something along the lines of 800s, but let the topography and how my body felt determine my effort. Bald hill is a great area for this since there are plenty of flats, as opposed the notoriously vertiginous McDonald Forest where I usually train. After a quick warmup up and down Mulkey Ridge I started a series of 800s-ish about 25 min in to the run. I pushed hard up the summit and just felt awesome. Did I mention that running is amazingly fun?

Sundays Bald hill/Mulkey Ridge run according to Garmin 405

It always seems like the best runs follow the worst runs and vice versa. Since I’m currently concentrating on adding mileage to my weeks in preparation for Western States (I just got my first 50 mile week of the year, in February!) I’m trying to avoid structured speedwork at the track, which last year resulted in nagging hamstring issues. These issues were most likely a result of ill advised (read: overly optimistic) paces for my 800 and 1600 m intervals. I have, however, been doing a few tempo runs to try to test my fitness relative to last year, which was the fastest I’ve ever been. The results of these tempo runs, plus last years PR on the Hagg Lakecourse, led me to skip the race this year.

Pace per mile versus distance (this years efforts in red, last years PRs in black)

Average heart rate versus distance (this years efforts in red, last years PRs in black)

            The above plots show that my average pace this year (red dots) for distances between 5km and 10 km is something like a minute per mile slower than last years PRs (black dots), and my heart rate is something 10-15 bpm lower than last years.   

Mt Hood PCT 50m

Mt Hood PCT 50M

I’m finally a real ultramarathoner … maybe. I guess everyone has their own opinion of what the requisite distance that makes an ultramarthon an ultramarathon, but I’m pretty sure that 50 km is only barely maybe so. Regardless I’m really happy to have finally run my first 50 miler. The weather was great, the trail was awesome, and my body responded quite nicely to the task requested of it on Saturday on Cascade crest between Hood and Jefferson.

I started with a real slow pace. My goal on the first out and back was to try to stay below 155 bpm. I found the pace relaxing and somewhat tedious until, at the first turnaround (~ 14 mi), I counted runners and found myself in 110th place out of 115 people. Not to worry, my race plan had the field coming back to me in the second half of the race. Actually I was very worried. From Little Crater Lake back to the start/A.S./finish (mile 23 to 28), my legs didn’t feel as fresh as I thought they would have given my conservative pace, and doubts were beginning to creep up in my mind: did I start too slow, will I miss cutoff times, was my training adequate, can I even run this far at all, etc.

As I ran into Timothy Lake (the start/ A.S./ finish) my spirits began to rise. The scene was pretty hectic. People were dropping left and right. Olga (one of the RD’s) was taking down peoples numbers and saying things like “How do you feel? Oh you’re dropping, why? I just finished Hardrock, you can do this, its not so hard. Dont sit down. Why are you sitting? Get out of here.” The large congregation of runners and large number of runners dropping meant two things to me. One, I was catching up to the field and if I could keep a steady pace here I’d pass a larger number of people in a relatively short distance, and two, a lot of the folks ahead of me have probably gone out at a pace quicker than they are now able to maintain. I worked these mathematics in my head and prepared to drop some science by partaking in my secret weapon: the Starbucks double shot. Is this legal? For the last 2 AS now, nothing solid appealed to me. As a matter of fact, my stomach was making itself very clear to me that it did not want anything to eat besides melons. Spirits raised and caffeine ingested I headed merrily on my way hoping my race would come around and confident that I’d run the first half of the race to plan (sub 155 bpm, lots of salts, and enough water to pee a few times).

And then my day started to turn. Caffeine slowly took hold off my adled brain. Ibuprofen worked its way down to my aching hamstrings. I bumped the lasted Audio 1 mix as entire trains of runners came back to me. One by one, and by groups of 3 or 5, a significant chunk of the field (roughly 35 runners) came back to me on the next two sections. My race was coming together. I hit a short speedbump when I fell but fell a mile or two short on water up to the second turnaround. I clearly wasn’t the only one having water issues here. I saw a woman walking this entire section with a gallon jug of energy drink.

About this point it dawned on me that I was very close to finishing sub 10 hr. Great, so I’ve running for 7.5 hrs, am slightly tired, but I need to make tracks. I kept thinking ‘come on Craig, do you really want to run another just to get sub 10 … no, so do it right the first time!’. I’m overly caffeinated at this point but feeling OK about my melons only diet. The field is coming back to me slower now, but I’m trucking along steady and handling my stomach issues fine. By the last AS I realize I might actually finish. Melons and more melons get me through the last few downhill miles. I came in a few minutes ahead of the 10 hr mark. Sweet! Really really stoked. Way fun but also harder than I expected. Next time I’ll be better trained.