Masters Weekend Runs and Races

good luck in the race!

i was tapering this week, and then yesterday ran Stone Mill 50-miler (said by race director to have been 51.5 actually) in about 9:23 for about 13th place [results not yet posted], my first ultramarathon and first long trail race.

Long day. We lucked out on the weather (low 30's at start in the dark, warming to low 50's, sunny, light winds). As I had feared (my achilles' heel is vision and navigation), I got lost a few times, sometimes when following others and sometimes when by myself. Worst was being utterly confused circa 38 miles having missed a hairpin turn after road crossing. Ended up waiting about 6 mins. for next runner to show up and guide.

Starting around 30 miles my quads were extremely sore -- lots of up and down, and toward the end the downs were the more unwelcome.

That said, it was a beautiful course with terrific volunteers and great team spirit among the runners -- the vets helped rookies like myself with advice on walking steep inclines, course guidance, etc. etc. A good experience that will I'm sure feel better once I can sit down and stand up with no pain!

have a great week,

Dave

I'm about a month and a half into a sponsorship from a nutritional supplement company, and I'd have to say the results are encouraging. The provide me with free product (pre and post recovery supplement) and I'm paid a (small!) amount to write about my experience with the product. I'm noticing quicker recovery. I will continue to keep you guys posted to let you know if the stuff is as good as claimed and worth the $, but so far I like it.

I'd doing some very tough weight room workouts in that I've transitioned to my "heavy, low, slow" phase. Heavy weights, low reps, slow lifts. It's exhausting and very taxing on the muscles. November and December are a sprinter's strength-building months. The weight sessions are combined with longer speed endurance workouts with shorter rest in between because that's what the weather allows us to do. However yesterday morning we had glorious weather --mid 50's, dazzling sun, no wind--so it was time for some hurdling. I had a super workout and I felt so fast; everything was clicking. It put me in a good mood for the rest of the day! This morning it's cool, breezy, and misty. Time for some 300's and some stairs.

Have a great week ahead!

A 50 miler.......wow. Well done!

A great week here, feeling very positive about training and the outlook for 2012.

Made preliminary reservations for the April Indoor Championships in Finland, it seems hotel rooms are going fast - my choice was not available - so went to plan B. Turns out this hotel has the only Irish Bar in town - lucky me! Anyway, I can tie this in with a work trip to keep my costs down. Finland is so expensive so can't stay the entire week and will limit my race to the 1500.

Now....to get ready. I have mapped out a pretty good race schedule between now and then, so certainly will have the race experience, including some indoor races. Is there a link for the races in Reno?

Have a good week!

Another week went by without a run. One more to go and I'll at least be able to jog. I got my walking boot off Wednesday. I'm sick of the rowing machine but that's all I have for now.

Congrats on the 51.5 miler! That is a longggg way to run.

As always I am impressed with what everyone is doing in this crazy sport we love so much. I have a question and hopefully many of you can offer some insight as I face a new chapter in life. Two weeks ago I suffered a minor heart attack. Fortunately there appears to be no damage to the heart but I do have 2 arteries that are 80% blocked. I have a stress test in a week. I am 44 and have been running since I was 15, although, between 37-40 I didn't run a step. The cardiologist so far thinks I might be able to go 10 years before going under the knife by just taking meds, diet, and exercise. My question is, how many of you or how many of you know someone who has had a heart attack and returned to running and what was the general process like? By the way I was at 50 mow working my way to 65-70 mow before my heart attack. Any insights and advice would be greatly appreciated.

1500master - there are no indoor races in Reno any longer. UNR hasn't set up their track since 2006. The boards were so old and loose that the track became unsafe. Coincidentally, I ran a 3000 in their last meet, and my training log says "UNR - Don't run indoors again!" A shame, because that was a nice track back in the day.

I'm also thinking of doing some indoor races, but haven't decided between Nats or Worlds. I'll probably do Nats since Finland is so expensive.

18 today and 52 for the week. Still doing long distance and slower intervals for now.

Big fire in town on Friday, with vicious winds. 2000 acres right on the edge of town. My crew and I spent a couple hours shoveling hot spots trying to keep it from burning through one of our parks. By Saturday morning, it was mostly out as a cold front came through and winds stopped, thankfully.

NYloco, hope the race went well. Tularerunner, I wish you a speedy recovery. It's sobering to realise that even very fit runners can suffer heart trouble.

I was determined to get another 70-mile week in, but it just wasn't to be; a frantic week at work with lots of travelling and some midnight oil burned, so I missed a couple of days.

The weekend was good fun, with a perfect sunny day for our annual 7.5 mile "mob match" against arch rivals Ranelagh Harriers. We got 40 people out and thrashed them, then had a great dinner afterwards, aided by a bequest from a former member of both clubs to provide wine for the dinner every year. What a great way to be remembered! This all made my first proper Sunday run of the year (12 miles) considerably tougher than usual.

I had my arm twisted into doing the Southern Masters XC so have 3 weeks to get fit now. Time to get down to some work...

Tularerunner,

Interesting story. I hope you feel better quickly.

Can you provide some additional details? Do you have a history of heart trouble in your family? How is your diet?

Thanks Reno, read about those fires. Quite a few homes lost, hopefully no one hurt or killed.

Will have to look hard for some indoor events to tie in when I travel again from January. Would be nice to get some indoor running just to get the feel of the banked surface. I ran in Toronto a few years ago and just loved it.

Cheers.

I am just back to running after going 2:39 at new york and fastest last 2.2k among the master's field, apparently. ran every other day home from work, 7.5M at 8:00 pace on Tuesday, the same run 8:22 faster on Thursday, and 8M at 6:42/M yesterday. I also rode into work three times. I didn't seem to lose too much shape this time, though I'm still sore. I may try to run master's nationals next month, though that went badly last year following the marathon.

Dave - great job in the 50 miler! And here I was thinking that 8k seemed long this morning. The race went well, but not a PR course with the hills, turns, muddy patches and the obligatory wooden bridges. I would kill to be able to train on this terrain every day. Anyway...I hit 2 miles in 11:45 and was feeling okay, but I faded a bit before rallying in the last mile. I was 6th master, so one of my better races agewise. It was a good race for me, but not a course for those of us who favor evenly paced races on the track. I was 2 minutes slower in 2007, but while I was younger then, my running log also mentions a sore achilles that day.

The post-race party was at a bowling alley, of all places, and I didn't bring my bowling ball. We have a good GVH contingent heading to Seattle, and while we may not be the fastest team, we hope to leave our mark in other ways.

Welcome to the trails DHaaga. I haven't done any ultras in a few years but have been racing mostly half marathons up to 16.8 miles this year. Going to Kentucky next week for a 16 mile race. There is definitely a learning curve to running the trails as I have gotten DQ'ed 2 races for accidently cutting the course. The race I ran last week, at least one guy cut the course and finished ahead of me and wasn't DQ'ed. He would have finished about six minutes behind me as I dropped him about 5 miles into the race when we got on the hilliest section.

I drove to West Virginia to do a 15.8 mile group run in the Kanawha Forest with 3 climbs of over 500 ft. We stopped too many times for my liking (to mark trail and take a break in the middle) but it was fun as I usually run alone and I found out if I am out there longer than 2:30, I need to have something to eat.

Raining pretty hard this morning as I finally headed out the front door...can only procrastinate so long hoping that the weather will pass...it did not. So, off I go through the hood and onto the trails and up and around and down getting soaked all the while...as seems to happen more often than not, sometime during mile 12 of 13 the blue sky breaks through and the drowned rat that I'd morphed into was finally running precipitation-free...unfortunately it was too little too late as my hydrophobic tech shirt was drenched as were my gloves shoes and socks...welcome to winter...get used to it.

On another note, I tallied up the since 1/1/11 total annual mileage to date and came up with 1923...as we've got 41 days left in the year, am hoping to MAYbe get 2200 (and just a tad over 98,000 lifetime miles)...anyone else a mileage counting geek or streak running geek?

Dhaaga congrats on that 50 miler...something else once you eek over about 35 miles, huh? Skinn, I am absolutely positive that you'll find your way through this latest setback and be back doing Grand Canyon rim to rim yet again.

Hoping that all of you MWR&R friends here have a splendid Thanksgiving...we obviously have much to be grateful for.

long may you run,

MF

Skinnbones, yeah, family history runs deep with heart disease. Both my dad and uncle have had heart problems since their mid-40's and their dad, my grandpa died of a heart attack at 51. My uncle on my mom's side has similar issues. Over the past couple of years I let my diet slide into fast food every few days for lunch and drinking coffee like it was water. My blood pressure slowly crept up over the past couple of years, but nothing too drastice, usually 13X over 9X.

The prior six months before the heart attack I had been working hard on my diet, but still kept drinking gallons of coffee and eating out at least once a week.