Monday, January 5, 2015, 6:30 pm

5.17 mi,  539 ft gain, 58:14. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Blue.

My hamstrings were a little sore starting out today. Everything else was pretty good. They felt a little better later in the run.

I’m glad I waited until the evening. It was still absolutely pouring down this morning and mostly stopped by afternoon. But the logging road I ended up running on had flooded and was probably still underwater into the afternoon. Olney creek was very high, only about 18 inches from the bottom of the small bridge I ran across when I was there. But the road was covered in silt and all the grass was brushed to the downstream side from moving water up to a couple feet above the level of the bridge deck. That’s about 5 or 6 feet higher than when I was there. It would have been cool to see Olney Falls or Wallace Falls with all that water.

After such a strong December, I felt like I barely got started when I made it back to the car. I still have a little soreness in parts of my lower legs from December, and I have the Bridle Trails 50k on Saturday, so I’m going to continue to take it easy this week and probably most of next week as well.

Average HR 123 bpm.

 

Tuesday, January 6, 2015, 4:22 pm

5.12 mi, 46 ft gain, 46:57. Town RR access rd, with dogs. New Balance MR10v2.

I finally got out with daylight again today. The alpenglow on the mountains to the north and sunset to the southwest made for some great views on this flat run through town.

Jumped the tracks to the river side about a mile out and ran on the access road. There were some workers who appeared to be staging some things by a couple of the piles of concrete railroad ties.

Lower legs are still a little tight, but better later. It’s getting better, but I’m a little unsure about turning the 50k into a back-to-back this weekend. It’s fairly flat, and it seems to be better on flatter terrain.
It still felt like a really short run.

Average HR 124 bpm.

 

Wednesday, January 7, 2015, 4:27 pm

5.32 mi, 46 ft gain, 47:26. Town RR access rd, with dogs. New Balance MR10v2.

Today was much like yesterday. Pretty much the same route and near the same pace. The sky wasn’t quite as spectacular today, however.

The Mio Link was kind of buggy starting out. It showed my HR way high, in the 170s. Based on my breathing and how I felt, I think it was in the low to mid 120s at the time. It does this occasionally, and I haven’t figured out the problem. It’s probably related to contact between the sensors and my skin, but I wear it in almost the exact same spot at the same tension every time, so I’m not sure. Maybe it’s a low battery issue. Or maybe some ambient radio signal messes with the connection with my Suunto.

I had a weird twinge on the inside of my leg just above my left ankle. I’m not sure what it was. It lasted for a while then disappeared.

I’m both looking forward to the Bridle Trails 50k this Saturday and a little apprehensive. I haven’t had a proper long run since sometime in November. I think my long December streak makes up for it, though.

I’m also unsure if I want to go just to finish and treat it completely as a long training run, or if I want to race and see how fast I can go. From reading about it, it seems flat enough that I could maybe set a 50k PR. But it can also be quite muddy, and it’s supposed to rain, so that might limit my speed. Either way, I plan to take it easier for the first 4 laps, then maybe make a push for the last 2.

Average HR 129 bpm.

 

Thursday, January 8, 2015, 5:23 pm

4.81 mi, 367 ft gain, 51:21. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1 loop, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red.

Went out for 4-6 mi. The logging roads were really sloppy from all the big trucks. They’re logging somewhere up the hill toward Wallace Lake. My run on Monday was detoured because of it.

It was a little cool tonight, but not too bad. I warmed up fairly quickly. The first mile went by more quickly than it has the past few days. Running was pretty easy tonight.

Average HR 121 bpm.

 

Friday, January 9, 2015, 5:21 pm

4.56 mi, 330 ft gain, 50:33. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Blue.

The logging roads were much less sloppy today, though I didn’t run around the loop, which was sloppiest yesterday. Running was pretty easy too.

I still keep going back and forth over whether to race or just run tomorrow. With all the other runners, it’s always tough to hold back. I guess I just need more practice.

Average HR 123 bpm.

 

Saturday, January 10, 2015, 3:00 pm

28.18 mi, 1415 ft gain, 3:59:13. Bridle Trails Winter Running Festival 50k, solo. New Balance MT1010v2.

I started a little further back in the crowd than I originally wanted, but I think it helped me take it easy to start. I might try it again in the future for long races.

My HR was way high early. It started coming back down after the first lap. I have HR, pace and cadence to scroll through on the bottom section of the main screen on my Suunto Ambit 2 R. I ended up switching to pace and leaving it there for most of the race. I checked on my HR a couple times, but it was still higher than I expected, so I paced myself by my breathing instead.

It wasn’t too muddy early on. After a couple laps, the mud got turned up pretty good, but it wasn’t bad. It was kind of thick and not too slick.

I ran with one handheld and my UD SJ Essential belt. Originally, I carried my ziploc baggy of dehydrated bananas and dates in the belt, but switched to the handheld pocket after a few laps instead.

I drank one full bottle about every 2 laps. At the end of lap 2 I stopped at the aid station to refill my bottle and ate a piece of banana dipped in salt, stopped to pee, and got in my drop bag to grab my headlamp. I didn’t turn the headlamp on until about halfway through lap 3. I was going to grab more food at the end of lap 3 but I forgot. It wasn’t a problem, as I ate pretty good before the race. At the end of lap 4 I refilled my bottle, had another chunk of banana with salt, grabbed more food from my drop bag and dropped off my hat. I got a little more dehydrated than I prefer to be. I wanted to limit restroom stops, and it worked. But I finished off the bottle by the end of lap 5, grabbed another banana with salt, refilled the bottle about 1/3 and downed that before getting to the start/finish area, where I tossed my empty bottle with my 2nd empty food baggy over by my drop bag. Then I went off for the final lap.

I felt better than I expected later pretty much all race. I think my big December streak and the taper made a difference. I felt great until about the last 1.5-2 mi, when I had to put in more effort to keep up my pace. I still felt better than the end of pretty much all my other 50k races.

My lap splits were pretty even the whole night, right around 40 min give or take a little. I came through the halfway point at about 2:00:15, so I met my first goal of 2015 and ran a negative split for the second half of my first ultra of the year, though not by much. That’s all including time stopping at the aid station, toilets and drop bag. I did pretty well not stopping much. According to Strava, my moving time was only 3 minutes less than total time. And while I did go sup 4 hrs, I’m not counting it as a 50k PR or as meeting my sub 4 hr 50k goal, because the course was a little short, probably more like 46-47k.

I was passing people pretty regularly the 1st lap, still quite a few the 2nd lap, a handful on the 3rd lap, a few less on the 4th lap, just one or two on the 5th lap, and I don’t know if I passed anyone on the final lap. That’s not including lapping people. There were a couple guys that re-passed me when I stopped for aid/restroom/drop bag, but I caught back up and passed them again not too far down the trail.

The only person who passed me and stayed away was the 2nd runner of the winning pairs 50k relay team, Uli Steidl, who flew by me (lapping me) about halfway through my 5th lap.

I managed to not get lapped by the 3 guys who finished ahead of me. Looking at the early results before I left, 2nd and 3rd place were pretty close at the end. The winner finished in something like 3:33 and change. Something to work towards in the future perhaps.

I ate about 700 calories and drank about 70 oz of water. Both were lower than I’m used to, but it worked out great. For this weather, distance and time, I think that probably works better than eating and drinking as much as I have in the past. I could probably have done with a little more water, but it worked out. I had 2 more bottles worth of water and the last baggy of food by the time I made it home.

I really enjoyed the race. The trails were great, with excellent marking. Seattle Running Club and Northwest Trail Runs did an awesome job. If it fits in my schedule, I’ll be there again next year.

Average HR 157 bpm.

 

Sunday, January 11, 2015, 5:49 pm

10.61 mi, 1173 ft gain, 2:02:45. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Blue.

This run was really rough starting out. My legs were sore all over. My left achilles tight and achey. I think from the heel counter on the MT1010v2 pushing into it during the race. If I’m going to wear those for more muddy races, I’m going to have to do something about that. The Superior 1.5 just doesn’t have enough traction in mud, and I’ve probably got 1000-1500 mi worth of them left in the two that I’m currently rotating and the two extra pairs I have in waiting.

Back to the run. I started to loosen up a little by about 0.5 mi, and even more by 1.5 mi. I headed straight out toward the road to Wallace Lake. I planned to go up to the lake and add on enough more to make 10-15 mi. But I very quickly decided to keep it closer to the low end. I forgot that they were logging up toward the lake and had to change plans. I went up the other road at the ‘Y’ to the end, then out to the end of the next road lower.

On the way back, I turned toward the connector hill and ended up going out about a mile. It’s 1 mi from the gate to that intersection, so 2 mi from where I turned around, which is the first turn at the very start of the hill.

I felt pretty decent from about 4-8 mi considering how bad I felt at the start. I don’t think I refilled my glycogen stores enough after the race and before this run, and my energy levels were pretty low for the last couple mi. It wasn’t terrible, though.

I saw my friend the northern saw-whet owl again and got some photos. A couple turned out ok.

My original plan weeks ago when I signed up for the Bridle Trails 50k was to use it as the first of back-to-back long runs. I felt really good during the race and decided to go after it, which I paid for today. I have a feeling I’ll end up doing the same at the Lord Hill 50k next month. I also planned to use it as the first back-to-back long run that weekend. I’ll probably be recovered enough for about 20 mi next weekend, but might do 15 and 10 b2b instead, or something like it. Then in 2 weeks hit a couple b2b long runs, which will give me 2 weeks recovery from Bridle, 2 weeks recover until my last short race of the winter, and 2 more weeks until Lord Hill. Then if I go b2b long runs 2 weeks after that, I’ll have 3 weeks to recover if I decide to do another big race.

Average HR 114 bpm.

 

Weekly totals: 63.8 mi, 3915 ft gain