The last 2 runs I’ve focused on biomechanics. Recording all the data in Strava, I can see that the training effect is kicking in as my heart rate goes down and my speed increases. I’m becoming more efficient. It all just feels like practice…practicing movement in a certain way – becoming more efficient with more practice. The more efficient you are, the longer it takes fatigue to set in.  That’s the plan anyway.

In skiing the proper biomechanics are to stack up: the concept is to stack your skeletal system so that it absorbs the most energy, keeping your head over your core and spine and your knees slightly bent (leaning slightly forward). Everything is aligned just over the center of your feet all the way to the top of your head.

While running, I’ve been mentally focusing on my hip flexors, pushing my hips just slightly ahead of my core – it keeps my momentum forward in an efficient way. Upper body very still, eyes looking about 8 -10 feet ahead on the trail; monitoring the trail 2-3 feet ahead for obstacles. If I feel my hips drop back, I consciously move them slightly forward, no matter uphill or downhill, just keeping my hips slightly forward.

One strange thing that I can’t figure out is my left hand gets colder than my right. I’m not sure if it’s because my watch is ever so slightly cutting down blood flow or if I have more vertical oscillation in my left hand than my right and the air is making it colder. I literally grab my left hand with my right sometimes to warm it up. I didn’t have gloves running in the rain today … I would have put them on if I did.

I was thinking today that proper biomechanics are a lot like good design. There is an efficiency, a lack of the extraneous… there are a lot of parallels. When design works well, it ceases to be something detached from the experience. The experience and the artifact merge. In many human activities that use a constructed artifact – playing a musical instrument, riding a bicycle, driving a car… badly designed artifacts become a hindrance to the experience. There is a reason that well-designed objects are expensive – it takes more care to design, construct and maintain them…thinking about musical instruments out of tune or a badly tuned bicycle. It’s the same with biomechanics … except the artifact being tuned is the human body. The most amazingly designed system that has ever existed.

The forest was beautiful today. Rhododendrons and azaleas are blooming throughout Forest Park. Explosions of red, purple, pink and white. Although it was pouring rain at times, the canopy is so dense that there are long stretches of trail that are perfectly dry. I have a camera that I may start carrying – it’s a Nikon Coolpix aw110 that we bought before we went to Peru. I think I could attach it to my waist. There are so many beautiful shots that I could take if I only paused for a moment. We’ll see.

One of my favorite books is The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell.  In particular how the oral tradition of storytelling retold over time begets legends and mythology. Sometimes just with a image – and there is always a story behind the image. This is always the image I think of:

 

And when she’s older, we’ll tell her the story of how she got to the top of that peak.

What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.

– Joseph Campbell

http://www.strava.com/activities/138298455

This run is becoming one of my favorites from downtown.  It’s nice to warm up through PSU and then up Terwilliger before dropping into the woods and the Marquam trail. Then it’s a really nice (nice as in full anaerobic lung buster) climb to a mellow flat(er) section to recover, then burly (you might puke) climb up to Marquam Hill Rd, then bomb all the way back down to Marquam shelter. That downhill is very twisty and fast and runnable. Super fun.

I’m hopeful I’ll find some new favorites deep in Forest Park. 8 miles out on Sunday the trail become noticeably less traveled. The ferns were growing over the trail and it became very muddy in places. At the turnaround I stopped an gave a big bear hug to massive doug fir tree and thanked him for watching over me and keeping me safe.  Funny how we like to personify nature. Good read on that in the NYTimes last week.

I picked up a 70oz reservoir for the UD vest so that I can carry more fluids as the weather starts to warm up. 2 bottles in an hour and a half is about my max in 50 degrees +. After that I need to refill. Even at that rate, I’m probably not drinking enough. My weight was down 3lbs when I got back on Sunday. So… not drinking enough.

http://www.strava.com/activities/137511143

I was so hungry around mile 13… and that’s what I wanted – with the sweet honey mustard. Day-um. I could taste that greasy goodness. I haven’t had chicken fingers since… wait… I may have eaten them at Ski Bowl a couple of years ago. All they serve in the cafeteria are french fries and chicken fingers (for the children of course). Prior to that.. maybe college?

Whatevs. The message from my body was, “gimme some protein… and gimme some fat. If you can combine the 2 and fry it – even better.”

I had 2 bottles of Tailwind, an espresso Clif shot and a package of Clif blocks – those things go down surprisingly well. I ran out of water and even then, they weren’t too bad – a little sticky chewing them, but not bad.

I executed the Car2Go plan today. Found a car about half a mile from my domicile, ran to pick up the car… drove to Forest Park.

So there I was sitting a block away from Voodoo doughnuts on Burnside stuck in traffic behind race barricades in a Car2Go with a broken radio. I think today was the Taco run to celebrate Cinco de Mayo… I sat in traffic for 10 minutes while runners went by.  I considered ditching the car and running the rest of the way to the park… but it was pouring rain. I sat, then did some creative city driving (those little smart cars are sooo maneuverable).

Injinji socks: thumbs up. And new shoes – the Pearli M2’s…felt great – way more traction on the ups and cushioning on the descents than the Pure grit’s.  The rock plate was noticeable. I missed the sensitivity of the Brooks, but the trade is worth it. I was a little worried the toe box was too small – but it was perfect. I ended up snugging the laces up just before I pushed off.

Lots of rain, a little bit of sun (I don’t think anyone was around when I shouted a “w00t! w00t!” when the sun came out. Although there were a couple of ladies that I passed as I rolled into Lower Macleay at the end of my run and gave myself some loud claps and threw up the winner’s arms (…walk into the club like…).

51 miles this week. Starting to lay on the big miles. I went for frequency this week – I ran 7 days straight, but kept this one as my longest.  No 20 miler. I also foam rolled every night – I think this is the new normal. We’ll see how well everything heals up and if I can keep the training block going before I taper for Beacon Rock.

Everyone has their goals; for some people, it’s just to get out of bed in the morning, for others it’s 120 miles/week.

I was thinking today about a teacher I had in high school,  he used to always talk about ‘mental fortitude’ … back then I had no idea what he was talking about.

What I really ate when I got home:

• plain bagel with almond butter and honey
• a banana
• a yogurt
• water water water and more water

Completely wiped.

 

 

I tried Injinji socks for the first time on my run today. They’re great but had a side effect that I didn’t anticipate: because your toes are FREE (as in freedom) to splay out when your foot strikes the ground – they end up taking up more room in the toe box. It was noticeable on steep descents today as my toes jammed into the front of my shoe.

Other than that – really nice to have independent movement of each toe. I didn’t think I would feel it as much as I did.

New trail shoes came with the socks but had to go back – too small. Shoefitr lied.

http://www.strava.com/activities/135850877

Haven’t run into the office for a while. There was a long time when I was listening to music on my runs. I’m finding that I have absolutely no desire to listen to anything these days. My theory is that music transports you to another place (mentally) and I’m feeling very much in the present these days. Centered. Balanced. There is no other place I’d rather be than right here.

This is the first time that my watch told me that my recovery was “Fair” and not “Good”. I’m trying to decide if I should dial things back this week or push harder through to the next plateau… it’s past flu season, so I probably wouldn’t get sick if I do.  5 weeks to race. (Beacon Rock 50k).

Reinforcing the truism that dreamy people like to repeat… a car pulled up next to me on my run this morning and a man extended his arm. “What’s that?” I asked. “Running club” he grunted. It was a business card with an image and a web address. A personal invitation to join a secret running club. There you have it ; do what you love and the people you seek will find you.

http://www.strava.com/activities/135620236

Tempo. Terwilliger to Marquam clockwise: the hard way. The only way.

I was thinking about the dichotomy between fashion and authenticity on my run today. That which is authentic has the possibility of becoming fashion… but never the reverse. Only clockwise. Yeah – that was on my mind. Then about Boulder and the pros and cons of the PNW and the Republic of Boulder. I like both.

 

http://www.strava.com/activities/134447715

Saturday morning long run… got lots of Strava kudos… but the thing is – it was actually pretty horrible.

I carry my Car2Go card in my pack on these runs as my eject handle. Even though I’m on trail most of the time, I cross through downtown twice and in an emergency I could find a car and drive my sorry ass home with my tail between my legs.

Right from the get go things were off – my legs were really tight from my run Friday and I started way slower than I normally do. I got up early with the plan of getting out the door early; had a piece of toast and a glass of water and then filled my bottles and shoved off. Right away I had some stomach issues – mostly just from pushing the schedule. My system wasn’t quite ready.

When I got to Lower Macleay at mile 7 I had an espresso Clif shot and drank some Tailwind. So doubling down on Tailwind – that was the only gel I ate the entire time. I drank 3 bottles of Tailwind and was calorically set for the entire run – 2 big thumbs up for that – it’s working for me.

So… first the horribles:

• HRM strap was super irritating. My top pack strap was rubbing it and causing it to rub my chest – I considered just taking it off… then decided to leave it for a few miles and then decide. I must have forgotten about it.
• Gloves off by mile 7, but then I put them back on, then off… kept doing this for a while. Maybe it’s just Spring weather and I’m being fickle – but I always get cold hands …or hot hands.
• Serious shorts issues. I wore my Pearl Izumi Fly Shorts that I love for so many reasons – gel pockets on either side (although I lost a raspberry Hammer gel that fell out of a pocket). The zippered back pocket for a keycard. They’re great for runs up to about 10 miles… after that the chafing starts. I needed Neosporin Saturday night. I’ve got to figure out what’s up b/c that kind of chafing will take me out of a 50 miler. *I had body glide everywhere and it didn’t help.
• My legs didn’t really feel warmed up until about mile 12. They were tight the entire time, so my stride was really short (or felt like it).

The goods

• Tailwind rocks… which means I could leave some food behind and lighten my load.
• Finally started to feel okay / better around mile 17 – I guess that’s good.

Some changes

• Immediately when I walked into the house… I dumped the contents of the ice machine into a bowl, filled up the bathtub to my waist with cold water, sat down and then dumped the bowl of ice in – I took an ice bath. I managed it for about 20 minutes. All the blood from my arms and legs pulled back into my core… then I got out and stood in the sun for a little while to warm up, then took a hot shower.  The effect the next morning was noticeable.  It’s kind of like flushing the toilet. All the lactic acid and junk that’s in your muscles gets flushed as the muscle contracts from the the cold – then warming up circulates the blood around and transports oxygen back into the muscles. I’ll be doing more ice baths after long runs this summer.
• I ordered some new shoes. My form is falling apart at 20+ miles and I want some more stability when that happens. I’m going to try the Pearl Izumi Trail M2. I love the weight of the Pure Grit’s, but the support is lacking later in the (long) runs and I’m feeling the trail a little too much in my forefoot with no rock plate. I want to try something with a little bit more cushioning.

If you never have a bad run, how will you ever know when you’ve had a great run?
Tru dat. It was a good learning run. I felt like shit, but it got better … and then it was over.

Some say that running is the most apt metaphor for life 🙂