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- Problem Solving On The RunMarch 28, 2014
Over the years I have noticed that there are many aspects of ultramarathon training and racing that carry over to our daily lives. Indeed, there are numerous ways in which the training for and racing in long-distance endurance runs prepares us for the variety of trials and tribulations that life throws our way. From my perspective, one of the most important skills running nurtures in us is the ability to solve problems on the fly.
Looking back on two decades of ultrarunning I can think of many times when, in the midst of a race, events transpired to throw me off my game. Broken water-bottle nozzles, ripped shorts, puking, blisters, stopped watch, dead headlamp batteries, and an ill-timed bee sting on my eyelid have all, over the years, served to force me into problem-solving mode on the run. And, on each occasion, I have found a way to muster through in ways that taught me about running and myself.
Of course, over time, we come to expect the unexpected and this experience makes it easier to deal with the inevitable problems when they arise. However, over the years, I have observed that different people respond quite differently to these setbacks. While there are some who, quite understandably, become distracted and occasionally overcome by these problems, others find a way to turn these adversities into opportunities. Furthermore, in my observations, there seems to be no correlation between running speed and one’s ability to problem solve on the run. I have seen elite runners wilt at the onset of a stomach ailment and I have seen back-of-the-packers literally embrace the hardship that comes along with broken equipment, bad weather, and seemingly unfair circumstances.
What matters, at least as far as I can tell, is that we learn from these hardships. In some areas of modern life, there are those people who get to the point where they feel they have nothing left to learn. Either through experience or exposure, there are folks these days who simply feel like they have it all figured out. Then, there are the rest of us. Those of us who toil for hours and days on the trail cannot easily give in to knowing it all. We must, quite simply, adapt or die. And that, I suggest, is something that will always keep us moving, inexorably forward, along the trail of life.
Bottoms up!
[Editor's Note: While AJW has waxed philisophical on the topic of problem solving on the run, columnist Ian Torrence wrote a series for us last fall on how to literally address problems that arise while training and racing. Here are Part One, Part Two, and Part Three of Ian's series.]
Brew’s Brew of the Month
Last week, Jen, Charley, and I visited Hattiesburg, Mississippi, home of the Southern Miss Golden Eagles and Southern Prohibition Brewing, which just opened last year. SoPro already has a solid lineup, including an imperial red called Mississippi Fire Ant and seasonals in their Cicada Series. But my favorite of their offerings was Devil’s Harvest, a cloudy American Pale Ale that packs plenty of hops but is a bit mellower than most extra pale ales. Earn your carbs by hitting the 40-mile Black Creek Trail in Desoto National Forest about 20 miles south of town. Next month we’re in Texas, Arizona, and Hawaii. Check out Blue Ridge Hiking Company for more details and drop me a line on the can’t-miss breweries in those states. Cheers!
Call for Comments (from Meghan)
- How have you problem solved on the run?
- And, do you have an example of when problem solving in life and running seemed similar?
- “Déjame Vivir” Film ReviewMarch 27, 2014
Déjame Vivir is the second film in the Summits of My Life series directed by Sébastien Montaz-Rosset and about the life and adventures ofKilian Jornet. The film was released today via a live Internet video session with Kilian. The film is available by download or DVD purchase. It follows on the success of the first Summits of My Life movie, A Fine Line (review).
In Spanish, the phrase ‘déjame vivir’ means ‘let me live.’ On its most simplistic level,Déjame Vivir documents Kilian’s adventures during the summer of 2013, including his Mont Blanc running record in July, his experiments on Mount Elbrus in mid-September, and his speed record on the Matterhorn in August. But the film is also the widest of windows into Kilian’s world beyond events on calendars and numbers on watches. We see the way Kilian plays in the outdoors, his obsession with tracking the history of skyrunning, the deep intimacy he has in his relationships with others, true fear of the Matterhorn, and, perhaps for the first time, we see just one moment in which Kilian is exhausted.
When I pressed play to watch this film, I possessed the highest of expectations because I was watching a film about an athlete so incredible that he was recently named the 2014 National Geographic People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year that is directed by a world-renowned outdoor-sport filmmaker. I suppose everyone who sits down with this film will feel similarly. And I can virtually guarantee that none of us will be disappointed. The film is a full package: storytelling that full-on climbs into your heart; cinematography that is not only beautiful but makes you keep thinking, How the hell did they get that shot?; and documentation of athletic feats that are levels above anyone else in the world right now. Déjame Vivir had me captivated for each of its 62 minutes, and made me wish there were hours more to watch when it was over. (There are 17 minutes of bonus features, too, if you buy the DVD. I haven’t seen these and can’t comment on them.)
If nothing else, watch the film for shots like this!
(All images are screenshots from the film.)
From a storytelling standpoint, the film is broken into four sections, a history of skyrunning, the Mont Blanc record, Kilian’s shenanigans in Russia, and the Matterhorn record. The film opens edgy: Kilian’s singing ‘Déjame Vivir,’ by Jarabe de Palo, and providing point-of-view footage from the Matterhorn’s summit ridge. The scene is mystical with the music and dizzying with the footage.
The film takes the next couple minutes to introduce its main ‘supporting’ actors, Italian mountaineer and former Matterhorn speed-record holder Bruno Brunod, the elite ski mountaineer Mathéo Jacquemoud, and maybe the best female trail and mountain runner in the world Emelie Forsberg.
Skyrunning 101
The film next drops what I’ll call Skyrunning 101, in which the history of the sport is unfolded with some narration by Marino Giacometti, the founder and current president of the International Skyrunning Federation, and some pretty spectacular footage from early skyrunning races of people in crazy snowfield glissades as well as footage of Bruno Brunod’s Matterhorn record in 1995. Then, we get to see ‘The Scrapbook.’ This is one of those books with the peel-back plastic in which you lay whatever you want to save. It’s Kilian’s and it’s full of photos of Bruno and other skyrunning beasts of yore, and here we learn just how obsessed–and I mean this in a positive way–Kilian is with the sport of skyrunning as well as Bruno.
Mont Blanc
Marino Giacometti, Skyrunning founder and president
The film then skips to July on Mont Blanc. Here we really get to meet Mathéo, a then 22-year-old with a puppy-dog’s face, a stupid amount of skimo talent, and a hiliarious grandmother. We see Mathéo and Kilian recceing the mountain together, roped up, casually walking around glacier crevasses, and talking about whether they’re going to slide head first or butt first down the snowfields on their shared record attempt. There’s little build-up in the storytelling of this section; we are soon on the flanks of Mont Blanc with Mathéo and Kilian as they are making their record attempt. Aside from the athletic feat that’s happening, this part of the film is fun to watch because Seb is filming these guys, no doubt carrying a decent amount of equipment, and keeping up with them for periods of time both on the uphill and the downhill. Mathéo and Kilian running and sliding downhill is a sight to behold, but you’ll probably feel a bit bad for Mathéo. He’s outmatched and barely holding his own on the downhill, roped into Kilian who looks as comfortable as a kid on a tiny sled hill, which makes you forget that he’s on an iconic, enormous mountain.
The camera doesn’t capture it, but Mathéo falls and can’t go on at record pace. The camera does capture their quick decision that Kilian will go on and Mathéo will stop. Before Kilian literally blasts down the mountain, he takes the time to hug Mathéo.
The incredible beauty of Mont Blanc at sunrise.
If nothing else, the sweeping tip-top vistas of Mont Blanc in this part of the film are ridiculous.
Mount Elbrus
Next up, Kilian road trips to Russia to hang out on Mount Elbrus. Russian appears to be the only language Kilian doesn’t speak, and none of the commentary of the Russians is translated for us. I can only imagine we are meant to feel a little thrown off course, as Kilian appears to have felt. It’s never 100% clear, but it appears that Kilian went to Mount Elbrus to participate in the Elbrus Race, an uphill race on the mountain and, hopefully, to set an Mount Elbrus speed record.
Here we meet Vitaly Shkel, a clearly badass Russian mountain runner/mountaineer. He speaks in Russian and his words aren’t translated, so unless you speak Russian, you’ll walk away only understanding that he’s interested in breaking the Mount Elbrus speed record, too. Well, that and beating Kilian.
Next, the film transitions to the Elbrus attempt itself, which we believe was supposed to happen in concurrence with the race. However, continuous shit weather meant no actual record attempt on Elbrus is possible. At the top of race (which Vitaly and Kilian ran together, and which ended at 5,100 meters altitude instead of the 5,642-meter summit due to the weather), Vitaly decided enough was enough while Kilian went a bit further before deciding the same. Throughout this section on Elbrus, Seb conveys a frenetic energy (presumably intentionally) much like what Kilian probably felt during this whirlwind adventure. While potent, this leaves the narrative a bit confusing at times.
Vitaly Shkel near 5,000 meters on Mount Elbrus.
The Matterhorn
The final, longest, and most elaborately shared section of the film is Kilian’s Matterhorn record attempt. Immediately, the mood changes to gentle and intimate. Kilian and Emelie camp at the base on the Italian side of the Matterhorn. The film makes clear that both are intimidated by the staggering mountain, while giving us a runner’s perspective of the mountain by following the pair on numerous scouting runs.
Kilian has a prolonged conversation with the Cervinian mountain guides, some of whom were there when Bruno Brunod set the record in 1995. In that conversation, Kilian remains convinced the Bruno’s record is impossible. However, after several more runs on the mountain, Kilian begins to believe that the record might just be within his reach.
Kilian making a leap on the Matterhorn.
This portion of the film has touching intimacy, such as exchanges between Kilian and Emelie that can only be seen as loving and a revealing moment when Kilian shares his scrapbook with his long-held hero, Bruno.
Enter the record attempt. The final 10 minutes is chock full of the film’s protagonists: Kilian, Emelie, Bruno, and, once again, Mathéo. To the sound of a crowd cheering, Kilian rockets off up the Matterhorn. The attempt itself is portrayed via point-of-view cameras along the course as well as from the air. What Kilian does next is superhuman and Seb successfully conveys the effort as a master at the height of his art. In fact, watching Kilian here is like watching water flow downhill. The film concludes with Kilian finishing in the town of Cervinia among a crowd outpouring so much love for him that you can feel it through the screen.
Kilian shows Bruno his scrapbook.
During this record-setting run, you see Kilian’s commitment and focus. He finishes completely exhausted. He pushed reason, the mountain, and his body to the limit. Limits beyond those of anyone else. In those moments, he seemed truly alive. Déjalo vivir.
Kilian atop the Matterhorn.Déjame Viver Trailer
Resources
- Buy the DVD in English/or download the film in English or Italian here
- Kilian’s Summits of My Life website
Call for Comments
- Have you watched Déjame Vivir yet? If so, what did you think?
- What do you think of the ‘déjame vivir’ theme? What do you think Kilian means by this? What do you think the film is trying to convey about living life?
- The Foothills, Part IMarch 27, 2014
The U-Haul truck pulled up to the red light, idling in the rising heat of the Saturday mid-morning that was already making the foothills appear wavy. David North sat in the driver’s seat, hands at 10 and two, with his son, five-year-old Charlie beside him, staring out the window at the Jack in the Box and the row of cars queued up at the drive-thru. David was tall, six foot, one inch, and slender, with close-cropped, dark hair and a strong face, with magnetic blue-green eyes and slightly pronounced cheek bones. Crow’s feet by his eyes and some expressive lines in the skin around his mouth—a la Mick Jagger—made him look wise and much older than his 32 years. His hands were big and his fingers long, wrapped around the steering wheel. Charlie, his own dark hair cut in similar style, looked like he was going to be tall and thin like his father.
[Editor's Note: Until now, we've published rarely published fiction on iRunFar, so we're excited to once again test the fiction waters today with the work of talented writer Willie McBride. Be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you thought of this piece and whether you think iRunFar is a good place for the occasional fiction story. Willie has more to this story if you enjoy it!]
The light changed. David pressed his foot down on the gas pedal and the fully loaded truck lurched forward with a mechanical groan. They drove along in near silence; the only sound, barely audible, was the radio set to the classic-rock station.
“Alright, Charlie boy,” David said, “this is our turn. See? Not too far from the old house.”
“It’s different out here,” Charlie replied, still looking out the window, his searching gaze scouring the passing sights. He leaned into the glass, which was rolled up because the air conditioning was on, wanting to see all he could. His forehead and nose made marks on the clear surface where they had pressed.
“Yes, you’re right about that. It is different out here,” he switched on the right-turn signal. “But it’s only about 20 minutes from the old neighborhood and we can go back to Indian Rock whenever you want. And we can have your buddies over and you’ll be back at their houses for sleepovers and play dates and parties. You’re going to love it.” David paused, taking a long breath. “We’re all going to love it.”
David made the turn onto Vista Nueva Drive, off the strip, and into the residential area known as Sage Flats, near the town of Livermore, on the western edge of California’s Central Valley. Rows of nearly identical, mostly white or light-colored single-family homes stretched on down the streets they passed, most of them with Spanish names: De los Reyes, Aguas Frias, Punto Blanco. David thought this was ironic since the architecture had no Spanish influence at all and there were few Hispanic or Spanish-speaking people actually living in the neighborhood.
“Why do we have to move?”
“You know why we’re moving Charlie, because we have another member of the family on the way—your little brother or sister! We need more space for our growing family. It’s going to be great, and it’s more affordable for us too. We can have a little more space, a bigger yard,” David explained, turning his gaze from the road to Charlie and back, and forth. He studied Charlie’s face, fascinated by watching his young brain trying to comprehend all that was changing around him.
“We’re going to love it.”
“You just said that, Dad.”
“I know I did, Charlie. I said it again because it’s true. I could even say it a third time, or a fourth, or a fifth!” They laughed together and David reached over and put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder for a moment.
David fixed his eyes back on the road, resetting his hands at 10 and two, his palms quickly sweaty again and his grip overly tightened on the wheel. He seemed to realize this suddenly and relaxed his fingers, taking another long, deep breath in doing so. He then held each hand, one at a time, in front of the air vent in the dash to dry his palms.
“Here we go Charlie boy, this is our street. Almost there.” Charlie sat up higher, pulling at his seatbelt to free himself up. David took a left and then, after a few hundred yards, pulled right into the white concrete driveway of 1421 West Caballero Viejo Drive.
The house was a one-story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom affair with small front and back yards. It was bigger than the apartment they’d been in, more space for the family, but was by no means a big house. It was modest, affordable, and cookie cutter.
The sprinklers were going in both yards when they pulled up, set by the realtor to turn on by timer to ensure the place looked verdant and inviting for the newly arriving North family: David, his wife Silvia, their son Charlie, and in another six months, a new baby.
David pulled the moving truck into the driveway and cut the engine. He looked over at Charlie whose eyes were wide and taking in as much of his new home as possible, though he’d seen pictures before and had come with his parents for a visit a couple months prior. David tried to imagine what his son was thinking. They got out into the heat of the day and David opened up the latch on the big back roll-up door of the truck, revealing stacks of cardboard boxes, a standing lamp, some bikes, a dresser, and more. They hadn’t rented a huge truck as they were planning on doing more frequent, smaller trips over time. Some of the bigger stuff, like the beds, had been moved in earlier that day by professionals.
A group of three runners ran by the house at an easy pace, conversing and cruising smoothly on the blacktop, sweating under the immense heat, sheltered partially by hats and visors while drinking from water bottles and hydration packs. David, starting to pull boxes from the truck, stopped and watched as they passed, his eyes following them down the block until they turned a corner and went out of sight.
“Dad, are we going to keep this here forever?” Charlie was standing by the sign in the yard that said ‘SOLD’ next to the real-estate company’s logo, the realtor’s name, and the realtor’s head shot.
“Dad?” David was silent, his gaze locked on the passing runners, hand on a box, one foot up on the rear bumper of the U-Haul.
“Dad!” Charlie repeated, louder this time.
“Yeah, Charlie,” he spun around, snapping out of his brief trance. “Sorry, what’d you say?”
“Are we going to keep this here forever?”
“Oh no,” David said with a smile, “no, we won’t keep that there forever. Besides, it would be in our way when I wrestle you to the ground on our nice, new lawn!” He suddenly made a growling noise like an exaggerated bear and stumbled toward Charlie with outstretched arms. Charlie squealed and giggled as his father enveloped him in a bear hug and brought them both down to the soft grass.
***David was a runner, although if you asked him he’d say he used to be, that he wasn’t anymore. The frequency of his runs and his weekly mileage had steadily decreased since Charlie had been born, though his life as a runner had derailed long before that. He’d run in college in North Carolina and there had developed a love of running fast, timing his splits around the track in the early mornings and under the nighttime lights with his friends, teammates, and coaches. His team had been the Tigers but David didn’t feel so fierce when he ruptured his Achilles during the biggest meet of the season in his senior year. He had thought he was going to go places with his running, taking his talents into the post-collegiate world, competing nationally, maybe even internationally. All that ended on a gusty day in late spring when his Achilles vehemently rejected his future plans with an audible ‘pop.’
The year following was filled with anger, depression, and drinking. His tendon healed slower than hoped due to unhealthy living and never felt quite the same. The track didn’t hold the same magical excitement as before either, when he halfheartedly did some sessions at the local high school. The simple giddy, childish thrill of those movements seemed lost to him now. Running fast no longer brought him the sensation of freedom and power and unlimited potential that it previously had. Instead it simply hurt, both his pride and his scar-tissued tendon. So he ran less and less until he didn’t run at all.
The year before the accident one of David’s friends who ran cross country convinced him to start running trails with some of the guys and girls on the team, and he accepted. He enjoyed the loops they ran near campus in a small state park and on the wood-chipped paths near the school; he might even have joined the cross-country team himself but the fall season had more conflicts for him. His desire for speed was still his greatest thrill and the track was his focus, so he would frontload all his most demanding classes in the fall months so that he could have an easier academic schedule in the spring when training and racing started up in earnest. Of course he kept in shape and would run through the summer and fall, but the spring was when he really got serious.
There was one trip that would stick with him forever, one of his best memories of running, though it wasn’t around the track and there was no competition or fanfare. His friend Rob had a family house a few hours from campus in the Great Smoky Mountains, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway near the town of Boone. A group was going up for a long weekend in late summer before classes started his senior year, one last hurrah before buckling down to a semester of hard work, and they invited him along. He knew a couple of the people who were going, but not well, and others he didn’t know at all, but he went anyway.
Two carloads of college-kid runners descended on the mountain cabin and settled in for the stay. They came with groceries, beer, things to grill, sleeping bags and a couple guitars, running shoes and gear, and not much else. Things were simple and good—their last year of college nearly upon them—and David instantly felt at home with the seven other guys and girls. After a quick unpacking of the cars, everyone changed into running attire and headed out, eager to stretch their legs from the drive. They had a nice run and a wonderful first night with songs, food, friends, and fire but it was the next days, and one run in particular, that etched themselves into David’s memory. It was one person, one strong, beautiful, brilliant athlete named Silvia who began to etch herself into David himself.
On the third day the group was split on where to go so they divided up; the car David was in (and, not coincidentally, Silvia too) headed for a place called Stone Mountain.
They parked in the small lot and set off, starting slow on the trail and warming up, talking and staring off at the sights, their heads darting different directions, following sounds, movements, and light. David, Silvia, Geoff, and Amos ran through the open, tall-grass meadows beneath the glowing birch forests at the base of the giant dome of Stone Mountain itself: 600 feet of golden granite with one prominent soaring arch in the center. The group splintered further; Rob and Peter stuck to the trail while Silvia’s desire for exploration sent her through the boulders and on to the immaculate lower-angled slabs of the dome. She asked David to join her and he eagerly agreed. They arranged to meet the others back at the car in a couple hours.
Off they went, Silvia clambering with seemingly boundless energy, leaping among boulders and over logs, scrambling like an animal, her long, lean, strong legs transfixing David in their effortless movements. David tried to keep up and concentrate on staying upright, but this was a far cry from the track. He had never done anything like it before and was mesmerized watching Silvia dance through the forest, her long dark hair in two braids flowing through the air, kissing her bare shoulders on either side of the straps of her tank top. He’d never seen anyone move like that; he hardly knew what to say when he caught up to her at the base of the cliff. It wasn’t just her that he was falling for though, it was also the movements of the running of which he had never made before. He found himself smiling as he ran through the forest and he realized, unfortunately, that it wasn’t the usual case. Normally running on the track felt like a much more serious affair and he didn’t usually just break into a wild grin or laugh at random like he did that day.
They followed a creek out of the white wallpapered birch trees of the forest, down into thicker rhododendron, and onto clean, smooth sheets of scoured rock that sloped gently into clear pools. It was hot and humid and sweat glistened on their skin, and so they stopped and waded into the silken flow of the cold water and splashed water on themselves and each other. David was 22 years old, Silvia was 20 and things were good; they were falling in love and life was filled with excitement and potential. That was 10 years ago.
All photos courtesy of Ian Sharman
He could still remember the sounds of the water, the soft murmuring of it pouring over rocks and returning back on itself in a bubbling, smooth spin cycle, and her voice over top of it, filled with happiness and buoyant with her infectious enthusiasm.
***David’s stream of memories was cut off abruptly by the sound of a car in the driveway; Silvia was home, he could tell it was her by the noise of the engine. Charlie was proudly pulling things at random out of a smaller box of his own belongings: books, wooden building blocks, Legos.
“Guess who’s home?” David asked in an excited voice, the pitch rising as he spoke. Charlie’s eyes widened.
“Mom!”
“That’s right. Let’s go meet her.” They started for the front door, pretending to race for the first few steps. Looking through the glass of the big bay window as they approached, they saw Silvia pulling a bag of groceries from the backseat of their tan Toyota Corolla.
David opened the door and Charlie, without breaking his stride, ran out into the sunshine. Charlie flew to her side and threw his arms around her legs. The groceries fell to the ground as Silvia instantly reached for her son and let them drop, forgetting all else in that moment. The groceries landed with a muffled, crunching thump. It was obvious eggs had broken and there was the dull crack of a glass jar. Some liquid seeped from the corner of the now sodden-bottomed brown paper bag.
Charlie held his breath in shock for a moment and gripped his mother tighter. He tried to look at the mess beside them but Silvia held him close and pulled his head into her body, obscuring his view. He didn’t resist, instead he just hugged her with all his might, knowing something was wrong.
David walked over, trying to stay calm although his heart was starting to pound and there was a dizzying buzz strengthening in his head, and embraced them both. He looked at Silvia, searching for answers but unsure of how to begin. Her eyes were swollen, weary, and taut, her cheeks stained with tears. His hands trembled and his muscles twitched.
“Is something wrong with the baby?” David managed, his stomach tightening. Silvia just stood there and shook slightly, unable to speak.
“Is it that? Is it the baby?” He stammered again, louder now, pulling himself into her body. Charlie instinctively squeezed himself into his parents’ embrace with increased pressure too.
“A miscarriage,” she mumbled, lifting her head up suddenly like a far-off voice had called her name. Her eyes were vacant, staring without destination, like the unfocused gaze of an infant.
“I, I… miscarried,” she said as if in a daze. “I went to the bathroom in the grocery store. There was spotting. Something was up. I was freaked out. I called the doctor… She said…” Her words broke apart into pieces and were sobbed out of her in fits.
“And? What? Wh… when was all this? Just now? Why didn’t you call?” David pulled back and tried to look into Silvia’s eyes, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“Yes, a couple hours…”
“And what did she say? What did they say? I don’t understand honey.” There were no words for a minute, just the sound of quiet crying and labored breathing. She closed her eyes and tilted her head down again, into David’s shoulder.
“I just went in. They checked. I did try to call…” Silvia’s body shook more, first little, vibrating tremors and then full-body convulsions, like a strengthening wind through the leaves of a Quaking Aspen.
“When did you try to call?” David’s voice grew in volume, quivered. “When? And what? What happened?! What is the deal?”
“I tried to call right away. I tried, I tried a bunch of times. I couldn’t reach you.” Her body shook.
“Of course I tried to call you!” She yelled. “What do you think?! Of course I did!” David reached quickly into his pocket and pulled out his phone. It was off.
“Ahhhh dammit!” He made the motion of throwing it on the ground, shook his head ashamedly, and twisted up his face. “This thing never, ever holds a charge. I cannot believe it. Oh my god, Silvia, honey, I’m beyond sorry. I’m sick with this.” He paused, looked into her eyes.
She looked up at him: “Yeah, I’m sick about this too.”
“What did she say? What the doc say?”
“That I miscarried.” The words tore into David’s chest and his world went into slow motion. “I miscarried…” Charlie squeezed his parents’ legs ever tighter, feeling his parents’ exchange in his bones, though without knowing what any of it really meant.
“Are you okay? How do you feel?” The questions fluttered out of David’s worried mouth. “Wh… what can I do? What do you need?”
“I’m okay, just tired, drained. I couldn’t reach you so I sat in the car and cried for 45 minutes before driving home. I think I’ve almost run dry already.” She attempted to smile.
The dropped groceries and leaked liquid made stark markings on the hot, white concrete of the driveway. The small stream of 1% milk rode the slight downgrade, following the path of least resistance onto the manicured lawn. The sun was still strong and the North family could feel it upon them as they held their wordless embrace, standing together on Caballero Viejo Drive. The ribbon of milk would soon be gone, evaporated, erased by the radiant heat.
Charlie’s face was somehow nearly expressionless, his young mind grappling with practically numbing, never-before-felt levels of emotion. He tried to comprehend the new development in the life of his family, in his parents’ eyes. He looked up toward their faces buried in the napes of each other’s necks, though David’s large hand enveloped most of Charlie’s head and pulled him unceasingly into their bodies. Charlie’s tears made wet marks on his mom’s white summer dress at hip level, while his arms reached around them both like a human trying to feel the magnificent girth of a redwood.
They stood in the driveway for a long time.
***Their early dinner that still-bright evening was a quiet affair, and when they spoke it was not at full volume, as if their batteries were dying. They ate sandwiches; no one had wanted to cook. Charlie ate without speaking, looking as dazed as his parents though glancing at one or the other of them occasionally, studying their aghast expressions, looking for feedback, slowly gaining a tacit understanding. David was drinking bourbon from a juice glass with a couple of ice cubes. Silvia was red eyed and cheeked, with puffy-looking lips; her nose was irritated from blowing it so much from crying. She drank ice water. They all pecked at their food.
David hadn’t drank very much or very often since his days of overdoing it after his injury in college. Silvia had known him then and witnessed some of his drunkenness, at the time they were just starting to date. She saw through it and they became serious, and with her support he pulled it together, working to curtail his drinking the year after the worst of the injury and recovery had passed. His Achilles still didn’t quite feel the same and his frustrations with running lingered but he had successfully managed to check his most damaging vice.
It wasn’t unusual for David to have a drink now and then, maybe once a week, twice a week at most, but Silvia knew the circumstances were obviously different that night and could tell he was having too much. His eyes were becoming unfocused, his movements loose. He got up suddenly and walked into the kitchen. He opened the door of the refrigerator with too much force and the drinks and jars of food and condiments on the racks all rattled and clanked loudly. David grabbed the carton of orange juice, shut the door, grabbed a glass from the cabinet, and poured it full. He chugged the contents in a few gulps and then refilled it straight away. As he turned toward the refrigerator again his hand swung down and he accidentally knocked the glass over, sending the bright liquid leaping onto the grey linoleum countertop. Luckily none of it got on his phone which was charging nearby. He’d plugged it in the second they reentered the house.
“Ahhh, shit!” He looked at the mess with his hands in the air for a second like he was genuinely surprised and then exploded a moment later, like his anger was one pace behind.
“Goddammit!” David bellowed suddenly and swatted savagely, backhanded, at the overturned glass. His knuckles knocked against it with an audible crack and the glass sailed smoothly through the air and smashed on the tile floor, dotting it and some of the lower cabinets with little flecks of orange.
Silvia ran into the room in a panic with Charlie close behind, though she stood back by the door and made sure Charlie stayed out of the potential range of broken glass. David stood there and looked down at the floor, in the middle of the mess, breathing heavily and sighing loudly every few moments. No one spoke. Charlie looked like he wanted to cry but had nothing left at the moment. Silvia hugged Charlie close to her and led him into the living room and sat with him on the teal loveseat, the only furniture in the house besides the table they ate at, the few chairs they’d moved in already, and the beds and things that the movers had brought in earlier. David turned to the cabinet got out another glass, filled it with water at the sink, and drank it all down in one go. Then he went to the closet by the backdoor and got a broom and a mop and started cleaning up the mess. When he was almost all finished Silvia came into the room and walked up and put her arms around him. She hugged him tightly and put her head against his shoulder, the few teardrops on her cheeks quickly absorbing into the material of his shirt.
“I’m so sorry sweet pea. I’m so sorry.” She paused and David remained silent. “Listen though, honey. You have to listen to me now. You need to go for a run.”
“What?!” David jerked at the suggestion. The word “run”, when applied to David, not only sounded foreign and strange to him but just downright wrong.
“What? How do you mean?” His voice rose, eyes narrowed in irritation.
“You don’t need to drink but you DO need to go for a run,” Silvia said without lifting her head from his shoulder. “A run, a walk, a hike, whatever. Just go.”
“You know I hardly drink anymore and we both know I don’t need to drink. And my Achilles… come on! I mean, I don’t run, Silvia. Jesus Christ!” His voice rose higher, hers stayed calm.
“You don’t run like you…”
“I don’t run at all!” David burst and held Silvia suddenly at arms length, looking into her eyes with the intensity of someone whose deepest wound has been touched. She looked back at him with equal astonishment and ferocity.
“Listen to me! You fucking listen to ME!” She yelled back at him with great force, gripping his arms with all her might. “Listen to me because I love you and because you love me. Yeah, you don’t run like you used to, I was going to say. That’s true, a fact, a harsh, shitty fact. But you can still run, and don’t try to tell me you can’t. That’s just not true. Think about all the people who really can’t run at all, or can’t even walk a step, people in wheelchairs. Seriously.” She paused. “I love you to death, this is the only reason I’m saying these things. You got to get over it though. If you never want to run again that’s fine by me. The point is you can if you want to, maybe just a little slower.” David was calming down, breathing deeply and listening to his wife.
“That lovable, charming ego of yours always had an issue with running slowly. You can run and you know it. Just go slow. You don’t always have to run fast. Keep reminding yourself of that if you have to.” She pulled their bodies together again and squeezed him tight.
“Go to the foothills. You always talk about going out that way.”
David turned instinctually toward the window, like a dog beaconed outside: the suggestion had suddenly resonated, like an old memory coming suddenly into one’s mind.
“Go. You’ll feel better,” she said. “You still have almost three hours before sunset. I’m fine here for now; I can use the time alone. We both can use the time to think. We’ll be together later. I can unpack some boxes, keep me from going crazy.” She looked up at him with matted bangs and teary eyes and a brave, slightly trembling but reassuring smile.
“You better take your phone and make sure it stays ON this time!”
David simply nodded. He turned away, went to the box that had his clothes in it, and started rooting through the contents until he pulled out a pair of running shorts and a shirt. Then, from another box, he produced a pair of old track shoes. Silvia had gone into the living room, back to Charlie on the loveseat. David changed, standing there in the middle of the bedroom, then grabbed his phone from the kitchen and passed through the living room, heading for the door. He planted kisses on the foreheads of Silvia and Charlie as he went.
“See you soon. I love you both more than anything…”
***David decided to take it as a special challenge to himself to run really slowly, just as Silvia had said. It was so unusual for him to do such a thing but the day had been far from usual so he felt it an appropriate deviation. He was determined at least to find the comedy in it, to just do it with a light heart. Silvia’s impassioned words had stirred him; he’d been called out. He was ready for a new (old) experience, anything to clear his mind. He closed the front door and set off into the evening.
At first, with each and every step, he had to remind his body and his feet and legs to relax and not strike quickly, not automatically push the pace like he’d been trained to do forever. By the end of the first block, the brief, initial elation of the activity had already worn away. He felt stiff and old, his Achilles felt tight, the movements awkward. There was no flow, no joy in the motions. He stopped on the corner and put his hands on his hips, looked up and looked down, like he was about to say something, curse or shout or start crying again.
“Face this challenge David, be strong. Be strong like your sweet Silvia,” he said to himself, shaking his head from side to side and facing the ground, eyes closed.
“Just relax… and slow your roll. Slow your roll. Slow your roll.” He repeated it under his breath, whispering almost inaudibly a few times after he spoke it aloud. He began to run again, even slower this time. When the movements began to feel awkward or the voices in his head began chattering for him to stop, he would shake his arms out at his sides and let his legs flop about and say aloud to himself:
Relax, slow your roll… Relax, slow your roll…
The blocks started to drift by, though not effortlessly, and the voice in his head began to chatter less loudly. He tried to suppress the feeling that he was actually beginning to enjoy himself. The sensation was in him whether he wanted to feel it or not.He hadn’t thought too hard about where exactly he was headed when he’d left the house and started shuffling along with light, mincing steps. He was so absorbed and daunted by the curious task that he had little room to consider navigation. Like an animal naturally seeking open space, David had headed south on the streets towards the closest hills, toward Del Valle Regional Park and the Ohlone Wilderness. David jogged along and tried to focus on taking deep, calming breaths through his diaphragm, filling his belly first before his lungs. His body felt clumsy but already, to his amazement, was starting to warm up and recall the muscle memories of those actions of running he’d done so many times before. Just like riding a bike, he thought and then laughed to himself at the cliché. He took a few walk breaks too—to stretch his legs and change up the movements—and was deeply impressed with himself that he was actually able to overcome his pride and simplywalk for a minute here and there. He’d never done anything like that before.
The sky was a light beige-orange, the color of Central Valley grass in summer. Jet streams crisscrossed the great surface overhead, starkly made by metal birds in flight, bound for San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, or points beyond. The rows of houses began to thin out under the evening light; more open lots could be seen, more bare land not yet built upon. A Red-tailed Hawk was perched on a telephone pole, proud and searching and ever patient. He noticed the bird and nodded to it as he went by.
The hills seemed to be coming alive with the oncoming twilight. A hot wind blew and made the grasses and scrubby bushes rustle and dance with movement. Even when the breeze ceased the brush beside the road was busy with the movement of insects, rodents, and snakes. The hawk knew where to look.
Relax, slow your roll…
If he followed the mantra, he found he could remain in a positive mental space and that the activity was pleasant, the easy pace surprisingly just fine after all.
David thought about his co-worker Peterson who was always marveling at a middle-aged woman in Human Resources named Luz, who ran marathons and longer distances on a routine basis. Peterson would always come up to David’s desk on his way to the bathroom or the lunch room and stop and say, “Goddamn man! Did you hear about Luz? She won her age group in a 50-mile race this past weekend! Fifty miles. Yeah, you heard me. For real. Can you believe that shit! Fifty freaking miles?! Like five zero. That’s some stone-cold, stone-age-savage, cave-man, cave-lady-type shit right there.” He would throw his hands up and laugh and make crazy faces.
“Do you think you could do that? You used to be a runner, right? Right?!”
“Ah, yeah, sort of. I used to be,” David would say. “Wow, Luz is amazing. I can’t even imagine it.”
“And nothing against women, of course,” Peterson would go on, “but that’s even crazier. A nearly 60-year-old woman?! Running 50 miles in the mountains?! Someone said she does 100-mile races too and that she’s starting to train for her next one. That’s some serious, serious, SE-RI-OUS work ethic to train for something like that. Freaking commitment. I just couldn’t do it, not that I’d want to! I don’t think either of us would have it in us. I don’t think we got whatever it is that Luz has got.”
“We could do it if we wanted to…” David would often say. He had never paid much attention and didn’t know Luz well. They worked at a large non-profit and she was on another floor; he’d only seen her around and heard stories.
***The houses were few now and David was almost where the flat land met the abrupt rise of the hills. A short farm-style barbed-wire fence started beside him and paralleled the now-gravel road that David was on. He shook his arms out and tried to relax his shoulders, then repeated his new mantra and took a deep breath, looking around him, looking ahead at the scenery. He could see something at the base of the fence, a few hundred yards away. It was colored like the grass around it, with some dark patches, and small. There was a flicker of movement as David ran toward it, keeping his eyes on whatever it was. As he got closer he decided to take another walk break to stretch out his legs and tightening hips. David took long strides to loosen everything up, deliberately swinging his arms with greater range of motion and drawing in deeper breaths through his diaphragm.
It looked like an animal to David, down there at the base of the fence. The beige, earth-colored mass of it was unmoving; the flicker of motion David had seen from far off was simply the wind blowing through tufts of fur. David walked up the last few paces and stepped down into the ditch beside the fence to have a closer look. It was hard to tell at first but soon David could tell it was a bobcat, a dead bobcat. David screwed up his face and wrinkled his eyebrows like he was confused and concentrating hard to figure out what had happened, then half gagged like he had something caught in his throat.
He picked up a stick nearby and used it to prod the body and investigate the scene, an impromptu animal autopsy as he poked at the carcass and tried to make sense of the twisted body. Then, with a shudder and another furling of his brow, he saw that a length of barbed wire had been wrapped tightly around the neck of the bobcat, cutting into its flesh. He also found two bullet holes, one on the side through the ribcage and the other by the hip. The blood and the matted fur had dried dark and appeared black. Its skull and muzzle had been smashed by something or someone and its eyes were little slits, sealed tightly shut like it had wanted to just go to sleep and get away from it all.
David stood up straight from his hunched inspection of the scene and tossed the stick into the ditch and put his hands on his hips again. He looked up at the sunset sky and then down at the earth. He breathed deeply and started muttering to himself:
“Relax… slow your roll, David. Relax… slow your roll.” In an instant he dropped down to the ground and flopped onto his backside and sat on the edge of the road. Few cars were out; only one had passed him in the last hour. He picked up a piece of gravel and flung it into the rustling, blowing grasses beyond the fence.
“What the fuck?” He screamed and put his head in his hands. “Why? Why? Why?” He shouted with increasing volume. Then, slowly, like a far-off siren growing louder, David began wailing and making animal sounds. He began really crying then, sobbing like he hadn’t in years. Great, prolific gushes coursed down his cheeks, left reddish luge tracks of melancholy upon his face and made his eyes swollen and his nose run freely. He sat there beneath the fiery sky, his knees pulled up to his chest in the gravel on the shoulder of the road next to the mutilated bobcat. He cried and convulsed until his sides ached and abs trembled. He lay down on his back and tried to breathe deeply and calm and gather himself, let his churning mind simmer down with the emerging chorus of crickets in the background.
He fell asleep.
There was a buzzing noise and a vibrating sensation through David’s body; his cell phone was ringing. He opened his eyes to stars above and slowly began orienting himself to the conscious landscape. He shifted in the gravel and suddenly felt the full chill of the night. He was immediately aware of the stiffness and soreness of his body from a couple hours on hard ground. He retrieved the phone from the pocket of his running shorts and checked it, a missed call from Silvia. One of four missed calls. It was 11:02 p.m., and he’d left at a seven. He called her back straight away and explained what had happened and that he was fine. She offered to pick him up and he initially resisted but agreed as soon as he stood up and felt the stiffness and soreness in his muscles and his Achilles—the impact of his longer-than-expected run after years of not doing it at all. It was nice though; he felt those bodily sensations were nostalgic. He walked stiff-legged around in circles, waiting for Silvia to arrive and he laughed to himself when he noticed himself grinning while doing it. He hadn’t expected any happy emotions to result from his jog that night and he was pleasantly surprised.
David looked down at the base of the fence in the darkness to take stock of the bobcat once more before he left. He squinted and took a step forward. David strained his eyes to see and took another step. He couldn’t locate it. He pulled out his phone again to use the ‘flashlight’ feature. With a veritable spotlight in his hand, David shone it upon the fence where he had knelt beside the cat.
It was gone.
David’s heart began to beat harder and his breath quickened. He talked to himself:
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He walked up and down along the fence, shining his light at the darker spots. “What the…?! There’s no way, there’s no way.”
There was no bobcat. In one twist of barbed wire though was a tuft of beige hair, still blowing about in the nighttime breeze. David grabbed the clump of it and stuffed it quickly into the gel pocket of his shorts, thankful for some evidence of the strange occurrence.
He was still shaking his head and questioning himself when Silvia pulled up, but he decided not to mention it, at least not yet. Charlie was asleep in the back. David got in, leaned over, and kissed his wife. She looked tired.
“Thank you,” he said, “for picking me up.” Silvia was silent as David adjusted in his seat. “And for making me run. And I’m sorry, so sorry. I fell asleep.”
“No problem sweetheart,” she said with genuine compassion, but then rolled her eyes a second later as an afterthought. “But Jesus, I’m glad you’re not dead, you scared the hell out of me. And after today, what the fuck honey?! I didn’t know what I’d do if you didn’t come home. I had no idea you’d be gone that long, I thought you’d let me know at some point if you were going to be gone for hours on end. I didn’t even think you could possibly want to run that far.” She took a deep breath and let it out audibly. “But I’m glad you ran, really, truly I am. I’m happy about that. You already seem different, more relaxed.”
“It…” David started to explain and paused. “It was a good run. I can’t thank you enough for pushing me to get out there. I love you. Thank you. Running slow isn’t as bad as I remembered,” he said and smiled.
The gravel road was long gone now and the North family car glided easily along the pavement, back in civilization, to Livermore and the greater Bay Area. They were nearing their new home, 1421 West Caballero Viejo Drive, and it already felt like a comfort. Silvia guided the car into the driveway and put it into park, shut off the engine, and killed the lights. It was silent again. Charlie snoozed easily in the back. David and Silvia just sat there for a moment, enjoying the quiet. David extended his hand out, palm upturned for Silvia to place her hand in it. She did and their fingers entwined over the center console. They just breathed together and let the day sink in. They blinked and tried to make sense of everything, tried to settle back into at least some sort of functioning state.
“I’m so sorry for everything my dear,” David said, squeezing Silvia’s hand. “You are amazing, you are a goddess, you are the rock of my life, you’ve given me a glorious, angelic child and you can do so again if you want. We are so, so lucky to have Charlie and I am so, so lucky to have you.”
“Thank you, David. We are very lucky indeed,” Silvia said, looking over to him with her head leaned back against the headrest. “I couldn’t do it this time though.”
“Don’t say that, baby. It’s just bad luck, drawing the shortest straw. It doesn’t have to do with you or us, or how good or what caliber of people or parents we are. You are amazing and powerful and the fact is that shit happens.”
“Yes, it does happen. Horrible shit can happen to good people,” she agreed, speaking softly. “I love you.”
The North family sat in silence for another moment. The stars in the sky outside were bright and shone down on them through the windshield of their car. David and Silvia released their locked fingers and readied to make a move inside.
“I’m going to sign up for a 50,” David said suddenly as Silvia was reaching for her door.
“What?” She turned back to him. “Fifty what?”
“Fifty miles. A 50-mile race.”
“Running?”
“Yes, running.” David replied. “But mellow overall I think, not fast, not like the track. You said it yourself: ‘Just go slow. You don’t always have to run fast.’”
“Well, I…” Silvia stuttered a bit, “I… I mean wow! That’s… that’s awesome. Yeah, I… go for it. You’ve got nothing to lose.” She laughed and shook her head again, “When I forced you out for a run this evening I had no idea it would turn into this. Who knows what would happen if you listened to me more often.”
“I didn’t expect this either,” he said. Silvia squeezed David’s hand and smiled at him.
“How did this you come up with this idea? It’s totally out of nowhere. It’s the last thing I ever would have expected from you.” “Remember that woman in my office named Luz? In HR? She’s an ultramarathon runner—that’s what it’s called—and is middle aged, like 50-plus I think, maybe almost 60. I’m not sure. Anyway, she routinely does 50-mile races, and that annoying guy Peterson is always telling me about her and her training. She’s preparing for a 100-mile race now, he says. I guess I just started thinking about her on the run, and her ability to do what she does. Then the running started feeling pretty decent actually. I just ran really, really slow, especially at the beginning, and it felt okay. I’ve seriously probably never run so slow in my life but I was finally able to just relax and accept it better. I couldn’t believe it. My Achilles was stiff and a little rusty feeling but not as bad as I thought it would be. All of a sudden I found myself wondering how far I could go, what I could endure if I just was patient and took my time and really got my mental game in check. And you going through the trauma of a miscarriage and enduring so much, and being so tough and unbelievable and lovable and amazing. The strongest, most amazing woman I know! It made me want to test my own limits again and really push myself. I want to be better. To you, to Charlie.”
“Oh baby. I’m proud of you. I really am,” she said. “You’re brave and sweet. If that’s what you want to do, I say go for it. Any race, anything you choose to do. I believe in you as always, and Charlie and I will be there to cheer you on. Hey, you never know, maybe I’ll start running 50-mile races, too.” Silvia gave him a big grin. Her eyes were still swollen but her smile lit her face up regardless. David looked over at his wife with loving, appreciative eyes and then glanced over his shoulder at Charlie still fast asleep in his car seat. He leaned in toward Silvia and she leaned in toward him and they kissed. They held each other’s gaze for a few wordless moments after that and then opened their doors and got out into the night.
“So,” Silvia began as she opened the back door to get Charlie out, “when are you going to start?”
David looked up quickly at Silvia as she said this, like a dog following the motion of a bird flitting across its line of sight. He cut her off, the words already on his lips and ready to go:
“Tomorrow,” he said, leaning against the car and stretching out his calves and his tight Achilles. “Training starts tomorrow.”
- Ryan Sandes & Ryno Griesel Drakensberg Grand Traverse FKT InterviewMarch 26, 2014Blowing the old record out of the water with the hugest of cannonball leaps, South Africans Ryan Sandes and Ryno Griesel successfully set a new Drakensberg Grand Traverse speed record of 41 hours and 49 minutes.
Ryno Griesel (left) and Ryan Sandes (right). Photo: Kelvin TrautmanDrakensberg Grand Traverse Background
Ryno Griesel himself and Cobus van Zyl held the previous record of 60 hours, 29 minutes, and 30 seconds which the pair set in April 2010 and with an adventure-racing, speed-hiking approach over the famous Drakensberg Escarpment, a seemingly unending buttress of rock reaching a high point of 3,482 meters/11,423 feet and spanning the border between South Africa and Lesotho.
The Drakensberg Grand Traverse (DGT) has no set route and is largely off trail. Most people will cover in the vicinity of 210 kilometers/130 miles and climb more than 9,000 meters/29,500 feet. The DGT is seen as a backpacking destination for the very fit and experienced, and DGT recreation-ers have, through time, created a set of ‘standards’ defining a legitimate traverse. In short, you have to pass/get through eight locations, what DGT-ers refer to as checkpoints:
- Climb the chain ladders at Sentinel Peak
- Summit Mont-aux-Sources
- Summit Cleft Peak
- Summit Champagne Castle
- Summit Mafadi
- Summit Giants Castle
- Summit Thabana Ntlenyana
- Descend Thamathu Pass
Ryan Sandes and Ryno Griesel Drakensberg Grand Traverse FKT Interview
iRunFar: Congratulations to the both of you.
Ryan Sandes and Ryno Griesel: Thanks. Thanks very much.
iRunFar: It’s just been 15 hours since you’ve finished. How are you both feeling this morning? What hurts? What feels good?
Griesel: I think our feet are quite broken because of the terrain. Yeah, my calves are quite sore from the downhill running. Ryan doesn’t seem to hurt too much. He’s not human.
Sandes: My feet are also completely bashed up, especially from the final descents were really rocky and technical. I’ve got loads of hotspots on my feet. My ankles also took quite a beating. The terrain is so rugged and varied. You’re always running on grass tufts and rocks are always moving and are super sharp. Yeah, I think both our feet don’t look too pretty this morning.
iRunFar: I know that there were a fair number of water crossings. What’s the skin situation on your feet today?
Sandes: There are loads of water crossings. You probably cross a river every three to four kilometers along the route. Because there has been so much rain up here, some of the water crossings were quite deep. I think both our feet, yeah, I’ve got some pretty big hot spots. Actually, Kelvin Trautman took a photo of my feet yesterday when I took my shoes off. They look like when you get the wrinkly feet from having your feet in the water for a long time but a million times worse.
iRunFar: You were about five hours away from trench foot?
Sandes: Yeah, pretty much. I’d imagine we do have trench feet. They’re not looking too healthy.
iRunFar: Last night did you guys sleep like babies or did you have nightmares about being out there still?
Ryno and Ryan crossing a shallow river during the DGT FKT attempt. Photo: Kelvin Trautman
Griesel: I just had a big slab of chocolate before I climbed into bed, and I slept like a baby. It was awesome to be finished.
Sandes: Yeah, I also slept pretty well. I kept dreaming about helicopters. The guys from[The] African Attachment were filming [the attempt]. I kept on hearing these imaginary helicopters. [laughs]
iRunFar: That’s great. I want to start with a little bit of background on you, Ryno. Most people who read this will be pretty familiar with Ryan, but not you, Ryno. You’ve done a bunch of trail running but also a bunch of adventure racing. Can you tell us about yourself?
Griesel: My background is mainly adventure racing. I’ve raced overseas for the last 10 years or so. That’s pretty much my preference of endurance sport. Trail running has always just been kind of an outflow from adventure racing. But also, I’ve been into climbing mountains and mountaineering in general most of my life. I figured out early in my life that if you can run from one climbing route to another then you have more time to play during the day. That’s kind of how trail running developed for me—being a climber and moving in the mountains. The Drakensberg became a passion for me over the last couple of years.
iRunFar: When I Google you and your race results, you seem to be drawn toward the really long adventure races—700k, 900k. You must like to suffer?
Griesel: I think it’s by default. I’m not that fast. I have to go far to be competitive. I’m not a sprinter. I generally have a fairly strong head and I enjoy pushing my limits, and seeing how far I can go. I’ve always chosen the endurance side purely because I don’t have that much speed.
iRunFar: This was a short outing for you at just 200k?
Griesel: In comparison to adventure racing, but the big difference is never in adventure racing do you spent 200k on your feet. You typically are more varied in the disciplines. That’s what made this thing quite tough. Your hiking legs are very seldom over 40 hours. The only hiking legs I’ve done in adventure racing over 40 hours would be in Patagonia. We hiked for four and a half days for one leg.
iRunFar: Ryno, you are the current record holder and previous record holder, too. The press release that came out a couple of hours ago said that the two of you hatched your plan for this new record attempt two years ago. How did the plan come about?
Griesel: Obviously Ryan has always been a hero of mine and I’ve always followed his progress. Independently I’ve spoken to some people about wanting to push the record a little bit further, people with which Ryan also had contact. We met up and said, ‘Let’s see if we can make this happen.’ A project of this magnitude requires that you can’t just jump in and do it. We’d been talking about it for quite awhile, but I’d say the last eight months we’ve been working at it as our main focus.
iRunFar: The two of you, do you have background together prior to this from the endurance-racing community there? How did you get to know each other?
Sandes: Yeah, I’ve known Ryno and seen his achievements through adventure racing and Ryno is in the Salomon South Africa team. I’ve gotten to know him a bit through that. I think basically we formed a much stronger bond and a much stronger friendship through doing this traverse together. Like Ryno said, the past eight months since October of last year really focused on doing the attempt. I’ve come out here to do a lot of recces as well. For me, I thought it was quite important to do my homework. Ryno knows the Drakensberg mountains really well and probably spends about every second weekend here, probably one weekend a month. He knows these mountains really well. I wanted to make sure I also got to familiarize myself with these mountains and pay my school fees, in a way, and make sure I knew the route—that I wasn’t just rocking up here and trying to run from point A to B with limited experience.
iRunFar: That seems like one of the crucial differences between this and an ultra race. Most ultras are much more straightforward than this.
Sandes: Yeah, obviously there are no markings on the mountain. You don’t follow any trails. Now and again you’re running on cattle trails, but the cattle trails can lead to wherever. You’re following a GPS track a lot. Ryno knows the mountains really well. We really focused on getting the most efficient GPS track. The route can vary slightly depending on what’s happened with the rivers and what areas are overgrown or not. It’s definitely not straightforward. It’s taken a lot of homework.
I think a massive thank you also to Cobus van Zyl, the previous record holder with Ryno. He’s put in a lot of effort to help us get the most efficient track. I think even just going on the GPS track, even yesterday with about eight k’s to go, it was really tricky getting off the mountain. There are so many different routes you can take. Getting cliffed in—there were some guys who hiked in a few weeks ago and actually got cliffed in on the mountain and had to spend an extra night on the mountain with only about four k’s to go. It’s really tricky. You’ve definitely got to do your homework and know the routes 100%.
iRunFar: To be those guys would be heartbreaking. You can probably see the trailhead and have to bivy out.
Sandes: Yeah, for sure. It was going through my head a little bit yesterday afternoon when we were double checking the trail. The trail at that point was quite overgrown. I think both Ryno and I for a couple of minutes were a little bit worried. The last thing we wanted to do was get stuck on the mountain for an extra night.
iRunFar: I want to ask you about your personality match-up. It’s a commitment to go out in the wilderness with another dude for a couple of days in addition to all the planning you had ahead of time. How did you realize that you would be good partners?
Griesel: I’ve always followed Ryan’s achievements. But to get to know him as a person—Ryan is just so easy going and humble, super strong. So from the word ‘go,’ I knew I would be 100% safe with him in the mountains. We’ve gelled really well together. I think what helps is that we both did this as a personal journey. We didn’t really have this record as the main focus. We wanted to experience the mountains together and put the record in the back of our heads. Otherwise, it’s just another race, which obviously makes things more difficult. The fact that we both had similar goals made it easier.
Sandes: I think Ryno’s just being nice. He has a lot more experience than me in the mountains. My navigation is pretty pathetic. It’s getting better. But even with following the GPS, I just follow the lines. Ryno can read a map really well. He knows how to read contours and is just so good at reading maps. In that sense, Ryno definitely helped a lot. We’re both pretty focused. As Ryno said, we both had the same intention and goals in mind. I think generally we’re both quiet people. We’re not one of those people who have to be chatting the whole way. We really did gel quite well together during the attempt.
Griesel: Yeah, all good.
iRunFar: It’s interesting to hear you say that you treated this as a personal journey. From the outside looking in, Red Bull hyped it as a record attempt. You say that from the inside looking out, you didn’t necessarily treat it like that.
Sandes: Yeah, even in a race, I find I generally don’t run as well if I’m thinking about the times as if I’m there for the experience. But I think for both of us, just being in the Drakensberg mountains—the biggest mountain range in South Africa—just to be able to traverse it from one side to the other, that was kind of the main goal for me. In 50 years’ time, I’m not going to be worried that I ran the Drakensberg Traverse in however many hours. I think it’s more that I traversed the Drakensberg mountains on foot that will probably be the biggest thing for me and I’m pretty sure for Ryno, too.
Griesel: Yes.
iRunFar: Can you place these mountains in South African outdoor culture for me? I get the sense that doing this traverse or part of the traverse is a bucket-list-type item for people with backcountry experience in South Africa. Is that how it is?
Griesel: The biggest thing about the Drakensberg is, first, that it’s very remote. There is no road that leads in and around the mountains. The accessibility to the Drakensberg is that there are very specific spots you can get to the mountains. The drive around to the next spot is three to four hours. A lot of the foot of the mountain is occupied by rural communities. From previous history and how South Africa was divided up, a lot of the local communities and the black people, they have the biggest towns and cities at the foot of the mountain. So there are not roads. It’s quite inaccessible.
Also, once you’re on top of the mountain, if you decide that you don’t want to continue and you want to get down, it’s between six and 10 hours of hiking out. So the reality is different from European mountains, for instance, that there are no roads over the top and there are no easy exits. It’s kind of this untouchable, iconic route to do because it takes a lot of commitment especially the way we did it where we took minimum gear. You have to have the experience in the mountains. It’s kind of this elusive, very difficult to access mountain. That’s what’s created the awareness and the hype behind it, I guess.
iRunFar: Ryno, it seems like you have quite a defined relationship with that mountain range. You have done a bunch of time out in it. You were the previous traverse record holder. It was worth it to you to go through 60 hours of suffering a few years ago and then another 40 this time. What is it about the mountain range that keeps drawing you back? Is it that remoteness factor?
Griesel: Yeah, I think that, firstly, I’m super passionate about mountains in general. I just love spending time in the mountains and trying to get to the summit of various peaks. I think the Drakensberg is the closest possible range from home where I’m staying in Pretoria and Johannesburg. It’s four to five hours drive. So initially it just started as the most accessible mountain.
Then over the years, I’ve just spent time there. As Ryan said, you pay school fees. You get snowed in. You get in trouble. You get out of trouble. Over years, you develop that love relationship with the mountain to see how far you can push your limits. Initially it started as an easily accessible mountain in the sense of closest drive. Then you realize that not everybody… it’s not a quick fix in the Drakensberg. You’ve got to spend time to figure out how to drive in and out of points and then where to hike up and down the mountain nevermind spending time on top of the escarpment as we did now. So, a bit of perspective, I could give our GPS track to a lot of other people now who wouldn’t necessarily be able to follow it because you need the background and the reference of previous school fees and previous experiences to be able to interpret that track. It’s just over time paying the school fees and developing the relationship with the mountain.
Sandes: I think Ryno is the only crazy person who has done the traverse three or four times.
Feeling small in the remote Drakensberg? Photo: Kelvin Trautman
Griesel: The full one—three times now.
Sandes: He’s also on numerous occasions tried to do a winter traverse, doing the same route but just trying to do it in winter when the whole route is snowed in.
Griesel: It was 63 hours for halfway [on the winter attempt], so we decided to call it a weekend.
Sandes: Yeah, so he’s done some pretty crazy adventures.
iRunFar: Ryno, was that on skis when you did the winter attempt?
Griesel: No, I’m from Africa. I don’t even know how to use skis. I just use trekking poles and tights. The problem is all of the southern slopes are very deep snow, so it’s very slow moving and every second step you fall in. Because of the terrain being so technical, you actually step in holes between the rocks and the grass holes the whole time. It was actually a sufferfest—good in hindsight, but we wouldn’t advise it to anybody.
iRunFar: Ryan, you ran Transgrancanaria just three weeks before this. That’s a pretty brutal race. I know you had to push yourself to win. Either that works out to be beautiful training or a beautiful mistake in terms of preparing for the traverse.
Sandes: For sure. I think with anything, sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t. Your body sometimes recovers quickly and at other times it doesn’t. I was quite confident, though, with it being a three-week gap that it was going to be perfect training. The traverse is so slow moving. You look at it’s 207k over 41 hours—to any person who doesn’t know the route, that seems really slow going. I knew the route was going to involve a lot of powerhiking, a lot of really slow running, a lot of stopping, a lot of starting. So for me, I was actually more trying to be mentally ready and to get my legs as strong as possible doing a lot of powerhiking and stuff like that. Actually, I think it worked out quite well. I recovered fairly quickly from Transgrancanaria. It was my first race of the season, so generally your recovery is a lot better. I’m doing Ultra-Trail du Mont Fuji in a couple weeks’ time. It will be interesting to see how I recover for that. I think that’s going to be a lot, lot more tricky than recovering from the Transgrancanaria for the traverse.
iRunFar: Yeah, I will look forward to seeing how your legs bounce back for that race as well. I want to ask about the specifics of the attempt. There was a lot of media build-up to it. Did you guys feel any pressure going into it, or were you just like, It is what it is. The pressure is the mountain rather than the hype.
Sandes: Yeah, I try not to worry too much on the external elements. Obviously, doing the attempt while having The African Attachment guys here doing a video and having Red Bull really helping us make it all happen, you obviously want to do them proud. There’s always that concern. I think, for me, it was never about the time. As long as we finished I’d have been happy with that. Like we said, the terrain is so brutal and so easy to get lost or if the weather closes in… the weather definitely plays a big, big part in it. There were those kinds of concerns for me that we wouldn’t actually be able to complete the project.
Griesel: For anybody, to run with Ryan is enough pressure on its own. I haven’t really done anything on that level. So to be honest, my biggest pressure was running with Ryan. I was not at ease. For Ryan, it’s just one [event]. One or two weeks ago, I was like ‘Um hmm, I’m an accountant.’ It all worked out well. We enjoyed the mountain. On the filming side, a bit of passion for myself has always been to showcase the Drakensberg mountain range to the world. I think that in the back of my head I knew the filming would add pressure. That was a big part. It was never just about the record. It was about showcasing what we have in South Africa to a bigger part of the world. It’s always been a big project. The run at the end was just finalizing it. The project has been bigger than just the record to me.
iRunFar: Talk about, for a moment, your start. You guys chose 12:00 midnight to begin. There must have been some strategy to that?
Sandes: Yeah, we were originally looking to start at two or three in the morning, but then we thought if we were going to start at that time, we’re not going to sleep anyway. We decided to start at 12:00 a.m. We did rough calculations and came up with a best-case scenario. We realized if we did close to 45 hours, we would be able to do a lot of the running in the daytime hours which, obviously with not following any paths at night, your pace is really slowed down. The key is to try to run in the daytime as much as possible.
Ryno Griesel and Ryan Sandes about to start at the Sentinel car park. Photo: Kelvin Trautman
That being said, we actually were so lucky with weather. It actually got a little bit too hot during both of the two days. Making sure you stay hydrated was quite tricky at times with carrying minimal gear and not wanting to take too much nutrition. Yeah, but the general strategy was to start at 12:00 a.m. and hopefully in two days’ time, finish in early evening.
Griesel: Because we ran with minimum gear and the risk of bad weather and maybe the need to sleep, what we also took into consideration was our fifth summit, Giant’s Castle, we wanted to hit that at about halfway. So it’s 118k of the 215-odd kilometers, so it’s just over halfway [distance-wise], but mentally it’s halfway. There’s quite a big valley leading up to Giant’s Castle as well as leading down from Giant’s Castle. The plan was to try to line it up with your normal body clock and your sleeping clock and to try to maybe sleep a little bit before we hit Giant’s, which would be 10:00 p.m. and afterwards, which would be maybe 2:00 a.m.—which we never needed as much sleep. We knew we had to plan that if we want to sleep, to sleep somewhere in a valley because it’s a little more sheltered. We didn’t have any bivies to sleep in. That was also a big part of why we started at 12:00 a.m. the previous night.
Ryan and Ryno climbing the chain ladders at Sentinel Peak. Photo: Kelvin Trautman
iRunFar: That first night was about six hours of darkness. The press release that just came out said that during that time, Ryan, you rolled your ankle. Was that the main challenge of that time, successfully navigating and not wrecking yourselves by falling over in the dark?
Sandes: Yeah, for sure. Running at night, I was concerned with the terrain being so rough. I also took a tumble and cut my hand a bit. I think that was in the first hour. Then like you said, in the second hour, I tweaked my ankle; luckily it wasn’t too bad. It was more a mental thing. You realize, if that all happens in the first two hours, what’s going to happen over the rest of the time? Luckily for navigation, Ryno was in charge of that so obviously that was a big help for me. I know Ryno knows the mountain so well and he’s done a lot of homework. I was pretty confident that he had that down to a tee which he did.
The first six hours, I really enjoyed them. The weather was really perfect. We started off in a t-shirt and shorts. I was feeling warm and pretty surreal just to finally get started. It’s been building up for awhile now, so I was just keen to get started. To be honest, I think the first six hours were probably some of the best memories you have. Obviously, you start feeling relatively fresh and you’re a lot more aware and you’re taking a lot more in. I think that sunrise was pretty special on the first morning.
iRunFar: Ryno, where were you at sunrise?
Ryno and Ryan push through the first night. Photo: Kelvin Trautman
Griesel: We were just past what’s called the Mweni area which is quite exposed and has some sharp peaks. We were on our way to our second summit, Cleft Peak at 55 kilometers. It’s a beautiful area. The sunrise just brings out all the sharp edges close to the escarpment. It was really special as was the sunrise of the second morning just as we summited Thabana Ntlenyana which is the highest peak in southern Africa.
iRunFar: Ryan, when we interviewed you after Transgrancanaria, I think you said you’d be lucky if you could do 5k an hour, but you guys were basically on 5k an hour pace that entire first day. The press release said, Ryno, that you had a bit of a setback with dehydration at some point in the heat of the first day?
Griesel: Yes, I generally struggle in the heat. I’m more used to high altitude colder conditions. Yeah, I definitely started struggling to keep liquids and food down. I had to work around that by taking little bites. Actually, that haunted me for the whole attempt until last night at the finish. I really struggled to eat which obviously influences your energy level.
iRunFar: And did that set your pace back at all?
Griesel: The big thing about the traverse is just constantly moving. We managed to do that. With Ryan’s motivation, I don’t think we slowed down. We had 45 hours in the back of our heads that we wanted to do in total. Even that was just a theoretical figure because I knew how hard it was to initially do 60 hours. I think we managed to, definitely with Ryan’s help, keep the pace we wanted. It just wasn’t as enjoyable as I was hoping. From adventure racing, you learn to suffer through it.
Sandes: It was good to see that Ryno actually does suffer. In all the recces, I was suffering with the altitude. He was always the one having to look after me. It was good to see also that he was a little bit human. I was starting to get a bit worried leading up to the attempt. [laughs]
iRunFar: Since this was self-supported, you had all of your nutrition in your packs, and you were probably filling up [water] in the stream crossings. What was in your bags?
Sandes: I took a space blanket in case of any mandatory-gear stops from Transgrancanaria. [laughs]
iRunFar: [laughs] Maybe you had 10 space blankets just to be sure?
Sandes: Yeah. No, basically I think I the majority of the pack was nutrition. Then, it’s really important to be prepared for anything on the mountain. You get all four seasons in one day here. So we took two waterproof jackets, waterproof pants, a base-layer top, waterproof gloves. Our running gear we ran in. I had a buff and a beanie, shoes, socks. We both had GPS’s. We took two. Ryno was in charge of navigation, but just in case anything happened to the GPS; otherwise we would have been pretty stuck out there. We both each had a headlamp with another as a backup in case something went wrong. We also had the Yellowbrick tracking devices as well. We also had some emergency gear. We took one emergency bivy blanket.
Griesel: Yeah, a very thin space-blanket version of a bivy bag if somebody should get hurt and for visibility.
Sandes: We had a really basic first aid kit, some strapping, lots of sunscreen, hats as well. We both got pretty fried out there. We’re feeling a bit sunburned today. What else did we have?
Griesel: The big thing you have in the back of your head, How light can we go? But then we also felt that we had the responsibility to take the necessary emergency equipment. We didn’t want to go out there and be cowboys with one jacket and nothing else because you might be fine and you might not. The two jackets worked really well even in the good weather. The second night was really cold.
iRunFar: How many calories did you carry?
Ryno and Ryan crossing the bush. Photo: Kelvin Trautman
Griesel: I’ve never been that scientific, but I carried a lot of protein bars and nougats. I’ll leave all that scientific stuff to Ryan.
Sandes: Yeah, I’ve never been that scientific. I think the main thing was that I basically wanted to have one bit of energy or one Llama Bar per hour. I took about 50 to 55 items of food with me—Gu Chomps, Llama Bars, some Gu Roctanes, a bit of FUTURELIFE meal replacement , some peanuts, some sweets to mix it up and to have a nice variety. In hindsight, I took way too many sweet things. I used Gu Chomps a lot, no disrespect to them, but I don’t think I’ll be eating Gu Chomps until I go to Mount Fuji again. You just need a lot of variety because it’s such a long period and you crave all sorts of things.
iRunFar: Would you guess 5,000 calories? Less? More?
Sandes: I’d say a lot more. I can tell you what I took in total. I know I took 15 packets of Gu Chomps, five Roctane gels, 25 Llama Bars, two meal replacements (FUTURELIFE and Ensure), quite a bit of Gu Brew. I’d say more like 10,000 to 15,000 calories.
iRunFar: I want to ask you about sleep. Did you take a nap?
Sandes: Going into the traverse, that was one of my major concerns. I know Ryno from adventure racing can go seven days without sleeping. I generally like to run during the day and sleep at night. We did actually, after Giant’s Peak, as Ryno was saying after 118k, take a 30-minute power nap. I personally didn’t sleep too much during that 30-minute power nap. As soon as I laid down I couldn’t sleep which was quite frustrating. It was also quite cold. Then we started running again after our 30-minute power nap, and I was really tired about two hours later which I think was about 3:00 a.m. in the second night. We took another 10-minute power nap. Again, for the first few minutes I couldn’t fall asleep. I think I only slept for about three or four minutes, but when I woke up I felt really fresh again. I was able to keep going. Then again, just before sunrise I got really tired and was feeling dizzy.
I actually thought I saw helicopter once or twice. I told Ryno, ‘Do you see a helicopter there?’ He was like, ‘No, it’s a reflection.’ I seem to have a helicopter on the brain over the past few days. As far as sleep deprivation, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was just that three or four hours just before sunrise again, it was really tough for me to keep focused. Obviously, your pace drops a lot when you’re so tired. Also with the terrain being so technical, you just have to be focused the whole time.
iRunFar: Ryno, I want to ask about pacing. I did rough calculations for you guys at 78k, 100k, and at the finish. Basically, your pace was the same the whole time. There was no drop-off in the second day. Was that intentional or were you just trying to move by how you felt and it just happened to stay so steady?
Griesel: We took a more adventure-racing approach, if I can put it that way, where you’re constantly moving rather than trying to sprint any section. Firstly, knowing the terrain very well, you know where you can push or not. Honestly, there aren’t too many areas where it’s really runnable. It’s more jogging than really running. We kind of worked out that if we want to do 45 hours, we worked it back based on our previous times where we wanted to be at each point in terms of times. But to be honest, that 45 hours was purely theoretical. We didn’t have too much to base it on except it was what we really wanted to do. Then we just based on the GPS trying to keep that pace.
To put the route into perspective, after 160k, it really becomes brutal. Up to that point, you’re combining valleys, either going down or up a valley and eventually summiting and then going down and up a valley. After 160k, you start hitting all the valleys sideways, so you’re literally just climbing up, down, up, down the whole time. Some of those valley walls are maybe 10 meters less than any of the summits. There are some serious, serious climbs. To try to keep our pace in those last 45k was definitely the biggest mental challenge. In previous attempts, that’s where we’ve lost all our time—in the last 45k.
iRunFar: Were you striving for 5k an hour pace?
Covering kilometers amidst the spectacular Drakensberg. Photo: Kelvin Trautman
Griesel: I think we just tried to move at a pace which we could keep up until the end and not let the wheels come off completely. I must say you work really hard to try to maintain 5k an hour. It’s really depressing looking at the GPS and realizing with all this effort you’re actually standing still. Like Ryan said, trying to explain this to anybody, you have to be out there to experience it.
Sandes: Yeah, moving so slow, I think for me, is such a big mental challenge. When you say it’s 10k to go until we get to the next summit and you suddenly realize that 10k is going to take you two hours, it’s taken awhile to mentally get used to that. It basically just feels like everything is in slow motion. Mentally on some of the recces it just completely broke me. The section from the first summit, Mont-aux-Sources after 8k, and then it’s 47k to the next summit, Cleft Peak. Mentally, on the recce that completely broke me. On the recce we split the run up into different stages. To do that in the daytime, it’s beautiful out there, but a lot of it is kind of rolling hills and valleys and it starts to look the same. Mentally that was quite challenging. But luckily with us starting at 12:00 a.m. we managed to get that out of the way before sunrise.
iRunFar: Were there any moments where either of you was just, ‘Oh, dear Lord, make this end?’ Or were you pretty checked into it the whole time?
Sandes: Luckily I felt relatively good and strong throughout most of the attempt. I had a few low patches. I think, for me, the biggest scare was in that first hour, falling and cutting my hand and then a few minutes later rolling my ankle slightly and then doing it again two or three hours later. Mentally, I was a little concerned if I’d been falling two or three times already in the first four hours or so, what was going to happen the rest of the time. For me, obviously, that was in the back of my mind.
I almost felt like I was running scared. On some of the descents I was really scared. I didn’t want to push it too much. I suppose since it was such a long distance, it doesn’t really matter too much. I definitely think the final… you descend for the final 16 to 20k. That just seemed to go on forever and ever. You just want to get to the finish. My feet weren’t actually too bad until then. That final 14k or so destroyed my feet. There’s one pass—what’s the name of that pass?
Griesel: Thamuthu Pass.
Sandes: Yeah, that pass. It’s just super rocky. It’s just like this gorge that just drops off the mountain. You’re kind of just boulder-hopping but it’s really sharp rocks and shale. That destroyed my feet. Then you still have another 8k of downhill running after that also on some pretty gnarly terrain. My feet were just so shot. The last two or three k, I could just feel all the blisters on my feet forming and popping. That was quite tricky. It was a relief to finally see the finish.
Griesel: Yeah, I think those last 45k, the only place you really see civilization on the mountain, we have this Sani Pass road, which is an access road into Lesotho. Once you cross that road, you know there are 45k of sideways valleys. It started heating up again. I was still battling from the heat of the previous day not having eaten enough. I knew, because I’ve done that section so many times, what it would require climbing over all those saddles. Quitting was never an option. Snake bites—I wished for a few other things, but quitting wasn’t an option. Ryan just talked me through it. He was super strong throughout, so we just got through it.
Ryno charges ahead of Ryan on flat ground with around 20k to go. Photo: Kelvin Trautman
Sandes: I was a little bit worried. Ryno was running a little bit close to some of the cliff edges. I thought he was going to jump off once or twice. [laughs]
iRunFar: How did you guys end up passing the time? Were you listening to music? Did you chat with each other? Was there some Timothy Olson-style grunting? [laughs] How did the camaraderie pan out?
Ryno and Ryan running with less than 10k to go. Photo: Kelvin Trautman
Sandes: [laughs] It was a combination of all of that. Generally when I race I listen to music. It’s not that loud, so you still can talk if need be. Personally, I was actually surprised that I didn’t listen to too much music. For me, I haven’t been up here that often. These mountains are relatively new to me. In South Africa, I come from Cape Town which is at the very bottom, where the Drakensberg mountains are up a lot higher in northern to central South Africa. I think I was really enjoying taking in a lot of the scenery and absorbing a lot of that. We did chat a bit. But as I said, I think we’re both fairly quiet and felt pretty comfortable running together. We didn’t feel the pressure that we had to chat with each other continuously. We did chat a bit as well.
Griesel: On the navigation side, that keeps your head busy the whole time although it’s also mentally quite draining. I literally checked the GPS at least every minute. The terrain is not marked. A lot of it’s off camber. You want to stay on a specific contour line. You never want to lose or gain height unnecessarily. So you’ve got to take the GPS the whole time. I did listen to music as well, but that kept my head busy the whole way.
iRunFar: You followed your track almost to a tee. There were so few deviations.
Griesel: Interestingly, some of the deviations might be because we [intentionally] went off track. I actually changed the route quite a bit still in the last few weeks. From the time I gave that track to the website guys, we actually did quite a few recces and fine tuned the route. A lot of the deviations would be on purpose.
Sandes: With Cobus van Zyl, it was really cool how involved he was with the project. He was the previous record holder with Ryno. I think it just goes to show the camaraderie like with trail running. He basically helped us get the most efficient and economical route. He’s still out here. He was still really involved in the attempt helping out with logistics. He did all the recces with us. It’s really cool to see someone that you tell, ‘We’d like to break your record,’ and then he goes and helps you. At the start and at the finish, he may have been more excited than we were. It’s pretty special to see that. I think Ryno and I are very grateful for Cobus’s help. I don’t think we would have been able to do all of this without him.
iRunFar: Take me to that finish line. You do that gnarly descent. Your feet are killing you. You’re ready to be done. Red Bull set up a finish arch for you to run through.
Sandes: Yeah, we actually had two river crossings within the last 100 meters. Then for the Drakensberg Grand Traverse, the rules say you’ve got to run through the Sentinal car park gate [at the start] and the Bushman’s Nek Border Post [at the finish]—you’ve got to run through that. Basically we ran through the Red Bull arch and 20 meters later was the Bushman’s Nek Border Post and you’ve got to actually touch the gate. That’s the rules. We could actually see the Red Bull arch when we were running down the mountain which was pretty cool to see, but I think it was also quite difficult. You could see it, but you also knew you had another two or three k’s to run. It just seemed to go on and on and on. It was a relief to finally run through the Red Bull arch.
iRunFar: What were you feeling, Ryno?
Ryan and Ryno complete their quest. Photo: Kelvin Trautman
Griesel: When I went underneath the arch, I touched the fence and then sat down for a few moments. Mentally, the moment I finished, I left the PR and the interviews for Ryan and I just sat alone in the grass. It’s overwhelming to think the project that I’ve dreamed up over many, many years and having that privilege to share it with Ryan was really emotional for me. To realize that if you have a dream, you can go for it. It wasn’t necessarily being so tired, I just enjoyed that moment to think that something that seemed impossible—that doesn’t even mean the record time, but it means sharing my passion for the mountain with so many people—that’s been a dream for a long time. I had a few moments there where I just thought, Flip it’s just amazing—you live once, we must really go after our dreams.
Sandes: For me, everything has happened so quickly. I’m definitely super psyched. I think it will still kick in. I think it is probably so much more than the record. It’s been all the build-ups. For me personally, some of the recces were harder than the actual attempt. The first recce I did in October with Ryno and Cobus, I came into the mountains not quite knowing what to expect. In October normally the weather should be pretty decent here, but we went into the mountains in a massive snowstorm and sideways rain. We spent 40-odd hours in the mountains. It was pretty scary for me. I think I left that recce going back to Cape Town wondering if I had decided to do the right thing trying to traverse across these mountains. Some of the recces have been quite difficult.
Then I came back and did a recce in January and the altitude just annihilated me. That was one of the longest nights of my life trying to slog through on some of the routes. It was pretty cool to see everything finally coming together. It’s been a really great experience for me and something I’ll cherish for a really long, long time. It’s not really the time, it’s more the fact that we traversed the Drakensberg mountains which is something not too many people have done on foot.
iRunFar: Did you let yourselves sort of celebrate your record? When we interviewed you, Ryan, at Transgrancanaria, you kind of hedged and said, ‘Oh, if we can get under 50 hours, we’ll be happy.’ Then as we’ve been talking here, you’ve been talking about ‘45 hours.’ In the end you were several hours faster than that. Are you letting yourselves celebrate the fact that you surpassed your own expectations?
Touching the Bushman’s Nek Border Post gate. Photo: Kelvin Trautman
Sandes: Yeah, for sure, We’re definitely chuffed with the time. I had two beers last night last night to celebrate, but after two beers I was ready to go to bed so I couldn’t celebrate too much. I think definitely we’re chuffed with the achievement. It probably hasn’t really kicked in too much as we speak. I think we’ll definitely celebrate a little bit more.
iRunFar: When you look back at stuff like this, hindsight is always 20/20. You may not have much hindsight yet because you just finished yesterday evening, but do you look back on it and feel like, Oh, that was super solid start to finish? I get the sense, Ryno, that you’re a pretty analytical guy when it comes to calculating pace and route. Do you look back on it and think, Oh, we could have gotten a couple of minutes here or there?
Griesel: Yeah, I’m an accountant of profession, so that comes through in everything from the packing and preparing right through. Yeah, I was quite calculating through everything. Yeah, I think I’m always strong in the mountains. I’m strong in the mountains because it’s always nice and cool up there. I’ve raced in places like Utah and etceteras where I know I struggle in heat. When I looked at the weather predictions, although most people were happy from a filming perspective because it was going to be a nice clear day, I knew that I was going to be in for a bit of a challenge. When I did start dehydrating, I was disappointed.
In hindsight, I was disappointed that I got a bit sick and I struggled for a couple of hours during the day. But that’s the challenge of life and taking on this challenge, it’s such a long way. In hindsight, I’m happy that on paper we stayed on track. You can’t help thinking, Okay, could we have gone faster? But the reality is, you can’t really think about it like that. I think as a team, we managed pull each other through and put our strengths together to do the best possible time on the day.
iRunFar: Yes, when I listen to you guys talk it seems that you have fairly complementary strengths. You, Ryno, with your navigation abilities in that type of off-trail environment, and, Ryan, with your ability to just keep pushing on at the highest-sustainable pace on foot. It seems like you used each others’ strengths to bring out the best in each other.
Sandes: Yes, for sure, I think we complemented each other quite a bit. With Ryno doing the navigation, it took a lot of pressure on me. I think it put a lot of pressure on Ryno. The whole attempt, that was where it was going to be best. You can be the fastest runner in the world but if you can’t navigate and you don’t know where you’re going and you don’t know much about the terrain, you’re going to be running around in circles. If I was navigating, we’d still be somewhere around the start. I think we made a really good team. I’m chuffed with how things turned out.
iRunFar: Ryan, we’re going to be seeing you at UTMF in just a month. Ryno, what are you going to do now?
Griesel: First, I’m going to see if I still have a job. I work with Salomon South Africa, so they’ve been super supportive. I guess they won’t mind having their employee back. We’ve been spending quite a bit of time in the mountains over the last couple of weeks. Then I’ll have a couple of local races coming up. I’ll probably not race in the next month. From May onwards, I’ll probably race in the local circuit. Then the World Rogaine Champs is in [South] Dakota in June. I just wanted to see how I feel after this. But I’ve been racing the World Rogaine circuit the last couple of years which is 24-hour navigation runs.
iRunFar: Thank you both for taking the time out of your morning to speak. Congratulations. I hope your recoveries go as smoothly as they can.
[Editor's Note: This is the latest edition of iRunFar's On Adventure article series, a play on words from the climbing phrase 'on belay.' On Adventure strives to document the raddest adventures of sport and life undertaken by trail and ultrarunners. Also, we want to say thanks to our transcriptionist, Kristin Zosel, who so rapidly prepared this transcription.]
- The Perfect RunMarch 26, 2014There are so many aspects which are a part of every run we go on that it seems almost impossible to expect to ever have what we might call a ‘perfect run.’ The weather could always be a little more pleasant, the scenery a little more breathtaking, and our bodies a little stronger (to name but a few reasons why a run could be made even better). In this sense it would be easy to subscribe to the belief that there is no such thing as the ‘perfect run.’ The reason I can’t subscribe to this belief though, is that I have had a handful of perfect runs.
By no means are these perfect runs an easy thing to come by. Ninety-nine percent (or more) of the runs I’ve been on could have been better if certain aspects of the run were better. Every now and then though, a run in its totality seems to trump all of these individual aspects. When this happens it doesn’t even really matter what the weather is like or how our bodies are feeling. We can get to this place more often when the weather is great or when our bodies feel really strong, but a perfect run is a run in which the weather, the scenery, your body, or any other external factors seem to cease to exist. It is a run when you get done and you don’t even know what the weather was like or you don’t care how your body felt. This isn’t to say that you are not noticing these things around you, but instead that you are so in tune with everything around you that you cease putting any quantifiable value on them. It is when the scenery becomes not something that you see with your eyes, but something that you see yourself as a part of.
In a sense I would say that I am touching on the meditative, or maybe even spiritual aspects of running. This isn’t really something that has a specific explanation, but instead something that you must experience to understand. If you are unsure if you have felt what I’m talking about then you could start by looking closely at the handful of most satisfying runs you have ever had. If you can pinpoint the specific things about these runs that made them so satisfying then you are probably thinking about a different type of run than I am talking about here. On the other hand, if you seem to have a few standout runs that you simply know were your best runs ever, but you can’t really quantify aspects of these runs that made them so great, then you are likely thinking of what I’m calling a ‘perfect run.’
I wish I could better put into words what these ‘perfect runs’ feel like to me. The most telling specific things I can say about these runs is that I feel like I have more overall energy after them than I had before (no matter how tired my muscles might feel); that I find myself laughing, crying, or smiling for seemingly no reason several times throughout the run; that I am often reminded (typically at seemingly unlikely times) of these runs for days, weeks, or even years after; and that when thinking back to these runs I can’t remember any specific thoughts that I had during them–only the things which stimulated my senses: sights, sounds, smells, and body sensations.
To me, these perfect runs are the primary reason I maintain a habit of running. Sometimes they are frustratingly elusive, but one of them is enough to encourage me to run for weeks, months, or even years in hopes of having another. I have had these kinds of runs in such a wide array of settings (races, roads, trails, bushwhacking off trail) such that I am drawn to all types of running in search of more. The longer I go without one of these runs the more I crave them. It has been over six months since I last had one (and more than 18 months to the one previous to that), and thus I find myself constantly hoping and searching for the next one. Of course, as with most things like this, trying too hard to achieve one of these runs makes them even less likely to occur. More often than not these runs have come to me when I least expect them.
It may be several months (or longer) until I have another, or I may have one tomorrow. But no matter when it is, I look forward to every run I go on knowing that I will have another of these perfect runs eventually, and knowing that I will come out the other end a wiser, more satisfied, and more enlightened person. Searching for this is the primary reason I lace up the shoes and step out the door as often as I do.
Call for Comments (from Meghan)
- Have you had the kind of run like what Geoff describes, a run where you just disappear into the sensory act of motion?
- If you have had one of those runs, can you describe what you remember from it, what it was like for you?
- Katalin Nagy, New 200k American Record Holder, InterviewMarch 25, 2014Just past 6 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Sunday March 16, Hungarian-turned-Floridian (and U.S. citizen as of 2008) Katalin Nagy eclipsed the 200k/124-mile distance during theSouth Carolina 24-Hour Race. In doing so, the 34 year old set a new 200k American record with a time of 20:01:06. The previous record was set by Jamie Donaldson in 2009 at 21:01:28. We sat down with Nagy to learn more about her and her record-breaking performance.
iRunFar: Kate, you are now a 200k American record holder, but I think a lot of people in the ultrarunning world probably don’t know who you are. So who is Kate? Where are you from?
Katalin Nagy. All photos: Ray Krolewicz
Katalin Nagy: Originally I am from Hungary, but I live in Sarasota, Florida.
iRunFar: How long have you been there, in Sarasota?
Nagy: I think nine, or almost 10 years.
iRunFar: What brought you to Florida? Was it work related?
Nagy: Yes, work. I have my own business. I manage luxury houses here, in Sarasota, which includes house cleaning, house watching, personal service, and pet care.
iRunFar: Nice. I guess that allows for plenty of time to run.
Nagy: Uh, yes, I think I have enough time for running. Or I make the time for running.
iRunFar: When did you start running? Have you run all your life?
Nagy: Honestly, I started running when I was 14, but that was just a hobby level: once a week, for just a short distance, because I liked running very much at that time. And then, I just continued this kind of hobby level run until five years ago. So then I met John Pyleand I started running with him. I was running on the treadmill only at the YMCA. [John] just came over to me and invited me to run. It took him by surprise when I said yes. [laughs] [Author’s Note: John Pyle was actually with Katalin during this interview.] He helped me… I ran in my first marathon in 2010, in Budapest. So that’s my story.
iRunFar: [laughs] And how did you do in your first marathon in 2010?
Nagy: I did 3 hours and 19 minutes.
iRunFar: Wow! And have you run many marathons on the road since then?
Nagy: No, it’s unfortunate. After this marathon I was injured, I got an injury, but not because of the running. I was trying to help my friend, she was moving out of a place, and I pulled my quad. So I couldn’t run for nine months after this marathon. Then, of course, I healed up and I continued this running.
iRunFar: And your coach, you have a coach?
Nagy: Yes, my coach is Hungarian and he lives in Hungary. His name is Oliver Lorincz.
iRunFar: Does he coach lots of runners?
Nagy: Yes, yes, especially in Hungary, yes. He is a very good coach.
iRunFar: So you ran your first marathon in 2010 and I think your first ultramarathon was 2011?
Nagy: It was 2012.
iRunFar: 2012, okay.
Nagy: 2012, yes, that was almost two years ago. That was [the Keys Ultras 50 Mile] and I did… 7 hours and 45 minutes. I guess. And I won. Bad day so I think I was lucky.
iRunFar: Is that your best 50-mile time?
Nagy: No, last year I did the same race, the same 50 mile, and I did 7 hours, 10 minutes.
iRunFar: So you had run some 50-mile races. Did you move to the 100-mile distance before the 24-hour event?
Nagy: It’s funny I have never run the 100-mile distance. I never did. I ran a 100k [race] last year, but I never have run 100 miles.
iRunFar: Very interesting. Why did you decide to go to the 24-hour distance? Was this your second 24-hour race?
Nagy: Yes, this was my second. Last year [in] October was the first one [at the 24 The Hard Way].
iRunFar: The reason I ask is, most people don’t jump from 50 miles or 100k to the 24-hour event. They usually run 100 miles or 12-hour races.
Nagy: Yeah, well I ran last year, I didn’t jump to 24 hours–that was a big jump–but last year I did 132 miles in Hungary. There is a really famous race in Hungary calledUltrabalaton. All along the lake, we have to run along the big lake. So I did [that] last year, and won, 132 miles, and I did 22 hours and 47 minutes.
iRunFar: 22 hours?
Nagy: Yes, and 47 minutes.
iRunFar: Wow!
Nagy: That was the big jump [from] the 100k to [the 132-mile race].
iRunFar: Okay, wow. It sounds like you have a natural talent for the further distances.
Nagy: You know, I really love [running], I really love what I’m doing. You know what I mean? I think maybe it’s the passion. I don’t know.
iRunFar: What about training for the race last weekend. Had you been training for several months?
Nagy: I have had [Oliver Lorincz] as a coach since a year and a half ago, and all the time since then I’ve been training and never stopped.
iRunFar: So a year and a half.
Nagy: Yes, but not just for [the 24-hour race], but training for something. Before this I ran 50 miles, 100k, so I was always training for something.
iRunFar: Do you use kilometers or miles when you think about how far you are running [in training]?
Nagy: When I’m training, I’m running for the time, not for the distance.
iRunFar: So how many hours a week were you trying to run in training?
Nagy: I think I do, usually, 15 hours, or 16, or 14 hours. But I’m running… around 100 miles per week. One hundred miles per week, yes.
iRunFar: Do you try to bunch that up in a couple days, maybe do a five-hour run one day and then a three-hour run the next day? Or do you spread it out?
Nagy: Every weekend is a long run, the longest run. Saturday and Sunday are the longest runs. Every Monday is always a rest day. Tuesday to Friday there is some speedwork and some shorter runs.
iRunFar: How short?
Nagy: It’s not really short. I’m running 1.5 or two hours per day, weekly, Tuesday to Friday. And I’m running with pulse control… how do you say it? Heart-rate monitor.
iRunFar: One last thing with training, what do you find was most beneficial from your training in preparing you for the 24-hour run?
Nagy: Yes, the long run and the speedwork, it’s helpful for my training for 24 hours. I don’t know. The speedwork and… all of it.
iRunFar: And I take it that the amount of time you spend running every week was probably very important in preparing you? And it sounds like no less than 1.5 hours [a day]–that’s a lot of running!
Nagy: Oh yeah, it is a lot of running. Yes [laughs], it’s a lot!
iRunFar: Let’s talk about the race. Leading up to the race on Saturday, did you have any goals going in? Set any records or qualify for anything?
Nagy: I didn’t have any goals for numbers, for the mileage. My goal was to keep my position on the U.S. 24-hour team.
iRunFar: You had qualified for the U.S. 24-hour team?
Nagy: Yes, I did. I ran 124 miles in Oklahoma a couple of months ago [at the 24 The Hard Way]. And I think I was the fifth woman on the team. So that’s why I choose this race, I wanted to keep my position on the team.
iRunFar: Did you stop after 200k last weekend?
Nagy: I stopped. That was a little break. My goal was running until the 100-mile distance. I was thinking, Just change my shirt and take a little break and everything. But then my friend said, and Joe Fejes said, maybe I could break the 200k record. So I said, Okay, so I’m going to run until 200k, which is 124 miles I guess. After that I took a little break, but you know I just started to be–maybe it was a mistake, I don’t know. I started to feel dizzy and I had an upset stomach, and I started freezing. I’m a Florida girl so it was cold for me in the morning. So then I just continued for two hours running but of course I was getting slower. And then– that was such a mistake–at around 22 hours I just sat down. I couldn’t stand up anymore. [laughs]
iRunFar: What was your total, then, by the time you sat down?
Nagy: I think a little bit over 133 miles.
iRunFar: I think I saw your 100-mile split was under 16 hours?
Nagy: Yes, 15 hours and 20 minutes.
iRunFar: 15:20. So those last hours were pretty tough?
Nagy: Oh, yes.
iRunFar: But you broke the [200k] record by, was it an hour?
Nagy: Yes, an hour. And I didn’t know that–if you were going to ask–I didn’t know that, it was a surprise for me, too. I really enjoyed this run until 200k. I really enjoyed it. You know that was my first 400-meter track run. I have to say I like that.
iRunFar: Yeah, a lot of people struggle with a race of that kind–you just keep going around and around and around. But you, mentally, find it easier?
Nagy: Mentally I was okay with it. The weather was perfect, in the daytime, of course in the daytime. It was warm and sunny and the weather was perfect, lots of people were there, I really enjoy that. But in the morning it was cold for me so that was really bothering me.
iRunFar: During the race, what were you using for fuel?
Nagy: I didn’t eat real food. I ate protein bars, energy gel, of course water, electrolytes.
iRunFar: Is that something your coach helps you with, your plan for nutrition during the race?
Nagy: Yes, he did. We always talk about [that] before the race and about strategy for the race.
iRunFar: What did Oliver have planned for you in terms of pacing? Were you trying to stay comfortable or run faster in the beginning?
Nagy: Yes, I had [a strategy]. He says to target my heartbeat.
iRunFar: So you base your pace on your heart rate.
Nagy: Yes.
iRunFar: You try to stay in a certain range so your heart rate doesn’t get too high.
Nagy: Yes, yes.
iRunFar: So are some of Oliver’s other athletes performing as well as you?
Nagy: Yes, in Hungary, yes. He has really good runners, yes of course. There is a lady,Szilvia Lubics, who has won the Spartathlon twice and who won many races in Hungary and Europe.
iRunFar: How did you get connected with Oliver as a coach?
Nagy: I contacted him because I heard a lot about him. I wanted to try to find a coach because I knew I really liked this thing, the ultrarunning. I knew that if I wanted to get better, I needed help. So I heard a lot about him and then I just wrote him about coaching. It happened 1.5 years ago.
iRunFar: One other question about the race itself. Were you pacing with anyone or running totally on your own?
Nagy: I was running totally on my own.
iRunFar: Did you have a chance to talk to Zach Bitter afterward–he broke the American record as well.
Nagy: Yes, he was great. I saw him–he was just flying. Yeah he was good, really good.
iRunFar: Did you speak with him afterward?
Nagy: No, I didn’t try, I didn’t try. [laughs]
iRunFar: [laughs] No, you were trying to get feeling better.
Nagy: [laughs] Yes, yes.
iRunFar: Well how are you feeling now? Are you starting to feel better?
Nagy: I’m much better, much better. I had many blisters on my feet, but now I start training again.
iRunFar: Oh good. When did you start running again?
Nagy: I ran once after the race, but just easy, just jogging, short, for an hour. I will start running next week, for six days [a week], back to the training.
iRunFar: So you took four or five days off [after the race]?
Nagy: Yeah, something like that.
iRunFar: You mentioned you had blisters, which is bound to happen when you run that far, but what shoes did you wear?
Nagy: I always wear Hoka. I really like [them].
iRunFar: I just bought a pair myself, they’re great.
Nagy: Yeah. You know the first time when I started running in Hoka it was really strange for me because I feel like I’m taller than usual, but I really like it after that.
iRunFar: Which model do you wear?
Nagy: I wear the Hoka Kailua.
iRunFar: So looking ahead, you are going to start training again so you must have some plans to compete the rest of the year?
Nagy: Yes. My next race is in Key West, the Keys 100, which is 100 miles. And then end of September I’m going to Greece, I’ll do the Spartathlon. Then after, I hope… not hope–I’m going to the [IAU] 24-Hour World Championships. That is the plan for this year.
iRunFar: Should we expect to see you on the trails anytime this year or next year?
Nagy: I like running on trails… yes, of course, I’m going to do trail runs, too. I will see.
iRunFar: With the Keys 100, are you going after any times there, any goals?
Nagy: My goal is to finish around or under 16 hours because, at that time, I think it will be really hot and sunny, so I cannot say, ‘I am going to run 15 hours,’ because I don’t know how I will feel. At that time in Florida, it is really hot, especially this race with no shade.
iRunFar: Yeah, it’s already getting warm there [in Florida]. Is there anything else from you? I think we covered a lot of ground.
Nagy: What can I say? I want to say something. I’m not that kind of runner who focuses just on running. I enjoy my life but… there are many runners who just focus on running and there is nothing else in their life, but I just enjoy it. Maybe in two years I stop running, or maybe I’m running 20 years later, too. I don’t know–I just enjoy it.
Maybe it’s too much information about me, but I’m going to say, just five years ago when I started running, I broke up with my fiancé after 13 years… after that I started running this much and I met John [Pyle] and he helped me from the beginning.
iRunFar: You think you are different as a person–and maybe better quality of life–since you started running more?
Nagy: Yeah.
iRunFar: Well what was the impetus, what was the cause, for you to start running so much more and to start competing? Is there a reason you changed from a casual runner to an American record holder?
Nagy: I don’t know. How can I say? I had more time and I didn’t know what I could do with the free time, so I think that’s why I started running more and more. Then I met John and I ran with him for a lot of time and I really enjoyed this. And I started to enjoy, in the race, the fellowship and everything. So that’s why I was running more and more. I just really enjoy it.
iRunFar: Well it’s been very enjoyable. The ultrarunning community will definitely know who you are now.
Nagy: Thank you for the interview. And the other thing, can I say something about the race, about the last two hours?
iRunFar: Of course.
Nagy: I just want to say I’m happy with my time, of course, with the 200k. I broke the record. But I feel–this makes me upset about the last two hours, not because of my time, I’m happy I’m on the team and everything. But inside I feel a little bit bad because I didn’t fight to the end. You know what I mean? So maybe that’s more information, because I feel so bad about [sitting down and stopping after 22 hours]. Of course on my next 24 hours I’m not going to sit down. I’m 100% sure.
iRunFar: Well, it sounds like you probably hope to run further at the 24-Hour World Championships.
Nagy: I think I will, yes. [laughs]
iRunFar: We’ll look forward to seeing how you do.
Nagy: Thank you.
- The Imaginative SpaceMarch 25, 2014I wake up a little after 5:30 a.m., rising slowly to a seated position on the side of the bed. Cold is the first sensation my feet encounter as they touch the hard wooden floor. I shuffle groggily over to the kitchen, gently working out the stiffness in my arches, calves, and knees with each step. Most mornings start this way, with an arthritic hobble to my glass front door to let dog out and make a brief assessment of the weather. It is chilly today. A couple of inches of snow cover the porch and a thick wall of fog inhibits any view beyond 10 feet.Technically, it is spring, at least according to the calendar, and the past couple of days have certainly suggested as much. The birds are less rambunctious this morning though, as if the joy, outburst, and brashness of spring has momentarily been put on hold. My mind seems to have already transitioned into the next season, and winter’s re-invitation is not welcome. Dog’s unwavering enthusiasm for her early laps in the yard also appears slightly perturbed as she returns to the door, pawing at the glass to be let in, snout and coat covered in snow.My attention shifts from outside to inside, specifically to the daily ritual of preparing coffee. I just received a fresh bag of beans, micro roasted by Geoff a few days ago–Tanzanian Peaberry Selian Estate. The name sounds fancy with the peaberry denoting a much smaller than usual bean. I poke my nose into the bag, taking a deep inhalation of the delightful, engrossing smell of a fresh roast. I cannot pick up on the subtleties of a specific coffee just by smell, but the aroma is no less satisfying. I grind the bean in a hand-cranked, wooden, Peugeot-branded grinder that my mom found on eBay. The small drawer that collect the grinds is perfect for my six-shot Bialetti stovetop espresso maker. Grinding coffee is a quick process, but takes a bit of work–a first wake-up before sipping on the caffeinated beverage.With the coffee now heating over a propane flame, I move over to the wood stove to prepare a fire. I fight the urge to check my phone for emails to see what work awaits the day. The slow, analogue connection is the kind that sets my day up right–the right headspace, the right breath and flow. I hew a pine log into kindling with a small hatchet. I can feel a breeze coming down the chimney pipe, meaning I will have to be quick to get this fire going if I do not want to smoke out the house. There is something about the wind patterns that wrap through our spruce tree in a specific way along with a certain air temperature which causes this backdraft, making my task more rushed and deliberate to get the hot air flowing up the pipe. Luckily, a minimal amount of smoke fills the room and the dry wood blazes quickly, offering much welcomed warmth.The coffee is percolating, a faint rumble turns into a roar, indicating it is ready to drink. I put a couple slices of bacon on the skillet and some eggs. The smell of smoky pine, bubbling grease, and coffee fills the air. When preparing breakfast, I often think ofDeanne’s grandmother. I like her attention to detail when making food. There is no rush, no apparent immediacy in the need to eat; rather there is mindful value in the process.Yesterday, an HVAC professional came up the hill to fix a small gas leak in our crawl space. He mentioned that on the drive up Sunshine Canyon, he could feel the tension from work and the city leaving his body. While I am not sure he would feel the same way today in the snow and fog, he did come up the hill with the right kind of openness that allows to be overcome by the calmer, circadian rhythm of the mountains. Lacing up my shoes, readying myself for a run, I ponder the importance of intentionally warming up to the day in such a manner.
As I jog the first few minutes through the deserted streets, I feel the movement of my body as an outward articulation of my mind. I float through the fog, plunge into the woods, and catch a ribbon of trail, the end of which disappears into the imaginative space.
Call for Comments (from Meghan)
- Do you start your morning calmly and with ritual?
- Do you find that this ritualistic start to the day facilitates you going into the imaginative space Joe describes?
- Or, are you able to create an imaginative space in another way?
- Getting Busy: An Interview With Chris VargoMarch 24, 2014
If his recent performance at the Way To Cool 50k is any indication, 2014 could be a bonanza year for Chris Vargo who is currently based in Colorado but planning a move to Flagstaff, Arizona. From battling the booze to battling for the win bonus, it’s been a wild ride for the new Nike Trail Team athlete. I chatted with Chris about his blurred past and bright future.
iRunFar: Chris, congrats your recent Way To Cool 50k win. You crushed it! As far as results go, is that up there with your best so far?
Chris Vargo: Yeah, it is. I got second to Max King there last year. One of my Nike teammates, Alex Varner, was running this year, too. We knew it would be one of us who was going to win and we literally ran 31 miles together. I outkicked him with about 200 meters to go.
On his way to the 2014 Way Too Cool 50k win. Photo: Galen Farris
iRunFar: That must have been a good feeling!?
Vargo: Yeah, he’s the US[ATF] 50k [Trail] Champion, so he has wheels! I dropped atSean O’Brien at the beginning of February, I was sick going into that, so at this race it was good to feel good—I felt strong. Now, rolling into Lake Sonoma, I think I can do well there.
iRunFar: You mentioned online that you felt amazing straight after the race, that your recovery was excellent. What do you think changed or have you tried something different to get that effect?
Vargo: I think I’m just getting more and more fit. With each race, the fitness just gets better and better and better. I’ve been better about my nutrition after races, too—it’s very hard for me to eat for like a day after a race. Now I force myself to take something in. If I can’t eat anything, I’ll drink protein drinks and Hammer Recoverite… just as long as I can get calories in, that makes a big difference. I woke up the next day [after the WTC 50k] and I was like, ‘Holy shit man, I feel good!’ I had a bit of DOMS, the delayed onset muscle soreness[, for one day.]
iRunFar: Maybe your new shoes have something to do with it?
Vargo: [laughs] I’m fortunate enough that I can run in just about anything. As long as it’s not posted or super stable. Having said that, the new shoes have been working out really well. I was originally running in a lot of Adidas stuff, like the Adidas Adios—that thing is badass—but I had run with the Nike Kiger because I work in a running store so our rep gave me a pair and I ran a bit in that. So when [Nike] contacted me, I was like, ‘Shit, yeah man, I can run in that shoe!’ At the Way To Cool race, it was really muddy and Alex and I were fine in the Kiger. I was also surprised with how well they dried off—super quick.
iRunFar: Sweet. So, Nike, how did that happen?
Vargo: It’s funny actually. I raced well last year and, like I said, I was always running in Adidas stuff. There was a rep here and he just hands off all Adidas stuff to me. So I was kinda’ supporting him and everybody just thought I was running for Adidas. So when Sally [McRae] got signed to Nike, I was super pumped for her but I was also like, ‘Shit man, why isn’t anyone signing me?’ Sally’s amazing and has had some incredible results and is an amazing ambassador for the sport—anyone would be super happy to have her. So she gets signed and she contacts our manager, Pat, and is like, ‘Do you know who Chris Vargo is?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, he’s running for Adidas, right?’ So she told them no and he put something together. He thought that the contract was going to be lame for me, so he was a little apprehensive about giving it to me. In reality they could have just given me free shoes and travel and I would have been fine! It’s just such a grassroots thing that they’re doing. It’s going to turn into something pretty big but I think they’re doing it right. They’re not just coming in like, ‘Hey, we’re Nike, we’re going to take shit over!’ They’re taking the backseat to us and are letting us go out there and promote it.
iRunFar: It’s interesting what you said there, Chris, that Nike is doing it the right way. Seems like there’s a genuine camaraderie on the team?
2014 Way Too Cool 50k with teammate Alex Varner. (Sally McRae is handing off a bottle.) Photo: Allen Lucas
Vargo: Yeah, it’s been great. We shoot a lot of tweets and Facebook messages back and forth. I’ve raced with a couple of the guys before but never chatted with them. It was cool meeting Alex [Varner]. It’s funny when you think someone’s going to be a certain way and they turn out completely different… he’s a lot like me, we shared a lot of the same jokes and things like that and we instantly had this cool bond with each other. Then running with him was awesome, too. I think we’re all looking out for each other as well. We’re all super supportive and it’s turned into a really good group of people—a decent-size, legit team. Alicia Shay has just joined too, so that’s really cool to get her on board, you know, because the women’s trail scene is just as important as the men’s. I’m looking forward to Lake Sonoma when I think their will be six of us racing… it’s going to be solid. If you want to come in and dominate something, I think results is a positive way of doing that. Lake Sonoma is stacked, so who knows…
iRunFar: It certainly is the rise of the teams, it seems. Do you feel it’s good for the sport? It seems like it’s pushing you guys on to lay down more and more amazing performances with the depth of talent that’s involved these days?
Vargo: Yeah, you notice the trend with mountain running now is not to just go out training and run big, easy miles with tons of vert. Now it’s like specific training. I think if you want to be fast, you have to be pretty specific with your training. I think people are starting to ‘get’ that side. I was surprised too, at Way to Cool, there were 1,100 people that raced—it’s a big 50k—afterwards we had a little Nike tent set up and we we’re hanging out in there and there were tons of people coming by and chatting with us. It’s been cool. We’re trying to make our presence known and be like, ‘Come up and chat with us!’ This is turning into something pretty cool, I think. I’m happy to be a part of it.
iRunFar: Can you tell me a little about where you grew up, Chris?
Vargo: I was born in Indiana… so I’m a Hoosier! I went to school there, Indiana University. That’s when I raced bikes.
iRunFar: You also swam, too?
Chris and his dad after the 2004 Collegiate Road Cycling Nationals. All photos courtesy of Chris Vargo unless noted.
Vargo: Yeah, to an extent. Most of my friends who swam in college were big dudes… I wasn’t built for it. It’s funny, I was a sprinter, too, and I’m only like 5’9”. I’m not a big guy. I did weigh more when I was a swimmer, though. I was around 155 pounds and now I’m 135 pounds. But, yeah, back then it was swimming and baseball, those were my two sports that I always played. Then I got into cycling before college, right through college, and then post-college. Then I took a break from everything when I had my problem with alcohol.
iRunFar: I was going to ask you about that, Chris. How bad was that? What kind of level was your drinking at?
Chris’s team won the 2004 Little 500 bike race.
Vargo: Bad, like I should be dead. It was full on alcoholism…
iRunFar: But you were still doing sports at the same time, at least for a while?
Vargo: I ran pretty well actually. I’d moved to California for a chick in 2010, I think it was, and that’s when it started getting bad because she was just as bad, too—we kind of fed off each other. Then she left and I got really, really bad. You know, I was drinking in the morning, drinking throughout the day, going to work and drinking, I’d run after drinking. I actually raced and ran pretty well when I was drinking, too… it was weird. So then one day I woke up and felt sorry for myself and that’s when I stopped drinking—two years ago.
iRunFar: You knew that you were an alcoholic and had to stop?
Vargo: Yeah. I [had] tried to quit drinking, like 10 times. I’d go to AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] and stuff so I knew I had a problem. In college it’s accepted because you wake up on Saturday morning and you go tailgate at a football game—you’re taking shots at 6.30 a.m. It’s accepted alcoholism. I went to a really big party school and then some people after that kept going—they’d graduate from college and keep going and going with the partying and the drinking. That’s one of the reasons why I quit cycling—I was a good cyclist but I wanted to party a little bit more. That’s one of the biggest regrets I have because I could have gone on to be a decent domestic pro. I was getting strong, I was racing well, and I had some good opportunities, but I jacked those up. I lived in this regret for a really long period of time and once you get so out of shape and you’re in this hole… you just stop.
But I ended up working in a running store in Sacramento and it got me going again. So I woke up that morning, felt really sorry for myself, and that’s when I quit drinking. I used to chew tobacco too, and I stopped that that morning as well! There were three days where I was on the couch, sweating and convulsing. I was drinking green smoothies, green tea, and trying to eat as much as I could. Once I got past that point, I was like, ‘Alright, I need to be honest.’ I opened up to my employers, Fleet Feet Sacramento, about it because I used to miss work. I told them and they were just so supportive of me. I owe them a lot. The same for all my friends and my family. For me, it was an easy year of transition because I have that support group. I know people out there that don’t have that and it’d be so hard to break that habit.
iRunFar: Do you think that you’ve always had an addictive personality, Chris?
Chris and his brother, Andrew.
Vargo: Oh yeah, for sure!
iRunFar: Is running your newest addiction?
Vargo: It is, yeah. I owe running my life, you know. On a daily basis, I have a fix that I need to meet somehow. I get it from drinking green tea, too—it has enough caffeine in it to make it feel like it’s waking me up. I have to be busy all day, too. There’s times where I will chill out on the couch and watch a documentary but if I get into a really bored state of mind I have to do something. I’ll take the dog hiking or something… I’ll just have to get outside and do something. So there’s always a fix that needs to be met, every day of my life. Me being public about it has been great, too. It holds everybody else accountable for me. [laughs] My friends have been super cool. If you’re a new guy that comes into our group and you’re giving me shit about not drinking, you’re gone! [laughs] I can go to a wedding now and not drink and still have fun, so I’m so far past that point that I’ll never go back to it.
iRunFar: It’s so cool to hear that you came out the other side and are now doing so well, Chris. It’s obviously opened up this whole new world of trail running at an elite level to you, too. And your clean years have seen you really step it up. You’re getting faster right!?
Vargo: Yeah, this is my second year running ultras and it’s been getting better and better each month. I started that success when I quit drinking. I signed up with Ian Torrence [as a coach] and was open with him about what was going on. He’s been training my ass off and keeping me in check. You know, I have some other mentors on the side who are fellow recovering alcoholics that bust my balls on a daily basis. [laughs] A lot of them are AA guys and they really push me to go to AA but it’s really not my style—I’m not a very spiritual person and it’s based on that so it’s hard for me.
iRunFar: I think the most important thing is that you found your own way of dealing with it. It’s working for you. So how was your progression after you quit the booze? Was it a sudden improvement, like the shackles had been taken off?
Chris and his brother, Andrew, always riding bikes.
Vargo: It helped dramatically. I could even notice my muscle tone and stuff was getting better. I used to go on these binges that were like two weeks long, and then I’d stop and be like, ‘I’m going to train!’ And [then I would] run well but then I’d go right back to the binging again. So there’s a huge difference, my body just feels amazing. I used to get hangovers that were just horrible. I felt like the world was going to end. [laughs] I don’t want to go back to feeling like that ever again, so I just have to get up in the morning and run, man.
iRunFar: Were you running mainly roads at the start?
Vargo: I hopped on the roads a little bit. I’d like to run another marathon right now—I think I could run sub 2:18 or 2:19 now…
iRunFar: You were supposed to run Chicago Marathon last year, weren’t you?
Vargo: Yeah I was, that’s right. I came down with an Achilles injury in the summer. It was actually a blessing in disguise because my last race was in June. Then I just trained and trained and hopped back into running and Ian decided it would probably best to just wait until the TNF 50 to race. So I had that long period of time where I built this great base going into that and it worked out pretty well for me. [He finished third.] But, yeah, my marathon PR is pretty light. I’ve run a 1:08 half marathon, and that was when I was drinking, too! My marathon PR is a 2:31, which is super soft. At Way To Cool, we through the marathon in like 2:43 or something and that’s with trail, mud, and water. I like to race against guys that are faster than I am because it makes me that much faster, too. I don’t think you can reach that potential unless you race the Rob Krars or Sage Canadays orKilian [Jornet]s or those guys. When I was living in California, everyone runs trails out there. They got me into that. I started running decently well and I always wanted to be a professional athlete so I was like, ‘Maybe this is my chance to do that?’ So I moved to Colorado—I wanted to be at altitude, have trails out my backdoor. It was one of the best moves I’ve done. I’m actually going to move to Flagstaff and get up a little bit higher. My house sits at 6,100 feet and Flagstaff is at 7,00o feet.
iRunFar: Cool. Have you noticed a big difference aerobically with living at that altitude?
Vargo: I think it makes a huge difference. My breathing is never really hindered normally when I’m running. Here, every run I go on starts going up, so you can feel it everyday. One of the downsides of altitude is speedwork—it’s hard to hit those tempo times, track times. So Ian has me doing more fartlek-type stuff like three or four minutes on, two minutes off kind of stuff. That helps to offset that altitude.
iRunFar: Great. So you’ve been focusing on 50 miles and shorter trails so far, Chris. Is that your plan for this year, too?
Vargo: 100k will be my longest this year, UROC. I’m going to pace Sally [McRae] atWestern States and my plan is to get a real good lay of the land. I’ve gone there and watched the race before but I haven’t helped crew or pace anyone. You can pace for the last 38 miles, I believe, so you get a good idea of the race. Then come back and race it next year. One hundred miles, though, it’s a different kind of race! You can run a 50 miler pretty fast… 100 miler you just have to train yourself to run a little slower!
iRunFar: All your races are U.S.-based this year. Have you any plans to get over to Europe and run some races there?
Colt, Chris’s training partner, a three-year-old lab whose longest run has been 25 miles.
Vargo: I’d like to get over to Europe, but not this year for me. Next year I’d love to raceTransvulcania, Tarawera… yeah, the plan is to take this and travel around the world and race.
iRunFar: Sweet. Would you call yourself a full-time athlete now, Chris?
Vargo: It’s starting to turn into that. I just launched my new website—Vargo Running—and I’m going to start coaching—online trail ultra coaching. I figure if I can pick up twenty athletes a month I can go and do whatever I want to do! I’m hoping that this turns into something big and that I race well this year and I’ll see how it pans out. It’s an exciting time to be involved with the sport. It’s like the golden age of trail running. [laughs] It’s cool with the European influences too, like Skyrunning. There are going to be some Vertical Ks over here as well.
iRunFar: Cool. That’s something that you’re into?
Vargo: Yeah, I think a lot of people don’t realise that I’m pretty good on all the techie stuff, too. A lot of people only know me and some of the other Nike guys as fast on not-so-aggressive courses but I love technical, steep stuff and I love descending too so it’ll be cool. You know, Speedgoat, The Rut, the VKs—I think it’s going to showcase what is possible to do here in the States. It should be pretty rad.
- Ellie Greenwood And Her Heart-Warming Return To RacingMarch 21, 2014Ellie Greenwood, welcome back!
“I have been thinking about you a lot today knowing how much you’d love to be out here racing.” It was the first thing Ellie said to me after crossing the finish line at Western States in 2012. I was amazed: she had just crushed the course record and the first thing she said to me was that she’d been thinking of me. All I could think was, What a remarkable person!
As some readers know, back in 2012 I was sidelined with a knee injury for Western States so I spent that day covering the race for iRunFar and volunteering with the race administration. One of my tasks was to interview the race winners on the track after their finishes and I was honored to chat with Ellie after her historic run. From that point on we have enjoyed a marvelous friendship.
And, it is in that context that I followed along nervously with Ellie’s injury woes over the past 11.5 months. After what was considered by many to be one of the most extraordinary seasons of any runner ever in 2012 Ellie was sidelined. Her seemingly indestructible body had failed her and she was forced into a cycle of cross training, recovery, and rehabilitation. As I watched from afar I couldn’t help but think of my own injury woes a year earlier. While I am nowhere near the runner Ellie is, I could feel her pain in the frustrating cycle of injury, recovery, and re-injury.
Therefore, I was beyond thrilled to see her triumphant return to racing last Saturday at the Chuckanut 50k. Knowing how hard it is to come back from serious injury and understanding the doubt and worry that can accompany such a comeback, it was great to see Ellie returning with her signature fire and grace.
Last year at Western States when I was returning after a year away, Ellie joined us for the Veterans Panel two days before the event. It was an inspiring moment when I introduced Ellie to Ann Trason just prior to the discussion. Throughout the evening, these two ultrarunning legends regaled the crowd with stories and advice. In fact, given the magnitude of the moment, Ellie was the rookie in the group. She was wonderfully modest, cheerful, and hopeful even though she was injured and we all knew she desperately wanted to be back out on the trail.
It looks as though Ellie will be patient in her comeback with her eyes on Comrades on June 1 and then some middle-distance ultras in the summer and fall. However, I think I speak for us all in saying that when she is willing and ready, we look forward to welcoming her hopeful, cheerful, and jubilant spirit back to Squaw Valley with open arms. Last weekend was the first big step in that direction.
Bottoms up!
AJW’s Beer of the Week
Since Ellie is of Scottish descent, living in Canada, and making her comeback with a race near Bellingham, Washington, it seems only fitting that this week’s Beer of the Week is from Boundary Bay Brewery in Bellingham. Their Scotch Style Ale is a red ale with a touch of hops and full-bodied flavor. I got a growler full last summer and it was great. It is strongly recommended to anyone who enjoys this unique variety.
Call for Comments (from Meghan)
Ellie, oh Ellie. Shall we roast and toast her and her return to racing? Have you raced with her, trained with her, seen her pool running or doing rehab, or been chicked by her? Leave a comment with your good Ellie story.
- Zach Bitter, New 200k American Record Holder, InterviewMarch 20, 2014Last weekend at the South Carolina 24-Hour Race, Wisconsin-ite Zach Bitter set a new 200k American record by running 16:22:27. The previous record was set by Rae Clark at 16:55:12 in 1990.
iRunFar: Congratulations! You went to this race in South Carolina, in my understanding, with the intent to qualify for the U.S. 24-hour team.
Bitter: Yeah, I guess it’s called the ‘last-chance meet’ because the window for [qualifying for] the world-championship [team] would close the following weekend. So it’s the last chance to try to get a qualifying time for that. The interesting thing about that is [the IAU 24-Hour World Championships] actually got moved to December instead of late June, so it’s not really known yet if the USATF is going to bump that window back further yet or not. My goal originally when I signed up was definitely to get a mark for Team USA.
iRunFar: But then your plans changed in the middle of the race, right?
Bitter: Yeah, I don’t know if my goals necessarily changed. But I was thinking while I was running around the track—I was talking to myself and calculating paces in my head—and I was curious if I was on pace for the 200k American record. I asked Joe Fejes [who was there spectating] what it was and he looked it up. So then I started calculating in my head again and realized I was pretty well on pace if I kept going at the rate I was. I kept doing that. Between hours 12 and 13, my right Achilles started to hurt a little bit, not really badly, what you’d almost expect as everything starts to hurt at that point. But then as I got closer and closer to hour 14, it started to kind of spread up to my calf and get more and more tight. So I didn’t want to stop and stretch it out knowing I was on pace for the 200k American record. So I thought to myself that if I just keep this pace going, get the 200k [record], stop and stretch it out, and try to get everything fixed, then at that point I’d only need another 26 miles to get on Team USA. My problem was that at the 200k mark when I stopped, it tightened up more and I never really got it loosened up enough to justify going back out there and risk hurting it even worse.
iRunFar: So, I want to know about your original plan. The qualifying mark [for getting on the USA 24-hour team] is 135 miles, is that right?
Zach and Harvey Lewis, who would eventually win the event, early in the race. Photo: Ray Krolewicz
Bitter: The qualifying distance is 135 miles, but based on [other runners'] previous performances, I would have had to go 151 in order to get on the team.
iRunFar: Do that math for me. It sounds like you’re really good at doing math on the run. [laughs] What pace did you go out at this race at?
Bitter: [laughs] I didn’t really ever calculate the exact pace for that because thought I’d pretty easily be able to get to that distance unless something weird happened… well, like what did happen. It’s somewhere around probably a 9:00-mile pace if you would average that the whole way.
iRunFar: Then the 200k record pace that you just set is somewhere just under 8:00-mile pace, is that right?
Bitter: Yeah, I think it came out to be a 7:56 or 7:57.
iRunFar: Did you just start out going a lot faster than 151 miles/24-hour pace or did you bring it down when you realized that [the 200k record] was in reach?
Bitter: I was really torn on how to go about the 24-hour distance because if you look at some of the top performances, it really varies on how they go about the strategy. I know that when Yiannis Kouros ran 188 miles, his strategy was basically to go out pretty much at whatever was a good pace, not like going artificially slow which was technically way too fast when you look at what an average pace would be. So that was kind of my thought process, too. I didn’t want to force myself to go slower, but then again I didn’t want to feel like I was trying to push myself either. So I was actually going quicker at the beginning than I was at the end. I think I came through the first hour at under 7:00-mile pace and that was just purely because that was what felt comfortable at the time. My goal was just to keep going at whatever felt comfortable. If an 8:00 mile felt comfortable then that was what I was going to do. If a 7:00 mile felt comfortable then that was what I was going to do—and to just keep going like that and with the goal in mind to keep moving the whole time.
iRunFar: The 200k American record idea—did that come into your head when your Achilles started hurting and you were like, Oh, I’m not sure I’m going to make it 24 hours? Did it spontaneously pop into your head on one of the laps? [laughs]
Bitter: I’m trying to remember exactly when I asked. [laughs] I know I asked before my leg started bothering me. I kind of thought, This is something I can get in addition to hopefully qualifying for the team. And maybe, if I had a really good day, I could get up near Mike Morton’s American record for 24 hours. So I kind of thought that this is a great little midway, not necessarily midway, but partway-through milestone to think of because it’s kind of a recipe for disaster to start thinking about the full 24 hours all at once. So my mindset then was like, Let’s just separate this into chunks and have the small goal of trying to get the 200k record and then not even think about the next part of the race until I get to it, so it didn’t seem like such a big task. But once my leg started to bother me then my mindset kind of shifted to, Get to the 200k American record so you know you have that, then kind of assess where your leg is at and decide if it’s worth risking to push for the rest of the time.
Photo: Velocity Distance Project Multisport
iRunFar: I read that you’ve had Achilles trouble before? Is it the same leg that has bothered you previously?
Bitter: I’ve had Achilles tendonitis in the past, but it’s been such a long time… I’ve had a few running injuries but the funny thing is, since I started doing ultras, my issues have been almost nonexistent. So I really haven’t had a whole lot of issues with it. My theory with it is that with running on the snow and ice all winter, the Achilles weren’t as fresh as they could have been. So when I went on the track and started running some of those long flats and the fact that I was going on for as long as I was after running on snow and ice all winter, my Achilles were probably primed to fail on me.
iRunFar: We’re about four days out now. How is your Achilles doing?
Bitter: It’s doing really well. I don’t really foresee it being a big problem. When I finished, I kind of knew in the back of my mind that I was going to take a little more downtime after this race than I normally would at this time of year because I want to do the Mad City 100k in 3.5 weeks. So I’ll probably give myself a couple extra days to recover, then get a couple weeks of training for Mad City. But the Achilles has been progressing really well. I’ve been pretty proactive with it by taking Epsom salt baths and trying to address it nutritionally with an anti-inflammatory diet with plant foods and things like that. So it’s been doing well. My muscles are pretty much recovered at this point. I’m at the point now where I could do some slow easy miles tomorrow and test it out.
iRunFar: That’s a pretty quick comeback.
Bitter: Yeah, I was glad that it didn’t turn into something worse. That was one of the things I was debating after I did the 200k. Was it worth it to go out there for another 7.5 hours and risk getting a long-term injury, or do I cut my losses right now and hopefully bounce back quicker and be ready for some of these spring and early-summer races? To be honest, one of the big reasons for my decision to not push through it was because the [24-hour] world championships have moved to December. Now that it’s moved back, it’s going to probably conflict with what they just announced was the [new date] for the [IAU] 100k World Championships. If I had to pick between a 100k and a 24 hour, I’d definitely take the 100k. That’s also assuming I stay… right now I’m on the team in terms of qualifying standards, but I feel that I probably need to lower my time a little to guarantee that I get on because the split that has me on there is my split from Desert Solstice. They actually had my 100k mark and that was good enough of time to meet the window.
iRunFar: So your next objective is Mad City 100k in April and then hopefully representing USA at the newly-reannounced-for-the-third-time IAU 100k World Championships in Qatar. [laughs]
Bitter: [laughs] Yeah, hopefully it stays there.
iRunFar: I want to back up a little bit and talk a little background on you. You’re a [University of Wisconsin -] Stevens Point graduate. I think you graduated in 2010?
Bitter: I was at Stevens Point in 2005 and ran cross country and track until 2008. Then I graduated. I started teaching. Then I went back to school to get some more teaching certifications later on. The second time I went back to school is when I started running ultras.
iRunFar: You did a pretty fast jump from the collegiate-running scene through road racing and onto the ultra scene. Some people take a while to do that, but that happened pretty quick for you. How did that happen?
Bitter: I just think that it was a little-easier transition for me because at Stevens Point our coach, Rick Witt, was a high-mileage guy. So I was able to do pretty good volume work in training in college which set me up to continue to build after college. Then naturally with any collegiate program, there was a good amount of speedwork. So it kind of taught me the various different types of speedwork and what they’re good for and how I could use them. That experience kind of led me to what I consider my ultramarathon-training protocol.
iRunFar: When I look at your background with ultras since 2010, your results have always been quite strong. Then there seems like there was this pretty significant step up last fall when you went from your 50-mile PR of 5:26 and then you ran 5:12 at Lakefront 50. What happened that caused that really significant jump?
Bitter: I think there were a couple of things that happened. One was when I ran the 5:26 it was fairly early… I think it was my third ultramarathon ever. At that time my diet was a high-carbohydrate diet. I was obviously doing okay with it, but I was noticing I was breaking down quicker and not recovering as fast as I would have liked to be able to race as often as I wanted to. So at the end of that 2011, I switched my diet to be more of an anti-inflammatory approach which is a higher-fat diet. I think just over that two years of training my body to be able to be fat adapted and to be able to metabolize fat has really helped me from a bonking perspective but also from a recovery perspective. If you look at the Chicago Lakefront race, that was 13 days after Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK. So I didn’t have a lot of recovery time, but it looks like I was stronger at Chicago than I was at Tussey. I think the diet had a lot to do with it, but then also working to my strength a little more. Chicago Lakefront is a paved course and it’s flat as a pancake. A lot of my training just from where I live puts me on flat concrete an awful lot. I have this enormous base of miles that is done on flat, concrete-type surfaces. So Lakefront might have been the first race that was really angled toward my strengths. Then Desert Solstice was kind of a follow-up to that which is on a track; so that’s as flat and as fast as it gets. So that also kind of works towards my strengths.
iRunFar: Another curious thing, when I reflect on what you’ve done so ultrarunning so far, so for 3.5 to four years, you have specialized in 50k’s and 50 miles and then all of a sudden… well, I think you ran Western States one time, right?
Bitter: Yes, 2012.
iRunFar: But then this past fall you did Desert Solstice with the 12-hour world record and the 100-mile track American record and now what you did last weekend. You’re basically doubling your racing distance. What I see is a theme emerging in that you’re starting to race these longer ultra distances. Where is this interest coming from?
Bitter: When I got into ultrarunning, I was fascinated by the 100-mile distance. I think a lot of people are. I’ve always kind of had an eye on that, but also realized that you see some of these guys like Mike Morton and some of these other guys who–Karl Meltzer,Dave Mackey–who are doing pretty darn good at 100 milers even as they’re older. So I guess when I first started I didn’t have this huge rush to jump right into 100 milers. Even Western States, I did that mainly because I won Ice Age and got the qualifier. I was told you don’t pass up on a Western States bid. So I took that advice and did it. Then Western States got me really intrigued with the 100-mile distance because I do think that is probably going to be one of my stronger distances based on my natural speed and my training. I’ve always had the 100-mile distance in my mind as one that I want to make my primary event for awhile now, but I’ve been patiently building up to it.
iRunFar: I want to ask about your training. You put some of it online for people to look at.We just published an article on iRunFar earlier this week where you talk about some of your training principles. But training for what you’re doing right now, like to run 150 miles in 24 hours, what did your peak training weeks for that look like?
Bitter: In the past, peak training weeks have gotten all the way up to 189.5 miles, I think is the furthest I’ve done. But more often than not, it’s usually around that 150- to 160-mile mark that I’ll hit in a peak week. Then I’ll have a whole bunch of weeks in the 130-mile range. I didn’t actually hit as high of a peak for the 24-hour [training]. But what I did was I bunched some really, really long runs together and tried to recover. So my overall mileage wasn’t quite as high as if I was doing this training block in the summer, but if you look at some of these three-day blocks, I had a three-day block where I ran almost 80 miles in three days. I was really trying to get that feeling of, I’ve been running on tired legs for a long period of time, but then backing off and giving myself a chance to recover.
iRunFar: You continue to do speedwork even though you’re training for a race with a pace that is in the comfortable range for you?
Bitter: Yes.
iRunFar: Do you tailor your speedwork toward that effort? Are you doing longer tempos or workouts that are in the easier range of speed but longer? Or do you stick to your normal speedwork protocol?
Bitter: I do a really good mix for a couple reasons. I’ll do speedwork all the way down to what’s sort of considered sprinter’s speedwork. I’ll do these things called 20-40’s where I’m sprinting as hard as I can for 20 seconds and then just jogging for 40 seconds and then sprinting for 20 seconds and jogging for 40. I’ll do those a lot. It’s kind of an over-speed-training philosophy where if you can learn to control your body at those fast, all-out efforts, all of a sudden your ability to control your form and your body at an average pace becomes really, really good. So if you look at something like Desert Solstice where I was out there for 12 hours, my form was identical at the end to what it was at the beginning. I credit a lot of that to my over-speed training because it’s just so much easier to hold form when your body has experience going much, much faster. For some of the other more middle-speed sessions like a tempo run or a progression run, a lot of those I do just simply to make that pace I’m going to do at race pace feel easier. If I do a 7:00 mile and it feels effortless, then that’s going to be a huge mental boost for me in the early and late stages of the race.
iRunFar: Let’s go back to this weekend’s race and talk about a few more details. Talk us through your crewing—did you have a table set up? Were you crewed? Did you crew yourself? How did that work?
Bitter: I didn’t bring a crew person to South Carolina, but there were a few people who offered to help me out when I would ask. So I don’t think I was as efficient as I was at Desert Solstice where I literally didn’t really do anything but grab stuff from people, but I definitely had somebody helping me out. So I had a little table set out with some of the stuff I wanted or knew I was going to use. Then some of the folks there would ask me if I wanted a bottle refilled or they’d put the food I was eating into plastic cups so I could just grab a cup off the table and put it back the next time around and they’d refill it. Then there was the general aid station where they just had a bunch of stuff out. You could just kind of swing out to the far lane and grab something off there real quick if you needed to.
Getting some laps done in the evening. Photo: Ray Krolewicz
iRunFar: Were the tables set up in the outer lanes? How far out did you have to deviate to get out to your crew table?
Bitter: The personal table, the stuff that I brought was on the inside, so we didn’t have to deviate much at all for that. The general aid station with stuff for everyone was out in lane five or six on one of the turns, so you’d have to swing out to get those things.
iRunFar: The farthest I’ve run in at rack race is five hours, but I know from personal experience it’s easy to overdo your nutrition and hydration because you pass by your little aid station every lap. When you do these track races, what has become your nutrition and hydration plan?
Bitter: It sort of depends on the weather a little bit. At Desert Solstice and at Chicago, the weather was pretty much ideal. It was maybe a little warm during the day at Desert Solstice, but I could fuel at pretty much what I would call ideal fueling where my body was able to process as much as it possibly could without the weather hindering it. At South Carolina, though, it got a little bit warmer during the day. So the first six to seven hours of the race, it was pretty warm out. I think it got to 82 degrees [Fahrenheit]. There was a decent wind, too, which was kind of nice from a cooling standpoint but kind of frustrating heading into it every time you come around that one straightaway. I think a lot of people experienced this at South Carolina that it just wasn’t very feasible to fuel as much as you might have if it was 50 degrees because your stomach just doesn’t want to take in lots of calories when it’s trying to cool it to help at the same time.
So I definitely didn’t fuel as much at the beginning as I would have on cooler temperatures. That’s another reason I’ve turned to a higher-fat approach, because since I’ve done that I’ve been able to get away with less fuel during race day. Then when it does get warm like it did at South Carolina, I don’t have to worry about running this really—I mean, I’m going to be running a calorie deficit but it’s not going to hinder me as much because my body is good at metabolizing my body fat.
iRunFar: Given your nutrition approach to life and running in general and South Carolina’s hot day, how did you end up fueling?
Bitter: I was doing a little bit of experimenting at this race. Up until now, my approach has basically been that I train low carbohydrate and then when I race I bring the carbohydrates back. But then with that in mind, realizing I don’t need as many carbohydrates, this race I tried not bringing the carbohydrates back as much. My thought was that because I’m going to be out there longer, I’m not going to need to reach into that threshold where I need carbohydrates as often as I would in a faster 50 mile where I’m almost constantly going up into those paces.
At the beginning, I was eating more fat than I was carbohydrates. I had these cups that had banana chips that are cooked in coconut oil which come out to be about 65% fat and then the rest carbohydrate. With those banana chips I had coconut flakes which were unsweetened and almost all fat. So my carbohydrate intake was pretty low in the early stages. I stuck with that for the first five or six hours. Then I just didn’t feel quite as sharp as I did at Desert Solstice or some other ones where I’d take in maybe 200 calories an hour of carbohydrates, so I started cycling in a little more carbohydrate and I actually started feeling quite a bit better. Some of that might have been that it started to cool off a little bit, too. I think even for someone who is fat-adapted like me and avoids carbohydrates in training, finding the right amount during racing might make the difference between feeling really sharp or feeling a little bit off.
iRunFar: When you started to cycle in some carbohydrates, are we talking gels?
Bitter: I didn’t take any gels, but what I was taking in was some sugary drinks. We actually had some slushies there that someone had picked up which was really nice after the hot weather—it really hit the spot. Then once it got to be later in the night, I started taking in, I was pretty careful about monitoring to not overdo, but started taking in some sodas because I wanted to trickle in a little caffeine with it, too, so that my body didn’t try to go into bedtime mode and try to stave that off a little bit.
iRunFar: You said when you did your report for us after your Desert Solstice outing, that you experienced a little bit of energetic bonkiness, lightheadedness at the very end of that effort. Did you have any of that this time?
Bitter: I didn’t really notice any of that at South Carolina. I’m guessing a lot of that has to do with the pace because my pace was about 50 seconds per mile slower on average than at Desert Solstice. For someone like me who trains my body to be efficient at burning fat, I could probably run a 7:30 mile or so without touching hardly any carbohydrate in my storage. So if I’m really careful at monitoring my pace, I could probably get away with a lot less than what I did at Desert Solstice or the real early stages of South Carolina where I was doing a sub-7:00 mile or right around a 7:00 mile.
iRunFar: You have recently become an Altra athlete?
Bitter: Yes.
iRunFar: In the last year or so you switched from Skora to Altra shoes?
Bitter: I guess it was in 2011 I decided I wanted to train my feet to be stronger, so I started to transition to zero-drop shoes. I tried to do it smart so I didn’t get hurt in the process. Up until this year I’ve used a combination of Skora, Inov-8, and Altra. This is the first year where I’ve been primarily all Altra.
iRunFar: How is that working out for you going from having some shoes with a bit of drop to shoes with no drop?
Bitter: The other shoes didn’t have much of a drop at all. The Skora were zero-drop still. The Inov-8, most of them were zero-drop shoes as well. I think the highest one I used was 6mm drop heel to toe. So my feet are really good at the 0mm as I used those most of the last season. The thing I notice is that Altra has a bigger variety. I can get a lighter road flat or I can get a beefier trail shoe which is one of the reasons I went with them. I do want to still run trail races and stuff. So if I’m going to commit to one specific shoe brand, I need to be able to have access to a shoe that is good for any condition. I felt that Altra had a wide-enough range that I could find a shoe that would work really well for me whether I’m on a track or a trail or mountain race.
iRunFar: That was going to be one of my last questions for you. You’ve been spending a lot of time on roads and tracks surfaces lately, but you do have a pretty strong trail-racing history. Do you have more trail-racing ambitions?
Bitter: I’m signed up for the Ice Age 50 miler now which is four weeks after Mad City. I think it’s the second weekend of May. Ice Age is the last qualifier for Western States. I’ll probably go about that with the same mindset as I did in 2012 that if I qualify for States I’m not going to pass up that bid. I’m going to probably be somewhat out of my element in terms of what I’m trained for. In the end, if I’m lucky enough to qualify for Western States, then I’m in Western States. Part of it, too, is not doing the same thing all the time and doing what you enjoy. I enjoy running track, road, mountain, trail, and all that stuff, so I don’t want to ever really commit to just one specific environment.
iRunFar: So, Mad City next month. Then Ice Age a month after that. Then potentially Western States the month after that. Then World 100k Championships at the end of November. What else is on your schedule between potentially Western States and 100k World Championships?
Bitter: Between those two I’m probably going to do this race called Six Days in the Dome that Joe Fejes is putting on in Alaska in August. You can do anything from a 24-hour event up to a six-day event. I’m definitely not doing anything bigger than 24 hours there. I’m sure it will be a great time especially if I do the shorter part since I’ll be done earlier and will be able to hang out and watch people beat themselves up for awhile. That’s kind of one I’m looking forward to potentially getting a really fast 24-hour time at or maybe taking another time at lowering the 100 mile American record or 12-hour world record.
Between Western States and there I’ll probably do little or no racing in those couple months just to kind of give myself a little bit of time to do some good training blocks before the fall. I’m signed up to do the USATF 50-Mile Road Championships which is in Door County[, Wisconsin] at the Fall Classic this year. Some of that may depend on the 100k World Championships because that race is, I believe, in October and I don’t want to jeopardize any performance at worlds if it’s too close. I’ll definitely be monitoring where I’m with recovery.
iRunFar: You are becoming a master of these timed, pace yourself, working against the clock rather than working against other human beings kind of events. What would you say to ultrarunners—fast guys and fast girls who are used to racing other human beings—who are thinking about doing something like this where you’re racing yourself or the clock?
Bitter: I think it’s really interesting because if you’re racing another person, I feel like you’re always trying to convince yourself that you can only worry about yourself. But in reality, you have to worry about other racers, too, because if you want to beat someone else you have to worry about whether they’re going too fast or whether they’re going to blow up or if they’re going to maintain. Whereas when you’re racing against the clock or for a specific distance, it’s just you. If you back off or don’t get there, it’s because you didn’t do something right. If you do get it, it’s because you did pace it right. The big difference to me is the fact that it is really all personal patrol, assuming that you’re not trying to go for something that you’re not physically capable of.
Photo: Ray Krolewicz
iRunFar: Thank you so much for the conversation and congratulations on your spontaneous American record.
Bitter: Thank you for having me.
iRunFar: It must feel good that you can pull an American record out of your hat. [laughs]
Bitter: [laughs] Yeah, it was kind of funny. I can’t remember who it was—if it was Ultrarunnerpodcast—someone tweeted at me, ‘It’s pretty cool that your Plan B results in an American record.’ I was like, yeah, I guess that was a lucky way to have things happen.
iRunFar: This is definitely a reason to think that, when you lay down in bed at night and look up at the ceiling, it’s been a good day.
Bitter: Yeah. Thanks.
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- Dig Deep Races Present Suffolk Trails 2-14March 11, 2014
Ultrarunning World
Dig Deep Races have put together a pair of trail races that offer a challenge for the novice and the more experienced runner.
Ultra Tour of Suffolk
50 Miles
6th September 2014
Entry: £55
www.digdeepraces.co.uk
The Ultra Tour of Suffolk is a beautiful race visiting some of the most stunning trails in Suffolk.
The route weaves its way through Rendlesham forest, through the beautiful Snape Maltings and all the way out to the coast at Aldeburgh before tracing back in a great loop to Wantisden Hall.
The race is extremely diverse despite being a relatively flat course. The route is partially marked throughout but some navigation skills are necessary.
Suffolk Trails Intro Ultra
28 Miles
6th September 2014
Entry: £40
www.digdeepraces.co.uk
The Suffolk Trail Intro Ultra is a beautiful race visiting some of the most stunning trails in Suffolk.
The route weaves its way through Rendlesham forest, through the beautiful Snape Maltings before tracing back in a great loop to Wantisden Hall.
The race is extremely diverse despite being a relatively flat course. The route is partially marked throughout but some navigation skills are necessary.
- Ultrarunning Magazine Now Available In The UKJanuary 26, 2014
Ultrarunning Magazine now available in the UK thanks to Ultramarathonrunningstore. This “Voice of the Sport” has been published in the US since 1980 and covers mostly the US trail scene but also has articles on training, nutrition, literature and a calendar of events – again mostly US.
Thanks to Keith Godden for his work at www.ultramarathonrunning.com and his online store in supporting the ultrarunning community in the UK.
Ultrarunning World
- I.A.U. Announce The Date of World & Euro 24 Hour ChampionshipsJanuary 25, 2014
The I.A.U. announce the date of World & Euro 24 Hour Championships as being June 21-22 2014.
Bids for major IAU Competitions (MIAUCs) were discussed at their annual IAU Executive Council meeting last weekend and the location of the 24 Hour Championships has yet to be revealed but it looks like that will also be announced shortly.
Also the IAU announced that the 2013 IAU Athletes of the Year are Jonathan Olsen (USA) and Mami Kudo (JPN).
They write:
“Both our winners, Olsen and Kudo, has an amazing season. The highlight of the races for both athletes was winning the 24 Hour World Championships in Steenbergen, the Netherlands. Olsen accumulated a distance of 269.675km to get USA to the gold medal spot. Kudo established a world´s best performance running 252.205km getting Team Japan to the silver medal place.”
More details are available at: iau-ultramarathon.org
Ultrarunning World
- Marathon de Sables Inspiration Evening With Tobias MewsJanuary 25, 2014
What: A Marathon de Sables Inspiration Evening With Tobias Mews
Where: Run and Become London, 42 Palmer Street, SW1H 0PH
When: 6:30pm – 8:00pm
How much?: FREE OF CHARGE (but please sign up at the link below)
Completer to Competer: the miraculous story of Tobias Mews. Tobias Mews is one of the UK’s leading extreme ultra endurance athletes. In 2011 he entered the Marathon des Sables, where he surprised himself by not only finishing 21st overall but also as Top Brit.
He’s gone on to compete in many of the world’s ‘toughest races’ including the Norseman Xtreme Triathlon in Norway, the 800km Absa Cape Epic multi-stage mountain bike race in South Africa, the Jungle Ultra in Peru and the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, to name but a few. In 2013, he returned to Sahara Desert, hoping to better his performance. In what turned out to be the Battle of the Brits, he finished 15th overall and as 3rd Brit.
Tobias is also a professional adventure sports journalists and filmmaker, writing for a dozen or more publications, from Runner’s World to Men’s Fitness. He writes a weekly column about adventure sports for the Daily Telegraph Men’s lifestyle section. You can find out more about him at www.tobiasmews.com, follow him on Twitter @TobiasMews and Facebook at www.facebook.com/ultramews.
Having only seriously taken up running three years previously, Tobias will centre his talk at Run and Become on how he transformed from a completer to a competer, miraculously becoming one of the most successful desert runners the UK has seen.
Sign up now »
Run and Become London, 42 Palmer Street, SW1H 0PH
Ultrarunning World
- Barry 40 2014January 24, 2014
One of the longest running ultras on the ultrarunning calendar is the Barry 40which takes place every year at Jenner Park, the track that surrounds the Barry Town Football pitch.
The 28th Barry 40 also serves as the Welsh Ultrarunning Championships and the 6 hour time limit ensures a higher percentage of serious runners taking part.
Last years winner was Pieter Vermeesch from Garden City Runners in a time of 4:08:59 and Karen Rushton was the ladies winner in 5:04:59.
Natasha Doyle (Virgin Active Cardiff RC) was the ladies Champion and Jeremy Mower, third overall was the Welsh Ultra Champion and returns in 2014 along with Rasmivan Collinson fresh from his 72 hour in Arizona, Grant Jeans and Jen Salter. Rory Coleman is also signed up to run.
The 2014 event takes place Sunday 9th March.
Visit the Barry 40 website for more details.
Ultrarunning World
- inov-8 Sponsors Grand Tour of Skiddaw 2014January 24, 2014
The inov-8 Grand Tour of Skiddaw 2014The race organisers are delighted to announce that inov-8 will sponsor The Grand Tour of Skiddaw 2014.The second running of the Northern Lake District-based ultra trail race is set for the weekend of August 23rd/24th.The 44-mile ultramarathon sees competitors tackle 7,136ft of ascent, including a climb to the top of Skiddaw –England’s fourth highest summit – at around the halfway mark.The event starts and finishes at the impressive Lime House School, near Dalston. It follows main footpaths and bridleways, and provides fast trails through woods and fields to the open fells, before a challenging climb up Skiddaw, where competitors must ring the bell placed on the summit trig point. Then comes a stunning descent via Longside Edge, giving truly fantastic views of the Lake District.The Grand Tour of Skiddaw looks set to be one of the UK’s premier ultra races in 2014.Event Director Gaynor Prior said: “We are very excited to join forces with inov-8.“Their range of lightweight footwear, all with outstanding grip, and fantastic kit are perfect for running longer distances in the hills.“inov-8 have a 10-year proven track record of delivering product for the committed runner; a perfect fit for The Grand Tour of Skiddaw .’’This year will see inov-8 launch a new Race Ultra series of products. The first in the range is the Race Ultra Vest (new for February), which has just been named an ISPO Award Gold Winner by the world’s leading international sports business trade show. More products, including the exciting new inov-8 Race Ultra 290 shoe, will follow later in the year.inov-8 founder Wayne Edy said: “As a brand, we are for the committed athlete who pushes boundaries, and that is exactly the bracket that ultra runners, like those doing The Grand Tour of Skiddaw, fall into.“We are delighted to be sponsoring this event.”Further information can be found at www.pureoutdoorsevents.co.ukFind out more about inov-8 at www.inov-8.comUltrarunning World
- Ultrarunning World Calendar 2014 UpdatedJanuary 23, 2014
The Ultrarunning World Calendar 2014 has been updated with a substantial list of ultras taking place in the UK & Ireland this year.
There are twenty new events taking place throughout the coming months including the Fortitude 24, a new off road 24 hour in Basingstoke and a 24 hour track race in Gloucester. There’s an addition to the Hardmoors family which now features Hardmoors 160 miles to go along with the 30,50,60 and 110 mile races. Another opportunity to race the South Downs Way – a popular place to run plus new races in Scotland and Ireland bringing the list of current events to over 260.
Latest additions:
Visit the Ultrarunning World Calendar to make your plans for 2014The Dark Star River Marathon Peddars Way LONGMAN Build Series Trail Run Golden Fleece Circuit Millenium Way Wreckers Challenge Kielder Ultra Trail Fortitude 24 Apocalypse Hardmoors 160 The Ox Grand Union Challenge Great Glen Ultra Saffron Trail Ultra Liverpool to Leeds Canal Race The Grand Tour of Skiddaw Kerry Way Ultra South Downs Way Double or Nothing (DoN) Swaledale Ultra 40
Ultrarunning World
- Country to Capital 45 2014 – ResultsJanuary 15, 2014On a glorious January morning nearly 350 runners set off from the Shoulder of Mutton pub in Wendover – Destination, Little Venice Paddington in the Country to Capital 45.
Photo courtesy Go Beyond
It was difficult to believe for both the organisers and the competitors that the event would have a great day for Ultra running particularly as half of the country is underwater – and a record breaker on all fronts with both men and women setting best and a record entry.
Ed Catmur became the second person to go under 5 hours and in an incredible time of 4:48:10 setting a new course record followed in by Danny Kendall who became the 3rdperson to break the 5 hour barrier in 4:59:39. Stephen Hodges completed the podium in 5:28:42.
Edwina Sutton also had a brilliant run finishing 4th and not only broke the women’s record in a time of 5:42:30 but also recorded the highest ever overall finishing time by a woman. Bonnie Van Wilgenburg was second lady in 6:15:59 and Julia Donavan in 3rd in 6:32:36.
Over 300 runners completed the course in the 11 hour time limit underlying just how high the standard of Ultra Running has become. Competitors received the usual good cheer and sustenance at the check point, a good quality top and a specially cast Go Beyond Ultra medal.
Links
Checkout Go Beyond website for for full results.
Country to Capital – my best ultra yet Naomi Newton-Fisher
Race Report: Country to Capital ultra Catherine Simpson
Ultrarunning World
- William Sichel Re-Writes Record Books In Across The Years 6 Day Race 2013January 10, 2014
William Sichel at Across The Years 2013 Photo by Alan YoungOrcadian William Sichel Re-Writes Record Books In Across The Years 6 Day Run
Orkney-based ultra marathon runner, William Sichel set about the over-60s age group endurance running records during the “Across the Years” 6 Day road race in Phoenix, Arizona which ran from December 28th – January 3rd.
William’s final tally, in this race, was 17 records including the coveted World 6 Day over 60 Age-Group Record which William was able to break by over 34 miles. This takes William’s lifetime total record tally to 94.
Coming in 4th overall (first in age group) William covered a total of 472.41 miles, having been narrowly pipped for 3rd place by Ed Ettinghausen on 476.61 miles.
As expected, the weather conditions were of two extremes with the burning hot Arizona sun during the day, followed by a dramatic fall in temperature after sunset with minus 2 deg C being the lowest recorded during the race.
The main surprise was the rough surface on the course which presented many problems to the 300 plus runners in the four concurrent events. Clouds of fine dust, sharp gravel, and uneven ground aren’t usual in road races and foot problems were everywhere.
William fell heavily at one point but got away with grazes and bruising.
“I was really pleased to set so many records in one event, especially the ‘blue riband’ 6 Day record. It was a very hard end to 2013 and beginning to 2014 but, there again, if it was easy I probably wouldn’t be doing it.”
William would like to thank Alan Young for traveling to Phoenix with him to act as support crew and to Shaun Brassfield-Thorpe for updating his blog during the race.
William is just starting Project165.com in which he will attempt to have set 165 ultra running records before his 65th birthday on October 1st 2018. Amongst William’s current records he holds eight world age-group records including the fastest time to run 1000 miles.
William is grateful to main sponsors Orkney Micro Renewables and the Orkney Islands Council.
William is dedicating Project165.com to raise funds for CLAN Cancer Support and his dedicated web page can be found below.
Also traveling to the American South-West was Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team runner, Rasmivan Mark Collinson who ran 232.006 to take second Male and fourth overall on his debut in the 72 hour race.
Links
http://www.justgiving.com/William-Sichel
Rasmivan Collinson on Facebook
Across The Years website
Ultrarunning World
- Cape Wrath Ultra – A 400 Km Expedition Style Race In Scotland 2016January 10, 2014
Above: The approximate route of the Cape Wrath Trail (not the Cape Wrath Ultra™).Cape Wrath Ultra™ – Scotland’s Expedition Race – Launched 8th Jan 2014
From the team that revived the inspirational Dragon’s Back Race™, an extraordinary new adventure has just been announced for June 2016 called the Cape Wrath Ultra™.
Billed as a once in a lifetime ultra-running expedition race, the Cape Wrath Ultra™ will weave 400km through the Highlands of Scotland. Starting in Fort William, the race promises to take competitors on an incredible journey linking ancient footpaths and remote tracks to the furthest northwesterly point of the British Isles, Cape Wrath.
Shane Ohly, one of the race organisers and founder of Ourea Events, describes the route. “Winding through the beautiful lochs, glens and mountains of the Scottish Highlands, the Cape Wrath Ultra™ is an ultra-running expedition through some of the World’s most inspirational landscapes, including Morar, Knoydart, Kintail, Torridon, Assynt and Sutherland”.
The new race is based on the Cape Wrath Trail, which is considered to be the toughest long distance backpacking trail in the UK. It crosses rugged landscapes, genuine wilderness and has great distances between support points. Hikers usually take at least 20 days to complete the trail and a new Cicerone guidebook published in 2013 has ignited renewed interested in this unofficial long distance footpath.
Ohly continues. “Our Cape Wrath Ultra™ route will be similar to the Cape Wrath Trail but with some important variations as we mold the journey for an ultra-running perspective. Detailed planning has begun and Gary Tompsett has been appointed as the Race Director and Planner”. Tompsett is the logical choice for the role, having planned the 2007 Adventure Race World Championships in the same area and having previously worked with Ohly at Rat Race Adventure. Ohly explained, “Living near the Highlands of Scotland, Gary has a deep knowledge of route options, the terrain, the weather, and the endless possibilities for a rich competitor experience”.
The race is described as a supported ultra-running expedition, in which competitors’ equipment will be transported each day and tented accommodation and all meals provided. This is the same successful formula that Ohly employed when he revived the Dragon’s Back Race™ in 2012. Ourea Events claim that the Cape Wrath Ultra™ will be the supreme ultra-running trail race. With a 400km canvas through the Scottish Highlands and Ohly and Tompsett’s pedigree in delivering iconic, adventurous and challenging events, who would want to argue!
Entries open in January 2015.
Checkout the Cape Wrath Ultra website
Ultrarunning World
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- New 6 Day UK Ultra Festival 2014February 24, 2014There is a possibility of staging a UK Ultra Festival 2014 at Weston Super Mare on the South West coast of England. The course would be a 500 m out and back loop on the Promenade at Royal Sands, where Weston AC hold their Prom Series. The idea has support from the Town Council.
The Promenade at Weston-Super-Mare looking toward Royal Sands
The event would probably consist of:
- 6 days – £400
- 72 hours – £225.
- 48 hours – £150
- 12 hours
- 100 miles
- 100 km
- 50 miles
- 50 km
- marathon
Interested? mail me at mail@multidays.com for more details,
or visit The Celtic Ultra Fest.com
From Multidays.com, post New 6 Day UK Ultra Festival 2014New 6 Day UK Ultra Festival 2014 Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - PHIDIPPIDES’S RUN 2014February 21, 2014
PHIDIPPIDES’S RUN
Date: September 5-7, 2014
The race will start from Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens at 17.00 hours (Friday) and will finish at 9.00 hours (Sunday) in front of the statue of Leonidas in Sparta.
Total duration of the race: 40 hours.
Registrations will open on March 15 until June 15, 2014.
Bank account for transfer of registration fees (including the Application Form) and list of hotels in Athens and Sparta for making reservations will be announced by March 15.
Organized by “Marathon Runners Athletic and Cultural Sport Club Telmissos”, “Athletic and Cultural Sport Club Apollon West-Attica”, “Association of Greek Dayrunners”, “Dolicho Sport Club”, “Efklis Runners Club” (and other ultrarunning clubs; to be announced by March 15)
THE GLORIOUS PHIDIPPIDES – PHIDIPPIDES’S RUN (ATHENS –SPARTA 245K)
It’s late one evening, towards summer’s end and the year is 490 BC. The Athenian Day-Runner Phidippides (Philippides) leaves Athens on a mission, the first of its kind given to anyone, ever.
His city-state, Greece, in its entirety, was in danger of subjugation by the oncoming Persian hoards that had already invaded the region and were threatening the freedom of all Greeks and the Athenian people’s young democracy…
He was to deliver Athens’ request to Sparta for the forging of a direct collaboration between the two cities and the contribution of Sparta’s legendary army towards the common goal of arresting the Persian danger…
That evening, many thoughts and images would cross the mind of Phidippides (Philippides), Athens’ best Day –Runner, as he started out from the west entrance of the ‘Holy Way’ (Iera Odos) on his long trip to Sparta… for immortality. His mind would turn to his father and mother, his siblings, relatives, friends and teachers, the Agora, the Stadium, his home, the vines and olives and his Love…
Sometime after exiting the city from the west, he started planning the Route he would be following… Dafni, Eleusis, Megara, (Ancient) Korinth, (Ancient) Kleones, (Ancient) Nemea, Lyrkeia and from there, by way of the passage via Mount Parthenion, onto (Ancient) Tegea, Manthirea and finally to Sparta.
Approximately seven centuries later, the Great Surveyor of Ancient Times, Pausanias, in his 8th book, the Arcadians in 176 AD chose to follow the Prinos passage to go from the Argos to Tegea and after that to Mantinia… thus reflecting the runner’s thoughts.
Phidippides reached Sparta and set forth to return, having accomplished his mission. On the way back, spiritually laden as he was, thirsty, tired, his feet bruised and bloody, he fell asleep on Mount Parthenion. There, he ‘encountered’ the god Pana, ruler of the Arcadian mountain ranges who told him, he would help out, that Phidippides’s city would win and that he would achieve greatness… With peace of mind, he got up, ran down to Tegea and from there to Sparta… Now he knew…
Arriving at dawn of the second day in Sparta after about 40 hours, he had ALREADY carried out his Mission…. A few days later, his City, Athens, and their allies from Plataies together with the invincible phalange of Independent Citizens would defeat the Persian invaders at Marathon…
The remarkable feat of Phidippides (Philippides), was hailed almost 40 years later by Herodotos who recounted in plain but gripping language, the significance of ONE Day-Runner, whose name passed into World History…
Therefore, 25 centuries and more later, all his children, the able followers of his ever-lasting legacy, are called to run on the road marked by Phidippides (Philippides), thereby engaging and committing themselves to their own, individual fight…
ALL long-distance runners are called to feel, to experience, to immerse themselves in his footsteps…
And together become part of the History of the very same places he alone sanctified…
And every year, the first days of September, he will relish reliving these moments in the endeavours of modern day runners from all over the globe who participate in this marathon in his honour and memoriam.
To his QUEST… to follow in his stride, the Road of Phidippides.
Download more details about aid staions, rules and regulations here.
From Multidays.com, post PHIDIPPIDES’S RUN 2014PHIDIPPIDES’S RUN 2014 Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Taipei International Ultramarathon 2014 – UpdateFebruary 14, 2014The Taipei International Ultramarathon began at 1500 hours local time yesterday with the 48 hour race. Early pacesetter was Australian Kevin Muller who led through 100 km purued by Masayuki Otaki who has opened up a 15 km cushion.
William Sichel at 16 hours Photo by Alan Young
William Sichel is leading his age group and is in 13th place overall.
As of approximately 22½ hours these were the kilometers:
1 Masayuki Otaki M50 194.388 2 Kevin Muller M40 179.692 3 ??? M45 179.024 4 Muneharu Kuroda M65 173.68 5 ??? M50 173.012 6 Denis Konovalov M30 165.664 7 Norio Ito M65 165.664 8 ??? F45 156.312 9 ??? M45 153.64 10 ??? M35 149.632 11 ??? M55 146.292 12 ??? M65 145.624 13 William Sichel M60 137.608
There are updates on Williams blog: http://www.williamsichel.co.uk/blog/
Live results on the Race website at: http://bao-ming.com/eb/www/realtime.php?activitysn=212
Taipei International Ultramarathon 2014 – Update Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Sahara Race (Jordan) 2014February 14, 2014February 16th sees the start of the Sahara Race (Jordan) 2014, part of the 4Deserts series of 250 km stage races.
This year’s field of competitors includes Jordan’s 43-year-old Salameh Al Aqra, winner of the Marathon des Sables 2012.
He will be up against Olympian Jose Manuel “Chema” Martinez Fernandez (42) who finished ninth in the 10,000 meters in the 2004 Athens Olympics and 16th in the marathon at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The Spaniard’s long list of accolades includes winning the 2008 Madrid Marathon and a silver medal in the marathon in the 2010 European Championships.
The 191 entrants from around the world will be tackling a diverse course that will move through sand dunes, rock tracks, grassland and riverbeds finishing in the ancient city of Petra, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
About Sahara Race (Jordan) 2014Get news LIVE from Sahara Race (Jordan) 2014! %20Logo.jpg "Sahara Race (Jordan) Logo")
16 – 22 February
2014
As the ninth edition of the Sahara Race kicks off on 16 February 2014. Competitors will find themselves in one of the most fabled desert-scapes in the beautiful and historic desert of Wadi Rum, famously known as the setting for the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia. Over seven days, Sahara Race competitors will cross three more deserts – Kharaza, Humaima and Wadi Araba – before finishing in the ancient city of Petra – one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
This year’s Sahara Race is moving out of its home in Egypt for the first time in its nine-year history as a result of recent political unrest.
There is an exciting group of competitors – a double Olympian, a desert running legend on home turf, a blind competitor and four 4 Deserts Club members.
The links below will allow you to view information on the race and follow the race online.
- Receive live email updates from the field by signing up for Breaking News.
- Read daily Stage Updates.
- Read features about competitors, local topics of interest and the race itself.
- See the list of official competitors with their biographies.
- See photos and videos from each stage, updated every day starting from Saturday, 15 February, when competitors check-in (photos and videos from previous editions of the race and course recce are online now).
- Read competitor blogs sent from each night’s camp and leave comments for competitors to read.
- Send emails to a competitor. Emails will be available for competitors to read each evening in the Cybertent at camp.
- Daily results will be posted to the website at the end of each day.
- Read official press releases and other news in ourPressroom.
- Get an overview of the the race in our Quick Facts guide.
- Read more about the location and culture of the new site for this year’s event.
- Find out what happens behind the scenes of the 250-kilometer, multi-day stage race.
- Meet the staff, medical and volunteer teams for the event.
- Learn about the charities being supported by Sahara Race (Jordan) 2014 competitors.
- View results of past editions of Sahara Race.
- Like us on Facebook where we will be posting regular updates and photos.
- Follow us on Twitter to read, favorite and share our tweets.
- Watch videos of the race on the 4 Deserts YouTube Channel
From Multidays.com, post Sahara Race (Jordan) 2014Sahara Race (Jordan) 2014 Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Adelaide 6-Day and 48-Hour Ultramarathon 2014 – NewsletterFebruary 12, 2014
Adelaide 6-Day and 48-Hour Ultramarathon Starting September 29th 2014
Welcome to our third Newsletter - ONLY 7 months to go!
PROGRESS: Its ON! Adelaide City Council will be issuing a Licence for the course and the Heritage Grandstand. The International Association of Ultrarunners has awarded these two races “IAU labels 535 and 536 for the Adelaide Victoria Park 6D and 48H events”.
LOCATION: With Council staff the placing of substantial marquees as participant rest areas is being planned. How many will depend upon entries of course.
RULE CHANGE: The requirement for all participants to remain within the course site is relaxed to allow NON-PODIUM contenders (particularly from Adelaide) to do shorter runs each, and every day, and return home any time of the day. They must log their departure and arrival with the Race Director. This will reduce pressure on course marquee accommodation while allowing first-timers to try this race out.
LOGO: A new logo is being done and SARRC approval is still near!
CHARITY RUN: John Timms an ex-Colac 6-day stalwart is going to run from Colac to Adelaide to raise awareness and funds for Prostate Cancer Research. Looks like he may be joined by others as well, if you want to use this as a training run I can pass on the message. I think its around 50km per day.
There are seven entrants already – see here. Note EARLY-BIRD discounts apply until 1 March 2014. AURA and SARRC members get the membership rate.
If there are items missing from the web site that will help you, please tell me.
Regards
Doug Kewley
Race Director
Adelaide 6-Day and 48-hour Ultra Marathon Events!
Date: 6 Day 29th September at 12:00am
Adelaide 6-Day and 48-Hour Ultramarathon 2014 – Newsletter
6day&48hr race website
subscribe to race newsletters
Adelaide 6-Day and 48-Hour Ultramarathon 2014 – Newsletter Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News
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- French Ultra Festival 2014 Date ChangeMarch 24, 2014
The 9th edition of the French 6 Day race will take place in the city of Villefranche sur Mer, near Nice. The 6 Jours de France has been re-scheduled to take place from 19 to 25 October 2014 on the “Promenade des Marinières”.
Due to the cancellation of the previous venue, the Villefranche sur Mer course is a scaled back version of last years event with a 6 day and a 72 hour available at this time on the website.
Checkout the website http://www.6jours-de-france.fr/
However, the French Ultra Festival proper makes an appearance starting April 24 2014 in Frejus. The event will feature races from 10 km up to 48 hours as well as Misstinguette, a women-only 7.6 km event.
http://www.french-ultra-festival.fr/
French Ultra Festival 2014 Date Change Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - World And European 100 Km Championships 2014 CancelledFebruary 7, 2014
The IAU have announced that the World And European 100 Km Championships 2014 have been canceled:
100km World Championships 2014 Cancelled in Latvia
We regret to announce that the 100km World Championships 2014 scheduled to be held in Daugavpils, Latvia have been cancelled.
The Local Organizing Committee unfortunately has not been able to secure the sponsorships required to host the championships.
We understand that the championships are of prime importance to our athletes. Keeping this in mind we have begun discussions to secure another venue for the championships. The discussions are still ongoing and we hope to come back with some more news by the end of next week. We apologize the inconvenience that the cancellation has caused our athletes and member federations.
We request that you stay tuned to our website as we progress through the required steps in order to secure another venue for the championships.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Nadeem Khan
http://www.iau-ultramarathon.org/
World And European 100 Km Championships 2014 Cancelled Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset 2014February 3, 2014
Photo by Darko Todorovic www.ms2s.orgThe 16th Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset 42k and 100k ultra trail run takes place in the week of 2-9 August 2014. Early bird travel packages are available until 1 March onwww.ms2s.org!Mongolia (3 February 2013) – In August 2014, for the 16th time already, adventure seeking runners from all over the world will gather at the shores of mighty Lake Hovsgol in Northern Mongolia for a very special experience: the Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset 42k and 100k ultra trail marathon. Until March 1st, 2014, runners with an appetite for a unique adventure can book a discounted early bird travel package on the event websitewww.ms2s.org. “It is a whole week of exploration with horseback riding, kayaking, hiking, fishing, sleeping in traditional Mongolian Gers – and of course running”, says race director Nicolas Musy.The race on August 6th will be as challenging as it is beautiful. Runners pass by yak herds and wild horses, shamanistic Ovoos as well as Mongolian yurts and horsemen, in one of the most pristine and spectacular areas on this planet. Amongst participants, the extremely challenging race is known as the world’s most beautiful 42k and 100k run. A lakeside single track through woods and over windblown lowlands; steep, rocky mountain passes with spectacular views; river valleys and marshy forests; seas of wildflowers. The accumulated elevation gain/loss for the marathon distance is 2.255 meters, for the 100k course it is 3.365 meters.Preserving the National ParkThe Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset is organised on a non-profit basis. All proceeds are used to keep Hovsgol National Park pristine and to support the culture of the local population via the “ecoLeap foundation” registered in Geneva, Switzerland. “We want to keep this pristine mountain area as beautiful as it is now. That is why we fund a litter control project and its ongoing operation including hiring park rangers, providing eco-friendly garbage bags and raising awareness nation-wide through TV ads and education of local children and families”, explains race director Nicolas Musy. The ecoLeap foundation also supports the local culture, adds Musy: “It is not only the pristine nature that makes this part of the world so special. It is also the unique culture of the nomads and their way of life. The nomads should be proud of their abilities and culture.”Photo Credit: www.ms2s.org (Darko Todorovic)For more information please visit: www.ms2s.org andwww.facebook.com/MongoliaSunriseToSunset.From Multidays.com, post Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset 2014Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset 2014 Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Big Dog Backyard Ultra 2013 – Final UpdateOctober 21, 2013Tim England won the Big Dog Backyard Ultra 2013 holding off Keith Knipling to complete 35 laps, 145.845 miles in 30:46:55.9 hours.
Tim Englund Photo by Geoffreybakerphotography.com
Last woman standing was Marcy Beard who completed 29 laps, 120.843 miles in 26:05:14.2 hours.
Congratulations to the winners and to the 37 starters who took part in this fascinating race.
Format
A single loop race will take place at every hour, on the hour.
Runners failing to complete the 4 mile trail loop within an hour will be timed out. ~
Runners failing to make the start in any hour will be eliminated.
The winner will be the last man (or woman) able to complete a loop within the time limit.
The finish is determined by the last person standing.
MCM Timing and Results
2012 Big Dog Backyard Ultra – “Death Match on the Big Trail” Andy Emerson
Big Dog Backyard Ultra 2013 – Final Update Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Big Dog Backyard Ultra 2013 – 8 Hour UpdateOctober 19, 2013The Big Dog Backyard Ultra is underway in Bell Buckle, TN. Organised by Laz, the race is a last-man-standing type of event which takes place on a 4 mile trail loop.
Amy & Big Dog
FormatAfter eight hours the 37 starters are reduced to 23 competitors.
A single loop race will take place at every hour, on the hour. Runners failing to complete a 4 miler within an hour will be timed out. Runners failing to make the start in any hour will be eliminated. The winner will be the last man (or woman) able to complete a loop within the time limit. The finish is determined by the last person standing.
Latest: After 18 hours there are 9 runners left.
Live updates mcmtiming.com/
Event website: Ultrarunning and more
Big Dog Backyard Ultra 2013 – 8 Hour Update Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News
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- Endurance 24 Hour Ultrarun 2014February 23, 2014
The Endurance 24 Hour Ultrarun 2014 finished earlier today with Sumie Inagaki and Jari Soikkeli taking the top spots. The event takes place at the indoor Ratiopharm Esport Arena in Espoo on a 390 m mondo – surfaced indoor track and kicked off yesterday at 12 noon.
116 runners.
Pos Name Country Km Men 24 Hours 1 Jari Soikkeli FIN 241.2241 2 Anders Tysk SWE 237.1025 3 Pasi Penttinen FIN 231.7727 Women 24 Hours 1 Sumie Inagaki JPN 210.9936 2 Torill Fonn SWE 192.4210 3 Anu Ossberg FIN 187.2923
Checkout the website at:www.endurance.fi
Mens Results
Womens Results
<iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/fFS9X7gych8?feature=player_embedded” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
From Multidays.com, post Endurance 24 Hour Ultrarun 2014Endurance 24 Hour Ultrarun 2014 Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Delirium Ultra 24 Hour Race 2014February 14, 2014
The Fourth Annual Delirium Ultra 24 Hour Race took place Feb 7, 2014. The race held in Ridgeland, SC, featured 6, 12, 24 hour events at the home of Lowcountry Ultras on a 1.695 mile trail loop. 70 runners in the 24 hour.
The 24 hour was won by Lara Zoeller, third overall and Robert Harem.
Top results for the 24 and the 12 hour:
Pos Name Km Men 24 Hours 1 Robert Harem 120.35 2 Garth Peterson 116.96 3 John Durant III 105.09 Women 24 Hours 1 Lara Zoeller 115.26 2 Sara Maltby 100.01 3 Karen Austin 100.01 Men 12 Hours 1 Ken Bell 71.19 2 Russell Johnson 57.63 3 Guy Ligon 55.94 Women 12 Hours 1 Tammy Massie 52.55 2 Lauren Cheney 50.85 3 Sarah Drilling 50.85
From Multidays.com, post Delirium Ultra 24 Hour Race 2014Delirium Ultra 24 Hour Race 2014 Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Florence 24 Hour Track Race 2014February 5, 2014
Posted on the Ultralist:
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2014 20:38:25 GMT
Subject: 24 Hour Track Race (Qualifing Race)
Greetings ultrarunners,
I have just received approval to plan and conduct the 24 hour race at the Wilson High School (where I teach) track in Florence SC.
The event will be held March 15-16 2014 10AM-10:AM
More details will follow here and on Facebook.
Since the primary motivation for this event is a “last chance qualifying effort for the 2014 World Championships the race will give priority to entrants with prior numbers within the qualifying standards for men and women. Additionally those seeking to set age group records where the entrant has been at or close to records with previous performances will be given preference.
The race will be capped somewhere around 40 runners.
Interested persons can contact me off list or through Facebook. There is not time to do much advertising, and this race does not lend itself to that, but rather through word of mouth among the runners hoping to qualify for the team, and have a track 24 hour in order to produce great mileage totals.
It looks like there will be a $100 Entry fee. That fee will be returned to each runner who reaches the qualifying standard for their gender regardless of whether or not they qualify for the team. Additionally, if feasible the event would like to provide some financial assistance to anyone who does qualify for, and accepts a position on the US National team to help with travel expenses.
Thank you,
Ray Krolewicz Facebook
From Multidays.com, post Florence 24 Hour Track Race 2014Florence 24 Hour Track Race 2014 Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning NewsRelated Posts
- Desert Solstice 2013 UpdateDecember 15, 2013
The Desert Solstice 24 hour race is an elite level invitational event that also includes a 100 mile race. Taking place at Central High School Track Phoenix, AZ, this years events had 22 starters at 8am December 14th.
Billed as an opportunity to set records and to qualify for the US 24 hour team the race has seen numerous records set. This year saw Zach Bitter set a new American 100 Mile Record in a scorching 11:47:21 beating Yiannis Kouros’s 12 hour World record on the way.
- Pam Smith sets a new world track record at 100 miles at 14:11:26
- Eric Clifton got the World Track record for 55-59 for 6 hours
- Connie Gardner set a new American age group record for 50K in 4:38:48
View the screencast at http://www.aravaiparunning.com/ultracast/
From Multidays.com, post Desert Solstice 2013 UpdateDesert Solstice 2013 Update Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Soochow International Ultra-Marathon 24 Hour Race 2013December 7, 2013
The Soochow International Ultra-Marathon 24 Hour Race has just concluded in Soochow, Taipei with 100 km specialist Yoshikazu Hara winning with 273.6 km (170 miles 12.597yd) over former Spartathlon winner Ivan Cudin.
Mami Kudo won the womens race again with 210 km.
US runner Jon Olsen finished in 15th place and the UK’s Matt Moroz finished 18th with 200km.
Full results available on the race website: http://ultrarunning.scu.edu.tw/scu-ultra/www/index.phpPos Name Km Men 1 Yoshikazu Hara 273.650 2 Ivan Cudin 266.702 3 Johan Vander Merwe 258.064 Women 1 Mami Kudo 210.906 2 Meredith Quinlan 202.267 3 Lu-hsin Chia 197.660 Updated to include partial lap distance.
Soochow International Ultra-Marathon 24 Hour Race 2013 Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning NewsRelated Posts
Olsen and Kudo Win IAU World and European 24 Hour Championships Steenbergen 2013
Soochow International 24 Hour Race 2011 – Results
24 Hour World And European Championships 2012 Katowice Poland 2012
Soochow International 24-Hour Race Taiwan 2011 Updates
Brive 24 Hour World Championships 2010 – Results
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- DFL Ultrarunning Podcast: Episode 12June 16, 2013
- Kilian Jornet – Becoming the All-Terrain HumanMarch 27, 2013Kilian Jornet features in an article in the New York Times by Christopher Solomon published March 20, 2013.
Kilian Jornet Burgada is the most dominating endurance athlete of his generation. In just eight years, Jornet has won more than 80 races claimed some 16 titles and set at least a dozen speed records, many of them in distances that would require the rest of us to purchase an airplane ticket. He has run across entire landmasses (Corsica) and mountain ranges (the Pyrenees), nearly without pause. He regularly runs all day eating only wild berries and drinking only from streams. On summer mornings he will set off from his apartment door at the foot of Mont Blanc and run nearly two and a half vertical miles up to Europe’s roof — over cracked glaciers, past Gore-Tex’d climbers, into the thin air at 15,781 feet — and back home again in less than seven hours, a trip that mountaineers can spend days to complete. A few years ago Jornet ran the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail and stopped just twice to sleep on the ground for a total of about 90 minutes. In the middle of the night he took a wrong turn, which added perhaps six miles to his run. He still finished in 38 hours 32 minutes, beating the record of Tim Twietmeyer, a legend in the world of ultrarunning, by more than seven hours. Read the full articleKilian Jornet – Becoming the All-Terrain Human Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - South African Festival of Running 2013-14February 18, 2013After the success of the inaugural edition of the South African Festival of Running over the new year, Eric Wright is turning his thoughts to the second edition and has just posted on Facebook:
Provisional.- Dates for 6 day race 12 midday 27th Dec.2013 until 12 midday 2nd Jan. 2014
Dates for 24 hr race 12 midday 31st Dec. 2013 until 12 midday 1st Jan. 2014
Dates for 12 hr race 12 midnight 31st Dec.2013 until 12 midday 1st Jan. 2014
Who will be interested in a 10 day race starting 12 midday 23rd Dec. until 12 midday 2nd Jan. 2014.
So far. Marthie/Sol/Keith/Malcolm/Nicolene/?????????? Need at least 10 to 15 to be viable.
WHAT DO THE RUNNERS SAY.South African Festival of Running 2013-14 Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Dates for 6 day race 12 midday 27th Dec.2013 until 12 midday 2nd Jan. 2014
- H.U.R.T. 100 Webcast 2013January 19, 2013The H.U.R.T. 100 mile endurance race starts today with 131 entrants. Updates can be found at http://www.ultralive.net/hurt100/webcast.php
From Multidays.com, post H.U.R.T. 100 Webcast 2013H.U.R.T. 100 Webcast 2013 Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Morton and Greenwood Voted North American Ultra Runners Of The Year 2012January 10, 2013Mike Morton of Lithia, Florida and Ellie Greenwood of North Vancouver, British Columbia have been voted the 2012 UltraRunning magazine North American ultrarunners of the year.
UltraRunning magazine
Morton and Greenwood Voted North American Ultra Runners Of The Year 2012Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News
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- Graveyard Jazz – John MorelockMarch 14, 2013
“Jazz From the Graveyard,” the voice from KPLU informed me almost as if hearing me wonder what I was listening to at two in the morning. I was trying to decide between Herbie Hancock’s “Possibilities” or Eartha Kitt’s “Back in Business” when he said something about an uninterrupted hour of women singing the blues. I left the radio on. One less decision.
Weird running, sort of running, on the island last evening. After three days of thick fog, a breeze was clearing the air. I decided to run Cedar Grove, trying to get to the bluff for sunset and follow my brand new, hasn’t been taken outside yet, six-LED lantern back to the car.
I sometimes wonder what sort of fool drivers think they are seeing, if they see us at all, as I pull on the last layer–rain shell, gloves, cap, pat pockets for lights–and head off into the drizzle. Crunch, crunch, crunch down the gravel, winding away from the sound of cars hurrying home, I round the curve and their lights go away. The dusk of evening thickens as memory takes me down Humpty Dump to Alder Grove and up to Escape. Cold water splashes from brushed limbs. The gravel road is left behind and the leaves of a thousand trees hide all sound–breathing and heartbeats become the only noise–their rhythm joins my legs as I turn onto Cedar Grove.
In “Last Child in the Woods” we are told the current generation is not going out in the woods; is not leaving the protective supervision of playgrounds in subdivisions; is losing the imagination nature wants us to develop. These are my woods most of the time, the place my imagination plays. An old child wandering along, unsupervised.
I pass the Old Men, fog shrouded, cedar boughs bent and dripping brush my shoulder as I start the drop into the kettle and darkness. It is too cloudy for sunset and dropping down the side of the kettle the challenge that has been whispering comes forth loudly: You can get to the bluff without turning on the light if you hurry.
Hurry? Well, at least shuffle faster. Ohkeigh. Up the switchbacks wondering how many trails do I know how many switchbacks they each have? Dimple, Stick in the Eye, Butterfield, this one, and that one across the water–water? The clouds have lifted enough to see the Olympic Mountains over on the peninsula. One last ray of sunset fights for its glory as I come up out of the kettle above the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
I sat on a knotted root of a many years old Alaskan Cedar scanning the waters, looking at mountains silhouetted across the sound. As I glance down, a patch of white moves, then another–two adult bald eagles are enjoying sunset on the beach. Maybe the huge nest that was empty last year will have a family this year. I leave in the gathering darkness, right, left, past the fallen one, right, and around to the top. No lights yet.
The games we play. Can I make it to Grancy’s Run without turning on my brand new flashlight? The bluff is left behind. The sun’s last ray snuffed as I turn downward to the quarter-mile of pavement on the park road and left toward Grancy’s. An owl’s hoo-hoo-huaoo greets me as I lengthen the stride. The gate I made last August greets me. Gates and benches made by my hands–they hold so much more than do the programs written on the screens at other times. I slip by the gate and start down the alley of darkness. A mile and a tenth to the car. My eyes enjoy a seldom felt challenge. It’s only dark for another quarter-mile, then the whiteness of the old gravel road will be visible. I slip the light back into its scabbard.
Gravel crunches ‘neath my feet as I follow the ghostly whisper of white through the alleys of ocean spray, cedar, and alder. The lights of cars on the highway tell me another night run is over. My last few steps are drowned by the hiss and whine of tires on asphalt. I pause at the last turn to look back–some nights we leave something out there. I’ll go back tomorrow to make sure it’s ohkeigh.
John E. Morelock, February 2007
John Morelock writes the “Run Gently Out There” column featured in Ultrarunning magazine and ran his first ultra in 1986. He has completed several ultras – most of them in the Pacific Northwest. He lives on Whidbey Island in Washington state with his wife, Kathy.
From Multidays.com, post Graveyard Jazz – John MorelockGraveyard Jazz – John Morelock Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Running as Therapy by Shannon McGinnMarch 8, 2013
Running as Therapy
by Shannon McGinn
“Running. Cheaper Than Therapy.” I can’t remember where I first saw that slogan, but it made me laugh. As a runner, I recognize that I run because it makes me happy. I do much of my training alone. My running, sometimes, offers me space to think. I can cover miles while contemplating the mysteries of my life.
As a therapist, I spend countless hours invested in the struggles of others. To de-clutter my mind, I often need peace, quiet, and time for myself. Sometimes I think about nothing at all. Anyone who knows me can attest to how challenging it is for me to quiet my thoughts. Once in a while, on a great run, I can do it. I will look down at my watch and realize a significant amount of time has passed and I can’t remember thinking about a single thing. Those days are amazing!
But most days, my running is simply mathematics in motion. Lots of math. Hours of math. Math relevant to the run that I am doing. Math relevant to the runs I have done. Math relevant to the runs I want to do in the future. I am good at math, but not as good as I should be after the amount of time I spend practicing it.
For me, the days that I think about nothing or distract myself with math are better than those days when my runs are spent processing the stressors of my life. Maybe math is the secret? “Math. Cheaper Than Therapy.” Hmm, I probably wont sell a lot of those T-shirts.
I recognize that there is a difference between “something that is therapeutic” and “therapy”. But first, it is important to note that there has been success with using exercise to manage symptoms of clinical level anxiety, depression or other mood disorders. It is an excellent intervention, used in conjunction with other types of treatment, when the source of the problem is unknown or cannot be remedied and therefore managing symptoms is the ultimate goal.
Many runners, even those without a clinically diagnosable disorder, would likely agree that running is therapeutic because it helps us cope with stress. However, coping with stress or managing symptoms often does not solve underlying problems. In most cases, unless our biggest stressor is not being a good-enough runner, then running, on its own, is really not the solution. Running, whether it be through the woods, on the roads, at some destination race, or even on a treadmill, will always drop us off in the same place we started. The relief of symptoms after a run is real, but it is temporary. Symptoms will likely return until we can run again or resolve a conflict. Longer lasting change does not generally happen unless we are able to implement some of the ideas we spent hours developing while on the run. Therefore, it is often the actions we take (or decide to not take) after the run that resolves our conflicts.
Or is it the act of running that changes us? From a cognitive behavioral perspective, I do believe the act of running, on its own, may have tremendous value as an agent for intrapersonal change.
Not without its critics, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is considered a highly effective evidence-based psychotherapeutic intervention for a wide range of conditions. Under CBT theory, our behavior is shaped by our beliefs (or constructs) about ourselves and the world we live in. When maladaptive beliefs shape our behaviors, they act to perpetuate conflict, stress, and/or dysfunction. Because how we behave impacts how we are received, perceived, and reacted to by others, our beliefs get reinforced as accurate and factual, even if they are simply misperceptions. In other words, we create self-fulfilling prophecies that keep us stuck. By challenging our constructs, maladaptive beliefs are uncovered. Once we realize that what we believe to be truths are actually inaccurate opinions, our behaviors change and our world is experienced differently. As a result, conflicts, distress, and/or dysfunction resolve.
But what does this have to do with running? In actual practice, effective CBT interventions are carefully crafted to address maladaptive beliefs that perpetuate specific disorders. We already discussed that being a successful runner is not a solution to non-running problems. However measurable success as a runner has the power to reshape the beliefs we hold about ourselves as people.
For those who care to track data (and it seems most runners do track the data that is important to them), running offers us clear and concrete measurable goals and results. If it is truly important to us, we will know if we actually ran a mile (or 100 miles) and just how long we took to do it. Even without a watch, we know if we ran “better” than last time. If we run further, faster, more frequently, or cover more challenging terrain with more ease than we ever thought possible, we know it. In time, it becomes clear that running changes our beliefs about how strong we are, how much we can endure, and how much heart we have. This is a significant cognitive shift that not only shapes how we perceive ourselves as runners but also how we perceive ourselves as people.
Running truly has no finish line. Because the experience of completing a challenging run is incredibly rewarding, runners are easily compelled to challenge themselves repeatedly. As a result, it is no surprise that ultrarunning is a fast growing sport. Hundred mile races are now more popular than ever. People who never imagined they could complete a marathon are now daydreaming about multi-day racing.
Beside offering concrete measurable goals and the opportunity to manage stress, running, just like a good therapy session, teaches us how to use metaphors to make sense of our world. We learn how the climbs always seem worse from the bottom. We learn that every great run starts with the courage to take the first step. We learn that if we fall down, we have to get up, dust ourselves off, and get back at it. Running teaches us that if we plan well, work hard, stay focused, fight through challenges, take care of our basic needs, and have gear that works, then we have a good chance at discovering we are capable of amazing things. Running ultimately teaches us that we are only as weak as we believe we are. All these lessons ring true for life as well.
The cognitive shift running creates within us is often life-altering. Our confidence builds. Challenges scare us less. Suddenly ridiculous things become reasonable goals. As a result, people treat us differently because we act differently. We begin to discover “new” opportunities that likely have always been present. Most importantly, if our conflicts or stressors were a product of our own insecurities about ourselves, the increase in self-confidence running brings can result in solutions in our non-running world.
This is all wonderful stuff, but not everyone is good at self-discovery and change. Some people will simply run in circles, never really challenging their constructs, never solving problems, or never breaking old patterns. Some people need more than just a therapeutic activity to help them through their pain. Unfortunately, there is still a great resistance towards asking a therapist for help, even within a group of people who will so proudly declare “Running is my therapy!”
I don’t believe that everyone who finds therapeutic value in running needs to sit down and discuss their experience with a professional. A good test to determine whether you need more than just running to help resolve a conflict is to reflect upon how long you have been stuck on the same problem. Have you been able to significantly change or overcome any part of your struggle on your own? If not, then running may be a wonderful therapeutic activity for coping with stress, but a therapist may be necessary to give you the support and guidance you need while you wrestle with the hard parts of life.
Finally, is running cheaper than therapy? I am sure it used to be back when running around for no reason was considered abnormal. Now the secret is out. People are rapidly discovering the therapeutic life-altering value of distance running. Thanks to supply and demand, running and racing is getting more expensive. It is now becoming a race to secure a bib for ultras. That used to be a marathon problem. As I look at the rising costs of ultras, where my personal therapy most often takes place, I am starting to think that I may need to print up a new T-shirt. “Therapy. Cheaper Than Running.” Hmm, I don’t think that would sell very well either. It is almost as bad at the one about math.
Shannon McGinn is a running coach based in and around Woodbridge, NJ. Checkout Shannon’s blog, Creating Momentum for more ideas and thoughts that inspired “High Mileage And Low Injury Rate”.
Running as Therapy by Shannon McGinn Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get—Rational – Terri SchneiderFebruary 25, 2013When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get—Rational
In sports psychology, we talk a lot about positive self-talk when teaching athletes to train, manage and control their internal chat. We hone in on being optimistic, and if it’s not, we encourage athletes to always pull their thoughts back to being optimistic. But a lot of sport psychology folks aren’t ultra runners or even endurance athletes and aren’t intimate with the unique psychological rigors of going really long. As an athlete, optimism should always be your aspiration, and its important to create a training process to generate this type of mind set, but in the world of endurance sports we know that positive isn’t always possible for the long haul.
When I first started learning about and using positive self-talk in my training and racing as a triathlete, I started at the beginning—noticing my general dialogue in various aspects of my athletic life. I then implemented positive self-talk words and phrases to replace the negative, as well as affirmations and imagery I designed over time. After several weeks of consistent focused mental training I noticed that in events or training sessions of a few hours or shorter I could remain positive, for the most part. But carrying this process into Ironman events, 100-mile ultra running races, or continuous or staged multi-day races, remaining positive was virtually impossible unless I flat out lied to myself.
Using word cues such as, “I am light and strong” just doesn’t sit right when you are at mile 85 of a 100-mile running race shuffling through some of the toughest stretch of trail in the country in the middle of the night, and you just clipped your blistered big toe on a rock and endo-ed into the creek because your hip flexors are too shot to lift your feet any higher than a shuffle. In situations like this, somehow even “patience,” seems like a bunch of crap.
You don’t need 85 miles of running behind you to get to this particular head space; you can thwart your positive thoughts on a long training jaunt or in a weary 8 miler if it’s just not your day. In any case, if you can’t seem to get positive, what do you do? You get rational. Rational basically means lucid, balanced, coherent, or sane. If “positive” is eluding you, isn’t sanity a pretty good second choice?
Here’s what your rational voice might look like.
Thought: “I’m so tired, I’m not sure I can keep going.”
Thought stopping cue: “STOP!”
Replace negative thought with rational thought: “Walk and eat a gel packet,” or, “Walk to the next telephone pole, stretch, then start running slowly.”
Rational self-talk speaks to the essential aspects of how you can stay in the game: eating, drinking, proper pacing, negotiating terrain and just generally continuing to move forward. The key is that it prevents your mind from going to the negative. That is our goal. Rational self-talk gives your body instructions when it wants to quit. A client who frequently uses rational talk commented, “I pick a spot on the trail and I tell myself I will return to full mental and physical peak at that point. This helps me a lot rather that trying to turn an emotion on a dime, which can become a bit of a punching bag sometimes.”
In longer events or in events of any distance that challenge your fitness level, the body wants to quit when the going gets really tough. The mind must step in to prod the body forward. The body waits for a weakness to allow it to slow, but the mind can’t allow for it. Your mind propels. If you can’t reach for positive to squelch the negative demons, reach for rational—your body will thank you and you’ll keep the negative thoughts at bay.
Here are some more rational self-talk words and phrases that are helpful:
“Slow your pace.”
“Pump your arms on this hill.”
“Pick up your feet.”
“Take an electrolyte tablet in 3 minutes.”
“Start running at the next tree.”
“Focus.”
“Stay with me.”
I have used rational self-talk in all of my Ironman races and have carried that process into many one and multi-day ultra running events and adventure races. I have never taken for granted that it will be there, I have trained it to be there—just like my positive self-talk. Rational self-talk, just like positive self-talk, can offer you satisfying event experiences. It can keep you present to your race strategy. Used in conjunction with your positive self-talk, it is a powerful tool for your mental toolbox.
Terri Schneider is a coach, sport psychology consultant, speaker, writer and multi-sport endurance athlete. Visit Terri at www.terrischneider.net.
When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get—Rational – Terri Schneider Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News - Reasons To Be Slow – John MorelockJanuary 8, 2013Reasons to be Slow…
West Fork Dosewallips River Trail
NPS Jim Patterson
I hereby resolve to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent, but not necessarily in that order and maybe not each of them all of the time, nor all of them at the same time, nor for the whole year, and I am still subject to bribes, gifts, and nepotism. A couple of chocolate chip cookies and the whole thing goes out the window.
Bummer. I just noticed “…keeps clean in body and thought…”–maybe this isn’t going to work after all. I would probably drop the whole thing for eight months of hard, healthy training and one more trip to [insert favorite run here].
Over the years as I have ran along the roads, trails, byways, and bypaths I have blamed just about everything imaginable: bristle cone pines, “Alice in Wonderland” caterpillars, really old redwoods, newly bloomed alpine meadows, fields of ice frosted grass glistening on a winter morning, a porcupine wondering what I was doing on “her” trail, whales, beavers, waterfalls, lava beds, mushroom cities, armadillos, cacti, great blue herons, stars at two o’clock in the morning, rainbows, a pair of eyes looking back in the flashlight beams, snow as the trail went up and down a ridge line, a solstice’s full moon lighting our trail, snakes, rabbits, leaves falling, ravens rising, fog and sun streaks and shadows through the fog, and even bad burritos for my taking too long to cover a particular piece of ground.
I once stopped dead in my tracks during the Aptos No Creek Trail Marathon when rounding a curve in a redwood grove to acknowledge a tree; possibly 25 feet in diameter, branches way far above me and over 3 feet thick–for over 2,000 years it had been standing there, patiently waiting for me to pass. How long it took me to complete that course that day just could not matter; could not compare to the wonder I felt in running ‘neath the branches of the giants.
My wife and I still look up into the Olympic National Park from the ferry as we cross an arm of Puget Sound and remember the time we took the better part of an early spring day covering 38 miles of trails, crossing two passes and three snow-field fed, bone-chilling icy cold rivers, slowly rounding the shoulder of Mt. Constance and heading on down the trail along the bank of the Dosewallups River–no T-shirts, no finishing clocks, no time goals–just hoping our daughter had moved our car around to where we were going to finish–even that was forgotten many times as we passed in and out of timber stands watched by curious mountain goats, stopped at another waterfall…just runnin’, that was all we were doing.
Every now and then I still run with time in mind, but mostly I just run with being out there in mind, if I can get my mind to be there at all.
John Morelock
John Morelock writes the “Run Gently Out There” column featured in Ultrarunning magazine and ran his first ultra in 1986. He has completed several ultras – most of them in the Pacific Northwest. He lives on Whidbey Island in Washington state with his wife, Kathy.
From Multidays.com, post Reasons To Be Slow – John MorelockReasons To Be Slow – John Morelock Multidays.com - Multiday and Ultrarunning News
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- Motivation & Kinabalu Climbathon 2013October 27, 2013Last weekend was spent in Kota Kinabalu region where I attempted the Summit course, falling just short of the summit and reaching the finish line as the last person to cross it for a total of 31~km. (full course is pegged at 33km)
This was my 2nd attempt on Mt Kinabalu on a wholly different and tougher course. Although I am actually on a ‘break’ from ultra running for the year, I found myself utterly lacking motivation on the trails.
The realisation kicked in when my friend asked me at the start line if I was feeling excited about the race. I actually wasn’t. I was feeling tired more than anything else. This was probably the first time in my past races that I was feeling so low while toeing the line at the start of a race.
The lack of motivation troubled me then as I knew then that it was not going to be an easy race.
“This is going to be a long grind”, sums up my thought while we were flagged off the start line with just 44 males and 8 females mountain runners.
I started off on the first 4km of upslope on tarmac feeling okay, with a really grouchy stomach. I wasn’t too slow, probably slightly ahead of the mid pack.
What really irritated me was when I entered the trails and started climbing. I was climbing slower than my previous attempt in 2010. I felt abnormally stressed (probably due to stress from my work) and couldn’t keep up with a good pace.
Fast forward, I reached the checkpoint above Sayat Sayat in about 3h40+m and was cut off from any summit attempt. I hung around the area, took some photos and got going at about 4h into the race.
Sped down to Layang Layang in less than 1h and unknowingly made the cutoff to Manilau trail which i spent about 2hours within 6km trail. The lack of any form endurance running throughout year is taking some serious toil on me it seems. A lot of time was bending over staring at ground thinking if I should just drop since this was not going anywhere.
But, I kinda told my friend that I will see her at the end while she was speeding down from the summit, so I had to get there somehow. Anyhow, I wasn’t too interested in adding another DNF to my tally.
I got out of the trail with not much left and was told by one of the helper in the trail that the last section is about 6km. So I ran down hill at a good pace for abit and then I saw a signboard “8km left…”
“Shit!”
It was a tough grind til the end which I cross the line at about 8h30m with the organisers waiting for me so that they could wrap up their day. They did kindly present me a finisher medal although I just made a mountain race look like an ultra. 33km at 8h+? Not sure if I could stomach that lousy pace
Other than my bad stomach throughout the race, I have to say that I troughly underestimated how much I should have trained for this. In my alter-ego as a technopreneur, training has always been particularly hard to fit in. But not impossible.
And so, the year is ending and I have one DNF and an uncompleted race to add to my tally.
Looking forward, I think I am starting to rediscover my running mojo. Bit by bit.
I will still consider this year’s running break a good one. I still believe that a good break goes a long way for the soul.
I never considered myself a competition racer but I am looking forward to complete a few races next year at a pace that I can be proud off while of course, taking enough time to bask in the beauty of mountains, which was what got me started on mountain running anyway
Cheers to motivation and a great 2014 as I will embark on my first 100 miler!
Recently a few elite runners have their fair share of issues and I thought that these articles are worth sharing too:
Lizzy Hawker: http://www.thenorthfacejournal.com/lines-the-ones-that-we-cross-and-the-ones-that-we-dont-lizzy-hawker/ Another great article from Lizzy!
Dakota Jones: http://www.irunfar.com/2013/10/dropping.html Dropping out of races as an elite sponsored runner
Anna Frost: http://www.irunfar.com/2013/07/reigniting-the-fire.html On dealing with motivation and injuries
- Profile of a 60 year old ultrarunner at La Ultra The HighOctober 27, 2013What a sick ultra in the north of India, 333km worth of altitude running!
- Ultra Trail Mt Rinjani (UTMR) is quite a spectacle.August 23, 2013The Rinjani mountain is known for it’s unique beauty and 52km around it must be quite an experience! More so with a almost cloudless day.
The summit push is one helluva climb because of the volcanic ashes which makes you slide back for every few steps you take. - +1000m elevation over a mere 5km on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island.August 20, 2013Man, this looks like quite a awesome sight. I didn’t realise Hong Kong has so much scrambling opportunities. My impression is really that the trails are really hilly, but strewn with man-made steps.
Now my POV is totally changed, for the better! - Manaslu Trail Race, incredible stage race in Nepal!August 3, 2013My pal, Richard Bull, dropped me an email with this incredible race in Nepal. Just look at the scenery. Awesome!
If you are a stage race junkie and have 7 days to spare, this might be a must-do race for you! - Mount Fuji Mountain Race 66th Edition.July 28, 2013The Mount Fuji mountain race in it’s 66th edition had just finished last Friday. I was there to take part in the race although it was unfortunate that I DNF-ed near the top (at the 8.5 Station) due to cutoff timing.
A brief note about the race is that it’s one of the longest and toughest climb in Asia with +3000m in a mere 4 1/2 hours along the popular Yoshida route. The starting point at the Fujiyoshida City Hall is at an elevation of 770m. A runner needs to reach the 5th Station (2300~m) in 2h20m and then followed by the 8.5 Station (3400~m) within 4 hours and summit Mt Fuji by 4 1/2 hours to be considered success.
Tough race! I didn’t managed to take much photos on the way up as compared to my other races just because this race is real tough.
The above is an rough elevation chart for the summit race which I got from other runners!
The Japanese runners are real orderly on the startline!
The race is short, just 21km in length with +3000m of climb.
The first part of the race from 0 to 10.8km is brutal. I was completely caught by surprise by the speed of Japanese runners. Man, they are fast! It was almost a 10km fast pace at roughly 6% gradient and that is real brutal for someone who trains in flat Singapore.
The elevation gain at this portion is roughly +680~m to 1450m in height of Fuji over 10.8km to check in at what is known as the Horse roundabout point. I reached the checkpoint in okay time (had a real bad stomach due to the (really awesome) Japanese breakfast in the morning) of about 1h10m.
I took this picture at night, which shows the relentless 6% climb through the city’s tarmac.
The second part is a climb up to the 5th station. This section is roughly 4.2km (+850m) and the 5th station is 15km into the race. The 5th station is located at about 2300m in elevation and the cutoff to reach here is a challenging 2h20m! I got to this section in 2h15m. However, just before this station, there was a massive jam in the trails and I had to queue to get up there. (The checkpoint is not the exact 5th station, somewhere on the side of it).
I think the Japanese runners really gave their all in the first fast section and many of them suffered during the climbs from here on as I start to pick up my pace and take over a few runners every minute.
I thought I was in good time and I was pretty sure I was going to make the summit.
But.. the lack of training starts to show soon.
The portion after 5th station is simply a relentless and monotonous climb over quite a well paved path. At 18km (+800m from 5th station) at an elevation of 3100~m, all was going good and I was in good condition as I start to pick up my pace. I reached the elevation of 3200m at about 3h37m (saw the time on someone else watch as I don’t carry one!) and things start to breakdown. My legs weren’t feeling it’s best, lack of strength and the lack of training shows. Many runners beside me was panting but I was not really panting. However, my legs just couldn’t move fast enough and it starts to get cold. And as you know, cold causes cramps. My front quads started to cramp as my muscles got cold as my climbing pace was simply too slow. I struggled up to 3400~m (+200m in 30min?!) and made it in 4h10m, which is really really slow.
The cut off at the 8th station (3400~m) is 4hours and I unfortunately didn’t make the cut! But I am not too bothered about that as I know that with a better, more intensive (and less procrastination) training plan, getting to the summit should not be a huge challenge the next time round!
Runners who didn’t made it were happy-go-lucky people anyway, and instead they had a fest at the 8.5 Station! The owner must be beaming right now with the amount of business he receives there.
The route down is pretty easy and well paved. However there were too many runners and the volcanic ashes can be quite irritating!
And the summit (3776m) was just up there! One last look before going -1500m back to 5th station.
And of course, the food festival at the end point is awesome. We descented to the 5th station (shown above) and took a bus down to the food fest(below) where we were provided with a 600yen complimentary food tickets.
One cannot miss the prize giving ceremony too. It’s really formal and showcase the Japanese way of gifting… the top runners received like 7 medals from different persons!
All in all, a great event. One of the toughest in Asia (thought it’s not marketed as such! It is however not too technical as the likes of the Kinabalu Climbathon which I attempted a few years ago.
I apologise for the lack of updates on this site. This year I am taking a short break from Ultras and will update from time to time. I am looking forward to see if I can get into the Summit course for Mt Kinabalu for this year too though! Fingers crossed. - Short bio of UTMF Race Director, Tsuyoshi Kaburaki.April 25, 2013The Ultra Trail Mt Fuji is taking place today and will start at 3pm local time Japan.
I am super hyped up for the runners here as you can see from the video, the image of Mt Fuji that is seemingly floating above the clouds is pure elegance! - Ultra Trail Mount Rinjani, UTMR!April 24, 2013Today, I found another gem, this time in an obscured race in Indonesia!
I have always wanted to trail run Mount Rinjani after trekking there once before a few years ago. Unforgiving uphills plus a unique and wonderful sight of the crater lake at 2000+m, what’s not to like?
And now it seems, someone has made a race at the location itself which will commence on the 13th of August 2013.
The uphills looks crazy for the distance. UTMR at 51km with +5200~m and RAR at 21km with +1980~m.
Check out the course profiles on their website!
The Ultra Trail Mount Rinjani is a playful name on the UTMB, as well as the UTMF, don’t you think so? Well, even their logo… - Mountain running on Mount Agung, the highest mountain on Bali.April 21, 2013Found this video which is a gem. This group of trail runners ran up to the top of Bali at 3100~m.
Really beautiful scenery, what an awesome run! - The most amazing “silent” short running film featuring Adam Campbell.March 31, 2013Adam Campbell is a full time trail runner who left behind his lawyer job for good reasons.
Silence from ARC'TERYX on Vimeo.
In this video, we see him transiting from the desk to the beautiful scape of outdoors in Vancouver. I am pretty sure many of us here are part time runners striving to make a good balance between running and work.
This video strikingly resonates with me as a runner and the tension, stress and unease felt at the workplace is appropriately represented, though a little dramatic with the background ‘noise’.
I am pretty sure that we don’t have to quit our day job to agree that escaping from the desk is something we look forward to daily.
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- Weekly Newsletter March 26th 2014March 26, 2014Latest Update: Published weekly newsletter
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/weekly-newsletters/2014-03-26/
This week's newsletter on March 26th 2014 has advertising opportunities, interesting running articles, our new competition, late event additions and important event updates and corrections.
Listing an event and using the Australian Running Calendar is completely free. The website is ad-supported, with 300x250 display ads present on the right side of all pages of the website. And we need advertisers for the website to remain online!
Ads are currently getting around 45,000 impressions each per week, and are extremely cost effective at getting visitors to click through to event websites.
If you are interested in advertising your event (or product or service) with display advertising, then please send me an email or check out the advertising page for more information.
How to clean your workout clothes correctly
You come home from the gym or a run and are shocked by the odour emanating from your workout clothes. Sometimes, no matter how many times you run them through the washer, the technical materials used to make more exercise clothing just don't seem to want to come clean. Before you head out to replace those stinky duds, consider these tips and tricks for cleaning even the worst smelling bike shorts and sports bras. Check them out here.
If You Run Slow, Who Cares?
When I first started working with age group and recreational runners in 2006, one of the biggest surprises to me was the amount of negative thinking and lack of self-confidence many runners exhibited. Almost every runner that joined the group introduced themselves to me by stating "I'm probably the slowest person you've ever coached" or "you probably don't work with runners as slow as I am." Read more.
Delicious Almond and Date Balls - Gluten & dairy free
These look delicious and I'm going to have to try them out; they would probably work quite well on the run, or else as an after run snack. Check out the recipe and photos here.
5 Pre-race Nutrition Mistakes
RunnersWorld has a list of 5 pre-race nutrition mistakes: eating a whole box of pasta; drinking too much water; loading up on fibre; skipping breakfast; and trying something new. Check them out here for all the details.
How To Train For A Race In 4 Weeks
I'm not sure training for a race in just 4 weeks is necessarily a good idea, but this article at competitor.com talks about it. "Whether you were battling an early-season injury or simply slacked on your training, you now find yourself one month away from a race you signed up for a while ago. The problem is that you are nowhere near race-shape. Can you make it to the starting line and walk away with a respectable showing?" Read more.
Win a FlipBelt
Go in the draw to win a FlipBelt, a singular tubular waistband to put your phone, music and keys while out excercising. The competition runs until Sunday April 6th 2014, and the winner wil be drawn the following day. Enter competition.
Recent updates
To find out what's been recently updated, check the website homepage regularly. I include in this newsletter a list of the more important updates such as date changes, cancellations or late additions to the calendar. Late additions are events which will take place in the next two to three weeks and have only just been added to the website.
Late additions
- Mt Tennent Challenge / ACT Mountain Running Championships on April 5th
- Griffith Bacchus on the Lake on April 18th
Corrections and updates
- Minnippi Parklands Cross Country has changed from April 5th to 12th
- YMCA of Canberra Half Marathon has changed from 24/25 May to 17/18 May
- The ultra at the Great Barrier Reef Marathon Festival this year will be 84km; in previous years it was 74km; this event is on November 9th
- Simpson Desert Adventure Crossing has changed from April 22nd 2014 to April 22nd 2015
Have a great running week!
Regards,
Chris - Sydney Trail SeriesMarch 26, 2014Latest Update: Added series dates from 26 Apr 2014 to 09 Nov 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/sydney-trail-series/
The Sydney Trail Series has been established to provide great monthly trail running races to both Sydneysiders and those from further afield.
Every month there are short (6 to 8km), medium (10 to 12km) and long (18 to 24km) distances. Occasionally there are "feature rounds" which include longer distances, for example the Big Trail Run and Big Coast Run. - YMCA Of Canberra Half MarathonMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Event dates have changed from 24/25 May to 17/18 May 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/ymca-of-canberra-half-marathon/
The YMCA of Canberra Half Marathon is certified accurate with each kilometre being marked. The first 7.1km are on roads and the remaining 14km are on the recreation trails around the West Basin of Lake Burley Griffin. The half marathon can be run solo, or as a two person relay team.
There are also associated events the day before: a 1.6K mini jog and 5K fun run. These are free to YMCA of Canberra Runners Club members. All others wishing to run will be required to complete an YCRC One Day Membership. There is no online entry for these two events; simply enter on the day. - Paws on the PathMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Created listing with link to online entry, event date: 25 Apr 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/paws-on-the-path/
Paws on the Path is a walk/run for you and your dog at Redlynch Valley in Queensland, with all proceeds from the event donated to YAPS, bar out of pocket expenses of the volunteers.
There are 10km, 5km and 3km events; note that dogs are not permitted on the 10km event. Your dog must be on a lead at all times and you must clean up after your dog. You do not need to run with a dog if you do not want to. - Mount Walker Fun RunMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added link to PDF entry form for event on 22 Jun 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/mount-walker-fun-run/
The Mount Walker Fun Run is a 4km run and walk at Mount Walker in Queensland, 10km south of Hughenden. There is also a 2.4km event for under 12 year olds.
The Porcupine Gorge Challenge is on the day before this event, 73km north of Hughenden. See the related events for more details. - Porcupine Gorge ChallengeMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added link to online entry and PDF entry form for event on 21 Jun 2014; entries open 31 Mar 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/porcupine-gorge-challenge/
The Porcupine Gorge Challenge is an 8km race along the base of Porcupine Gorge which is 73km north of Hughenden in Queensland. There are also 3.6km under 16 and 1.6km under 12 events.
See also the Mount Walker Fun Run in the related events which is held on Sunday at Mount Walker, 10km south of Hughenden. - ACT Mountain Running ChampionshipsMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added next event date with link to online entry and PDF entry form: 05 April 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/act-mountain-running-championships/
The Mt Tennent Challenge / ACT Mountain Running Championships in 2014 have 11kms senior men, 8km senior women & junior men, 6km junior women and all comers 6km races.
This is an uphill event; all competitors finishing at the summit are responsible for making their own way back down the mountain, unless injured, after completing their event. - Wagga Wagga Road Runners Trail Marathon Running WeekendMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added link to online entry for events on 16/17 Aug 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/wagga-wagga-trail-marathon-running-weekend/
The Wagga Wagga Road Runners Trail Marathon Running Weekend has 5km and 10km run/walk on Saturday August 16th and half marathon, full marathon and a 2 to 4 person marathon relay on Sunday August 17th 2014.
All runs start and finish at the Wagga beach, with the exception of the half marathon, which starts at the mid-point of the marathon. The beach is a popular location for swimming and canoeing, with sand along the water's edge and large grassy areas surrounding. It is also a great spot for runners to gather after their run, to enjoy the free barbecue and cool off in the waters of the Murrumbidgee River.
Runners can recover from the Sunday runs with a free BBQ lunch at the Wagga beach, expected to start at around 10:00 am. - TrailACTMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added next event dates with link to online entry: 21 Sep & 09 Nov 2014 (online entries are not yet open)
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/trailact/
La Sportiva TrailACT trail races at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in ACT.
Please note the details on this page are based on the 2013 events and are subject to change. We will update this listing as more information comes to hand about the 2014 events.
Access to the Nature Reserve is included in the event entry; there is a small discounted fee for spectators, support crew, family and friends for entry into the reserve. - Sandy PointMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added link to online entry for event on 24 Aug 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/sandy-point-half/
The Eat Fit Food Sandy Point at Green Point, Brighton in Melbourne has a half marathon, 10km and 5km run/walk events.
For those looking to challenge themselves, Sandy Point Half provides an opportunity to run a PB or participate in what's known as one of Melbourne's most scenic half-marathon courses, boasting unparalleled views of Port Phillip Bay. For the more serious runners, it is a great warm-up or test run for an upcoming marathon. - Spartan Race VictoriaMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added super event on 06 Dec 2014 & sprint event on 07 Dec 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/spartan-race-victoria/
Spartan Race in Victoria is a race over hills, creeks and gullies with a variety of obstacles designed to challenge your strength, speed and agility.
Spartan Race is the toughest, most competitive obstacle race series in the world. With dozens of events across America, Canada, Europe and Australia, it has become a truly global race series. You will run, jump, crawl and climb over a selection of custom-built obstacles designed to test your overall strength, balance and endurance! - Spartan Race New South WalesMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added super event on 11 Oct 2014 & sprint event on 12 Oct 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/spartan-race-new-south-wales/
Spartan Race in New South Wales is a race over hills, creeks and gullies with a variety of obstacles designed to challenge your strength, speed and agility.
Spartan Race is the toughest, most competitive obstacle race series in the world. With dozens of events across America, Canada, Europe and Australia, it has become a truly global race series. You will run, jump, crawl and climb over a selection of custom-built obstacles designed to test your overall strength, balance and endurance! - Parkinson's Victoria Walk in the ParkMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added next event date: 31 Aug 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/parkinsons-victoria-walk-in-the-park/
The Parkinson's Victoria Walk in the Park a 4km non-competitive walk along Melbourne's Yarra River to celebrate the lives of family and friends who have been touched by Parkinson's.
Please note the details on this page are based on the 2013 event and are subject to change. We will update this listing as more information comes to hand about the 2014 event.
This event starts from Federation Square and includes free entertainment and activities for the kids, a traditional sausage sizzle, and a chance meet new people and catch up with friends and family. - Parkinson's Unity Walk PerthMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added next event date: 14 Sep 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/parkinsons-unity-run-walk-perth/
The Parkinson's Unity Walk in Perth is a 4km or 2km walk and all money raised goes to charity.
Please note the details on this page are based on the 2013 event and are subject to change. We will update this listing as more information comes to hand about the 2014 event.
This event is held at Perry Lakes Reserve in Perth, Western Australia. Facilities include a children's playground, plenty of space for picnics and BBQ, tall trees, shady picnic spots and a skate board ramp. - Parkinson's Unity Walk CanberraMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added next event date: 31 Aug 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/parkinsons-unity-run-walk-canberra/
The Parkinson's Unity Walk in Canberra has 2km and 3.5km walking events and all money raised goes to charity.
Please note the details on this page are based on the 2013 event and are subject to change. We will update this listing as more information comes to hand about the 2014 event.
This event is held at Rond Terrace, Commonwealth Park East and walks past Nerang Pool, continues towards Regatta Point and returns via the Menzies Walk along the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. There are plenty of short cuts for anyone who needs them. - Parkinson's Unity Walk SydneyMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added next event date: 31 Aug 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/parkinsons-unity-run-walk-sydney/
The Parkinson's Unity Walk in Sydney has 4km walking and 8km running event options and all money raised goes to charity.
Please note the details on this page are based on the 2013 event and are subject to change. We will update this listing as more information comes to hand about the 2014 event.
This event is held at Sydney Olympic Park amongst a backdrop of iconic venues and bushland. - Parkinson's Unity Walk BrisbaneMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added next event date: 31 Aug 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/parkinsons-unity-run-walk-brisbane/
The Parkinson's Unity Walk in Brisbane is a 4km walk and all money raised goes to charity.
Please note the details on this page are based on the 2013 event and are subject to change. We will update this listing as more information comes to hand about the 2014 event.
This event is held at New Farm Park in Brisbane, Queensland. The facilities available at New Farm Park include accessible toilets, playground, water, barbecues, shelter, wheelchair access, basketball half-court, BMX, skating and rollerblading. - Parkinson's Unity Walk AdelaideMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added next event date: 14 Sep 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/parkinsons-unity-run-walk-adelaide/
The annual Parkinson's Unity Walk in Adelaide is a 4.5km walk around the stunning River Torrens precint, along with a 2.5km short course option.
Please note the details on this page are based on the 2013 event and are subject to change. We will update this listing as more information comes to hand about the 2014 event.
The Unity Walk raises awareness and significant funds to helps in the fight against Parkinson's disease. Your participation and fundraising through sponsorship, will help Parkinson's South Australia to deliver support programmes, services and advocacy to people living with Parkinson's. It will also enable further education of the health sector about Parkinson's and related issues and support research in South Australia. - Minnippi Parklands Cross CountryMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Next event date has changed from 05 to 12 Apr 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/minnippi-parklands-cross-country/
The Minnippi Parklands Cross Country is a 1km, 2km, 3km, 4km and 6km cross country run/walk in Brisbane organised by the Thompson Estate Athletics and Cross Country Club.
It is open to non-members as well as club members. - Mini-Mos Community Fun Run and FairMarch 25, 2014Latest Update: Added link to online entry for event on 15 Jun 2014
Read Full Post Online: http://www.runningcalendar.com.au/event/mini-mos-community-fun-run-and-fair/
The annual Mini-Mos Community Fun Run and Fair in Mosman, Sydney, NSW has 10km, 5km and 2km running/walking events.
As well as the running events there is a community fair, which features a fun slide, adventure rides, sideshow alley, dunk tank, junior zone, treasure hunt, sausage sizzle and more.
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