TrailRunning

Trail Running

"The only thing worse than being talked about... is not being talked about."

-Graham Chapman as Oscar Wilde

And the only thing worse than trail running is not trail running. The purpose of this page is to describe how and why I entered a trail running race, the Imogene Pass Run, for four years (2001--2004). Hopefully these remarks are encouraging to anyone interested in the idea of running not-on-asphalt. Hopefully the Imogene runs will continue, although I was obliged to skip the 2005 race.

My motivation for writing a page about trail running is born from a conviction that one can be a mediocre or terrible or even non- athlete and still get a lot out of this sport. Talking about a personal subject (for me) like trail running requires a certain degree of personal revelation, which I've never been particularly good at. I'll start off by getting that out of the way, but first some links:

My Condition if you're interested in where the author is coming from.
The Silver Streak if you're interested in the author's approach to trail running.
2005 to see a record of how the game plan went in 2005.
And Then... to see what happened next.
Skip this page if you're interested in anything--please--but trail running.

My Condition: Gory Details

"Mr L Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based
life form descended from an ape. More specifically he was forty, fat and shabby and
worked for the local council. Curiously enough, though he didn't know it, he was also
a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and
racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid
characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr L Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a

pronounced stoutness about the tum and a predilection for little fur hats."
from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Physically I'm not in good shape. In addition to matching the description of Mr L Prosser quite closely and having creaking joints I'm also 'Factor V-Leiden positive' which means I am hypercoagulable or prothrombic... in other words, prone to life-threatening blood clots. In fact I had a couple big ones in my legs in 1995 that hospitalized me and left me with vascular damage in my legs. Nowadays I occasionally get small clots that last for days to weeks to months; these make it painful to get around. To manage this condition I take Sodium Warfarin ("coumadin"), a blood thinner they often give you after you have an operation. It's also an effective rat poison. I take it forever or until a better solution comes along.

The bottom line is I work at getting healthy: diet and exercise. Empirically I'm doing ok; I have a sort of sawtooth condition/weight curve over time but the trend has been in the correct direction since I moved to Colorado in 1998 and started running as a dedicated pasttime. If I have one thing operating in my favor it is a predilection for being stubborn (in addition to the one for hats). Working against me: I am easily distracted and can desist running for long periods when other things become interesting.

One other remark on physical condition: When I start a jag of consistent running I have serious cramping issues. Avoiding them is easy: I just need to drink a lot of water and stretch before falling asleep at night. The other night I failed to do this and decided to get up off the couch at some point. So I moved my leg sideways and all the muscles on one side (the adductors I think) decided to try and curl into little detached spheres. This hurts a lot, particularly when one set of cramps sets off another set of cramps in another part of my leg (or on the other leg).

I have to remember to stay highly motivated to hydrate and stretch...

The Silver Streak
The number one thing I am good at when it comes to trail running is not speed. Nor is it distance. Nor is it climbing hills. Not descending hills either. Not running in the flat. Not drinking beer after a run. Not kicking hard at the end or starting off well. Not pushing myself, not running with good form. Not staying healthy consistently for years at a stretch. I'm rotten at all of that.

The number one thing I am good at is outrunning fenceposts. There has not been a fencepost sunk into the ground on this planet that I cannot outrun. This may not seem that important, I know, but it is, so I'm bothering telling you so. Outrunning fenceposts and the occasional tree is important because if I held myself to higher trail-running standards I would never leave the house. You have to understand that going for a run in and around Boulder is a little bit like trying to get in a few baskets during a Boston Celtics practice. I was running a couple weeks ago when I was silently passed from behind by a running club... from Kenya. I kid you not. My officemate took something like 15th place in the Hardrock 100 this summer. I kid you not. This is a 100 mile race that takes place at an average elevation of about 11,000 feet above sea level and has something like 70,000 feet of total elevation change. I kid you not. Again, that's over 100 miles. It took him 33 hours. Here is how he describes the experience.

So this brings me back to racing against fenceposts. Really what that means is consistently getting outside to do a workout, never mind my lack of speed, my condition, the world-class runners zooming past or any of the other myriad reasons to stay home. Sometimes I am very consistent, sometimes not, and six-plus years of working at it has led to my personal First Paradox of Running.

First Paradox: The 2.8 Time Factor.

This is time spent planning the run, making time for the run, getting there, getting changed, getting back, getting cleaned up, and mentioning that I went running to anybody who gets in my way. By far the most important of these little running-support activities is the one that took me the longest to figuring out: Planning the run is really important and easy to mess up. This leads to the Second Rule.

Second Paradox: Planning(Time(Time(Time(Time...()...))))

Making time to plan runs sounds like a dumb thing; I should be able to just say: 'Tomorrow I'll run at lunch' and be done with it. For me, this does not work. For me, if I do not go into some more detail then I will fail to run, even odds. For me runs can not be improvised because (a) life is demanding and (b) there are many fun easy things to do and (c) running is hard. Consequently when I do try to improvise runs it is all too easy for other things to assert themselves and prevent me from running. At least on a consistent basis. Some serious runners describe running as an addiction, and while I think I understand that a little, to me not running is more of an addiction. That is, running consistently takes a lot of discipline and effort. Thankfully there are several levels of reward that proceed from successfully being consistent.

Incidentally running on trails means that you are constantly shifting your balance and coping with small obstacles. This plus the relatively soft surface (relative to asphalt for example) means that trail running avoids some of the injury hazards of running on roads. There are two tradeoffs: You run faster on streets and you have a better chance of getting eaten by a bear on a trail.

Here are some personal reasons for running, often predicated on consistency.

Syndrome #1: Post Run Euphoria
Crank that stereo. (I feel great every time I finish a run... or at least some part of me feels great.)

Syndrome #2: Existential Euphoria
It's good to be alive. Running consistently improves my day-to-day-moment-by-moment joy of life.

Syndrome #3: Energy
Let me carry that for you. I have more juke and more jump when I'm running consistently, get more done too.

Syndrome #4: Clear Head Good Idea Syndrome
Wait a second; I think mass and energy might be different forms of the same thing... Time spent running on trails is time to think differently; this can lead to a good idea or two. Then I run faster so I can get back and try it out.

Syndrome #5: Short Term Challenge Effect
Can I run to the top of this hill? I bet I can... I think of my slowest running speed as a low-gear for recovering from exertion, for example climbing a hill. Knowing I always have low gear available makes it easier to push for brief intervals.

Syndrome #6: Grind It Out Effect
"Ok grind ten more minutes and it's the fun downhill section." Really long runs (say longer than two hours) require a certain amount of dealing with tedium, but doing so is also a kind of reward.

Syndrome #7: Stepping on the Scale
Golly I've lost a pound... I'm wasting away here... Wendy's for lunch today! (Sorry; that's a trap for me, a false and wicked and evil conclusion.) I have my best resuls when I work on my (poor) native eating habits at the same time that I'm consistent with running. And that means avoiding burger joints in favor of Thai food and cooking good stuff at home. This is also part of that x2.8 rule; it takes longer to eat properly. But doing so--in concert with a consistent running program--means that I do in fact eventually lose excess weight. Which is good. But I try and keep it as a consequence of the hard work rather than an objective of focus. If I become too weight-obsessed I get anxious and consequently make no progress.

Syndrome #8: Rolling Out the Miles
If I knock out another six that's 43 miles this week... holy cats! It can be utterly astonishing to find out how far I can run in a week after a couple months of running consistently. And that has important implications for summer runs that cover twenty miles through mountain meadows. Like they become possible.

Syndrome #9: Backpacking Trips in a Day
"No officer I don't have a backcountry permit; just here for the afternoon." ...which brings me to: When I was in college I was introduced to backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. A typical 3-day hike might cover 16 miles carrying 35 pounds of gear and food. Tents, sleeping bags, water filters, stove fuel, extra socks and layers of clothing, toenail clippers and moleskin and flashlights and pot scrubbers. The list goes on. But lo and behold: Trail running lets me to do the same trip in one day (provided I make an early start). In fact my favorite long summer run covers about 15 miles including a three mile stretch along the continental divide. It takes seven hours and I just carry a camelback with water, some essentials and lunch. The trick is to walk the steep parts... and beware the treachery of mountain goats.

Syndrome #10: Crossovers
You want me to play underwater hockey??? Um... ok. How hard could this be? I find any other sport becomes much more enjoyable when I am not spending the entire time sucking wind. On the other hand, nothing can prepare you for underwater hockey, except maybe pearl-diving.

More On Consistency
Since consistency is so important I'd like to address it as an issue. The biggest enemy of consistency in my experience is having a rotten time running. As an extreme example, I have lost count of how many times I have seen people (usually men) in much better shape than me out on the trails running really really hard and fast... and puffing and struggling, red in the face. I'd bet money this is their first run in over a year. They zooming past resolved to Get Out And Start Running. I am also sure they finish their inaugural run in awesome time and are so sore and miserable after the exertion that they don't come out the next day or the next or the next.

This is not to belittle them because I have done the same thing, many many times. Finally I figured out that any time I run and it's not fun my chances of being consistent take a major hit. Here are some ideas I have for making running fun, starting with the most important, my third rule:

Third Paradox: Walking is Running.

Incidentally this Third Rule is something I'd be dubious about if I came up with it myself. But I didn't; I got it from my officemate who as mentioned runs 100 mile races at high altitude in the Colorado Rockies. He's nuts. And he insists that walking counts as running. So that's ok.

Other travel-on-foot counts as running also. 2 miles of snowshoeing counts as 3 miles of running. Running up Gregory Canyon toward Green Mountain (fairly steep) and back down over the course of 1 hour and 15 minutes counts as running 6 miles even though it is closer to half that in actual distance. And so on; I think one is free to make up conversion factors as needed.

To continue some ideas on how to keep it fun and stay consistent:

In general:
    Get the best shoes possible.
    Restrict mileage and build up slowly.
    Run slowly slowly slowly until running faster is fun.
    Run faster in short intervals until longer intervals are fun.
    If Not Having Fun: Think about why and change the conditions.
    Bring a friend or a canine.
        If leashes are required: See www.coldspotfeeds.com for dog harness / tugline / belly-band gear.
    Find other runners to form a mutual support and commiseration network.
    Research running trails, travel to them, and run them.

On short runs:
    Over-dress in cold weather. This is a matter of taste but I hate hate hate getting cold.
    Bring water for before and after but don't carry it along if out for under an hour; too heavy.
    Take mental notes as you go on equipment issues to fix before coming out again.

On long runs on road-accessible trails:
    Cache food and water along the way in advance rather than carrying it.

On long runs in backcountry:
    Use a larger camel-back with capacity for other gear and food in addition to water.
    Put a water purifier in the camelback to cut down on weight (really long runs).
    Take gloves, an ear-covering hat, a waterproof shell jacket, and an extra undershirt (capillene).
    Take along fried chicken or some other pure grease-and-protein.
    Take along toilet paper, a compass and a map.

2005
When I began this page I had 38 weeks prior to the 2005 IPR. Weeks and "miles per week" are my adopted training interval; this is a common distance training approach, e.g. for marathons. Below is (for me) an ambitious schedule running from December 2004 to IPR in early September 2005. It will be hard to hit the mileage goals but what the heck. (o's are goal-miles, the x's are miles run.) At the right actual quota miles run are listed. Extra miles may be distributed around to other weeks and back-filled when I don't hit the goals. This will make reading the chart a little confusing. The column at right shows miles run in the actual week over goal mileage. LR indicates a "Long Run" for that week.

Total distance goal is about 1200 miles.

-Dec--
01 13--19  xxxx                                                            4 /  4
02 20--26  xxxxx xxxxx xx                                                 13 / 12
03 27--02  xxxxx xxxxx xx                                                 13 / 12
--Jan--
04 03--09  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx x                                            16 / 16
05 10--16  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx x                                            16 / 16
06 17--23  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx x                                            16 / 16
07 24--30  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx                                        25 / 20
08 31--06  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx				          24 / 20
--Feb--
09 07--13  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx           (low mileage week; s'ok.)    10 / 20
10 14--20  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx     LR:12                        27 / 25
11 21--27  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxo ooooo     (achoo!)                     14 / 25
12 28--06  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx     LR:15                        27 / 25

Going into the "serious" phase of 30+ miles per week I'm a little behind
schedule but very happy with the miles and--most importantly--getting 
stronger with no major injury issues.  (205 / 211)

--Mar--
13 07--13  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxoo                            28 / 30
14 14--20  xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxoo ooooo ooooo (Estin Hut!)               18 / 30
15 21--27  xxxxx xxooo ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo                            7+ / 30
  plan: Th 5.1 Fr 10 Mesa Sa 14 


Hey, he's doing quite well...

...and then!!!...

How the author met with a terrible obstacle. Will he recover? Will he ever trail-run again? Stay tuned!!

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