Without music, I had alot of time to think during Saturday's Capital forest mega fat ass.

I have broken both my wife's and my mp3 players. It seems that they don't enjoy paddling as much as I do. They have never gone swimming but the moisture and spashing must just be too much for them. Usually, only one breaks and in a couple of months it works again after it dries out but now they both don't work.

At the beginning of the race, I started in the back to keep me from pushing out too hard. Also, I wanted to spend time talking to my friends. Ultrarunning has a great community and i only get to see alot of these guys during the winter runs. after that, i don't do many long running races. Unfortunately, alot of friends that said they would be there didn't show. I did get a surprise by Michelle M showing up for the run. I haven't seen her for a long time. I follow her blog with interest but actually seeing her was great. You think that you are up with someone by following their blog but actually seeing them without saying anything is much better.

When I started AR Michelle was with WAR and these guys were it in the PNW. Eventually we ended up doing some races together. I think that she just tolerated me back then. The first race we did was up in Canada. She didn't talk much and all I wanted to do was keep up. I can remember her asking me how I stayed on my bike with my stupid stomper pedals. I think that she actually called them tricycle pedals. It is possible that we had more in common than we both realized.

This race for me was mostly about training for baja. I realized that I will never be the best running, biking, or paddling because individually I consider them as a "b" races or training and never taper or train exclusively for these races. I didn't modify my training at all in the week before this race. I had 23 hrs in the seven days prior to this race so i didn't expect to break any records. I just wanted to remain healthy (injury free) and run consistently. My IT band has been hurting and I am on the brink of overtraining. However, it is a fine line between injury and pushing my performance and endurance to new levels. I have less than two months before I start tapering. At that point there are no more gains possible. the goals of my training are basically to improve my endurance and speed. For endurance races, it is all about my ability to move fast and over long distances when I am extremely tired. so to match the race conditions, i gradually increase my long days until i am eventually spending 6 hrs on foot or in boat and up to 10 hrs on bike. In addition, I like doing long back to back days in different sports. For example, I paddled for 4.5 hrs the day after the run. http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=912 In any event, I want to win baja and I will put in all I can now to give the team the best chance at success. You can veiw my training log by clicking the link to the right.
I am trying to figure out how to post my training plan as well.

For this race, I felt great, finished fourth eight minutes slower the last time I raced it. But I was very consistent in my pace which I was very happy about. It was also a beautiful run. Snow all around. I love Capital forest and would recommend it to anybody.

Here is what I ran with:

Montrail Odessey (great trail running shoe light with excellent toe box protection) with
Yanz and
Sole foot beds
Gregory Reactor Pack
Arc' Teryx Tau pullover (for first lap)
Fueled and Supplemented by Hammer
Perpetum (two flasks each with 3 scoops and three oz water)
Hammer gel
Each hour: Race cap, Mito cap, Anti Fatigue cap
ATP on the big hill

What put it all together was the nuun. I drank 100oz water. I used one tab of tri berry for each 20oz. I would recommend nuun to any serious athelte in any sport.

Later for now

Lord Cromwell