One sweet weekend

Lots of fun was had this past weekend, but the legs are feeling the effects. I can tell that I’m getting into the meat of marathon training now; the legs are starting to get the dull ache of accumulated fatigue that will hopefully forge them into resilient, efficient, powerful pistons by race day. There are still 8 weeks until Grandma’s Marathon though, plenty of miles of long runs and minutes of tempo work still to come.

Friday afternoon we had our biggest TNC training group showing yet, six athletes got together down in Northfield for a 6x1 mile tempo workout. Nate and I found a new mile loop a couple weeks ago with even less climbing than the previous flat mile loop Nichole and I had been using. It was wonderful weather Friday, only my second no shirt workout of the year, and there were lots of kids out playing and parents sitting in the driveway watching as we sailed by. I had a good workout, just going by feel all of my times were within a few seconds of each other, and more amazingly they were around 5:30 pace. I don’t think I've ever had a tempo workout that fast, so I’m not really sure what was going on. My Tuesday workout was nowhere near that pace, nor was my race Sunday actually.

Friday night I went up to the Midwest Mountaineering Expo to listen to Nichole perform her talk on qualifying for and racing the Olympic Trials marathon (sadly with no juggling involved). I had heard most of the stories before, but it was a good reminder of how hard a person has to work to get close to their potential at something. I often got to see first-hand how dedicated she was to pursuing that goal, how hard she worked and how much she was willing to hurt, not just in hard workouts but dealing with high miles and weeks of fatigue in the hardest part of her training cycles, and it was very motivating for me to keep up my focus on Grandma’s. That focus will be much needed for the week of 40 degrees and nonstop rain that is forecast.

Nichole on her way to a world record

Saturday I spent some time with my friend Krystal. We went paddling in the morning, my first time in a canoe this year. My paddling is rusty, but it comes back a bit easier every year. Then we went on a yoga crawl bike ride thing around Minneapolis and I got to see a shortcut or two around the city I hadn't been on before. I had never done a guided Yoga class before, and I was feeling it by the time we finished.

Yoga crawl crew riding the Loring Greenway

Sunday morning Nate and Nichole picked me up for the Maple Syrup Run. I planned to run the 10k and Nate and Nichole were both in the 5k. We hoped that by running different races Nate and I could both potentially win some fantastic maple syrup. (Important tip when cherry picking races: Don’t just pick races you can win, pick races you can win that give away awesome prizes). Plus this race is on fun trails and there is a pancake breakfast afterwards, it is a real gem for a small production race. A couple of my co-workers were also running the 10k, so there were some familiar faces around. After a rain/lightning delay (rain seems to be the theme of my racing season so far) the races got underway. Nate and Nichole ran smart races and both won their respective events by several minutes. I got into an early lead in the 10k and never looked back. I was apparently one of the only ones who looked at the map ahead of the race, or figured out that they randomly used some 5k trail markers to also mark the 10k course, so I avoided getting lost unlike many of the other 10k racers. I won the 10k with a time of 37:53, which was also good enough for 52^nd place overall according to the results which did not divide up the 5k and 10k races.

Fun trails, sweet prizes, and a pancake breakfast. This race is great.

After a fun afternoon hanging out with my friend Molly, who brought me some delicious pizza in exchange for helping her summer wax her skis I headed out for a few more miles to make the day my long run day. The wind was fierce, and I did what I could to avoid it, but there are a lot of open fields around Northfield, so that wasn't always possible. For a while I was working to hold 10:00 mile pace heading into the wind, and I stumbled a couple times when it would let up for a second I was pushing into it so hard. I stayed dry until the last couple miles though, and I had only been back in the shelter of my house for two or three minutes before it started just pouring down, so all in all my timing was good.

A great day for TNC runners

Onward to another big running week, 6 hard weeks until taper time.

All or nothing

I had a project going on at work yesterday over lunch time and missed my chance to get out and run with Nichole or bike with the EMVC crew. This meant if I was going to run it would be on my own after work. I haven’t done a hard running workout by myself in a while, usually I am running with someone around town, or else I do the hard workout as a bike or rollerski instead. This made the task of getting out the door for a hard workout a daunting one and I was strongly debating taking the day off. Never did I seriously entertain the thought of just going out for an easy run, it was all or nothing. Is it crazy to have this mindset, that if I am not going to do my target workout it isn’t worth going out at all? What do you think dear reader, are you more likely to make a workout easier to get yourself out the door, or just give up all together and take the day off?

Once I was out running I gave myself the option of reducing the number of intervals I wanted to do, but never really thought about cutting the workout short. When it was time to go hard I looked forward to it, easy miles were not what I wanted today. The times were not quite on, but the effort was there for the most part, so I’m ok with that.

On a different note we got a new organization chart at work today, and here is the strategic overview. Since I didn’t have any shiny new pictures to put up today, you’ll have to settle for this.

Pretty sure I’m not giving away and company secrets by putting that fella up on the blog. Companies generally try to focus on growth while maintaining their current business. I’m ostensibly affected by these changes, and even I don’t gain any insight from this diagram. Does it mean that our growth engine (whatever that is) should be as large of a focus as core operations? The circles are the same size after all. What is in the overlapping region, resources, personnel, “focus”, heck if I know. What I do know is it will help us “keep mediocrity at bay”, and who doesn’t want that!

Raingnarok

Another long post. If you don't want to read the whole thing here is the recap so you can just scroll through and look at the pretty pictures (none of which are my pictures FYI). I did a really wet and muddy gravel bike race that included lightning and big hills, dropped out early to get to a wedding, did in fact get to the wedding (just) in time, and had a merry evening eating, drinking, and dancing with friends and family.

Well, if you read my last post you heard my plan for the weekend. Like any good plan that I make there is always a hiccup or two. The first one this weekend is not being able to get someone to shuttle my car from the start line to Lake City, where I planned to drop out. On to plan B - park at the drop out point and bike to the start. I was not a huge fan of this plan because it means getting up extra early and biking in the dark and probably rain, as well as having no dry vehicle to camp out in until the race starts. The competitor in me says this is a bad idea, not ideal race prep at all. The adventurer in me says why not, I'm not finishing anyway, and it would be a more legit day if I at least get a century in. I was briefly tempted to ride the course from the second checkpoint to the finish, but my desire to sleep in a bit later won out and I opted to take the more direct paved route to the start up HWY 61 instead.

Lake City, where the days adventure begins

So I set the alarm for 4:30 and packed all my bags and laid out clothes the night before so all I would have to do is get dressed, grab my stuff, and go in the morning; no thinking required. It was only lightly misting when I got to Lake City, and it didn't feel all that cold, so I was hopeful that my clothing selection would be adequate. My modified a garbage bag rain vest and U of M ski racing spandex that got some comments from riders in their nice rain gear at the start line, but my gear mostly did the trick.
I got checked in caught up with the other Northfield riders Dave, Bruce, Joe, and Paul, who were getting ready to go as the rain continued to intensify. The race rolled out and the gravel was in surprisingly good shape as long as you picked the right line. A lead pack of about 15 riders split within a couple miles, and I settled in to the first chase pack. After the first grinding climb up the pace was quite reasonable, and the weather continued to deteriorate. When we got to the top of Hill Valley Road is when we saw the first lightning bolts a few miles away. The peal of thunder would occasionally drown out the sound of wet wheels rolling through softening gravel. By the time we reached the top of the Weibusch Hill climb the lightning was quite a bit closer, with the thunder often sounding almost on top of the lightning strike, and the bolts were very visible along the horizon. The light show was nice, but I was glad to drop back down into the valley.

It looked kind of like this, but with a lot more rain

My pack missed the turn for the first MMR, but caught on almost right away and started up the Grosse Point Climb. I had to dismount briefly near the top and run a few strides when my wheel slipped out on some wet leaves, but didn't lose any time on my pack. The next MMR, nicknamed Scary Farm, I rode the whole hill, but had to get off and hike a few hundred meters through a snowfield at the top.

Scary Farm climb, you can just see the snow at the top

There were long stretches into the wind on the way to the first checkpoint at Zumbro falls, and I was getting progressively colder as we kept going. By the time we got to the check point I was shivering and could make a fist and watch the water pour out of my gloves, but it was good to see Jake's smiling face and get out of the rain for a minute or two. I managed to choke down some food and hop back on my bike just behind Bruce Anderson. I caught up to him and we rode together for the next 20 miles or so. The rain had stopped, and my spirits were increasing, even as my legs were feeling more and more depleted. At the base of every hill Bruce would tell me he was slowing down and letting me go, but at the top of the hill there he was, still right on my wheel. Eventually I had to stop and pee, and he got away from me, never to be seen again. My legs were feeling quite heavy and I couldn't tell if my stomach was hungry or upset at this point, and for a while I was worried about holding food down if I tried to eat, but finally decided to give it a try, and the shot of energy was just what I needed to break out of my bonk a bit.
Shortly after parting ways with Bruce the race went through the Zumbro River bottoms. The Zumbro 100 ultramarathon was going on and it was great fun to share a trail with some pretty crazy runners for a bit. It made me glad to be on a bike though. The Zumbro midnight 50 was the other race I was considering this weekend, but biking 100 miles starting at 6 AM sounded more fun than running 50 miles starting at midnight. There were a lot of runners sporting plastic bag raincoats similar to my own however, so I did feel a nice sense of camaraderie with these folks and I cheered for every one of them that I went by.

Part of the path we shared with the Zumbro trail runners

I knew there were 10 major climbs between the start and Lake City, so I was counting down every time I made it up one of them, so I knew coming out of the Zumbro bottoms was my last major climb which gave me the gusto I needed to make it up. I thought I saw another rider in a yellow jacket close behind me when I started the climb, but he was nowhere in sight when I got to the top, so I thought maybe I was starting to hallucinate phantom riders, maybe not a good sign. After another 15 miles or so I started to get hungry again, and with 12 miles still to cover I figured eating would a good plan. While I was was fishing my Clif bar out of it's protective plastic bag in my back pocket the phantom rider in the yellow coat went by me. Not a figment of my oxygen starved imagination after all, whew!
I rolled into the next checkpoint at 83.5 miles and officially dropped out of the race. I took a circuitous route back to my car to put in the last couple miles I needed to make sure I got over the 100 mile mark for the day. My total time was 6:13:37, a bit over my 6 hour goal, which meant not enough time to get home and shower before the wedding. According to my GPS my average pace was 13.9 mph, pretty darn close to my target of 14 mph to make the timing work out right, so I'm counting that as a success.

I didn't get a picture of myself when I finished, but I probably looked a lot like this, but more wet.

I called a friend who was on my route to see if I could stop and shower at his place, but he wasn't around, so car shower it was. I brought a couple extra water bottles and a towel with just in case. I was able to remove the worst of the sweat and dirt from the race and slap on some deodorant and a tie before heading in to the ceremony with a good 3-4 minutes to spare.

Lisa and Sam Pertz - Congratulations you two!

The wedding was a fun time. There were a lot of Amery people there, and many of the guys and gals I ran with in high school. Also a lot of camp Wapo folks who I have gotten to know throughout the years either from hanging out at camp or through other random channels. I met Nate's sister Kristen, who was a camp worker who I guess I just never crossed paths with before, or at least not since meeting Nate for sure. Dancing proved to be even more of a struggle than usual for me with 100 miles on my legs for the day, and I was feeling a bit tipsy halfway through my first glass of wine, but getting some more food in my stomach helped out immensely. I have really amazing friends, and when I get to see so many of them at the same time it is always a great occasion for me. Kinda makes me want to throw my own wedding party someday, but that isn't happening anytime soon. A fact my parents made sure to remind me of at the reception.
I was tired enough on Sunday that I dodged Nate's invitation to go running. My short bike ride to church and back was plenty for the day, but running felt great today, and Grandma's marathon keeps getting closer, so it's time to start taking running a bit more seriously now that my big biking challenge for the spring is behind me.

Ready to Rok

A busy weekend ahead for me. My friend Jake talked me into sending in a postcard for his gravel race, the Ragnarok 105. I did a couple gravel races last fall and really enjoyed them. What threw a wrench in to matters is that soon after I sent in my postcard I received a "save the date" card for my friend Sam's wedding, on the same day. So the theme tomorrow will be timing.

I already figured that I won't have time to finish the entire race, so my plan is to make it to the second checkpoint at Lake City and drop out there. In years past this has been around the 85 mile mark, which means at the absolute slowest I need to maintain a 14 mph average if I want to make it to the wedding on time. I figure I will need a little over 2 hours to get from the race to the wedding, plus a little extra time to change and shower. Fortunately stopping home isn't too out of the way so I should be able to make that happen, although I plan to bring an extra water bottle, soap, and a towel with in case I end up crunched for time.

The 14 mph average should be attainable, since both of my gravel races so far I've held a 16 mph average, but there are several factors that could make this more difficult.

1. Rain - Which is almost guaranteed tomorrow for some or all of the race. Both of my races before have been in dry conditions, allowing for some easy drafting, visibility, and better traction. Also gear stays dry, light, and easily accessible, and cue sheets stay dry.
2. Peanut butter - Not the food, the condition that gravel can take on when it gets a nice dousing of rain such as what tonight and tomorrow has on offer. The roads get soft, slick, and very slow, and the mud sticks to your bike and everything else it hits.
3. Wind - Dropping out at Lake City means I get to all of the headwind sections of the course and stop before getting the nice tailwind blow home.
4. Springtime - Both of my previous races were in the fall, which means I had an entire summer to get used to being on the bike, now I've had only a few short weeks.

That said, the gravel roads around Red Wing are really great, and if I can see through the mud and rain well enough there are some great views on offer. Plus, if I ever start to question my sanity, I can just remember that the pro peloton will be over racing Paris-Roubaix, which sounds much worse than this race, and that my other race option for this weekend was to do a 50 mile run that started at Midnight.

I'm looking forward to an action packed day tomorrow. Epic gravel racing conditions, a fun wedding with lots of friends, food, and probably dancing. Also, this Sunday is Palm Sunday, maybe my favorite Sunday of the church year. As a kid I just loved playing with the palm branches, now I love the celebratory feel of the day. A preview of a victorious Jesus that is easier to comprehend than the eternal implications of the Easter victory. Also a reminder that earthly victories are fleeting as the Palm Sunday victory leads to holy week and apparent defeat on Good Friday.

Adventuretime

Friday was Jeff's first scheduled track workout of the year, so Nate, Nichole, and I were going to meet him at the Carleton track to do the workout. Since Nichole was going to be there Jeff didn't really bother to make sure he knew the workout ahead of time, so when she didn't show up we kind of made up our own workout based on what he did remember and what I know of how Nichole's workouts generally go. We planned on 6 sets of 200,200,200,400 at 38 seconds for the 200's and 78 seconds for the 400's. A fast, controlled pace for 6k of track work. After the second set Nate and Nichole showed up and told us the workout was supposed to be speed, so it was 4 sets at 32 for the 200's and 74 for the 400's. Taking off those extra 6 seconds off really hurt. I didn't feel too bad that evening, but Saturday morning my legs were not happy with the speed work.

Luckily Saturday I had planned to do some bike riding, which I was hoping would be easy on my sore legs. I was right, for a while anyway. I entered the Ragnarok 105 gravel race over in Red Wing this year and wanted to at least get a decent baseline of where my biking fitness is, make sure my bike is still in good condition, remember how to dress for biking in cool weather, and figure out how much I should be eating and drinking on long rides again. So I stuffed my pockets with food and tools and headed out. Ski season is always my most social time of year, even more so this year with Vakava practice every Wednesday and carpooling with Nate for many skis, and a long road trip down to Indiana filled with a weekend of really no alone time, so my goal for Saturday was to not talk to anyone and hopefully catch up with my own thoughts a bit. This is something long overdue with ski season and everything else that has been going on recently. Long bike rides can be good for that kind of stuff. That lasted all of 10 minutes however, before I even got out of town I ran into Rael out for a run with her body builder of a Vizsla Max, and if I see someone I'm not going to rudely ignore them, so we chatted briefly before going our separate ways.

I was overdressed for the ride out, but things felt pretty smooth and easy. I headed North because there was supposed to be a bit of a North wind and I wanted some help coming home, but that turned out to be false. The wind had already shifted and was coming out of the South, adding to the effortless feel of the ride out. I didn't really plan a route, so I ended up skirting the edge of Farmington along some interesting, curvy, paved trails before finding gravel again. Then I saw this wonderful sign, a sign of adventure!

Minimum Maintenance Road - this way to gravel adventure

Perhaps more adventure than I really intended. I had to crawl under a closed gate to get onto this MMR, which is a pretty good sign that the road is not going to be plowed. I was able to ride up and over the first little bump in the road (which you can see in the background of the picture above) and that was about as far as I made it on the bike. The snow wasn't all that deep, but it was deep enough, and there was ice underneath, that I couldn't keep my bike moving in any direction consistently, so it was faster to hop off and run. Since I do a fair amount of running (although usually not in bike shoes) I had no problem with carrying on with this adventure on foot. The road cut through the Vermillion Highlands natural area, so there was some nice scenery to take in. I was poking along, but not making bad time. I figured if I pushed on I might hit a normal road in a mile or two, because that is how country roads are spaced. After two miles however what I found was a turn as the road stopped going East and started going North, for an undetermined amount of time. It turns out that shoe covers make good snow catchers, so my feet were very cold and wet by this point, so I opted to turn around where at least I had a known distance to cover to get back to good roads. I heard from Jake yesterday that the Ragnarok MMR's may be in similar condition to this one, so I'm glad I went exploring to get a taste for what I might be dealing with in the race.

The condition of the sign shows how minimum the maintenance is here.

After making my way back out to more civilized roads I decided to head for home before my now very wet feet got too cold. Turning back South however I immediately noticed how much the wind had picked up in the time I was off exploring. My legs were also feeling the miles of running through the snow on top of Friday's workout. This part of the workout I was maybe more in my own head then I wanted to be, but what endurance athlete hasn't questioned their life decisions when they are fighting a headwind out in the middle of nowhere and are just hoping their legs hold up long enough to drag them back to the refrigerator. At least it wasn't dark or raining.  Then I turned out of the wind onto the beautiful gravel of Sciota Trail which winds it's way along the Cannon River, ate a granola bar, and all was once again right with the world.

Sunday was too nice not get out for a workout, so I put in my first "long" run of the season. Seventeen miles of fun gravel hills heading out to Farmer Trail and back. One of my favorite routes on foot or on bike. I saw a few of Northfield's gravel riding community just turning off of Farmer Trail when I was turning on to it. I was smart enough to start heading South, so I had the tailwind to help me home this day. I even ran without a shirt for a majority of the run home, it was that nice of a day. The week since has been less than pleasant; I'm going on about 10 total hours of sleep and already over 30 hours of work this week, so the energy reserves are getting a bit low, plus the snow/rain/sleet in the forecast doesn't sound as nice as 60 and sunny was.

So dear reader, where do you find adventure in your world? Random runs/bikes/walks with no idea where you are, going off recipe in kitchen experiments, exploring new isles in the public library? Let me know in the comments, and keep exploring!