Six Months, a Birkie post

Ok, so a bit more has happened in the last six months than just the Birkie, but that is the reason I decided to dust this blog off, so here is a quick recap of everything leading up to the Birkie, then we'll get to the good stuff.

• DESNE Machine up and running.  This and other work issues are the reason the blog fell by the wayside, since I usually outlined the posts at work (I know, not really the best employee all the time).  Now between having a lot of actual work to do at work and making myself a resolution to work more at work blog posts will have to be laid out and written from home, competing with exercise, video games, cleaning, sleeping, and making delicious food.  Work is more fun though with a new machine to play with, at least when it works right.
• I ran a couple marathons last fall.  I paced Brooke Beskau at the twin cities marathon, her first marathon.  She ran an impressive 3:13:00 over ten minutes faster than my first marathon, also twin cities.  I also ran the rails to trails marathon in Norwalk, WI.  I set a new PR of 2:51:49, but could have run faster if I were more patient and didn't try to keep up with the race winner.
• I went up to Canmore to watch world cup racing and did some great skiing at Canmore, Banff, and Lake Louise.  Emily and I skied over the continental divide from Alberta into British Columbia, and it was great fun getting to see world cup racing up close and personal.
• The early ski season was a struggle with a lot of rain in January, so my first big race was City of Lakes.  I raced hard at the beginning, sat in a good pack for butler bog, and ended up with my highest place ever.  I then really struggled with the double pole heavy shortened Mora course and just barely held off Audrey Weber.  I tried the 50k at Finlandia and finished 3rd behind Wyn Roberts and John Munger.

On to the Birkie.  It was lucky number 13 for me.  Even after a good race at City I wasn't really sure where my fitness was after a rough January.  I got to the line a bit late and lined up next to Blake Hillerson near the back.  There was a lot of fresh snow so lanes formed quickly, making it pretty easy for me to move up in the first couple flat km.  I continued to push a bit to move up through the powerlines, I was feeling pretty relaxed still so I wasn't worried.  I passed Bjorn and gave him a wave as I went by.  After the big 7km climb I tucked into a pack and settled down.

I tried to stay near the front of the pack, but most of their skis were running a bit faster than mine, so I would lose a few spots each downhill.  On the gradual uphills though many of them broke into V1 pretty quickly so I could easily skip over, take a couple strong V2 strokes and move back up near the front.  I took a couple turns pulling but didn't push the pace, knowing I couldn't easily get away with my slower skis and not willing to try getting away on my own.  My running partner Nichole was at OO cheering, so it was great to see her, and my folks were working the gravel pit aid station at 31km, and I actually saw them this year and said hi as I went through.

Shortly after the gravel pit I decided I was still feeling good and I should probably try to make something happen, so I went to the front and racheted up the pace with a strong V2 up a gradual climb.  I pushed on for a couple km.  This section of trail was somewhat fresh in my mind because Jeff and I skied this as our boxing day ski this year.  I was bonking that day, but I felt great today, so I kept pushing a bit even though I heard skiers behind me and assumed most of my pack was still there.  I finally hit a good downhill and went in to a tuck, when the guy behind me yelled "Mr. Craiggerton, hop in the tracks".  I recognized Bjorn's voice right away, and a quick glance back showed that he was the only one of the pack who had hung on with me.

I let Bjorn take a pull and tucked in behind him.  I asked him about his recent engagement and got a very enthusiastic affirmation, followed by an admonition not to distract him while he was racing.  We traded off pulls a few times over the next several km and passed a few solo skiers and small groups here and there.  We started passing some of the elite women, who had started 20 minutes ahead of the men this year.  Bjorn's skis were running a bit faster than mine, so I got a couple good pole pushes from him on a couple of the downhills, and when I gapped him a bit on a couple of the climbs he was able to get back in contact pretty easily.  He took over for a bit when we hit the lake, but I could see another skier up ahead that I though we could catch, so I made it my goal to get us up to him.  I took a good long pull, but when  I looked back Bjorn was out of contact.  I decided to push on and caught the skier ahead just as we were going by the torch on the finishing stretch.

It was a gorgeous day for being outside, so after we changed and I got a more detailed account of Bjorn's proposal and engagement we grabbed some food and headed out to cheer.  We went looking for Travis, but he had finished already, and when we were on our way back Jeffy was sitting by the bank with his stuff.  He was wearing jeans and just sitting around, and I thought there was no way he had finished the race already, so I was a bit worried something happened to him.  I asked him and he just gave a sigh and said "I skied fast, I'm really tired".  He had a great race and only missed making elite wave by 3 minutes or something.

One of the things I love about the Birkie is how many people I know there.  After the race it's just a matter of wandering around, eating as much as possible, and talking to everyone I recognize.  Mary Beth Liebsch said Matt was the first American in but just missed out on the money.  Molly Watkins was 4th in the classic race, just missing a podium in a sprint to the line.  Travis was top 20 in the classic race as well, good for him since he was skiing most of the race by himself.  I eventually got around to checking my results and found out I had finished 57th, my best ever finish, even if the time was slow because of the fresh snow.

I think next year I'm jumping ship to the Birkie classic race, so this was a very good way to go out with a bang on my skating run.  There is more ski season left to come, so another blog post will be along soon.

Long time no see

Saturday morning was a long run, 21 miles including my run over to meet the Poraths and their friend Brooke.  It actually went pretty well, although the last couple miles when I was carrying a jar of maple syrup did get a little long.  Still, with a long workout out of the way before noon and someone else cooking me waffles the day was off to a great start.  I loaded up the boat and headed to the cities to meet Krystal for some rollerski adventures, paddling, and nightlife.  We also stopped at the co-op a couple times for green juice (or peanut butter banana smoothie in my case) and salmon for supper, a meal I've been craving for a while.  We headed to the Finn so I could pick up some rollerski ferrules and Krystal could try out rollersking after reading about it in a book.  KJ was working and was gracious enough to lend us some boots and poles to go along with the rollerskis.  Krystal made some decent progress for a beginner to skating as we tooled around the parking lot.  Then we headed to the chain of lakes for some leisurely paddling, singing, and general discussion of life the world and everything.  Then it was back home to make some supper before biking downtown and hitting up the club (Crave) to meet up with Elizabeth and friends.

I haven't been to a club in years, so it was like coming into it with a fresh perspective.  The dancing wasn't half bad, far better than the music, and it was fun to hang out under the open air, even if it is in the middle of the city and everything smelled overpoweringly of cologne.  Afterwards it did take my hearing took a while to come back completely, since Elizabeth and friends like to be right by the speakers.

The next morning we went out for coffee, and by that I mean I biked along and hung out while Krystal drank coffee, then went to Brits to see if we could catch some of the Olympic marathon.  Unfortunately all that was on was wrestling and team rhythmic gymnastics.

Monday I went to the Twins game with Jeff, Gar, and David.  As Jeff and I were biking over to meet Gar someone started yelling our name, and low and behold it was Annie Bunio out to eat at Brits before heading to the game.  We sat down to have a drink with her and her dad.  So I ended up hanging out at Brits 2 days in a row when I have only been there maybe 2 times in my life before last weekend.  It was fun to catch up to Bunio a bit, any chance to see her before she heads back to Africa is good.  The game was fun, the Twins got a big win over Detroit, and I got back to my car to find a banana with my name on it hanging out the window.

Tuesday morning was a workout with Nate, Nicole, and Brian.  A total of 50 minutes of tempo work with pretty short recovery.  We didn't quite hit our target paces, but all in all not a bad way to start a morning.  I seem to have more energy after these morning workouts, but I have to be careful to keep up on my sleep on other nights.

Friday I joined Nicole for 2x 4 miles MP (6:00) 1 mile tempo (5:40) that we nailed.  Not only that but it really just felt fantastic to be running, almost joyful even.  The legs, abs, and lungs hurt like they are supposed to on a hard run, not painful, just that growing fatigue that lets you know your body is having to work at this.  Despite that we just seemed to sail down the road.  I don't check my watch during workouts, I listen to my body and what I can make of of Nicole's effort level and just go with how things feel.  I have enough practice running at a variety of speeds that this frequently works.  We absolutely crushed this workout.  The pain point, where it turns from hard and fun to a struggle to hold things together never really came.  We finished our last tempo mile under 5:40, and then it felt really good to just walk for a little bit.  I wish every workout could go this way, but sadly that can't be the case.

Another action packed weekend followed, beginning with some swimming and a pizza party to welcome Emily back to the cities for the few days she'll be around before leaving on a camping trip with some girl scouts.  There was lots of tasty food and glow in the dark frisbee.  Then we went to Jeffy's and slept out on his mosquito free porch, although not a lot of sleeping was done on my part.

Saturday we did yoga, made waffles, and watched Dr. Horrible before biking down to Afton to ride more bikes in a day a bit fraught with trouble, both people and their machines.  David broke a spoke before we even took off, then when we got to Afton Gar made a sharp turn that I didn't see and I T-boned directly into his front wheel.  Luckily a bit of spoke work was able to compensate for both of these problems and keep us on our way.  There is a Cat. 4 climb in Afton that we hit pretty early in the ride, and that turned out to be nearly the end of Christina.  It certainly didn't help that while most of us were on road bikes she was on a hybrid with a loose front tire that was causing some significant brake rub.  Poor route planning on my part, to put the big hills at the beginning. This fractured the group a bit, with David and Krystal riding on ahead and me jumping up to join them after getting Christina's tire secured.  We hit a couple extra hills then met Gar and Jeff who said Christina was hurting pretty bad and they were heading back to the cars.  The three of us remaining decided to see a bit more of the route and also provided a chance for David and Krystal to try out some fixed gear fun times.  Neither fell or had trouble unclipping, so a great success overall.  Then we headed over to a nearby church for pulled pork, corn on the cob, and other goodness, along with singing by Fixie Paul and his troupe.  If it was a bit awkward being introduced to a new and loud singing style while being the only ones there wandering around in spandex the size of our group at least helped mitigate the awkwardness a bit.  Then some of us biked back to Jeffy's, and David got a flat a few miles from his house, shortly after re-entering South St. Paul actually, a frequent source of trouble for David's bike.

I drove Krystal home and slept on the floor at her place, then we made a trip to the co-op to find supplies for fruit pizza.  After a good breakfast I was on my way back to Jeffy's just in time for... Breakfast!  This time it was a good sized omlette at a nearby burger joint.  Then we did a bit of shopping and I was on my way home to crash and catch up on some sleeping.

Monday there was a going away party for Bunio at Elena's new house, including taco's and ice cream cake.  Jeffy and I ducked out for a bit of rollerskiing and then ate some pretty good food.  It was fun to catch up to some camp folks and hang out with Annie and Jallie a bit.

Tuesday morning was supposed to be a bit of an early morning, but it turned out to be a lot of an early morning.  I got a phone call at about 4:15 that there was machine trouble, so I went in to work and got the machine going just in time to run over to the middle school for 7x mile repeats.  No breakfast or preparation time makes for a rough workout, and I just wasn't feeling the pace.  We were not too slow, maybe 5-8 seconds off on most of the repeats, but it just didn't feel fluid.  Not the best last hard workout before racing this weekend, but I know it was just one data point, and the Ngede challenge on Saturday will be a chance to prove out my fitness.  I feel like I haven't been on the bike as much this year, so we'll see how well I hold my own, but I'm as ready as I'm going to get I guess.

Next post will come after Ngede challenge, and maybe after the weddings the next weekend, and maybe much later the way things have been going lately...

Almost an Ultra Good Race

Things have continued to remain pretty hectic since the Germany trip, thus the lack of blog posting lately.  When I got back it was a bit of work catching up on a weeks worth of normal work and continuing problems with the copper plater in addition to keeping up on the issues we discovered while in Germany and preparing the facilities for the beginning of the machine installation.  In addition things are getting busier here so my boss was looking for ways to get even more capacity out of the copper plating machine.  If that weren't busy enough, the next week the machine arrived and for most of the week consumed pretty much all of my normal working hours, which meant working extra hours to get my normal work in.  It was a very exciting time though. It's not every day you get a $750k toy to put together and play with.  Work was busy enough however that my training really fell off pretty hard.  Luckily it was close enough to my next race that I considered the time off just to be a "taper", but probably more of one than is good for a person.

The upcoming 50k on the Superior hiking trail loomed on the horizon, strangely sapping any energy I had for exercising, even though I knew I would need every mile of training I could get.  I got in a couple good paddling sessions where I realized I still can't steer a boat, a nice bike ride to the cities and back the next day to hang out with my Mom and Grandma for mother's day, and part of a really killer workout with Nicole the Thursday before my race.  I would have loved to run the whole workout, but made myself bike part of it, even though it put me in a category of people who I respect about the least of anyone, guys who bike with girls who are running.  It was a terribly windy day, and I'm really impressed how close Nicole came to hitting her target times despite the rough conditions.  These last couple workouts left me with a fair amount of confidence going into the race, at least as much as I could have without having done any training runs over 23 miles and racing on a course I had never seen any of before.

I was fortunate enough to find a host family to put me up the night before the race.  My coworker and fellow EMVC rider John Stiles has in-laws in Silver Bay, which is less than an hour away from Lutsen where the race started, so I had a bed to sleep in and a bit of ice cream and cookies as a last carbo load snack before turning in for the night.  The race start wasn't until 7:00, so I got to sleep in until 5:30, not too bad a deal.

The race morning was nice and cool, but a bit muggy.  I had my small water bottle which had served me well on all my training runs, and felt like the cool weather wouldn't necessitate more extreme water carrying measures.  I started with a shirt on even, although realized within a few minutes that this was not a good decision.  I went out with the front group of 10 or so, and stuck with a group of 4 including Evan Pengelly as 3 went off the front.  My reach goal was top 5, so sitting in 7th wasn't too bad.  I hung with this group trading off spots up and down hills until the first food stop.  There I dropped my shirt off with Evan's dad and quickly refilled my small bottle before charging on.  I was feeling great at this point, so I pushed the pace just a little, and got a gap on the other guys I was running with leaving me running alone in 4th place.  I gained good time on the descents and lost just a little on the climbs, which I figured would mean I was saving energy on the hard parts without using too much more on the easy.  Running on my own felt good; it's what I'm used to in training, plus with the rocky and rooty nature of the trail it is nice to have a clear line of sight ahead.  

I stayed in 4th all the way to the turn around atop Carleton peak, where I found out the guys ahead of me had a pretty good lead already (10 min for the leader, wow!) and the group chasing me was not too far behind and had grown to 6 people.  I kept my same tactics, although I did start running some hills that I probably would have walked had I not had a target on my back.  I went through the 3rd food stop still alone, although I could hear people behind me by this point.  I was probably 10 miles from the finish when I knew I would need to start walking hills or things would end poorly for me.  It was less than a mile later the first runner went by me.  I took a good roll but luckily landed in some soft leaves instead of on rocks or a tree. and was back up and running, if a bit dizzy, in a second or two.

I was still sitting in 5th at the final food stop, but the 6th place runner arrived there with me, and I knew things were going to be rough from here on in.  There were still 3 major climbs to go in the last 8 miles, and my body was getting kind of upset with me.  I had not taken on enough water early, and as the temps soared into the mid 70's I was quickly learning the error of my ways.  I took a heed and 3 waters at the last food stop and filled my little bottle for the last leg to the finish, already knowing it would not be enough water to last.  I resigned myself to walking anything that looked like an incline at all, and on some of the steeper climbing sections my heart rate had to have been over 170 just trying to keep moving at a slow walk.  There were a lot of people going by me, and I must have looked bad because several stopped to offer me some water.  I didn't know how many were 25km racers and how many were 50km, and I didn't really care.  It was just a march to the finish line.  I did still run down all the hills, and the hamstrings got a bit close to cramping a couple times, but a short walk cleared them back up.  Whenever I could run, even at what felt like a painfully slow pace to me, I would quickly overtake those around me, which gave me some motivation to keep it up.  I finally broke out of the woods just as Jan Guenther passed me (doing the 25km luckily) and I did my best to follow her and run in to the finish.  I crossed the line in 4:32:23, nearly an hour faster than my first ultra.  I wasn't sure where I finished place wise, but based on previous years times I figured I still had a shot at top 10.  I drank about 64 oz of water and pink lemonade and started to feel a bit better.  I checked results and I had finished 8th, and beat the winning woman by about 10 minutes; so I achieved one of my goals at least.  

All in all a decent race, or more accurately 3/4 of a great race followed by a few miles of stumbling through the woods in a dehydrated haze.  Evan didn't end up finishing, he was in worse shape than me at the last food stop apparently, and decided to drop there.  Kevin Johnson came in about 5:30:00, good for a top 30 finish, and Jallie came in at 7:18:00, about 20th for women I think.  Not too bad for her first ultra I'd say.  I am kind of looking forward to another one, but maybe not until fall.  There will be enough other races and such going on over the next month for me to hop back into something too soon, plus I still have a misbehaving copper plater and a new machine at work to get up and running.