High Five By 55

Current Training Focus: 10K training to build some leg speed before beginning Chicago Marathon training. Current Training Plan: Jack Daniels 5K/10K Phase II Week 1 Plan Week's Intention: run easy, continue to let the tweaked hamstring heal, perhaps test the hamstring with some strides to see if I'm ready for some faster work. Summary: after last week's hamstring strain, I was leery to push very hard this week. I had felt fairly good after running all easy last week, but did have some soreness and tightness in the hamstring after last Sunday's long run. So this week I went in expecting to run all easy miles. Overall, the week went well, the hamstring was slightly sore from time to time, but nothing of any consequences. I was even able to run some decent strides and a tempo run without any negative consequences. Good progress, and I'll return to the 10k training plan next week, but backing the interval paces off a bit. Monday: (Nike Vomero 17) 6.30 miles @ 8:39/mile ...

I'm thinking I'm going to take a shot at writing a weekly training review each Sunday after my long run throughout this High Five By 55 project. No particular goal with this, just a summarizing of what I've written in my training log and my daily planner. A space to process the week a bit. I'm not quite sure of the format to do this best, so will just try some things, not feel too constrained, and see what works out. Current Training Focus: 10K training to build some leg speed before beginning Chicago Marathon training. Current Training Plan: Jack Daniels 5K/10K Phase II Week 1 Plan Week's Intention: this was a repeat of last week's focus. Last week, I used it as an introduction to this type of speed work without making a big effort to hit the various prescribed paces. This week, I intended to go through the plan again, but with much more focus on hitting paces. Summary: this week was derailed on Tuesday, day 2. I headed out for the first quality session of the ...

I still want to do this thing. I still want to figure out how to become mountain capable enough and fit enough to finish the High Five 100 while predominantly training in Florida. And I want to do it by the time I turn age 55. All that said, I'm rethinking how I want to go about doing that. My initial plan had been to spend the years from age 46 to 55 practicing in the mountains by completing Hardrock qualifiers and chasing an entry into the Hardrock 100 Endurance Run. Then once that happened, running Hardrock (likely uncrewed) as the final puzzle piece before jumping into High Five 100. It was a fine plan. It was a plan that excited me in many ways. It was a plan that did have a big potential flaw in it.  The flaw, I want to be spending time and hiking and running in the San Juan mountains. Hardrock is in the San Juans, but none of the qualifying races are. At first, I figured that would be fine. It would be fun to travel to new places and experience different mountains. And that...

  2024 Jacksonville Marathon - A PR! I've been battling with myself for several weeks deciding whether I actually wanted to write this little diddy or not. I'm going to be sharing perhaps a bit too openly and honestly for my own comfort here, and haven't been sure I want to do that. I've finally decided that it's probably a good thing. And knowing nobody really reads this space, not a terribly unsafe thing either. So, I begin... Looking back at 2024 brings up a lot of emotion. The year concluded on such a high note with my run at the Jacksonville Marathon in mid December where I set a PR and executed a marathon the best I ever have, whether racing or pacing. It was a wonderful way to close out the year and I was left giddy for days with the way that race went. But I'm kind of starting at the end of the story, not the usual way to begin. The truth is 2024 was a deeply challenging year for me, both professionally and personally. I struggled with physical health. I...

After having the good luck to grab a pair of these Saucony Endorphin Elite 2s from the tiny drop in June and sitting on these for nearly six months, I finally got to use them in a marathon on Saturday. And they are sublime, my absolute favorite shoe for the marathon so far. By a wide margin. Yes, exceptionally soft. And also very fast and efficient at any pace I've tried. The fit is very similar to the Saucony Endorphin Elite 1, which is mostly generous yet well held. The toe box is a bit less spacious than the 1, but only by the most marginal amount. Other than that, fit and hold are exceptional both through the midfoot and the heel. I came out of my marathon without a hint of a hot spot or blister or black toenail. My toes aren't even sore. The ride is weirdly forgiving. Run with pace, and it offers pace back. Run easier, and it rolls along efficiently and protectively. Get up on your toes, and you fly. Tire a bit and fall back on the heels, you still fly. Explosive, yet easy...

Saturday I ran the Jacksonville Marathon and am as pleased about how a race went as I have been in a long time. I think it’s safe to say this is probably as well as I will ever execute a marathon. I trained using a “old man” training plan designed to offer a bit more rest and recovery, but still pretty aggressive. I hoped to be able to run in the 2:54.xx range to bring me half way from my current PR to 2:50, which is the lifetime goal I’m chasing.  Training went well and I was pretty confident that I could run Jacksonville well. And run well I did, finishing in 2:54.46. I surprised myself. The weather forecast looked very nice a week before the race, then continued to fall apart as the race approached. 63 degrees and rising, few clouds, 90+% humidity, 16 mph winds were not going to make for ideal conditions. I decided the night before to go for my C goal and run conservatively, which was to take any PR. The B goal I had set weeks before was to run the 2:54.xx if weather was very go...

I shared that I got injured at Bighorn and ultimately didn’t finish the race. That sharing leads me to a thought I’ve been having for a while. The thought, maybe a wondering, is how long should one ignore pain in training or even in a race. At Bighorn, my injure occurred in the 18th mile. I remember it exactly even though there was no specific “event” that can be tied to the injury. Suddenly, while running a downhill section that was relatively smooth dirt trail, a severe sharp pain struck in my right foot. Right along the front external edge where the ankle and foot come together. So sharp I was seeing fireworks each time it struck. It only occurred while running downhill and only when my foot twisted a certain direction. I hadn’t stepped on anything at the moment it struck, hadn’t twisted my foot in any notable fashion, nothing really. Just sudden severe pain. I didn’t ignore the pain initially. I stopped and just sat on a rock for a few minutes absorbing it. Then I continued on expe...

I’ve gone silent here. Actually, I’ve gone silent in with any writing, really. I had a rough spring of waves of getting sick and then recovering and then almost immediately getting sick again. Four or five big waves. It was not fun. It put me in a real funk for many months. It’s not what led me to DNFing at Bighorn 100, but it certainly contributed. I was not as well trained as I would have liked to have been, which was in my head from the beginning of the race. But alas, I want to get back to writing. Writing is rewarding to me. I don’t need anybody to read it, I just need to write. Though when people read and comment positively, that makes me feel good, too. I want to get back in the practice of writing daily. Today I begin taking a stab at that. I’m thinking a theme in my next bit of writing is to explore some basic truisms or tenets of running, in particular mountain ultra running, I can lay out for myself to lean on when things get bad. What do I mean by this? I’m not sure. An exa...

This weekend was my big kick-off training weekend for the Bighorn 100 ultramarathon. I spent a week in Rapid City for work, and would be spending the holiday weekend there. That gave me the opportunity to get into the mountains a bit for some big training runs and hikes. And, boy, did the weekend deliver! I had initially planned to make the 250 mile drive to the Bighorn 100 course and spend a couple days recee'ing sections of the course. In particular, I was going to take on the big first 4,000 foot climb and then possibly drive out to the second 4,000 foot climb if I could figure out how to get there. However, when I arrived last Wednesday, it had started snowing. The snow forecast did not call for much snow either in Rapid City nor in the Bighorn mountains. But the forecast proved wrong, and the snow continued for 36 hours. What was expected to be just an inch or two of snow ended up closer to 10 inches. After much deliberation and speaking with more winter mountain experienced f...

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to hike and run in the Black Hills of South Dakota in relatively cold and dry air for a few hours. That also gave me the opportunity to test out the Airtrim Sports Mask I recently purchased. The Airtrim Sports Mask is a heat exchanger mask intended to warm and moisten air before the mask wearer breathes it. An interesting idea that would hopefully resolve one issue I have experienced when running high altitude ultramarathons in dry climates. And this trip to South Dakota would be perfect for this test, as I had just wrapped up with a head cold that had also getting into my lungs a bit, and having a way to possibly protect my lungs just made sense. The first year I ran Ouray 100, I dropped out of the race at mile 62. I was actually several hours ahead of the cut off and quite lucid and moving reasonably well. Well enough that the aid stations workers at the spot I dropped were doing their absolute best to get me up and out of the chair. But I wasn't ...

Yesterday evening, I went on my normal Monday afternoon run. A really easy 10k loop with some strides near the end to work out some of the stiffness of the prior day's long run. I have two loops I alternate between for this run, both chosen because they leave from my house and minimize the number of roads I have to cross. I've run this run probably hundreds of times at this point, rarely with any kind of incident. Yesterday was not one of those hundreds of runs. Yesterday, I got hit by a car on my run. I want to be clear, this was not the movie style getting hit by a car at full speed while I cross a street. But it was very close to that, and a bit of reflexive action on my part is the only reason I was not injured more than a bit of shoulder soreness this morning.  I've had many close calls with cars on runs. And they are almost exclusively the same situation. I'm running up to an intersection or driveway or some other location where traffic is interacting from two dir...

I may have found a common factor, a known gastrointestinal distress factor, in the marathons where I have experienced the need to stop and poop. Maltodextrin! From what I understand so far, there are good reasons many engineered nutritional products use maltodextrin as the primary carbohydrate source. However, there also seems to be some research that suggests for some people, maltodextrin basically acts as a laxative.  When I first considered this, I thought maltodextrin wasn't a common factor. At Miami Marathon, I used UCAN Edge gels which do not use maltodextrin. However, I also relied on the on-course hydration drink, Gatorade Endurance. Gatorade Endurance does use maltodextrin. In a potentially frustrating twist, Gatorade Endurance actually works for me quite well. I can drink it for hours and not get sick of it. It doesn't cause me any nausea. It has functioned well to keep me hydrated and not apparently short on electrolytes. I've really liked Gatorade Endurance. How...

As I've turned my attention to Bighorn 100 in June, I have wondered what to make the focus of my preparation. I had decided early in this project that I wanted to give each Hardrock qualifying race a very specific purpose, some area of weakness or lack of knowledge I could build on while training. I have not been quite sure what I wanted to make the focus of Bighorn 100 and had even kind of decided just to make it a kick off to the project without any real focus. Just do good training, plan well, and have a good day and night out on the course. I think I'm going to scrap that plan. Of course, I'll still do all those things. But I have such a glaring area to begin working on that I think I'll make it not just the focus of Bighorn 100, but of 2024 in general. Nutrition. Both race day nutrition and general training nutrition. The Miami Marathon experience of a week ago really drove home how much I need to work on this. At marathons, I'm struggling with GI distress. At ...

My Miami Marathon pacing experience has put me in a place I have rarely encountered since beginning running in 2016. I am completely and totally devoid of motivation to run. I'm so bummed by the entire experience that I just don't feel like heading out the door right now. This is not an uncommon experience for runners as I understand it, but it has been uncommon for me. In fact, I can't remember a single time in at least the past 5 years when I've felt this way. Sure, a day here or there where I didn't want to run crept in. Or a series of days where I wasn't super excited about it, but still mostly wanted to go. But this time is different. This time I really don't want to go run. So I'm going to just go with that for a little while...sort of. I have a dog that needs his exercise and loves running, so I'll run with him daily. But I'm not going to do any specific training, at least for a few days, perhaps even a few weeks. I'll let the funk be ...