Zumbro 50: Going big, taking chances

So, um, a couple of weeks ago, this happened:

Yikes?

Zumbro has been on my mind a lot this winter. It's a mid-April trail race held at the Zumbro River Bottoms on 17 miles of trail that climb and descend the river bluffs and wind through the woods and stream beds of southeast Minnesota. There's a 17 mile (where I broke my elbow last year), a 50 mile (3 loops, midnight start), and a 100 mile (6 loops). It's a Rocksteady Running event, so it's well organized, well supported, and has great volunteers.

My plan for the spring was to do the 17 mile again, a half marathon with my mother two weeks later, then the Spring Superior 50K. Very reasonable buildup to a 50K, and that way I could volunteer during the first day of the Zumbro 100. If all went well, I'd do Voyageur 50 mile this summer, or the Fall Superior 50. Plenty of time to build and train.

But there was a problem. I felt a little too good after Wild Duluth last fall. Then, my long runs this winter felt really good. Great, really. And I started to feel like... I could do more?

A great snowy Saturday run!

Maybe I could pace a 100-miler. Two loops on the course would be just about perfect! I brought it up on the Upper Midwest Trail Runners Facebook page.

The response, especially once I mentioned the 50 miler, was (in hindsight) entirely predictable:

Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot.

I tried to be reasonable. My trail-running friends were not impressed.

If all your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you?

Peer pressure wasn't going to sign me up for my first 50 miler... but it did start me thinking about it again. Could I train for the 50?

I looked over a lot of 50 mile training plans... again. (I had found them all immediately after Wild Duluth, you see). I quizzed friends who have run 50 milers and asked my fellow Manic Runday-ers and INKnBURN amabassadors about their training secrets. And decided to start running a little longer on my weekends... just in case.

My long runs kept going well. The Frozen River Run went well. Lifting was going well. I was consistently running longer and better than I ever had. Last weekend, I ran over 6 hours on Saturday, then another 2 the next day... and aside from some knee pain in the last mile and a half on Sunday, I couldn't believe how good I felt.

Look at all those crazy people. Love running with this group.

Eventually, I decided to trust in what my ultrafriends have told me: although running 50K, or 50 miles, or 100 miles, requires strong legs and core and lungs and heart... it mostly requires a strong mind. And that if I head into this race determined to finish no matter what happens, I will finish it.

Who knew that filling out a form on the computer and clicking "submit" was an act of courage? It was for me. I hope to go into this with curiosity, excitement, and acceptance that unexpected things will happen along the way. I hope to see and hear and feel and learn something new. I think something happens to your mind when you run long, something that changes you. I think this will change me. I can't wait to see how it all works out.

Deep thoughts at the end of the running year

It's been a good year for running. There's been elation, disaster, recovery, comedy, self-discovery, friendship, a little of everything. It was the first year I ran trails in a serious way, the first year I did an ultra, the first year I ran socially. I'm still enjoying an "off season", though I am looking ahead to January, when I'll start gearing up the long runs again. In the meantime, I've been reflecting a little on things I learned this year. In no particular order, a few insights:

1. I can do this. At the beginning of the year, my major goal was to train for and run a 50K trail race. Spring Superior 50K, in May, was a huge achievement for me. As the year evolved, other plans came up: recover from my broken elbow, run with friends on trails, volunteer, run in beautiful places. I recovered from iron deficiency anemia and trained for and ran two more 50K races, Wild Duluth and Icebox 480. At the end of the year, I can say that I can run 50Ks. And that's not something I knew a year ago.

Spring Superior!

Wild Duluth!

Icebox 480! I swear I actually own more than one shirt.

2. I am a lazy runner. I can run all day. No, literally, all day (or at least, 8 hours). Hey, all you need to do that is time (and Larabars). But running fast? Hoo boy, that hurts. I did no speedwork this year -- basically, it was all endurance mode, all the time. I know I've got another gear and that I can go faster (heck, I did it last week on the track), but I've got to overcome my natural inclination to keep it easy all the time.

Endless Summer Murphy 10K with Amy.
Ran this one as hard as I could in the heat.

3. There are things I'm good at. On trails, I get passed going up hills, but pass lots of people on the descents. Somewhere along the way, I actually figured out something about descents! Even if I'm not going fast, I can keep moving for a long time. I've figured out how and what to eat and drink, most of the time. And I have a very high pain threshold (but am finally figuring out the difference between pain I should run through, and pain that should make me stop).

Zumbro 17 mile. Broke my right elbow at mile 2.

You don't want this kind of race bling.

4. Running long on trails = no overuse injuries! Looking back at my training logs from the last few years, I noted when I was having pain. Achilles tendon, plantar fascia, posterior knee tendon, hamstring -- they've all been a little "tweaky" at one time or another. I'd rest, maybe ice, do water running, and if all else failed go see my excellent ART guy. Looking back at this year, though, the last time I saw him was way back in May! He fixed some early PF a few days before Spring Superior. Since then -- and, not coincidentally, since I started doing long runs exclusively on trail -- I've had a few minor ouches and tweaks here and there, but nothing that kept me away from running for more than a couple of days.

I'm pretty sure other things have helped too. I started paying serious attention to my core and posterior chain (calves, hamstrings, glutes) last fall when I began doing kettlebell classes at the YWCA. I started doing a lot more yoga around the same time. I keep a foam roller in my office as well as one at home, and I use them. A lot. The added strength and flexibility are making a big difference in my injury-free running.

Courtyard yoga!

... and some box jumps for fun.

5. The races will still be there next year. I signed up for the TC Marathon this year. Sort of trained for it, but iron deficiency anemia really sidetracked my late-summer running. Despite the fact that I was heading into race week with my last long road run two months previous (and only 11 miles, and it damn near killed me), it was still a major internal struggle to decide not to run it. Heather over at relentlessforwardcommotion has talked about FOMO, or fear of missing out, as an impetus to do things you shouldn't/wouldn't/aren't ready for. Her essay on it came at just the right time, and I kept reminding myself: The race will still be there next year.

I had a little FOMO over the last few weeks, as Frontrunner Sports did their Black Friday discounted entries into the Chippewa 50K and I didn't sign up, and then worse the other weekend when registration for the Ice Age 50 Mile filled in just a couple of hours. Spring is not a good time for me to train for a 50 miler, but still, it was hard to let the idea go. I just have to remember, I've only been doing this a year. There are years and years of great races ahead of me. Deep breaths.

Deena did the TC Marathon (her first) and killed it!
So much fun to do some training runs with you.

Those are some of my insights from the 2013 year in running. What's next? I'm not so big into "new year goals". Why pick an arbitrary time -- the change of the calendar -- to decide what to do next? But I'm pretty sure the coming year will include more trails, more weights, and hopefully some more speed. The most important thing is that it includes lots of runs in beautiful places, alone and with friends. I can work out the rest as I go along.

Have a great New Year!

I just can't get enough of this picture.

There's always someone with a bigger boat.

A friend raised an interesting question on Facebook today, and it touches on a topic I've been mulling over, balance and extremism in work, sport, hobbies, and life.

This quickly garnered a lot of thoughtful, insightful answers. Many touched on self-understanding, suggesting that if you understand why you are doing something, this can guide you in how committed (or balanced, or extreme) you are in doing it. Good stuff to think about, especially as the trail racing season begins to wind down and we head into the natural time of year for laying plans and preparing.

Here is my answer to the question:

We lived on Lake Minnetonka until I was 11 years old, and my parents owned a lovely old wooden Chris-Craft cabin cruiser. It was a lot of work for Dad to maintain (he says maintenance on a wooden boat is proportional to the length of the boat, squared), but he loved to take us out for endless summer evening cruises on the lake. I loved that smell of lake water and diesel fuel, and the cold-then-warm feeling of water splashing on your bare legs.

This isn't it, but similar. From www.yachtforums.com

Anyhow, Dad once commented that on a lake like Minnetonka, you can go along, feeling pretty proud of your boat. "But," he said, "There's always someone out there with a bigger boat." No matter how big or fancy your boat is, there's always someone who's gone bigger, sunk more money or more time into their boat.

I love this story because in may parts of life, there's always someone with a bigger boat. It's certainly true in running. You can always find someone who gets up earlier, runs more miles, trains in gnarlier conditions, does crazier stuff during a race. And especially in the era of ubiquitous social media, it's easy to find extremes on blogs, DailyRun, Strava, Facebook and Twitter. As an aside, it's interesting how many ultramarathoners bring to the sport a personal history of substance abuse and addiction. It seems that for many, running is therapy, medicine... maybe a substitute for a more destructive habit.

You can always go further down the rabbit hole, and chances are, someone already has gone there before you. At different seasons of your life, different degrees of balance (and imabalance) are right. You're healthy, single, free time available and want to train insane? Very different from ten years later, when you might be married, have kids, a start-up business and a nagging injury. Think about your season of life and your commitments. Think about how you WANT to balance things. Acknowledge that someone will have a bigger boat. Then go out and enjoy a long sunrise cruise in your own boat.