Dam Good Trail Race

Ahh, the Dam Good Trail Race.

I dunno, I don't feel like I have a lot to say about it, but I bet I will anyway somehow...

In short, it was good, but it did feel like it was a bit harder/more tiring than it should have been...  Why?  I could guess...
-Not much of a taper.  18 miles the Sunday before and 9 miles on Thursday are a bit more than the 10 and 3 that would be on a good taper...
-Nutrition.  I haven't been eating overly well.

Dunno. I still made it in about 2:40 which was about a half hour quicker than the pre-run which was REALLY sluggish.  Although that pre run also had a heck of a lot more mud and apparently I took a couple longer sections than the actual course.

So... Let's see...

I guess this was my first time actually racing with my Camelbak.  I've had periodic problems with the waistband rubbing on my back when I wear the Camelbak or the weighted backpack, but I put some Glide there thinking that would take care of it.  Turns out, it wasn't enough and it rubbed an even larger area.  Wondering about just putting a strip of duct tape across there for the Spartan Races coming up...

Sara nicely filled up one of my travel bottles with honey, so I used that for about the first 1.5hrs.  Then a pack of caffeinated Sports Beans.

Overall, yeah it was good, a bit tiring.  Nowhere near as muddy as the Pre-run, but yeah there were several sections of seriously muddy, I guess more so because so many people had already run through there.  One point I was a half second away from falling for sure.  And that really sucks the energy out of your legs just for a few seconds of running through!

Also amazing how much just like 5-15 feet of elevation hits those legs as there are quite a few stream crossings and it doesn't look like much, but especially on the return trip you just take like 3 seconds of big steps back up out of the gulley and UGH those legs!

Oh, and I don't quite understand how it was set up, but I did take the wrong turn at the loop.  I didn't see anything overly obvious as to which way to go, and I could have sworn it was the way I went on the pre-run which I thought lined up with a previous runner's GPS, and also came back out where I was pretty sure I had seen other people coming back on the loop...
Either way, thankfully about the 4th person behind my said "hey, it's gotta be to the right!" And we only lost maybe 30 seconds going in the wrong direction.  SORRY!

I wasn't the only one, I did get passed by one lady who then went straight up the other side of the creek instead of a 90 degree turn to the right.  Once over the hill, they kinda went in the same direction so I thought maybe she just was taking an alternate route, but then she said she didn't know where she was going and thought she shouldn't be in the lead.  hehe.  We traded forward/back spots about 5 times I think.  I think she may have been nursing an ankle or something.

But then I finally made it to the end.  Well...  Actually at that point I wasn't exactly sure WHERE the end was...  I exited the woods, but it wasn't overly clear to me as to where/how far I was supposed to go.  So I kinda slowed down more than I otherwise would have.  Finally found that I was supposed to run across the grass for a while and then there was a line and then they kinda awkwardly gave me a medal.  (they were younger kids I think so probably weren't quite as forward as a lot of adults are).

As usual, trail races are WAY better cause they FEED YOU!  This time was possibly my favorite.  Lots of pizza and desserts!  (oh, and some fruit).  (:

I hung around for the awards and it was worthwhile.  I guess they try to give something back to everyone so they just pick race numbers at random and call your name and you get to pick out a prize.  I ended up with a Patagonia Belt.  It does look to be quite good quality.

I think that's about it.  Now the Spartan Insanity is in full swing!!!!

Howard 5k: The one where I win!

Well, ok first off, this was a small race.  I dunno, maybe like 40 people there and half were walkers?  Not sure.

But I was like I believe the 4th one back.

And FIRST in my age group!

And I was not actually slow...  This was the only 5K I've been in with big hills and rocky roads to run on(and hard packed dirt and pavement and grass...)  So I was NOT expecting a PR...

But I did!  25:08!  That's like maybe 10-15 seconds per mile off!  On a hilly course!  Woohoo!

There is a possibility that I might be able to pull off a 4hr marathon...  Still a REALLY big IF there!


Marathon miles are seriously climbing.  That 16 on Sunday REALLY tired out my feet and that on again off again right ankle, though they were considerably better by afternoon.  Then again, I haven't cleared more than about 13.5 miles since almost March I think.  We'll see how 18 goes this Sunday!

PA Grand Canyon Half Marathon

Well this one started off Friday when I drove down to pick up my packet.  Went smoothly enough, though I wasn't overly impressed with the goody bag.  Basically just flyers for Wellsboro stuff and one of them had a granola bar attached.  There was a nice tech tee though.

As for the race itself?
Well it was early...
I got up at about 3:55am, out the door about 4:15am.

Arrived at the high school parking lot about 5:30.

There were a lot of people there waiting.

One bus shows up.  Didn't make it on.

I think it was about 5:52 when (5:45 was supposed to be the last bus) the next one showed up.  And then thankfully like 4 more buses.

It was almost a half hour trip down to Colton Rd.  Same place the rally cars run.

So we got there just before 6:30.  One last potty break and then basically just hung around the woods for half an hour.

And then we were off!

Now, I have to say...  I wasn't entirely sure about the elevations...  From their description it made it sound like it was mostly flat with maybe a few little hills, or that's what I was picturing.  But from the rally car days of walking these roads, I didn't remember anything flat.
And in the end, that was all kinda correct...  There weren't any big hills like I'm used to...  But there was NOTHING flat.

So...  there was a bit of up and down throughout, but more down for the first 2/3 maybe.  So I was aiming for a 9:09 min/mile pace to break 2hrs, and I was beating that on those downhills, but not by enough that I thought I was going to keep it for the way back.  Thought for sure I'd be walking parts.  But no, I DID manage to run the whole thing.  But I did slow considerably for the way back up.  Ended up with a 2:08 finish time and considering the hills I'm quite happy!

Oh, also had a short chat with someone shortly before we started heading up again, she was saying the same thing about how on the way down we weren't looking forward to knowing we had to go back up.  It was nice to have someone to chat with!

Afterwards, got a nice medal and a box filled with all sorts of post race recovery foods like chocolate milk and hummus and chips and a few other things.  That made up for the goody bag.  And they had water, sports drink, bananas, apples and pretzels out as well.

So I hung out for maybe 20 minutes afterwards stretching out my calves.  Then decided to head back to the buses.

Well...  I ended up right behind this like over 6 foot tall European guy who was just SO enjoying his post race high.  "this is so awesome!"  Every couple minutes.  We got in line to wait for the bus and talked a bit with him and a couple of his friends who ran as well.  It was nice to be around other crazy runners!

This ended up being a while.  We waited for I believe over an hour for the bus.  This is also evidence of just how sweaty I must get cause I was STILL dripping by the time the bus came.  I literally soaked every inch of my clothing.  And I missed any notice that there was a bag check at the race itself, otherwise I would have at least brought a towel.

So we finally get on a bus at like 10:40 or something...  And we start heading back.  We drop off spectators.  And more spectators.  Then...  We start heading back a bit.  I laughed it off, but obviously there were some mess ups with the buses.  I guess they were saying the buses were so slow because they didn't have full buses going to Wellsboro.  So they decided to swing back to the spectator area and combine the half full buses of runners into one full one.  Now, why no one could have figured this out back before we got ON the buses is a mystery to me.  And while I laughed it off, some people were getting quite frustrated with it and some were complaining that they had to check out within an hour and we weren't back yet.  Hopefully they'll get that figured out next year.

When we picked up more runners, ended up having another nice chat with a lady from West Virginia about all the races she was doing as well.
It was also interesting to hear the number of people who were going to do the full the next day too!  I'm not THAT crazy yet!

Anway, about 11:20 and we finally were back to the high school parking lot.


So, in all it was a lot of fun!

Next up is just a 5K, but those Spartan races are coming up soon!

Tough Mudder (VS Spartan?)

So Tough Mudder...

Did this one with my friend/neighbor/mechanic Mike.  This was my first time having someone else to run with and was a lot of fun!  I was kind of wondering how we would pace each other.  Mike works all day with his hands, so I figured he probably had me beat on upper body strength, but he hasn't run as far/often/fast as I have, so I thought I might have him beat there.
As it turns out, we seemed to end up right about the same pace from what I could tell.  Though he is taller which I hadn't really noticed until we were in this run and he would stop to a walk and I had to periodically bump up to a run to catch up to him since my strides weren't as long!  He also seemed to have some advantage jumping to things, etc.

So let's see...
We got there about a quarter to 8 and figured we'd do the 9am wave.  We were early but that was good, we got a decent parking spot that I think might not have been the full half mile distance from the starting line area.  When we left, the other end of where people were parking was probably another quarter mile away across hay fields.  We opted NOT to take the $5 each way shuttle.  (:

Got our bibs, bathroom break and headed back to the truck to get ready.

I went with:
Fivefinger Spyridon shoes.  Upped one size since I had a did lose a pinky nail on a 13 mile trail race with thin socks and I went with thicker Injinji knee high compression socks this time.  I'm undecided on this at the moment.  I think the socks were a good idea for protection, but the upped size Fivefingers feel a hair large and the straps definitely seem too long and at one point when I tried to re-tighten them after some mud/water, the straps seemed too long to be able to get a good grip with the velcro.  Really thinking I would prefer the Spyridon LS.  Not entirely sure which size...  would be nice to get a good handle on this before Sept Spartans!

UA Compression shorts, UA Running shorts, UA Coldblack shirt, UA trainer fingerless gloves, bandaids on the nips, Glide a bit on the feet, Spibelt and took my Fitbit One and old Boost Hydro phone in LokSaks in the Spibelt to track the run.

So we thought we had time still, but then they said the 9am wave was leaving.  When we headed up for the 9:20 wave we'd realize we probably did still have time, it seems they have a pre-starting line holding area where they keep people until like 10 minutes before, then you head up to the starting line, spend another 10 minutes there or so and THEN leave.  As such, we were at the back of the 9:20 wave pre-holding area and I started Runkeeper on my phone, and it was apparently 9AM, but it was 9:20 when we actually left to start the run.

Overall?  I dunno, I feel I can only compare it really to the harder races I've done.  One being the 10 mile Pfeiffer Nature Center Trail race that was wicked hilly.  The other being the Tuxedo Spartan Sprint which was 4.5 miles on ski slopes.
So...

Mud:
-Spartan really wasn't that muddy at all.  Yeah, there was some, but not a ton of it.  Though I ended the race the dirtiest of any race I've done.
-The trail race had a light amount of mud throughout the entire race.
-Tough Mudder definitely had the most mud, deeper, pits of it, mountains of it to repeatedly climb over, etc.  Though it seemed to be placed out so that by the end, I was the cleanest of any of the OCR's I've done and not soaking wet.
--From what I could guess, this may have changed if you did the legionnaires loop and more likely, ran Sunday.  We were only in the second wave and you could see the paths were muddy and getting worse.  I can only imagine after everyone ran Saturday, let alone on Sunday when it was raining!

Running/lower body:
-The trail race pretty much was the hardest.  It was a number of times up and down maybe 400'+ hills, one of which they had a rope to help you go up, and generally everyone was running as much as they could.  This one left me a bit sore afterwards.
-Spartan was definitely second.  The slopes were similar in height to the trail race, but ski slopes, so some were significantly steeper, but usually not quite as far/high at once as the trail race.  And of course it gets broken up by stopping to do obstacles.
-Tough mudder was EASY in comparison.  There were only a few hills and of those, only about twice maybe was there anything that was even a real hill.  There was like one steep climb(I think they called it the cliffhanger as an obstacle) and it was a steep hard climb, but it wasn't as steep or as long as the majority of the trail race or Spartan was.  I think we were only going up it for a couple minutes at most.

Upper body:
-Well, probably obviously the trail race was the easiest, since other than the rope or scrambling for a grip on a steep section or two or pumping your arms, there isn't really any upper body used.

-Tough mudder ...  OK, I was gonna say it was easier than Spartan and it was for sure, but I'll add that it was a bit different....
They had parallel bars that were long and went up maybe a few feet, then back down.  I wasn't sure I would make it at all, but I did actually get about 75% of the way before I just kinda ran out of enough strength to keep it and I was in the water.  That was definitely more taxing on my shoulders than any other race I had done.
The other one they had was the monkey bars.  I think Spartan's were maybe unevenly spaced, but they weren't as long and they weren't as elevation changing.  And they didn't seem as slippery.  I made Spartan's monkey bars.  For Mudder, there was again maybe a few feet elevation change up then back down and it was a span of...  Maybe 20 feet?   I grabbed the first bar and thought I was going to fall off immediately, my fingers had like no grip.  But then I guess I grabbed farther on the next one and got it hanging on my palm more and I'll be darned if I didn't make it up, across the middle and again, about half way down the other side, but then I felt my fingers slip like a half inch too far and I was like "nope, I don't have the strength/grip to reacquire what I just lost!"  and poof, I was down in the water again.

-Spartan...  Like I said with those two exceptions, Spartan is WAY more upper body.  I wasn't really sore at all after Mudder.  Spartan took out my upper body for a few days.  The monkey bars may have been shorter, but they also had a monkey bar cargo net, a big sand bag lift, atlas stone carry, log carry, cement block drag, barbed wire crawl, rope climb...  Traverse wall...  Probably others I'm forgetting.

On that note, rope climb.  Yeah, Mudder gives you a wall next to the rope and I had no trouble climbing up over that(though it was a bit scary to realize you're about 15' up and just holding on to this rope and should you drop your grip, you're going to be lying flat on your back with nothing but a bit of mulch to cushion your fall...)  Compared to Spartan's maybe 15' just vertical rope climb that I couldn't even quite get myself out of the water at.

Wall comparison....  Eh, hard to really compare.  I think they both have the same sorts of variations...  Mudders reverse inclined walls didn't have boards to stand on like Spartans, so I only made it over Mudder's walls on my own by standing on the supports on the side.
6' walls I made it over either way...
I think Spartan had like 8' walls that I had to get a boost to get over.  Mudder I believe had like 10' walls, but with a 2x4 2' up which made them somewhat similar.  I think I got over those by using the studs and center support as well.  Can't remember for sure, cause I think I remember getting a boost over some walls as well, so I may be forgetting another set somewhere...



Mudder has some different maybe more fear oriented obstacles.  I definitely felt more fear when I did walk the plank than I have on any other obstacle.  I went right off, but it was a bit scary jumping like 15' above the water.  And interestingly that one threw me off more than any other because it hit my nose/ear/inner ear thing and took a solid day before my head was clear again.

Arctic Enema was about what I expected.  I was mentally prepared and not worried about it, but it still kinda took over the body a bit and took a bit of work to keep everything focused and moving and going under the water to get under the board took more effort than I would have thought, but it wasn't bad.

Electro shock therapy...  I was apparently too ninja like and completely avoided the shocks!  I half wonder if I should have gone back for the full experience!  Mike said he caught a good one to the chest.

Oh, I'll also note that Mike made it across all of the obstacles without a problem.

Yes, there were like some 6' high round bales and I couldn't get over those without a hand as there was just about nothing for me to grab on or get a foot hold on.

And the mud mile was difficult sometimes just to find a foot hold, and after you did 5 of those 6' banks (and then again in the other direction a little later) you could definitely feel your legs!

And I thought for sure I'd fail Everest, but when we got there it was dry, so Mike went up without a problem, and even I ran right up the thing, but I couldn't pull myself up at the top and needed a couple volunteers to help me up.


I think that was most of it...  In the end we came out about 2hrs, 40 minutes later.  Considerably quicker than I had thought likely.

And as I had suspected, the Dos Equis beer at the end was about the best tasting beer I had had(since I don't really like beer at all).

Then we stopped by the Muddy wheaties tent. I had never even thought of chocolate milk on cereal!  Which turned into us jumping on the trampoline for a chance to be on the Wheaties box.  Well...  They couldn't quite get me registered but we went on together, I kinda wondered how that was going to work.  Sure enough, right after the short video they took I ended up getting thrown off the back of the trampoline!  Ahh, it was a fun time!
Not sure if this motion jpg will show on here or not.

Run or Dye

So we did the "Buffalo" (Actually in Holland, NY) Run or Dye.  One of the Color Run clones.

Comparison:
Color Run was downtown Rochester city streets.

This Run or Dye was starting on a Nascar track(though it seemed rather small for that), then off doing some zig zags next to the track, then off into the woods where it was basically trails and mud.  Then through a junkyard, more zigzags next to the track and back onto the track to finish.  Interesting.

It was fun though.  The usual "awww"'s constantly as MaKenzie was running.  I continue to be amazed at her skills.  She can run quite well, and even in the woods where there were roots sticking up all over, I was cringing, but she ran right over them without a problem!

During the Color Run she ran just about the entire time.  This time she was asking for me to carry her maybe half the time off an on.  She does seem to enjoy being carried while I run!  And we got a faster time!

Oh and it was WICKED humid for Run or Dye.  I was completely drenched in sweat.

As in the Color Run Kenzie went through the color stations on her own and waited for color and went and got more herself.  Though, at the color run, she's scrape some off the concrete after the end of the color station, this time it was in the woods and they had marked the trail with powder, so she was frequently trying to pick up purple color from the muddy woods which didn't work quite as well!

Kenzie also picked up some awesome purple hair at the first station, I loved it.

And she was acting all tired towards the end and had me carrying her and she started asking a bit for water and Mommy and so I was running while carrying her, but I guess she was just thirsty.  As soon as she got a bottle of water, then she was off trying to run down the track instead of going up the stairs to get to Mommy!


So in all?  It was a hot sticky mess, but it was awesome because Kenzie was great and those are pretty much my favorite times!  (:  LOVE HER!

2 Races in one day!

Yep.  Two races, one right after the other.  More or less.

First up was the Pfeiffer Nature Center 10 mile run.  The biggest hills I have seen.  Maybe there were a few people up front running, but around me, NO ONE ran up those hills.  And a lot of them stopped part way.  I at least kept moving.  One of them even had a rope to help you up.  I wish there were more to transfer some of the energy to my arms instead of my legs!
Went pretty well, except apparently I left my Tomtom watch on the night before so it died about 3 miles in.  But it looks like I noticed it pretty quick and switched to my phone to track the rest.

The start was rather abrupt as well.  It sounded like they were kind of announcing something like 20 minutes ahead of time, but you couldn't really hear much from the cars and it was like 50 degrees and damp so it didn't sound like a lot of fun to be standing around outside for a while, but I thankfully took a last drink before heading over to where people were standing and sure enough she made a few statements about keeping on track and helping your other runners and then as the next sentence "and with that we're off!"

I also had figured I needed to keep a pace around 11.5 minute miles to be done in time to run up to Holiday Valley for the second one.  Which would be a slower pace than any other race I had run.  Well, I think in the end I was somewhere just under 13 minutes per mile.

Oh, and there was one really fun section of downhill just the right amount of steep where you could really get your speed up and it had a number of banked turns.  Who knew you could run banked turns like that!  Awesome!


Anyway, I knew I was NOT ahead of schedule by any means as I ran through the finish.  Took a minute or two to find a bottle of water and a piece of sub and then headed off to the car.  Had most everything ready to just switch bibs, put down some plastic bags on the seat cause I was soaked in sweat and off we went.

Of course Salamanca was closed on the highway so it was backing up traffic.  And as much as Waze is supposed to find you the quickest way, it kept saying it was going to be 11:44(Race director told me I needed to be there by 11:30) and to keep going towards the traffic, I used the Prius' shortest route option and took an alternate route which turned out to be a great idea and even Waze agreed, as soon as I turned off, it updated to 11:38 arrival time.  Not sure why it could have updated the route itself if that would have been faster!  But that run up to Holiday Valley in the Prius was pretty much my second race in itself!


So, I think I ended up pulling into the Holiday Valley Parking lot at like 11:39.  VERY glad I had gone the night before so I already had my bib and timing chip and at least had some idea where to go.  Got out of the car and legs/feet seemed pretty good to go(semi-surprisingly), though the wind hit me as I was still soaking wet and it was maybe 55 degrees.  Of course I had to ask where exactly to go start(these obstacle races need better signs telling me where to go!), but I got told to head off over the hill following some other people and there was still a big line at the chair lifts, so I figured I wasn't late yet.  Thankfully that gave me a chance to make a bathroom break.

So I got in line and managed to strike up a conversation with a couple guys.  Randy and Marty from Bradford.  Quite a while actually since we were in line for probably 15 minutes and then we were on the chair lift for like 30-45 minutes.  Apparently there was something wrong with it so it was on it's slowest setting.  We were literally going about 1-2mph maybe.  We definitely could have outwalked it up the hill.  And WOW was it nice and chilly on there with the wind blowing!

But we finally made it to the top.  I wasn't sure exactly how we were starting so I started up my phone shortly before the top of the chairlift, and then found another bathroom break before heading out.  And I also found out on the way up that I had my timing chip in the wrong place.  I'd never used one like this and it came with no directions.  The closest I had seen was Spartan's a couple weeks earlier that was wrist mounted.  Apparently this one was meant for shoes.  Oops.  I'm guessing that's why my start time didn't get recorded.  But judging by when I started runkeeper and later finding Randy and Marty's start times, it must have been right at or after 12:30.

Oh, getting off the lift wasn't TOO bad, but ooh, I could feel those feet.  We were definitely getting them and the legs back into the movement as I started running.  Thankfully almost all of this one was downhill, but those little uphills were rough!  And even the flat was definitely more tiring than it otherwise would have been!
As I suspected, obstacles were just so so, there were some covered innertubes to run over, some logs to go over/under, a good bit of mud(oh and there was a good bit of that at the 10 mile race as well to make those hills more fun!).  Umm, a big slide into mud at the end...  Running through some mud under snow cannons, a couple walls...  But it was fun.
And surprise, surprise, looking at the results I'm in the top 20 for males!  (out of like 165).  Not bad for a second 5K+ race!  (Not that I think many people there were out for a top speed).

I wouldn't have tried to get in that second race, but I got it free on active.com so I figured why not try.  And I'm glad I did, it was great just to have done the two races like that!

5K Foam Fest

Yeah, this was kind of what I expected...  It was pretty light on the obstacles and they were pretty easy.  But I did make it over all of them, including the foam floating on the water!  And the big inflatable slide was pretty cool.

The bit surprising part was that it was on a motocross track.  I've never run up and down so many little hills!  As easy as the obstacles were, it's surprising the difficulty of the terrain.  Climb up one side, then it was quite steep down the next!

I got ahead after a few obstacles and was about third or fourth place I think.  And then after a mile or so, the trail went off into the woods and got muddy.  Nicely without everyone else around it was just like a peaceful trail run.  No one else out there and I could hear the squirrels scurrying around, etc.

I think it came out to about 2.8 miles or something.

So in all, a nice little fun run.  I was out around 8:35am and had enough time to get back home, grab a shower and off to the dairy festival with the girls!