Posts Tagged ‘mountains’

Back in April, I wrote a post titled “The final disappointment” about missing the Blue Ridge Half Marathon in Roanoke — it was sort of the final thing that I couldn’t do because of my ITB injury.

Today on my lunch run with a few co-workers, we did a point-to-point run from the top of the mountain back to our office. I didn’t talk about today, but doing this run felt more important to me than any of my PRs have this year. I really enjoyed running in the mountains the first half of last year — there’s a huge sense of accomplishment of going both up and down a mountain.

I mean, really … it’s a mountain. It’s not a hill. It’s a mountain. Say what you want about this being the downhill part of the mountain, but 2 miles downhill is brutal. My quads were on fire at the bottom.

The great thing about this was keeping a steady pace in the second half of the run that looks flat, but certainly wasn’t.

I’ll be climbing a mountain again eventually, but I believe that the importance of going downhill is bigger than uphill. Downhill is when the pain started in October, plus it’s really hard on the legs on longer downhills. Plus the Baltimore Marathon has a downhill finish — running down mountains certainly will help prepare for that.

Just like yesterday with two great runs and passing 100 miles for this month, today is yet another milestone in my training journey this summer. Now I need all the pieces to come together to avoid a repeat of this past weekend’s long run.

Today was the last day in my current job and I will soon be headed in the opposite direction in a different city for my new job. For those who don’t know where I live, I’m in Bedford, Va., which is pretty much in between Lynchburg and Roanoke. After a little more than 18 months of making the commute to Lynchburg, I’ll soon be headed the other way on U.S. 460 to what I hope will be the last new job in a while.

Anyway, since I haven’t gone for a run at work in the time I’ve been there, I thought it would be fitting today to head up that monogrammed mountain in Lynchburg and bid farewell. It’s not that I won’t come to Lynchburg anymore, but it’ll certainly be for different reasons than work. Unfortunately the views weren’t the greatest today, as you can see below. On a clear day, you can see a lot more than this, plus the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. This just looks very BLAH.

I also struggle to use the word “mountain” for this — it’s more than a hill, but it’s not quite a mountain either, at least to me. It was pretty much a mile straight up Candlers Mountain Road, then into Snowflex and then a little bit of relief before the final peak. I stopped for a few minutes to catch my breath and to take in the skewed view and then headed back down for a few more miles. Here’s a look at the elevation profile:

The entire run was a good mix of road, gravel, dirt, trail and some sidewalk. About 3 miles into it, I felt some rain … then I felt some more rain … and then about 4 miles it was pretty steady. No problem — I don’t mind the rain at all, although it did make for two days in a row of some kind of rain. But about mile 5 it thundered. Then it thundered again. I’m not going to be out in a thunderstorm, so I ran about a mile less than I wanted to today, but I certainly am not going to complain.

The intensity of the uphill and downhill was something I haven’t experienced in a while. I needed it. And with the thunderstorm, it was a very fitting way to say good-bye.

It’s so easy to get carried away with thoughts after a race or a different experience. After Saturday’s Trail Nut race, my thoughts are all over the place.

About a year ago, I posted this video to Facebook and recently posted it to YouTube from a run on Sharp Top mountain in Bedford County:

I’ve watched this video a few times today because I love my voice so much I need to be reminded of how much I was in love with the trails and mountain running just a year ago. The only problem is I only did a handful of runs like that. (If you happen to be a longtime reader, yes, I did blog about that run last year HERE.)

As I look back at my running over the years, even before this blog, I think it’s no coincidence that my injuries have come after many months of just running on roads. After Saturday, I realized that the mix of the two may be very beneficial to me.

Prior to the start of this blog 4 years ago, I ran trails quite a bit, hitting them at least once a week. I had ZERO injuries until I trained for a 10 miler in mid-2006 after I drifted away from trails. While it wasn’t all that much, the first half of last year I had a trail run at least once a month – my injury in the fall came after 4 months completely on roads.

The learning experiences from this past weekend aren’t limited to my post from Sunday. I realized while running Saturday how different my form was on the trails because it HAD to be. As I continue to work on stopping so much heel striking, I noticed how it was nearly impossible to heel strike even if I tried.

I even analyzed this inset photo from the race, blew up the area of my feet and noticed that the next step I was going to take was not going to be a heel strike.

The great thing about this photo is that it was a fairly flat portion of the race – whatever I’m doing to make these changes in my cadence is working.

The desire to run on trails more is also important to the “having fun” aspect of running. In my video above, I had a blast on that run up Sharp Top mountain. In Saturday’s race, I had the most fun I’ve had in years. I still think about how much fun a mountain adventure was back in January 2010.

At this stage of my running and what I feel like is a continued comeback, I have to keep mixing it up. It’s important, I think, to change things, to challenge myself and to keep having fun. If I’m going to have a stronger half of 2011 than the first half – which was my main 2011 goal – all of these things have to happen.

* Yesterday I was planning to meet a group to run in the mountains, but the night before I really wasn’t feel great so I backed out. I thought I’d get as much rest as I could since I was coming off a week of not feeling great. Plus they were leaving for the mountains at 4:45 a.m. But I woke up at 4:30 and laid in the bed for a few minutes … I wasn’t going back to sleep. I really wanted to go on this adventure.

So I called my friend and everyone was running a bit behind and end up getting in 7.5 miles on the Appalachian Trail and beat the crazy heat later in the day.

* The Richmond Marathon seems so far away and I see a lot of people already training for it. For me, I’m still in maintenance mode and want to continue to build my base. I plan to have a few more 10-mile long runs and keeping my weekly mileage in the low 20s for a few more weeks before I “officially” begin training in July. Mentally I already am training … and the mental part of it is what is keeping my mileage up. I’m looking forward to seeing where my mileage goes for marathon No. 2.

* I really to avoid becoming a member of the complaining-about-the-weather club. It’s summer; I live in Virginia; it’s supposed to be hot and humid. I adapted well this past winter to get through a much colder-than-usual and snowier-than-usual winter around here, so this summer I’m going to have to do whatever it takes to battle the elements. My plan is to start running in the morning again for most of my runs. A friend and I plan to continue somewhat long runs on Wednesday evenings, which I think will help me be ready for any type of weather. It’s just kind of weird that the bulk of my marathon training will come in the heat, and the marathon will be in peak fall conditions.

* As you can tell, I have the marathon on my mind. Three years ago I wasn’t as nearly in shape as I am now before training begins, so I’m excited about it. So I’m going to be very unapologetic about talking about it so much over the next five months.

As friends of mine continue to talk me into crazy mountain runs, the time came last week to make a commitment to some new gear: a hydration backpack. For years, I’ve hated trying to have water with me, completely wasting money on a fuel belt that I hated. I’ve pretty much managed to take a small water bottle with me on runs longer than 10 miles, or strategically ran to a park with water fountains, or placed water outside my house. In simple terms, I like my hands to be free on long runs. It was time for me to find something that works, especially with marathon training coming this summer.

So on Friday I bought a hydration pack from Outdoor Products at Walmart. After one run, I couldn’t be happier with this purchase. With two straps — one across the chest and another near the belt line — it was never a distraction at all on my mountain adventure on Saturday. I filled the bladder up about half way and it was never a nuisance. I always had this assumption that it would be awful to carry the extra weight, but I didn’t mind at all. And with some extra pouches, I had more than enough room for my Flip cam, a Clif bar, my phone, some toilet paper and a key — I could easily have fit a sandwich in there and a few other small items without it being a problem.

I know I’ve only taken one run with this, but it’s rare that I speak so highly about something so quickly — so that should mean something to anyone who is skeptical or may be looking for a product like this.

Growing up, I had the chance to hike nearby Sharp Top mountain in Bedford County several times. However, I never tackled the trail with a purpose other than seeing the view. That all changed today as I went with a group to hike/run the mountain and then nearby Harkening Hill, which is just another smaller mountain.

Here’s a clip from my new Flip cam that I got this week. I need to work on saving the file size bigger, but because I’m hooked up wirelessly to DSL, I can’t save it too much bigger than it this.

(Did you notice that when I say I hope I’m not cutting off my head that I then proceed to cut off my head.)

This was a pretty awesome 8-mile adventure done in about an hour and 45 minutes. If I can ever get used to coming downhill on trails, this experience will be even more rewarding. That being said, conquering mountains is one of the greatest experiences I’ve had with running. It truly feels like I’m on top of the world when I reach a peak.