The flats of Florida

Ahhh...the good ol' flat asphalt of Florida. About as boring as running gets. Just slightly more exciting than pounding out the miles on a treadmill. Which, is exactly where I ended up today when the temperature reached 90 F and the wind gusts hit 25mph.

Floridians, please don't take offense. I actually learned to love running 12 years ago when I was high school cross country runner in Boca Raton. And every time I return to Florida I look forward to the endless flat roads that should be so fast. So why aren't they? I asked myself this question yesterday during my moderately fast (speed is relative when you're training for a hundred) tempo run yesterday.

After much debate with myself I settled on the fact that the run just becomes so monotonous that my mind goes numb and I stop pushing myself. There's no hill to push myself to the top of and there's no cruising downhill for a few minutes of needed recovery. The only change in speed and effort is when I tell myself to push it to the stop sign or when I let myself walk the last 0.2 miles home.

Except for this 7 mile bridge. I'd be happy to run this road a few time.
I biked it once with WWP, but still hope to run it some day in my life.

In the end, it's really not that bad. It just reminds me how much I love change in terrain and the excitement of trail running. It reminds of me of why I love to run. Which is a good thing less than 3 weeks out from Umstead 100 as I taper for the race and remind myself why I signed up in the first place.

Part 2 of my long run

Today marked the final day of my longest back-to-back runs for the Umstead 100. I woke up with heavy legs this morning after putting in 18 miles yesterday on the trails and thought, "this is perfect." It actually was exactly how I wanted to feel going into my long run today. Tired, fatigued, sore. My legs could attest to all of those.

I decided to hit a different set of trails today to bang out my next 20 miles and actually felt refreshed as my feet hit the trail. The first few miles were actually the worst, as my legs were still rebelling after my run yesterday, but once they caught on that I wasn't going to stop, they gave in and cooperated. By the end of the 20 miles I actually felt better than when I started.

I think these back-to-back weekend runs have been a superior way to train than just one long run. Of course, I won't really know until race day on April 6th, but for now I'm feeling stronger, faster, and less injured. The only complaint today was minor shin splints when I started and some rubbing on my residual limb where I had rubbed the skin raw yesterday. Luckily, a little Vaseline took care of that problem.

Longest run before Umstead

Today was the start of my longest run before the Umstead 100 miler on April 6th. Last year my longest run was 50 miles and afterwards my left calf was so tight that stretching it brought tears to my eyes. I frantically bought every contraption I could find that might help to loosen it- a compression sleeve, roller, etc. So this year I decided to approach my longest run a little bit differently. Instead of tackling it in one day I decided to spread it out over 2 days. This is not unusual in ultra training in order to get used to running on tired legs though most amputees avoid back-to-back long runs because of the stress on the residual limb, which often doesn't hold up with constant banging around in the prosthesis. However this is the plan Ive decided on since clearly my plan last year didn't work out! So
20 miles today and another 18 scheduled tomorrow. At least I'm feeling great after my first long run of the weekend. Even had a little photo op with Augustus Cho, from GI Jo: Retaliation, on the trails of North Forest. Ill let you know how tomorrow goes when my legs are sufficiently pooped to properly simulate the second half a 100 miler.

lap 3 of umstead

Well it's not often that you can post on a blog, text family and friends updates and listen to an audobook during a race. Lao 3 has been a little less fun but it's still going by quickly. 34 miles in 6:35

Race Morning

Less than 2 hours until race start and it's raining. Not just a drizzle, but real rain! Well I went into this expecting the unexpected so things are getting off to a good start!

Umstead 100 3/31/2012

The count down to the 2012 Umstead 100 mile ultra is about at an end. Tomorrow is the big day when 283 runners will sprint off the starting line at 6:00am to run a 12.5 mile loop 8 times most likely finishing up the following day. I will be attempting to blog from the course and Alex will no doubt be sending updates about my progress. Looking forward to the adventure. Please post encouraging words or send "your crazy" text messages to keep my entertained. :)

Pinehurst Triathlon

Woohoo! Last race of the season and boy was it a great event. Drove out the day before and was really liking the Pinehurst area. Dinner was interesting though and I have to write this down here just so you can appreciate "other" parts of North Carolina. I carpooled with some friends to Pinehurst who knew the area better than me so I let them pick the place for dinner. We settled on a large, local Italian restaurant that one of them had been to a couple years before. We were finally shown to a table after a 45 minute wait, despite the 25 minute wait we were quoted. Starving and pre-race, we all ordered large portions of pasta (or at least that's what we were expecting), but we were sadly disappointed when the waiter brought out 4 small bowls containing our dinner. Disappointed, we asked for our checks and got ready to go. And that's when we finally saw the most surprising sign I've ever seen - "No credit cards or debit cards accepted." wtf? We were all shocked and without enough cash to pay our bill. I might still be working in the kitchen washing dishes to pay off my dinner if it hadn't turned out that one of the girls with us happened to have her checkbook. And surprisingly the restaurant accepted personal checks. Just not credit cards or debit cards.

Back to racing though. Even though it was already mid-October the day started off at 75 degrees. I was actually a little hot getting into my wetsuit and was happy to get into the water, which was still cooler than the air temperature. The race went off on time at 8:00am and I was off to finish my final race of the season. Sadly I have no exciting events to report really except that it was a good race and I enjoyed the day! The bike was beautiful with rolling hills. The run was a little surprise though. I knew it was going to be a little hilly, but I wasn't expecting the constant hills nor the heat (it was pushing mid-80s by 10:30) in the October so I have to admit I was ill-prepared for the run. I will take the hills more seriously next year. No more training on flat courses.

Anyway, I finished 3rd open female (and would have been 4th in AG) with a time of 3:12:40.