I would agree with you in saying that this post is long overdue, and for that I apologize. It seems I have gotten into this trend of starting these things with an apology... I need to stop that. I don't have a good excuse other than being busy and being a general slacker. I thought about skipping a recap of the last month and just moving onto training, but then I decided the Oregon trip was too good to skip and I should at least summarize my experiences out there. Also, my training hasn't been that exciting anyway, so I'll do more with that later.
Starting from where I left off a month ago...
At the end of August, I had the opportunity to travel out to Oregon and participate in the famous Hood To Coast Relay. This 197 mile race starts atop Mt. Hood and winds through several back roads and highways of Western Oregon, finishing at the beautiful coast in Seaside. It's broken up into 36 legs which are run by a rotating 12 member team over the course of two days. There are about 1000 teams participating in this event each year and the starts are staggered every 15 minutes throughout day 1 with start times based on your expected finish time to get every team into Seaside by Saturday evening. The first wave started at 6:30 AM and the final waves were off by 6:45 PM.
So how did I stumble across this opportunity? Well, it was all organized and paid for by the Strands team, a new online training log and social running network. In an effort to expand their fan base, they created several contests across the country within specialty running stores and running communities with the incentive that several contest winners could get flown out to Oregon for this great experience. With this incentive in mind and trying to increase our fan base as well, we at the Greater Boston Running Company participated in the contest. As a result, we were awarded a spot on this trip and I was asked to represent our store. Since I've been anxious to get back out to Oregon and I love to travel and meet new people, I eagerly accepted and was on my way. I soon found out that several of my other friends that I've met through similar experiences would be part of this nation wide team as well and the anticipation grew with each passing day.
I must say the Strands crew did an excellent job organizing this for everyone and I was really impressed by how well we were taken care of through it all. I had high expectations for the overall experience and they were able to surpass those expectations with ease.
I got into Oregon pretty late the night before the event so there wasn't much time to recover from jet lag or make any time change adjustments. But then again, it didn't really matter much since I was going to be running at odd times of the night with no sleep anyway. The morning of the event, I wandered over to get some breakfast at the hotel and found half of my team doing the same thing. I quickly picked out Tristan, Robby, and Shannon and did my quickest morning shuffle over to the table to join them as I was introduced to a few more of my team members. I last saw Tristan, Robby, and Shannon in Albuquerque almost a year ago, so it was great to reunite with them before the events got started and get caught up on some lost time.
Once we got all geared up, we got our van assignments and I found out who I'd be sharing those tight quarters with for the next 24 hours. There were 24 runners representing two Strands teams with two vans per team. I was assigned to leg 6 for the Puma Cats so I was on Van 1 with Matt Downin, Matt Hooley, Greg Haskell, Dawn Substad, and Marie Hoffman. The talent pool was split pretty evenly between the two teams (Puma Cats and One Night Strands) but with the time seeding formula that was used, One Night Strands were projected to finish 2 hours ahead of us. Our goal was to keep it much closer. Once we got the vans well stocked with all the cliff bars, trail mix, and peanut butter we could need, Van 1 from each team headed up the mountain to get ready for our start time.
Once we got up to the start line, we had some time to relax, get some pictures, and mingle with the other teams. I soon found the Brooks Beast (elite) team that was loaded with ringers, including some of my other Albuquerque buds, Jeremy Johnson and Jesse Armijo. I also met up with the Brooks Ghost (corporate) team that included my friends from the Eugene Trials, Jesse and Steve. I know it's a small world when it comes to elite running, but I'm always amazed by the amount of acquaintances I bump into at random occasions like this. There were close to 12,000 runners participating in this event and I happened to cross paths with a couple dozen friends that I didn't even know would be out there.
6:30 PM finally rolled around and Marie started us off running down the mountain. Because of the seed time difference, we had a 15 min head start on our other team that started in the final wave with the Brooks Beast and the Bowerman Athletic Club (both favorites for the overall title). By the 3rd leg, they had already made up the stagger. Our 4th and 5th legs opened up a little lead on them before handing off to me and despite all the efforts of their 6th leg (Strands sponsored athlete Josh Glaab), I was able to hold that lead. However, with our team being a little front loaded, that was the last time we had that lead. We kept it within 20 min through the first 18 legs, but they opened it up to over an hour by the time we entered the finish at Seaside.
I went into this event with the plan of running conservatively and keeping the pace at more of an easy tempo effort, seeing as I hadn't done a hard session since Beach to Beacon (Aug 1). Within the first couple miles, I got caught up in the competition and that previous responsible thinking was thrown out the window. It was the middle of the night, I couldn't see a thing, and with the hilly terrain, I had no idea what pace I was running. This carried through the other legs as well and I ended up with these numbers:
Leg 6 (Hard): 7.42 Miles (Tot Elev Loss = 450ft) - 39:32 (5:19 pace)
Leg 18 (Hard): 4.15 Miles (Tot Elev Gain = 250ft) - 23:31 (5:40 pace)
Leg 30 (Moderate): 5.35 Miles (Tot Elev Loss = 500ft) - 28:50 (5:23 pace)
Total = 16.92 Miles - 91:53 (5:25 pace)
My warm ups typically consisted of a 10-15 min jog with Hooley which was done at the exchange zone between our 4th and 5th runners. Then I would do some light stretching/drills/strides at the next exchange before I was handed the baton. The good thing about being the 6th leg was I had plenty of time to cool down (usually 5-10 min) and relax after my leg was over since Van 2 took over duties for the next 3 hours. I felt pretty good overall and though I was running harder than I planned, I felt very controlled on all three legs and recovered well throughout. I estimated that I accumulated about 27-28 Miles of running within a 15 hour period which was pretty substantial considering my mileage the week before was 37. I finished the last leg feeling surprisingly strong and felt like everything was holding up rather well. This was a big confidence boost for me, showing that there were still traces of that hard work I had done in the early spring/summer months. It wasn't until a few hours later that things started tightening up a little. I felt like as long as I kept things in motion, I was fine. After a nice soak in the ocean, a hot shower, and a hefty meal, we headed over to the finish line to await the rest of our team and enjoy the post race celebration.
Here's what the team results looked like:
1. Brooks Beast - 16:55:27
2. BAC Men - 17:06:08
3. Knoxville TC - 17:58:42
15. One Night Strands - 20:30:47
27. Brooks Ghost - 21:23:43
30. Puma Cats - 21:37:01
Despite the load my body had taken and the lack of sleep I had, I remember feeling pretty good that night after the race concluded. The following morning, however, was a different story. I have never been more sore in my life than I was that morning. All the major muscle groups had fairly normal post workout soreness, but the areas that were the worst were all my connective tissues (IT-Bands, Peroneals, Achilles, Plantars, etc.). As all my muscles just shriveled up to repair themselves, these connective tissues began to stretch to their limits. This is what I always expected my first day after a marathon would feel like. I took the next couple days as rest days and totalled about 25 min of VERY slow jogging over those two days.
We all spent Saturday, Sunday, and part of Monday in Seaside as we shared three beach houses that Strands generously rented out for us. Even though 6 stinky people crammed into a van can be a good environment for building friendly relationships, those next two days were where the whole group did the most bonding. We took a trip down the Oregon coast stopping at neat places along the way, passed through some coastal towns, saw some gorgeous views, and ate a lot of great food, while enjoying the nice Oregon weather. Overall, it was a memorable experience for all of us and despite some people having to hobble around a bit more than others, I think everyone took a lot of positives from this trip. Check out the pictures below that help tell the story, as well as the album I've posted on Facebook.
As most of you know, I am loyal to my New Balance team sponsor, but I do have to thank Strands and Puma for doing such a great job with this trip. I did run the event in the Strands uniform, but had my trusty NB 1224's on for the duration of the event, which kept me from breaking under the heavy load. If you haven't done so already, check out the Strands website and see what they are all about. It's a great resource for runners and they put a lot of support into our sport.
I returned to Boston and was back running with minimal soreness on Tuesday. By Thursday, everything was back to normal. Again, I was impressed with my bodies ability to recover quickly. Considering how sore I was on Sunday, I didn't expect to be back to normal just 4 days later (it sometimes takes me longer than that to recover from a track session). I think the combination of distance and pace that I did was enough to get me working hard but not tear me down too much. This may be a sign that I can do some longer workouts in the future as I consider longer races over the next couple years. More on that in future posts.
Since this experience, I've been keeping very busy while also trying to get that training consistency back. It's a busy time of year at the store with marathon season and XC season being in full swing. High School kids and adults in the Boston area are all running around like crazy and need some guidance while doing so. New Balance Boston has started official practices again and both the men and women squads are looking phenomenal right now. It's a good thing we aren't picking the National team right now, because I think I'd have trouble making the top 7. It's been great having such a strong group to work out with and I know it will help push us all through the season and hopefully onto a high finish at the Club National Meet in December. I've been averaging about 50-60 miles a week for the last month, which isn't ideally where I'd like to be, but I've had some flare ups with my left plantar (all past issues were on the right side) and a couple other things. My body has been slowly responding to the added workouts, so the goal is to get into the 70s in October and keep it there for a while if everything is functioning properly. I've been experimenting more with a lighter trainer and Superfeet in response to my lower leg issues, as well as wearing compression socks on most of my hard runs. As I am getting back into better training, I'll start posting more of my training routines here in future posts (hopefully more frequently than I have recently).
Other things keeping me busy are the Santa Barbara International Marathon as we get closer to race time in December, as well as a new project I'm working on with one of my old friends and colleagues. It's something that should be a great opportunity for me to get involved with other things I'm really interested in. More on that at another time.
Lastly, I need to give some shout outs for recent happenings. First of all, my older sister Christine just got engaged this week and I am so happy for her and her fiancee Jon. My good friend and teammate, Mario, while on the mend, has been building himself a new home for his writing, which you should all check out. Just a few weeks after my 200 mile relay, New Balance Boston had one of their own as they tried to defend their title at the Reach the Beach Relay in New Hampshire, finishing 2nd overall. That same weekend, Rebecca Donaghue (also of NBB) finished 2nd at the US 5K Champs in Providence. And finally, former NBB stud and current Zapster, Jessica Minty won her first race in a Zap uniform at the Asheville Thomas Wolfe 8K, while logging 3 digit mileage weeks for the first time in her career.
Well, I guess that's more than enough for this post. I hope to get back to more frequent and less lengthy posts in the future, with more data from the training log. Stay tuned.
Hood to Coast Pictures:
(The picture at the top of this post was taken at Cannon Beach in front of the rock where they filmed the final scenes of The Goonies)
Van Artwork
On the Mountain before the start
The "Bolt"
At the finish line
At our beach house
Trip down the Oregon Coast
