Strava Made Me Do It

On May 24, 2019May 27, 2019 By Bobby Geronimo4 Comments

Dre coughed so violently that it activated her gag reflex, sending in her into a sort of mid-stride dry heave. She looked up the steep ridgeline in front of her and forced the words out through a muffled wheeze: “We almost there?”

“Yeah, almost done,” I lied. “Last little push.”

It was cold for Southern California, around 45 degrees, but she was stripped down to her sports bra, the previously donned jacket, beanie and gloves stuffed in various locations around her waistband, stripped off and stowed as the effort accumulated. We were charging up a trail in the Santa Monica Mountains that you won’t find on any map or listed in any guidebook. One of those locals-only type things that, if you’re lucky enough to know about it, will roll you higher and higher across increasingly technical terrain until it deposits you on the highest point in The Pacific Palisades. The summit has exposure, solid topographical prominence and even a make-shift register in a plastic box with a little boulder on top.

We kept pushing hard, fighting through the brush and branches jutting out across the seldom-used trail. Just as we crested one of the many false summits along the ridge and started to descend I heard a muffled exclamation but didn’t see her break stride so I kept moving, not thinking much of it. It wasn’t until we were back in the car that I saw the gash along her right eyelid and found out that she had been stabbed in the eye by an errant tree branch.

It’s a funny thing that these type of efforts do to you. Dre was chasing the course record on a Strava segment. You might think that’s pretty lame. Say whatever you will about it: it’s a social media app, it’s not a real FKT, it’s for old dudes on electric bikes and retired pro cyclists. But this app and it’s segments, particularly this 1.4 mile ridgeline with 1600ft of vertical gain over rocky, technical terrain with a solid class 4 section, switched what could have been a casual Friday morning jaunt through the mountains into a coughing, hacking, dry heaving, spitting, air-gasping all-out sufferfest where Dre was prepared to leave it all out there on the trail. Blood, sweat, tears, stomach bile; name your bodily fluid. She was going after it.

There’s something special about these type of efforts. There’s something different about charging and moving and hurting yourself. Taking yourself to this place where you’re not sure what’s going to happen. A place far outside your comfort zone. A place where pretense and posturing fall by the wayside, dumped in a pile along with all those other neatly manicured aspects of your personality.

It’s a magical place that, in my opinion, not a lot of people have the ability nor the toughness to experience. I’m not talking about going out and trying to run a fast mile or targeting the course record on the ½ mile bike path loop by your house. I’m talking about mountains. Climbing. Testing yourself against terrain that most people wouldn’t consider walking on. Putting yourself in situations where the stakes are high and the risk is real. I’m talking about being alive.

Dre is no stranger to tough Strava segments; last summer she set the CR on the Owen-Spaulding Route on Grand Teton (from the lower saddle to the summit), where she free-soloed three class 5 pitches above 13’000ft.

The amount of time we spend in a climate controlled box, staring at a glowing rectangle has overreached any cliche about being sedentary and far surpassed all hyperbole about “screen time”. For most of us at this point, it’s just the way it is. It’s becoming harder and harder to remember a time when things were different.

We have come so far out of our evolutionary setting that the effects are real and easily measurable. We hardly experience any of the emotions that make us human anymore. We don’t do anything that makes us appreciate all the luxuries that we enjoy. The inordinate amount of time we spend in this luxury makes us soft and whiny so when we don’t have it, we pout and get angry and count the seconds until were back in it, to the point where I hear people talking about not being able to take a shit without their cellphone. How did we get here?

“We’re not gonna get it…” Dre said breathlessly as her left foot slid atop a small pile of loose boulders.

“Just keep moving,” I replied. “Almost there.” I had probably said that so much to her at this point that it reminded me of the opening line of 4th Time Around by Bob Dylan: “Then, she don’t waste, your words they’re just lies.” But she did. She kept charging. Grunting and huffing and puffing away. Approaching the class four section (aptly titled The Wall on Strava). I extended a helping hand but she ignored it. I knew she would. She scrambled to the top, wheezing a bit, fighting off another coughing fit.

All that was left was a couple of little rollers and we were there. I glanced down at my watch as Dre charged past me, hands still on her knees, surveying the terrain waiting for it to flatten out enough for her to start running. It was going to be close. She didn’t ask me how much further, she could smell it. The barn, the summit and the end of this little digital line, drawing a beautiful aesthetic across the ridge by way of satellite.

She was lost in the effort. Lost in the experience. Completely in the moment, just her against the mountain. Moving lightly over natural terrain, pushing her body to the edge, redlining and testing those outer edges of her fitness. Striving to reach the top. I don’t think it gets much more human than that. She was learning about herself this morning.

Would she have done it without Strava? Probably. That’s just the kind of person she is. But maybe not quite as hard. Having a bench mark already set by someone goes a long way toward making your morning runs competitive. Not for everyone, but for some.

For Dre on this particular morning, the thought of going to work all day after missing the course record by eight seconds was too painful an eventuality. This time, you could safely say that Strava made her do it.

I was a few steps behind her as she crested peak and stood on the summit, rolling green mountains surrounding her on all sides. Despite giving all I had on the final 400 meters, I couldn’t stay with her. I found her bent over, breathing hard, watching her sweat hit the dirt in front of her face. I laid my hand gently on her back.

“You got it,” I said with the slightest air of solemnity, “By almost two minutes! Sent a lot of emails this morning…”

She stood up, beaming. Her eyes sparkled and her skin glowed.

“I fucking better have,” she said as a huge smile spread across her face, “cuz there’s no way I’m doing that again.”

Look at Me! Look at Me!

On August 16, 2017August 16, 2017 By Bobby Geronimo44 Comments

I’m gonna be the old man on the porch. It needs to be said.

GrabbedShot 2017-08-15 at 2.40.17 PM — YouTube: The Mocko Show

The times they are a-changing. And they’re changing fast. Things that would have been viewed by most people as completely insane just a few short years ago, are now becoming ubiquitous. I recently finished a run on a bike path where I live, and the majority of the people riding bikes (the vast, VAST majority) were either filming themselves, taking photos of themselves or facetiming somebody.

One guy was laid across the entire southbound lane of the bike path on his stomach with a DLSR so he could take photos of a girl who was posing in a bikini. When I ran back by 45 minutes later, he was still there, doing the exact same thing, still laid across the bike path.

I get it. The allure of social media status has completely outweighed everything else. The ability to exist in any situation completely depends on the amount of attention you think you could be getting. If you think you can garner enough, you’ll do something as outrageously ridiculously as lying across an entire bike lane for almost an hour, blocking hundreds of people’s path and completely forgoing any amount of respect you may have had for your fellow citizens. Not to mention those last shreds of personal pride.

I honestly never expected it to bleed into the trail and ultra scene quite so hard and quite so fast. The entire allure of trail running for me was as an escape. To get away from all the bullshit. To leave my phone and my inbox and the rest of the world behind, to get out on the trails away from all the commotion and be present. It helps me balance out the rest of my life. My screen time, my poor eating choices, too much sitting… all these things can be mitigated by a long, hard mountain run. You come back feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

It’s essentially the opposite of what Jamil Coury does. When was the last time that guy went on a run without a camera? Then he comes back and whines into the camera for eight and half minutes about how stressed out he his, how much editing he has to do, and how it’s so important for him to get his videos out to “to his fans”. Like there’s some sort of hard deadline being imposed by someone. Like all his “fans” are gonna die if they can’t watch his next video where he shows off the new car he just got.

The V-log/Snapchat/Instagram Story thing is probably what has gotten to me most. The mumbling The lack of quality is appalling. If you’re gonna produce content, edit it. Nobody wants to want watch you say “uhhhh” 75 times in a six-minute video. Would it be that big of a deal to write some thoughts down on an index card? I would expect this from someone as dull as Sage Canaday. But we know that Jamil can put out quality content. He does it once a week with his Mountain Outpost newscast. When you script what you’re going to say, or maybe even just think about it a little bit, it isn’t quite as appalling. In fact, sometimes it’s really good.

Chris Mocko, who is definitely the posterboy for “how to be an ultra douchebag”, was actually writing some decent content on his Medium-hosted website. I mean, it was somehow all about money and and how he quit his tech job, but at least he was sitting down and formulating content. He was creating something that he obviously gave a little bit of thought to.

GrabbedShot 2017-08-15 at 2.16.37 PM — YouTube: The Mocko Show

Then, apparently he realized how easy it was to just film himself walking through Costco rambling about nothing and throw the video up and get a couple thousand easy views. Why bother sitting down and typing out an article? It’s all becoming pretty unbelievable. Here’s a guy who has one successful 100-mile finish under his belt on a course with a net elevation loss and he has the audacity to title a series of videos: “How to Train for UTMB”. What does he know about it? Has he run the race before? And no one calls him out on this shit? It’s just a big circle jerk.

Billy Yang probably spent more time editing the trailer for The Unknown than Chris Mocko has spent on his entire 50+ vlog catalog, including the conceptualization and editing (Ha! Just kidding, Mocko doesn’t edit). It’s really sad that someone who takes the time to actually THINK about his content (and this is obviously understating it enormously) is getting the relative same amount of views as someone like Mocko or Canaday.

(Full disclosure: I have never watched a Sage Canaday v-log. A long time ago, my Youtube autoplay cued up one of his videos and he was supposedly just finishing a 20 miler in the middle of a 100 mile week and he goes, “Just finished a 20 miler, getting the legs nice and sore going for a 100 mile week.” Then he points at the camera and and says, at the absolute apex of douche: “Don’t try this at home.” I had just finished a 100 mile week, despite having a full-time job and getting no support from anybody. So I immediately turned it off and vowed never to watch him again. He might be scripting his content, but from what I’ve heard, it’s chock full of “ummm” barrages and repetitive, tangential garbage.)

At the end of the day, however, it’s not their fault. These guys are trying to make a living doing what they love. Sure, they might be bastardizing the hell out of something that has given them so much, something that they purport to love, but apparently they don’t see any other way.

The fault here lies with the community. It lies with us. Mocko isn’t throwing in the towel on his website and focusing solely on his stellar YouTube content because he gets less views there. He’s doing it because he gets a lot more. Is this what we really want? Is this really how you want to spend our time.

The argument against this usually goes something like this: Chris Mocko is sharing with the community. He’s putting himself out there and inspiring tons of people. He’s a saint, paragon and a model of excellence. Anyone who says anything bad about him or what he’s doing is an asshole. Period.

It’s funny how these arguments always sound dogmatic (and I would know, I’ve got the Reddit comments to prove it). It’s always “if you don’t like it, don’t watch” or some other such sentiment that completely misses the point. Someone comes with a solid, logical argument about why something is inherently bad or dangerous or annoying and you never, ever get any logic back.

You just get people who are upset for some reason simply because I said something that wasn’t positive. It doesn’t matter what it is. I could have said that Chris Mocko smells like shit and the reaction would be the same as if I said I hate his YouTube channel and think that it’s bad for the running community and the world.

This is why someone like Dakota Jones is forced to opine about social media use in an entirely satirical way. And while this is funny, all he’s doing is normalizing these things. Despite what seem to be the best intentions, he’s really only making things worse. It’s the Satire Paradox, something Malcolm Gladwell does an amazing job illustrating here.

But when I read Dakota Jones’s piece or stumble across a funny comment in a Strava activity like this one:

GrabbedShot 2017-08-15 at 1.52.14 PM — God, I love Tim Tollefson.

I can’t help but feel slightly hopeful. Hopeful for our attention spans, hopeful for humanity, hopeful that pure vanity isn’t going to win out. There are the guys and girls out there who are doing it right. Tim Tollefson would never pull this shit. Mike Foote does just fine making a living from running without being a douchebag in the slightest. You can even have a huge presence, like Emilie Forsberg, without compromising your humility.

Can you imagine Jeff Browning filming himself saying “Any runner can get a free pair of socks or a few gels… but how about a full shoe sponsorship?!?” and then proceeding to dance around in praise of himself for the next three minutes? Why is this acceptable?

Time is a valuable commodity and whenever I watch one of these videos, I feel like I’ve wasted time I can’t get back. I feel like I’m losing touch with the world. I feel like everyone has lost their mind. I feel like an old man on the porch trapped in a 30-year-old body. I’ve vowed to stop. I can’t do it anymore. My only hope is that you will stop too. Stop consuming this garbage. Take a stand. Vote with your time. I’ll tell you right now, your time is much more valuable than this:

GrabbedShot 2017-08-15 at 2.13.37 PM — YouTube: Vo2 Max Productions

Recently, Kendrick probably said it the best: Be Humble. Sit Down.

Trail and Ultra Running in the Post-Krupicka Climate

On April 24, 2017April 26, 2017 By Bobby Geronimo52 Comments

Jim Walmsley Paul Nelson — Photo: Paul Nelson

There seems to be somewhat of a distinction forming— a line being etched across the dirt. The community as whole seems unusually divided. The comment sections of seemingly every article slowly gestating toward the inevitable. Even places normally reserved for congratulations and respect, like Strava runs, are seen exploding into 40 comment arguments. I haven’t been running for very long so I’m not exactly a historian when it comes to the cultural swings and relative zeitgeist of the mountain ultra community, but I’m starting to feel like we’re at a crossroads.

I’m a bit ashamed to admit, when I first got into running it was really because of Born to Run. I was in a post-college basketball funk where I hadn’t figured out what I was going to do athletically and was getting incredibly sedentary, bored and fat. I was primed and ready for somebody like Chris McDougall to tell me that I was designed by evolution to run, so I should probably be running. It made sense to me. I don’t have any problem doing things that make sense. Plus, it felt really good and it got me outside in the mountains— at first I didn’t even think about running on the road, it wasn’t even an option, I wanted the romanticized spiritual experience that McDougall was selling along with a pair of minimalist shoes.

Pretending I was a tarahumara certainly kept me running everyday and was getting me into great shape and calming me down and having tons of other positive side-effects, but I seriously doubt I would have tried to push my running as far as I have without Tony Krupicka. The runners that I knew about at the time were people from Born to Run, like Scott Jurek, but I had yet to even pick up a running magazine or look at an ultra running website. I really didn’t know much about the culture of the sport at all.

Then I ran my first ultra and the race director put a three-month-old issue of TrailRunner Magazine in the swag bag. The big story inside was the 2013 Speedgoat 50k matchup between Anton Krupicka and Sage Canaday (where Anton gets beat by 90 seconds and they run the fastest two times ever on the course).

So then I get introduced to these guys and it’s already very apparent how different they are: Sage is wearing maximal shoes, a fanny pack, long(ish) and a sleeveless tech shirt. Anton is wearing some New Balance Mt100s that he probably whittled the heel down on and the smallest pair of shorts he can find. He’s got long hair and beard. Sage is clean shaven with a stupid hair cut.

Speedgoat podium 2013 — 2013 Speedgoat 50k podium (From left: Krupicka, Canaday and Jason Schlarb) Photo: Billy Yang

A little more research produced more of the same: Sage talked about running on the track while Tony talked about a spiritual connection with the mountains. Sage was doing hill repeats on graded fire roads and Tony was tagging every 14er in sight. Tony has other aspirations in the mountains: climbing, skiing— hiking when he was injured. Sage Canaday seems like the type of dude to pick running on an Alter-g treadmill in physical therapist’s office over going on a hike and has no other aspirations in the mountains from what I can tell. (Side note: I’m not trying to single out Sage Canaday for some reason, this was just how my experience happened. I think Sage is an amazing runner, obviously.)

At this point, I pretty much wanted to be Tony Krupicka. He’s the basically the coolest dude in the world. He was out there talking about running like a buddhist philosopher and then toeing the line on race day and crushing everybody’s souls. He was some mythical legend, sleeping in his car at trailheads all summer and running every big peak in short shorts and no water bottle, taking routes that most people would be roped-up on. He slept on the floor of a buddy’s hotel room then won the Miwok 100 the next day to punch a WS100 ticket.

He was the definition of minimalism. He needed less than everybody else and he was still going to perform the best. Kilian was and never will be what Tony Krupicka was for a few years there: a true mountain runner. Tony was running in the winter still, he wasn’t skiing yet. He was literally running in the mountains everyday and, in the summer at least, showering in the river. He just embodied this certain ideal. He lived and breathed the mountains. Like he would rather not run than step on a treadmill or a track and he would most certainly choose to forgo shoes altogether before lacing up a pair of Hokas.

TK Scramble Rob Timko — Photo: Rob Timko

Then we lost Tony. I realize this is an entirely selfish point of view. I don’t care. We need him now more than ever and I want him to come back. As his old self. At the very least, I’d love to see him running again, with his newly-honed climbing and biking proficiency, he’d undoubtedly be doing some insane running/biking/climbing projects that nobody else would have the skill set for. But as of right now, there’s nobody to fill his shoes.

I hesitate to even mention it so early on but he has, ever since his recent trip to Chamonix, been logging some solid runs in the mountains. He has put multiple runs over three-plus hours on Strava in the past couple weeks and he seems to be holding up. So there’s that. Could be something. Fingers crossed.

I read an interesting article by Chase Parnell where he talks about the dichotomy in ultra running and just reading it, I get the sense that if Tony were still his former self, this debate would be a lot less heated. The purist-mountain runner side has no one to carry our flag. Walmsley and Co. seem to be growing by the day (thanks to Rob Krar, according to Tony Krupicka]. We should make hats like surfers did when Laird Hamilton re-popularized paddle boarding, ours will say “Blame Rob”). And all us mountain purist people have to either site Krupicka circa-2010 or hope that Killian beats Walmsley at UTMB.

TK Speedgoat Matt Trappe — Photo: Matt Trappe

Chase spends a lot of time talking about the difference in technicality of the races and making predictions about certain match-ups in the mountains and I certainly agree with what he’s saying. There’s no way Kilian gets beats by Walmsely because Kilian won’t line up for a race that Walmsely is going to win. Kilian likes steep, super technical stuff. I ran The Rut, that shit is not flat. There’s a better chance we see Kim Kardashian line up for Western States than Kilian again.

But I think he’s missing the point about this whole debate. Tony Krupicka was so special because he transcended running. Tony was so much more. Tony Krupicka was like a religion, a lifestyle. Listen to any podcast that he’s on and the hosts alway ask the same questions: trying to decipher his lifestyle and unlock the code to his success. He lived the dream and he did it for the right reasons. He respected, humbled himself to, drew motivation from and exclusively ran in the mountains. It was pure and it was beautiful.

At first, I was mad about the whole Tony Krupicka thing. Then, I realized that I was being ridiculous and selfish. Sure, he had completely abandoned most things that seemed to give him so much success early on in his career and made ridiculous statements about how old he is and how his “body can’t take the pounding it used to” when there are numerous examples of people much older than him running much more, some exclusively in the mountains and some at a much faster pace (like Mike Wardian). But at the end of the day, none of that shit is my business.

Thinking about this (and spending entirely too much time in comments sections reading about this) recently has highlighted the fact that even a small community like ultrarunning—where most of the famous runners are essentially no-names to the general population— is still an incredibly celebrity driven culture. We’re obsessed. It’s a problem. Why does everyone care so much?

jim-walmsley — The man of the moment, Photo: Clif Bar

I loved being inspired by Tony Krupicka. I still go back and read his old Runner’s World blog posts when I’m feeling especially unmotivated. But if I don’t have my own very real reasons for wanting to go running everyday, for wanting to spend time in the mountains, nobody else is going to be able to get me there. Everyone gets to pick which races they run (for the most part, lotteries can be a bitch) and everyone gets to pick where they devote their own time, effort and money.

Regardless of where the community as a whole swings, or regardless of who graces the magazine covers, there will always be people on the fringe, people who spurn the establishment for a more pure, simplistic style. People who draw their motivation from a different well. Breathe the air a little more deeply. And they probably belonged out on the fringe all along, where they prefer to be.

Chasing Jeff Browning

On March 24, 2017March 23, 2017 By Bobby Geronimo6 Comments

Author’s Note: All Jeff Browning quotes are reconstructed from memory. While I think I did an accurate job remembering what was said and how it was said, we were running (fast) up a mountain at the time.

_________________________________

“Within five years, Walmsley will be out of the sport.” My ears perked as the musing from Jeff Browning came floating over his shoulder. My head snapped back toward the trail and Jeff, away from Sullivan Canyon, slowly being awoken by the soft morning light.

“You think?” I wondered aloud.

“Have you seen that dude’s Strava?” Jeff asked. “He’s running sooo much. Too much. One hundred and forty, one hundred and sixty mile weeks, one after another.”

“And super fast too.” I added.

“If you look at anyone who’s had any longevity in this sport– like me or Meltzer– we’re consistently putting in 70-80 mile weeks. There’s a place for a 100 mile week in a training plan. But you can’t be there all the time. You’re gonna flame out. That’s exactly what happened to Tony.”

I think it was right around this point, when I heard Jeff casually referred to Anton Krupicka as “Tony” during a conversation he was having with me that I started to realize how lucky I was in the present moment. Not only was I running with Jeff Browning (in the lead of a race) but he– one of the most successful, competitive, smart ultrarunners in the world– was dropping knowledge on me like a professor.

“I think you can run year-round if you stay in that 70-80 mile range.” Jeff said. “You don’t really need an offseason.”

It was only 7:15am but it was already getting hot. We were hammering hard uphill, climbing away from Will Rogers State Park en route to Trippet Ranch in the heart of Topanga. My hat felt heavy with sweat. I glanced down at my watch as we approached the top of the Will Rogers trail: we had been averaging just over eight minute per mile pace for the first seven miles, which had over two thousand feet of vertical gain and no relief– maybe 10 cumulative feet of descent.

“Would you go out this hard in a 100 typically?” I asked.

“No, definitely not. We’re going out pretty hot right now,” Jeff said glancing back at me with slightly raised eyebrows. “For 68, this will be ok for me. In a 100, it’s too risky. Once the wheels fall off, they ain’t going back on. I like to make sure I can run the last 50k of a 100. If I can just run nine minute pace, I’m picking people off. I was in 17th at Forest Hill last year at Western.”

And we all know how that turned out. I was just trying to soak in all of the wisdom I could from a guy who is 45 years old and still crushing 100 milers in big mountains (he finished just behind Kilian at Hardrock last year), has consistently shown an ability to be competitive and run an exceptional smart race from start to finish (regardless of what is happening at the front of the pack). His nutrition is on point. He basically invented drilling screws into your shoes for running on snow and ice, making anyone who purchased “running crampons” feel like a total moron.

“You trying to go under the FKT today?” I asked. I had been wanting to ask him this from the first moment we started chatting but I had held off. Somehow I don’t think I really wanted to know the answer.

“Yeah….” Jeff said casually, “I’m just trying to finish in the daylight. Under twelve hours.”

The current FKT stood at 12 hours nine minutes, set by Mark Hartell back in 2012. Before that, Chris Price had it for a little bit but he ran it the “wrong way”: West to East, which is less vert and ignores the historical significance of the trail. It’s run the way it was established: East to West. And there’s also just something beautiful and poetic and perfect about descending the Ray Miller trail down toward Pt. Mugu, racing the sun toward the horizon, hoping to reach the finish line before it disappears beneath the endless expanse of ocean. Running back into smoggy Santa Monica isn’t as satisfying for a number of reasons, regardless of how much closer it may be to my apartment.

“Twelve hours seems kinda slow for 68 miles.” I stated, fully aware that with over 15,000 feet of climbing, most people tell you the Backbone runs like a 100 miler. I was simply attempting to draw attention to the fact that not a lot of fast people had attempted the FKT and any number of runners could probably come and break it if they were interested (as Jeff would do that day).

“But dude,” Jeff replied, “It’s just so technical. And there’s a ton of climbing. The guy with the FKT has won Hardrock a couple times.”

And it was true. The Backbone is super technical. Jeff didn’t need to tell me that. I had run every step of it (with a tiny exception on a recently re-opened section). Mark Hartell certainly was a badass: he won Hardrock and finished second there twice. He finished top-five at Western States and top-twenty at UTMB. It’s not like he was some scrub who rolled off the couch and decided to go for a run on a random Saturday because he was bored. This was a highly coordinated attempt by a highly accomplished runner.

“But I guess if you’re gonna set the FKT, a race is the time to do it, with all the aid you could ever need laid out for you.” I added.

“Yeah, it’s kind of weird. There’s not many races that take place over routes that people run for FKTs…” Jeff said before trailing off. I was half hoping we were going to get into a philosophical discussion about the relative merits of unsupported vs supported vs full race aid station FKT attempts. Not only was Jeff Browning a total badass, he was a super cool guy.

As we floated into Trippett Ranch, the first aid station at mile 11.5, Jesse Haynes running along side us holding his GoPro in an outstretched arm, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

I was so into the conversation with Jeff, I realized I had barely drank anything and my shorts were already soaked with sweat. We kept saying how hot it was going to be today. Fuck that, it was hot right now. I filled my bottles– that were only half empty– tossed a cup of water on my head and was pounding down Dead Horse toward Topanga Canyon Blvd, hot on Jeff’s tail.

I broke my stride and fell into a power hike for the first time on the super steep pitch behind Topanga Elementary. The conversation and basically just the presence of Jeff Browning had pulled me out of myself a bit. I hadn’t been drinking nearly enough water, I wasn’t checking in with my stride, and I hadn’t even thought about nutrition at this point.

This was my big concern. It seems to always come down to nutrition for me. I just hate eating when I run. I can easily go 50k in a training run without eating anything (before or during). As soon as I eat, I feel like everything goes to shit. All of the sudden, I have to content with the food in my stomach as well as the miles in front of me. It seems like more stress than relief.

My plan in this race was to wait until I got hungry and then eat what looked good off the aid tables. Not exactly the dialed-in nutrition plan of someone like Jeff Browning (whom I had witnessed pulling a pill bottle out of his Strider Pros and popping a small capsule about 45 minutes into the race) but I was hoping for the best.

The three-mile climb through the canopied Hondo Canyon went surprisingly well. I was cooling off a bit in the shade, trying to drink water and still climbing strong. It’s almost 2,000 feet in a 3.5 miles and I was able to keep my pace solid and my cadence high. As I turned onto the Fossil Ridge Trail, about a mile from the second aid station (at 20k) I left the shade of Hondo Canyon and started climbing along the exposed ridgeline. The sunlight felt heavy beating down on my back as I drained my second 20oz bottle. I immediately slowed in the heat. Luckily, I was starting to feel hungry just in time for the aid station.

I bombed into the Lois Ewen Overlook– an exposed intersection with a small parking lot at what is essentially the top of Topanga, tossed my water bottles to my crew for refilling and started perusing the table for food. I slammed a couple dixie cups full of coke and then started eating an almond butter sandwich. There were some rolled up tortillas stuffed full of avocado that looked tasty so I shoved two in my waist belt and was off down the trail, mouth full of almond butter and Wonder bread, looking forward to the first extended descent after 18 miles of non-stop climbing.

I knew I was dehydrated. I started to think that I was more dehydrated that I thought when I literally could not swallow the second half of my almond butter sandwich. It was just stretching around my mouth in a dry mess. When I exhaled, little bits of bread were wheezing their way out. It felt like I had sand glued to the inside of mouth. It took me a full 20oz bottle to get it swallowed. I felt like Ron Burgundy; it was a bad choice on a hot day.

As soon as I started to push the pace on the descent, my abs started to cramp. My abs usually start to cramp when I get pretty dehydrated. They’re fucking weak. Another thing I need to work on. I HATE walking descents. It kills me. For me, mentally, it’s on par with sitting in a massive traffic jam on the 405. There’s all this free speed available, I can run fast without exerting effort. I can’t handle it if I’m forced to walk. I should probably work on that, too.

I flexed my abs as hard as I could and decided to push through. They kept getting worse. I continued pounding down the switchbacks toward the Piuma Trailhead. The cramps spread across both sides. I kept pounding. Two minutes later, I was bent over the side of the trail vomiting. Violently. My entire abdominal cavity felt like it was stuck in a twisted mess that could never be untangled. I had to walk now. I was already dehydrated and I just threw up all my water. I walked it in to the aid station at mile 25.8, exactly four hours elapsed.

Descent to Piuma — Descending to Piuma. Pretending to run for the camera. Photo: Howie Stern

By 4:35 elapsed, just as the runner in third place was coming through the aid station, I still couldn’t keep anything down. I was cramping all over my body. My quads were twitching up and down with little cramps in every muscle. I was done. My faith in my ability to bounce back is significantly diminished when I can no longer eat or drink. When I start throwing up, I sink to a very dark place mentally. I kept telling myself that I would get to the aid station and replenish and feel better… it wasn’t happening.

I need to figure my shit out. I’ve DNF’d my last two races. I put together the best training block of my life, including three consecutive 100 mile weeks, only to have it derailed by poor decision making and a complete failure to stay on top of my hydration early in the race. All that time and effort. Countless hours. Then I don’t do the one thing I know I need to do because I’m so engrossed in a conversation with Jeff Browning? I suck. I’m weak and stupid. And drop-sick.

I recently heard a quote from Jim Walmsley talking about ending suffering in a race. It was something to the effect of: “Only covering the distance ends the suffering.” A week after my race and I can tell you that he’s right. I dropped out and I’m still suffering. I didn’t end when I ripped the race bib off my shorts and got in the car.

I need to learn from this and move on. I need a nutrition plan. I need to learn to hydrate better on all my runs, not just my races. I need to get more in touch with my body. I need to get better at running slower sometimes or walking if I need to. I need a more optimistic mentality when things go wrong. As my wife pointed out later in the day, I didn’t even mention dropping at the aid station, despite how poor my condition may have been, until that third place runner came through and passed me. I need confidence in myself. Confidence that if something goes wrong, I can bounce back and push through.

Going forward, I’m ready to embrace the low points. Instead of fighting against them, I’m going to welcome them wholeheartedly, like an old friend. Even in my training, I’m going to relish each and every attempt I have to truly suffer. It takes a lot of work and a lot of effort to get to those places. I’m going to be looking forward to it next time it happens. It will be another opportunity to test myself, to find out who I really am. Let’s just hope I can show up next time.

An Inconvenient Truth

On October 13, 2016March 24, 2017 By Bobby Geronimo1 Comment

“Ha ha. 6k? That’s like four miles. Four miles is a joke.”

I was wheezing so heavily through my nose that I thought my left nostril might rip. It, meaning my nostril, was beginning to feel like loose skin flapping in the wind each time I was fortunate enough to begin exhaling the oxygen–nay, CO2– that was trapped in my lungs, stretching the shit out of my diaphragm and forcing the aforementioned wheeze out of my flapping left nostril. I refused to breathe through my mouth. This was a training run. This was way below my (self)prescribed distance. I’m an ultra runner. I run 100 miles a week. Four miles is a joke.

I was never a cross country runner. I didn’t come from this background. I began running largely as an escape, an attempt to get away from the bullshit. I needed to get away from my phone, away from my boss and away from anyone who wanted to contact me. I ran from people and for myself. Then, a time came in my running career where performance started to become a bit more important.

Running was now a habit. I had run everyday for three years. I was enamored with the simplicity, the solitude and the brain chemistry. In fact, I was addicted to all three. A couple of my more scientifically inclined friends started referring to me as a junkie. I was after the brain chemistry, they said. I needed the dopamine to function like a normal human being, they said. I couldn’t be trusted to control my reactions in everyday situations unless I had run for at least three or four hours, they said.

As I had ascended to this level of junkie, I was clearly ready to have more performance-based aspirations. So what to do? I felt like my running had plateaued a bit. I was running consistently and I was maintaining a solid weekly mileage, yet I still felt like there was something missing… an unexplored side of my craft.

heroes6k

“Fuck that shit!”

Was my initial response to my wife’s inquiry of whether or not I’d like to run a 6k race for her work.

“You realize I’m currently training to run a 100k, right? And you furthermore realize what a big fucking deal I am, right? I mean, I might have a good– if not relatively good– chance of finishing in the top 20 of a trail race in which 99.99999% of people have no idea exists and if they did realize it existed would (somehow) care less about it?”

Long story short, I lost my argument and I was toeing the line with a few hundred other runners on a balmy September morning in the Santa Monica Mountains at the Heroes in Recovery 6k. I’m not exactly one to make excuses *cough cough* but I had like 65 miles on my legs already that week and I was entering this race with far less knowledge of the distance than was ideal. My shortest race to date was a marathon and I only had one of those tacked to a 15-race resume.

The crowd around Paramount Ranch wiggled, the gun went off, and the participants of the Heroes in Recovery 6k danced their ways down the trail. I stayed with the first group, probably six or seven guys, for the first kilometer of so, until the first mildly sustained climb, at which point I looked down at my watch and saw that I was pushing a 5:40/pace. Way too slow.

I dug into the hill and passed a couple runners on the ascent, sucking wind heavily as we crested the small peak, grateful to fall into the descent down into the tiny valley below. I did my best Scott Jurek impressions and kept the wheels turning, owning the transition, and started my climb out of the low valley when I glanced at my watch. I had only run for .86 of a mile. And I was about ready to puke. I certainly wanted to stop. It was reminiscent of the latter stages of an ultra for me.

But this wasn’t an ultra. This was a 20-min race. I needed to get it together. I was rolling. The hills at Paramount Ranch certainly were. The elevation on my Suunto was. My stomach felt like one of Kanye’s waves. Then, I saw a runner ahead of me. I couldn’t really breathe. But I felt like I had to go. There he was. I had a little climb, my advantage. Next thing I knew, he was behind me. My nostril was flapping. I couldn’t breathe.

Mind numbing pain. The hysterical sucking for air. Loss of limb function and general motor control. Theatrical vomit sensitivity. All things I was taking for granted the first few years of my running career. It was mostly mountain tops and sunsets and easy mountain mornings over coffee… ridgeline traverses and butterflies floating on descents into lush valleys. Summits and sunsets. Now, I tasted pennies and blood in my mouth and I wanted nothing more than to stop running. Immediately.

But I couldn’t. There’s some asshole ahead of me with his tank top hanging around his neck like it’s a fucking a cape and he thinks he’s the flash and he seems to be slowing down a bit and I really really want to pass him. I also really don’t want to yack on my shoes.

I kept pushing my legs, looking for my turnover like a fat kid in a Pillsbury factory as we switched back onto a little ridge and dropped steeply into a wide gully that I immediately recognized as the single aid station on the course. I wondered why it was only a kilometer in as I blew past at an unsustainably fast pace only a few minutes ago but I guess it made sense now as I lollipopped back out with only a kilo to go.

Despite any pain I was feeling, there was no chance I was letting off the gas. I was feeling alive. Lungs and stomach be damned. Like I previously made clear, it’s fucking 6k. Less than thirty minutes. Let’s go. This is what I came for.

I slowed a bit to take in the commotion that was mostly the overweight, hiking contingent of race crowded around the oasis, still only a .62 of a mile into the race, refreshing themselves on electrolytes and refined sugar, when I noticed, in my periphery, a runner cresting the lip and plummeting toward me at breakneck speed. The runner in front of me was just exiting the climb out of the valley and out of sight and I had this sweat-inducing vision of being passed and the two runners in front of me battling it out, gladiator style, sprinting barrell-chested toward the finish line with the requisite scantily clad women cheering them in as I gasp for air and vomited on myself in the dirt a few hundred yards back, just out of sight (and mind).

As that outcome seemed less than ideal, I decided I needed to stop being a pussy. I had less than four minutes of running left and I was on the verge of passing one runner and about to be eclipsed by another. I was in the heat of battle like I had never really been in an ultra, at least in such close proximity, where runners are usually spread over vast distances and regularly stop for significant amount of times at aid stations. No, this was different, and it was fun.

It was a similar adrenaline rush that I feel at the beginning of a race, with all the people around pushing hard, but this was complete with the late race brain chemistry (I had been going for a bit), the simultaneous feeling of being chased and hunting someone else, all coupled with that amazing smell of the barn (I had pushed and I was ready to be done– and it was close).

Despite the sense of stomach bile rising steadily up my throat, I couldn’t help but smile. I was having fun. I was running, I was racing, I was testing myself against other people and natural terrain. It didn’t get much better. I finished 5th, just out of the money (fucking 4th place got $100) but the experience opened my eyes. It was great experience, not only running fast on a trail but racing against other people, pushing myself beyond my limits to find that finish line before and (unfortunately) after a few people.

I crossed the finish line, jogged out fifteen or so strides and then bent over with my hands on my knees. A volunteer ran up to drape my medal around my neck and for a split second I started formulating an apology for yacking on his shoes, but I held it in- even after he walked away, and didn’t puke up my morning coffee.

______________

In the beginning of my ultrarunning career, I spent too much time running too slowly. I spent too much time where it felt too good. Most of the time, it is supposed to feel good. Like the sunsets and butterflies and shit I was talking about earlier. But those moments where it feels good are only highlighted even more by the moments of deep suffering.

As an ultrarunner, neglecting the high-end of your own spectrum can come with severly negative consequences. For one, sprinting is good for your running technique. Most of us run pretty perfectly when we’re sprinting and it’s always good for our overall mechanics to feel that (especially if you’re like most people and your slower-paced running form sucks balls).

Secondly, when you run really hard, you’re always out of your comfort zone, and that’s where the growth really happens. It’s an inconvenient truth, but a truth nonetheless. The more time you spend outside of where it’s comfortable and sunsets and butterflies, the more you grow and the better you get. Just look at what guys like Dakota Jones (who placed 2nd and 3rd at Hardrock) and Tim Tollefson (who recently took third at UTMB) have been doing the last couple weeks:

grabbedshot-2016-10-12-at-2-18-22-pm grabbedshot-2016-10-12-at-2-20-07-pm

Running slow and recovering on the move certainly has it’s place, but in your hard workouts, when you try to improve your ability as a runner, it doesn’t belong. As they say, you gotta have easy and hard workouts, from now on, I challenge you to make sure your hard workouts make you look forward to your easy days. You’ll be a better, faster runner for it.

TRAIL FLOW

Tag: irunfar

Strava Made Me Do It

Trail and Ultra Running in the Post-Krupicka Climate

Chasing Jeff Browning

An Inconvenient Truth