Jim, Kaci, Gary, Tim and the Art of the 100-mile Taper

On May 10, 2017May 10, 2017 By Bobby Geronimo4 Comments

Tim-finish Maggie Zhang — Tim Tollefson putting the finishing touches on his 2016 UTMB. Photo: Maggie Zhang

Long story short, I have no idea how to taper. When I didn’t think about any of this stuff and I just went running, I had no taper issues. I was running around 35-40 miles a week and then I would just take Monday, Wednesday and Thursday off, run like 5k on Tuesday and Friday and show up for my 50 mile race and feel great.

Now, I’m running a lot more (at least 75 miles a week) with much bigger weeks peppered in during a big training block. I’m also running a lot faster. Things have fundamentally changed. But I’m still trying to hydrate, eat and taper like everything is status quo. I need to figure my shit out. I’m on a mission to master my nutrition. Determined. That’s a whole different post. For now, let’s talk taper.

When I’m running 90-100 miles a week, I feel incredibly strong. Tired, but strong. It takes me a bit to get going (or even out the door a lot of the time) but when I get warmed up, some of my strongest training runs have come as I’m closing down back to back 100 mile weeks with tons of volume on my legs. Things I didn’t even think were possible. I perform better deeper into runs. At mile 25 or 30 of my training runs, I feel strong. I need to capture this during race day.

For my recent Backbone Ultra (110k), I ran three consecutive 100 mile weeks followed by a 93 mile week heading into my taper. I ran just over 15 miles leading up to the Saturday race and while I initially felt fresh and rested, it seemed to turn bad on me very quickly (after only about two hours, which seems insane considering the training I put in). If I had just kept running that week like my training, how would the result have been different? My previous Saturday run on tired legs was great.

In an attempt to figure it all out, I took a look at what some elite trail runners, those who actually have consistent success at distances beyond 50 miles, do in their taper. I’m not talking about the guy on social media you follow who puts up photos of himself eating donuts under the hashtag #tapertantrum. I’m talking about the big boys. Let’s see if Jim, Kaci, Gary and Tim can help us amateurs figure it all out.

Jim Walmsley, Western States 2016:

We all know how this went down. Despite his wrong turn, he obviously had his fitness dialed in. Jim runs a ton, so this should be a good indication of how to taper down from high volume successfully:

Weeks out:

Six: 140.7mi 17h 29m 22,530ft

Five: 141.1mi 17h 3m 14,285ft

Four: 120.0mi 14h 19m 10,268ft

Three: 100.3mi 12h 34m 15,349ft

Two: 65.2mi 8h 37m 11,993ft

Race Week Prior to Western States: 27.2mi 3h 5m 1,689ft; Days run race week: Tuesday (8.2) Wednesday (8.1) Thursday (6.2) Friday (4.4)

Jim (somewhat surprisingly) does dip down in volume the last two weeks. Two weeks out from race day, his volume is approximately 46% of his six week mark. He only took a single day off the week of the race (Monday) which, from what I can tell, seems to be the way to handle the final leg of the taper: increasingly shorter runs leading into the weekend, keeping the effort easy but not necessarily jogging slowly. Like David Roche has pointed out, you need to keep your muscle tension high in order to maintain your speed. Jogging slowly in your runs before a race doesn’t do that for you. Short and fast. This certainly worked for Jim.

Gary Robbins, Barkley 2017:

robbins-finish michael doyle, canadian running magazine — Gary at the finish. Photo by Michael Doyle, Canadian Running Magazine

Obviously, Barkley is incredibly unique. There are not a lot of other courses out there that pose the challenges a race like Barkley does. The training is specific. It might be a waste of time to look at this data, but Gary Robbins is a smart, calculating dude and this was Gary’s second time running Barkley so he knew exactly what to expect and how to train specifically for the task. Let’s see what we can glean:

Weeks out:

Six: 47.2mi 14h 35m 30,446ft

Five: 43.5mi 13h 22m 30,453ft

Four: 56.9mi 18h 14m 40,322ft

Three: 43.9mi 14h 42m 27,828ft

Two: 33.7mi 8h 9m 11,040ft

Race Week Prior to Barkley: 9.9mi 2h 50m 4,134ft; Days run race week: Tuesday (5.0) Thursday (4.9)

The crazy part about comparing Gary’s Barkley taper with Jim’s WS100 taper is how similar they actually are. You would think those two races and their different demands would render wholly different training cycles, and yet, in terms of time spent running these two tapered very similarly. Following them both on Strava, it definitely seemed like Jim was running a lot more, but he was hanging significantly more mileage, not necessarily spending a lot more time on his feet. Gary was tackling Barkley-esque terrain on the BCMC everyday in Vancouver, eating up massive chunks of vert each and every time he stepped outside.

GrabbedShot 2017-05-09 at 10.17.06 AM — BCMC repeats all night long.

If you start three weeks out, Gary actually tapered a lot less than Jim in terms of time and vertical gain. He only ran ~10 miles race week prior, but the three hours he spent was the same as Jim (who almost ran 30 miles). Both athletes were very specific to the demands of their individual race but tapered in a shockingly similar way when you compare the numbers side-by-side. We might be getting somewhere here…

Kaci Lickteig: WS 2016:

Kaci-Lickteig-Wins-Western-States photo by iRunFar — Photo: iRunfar.com

Kaci is a beast. She runs a TON. And fast. She’s similar to Walmsley in that regard (although she probably trains on flatter terrain than him day in and day out, living in the Mid West). She looked so, so smooth at last year’s WS100 and according to her Strava data, she spent less than twenty combined minutes stopped at aid stations during her 100 mile win. She just kept rolling and never even looked tired. I want to taper like her. Let’s take a look:

Weeks out:

Six: 102.1mi 14h 18m 10,410ft

Five: 111.7mi 15h 48m 9,429ft

Four: 129.8mi 17h 56m 10,282ft

Three: 100.4mi 13h 34m 5,902ft

Two: 86.6mi 11h 7m 2,365ft

Race Week Prior to WS100: 27.9 3h 5m 787ft; Days run race week: Monday(10.2) Tuesday(10.4) Wednesday (7.1)

She tapered down her volume less than Jim, but her peak wasn’t as high. She’s running at 85% of her six week total two weeks out from race day. She peaked in volume four weeks out (just like Gary did for Barkley) which is in contrast with Jim’s peak six weeks out. Kaci and Jim’s race weeks were eerily similar in terms of distance/time:

Kaci: 27.9mi and 3h 5m

Jim: 27.7mi and 3h 5m

Jim grabbed about twice the amount of vert but the big difference here is that Kaci took Thursday and Friday off, while Jim did not. Unless she’s not putting a run on Strava (and she seems to log just about everything) Kaci took two full days off before Western States after averaging over 106 miles per week the five weeks leading into the race. Something David Roche suggested not doing (which made a ton of sense to me when I read it). But it definitely worked for her. Interesting…

Tim Tollefson UTMB 2016:

GrabbedShot 2017-05-09 at 11.54.10 AM — Consistency.

Tim is an impressive dude. He almost never takes a day off. Sure, he took a couple after UTMB and single day after this year’s Hong Kong 100k, but in his training cycle, never. He comes from a background of consistency in his running and he sticks to it. Even if there’s 10ft snow of the ground in town in Mammoth Lakes, Tim is out there getting it in. And, as far as I can tell, he runs everyday leading up to his races (Side note: Tim’s Strava really makes me want to live in Mammoth Lakes. Like really bad.)

The 2016 UTMB was Tim’s first 100 mile race (easy first, haha) and he threw down one of the best performances ever by an American athlete. He ventured into unknown territory and did it flawlessly. As someone who hopes to race 100 miles for the first time in the future, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at his training and preparation for this race. (Fun Fact: Tim stood on the UTMB podium without running longer than 55k in training.)

Weeks out:

Six: 101.2mi 15h 4m 15,942ft

Five: 86.9mi 11h 36m 7,251ft

Four: 107.1mi 15h 32m 17,074ft

Three: 92.9mi 12h 30m 9,195ft

Two: 75.3mi 11h 25m 9,889ft

Race week Prior to UTMB: 36mi 3h 19m 2,503ft; Days run race week: Monday (10.0)Tuesday (8.0) Wednesday (8.0) Thursday (6.0) Friday (4.0)

Thirty-six miles seems like a lot leading into a race like UTMB, but when you look at his overall time, he only ran 14 minutes longer than Walmsley and Lickteig leading into Western States. He did hang a lot more vert than Kaci and Jim that week (which means he was running FAST; muscle tension!) but that’s specific to the demands of a course like UTMB which has much more vertical gain/loss and poses a more technical challenge. Not the vert or technicality of Barkley, but somewhere in between the two, where it seems like Tim found that sweet spot in his training.

Looking at his last six weeks, Tim peaked four weeks out (the same as Gary and Kaci) and had a small dip in volume during week five (the same as Gary and Kaci). Something about that small stagger in their training weeks is interesting to me. Sure, Walmsley’s nice straight lines that are always building toward or descending away from his peak are strangely satisfying to look at, but there seems to be something to the five-week-dip into a four-week-peak. Take a look at Dominic Grossman’s training for the AC100:

Dominic Grossman AC100 2016:

DomGrossman — Dom in his happy place. Photo: Dominic Grossman

Weeks out:

Six: 72.2mi 11h 30m 13,480ft

Five: 45.6mi 6h 33m 7,424ft

Four: 54.1mi 13h 34m 19,114ft

Three: 66.3mi 11h 30m 13,555ft

Two: 36.3mi 6h 2m 7,520ft

Race Week Prior to AC: 18.4mi 2h 49m 3,109ft

While Dominic may not be running as much as the rest of them (he has a full-time job to balance with his pro running career) he is super consistent and he has a ton of experience, especially when it comes to running the Angeles Crest 100. That’s his race. So, despite slightly lower volume overall, you would expect him to have his training and taper dialed in.

With him, you see the same four-week-peak (the most time by over two hours and 5k more vert than the other weeks) after a similar dip during week five. Dom’s training is very specific to the course demands (almost all of his training was done on the course) and he clocked the appropriate amount of vertical gain and wound up with a third place finish. On a rugged, high-elevation, point-to-point mountain course that eclipses Western States in difficulty in all categories.

Tapering is a specific thing. Each race offers a different list of challenges and demands. Everyone has different goals. That being said, it’s very interesting to me how similarly the elites taper. Even for races as different as Western States and Barkley. They’re doing it right based on experience and wisdom. And, surprisingly, essentially in the same way. If I want to run 100 mile weeks and train at a volume similar to elite ultrarunners, I need to start tapering like one.

_______________________

During last year’s pre-race briefing for The Rut 50k, Mike Foote, standing behind a podium at the Bozeman Running Company store, was asked how much we should be tapering the final two weeks before the race.

Mike smiled and said, “Well, at this point the hay should already be in the barn… but you don’t want to turn the faucet off completely, you want to keep it running.”

Well said Mike. Well said.

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.

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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.

Chasing the Elusive 100-Mile Week

On October 1, 2015May 10, 2016 By Bobby GeronimoLeave a comment

A lot goes into running 100 miles in a week. I’ve done it a couple times, a little over two years ago when I first stumbled across Tony Krupicka’s blog (he’s since changed his format and stopped logging all his runs). I probably spent about three hours reading his posts on that first visit—my head (figuratively) exploding the entire time as all my previously held beliefs about running we’re being splattered all over my computer screen. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to consistently run 200+ miles a week. I didn’t even know that people were running two or three times a day. I was still under the erroneous impression that you should only run once a day. Needless to say, Krupicka greatly expanded my running consciousness.

After browsing a through a few of his entries and finally wrapping my head around the astronomical numbers that he was purporting, I decided it was time for me to hang a couple triple digit weeks of my own. I started running twice and three times a day, and finally built to the point where I could handle the 100-mile load. It was a solid accomplishment. I could do it. The only problem was, I wasn’t having any fun.

I had managed to take this thing that I loved, that had literally changed my life in the way that few things can, and turned it into an obsessively quantified workload. Before, I was just getting up in the mountains, ripping up and down gorgeous single-track trails, escaping the artificial, constructed monotony of my everyday life.

When I started chasing 100 in a week, it became a lot more like work. I was obsessing over miles, trading a chance to escape into the mountains for a quick, flat 15 miles on the road or the boardwalk (because I could only get 10 miles in the same amount of time in the mountains). I was sore all the time; I ignored little nagging injuries that could have used an easy day—or a day off all together. The miles became the most important thing. They trumped common sense. I started to lose the passion.

Running suddenly became a lot less fun. But I was hanging 100-mile weeks. I had reached this arbitrary goal that I had imposed upon myself, but it didn’t feel as good as I thought. Sure, it was fun looking at my Movescount profile and seeing that big number on there. It was fun to say things like, “I can eat whatever I want tonight, I ran 102 miles this week.” But that type of fun is fleeting. It felt wrong. I realized that what I had done wasn’t a legitimate 100-mile week. It didn’t happen organically. It was forced. I wasn’t Tony Krupicka. I had to be me.

So I went back to enjoying myself on my runs. Sure they were still hard. I was still sore. I still ignored nagging injuries (a lot less though) and I still banged out a quick 10k on the roads a couple times a month, but it was because I felt like a needed a shakeout run to dial in my form—not because I just wanted to tack more miles on to my weekly total.

Now, over a year later, I’m finally honing in on the elusive, legitimate 100-mile week. All on the trail and in the mountains. Without running for the sake of mileage. Just running because it feels right. Running to have fun. Running to push my personal limits. Running to escape.

Last week, I ran 87 miles with almost 20,000 ft of vertical gain. It felt great. I explored new terrain, ran twice a day four times, had two great long runs and never felt like I was doing too much or pushing too hard. I stayed within myself. Sure, I could have banged out a half-marathon on Sunday night just to hit the century mark… but it wasn’t about that.

This week, I’m well on pace to eclipse 100 miles. And it’s going to be legit. I’m doing it right. I’m not worrying about it, just letting it happen. Organically. Because it’s time.

TRAIL FLOW

Tag: training

Jim, Kaci, Gary, Tim and the Art of the 100-mile Taper

Chasing Jeff Browning

An Inconvenient Truth

Chasing the Elusive 100-Mile Week