Asphalt Junkies CLOSED AND GETTING OUR FIX (Page 76)

That is blood...

Saturday will be my 3rd race weekend in a row.  This one is an Xterra.  Look at the weather forecast for Saturday!

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Wow Jeff.  Be careful.  That's dangerous territory.  What time is the race and what's the temp supposed to be a that time?  Any humidity?

I'm going on my first ever group ride tonight.  It's supposed to be a 2 1/2 hour ride not too far from where I live.  Sounds like the pace may be a bit slower than I've been riding, but we'll see.

Jeff and to think I am complaining about it getting back into the 90's over here. That forecast looks pretty crazy and I second what Warren said be careful especially if you have the high humidity with that heat. I hope you have an early start for your race this weekend.

Warren have fun and enjoy your group ride this evening.

Fortunately the humidity is uncharacteristically low (for this area).  Today the humidity is currently at 23% and I expect similar humidity on Saturday.

I ran 7 miles yesterday beginning at 5:30pm and it didn't feel too bad. (101 degrees according to my thermometer).

The race starts at 8am and it will be around 2 hours of race time.  Hourly temps from Saturday's forecast are 84 at 8am and 97 at 10am.

The good part is that being off-road and out of the direct sunlight, it's going to be perhaps 10 degrees cooler than it would be running down a paved road in sunshine (meaning it will actually be 84-97 rather than 94-107 which a thermometer would read on the road).

Warren, if the group ride is slower than you are used to, go to the front and break the wind for everyone.  But don't make the mistake of judging this during the first 20 minutes of the ride.  often times good cyclists are just taking an extended warmup then they start to kill it.

Oh gross! I thought it was sand! That is really bad.

Jeff, be careful out there. Seems like I saw something in your logs about being heat sick once this week already.....

The heat has set in here too. It's a 104 today!

He's back to normal!  Thanks for asking. 

Yes, very true...and a little bit today also.

Tomorrow I will just swim and otherwise stay inside resting and drinking until I'm certain I'm fully hydrated.

I also don't drink in races that are 2hrs or less, but on Saturday I'm going to down an entire water bottle while I'm on the bike.  That's not all that easy when mtn biking, but I think I'm good enough at mtn biking now to do it.

Jeff, the blood in your shoes is pretty awesome, in my opinion.  That sounds like racing to me!  It's part of the "taste of victory and the agony of defeat."  Right now my feet are all chewed up from trying to condition my feet to run sock less for the HIM's coming up in a couple of months.  I have been running almost all of my runs without wearing socks for as long as I can stand it, then putting them on once I am certain I have already started a blister.

Saturday's race sounds like it's could be pretty brutal if you do hit long stretches in the sun.  I can't imagine drinking an entire bottle on the bike during an Xterra.  But an Xterra sounds like it would pretty fun sometime.

Warren, I know it's a little late to get much info on the group ride tonight but..........The group rides I have done always started out fairly slow but we wind up at a pace that is as fast or faster than I would have been able to sustain for the same distance by myself.  The group gave me the confidence that I could ride longer distances over time.  I agree with Jeff about pulling too.  I have had people come up front after I had been pulling for a while and ask if I was going to pull all day, but I was just trying to get a little extra work in because I knew I would have all kinds of time to recover once I got tired.  The group is really good for being able to do that.

I have to report on my trail run from last night.

I was planning to run my long run while I was out of town last night for work.  I needed to do a little bit of planning to find some place that I wouldn't have to run loops to get it all in, so I asked a couple of guys at the line barn  I was at in southern Ohio.  One of them suggested the trails at the Great Seal State Park.  I was a little bit nervous about running on them because I could see  what I might be dealing with from the window of the barn.  The hills would be tall and would roll from one to the other rather than be able to cross ridges between them (for the most part).

I was nervous because I wanted to challenge myself but not excessively blow my legs up.  I did a little research to see if I could map the trails and maybe find some elevations before I went out but all I could find were maps.  I decided to go out for as long as I thought I could keep my legs on the trails and then hit the flat trail that is the flood wall around Chillicothe.  (I had run the flood wall a couple of times on previous trips.)  The plan was to run in the neighborhood of 5-6 miles on the trail and then finish on flats.

I hit the trail like a kid in a candy store!  I took of like it was a race or something.  I was so excited to be running on something other than trails (asphalt) that run on all the time at home and I had the added challenge of hills work.  The first part of the trail was a more slow gradual climb and I thought I was running it at what might be a pace that would end up hard but remain doable over the 5-6 planned miles.  This quickly turned into something that was a much harder run than I thought it was going to be.

I gained 167 feet in the first mile and it went up sharply from there.  213 for the second, 515 feet for the third...........  I ended up running 10 miles in the trails and had a total elevation gain of 2450 feet for the total distance.  Some of the grades were so steep that I had no choice but to walk up them.  The first 5 miles my pace was around 9:25-9:30 but the last 5 miles I was feeling the crush of the climbing and I had miles as slow as 10:49 and 10:59.  I had worked too hard for the first half of the trails and was feeling rather trashed toward the end.

I ended up running 3 miles on the flats to allow some kind of break for my legs and still get the desired distance of a long run in.  It's kind of funny because the 10 miles on the trails took almost as long as 13 miles on the flats in Indiana.  Tonight my legs feel trashed but I would like to do it all again.............after I can walk normally again.

Now we're TALKING!!!!  Great job on the hills!!!!  Makes my 1100 feet of elevation gain in 13 miles that I ran today seem flat!

Dirk, that's pretty darn cool! 

Tracy, your mountain climb is still impressive.

Be safe!!!

I really like this idea!  I don't think I'd be able to keep up with the posts over there  but I like this as a personal challenge to give me something to work towards!

Thanks Jeff.  I loved almost every second of it.  The part I hated was having to walk up some of the hills.  It's probably part of the reason why I have trashed legs today, I wouldn't give in to walking soon enough.

And Tracy, by the way my legs are currently feeling the 1300 feet of climbing may have been a better selection than 2400 on my part.  But I love the pain of knowing I did something hard and survived.

On my own notes for the day so far:

I have completed a 7 mile run on very tired legs but I am very happy I did it.  My legs are unhappy with me, at least for the moment, and I hope I'll be able to walk to the doc for my pulmonary function test (PFT) in about an hour.  I did want to put my system into a little bit of stress to try to help get a proper diagnosis for exercise induced bronchial spams/asthma if that's actually what the problem is.  Honestly the test does not concern me.  I have been doing well athletically and I have no fears that there will be any big problems that come out of this.  At worst I think the doc will suggest I go on an inhaler all the time (which I will unlikely do if it is a steroidal inhaler) and/or I will use it before training or racing.

I love this.  That crazy trail climbing wasn't enough, you had to add 7 this morning?  Lisa is right - you ARE a junkie!  That actually seems like a great strategy to push the envelope before seeing the doc.  Good luck and let us know how it works out.

Dirk.  About the walking....

You know that pace is relative to incline.  You expect to slow as the incline goes up.  When it goes up enough, that slow-down will eventually be a walk. 

It's like running at a 5 minute pace and being upset with yourself for slowing down to a 7 minute pace.

I tell my daughter that there is no problem with walking on steep hills, especially in the woods.  As long as that walk keeps the HR in the target zone you are still working out.

Case in point.  About 4-5 years ago I did the Xterra Southeast championship race in Alabama.  The hills on that run course were brutal.  I walked up many (duh).  But I also found out that the 3rd place PRO that day, Craig Evans, also walked up some of them. 

Think of it this way.  We all know that racing is about getting to the finish the fastest way possible.  We also know that even splits is the fastest way to do this (on a flat course).  It stands to reason then that even EFFORT is the thing to shoot for when the terrain gets crazy.

Just some random thoughts there..

BTW, that course was modified this Spring when the UCI Cross Tri world championships were contested at that Xterra race.  The traditional course was too extreme for those wimpy Europeans!

Even effort on steep hills is something that I'm having to learn.  I HATE having to walk!  On the trail climb I did last weekend, parts of the trail were so hazardous that my heart rate dropped way below my target zone.  At that point, my main focus was getting from point A to point B without hurting myself.

It's good to hear that the pros are human, too. 

Good luck to all the Junkies who is racing and training this weekend. Looks like it's going to be hot in most places around the country this weekend so be careful and stay hydrated.

I have signed up for a workshop for this Sunday. The event organizers are hosting a workshop for the first tri I am signed up for at the end of July. It's an Oly so they will review and walk us through the swim course (not literally) then we will ride the bike course and we will run one loop of the run course. I figured this is a great opportunity for me especially this being the first one I will do to get familiar with the course. I am very familiar with the area where the race is being held but I think I should take advantage of the opportunity to do the course before the race. I will also have the opportunity to meet some of the organizers and other participants. It should be fun.