#ultrablr

As posted on the book of faces, I’m signed up for a 50k!

Tipping the balance toward this race is the “cherry pop” t-shirt I get having this be my first 50k with a design not too dissimilar to this:

Rock Cut Hobo 25k/50k - 9/15.

Cons: The 50k is a double loop of the 25k course.

Pros: Distance-from-venue-wise, it’s pretty close. I could choose to just do 25k.

Hennepin 100 50k - 10/05.

Cons: it’s a bit further. It starts at 5:00pm. It’s point-to-point.

Pros: it has nice bling + a bonus “first 50k” shirt.

3/23/2019 13.10 miles/21.08 kilometers Why not a half marathon? YTD: 218.32 miles

I was determined to run 13 miles today, so I did. My foot felt fine at first, but specifically at 1.70 miles I started having doubts. At around mile 3 or so I decided to alter my gait a bit. Then shortly thereafter altered it a bit more, and found a few ways I could alter the way my right foot was interacting with the ground that I could alternate between and stay relatively pain free. Ish. I knew I was robbing Peter (new soreness from new gaits) to pay Paul (continue running), but it was a bargain I was willing to make.

At some point I started taking judicious walk breaks, and I think by mile 8 I had decided I’d walk every mile. “I mean, you know... I’ll be walking during these ultras anyhow, right?” which was usually enough to rest the muscles aggravated by the new gaits. By the time I rounded the lagoons and was about halfway home from the easternmost section, I realized I wouldn’t get to 13 miles, So I trudged northwest on Elston until I passed our usual grocery store (which I knew to be about a half mile from home) at 12.10 miles, so I went a quarter mile past that and then turned around.

Afterwards I was a bit sore, and only noticed some chafing on my chest (of all places) probably from my new ultra vest, but then I relaxed around the house (i.e. no taekwondo) until it was time to head to my son’s birthday party. Same place as last year; this time I kicked some 10-11 year old tuchus (are you happy now @breatherunlive?) in lasertag. By ultimate coincidence the lasertag vest I picked up had the codename “ULTRA” on it, so I set out eager to live up to that moniker. My son’s friend Tyler was “ENIGMA”, my son was “GLADIATOR”, and my daughter was “COBRA”. Pretty sure my accuracy percentage was so low because I kept getting rapidfire (awarded fo three kills in rapid succession) and made use of it every. time.

Finally, the cake. I asked my son what he wanted on his cake this year, and he drew me a picture. Gosh darnit if Gabby at Whole Foods didn’t FREAKING NAIL IT.

Anyhow, I was telling my kids how happy I was that I was able to gut out a half marathon this morning. It gives me a ton of confidence I’ll be able to run 15ish or so with (or at least on the same trail as) @excelwithpassion in a few weeks.

1/09/2019 4.15 miles/6.68 kilometers Just a little midday 4 miler YTD: 31.41 miles 9 days in a row

Thanks to (slightly) hyperextending my knee during taekwondo Tuesday night, I decided to start super cautiously. All morning my knee had been mostly fine, but every once in an odd step it’d feel a little ... off. Hence the caution. Turned out to be just fine, and I increased the speed through about 3 miles when I started backing off.

The stairmills (all 2 of them :( ) were occupied when I was done, so I did a solid 3 minutes of bench step-ups. I was a little curious to see if my fēnix 5 would record any change in elevation (after all, these watches have recorded elevation gain/loss while swimming), but alas - no. But it did capture my average ‘speed’ and some heart rate data.

... because sometimes I make poor decisions. The date on this is a week after my 50k :)

1/10/2019 1.03 miles/1.66 kilometers Run, lift, stairs YTD: 32.44 miles 10 days in a row

Nothing exciting about the run - just a mile to keep the streak alive. Adding more weight for lifting. As for the stair-mill... I could swear I fiddled less with the controls today and went right to my desired stairmill speed, but I walked away with the exact same elevation gain today as Tuesday.

On a lark, I decided to capture some HR data while I played beat saber tonight.

Not a bad workout!