Seven Summits Body – Fitness and Training

Category: trail running

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  • Taper Purgatory 6 Days Out

    Taper Purgatory 6 Days Out

    Of all the crazy things to do, with only a handful of days to go, I ended up with new shoes. I have been having trouble with my feet for a couple months now, from nearly-blistered hotspots to plantar fasciitis, to bleeding scrapes from the shoe itself. My Topo Athletic Ultraventure Pro (?) died a horrible death, and only about 100-ish miles into it. The plastic toe cap liner (protects from rocks) delaminated, and the edges curled under cutting my toes on the descent. I was going to wear them too. I took them in to where I bought them, Runners Corner in Orem, and the girl who ended up having to put her magazine down didn’t want to help, said there was no such thing as delamination, and wanted to know if there was something I wanted to buy. I declined much more gracefully than I would have liked to.

    @vk.trailrunner

    descending a steep loose rugged trail is pretty risky for some especially me #trailrunning #BrokenArrowSkyrace

    ♬ original sound – Charles Miske

    With only a week to go, I got talked into going in to Utah Run in American Fork. I have gotten a few pairs of shoes there, and appreciate the more inclusive and open-minded employees there. Hope we didn’t just jinx them. I ended up with a pair of Saucony Peregrine 11, which have sufficient curvature for my wacked feet, and tread that reminds me a bit of my old Salomon Crossmax I used to run in way back before Hoka.

    My own taper program, derived from modeling 2019 (Broken Arrow VK, at which I felt really strong) I had a couple miles on the treadmill with a few quick intervals/strides in store, so I did that on Friday in the new Peregrine, and the new Ultra Spire handheld as an experiment. It went pretty well, but I didn’t quite hit my target TSS from Training Peaks.

    @vk.trailrunner

    top of Green Monster, a classic route on #Strava taper week for #BrokenArrowSkyrace BrokenArrowSkyrace #trailrunning

    ♬ original sound – Charles Miske

    This morning, Saturday, I decided to run/walk/jog on one of my favorite trails nearby, Green Monster, a Strava route just a few miles away. I parked at the Murdock Canal parking and headed up Giddy-Up, a “hoof and boot” trail (meaning no mountain bikes, though there is a guerilla bike park about a quarter mile up it for the local kids in the hood), forked on the “Bench Road” (which is actually the BST-enough) and then up Green Monster for two laps. I did some sustained effort at 2500’/hr vertical, some intervals of strong power hiking at 3600’/hr and on the flatter sections, some intervals at 9:00 pace. On the return to the car I sustained a half mile-ish at 12:00 or less just to burn out the fat.

    Next time, let’s talk about the “Almost but not quite VK” next Friday, setting up HR zones in all the apps and stuff, and maybe some more fun things.

    Videos on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

  • Rut Training Run – the week before

    The Rut is doing a training run July 13 for their 28k and 50k. Interestingly they are supposed to climb the VK route, which is on neither of the routes. Then it forks for each of the routes for 10.5 or 15 miles. Since it’s a great opportunity to do the VK as a pre-run I opted for the 10.5 mile, which is totally doable as a run/walk.

    Here are some details from the event:

    Training Runs Schedule:
    7:00-7:55 am: Runner Check-in Big Sky Resort Base Area Huntley Dining Room at Base of Explorer Lift. See MAP.
    8:00 am: Start Training Runs
    8:00-1:00 pm: Runs in progress (1 pm cut off for all runners & routes)
    11:30 am -1:30 pm: Lunch catered by Big Sky Resort

    Check in is at Huntley Dining Room near Base of Explorer Lift: (See Map)
    While you may not need a bib or timing chip for the Training Runs we still want to know who is starting and finishing the runs with us! So we will have a check in from 7:00AM to 7:55 AM at the start finish area in the Huntely Dining Room near the base of the explorer Lift. **Note that this is a different location than the normal Rut Races check in!** 

    I’m really looking forward to pre-run the VK route, since I’ll be racing it at the main event on August 30. I did so well, and felt so strong at the Broken Arrow VK that I’m really excited to see what I can do at The Rut.

    “Long” run at 5 miles on pavement this morning

    Training with the Middle School MTB Team

    It’s been a bit of a rough transition from the Broken Arrow, with a lot of pain getting back up to speed. While the Rut Training Run is at best a “C” race, meaning just a regular training run effectively, I still want to be strong enough to make the cutoffs and measure my own efficiency on the VK portion of the run.

    I’ve dropped down to on average 45 minute or so training periods, outside the MTB team rides, which are two hours of on and off riding at a mellow pace for the most part.

    I need to increase my singletrack training a bit, and increase my mileage enough to cover the 10.5 miles I’ll be doing at The Rut Training Run.

    I need to get some steep and rough technical terrain practice in, since The Rut VK has quite a bit of that. Especially near the top. The pics and vids make it look a lot like an intense crawl. Far out.

    I’ll post some more here in the next few days as I prepare. We’ll be camping near the Big Sky Resort where The Rut takes place. We were going to take the trailer, but our tow vehicle is having some issues and might not make it in time. In that case I guess it’s tents.

    We’ll see. Wish me the best. Thanks

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  • Morning Road Running – Beginning Groove

    After my amazing fun adventure running up and down both Tiger and Cougar Mountains near Seattle Washington, I had to make some decisions.

    The weather was awesome. Forties and raining. The trails were wet and smooth. I loved it. I managed to get in about seven or so miles each of the three days I had there. That’s about the most sequential running I’ve done in quite a while. I had some really good paces on the flats, uphill, and downhill. It was inspiring.

    But then I had to suffer from the backlash of that. Recovery sucked. 

    With my goal of doing a VK this coming year, and possibly Elbrus, it became obvious that my running training needed to change somehow. That how evolved into going back to ground zero so to speak. I needed to start at one mile a day a few or so days a week and work my way back up from there.

    It was simply that my mind and body were primed and ready to crank out seven miles for a few days, but no more than that. In the bigger scheme of things this wasn’t a really bad thing. Quandary is a 6.5 mile out and back. Cake. But the bigger implication was for training. How many miles a day do I need to run how many days a week to effectively achieve my maximum speed?

    Right. Enough that my body isn’t really ready to do on a daily persistent basis. Back in 2010 I began with baby steps doing various stepmill, elliptical, and treadmill workouts. I started with very low targets and worked my way up on the way to Elbrus Race. Now Elbrus Race Classic is a 9-ish mile out and back with a lot more elevation gain than Quandary.

    So back to square one, which is an outside run over a mile a handful of times a week. Outside because I need to get my shivers out of my system prior to either a fast winter Quandary or any Elbrus.

    And that’s what I’ve been doing. Our ‘hood at large contains a large semi-circular area adjacent to a golf course and outlining the edge of some hills near the mouth of American Fork Canyon. The knots of streets are cut by a local connecting highway or two, and some of the rec paths. If you zigzag around a bit you can hit just about any mile goal pretty easily without too much elevation gain or loss. If you do want some elevation, there are a few nice steeper roads along the hills.

    I started running in the morning, normally after a circuit training routine that I’ll share later. I’m up to about 2-ish miles a day a handful of days per week. My pace is decent enough. One day in spikes due to recent freezing rain and snow mixed I averaged around 13:00 + but mostly I’ve been moving closer to 11:00 + pace. Not too shabby for someone who hasn’t run outside in the cold in a very long time.

    Those are some of the screenshots from the Wahoo Fitness App I’m using on Android. It’s got some klunky bits, but otherwise works good in combination with my Wahoo Tickr Run heart rate strap.

    I’ll share more on that later, but for now, I’m working my way toward a hike or even run up Quandary here pretty soon.

    TTYL!

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