back at it

So the last few weeks have been less then ideal. Lets start from the beginning:
From May 15th tell the end of the month didn't see much training. During that two week period I was just doing lots of short little runs and some mountain bike rides. Nothing too special, or of any significance. For the first time in the last six years I was enjoying being a "regular" college kid. I was just kinda chilling and really enjoying waking up in the morning and just relaxing and not having to go out and train for hours on end. It was pretty nice. During this time I was a bit worried about my future prospect of Mont- Blanc but I was just kinda going with it. Then it was race time!
With an overall lack of milage in my legs I joined about 300 other runners at 7:30 am in Gunnison, Colorado for a mass start of a 50k and 25k race. I was in the 50k. The gun went and the pain came! Here is how it broke down:
The first two miles were a pretty significant climb and I hammered them attempting to warm my legs up. This worked out pretty well and then I just settled into an easy all day pace (or so I thought). The first few aid stations flew by and I was sitting happy around 25th place. I was rocking the climbs and just cruising on the flats and downhills. It was all great until the mile 22 aid station. This is when the Sage Burner hit back....hard (well not so much the race, more of a personal mistake). From like 22 to 23 my legs began to cramp beyond belief. Every muscle was cramping and my toes were curled below my feet. I attempted to slam 4 gels and try to recover. But by the time cramps subsided my muscles were just dead. By the mile 25 aid station I was walking...only. From then I pretty much walked the entire rest of the race and preceded to get pasted by like everyone. It was pretty humiliating and I was mentally shelled. To give you an idea of what happened, I hit the 22 mile aid station in just over 4 hours then it took me 3.30 hours to finish the remaining 9 miles. About 7.45 hours or "running" total. The mistake? Nutrition. I was never tired, it was just my muscles failing on me. I have thought about this race a lot and have come to realize this. Before the race I ate a banana and half of a bagel and during the race 6 gels. Thats about 800 calories consumed throughout an 8 hour run. Way to little. I'm fairly certain the cramps came from a lack of electrolights and the failing muscles were from a complete depletion of glycogen stores. Over the next few weeks I'm going to experiment with eating real solid food during runs.

Also I need to give Taylor Horowitz his due glory. Taylor came out to Gunnison with me with no intention of running. I twisted his arm and he signed up the night before. He has been hammering the mountain bike and the gym but not much training. Well about 30 min after me, Taylor crossed the 50k finish line (he also ran in new shoes)! I would have to say that he earned the bad ass of the day award.

On Sunday Taylor and I spun on the mountain bike and then headed back to Boulder. I followed that up with a trip to Boulder Sports Acupuncture and had a great session with Steven Rizzolo.

Since that Sunday I have been off my feet. I could hardly walk for days and every little task required a huge effort to accomplish. Today, Wednesday 1st, I got out for a little 20 min run. It felt good to be out "running" again. The muscles are good, its just the bottoms of my feet that are trashed.

Finally, I would like to thank all the wonderful people at the Sage Burner and especially Andrew Hyde for his support around mile 23. He made the race for a lot of people!