In awe

Tag: 2023

  • [Day600] Re2023/Xmas

    My last review (day550) was almost a year ago. Not much has changed since but definitely I am expecting something new going forward (wispering Western States, more on this).

    Every 50 posts I do a review of what has happened to serve as a stopping point for myself to reflect and take note. Those who follow my weekly blog, there is nothing new, because this is just a summary. For those who pop in once every six months or a year, this serves as a quick catching up. Indeed. A year has passed. Soon a new year. As for myself, it serves more as a bookmark, or a bookend. To be honest, I don’t remember much of the last few years if I hadn’t written things down.

    Life is hectic for me, always, because usually I tried to do too much. Even if life being dull and slow, a review helps to zero in a few instances of the good times. As they say, there is or should be never a dull moment.

    I don’t remember much this past year either way. I ran a lot of races, almost as many if not even more than last year (stats, in 2022, I ran 21 races, in 2023, I ran 26, almost a race every other week). According to my memory, 2021 was awesome, when I truly finished my first 100 mile race. 2022 was a year of setbacks. I guess I reached my limit. This year, was a reversal of it, I ran five 100 milers and finished 3 of them. Maybe I trained harder but more likely my body adapted to the longer form and I also am more experience to avoid past mistakes and improved. This year I doubled the total 100 milers I did in 2021 and 2022 combined. I also ran 5 marathons. Traveled to 5 different states, with Idaho being the farest.

    In my last update, I wrote that I finished my first Devil Dog 100 and then I ran Blackbeard Revenge 100 in the spring 2023. I was pretty hyped up to finish two incredible races when I wrote the post because compared to the year before, I could not finish any 100s. That was quite a feat to rebuilt my confident of being able to tackle this extremely long distance race.

    Since then, I also ran the Devil Dog again, which I did just a few weeks ago and I also finally finished my first Massanutten 100 this year. I am proud of this one accomplishment alone. It was the hardest race I ever attempted. I finished a total 3 one hundred mile races! We won’t mention Grindstone or Burning River, the other two 100s I attempted over the summer at this time but did not complete them. I will try them again next year.

    As for marathons, my main bread and butter, I ran the Toronto Marathon and many other races in 2023. Toronto was my goal race. It was a race of stepping out in faith because it was my first race outside of the US. It is though now seems less significant when compared to my bigger ones.

    I visited 5 states. In Fort Worth, Texas in January, I ran the Cowtown 50K, then ran a Lake Hayden Marathon in Idaho, ran Blimbler Bluff 50K in Connecticut, Ran in the Philadelphia Marathon in November in Pennsylvania, and finally, ran the Space Coast Marathon in Cocoa, Florida. Connecticut, Idaho, Florida were all new states! Technically if counting only marathons, then Idaho and Florida were the two new (marathon) states added this year. Regardless, I am quite please. My goal is to do about 5 states a year. I consider this was reached. They were so fulfilling. Each of them was amazing in their own right. If I have to pick, definitely Toronto, not so much the race itself but the city.

    Course of Philadelphia Marathon, which is mostly an out and back along the river. A random pic for my audience. I enjoyed my time in Philadelphia. I love maps. Most of races/runs are to explore a city

    I don’t have a plan for next year for which marathons to run because my head is still reeling from the WSER good news and also I will be traveling oversea, so there will be less fund and time available for marathons. I will try to squeeze a few in when I can. I signed up for Taiwan Marathon, which is pretty big I think. I am expecting a good time. My first race in 2024 will be the Clear Water Marathon, just outside of Tampa Florida.

    As for Ultras, I am redoing most of this year races next year: Massanutten, Burning River, and Grindstone. The new race is definitely Western States, and possibly Old Dominion too. OD100 is on the fence, but I am itching to try it now. Some asked why not go for the full Grand Slam? My question is are you crazy or am I crazy. I have a sort of my own grand slam of running 5 x 100 mile races over the summer.

    Yes, a year ago when I could not even finish a 100 mile race, because they seemed so tough, now we are talking as oh just another 100 mile race. Lets do five of them and maybe back to back such Vermont 100 and Burning River are on a back to back weekend.

    The most challenging race for me will probably the Western States since I could not train directly on the course and the race is a big unknown. Whereas, other local races, I have done it or that they were in my area and I could go out to train. Old Dominion, I haven’t done it but the course is much similar to Massanutten and Grindstone.

    People who know what Western States 100 is, I won’t say much more. For those who don’t Western States and Leadville 100 are two US 100 mile races where the best runners go to compete. Some compares them to the Boston Marathon. They are well known in the ultra marathon world. There are 100-ish 100 mile races in the US, but Western States being the oldest and having most fame, received tons of attention. I am setting my sight too do do most if not all the 100 mile races, plus maybe one day the grand slam, but not now.

    I will be blogging my week to week training until race day for WSER. I don’t want it to define me for 2024, but it is and will be. It is difficult to process everything around this race.

    I hope I haven’t lost my audience. I threw out a lot of names. To my audience they probably don’t mean much. Even to me, they might mean something for that week only when my focus is on just that one race, then a week later, a new race. I meet a guy, Paul, at a recent event, the Naked Nick 50k. He asked me if I really do a race every weekend. I guess so. It seems like it. I can’t tell you guys all about my 26+ races. If I have to pick one as a favorite, it would be hard! If I really have to,

    I leave you guys my very first race this year, Blackbeard Revenge. Why? Because I ran a point to point from one end of Outer Banks to the other end (a bunch islands on the coast of North Carolina), and as I near the finish, I saw the sun rising. It was my first time to finish a 100 mile race as the sun was coming up. I had that fresh burst of energy. It was the most exciting and amazing feeling at the end of a 100 mile. It was just me and the road and the finish line. It sums up my experience of 2023. It is something that can’t be explained.

    Of course not all my races are like that. A lot of them, it is really suffering and I don’t want to remember them. I still like to do them as a race. Back on topic, as for 2024, I know I again a lot of races. I will also difficulties. Nothing ever is smooth sailing.

    Some challenges I face this year and next year are same as before. I don’t feel I have trained enough. At least not to the level I deem is acceptable, if we are judging at finishing time. I am still putting very low effort toward my races. I think mostly it is hard to wake up in the morning to train! Western States led to a change to be more consistent in doing my training runs. I hope it will change my life around in term of habits and how I eat.

    Sunrise at Signal Knob during a training run for Western States (week 1). Just a random pic to fill the blog. Actually a lot of my training runs are in beautiful places. I just don’t have the energy to post them

    -Managing time, money, resources, energy is a challenge. I am a bit better. I have a group of friends that kind of help me at races. This is the logistical stuff I always wanted a manager to oversee. I am also considering of hiring coach. The bottom line is I have to work smarter also harder.

    -Scheduling. One of my goals is to go to Napal for trekking the Annapurna. It was supposed to be this year, 2024. This would have to be deferred for a few more years. Next year I am going to Taiwan and Sydney, plus Western States do requires a ton of resources, time, and energy, that there is nothing left for another trips. I want to remind myself, there are other things besides running.

    -The challenging of keep trying harder stuff is reaching the Peak. After doing almost the same thing over 7 years, I come to a point of plateau-ing. It is harder and harder to go a bit more above what I just did. I know I am not at the peak yet, but I am asking myself, how much farther I can go. Maybe it is the law of diminishing return.

    Another challenge I have from time to time is finding a Reason to do what I do. I struggle with defining myself. I don’t want things to define me. Yet I want the achievement. They seem to be opposite. I don’t want to underachieve either. These 7 years, I have pushed the envelop. I keep wondering where is the boundary. At times I thought I reached it, but now looking back, they were just a baby step. Part of defining myself is Looking forward, which is hard for me. I lack imagination. What’s next!

    I came to a bit of understanding while writing this. It is not so much of pushing more boundary, but to see the freedom already available to me. Now, I could do so much more than before and having done some harder races, like 100 miler, I gained the confident in my body of being able to sustain me on some of tougher and longer runs.

    Western States was a total surprise to me. But then after that what’s next? Anyway, we will know once we get there. I don’t have an answer.

    Until next time, I think will be either summer or earlier fall (Day650). By then a lot of my goals will either have reached or else and I will get to write about them. I hope this report has been a good read to you and to me.

    Yes, it is Christmas and New Year! I am not ready. Happy holidays!

    Most proud and most recent medal from the Devil Dog 100 Edurance Run. I notice long races are called endurance runs

  • IMTR 2023 [Day573]

    Finally the week is here. Usually I don’t write anything before the race for fear of jinxing it.

    Thinking back to the Burning River 100, I arrived on Friday afternoon. We saw the finish chute and arch. My mom suggested me to take some pictures there since it is not fenced off yet. I had a feeling it is bad luck to pretend crossing over the finisb line before the race. I did took pictures of myself before the finish line. Lo and behold, I jinxed it. I did not finish that race.

    Since now I am again at the start line of the Iron Mountain 50 mile race, many effort was spent for this. Last few weekends I have been driving over 300 miles to train on the course.

    In the last post, I mentioned the possibility of going backpacking. It turned out the plan fell through. I am at the race now.

    It is an out and back race. My ankle has been much better, though not 100%. I don’t think it ever will get back to 100%. It is better than when I ran the Burning River last month.

    Because the race is an out and back, I could turn around accordingly if my ankle could not handle the trail anymore.

    That is all for now.

    Last weekend was amazing. Though I am too tired to write about it now. I did the course marking for tomorrow race. Then I went to the Grindstone course in the Washington Forest. There I did a night run. It was once in a long while since I did a night run. It was worth it.

  • snow! [Day539]

    Maybe it was the last snow this winter. Nothing sticked but was still exciting. It snowed in the middle of the night.

    Some snow dusting at Sky Meadow where I hiked the following day / it really has nothing to do with the race, just a pic for the blog. Cold day

    I was afraid the next day our 50K run would be canceled. Last year, in similar condition, the race was canceled for fear our runners would ruin the trail.

    Every year since the pandemic I have been running this 50k trail race, the Seneca Creek Greenway. I probably could find old reports and maybe I should. I love to reread the old race write-ups and see how they differed from this year.

    It was an ‘easy’ 50k, similar to Holiday Lake I ran couple weeks ago. We have some hills maybe like couple hundred feet ups and downs. Most of them are small hills. It was fun to run on them.

    Yet it is quite tiring too. This year I started slow. I took my time through the Seneca State Park, to Riffleford, for about first couple miles. I remembered the first time I ran this, I went out full blast and gave everything before even getting to the Riffleford road crossing.

    Once we were on the Greenway Tr, I stayed with my pack of about 4-5. After couple miles, the pack kind of disolved. The fast people ran ahead and the slower people dropped back one by one, I was left with with just a runner in front and he was walking.

    Interesting, this runner was not slow. He walked from time to time but just by the look, I knew he was a fast runner. He was just humoring us by walking. Actually I have no idea why he even walked. For the next hour, I was following sometimes far back, other times within arm length.

    We passed a mill. And finally the guy took off. I had a hard time trailing him. The trail by now cleared up. I still trailed him all the way to mile 7 or 8 at Rt 28 aid station. We crossed over to the otherside of the road to enter onto Seneca Bluff trail.

    It was uneventful all the way to mile 15 ish where we headed back north using the Greenway trail again. We crossed a creek about halfway. I remembered in former races, this was a choke point where everyone would stop and we would cross it one by one. This year, there was no one around. The creek was kind of flooded. I couldn’t hop across rocks there but waded through the stream.

    By mile 15, I came across Sergio, whom I stayed with him maybe for a mile or so. Sergio said he has a bad knee. He ran this race before but today he was not feeling well. He hadn’t been eating or drinking much. Not long after he was saying that, his hamstring cramped up and he felt over on the trail.

    I helped him up and hoped that by walking it off he would be fine. A runner came by and offered him salt tablets. Together, we walked to the aid station. Once there, I knew he should be fine. We separated. I knew if Sergio chooses to continue, it would be a long day for him.

    We were about 3 hours in. I expected the second half would be a bit longer. I was hoping I could finish earlier than former races. Though I felt like more a straggler this year. Former years, I usually see a lot of people walking in the second half. This year, I rarely saw anyone.

    I caught up a few people who had gone out a bit too fast. The second half, my pace degraded a bit and several runners passed me. That is the natural of racing. Even at the last mile, I thought I was in a comfortable position, then someone passed me running quite strong and it was impossible for me to keep up.

    Anyway, I finished at 7:39:00. It was much longer than I thought. Sergio said he recorded 33 miles on his watch. The trail is maybe a bit long but it is the same distance every year. We know it is trail racing neither our watch is accurate nor the ‘official distance’ is accurate. Trail racing always is measured with an estimated-ish distance.

    • comparisons:
    • 2020: 6:30:36 (report)
    • 2021: 7:14:17 (report)
    • last week, Cowtown 50k, road, 6:03.
    • two weeks ago, Holiday Lake 50K, 7:07

    I was much slower this year. time of 7h and 40 mins, so it seems about 30 mins to an hour slower than former years, depending which year or race to compare to. And wow I ran 6:30 the first year. Not sure why I am so much slower. I think probably doing three 50K back to back, kind of took away time for me to recover.

    Anyway, time was not too important to me. I want to run faster of course, but not meeting a prior year’s time was fine to me. My goal this year was to have some the time on the trail. Because it would build me up for a bigger race that will take place in May (the MMT 100).

    Weather-wise, the day was cold around 40F but with strong winds making the wind chill at time feels like 30F. I wore double layer and a windbreaker over. Gloves and cap were a must to keep fingers and ears from freezing. The race opened for 9:30 hours. I stayed there pretty much until closing.

    Food was adaquate. They had warm food for us. I drank a cup of warm coffee and that was the best thing that warmed me up. There were plenty of volunteers. I think the race was well supported, which is a reason for me to go back year after year.

    My memorable moment after getting all the food I needed, was when I went back to my car to put on warmer clothes so I could stay out to watch runners finishing. A family there was waiting for Sergio. I did not know Sergio’s name at the time. I started talking to the family and they said, that is probably Sergio. I was curious to see if indeed they were waiting for the runner I met on the trail. Sergio came in a bit after 9 hours. He did the full 50K. After having the cramp in his leg, he had to walk. I knew it would be a slow race for him. He said it was very tempting to quit halfway but he found a fellow companion and they walked all the way and did the full 50k.

    The heroic thing for Sergio about this race is near the finish at mile 27.5, you could make a decision to cut ‘short’ the race by finish as a marathon or you could add 5 more miles to get the 50K finish. Sergio could have finished a bit earlier (maybe couple hours earlier) as a marathon (and many people did). We were tracking Sergio on the phone and saw he took the other path and we knew he was aiming for 50K. So we waited. It was worth it to get 50K distance.

    As for me, it was a decent race. I havr another race next week (and I will report on that when I did it). The week after will be my 100 miler (OBX, or Blackbeard’s Revenge). And so forth. This week, I did some planning for my Toronto trip (and I am excited). I will write more when the time comes. There are races stacked up until end of May.

    Seneca Park’s Clopper Lake maybe only two miles from the finish. We had to run around this lake. It is bigger than what is shown.

  • Day529 BRR Training 1

    Bull Run Run Training 1.

    BRR training started a week after the MMT training run. I did both sets of training last year and doing them again this year. The only difference this time is I will be running in the BRR (actual race) this year. Last year, I only did the training runs but not the race itself. It’s long story, which I am about to tell.

    What is BRR? It stands for Bull Run Run. The race has been rebranded as BROT, which stands for Bull Run & Occoquan Trail Run, but I prefer BRR better for short, because that is the name I first encountered with this race and it rolls off the tongue. Yes, it is related to the American Civil War also, the Battle of Bull Run. I don’t know much of its history even though I visited the Manassa battle field and its museum. Funny thing was during the training run, an older runner was listening to a podcast about the Bull Run Battle. He forgot to bring his ear piece, so he had it on speaker. The few of us crowded around him to listen along with him.

    Note, I use the abbreviation of BRR to refer to the race (in April) and the training runs interchangeably, but rarely will I refer to the trail itself, even though that is the name of the trail. I know, hope it won’t be too confusing to my readers. In the same way, I’ll refer to MMT as the race and its training runs, even though it is the name of that trail.

    History, my history: Since forever, might be 2017 or 2018, in my early years of running, I had wanted to do this race. Every single year, I missed the registration because either they only opened for club members or by invitation only or they were quickly filled out and I missed out.

    There is some weird procedure to get onto the wait list. You are given a random number when you registered, and then the pick is based on a particular day of the stock market closing index price mentioned ahead of time. Depending if the index goes up or down, it would determine the sort ordering, for getting people off the list. They say it is clearly explained on their sign up website and is fair since the stock market is supposed to be random.

    I just find the sign up procedure weird. And math, I love math, but for a lot of people, it could be a turn off. It is like you have to solve some high level math problem to sign up a race. They also use some Latin words on their races too (yes, it runs by a bunch of brainy older people — lawyers). I took Latin as my foreign language elective, so I love Latin. But if I am a younger zoomer/millenial, I might not sign up. I’m not knocking at them. I was introduced into the racing world using the modern way of run-signup and ultra-signup websites, so was expecting something more slick. BRR sign up site is just unusual. Anyway, I finally got on the sign up list this year, without much problem. It was like my fifth or sixth try.

    So I will be religiously doing all the training runs. The truth is the race no longer scares me as it once did and I don’t need to train for it. I could do a 50 miler on any weekend without breaking a sweat (maybe a little), as I proved last season. However, I found from last year that BRR training run was very good for my MMT and I think a lot runners who will be running the MMT would do the BRR as preparation. So here I am.

    We had a good day. The temperature was between 35-45 F, way warmer than a week earlier. It felt it was more like fall weather. They were saying last year temperature was 6 or 16 degrees. Making today a nice day for a winter run. I had expected the run to run west, where my house is, only later after finishing, I found on their Facebook page that they made a last minute change, to have the run toward east because of the trail work being done on the west side. But anyway, it did not matter. A training run is a training run. Running eastward actually was more beneficial for me due there being more hills.

    I originally planned to wake up maybe at 3:30 am but overslept until 5:30, because I stayed up too late the night before. Anyway, I got home late due to lunar eve-eve new year’s celebration. I made very little preparation unlike the week before when I prepared for the MMT training run. This was a local run, and in the city, so no need to fret about packing emergency aid, food, and everything. Water was the only thing I needed. And no need to set an alarm, so as it turned out, I overslept.

    So I got up around 5:30 and I was thinking to myself, if could I still make it. I did not think I could make it on time after a bit of calculations. The original plan was to run from my house to the trailhead maybe at most 5 miles away and from there run to Hemlock Overlook, which was also about another 5 miles, where the rest of the group would meet. At the time, I did not know the distance was 5 miles, but I was planning a 4 hour run to the real starting line. We were to meet at 8 am, so it meant a 4 am start from my house. It would have given me a lot of mileage that day, again, at the time I didn’t know how far, but I was planning for a 30-40 mile day.

    Because I was running late, I decided to drive to the trailhead instead. The actual meet location was too early for me to be there and I wanted to have some early miles done. As I was driving, I made up my mind to go a trailhead nearer to my home, Rt 28 parking lot, but it was not the lot where everyone to meet. It saved me from running 4 or 5 miles from my house, but still would give me plenty miles for the day. I arrived there before sunrise. I was the first person in the lot. I got everything ready and as first light dawned (around 7 am), I hit the trail. It is a county park, so technically we were not allowed to be on the trail when it is dark. That was the reason I waited for some light, so I didn’t have to use a headlamp and also I would not be violating any local ordiances. I doubt anyone would call the cops on me, but you never know.

    I tried this run last year too but I was slower last year and missed the group start. This year I started 15 minutes earlier and I must have run faster. I met my goal of getting to Hemlock by 8 o’clock.

    The first couple miles, I was running at a slower pace, of 15 min mile. It was very slow. I had not warm up yet and the terrain was uneven. It was a bit cold but I knew also it should be warming up by noon time.

    I arrived at Hemlock as the group just started off. I could see them from maybe 100 yards away. I was not too late. I caught up with the group as they were circling around the parking lot. There were maybe 75-100 of us, which was quite a big group for a training run. Some came late too as usual since this was in the city. There were whole lot of excitement.

    I was more familiar with the trail this year than last year. I made many posts about this trail before. Those were the days when I first explored it on my own, I think around 2020 and 2021. It was such a joy then as it is now. Now running on it again, and finally the first time with the big group, I felt great. I had previous good memories as I ran. BRR training was where I met Iris, who later helped crew me at my Devil Dog. People like Iris are dear to me. That was just last year, but it felt so long ago. This year, Iris wasn’t there. A race director once told me, that volunteers are his dearest people, so it is the same for me. Anyone helped me in a race, they are my “brothers and sisters, and mother and father.”

    BRR and MMT are almost same for me in my mind. I’d lump both of them together. They were both organized by the same group of people, my local trail running group. It is quite famous here in the tri-state (DC, Maryland, and Virginia, well DC isn’t a state, but you know, we treated it like one). It’s name though is probably well known to our surrounding states as well, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. MMT is probably more well known around the nation in the trail community, since it had been around for a long time and it is a 100 miler.

    But as for the BRR, it is much more modest. It is a local race. And it is only a 50 mile compares to the 100 miler sibbling. This training run had only about 1500 ft of elevation change. The course is a series of rolling hills, so not that bad actually, at least for me who went to last week training for the MMT training run, where we did 5000 ft of climbing in a single day. Still I believe, BRR helps my training.

    I fell into my pace after couple miles. I met up with a friend from DC (Jana), and we ran together to the Bull Run’s Marina. I was surprised to see her here. She recently has done a lot trail runs, such as Naked Nick. She said though 50K is her max. I tried to convince her to try running a 50 miler, but she said she doesn’t do night time running. I said, it is only maybe an hour of darkness, and if she moves fast, she would finish before dark. I hope some day to get her to join me on longer runs.

    At the marina, we took a break at the aid station for this run. It was an out and back, so we would be back here again. It was well stocked with everything we needed, fruits, candies, sodas. And this training run was all free to us. It was festive because we had a big group there. We took a couple group photos. I recognized many familiar faces. However, I am not friend with them, like I am with Iris, Ram and Caroline. They were not on first name basis, but rather it was hey runner. Some people turned around here early to go back to Hemlock, since this is individual decision of how much or how long they wanted to be out there. For a few of us who needed more miles, we continued toward Fountainhead Park, which was about 6.5 miles away.

    Jana also went for a few miles more so that she would finish the day with 12 miles. I wanted to go until I was tired. 12 miles were too little for me. Though since I had 5 miles earlier, if I turned around then I would have 22 miles for the day, Jana told me. I did not believe her at the time, but her math did check out.

    It was too early for me to be turning around though. After saying goodbye to Jana, I continued toward Fountainhead. I got to mile 14, and turned around at the road, wolf run or something, maybe a mile or two before reaching Fountainhead. During the real BRR, this would be an aid station. By then many already turned around, and I believed I was the last one. I caught sight of Tracy and Tina — I believed I ran with Tina (from Baltimore) last year on this run, but she didn’t remember me. She arrived late last year and everyone had left, so it was me and her and she didn’t know the way and I led that time. Anyway, she was on time this year. She partnered up with Tracy. I didn’t know Tracy at the time.

    I tried to rush back so that the group if they were waiting for me would not have to wait for too long. I don’t need people to wait for me, but I am known within this group as one who likely to get lost and also one of the slowest. I was then stopped by a couple Asian hikers, because I looked Asian, they started up a conversation. They wanted to know about my parents and if I attended church, since chinese here in the area all kind of know one another. All they just need you know who your parents are and who your pastor is before long they could identify you. I stopped and started talking to them. Last I’ve been to a chinese church was almost 20 years ago. Things changed.

    Then a couple more runners came by and I believed they were part of our running group. I quickly caught up to them and joined in their run. Indeed, they were part of our training run. I was glad I was not the last person on the trail. Sorry to the asian hikers. They did not know I was in a group run. I left them behind. Actually, I stopped for way too long (maybe 15-20 minutes) and I was cooling off to the point I was starting to shake. Again, we are in two different worlds between runners and hikers. Hikers felt they have all day to talk. We runners are more bounded by time and have to get going.

    I found out the two runners started late and kind of doing their own thing but they were stronger runners than me. Josh came to the run from Virginia Beach and he did the BRR 50 miler race last year. His friend, Spencer, was the area native. They wanted to have 20 miles that day. I told them I already had 19 miles in and hoping maybe for 10 more by the time I finished. I could only stayed with them for about 2 miles and had to slow down. Their pace was too strong for me. I think Josh could run the race in 8-9 hours. Spencer is a bit weaker, but not by much. They both were in excellent built and young, maybe 5-10 years younger than me.

    We got back to the Bull Run’s Marina. Quatro the aid station captain and this training run RD, was still there. We were guessing he would have left by then. The time was around 11:30. I was glad because at least I could get water and some cookies for my return trip. From the Marina back to Hemlock is about 4 miles. I was bonking hard during this stetch. I took the red trail up to Hemlock instead of following blue circling around the base, and climbling up on the otherside. My short cut saved me maybe a mile. Of course, during the race, this would be a DNF. Today though wasn’t a race.

    Quatro was already back from the Marina. I expected that. He said couple other runners were still out besides Josh and Spencer. Shortly, we saw them came in (Tracy and Tina). I stayed for a few more minutes until Josh and Spencer also came in.

    I still had five more miles from Hemlock to my car. Slowly but surely I made it back to my car. I did come across of the group that was repairing the trail.

    For training goes, it was a run. A good run. Last week I worked on more technical stuff. This week was mostly working on the consistency in my run. I needed both types of training. The trail was runnable and so it was a good training on relatively flat ground with some hills tossed in. I had some solid “fast” miles while I was with Jana. Jana was about my pace, but I had to run to keep up with her. I believe I could out run her, but on this training run, she was stronger.

    I still have to work on to be a stronger trail runner. I crapped out too early. I need to have stronger endurance. I need to run faster uphill and also downhill. I know I would do fine for the BRR race because I am a strong hiker. However, I want to be able to run the full 50 miles instead of just hiking it. Also it would help me on the MMT in May. BRR training is complementary to the MMT training.

    BRR will give us a generous 13 hours to finish. I think I could do it in 12 hours. I hope maybe get it down to 11. Any below 11 hours would be a pipe dream. Since the training run was not a race, I finished around 2 pm. 7 hours after I started. I put in 27-28 miles. I did not have my gps watch on me, so couldn’t tell the actual distance I ran. There will be a few more training runs, one in Feb and one in March. Overall, I had a great time, a much more enjoyable than when I was at the MMT first training run. A couple guys recognized me from the week before.

  • Day528 MMT Training 1

    TL;DR This race in May (MMT) means a lot, so I wrote a long post about the first training run. Summary – a cold slow run on the first third of the actual course.

    Running up the road outside Caroline Furnace

    It has begun. I am not quite in a mood for training yet after more than a month off since the Devil Dog 100 race. Whether I am ready or not, training comes upon me again. I think though I am in a better position to start this year’s training than last year. At least, I am relatively in a good health and I am more upbeat about it. There’s an urgency that I need to get back out there as soon as possible to kick start the machinery. The MMT race is in the third week of May. There is still time. Time is also short. This is a recurrent theme. I have a whole life ahead (Goal #99) and yet there seems to be not enough time. There is so much expectancy that this year will be a good year.

    A little background, though no secret at all to my regular readers. The topic of MMT came up many times. I have talked/written to death about it. Last year I attempted this 100 mile race that was considered a much tougher 100 miler race than any I tried before. I ended up getting very close to finishing it, reaching mile 95 with only about 6-7 miles to go (the course was about 102 miles). Due to a kind of weird lapsed of focus at night, I burned up a lot of time and it caused me to miss the final cutoff in the morning. This year, I hope to correct this mistake — to be a stronger night runner. Yes, this will be another redemption arc, just like the Devil Dog. And I know I have a good chance to do well.

    MMT is no joke. It is not extremely hard but it is no walk in the park. We will have four training runs before the real race. Each one is just plain hard on the actual course and they are spaced a month apart. This allows me to gauge my progress. The first run was from the race start to mile 32. They get progressively harder. They will cover the entire course by the end of all three training runs.

    MMT is known for having rocky trail. This section is easier so a brave runner attempted to run on it, but I walked.

    How did I do? I knew I was out of shape even before doing the run. I had a couple runs since my last real race (the Devil Dog). I ran Naked Nick 50k and New Year Redeye 50k. I wrote on both in previous entries. Verdict: The run was a struggle and I mostly walked the course.

    On top of being out of shape, I also had a slight injury on my foot. It is an old problem because I tend to twist my ankle (especially the left) a lot. I might have reinjured it during Devil Dog. Each subsequent runs, I hurt it more. I had couple bad rolls at Naked Nick. I did it again at Redeye. I aggravated my left ankle. The last two weeks, I was basically off my foot. You might say, why I ran then. Men are stupid is all I have to say. My justification is I could not sit around while a training run is happening.

    I was hoping for it to get better. I finished the training run with the ankle being no better or worse. I guess I was lucky.

    I knew even with the injury and being physically weak, I should get out onto the course. We met at 5:30 AM at the Signal Knob Parking which was about an hour drive from home. I had to be up by 3:30 AM, to prepare. Mind you, I hit the snooze button a few times before finally getting up and getting into my car by 4:15.

    It was hard to wake up this early on a normal day. I made it tougher on myself because the night before I had various things to do and that I did not get to bed until past 1.

    [start rant] It was a busy Friday, both at work and in my personal life. It was like a whole week of work condensed to one day. The tale is just too long to tell. My mailbox key broke and I had that replaced. It is a story for another time trying to get the post office to fix it and I had been going at it for a full week, and actually we didn’t receive mail since Christmas. 2. Plus my car was in the shop for a recall due to the gas tank could be corroded (and could fall off, and I knew about this since last summer) and it needed an inspection. They ended up spraying a sealant on it. I was worried that I would not have my car back in time for the training run. Dealing with a rental car, but in the end everything worked out. 3. Another thing was our CRAW team had only 12 miles left to go. I did not have to run it that day, because we have 9 other people on our team to do it, but no one ran. We could leave it for the next day, but I did not want that since we were so close to the finish. So around 6 pm on Friday, I put on my clothes and headed outside to do almost a half marathon to get it done. This was a virtual relay race that went around the world. By 9-ish at night I finished it. 4. I cleaned up, ate, got warm up then I attended to some work left from my company I needed to do that night. I did not finish everything until midnight. 5. Then finally there was still laundry and packing for the trip to be done. I ended up with maybe three hours of sleep. [end rant]

    When everything was packed, I was ready for bed. It was too hot to sleep with everything on me, and of course, I stripped back down. I put on again everything early in the morning.

    Dressing for the cold: For the run, I ended up having on a tee shirt as a base layer. I wear a 32 degee brand thermo long sleeve over as my mid. They are like underwear but super warm and thin. I swear by these. I think they are made out of a special material that reflects heat, like those space blanket. Then I put a super thin hoodie sweater as my outer. We were required to bring a rain jacket that also served as a windbreaker. I was warned about the high wind. The temperature ranged from 20-30 F, in the freezing range. The wind chill factor was probably in the teens. I had gloves and a wool cap, but my fingers still were cold most of the time. I added a fleece jacket and brought along a puffy down jacket, as precaution. By the time I finished the run, I wore all of them because it was that cold. The puffy jacket though I left that in the car for use after the race. Because rain was expected, a fleece was better than a down jacket because fleece will stay warm even when they wet.

    I packed myself a lunch, which was just a (cubano?) sandwich. I had the same for breakfast. I added a gatorade, some gummies and bars. I filled up my water pack. This run required having a turn sheet because the course was not flagged. I had to download the map to my phone and tried to get the offline map to work and saved a copy of the directions on my phone. I already studied the course ahead of time. I did not have a printer. So in the middle of night before falling asleep, I wrote out all the turns by hand on a piece of paper. (I actually printed out at work but forgot to take it home.) I put that in a zip lock. This would be the most important paper. I prayed that I would not get lost.

    The course: I have been on the course before because I ran the MMT last year (MMT stands for Massanutten Mountain trail 100 mile race). Supposingly, I should know the way. As I ran this again, I was surprised by new things or sights I missed during the first time because I had forgotten about them. There were way more climbs than I remembered, such as the long climb after Edinburg Gap. That whole stretch was completely new to me. Somehow it was blocked off from my mind. Also the reservoir after Woodstock was a surprised to me. I didn’t know to go around the lake. Now as I write this, I kind of have vague recollection.

    The course was not hard. It was just one way – follow the orange blazes until near the end then follow the blue blazes. There was like just one turn. There were a few tricky sections but the usual mantra was to follow the orange.

    We started out with about fifty people. Some did not show up during the roll calls. A few dropped along the way. I ran near the back end of the group as usual since I am not a strong runner. I supposed there were a few behind me. They must have dropped off later into the run and I ended up being the last four to finish. Also some would come out again the next day for the Waterfall 50k (WTF 50), the race I couldn’t get in this year.

    The first few miles were on the road. It was snowing and started sticking. I think it was beautiful. I ran in the snow before but it also made me nervous because my shoes were not made for snow. The traction on them was not that good.

    Pacing: Having done the MMT, I know to go slow. It was not a race. I stayed with maybe 10 people. We entered the trail and went up the Short mountain. Some started to run ahead. Four or five passed me by. I tried to keep my pace. By about 8 miles I was tired. Going up hills got me breathing heavily. I was not in the best shape and my glasses fogged up. It was hard and I was wondering when I would black out.

    The first aid station was at mile 12. It was a welcome sight. We had hot food, some chips and sodas. I stayed there for a bit. I remember that during my race, I did not stop here or even at the next station. Today though would be different. It was not a race. I stopped along with my group. Larry called me as I came in. He knew me by name but I never met him, well I might have, but I could not remember him. I thought he was John, another famous runner in the club. They all knew every runner by name. I was still with a group of about 8. Charleen was quite famous in our group. People were calling out to her. Michelle and Jamie were with them. Both too were excellent runners. The women were in a high spirit. Three guys in front and four ladies in the back. I was sandwiched in between them.

    The three guys pressed ahead. I followed them so I don’t have to look for directions myself. The mid section to Woodstock Tower, before our second aid stop was boring to me. The three guys took off at a much faster speed and disappeared. Mind you I was leading them before. I was left my myself. The ladies were taking their time in the back.

    A bit lost: I knew to stayed on the orange blazed trail but some sections of it seemed to be unused for some time and the blazes faded. I was started to doubt if I was on the right trail. A couple times I could not see the trail at all. It got me worried that I was off the path. I looked around by instince went on ahead following along the ridgeline. I was back on the blazed trail.

    Woodstock Tower, just before reaching the aid station. I did not remember passing by it when I ran the MMT last year. Glad I caught sight of it this time

    At 2nd Aid Station: I arrived at Woostock aid station by 1 pm, well ahead of the cutoff of 2 pm. The three guys were still there. Soon the ladies arrived as well. The temperature dropped as we stood around. My water hose became frozen. I had to kept it underneath my shirt to melt the ice. I met a few familiar faces. Carl, son of a former race director and one who ran me a few years back at this place, greeted me. He left me a good impression and he also one of those guys who wins races. Dan, the current race director was also there. Carl’s father (one of former RDs) was also there cooking for us. I took some hash browns. There was also a guy there who helped me at the MMT around mile 80-85, but I did not know his name. I was so grateful to him during my race. He was one of the best volunteers to kick me out the aid station when I was about to give up. I was glad to see him again but did not get a chance to say hi. When the guys set off, I followed along.

    The last 12 miles were easier. The three guys in front got tired and slow down their pace and I could keep up with them by now. We picked up a few other stragglers by the time we got near Signal Knob. We climbed up toward the Meneka Peak. I showed my worth of knowing the trail here but directing them away from the Meneka Peak. Both trails were to the left and the direction told us to take a left without specifying which left. I saved the whole group from getting lost there.

    We then ran down on the other side. I think it was the Sidewinder trail or something. It was basically a series of switchbacks to the parking lot. During the descends the ladies caught up to us and they were speed demons. The three guys couldn’t kept up with them, so they overtook us. I always like a fast descend. Even though it is supposed to be fast, it was 3-4 miles long and probably took us close to an hour to get down. We reached the parking lot by 4:45. 10 hours after we started. My original goal was to finish under 9 hours. During the MMT, we do not go to the Parking Area but take a short trail to Elizabeth Furnace. It is about 32 miles. My watch battery died around mile 28 so, I don’t know the distance it would have recorded for the full run.

    The Finish: Again it was a very cold day even after we finished. The volunteers had ramen noodles for us. I would take anything hot. After me, were couple more guys. The last guy came in at 5:08. Larry (a different Larry) who organized this training run was accepted into Hard Rock, a very famous race. We all congratulated him. He said that race will be in mid July. It is like when I mentioned I run marathons to people, they think I was talking about 5k because they have no way to understand the distance. This guy is running 200 miles, and it is outside my realm of comprehension.

    This was how I imagine a good day to be. I fell asleep soon after getting home and slept in the living room. Of course, I had to wake up in the middle of the night to go to bed for real in my room. My ankle was still hurt.

    Some conclusions: 1. I know what I need to work on to be stronger. I need to work on hills. Uphill downhill. Plus I was horrible with flat. I couldn’t run much. I need to able to run for a long stretch of time. Yes I was out to of shape, so need to work on everything. Also my foot needs to heal.

    2. Challenges. My mom asked why am I doing this to myself. I realized the problems I laid out scared her. When I am worried, she is twice as worried. When I think a race is crazy, she thinks I am a complete lunatic to attempt it. She wanted me not to run. It was impossible for her to see I find joy in such a challenge. I have to be careful how I project my thoughts. I have to self-censure myself from anything that indicates danger or hardship. She asked why don’t I do races that I have confident in completing, ones that have less risks. I personally think it is because of the challenges I am attempting it. I don’t want to run easy races.

    3. This is kind of a rant because I was a bit miffed. I did not get along well with some people I ran with. They weren’t hostile, but it was like being on one toes, uncomfortable. I will leave it as that. I have many theories, however, I will keep those to myself.

    Many were their first time too. I hope they realize that the actual race is 4 times longer. So good luck to them. There are still three more training runs.

    PS. Happy Lunar New Year! (coming Sunday)

  • Day525 resolve

    New Year is already here! I am behind on making my resolutions. I am not a big fan of making resolutions because I usually fail after a few days. I also the type of person who needs to have them because I love structure.

    I did not start the year with a bang, but I did start it off running. Seriously, I ran a 50K on January 1st. I still need to write a report on that.

    In other areas besides running though, I have some “debts” to repay. I felt behind on a bunch of things. There are two race reports to write! I need to prepare for several trips this spring (Texas, Canada, Outer Banks, Roanoke, and Massanutten). One is next month and I haven’t reserved my flight. And most importantly, I need to refocus myself for this new year.

    Originally, I was going let it slides, like I have been for the last few years. This year was going to be like the year before. It is not far from the truth. Same old same old. I figured the previous year resolutions should do for this year.

    However, after reading some other people posts, I want to give this year a serious thought. I lile from RunningOnFumes of choosing a word or phrase for the year. For me, I would like 2023 to be *resolved*. Hopefully, I’ll reach some goals.

    SeizeLife at LiveTheMoment/EatTheMoment mentioned about 168 plan. We have 168 hours total in a week. How do we use it? I Googled and downloaded the spreadsheet. Basically, it helps listing out what things are important and ideally helps you to focus your time to have a fulfilling week. I will look into it and hopefully will use it.

    Resolve 2023.1 – practice and use the 168 plan

    I know People/cities die for lack of vision. I live by purpose. I want it to be meaningful.

    The last few years I have been quite unfocused. I tried aiming toward a target to transition from road running to trail running, and it took over three whole years to do it. Looking back, it wasn’t bad, just me stumbling through life.

    What does this mean? Running 100 mile races helped me understand pace degradation. You know I could run a marathon between 4-5 hours, 26 miles. In my head, I know the pace. Miles just fly by. Every couple hours, you get 12 miles.

    But in a hundred mile, you experience the pace slowing down. In your mind you still want and hope to run a 12-13 min mile pace. Reality is your body is moving much slower.

    When I run, I set goals, like by what time, I should be at a certain place. Pace elongation stretches out the time. a five minute wait becomes 10, and 10 mins becomes 20 and so on. It seems a step taken should be closer in distance to the finish yet would take much longer time to get there. The famous Zeno’s Paradox! Every step only brings me half the distance closer but never reach it.

    This is how I feel with planning the last three years. Originally, things I wanted to do in 2018/2019, finally only got them done last year. Yes, what or why did it take me so long!

    I still love setting resolutions! Eventually, I will get there right? I recheck my to-do bucket list and glad some of them are finally coming off it. Yet there are still so much more to do.

    This morning I was exploring from 100 mile races in the Philippines! They have The Hard 100 – they give 40 hours to do. So it got to be hard. I want to do it! Now I am aware of it, it probably will take couple years for me to get there.

    Three years ago, I would not dare to dream about running this 100 mile race, but now, ya, it is more about when I can go and how it will fit into my schedule.

    Last night, I met up with David, my running friend who has been doing runs and races together this past year, and we were talking about tons of races through out the night. One of our mutual friend wanted to her first (half/full) marathon. We were excited of sharing our knowledge. At the same time, I was checking my schedule to see how they would fit in, because I want to run races with them. Our friend Siri has interesting idea of going to the spa and hot pot after “our” race — DC rock n Roll, which I haven’t signed up yet.

    Marathons on my new lists to check out is Las Cruces in NM, Burlington in VT, Space Coast Coco Beach in FL. I can’t do the first two yet because of scheduling conflict this year, but Space Coast is a possibility!

    Oh yeah what about my resolutions?

    I resolve – 2023.2 – to not be lazy with my training, specifically waking up in the morning to train

    2023.3. plan better

    2023.4. sit down and get my Annapurna trip together. It is supposed to be this year but I am so scared with the planning

    2023.5. put sydney marathon on my planner. I could definitely go this year, because my schedule is open, but need to take that step to make it happen. Also so scared about travelingbout the country. Going oversea isn’t scary but how to meet up with my cousins and auntie there, is. idk, it should be excited, but i’m shy.

    2023.6. mexico trip: likely won’t happen this year, but good to dream to run with Ramamuri (Tarahumara). Caballo Blanco Ultra 50 mile in March. From The book Born to Run. One of my favorite ultra running books to read.

    2023.7. walk the talk (resolve to get things done). Pretty much this year theme. Resolve to resolve.

    conclusion: the whole post is about to get myself to make some goals and they don’t usually get done on my time table. This leads me to not make more goals. However, I should look hard and get my things done. So I made some new year resolutions. Let’s be bold!