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Northwest Passage Relay

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Location:

Eatonville,WA,USA

Member Since:

Nov 01, 2007

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Age Division Winner

Running Accomplishments:

Short-Term Running Goals:

Regain consistency.

Build up slowly and come out strong.

Regain "speed" (relative)

Finish WR50 again.

Improve at Cascade Crest. 

2013 Races:

  • Capital Peak Mega Fat Ass 17M (1/19) - 2:48:48
  • Yakima Skyline Rim 50K (4/21) - 7:16:20
  • Grey Rock 50K (5/13)
  • White River 50M (7/27)
  • Cascade Crest 100M (8/24-25)

 

Long-Term Running Goals:

Find my true running potential, then exceed it.

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Hoka Stinson B Lifetime Miles: 982.34
Hoka Stinson Evo Lifetime Miles: 452.95
Altra Provision Lifetime Miles: 139.73
Altra Torin Lifetime Miles: 380.08
Hoka Bondi 2 Lifetime Miles: 706.15
Hoka Mafate 3 Lifetime Miles: 81.12
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
38.930.0021.203.4863.61
Night Sleep Time: 44.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 44.50
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.250.000.000.006.25

6.25 miles in 50:47, 8:07/mi, HR 138.

Sunny and warmer (69F).  Kept the effort easy today.

Adrenaline 8 - 349.06 miles.

Night Sleep Time: 9.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 9.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.500.000.000.007.50

7.5 miles in 59:47, 7:58/mi, HR 147.

Warm (69F) & sunny.  Having taken yesterday easy and skipped core exercises, I can only imagine that pre-relay jitters are starting to manifest as their cousins, the pre-race aches and pains, do.....in strange places and for limited duration.  So I'm dutifully ignoring them.

Adrenaline 8s (Blue) - 114.85 miles.

Night Sleep Time: 7.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 7.50
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
12.000.000.003.4815.48

11.48 miles in 90 minutes, 7:50/mi.  25 minute warmup, Fartleks: 20 x 1 min on, 1 min off.  25 minute cooldown.

Last hard session before NWP on Friday.  Fartleks felt good...1 minute duration just long enough to start getting tired but not too long so that it outlasts the recovery period.  10 were uphill, 4 on the flats, and 6 downhill.  Interestingly, the uphill/flat ones were limited by the amount of O2 I could suck into my lungs, whereas the downhill ones seemed limited by the muscle strength of my legs. Probably averaged around 3K speed on most of them (5:38/mi).

The new 405 I picked up on Sunday to replace the first one decided to work fine during the workout, but then wouldn't transfer the results and locked up when viewing the history on the watch.  Sigh...I've had this happen before on my 305 (rarely) but I'm still not happy about it.  Last chance for the 405 series for me.  So I'm guessing on the Easy versus VO2Max miles.

Asics GT 2120 - 562.23 miles.

4 miles in 32:10, 8:02/mi, HR 143.

Cloudy and cool (60F) all day today.  Hope this lasts....perfect racing weather.

Asics GT 2120 - 566.23 miles.

Night Sleep Time: 8.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 8.50
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.180.000.000.008.18

0.68 miles in 5:12, 7:39/mi, HR 128.  7.5 miles in 59:31, 7:56/mi, HR 147.

Easy run to rest for NWP relay on Friday.  Unfortunately, I witnessed a cat getting hit by a car about 1/3 mile into my run when a car speeding down our road wasn't able to stop in time, then proceeded to keep going anyway.  I wish the cat had died instantly but unfortunately it was only mortally wounded.  I've seen death before but it's still not something I'm too terribly comfortable dealing with, especially when it's an animal that had been trained to rely on humans and subsequently abandoned.  Wound up running back home in a state to collect a car and have the wife call the local vet telling them I was bringing in a stray that would likely need euthanised.  Of course, they were too busy to be bothered since the vet had left early for lunch...trying my best not to drive down there today to let them know how I feel about that.  Perhaps the best news was that the cat was gone when I returned....the neighbor who had been feeding it told me it was dead when he found it and he'd obviously disposed of the corpse....believable since the poor thing was in such a bad state when I'd last seen it.  He also told me someone had abandoned it a few months ago and it had 3 young ones running around somewhere.  So now I feel like a complete heel for not searching for it's 3 offspring to make sure they've got a better chance.  And how does this relate to running?  Despite managing to go out on my run after a calming down period I know it's going to bother me for months every time I run in that area...not very manly but I really don't care...

Adrenaline 8 - 357.24 miles.

Night Sleep Time: 8.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 8.50
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.000.000.000.005.00

5 miles in 39:16, 7:51/mi, HR 152.

The sun is back and warmer today at 70F.  Felt nice and energetic through 1 mile, then tired and uncoordinated for the rest.  A good night sleep tonite is called for...

Adrenaline 8s (Blue) - 119.85 miles.

Night Sleep Time: 9.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 9.00
Comments(5)
Race: Northwest Passage Relay (184.5 Miles) 20:31:02, Place overall: 2, Place in age division: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.0013.400.0013.40

My first relay and what an incredible experience. This will be a long, long read so forgive my verbosity!

First, many thanks to my teammates for all their efforts in running the relay.  I know no one left a single drop in the tank and everyone ran their guts out and for that, I'm truly thankful and inspired. 

Second, many, many thanks to Paul Peterson for sponsoring our entry into the race.  I didn't know what kind of a $$$ sacrifice Paul made for us to run for him until I got the scoop in the relay and I was humbled by his ENORMOUS contribution!  Paul, I hope we did you proud!!!

Last, thanks to my van-mates for saving my butt from myself and my own driving!

After a restless night of anxious sleep, early Friday I left the house and proceeded north picking up a couple of teammates at the airport (Cody and Matt), one in Seattle (Aaron), and our final "van"-mate in Bellevue (Tim).  We headed north to Blaine, WA just south of Canada for our 2pm start time where we lined up against a dozen other teams. 

Since our team was short-handed (9 of 12), some of us were running an extra leg or two.  I was picked to run legs 1, 13, 14, and 25, so my extra leg was going to be a back-to-back effort.  My legs also got progressively harder as the race went on....leg 1 was 6.2 miles, 13 and 14 combined were 7.2 miles, and 25 was a 7.8 mile beast with some "rolling" hills to combat and a final uphill one mile climb to my personal finish. 

So knowing I was the leadoff runner was a bit intimidating.  Early on, I'd asked Paul how best to estimate an average pace and he emailed me that using a half-marathon pace was usually a good estimate.  So I promptly used my best race ever to-date, my 15K last March, plugged it into the McMillan race calculator and came up with a 6:29/mi half-marathon projection, rounded it up to 6:30/mi and submitted that.  Of course, that 15K race turned out to be a peak and I had some tough races after that where I never quite got back to that level.  Then, a short break after my marathon during some vacation time set me back quite a bit and needless to say, I was quite nervous all the way into the relay about being able to hold up to my leg projections.  Part of me wanted to let myself off the hook and to revise my estimates, especially with picking up an extra leg, but I really didn't feel like I had the right and didn't want to let my teammates down before we even started.  As I lined up at the start, all these thoughts ran through my head for the millionth time.  My first leg was essentially a 10K and Paul's magical race spreadsheet formulas took my 6:30/mi projection, crunched the difficulty of the leg with the expected temps and spit out a goal time and pace of 41:46, 6:41/mi. 

Promptly at 2pm the horn sounded and we were off.  Heading down the gravel path for the road I watched about 8 of the other runners take off and quickly found myself in 9th place!  Wha???  About a quarter mile in I checked my garmin and saw I was running slightly below a 6:00/mi pace and it was already starting to feel like it.  The sun had come out and the 70F temps were already starting to feel warm as I watched the crowd rabbit away, but I knew I had to run my race so I settled back into what felt like the hardest pace I could carry for 6.2 miles and told myself to relax and that I'd be able to reel them back in.  Fortunately for me, I was able to reel all but 2 of the runners in by the end of my leg and I finished in 40:32, a 6:37/mi pace and well under my projection for this leg, picking up an extra 1:14 for the team, handing off to Cody "The Machine" who promptly dusted the competition I'd been unable to catch.

Having raced before but never back-to-back-to-back legs, I was very concerned on how I'd run the next two legs given what would be a short recovery period (not the typical 2 week minimum time between races but rather 7 hours, many of which would be spent riding in a truck.  Fortunately, the excitement of watching my teammates smoke the competition helped keep my mind off things and made things really fun!  Cody ran a blisteringly fast leg (one of his extra legs already) and handed off to Tim, who started out on a long 8.2 mile stretch in the heat of the day.  Which is when I nearly completely derailed our entire race with one turn of the steering wheel.

Looking for a pull-off point about 2 miles into Tim's leg where we could hand him some water and cheer was difficult....a narrow country road with no shoulders.  Fortunately, a small pulloff appeared where I saw a yellow gate that normally indicates a dirt track to enter forest or other unimproved land.  Figuring I would swing in their but wanting to get off the road entirely, I completely missed the fact that the pulloff was only wide enough to drive into perpendicular to the road and wouldn't accomodate my parallel parking maneuver.  Tall grass masked the 4' ditch on either side of the turnout.  So despite having a big 3/4 ton 4WD pickup truck, I managed to stick the front right tire into the ditch getting us completely stuck. 

I completely panicked.   When 4WD didn't bail me out and neither did having the guys stand on the rear bumper to increase the weight in the back in the hopes that I could drive out, my only coherent thoughts aside from how I'd just completely screwed our entire team was to get on the phone and get a tow truck rolling ASAP.  A call to AAA finally yielded an operator who promised to dispatch a tow immediately but indicates a 1 hr wait was usually the minimum.

Fortunately, my team was much more organized and level-headed.  Cody managed to flag down another team and convinced them to shuttle our next two runners ahead to the exchange.  The fact that it was the high-school team that'd taken second place last year and knew we were one of their most dangerous competitors was all the more impressive.....a big shout-out to the N.U.D.E. runners from Tahoma school district in Maple Valley, WA and their coaches for their incredibly sportsmanlike gesture.  Next, Cody managed to flag down a couple of security guards from a nearby plant, one who was a self-described "country redneck" who quickly retrieved his personal pickup truck and chains to drag us back onto all four wheels.  We took an extra 2 minutes so I could thank him profusely, give him $40 for his kindheartedness to save my bacon, and to get some required video/picture footage of the scene of the accident.  Tim managed to push thru his long grueling leg in the heat of the day sun without the promised water stops while we were able to get through to the next exchange and retrieve our runners without missing a leg.  Aside from never being able to forget "the ditch incident" because of the horror I felt at putting us in that situation, I'll also never forget the quick thinking my team displayed and the fact that instead of giving me a hard time, they all kept telling me it was no big deal, probably on seeing I was completely out of my mind horrified with what I'd done.  I couldn't have asked for a better crew to run with and I'm truly humbled by the experience already.

Aaron, Tim and Cody (again) ran the next three legs, each exceeding their pace projections, giving us a substantial time cushion over our projections as well as a lead on our 2pm competition.  We'd even begun to catch some of the 1pm teams in the process and the "coolness" of passing "roadkill" definitely kept us psyched up and feeling good.  We linked up with our Van 2 teammates Andy, Mark and Craig (Dave to join during their legs as he rushed from Friday work to make it in time for his leg) at the first major exchange.  These guys were definitely studs....they were prepping to run 2 runners short and all faced 5 legs to the normal 3 with calm confidence. 

Short break while Van 2 ran their first set of legs cut even shorter when the Van 2 runners gained around 15 minutes on their first set of projections.  Uh, wow!!!  My next run started around 9:20pm and was going to be a double....legs 13 and 14, both thankfully short at 3.6 apiece.  Still, a 7.2 mi run mere hours after a 10K race had me worried how I'd respond, especially given a lack of any time to sleep.  First half was had some minor uphill but the second made up for it with a downhill.  Oh, and it got dark while I was running, so it'd be my first race experience in the dark. 

Got the handoff from Dave and I was off.  First problem.....Garmin 405 had gone into standby and I spent some time and energy fumbling trying to get *something* to start.  Finally had success a couple of tenths into my leg.  Managed to catch and pass 2 other runners by the halfway mark but my legs were very tired.....I shortened my stride and tried to increase my turnover because I was really afraid they would give out on me or I'd pull something but I didn't back off any.  Some dark backroads, passing 4 other runners, nearly choking on some gatorade, and a double-tractor trailer UPS truck that decided not to slow at all nor to budge an inch out of the lane I was in were the only significant things I remember.  The downhill stretch was desperately needed and helped me gain a bit of ground and overall I was a bit under my combined projection of 47:42 (fast on the first one, slow on the second).  I've forgotten my exact time but will fill it in later when I get a copy of the splits spreadsheet.  ***Actual time was 23:09 and 24:00, so 47:09 total....under by 33 seconds!***

The rest of our van ran excellent legs and we handed off to Van 2 again having gained a bit more ground on our projections, although not as much as the first time.  We hit the Deception Pass State Park and everyone promptly passed out for a quick 2 hour nap.  Continued on tomorrow's page...

 

Adrenaline 8s (Blue) - 133.25 miles.

Night Sleep Time: 2.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 2.00
Comments(1)
Race: Northwest Passage Relay - Day 2 (184.5 Miles) 20:31:02, Place overall: 2, Place in age division: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.007.800.007.80

Got the phonecall from Van 2 at around 3:10am that they were on their last runner, so a quick scramble to wake up, redress, load the truck and drive the short distance to the start.  Just in time but some confusion at the start.....got there with literally no time to warm up, which was probably a good thing since I was tired and half-asleep, so I couldn't really grasp how tired I really was.  I heard someone say that two runners were coming in and thought I heard that ours was the second.  The first came in and blew by me, followed shortly by Andy saying "There's Dave" or something similar, and sure enough Dave turned around and I managed to snap out of my stupor and took off.  I heard the exchange volunteer someone say "blah blah turn left blah" so I did, and got about three steps before a chorus of voices shouted "Wrong Way!!!".  I was clearly not thinking well and missed the part about running on the left side of the road and turning left at the *next* left up the hill!  So I lost a few seconds but finally got started. 

Again, Garmin struggles.....this time with the short time to get ready, I'd forgotten to set it up so a longer struggle a bit later down the road to get something started on it.  Probably just as well because I knew it was 7.8 miles, I was tired, didn't bother relooking my projection so I could just concentrate on enduring as much pain for as much speed as possible this leg.  My goal:  Leave everything I had on the road this leg.  A fairly brutal leg that had a few hundred feet of rolling elevation gain, some nice downhills, followed by a significant 200+' uphill for the final mile.  Things I remember about this leg include passing several runners, it being very dark and desolate, the power lines literally humming and crackling (presumably with the dew from the night air), my legs feeling better than leg 13-14 but being more drained, and feeling like I was crawling up the hills.  When I finally got to the 1 mile left mark at the base of the final climb, I knew it would hurt but also that my team was waiting and I had to put that hill behind me as quickly as possible.  Developed the wheeze in my breathing that has only happened a few times while running, always previously in a marathon when the end is near (both the race and my ability to run!).  Managed a feeble kick at the end and finished 8 seconds over my projection (53:27 versus 53:19).  My body promptly quit, legs stiffened substantially and I couldn't go at faster than a slow jog for the remainder of the race, so I guess my timing was great. ***Relooking the times, I finished in 53:28 so I was 9 seconds slow.  But I was 98 seconds fast overall....pretty darned close estimating, I'd say!***

The rest of our guys ran their remaining legs well.  Aaron and Matt both smoked their sections, Matt surprised us all into thinking he'd be a couple minutes behind his projection on his hilly leg only to appear while Cody was still getting ready to take the handoff (and under his projection on a killer leg!), and Cody hammered his to finish us out.  Then Cody hopped into Van 2 to run a 5th leg as a Van 2 runner to help carry some of the burden they were enduring....amazing!

The remaining 4 in our van selfishly ate some crappy breakfast and showered at the exchange, drove to the finish and ate some excellent breakfast at a local diner before meeting our Van 2 teammates to run across the finish line in 20:31:02.  We knew we'd definitely beaten every team except the ultra team that started at 3:30pm, so we planned to wait an hour and a half to see if we'd won.  An hour and a quarter later, the ultra team arrived indicating their last runner was about a mile away.  Sure enough, they beat us by a measley 6 minutes!  Nonetheless, we were able to claim the course record for a little over an hour and had a blast doing it!

Overall, I was happy that I managed to beat my total time projection even with the extra leg, and with our 2nd place overall (1st in the Open category) finish.  I had a great time, managing to make it home to collapse for 10 hours of sleep at about 7pm last evening.  I saw my last teammate, Matt, off to the airport early this morning, and the glow of a great race and a grand time is still in full effect today.  I really liked the relay experience, got to meet some great runners (yes, I'm still in absolute awe of Cody's running form.....nothing moves except his legs and they're a blur at full speed), and felt like I'm getting back near the top of my previous highest fitness level.  A great way to spend a weekend!

 

Adrenaline 8 - 365.04 miles.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00
Comments(4)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
38.930.0021.203.4863.61
Night Sleep Time: 44.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 44.50
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