Ragnar Great River 2013: My Ultra Learnings

As you can probably tell from the title, I ran another Ragnar this weekend.  I have always wanted to do the Great River edition of Ragnar, simply because it is relatively close to my house and it is a Ragnar.

But I never really expected to do it as a part of an ultra team.

If you don't know how a Ragnar ultra team works, here's the low-down in a numbered list because numbered lists are the shiznitz: (Bulleted lists are better, but I'm doing this through the Blogger app on my iPad right now, which doesn't allow me to do that.  Jerks.)

1. You have 6 runners instead of 12

2. You all ride in one van

3. You run 6 times instead of three

4. You have to be asked to do this right after you have run a regular 12-person Ragnar because you are still on a high from that and will say yes to anything involving the word "Ragnar."

I wanted to give you the low down of all six of my runs in this post, but I would also like to keep the 5 or fewer readers I already have.  Therefore, I will boldly use the numbered-list blogging technique twice in one post and just share with you my ultra-good learnings from my ultra Ragnar experience:

1. An equation: (6 runners + 6 runs each) = THE STENCH THAT CANNOT BE QUANTIFIED.

2. Another equation: THE STENCH THAT CANNOT BE QUANTIFIED + 6 dirty running outfits + 2 days in plastic bags = ONE STENCH TO RULE THEM ALL.  The hubbs accidentally wandered into the laundry room when I had all 6 stinky running outfits jammed into the confined space of the washing machine tumbler.  He left that room a changed man, and not for the better.

3. After the 4th run, your legs are no longer speaking to you.  During the 6th run, if you listen carefully, you can hear some talk of secession from your body.

4. You can do more than you think you can.  The 5th and 6th runs are purely mental.  You do what you can to make it to the next exchange.  My 5th run trick was convincing myself that 6 miles really wasn't that far.  My 6th run trick was actually walking for a minute and then running half a mile, and then repeating that over and over again.

5. "You should have pooped when you had the chance."  Wiser words were never spoken at a Ragnar.  Let's just say the last 4 miles of my 6th run were spent literally sucking it up from an opening other than my mouth. 

6. Ultra runners are a calm bunch.  No drama, no whining.  Everyone got out there and got it done.

7. As one of my teammates (Heidi) pointed out, on an ultra team you get to see the entire course. 

8. Maximize your nonrunning time with rest.  Everyone ran as two different runners, so you really had to use your time wisely between runs.  There were about 3-4 hours of rest in-between each run, so you had to make sure to get some shut-eye.  We determined that you could stay awake for at least one runner after you, but after that you slept until it was almost your turn again.  This is why I only have pictures of my teammate Mike (the runner after me) instead of everyone this time.

9. You can take an entire shower in a sink if you want to.  Well, you pretty much have to because there  is NO time to take advantage of any showers offered at exchanges-your ass (and your van) must get to each exchange pronto.  

10. The green ultra bib garners instant respect and Ragnar street cred.

As you can see, I learned a lot, and had a blast. I met and ran with some fantastic people, and I would do an ultra again in a heartbeat (maybe not Great River...my quads are speaking to me now, but they are screaming at me about all those hills).  

At least I have my shiny medal to comfort me.  It even says "ultra runner" on the thingie that helps hang it on your neck:

And a bonus: I got my double medal for doing Chicago & Great River in the same year.

It's making for quite the medal collection.  

Too bad I won't be able to get any more until next summer. Can't wait for Ragnar Chicago to roll around so I can get my relay run on.

Rugged Maniac 2013: Mud, fun, and possible water-borne diseases.

I do love me a good mud obstacle course. My course of choice this summer was the Rugged Maniac 5K held in Wilmot, Wisconsin.

This race is so badass they make you jump over a wall just to get into the starting corral.

It's also badass because it takes place at a ski resort.  That means hills, people-and lots of them.

Oh I know those hills look all cute and small and stuff in that picture.  But they were beasts, I tell you.  Steep-ass thigh-frying lung-burning BEASTS.

As you come out of the starting corral, you race up the first of those beasts.  Well, maybe not "race;" more like "try and run and then realize you will never make it up the hill running so you stop and walk and hope you don't cause a massive people-pile-up behind you."  After you top that hill, you then run downhill over uneven ground down to your first obstacle- a mud pit.  After that, the race becomes a blur of running over bumpy ground, one obstacle after another (mostly walls and cargo nets), and climbing up those freaking hills.

I would like to talk about a few obstacles worthy of extra verbiage:

1) The water slide in mile 3.  This is perhaps the most fun obstacle (if you can call it an obstacle) that is on the course. Super-slippery, you go down fast and hit the pool of water at the bottom with a ginormous splash that feels fantastic that late in the race.

2) The sand dunes.  I started the race with a small rock in my shoe that bugged me until the sand dunes you had to climb up and down.  After that I had TONS of small rocks in my shoes and I didn't have to worry about the first one anymore.

3) The super-steep hills.  There were two occasions where you had to climb hills so steep they had to put down ropes for you to pull yourself up the hill while you were trying to climb the hill.  What's cruel is that the second hill is much steeper than the first hill.  Oh, the swear words I heard at the top of those hills.

4) The mud pits.  They put real barbed wire over the top of them so you were forced to crawl on your knees and/or belly.  Not that I mind; this was a mud obstacle race, after all.  But I wish I had worn capris that covered my knees, because they were pretty banged up from all the rocks and whatnots through which I was crawling afterwards.  One of those whatnots included a corrugated metal drain pipe I had to slide through head-first towards the end of the race.  Speaking of that pipe obstacle...

5) The pipe obstacle with the pool of nasty smelling water.  After diving head-first through a pipe, you slid straight into a pool of muddy, foul-smelling water.  I managed to keep my head above it, but you still had to swim through the water with your head not scraping the barbed wire strung above you.  This meant the water had to come up to my lips.  Yummo.  I managed to get to the other side without putting any more of my head under the water, where I then had to now go up a huge drain pipe with only a rope to help me.  And a rope without any knots in it, even.

This is where all my upper body weight work paid off.  I could actually pull myself up that pipe this year, unlike last year where some gentlemen kindly offered me a push and then shoved my ass up the pipe.  Mind you, I didn't do it fast and there was plenty of teeth baring and grunting involved, but I did it.  It made every moment of hated shoulder-work worth it.

6) The balance beam.  I'm the first to admit that my balance sucks.  So having to walk on a beam across greenish-nastyish-there is surely some disease lurking in there-water is just asking for trouble.  I got to that obstacle and started to cross....and then stopped.  I didn't really have a strategy for this.  I was trying to ballerina-side-step it across, and it just wasn't happening.  I got about a foot and half out and then decided to back up and try again.  When I backed up and tried again, the volunteer working the obstacle screamed, "GO ON, DON'T BE A QUITTER!  YOU CAN DO IT!"

My response?  "I KNOW I CAN DO IT.  NOW BE QUIET AND LET ME DO IT."

And then I did it by prancing across the beam as lightly and as quickly as I possibly could, cringing at the greenish brackish water in the ditch below the obstacle.  I"m glad that I was in the first wave, because after I was finished that same obstacle looked like this:

Check out those long lines.  There was nothing like that when I went through.  Amazing the difference an hour and a half makes on the course.

I saw those lines again at the final obstacle, a climb over some cargo containers and then up cargo netting (I sense a cargo theme).

When I got there during the race there was no mud at all on the wall.  Looks like a lot of muddy runners had flung themselves on that thing after I did.

I took a lot of other post-race pics because my race photographer decided to stay in bed rather than come with me, so here are some other random pictures I took from the day:

The finish line before anyone had crossed it.

Attack of the mud people.

The last obstacle.

The last of three mud pits.  Barbed wire = bonus.

Obligatory mud run fire jumping.

Before the mud run.....

....after the mud run.  And a rinse.

Despite the water from which I am sure I will contract a fatal disease, I love this race.  It is challenging and fun at the same time, even if there are hills from hell all over it.  I must say that as I write this the next day, my entire body is sore, especially my ankles.

It's going to make my 20 mile training run this afternoon all the more interesting.

I ran today, and it felt good.

Well, it felt good until about the 5th mile.  Then I started to notice that my foot was still broken.  But only a little bit.

I wasn't stupid enough to think I could do the long run that was scheduled for today (18 miles), so I settled on 6 miles as a nice compromise.  And 6 slow miles.  But the top of my foot was still all sore whenever it got into a shoe, so I did a bit of Googling and decided to lace up the old shoes like this:

I wanted to avoid putting the laces over the part of my foot that hurt.  I also chose a shoe that is a stability shoe rather then my normal neutral shoes. And away to the treadmill I went.

Like I said, I didn't feel it until the 5th mile, where it started to become a bit more noticeable.  All those days off from running this week were probably a good thing.  But afterwards, I made sure to do this:

That water, for the record, was *BLEEP*ing cold.  And my foot was noticeably more sore afterwards, and I can't really lift my big toe very well.  It's amazing how much you don't realize how much you actually do that while running.

I also broke down and took some ibuprofen after the icing extravaganza, and it's feeling pretty good right now.  I wish I could find the naproxen I was prescribed once for a neuroma--if I do, I'll be popping those babies for sure.

I think I will follow my training schedule and do cross training for the next two days, and see about picking up some speed work on the treadmill starting on Tuesday.  Maybe some biking, maybe some weights...but for sure taking it easy on this foot.  I want to be ready for my first 22 miler a week from today.

Now I can do anything.

Twenty miles.  20.  A two and a zero right next to each other.

This was my first 20 mile run, running out in the country that day after it snowed 2 inches the night before.  I was running where the plows don't go; where they throw down sand out of pity instead of wasting road salt on us country bumpkins.  I was suffering by the end, and not just from fatigue.  It was cold, windy, and snowing for the first two hours.  Thankfully, that cleared up by the second half of the run, and this was the view from mile 15 (the mile in which I really really really wanted to call someone to come get me):

But my first thought when I finally reached my front door was this:

"If I just did that, I can do anything."

Although I did have a hard time getting up and down my stairs afterwards.  So I guess I could do almost anything.

Here are the lessons learned from my first 20-miler ever in the universe:

• My hydration strategy still needs some work.  Having learned from my last long run, I brought along a 20-oz plastic water bottle and carried it along for about 5 miles.  I then dropped it at an intersection way out in the country, expecting to grab it on my way back when I was dying of thirst.  That plan would have worked if it hadn't been for those damn snow plows--they finally decided to come out at about noon, plowing down my water bottle into the ditch of oblivion.  Or at least somewhere where I couldn't find it, because that water bottle was MIA on my way back.  This sucked, because I was dying of thirst by that time.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was forced to eat snow on the way back to quench my thirst.  The trick is, I found, going far enough into the ditch to avoid getting any of that pity sand stuck in-between your teeth.  
• Did you know that water freezes when it is below 32 degrees F outside?  You did?  Well, apparently this science teacher forgot that fact because the extra water bottle I had on my belt (and the water bottle that disappeared due to plowing) started freezing after the third mile.  This resulted in much swearing, gnashing of teeth, and stopping to bang the lid of the water bottle on the ground just to break the ice around it that was keeping it shut, preventing those luscious water molecules from getting to my parched lips.  This (among other things) resulted in my being pretty damn cranky by the middle of the run, so cranky I was yelling at passing motorists for daring to drive on the road and making me run on the shoulder.  Because one day one of these motorists might hear me and stop and beat my ass, I went out and bought this hydration pack last night, thinking that if I put this underneath one of the four layers I was wearing, the water in it wouldn't freeze:

I bought the pack, not the dog.  Well, I bought the dog, but not last night.

• While they don't freeze, exactly, gels are much harder to eat when you are running in the cold.  Their viscosity increases severely, resulting in me trying to breathe while running and performing a weird sucking motion in order to get the damn gel out of the package.  It was almost like trying to suck a  foot out of a wet sock (I have never tried this, and neither should you. Weirdos).  I did bring something solid to eat that pretty much saved my life in mile 12.  By that point I was so hungry, and this Honey Stinger Strawberry Waffle saved the day, and kept hunger at bay until the 16th mile or so.  
• My right hand must have some lingering vascularization issues from when I used to smoke 2 packs a day, because the fingers on that hand kept getting really *bleep*ing cold.  I had to take them out of the fingers of the glove and ball them into a fist in the sleeve of the glove, which means that the top of the mitten was flopping around while I ran, getting really freaking cold.  I don't know why I wait so long to break out the handwarmers, but I finally did in the 11th mile, sticking one in this little pocket my Hotfingers gloves have on the top of the mitten.  Let me tell you, this worked like a charm--my fingers were all toasty warm after that.  
• My students live along the roads on which I run.  I stopped and had a nice conversation with one of them who was taking out his dog for about 5 minutes until he finally realized who the hell I was (I don't usually go to school dressed in a balaclava, neon-yellow hat, and white running tights.  But maybe one day I should).
• Running through 2 inches of snow is akin to running through sand--it sucks.  I have also learned I hate the feeling of snow getting stuck to the bottom of my shoes; it feels like I'm wearing huge platform heels after a while.
• When you pull your balaclava up over your nose, the condensation from your breath forms little icicles on your eyelashes.  
• Speaking of balaclavas, I learned this law of the running universe:  30 seconds after pulling your balaclava up over your nose, you will have to let loose a few snot rockets and pull it back down.  
• You get all sorts of crazy looks when you're running while it's snowing.  Passing motorists all had incredulous/shocked looks on their faces when they saw this crazy runner slogging away through horizontal snow.  Well, it was either because of the snow, or they were just shocked at my usual bad running fashion.
• I finally figured out the magic number of layers to put over my legs so my thighs don't freeze.  That number is four.  Which, by the way, makes for quite the adventure when you stop to use nature's facilities and try to pull all of them back up and put them back in their proper positions.
• This run wasn't just physical training--it was mental training. I really wanted to give up right after hitting mile 15.  I was cold.  I was tired of the wind.  I was tired, period.  I would have cried, but I didn't want any more icicles on my eyelashes.  But then I started repeating a little mantra over and over in my head: "You got this.  You can do this.  You got this.  Just a little farther.  Keep moving or you'll freeze to death, you moron."  (My inner monologue is often abusive.)  I kept on going.  I started having to tell myself how much time I had left to keep on keeping on ("1 mile left!  That's, like, only 11 minutes!  You can do it!  Don't stop or you'll freeze to death, moron!")  But I guess that's the point of these runs--to find the tricks that keep you going mentally as well as physically, keeping the rational part of your brain under wraps so it doesn't realize the crazy thing you're doing.

Even though this run was dripping with annoyances, I am still excited I finally did a run of this distance.  Even though it wasn't fast, I still have 3 more 20 milers on the training schedule.  I may suck now, but I am confident I will suck less and less on those runs.  Except if my gels keep freezing.

Treadmill Tempo Run Fail

I woke up dreading my run today.  Mainly it was because I was up late last night blogging all sorts of blogariffic things on all my blogs, and the late was made later by the fact that I teach a grad class on Wednesday nights.

I need to learn to make better blogging choices.

Anyway, I woke up very tired and very cold.  The wind was howling, the temperature was in the teens, and there was no way I could run a tempo run in sub-zero wind chills.  Or, at least that's what the hubbs mumbled to me when my alarm went off at 4 AM.  It's very cold here in Illinois right now, in case you didn't know:

Even my puppies are feeling the cold, and they're built for it (partly genetics, partly too much blubber):

This morning I had to gather up all my courage--even the stray bits under the bed and in the back corner of the linen closet--to go downstairs and do a 4 mile tempo on the treadmill.

You probably already know I can barely handle running 1000m repeats on the thing, so you can imagine the state I was in when I started running 4 miles at my tempo speed.  Outside, I can run a 4-mile tempo without much thought. The treadmill, however, is a much different and completely sad, pathetic story:

First 800m: "This isn't so bad.  At least I have some good TV on the trusty old ID channel."
Next 800m: "This is starting to suck."
Next 800m: "Maybe I should kick the speed down a notch.  If I were a total wimp."
Next 800m: "ZOMG I'LL NEVER MAKE IT I SUCK I WILL TOTALLY FAIL AT THIS MARATHON."

In case you were counting, I barely made it to the half-way point of this tempo.  After that, I had to break it up into 800 m repeats just to get through the workout.  What's extremely sad is that the last part is no exaggeration; I was mentally cracking by the second mile.  I really need to mentally toughen the you-know-what-bad-word-to-which-I-am-referring up.  So, to punish myself, I shall be doing more tempos on the treadmill until my inner whiny baby learns to put a cork in it.  It's kind of like self-flagellation, only with a treadmill.  I think.

Total Running Moron Tuesday

I had every intention of running outside this morning.  I really, really did.  I had 4 mile repeats to do, and the weather was in the 50s at 5 A.M. on January 29th.  In Illinois.  Which, in case you didn't know, is in the Northern Hemisphere, so we are supposed to be in the depths of winter, but we're not--the Snow Miser is on vacay and his brother Heat Miser is here to stay.  At least for today, anyway.

But, as you probably suspect by now, I didn't get to do my repeats this morning.  I did do these things:

a) Go outside.
b) Run

But it was just too freaking windy (20 mph winds) to do any sensible speed work.  I only managed a mile warm-up before I turned around and came back, being blown all over the place in the meantime. I know you hard core types would have been pumping out the miles and cursing Mother Nature into the wind the entire time, but I actually like to get up to the proper speed in my speed work.  And maintain it.  Winds that are too high don't let me do that, you see.  I toyed with the idea of doing them on my treadmill, but the thought of the mental anguish I would suffer doing that when I can barely manage 1000m repeats on the thing caused me even more mental anguish.

So I just came back in and got ready for work--but I packed a bag of running clothes for later.

After my last period class, I changed into said running clothes:

The gruesome aftermath of my run.  But my compression sleeves are freaking awesome.

I snapped on my new Garmin footpod, slapped on my 910XT, and then began to run in endless circles around the upper floor of our school, over the terrazzo floors and through the halls.  I did this in front of a lot of students and staff that knew me, which resulted in a lot of battle cries, jeers, and snide comments thrown my way.

Lessons learned on this run:

• It is much nicer to run mile repeats in endless circles than on my treadmill.  While technically my displacement for both would be zero, I have actually traveled a distance by running in those circles.
• There is no wind or rain when running inside the school.
• High school students sure do come up with witty things to say about teachers who are running in the hallways.  Witty, funny, and highly inappropriate.
• I maintained pace nicely, unlike what would have happened this morning.
• It was actually nice to talk to people in the halls that I knew while I was circling; it helped pass the time.
• I shocked a lot of students who didn't expect to see me running all-out at them in the hallway in shorts and a t-shirt.  I was not in my regular teachery uniform, you see.  I half expected some of them to start throwing homework at me just to get me to stop barrelling towards them.
• My cadence sucks.  Going to have to work on that.
• My new purple compression socks are working out quite nicely.  They would look great in a race photo or two.

I didn't care that I looked like a total running moron.  I had a run that needed to get done (without getting injured!), and I plan on crossing that finish line of my first marathon somewhere close to my time goal.  I hope to do it upright, however, and not by crawling and/or throwing myself one body part at a time towards the line.

My glutes are crybabies.

I am training for my first marathon in the spring.  This is because I am a total idiot, but that's an issue for another post.  Anyhoo, I decided to start blogging on this blog again to have it serve as a running training log of all of my workouts, so that way I can pinpoint the exact moment in time I injured myself, because I am good at injuring myself.  In fact, I should just make the point of my training to injure myself, so that way I can be successful all the time.  Everybody loves a winner!

Because of my most recent injury (an Achilles soreness that is only sore when I point my toes or sit on my heels.  I ran with it through a Ragnar, a 10K race, and a half marathon before I finally realized backing off a bit might actually make it better) I have been doing a lot of low-impact stuff.  Oh, I tried "recovering" doing high impact workouts like Cathe's Crossfire and To The Max after all those races, but my Achilles wasn't getting any better, strangely enough.  So I decided to dust off Cathe's Low Impact Series, which I hadn't done in about in a year. I honestly felt like I was totally wimping out due to the whole low-impact thing, but, as I mentioned before, I am a total idiot.

The workout I decided to do from this series was Cathe's Afterburn workout.  The description said "HiiT" on the back, which is what I really wanted to do and jump around a lot like an idiot on my injured Achilles but I couldn't, so I threw that puppy in the DVD player and got started.

After 20 minutes my glutes and hamstrings were crying real tears and hating me for continuing.

This was me making them shut up and do the rest of the workout:

Only I'm not a dude.

If you want nice glutes and hammies (plus some pretty good cardio), this is the workout for you.  If your glutes are big babies like mine, make them do it anyway.  I'm sure they'll be crying like babies all week.

Because I wanted all of my muscles in tears, I did 30 minutes of upper-body weight work afterwards and tacked on 10 minutes of abs.  My body isn't speaking to me right now.  I should be in great shape for that treadmill speed session I have planned for tomorrow!  (Remember, I'm a total idiot.)

photo credit: thedalogs via photopin cc
photo credit: Kevin McShane via photopin cc