Sunday, August 4, 2013

AC100 Aug 3-4 2013

I am runner 58:

http://www.ac100.com/live/MAP/58.htm

The race went well.  23:13!  100 miles in one day;

  7th place overall, and I won the Bronze Rhino (Master's awards for >40 year old runners):
  Thanks for all the good wishes, and thanks to my fabulous crew!  I will post a race report when I am a bit recovered.  My shoes (Merrell Ascend Gloves with my homemade lycra ninja dust covers) are recovering too:


PS:  Its Tuesday night now and I am very tired.  My lungs are sore-  aftermath of 100 miles run in the LA smog, high country notwithstanding.

I am still finding myself thinking back on the race and what it felt like to run all day, feel like dying and not know how I was going o make it another 65 miles, be resurrected, run fast some more, then run all night,  feeling so strong;  and I feel this belly laugh rise up and I just laugh out loud and I tear up at the  same time while I am laughing.  Perhaps that sounds strange;  but it was an amazing experience, and I feel like I experienced a bit of grace out there, running fast in the dark past precipices with nary a bad foot placement, it was magnificent.



4 comments:

  1. Great job, and what an accomplishment!! 7th place is amazing.

    I stumbled on your blog after looking for some reviews on the Skechers GoBionic trail shoes - glad to hear you liked them. I currently have the Trail Gloves but some of the running here in SoCal beats up my feet pretty good (on the longer runs anyway..). I love the regular GoBionics, so I'll try the trail version as well.

    Any other races coming up?

    Great blog!
    -Andrejs

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    1. Hi Andrejs,

      Thanks for your kind words. It was truly a gift of a day, I was graced to have experienced it.

      I will write a race report soon (when I catch up with a few things!) but I wanted to comment on the shoe choice: at the race I switched shoes twice early on (yes, sounds crazy I know- I was driving my crew batty!) I started in the Merrell Ascend Gloves, switched to the GoBionic Trails at mile 13 since my heels were hurting- nothing new- a ramp-up pain that I have mentioned previously in the blog; but it didn't matter- the problem was me, not the shoes; later at mile 37 I switched back to the Ascend Gloves because in order to keep my feet from sliding forward in the GoBionics on steep downhills, I had to lace the shoes uncomfortably tight, and it was bothering me. So, I ran the last 65 miles in Merrell Ascend Gloves, with my home-made lycra covers to keep sand out. They were fine. By that point my heels were not hurting and I had no further foot trouble. I wore the same Wrightsocks the whole race, without ever taking them off, and had a couple minir blisters only. I do think I will loose one bigtoe-nail where I hit a rock coming down the Sam Merrill Trail at full speed in the dark.

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  2. Congrats on a impressive race! I'm quite encouraged seeing your performance after reading about some of the injuries you've faced. After reading your blog a few weeks back I've been building up my walking miles, interspersing really short stints of running and it seems to be working; where as before I rested and then tried to dive straight back into running too fast causing pain and more time off. I think this approach is quite logical - yet easy to overlook when all you want to do is run. Anyway, looking forward to your race report and thanks for sharing your experience. There's a lot of doom and gloom out on the internet when reading up on running injuries and its nice to read not only of a successful revocery but one leading to a 7th place 100 miler.

    Congrats - Paul

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    1. Thanks Paul, you made my day. Its great to hear that my experiences w/ working through these injuries has benefitted someone...that is exactly what I had hoped for. The main thing I have learned over the last few months is that with sufficient persistance, and in particular a willingness to try new approaches, these injuries (knee problems, calf problems, achilles problems) that I once thought were insurmountable can be avoided and/or healed. If I can help you in any way please shout; and since I see the comments before they are published you can keep things private or public as you prefer.

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