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Hardesty + faux-June + Jimothy Mile

March 29, 2013 (Afternoon)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 60, mostly sunny

Comments:
Worked 'til 11ish, ran a couple errands, ate lunch, then went to my allergy appointment. They did a couple things: besides pricking me with 18 different possible allergens, they also looked at my breathing, as I indicated that I often feel tightness in my chest on pollen-y days. Turns out, I'm majorly allergy to “mixed trees” - which are mostly non-conifers – and moderately allergic to some other trees (some conifers?), weeds, and mildly to cats and dust mite...poop! Ugh. Gotta wash the sheets a bit more often, I guess!

For treatment, shots aren't an option right now – it has to be done, “pre-season”. So instead, I've got a new prescription allergy med, recommended 1-2 zyrtek/claratins on top of that, AND they gave me an albuterol inhahar! Yikes! Took my first “hit” in the office as I left, heading out for my trail run.

I was a little surprised (if not annoyed) that the allergy doc thought my severe nausea and fatigue was “idiosyncratic” as a symptom. Kidding? I just don't think these folks come across people who literally spend HOURS a day, huffing down pollen at sixty huge breaths a minute, for 2-6+ hours a day.

Side note: my old coach Sean – and his doctor – once thought he had lung cancer, until they both realized that he was sitting and reading each night next to a fresh-cut Christmas tree. His lungs were filled with yellow tree pollen.

So, we'll see what happens. I was hoping for shots, as those would be least likely to cause any additional GI issues. When I was at WS training camp, I had to take two zyrteks/day just to manage the allergies – but those soon aggravated the hell out of my stomach.

It was really nice in the valley today – nearly 70 and sunny. Drove from the allergy doc straight to the Hardesty, not before downing my first Zyrtek of the week. Despite the rough day yesterday, I was excited for the run. I planned on no food and drink, again, but for practice-sake, I wore my jet-pack with >1L of water in it. I also wore my new heart rate monitor to get some stats!

The “idea” was to do a double Hardesty to get in the vert, but...I just couldn't pull the trigger. I was only a mile into the muddy opening climb when I decided I wouldn't do it; it's just too brutal: straight up, striaght down (into nasty, nasty mud), then up/down again? So I told myself I'd do Hardesty + a full June summit, instead, which is still “20” (not quite, but I call it that), and about 4500 – 5000' vert (vs 22 and 6600' with a Deuce Hardesty). My other plan was to do a hard finishing mile, so before I ran, I car-measured a mile from the trailhead: 2/10ths on the highway before doing 3/10ths on the lightly uphill Goodman Creek dirtroad.

The first three “sections” of Hardesty were slow splits! Ugh! However, once I got out of the mud, I felt progressively better and stronger. I'd feared I'd split >70, but I wound up splitting a 65:45. From there I ran the rolling ridge trail over to June. The stride felt excellent on the flats/downs, but I was super-flat on any ups. When I got to Lost Creek, I bailed...and just went down. Just wasn't feeling that much climbing, with so little resources.

The descent felt GOOD – really worked on two things today, both of which fall into what I determined is “EEEEN Stride”:

Arched back with more pure hip extension behind/beneath (total opposite of “Grandpa Joe Back”)
Strong arm swing; both of which are very much akin to an EEEN stride (watch his WS '12 finish!)

I felt some really nice power from the arms today, especially on the steep ups, and accelerating on technical trail – both nice rewards. Back felt really good, but I'm still weak on the R pelvis (still sore on the crest).

Side note: I kept touching my knees together on the downhill! WTF? It wasn't a huge deal, but that's clearly not a good thing to do. So, I decided to go “Major League”-style: “Everytime your knees touch, you owe me 5 push-ups”. About five times, my knees touched, and I would immediately stop and do 5 push-ups. It was a good idea, but...in the last five miles, I was too tired to do it!

Nice trail descent to the crucial 3-mile downhill dirtroad segment. Stride felt REALLY GOOD here: focused on the “EEN”, which resulted in a much faster, less stressful descent: 18:xx for what's pretty damn close to 3 miles.

To finish: the rolling Goodman Creek segment. I forgot how awesome Sonoma-sim this is: technical trail, in and out, short ups and downs, then some longer (30-60 sec) climbs and descents in the last 1-2 miles. Stride felt $$ on the flats/downs; tougher on the ups, especially when I hit major mud in the last mile+. I fell once, swearing loudly.

I only briefly contemplated bailing from the final hard mile, but the Jimothy envy wouldn't allow it. Plus, I knew it'd be awesome training, “feeeefteee paaarcent pheeeeseeecal, feeeefteee paaarcent mayyyyntal!” So, once I got to the parking lot, I walked for a minute, drinking my first pulls from the jetpack before throwing it under the bumper and jogging to “The line”. I took off down the road, going hard. Hit the uphill half-mile at 3:05 and wound up splitting a 2:50 on the return for a 5:55 finisher.

Very strong, valuable day. I felt a paced things well – albeit interestingly – as well: I averaged 15x on the relentless uphill, only to wind up averaging that on hard 3-mile downhill and the hard rolling finish. My mile HR was >180!

Stride and legs felt good. I needed that. Tomorrow's plan is to do a flat-ish long run of probably no more than 25 miles on the McKenzie River Trail, again going “uptempo” but controlled (in that 150-160 range) on the downhill return. Again, more turnover and brain training.

Post-run: moderate allergy reaction and fatigue, but not too bad. Did some conditioning once home, which was tough after a run of this magnitude.