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Pisgah long run + Jimothy Mile

March 30, 2014 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 50, on&off rain

Comments:
Slept in a bit, again, and lazed around before heading out for the run. It's been raining cats-and-dogs here, so I wore the Speedcross, knowing I'd be encountering mud.

Thought about Hardesty, as this was what I did two weeks pre-Sonoma last year. That would've been good for comparisons, but: a.) it's not that specific: 3k' straight up climbing, the mostly rolling & downhill the rest of the way, and b.) it's a 30min drive, and c.) at 4300' there might be snow...AND the Goodman path would've been a flooded disaster.

So I stayed local.

I knew I wanted about 20 miles and 3 summits, so that's just about what I did: did the opening lap of the "Frozen Trail Fest" race, which is rolling around the base of Pisgah. SUPER-duper soaking wet, muddy. Rough stuff. On top of that, I felt really tired and "worked", even early, so that made the going quite slow. Listened to some podcasts but those just annoyed me (you can only listen to so much running & LCHF 'casts before your brain explodes), so I switched to all JT.

Had to really go slow, with lots of hiking, to keep the HR even close to 130. Added on a full summit of Pisgah, then took the long way down for 8.5mi, first loop. Then, after a deuce, I went right back up the way I came, then over the top and down the back side on Trail #6, which is a wide-open doubletrack. Ran all the way out to the SE TH, and from there, decided to commence the "workout".

Here is THE plan for Sonoma:

- OUTBOUND: cruise at 150-160 max HR, with only intermittent (<2mim) burst up to 170 (e.g some of the steep climbs)

- INBOUND: maintain this plan til about Wulflow 2, then PUSH it, on the flats downs (by this point, simply continuing at 160 will be "speeding up" and "hard"). THEN, at Warm Spring (12.7 to go), put in the tunes and aggressively push (170 on the ups, etc.), and lastly: complete balls-out from Island CG to the finish.

That said, I needed some practice running at 160HR (VT). So leaving the TH, I began my push, up the long, rolling, and intermittently steep Trail #2 climb. Felt pretty good, and could acutely feel the difference in effort and breathing between 156-160 and 162-166. When I got to the latter, I had heavy emphasis on deep, SLOW breathing (might wanna check out the TRN "Mark Cucuzzela" podcast on the importance of this). The weird thing was: I could nose-breathe on hard uphills, with my HR 16x!

Summitted for the 3rd time, then aggressively ran down (140-150hr), again the long way, back to the car. I thought about doing some long, mini-climbs, but I already had close to 4K vert, so I decided to do a Jimothy mile to close out.

Got to the parking lot and followed the closed-off road, HARD: 5:3x at times, but slowed down when the road ran out and I was in the mud, so I 180'd and headed back. Split about a 5:50 (but really it was more like 5:3x), then did a cooldown mile.

Felt...pretty good. It was weird how shitty I felt in the first 90 minutes, but then my HR just fell, so that 130 was super easy to maintain.

The FOCUS today was once again:
- NEUTRAL low back - and NO old man back!
- quick turnover

The weird thing was my PECS were close to cramping today! Why? Did some push-ups yesterday, but was my arm swing awesome...or shitty?

I really noticed my back wanting to "old man" on the end of that run, running the Jimothy Mile, so I worked to "open it".

Post-run: some ongoing L SIJ+pelvic+hamstring soreness, but VERY LITTLE lumbar soreness. My back is 80-90% better and the best it's been in probably 2-3 years!!

The rest of the day: cleaned up (major Tecnu, since my new outbreak of oak), called mom (talked about Chels a bit), then went and grabbed a coffee and prepped for my PDX class I have next week, THEN met Jeff Hess for a beer.

I really wasn't looking forward to this meeting, but I KNEW it was super-important. ME putting in the work to establish and build rapport with him is a major priority for me. I feel like I need to earn his trust in order for him to be comfortable with me doing anything on the team. We met at Wild Duck and talked a couple things:

- run mechanics and hip hinge vs "forward lean"
- my role with the team (we agreed that me running with the kids, helping with mechanics during+after workouts, and doing some injury consults is best for both of us)

I wanted to talk about getting the kids to slow down, but...I didn't. I thought it'd be too contentious. I will continue to go "through the backdoor" and counsel kids on this, individually.

Then we talked about each other:

- MY "orientation and motivation" with coaching: where I'm at and what I'm looking for (positive energy, just to help out and be a part of a well-established group, get some mentorship from a veteran coach)
- HIS background and where HE's at in his career, which was interesting.

All in all, it was an important meeting. And I feel really good about where we're at, compared to a week ago, when I felt like I was about to quit.

After that, went grocery shopping, then home, then to Oakshire to work on my Trail Runner Mag article.

Been having a couple brief text exchanges with Emelia. It's *quite fortuitous* that I have this class in PDX, Thu-Sun. We are almost certainly going to hang out then.

It's interesting: I thought I was over "one-itis" with Chels, but...she was THE EPITOME of one-itis! When we re-connected, I went overboard on one-itis, where I was implicitly worried about losing her, and that "she is THE one". But, she SO obviously wasn't! How could I NOT see that?

The reason I couldn't "see it" was that I was so committed to her being "the One" that I refused to see it. This summer, when I was most devoted to "socialization", I came to realize that love, affection, and nurturing relationships are NOT scarce...but that seemingly evaporated when she came back into my life. And once there, I feared ever losing her.

But then I did. And then, I was finally able to see the big picture: the great things about her, and all the crap.

According to The Game, "the cure for one-itis is to sleep with a dozen other women, then see if that 'one' woman is still special". That is both rash and extreme. BUT the principle is valid: until you immerse yourself in the nurturing of many other people - and recognize that 1.) you're valued by others and 2.) quality people aren't [that] scarce, you're so much more able to see the true qualities of people.

So...as for Emelia? Yeah, she's 22 and lives in Portland, but I can neither dismiss this "opportunity", nor should I have so strongly anointed Chelsea as "The One". In the mean time, I will continue to explore any&all opportunities: namely with Tanya, and Ashley - who I'm really most interested in, at this point...