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Barrel to Keg: warm-up, first two legs

July 22, 2017 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: getting warm, quick!

Comments:
Up EARLY to run the Barrel to Keg relay: Philomath to Newport. Ricky (the CGHS track coach and long-time friend of Thornton's) asked be to fill in on the team this year. I'm not a huge fan of relays, but this one is short and sweet, and promised beer at the end, so why not? Besides, it'd be good "marathon training", with ~15 miles of tempo pace.

Slept like ASS, and not for long, on account of Papa's Soul Food last night. Woke up with gut rot and burning deuces. Deuced x2 before leaving, then had gut rot the entire morning. Sipped the coffee from EUG to Philomath while Ricky drove, and had some good chats.

Met up with the fellas around 7:45. They're all relations to Ricky, mostly: either Philomath HS alums, or OSU or Willamette. But all between 38-41, and most of us [relatively, at least] "over the hill". Nice guys, though!

We all piled into Adam's Suburban and drove to a remote winery in the coastal range hills for the start. It's not a huge relay, which was nice, but still plenty of bustle. Alexis was there, with a EUG team (that included Kristy, Adam and Micah). Alexis' stokemeter was on swole, pre-race. Mine was not. Just wasn't it it, nor feeling very great.

Warmed-up an easy mile out and back, under a covered bridge, on a rolling gravel road: a sign of the first half of the race. I'd be running the first two legs, B2B:

- a rolling 4.9 miler
- a STEEP 3.8-mile climb

The final, fastest wave, launched at 8:40 and within a few meters I was quickly in 3rd, behind some dude (who didn't look fit), and a woman(!) who did -- though her arm swing (due to a premature "old man upper back") had some serious "lane farming" going on! WIDE ol' elbows and heavy rotation! But her cadence was like 200 and she was grindy as fuck!

They got a good 50m lead on me in the first mile or so, as I struggled to get comfortable and not over-work. Small 50' ups, then flat or tiny downs, marked the first couple miles. The guy faded after about 2K, and when the segment pitched downward, I finally caught the woman. She and I more or less ran together -- I'd blast past on downs, she'd grind the ups -- 'til the last mile or so. She was STRONG, but it was clear (or so I hoped) that she was only running the first leg. Word has it, hers was The Fast Team, that crushes this relay each year in (6:xx pace).

After a 6:4x and a 7:2x (mucho uphill), I finall grooved some mid to low 6s, and got into the first exchange in 32-high or 33 low...then kept going, as the course gradually climbed, had a half-mile down, then began a relentless multi-mile climb.

Within about 30s of the exchange a little dude with like 240 cadence BLASTED past me. Like, 5:0x pace to my 6:30 pace, uphill! Once we began the major uphill, he was out of sight.

I ran pretty hard...maybe the hardest I've run, for a hill that long and steep (seeing that I either do 1-minute hill sprints, or Hardestys these days). There was almost a point where I felt it was unsustainable, before it would level off a bit.

The stride.......was OFF today. On the flat...it felt OK in the sagital plane, but...ALL this "stress accumulation" was occuring on the RIGHT side: calf, quad, hamstring...like, in compensation for no hip activation. I didn't quite realize it then, but it was clear that I was pelvis right-trunk left. Crap.

On the up, I corrected a bit, and it was better. Started getting some major "road kill" already, but otherwise just tried to get up and over. Amazingly, I had only one mile in the 8s as we climbed, then summitted, the high point of these gravel logging roads in the Coast Range.

Had some gradual downhill, but otherwise flat on this plateau to Exchange 2, where I tagged a guy named Anthony on our team, who was pretty fast.

I felt GASSED, post-leg...and had serious gut rot. Wow! Nursed water the rest of the morning.

The running was solid...but quickly getting warm and REALLY dusty, as all the vehicles have to rumble past the runners, to the next checkpoint. After my open double leg, the new routine would be:

- runner takes off
- we drive halfway down, stop, cheer (and, later, offer water and a douse)
- hop back into the burban, and drive to the checkpoint

Solid morning, and we were quickly doing pretty good...

Stats:
8.5 miles, 6:5x pace (so like 57 or 58?)
1300+' climb
300+' descent