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Robie to Green Gate+ (via ACT) & Back with BGD!

August 27, 2022 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: mid 60s to nearly 90! HOT

Comments:
GREAT, IMPORTANT RUN.

Launched from Robie Point at 5:40. Jake had to be back "around noon", so this early start was pressured - but well-appreciated, because it would get SUPER-HOT, soon enough!

Ran in the new Hoka Tecktons, which have a carbon plate and are pretty amazing. Had to use my phone as a flashlight down the singletrack until I got to the railroad grade. Then it lightened enough by the time I got across No Hands.

Felt a little heavy, but simply tried to find an efficient stride, as I shuffled up 49, then over and down Quarry and upriver.

Then...I came up with a HUGELY important RE-DISCOVERY!!!

RIGHT PELVIC EXTENSION (on a stable, somewhat flexed, trunk)

I've known this...forever, but I just don't execute it well enough:

• it's not good enough (though helpful) to simply avoid being "pelvis right"
• it's not good enough to tape the trunk right and pelvis left
• where the tape might actually be doing its good is PULLING the pelvis into a unilateral RIGHT hip hinge (right pelvic extension)

Basically this whole summer, since the weekend before WSER, I've gain incremental improvement in three steps:

1. Taping.

The recognition that I was laterally shearing the lumbosacral junction. Taping kept my proprioceptively - if not passively - "aligned"

2. Prioprioceptive frontal plane ("Pelvis left") correction.

I've done this before, but this time around, I invested in feeling both hip hinge but also a left loading of that hip. Based on strength deficits, it's clear I don't load it. Yet...that also seemed to be missing something

Today was the 3rd - and possibly final - piece

3. Right pelvic (extension) loading on a stable trunk.

Rathar than just "lean right" or "shift pelvis left", I actively worked to unilaterally hip hinge the right pelvis: to stick the butt BACK AND to extend the leg and pelvis rearward. This prevents the "shear-rotation falling-out": when you fail to load and strong/stable push off the right hip, for example, it' "escapes" or "falls out" by:

A. shifting right
B. rotating left

THAT is what was creating - and perpetuating - my nerve tension!

It was crazy: once I started the correction - at maybe mile 4 or 5 - my hamstrings went from "eh, so-so" to "FINE" to "GOOD" as the run progressed! In short: I not only prevented nerve tension build-up, but I REVERSED IT!

AMAZING!

Back to the run:

I was HR-discplined on the entire outbound, yet - due to low altitude, cool temps, and a better stride - I ran nearly everything from the start to Maine Bar. Once there, it was intermittent hiking up to ACT then up Dead Truck to Robie Trail.

Loved, per usual, the cruiser American Canyon Trail. Super-fun!

Didn't take long to get to Sliger Mine Rd and Green Gate. Forgot how LONG of a trip it is, up the road, to get to the paved ending of Sliger. Beat Jake there by maybe 5 minutes, and it turned into a 15-minute break before we refueled and headed on our way.

Jake was a little slow on the first down, which was fine. After he deuced out his "Beef Stroke-Me-Off", I got in front on the WSER course and we made pretty good time from GG to ALT.

Weirdly, about midway through to ALT, I had a mini-bonk. Not sure why. One idea:

Jake gave me a salt supplement, that I mixed into (not enougH) Gatorade. Maybe that irritated my stomach? Either that, or it possibly could've been a Spring "Hill Aid" gel? Either way...it sucked for like 15min, then faded.

Made ALT in like mid 50s - a solid race day split - and were lucky to find running water there. Gassed up, then pushed on.

ALT to BB felt good...but warm. And we pushed it a bit too hard. Felt GREAT to open up on the downs - AND it felt SO good to have pretty light legs, even as I got toward 20 miles! We stopped at BB (42min?) and chatted with some runners. I popped my second-to-last gel then we headed down to Quarry.

It was legit warm on Quarry. I began to feel it. And I knew that I'd soon need to start walking uphills, if not for the heat, then to practice for RRR. Once on the legit Quarry Trail, that's what I did. Except my HR was jacked and it wouldn't go down! Ugh. I popped my last gel, but I was still like 6.5 miles from the car!

Made SLOW time to the trough/water spout at Highway 49. Doused and refilled...but now I had no fuel! Shit. I had a feeling this 49 to Robi was going to hurt.

More walking on the ups toward Pointed Rocks, then slow but steady downhill and flat running - but in the midday heat - into the descent to No Hands.

By the time we got to the steeper switches...I was COOKED. Hot. Bonking! But I just tried to let it go and run. I had plenty of water. I drank. But I knew I needed CYAALLORIES. A horse event was going, so when they came, I took it as a good - but somehow painful - hands-on-knees respite as we let them pass.

By the time we hit No Hands, I was able to jog across the bridge, then...that was about it. Within 400m I was in full bonk: "drunk" on fatigue, barely able to walk, let alone run, and...pretty bemused!

I mean, shit! I BONKED! You know how LONG it's been since I've bonked?? Because a requisite for bonking is feeling good enough to push both LONG and HARD enough to drain your energy!

It was amazing! I did it! Even in full bonk, I had no nerve tension, and the ankles were "pretty OK!"

So...we death-marched along the railroad grade, then slowly up the steeper singletrack, back to Bruce's van. I fantasized about that moment, and it finally came: opening the door to my hotel garbage can filled with icy Gatorade, Spindrifts, protein shakes...and an assortment of food!

I POUNDED it all, including a huge Rice Krispie treat (with butter, sensitivity-be-damned!)

GREAT RUN. Even with the death marth, we still made good time.

Rest of the day:

• laid in the back of Bruce's open van. Then Christina Curley drove by (and somehow recognized me!)
• drove BGD back to his house, but not before I dropped off my app for Lubeck (SPOILER: TOO LATE!)
• to In N Out to pound "lunch"
• washed Bruce's dirty van
• home to shower, scrub off poison oak and nap

PM:

• to "The Station" for beers with Bruce, BGD and BISP
• late dinner at "Burgers & Cream"

GREAT DAY!