R-E-S-T

There was a thread this week on Woofie's ultra list about taking time off. I'm re-posting my post there on this blog. I think it applies to everyone! So here it is:

Speaking of my favorite four letter word...

I love R-E-S-T!!! I always look forward to my time off after I've been training for a while for an event. It gives me a chance not only to rest my body, but my mind too. I feel it helps preserve my enthusiasm about running ultras, which can take so much time out of my life. I've been running ultras for 20 years and if I didn't take periods of time off from running, I wonder if I would have lasted this long.

When I started running 27 years ago, I started like many "born again" runners- with 10Ks, progressing to road marathons. I was quite competitive back then and beat the crap out of my body, didn't eat enough, didn't rest enough, and was injured more of the time than I was healthy. Being in my 20s it was easy to bounce back. If I was trying to do that now, it would likely do a lot more damage. Fortunately I met some ultrarunners 7 years into my running "career" and that changed everything.

As I've gotten "older" (I'm 47, started running ultras as an infant of 27) I have changed my approach and philosophy about running ultras, and my training has evolved with my interest in doing longer events. I've weathered the usual assortment of injuries, mostly occurring BEFORE I started doing ultras, an autoimmune health condition that causes severe fatigue if I overdo it, a couple of career changes including going back to school, and periods of pure mental burnout, where I've said "I'm retiring from ultras after this". Of course that only lasts a few weeks, until the next interesting event I hear about...

I find that what pushes me to burnout seems to be the final 8 or 10 weeks of training leading to my goal event for the year- so I only have one of these big "goal races" per year, everything else is a training run. Seeing my other races as training runs helps me avoid burnout, I can relax my approach and I don't run myself into the ground.

The other factor I see contributing to burnout in many runners is their dependence on running for their social lives. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I love runners and most of my best friends are runners. However it's important to diversify your social circles because it's important to expand your horizons...every so often we need to pull our heads out of our, well, you know... and remember there is a big world out there that doesn't know running, and we live in it, too. It is so refreshing to have a conversation about something other than running, isn't it? I *SOOOO* appreciate my running buddies who can talk about things besides running.

I look forward to staying in this sport as long as I can keep moving forward. The fact that I am moving forward AND looking forward after 20 years in this sport is due to periodic rest.

Rant: Running for the Long Haul

I feel a rant coming on.

Maybe it's lack of sleep but at this point I only owe the sleep bank three hours, so that's probably not it. It's not PMS either. I feel this need to say something, because I am concerned about some of the runners in my life (at least three at this moment) whom I care about and I want to see them continue being able to run. But this applies to almost any woman runner, and a lot of men too.

So consider this a rant coming from a place of kindness, and caring, and concern. Here it goes:

Ultras are a gift to the body, not a punishment. I totally disagree with the "that's crazy, let's do it" mentality. I don't do ultras because I'm daring myself. I don't do them to beat the crap out of my body. I do them for the enjoyment and what I get from them, which are unique experiences shared with other unique human beings that I hope I'll be able to continue to have for a long time.

I've been running for nearly 27 years, ultras for 20 years. As long as I'm physically able, I intend to continue this.

I could care less about where I place in the pack. I have no interest in being competitive anymore. Interestingly, I still place pretty high at times, when I have a good race, without trying. I certainly don't plan on it, but I seem to hit those good races more often than a noncompetitive runner would expect to.

People say to me all the time,"I don't know how you find the time to train for ultras."

"I could never put in that kind of mileage."

"Marathon training is so painful, I could never imagine training for ultras."

"How does your body hold up?"

Hmmmmm. How does that work? Let's think about this together.

I averaged 48 miles a week prior to the Keys 100 for 4 months. I finished in 26 hours and change.
I averaged 47 miles a week prior to the Lean Horse 100 for 3 1/2 months. I finished in 28 hours and change.
Wanna see my weekly mileage trend from the Keys to Lean Horse?

Here it is, in chronological order, starting with the week after the Keys 100 race.
week 1: 6 miles of running, 14 miles of walking
week 2: ran 33 miles
week 3: ran 36 miles
week 4: ran 38 miles
week 5: ran 50 miles
week 6: ran 75 miles (including a 30 mile training run)
week 7: ran 70 miles (including a slow Leadville Marathon in 7 1/2 hours)
week 8: ran 19 miles (worked, then on vacation in Phoenix, traveled to Death Valley)
week 9: ran 10 miles (in Death Valley for Badwater, caught up on sleep afterwards)
week 10: ran 85 miles (including a 50 mile training run)
week 11: ran 70 miles (including 5 x Rock Repeats for 22 miles)
week 12: ran 70 miles (including a 33 mile training run)
week 13: ran 41 miles (including 3x rock repeats for 13 miles)
week 14: ran 21 miles (week before Lean Horse)
week 15: Lean Horse week. Ran 106 miles total including the 100 mile race.

Only five of those 15 weeks were somewhat high mileage, and only because I did long runs those weeks. In the middle I took two weeks easy, since I was traveling and busy doing other things. Hardly obsessive.

There is so much more to life than training all the time. People think what I do is obsessive but really, I am about the least obsessive runner I know out of all my friends. I know how to get down to business when it's time to focus on a goal I've set, but I also know how to let go of the need to constantly pound out the miles.

This fall I plan to take September mostly off, with cycling as my cross training. If the weather doesn't cooperate, well too bad. I'll ride in the rain or I'll just take the day off.

Sure I plan to run Across the Years in late December and I'll get serious sometime in October, but I'm not going to worry about it. I'll do a couple of long training runs around Halloween and Thanksgiving, but other than that, regular mileage applies.

This week, after my race, I'll concentrate on letting my feet heal and not worry about fitness. I won't lose much in a week. Nothing noticeable anyway.

I can only run a lot of ultras for a couple of years before my mind and body tell me I need a break. Fortunately it's usually my mind first. I tend to get burned out on training all the time, I miss my other interests, I miss doing things with my family, and I feel like I need to back off so many hours of training and preparing to train and run races.

On the physical end of things, I have never had a stress fracture. Never missed a menstrual cycle due to low weight. Since starting ultras, any injury I've had is due to a mishap, like a sprained ankle, not due to overtraining.

And I eat. I carry a little extra weight, not so much because I eat, but because I do have thyroid issues, and to look at the body type of my ancestors, they were not fat, but short and solid, more of a muscular build as they got older.

Because I would rather have a few pounds extra for my bones as I get older, I don't worry obsessively about weight. Sure I'd love to feel light on my feet again and fit in my smaller running clothes, but that is less important to me than staying healthy. I am thankful that despite my increasing middle age vanity about things like hair color, I have never been one of those skinny at any cost people. Whenever I've been skinny, it's been because my thyroid is out of whack.

Sure I do think about weight and in the back of my mind I view my body image in the same way as nearly any woman brought up in this culture. I go back and forth in my own mind, thinking I'm too fat at times. Somehow I've managed to have some of my best running performances when I was at my heaviest weights. I've tried to re-train myself on those matters. And I've managed to avoid a lot of the pitfalls of being too skinny, not eating enough, and falling apart.

That's where the concern for my friends comes in. I see them making the common mistake of too many miles, not giving your body a break, thinking you feel good after a long race without allowing the healing that has to happen at a microscopic level in the soft tissues and bones to take place, the probable but unknown effects on your immune system, the risk for mental burnout, the cost to families and individual lives.

When you feel good now, it might be a function of your great fitness. But it can be tricky. Often runners say they felt great right before they got sick or injured. Feeling good now does not mean that all is good inside. The body has it's own wisdom and we can try to avoid it but eventually it will get us.

If runners are not able to cut back on miles or take necessary care of their bodies, they are running for something beyond the enjoyment of running, and it is most likely an addiction, and no, it's not a "good" addiction. It's just a different drug. And it's rooted in a fear, which is related to body image, fear of losing something youthful about appearance, fear of running a little slower, fear of having a little fat on the body or weighing a certain number of pounds, in the brainwashing so many women have endured.

Those fears lead to overtraining, fear of taking a break because they might gain weight. Fear of losing a little fitness, as if once it's gone, it will be gone forever.

Guess what, fitness is a renewable resource. It's like money. You can always find more of it, you just have to be motivated to get it.

I think about my health years from now, and I want to give myself the best chance possible to be one of those 80 year old ultrarunners. There are enough pitfalls of getting older, some of which we can't control. But I want to make damn sure my bones hold up in order to do it, and that is something I can control.

Less is more.

End of rant.

Fourth of July weekend

I spent this weekend mostly on the bike, when I wasn't catching up on sleep. I rode 52 miles Friday, went down to Flatiron Reservoir near Loveland. I did fall off the bike once in a spectacular but low speed crash, I was going through Boyd Lake and hit a bump over the road too fast, and my feet didn't come out of the cleats in time. I have a beautiful triangular bruise on my inner right thigh from the seat as a result, but all my skin is intact. I had a soft landing on the grass next to the bike path.

The ride to Flatiron was easy except on my butt. Saturday morning I ran the 5K at City Park and my legs were toast. My mind was even worse. I got through mile 1 fairly fast and it didn't feel too hard, but it felt like I'd already gone 3 miles. So I slowed down and jogged in. I guess my burnout is universal when it applies to running. I have no desire to push myself hard, or to train. I can get out and see nice scenery, like the picture above, on my bike ride near Richards Lake this morning.

Dennis ran great at the 5K, won the master's race. It was a good run for him, he hasn't been training either. Felix had a good run too. I told him about my plans to ride a century this summer, and he suggested that I go check out some different saddles for my bike. Felix inspires me to do longer bike rides with his double century streak. If I could do even half of what he does, I'd feel like superwoman!

Dennis and I spent the weekend playing with the girls, and Isabelle's 8th birthday was today, so they got doggie ice cream and we played at the park. And of course I made my trips to the sauna each day. It's been in the 120s in Death Valley, could be a hot year. Will it hit 130?

I am going to run the Mountain Avenue Mile in August here in town. And then I am thinking about going down to Arizona in September to run a 50K on the Hopi reservation, mostly for the scenery and the road trip. If I do that, I'll have to do at least a little running after I get back from Badwater. Maybe I'll feel like it by then. And if not, there's nothing wrong with a long hike in the desert.

On my run last weekend with Cat, we were talking about how hard it is to rest, and back off of training schedules. We runners are so driven, and so highly self-motivated and self-disciplined, that we lose sight of how important it is to rest.

We think it's important to work hard all the time so we feel guilty when we don't stick to our schedule and we're not putting in much effort. We aren't used to being slackers, we're not the type who go to work and sit on our butts and draw a paycheck. So when it comes time to rest and back off, we don't know how to do it.

I go back to work tomorrow. Just three days of work, then I go out to Death Valley on Friday. I'll be flying to Las Vegas, driving to Pahrump, and then into Furnace Creek Sunday before the pre-race briefings start. It will be so fun to see everyone!