McDowell Mountain Frenzy Race Report - Josh

This past Friday 1/23/2010 Jen and I did the 10 mile McDowell Mountain Frenzy trail race. It was the first trail race I had done in a LONG time and on top of that it had been raining like crazy in the desert for the past 4 days. Needless to say this is my kind of event, a bit of adventure mixed into the race atmosphere.



The day started off with us running predictably behind. We arrived a solid 15 minutes before the start, just enough time to use the bathroom and do a faux warm up. At the beginning I was trying to remind myself, just a training run, just a training run. But man when events start it is hard to control your ego and legs and I was off quick. The trail quickly funneled down into singletrack and it was difficult to pass or position yourself correctly. Luckily the quick start was able to get me about where I should have positioned. From there the the trail quickly headed uphill and my quick start caught up with me. I settled my heart rate and was cruising along for the ride.

I decided about halfway in that it never rains in Arizona so I should run through every puddle I see so from there it was a journey between puddles. The trail was tough but it was a beautiful morning and the miles just slid by under my feet. It ended up being a perfect training day.

Stats: 10.41 miles - 1:40:12 - 9:48 pace - 6/11 AG - 21/51 OA

I think my form is looking ok here.

Glamour

Fact: Not all workouts are glamorous, especially when training for an Ironman. First you must be asking yourself what is a "glamorous" workout. To me it is one where one of 3 things happen.

1. You visit or discover a beautiful place.
2. You push your body to its physical limits.
3. You train with no pain.

I feel lucky that for me I am able to accomplish the goals above to make most of my workouts glamorous. Case in point trail running at Usery.
It is beautiful:
Running on the "soft" surface rarely leaves me in pain.
Very often though during training we have those workouts that just don't fit that bill. Thankfully I am becoming ok with that. 1 hour on the trainer in heart rate zone 2 certainly does not fit any of the billing above. Then what is the point? It helps mentally: being on a bike trainer for an hour straight staring at a wall or some mundane TV show is the epitome of being bored. A bike is made for travel and adventure. There are times though during an Ironman distance race that takes well over 10 hours that it is going to be boring. This is training me for that. It helps aerobically: during a long race you have to learn to pace yourself. What feels easy, what feels hard? In order to intimately learn that you must fully experience all levels of exertion. So it is not glamorous and it isn't really fun to be honest, but it is needed and I accept and understand you boring training.
~ Josh

Inspiration

In my first post I have a quote by Dean Karnazes, it is also the quote I have on facebook. People like Dean, Lance, David Goggins, etc. provide immense inspiration to me. Even when its a training day like yesterday when I am called to do something as small (in the whole scheme of things) as running a 5K time trial. We are constantly going to face adversity in our training, and trying to maintain some semblance of balance in our lives. If these people can do things far greater (conquer cancer, fight in our military, run on the south pole) then I think I can HTFU and break through the wall during a 5K! As a side note to my training (this is a training blog too) I have NEVER hit the wall so hard during a run. After a solid 2 mile warmup I took off to run 7:50 minute miles for my 5K, after a mile I slammed face first into the proverbial wall. I felt like I was running in quicksand and VERY dizzy. I ran 10:30's for half a mile. Thank goodness I am easily motivated by WORDS and Rihanna's "HARD" came on. The lyric "No pain is forever" snapped me out of it and I took off to recover to a 26:20 5K. Not my best, but not as disasterous as it could have been. I REALLY need to look into my nutrition. OK end side note.

While training is a very personal thing, it is always helpful to have people who inspire us in our lives. Role models. I do not look up to people merely because they can ride fast or run far, but for other things they stand for in their lives. Dean Karnazes is one of those people I have always found tremendously inspiring. And yesterday I got to meet him. One more person to cross off the list (met Lance last year at the Tour of the Gila!)
Dean was running the PF Changs Rock N' Roll marathon, he invited a small handful of people to run an "Ultra" with him (50K - 31 miles) as a special addition to the RNR. My friend Elliot was one of those "special" people (no really, he is VERY special) :p For the past month Elliot, Josh and I have been planning on how this "meeting" would go down. This included us daydreaming about running with him (although this was reality for Elliot) and Elliot photoshopping our heads onto photos with Dean:
We then daydreamed about how we would be holding hands with Dean and how he would become our very best friend because, well, we are very entertaining. In our numerous conversations about this we came up with this list of things we HAD to do to Dean when we met him:

1. Get pic with Dean
2. Get autograph
3. Give him creepy stares as he's giving speech
4. Video tape him
5. Hold his hand
6. Jen touches his heiny

OK so yeah...maybe we were getting a bit stalkerish. But hey - it's Dean Karnazes! The year before I had organized a huge group to go see his documentary at the movie theater from when he ran 50 marathons in 50 days. I am sort of a fan OK? And I mean, LOOK AT THOSE LEGS! :p

So we head out yesterday to the Expo and arrive early, have to get front row seats. Stalking begins with us looking behind the curtains to see if he is there. He gives a speech, we ask questions AND then we get our chance to meet him. Elliot is begging me to ask to hold his hand...sure...of course I will ask! Not sure how I am going to accomplish #6 while holding his hand though. Hmmm. So we get up to him and spread out books, and pictures, and bib numbers, etc. One of the pictures is this:

So Josh asks: Do your legs REALLY look like that? He looks up at Josh and stares at him for a long time. Then he PULLS HIS PANTS DOWN!!!!!

Oh MY! So ummm yeah that answered that question. He started telling us about the photos, then talking about the ultra, I asked what was on his road ID (lat long, wifes number and "Dont worry, Be Happy") then Josh had him sign his high school photo in one of his books!

Love the addition he made to the pic. So then came the moment I had to ask to hold his hand. So I tell him we want a pic with him and he has no problem with that. Then I tell him we need to hold our hands up like we are corssing the finish line 'sure no problem' he says. THEN I tell him that we already have pics like that photoshopped so we need real ones. THAT is when he asks us if we are stalkers HA HA! Let's recap:

A good stalker dresses like his hero:



A good stalker gives good creeper stares:

A good stalker gets Dean to take his pants off (yes this is worth posting twice):

Good stalkers get Dean to recreate their photoshopped pictures!

SUCCESS!

And in true stalker, I mean FAN, fashion. We both had new Road I.D's made up. With our lat/ long and well we needed a new quote. What does it say?

NEVER STOP

Tiredness and Hunger.

Now that Ironman training is in full swing it is amazing to see how much the body changes its needs and wants. The same diet that I was having 2 weeks ago feels like barely enough to sustain sitting at work all day, much less the workouts that follow. On top of that every day needs a nap or at least 8 hours of sleep at night.

So the question becomes how to deal with this. For now we have started to gradually up the calories at meal time by adding some side of carbs (pasta, rice, etc.) Yes it throws off our typical 40-30-30 ratio but you must replenish what the body is using and right now that is carbs.

The tiredness is another matter entirely. It has already become difficult to motivate oneself to perform even the most routine daily tasks, cooking, grocery shopping and cleaning have slowly been slipping down the priority scale.

The beautiful thing is that I can see in the near future a balance is coming. Managing a more than full time job, Ironman training, and everyday life. It is a challenge and I am loving every minute of it. There is nothing like pushing yourself to the limit to gain the knowledge of what is possible.

~ Josh

2010 Aspirations...

Why a blog?

No really. I have Facebook, I have BT. Do I really need yet another outlet for my musings? This year. Yes. It's a year of big things, truly new beginnings. Without turning this post into a review of the past decade (we'll save that for another time) - I have the utmost freedom to pursue any and all things my heart desires. I do not have the constraints of years past - for the first time in my life my future is wide open. And for this reason I wanted a blog, to truly EXPLORE whatever it is that comes my way.

When I first had this realization (in May when I completed graduate school) it scared me. Literally scared me. I felt as if I had completed my life's timeline. I know, rediculous. I have always been a A, then B, then C type of person. So when I got to Z the "now what" was almost more than I could handle. Hanging in limbo is not something I do well. Now I realize, the uncertainty is beautiful. It is exciting. The unknown is not something to be feared, it is something to be embraced/ celebrated. Waking up each day to unpredictability is a gift - this blog is my journey in accepting this unpredictability.

What better way to test out one's fears of the unknown that embarking on Ironman. Each day being tested in a physical and emotional manner. Can I handle this? Will I make it? Will I be able to give it my all. For me, I use races more as a test of my capabilities in all aspects of WHO I am, not merely as a competition. I have learned more about myself in training and racing than I ever have elsewhere. The places my mind goes when I am pushed, when I am pushing myself. It is something I need, I crave, and has forced me to grow immensely. THAT is why I do this. It is my therapy. This blog will chronicle my journey. As training for an Ironman is not about May 1, 2010. It's about all of the day-to-day steps and growth to get there.

Western culture has things a little backwards right now. We think that if we had every comfort available to us, we'd be happy. We equate comfort with happiness. And now we're so comfortable we're miserable. There's no struggle in our lives. No sense of adventure. What I've found is that I'm never more alive than when I'm pushing and I'm in pain, and I'm struggling for high achievement, and in that struggle I think there's a magic. - Dean Karnazes

And lastly, life. Another thing I crave. I am not one to sit idly by and let life occur in front of me. Constantly seeking to suck every last ounce out of every moment. This life we are blessed with is beautiful, it is amazing, and I am so thankful for every single breath I take. I am relentlessly looking for new adventures, new discoveries so that I may learn and grow alongside those I love. My goal is happiness and fun...in things big and small.

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived. - Henry David Thoreau ~Jen