Notes
Hi Rob,
Welcome back to the land of flat, even ground. I had heard nightmarish stories of this course’s terrain…now I’m a believer.
I’ve uploaded your remaining Squaw training to our spreadsheet. Really take it easy this week — heal the feet, wounds and muscles.
Calves: When you are doing strength work, do you address your calves? Like, weighted calf raises: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC6qfVnFe6g Try to avoid using your arm as much as the cheater in this video. You could also add in some jump rope, to challenge the calves in a ballistic action. Obviously, it’s a multi-tiered issue: (1) hydration + electrolytes, (2) fatigue and (3) strength/fitness affect your calves. Let’s keep on working on all these moving forward. Form could also be a factor, but I’m not sure how to fix that without stepping back in training and getting an analysis done.
Feet: Let me know if they don’t improve this week. The technical, wet course and calf cramps certainly stressed them. I’m hoping the feel better in a another day or two. Good practice for Squaw if snow is an issue again.
Glad things went relatively well on this tough 50k course. Congratulations on your finish!
Let’s keep rolling forward! Let me know if you have any questions.
Oh, and about the hat positioning at the finish — if you look up, chin up and hold your head high, they’ll all be able to see your face, no matter what how the hat rides :)
Cheers lad!
Ian
On May 6, 2018, at 7:41 AM, Rob Flowers <rflowers07@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey Ian,
Here is how it went.
First off, a fun, surprisingly challenging course. Lots of sections filled with rocks that were anywhere from softball- to baskeball-sized rocks, with many fairly jagged which took a toll on the bottoms of my feet and made some those sections extremely difficult to run. Plenty of sections were wet, and also a number of small stream crossings. A fair bit of vertical as well, including some that was pretty steep or with big hunks of boulders some of which required all four limbs to navigate.
Weather was ok. Started off nice and cool in high fifties and a little wind, mostly overcast. Around 11 am it started get fairly warm (high 70s) and mostly sunny, and I think was on the humid side but not crazy humid.
Lots of fun as I said - North Face is really good at this - everything ran like clockwork. Yesterday there was the 50 mile at 5 am, 50k at 7 am, marathon at 9 am and a marathon relay after that. Together with a half marathon, 10k and 5k today a total of 4000 runners. Shuttle buses, aid stations, start/finish area (including Sierra Nevada tent) all super convenient.
My results: 6:45:18 vs my target of about 6:10-6:30 so little disappointed about that (leg cramps, sore left foot and inevitable fatigue were culprits). I felt ok about my overall ranking (140th of 437 so top third) and pretty good about my age group ranking (2nd of 17 - 55-59).
For the first 18-20 miles or so I felt pretty good. I think the gym workouts are helping as my balance, agility and durability on technical terrain is feeling incrementally better. Also fitness-wise, I felt pretty good. I will say quads started to get fatigued late in the race and are definitely sore this morning.
One smallish issue I encountered early on is that I banged my left the bottom of the front of my left foot (where the pad is near the toe) on one too many rocks, so it got pretty sensitive and if I came down on a rock wrong it felt like quite painful like a pinched nerve. I think it was a neuroma (sp?) flairing up, but afterwards realized it was soreness on the bone and muscle. As the race went on I found if focused on landing my left foot on a flat surface (dirt or rock) it did not hurt.
A bigger issue for my time was I was fighting leg cramps (mostly in my calves) for the last 10 miles or so. This slowed down my pace on the downhills (especially steep ones), as well as when it was rocky / or with lots of roots. Also, at times I just stopped to stretch out the muscles. I did find that if I focused on relaxing my muscles helped.
Hydration / nutrition-wise nothing too out of the ordinary: PB&J bagel, banana coffee and some water pre-race hours, half liters flask of Tailwind and one water which I refilled about 4 to 5 times, and some real food at aid stations when I felt like it. One exception on the hydration, I skipped fluid refill the first aid station so stretched the first 2 liters to the first 9 miles or 1:45. I am not sure this was big factor as the flasks were about half full at the aid station I skipped about 4 miles in. After I began to get cramps I started to take a couple of SCaps, and downed one Hotshot. I think I had plenty of sodium - between the Tailwind, sail tablets and real food my sweat was plenty salty.
Speaking of aid stations, I tried to be very quick at them and I think I gained a little extra time in the process.
I almost fell once early on (it looked more like a spontaneous push up) which was a reminder I was not paying attention to how I was striding through rocky areas. Then in a relatively easy stretch less than a mile from the finish I was thinking about whether I whether I should keep my hat on backwards for the finish or flip it around. Before I answered that stupid question I tripped on something and found myself doing my trademark superman onto the trail. Oh well.
All in all, it was a pretty good day. A little disappointed in the time and the cramps but felt ok about how I fared vs others in the field. Also besides the bottoms of my feet being a bit sore, I am surprised that I my quads have some stiffness. A good training race for sure, and a good indicator of where I am now and what to work on.
This seems a little long given the length of the race but hopefully helpful and a good record for me as well. I will be on the lookout for the next training plan, and interested in your thoughts (of course!)
.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Rob
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Rob Flowers
203-981-7239
rflowers07@gmail.com
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Attachments area
Preview YouTube video Standing Weighted Single Leg Calf Raise