MOUNTAIN RUNNING

With an injured rotator cuff I was forced this summer to abandon my Ironman plans. This was the first summer in 13 years I hadn’t done a triathlon. I didn’t really miss the swimming, but I did miss the long bike rides. I love putting in the km’s on my tri and road bike. Instead I discovered a new sport. Not really a new one as it’s as old as the creation of man himself, but perhaps a new twist- mountain running. And I believe it’s going to eventually be a new sport- craze.

Ola, a Norwegian I met at the Euro champs in '09 runs in his native Norway.







Living where I do it was easy to fall into this endeavor. Basically it consists of running on trails that most everyone else hikes on. You run the flats and smaller uphills, but when the angle gets pretty steep you’re forced into a speed hike. In Europe these are called sky runs. They have several sky races, some with 1000's of entries. It’s easy to see why they call them "sky" as you often end up on top of a mountain...hopefully with a ridge top that you can run along. Of course having a spectacular view (though it is hard to look if you’re moving fast).

The first couple times you mountain run your legs are sore from the downhill running (and some old farts just can’t do it b/c of the pounding on the knees), but from then on I find I’m good to go and usually don’t get sore anymore. Another trick to the sport is concentration. You just can’t let your mind wander like you do on the road as you’ll end up tripping on a rock or root. Indeed, pretty much every step must be thought out...there’s no time to day dream. Because of this, the time actually goes by really fast. 2-4 hour runs just fly by. You clear your mind of most everything (except maybe for a tune in your head) and focus on the trail. It’s really relaxing as your focus forces you to block out and quiet the busy workings of your mind.

Another cool thing about mountain running is that you can cover long distances. One of Alberta’s best sky trails is the "Skyline" trail in Jasper. It’s 44 km long and hikers do it in multi day trips. That is if you can get the permits for the camp spots-they’re hard to come by. Yet, if you’re running you just figure out the start/finish shuttle and do it in 1 long day. It’s got 25 km of ridge top running. It’s one of my "to do’s" for this soon to end summer.

Next on my list though is the Robson marathon next weekend. A 49km race with Canada’s highest peak in the background. We only gain 500-700 meters, so we’re not really climbing the mountain. Most of my local runs typically gain 1000m.

A new favorite is what I did last Saturday. A 4 hour run up Wind Ridge. You can clearly see this smaller mountain from most of Canmore. It’s a 1 hour run to the trailhead, then another :45 min grunt to the top, then a wondrous flat ridge run. I love these local adventures that a quick glance up throughout the year bring back good training memories.

Happy trails!

LOSING WEIGHT??

As a young person I was the skinniest kid on the block. Even into adulthood I was like a POW, with ribs sticking through, etc. I once had a female doctor laugh at how skinny I was. She remarked, “you don’t have an ounce of fat on you!” All well and good... that is until you start creeping into the master’s ranks and apparently the metabolism must slow down a little. Hence, I put on a little weight. I can’t believe I’m even saying this. After all those years of wimpiness-skinniness.

I should have seen it coming. My dad was told to lose some weight when he was in his 40's and he did so. I remember him telling me though when he was younger he was so self conscious about his own skinniness that he would drink straight cream to try to get some fat. “Dad, ever think of
lifting?”

Competing in a sport that places a premium on going fast up very steep hills you can easily see how carrying any extra weight is a liability. When I was wed at age 34 we received a scale as a wedding gift. At that time I weighed 144. We kinda suspected though that it was around 4 pounds light, so I might have been 148. So that was my goal. Get to my “marriage weight” of 148. I would have to lose 6 pounds. A big deal? Not really. Since I started less than one month ago I’ve lost 9 pounds. I’m still not really that fat, so 9 pounds is a lot.

Yet, I’ve read recently about Tour de France riders, they’d train 25-30 hours a week, yet still restrict their diet. At one point in Tyler Hamilton’s book he described how Lance once ate THREE pieces of
chocolate cake for desert. His team was all too intimidated by him to say anything, but Tyler thought to himself, “Great, now we’ll all have to ride an extra 5 hrs tomorrow so you can burn off that cake.” Same calorie deprivation with Peter Reid, Canada’s multiple Ironman world champ. He’d go to bed starving even though he too was putting in 25-30 hr training weeks. Any extra weight would just slow him down.
So how does my 148 pound goal compare to other distance athletes? Arthur Lydiard wrote that the average weight for African runners at the time was 113....for Americans it was 130. His implication was that the USA boys should lose some. Killian Jornet weighs 125.

Ok, so 1 month into my reduction plan, I’m 145. I think it isn’t  unreasonable to get down to 140. My plan? The one that’s actually worked pretty good so far?

Basically 3 things:
eat less, train more, embrace hunger pangs. The first 2 are pretty obvious, the 3rd was kinda new to me. In our culture/country, when we have a craving-we satisfy it. Resources are abundant, you’re hungry-have a snack. No more for this guy. However, since I’m taking in less calories I can’t afford to eat anything that isn’t packed with important nutrients. Empty calories aren’t going to work as I won’t get nearly what my body needs. So, I’ve been supplementing just a bit....vit D, calcium, Mag, vit b mega complex. Might need to add to the list, but that’s what I’m taking for now.

A few years ago, when I first noticed just a bit of “extra” around my waist, I noticed an unusual feeling when I redlined it. When I’d creep into the Anaerobic zone, I’d feel a numbness around my mid-section. I can only speculate, but I wonder if that was the feeling of important oxygenated blood moving through my "spare tire" layer. Not only does extra weight encumber me in the uphills, it robs my working muscles of oxygen rich blood.

To be continued...

FLOOD CRAZINESS

Of course it’s all over the media, so there’s not a whole lot more I can say about the AB flooding, except for maybe how it impacts one part of my life...training.

My old Finnish xc ski coach Ahvo, used to say, "skiers are made in the summer." This summer has been totally changed. Every road leading out of our town has been impacted. You can only come in and out if you live here (that’s an improvement from last week where no one could go anywhere). One benefit of living here is that I’ve got great training right out my door. That is if you’re running. And running is pretty much how I was planning on arranging my training. With my rotator cuff injury rendering my left arm pretty much useless, triathlon was cut off the radar. For some reason I was getting fascinated by world mountain running and skimo champ Killian Jornet’s exploits. I met this hero my first year of ski mo racing. The awards ceremony for the race in Whistler was taking forever, and no one seemed to be talking to this shy Spainiard, so I took the opportunity to pick his brain on the sport for around an hour. Little did I know that he’d go on to become one of the aerobic world’s most recognizable figures.

In Killian’s vid’s he has magnificent shots of him running in the Alps, Pyrenees and other Euro mountains. It’s incredible! I decided then that I would emphasise mountain running with just a bit of cycling. We have similar beauty and ruggedness up here in the Canuck Rockies. However getting to these places may be a challenge. As long as you make it into Banff you’re ok, but that’s going to be quite a challenge. The Legacy Bike trail has a bridge out. The west bound 2 lanes on the TCH are totally gone. They’ve got limited traffic going across the remaining ½ of the TC. I guess I can take a bus, toting my bike, then go from there. The back door to Banff up Spray lakes road is closed as mutiple rock slides closed that road and the Goat creek into Banff will have massive flood damage. The 1a out of town towards Exshaw has several problems (sections missing, massive rock slides), and when it’s done it’s going to be the summer route West....it’s going to be a traffic nightmare on this slow 2 lane highway.

It’s a "preppers" scenario. Those of us with fitness and bikes can get to places. Everyone else either stay home or wait in insanely long detour traffic (that is when they finally get even the detours up and running).

The damage from this storm was unbelievable. The smallest creek (and there are many running out of our mountains) became swollen rivers with vast destructive power. The landscape has been forever changed and it will take months if not years for the repairs to be completed.

I guess instead of worrying about what’s not getting done work wise it’s time to realize what you are able to accomplish and when that line is reached...go out for a run!

BASE TRAINING

I recently read Arthur Lydiards’ biography and also his coaching book, "Running to the Top". Older athletes may recall this coaching superstar. Many credit him with the world wide running boom in the 70's. He was an uneducated shoe factory worker who also had a milk delivery route at night, but he was also a runner. He loved experimenting on himself. Gradually, a few of the local track athletes sought him out for training advice. It turns out he was incredibly wise and insightful. He took a bunch of no name athletes and turned them into world and Olympic champions. His greatest runner was Peter Snell. Snell won 800m Olympic gold in the ‘60 Olympics, then repeated in ‘64 adding the 1500m title too. So far, the only one to win double gold in these two distances. Snell is now an exercise physiologist in Texas. Having the highest level of education in the field, interestingly he affirms all of his old coaches training methods. The ones Lydiard arrived at through personal experience, investigation and astute observation.

Arthur Lydiard



When Lydiard came on to the scene pretty much all middle distance coaches threw tonnes of interval training at the athletes. Lydiard’s method was to spend 3-5 months doing nothing but easier base long distance base running before moving into more race preparing intensity. He’s credited with the LSD movement (not hallucinogenic), long, slow, distance. Really though, guys like Snell weren’t really going that slow, running around 6:30 miles. But for him that was slow. The point is to not go into your anaerobic threshold. So I believe that would include pretty much everything up to zone 3 (on a 5 zone system). Lydiard was roundly criticised for this method, but people quieted a little when his no name athletes became world beaters. Of course, soon after this era, and even during it, the trend went right back to all interval and fast training. That’s where we find ourselves today.

Years ago I remember reading Peter Snell on this topic. He said that as a middle distance runner people were mocking him for doing 3 hour runs. But he also said that he really wasn’t that fast and a great "kicker", even though he was known for his final kick. It was just that his endurance was so much greater that he had the fitness to use what speed he had. He also mentioned that 40+years later, he still holds the New Zealand national record for the 800m. He then went on to say something to the effect, "You’d think they would figure this out!"



Peter Snell




The idea is to spend as much time as you can building the engine. The long, slower efforts do just that. Then when it comes time to notch things up a bit (really only 6-8 weeks of intensity training) everything about your body/engine is bigger and more efficient. More capillary beds to deliver oxygen, more mitochondria to produce ATP’s for energy, a higher VO2 max, the list goes on and on.

As skimo racers and our need to climb mountains as fast as humanly possible, I can’t imagine any other sport with higher physical demands. We absolutely MUST build a big engine. I recently read that Killain Jornet goes for 3-5 hour runs in the a.m. then does another 1-2 hours in the afternoon. His intensity training is only his racing, which is a lot...30 skimo races and 30 running races.

So I’m changing things a bit this year. So far this summer, almost every workout I’ve done is a minimum of 2 hours. Longer stuff, easier stuff, lots of vertical running/hiking to the top of mountains. Topping out on a mountain is fabulous! I love it! Going up, getting a view, being vertical.... after all as skimo racers we gotta get vertical!!

SKI 2 SEA

I’d heard about this fantastic race from a few friends that have done it over the years. It was with excitement, but trepidation that I accepted Mike Norton’s invitation to be a part of his 8 person team. Over the years I’ve had a few friends (all fast friends!) Team up with Mike and I knew that he enters to WIN! Be competitive for the victory or don’t bother. Since the Ski2Sea came US Memorial weekend it meant keeping my high end training up during the normally "detraining"period.

I’d heard that Justin Wadsworth, head Canadian XC coach, was instituting something different with his team during this important detraining phase... 1 day per week of 4x4min intervals. Maybe a bare minimum for those guys, but the idea is to not lose that high end so as to not be starting farther back once the detraining period is over. It might be kind of a risk for those guys as I remember years ago Steve Gaskill (at that time head US XC ski team coach) explain that if you don’t have that rest-detrain, then it’s been observed that athletes kind of peak out.

In any case my weekly 4x4's consisted of hammering up the Spray Lake road. By the time I’d top out around the Reclaimer bike trail I was totally exhausted. The only problem was I then had to run back home (albeit all downhill) a :40 run. With legs shaking and exhausted lungs it wasn’t an easy task. I observed that each week I seemed to make it just a bit farther up the road for the 4x4 efforts. Fun stuff!

As for the race itself, it turned into quite the wet affair. Not surprising I guess given the location, but the weatherman hadn’t predicted such a soggy day. I was actually a little glad for my leg. The day before I was pre skiing the course w/ Marshall, whom I’d met earlier this year in France at Skimo worlds as he was representing USA. As we skied the downhill portion, he was as slow as a tree on the side of the trail. I’d super rilled my skis and put flouro powders on them, the latter is something we never do as the skins wouldn’t stick (for this race we only bootpack, not even using climbing skins). This ski prep for the very wet conditions was rocket fast. I couldn’t believe how fast my skis were! On race day top USA skier Max Taam and Marshall peaked together and Marshall blew him away gaining over 30 seconds on the short downhill. I later learned that Marshall learned from our training foray and went home and powdered up his skis. Max didn’t bother. A lesson learned by all.

  Our team

I started my leg in 6^th. On paper, our xc skier should have come in first or very close to it. Marco Andre-Bedard, one of Canada’s best biathletes and the prior month beat both Brian Gregg and Tad Elliot at the Canadian XC Nat’ls (Brian and Tad finished their S2S leg 1-2, with Caitlin Gregg a not too distant 3^rd-amazing!), but unfortunately Marc only had tiny baskets on his poles that totally sunk down into the slop, essentially giving him no arm poling. I passed a couple skiers moving us into 4^th.

I handed off to Dusty, who moved us up another place with his blazing fast downhill run. From there we faded a bit into 6^th where we spent most of the day, that is until the last 100m. We were passed by 2 kayaks in the final 100m. It was hard to take, but our team did improve from 10^th last year to 8^th.

We were an open corporate team. It’s kinda cool because the local radio station announces the race live all day and the higher up you are, the more your sponsor gets mentioned. We did him well, especially in the first few legs!

This was really a super event. There’s 500 teams and lots of local media attention. The whole town of Bellingham WA really gets into it. The day caps off with a big party in the main street area celebrating Memorial weekend. Mike’s already asked me to come back next year, the biggest compliment ever for me! So I have one more reason to stay fit and give ‘er a good go next ski season!

PS the race consists of the following legs: XC, skimo, run, road bike, canoe, mountain bike, kayak

LIFE IS PAIN

Life is pain. This is a stark reality. So often we want the pain or problem to go away so we can return to "normal". However, pain and problems are normal. Way back in ‘95 I must have torn my rotator cuff in the Canadian Birky XC race. A friend of mine, one of the top sports doctors in the world (currently the head doc for the NHL), gave me some exercises to do. Every 1-3 years the pain would come back-I’d do the exercises and within a month I’m pain free and good to go. Not so this time.

The shoulder pain returned this year around Christmas (I remember thinking in the fall as we started skiing how great my shoulder felt-no pain). I put off the exercises since the pain wasn’t bad and I probably was overly familiar with the drill. However, I must have fallen on it. I’d really been pushing my downhills to get better this year. I must have torn it in several of my falls (I tend to fall on that particular shoulder with my arm extended-the perfect recipe for RCuff disaster).

So now if I raise my arm and twist it at all pain shoots down my arm feeling like a knife has been jammed into my shoulder. I’m useless for swimming as I can’t even extend my arm to do the freestyle stroke. This will be the first year since 2000 that I haven’t done triathlons.

Add to this my broken finger (injured in the most minor of falls) which is healed, but stiff and painful. This morning I lamented, "I wish I just didn’t have this pain." Well, I’ve got 2 choices... either wait until it’s gone to enjoy the things I like to do or do them anyway in pain (while still doing everything I can to facilitate the healing). My mother in law (passed away suddenly 1 month ago) was the epitome of this. She was in constant pain for most of her life. She’d spent most of my wife’s childhood in bed suffering. Her family really missed out. But one day, she decided to re-join the world in spite of her pain. She stopped trying to get over it and start living again. I’m sure it wasn’t easy, but it was nice to have her back after all those years. Maybe there’s something too about getting involved, as it distracts us from ourselves and personal pain.

From what I’ve been reading and hearing from my doc, it’s almost certain I need shoulder surgery....bummer. I don’t know how long it’ll take to see the specialist, then I don’t know how long it’ll take to actually get the surgery, but once I do it’ll be at least 3 months of recovery. This could be a long frustrating ride.

Oh well, I’ll just get on with what I can do and not think about what I cannot. First on the agenda is this weekend’s famous "Ski 2 Sea" relay in WA. I’m going to ski and prepare as if it’s the last race I’ll ever do (hopefully not the case!).

SOME THOUGHTS ON EVALUATING TRAINING

Well, we’re into week 4 of next ski season’s training cycle. After every season I like to write down what I felt I did right in training and what I did wrong, or want to improve in. When it’s all done, it can be quite a list. Here’s a quick summary:

Did right:
-zone 4 fitness. Did consistent Z 4 workouts starting in the summer (taking a 1 month break after my peak triathlon) then 2x/wk. Doing challenging peaking intervals (:30 x 20 w/ :30 rest); time trials; long intervals, short intervals. I felt I came into the early race season (Dec 1) in top form.

-consistent leg strength. I saw a lot of improvement in my squats and deadlifts, etc. Didn’t shirk off or blow these off . It definately helped in downhills, etc.

-Got transitions dialed in What used to be a weakness has now turned into a strength.

-Downhill training at Norquay. Still improving on those downhills.


 Not Right:
-maybe peaked too early. Too much Zone 4?

-still not enough 5 hr workouts (like in my Ironman days)

-Nutrition suffered. Vit D, Calcium (1 broken bone this year, maybe 2), Mag.




What to do different this next year
-maybe 1 less workout/wk.... 2 days off instead of 1/wk.;

-no in between workouts. Go long, or go hard, or rest

-keep measuring.... but do more (tt’s; st.; hours; int’ls;). Record, challenge....always looking to improve

-roller skiing w/ skimo gear (tt up Norquay access road-record)

-more technical skinning and downhill practice in manky conditions (on race gear)


(left)-one of the awesome runs in my backyard


First off,   I’ve got to get my shoulder healed. A torn rotator cuff from years ago really got torn up more this year as I kept falling on that shoulder. Surgery may be necessary (3 month recovery). I’m going to try to strengthen rehab it as I’ve done effectively for the last 17 years (when I first injured it). Secondly, I’m going to try to build more recovery into my weeks. 2 zone 4's, 3 long ones (2-5 hours); after that just strength training (in winter 1 day of lift downhill training). Lastly, I discovered some amazing terrain right out my door. The mountain behind my house actually has some incredible skiing (you’re probably thinking, "duh, what took you so long"). I’ve already been developing it a bit-I have a 1.4km race course complete w/ bootpack and jumpturn manditory downhill. But there’s a couple drainages back there w/ multiple couloirs. It’ll allow me to train difficult uphill skinning and manky snow, challenging downhills. Plus, I can get more hours in without having to travel to a venue. Just gotta figure out a way to ski there safely.

Well, it's finally getting summery out there, so it's time to have some dryland fun!  Oh wait!!!! I get to race in the Ski to Sea at Mt Baker. One more skimo race to go (I've been doing at least one z4 workout per week to stay in shape!).