Preparing for a 40-miler

Before continuing, please consider helping me reach another goal through my 40-miles-for-40-years run.  Thank you!

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So how in the world am I getting ready for my 40-miler?  By gradually ramping up my mileage, of course.

Easier said than done, especially working 80+ hours per week with no days off.  Most ultra training plans for 50-milers suggest a long run of 30-32 miles a month or so out from the event.  Well, if I have any hope of functioning the next day at work, I just can’t do that.  That’s a 5-6 hour run, leaving just 4 hours of sleep before I have to be back at work again.  Not gonna do it.

So the max I think I can fit in is about 21 miles.  So I’m at that point right now, doing a 21-miler on Saturday and following up on Sunday with another long run (8-15 miles).  In other words, doing the double-long that treated me well getting ready for the Country Music Marathon back in April.  A few encouraging words from Gary Ditsch helped me formulate a plan to adjust it for my 40-miler, although I suspect he thinks I’m being  a bit aggressive.  But believe me, Gary, when I say that I’m monitoring very, very closely.

So this weekend’s iteration, the first week of my peak period, was a good one.  I actually pushed it harder than race pace, but kept the heart rate in Zones 1-2, although the last 20 minutes were in Zone 3 as I picked up the effort and worked a solid tempo finish.  This one worked out to be a good negative split.

I took off at a comfortable 10:15/mile pace, keeping to the 4 min run/1 min walk strategy. Decided that was a bit quicker than I needed to be going, so backed off a little bit, but never let my overall pace go above 10:26/mile pace. Hit 11 miles and was feeling good. The next 10 miles were consistently faster than the previous. By the time I hit mile 18, I was holding a 8:00/mile to 8:15/mile pace for the run portions; individual splits for miles 18-21 were all under 10:00/mile, including the two minutes of walking.  And since pictures speak louder than words, here’s a mile-by-mile graph of my average pace up to that point:

I did have three off-the-clock fuel reloads. Doing these runs unsupported, I have to make a side trip to refill my water bottles. Not to mention sucking down a can of ice cold coke at mile 15.  Ahhhhh, that’s refreshing.

For my first several long runs here, I kept the clock running just like in a race. But it really wreaked havoc with my average pace, etc., which didn’t seem representative of the effort. Had these been supported runs, I’d grab the water and keep moving. So I made the decision to do them off the clock.

This run was quite a unique experience too; one that made me reflect on how full my life has been so far. I didn’t know until that afternoon that we were going to have a lunar eclipse, peaking at 80% while I’d be out on my run. It was quite odd to start out the run with a full moon and that lighting, which allowed me to get off of the asphalt and run on the rough dirt shoulders. But by mile 15, it was definitely dark and I didn’t dare run on the shoulders anymore, for fear of hitting a hole and turning an ankle.

All the while, the local mosques were rolling out their eclipse prayers, which were actually quite beautiful to listen to while running. Apparently there is a specific prayer for eclipses and it’s the same for both solar and lunar eclipses.

It made me think of some of the things that I’ve been able to experience in my life - surfing the North Shore of Hawaii (and getting completely pitted, then stuffed, at Pipeline), traveling the length of the Panama Canal, crouching down a small tunnel to see a chamber inside one of the pyramids of Giza, snorkeling with whale sharks off the coast of Western Australia, etc., etc.  That was a nice way to pass a few miles.

So this run was definitely another page added to life’s experiences.

On Sunday, I had an 8-miler planned as my second half of my double-long.  Since I run at night here and there’s little lighting (especially during a lunar eclipse), my long runs are entirely on asphalt/concrete.  So my Sunday night run is on a treadmill to save my legs.

I started off with the first 4 miles at a very comfortable 10:00/mile pace. Then picked it up to 9:00/mile pace for a mile, then 8:00/mile for the sixth mile. At mile 7 I ratcheted it up to 7:00/mile pace, then crushed the 8th mile, covering the first half mile at 6:30/mile pace and finishing up the last half mile at 6:00/mile pace.

I was comfortable the entire time, never feeling like I was going to lose form. So I was quite pleased with this one, especially considering the 21-miler the night before.

I hope all is well with each of you.

T minus 37

Hey everyone.  Long time, no blog.  Almost a month, apparently.

All is going well here in Iraq.  Not as dusty as May - July have been.  A little bit here and there, but nothing widespread for days on end.  In other words, the way summer should be here.

As the title suggests, it’s only 37 days until my big event here in Iraq.  In celebration of my 40th birthday, I decided, as a goal to keep me focused while I was here, to run 40 miles that day.  Well, I’ve had to move it forward a few days due to some work and support issues, so I’ll actually be about three days shy of my 40th when I do it.  But that’s OK.  It’s the spirit that counts, right?

So I’m starting my last Build cycle.  I’m looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time.  The last build cycle was pretty tough, getting me to a 31-mile weekend on top of working 12-hour days.  The weekend went (Fri-Sun) 3.5/19/8.  The last few miles of that 8-miler on Sunday were very tough mentally to get through.  Perfect training for the 40-miler, dontcha think?

I’ll write more on this build cycle later.

For a couple of months I’ve been trying to figure out how to make this birthday run a bit more meaningful.  I mean, running 40 miles in one day is pretty meaningful, but just to me.  So I started mulling over different charities.  I even contacted a few, but apparently they’re rolling in donations, since they didn’t bother to reply.

One of the most meaningful charities that I could find, one that hits a bit close to home, is the Fisher House.  Please follow the link in the upper left of this blog and do some reading.  A wonderful effort to support the families of our men and women in uniform who are either injured in war or peace, or are ill and need long-term medical care.

So while I know that everyone likes to push for a charity and there are sooooo many deserving causes, please take a moment to read and reflect on what this organization does for those that serve our country.

Wow!

There I was earlier this evening, sitting at an official dinner at Al Faw Palace, in one of Saddam’s old dining rooms, at one of his hand-painted, gold trimmed tables, looking across at an Iraqi Command Sergeant Major and his wife, both of whom likely never dreamt of stepping foot inside the palace just a few years ago.

Quite an amazing experience.

Boilermaker 15K - A Race Report

What’s that?  A post?  A race report?

Yep on both counts.

A certain Goddess mentioned to me that I’ve been remiss in keeping this current.  Something that I’ve been aware of, but finding the time has been interesting.  All of the time that I could have spent writing a blog and passing on not much news I chose to spend reading everyone else’s blogs and race reports.  Some mighty fine efforts going on out there.

The upshot is that I’m experiencing Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day, minus Sonny & cher waking me up on the clock radio.  And that’s likely because I don’t have a clock radio.

The routine’s the same.  Wake up, shave, eat breakfast, head to work.  Work, lunch, work, dinner, work, walk back to the room.  Run, shower, sleep.  Rinse, repeat.  Not much to tell there.

But one nice thing about being here is that there are regularly scheduled events.  Last weekend was the monthly 10K, which was a mirror of Atlanta’s Peachtree 10K, which they held on July 4th and we held it on the 6th.  I ran a respectable 51:01 on that run, which I was pleased with considering that I had just finished a 15-mile run not 6.5 hours before the start gun went off.

It’s getting warm here.  Some say downright hot.  Every afternoon is in the one-teen’s.  At night, we dip down into the mid-80’s.  So I run at night.

Before midnight it’s typically hanging right around 100 degrees.  But there’s no sun and usually a light breeze, so it’s pretty comfortable.  Funny enough, depending on which depression I run through, it can get downright cool.  The only downside to running at night is that the narrow roads are pretty rough, so footing can be tricky.  The shoulders are either non-existent or even rougher, so they’re just begging for a turned ankle.  Dust abounds, which burns the eyes and nose.  And the bats are fearless.  I even had one fly into the side of my face during one interval session.

The dust storms have been sporadic.  Much better than the first half of June, where it was continuous.  During the dust storms, I head to the gym and jump on the dreadmill.  So far my record has been two hours for 13.5 miles.  Don’t know if I could do much more than that.

Anyway, back to the race.

The Boilermaker 15K is held in Utica, NY.  We held the eastern version of it here this morning, on the same day as the event back home.  Here there were several hundred runners while there they probably had 25,000 or more.

Race time there was a respectable 8 am.  Here it was 5 am, thanks to some folks inability to deal with the heat.  Actually, it was a smart move, considering it was already 87 at 5 am.  Had they started it at 8am, it was 91 and an hour later it was 97.  Definitely too hot to safely run a race.

Although we won’t talk about my noon-time run yesterday when it was 108.

The course here was a 4.65 mile loop that we had to run twice.  They have hills in Utica; here we have a flat road with less than 20 feet of climbinb in the 15K.  But to make up for the lack of hills we had a widely varying surface, from smooth asphalt to dirt to deep gravel to broken asphalt with foot-sized holes that were perfect for rolling an ankle.

I seeded myself towards the front since I was planning on giving this one all I had while pacing smartly.  The horn went off and we were gone.  I quickly settled in to a nice steady 7:40/mile pace, which I hoped to maintain all the way through and finish with a less-than-8:00/mile pace.  As usual the rabbits were gone and they started falling back just over a mile into the race.

We spread out pretty quick and it was easy to find a rhythm.  I had to laugh when we got to the far end turn and the guy was there yelling times (17:15, 17:20,…) although he didn’t know how far into the run we were.  You know, useful information.  BTW, my Garmin tells me we were at 2.29 miles.

Heading back in was uneventful, other than the quick dive into the Porta-John at mile 3.

At the mid-point turnaround it was pretty easy to gauge where folks were.  Several dozen were ahead of me and there weren’t too many close behind.  It wasn’t until about half a mile past the turnaround that we ran into a mass gaggle of folks headed in to the midway point.

I was feeling good, holding steady in Zone 4.  That was one thing I was proud of during this effort.  I had my Garmin on, but I didn’t pay attention to it.  I just went by feel.  I managed to hold solid in Zone 4 for most of the run.  At just after 7.3 miles, I gave a little surge to pass a few people, which apparently put me into Zone 5, where I held it for the next 1.1 miles.  That was a bit of a downfall there, since I felt like I had lead legs at mile 8.5-9.

During that stretch I was pushing to pass a few people.  Why?  A t-shirt.

When they announced the race, they said that the first 50 finishers would get a t-shirt.  I didn’t know how far back I was, but everyone in front of me was the potential 50th finisher.  So I was hunting them down.  But during that half mile stretch between 8.5 and 9, I gave a few positions back thanks to my too early surge.

But by mile 9, I had it back and was able to steadily accelerate to the finish.  I didn’t have a sprint left in the legs, which didn’t matter since the guy in front of me was about 100 meters ahead and the guy behind was about 50 meters back.

I can honestly say that I left it all on the course.  And I was pleased with that.

Finish time was 1:16:29 for the 15K, which worked out to an 8:11/mile average.  While off my goal, I was still pleased with my overall effort and pacing.  Looking back at the data now that I’ve downloaded it has been enlightening, especially showing me why I had such heavy legs for that half-mile stretch.

All-in-all, a good time.  Would I recommend this race?  Yep.  I think they did a good job of putting it on.  Will I run it again?  I sure as hell hope not.  Would I want any of you to?  No way.

But I’m glad I did it.

Did I get a shirt?  Yep.  But it turns out that they gave them out to the first 200 people that registered.  And they weren’t Boilermaker shirts, just shirts of the base that we were running on.

At least Peachtree sent out “Official Iraqi Finisher” t-shirts.  But I’m not complaining.  I’m just glad to be able to get out and test myself once in a while against other folks instead of my normal plodding along for 2-3 hours in the dark by myself.

Ode to the HP Man

Thank you, oh man of the honey pot.  If I could drink a beer, I’d hoist one in your honor.  But I can’t have a beer, so the hoisting will have to wait.  Plus, if I had a beer, I’d mess up your handiwork.

Why the homage to the honey pot man?  Well, they are lifesavers in these parts.

Every day, sometimes twice a day, they stop by and pump them dry, replenishing the chemical slush at the same time.

They then spray out the entire box with a chemical disenfectant.  It sure makes it smell good in there.  But one lesson I learned is that while this is a very desirable thing, one should not step inside the box about 10 minutes after they are done.

The direct sun and 110F temperature outside temperature easily turn the inside into a 150F sauna.  Couple that with the washdown and it turns the inside into a steam room of 150F with about 90% humidity.

I’ll hold it, thank you.  And for those who know me well know I can’t hold it for anything.

And the final thank you to Mr Honey Pot Man is for the fresh rolls of TP.

Any race that I’ve ever attended needs to figure out how to hire these guys.

I Want Credit For Trying It

OMG, this is so my situation right now.

Over here, KBR runs the DFACs (Dining Facilities).  Nope, we can’t call them Chow Hall’s anymore.  But we do anyway.

Well, the DFACs have quite a spread.  So good, in fact, that a significant portion of the folks over here actually gain weight.  Nothing like having an all-you-can-eat buffet for every meal of the day.

Quite a departure from 10+ years ago, where we’d deploy folks that were in danger of getting drummed out for weight issues.  Deploy them for 120 days and they’d come back 10-15 (or more) pounds lighter.

So what does that have to do with Frazz’s dilemma?

I have a co-worker here who talks every day, every meal about how he needs to lose weight.  Every meal he pushes back from the table and says that he’s headed to the desert bar because he can’t help himself.

And he’ll talk to every new person we meet about how he needs to lose the weight and control his eating.

So he got a used bike.  Cheap.  Like ten dollars cheap.  But you don’t want (or need) anything more than that.  He got it from someone who was heading home.  Certainly not a bike that I’d race or train with, but certainly something that would do a good job of getting around and maybe cranking a few laps around the lakes.

You know, something that would help burn off some of that dessert.

First ride, he comes back and says that it’s unusable.  Why?  Because the back wheel wobbles.

I offered to go after it with a can of WD-40 and a wrench to true the wheel.  Nope, that’s too much trouble.  Easier to complain about it

So I do feel Frazz’s pain.

Maloelelei

Fefe hake?

Before you think I’m off my rocker (well, more than normal) - I just said “Hello” and then asked “How are You”? in Tongan.  Why?  Because I have this bit of conversation every day with the Tongan Marines, who are here in Iraq doing their part.   And just like the multitude of other languages I know, that’s the extent of my knowledge.

Quite a multi-national crowd here - Australians, Tongans, Brits, Japanese, Poles, South Koreans, Ugandans, Kenyans, etc.  Notably absent are the French.

The Tongans are great.  Always very cordial, very cheerful and quite the characters.  Even if I’m in a bit of a foul mood, they manage to break it before I get to work or get back to my bed.

Well, work is work here.  I’ve done a bit of traveling, although that’s stopped over the past week.  Thanks to the summertime Shamal, flying has become a bit of a chore.  And the roads really aren’t an option.

The Shamal is the seasonal (summertime) wind.  AKA the 120-day wind, since it starts at the end of May and lasts until September, the Shamal can be a bitch.  When all of the parameters line up just right, the Shamal tries to move all of Syria and Iraq into the Indian Ocean, dust grain by dust grain, sand grain by sand grain.

It’s not the wall of dirt that you see in the movie “The Mummy“, but a gradual decrease in visibility and darkening of the sky.  The wall of dirt (like in the movies) is a wintertime phenomena.

When the Shamal really kicks in, like last Sunday and today, it gets downright nasty outside.  At 2 pm it’s pretty dark and you can’t see but a hundred yards or so.  It really wreaks havoc with the eyes and nose.  Not to mention the run.

As it happens, my training plan right now has my long runs on Sunday.  Last Sunday I woke up at 2:30 am and stumbled to the bathroom, realizing that the dirt was flying.  So much for that run.

But the fools took off that morning on the scheduled 10K!  From what I hear, they even announced at the beginning that they probably shouldn’t be holding it, but they fired the gun.  And the fools ran in it.  Gonna
make for some interesting respiratory issues later on, I suspect.

So my option that day was to head to the gym after work to face my nemesis, the dreadmill.  I don’t care if it’s -10F or +110F, pissing down rain or hailing, I’ll run outside.  But it doesn’t work in the dust so well.  So it was time for the hamster wheel.

It was definitely a breakthrough for me.  Eleven miles on a dreadmill!  I could have kept going, but I stopped at 1:45 since that’s what my training plan called for.  And not a minute longer.

Although I discovered a “feature” on the dreadmill - it automagically kicks into cool-down mode at 1:36.  I thought that was an odd time.  Tonight I discovered that you can only program it up to 99 minutes.  Bastages!

So here it is a week later and I had to do the same thing tonight.  This week was a recovery week, so I only did 9 miles in 1:20.  But it’s not so bad.  I’ve even thought of doing a few of my tempo/interval runs on
the dreadmill.  It makes sense since there’s no cheating, but the downside is that I don’t keep my legs used to the pounding of the road.

One interesting thing tonight was at about 35 minutes into my run, a Kenyan (no joke) stepped onto a treadmill in front and to the right of me.  Gave me full view of his display.  As he started slowly at 8:00/pace, then ramped it up to 6:00/pace by his 10:00 point, then down to 5:30 pace for several minutes.  But I was on his tail - he just couldn’t pull away from me.  The faster he ran, I was stuck on his shoulder like my sweaty shirt stuck to my back.

And that’s the only time that’ll ever happen. 

So the training is going good.  Today marks 100 days until I attempt my 40 for 40.

On another note, thanks to you folks that send well-wishes.  I can tell you that it’s pretty quiet here right now, regardless of what the media is telling you.  The Iraqi’s are taking care of their own business.  Matter of fact, the biggest threat we’ve faced since I’ve been here was this past Saturday, when the Iraqi soccer team defeated China 2-1.  Since they won, many Iraqi’s take to the streets and fire their weapons into the air to celebrate.  So we just stayed inside for an hour or so after the end of the game.

Take care, each and every one of you.  And I look forward to watching all of you that are competing in CdA next weekend - best of luck!

Back in the Saddle

Well, it’s been a few weeks, hasn’t it?

Here I sit, in the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq.  Sitting outside at 7:45pm, it’s about 95 degrees and lovely.  No humidity!

It’s been a crazy few weeks.  Getting acclimated and trying to figure out a schedule.  The first layover was in Kuwait for about 24 hours.  That was the first hit of hot, dry air.  But it felt great.  I sat in the shade and watched the camel herder work his magic with his large herd off in the distance.

Baghdad’s been interesting.  Quite a bit of dust since I’ve been here.  According to our records, which are spotty, this winter has been the most significant drought that this region’s ever experienced.  So it’s made for a dusty spring/early summer.  Last Sunday was so dusty that at 2pm we couldn’t see 100 yards in any direction.

I’m lucky in that I get to travel.  So I’ve seen a bit of the country from the air already and it’s actually quite pretty.  In a National Geographic-esque kind of way.  Flying over downtown Baghdad in the morning, the markets are bustling and full of color, both on the stands and in the clothing.  Sunrise and sunset are fairly surreal with the dust hanging in the air and the faint outline of the mosques and Saddam’s palaces in the distance.

As you may already know, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers converge just south of Baghdad.  That means this region is quite fertile and green, even though we’re in the middle of the desert.  Flying over the outskirts of town, the agriculture extends for as far as you can see.  All different types of crops, including rows and rows of date palms.

Further north, as in way north, almost to Turkey and Syria, is the serious desert.  No vegetation for as far as the eye can see.  But if you look close, it’s obvious that they take advantage of the cool season growing, since the shallow imprints of the rows are visible everywhere.

I’ve managed to get back into my training plan.  Just 20 short weeks to get ready for my next event, which will be here in Baghdad.  Forty miles for my 40th birthday.  Sounds like a good way to spend the day, since there aren’t many options here.

For the most part, it’s been short runs and a couple of gym days.  This morning has been the most significant run - a nice, easy 8 miles.

Well, got to get back to it.  Y’all take care!

Oh, and here’s a shot of me flying over Baghdad on my first full day here: