Category Archives: Thoughts

A few days of recovery running and thinking about last weekend’s race have brought up many thoughts, reflections and questions to my mind.

It has been a good opportunity to digest what I learned there and make some decisions about what I might do in future races.

The overriding thought that has been bugging me is this:

What could I have done being more aggressive throughout the race?

I will never know what I could have done that day.  Whether I would have run faster because I was capable of more, or slower because I would have gone out too fast and blown up.

But based on a lot of factors that I’ve been analyzing to myself, I am pretty well convinced that I could have run faster last Saturday in my current state of fitness.  I could be totally wrong there, like I said, I have no way of knowing for sure.  But this much I do know:  next time I race a similar distance, June 26 at Logan Peak, I’m going to push my limits instead of holding back so much.  I now feel comfortable with what I can do on a 5 hour race at that exertion level, and I’m pretty eager to go out next time and take more risk, and see what kind of potential I have…and answer the above question for myself.

Something has been bugging me ever since the race:  Anita Ortiz

Now, don’t take that the wrong way.  I have met Anita once for like 2 seconds after the Dirty Thirty last year, and otherwise, watching her pass me at mile 8 or so on Saturday is the only other time I’ve seen her.  And there is nothing about her that is bugging me.  In fact, I’m highly impressed by her consistent ability to kick butt at ultra running events.

What’s been bugging me is this:  When she passed me at mile 8 in the race, she was breathing pretty heavily.  She seemed to be in a zone already, rocking to some tunes, and just on her own personal mission to race all out and give it her all.  At least that was my impression.  I know for sure she was working a lot harder than me at that point, because I could hear her labored, loud breathing coming up behind me as she passed.  And I was hardly breathing hard at all.  I was still just in pretty much social mode, as I thought I would be throughout the first 2/3 of the race.

So what’s the deal with that?  Do I or did I just have a demented view of what it takes to race fast?  Could I have been working that hard that early on, and still held that hard of an effort to the finish?  Should I be taking cues from this tough as nails lady who wins tons of ultras and kicks most of the guys butts, not to mention the ladies at most races she enters?

What the heck?  Should I have just latched onto her and followed her to a much faster time?  Could I have?  I know for a fact I could have matched her pace at that moment if I wanted to, and it wouldn’t have been all that strenuous to do so.  But I consciously stayed in my conservative low 150′s HR because that is what I told myself was the plan for the day.

So now what?  I don’t know.   Nick and Justin say I should bag the HR monitor in a race and it would be doing myself a favor.  Would it really?  I want to know more about why you two suggest that.  I want to believe you.  You are both faster runners and more accomplished than me.  But I have to admit I’m having a hard time accepting that.  I like knowing, by my heart rate, what my exertion level is.  It’s valuable data in my mind.  Now, what I choose to do with that data is another story.

I do believe I can set a higher standard for myself.  For example, go out closer to a 160 HR for the first 2/3 of the race, instead of a 150 HR.  And see where that gets me.  But how am I supposed to know what it is if I don’t wear the monitor?   And does it matter if I know that?  Well, of course its not essential to know what my HR is.  I can tell basically how hard I’m working just by how I feel and how my breathing is.  And I know myself enough now to know what a 160 HR feels like.  But what about when I’m getting tired at the end, or when I’m going down hill or something.  Sometimes I need to see that HR going lower to give myself a kick in the pants to pick up the pace.  Because I may feel tired, and feel like I’m working hard perhaps, but looking at my HR it may be low.  So I know I just need to drink, or eat then, and kick up the effort a notch.  Or sometimes if I’m all alone in the wind, it’s comforting and helpful to know that “hey, you know what, even though my pace is slow right now, my effort level is solid.”  I can see that by the numbers.  I may be second guessing or getting discouraged if I didn’t know that.  Or I may not push myself as hard as I could because mentally at that moment I’m just tired or something.  Knowledge is power in my opinion, in many regards, but definitely when it comes to my heart rate.

However, I do realize that one reason why I’ve been wearing a HR monitor in my latest races, is because last year at Golden Gate dirty thirty, and at Northfork 50K, I didn’t wear it.  And at Northfork 50K I went out too hard, and didn’t fuel properly, and I bonked harder than I ever have before.  And truthfully, I do not want to feel that kind of a bonk ever again.  It hurt really bad, and it was not fun at all, it sucked.  And in the moment I hated running and couldn’t understand why I would ever want to run anywhere.  So I think deep down, I’m hesitant to go out too hard because I’m afraid a little that I’ll get burned again and I won’t like it.  But I have to admit also, that I believe that fueling improperly was the major reason I bonked, and not the fact that I went out too fast.  In fact, I may not have gone out too fast, it may have solely been due to lack of caloric intake that I bonked.  I have no way of knowing that for sure.

Now I know that sounds pretty weak and kind of lame, to not want to go too hard for fear of bonking.  But it has definitely been a factor in my subconscious ever since.

But at the same time, I want to get faster, and race stronger.  And I know it’s going to take a lot of mental toughness and at times pushing through some pain or exhaustion if I go out too hard.  At Moab, I wasn’t interested in taking risks.  I wanted to see what I could do on an extremely evenly paced effort.  And that’s exactly what I did and I feel good about it.  I paced it very evenly, and that was in large part because I knew my HR the whole time.

I know this though…Next time I race I am upping the ante on myself one way or another.  But I don’t know if that means leaving the HR monitor behind, and right at this moment I don’t think it does for me.  But I’m curious to hear more opinions on that.

What it means for me right now, is I’m going to shoot to average a 160 or higher average heart rate throughout my next 4-5 hour race and see if I can do that.  This time I held 149.  I know for a fact I can hold a 157 average HR for 2 hours because I did it a month before the race on a tempo longer 16 miler that I did, where my avg pace was 7:35/mile over 16 miles with 2000 Feet of vertical going up Eldorado canyon then across the mesa trail.  But how am I supposed to know that if I don’t wear the monitor?  I’m guessing you will say that it doesn’t matter that I know that…all that matters is how fast I ran the race.  But my question is this…what is the better way for me to optimize my race speed…to know the data and push myself to the next level that way, or to just go by feel, and race the people around me?  Or a mixture of the two?

Those are my thoughts/questions post Moab Red Hot.  What a great race!  I thoroughly enjoyed running that course, and meeting and chatting with everyone along the way and before and after.  What a great event.  I am already eager to go back and try that course again next year…with a new experience level and mindset.

HA HA HA!! I had a hearty internal laugh at my perspective after feeling I was making decent progress to post my biggest mileage month ever in October at 168 Miles….only to find out that Tony Krupicka posted a casual 500 MILES MORE THAN THAT!  Nice…It’s all about perspective I suppose.