Category — VT 100

So once again I have registered for the Vermont 100 Mile Endurance Run.  I had until July of next year to register, but I just could not stand the feeling of being without a big race planned for next year.  It is like I have no purpose in life, without something to focus on.  I feel better knowing that I have something waiting for me.  It gives me a reason to continue training and more importantly, just something to look forward to.  Life is so much more interesting when this is so.  The anticipation of a big event, the anticipation of anything really, is what adds the spice to life.

The big question surrounding this race is whether or not I will be able to get to the starting line injury free.  As much as I love ultra-running, ultra-running does not seem to agree with my body.  I keep getting injured every time I try to go mega long.  50 miles is about the longest I seem to be able to train for without getting seriously injured.  I’ll just have to take it slowly this year and not push myself too hard.

One of the main considerations of deciding to do the VT100 is the fact that I am still not fully recovered from the Furnace Creek 508.  By not recovered, I mean that I have a lingering health problem as a result of the race.  It’s a quality of life issue health issue that I am dealing with and not anything that is actually preventing me from being able to ride or do any physical activity.  Without getting too much into details, let’s just say that I’ve lost feeling in certain parts of my body… Parts which I would very much like to get the feeling back.  So until that feeling comes back, bike riding is off limits for me.

You can see the problem area that is causing my lack of feeling in my MRI.  From what I am told, both sides of the image should be symmetrical.  You can see a black spot on the right side, whereas on the left, a contiguous line appears.  I have no idea what this part of my body is called.  Perhaps if you are a neurologist or urologist stumbling upon these images you will be kind enough to offer your opinion.   So in the meantime, until I get my feeling back, I will just be grateful that I already have children.

Problem Area Photo 1

There is really not much to report. I am still doing between an hour to two hours a day on my bike, albeit indoors on my trainer while watching TV. I am getting a decent cardio workout in so I am not too worried about not going outside with my bike. Besides, if I am going to ride outdoors, I need to do it in the morning and I’ve been much of a wuss lately, in as much as I can’t get myself up early enough, nor do I feel like dealing with the chilly Spring weather.

This past weekend was mostly about baseball with my son. I knew this would be happening years ago. I knew the time would come when my son would start playing little league baseball and that I would be committed to taking him to practice and his games. Little did I know then how much he would love to play the game. He never wants to stop practicing. We stay in the park long after his team’s practice is over to continue catching and batting the ball. The same goes for after his games. He wants to be the best and perhaps one day the next Derek Jeter.

This just confirms my thoughts that it would be very hard to train for Ironman once my son got to little league age. I got away with it through last year, but I don’t see how I could have done it this year, even if I really wanted to. It makes me sad to know that I am not in Ironman shape, the way I used to be, but I guess that is the tradeoff. Ironman will have to wait for a couple of years before I attempt to do it again.

I only wish I was able to run right now. I found that training for the Vermont 100 Endurance Run is a lot easier than training for an Ironman. All I needed to do on a given day was run for a few hours. I was easily able to fit that in. Ironman training would have required many more hours and besides not really being able to fit it in, I really don’t have it in me to do right now. I was completely invested in training for the VT100 and I can’t focus on anything else. Hopefully come May, I’ll be able to run again and still be able to get ready for the race. In the meantime, I’ll just have to be satisfied with running in my dreams.

Well, I am still running on my leg with the painful shin. I just apply some Denial and I am good to go. Denial is a great product, you can get it right off the shelf and all it really costs is some breakthrough pain in the morning. So far the costs have been manageable, although it does seem to get a little bit more expensive every day. But as long as it is just a little bit at a time I think I can manage it. I attribute these rising cost to inflation (aka inflammation), but just so long as the price rises slowly I think I will be able to keep up with it.

I am really not sure what I will do if the cost suddenly spikes and I find myself no longer able to afford it. My whole identity as an athlete right now is wrapped up in doing this 100 mile race. I want it very bad and I am willing to put up with a lot. I just don’t see myself doing anything else right now. Well, check that, I can, but I don’t want to do them. Maybe I can spend some time on the Elliptical Trainer at the gym as an alternative to running once a week. At least the motion is similar to running.

Last night when I came home from work, I was feeling very tired, slightly nauseous and the Denial was wearing off a bit so my shin was feeling a bit painful. I really wanted to just go to sleep and call it a day, but doing that is not how a 100 mile runner is made. So I lathered on some more Denial, took 3 ibuprofen (works great in combination with Denial) and went out for an 8 mile run. I have to say that once I got going, I started to feel much better. I was very pleasantly surprised. Sometimes when I am tired I get a mile from home, run out of juice and wind up walking. Not last night though. My legs carried me very well and I had a spiffy 8.1 mile run in 1:11:16; only 6 seconds slower than my run on Tuesday night. Not bad considering how I felt when I started and the fact that I once again overdressed.

So to answer my Twitter friend Darkgracie’s question “you are crazy! your shin will just hurt worse… is living in denial working for you? *wink*”, – yes, denial is working for me so far. People live in denial all of the time and survive. Denial can take you a long way. I just need my denial to take me 100 miles.

I am a masochist. I guess though that anyone who is into endurance sports is part masochist though. How else to explain why people push themselves through such great lengths to complete a grueling endurance event. The pain that they receive brings to them a certain level of pleasure, especially when the complete the event that they set out to do. That is a good pain.

These days though, I am experiencing a bad pain. The pain in my shins is really becoming a problem. It hasn’t stopped me from running yet, but the pain is almost always present. I am trying hard to convince myself that what I am feeling is pleasure. I need to rewire my mind so that I view this discomfit (understatement) that I am feeling in my shins should be relished the same way as I relish the feel of muscle soreness after a good hard workout. Only difference is that this soreness never goes away. I get to experience the pleasure of it all the time. I guess I am taking my masochism to a new level. I just don’t give a fuck this time around. I’ve let shin pain sideline me for several races in my life and I am fed up with it. I will command my body to do what my mind wants it to do regardless of the way my body feels about it. I will keep taking another running step until the point comes that my leg collapses because it is no longer able to bear my weight. Maybe then I’ll go for the amputation and run with one of those new fangled artificial running legs.

Pain is a very interesting thing. Some people are addicted to it like a drug and actively seek it out. For me, part of it is how good it feels once the pain is gone. The sense of relief and release stimulates endorphins in me and makes me feel good. I enjoy knowing that I got myself to the point of such hurt. What is pain anyway but the remembrance of it? Once it is gone, it’s over. It’s like it never really happened.

I’ve wondered what some people would do if presented with the opportunity to become filthy rich if they endured the worst horrific and agonizing pain they could imagine for 24 hours. Would they do it? Probably not, but then add into the equation that they would have no recollection of what they went through over the 24 hour period. Once the 24 hours is up, it would be like they fell asleep and just woke up with no memory of what they went through. Would it have ever really happened? Would you do it then?

Maybe I’ll do some permanent damage to myself and always have a pain in my leg. I wonder though if every time I feel the pain, I’ll look back and smile over the achievements I accomplished that caused what I am feeling now. Will it have been worth it? Right now I believe it will have been.

So anyway, getting back to the training I’ve done this week, it’s been pretty uneventful so far. Monday I did an easy one hour spin on my bike after I got home from work. I worked up a nice sweat, but didn’t push myself all that hard. Tuesday night was a good workout. I went out with my friend Larry and we did two loops of a virtually deserted Prospect Park. The park was so empty that it felt more like 2am, rather than 7pm. We talked about various shit, but especially the VT100 from the time he did it. I am amazed at how much recollection he has of the event. To help me remember it and to keep my friends informed of my progress, I plan on doing an Utterz every 10 miles or so. I should be very interesting to go back and hear how I sounded as the race progressed.

Wednesday night I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I was supposed to swim, but that is such a pain in the ass. I decided to skip the pool and spin on my bike for a while instead. My coach tells me it doesn’t matter what I do, that Wednesday s and Fridays are just recovery. I have to say that as of right now, training for a 100 mile running race has been a lot easier than training for an Ironman. But tell me to say that again when I start doing back to back 40 miles on the weekends.

Tonight I downed 3 ibuprofin and took my aching shins out for an 8 mile run. At first my shins were hurting and with every step it was as if someone was tapping the insides of my shins with a hammer. However, as the run progress, the pain from the hammer tapping diminished and I was able to resume a normal running pace. I was able to space out during the run and get myself into that runner’s zone where things just start to flow. As I slowly progress towards 8 miles, I began to get confidence that I will indeed be able to run the VT100. I have seriously doubted it from the way my shins have been feeling, but if how they feel now is the worse they will get, I will be able to handle the pain. It’s already becoming something I am accustomed to feeling all of the time, sort of like being accustomed to always have tired legs when you climb up a flight of stairs. I finished these 8 miles strong and filled with the confidence that I will have what it takes come this July. Does a mid-week run get any better than that?

I really couldn’t sleep Saturday night. I finally feel asleep around 12:30am after sucking on an Ambien, but I woke up again at around 3:30am. So I went downstairs and had a bowl of cereal and decided that I may as well go for a run. My moving around woke up my wife so I told her my plans of going outside for a run. She thought I was insane and didn’t want me to go outside for fear that something would happen to me. I told her to make me a better offer than a middle of the night run. She offered up our basement treadmill as a viable alternative; that was not the offer I was hoping to hear so my middle of the night outdoor run became even more appealing.

I wasn’t sure where I was going to run. I thought maybe I’d stick to the sidewalks so at least I could be seen from the streets. I ran down to Grand Army Plaza and stopped to take a photo and make an Utterz to memorialize this event. I decided from there to go into Prospect Park. I’ve never had trouble at this time of night and figured I’d be better able to see someone coming from afar. It would be more deserted, but I felt safer inside the park.

I think I enjoyed this run more than any other run so far this year. I love the feeling of being outdoors in the middle of a January winter’s night, with the wind howling, leaves rustling and strange sounds emanating from everywhere. I felt like I was walking on the moon. It doesn’t matter how slowly or fast I run when I achieve this sort of feeling. I just love being outside with the world seemingly all to myself. The only company I had for the hour and ten minutes I was outside were rustling leaves and a solitary rat.

Normally when I am outdoors at times like this, I have music pumping into my ears. Unfortunately, the battery on my Ipod Shuffle decided to die soon once I entered the park. I normally like to seal off my senses from as much of the environment as possible to complete that spaceman on the moon feeling, but with the battery dead, I entertained myself to the sounds of the world instead. It at times got a little creepy. I would suddenly hear something rustling right next to me and I would get a start that it was some nefarious person out to do me harm. You hear so many different sounds at night when the world is still; sounds that are masked during the day.

My running felt very sublime. I was tired, but awake, running, but moving slow and I felt completely at peace with the world. Doing this run on so little sleep was a big confidence booster that I will be able to make it through the night at the VT100. I think I could have run all night long, but I knew I needed to get back home and try to get some sleep before the day began. I wanted to be awake to watch the football games later on TV.

I settled on doing just 6 miles. I let my course through the park meander a bit and I exited at a place that I don’t normally exit and enter the park. Doing so was divine providence. I had a clear view down a long street with the most fantastic full moon I’ve ever seen in my life. The moon was at the extreme western edge of the horizon and the sun which was still well below the eastern horizon was shining on it with a brilliant orange glow. It was the biggest full moon disk I’ve ever seen and I stopped me in my tracks. I stood in the middle of the road and stared in awe at this fiery looking orb for about 10 minutes. I am lucky the police didn’t come by or I would have been carted off to Bellevue Hospital. I tried in vain to get a good picture of it with my camera phone, but the street lamps would sort have wash out the effect of the moon. I felt like going into my house and waking everyone up so they could see it – for some reason though I didn’t think my wife would be amenable to getting up for that considering our earlier conversation.

So after completely cooling off while staring at the moon, I finally went inside, grabbed a quick bite and then iced down my shins. My house was very cold and between cooling down and icing; I became completely chilled to the bone. Fortunately, my wife was nice and warm when I got into bed. Heh hee.

It was a pretty difficult run this morning. It was nothing about the course I ran, it just felt like my legs had a hard time moving. This happens sometimes and I am not sure why. Sometimes I think it just has to do with running in the morning, before my body has fully woken up and warmed up. I know there have been times when I’ve gone out feeling like I did, only to turn around, go back home and then do the run later in the day at which time I felt great. But I was already outside and I didn’t feel like turning back so I persevered through a 6.2 mile run. It wasn’t my best, but at least I did it and the morning was absolutely beautiful. Perfect really for a January morning run and much more enjoyable than yesterday’s one hour ride on the spin bike at the NYSC.

I wish though the run put me in a better mood for the rest of the day. I have to deal with an asshole at work; someone who insist on cooking inside my kitchen. She insists she knows how to bake my pie, but the only thing she is going to do is make a mess of things. I really need to tell her to go fuck herself. Lord knows she can probably use it as I can’t see anyone, male or female wanting to get anywhere near this creature. She makes stomachs turn and skin crawl. Maybe I can get everyone to start calling her Guffy – Gezz Ugly, Feel Free to Fuck Yourself. It so fits her.

I’ll just have to focus on more pleasant thoughts throughout the day. Like running through the woods during the VT100 when I am dead tired, achy and can hardly move. I get chills thinking about that. How bad will I feel? Will I be feeling bad at all? All of these are questions that I do not have answers for. The closest I have to knowing this information were the 5 times I’ve done an Ironman. If that’s the case, then I suppose I won’t know whether or not I could do it until I actually cross the finish line. I remember when I ran my best Ironman, an 11:11 effort at Lake Placid that I really didn’t know if I would finish the race until I started to head down the finishers shoot. I remember thinking I could blow up at anytime. I suppose that is what it will be like at the VT100. I’ll probably be at the 99 mile mark and still wondering if I could do it. You just never know. I could take a break at mile 99, sit down, fall asleep and then miss the cutoff. It’s an unlikely scenario, but possible. I am just going to have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I will continue working out, even on those days when I don’t feel so great. I must get used to training through all sorts of conditions and feelings. I am sure I will be going through many conditions and feelings once I start the VT100.

I suppose I should give up drinking now that I am committing myself towards training for the VT100 and the fact that the alcohol tends to exacerbate my headaches. However, I told myself I should live my life in moderation and giving up all alcohol would be abstinence and not moderation. I believe that total abstinence is the right policy for very few things in life. I like to try most everything at least once in a while. Think about it… I can’t even say that I totally abstain on killing. I wouldn’t hesitate to kill a cockroach running across my path.

Yesterday I did manage to drink again. I was with a large group of colleagues from my office and we were all at the Marriott Marquois Times Square bar chilling out after attending a day of conferences. At first I decided to only drink water, but the temptation of free booze and getting a little loose with a group of people I for the most part liked was eventually too great. I decided to have a Guinness beer or two while we were hanging around waiting for a post conference party to begin. I was careful to monitor myself and not drink too much as I didn’t want the headache I had in the morning to return. That headache required a shot of Imitrix in my ass to get rid of it. I didn’t feel like going back there.

So anyway, I drank 1.5 beer mug size glasses (or was it 2.5) of Guinness before we headed to a Mexican restaurant/bar for the after party. There I had half a glass of a frozen marguerita, which I didn’t like and hence only half a glass and then a bottle of Bohemia, my favorite Mexican beer. I ate lousy, noshing on tortilla chips and an assortment of Quesadillas that were being served as cocktails. While I was there, I was talking to another colleague who does a lot of training as well. She was telling me how she decided to take today off from training. All I could think about was how I missed my training this morning and how I really felt like I should have done something today. I decided right then and there that I was going to cut the night short and go home for a run in Prospect Park. I said my goodbyes and made for the subway.

I got home pretty quick, but feeling minimally headachy and tired. I forced myself out the door though, since I know come the VT100, I’ll be more than headachy and tired come 1am in the morning when I will have been running for over 18 hours. I need to get used to running when I don’t want to. Perhaps drinking and making myself not feel so great is a great strategy for preparing my body for this type of training. I’ll have to check with my coach on that one.

So anyway, last night’s run turned out to be a decent 4 miles around Prospect Park. I felt really good about getting myself out there and I enjoyed a nice run in solitude. It was just the type of calming thing to help me fall asleep later, without the need of an Ambien.

Well I ran longer than I should have this morning, especially considering I shouldn’t have run at all. This morning was a scheduled pool workout, but I woke up too late to get the swim in and make it to work on time. So I went out for what should have been a short run, but instead I went ahead and made it longer. Only 6.3 miles, but it turned what should have been a sub 30 minute workout into almost an hour. So now I am just as late to work as if I had gone to the pool. Maybe not that bad, but still I am pushing the line with how late I’m going in. What’s worse is I have a meeting I am going to be late for. Oh well. I was just enjoying my run too much to stop it short.

Unlike yesterday I was running pretty well today. I averaged about 9 minute miles pretty effortlessly. My HR is still a little high for a 9mm effort, but that will come down over the next couple of months. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do on the fitness I lost over the late fall. The key is to just keep from getting too exuberant with my running to prevent potential injury. That is going to be hard to do though if I keep feeling the way I did during this morning’s run. It was one of those days where I get chills down my spine from feeling so good. Part of the good feelings was thinking about what I am going to be doing in July. In fact I am getting those chills now as I type this blog entry.

Running the VT100 is going to be something that is great. A real point in my life that I will remember. I think of myself now running alone in the middle of the night. Will I be delirious? Will I be happy? Will I be thinking about lying on the ground, rolling into a ball and dying? I have no idea and that is part of the excitement. I will be pushing my body to a point it’s never been to before. I’ll be exploring uncharted territory; reaching the unknown. I’ll be a modern day explorer searching my own soul for answers. I’ll measure myself as a man, see what sort of guts I have and run for 100 miles. Failure at this endeavor is not an option. Knowing that I am going to be doing this, well, it’s not a feeling I can easily describe.

I am going to make a concerted effort this year to fully document my training online. After all, it’s not every year where I will be training for a 100 mile race. I should pay respect to what I am going to do and document how I got there. Half if not most of the event is all of the training you do leading up to it. I’d only be telling half the story if all I wrote about was doing the event itself and not writing about what I did to allow me to accomplish my goal.