Two Months?

It's been two months since I posted? What? During the past two months, I didn't finish an ultramarathon, I did pack up and move, I experienced summer and now fall in Seattle, I bought a house, I ran by Steve Ballmer, I've started running simply for the love, I almost killed three other people on one of my runs for the love, and I've started Yelping all of the restaurants I've ever eaten at (I'm only about 10% through and sorry Phoenix, but the highest rating I've given to one of your restaurants is 3 out of 5).

For Life

The Westin in Bellevue has me for life. If I'm anywhere in the Seattle area, this hotel is where I will be staying at (assuming someone else is paying for it of course).

Last night, I went out for an 8 mile run. Gorgeous sunny evening (the sun doesn't go down until about 10pm). Bellevue is right on Lake Washington, so I decided to follow the shore and ran to Kirkland (yes, the town that headquarters Costco).

Upon my return to the hotel, one of the doormen ran up to me with a bottle of water, handed it to me, and asked me how my run went. A bottle of water at the door. Now that is service.

Mice

My dear sister, Beja, is taking pictures of our home as it is being constructed. I am pleased to tell you that we have lots of cabinets. In other words, we have many places for mice to hang out. Now I love mice droppings as much as the next cowboy and I'm more than happy to let them hang out in my garage and nibble on my cardboard to their smart little hearts content, but c'mon, this is getting a little ridiculous.

You can tell looking at our home that the builder picked out items that would be pleasing to both your typical guy and your typical gal. (I know what you're thinking Liz, "Hey, we're not typical. We're like rock star skateboarder drummers. The coolest people on the block." Well you might be baby, but this farsighted guy in his khaki pants and his white board loving brain, most definitely is. Please keep holding up the cool flag for the family because cool, if ever it resided within this physical body, has long since fled.) That was a long tangent. Sorry.

So back to the house and the gender appealing typicalness aspects of it. Lots of cabinets, back yard, high ceilings, bouncy carpet, spacious master bedroom, bedrooms close to the master bedroom, etc, etc were definitely created and designed with a woman in mind. In fact, I didn't remember anything about these features until I recently looked at Beja's photostream.

Appealing to the male gender, a tower. A tower. A freaking tower. Sold. Honestly, I couldn't have cared less about anything else. "Yes, Mr. Realtor, you may show me other homes, but only if they too offer a tower. No tower, no deal." (Thank you Dale by the way.)

When I looked at Beja's photostream today and saw all of the cabinets, instead of being all aflutter, I thought of rodents. Tiny little rodent dwellings. I hope they don't offer me sweets and then attempt to slice open my brain to take a peek.

In more interesting news, my diarrhea spree of four days has finally ceased. Just in time for my first ultramarathon (50k or 31.07 miles with 9200 feet of climbing) this weekend. Pictures will be forthcoming. Let's hear it for my 60 year old father running it with me and one of my brothers. You are the man!

Err, Seattle

I'm in Seattle four days a week for the next four to six months. It rains in Seattle. I'm not that fond of running in the rain. So today, I ran on a treadmill for the first time since last summer. However, it was a little bit different than last summer, as I was doing speed work on the treadmill and today, I was just running. However, I must say that as awful as running on a treadmill is, the technology has come a long way. I'll check the make/model of the treadmill that I'm using, but it had some cool features.

- A picture of a mountain on the display
- A dot representing me climbing the mountain
- A red line showing me where I had run

I ran 6 miles (it was all I could stand - it was a treadmill) and gained 600 feet over the first four miles, with over half of that being in the last mile. It was a decent run. I'm more excited to get out in the morning at 5am and run some of these hills. I do have a race coming up that I'm not the slightest bit prepared for.

30

30 degrees. Yesterday at the 2008 Mt. Diablo Marathon, it was 30 degrees warmer than any of my previous training runs up and down that mountain. Not yesterday. It was in the 80s. And that my friends is a recipe for pain.

Here's the elevation profile. That's 10,100 feet of elevation gain. To put that into perspective, you want to die going up about 1 mile into it. And then when you head down 2300 feet between miles 20 and 23, you want to die again.



I have many pictures. All of them taken on the run. More for me to help me recall why I should never do something like this again.

Here's a picture of my buddy Eric and I at the beginning. Note the 20 things on our belt. We don't travel light.



This is the start of the race. 90 people ran the marathon and 110 people ran the 50 miler. This guy was obviously running the 50.



And we're off. The race was mostly on single track trails, which made passing difficult and preventing getting passed (me) easy.



Cresting Eagle Peak (2300 feet of gain in 3 miles - nice) and running along the spine before dropping back down.



The dude in green shorts caught up to me. But I didn't let him pass me.



I like scenery. It makes me smile inside.



Lots of growth. Much rain this year.



Did I mention that there is lots of walking involved in this ultra-like events?



Pain and only 6 miles into it. Also, I have pretty large nostrils.



The top of the observation deck at the top of Diablo. 7.5 miles down. 18.7 miles to go. I actually felt pretty good at this point, which will partially explain why I felt so bad later.



Fuller's got some self-photography skills on the way down the first time.



The California poppies are out in force this year.



I've now gone down and am headed back up the second time. I have consumed about 80 ounces of liquid fuel (Perpeteum), 1200mg of Sodium, and 4 100 calorie caffeine gels. I need to invent liquid steak.



This face doesn't do justice to how I felt.



This one might. Notice that my right eye is more shut than my left. Always a dead giveaway that Mike is either tired or dead.



My favorite part of the course when I don't feel like dying.



Honestly, I don't remember taking this picture.



I soon finished. In 6 hours and 33 minutes. Just under a 4mph pace. Yikes. Eric finished about 13 minutes in front of me. I finished 27th out of 79 finishers. In the last 6 miles, about 7 people passed me, including Eric.

Here are my toes. The right one is particularly jacked.



And my dirty legs.



Even with the massive fluid and caloric intake, I lost 7 pounds during the race. Of course I gained it back and more by the end of the day. Mmmmm, lasagna.

Not Ready

I'm not ready for a 50 miler yet. In two weeks, I'll be running the marathon only. I believe in a two week taper, so yesterday was my last big run. It was the first time I went up the mountain twice. 5 hours to cover 21 miles (9000 feet of elevation gain). I'm hoping to break 6 hours on race day, but I kind of doubt that will happen. All of that up and down seriously kills me. Particularly the down. I will be bringing a camera on race day. The mountain is perfect. I caught my breath more than once yesterday with the sun beginning to set, the dark green hills, and more flowers than you can imagine. I don't have the words. It was amazing.

Addiction

I almost don't like sharing my running experiences anymore with anyone other than Liz. I'm usually pretty self-deprecating, but how can you be self-deprecating about a 23 mile run up and down a mountain or regular running weeks of 60+ miles. It just comes off as either psychotic or bragging, neither of which are words I want to be associated with. So I'll tell you about this past Saturday's run, but going forward, unless I'm running a race, I probably will no longer write about the mileage and elevation gain of my training runs.

The reason is that I crossed an imaginary line on Saturday. A line that spoke to me as I crossed it and said, "You should go 30 miles next week and go up and down Diablo twice." I didn't even flinch when I heard that voice. In fact, I thought to myself, that sounds like fun. So that most of my friends are able to understand, it's like the leap from marijuana to cocaine. It's a line that you don't think you're ever going to cross and then one day you wake up with your face in a pile of the white stuff and an M-16 lying on your desk. You don't really know why it happened, but man you feel pretty good.

So I'm in virgin running territory and I don't think I'm going to deny this addiction or step back over the line. April 12th is now about to become a 50 mile race (assuming the race director gives me the ok).

I haven't graduated to heroin yet. I don't see a 100 miler any time soon, but I'm not opposed to one in the future. The needle is there. I know it's coming. It's simply how long I can put it off.

6000

Yesterday I did a 20 mile trail run that had 6000 feet of gross elevation gain. Half of that was in the second five miles. Completely unplanned and totally sick. The top of Mt. Diablo just didn't seem that far away. Running through a mid-calf-deep stream that criss-crossed the trail 10 times at the bottom of the mountain felt great. I can't say that my quads are happy today, but I promise you that I'm going to do that again within the next two weeks.

Zen

I had a lazy winter (my apologies to those that are still experiencing winter - here in the Bay Area, winter was about three weeks long, with lots of rain and lows in the mid-30s - it is now sunny and in the 70s again). I only ran about 15 miles a week and packed on about 10 pounds. As you saw from the elevation profiles below, that particular program won't work for what I have on my calendar. Two weeks ago, I started ramping up my miles.

Going from 15 miles a week to 45 miles a week is not recommended. Surprisingly, I'm simply weary and a little tight. Maybe muscle memory does last longer than a month. Or maybe I'm just going to break down in another week.

My training for the April 12th race is simple:

M - 8 mile hill run (two massive hills)
Tu - 6 mile flat recovery run
W - 10 mile hill run (two massive hills and one smallish hill)
Th - 6 mile flat recovery run
F - 6 mile flat junk mile run
Sa - 14 - 22 mile hill run
Su - off

No tempo runs. No speed work. No watch. That's right, no watch. Either someone else has a watch or I map out the run beforehand to figure out the distance. I don't plan on picking up a watch until after the June 21st 50k. It's all about getting a large mileage base in preparation of going under 3 hours in a fall marathon.

For past marathons, I've relied on a 16 to 20 week program, again going from 15 to 45 miles in a week, lots of speed work, and my genetics to get me to the finish line in under my goal time. That almost worked last year at St. George, missing 3 hours by 2:07. I'm not leaving it to talent this year. My entire running year is dedicated to crushing 3 hours.

Six months of base and strength building followed by three months of sharpening and speed work should do it.

New Plan

April 12th - Mt. Diablo Marathon. Something to keep me busy during the winter.

June 21 (tentative) - Pacifica 50k. Maybe a family event.

$7B

"FRENCH TRADER'S PROBLEMS UNCOVERED

FRIENDS of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel last night blamed his $7 billion losses on unbearable levels of stress brought on by a punishing 30 hour week.

Kerviel was known to start work as early as nine in the morning and still be at his desk at five or even five-thirty, often with just an hour and a half for lunch.

One colleague said: "He was, how you say, une workaholique. I have a family and a mistress so I would leave the office at around 2pm at the latest, if I wasn't on strike.

"But Jerome was tied to that desk. One day I came back to the office at 3pm because I had forgotten my stupid little hat, and there he was, fast asleep on the photocopier.

"At first I assumed he had been having sex with it, but then I remembered he'd been working for almost six hours."

As the losses mounted, Kerviel tried to conceal his bad trades by covering them with an intense red wine sauce, later switching to delicate pastry horns.

At one point he managed to dispose of dozens of transactions by hiding them inside vol-au-vent cases and staging a fake reception.

Last night a spokesman for Sócíété Générálé denied that Kerviel was overworked, insisting he lost the money after betting that the French were about to stop being rude, lazy, arrogant b.....ds."

Next

Mt. Diablo 50k in June.

Here's the elevation profile:



That'd be 8900 ft of elevation gain. Ouch. That'll build me a nice base for a fast fall marathon.

BROOOOKLYN!

This is a picture of the young men that I was responsible for in Brooklyn. We'd have a Xbox night at my place every 6 weeks or so. Order pizza. Have extra TVs and Xboxes.

Here in the Bay Area, I have also been asked help with the young men. However, the activities and make-up of these two groups are very different. First, we went ice skating where not only the girls, but the boys knew what they were doing. Second, when I was giving a few of them a ride home, one boy told me that he lived in a mansion. I smiled. Then we pulled up to his mansion. Four people, 8000 sq ft home. Six cars in the driveway, including a Maseratti, a Porsche, and a cheap old Acura. And those were the ones that didn't make it into the garage.

SGM Pic

I realized I never posted a picture. This is me right before Mile 23. Right before I decided that I couldn't take the massive amounts of calf pain anymore.

Pool Review

I was checking out the official length of my pool and ran across this review of another community pool that isn't too far away.

"Good News: Outdoor, 25 yards, kickboards, clocks.

The Bad News: TEN dollars. In (blank). You bastards are lucky I'm in this shit town to begin with and I have to pay ten bucks to swim? You should pay me for bringing some life into snoresville. But I digress.

Details: Bring some sandals, because you have to walk over the rock-embedded, foot-thrashing concrete that surrounds the indoor pool to get to the outdoor pool. Some negligent mother let her kid wander into my lane but I showed him who was boss in this town in no time. I'm doing fly, kid- take that! I don't pay ten dollars so I can be polite to some commune-raised hippie brat who calls his mom "Sarah.""

So Serious

I went swimming for the first time in over three years this morning. I found out that swimmers are just as anal as cyclists are. Apparently you must inform the other swimmers in your lane prior to beginning your laps that you will be swimming in their lane. Additionally, if there are only two people in your lane, you stay on the same side of the lane. If there are more than two people, you circle, which is how I swim if there are at least two people. If you don't follow these rules, they'll stop you in the middle of the pool just to let you know that you've broken the rules.

Also, don't pay cash to get in or the entire line will groan. Finally, a speedo is required or you are laughed at.

I'm glad that I now have two sports whose participants I don't like. I was getting bored only hating cyclists.

Just swam an easy 900 this morning. I'll probably be swimming twice a week until I start training seriously for a race again, at which point I'll drop swimming for the boring exercise that it is.

Sakae Sushi

Just in case you were wondering, Sakae Sushi has the best sushi I've ever eaten. That includes all the sushi I consumed in New York and Japan. Granted, I didn't have the pockets to go to the uber-nice sushi places while I was in Japan, but still, I ate some pretty quality sushi.

My favorites:

- Barracuda - flown in from Japan daily - very rich and meaty
- Bluefin Red Tuna - also flown in from Japan daily - almost steaklike
- Uni - shipped up from Monterey daily - super sweet with a texture that wasn't too firm and wasn't too slimey
- Oh-toro - This place has three grades of toro (fatty tuna belly). This grade is the fattiest. As I eat it, all I'm thinking is that I want to rub it all over my body and then lick it off. It's that good.

Who am I kidding, it is all outstanding.

Ageism

The other day I was running in the foothills with a friend. We wanted to do 11 miles and didn't want to run over the same ground twice, so we stopped at a trail map to check out where we could go. As we investigated the map, we heard runners coming. I couldn't see them, but could tell from their voices that it was a group of women. My friend looked at me and said we better go so we wouldn't have to pass them on the trail. So we headed up the trail.

About a minute later, the voices were right behind us. We were in a canyon, so I figured it was just acoustics of the canyon that made it seem as if they were right behind us. After another minute, I finally figured out that they were right behind us. Embarrassed, I moved over to the right, heard a little "Thank you" and watched three young girls run by us.

They couldn't have been more then 14 or 15. And they were blowing past us. Now let me say that were were not trying to run fast. Leisurely 8 minute miles through the hills. We'd also been running for 5 miles with 6 to go and they probably had only been running for 1 with 5 to go (we were on a popular 6 mile loop). However, we still got blown by by three teenage girls.

My friend and I were silent for a few minutes. I broke the silence by saying that that was unexpected. He responded by saying that the girl in the lead "looked good". I was a little shocked. He noticed my shock and quickly said, "You know, her running form. It looked good."

Yep, these are the kind of people I run with.

Weight Loss

Apparently the best way to lose that last 5 pounds that you've wanted to lose for the past year is to cut your mileage by 75% and drink cases of Diet Dr. Pepper, both of which I've done in the past three weeks. It's the new South Beach.

So Close

3:02:06. A PR of 6:40.

I was on track for a 2:58 through mile 17. At mile 18, my calfs began to seriously cramp and I couldn't get much push. I would do 7:10s uphill and then 6:40s downhill. At mile 23, I was on track for a 2:59, but my calfs began to scream. No push at all, but all I needed was to go at 7:00 pace for the last 3.2 miles. It was not to be. I had nothing left.

I'm not disappointed with the effort because I gave it everything yesterday. I'm a little disappointed with my preparation. Not enough LT runs or downhill training.

I'll probably take a week off and spend the following six weeks training for CIM on December 2.