unsystematic

211 miles later… We did it!!!

This year I had the opportunity to participate in the Blue Ridge Relay race – a 211 mile race from Grayson State Park in Virginia to Asheville, NC. The race spans a day and a half and consists of teams ranging from 4 members to 12. My team, Team 4tunate (to have 2 more runners), was comprised of five other super awesome people and excellent runners. We began early Friday morning with Jason Martin on Leg 1 kicking off at 7:20am finishing Saturday afternoon with me on Leg 36. With 36 total legs and six runners, we each got an even 6 legs with myself being every sixth. See some of my earlier posts for more information.

My plan was to twitter, flickr and blog about the race in real-time, but that plan was foiled when I realized there’s little to no cell phone reception up there. I did however, manage to get a few items out on twitter and Melissa wonderfully put together a nice blog for me from our text message conversations. Be sure to read it too.

Some details about the race: The race started at 7:20am Friday and did not stop until I crossed the finish line Saturday afternoon. That’s all day, all night, and all morning. Reflective vests were required at night and whenever we ran on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Red blinking LEDs were required at night along with a headlamp (otherwise you wouldn’t be able to see anything). Sleep was possible, but not really with all the excitement. With 3-5 hours between legs I made attempts at sleep, but only managed to get rest between the converstation, encouragement, door shutting and anxiety.

Some things I learned: Don’t fight gravity. Love your downhills. Treat them right and they’ll treat you right. Ice injured limbs. Use ‘the stick’ after each run. Eat plenty of carbohydrates, proteins and salts to avoid cramping and provide energy. Don’t push it – set a safe, smart pace and maintain it; with the number and size of the hills you’ll spend all of your energy if you don’t spend it properly and your overall time will suffer.

And now for some leg recaps, detailed information, and pictures! We’ve got more pictures and video coming soon!

Leg 6
Time start: 11:07am Friday
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/13246412
Before I began my first leg I was worried about my ankle. I was hoping it would hold up and I think I worried so much about it that I actually made it hurt. I say that because now, after 36.4 miles it’s fine. Weird. Anyways, this leads to more and far greater problems later. Keep reading and you’ll see. Oh, the reason for the huge jump on the map is because I forgot to reset my watch and when I started it for my next leg I was miles away. The main stats are still there.

Leg 12
Time start: 4:25pm Friday
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/13246403
This was my hardest and longest leg. About a month ago some of the legs needed to be adjusted to use different exchange zones to accomodate the increased number of runners. This year was the biggest event to date with 102 teams. A big increase from the previous years’. Lucky me, I got all the extra miles, which is why the race went from 208 to 211 miles. This leg was one of those that received the additional miles. Originally it was 7.9, but it was modified to 9.1. Jason Martin of the team was kind enough to print, laminate and prepare little cards with the mileage, directions and a map that we could carry with us as to not get lost. However, a few of them weren’t updated when the legs were. As a result I began this leg with 7.9 miles in mind, only to keep running confused as hell to 9.1. It wasn’t until I hit the 8.8 mile mark when I kinda realized what had happened.

Leg 18
Time start: 9:59pm Friday
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/13246397
This was one of my two night legs and the first leg where I was really hurting. I was looking forward to the downhill too, but because I was worried about re-injuring my ankle I was overcompensating for that possibility by not running properly. As a result I ended up screwing up my shins, calves and knees which will only hurt the remaining three legs. Instead of leaning forward and letting gravity do the work, I resisted and “stomped” my feet slowing myself down. Never a good thing and it’s terrible on the knees.

Leg 24
Time start: 2:43am Saturday
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/13246393
My second night leg. Actually it was early morning on Saturday. I’m feeling the pain from the previous run but hoping this 3.2 miler is as easy as it looks. With an all-downhill run you’d think it’d be easy, but when you’re shins and knees are screaming at you from the previous run, running uphill would seem far less painful. I don’t think I can get across how much pain I was in. Running at night was creepy. You run though some really backwoods, isolated places. The team made mention of Deliverance several times and even though I hadn’t seen it, I was able to make a synopsis from the details given. It’s pitch black and you’re running on narrow roads with a few houses here and there. The only source of light is my headlamp and two blinking red LED’s that are required during night runs. The air is damp and every little noise gives you a little spook. Imagine my surprise when I hear a low growling all of a sudden coming from behind me. I stop, turn around, and there’s a dog bearing it’s teeth at me. I scream at it to scare it and it backs up slightly. I continue to run and it’s chasing me growling again. I stop, turn and scream at it again a few times. Then I hear its owner calling it and it runs off. For the next few minutes I felt no pain as the adrenaline subsided. Scary leg, that one.

Leg 30
Time start: 8:22am Saturday
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/13246388
I’m hurting. Bad. And for some odd reason slightly welcoming this uphill leg. Okay not really. I was maybe a little glad it wasn’t a downhill leg though. Nothing super exciting here other than the pain shooting through my knees, calves, ankles, soles and shins. And the fact that we’re almost done. Big uphill leg here with 1,892 feet elevation gain.

Leg 36
Time start: 1:48pm Saturday
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/13246383
The final leg of the race. 6.8 miles of painful, agonizing, tear-jerking running. Or in my case, very slowly limping. This leg begins with exiting the Blue Ridge Parkway onto a nice residential road winding down into downtown Asheville. By this time, I’m seriously wondering if my knees are going to bust and that is absolutely no exageration whatsoever. Earlier in the day my team kept saying that if I didn’t think I could finish, to let them know and they’d pick up my leg. No way was I going to come this far and not finish. I wanted to finish this race, no matter what kind of pain I was in or how broken my body was. I had to sit down and stretch several times during this leg, each time the runners passing me asking if I was okay and offering me water. I had exhausted both 8oz bottles from my fuel belt half way through this leg. Seeing that they didn’t have much water left either, I declined their offer and wished them a good rest of the run. I was seriously very ready to have one of them tell my team to come get me I was in so much pain. But, as runners passed they encouraged me by saying things like “Come on buddy, only two miles to go!” and “You can do it, come on!” Eventually, I made it downtown with only .7 miles to go and eventually across the finish line.

How am I feeling? Everything from the waist down is in excrutiating pain. My left shin and right sole are competing for the most painful making walking extremely difficult. Driving home in my Honda Civic, a stick shift, was pretty interesting as my left foot didn’t seem to want to depress the clutch. I’m pretty sure my left leg is seriously injured warranting a doctor visit this week for an x-ray. I’m hoping it’s just a really, really bad tired muscle and not a stress fracture. Mentally and emotionally I feel very energized, proud, satisfied and more confident in my running. This was an extreme event that pushes the limits physically, mentally, and emotionally. A fun challenge that I’d gladly do again next year.

All in all, this was the hardest physical, mental, and emotional challenge of my life. 36.4 miles in 32 hours is no easy feat. Thanks a bunch to my team, family, and friends who gave me support and strength to make it through. I look forward to running again next year, hopefully with the same team.

Thanks to Jason Sutton for these pictures. I’ll put up more pictures and some video later: http://www.flickr.com/photos/suttonscoop/sets/72157622231803313/

Thanks to Kevin Davis for these pictures: http://justkev.in/pics-from-blue-ridge-relay

Other related blogs:
Jason Sutton, Kevin Davis, Melissa Oyler

Thanks to Kevin, Jason S., Jason M., Alex S., and Whitney T. for being awesome teammates and for all the support from friends and family.

My first strip club experience

I’ve never been a huge fan of strip clubs before, which is probably why I’d never been. But a few weeks ago I went for my first time with my friend Melissa while she was in town. I gotta admit it was pretty fun. But being there just made me realize why I’m not really a fan. I’d never suggest a trip, but if a group of friends decided to go I wouldn’t be opposed.

Melissa comes to visit pretty often and we’d heard stories about the girls at the club downtown here, about how the quality goes up with the cover charge. “Don’t go Mondays,” they’d say. Suddenly, visions of the three breasted woman from Total Recall flashed in my head. But the Monday that we went, I’m happy to say all the girls have two rather normal breasts. In addition to having not three, but two breasts, the girls were decently attractive. Now, I’m not the kind of person who’s gonna think a stripper is hot, because well, a lot goes into me thinking someone is hot and a lot of it has to do with personality and character. No offense to the poor girls who are just trying to make a buck, but I’m sure there are more respectable ways to make money.

Okay, all that aside our trip there was actually pretty fun. No, we didn’t sit in front (close though) and no we didn’t stick dollar bills in their panties (though there was this one older Japanese guy…) but it was a fun time. A trip to a strip club isn’t cheap though. Beer (we drank cheap) was like $3 a bottle and I could easily see why people could easily spend a lot of money on other things too. Especially when…

So Melissa uses the bathroom so I decide to drink my beer and watch a little, mostly out of curiosity but a little out of uncomfortability of being in front of a lot of people who think this is normal and I’m just trying to “fit in”. I lean against a wall and before I know it, this fairly attractive blonde comes up and puts her arm around my sholder. She’s chewing gum and has no shirt on (I really don’t mind either). “How ya doing sugar?” she asks. I tell her I’m doing rather well and thanks for asking. I told her it was my first time, partly to see her reaction and partly out of honesty. “Thirty dollars in the back for a private dance,” she says, “forty and I’ll suck your ____”. While the offer is just slightly (okay, above slightly) tempting I felt sorry for her. If I actually did take her up on her offer though, the thirty bucks would be out of sympathy, not for my enjoyment.

I’m just not into that kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love a kinky woman, but strippers just don’t turn me on. A stripper might enjoy what she does but my bet is that it’s forced, kinda like having a nice waitress – while possibly genuine, it’s sugar-coated for tips. Is that weird? I could easily find something better to spend thiry or forty bucks on, like say, bills or beer or paying off credit card debt or something like that – something that’d bring a lot more satisfaction than a stripper.

Read Melissa’s story here.

Busy is the word

I took a few moments this morning to read some blogs that I’ve been sadly neglecting and I realized that I hadn’t written anything in two weeks. So what’s been going on? I’ve been busy.

Three weeks ago I injured my ankle during a 14-mile run. The following week I laid low and caught up on some projects at home for a few clients while letting my foot rest. The next weekend I went to the mountains with Kevin and Melissa to get some practice in for the Blue Ridge Relay race in September. My foot still being injured I made a doctors appointment for the next week. X-rays didn’t show any damage and I was told that the muscles were overused and to give it more rest time. I continued to catch up on work from home. Training for our marathon officially began last Monday, but I’ve been taking it easy on my ankle to make sure I’m fresh for the team in just two and a half weeks. Last week, we brewed our third beer – a Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA clone – and we’ll be bottling it in just over a week. Very much looking forward to that. And this week, Melissa’s been in town hanging out and having fun. We’ve been enjoying the cuisine here in Athens, drinks, beer pong at local bars, and dancing (which was really more like undulating with the crowd of people).

So that’s what I’ve been up to in a nutshell.

I’ll probably write again soon, and it’ll probably be about our brew.

Got suggestions on training regimes?

Yesterday I registered for the Blue Ridge Relay race in September and Charlotte’s Thunder Road marathon in December. Aside from the smaller 5k and 15k that I did earlier this year, these two will be the toughest physical challenges thus far.

The Blue Ridge Relay race is a 208-mile race that starts in Grayson State Park in Virginia and finishes in Asheville, North Carolina. It runs along the scenic (and hilly) Blue Ridge Mountains. The race starts at 7:30am on Friday, September 11 and goes until each team crosses the finish line 208 miles later. Time of day makes no difference in this race, with runners running through the night and into Saturday morning. Our team is comprised of six members and since there are 36 legs of this race, each runner gets six legs.

The Thunder Road marathon in December is a 26.2 mile race that runs through downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. Nothing super challenging about it aside from a few hills here and there and the cold weather, which I’m sure will at least add a little difficulty to the race, mainly because of gloves, tobogan, etc.

Crossing the finish line in both races are going to be extremely encouraging and satisfying, but there’s still a lot of training to do. In fact, official training begins on 11 August. Melissa, myself and her brother Kevin will be using Hal Higdon’s marathon training guide to train for the December marathon. The program is 18 weeks, but we’ll be modifying it a bit to prepare for the Blue Ridge Relay race which takes place in just under seven weeks.

It was suggested that we not only practice running at times we wouldn’t normally run, but that we combine a few runs on the weekends. During the Blue Ridge Relay race, we’ll run a leg, then take a break for five, then run another leg, and so on and so forth. So we’ll need to run 6 miles, break for an hour or so, then run another few miles, then break for an hour, then run again.

One idea I had for training regime is as follows. I’m very curious to hear feedback and suggestions from others, who thinks this is either crazy or not enough.

• Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdsay, do the normal scheduled runs as per the guide.
• Break on Thursday
• On Fridays run 6 miles after work, break for 2 hours, run 4 miles with hills, break for 2 hours, then run 2 miles. I’m assuming these runs will stretch past midnight and into Saturday morning.
• Saturday we’d run 8 miles, break for 2 hours, then run 4 miles and break for the rest of the day.
• Finally, I think Sunday’s were set aside for cross-training, so we could resume normal training schedule but we should probably rest.

My only question is: Is this too much? Not enough? Or “just right but maybe do this instead”? Melissa and Kevin, what do you guys think?

Thanks to all who offer input in advance.

Run, run, run!

When my decision to run in the Blue Ridge Relay race this year became final, I knew there would be a lot of training involved, especially if I don’t want to let the team down. For those of you who think I run too much now, you just wait. But first, let’s go back in time to only two years ago when I first decided to take up this hobby. I was living in Columbia, SC and my boss at the time, Dean, was a big time runner. And I guess you could say that in addition to my need to quit gaming, he inspired me. So I bought my first pair of running shoes, Aisics Evolution IIs.

I was only running a mile or two at best at a time and I thought I was hot shit, haha. No, it’s okay to be proud, especially when I was at least making an effort to get outside and be active. Two miles miles nearly killed me (not literally, of course), but I also had encouragement coming from my – at the time – new friend Melissa, who’d “run with me” sometimes and provide that extra fuel. So I’d run twice a week, a mile or two each time. It was nice to earn the approval of my boss too, and it gave us other things to talk about besides LOST, Apple products, or intuitive and usable web design.

Dean would run every day at lunch in constant training for marathons. He was doing like one a month, something like that, but he’d run for miles and miles like a machine. Part of me felt a little discouraged because, here I was struggling to run a mile when he was cranking out mile after mile and always with a smile. But I knew that if I stayed with it, I too would be running mile after mile.

And looking back two years ago it’s nice to see how far I’ve come. Granted, I’m no marathoner (yet…) but I’m averaging 6 or 7 miles now, and more than twice a week too. I run 4 to 5 days a week with a longer run usually on the weekend. And, don’t get me wrong I still struggle, but looking back it’s such a sense of accomplishment seeing where I was before, and seeing where I am now. And I’ve got a long way to go, but when I start to get frustrated with myself for “only doing six miles,” it’s encouraging to know that six is better than one.