Preparing for the Mount Washington Road Race

In early April, I ran Mt. Ascutney in Windsor, Vermont with my girlfriend and two writers from Far North Endurance. Ascutney is about the same percentage of incline, but it's about half the distance and half the elevation. Frankly, that sucked.

Road Race in June, I have started to realize how ridiculous this whole thing is going to be, and how high 4,700 feet really is.

Two weekends ago, I ran the auto road of Mount Kearsarge. That was about the same distance as Ascutney, but the elevation and incline weren't as bad, although it had its moments.

As it relates to Mount Washington, I was lucky enough to be interviewed for their piece on preparing for the Mount Washington Road Race. Be sure to read the actual experts' stories first, well before you read what mostly sounds like unbridled fear from me.

It's now just over a month away, and it's getting closer by the day. I'm torn between being excited for it to happen and petrified that it's going to happen. I'm sure it will be fine and we'll finish (which is the only goal), but I can't imagine how I'm going to feel when it's done (both good and bad). But I can imagine how good the beer is going to taste.

Far North Endurance is a blog dedicated to trail running in the northeast. The founders realized that there wasn't a spot for interested trail runners to go, and no one was focusing on the runners themselves. With the feats that some of these trail runners have completed, they should be getting a lot more notoriety. Enter the fine folks at Far North Endurance.

Preparing for Mount Washington (Far North Endurance)

My summer/fall race schedule

Unlike last year, I'm mainly staying off the trails this year. Last year, I did the Western New Hampshire Trail Series. While I loved the races, they were quite a distance away. I was frequently traveling one or two hours to get to a race, and by the time I got home, I had blown most of my Saturday.

Not the case this year. I'm doing the Capital Area Race Series (CARS), which is a series of seven races around the Concord, NH area (where I live). Some of the races are as close as 15 minutes away, and the farthest one is 30 minutes away. I'll finish the race and still be home by 11--just how I like it. Plus, I get to run it with my girlfriend a bunch of friends, which is fun. The races are usually only 5K's, so a lot less effort is required than the trail runs last year.

I've also added a couple of races outside of the CARS series, only one of which is overly ridiculous. And I added a half marathon, so that's at least something with a little bit of distance to get my training going.

1. Gilmanton 5K road race (March 30)
2. SEA 5K road race (April 6)
3. NHTI Delta Dental road race (April 19)
4. Canterbury Shaker Village XC 5K (May 11)
5. Harpoon 5-miler (May 19)
6. Over the River and Through the Woods (June 1)
7. Mt. Washington Road Race (June 15)
8. Bill Luti 5-miler (July 20)
9. Canterbury Woodchuck Classic 5K (July 27)
10. Covered Bridges Half-Marathon (September 1)

I'm definitely happy to be staying closer to home and that I'm getting at least one crazy race in (the 7.5 mile run up a mountain). I think I'm going to pick the bike up a bit more this year, especially if I can coax some people to join me.

And away we go!

Running up a mountain (literally)

Well, if I was looking for motivation to kick my training up several notches, I found it. I am running up Mount Washington in June. For fun. Really.

The organizers bill this as the race with only one hill. Ha, I get it. I see what you did there. It is only one hill, but that hill is a 7.6 mile run up a mountain with a 10-13% incline the whole way. The course rises 4,650 feet from start to finish.

For years, I've actually wanted to run this race. Really. The Mount Washington Road Race is supposed to be the race to do, whether it's just to say that you did it or because you want to win it. I fall into the former category and definitely into the category of just finish it so you can say you did it and you never have to do it again.

In years past, I have signed up for the lottery only to be turned away. But not this year. I'm running with a number of people from Far North, which is a thrill because they are some serious runners and all around awesome people.

If I sound a little concerned, I am. I've got three months and bunch of hill work in my future, and I'm hoping that I can make it happen. I don't want to DNF and I'm feeling somewhat confident that I can at least do 15-minute miles, which means that I'll finish in around 1:45. I actually just want to finish it before the time limit of (oddly) 3 hours and 2 minutes.

Injuries only in my head

I have recently started to feel aches and pains when I know that I have to go out for a run.

Sometimes I feel the pains when I wake up at 5:30 am to go for a cold run in a New Hampshire winter. Sometimes I feel the pains the night before when I decide when to set my alarm. Sometimes I feel the pains after I've decided not to run because of the pain. Those post-non-run pains allow me to justify not having run earlier.

The crazy thing is that I know that the pain isn't real, or at least I'm 99% sure that it's not real. They're knee and foot pains and sometimes they even amplify into limps and aches during the day.

I'm pretty sure the pains aren't real because when I finally push myself to get out and run, I feel totally fine. The foot, knee, and back pain is gone. Or, more correctly, they were never there to begin with.

It's a phenomenon known as psychosomatic injuries. In other words, though my injuries or aches feel very real physically, they're caused by my brain creating them or making them worse.

I've been running for the last 7 years or so. I think what's happening is that running is becoming a chore for me. I know that it's the quickest and most efficient way to burn calories and it doesn't require me going to the gym. So, at least in the last year, that's why I've been running. I've been running not because I love it as much as I used to, but because it's the easiest way to burn calories.

But this isn't the first time this has happened to me. I've been able to get out of it by trying to stay out of my head. I've tried to make some games out of running (hence the run from Philadelphia to Los Angeles over 3 years), and all of those things seem to have worked. So, now, I just have to do it again.

And until I'm feeling like I can run and never stop, I'll still get myself out the door and put one foot in front of the other. That's how I started and that's how I'll keep going.

Race Report: Rails to Entrails 5K

I ran the Rails to Entrails 5K on October 21 in New Boston, NH. New Boston is a sleepy little suburb of Manchester, so it took us just under an hour to get there on a somewhat temperate Sunday morning.

I'm in the grey shirt and blue shorts.

This was the first year that they had this race. It was designed to raise money for the rail trail in the town, and so that we could also experience the trail itself. Let me tell you: this was a serious workout for a 5K!

There were several heats going every half hour until the afternoon. The runners (or "fresh meat") were given three flags (think flag football) to wear and for the zombies to try to grab as you ran by them. And a lot of those zombies took their job very seriously. If you lost all three of your flags, you were undead and could continue through the course.

There were a lot of obstacles through the course. There were sand mounds to climb and descend. There were tires to run through and metal tubes to crawl through. The course was also extremely muddy. Intentionally so. There were several parts where there was no other way to get by than to go through a ton of mud.

I just escaped a zombie's grasp.

There were also some serious hills. There first mile or so was mostly flat with a little uphill here and there. But miles 2 and 3 were almost completely uphill. And this wasn't one of those uphills where you slow your run down. This was essentially a hike up the hill.

A 5K isn't a long distance and certainly isn't one that I have difficult doing. But, I never anticipated how winded I could get from having to sprint and slow down so many times in order to avoid the zombies. I guess it's not all that different from the fartleks that people do when they're training.

The obstacles required a bit of energy, too, so I was quite tired when I finally finished the race. I was far from speedy (47:51 -- a 15:24/mile pace), but that was OK because I had a lot of fun and I got a good workout.

I'm not sure that I would run this again. I don't tend to get into the obstacle races or getting super muddy when I run. I'm not sure if that makes me more of a purist, but it certainly makes me cleaner by the end.

The final slide to the end