Race Recap: Dirty Spokes Frozen Foot 7 Mile Trail Race

Saturday was not only my first race of 2015, it was also my debut race for my new club, Wild Endurance. The club was started by heterolifemate Josh Ferenc and while I’ve been having some issues getting officially signed up for the club with USATF, I still plan on repping this crew in 2015. Frozen Foot was a new addition to the Dirty Spokes series last year, taking the place of a race that was held on the same trails but was held later in the year. I missed the race in 2014 because I was back home for the weekend, but I’d run in the course when it was the Central Park 5 miler the pervious couple years. I got to the race a little later than I would have liked, but I was at least able to job around a little and catch up with my buddy Mitch Novy (Reckless Running) before the gun.

Heading into this race, I knew that I wasn’t in great shape. After taking two weeks off in December and then slowly starting to build back up I figured I’d have one gear and it would probably be a task to get myself on the podium. I decided to start things off steady and then just try to run with Mitch for the first lap. He ran the short (one lap) course, while I ran the longer (two lap) course. At the gun a whole mess of high school kids sprinted off the line with Mitch out front leading the charge. I quickly realized that my initial plan was out the window and I just focused on settling into a rhythm and working my way through the pack.

The race started out with a loop around one of the park’s baseball fields then dipped into the mountain biking trails for two loops. I passed most of the high schoolers and tried to settle in behind Jason Parks, who would go on to win, and work on catching the other guys ahead of us. Jason started to open things up on me around a half mile in when we hit the switchbacks and started to make our way up the climb. I ended up in fourth over the top of the climb, which was about the mile mark. At that point, I tried to focus on trying to catch back up to Mitch. I figured if I could connect with him through the first lap I would set myself up for a podium spot. 

I did not feel great and struggled a little more than I thought I would in the tight trail sections, but I was able to get things going a little bit on some of the more open sections of the course. I closed down on Mitch around 2 or 2.5 miles and set out on catching the next guy in front of us. At that point I figured that a win was out of the question and I had a feeling the high school dude in second was only going to be running the short course, so I felt like I could relax a little and just try to focus on trying to run strong in the second half of the race. 

I caught the second place runner around with about a half mile left in the first lap. When we came out of the short wooded loop he made a little surge to pull ahead of me as we hit the final single track section. It’s cut into the side of a hill and when I say single track, I mean single track. The trail isn’t wide enough to stand with your feet side by side. I knew I wanted to get by him and try to string things out a little, just in case he was running the long course. I didn’t want to get stuck going into the hill for a second time. 

When we came to the split for the 4 mile finish, he turned right to head to the finish line and I broke left to start my second lap. I tried to throw in a surge going back into the woods to try and keep some racing momentum, but most of the second lap ended up being cruise control. Jason Parks was too far out front and there was no one behind me for a while. I just settled in and ran the second lap. Once we got over the big climb for the second time, I started catching up to some lappers so that helped me get going a little bit, but like I said to Mitch post-race, after I was able to catch him and the kid that won the four miler I just settled in and cruised the second lap. 

I ended up being around where I thought I would be and I’ll take it as a good workout. I ran faster than normal and that’s really what I needed, a good first workout. I know where I’m at right now and while that’s a little frustrating, my goals aren’t races early in the year. I’ve just got to keep building and keep working and I know the times and hopefully wins will come in these Dirty Spokes races. 

Even though it wasn’t the greatest performance, it was good to get back out there and see all the familiar faces. I got a chance to catch up with a bunch of good buddies and my cousin Greg came down from the Tennessee wilderness for the race. He’s pretty gnarly, just started running in 2013 and rocked a 50k, 11 miler at Cloudland Canyon and Saturday’s race three consecutive weeks, pretty badass. One of my favorite things about Dirty Spokes is the way they treat everyone that comes out. Tim and the crew offered a free pair of Mizunos for the 10th person to reach the top of the climb in each race, which was a really cool way to give some different people a chance to win something. 

Here's the data from Strava:

Wild Endurance

Fortitudine Vincimus

I’m pretty psyched to announce that I’ll be running for Wild Endurance this year. Wild Endurance is a brand new USATF racing club founded by my good friend and college teammate Josh Ferenc (Wild Neoteny). USATF has been giving me a little trouble in terms of officially signing on to the club, but I’m still going to be running for them. I’ve had an interesting couple years in terms of clubs/sponsors, but I am thrilled to be able to team up with my friends to get out there and do some epic shit. You can follow our righteousness on twitter @WildEnduranceVT.

A big thanks goes out to Untapped Maple, La Sportiva, Julbo, and Darn Tough for the support. I’d also like to thank Dirty Spokes for their continued support of my running down here in Georgia. If you’re ever in Georgia, North Carolina, or Alabama check out one of their races.

Back to the Basics

The New Year has started for fairly well for me training wise. I took two weeks off in December after the final XTERRA race of 2014 and after about a week of running three miles a day and working on gluteus medius exercises I graduated to running five or six for the second half of last week. I put in 32 miles for the December 29 to January 4 week, which wasn’t half bad considering I started the week out with three days of three mile runs.

This week, I feel like I am finally getting back into the swing of things. I logged 39.5 miles on seven runs and got back to a rhythm of getting up running and then heading to work. It’s still a little tricky with timing out my runs because the sun doesn’t come up until about 7:20 or 7:30 and it’s been even later some days when we have a lot of cloud cover. All that means is that I had a few days where I got to work later than I would have liked, but I ran the Flowery Branch 5/7 mile route more than 200 times last year and I’m just not feeling like running that route right now. Unfortunately, there’s not much in terms of route options from the office and even though I’ve been running the same out and back run on the greenway, running from home at least gives me a few more options. Running from home also allows me to run on trails, which has been a welcome change.

I ran on the greenway six days this week, but I did get in a good eight miler at Little Mulberry on Sunday. It’s always tough starting over after taking extended time off, so eight miles might not sound like much, but right now running eight on trails and feeling pretty good felt like forward progress. It’s always hard mentally when you see what other people are doing for their training or racing when you aren’t in shape. I just have to keep reminding myself that it’s all part of the process and my goals are for races and runs down the line, not tomorrow. I just have to stay the course, work on building things back up and I will be ready to roll when my goal races come around in the coming weeks and months. Still, there’s nothing worse than starting from scratch.

The polar vortex didn’t help the starting from scratch thing either. Last year, when it got cold I was going from running five miles five days a week to between 5-10 seven days a week, so it wasn’t as big of a deal, but when the temps dropped to single digits and below zero, that wasn’t fun. I have to admit though, I saw a lot of tweets and facebook statuses from people back home running in -20 wind chill, so I had to suck it up. I refuse to let myself get soft of cold temperatures.

Weekly breakdown
Monday – Greenway five + weight room
Tuesday – Greenway five + weight room
Wednesday – Greenway five + weight room
Thursday – Greenway five
Friday – Greenway five
Saturday – Little Mulberry eight
Sunday – Greenway five

I almost took Sunday off, but Amanda made homemade doughnuts so I felt like I needed to get something in. The two biggest things for me this week were getting in the weight room and staying off the roads. The greenway is only paved for ¾ of a mile and rest is gravel or trails which was awesome. I need to keep getting in the weight room to work on leg strength and start working in some core next week.

One final note on this week, I ran most of my runs in my La Sportiva Helios. I really like that shoe and I’m probably going to invest in a new pair, but I must admit I was pretty stoked to get a fresh pair of Saucony Rides. I put about 500 miles on my last pair and hadn’t replaced the since before training camp, so it felt nice to get my feet into a new pair of shoes. I’ve been running in Rides since I worked at GBRC and served me extremely well over that time. It was more fun when I was running for Saucony Hurricanes and got them for free/50 percent off, but still that’s my go to everyday trainer. I am looking forward to checking out the breakthru when those come out though.

On to next week…
Next week will be more of the same for me. Work is in a bit of a holding pattern right now, so I’ll be sticking close to home or the office for my runs this week. Once we hire a coach, then I can start to mix in some different things after work. Training wise, I’ll be looking for more of the same consistency in terms of pace and distance. I also plan on working in one workout, either hills or a light tempo run. The first race of 2015 the Dirty Spokes Frosted Foot race at Central Park on Saturday. I’m going to get tuned up, but I’m not really looking at any race as a race until February, so I just need to go out there and get used to running hard again. It’s a 7.5 miler though, so a blow up is probably in my future.

2014 Year In Review

I don't know where to start or where to begin...how many people get that reference? I guess I'll start by saying that 2014 was an interesting year. It was fun, but frustrating. There were times were I really felt like a certified roller (Peachtree) and times when I questioned what I was doing (pretty much first four months of the year), but in the end it was another year of trying to push myself to new limits and I'll take that.

I covered 2,479.4 miles, according to Strava, which included 2,230 miles of running and one incredibly ill-advised 50 mile mountain bike race...errr...ride. Despite being a little down on myself early, I did accomplish my main goals. I won the XTERRA Georgia Trail Series and the Dirty Spokes Trail Series, I ran really well at Peachtree, and I stepped up to a competitive regional race at Rock/Creek River Gorge and made statement. I also got out of my comfort zone with two mountain bike races and a triathlon. Looking back, it was a pretty solid, eventful year. Rather than bore you (aka the three people that will read this) with the details, here's a short rundown with some pictures and a video.

My year according to Strava:

Here's my year in photos:

It got cold in Georgia

I won a zombie trophy 

I was fortunate enough to be a Strava Ambassador

I crossed state lines to Tennessee and finished third in one of the toughest races I've ever run.

I joined a friend for a 6 hour mountain bike race

I did a little running in the City of Angels

I ran my best race of the year in the biggest race of the year 

I ran in Aruba 

I went to Vermont and did Vermont things 

I survived another tri

I AM THE GUY ON THE STANDIE! 

I finished the Fools Gold 50 mountain bike race 

I rolled 

I went to the UK and explored London and it's amazing country side

This was just a cool picture. 

It was a pretty fun process going through all the pictures I took last year and to find some of the best running related ones that I had. As I embark on another year of trying to push myself to the next level, I hope to share my experiences with the vast community of runners both in the real world and online through this blog and social media.

Let's roll. 

New Year, New Go Pro & Back to the Blog

I wanted to start the new year off by adding some running videos, now that I have a GoPro. Here's my first attempt at making one. I shot it on New Year's day at Little Mulberry Park, one of my favorite local trail spots. I'm going to continue using my tumblr but if I want to get a youtube channel going, I figured I should dust of this old blog.

Salomon Rock/Creek River Gorge 10.2 Mile Trail Race

Editors note: This race was in March and I wrote the recap shortly after the race, but I took my sweet time posting it since work has been so busy lately.

I’ve been itching to get back up to Chattanooga ever since Amanda and I spent a weekend up in the Scenic City last summer, so when I came across the Salomon Rock/Creek Trail Series I figured that would be a perfect opportunity for a return visit. After taking a look at my tentative 2014 race schedule, mostly Dirty Spokes & XTERRA races with a couple of other things sprinkled in, I saw a couple Rock/Creek races that would work for us. I settled on the River Gorge 10.2 miler that kicks off the Salomon Rock/Creek series last weekend. Week booked a hotel and I scoured Roots Rated for some stuff to do and next thing you know we had a whole weekend planned out.

River Gorge Podium

The night before the race (Friday) I picked Amanda up at work in Sandy Springs and we made our way up to Chattanooga. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get out of work as early as I had originally planned and we ran into brutal traffic on 285 and 75. It ended up working out pretty well though as we got to the hotel around 7:15. We missed packet pick up but it gave us enough time to grab dinner from Provino’s, relax in bed, and get a good night’s sleep before the race. 

I still woke up around 5:15 a.m., because I still had to do news clips for work, but that gave me some time to eat something, I brought almond butter but forgot English muffins (FAIL!), so I went with a cliff bar. We actually left on time which allowed us to find a Dunkin Donuts, Amanda was obviously pumped, and make it to the race venue with plenty of time to spare. Getting to the race venue early was nice for a change, since lately I’ve barely had time to loosen up before the start. 

The race was held that the Prentice Cooper State Forest about 15 minutes from downtown. We pulled in to the main entrance with a line of about 10 cars following us along the dirt road to the start/finish line at the Cumberland Trail trailhead. I grabbed my number and had Amanda pin it to my Strava kit while I checked out the first mile or so of the course and loosened up for the start. 

The race started on the dirt road right next to the trailhead and climbed a short hill before turning left onto a jeep road that led to the single track. I didn’t really know what to expect from the field. Having never raced in Tennessee or run the trail before I had no clue who would be a contender and who wouldn’t or if I would really even be a legit contender for that matter. I settled into the group as we made the early climb but once we reached the top I decided to make my intentions known.

I took the lead at the top of the hill and used the long gradual decent down to the entrance of the single track to stretch things out and see how the others would respond. I’d read that the race was technical, but didn’t have a ton of climbing so I felt like I needed to run hard on the places that where runnable and just survive the more technical parts. I charged onto the single track and focused on trying to stay light and quick on my feet to pick my way between the roots.

Shortly after entering the single track, I was greeted by a crazy staircase that sits in between a giant crack in a massive boulder. I can’t even do it justice describing it, here's a picture.

Somehow I made it through without incident and then tried to start rolling. Paul Patterson (the eventual race winner) settled in behind me and while I was hoping we’d work together a little bit he just sat on me for first seven or so miles then ended up passing me on a brutal climb. I felt like we were rolling pretty well, but this was a true trail race, so it was tough to get into any kind of rhythm. There were a lot of changes in direction, slight ups and down, and a bunch of short steep descents, sharp turn, creek crossing then short steep climb. These took a toll on me as the race wore on, but I didn’t notice until it hit me all at once around 7 miles or so. We came out of the woods for about 400 meters and climbed up an old jeep road before the second aid station, then turned back into the woods and began the climb of my doom. I actually felt really good on the climb up to the aid station and put a little time on Paul, but the steepness of the next climb just killed me. I tried to recover and rally on the long descent but then came the Rock Garden.

Holy shit, the Rock Garden sucked. I felt like it took me a week to get through it. Nate Holland (a local Chattanooga ultra/trail beast) buried me and while a small part of me just kept saying get through it and then hammer to catch back up, most of me knew it was over. Once I got out of that nightmare I tried to rally and I did feel like I was gaining ground there just wasn’t enough race left. 

I ended up finishing third in a respectable 1:13:49, which turned out to be the 10th fastest time in the history of the race. I like to think that even though the suffered at the end and fell apart I made the race by getting out and pushing the pace. I’m looking forward to getting back to this race next year and trying to improve on my result. 

River Gorge Trail Race Top Times

'11 Aaron Saft - 1:08:32

'11 Jacob Bradley - 1:10:08

'02 Rodney Stoker - 1:10:35

'14 Paul Patterson - 1:12:25

'10 Nicholas Selbo - 1:12:30

'03 Joel Stewart - 1:12:41

'14 Nathan Holland - 1:12:49

'04 Nicholas Wilkinson - 1:13:03

'05 Bryan Dayton - 1:13:28

'14 Matt Haley - 1:13:49

After the race, Amanda and I hung out for a bit and talk to a few people. I won a sweet North Face shirt and a Salomon waist pack. We made our way back to Chattanooga, stopping at a Dunkin Donuts to grab a Tennessee mug, then after a quick shower we spent the day eating and exploring some of our favorite spots via the cities bike share. We ended up at Buffalo Wild Wings watching college basketball then passed out at the hotel at 9:30. The next day I ran up to Stringers Ridge to check out the trails before we made our way back to Georgia. Overall a great weekend even if I was a little disappointed I ran hard and tried something outside my comfort zone.

A big thanks to Rock/Creek for putting on the race and Roots Rated for a ton of great ideas of things to do in Chattanooga, including my Sunday run at Stringers Ridge and some excellent burritos.

Here’s a story about the race from Roots Rated.

http://rootsrated.com/stories/river-gorge-trail-race

West Coast Tripping

Once a year we get to travel to the west coast for work for a weekend. My first two years with the Falcons it was up in Seattle (great city BTW) to play the Seahawks, then last year we went to San Diego and in 2013 it was a trip to the Bay Area to play the 49ers. We ended up staying in Palo Alto, two or three miles from Stanford so no running in San Francisco, but it still made to two solid days of running in California.

 

Day One: West Coast trips are always interesting because we leave a day earlier than any other road trip, which means I normally get one full afternoon to explore my surrounds. In Seattle that lead to finding one of my favorite city runs of all time out to Gas Works Park and in San Diego I got to get sort-of-kind-of lost in Balboa Park. As for Palo Alto, I decided to venture over to Stanford to check out the campus. I scouted out a couple of spots I wanted to hit up at walkthrough in the morning which was at Stanford Stadium and after a light lunch I set out for what I figured would be between 10 and 12 miles depending on how I was feeling.

 

I have actually been to Stanford once before about 10 years ago when I ran in the USATF Junior National Championships. It was an awesome experience; I spent almost a week in California with my Dad, my coach and teammates Mark Miller & Mary Proulx. Mary ran the open women’s 10k and I ran the junior men’s 10k. I ended up finishing 13th out of 17 runners with a PR at the time of 32:16. I was running right with Nick End (a fellow Saucony Hurricane) but fell off the pace in the last couple of laps. I believe that Peter Najem and I are the only Keene State runners to run at a USATF Championship and not finish last though.

 

It was cool to be able to run in a couple of the same spots around the campus and reminisce about that race a little bit. I ran the two and a half miles from the hotel through Palo Alto all on University Ave, following that until I hit the main campus and quad. From there I just started taking different turns and trying to explore. I ended up making my way out to Lagunita, which is a big pond that has a dirt trail around it. The pond was empty so it was pretty cool looking, like a giant sunken meadow. I ran around the trail then found what looked like some hiking trails across the road, but I was already six miles into the run and knowing that I still had at least five miles to go before I got back, so I decided it was time to head back through campus. I ran through a couple of different doors and quads, one was field turf which I thought was pretty cool, and ended up next to the track. I made my way down past Maples Pavilion (where they play hoops) then looped around the football practice fields and the total awesome outdoor aquatics center. They had trampolines set up next to the diving pool and people were practicing their gainers and whatnot.

 

After being bewildered by the pool situation I cut through Chuck Taylor Grove (sweet kicks bro!) then onto the track for a couple of laps to relive the glory days. At one end of the track they have three big pillars, one for national champions, one for Olympians, and one for world record holders, pretty impressive. After marveling at that for a few minutes I made my way back through Palo Alto to the hotel. The run turned out to be 11, my longest in a while, but I felt pretty good afterwards.

 

Day Two: I trying to decide where to run on day two over breakfast when our strength and conditioning coaches invited me to join them for a trail run in the Santa Cruz mountains…bingo bango. Our head strength coach is from Cupertino so he had a great run planned out at a place called Rancho San Antonio that has 23 miles of trails. If I ever get back to that area I will 100 percent be visiting this spot. It was awesome.

 

We started our run at the base of the mountains and wound our way to the appropriately named Deer Hollow Farm. As we made our way to the farm we saw a ton of deer, including two bucks, which I don’t ever remember seeing during a run. I see does and little bambi looking deer all the time, but rarely (if ever) a buck. After passing the farm we came to the entrance of the trail de jour, the Wildcat Loop Trail.

 

 

We decided to heed the warning of the picture above…which was stay on the trail and watch out for the cartels growing weed in the hills.

 

It was a little chilly at the base of the hills but once we started climbing it warmed up very quickly. The run was only 5.6 miles (according to my Garmin) but featured over 700 feet of elevation gain. It was a fairly easy run for me as I just stuck to the pace that AJ & Jonas were setting. Jonas and I ended up dropping AJ as he was battling some hip issues on the climb. We stopped at the top to take a few pictures and regroup. You can’t see it in the pictures because of the haze/smog but you could see the bay from outlook we stopped at. I’ll let the picture show what it looked like.

  

 

The way down was fun, lots of switchbacks and a bunch more wildlife, black squirrels, deer, and turkeys in addition to the cows at the farm. Post run we drove around the area a little bit with AJ showing us some wineries and a nearly empty reservoir. It was crazy, this giant lake was almost completely empty and normally it looked like it was 40 or 50 feet deep, no surprise they have wildfires out there. Unfortunately we didn’t have a ton of time before the buses started leaving for the game, so we headed back to the hotel, overall though it was an awesome place to run. If I had the chance I would have definitely done some exploring.

Here's the data from Strava...