Ultramarathons

Mostly Lack-of-Progress Report
For about two years, I've been unable to keep up with my friends. They have all gone on to run 50 milers and 100 milers while I'm still messing around with marathons. I know that I have a bad right leg and a bad back from years and years of playing tennis on hard courts and skiing. Tennis and skiing was fun, but for the first couple of years when I switched to running, it did not help me. I have decent speed, but I really don't have the desire to work on endurance. I preferred the shorter races. I've been forcing myself to run slower, but normally I don't run slow until that's all I could do. Also the biggest reason why I don't want to work on endurance is that my lower back gets really sore around 1 - 1.5 hours on my feet. Regardless of me standing or running any pace, it'll hurt once it reaches its time limit. That's one of the main reasons why my marathon strategy of choice has been to run the first 8 - 10 miles of the first half as fast as I can and just walk/jog the second half. I've been working on losing some upper body weight to try and alleviate the pain. There's not that much to lose, but I think once I get down to the 130's I should be fine. I'm currently hovering around 145 - 150.

I've been trying to rehab the right ankle for awhile now. I first hurt the Achilles tendon back in October 2009 right before the Long Beach Marathon. It progressively worsened because I couldn't get myself to DNS any of my paid marathons. I was finally able to rest after the Malibu Marathon. I returned almost a month later with pretty much zero running at the Las Vegas Marathon where the Achilles was getting better, but it was still too soon of a return.

For the next 3 or so months, I kept resting for the most part with a measly weekly mileage of ~3.5 (excluding races) and just crawled through my paid marathons. I even managed an AG DFL at Sycamore Canyon 30k. I remember sitting down on a boulder trying not to pass out. It was not a smart idea to run a half marathon the day before a 30k trail race when I was so out of shape. Fun times. Good thing was that the Achilles finally was about 100%. That's when I got greedy and ran the Carlsbad 5000 all day 25k. It was fun running fast, but apparently I hurt my anterior tibial tendon. I thought I had just tied my laces too tight, but it was definitely swollen. Again I mostly rested and didn't increase the mileage until I stopped feeling discomfort. It was mostly annoying and didn't hurt. While I did get through my races, my endurance still sucked since my weekly mileage had been below 20. My attempt to run the Country Music Marathon on Saturday and the La Jolla Half Marathon the next day was thwarted by bad weather in Nashville. But I was glad to finish in about 4:30 at San Diego. After my bad race at Seattle, I finally was able to increase my mileage to a point where my base was big enough to finally put in a real marathon training cycle. But during a recent longish run (~11.6 miles), I took a bad step and stretched out the calf. It burned when I pushed off so I knew I strained it. When I go easy and cruise it's fine, but if I tried to push the pace it was painful. At work it would hurt to go down stairs. But surprisingly a few days later there's no longer any discomfort. I will go for a short run on Friday to test it out. I'm hoping it wasn't anything serious because the SF Marathon is right around the corner and we all know this maniac isn't going to put in a DNS.

Tracking Badwater Runners
My least favorite season is definitely summer. I hate the heat. But July is always a great time to track those running the Badwater Ultramarathon. In honor of those running in 120+ weather, I ate piping hot ramen at Santouka on Monday and at Shizuma Ramen on Tuesday. I believe Shizuma is fairly new or a remodeled restaurant. I had their pork chashu ramen. Their appearance suggests that they're Japanese, but I think they're Chinese. So no surprise that it tastes similar to Kohryu, but nowhere near as good. Their menu is very limited and rather unappealing.

Shizuma Ramen - Pork Chashu Ramen

Anyway... just how do they do it? I'm uncomfortable walking around in 85 degree weather. I cannot imagine running around in triple digit weather. The hottest race I've ran in was in the low 90's... the 2004 LA Marathon. That was ridiculously hot enough for me.

The Future
I'm planning to make my second attempt at completing an ultra with the Santa Monica Mountains 50k in November. I have friends running the Noble Canyon 50k in September. But I'm not sure I can get my body ready by then. I think I should stick to my conservative plan. But we'll see... run or die, right? :)