Yee-haw at Pinelands

Week of 5/2- - 5/27


Well I will keep this short and say the week was pretty mute because it was the week leading up to Pineland Farms 50 miler, results link here, scroll 3/4 way down.

First off congratulations to Mark "The Big Cat" Blakeley and Christopher "The Wolf" Cappellini.

The Wolf was 4th overall, here he is receiving his age group award, Big Cat was 7th overall. The Wolf would later be found smuggling Muscle Milk out of Maine.

The Wolf receiving his award.

The weekend started with Chris, Mark and I meeting at the Newburyport Park and Ride, it was later discovered about 24 hours later that co-pilot Chris left the sunroof open on the Blakeley-cruiser, no bird shit found on driver or passenger seat.

We arrived at the Econo-insane asylum and started to prepare our meals.  We heated up whole wheat spaghetti, mushroom and peppers for dinner.  We also had a visitor Julia.  Julia was hot, 4 legs, 30lbs of English Bulldog that cleaned up my food that was still on the ground in my plate.  She was also given some spinach and a strawberry and devoured it.

Remainder of night was nothing but ball busting, laughing and watching the Celtics.  We were under a mandatory lights out policy by 7:30pm, until we were visited by Jack Bailey 3rd overall and Ron "Jamison" Farkash.

Sleep was lacking, without mentioning names we had Pee Pee Priscilla getting up to go every hour to go to the bathroom.  Around 2:30am, when PPP was up I asked for a Boost out of the fridge to get some calories going and it was thrown at me, most likely breaking my sternum.  

4:00am the iPhones, watches, Droids and whatever else was set to go off went off.  

I got a slither of bread with a translucent layer of almond butter and banana for breakfast, thanks!

When heading out to load the car up, it was discovered that someone, without mentioned names left the tailgate open on my jeep.  We have a reoccuring theme happening folks.

We left the hotel around 4:45am and arrived at the race at 5am and were registered and ready by 5:20am.  I was very relaxed compared to other races and had no race day nerves.  I took a 10 minute loop run around the Pineland Farms campus to see how my legs were, I was worried because they had been heavy up until Thursday.  When I started the run, I knew they were fully recovered, I just hoped that everything else would stay sound.

The gun went off at 6am and the pace was quick off the bat, there was some chatting with Farkash and Blakeley early.  I was with Blakeley for most of the first 5k, we caught up and were cursing along.  We were playing some leap frog with Farkash as well.  Chris was up front with Jack and was within an eye shot.  After the first 5k loop we started to move apart and Farkash and I ran together playing leap frog for the first 20-22k.  Everything on the first 25k loop was going really well, I thought I took too many calories in the first 25k and backed off a little, I was taking some peanut butter and jelly quarters and s-caps.  I wasn't worried about the s-caps but I was worried the water consumption as it was only 6am and I was not really sweating a lot so I backed off the intake of water and everything was status quo.  After Farkash separated from me I was literally on my own for the rest of the day playing some leap frog with this other guy from Massachusetts.  I was trying to figure out where I was in the overall classification of the 50 milers but could not tell.  When we started I felt I was within the top 20 and did not think many passed me.  During the open fields I could see ahead of me and would see a couple of people.  It wasn't until the 2nd lap about half way through when my friend Ted passed me along with 2 other guys (I never caught Ted, but caught the other two in the last 10k of the race).  I had a really crap 2nd lap, I found out everyone did as well, maybe it was the fact this was my second year, 5th lap of this course in 2 years and I still had one more.  A couple of times I was like why am I here, what is the point, I am not doing this again, type bullshit.  On the 2nd lap all the fruit came out at the aid stations.  I inhaled oranges, s-caps, salty potatoes, water and also took ice to chew on.  The orange slices were excellent.  During the start of the 2nd loop there is the chance to stop at drop bags, which I did for maybe 30-45 seconds and took 2 full hands of mellon.  I did this 5 times total and it really helped.  I only had "one gel" everything else was real food.  The one gel was around 40 miles it was more desperation calories of just trying to get in extra calories to survive the last 10 miles.  It was the last 10k when I felt the calories kick in and my legs still felt good that I dropped it and let it rip.  I was starting to feel the legs on the downhills but I was still able to ascend pretty well on the uphills which surprised me.  I ran 95% of this race.  The one thing that I was able to problem solve was why I felt like such shit on the 2nd lap, I was running a lot harder and just excepted the discomfort for the remainder of the race.  I blew through the last two aid stations and in the process picked off two 50 milers in front of me, one went with me for about 1/2 mile but I opened a gap on the next climb, he started walking and I just kept running.  We entered the last open field and the only people in front of me where the 50k people, I passed 4 of them and had a good 2 minute gap on the next 50 miler behind me.

I crossed the line in 8:09, improvement from last years 9:36, WTF was I doing last year??!!

Anyway, I was happy with performance and really pumped to finish 16th overall.  I even got approval from, The Wolf.

Lessons learned real food it is, water and s-caps, even in the heat it worked and STOP going out too fast.

It is 8 weeks I believe until VT 100 trying not to think about it.   Structurally I am holding up well, maintaining core strength and stretching.  Diet is right on, 140lbs has been ideal race weight.  Leading up to the race during the week I was 138 -140lbs.  Since the race I have not done shit, been wearing compression tights, taking lots of fluids, icing (as recovery), tons of fruit and have been generous with protein intake.

Next up is a Vermont training camp in two weeks with the Cappellini clan and then Silverton, Colorado for more training, vertical and altitude training with Walter.

The beat goes on, yee-haw from Pinelands.

  

Totals for the week:

66.68 miles of trail running

4600 feet of vertical

8:45:54 time on feet