My First Bike Race this Sunday!

This Sunday I will be racing in my first ever real bicycle race, the Pine Flat Road Race (62 miles) down in Fresno. And I'm terrified. But I'm not worried about the usual stuff like getting a flat tire or being attacked my an army of rival ninjas. No, mainly I'm just scared that I will do something incredibly foolish and impetuous like attacking in the first mile.

Ideally, if I can keep my ego and excitement in check, I hope to stay relaxed and conserve my energy until the last 9 miles of the race where the big mountain climbs start. And then I'm gonna go all "Andy Schleck" on their asses.

I don't want to sound (too) over confident, but I've been training like a deranged nut job. And I'm not driving 8 hours to race for second place. So if someone wants to beat me, they better be willing to suffer for 3 hours and they better also have one heck of a finishing sprint.

And now if you will excuse me, I have to get some work done. I do also have a day job after all. And my "work" I don't actually mean that I'm just going to sit here and watch this youtube video of Andy Schleck over and over again all day.

Kicking Ass and Giving Thanks

Something very disturbing has been happening lately. I've actually been running fast. Very fast. Suspiciously fast! I'm surprised that the authorities haven't showed up outside my door demanding that I take a blood test. It's gotten to the point where my wife rolls her eyes and mumbles, "Oh, did you run another PR today" every time I come back from a workout with a goofy smile on my face. 

I'm not sure what's going on exactly, but obviously I'm doing something right with my training. In the past month I've crushed two personal records, including one that I set in 2008 and hadn't even come close to in the past 4 years.

Basically I have two "benchmark" runs that I run regularly to gauge my current fitness level. They are both 4 mile hill climbs. One is at Sierra Azul, from the Kennedy trail head entrance up to the top of the mountain at the intersection of Priest Rock. My personal best was 38:15, set back in 2008. And generally I am happy to run it in around 41 minutes. However, earlier this month and I went out and ran a 37:46, taking nearly 30 seconds off my best time!

My other regular "benchmark" climb is at Quicksilver park, from the MacAbee entrance to the top of Bull Run. My personal best was 37:09, which I set in April 2011. Aside from a couple of hard efforts in the 38 minute range, I usually run this course in around 39 or 40 minutes. Imagine my surprise when I ran this course in 36:44 earlier this month, going 25 seconds under my previous best. And then imagine my even greater surprise when I took another 2 minutes of that time and ran a blazing 34:55 this week!

Comparison of Bull Run PRs

I've looked at my split times and tried to make sure that the park rangers hadn't made the course any shorter or flattened any of the hills. But no, it's all still there. It appears that somehow I've just gotten much faster.

I suppose I could spend a lot of time trying to put a finger on it. Maybe my faster running times as a "cross over" result of all the intense training I've been doing on the bike since I've taken up cycling again? Or maybe the faster run times are a result of the pounds I've dropped since officially renouncing my trademark beer-and-ice-cream diet?

But instead of wasting my time asking why, I'm just going to be grateful and give thanks. There are so many blessing in my life, and sometimes I have to remind myself that anytime I can even get out the door and go for a run in the mountains is a good day.

So with that in mind, I'd like to acknowledge and thank some of the people who have contributed to my running over the years.

• My dad, for letting me tag along on his Detroit marathon training runs when I was 5 years old. I'm sure my 12 minute miles were not what his training program called for. Without him, I very well might have never found the joy of running.
• My mother, who over the years always brought me back to running whenever I strayed too far into other sports or passions.
• My wife Amy, who introduced me to this strange "ultra running" thing that she was training for at the time we met (at a trail half marathon in Woodside). If she and I hadn't met I might still be out floundering around in the ocean doing silly triathlons.
• My training partner Dr. Joeseph Bistrain with whom I've been running and cycling on a weekly basis  for nearly 5 years since we met in April, 2007. He dropped me that day. Though he has since slowed down quite a bit in his old age. Just kidding Joe ;)
• SAP lunchtime running colleagues Satit Nuchitsiripattara, Hermann Lueckhoff, Armando Chavez, Leo Flores, Octavian Iancu, Michael Kuehn
• Silicon Valley Triathlon Club friends Craig Petersen, Gordy Haupt, Nick Daugherty, Eduard Korat;
• My work-conference buddy Bill Pritchett who always reminds me to bring my running shoes to Las Vegas and Orlando when we travel to CRM conferences
• And of course, the Quicksilver Ultra Racing team including Coach Greg Lanctot and teammates Sean Lang, Adam Blum, Pierre Couteau, Jean Pommier, Mark Tanaka, Bree Lambert, Toshi, and everyone else!

Thank you to everyone. I'm grateful and indebted. But I'm still going to kick your ass!

I'm Back. Sorta. I Guess.

I received a lot of hate mail after my last post, "Running John is Dead. Long Live Cycling Johnny", mostly from my family and running buddies who missed Running John. It probably didn't help that Cycling Johnny didn't really endear himself to anyone with his phony European accent and his tendency to openly mock recreational cyclists riding stock assembly line bicycles, genetically inferior to his über expensive hand-made, custom, carbon fiber racing machine. Ah, but I digress.

So I'm happy to report that after 8 weeks of calf-related injury and rehab, Running John returned to the trails today, finishing his first 50k race since August. It was a perfect day for racing in Woodside, California with cool temperatures and sunny skies. I, Running John (Ed: switching over to first person narrative now?) resisted the urge to go out hard with the race leaders which included a stacked field of ultra marathon rockstar Phil Shaw, local speedster Will Gotthardt, and several other accomplished runners, opting for a more conservative pace.

I ended up finishing 6th with a time of 4 hours and 32 minutes, which is about 10 minutes slower than the 4:22:08 personal record I ran on this same course last year. But after I got over the initial disappointment of of finishing outside the top 5 and being 10 minutes slower than last year, I realized in retrospect that today was actually my 2nd fastest trail 50K of all time! Not too shabby I guess.

I must say, I felt that I ran pretty smart. I stayed on top of my calories (forcing myself to eat an energy gel every 30 minutes). I carried two water bottles to avoid ever running out of fluids. And, perhaps most importantly, after careful consideration I abandoned the pre-race strategy I momentarily considered of throwing in a 6 minute mile at the start of the race to try and "psyche out" the race favorites. That would have ended very badly (for me).

Anyway, it was a great day out on the trails. The weather was perfect. And I was in great company with lots of familiar faces including Will Gotthardt, Lisa Donchak (a fellow "ninja" of sorts), and Quicksilver racing teammates Adona Ramos, Larry Liu and Keith Lubliner.

As shown in the above elevation profile, it was a relatively hilly course, though all very runnable (I managed to run the whole thing without doing any hiking). Overall a great way to spend a Saturday morning enjoying some beautiful singletracks in the Santa Cruz mountains.

"Running John" is Dead. Long live "Cycling Johnny"

We are gathered here today to celebrate the memory of our friend "Running John" who is no longer with us. May he rest in piece.

Running John was last seen on October 28, 2011 at the Morgan Hill half marathon. According to eye witness reports his right calf muscle gave out around mile 4 of the race with a loud pop and a fiery explosion. Several bystanders were taken the hospital for treatment of minor injuries.

Unable to run for the past month due to his lingering calf injury, Running John has taken up cycling to stay fit and have fun. In fact, word in the Peloton is that he has even joined a bike racing team (San Jose Cycling Club developmental squad) and plans to focus on bike racing next year.

Already this offseason Cycling Johnny has found some success with club races that involve lots of short climbs. While not the lightest rider (probably due to his love of German wheat beer) he isn't able to hang with the waifs on the long mountain climbs. However, on shorter climbs of a mile or less he is surprisingly sometimes able to ride away from the field.

In fact, recently Cycling Johnny became to the fastest person to have EVER ridden the Alamden Dam Climb in a time of 2:21, over 12 seconds quicker than the previous record holder. Must be all the glycogen from that German Dunkelweizen beer.

Campbell Oktoberfest 5K

Those of you who have known me since college can attest to the fact that there's two things I have always been good at: drinking beer and running (from the authorities). Of course, now that I am older, wiser, and slower I have wised up and renounced... Oh who I am kidding. I still love beer. And I still run every chance I get (whether from the authorities or just the local mountain lions and bobcats).

Last Saturday, October 15, I decided to sign up for a local 5K to find out just how slow I have gotten since my high school cross country days. I was never that fast at the shorter stuff in the first place (I'm more suited to the ultra-marathon distances), so I knew that this was going to be ugly. But, I figured that with some local law enforcement loitering around (eating all of the post-race food and hitting on any women who walked by) I should get that little added boost of adrenaline.

I knew I wouldn't have any chance to win (some of these 13 year old girls and 50+ year old men looked like they might be surprisingly fast). And of course, I probably looked like an idiot myself decked out in my Ed Hardy board shorts and my Vibram Five Fingers.

The starting gun went off and everyone started sprinting across the grass toward the paved bike trail. I felt like I was standing still. Everyone was passing me: little kids in basketball shorts, overweight walkers, pregnant women pushing double strollers. I quickly found myself in about 30 place. A quick glance down at my watch showed that we were running 5:45 pace, which was a bit too fast for my game plan of running 6:00 miles. Time to slow down!

Thankfully at about the .5 mile mark people started slowing down dramatically and I reeled in most of the little kids and pregnant stroller moms. But there three 50+ year old guys ahead of me (only one of which I would eventually catch).

I felt like I ran a pretty even paced race, though my Garmin stats tell a different story, with each of the three miles getting slower than the previous. Nonetheless I was reasonably satisfied with my time of 19:07 and my 9th place overall finish. Maybe I will actually do a little training (ugh, speed work) for the next local 5K in February.

2011 Quicksilver 10K -- 2nd Place

Today was the first day of my "running comeback". This morning I ran a small local race, the Quicksilver 10K., which is put on by my Quicksilver Ultra Racing team. While I didn't win, I did at least manage to come home in second place about 30 seconds back of the winner, Kevin Hunter. Granted he was an older gentleman with gray hair who I believe said he was 53. But hey, I ran in my board shorts and flip flops, so let's just call it even. LOL.

Going into the race I thought I might have a decent shot to win, considering that it was a pretty small field (and about half of the people were running the longer 1/2 marathon distance). But as soon as we started the initial climb I could tell that I was going to have company. Three of us quickly dropped the rest of the pack. It was myself, running shirtless in my Ed Hardy board shorts and my Luna sandals, Kevin Hunter (a.k.a. the fast old guy in the red shirt) who would go on to win the race, and an Asian guy (Ishijima Yoshihiro) wearing a funny bush hat -- who was actually running the longer 1/2 marathon race). We made quite the motley crew I suppose; certainly not your tyical lead pack in a road race.

I tried making a move toward the top of the first climb, but unfortunately I was only able to drop the 1/2 marathon runner. The guy in the red shit stayed within striking distance and the reeled me back in. At about 2 miles into the race we hit a steep section of single track where I always struggle. Sure enough I slowed down and both of my two competitors passed me. That was pretty much the last I would see of the guy in the red, except for occasional glimpses of the back of his shirt.

My wife Amy had given me a lot of crap when I told her I was going to race in my sandals. Which of course only further convinced me to wear them. In the end, it was probably a bit of a dumb footwear choice for such a hilly, rocky, gnarly course. But overall I thought they performed quite well. I think I probably could have closed the last 2 downhill miles faster if I had worn more conventional footwear. But I still managed to run the last two miles in the mid to low 5's, which I was pretty content with (especially considering my lack of training).

Anyway, it's time for me to go ice my heels, pop some Advil, and drink some beer.




Garmin stats.

Lake Tahoe Revisted: A Tale of Two DNFs

Well, it's been over two months since my last blog post. Not to worry though, I'm still alive. And no, I wasn't abducted my aliens or held captive by some clandestine government agency. I've just been laying low. Licking my wounds. Trying to forget about the fiasco at Lake Tahoe back in July where I dropped out of the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 after 50 miles, only half way through the race.

So let's just get this out of the way. Yes, this is the second time I've tried (and failed) to run the Tahoe Rim Trail. And yes, I did even worse the second time around, dropping at only mile 50 compared to my first attempt two years ago where I at least made it to mile 75 before wimping out. And oddly, I was actually in much better physical shape this time. So, where did it all go wrong?

I have only one person to blame. No, not myself. Come on, don't be silly! The blame rests solely on whatever idiot shoe engineer at Salomon was responsible for designing the Salomon Speed Cross 2. As much as I love the aggressive "mountain bike style" tread on the those shoes (see some of my previous posts), I finally had to concede that they just way to narrow and tight for my flat, double-wide feet.

After losing 7 toenails and developing peroneal tendonitis while racing in them, I finally tossed the shoes into the garbage where they belong. I briefly thought about donating them to some charity that provides running shoes for third-world kids, but honestly I would feel horrible if some promising young Eritrean runner lost all his toenails due to running in my crappy shoes.

OK, enough ranting about how much I hate Salomon. Back to the blog. So, after two months of hiding my head in shame I am finally ready to start running (and blogging about running) again. My feet and my pride have both healed up, and I'm starting to build my running base back up. Last week I ran 30 miles (not all at once mind you, but over the course of 7 days). That's 20 more miles than the week before. And that's 20 more miles than the month before.

But in the interest of full disclosure, I haven't been a complete couch potato. Admittedly, I had been drinking a lot of beer. And yes, I did gain 15 pounds. But, I did ran (well, "hiked") a 50K in Woodside in August which wasn't a complete failure with me managing to stumble across the line in 4th place. And I have also been doing a lot of bicycling to keep some base level of fitness and to complete from completely jumping the shark. So it could be worse.

Anyway, last weekend I decided to see just how bad of shape I was in. I signed up for a 50K race at Mt. Diablo. It was hot. And I wasn't particularly motivated. Not surprisingly, about 10 miles into the race I decided I'd had enough. But I was still up on the mountain over 5 miles away from the parking lot. So I ended up logging 15 miles for the day, which was more consecutive miles than I had run since the 50K in August.

Tomorrow morning I am thinking about racing a 10K in my "backyard" at Quicksilver park, and hopefully I can make it all the way (a full 6.2 miles) without DNF'ing. Wish me luck. Let the comeback begin. LOL.