Lessons Learned from *Not* Running an Ultramarathon

I was supposed to attempt my second 50k this past weekend, but due to high winds and a ridiculous number of downed (or almost-downed) trees, the race was cancelled at 4am the morning of.

To be perfectly honest, a small part of me was relieved; I'd been nervous about running under half-fallen trees (I watched a tree fall on the course during North Face last year, and it was no joke), and of all the possible weather conditions to run in, wind is hands-down my least favorite. I'll take snow, I'll take rain, I'll take heat. I hate the wind.

But once the realization that I would not be running my goal race this month set in, I was disappointed. I was angry. I was frustrated. I was wallowing in that when I got a text from another friend who was supposed to run that race: 9am. Local trails. Be there.

So I gave myself an hour to wallow, an hour to read The Pursuit of Endurance (if I wasn't chasing my own endurance, I could at least read about others' attempts), and then an hour to eat and change and get myself to the park. And then I ran for six hours, over hill, over tree--and over tree, and around tree, and through tree, and over tree, and over tree again.

You Are Doing a Great Job

Photo credit: Swim Bike Run Photo, 2017 EX2 Blue Crab Bolt 10k

I am in the taper weeks of training for my second ultramarathon attempt (the first was the North Face Endurance Challenge 50k in DC last year), which means I'm spending far less time running and far more time thinking.

People talk of "taper madness," and it's a real thing: runners (and other event athletes, I suppose, but I don't do other events) claim that in the weeks before a race, every little muscle twinge feels like the portent of a major injury, every day feels long and stretchy with elasticized time, every short run leaves your legs feeling like they are pulsing with energy, ready to go further, go faster, go harder.

Taper madness is a real thing. But what it fails to account for is the opportunity inherent in tapering. This is the time to think about what we are doing, and why. Why would anyone want to run more than a marathon? (Why would anyone want to run a marathon, for that?)

Book Review: Endure, by Alex Hutchinson

Ever wondered why you find yourself able to sprint the last hundred meters of a 5k race, when you spent most of the third mile feeling like you couldn’t possibly take one more step? Or why crowd support makes you run better? Or why people tend to collapse after they cross the finish line of a marathon, rather than before?

Alex Hutchinson, columnist for Outside and Runner’s World, tackles these questions and more in his new book, Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. Hutchinson organizes his research into the limits of human performance into three buckets: Mind & Muscle (with chapters on how the brain interacts with our muscle capacity), Limits (pain, muscles, oxygen, heat, thirst, and fuel), and Limit Breakers (the science of training the brain to go beyond what we think we can do).

Book Review: The Long Run, by Catriona Menzies-Pike

Every once and a while, a book comes along that rings all my bells--and then some. The Long Run is one of those books. Running. Distance running. Trail running, even. Grief. Loss. Meditation. Feminism. History. Feminist history. Memory. Writing. Literature. Books. Here's a book that manages, in the span of a few hundred pages, to talk about dactyls and iambs, trans rights, art history, the Ancients, and distance running without any piece of it feeling out of place. Yes, please, sign me up.

Race Report: North Face Endurance Challenge DC 50k Trail Run

I didn't wear closed-toed shoes for four days after this event, but otherwise, felt pretty ok... (this is my doofy-tired-proud face)

There was a time, not so long ago, when I would have proudly stated that I had no interest in ever running any distance longer than a half marathon, thank-you-very-much. And then I ran 15.5 miles at a trail race in the fall, and I was hooked. Moving off roads and onto trails, up mountains, and over streams made something click for me. With very little convincing from some fellow trail running buddies, I signed up for my first take at an ultramarathon: The North Face Endurance Challenge 50k.

Week in Reading (and Mostly Running): May 8th

It's May! It's May! The lovely month of May! With my two big races* of the spring behind me, I'm hopeful that some (desperately needed) recovery time in the next few weeks will include books, books, and more books (and a little bit of television**). Here's what's on deck:

I seem to be on a kick for historical Essex-based novels about (possibly) supernatural forces. After finishing The Essex Serpent this weekend (review to come in Shelf Awareness for Readers), I'm just starting Strange Magic. The former was a quiet, contemplative novel that ruminated on good and evil, nature and faith, love and regret, and the human condition. The latter, so far, looks to be about 16th-century witch trials in Essex and a modern-day museum preserving their memory. My book clubs this month are reading Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie (a re-read for me) and Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple (a new book from a much-loved author). Maybe somewhere in there I'll work in something that's not for a deadline, but right now, it's not looking promising on that front...

I'm also re-reading Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (the Pulitzer-prize winning work by Matthew Desmond) for the Social Justice Book Club this month. It's not too late to join in if you'd like; sign up for an invite here, or if you're already in the Slack, just add yourself to the #evicted channel over there.

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*I finished my first ever ultramarathon! 31.7 miles of trails on a 90+ degree day, and I didn't die. Full race report to come later this week. I followed that up with a "recovery" run at the Frederick Half Marathon, and plan to sit on my butt and sleep a lot this week to apologize to my poor feet.

**In the queue: The Handmaid's Tale, American Gods, and catching up on Timeless.

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What are you reading this week? What else should I be watching? What are your favorite rest & recovery regimens?

Week in Reading (and Running): April 9th

Caught Lounging: Two Hikers on the AT

This past week was a recovery week in more ways than one: after last weekend's back-to-back high-mileage runs (totaling 26 miles in two days), the training plan for this week called for two easy-paced 45-minute runs and only 8 miles for yesterday. I ran two easy-paced 30 minute runs, did a session at the physical therapists, and barely eked out 5.5 miles on Saturday's run before calling it a dud; despite the low mileage all week, my legs were still absolutely exhausted and just would not get themselves into gear. After the dud run and a short hike yesterday (see photo above), today is all rest, rest, rest, stretch, and a bit more rest. Like Tara said in her running recap this week, someone remind me to keep up these PT and stretching exercises post-injury, yeah? They're exhausting but I think it's probably telling that they are so. Race day in T-3 weeks. But who's counting?

Looking Back: March Wrap-Up

In like a lion, out like a lamb... with a small snowstorm thrown in the middle somewhere around there. Said snowstorm meant a cancelled return flight from our sun-soaked vacation, which meant a few extra days of mandatory vacation reading, but despite the built-in reading time, this month still felt vaguely slump-like in the long run. Hoping for some seriously good reads to kick me out of it in April, but in the meantime, let's not overlook what was good about last month:

Week in Reading: March 27th

*tap tap* Is this thing on? It's been a while since I've done this, so pardon the rust as I get myself back in gear. How many idioms can I cram into one opening sentence? Is this considered burying the lede? Ahem. Without further ado...

I've had a few weeks of good reading, though it all feels vaguely slump-like to me despite enjoying several recent selections. I'm trying to cut myself some slack, but at the same time, I miss reading. And thinking about what I'm reading. And writing about reading. So here I am, trying the writing part in hopes that perhaps it will kick the rest of my reading self back into gear.

Running Recap: Baltimore Running Festival Half-Marathon

Yet another long, completely not book-related running recap. I make no apologies.

Welp, it's another one in the books. Two weeks ago, I ran my seventh official half-marathon. Because of travel, I wasn't able to make it back to the Freedom's Run half-marathon this year, so I set my sights on the Baltimore half marathon instead, held two weeks later as part of the annual Baltimore Running Festival.

Running Recap: Rick O'Donnell 5.22 Mile Trail Run & Ultra Challenge

This race recap is long, and not even remotely book-related. Consider yourself warned.

This past weekend marked my second time running the Rick O'Donnell 5.22-mile Trail Run & Ultra Challenge. Held in a gorgeous state park, the course is a 5.22-mile loop with just a wee bit of elevation gain:

Participants can sign up to run one loop, or take on the "ultra challenge" (run as many loops as you can in eight hours). Intending to run two loops as a training run for my upcoming half marathon, I signed up for the ultra challenge.

Karl Meltzer, Scott Jurek, and a Different Kind of Competition

This is not book-related, but it is inspiring. At least to me. And as I find myself frequently sucked into the vortex of bad news, campaign feuds, and headlines of racism, sexism, and other -isms of hatred, I find I need these kinds of inspiring stories. So shared here without apology and without relevance to any of my typical content.

Taken on the AT when I dropped my brother off at the MD/PA line to start his first solo hike of the trail.

Karl Meltzer is currently through-hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT).

This in and of itself is unique but not unheard of; the Appalachian Trail Conservancy estimates that approximately 15,000 individuals have through-hiked the entirety of the trail since the trail was a thing of which through-hikes could be counted. The first known through-hiker was Eric Shaffer, who completed the trail in 1948. It took him 124 days, which he spent without a tent, sleeping mat, or stove (which he chose not to carry because of weight), and his hike was virtually unheard of at the time (according to one source, the Appalachian Trailway News even published an article while Shaffer was hiking explaining all of the reasons a through-hike was impossible).*

This isn't even Meltzer's first through-hike of the trail. He completed the full trail in 54 days (that's roughly 40.5 miles per day) in 2008. And this time, he's aiming to complete the entirety of the trail (2,190 miles) in 46 days (an average of 47.6 miles per day) in order to beat the current fastest known time (FKT) for an Appalachian through-hike.

Run the World: Becky Wade's 3500-Mile Journey through Running Cultures

Review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers. Reprinted here with permission.

Champion marathoner Becky Wade travels to nine countries to explore running cultures.

In 2012, NCAA All-American star and Olympic hopeful Becky Wade received a Watson Fellowship to travel around the world to explore her passion: running. "Seventy-two beds, eleven pairs of running shoes, and 3,504 training miles later," Wade has since become an elite marathoner, drawing on her experience of cultures in nine countries to perfect her sport. In Run the World, she tells about her travels--and the lessons she learned along the way--in precise detail. 

Running Recap: The 2016 Frederick Half Marathon

This race recap is long, and not even remotely book-related. Consider yourself warned.

Squad goals. Or something. Pre-race group shot!

The Frederick Running Festival half marathon was an obvious choice for my target race this spring: the start line is 1.3 miles from my house (meaning bib pickup was a breeze, and I didn't have to deal with parking lot insanity the morning of or road closures trying to get to/from the race), and the course goes right through my town and covers most, if not all, of my most common training loops. At its closest point, the course is 1/4 block from my front door; at its furthest, it is 2.5 miles from it. It's a local-to-me race in the most local-to-me sense of the word.

Week in Reading: May 9th

I'm looking back at a very light week of reading and forward to yet another one of the same... but all for good reason. I ran the Frederick Half Marathon this weekend, and it was absolutely incredible to race through the streets of my town. I set out with the goal of running at least a 2:14, preferably a 2:10... and beat both my realistic and my stretch goals with a final time of 2:08:40, a new personal best for me. We had friends in town for the race, and celebrated the run with a big brunch afterwards, then took my mom out for a Mother's Day dinner, so there wasn't a lot of reading time squeezed in between the rest of it.

This week, I travel to Chicago for Book Expo (will you be there too? Say hi!), then on to Minnesota for a wedding, so I hope to have at least a bit of plane time for reading. In my travel bag:

Some Days Are Better Than Others: A Running Recap

Some days are better than others.

This is a thing that I know to be true, but really experiencing it--and letting myself believe it--has proved something else entirely. A recent run was a much-needed reminder that some days are, in fact, better than others. And that's not such a bad thing.

I set out for a long trail run on a gorgeous morning, planning for 11 miles. I'm training for a half in May, and this was one of my longest runs in my training plan, so it meant a lot not only physically, but mentally: if I can do this, I told myself, I can do the race.

But less than a mile into my run, my legs felt like lead. My feet felt like bruises. My calves felt like fire. My quads felt like jello. I hadn't even hit the hills yet.

Book Review: Running: A Love Story, by Jen A. Miller

I didn't realize it until halfway through the book, but the title of Running: A Love Story is a bit of a play on words. On its surface, the book is the story of Jen A. Miller's love affair with distance running: how she came to the sport; her experience running her first 10-miler, then half-marathon, then full; her struggles with body image and how running changed and defined that image. But it's also the story of Miller's love interests, her tangled relationships with men through her young adulthood and the way those relationships changed her relationship with running--for better or for worse.

Week in Reading: March 28

We're facing down the end of March already... when did that happen? It's been a slow reading week for me, so my stack looks disappointingly similar to last week's:

Week in Reading: March 21st

Heyo, wouldja look at that, I'm still here! Mostly. Work's been busy, and I've been spending my limited free time trying to read all the things. Which has meant limited brain power and/or spare time to write any things. C'est la vie.

Luckily, there have been some goooood books keeping me occupied of late.

A Mile Every Day: What a Running Streak Taught Me about Habits

I ran every day between Thanksgiving and New Years.  

For some runners, this is nothing to write home about (or, in this case, write blogs about). But it was a big commitment for me, moving from my usual 3-4 runs a week to 7 runs a week.

The idea came from the Runner's World Run Streak: run at least 1 mile, every day, from Thanksgiving to New Years. (The RWRunStreak includes a plan for varying mileage that I did not follow--I just stuck with the basic parameters.)

While the run streak was an interesting experiment in running (I didn't crave a rest day, for example, nearly as much as I'd expected to), what was most interesting about it was the lessons it taught me about habit-forming: