Wisdom Teeth and Running

Coming off of a really high mileage week during Spring Break I was ecstatic. Unfortunately I had to do something I had been putting off for a long time, 2 whole years actually: getting my wisdom teeth removed. Naturally I heard differing opinion on whether or not I would be able to run after the surgery, after all there are two opinions to every problem.  One friend told me he had to take a whole week off and did nothing but lay in bed, another told me he went back to work as a roofer the very same afternoon. I was more inclined to believe the roofer :-).

Chris, Kyle, and Seth were gracious enough to meet me for a run @ 7am before the surgery at 9am. Naturally the surgery did not in fact occur on time as seems to be the case in any dealings with Doctors. Finally, my name was called and I went back to the operation room and watched my heart rate flash mid/upper 40's on the screen as a wave of sleepiness overcame me. When I woke up my parents were standing above me and everything was done. I hobbled out to the car, sent some texts I don't remember sending, and went home and fell asleep. The day after the surgery I was able to eat solid foods already. Thankfully because I don't really care too much for pudding or Jello, and you'd be surprised at how quickly one gets sick of Ice Cream.

3/23 9miles pre surgery
3/24 5 miles on the XC course with Seth. I ran completely barefoot and on grass to minimize the pounding.
3/25 3 miles easy on roads. Teeth hurt on this run, hobbled 3 miles with pain in my teeth with every step.

 Weekly total = 85 miles

3/26 3 miles easy, more of the same
3/27 5 miles easy, more of the same
3/28 5 miles easy, more of the same. My mouth has been getting really dry on all these runs.

3/29 8 miles, 800m 2:12. I was wanting anything under 2:20 since I hadn't really been feeling that great let alone running that much for the past couple of days.

3/30 20 miles, the hard effort last night really made me feel much better. This is the best I have felt since before the surgery and I took advantage to get a longer run in. Not bad at all considering just 1 week ago I had my wisdom teeth taken out!

3/31 18 miles, another day and I'm feeling much better.

4/1   26 miles, got some steady miles in throughout the day warming up and cooling down with people at the NIRCA track meet @ IU. Afterwards I got some late night miles in with Kearny on the B-Line.

Weekly total: 85 miles.

Not too shabby, 170 miles in 2 weeks with wisdom teeth being removed in the middle of it (and 0 days off!). I credit my running as the reason to a fast recovery, take it for what it's worth.

In other news Quals for little 50 were on Thursday and my team qualified 11th. Not bad when one of your guys has surgery 5 days before, one broke his hand running trails at Griffy 2 days before, one was puking his guts out the day before, and one had drank entirely too much alcohol that week. Needles to say we all hope to improve by magnitudes come race day.  For those who don't know little 50 is the running counter part to the little 500 held at Indiana University. In teams of 4 runners race 50 laps around a standard track (1/4 mile), exchanging every lap or whenever they choose. The race is held on a week from this Sunday.

Cheers,

Scott

Spring Break

Monday- 21 miles

Ran 10 miles on the streets of Lawrence County this morning by myself. My legs felt sufficiently recovered from this weekends 60k to ramp back up my mileage. Later that evening Wendy, Tim, and I met the Bedford running group for a 5 mile run . Bedford runners for some reason are fixated with Washington Ave. so this run and most of my other weekly miles would take place there. Tim and I tacked on a few more miles afterward to make it 9 even. Later that night I went out with Amelia for 2 more miles.


Tuesday- 20 miles
AM- Ran 10 miles though Bedford with Wes.
PM-Met the Bedford group @5 for another easy run. Jimmy, Bill, and Kathy were doing a tempo run but I decided it hadn't been enough time from the race to do a workout yet so Tim and I just ran easy behind them. We ended up with ~8 miles with the group and Tim and I tacked on 2 more after to end with 10 miles.


Wednesday- 20 miles

Wes and I headed to the KT for a run. The northern terminus is closer to us so luckily we weren't effected by the tornado damage at all. Wes' IT band was giving him trouble so I ran the last ~8 miles solo and he took a shortcut back. I really pushed the way back and concentrated on running every step- a hard thing to do on the KT! Later that evening we ran an easy 4 miles on the Parkview Track.

Thursday- 20 miles

I ran 10 miles around Bedford with Wes before heading into Bloomington in the afternoon to meet my dad for dinner. Before Dinner I got another 10 miles in from my parent's house.

Friday- 16

Wes and I ran a 3 lakes loop in the morning. I was testing out my new pair of Salomon SpeedCross3's which I fell in love with. However, I decided to send them back for a smaller size. The SC3s really allow you to run downhills much more efficiently than a minimalist trainer like the NB110s I had been wearing for everything. It felt good to get back out on the trails after a lot of road miles this week. Later in the evening I ran another easy 3 miles with Wes.


Saturday-20

Ran 10 miles in the morning with Wendy and Tim around Bedford. When we got back we exchanged our good-byes with Wes and he hit the road back to Mississippi. After a short (ok maybe long) nap I headed back out for another run- 10 barefoot miles around the parkview track, which surprisingly went by quickly. I had the place all to myself!

Sunday- 33 miles

Wendy, Tim, and I got up early to meet Galloway and Deckard @Parkview for an easy 5. Afterwards Tim and I tacked on 5 more miles to make it an even 10. After church Rachel N. texted me asking if I would want to run with her later in the day. I agreed and we ran 7 miles though Cascades around 3:30PM. When I finished running with Rachel I transitioned straight into 16 mile run with Seth G. Neither Seth or I was planning to run this much- seth picked the route which he claimed was 12ish miles. "ish" apparently accounts for 4+ miles. The route left my apartment and headed north up from Griffy to Bethel to Boltinghouse. From there we took Earl Young to SR45 before taking Russel Rd. back to Griffy. I neglected to take water on any of these runs and am suffering minor heat exhaustion as a result.

Total: 150 miles, ~20hours

A good week of running for me. I surpassed my highest weekly mileage ever by a few miles. It was nice staying in Bedford with Wendy and Tim. The town has a really great running group inhabited by a really great group of people. The hilly county roads in Bedford and the surrounding area stretch for miles and miles providing plenty of good places to run. Wes was suffering from a bad case of ITBS after the race so unfortunately we couldn't get as many miles together as either of us would have liked. I sit here writing this as my final spring break as an undergrad comes to a close. Even though I spent the week in Bedford, not Tennessee like the past years, this spring break was one of my favorites.

Cheers,

Scott

2/18 run

In an effort to mimic the conditions @LBL I designed (perfectly I might add) a miniaturized 30 mile version of the race @MMSF. We'd run the first 2 miles on road and pick up the 3 lakes trail where it crosses the main forest rd. around the Hardwood Ecosystem Experiment. From there we'd run a full loop of the trail and end up back at the car. Then another full loop. Then an abbreviated 8 mile loop, then finally ending with 2 miles on the road. The course came out perfectly and we hit the car @ 30.00 miles exactly.

Wendy didn't stop her watch when we stopped to eat, so the pace is actually a little faster.

Liz, Wendy, Doug, Tim, and I started the run around 11:15AM. The parking lot was unusually crowded and we would encounter many people out on the trail today. The first loop went by super fast and we were back to the car before we knew it.

Wendy and I had left a drop bag at the ~5mile mark earlier the day before with gels, Gatorade, water, a sleeve of Chips Ahoy!, pretzels and MM's. Apparently my brain wasn't working when we left the bag the night before as I didn't even think about racoons and chipmunks. Which turned out to be a big mistake: an animal got to the drop bag before we did and took the entire sleeve of cookies- it was gone without a trace, and ate all the pretzels and MM's but left the shredded zip-lock they were in. Apparently they were not interested in gels or Gatorade though.

The group started the second loop which also flew by. Doug was having a bad day and caught a ride back to his car around mile 15. Tim, Liz, Wendy, and I continued on completing the second loop for 21 miles down. Liz decided to call it a day here and only 3 continued on for the last lap. Thankfully this was an abbreviated loop because I don't think anyone was looking forward to another full 3 lakes loop! Midway through this loop we past the 26.2 mile mark, the furthest Tim and Wendy had ever ran. I am glad I got to share this special moment with them. We finished the loop and then ran 2 miles on the road. All our food was gone- eaten by us or animals so we had no food to eat when we finished. Tim found some peanut butter "samples" he had gotten in the race bag at LLTH and we scarfed those down. We drove the hour back to Wendy's and, too tired from running to do anything else, order chinese food and watched 19 and counting.

LLTH 54k

Excitement for this race had been building all week. A mid-week drop in the forecasted temperature of 15 degrees put a mild damper on my spirit, and I cursed this race for not being a spring race. I did a taper in my usual fashion, cutting back mileage with 2 days before the race. Leading up to the race my mileage went: 15, 8, 22, 5, 4, race. This worked out well as my legs felt good and ready to go on race day. The other issue I was worried about was my knee. I had fallen on it pretty bad 2 weeks ago and it had hurt horribly at first, got a lot better quickly, then sort of stagnated for a week. I had no problems at all with my knee during the race however, so unfortunately I cannot offer it as an excuse for getting 3^rd.

Friday morning rolled around and I got an easy 4 mile run in with Kyle before hitting the road with Jon at 2:30PM. I threw my bags in the trunk and we hit the road. I asked Jon whether he wanted to take the highway all the way there, or take the scenic route through the Hoosier National Forest. We decided on the HNF route and we made it to Louisville in almost no time. We headed straight to packet pick-up at Ken Combs running store. Jon and I, both being shoe and nutrition geeks had a lot to look at and talk about.  We were only in the store shortly before Wendy and Tim walked in. I introduced them to Jon and we all chatted and looked around for another 45 minutes before heading over to Quest Outdoors for a pre-race pasta dinner. I saw Tim Barnes and chatted with him awhile before Jon and I geeked over more shoes. The Pasta dinner was unlike anything I had ever had. All of it was home-made and there were about 9 different kinds of pasta, and home-made bread! I remarked to Jon and Tim that this was a better pre-race meal than they had at Leadville! Wendy, Tim, Jon, and I chatted about various things before we watched Unbreakable. Beau came to meet us just before the movie started. Beau is the friend whose house Jon and I would be staying at.

***side note on Beau: I met him in 2010 at the DWD race in Gnawbone. I was running the 50k and he was running the half marathon. Our paths crossed with 8 miles to go in each of our respective races and we ran the last 8 in together with another friend: Liane. I can say with 100% confidence that without Beau I would have gotten lost in the last 8 miles. (Case in point Jon, who was also in the 50k, got lost in the last 8 miles). Beau and I had been friends ever since.

Everyone shared my and Wendy’s confusion as to why they decided to put the scene where Geoff Roes burns that kids mouth in the movie. Beau also remarked that Geoff looks like a mailman, which I think is an accurate statement. Mid-way through the movie Tim and Wendy left for their hotel. Jon, Beau, and I finished the movie, chatted with Tim and Troy a bit, then headed to Beau’s. It was a real treat to stay at Beau’s the night before the race. Not only was Beau willing to let us sleep on a warm bed in the guest room, but he knew the course like the back of his hand. He gave us a detailed account of every part of the course, where each aid station was, where each hill was. I have never been so prepared before a race! I knew our first 2 miles would be entirely flat or down-hill so they would be quick (they were: 6:56 and 7:01). Beau knew the course so well that he agreed to meet me at each aid station with water and gels. This was great as it meant I didn’t have to carry anything!

I got out my packet to make sure everything was in order. To my surprise I pulled out 2 chips and 2 bibs. #212 and #213. I had no idea which one was actually mine or whether the extra was either someone else’s or nobodies. I decided to go with 212, turns out this was the wrong choice. We joked about how Beau could now do the race as #213 even though he never signed up. I gave the extra bib to Beau, as he would turn out to be such an integral part of my race that I could not have done it without him. With everything in order we decided to hit the sack around 11PM. This would give us a good 7 hours of sleep before waking up at 6AM. Beau lives so close to the race that we didn’t have to leave for the race till 7:15! We were getting ready to go to bed and Beau casually informed us that the last person to stay in the guest room was Wesley Korrir, a 2:04 marathon. Jon and I could only hope to live up the expectations that fast runners stay in the guest room.

We woke up to a frigid 22 degrees, but no snow on the ground. I checked the weather and the high was only 24. I think this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it meant that since it was not really going to warm up any the clothes we wore at the beginning would be sufficient for the whole duration of the run. Jon and I spent a good deal of time debating on what to wear. It was supposed to be windy so we both decide to wear wind jackets. I went with tights, a long sleeve dri-fit tee, mittens, and a wind breaker. Beau packed his running clothes as he said he might run with me for a little bit towards the latter half of the race. We hit the road and arrived at the start/finish area around 7:35. We put our shoes on and left the car at 7:55. I got to exchange a few words with Wendy and Tim then I found a place right next to Eric Grossman and Troy Shellhammer. This would be a really hot race up front with a ton of talent including: Harvey Lewis, Jonathon Clinthorne, Russ Goodman, Matt Hoyes, and Mike Hermanson. I had a hunch however, that Troy, Eric, and I would round out the top 3. In what order? Anyone could guess. If it was a 50k on road, I would give myself the edge, but it being trail with huge amount of elevation change: long declines and long inclines, Grossman had to have a slight edge of Troy and myself.  If it came down to a sprint finish, I liked my chances. (Turns out it would come down to a sprint finish, but between Grossman and Shellhammer as they burned me on the downhills in the last 1/3 of the race and put me out of contention).  

We ran the first loop very easily. Troy led us through the first ½ of the loop and then Grossman took over. I tucked in behind and we completed the first loop in 46 minutes. Right behind us was Russ Goodman and Matt Hoyes. At the aid station I grabbed a sip of water and gel from Beau and took off. It turns out I was the first out of the Aid station and now found myself in the lead of our little pack. I didn’t want to push too hard so I slowed down and let Shellhammer and company catch back up. We now started out on another loop, this time 7.5 miles. I led the whole thing followed closely behind by Grossman, Hoyes, and Shellhammer. We had now lost Russ and it was down to a 4 man race. I believed us to be occupying the first 4 spots of the 50k but Troy informed me that this was not true: Mike Hermanson, had opened up a few minute lead on us. We were all a bit worried as Mike was a 9:30 ironman, clearly a very fast dude. I lead the whole loop and we completed it in 1:12. After this loop we hit a ½ downhill on a service road that would take us to the last loop of the course: an out and back coupled with a 3.25 mile loop at the end. We hit the service road and Grossman took off faster than I’ve ever seen anyone run downhill. The race was on. Troy and I gave chase and Hoyes fell off pace, I would not see Hoyes again till the finish line. Grossman set a torrential pace on the downhills. He was followed quickly by Shellhammer but I could not keep up.  Making our was to Scott’s Gap (turn around section) they would open up huge leads, up to 300meters on me that I would close on the uphills and flats. I was climbing better than both of them, but they were both on another universe when it came to downhill running. Somewhere along the ridge we passed the triathlete Mike Hermanson. We would not see him again the rest of the day.

Grossman and me in the early miles (photo by ed)

I followed closely behind Grossman and Shellhammer for ~7 miles till we hit Scott’s Gap. At Scott’s Gap we would do a 3.25 loop then return back the same way to the finish. Beau decided he would run this section with me. We stayed side by side with Troy and Eric up the first climb, and then they took off on the downhill, never to be seen again.  I was hoping I would get to see Russ and Jon on the way back, but they were running too fast and had already entered Scott’s Gap. I dropped Beau off at the parking lot and then took off. On the ridge back to the next aid station I passed Brain Holzhausen, director of the DINO trail series, Aaron Louden, and Jake Findley. It was nice to see some familiar faces! I hit the Bear Camp aid station and Beau paced me the rest of the way in. We had 5.5 miles to go to try and chase down Grossman and Shellhammer. We hit a torrential pace and finished the last 5.5 miles in 41 minutes. We closed the gap by a few minutes, but it was not enough. I hit the finish in 4:53, reaching my goal of sub 5 hours. I gave everything I had in the last 5.5 miles and I’ve never been more satisfied with losing a race.

Beau was an absolute Godsend. He met me at each aid station with my water and gel. He even ripped the top off of the gel so all I had to do was suck it down, take a swig of water, and then be on my way. I lost no time at the aid stations. Beau also ran Scott’s Gap with me (3.25 miles) and ran with me in from Bear Camp rd. (5.5 miles) without him there is no way I would have pushed as hard as I did in the final stretches of the race. 

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
1	6:55.6	1.00	6:56
2	7:01.1	1.00	7:01
3	8:31.9	1.00	8:32
4	8:39.7	1.00	8:40
5	8:20.4	1.00	8:20
6	7:09.3	1.00	7:09
7	7:54.6	1.00	7:55
8	9:10.1	1.00	9:10
9	8:50.7	1.00	8:51
10	9:47.3	1.00	9:47
11	9:30.9	1.00	9:31
12	10:00.9	1.00	10:01
13	9:56.1	1.00	9:56
14	6:38.4	1.00	6:38
15	8:28.0	1.00	8:28
16	8:27.8	1.00	8:28
17	7:45.3	1.00	7:45
18	9:26.7	1.00	9:27
19	7:41.5	1.00	7:42
20	7:58.2	1.00	7:58
21	9:59.2	1.00	9:59

These are the splits for the first 21 miles (Eric Grossman)

After the race Beau and I hung out and ate chilli while waiting for our friends to finish. Climbing up the final hill into the finish I could hear Wendy and Tim cheering. What great friends, they waited over 2 hours after they finished their respective races to see me finish! I watched from the warmth of the lodge as Jon, Harvey, and Russ all finished. We hung around and chatted in the lodge for awhile before taking off. I should also give thanks here to Beau's friend Pat who drove the car around while Beau was pacing me. Pat is one of the nicest people I have ever met. He and Beau were Lewis and Clark of the Jefferson Memorial Forest- they new how to get to every aid station, what roads the trail crossed, etc. Pat, Jon, Beau, and I got in the car and drove to a delicious BBQ places in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. It was some of the best food I ever had! After that we went back to Beau's where he brewed us some Hollis Blend Coffee. We reflected on the memories we shared that weekend and then Jon and I hit the road back to Bloomington. 

PS. Turns out the race was 33+ miles long!

2011 Totals

Miles : 5,233
Miles/week: 100.4
Days off: 15
Daily Average: 14. 95

2011 Monthly Mileage

2011 Weekly Mileage

My goal was 5,200 miles or 100mile/week. Obviously I met that goal; mostly due to a big winter and summer. As you can see my mileage suffered a bit in the fall.

Should we run barefoot?

People often cite increasing injuries in people who wear vibrams as a reason to not run barefoot. It is true that we are seeing an increase in injuries do to vibrams. This is because people are looking for a catch all cure and they believe barefoot running is that (Maybe rightfully so as it is all over the media these days!). They think that going out a buying a pair of vibrams or any other minimalist shoe and running in them will cure injuries and make them a better runner but this is not the case.

Most barefoot advocates make a key mistake— barefoot running doesn’t directly help you—it teaches your body good form and that allows you to get less injured.  You can run in shoes and have good form and not get injured (see Kenyan marathoners on TV).  Vibrams, although certainly more minimal than most standard shoes are still a far cry from barefoot.  You can still heel strike and you can even have horrible form in five fingers.  This is why people are getting injured, they are using the five fingers but not learning good form. As a result they keep their same form and continue running as if they had a few inches of foam under them when they only have a few millimeters of rubber. Instead of impact forces being reduced, as these people assume they are, impact forces increase. They would have been better off sticking to standard running shoes! Here is an example that works for most people. Run barefoot down the block, what do you hear? Silence. Put on a pair of vibrams and run down the block, what do you hear? Slap, slap, slap—the sound of your feet slapping the ground (obvious bad form). 

Now some people are smart enough to believe that running trails would reduce some impact (true) so they buy vibrams and only run on trails with them. This is almost even more dangerous than running on road with them because now they cannot hear their feet slapping the ground and are lured into a false sense that their form must be good. This is why Barefoot Ken Bob believes you should NOT start a barefoot routine on grass or sand but instead on road. With road our feet can feel if something hurts or are form is wrong and we can correct it.

People also get injured because they usually do too much too soon. They get the five fingers and expect to keep up their normal mileage and then when they do they get hurt.  Running in minimal footwear or barefoot shoes puts more strain on you calfs and other muscles, which makes getting used to it harder.

FAQ’s and other thoughts

What is good form and do you really need good form?

Form isn’t everything as most barefoot advocates would have you believe. Plenty of people heel strike and don’t get hurt- plenty of people have bad form in ways other than footstrike but still win races (ala Kenyan steeplechasers).  Obviously there are much more important things than form, a person who trains harder will beat a person who rarely trains but is gifted with good biomechanics any day. There are plenty of other ways to improve you running without being barefoot like trying different training plans, running more trails, more hills, etc.  

Most of the true barefoot runners do it because they enjoy it not because they are trying to get a competitive advantage. So if you want to try barefoot running you should and if you really enjoy it then go for it— In my opinion this is the reason to run barefoot, not to improve running performance.  Even more, I believe that if you come in with the mindset of doing barefoot just to improve your running performance you will most likely make mistakes and get injured. 

I run barefoot often and run in minimal shoes on the roads and trails. I do this because I love it and it feels good, not because I want to improve my 5k time. If I try to run in a standard trainer with a bulky heel my form feels off and I don't feel like running. Sure you can make arguments that we all should run barefoot because we were born without shoes and our ancestors didn't have shoes so why should we? or that being barefoot reduces the amount of weight you have to carry so in theory you should be able to run faster but in the end I think we should all do what we like best and feel the most comfortable in.

If barefoot is so good for you how come all the Kenyans wear shoes?

 For two reasons:  (1) these Kenyans grew up running barefoot in Kenyan so they already learned “good form.”  When they wear shoes they still have good form. (2) Shoe deals. Companies take advantage of this by signing shoe deals with athletes. It is simple, wear our shoe, and we pay you. Take any Kenyan who is sponsored; you think they would be allowed to run barefoot even if they wanted too? Probably not.  Go to any message board and you will most likely see a few threads saying “What shoes is so and so wearing in this picture?” not “What shorts, singlet, etc” so clearly to the average human shoes are most important. For the sake of argument let’s say Geoffry Mutai (winner of NYC marathon) gets $250,000 a year to wear nike’s. Now I’m not entirely sure but I’m betting if Vibram offered him $400,000 a year he would wear vibrams. In conclusion I think saying “But the Kenyans don’t even go barefoot!” Is a poor argument to not try barefoot running.

Anton Krupicka is a person who people often cite as wearing minimal shoes and getting hurt all the time. True he is hurt a lot, but he also often logs upwards of 180+ miles per week. Even sometimes logging 1000 miles in 5 weeks! You do the math. Anyone who runs that much obviously runs a great risk of getting injured. Regardless of your footwear choice if you are running that much for that longer you’re probably going to get injured. Why then does Tony run so much and all of it in minimal shoes? Because that is what he loves to do.

In conclusion: Do what you love.

A few months in review

A lot has happened since I last posted. Summer is officially over and fall is here. It is unlikely that we will see temperatures in the 80s, much to my dismay. I am going to try to write blog entries more regularly now-- so check back often. I know I say this all the time but now I actually mean it, well I mean it at this instant anyway.  My training since leadville has been sub par at best. I ran a decent 60k but I believe that was soley off of any fitness I had remaining after Leadville. As many of you know I lost my training partner and best friend Wes Trueblood to grad school. I haven't found and don't think I will ever find a replacement for Wes, this means having to do long runs on my own, in other words I haven't been doing them. I have only done 2 runs over 30 miles since Leadville and one of them was a race. I skipped Owen Putnam last weekend and I know I shouldn't have. Running Leadville caused me to forgo most other races in spite of training and as a result I only did 2 other races this year- a marathon and a 60k. In hindsight this was probably a poor choice. After DNFing at Leadville I pretty much considered 2011 a lost cause. The only silver lining I supposed is I am well on my way to accomplishing a goal I set for myself back in January-- run over 5200 miles this year.

Here is my mileage since Leadville:
39 (Week after)
89
118
94
86
96
107
90
91
75
92

I know most would still consider this high mileage but when you are use to putting in 110-120 mile weeks week in and week out in the summer it doesn't seem like much.

Hopefully I can get out of this rut this week and start logging some higher miles. Emily's 100 is this weekend so I should be able to get a lot of running in out there. I have not been back to Arizona in about 2 years so I am eager to get back and run in the mountains. Thanksgiving break and Winter break are also coming up soon so I don't really have any excuse not to get good training in then-- between them is finals, which hopefully won't cause anymore a reduction in running than normal school work (I have no cumulative finals) and the tecumseh trail marathon.  Wes is coming back a week from this friday and Emily and I won't leave for St. Louis till Thursday so that gives us nearly a week to get in some good runs.