Now That Was Interesting…….
January 10th, 2009 Posted in TrainingToday kicked off the new season of running and the first week of part deux of my Western training. Part uno (the number not the pizza) was building a base of strength and endurance. My hope was to exit these 3 months with no injuries and an overall feeling that my body was going to cooperate with all this nonsense. Thankfully, it did and the foundation has been established thanks to patience and cross training. With the exception of my little header running down the icy ski slope a few weeks back, I’m no worse for the wear.
Part deux is a three month stretch designed to increase endurance and hopefully, a wee bit of speed. BUT, I’m really going to focus on time on my feet and continued cross training and not speed. Speed hurts. Speed = injury. Speed is so out, eating is so in :-). I’m planning to use races as a way to stay motivated during this phase. a 50K in January, a 50K with Drew (his first-ever ultra) on Valentine’s Day and another 50K in March at Cool in California. Hopefully, if all goes well I’ll build on each race, getting a bit stronger, better recovery and maybe faster - which is relative since every trail race is different depending upon the trails, altitude, hills and conditions. Ah yes, conditions. That brings us to today’s G.A.C. FatAss 50K in Topsfiled, MA.
So far, New England is well ahead of schedule for snowfall and cold temperatures. Today didn’t disappoint. It was a crisp 13 degrees at this morning’s start and it didn’t really warm up much throughout the day. But what made things even more interesting was the trail conditions. The aptly named FatAss is run in Bradley-Palmer State Park which is lovely but not so much when covered with a sheet of ice, under which was about 1-2 inches of powdery snow. As John JP Power and I made the left hand turn into the park we both immediately said, “Uh oh”, as we observed the field on the right which was a skating rink.
Needless to say, we decided to set off early to get home earlier and didn’t want to hang around in the cold. It really was butt freezing. So we had the honor of christening the 6.2M loop trail for which the 50K runs 5 times. We felt like the ice breaking boat that Shackelford must have dreamed for during his fated Arctic adventure. The crunching was so loud JP and I couldn’t hear each other - kinda put a damper on the trail chatter. Meanwhile we were alternating freezing our extremities and slipping and sliding every step. We were either on frozen tundra/icy jeep roads and snow/ice covered single track trails. It was a slog and an adventure to say the least.
In the end, the 5 loops and 50K (31+ miles) was covered, despite the aching calve, quad and hamstring muscles that were on the verge of cramping the entire last loop from all the unstable footing. Upon reaching the aid station at the finish, I proceeded to camp out in front of the gas heater they had, for a good ten minutes. I think I may have melted my pants but frankly, don’t care - my legs felt like a couple of angry Popsicles. 
But the time on the feet was invaluable and the hot tub afterwards was divine. So all in all, a good start to the new year and part deux.
