My First Ultra!

Be warned, new runners. 7 years ago I struggled and cramped my way through a 10k race and finished feeling like I had just climbed Everest. A few weeks ago I found myself standing ankle-deep in a puddle in Bellingham thinking it was reasonable to run 50k in the rain, snow, mud, and wind. It will happen to you.

I mean, if you can do 6.2 miles, why not 13.1? And certainly if you can run 13.1 miles once, you can do it twice. So why not sign up for a marathon? And so it goes.

When I ran my first marathon I really didn’t even know that there was such a thing as a longer distance than that. I crossed the finish like feeling like I’d just climbed Everest and figured I’d done it. All that was left to do was run 26.2 miles faster.

Then a funny thing happened. Every time I tried to get my body to go faster, it just broke. So my marathon times never really changed. Well, I said to myself, if I can’t go faster, I can do more. So I set goals of doing more marathons. Two things happened with that plan. One, I went broke paying entry fees and booking hotel rooms. Two, I got hurt more often.

On a doctor’s advice, I started running on “soft” surfaces more often to reduce the impact injuries I was suffering. I’d be out running 4 miles on the trails and groups water bottle carrying athletes would bound past me and bounce uphill over the rocks and roots. These strange creatures are ultra-marathoners.

Ultra-marathons? I didn’t know there was such a thing. But once I knew there was a distance goal above 26.2, I just had to have it. Because I’m an idiot. And I hang out with idiots who think such things are reasonable.

So back to the starting line. I was trying to be serious about what I was about to do, but I looked around at the 300 other people in my starting group and noticed that they all had silly grins on their faces. Some of them were even laughing and joking around. Are you people insane?

Yes, they are insane. And I was now one of them. So I grinned and made a lame joke to person standing next to me. And before I knew it, Scott Jurek was telling us to have fun out there…Fun?

Running any distance is ultimately about seeing what your body can do. It’s about testing your fitness and your mental toughness. I was about to find out what I could do. I had never run anything over 27 miles in my life, let alone with thousands of feet of climbing on muddy, snow-covered trails and fire roads.

A mile into the race I started noticing a few things. In most marathons, we all queue up and put our heads down, waiting for the starting gun. Then we huff and puff our way quietly through the first few miles. In an ultra, people are smiling, patting each other on the back, talking about training, asking about friends. Someone running near me noticed that my shoes were the same brand he wore. Cool man. Nice kicks.

At the second aid station – which emerged out of the snowy forest like some sort of frozen, tented oasis, one of my ultra-running friends was manning the water pitchers. He couldn’t run this race, but he came out anyway to be a part of it. He recognized me as I came in, gave me some advice about the course, smiled and kicked my butt out of the aid station and up the hill. That doesn’t happen at your local 10k.

In the middle miles I fell in with a small group of men and women and we ran together for a while. I slowed down a bit on a steep climb (it felt steep to me, anyway) and a woman I don’t know and had never seen before the race stopped and kicked my butt to keep running. You don’t get that in your average half marathon.

And eventually my watch ticked over 26.2 miles. Then over 27. 28. I was in new territory. My longest ever run, and it didn’t kill me.

I dragged myself across the finish line, eventually. Two more of my ultra runner friends who couldn’t run this race were there, directing traffic, high fiving finishers, and basically hanging out having a good time. I dwelled on the fact that I had just finished an ultra marathon for roughly 30 seconds before one of these “friends” asked me when I was going to sign up for a 50 miler.

Be warned. It will happen to you, too.

How to Die in the Woods

Back in my more adventurous days I was unfortunate enough to spend several unplanned nights in the wilderness. These were usually mountaineering efforts gone awry, long approach hikes washed out by bad weather, or rare instances when a climbing partner got hurt. But that was mountaineering, and we openly talked of that risk. It was a known entity. Climbers dismiss such nights as a quick “bivvy.” It’s part of the adventure, and over time you learn the difference between an inconvenient night on a rock ledge and a life-threatening situation.

Having given up any real vertical aspirations, I assumed I was pretty much done with the unplanned wilderness overnight adventure. But on a recent trail run, as things started to spiral out of control, I was smacked in the face by the reality that running in the wilderness is no different from climbing in the wilderness. Things can go wrong, and if you make enough mistakes, you can die on a trail run just as easily as you can while climbing a mountain…Using my recent experience in New Zealand to illustrate, I’m here to tell you how to do it:

1.     Go alone. This way no one will be there to see those embarrassing last moments as you slowly die from exposure or a head injury.

2.     Ignore the Weather. The run in question was in a national park known for being both the rainiest and the sunniest place on the north Island of New Zealand. As weird as that sounds, it should have at least registered in my brain as a variable in my plan. When I woke that morning, heavy rain clouds were racing in from the ocean. The mountain I intended to run the flanks of was shrouded in mist. But instead of using my actual senses to assess the situation, I looked at the online weather report, took the optimistic high temperature, and dressed for that.

3.     Don’t research. I had already glanced at a 100 word description of the track I was going to do. Most of the trails I’d been on in the week or so before this had been very well marked and logical. I hadn’t once used one of the maps carried. And I was still riding the high I was on from the day before, where I just randomly happened upon a brilliant track that wasn’t on any maps or in any guidebooks. Just go for it! So I left for the mountain with no maps.

4.     Be in a hurry. This is important if you want to die, because when you’re in a hurry, you forget things. You forget to charge your GPS watch, for example. Or you forget to refill your hydration pack. Heck, you even forget to grab a fresh pair of shoes because you know there are some shoes in the car already.

5.     Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. The very kind woman at the parking lot near the trailhead was a little concerned about my plans. I was going to do what they considered to be a 2-3 day tramp in 3-4 hours. As I stood there shivering in my shorts and tank top (see #2) she asked whether anyone would miss me if I didn’t return. That’s exactly how she phrased it. Umm, yeah. Eventually. If I don’t get off an Air New Zealand flight in a week, people might miss me. But no. I hadn’t told anyone my plans.

6.     Be cheap. The well-meaning ranger suggested I purchase the official topo map of the mountain before I set out. These maps are unbelievably good and are produced by the New Zealand government to keep people from dying in the woods. But fourteen dollars? I’ll be fine with this promotional map I got from a brochure on guided summit expeditions, thank you.

7.     Be proud. A mile into this trail and I knew it was going to be a struggle. Steep climbs, slippery descents, treacherous stream crossings, and waist deep bogs were the order of the day. When my under-charged GPS watch died at mile 6 (see #4) I had already been struggling on this trail for almost 2 hours. Do the math. But rather than turning around, I kept pressing on, and before long I was past the halfway point. I think. I didn’t have a map (#3, #6).

8.     Take risks. Sure, there’s an easier way to cross that river about a half mile upstream, but this is a more direct route. This is the logic that almost did me in. Leap to one rock. Solid. Breathe. Leap again. Miss. Slip and fall into the freezing river. Narrowly miss smashing your skull on a rock. Watch in slow motion as the rock you jumped to starts rolling toward you. Think about 127 Hours. Panic.

I eventually dragged myself out of the forest and back to my car, of course. But I spent over half of what turned out to be 21 miles talking to myself like a crazy man, worrying that I was hopelessly lost, and cursing myself for being a moron.

Be careful out there. I need both of my readers to keep this thing going!

Coming in Next Month's Issue

 In next month's Northwest Runner, I give advice on how to die in the woods! Here's a preview: Ignore signage like this:

Bet you can't wait for the rest.

DNS

I just put a few scorch marks on the Real Running credit card signing up for a few spring and summer races. Sixty dollars here. Ninety dollars there. I even snuck in a thirty-five dollar entry fee. Bargain! Of course, that doesn’t include a t-shirt.

Not that I need another t-shirt.

Over the last year I signed up for a dozen races. I ran in six of them. Race fees, like most airfares, are non-refundable, which you would think would be motivation enough to not miss an event I signed up for. But no. I have come up with some really interesting excuses to avoid toeing the starting line recently. And with the spring and summer race season starting up in the Northwest, I thought I’d offer myself up as a cautionary tale to those of you with your credit card out and your calendar open.

First, let me just say that it is too darn easy to sign up for races. Open a website, click an event, click a few more buttons and now you’re the proud owner of spot on the starting line. All races look great online. Neat logos, fancy interactive course maps, pictures of smiling finishers holding medals or flowers or infants, or all three.

But that’s another issue entirely.  We’re here to chase all those entry fees I kindly donated to the race organizers last year.

I consciously chose to skip one race. It’s true. I bagged out. I thought I’d have more time to train. I thought I could cram in a few long runs right before the race. I’d run 26.2 miles before. What the heck. But the week before the race, as I labored through the last mile of a short run on a flat road, I knew I would do nothing but suffer if I laced up the shoes for marathon weekend. So I quit. I stayed home and watched a Top Chef marathon on TV. I still think this was a wise decision. A DNS is better than a DNF any day, if you ask me.

Compare that to last summer. I was in good running shape, had been training hard, had a couple of great long training runs under my feet, and had plans to do a marathon I’ve wanted to do for years. The day before the race, I was tempting fate by walking around the yard barefoot. Fate broke my toe. The day before the race. No run for me.

Later in the summer I was traveling in the week before a trail race. I was supposed to fly home the night before, get a good night’s sleep, and show up at the trailhead ready to go. Instead, my flight got canceled. And the next one was overbooked. And the other airlines didn’t have flights until morning. I did finally get on a flight. And as we started our descent into Sea-Tac, the race was just starting. Missed that one.

A month later one of our kids came home from school sick. Within three days everyone was sick. Day four was the Portland Marathon. Since even getting out of bed was a struggle, I didn’t figure running around the streets of Portland was the best idea.

I slept through my alarm on a race day in November.

I wrote down the wrong date for a race in December and missed it by a week.

And now I’m looking at this slate of races I have registered and paid for between now and summer and wondering what circumstances will come my way and prevent me from getting to the starting line. I’m putting my money on alien invasion.

The Foot Commute

My official place of work (that is, not the milk crates and plywood from which I do the important work of writing about recreational distance running) has several incentives in place to encourage employees to carpool, ride the bus, and even bicycle to work. Heck, there is even a National Bike-to-Work Day every year. If you carpool you get the best parking spaces. If you ride the bus you get…um…you get to ride the bus. If you ride your bike you get a neat locker where you can safely store your mount while you toil the day away. If you can brave the mildew and don’t mind bathing in public, there are also showers.

We can even win prizes for not driving to work alone. I have been the fortunate recipient of not one but three coffee mugs celebrating my alternative commuting practices. I keep paperclips and highlighters in them despite the fact that I have never used a paperclip or a highlighter at work.

Carpools and mass transit are fine. Bicycling to work is great (though in Seattle you are certainly putting your life into the hands of some very angry SUV drivers if you choose to ride anywhere).  But what about getting to work on foot?

Lately, as a way to fit in my training miles and get to and from work, I’ve been doing the Foot Commute. I can get from my office to my front door in as few as 7 miles and there are interesting routes up to 15 miles (I haven’t done any of those long ones, but they look good on the map). Once I have sent my last email and deftly avoided attending any late afternoon meetings by claiming to be in yet another meeting, I slide on the shorts and shoes and hit the road. An hour or so later, I’m home and I have managed not only to commute but also to build up some miles on the old training calendar. I don’t have to get motivated to go back out after driving home, and I don’t have to interrupt my evening to get my run in. If I want to get home from work, I have to run.

The Foot Commute has some logistic limitations, of course. One is distance. If you live over ten miles from your job, you probably aren’t too likely to lace ‘em up after the 5 o’clock whistle blows. Another is the type of work you do. It’s a little rough to carry your ladders and tools on your back to the job site. Swing shift presents some issues, as does any kid-related shuttling. Most kids aren’t too happy running 5 miles to soccer practice.

Having a reasonable route doesn’t hurt, either. If your driving commute is a reasonable distance but is on the freeway, count on your Foot Commute to considerably longer as you get lost in neighborhoods and industrial parks.

Since we live where we do, weather is also a consideration. Often, I go to work expecting a nice afternoon run in shorts and a t-shirt, only to find it prematurely dark, windy, and cold out when I leave the office.  I leave an old windbreaker in my office for just such occasions.

A final consideration is safety. Remember that everyone out on those streets is coming home, too. And many of them really seem anxious to get there. Running during rush hour requires some extra vigilance against texting drivers, crosswalk creepers, and plain old idiots who don’t believe pedestrians should exist. As it gets darker this fall, be sure to light yourself up and wear reflective clothing. Remember, you’re on defense.

If you work in an office or anywhere that doesn’t require you to carry anything heavy to and from the job, you’re a good Foot Commute candidate. It just takes a little planning and preparation. Some clothes to change into, some way to wash the stank off, and some sort of plan for carrying whatever you need to carry.  For many reasons, Foot Commuting home from work is usually an easier venture. Carpool in, run home.

I think the Foot Commute will catch on.  Give it a try. The Real Runner who logs the most Foot Commute miles between the day this issue hits the stands and the end of the year will win a fabulous prize from the Real Running Prize Vault (also known as my desk drawer). Send your miles to gregsrealrunning@gmail.com

On Being a Minimalist

The Gadgets

Both of my loyal readers know that I am something of a gadget freak. I salivate every time Apple announces a pending announcement. I visit Garmin’s website every day, hoping that a new GPS watch will be hitting the market soon. I have a backup for my backup iPod.  I’ve written before about my love of such things, and also about unplugging from them. But lately the gadgetry has gotten out of hand.

Last week as I prepared for a run, I had one of those moments where you see what you must look like to everyone else in the world. I stood in front of my closet full of running shoes, rifling through a drawer for my running socks, wondering where my running hat was. My headphones dangled from my neck, connected to the iPod clipped to my waistband. My watch beeped, alerting me that it had “acquired” my heart rate monitor. I scanned my selection of shoes. Light weight? Medium? Support? Trail? Minimalist? Maybe this was the day I start breaking in the new pair that just arrived in the mail yesterday? All of my technical fabric shirts were in the wash. I eyed my sorry assortment of plain old cotton t-shirts. This would never do.

Just me and the trail. Try to ignore the fact that I had to carry a camera to get this shot.

I never did find the socks I was looking for. I never did make it out for that run. What is wrong with me?

With apologies to all of the fine sponsors of this magazine (and especially those compelled to send me their products for “testing”), we really don’t need any of this stuff. Any of it. One can make an argument for good shoes, but beyond that? Ratty old gym shorts and a t-shirt will serve the purpose of covering your shame as you run. What else do you need?

In fact, one of the key reasons I don’t do as much cycling as I probably should is because of all the equipment. It just doesn’t feel as real with all of that rubber, carbon fiber, and aluminum between me and the road. I imagine it is the purity of running that appeals to us, whether we know it consciously or not. But how pure is a running experience that includes beeping electronics, carbon fiber insoles, corrective braces, and alternative rock blaring directly into your brain?

Of late I’m on a purity kick. I’m running free of all the tethers of electronics and over-engineered footwear. I run in the same shoes for everything, when I wear shoes. I leave the iPod in the car. Even my trusty GPS stays in my pocket where I can’t see it. No beeping. No music.

At first I was bored. I’m so used to Pearl Jam pushing me through the middle miles that I wasn’t sure what to do. But like the family who takes out the Scrabble board when the power goes out, I quickly learned that I didn’t need the electronics. In fact, I came to realize that my little old brain does a fine job of entertaining me.

I worried about pace. How would I know if I was running too fast? Too slow? Turns out your body tells you, if you listen to it. How will I know when I’ve gone far enough and need to turn around? Simple: I got tired and turned around. What about heart rate? How can I stay in my target zone? Well, for starters, you could pay attention to your breathing and your effort.

This isn’t to say that I’m completely reformed. I still occasionally listen to music on a long run, and I do track all of my runs on my GPS watch. But it is incredibly freeing to be able to just throw on some shorts and go running. I don’t know if we do enough of that. Just go run. For no reason, with no goal, and no destination. Just go run around for a while.

Doing so has reminded me that I actually like running. I used to say I liked that I had gone running, but not necessarily the running itself. Immersing myself in the running itself, resisting distractions, and paying attention to my body has made running more fun than it was when I did everything I could to create a virtual world in which I pretended I wasn’t actually running.

This is all about Real Running after all. What’s more real than just running?

This column originally appeared in the December issue of Northwest Runner Magazine

Real Runner Profile: Owen Connell

Owen Connell at Parlor F in Seattle.

Two years ago at a business meeting in Southern California, I noticed a pair of running shoes near the door of the house where we were meeting. Thinking I might get some good ideas for a local running route, I asked about the shoes. It turned out the owner was an ultra-marathoner who was a recent transplant from Seattle.*

That’s interesting, because my friend Owen is an ultra runner in Seattle, I said.

“You know Owen? He’s one of my best friends! Let’s call him up!” And so it goes when you know Owen Connell.

Now I’m sitting in the chair at Parlor F, Owen’s tattoo parlor and work space on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. Owen is inking a new tattoo on my left arm, and we’re talking about running.

I met Owen several years ago when a friend of a friend recommended him to my girlfriend as a good tattoo artist. It was in our first meeting that I learned he was a runner. I must not have been paying any attention before that, because it’s hard to miss Owen in the Northwest running community.

If you do any competitive trail running in the Northwest or follow the ultra-marathon circuit at all, you probably already know Owen. If you run at all in the Seattle area you probably know him too, even if you don’t know his name. And on the off chance you have never seen Owen at a race, you’ve probably seen his work.

Owen is the “tattoo guy.” He claims he doesn’t hear it anymore, but when you run with him, you hear it from the sidelines. “There goes that tattoo guy!” He is unmistakable for sure. His long legs are literally covered in body art. As are his arms and much of the rest of his body. I’m surprised I know what it’s like to run with Owen, actually, because he is much fitter and much faster than I am.

Running with Owen at the Seattle 26.2

We’ve never planned it, but for the last three years, Owen and I have run into each other somewhere in the first few miles of the Seattle Marathon and run together for the next couple of hours. Last year, I was pretty pleased to be keeping up with him and doing well into mile 15, when he casually told me that he had run a marathon that day before, too.

What?

He wanted to see if he could do two sub-four hour marathons back to back. He can. And he did. He finished the 2010 Seattle Marathon in 3:42:28 the day after running a 3:50:35 the day before in the Ghost of Seattle Marathon. I struggled in 8 minutes behind him

In last year’s Redmond Watershed 12 Hour race, Owen logged 68.1 miles in the 12 hour time limit. He finished the Cascade Crest 100 Mile Endurance Race in 25 hours, 24 minutes. Those numbers still make me shake my head. 68 miles? That’s the distance from downtown Seattle to Olympia, just to put it into perspective. I get tired driving that far.

It’s easy to think of marathoners and ultra runners as super-human, or to imagine that they are somehow seasoned athletes who have trained all of their lives to get to that level. Owen quickly debunks that myth.

“I was like everybody else,” he told me as he inked one of his signature shapes onto my arm. “I was running three or four miles now and then and I thought ‘no way I can run a half marathon!’ Then I went out and did one and it was the biggest thing I had ever done. And once I had done a few of those, I thought, ‘no way I can run a marathon!’ But I tried that and realized it was possible…and if you can run a marathon you can probably run an ultra if you can get your mind around it.”

To hear Owen tell it, running is all about overcoming mental obstacles. So much so, that he forgets ever being injured.

“I’ve been lucky,” he said after I updated him on my latest bout of foot pain. “I just haven’t been injured. “Well, I guess that’s not true. I mean, I get hurt sometimes, but never anything serious. Well…”

And what follows is a list of the types of small injuries that sideline the rest of us but that for Owen are just a part of the mental challenge of running.

“That’s the trick: battling through the low spots and making your body do what you want.”

As I listen to him talk, I actually start to believe that I could tackle one of these ultra marathons. To hear Owen tell it, you just have to ramp up the training miles a little bit and go for it.

But he’s probably been running all his life, right? Nope.

“I was never a runner as a kid or anything. I played sports and was in shape and whatever, but running never occurred to me. Then about 10 years ago I sort of woke up and was overweight, was partying too much, and just wasn’t happy. So I started running.”

At the very least, he must have a pretty detailed and rigorous training schedule, right? Not so much.

“I don’t have a real training plan. I’m kind of an idiot with that stuff. I just go running and try to get my mileage up for races. My girlfriend (ultra-runner Alison Moore) always gets on me about stretching and varying my training and taking days off and all that. I just sort of go out and run. That’s probably why she’s a better runner than I am? I dunno.”

Owen punctuates most of his sentences with question marks or self-deprecating comments, which merely emphasizes his humility. He’s just one of those people that everyone likes.

“I could probably be faster if I trained better. Or if I had a coach. For a while I wanted to try to run a three hour marathon, but I realized I’d need to commit so much time to track running and speed work and all that. I’d rather just go out and run with my friends.”

Running for Owen is a social thing. You get together with some friends on a sunny afternoon and take off into the hills for a few hours. You support each other and have fun together. Maybe that’s why ultra running appeals to him so much. Compared to the thousands of people who lace up for big marathons, the trail running community is small, and everyone is in it together.

Owen's Design on the White River 50 Shirt. 2008.

That’s what appeals to him about art as well, it turns out. It is a normally solitary venture that you can share with other people. His work has been featured on concert posters, event t-shirts, and on the skin of countless people, runners and otherwise.

Owen’s tattoo business is old school. There is no storefront. He doesn’t do drop-in work for weekend partiers or impulse shoppers. His work is art, not iconography.

Parlor F is an artist’s studio hidden in non-descript building on Capitol Hill. He works by appointment only, and does all of his own designs. Sometimes those designs are based on something a customer has in mind, but Owen usually works in abstraction. A tattoo project can take three or four visits before a needle ever touches your skin. The design as to be right, and it’s not uncommon for Owen to go through several drafts of a design idea and to still be tweaking it as it goes from the two dimensions of the paper to three dimensions of the body.

Three hours after I sat down, Owen is putting the final touches on my new tattoo. The lines and shapes are unmistakably his work, but it somehow matches what I had in mind when I first started talking with him about it over a month ago.

My New Tattoo. Undeniably Parlor F.

His work is unique and recognizable, and once you know it, you will see Owen’s art everywhere. As I queued up for a recent trail race on the Eastside, I noticed a design on the calf of the young woman in front of me.

“Owen?” I asked, gesturing to her tattoo.

“Yep. You know Owen?”

And just this week, as I labored through a run with low energy and tired legs, I remembered something Owen said to me the last time I saw him. He was a day away from going in for major abdominal surgery that would sideline him for a month or more and he had just returned from an hour-long run.

“I never feel worse after I go running. No matter how bad the run is, it’s always better to have done gone out there and done it.”

*That transplanted Seattle runner is Jonathan Bernard, the evil genius who came up with Dizzy Daze, an ultra event that goes around, and around, and around Greenlake.