It's been awhile.  Somewhere along the way of providing what's meant to be either insightful or helpful content, I lost some steam and decided to not post anything unless I felt proper motivation to do so.  My goal is to not add to the drivel that gets pumped out ad nauseum on a daily basis.

As I relate this story, I consciously decided to wait to post so that I did not take a 'poor me' approach, which invariably could have happened a few months back.

My big goal for 2022 was the Pikes Peak Ascent.  Typically run in August, this year it was pushed back to mid-September.  Officially, it's 13.32 miles with over 7,800ft of ascent to the peak of Pikes Peak, at more than 14,100ft in height (one of Colorado's more than 50 'fourteeners').  The race begins in downtown Manitou Springs and is a wonderful, professionally run event with huge community support and still that grassroots feeling that so many successful events have lost as they've grown in popularity.  Not so, the PPA or full marathon the following day (ascent + descent. Oof!).  If you enjoy trail running and racing, as well as an epic challenge, put the PPA on your bucket list.

OK, so I jump into a local trail race here in Boulder in early-April and it goes extremely well.  I finish feeling like my PPA prep is right on target.  My goal was to beat my time from a decade earlier, the only other time I had competed at the PPA, but did so off the back of a full season of bike racing.  Would the focus on trail running out-pace the fact that I was now 53 instead of 43?  We would find out. 

Then, on April 29th, things hit the skids.

On a routine trail run, on a slight rocky downhill where you could still get into a groove and either use rocks as springboards or hop over them without breaking stride, as I brought my left foot forward, my shoe caught a rock and the sole gripped.  Something for which I wasn't prepared nor expecting.  I immediately went into a ballistic pistol squat, with my left knee shooting forward and my ass coming down on my heel.  While I didn't feel anything or hear anything, a sharp pain let me know something bad, or worse, had happened.  Like with a rolled ankle, I kept running to get a feel for what just happened.  My knee hurt the final 5+ miles, but loosened up and felt close to normal by the end.  

Adversity.  I felt encompassing soreness and there was a little swelling, but not what would be expected had I torn or ruptured my ACL.  Yet, there was most certainly damage.  As per my nature, I did several things over the subsequent 3 weeks:  I refused to go to a doctor because, to me, surgery is a zero sum option; i did exhaustive research into what I was feeling in the knee to determine what had occurred; and, I ignored the pain and kept running.

The pain would ebb and flow over the 3 weeks, but never get worse.  It was manageable.  It was also weird. I could sit back on my heels to stretch out my quads and also do a frog sit (think of a breaststroke kick when the legs are flared out to the sides) without pain, but an ass-to-grass squat motion sent searing pain into the knee joint.  I concluded that I had at least torn my medial meniscus if not also my MCL (now, a handful of months later, whatever damage may have been done to my MCL seems to have abated).  However, 3 weeks later on yet another long trail run, the pain did get worse for the first time.  Despite my stubbornness, I realized I had to stop running and reassess.

Curiously, lifting weights didn't hurt at all -- including squats and deadlifts, as long as I didn't go down beyond parallel.  Neither did cycling.  So, I adjusted and ramped up both.  I would stay as fit as possible in case I could still toe the line at PPA.  It was mid-June when I started to test the knee again while running.  At first, jogging the half-mile the to gym.  Then, a couple miles after biking.  Then, finally, dedicated run sessions.  I decided to race, but wasn't sure what the results would be.  I got to the points where I could handle long runs, but my effort during them was higher than normal and my legs were pretty shot after.  Still, nothing was keeping me from being able to race.

So, I did.  The event was wonderful.  It started as I had hoped and through 60% of the race, I was having a great race.  As sometimes inexplicably happens, my body didn't seem to be processing the calories I was taking in.  What worked in training wasn't working on race day.  There is no aid the final 3+ miles because of how rocky and steep the course is, which can take an hour or more to complete.  The top runners will finish this section in about 45 minutes.  Over the final 4+ miles, I bonked.  Hard.  The final hour I was shaking from being so depleted.  Effort and HR up to that point where in the range I wanted, so it wasn't from overextension earlier in the race.  Multiple times I had pulled back on effort and followed slower runners who had started out too aggressively rather than blow by them as a conscious decision to keep the ego in the box.  As a point of reference, 10 years ago, the final mile took me 17:30 to complete.  This year, it took 33:01. It was both agonizing from being empty and filled with apathy.  I had zero desire to keep going.  But, what choice did I have being on the rocky face of a mountain with nowhere else to go?

More adversity.

I finished a half-hour slower than 10 years ago, but took some solace in the fact that I was able to race when a few months earlier it had felt like my ability to run the trails might have come to a screeching halt.  I tried to look at the glass as half-full.

The next morning, I woke up feeling fine.  Another indication the meltdown was caloric- related rather than effort-related.  Whatever.  It was still perfect timing for a recovery week.  I started lightly back in the weight room, and pulled back on the running a bit.  On Friday, my wife and I went to visit my brother and his family in Crested Butte.  Coincidentally, Emma Coburn's 5k Elk Run was happening that weekend.  We arrived super late on Friday and the race was the following morning.  What the heck?  I entered on a whim.  I knew it was silly, but I was also intrigued by what a 5k at 9.000ft would feel like and how I would do a week after PPA and with zero specificity in training.

I set an admittedly arbitrary goal to break 20 minutes.  I ended up running 18:24, for which I was pretty surprised.  It made me wonder what I could do down in Boulder at 'only' 5,300ft and with some specific work toward the distance.  Maybe for 2023.

However, yet more adversity.  three-quarters of a mile into the 5k, my left hamstring pulled.  It was shocking in its suddenness.  I nearly stopped dead in my tracks.  Instead, I shortened my stride to a shuffle.  After managing to keep a full-on pull at bay by not fully extended my left leg forward, I kept the pressure on.  My brother and his wife, both accomplished athletes in their own rights, were spectating rather than running and told me I looked like I was running with my trail running gait.  I was!  But, out of necessity.

Completing the 5k was not the best decision.  I could barely walk for several days due to the pain in the hamstring.  As with the knee injury (which persists today; it's definitely a medial meniscus tear), lifting weights hasn't seemed to bother the hammy and cycling doesn't either.  I gave it a couple weeks break from running, then tried running super easy and it came back.  Now, a full 5 weeks later, I'm giving it another go today.  We'll see what happens.

The moral of the story?  I'm not sure.  Other than we're all hit by adversity.  We need to decide how we are going to first react to it, the adjust to it and, finally, overcome it.  It's not a linear path and there is not necessarily any sort of right or wrong answer.  I credit Cian O'Brien for my chosen path forward after injuring my knee.  In short, after Cian ruptured his ACL, he refused to go under the knife and instead chose to make it stronger through aggressive power lifting.  If you don't follow Cian on Twitter, think about it.  He bucks the trend of the strength training establishment; he's made me re-think what I do in the weight room which I have definitely appreciated over time.  Especially since April 29th.  When I fully separated my shoulder in 2005 in a bike crash, I decided to forego surgery.  It took a couple years for the shoulder and arm to feel fully normal again.  Today, aside from it looking kinda gross at certain angles, I don't notice it at all.  Surgery would have been silly and zero help in the end.  As with that, I won't get surgery on my knee unless it's very clear that it becomes the only option.  I would rather practice some patience, challenge it to get better while also honoring when it tells me to back off and give it some TLC.

The hammy pull is just a fucking nuisance.  Yet, if I don't honor it, I'll be telling you about it in another 3 months' time, which would be idiotic on my part.  Trail running is what I love doing right now.  It fills me up.  So, it's tough to not be doing it, even though biking in the mountains is a close second.  I would just rather be on my feet than on the steed.

Well, hopefully this was insightful and helpful.  Until next time.

Happy Training,
​Coach Nate

"I'm not here to go 5:01."

My answer when my wife, Lori, asked how I was feeling and what I thought I could do as we walked from the car to the track.  A couple people had planted separate seeds in me, unbeknownst to them.  That being the goal of running a sub-5:00 mile at 52 years old.  Not a 1,500 converted.  Not 1,600.  The full 1,609.  It was never on my radar, not something I had even contemplated.  But, given the wonkiness of 2020 and the cancellation of the long trail races I had wanted to do, a novel, invigorating challenge seemed like a great substitute.

'The Jericho Mile' is a 1979 made for TV movie starring Peter Strauss.  Strauss kills his stepsister-raping dad and is sent to prison.  He runs in the prison yard and shows natural ability.  A local training guru is called in to coach him at the warden's request, with the goal of Strauss running in the US Olympic Trials.  The prison yard is transformed into a regulation track.  The parole board denies Strauss the opportunity to run at the Trials.  He listens to the race on the radio, heads out to the yard and, running solo and without fanfare, runs faster than the Trials winner.

Today would be my Jericho Mile.  Just me and the track.  No pacers, no cheat shoes, not stadium energy -- just me and the watch.

I did some research and, while I could not find much, I did ascertain that about a dozen 50+ folks accomplish this any given year.  How many are the same vs brand new to the club, I don't know.  I also don't know how many do it at altitude.  I did find that ex-CU runner and Boulderite Dan King ran 4:57.29 on the road here in Boulder earlier this year.  Dan is 61, which makes his time a phenomenal feat.  He later ran 4:49.08 at sea level in South Carolina, on the CIU mondotrack, hailed as one of the fastest tracks in the country.  Just, wow.

I don't know much about time conversions in running.  But, given my extensive swimming background, I remember geeking out on yards-to-meters and meters-to-yards, and short course-to-long course and long course-to-short course conversion rates.  So, I understand the concept.  Accordingly, running a mile at a little over a mile in altitude creates about a 5.5-second handicap over running at sea level.  From my perspective, it would be all about the raw finish time.  It would be sub-5 at altitude and at the full 1,609m distance or it wouldn't be, any sort of handicap or conversion be damned.  Black-and-white, no grey.

My running had been feeling pretty good when I decided to commit to this.  I hadn't run in any serious way in 20+ years, having instead focused on cycling.  Given the time it would take to prepare, I fast tracked another goal of mine, to do the Peak Traverse, a 17-mile run with about 6,000ft elevation gain over the Boulder Front Range's 5 highest peaks.  The next weekend, I checked it off, but not without impact.  My legs imploded and created some lower leg issues I had to let heal.  I upped the gravel riding to keep the fitness going, slid out on some single track, landed on a rock and broke a handful of ribs.  Not the best way to start attacking a goal.

For a handful of weeks, I did what I could and nothing that caused undue pain.  Interestingly, the stair machine was mostly fine, as was easy cycling on a stationary bike.  Even certain strength exercises were tolerable (most were not).  My first run back was only about 4 miles at close to 9:00 pace; that's all the ribs would tolerate and, afterwards, I felt like I had been hit by a truck.  I nearly pulled the plug right there.  But, slowly and steadily, things improved.  Finally able to do most anything I wanted, I decided it was time to commit to the sub-5 goal.  I planted a stake in the ground 5 weeks out.  I was then, or wait until Spring 2021.

My training consisted of 6 runs a week and multiple strength sessions.  2 fast runs, 2 short easy runs, and 2 aerobic runs roughly an hour in length.  If the legs felt beat up, I would substitute a stationary bike ride on that day.  My fast sessions were limited to The Golden Rule set of 8-10x400 at goal mile pace with 1-2 minutes rest between.  This set has been around for decades and is apparently a solid indicator of mile potential.  Given I had 5 weeks, I decided to dive right in and start with 10 reps, shooting for 1:15 splits and taking equal recovery jogs between.  It took 2 sessions to lock into pace vs effort and stabilize my 400 times.  I then got faster the next 2 sessions and hit 1:12-1:13.  For the final 2 sessions, I slowed it down to 1:14-1:15 and focused on learning what "float" felt like.  I also gradually dropped the number of repeats over the weeks down to 6.  The final week-and-a-half, I ditched the 400s for 1,009m time trials.  One per session for 3 sessions, crossing the line as if I still had 600m to go and asking myself, "Could you run this pace another 600m?"  I'll be honest, only during the last time trial did I answer it as "Probably."  The first two, it was "Probably 200, maybe 300 more.  Not 600."  I was hoping "race day jitters" would carry me through to the end.  The encouraging aspect, though, was that I was completely locked into 5:00 pace.  Even with the extra 9 meters, I was hitting 3:07.5 each time trial.  This helped with the confidence that I could do it.

Breaking 5:00 is simple, but it's not easy.  It's a straightforward math equation:  hit 1:14.5 for each 400m + under 2 seconds for the additional 9 meters.  Simple.  But, getting to the line with the fitness and the body suppleness to carry it out ain't easy.  As I healed up from breaking my ribs, my body was clearly overcompensating and protecting itself from my continued abuse.  My hamstrings were not at all pleased, nor were my calves or feet.  I couldn't get adjustments, which I clearly needed, so I relied on an overabundance of massage work once I was able to lie on the table pain free.  Still, while the legs relaxed and opened up, the hamstring attachment way up under the glute on my left side would not relent.  It was a tendonitis pain, not a pull.  So, then the math equation became related to time on a calendar rather than time on a track -- could I withstand another few weeks of training in order to make it to the track?  I didn't know, but I wasn't going to pull the plug just yet.

The week of the attempt, I didn't sleep well.  Par for the course, my body's way of processing nerves and preparing for what it knew was coming -- deep access to the fight-or-flight response.  The final 2 nights I slept better and awoke feeling fresh and ready to give it a go today.  My hamstring attachment was still angry, but also telling me I had permission to give it an honest whirl.

Given this was my first attempt at this, all I needed to do was hit 4:59.99.  This wasn't about setting a PR.  It was about setting down a marker for future years' attempts.  My wife wanted to provide moral support, as did my best friend, Andy.  Ultimately, I relented and invited them to come watch the fun unfold. As I warmed up, I was encouraged and energized by their presence on the infield.  It would still be a Jericho Mile.

I knew the risk would be going out too fast.  My fitness was good but not great, so if I put myself in a hole too quickly, I'd vapor lock and experience a glorious implosion.  Still, my first 409m was 1:14 followed by a 1:13 split.  I was 2:28 at the 809 mark, arguably too fast.  The third lap exposed the chinks in the armor.  With 500m to go, flashes of the old 1min maximal ramp tests on the cycling erg were pulled from the dark recesses of my brain.  Inevitably, with about 90 seconds left in the ramp test, you start making a deal with the devil -- get through the next 30 seconds, hit the next ramp and then sell your soul to get through that last full minute.  With 500m to go, this is the bargaining I started to make.  I had to fight back the urge to really engage my upper body.  I went through 1,209m in 3:43, a split of 1:15.3.  Andy, a former runner and fantastic athlete in his own right, shook his head at Lori.  It was going to be close. 

With 300m to go, my upper legs started burning and my economy started flagging.  The implosion was beginning.

With 200m to go, I had no idea how I was going to make it to the finish at speed.  A panic took over -- "You're NOT here to go 5:01!".  I engaged my arms and pumped them furiously.  

With 100m to go, Lori came running toward me on the infield, shouting words of encouragement to get me to the finish line.  I recall with about 50m to go realizing my left hamstring hadn't liked me very much the past 4-plus minutes.  I leaned for the line and stopped my wrist watch, fumbling to find the stop button and hitting it a stride past the mark.  Andy had 2 stop watches and stopped them both.  
4:59.50
4:59.50
4:59.71 (my belated stop)

By any measure, mission accomplished.

Happy Training,
Coach Nate