Redd Head Fly Fishing

HILL WORKOUT: Managed to run about 7.3 miles last night. The majority of those miles were going uphill. It was a tough run with some ridiculously steep hills but good company. I managed to meet up with two different people over the course of my run and enjoy separate but exhausting hill workouts with both. My legs felt good almost the whole time which gives me a lot of hope for this weekends race.  Cumulatively the race has about 3,200 feet of elevation gain which will certainly be taxing on the legs. However, I think my legs will be able to handle it. I have provided the elevation profile for the race below.

Time to taper...this probably the hardest thing about race training for me. I hate resting as I get very restless (go figure). Anyway, time to eat more carbohydrates and to get a sports massage if time allows! I thought I would mention for those living in SF that I usually get sports massages done by Richard Middaugh at PSOAS Body Work and Massage. He is awesome and is an Ultra Runner who has lots of valuable advice, as well as encouragement, to give. For someone aspiring to do an ultra at some point, myself included, it is great to have someone like him to talk to. Here is a link to a little article about lessons learned from running the Western States 100 that he wrote.

Well, had a great weekend of fishing around the Tahoe area. My long time friend and fishing companion Quinton Dowling came down for a three day fishing vacation. Fishing was great all three days and many fish were caught...even more were LDR'ed (long distance released) due to our over zealous bass master hook sets. Despite that we managed to fish different sections of the Truckee everyday and explored some creeks in the area. The creek fishing was by far my favorite part of the trip. I have provided a nice montage below. I apologize about the quality of the photos...iPhone camera!

I also forgot to mention that we ate like kings while camping and cooking along the Truckee. Steak and gnocchi the first night and fajitas the second. It was a great trip with a great friend. It is amazing how much better your outlook on life can be when you have good friends around you and you get to experience something you both really enjoy doing. I feel blessed in someway for great experiences such as these. It was sad to see Q leave and makes me wonder why we as humans tend to live so far away from the people we care about and who know us. Not sure I have a good answer besides where you can find a job. Anyway, I am riding the good fishing memories high for awhile.

After a day of fishing the Truckee, I decided I need to hit the road for awhile. My goal was to run 10 miles and I did that but not without a significant amount effort. Fishing all day entails wading around in heavy currents , walking a few miles, and generally staying on your feet for long periods of time. Suffice to say, it leaves the legs a little sore. Mine were indeed sore but felt alright once I got running. I ended up running the 10 miles in 1:38.

I attribute the slower than normal pace to the rugged nature of the road and trail I was running on and the fact that I was running at about 5,600 feet of elevation. It is definitely a whole different animal running at that altitude. The lack of oxygen rich air certainly makes you work a lot harder. While physical activity is noticeably harder at 5,600, two weeks ago I tried to run up a small peak at a little over 10,000 feet-within 30 seconds of running I was dying. I have a new appreciation for all the big time trail runners who train at high altitude and run at such high altitudes. I now see the need for acclimatization.

Anyway, I have a race on Saturday, sea level!, and will be doing the taper this week. However, will be doing some hills tonight to get the legs prepped for some climbs. Getting excited! 

This week has gotten the better of me in regards to training. I logged my last run on Tuesday and wasn't really feeling great the past two days. Additionally, friends from college were in town and was eager to hang out and this weekend my friend Quinton is coming down for a weekend fishing trip in the Sierras. Suffice to say, running has taken a back seat this week.

However, I was feeling antsy this morning and somewhat stressed so I decided a run at lunch needed to be in the cards. Originally, I was just going to do 6 miles but I ended logging something close to 8 miles (7.7 miles from google maps but obviously I don't run in a straight line!). I felt pretty good during the run, finishing in about 1:02 to 1:03, but was defintly aware of some crunchiness in my muscles. Likely in need of some good stretching and rolling out.

In other news, I just wanted to say that I love running in the Nike Frees. They are light, flexible, and allow your foot to really sense the ground. I find these shoes extremely enjoyable to run in and have noticed that they have really helped to strengthen my feet. I am pretty much exclusively running in these shoes on my pavement runs. My Asics having been lying idle in the closest. The funny thing is that I usually need to wear heel cupping insoles in my Asics but have no need to in my Frees. I am taking this as a good sign and becoming even more suspect of very supportive running shoes. I should note that it has taken me quite some time to get to the point where I can run over 5 miles in the Frees comfortably. Like with any change, your feet and the muscles therein need to strengthen and adjust. Nonetheless, recommend the Frees if anybody was waffling.

Lastly, found a few new running blogs and have attached them to the sidebar. I really like a quote I saw on the "Going the Distance" blog:

"Go for broke but prepared to be broken"

Quote reminds me of Prefontaine's quip:

"A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more. Nobody is going to win a 5,000 meter race after running an easy 2 miles. Not with me. If I lose forcing the pace all the way, well, at least I can live with myself."

Anyway you slice it, run like hell.

Just wanted to post a quick rant about how difficult it is to find a box to ship a fly rod. Not only that, it is extremely difficult to ship a rod and something else together. Anyway, too much coffee this morning. Will try to post about last weekends activities here later today.

Running Log 7/28: Didn't manage to run but went for a 20 mile, getting home took some extra miles, bike ride around SF. Had some really nice climbs in the Presidio and some awesome downhill around Ocean Beach. All in all a great ride. I actually did the ride with two co-workers and a group of people who meet every Wednesday to do the small tour of SF. The organized ride is called the Butter Lap which meets at the Ferry Building at 7pm. More information can be found in the map below.

Running Log 8/3: After a long weekend of hiking and a very hectic week, I managed to get about 2 miles in yesterday. I didn't feel great and forgot to switch my insoles into my shoes. I had to run without insoles which was less than fun. Anyway, biking to work and around the city everyday on top of running is getting the better of my quads and I am not feeling entirely spunky. Also, I haven't really taken a rest day since the SF Half-Marathon. I guess this is some sort of self-flagellation. I have got a long weekend ahead on me with little running. My training for the upcoming races is getting side-tracked and is causing some apprehension. The Montana

Trying something new today. Thought I would give everyone a sense of where I have been running.

Well, yesterday ran 8 miles with one of my co-workers. It was a great run that started at about 8pm. Dusk was setting in and we decided to run all the way to Ocean Beach. The scenery was lovely as were the stars. I am always amazed at the seeming lack of light pollution given off by SF. Maybe my perception is off but it just doesn't seem that bad.

Anyway, we ended up running 8 miles in a little over 1:03. I felt great for the whole 8 and definitely could have opened it up more. It is nice to not feel overly aerobic running 8 miles at a 7:52 pace. This was a very encouraging run and I am feeling extremely strong since the half-marathon. I was a little negligent in my fueling before the run as I didn't eat anything after work. I was feeling pretty hungry through miles 3 and 4 but got a healthy dose of water in me at mile 4 and I was instantly better. I have heard that it may be advantageous to train in a glycogen depleted state. We will just have to see. Got about two and a half weeks until my next race. Going to have to ramp up here next week and then get back on the taper. Looks like a long trail run this weekend. Yipee!

Well, this was certainly a new running experience for me. First of all, I have never run in a dress before let alone a red dress. It was quite fun and liberating. I guess it is just par for the course in San Francisco.

Details: The red dress run is put on by the Hash House Harriers. They are an international group that has a chapter in most major cities in the world. The usually fashion themselves as a "drinking club with a running problem". They certainly live up to that moniker. All of the runs are a hound and hare type setup where a group of people try to follow a trail throughout the city set by the hares. The trail is typically marked with chalk or a lump of flour. However, the markers can sometimes be misleading making for an adventure. Additionally, the run is held in a different neighborhood of San Francisco every week. So, you get to see some parts of town you would otherwise not see.

I have provided a few pictures from the event but if you would like to find out more you can go to the SF Hashers web page or check out the wiki page.

As far as the running went, I was feeling a lot better on Monday and actually felt really good running the 4-5 miles that was the Hash. I ended up finishing first and felt really strong. I was kind of taken aback by the energy I had and the lack of fatigue in my legs. This is a good sign in terms of endurance and bodes well for the string of races on the horizon. I really enjoyed running yesterday which was in stark contrast to the half-marathon the previous day. Anyway, starting to recover from all the aliments and getting back on to a relatively vegetarian diet. Hope everyone enjoys the pictures. 

Last week, Robert Solow, a former MIT Professor of Economics, testified before congress about making economics applicable to the real world. While I think the topic of his testimony is worth discussing, it is some of his older work that I was remind of and wanted to alert people to.

The piece I have always admired was "Sustainability: A Economist's Perspective" presented as a speech. Really the focus of the speech is to take a stab at a working definition of sustainability. In a lot of ways, sustainability is an easy phrase to bandy around without really knowing what it means and that is why I appreciate Solow's effort to strictly define sustainability. And for many, I think sustainability is often never thought about in a inter-generational context.

Basically, what I would like to say is that this speech by Robert Solow fundamentally changed how I thought about sustainability and brought to light fundamental issues I had never even thought about. Because of my experience with the speech, I wanted to make it readily available for everyone to read. I know we are all busy but I think this is something that is really worth reading. And if my pleas are not enough, the fact that he won a Nobel prize should convince you!

Here is the pdf.

Also here is his testimony.

Well, this was my second half-marathon of 2010 and while I wanted to best my previous best of 1:38, it was not to be. I ended up with a time of 1:42:17 with a average pace of 7:49. By no means is this a bad time, it is just somewhat disappointing after so much training to be unable to execute. I went into the race with sinus infections and significant congestion in my chest-far from ideal. Moreover, I had some GI issues around mile 3. I guess you could say it was not my day. However, I felt like the race actually made me contemplate a lot about what I wanted from running and why I am running to the extent that I am. No hard or fast answers were found to these questions but I did realize that if I want to run well, I need to take better care of myself. What this means exactly is not entirely clear but steps in that direction will be necessary.

Lastly, I just wanted to congratulate everyone in the Marathon Matt group who ran the race yesterday. It is such an honorable thing to strive and I am glad we could all experience training together. I firmly believe that with every step we run, we can all become the person we want to be. Running is about moving forward and facing challenges. Often the challenges in life are not as clear cut as they are in running but surely we can take away that facing challenges in the end makes us better people. It may have hurt like hell to run the race, I know it did for me, but we are now all stronger for doing it. Again, I commend everyone. Also, a big thanks to Marathon Matt. You are an inspiration.

I guess the take away from this race was: Preparation is null without execution.

7/19: Ran approximately 9 miles. The run involved various sprints with a small amount of hills. About 5 miles of the run was through a event called "hashing" (write more later) and the last four were just to get home. Half of the running was on trails and the other, on pavement. Felt pretty weak for most of it and didn't have a lot of gas in the tank. I am supposed to be tapering but what do you do when there is a chance to do a drinking running game and then a lovely girl wants to run back to her place? In all to many ways life seems like a giant taper, might as well keep it interesting.

7/20: Again, coaxed into running by the same girl. We, with another running group buddy, ran 3.2 miles to where we had to meet the running group for 2 mile time trials. Again, feeling very sluggish due to fatigue and a nice hangover. Ended up doing the 2 miles in 12:38. Not my fastest time by any stretch of the imagination and off my last time by 20 seconds. However, there was a nasty headwind for the first mile and I went out to hard. The coach informed me at the first 1/3 of a mile that I was going at a sub 5 min mile and into the wind. Suffice it to say, it was not the most well executed time trial but enough excuses. Also, ended up running another 3/4 of a mile to dinner. So ended up with close to 6 miles overall with some speed training I guess.

Probably not the best start for a taper week when you got 15 miles logged by Tuesday.