Author Archives: Ed Mahoney

Marathon Prep

27 Sunday Apr 2025

Posted by in Running

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I like to post a story before a big race. Predict my time. Push myself by making literal commitments. I can do that now.

I’m running the Colorado Marathon next Sunday. Initially, I thought I’d try to improve upon my recent finishing times, but I’m not feeling it this time around. I definitely want to run around a 9 minute pace for a 4 hour finish time, but I don’t think I even care about finishing under 4 hours. Give or take 10 minutes and I’ll be happy.

I’d qualify for Boston if I ran 10 minutes under 4 hours. And really, to be selected, I’d have to run another 10 minutes or so faster than the qualifying time. I saw myself doing that at the start of the year. Knowing my conditioning now, I don’t see that happening. The downhill lean of this course will help but I haven’t been putting in the miles to run faster than a 9 minute pace.

Training for the Bandera ultra really took its toll on me. I haven’t been training hard since. And I doubt I’ll try to run another ultra this year because of the commitment that is required. I have other things I need to focus on. But May is a big month because I have this marathon next weekend and then the Bolder Boulder at the end of the month. First time to run that since 2017. I don’t like to run it unless I’m reasonably fast and can compete for the top 10 in my age. Not sure I’ll be that competitive this year but it’ll be interesting to run such a short distance and to see what kind of speed I still have, if any.

Margot was supporting both her parents in the photo above at the Royal Gorge Ultra in Canyon City this weekend. I got in my last big training runs before the marathon. I don’t expect to race fast but I’m hoping for a good run.

My Face Tells the Story

06 Sunday Apr 2025

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A half mile into my run. Hopeful.

Six miles in, near the turn around. I’d left my water bottle back at where I took the first photo, which added another mile to my run. And a significant hill. But I was here for a workout and only hand-carrying 500ml was already pushing the boundaries. This was a 1000ml run and today was in the warm 50°s. Without hydration, it would be a fairly short run.

After thirteen miles. It was a good run.

Dinner Stories

16 Sunday Mar 2025

Posted by in Geek Horror, Running

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I saw a massive wild turkey on the trail yesterday. I often see wild turkey on a trail aptly named the Wild Turkey Trail, but this was on the LoBo Trail out my back door and was the first time. I’ve seen foxes and coyotes and deer, but never before had I seen a wild turkey on LoBo. They are just sort of stunning when they are that massive.

It struck me as odd, later in the day, riding in a truck with three other men, when one of them began talking about shooting and eating wild turkey. How only one in three are edible. Why there’s a reason Americans prefer chicken. For me, the conversation was striking because it was so unusual for me to see a wild turkey on the LoBo Trail and here I was talking about wild turkeys yet again in the same day. I mentioned it at dinner with friends later that night, proving that, like airplane crashes, these things happen in threes.

Another conversation at dinner, on running, stayed with me this morning. If you want to engage me in conversation, you probably know running is a safe bet. I can talk about many other subjects, but I don’t bring them up out of fear of boring you to death. I read so much non-fiction, some on business and the economy, I’ve subscribed to the WSJ for 40 years, but mostly on tech.

Lately, on AI. I don’t think I’m alone, they call it the US of AI for a reason, it’s a prevalent news story. My most recent AI fascination is on Elon Musk’s Colossus data center in Memphis – purported to be the largest AI factory in the world. It strikes me as tremendously reckless and moronic that he would not build a second data center for redundancy. His X platform just suffered a significant outage after a day-long DDoS attack. And he thinks he’s going to run the government’s IRS and SSA operations out of a single data center. Everyone thinks the man is a genius. I think he’s a dumbass. Still, such conversations can bore my friends to death. I recall being fascinated by fax machine technology 30 years ago and sharing my excitement with friends. I’ve learned since to keep my tech talk to myself.

Somehow the specific running topic was on running form and when does one start to feel good while running. The conversation went in a couple of directions, but I think running form captures it. Karen shared how stupid some actors look while running in TV shows. She referenced a show we’re watching called Surface, where the lead actress runs with her elbows wildly swinging above her head. We believe the director is trying to show her angst, but nobody runs like that in real life. Clearly, there must be at least one runner on the set who knows this and could contribute to the authenticity of the acting, but that person is probably in a probationary period and doesn’t want to be fired for challenging the genius director.

We talked about how running form doesn’t really change just because your thoughts and emotions change over the course of the run. I responded that it takes me 2 to 3 miles to warm up, and then I don’t think I start to feel fatigue until about 20 miles. Chris said 15 miles. It would of course depend on one’s conditioning.

My fitness app gives me countless stats. My cadence not only averages about 170 steps per minute, but it only varies by a few steps. My ground contact time ranges around 200 milliseconds. My stride length varies from .7m to 1.1 meters. It doesn’t matter what’s playing in my ear buds or how I’m feeling, my form is what it is and my elbows don’t swing above my face just because I’m feeling a little angst.

If I notice any deviation in my form today, you’ll be the first to know.

Running is Joy

01 Saturday Mar 2025

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I learned today that I’ve lost some of my conditioning. Or did I? I mean, today’s twelve miles on the East Boulder Trail was exhausting. I ran two hours of the two and a half hour run in heart rate zone 5, actually I was over 160 bpm by mile five – which extends above the zone 5 max, which is to say that I ran the final seven of those miles at or above my lactate threshold. So that makes me feel good. Otherwise, I have to say that I hurt through most of those seven miles.

Pushing my heart that hard should have hurt, so I’m not going to worry about maybe failing out of shape – feeling so poorly on this trail today. I had some good surges though. Sort of like the Austin Marathon where I surged on everything that even slightly looked like a down-slope. Today, I’d fall into a fast rhythm whenever the crushed rock turned into recently thawed mud underneath a bed of dead plants with the appearance of straw. A dream trail. The tactic kept me running in a fairly tight minute per mile range for the marathon, but both then and today, my pace felt a bit more erratic than the per mile metrics suggest.

Wondering about my ability to push my lactate threshold is what I mostly thought about on today’s run over the East Boulder Trail hills. The one other thing was the epiphany when I realized how fortunate I am to know what gives me joy in life and to be able to enjoy it. I know that running gives me joy. I’m grateful to know that and to be able to run.

When I got home, I looked at the WhatsApp photos of Margot in her first Ballet class. More joy.

Austin Marathon Photos, Period!

22 Saturday Feb 2025

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I deserve some time off. After waking up at 3am MDT to fly to Austin on Saturday, then waking up at 4:30am CDT, which was my 3:30am MDT, on Sunday to race a marathon, then flying home a couple of hours after my race, I was exhausted by Monday. So, with the bitter cold this week, I took some time off. I’ll run this weekend, once the sun warms things up.

This was my 4th Austin Marathon. I ran my first in 2011, which was also my slowest at 4:23. This was the coldest though, by a mile. I saw a woman run the entire distance wearing a puff jacket. I found the weather to be ideal. Many runners wore tank tops – I had mine in my vest and nearly put it on in the final miles but I didn’t want to slow down for the maneuver. I was in race mode. I did wear gloves the first 10 miles.

The photo above was somewhere in the first ten miles because I still have my gloves on. I drank my two 500ml water bottles in the first half and relied on the aid stations, spaced apart every mile, for hydration in the second half. Their BNP electrolytes contained half the sodium of my LMNT’s 1000mg, but had 50mg of calcium whereas LMNT has zero. I would lose ground at aid stations trying to drink two cups. Something for me to work on.

The boy running behind me here looks pretty cold. That I still have my sleeves rolled down suggests it was probably still only 40° or so, as it was most of the run. With 70% humidity, 40° in Texas is cold but perfect for a marathon. The oddest thing during the race was that 3 pairs of women ran past me dressed identical. That’s not the strange part, that was adorable. They would be wearing the same shirt and shorts, but not socks and shoes. Apparently that would have made it weird for them. What was odd was that all 3 of them would pass me by coming behind me from both sides, as if I split them up. There must be something about running as a team.

All 3 pairs of women had attractive outfits, but the only one I can remember is the yellow. Those girls looked like the sunrise. I remember another pair for their hilarious banter. We passed each other back and forth for much of the second half of the race. I could hear them speak when they ran behind me. I don’t recall what they said now but they reminded me of the two women (Kristen Bell and Justine Lupe) in the Netflix series, “Nobody Wants This” as they conduct their podcast. These girls were performative. One of them would randomly shout out, “period” and it was just funny. I thought about taking photos of these girls and their outfits for my blog, but that would have been creepy. The period girls ended up finishing a bit ahead of me.

I don’t recall the last race where I felt like I was in fact racing. I felt strong and steady in the first half but would catch myself getting passed in each mile of the 2nd half and respond with a surge. It felt like racing and took me back to my youth. I was never winded, always running under my lactate threshold, but maintaining a strong pace for 4 hours takes effort. It was satisfying effort, like one feels from working hard. And my form felt good too. So satisfying.

No injuries to recover from but time is still an essential healer and I’m just gonna relax before I do hurt myself and reflect on having run my first marathon in 8 years under 4 hours. It feels good to turn back the clock 8 years. I credit learning how to properly fuel and hydrate from my ultra training for my strong performance. That’s knowledge that I’ll keep, although I’ll have to maintain the training on gels and drinking because it’s not just knowing what to do but training the stomach to handle it. It’s not at all easy fueling and hydrating that much while running. My stomach was full. But those carbs and electrolytes fueled me to a 3:54 finish, top 10 for my age, and feeling good afterward.

Austin Marathon 2025

16 Sunday Feb 2025

Posted by in Marathons, Running

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That’a a blurry photo of the capitol and the start of today’s Austin Marathon, but trust me, I was there for sunrise. The start was a little cool at 38°, and breezy, but my brother gave me the VIP experience by letting me warmup in his office building at 816 Congress. My brother Steve and sister Nancy crewed me. They bought me dinner the night before and was there for my every need.

They captured this photo of me after the split from the half marathon runners, around 12.5 miles. I’d worn my gloves until mile 10 but really, it was fantastic marathon weather. My long sleeve, alpaca wool t-shirt was perfect for the entire distance. The wind actually disappeared along the rolling hills of Enfield and returned downtown, about where this photo was taken on 15th St. I never over-heated today.

I have to say, Austin really is hilly. This course found every hill in central Austin to include in its route. There was over 1000 feet of elevation gain. That’s a lot for a course that only goes from 400 to 600 feet. I felt good about maintaining form and speed on the hills. I especially think I took advantage of the downhills.

You have to be ready to surge for those and I always was. Running good downhills probably made the difference today in my final time. I wore my ear buds, although I didn’t listen to a playlist. I was able to hear Siri read the chats from family following me on the tracker app. It motivated me to push my pace.

I felt good the whole way but had a slight slowdown over the hills on Enfield, and then of course I slowed down a bit for the final 6 miles, but not by much. I did a great job of maintaining a pace slightly under 9 minutes per mile for just about every mile. I’ve never run such a consistent pace. It didn’t feel consistent. I would catch myself slowing and put on a surge. It was a race of surges. I’d find someone to try to keep up with whenever I felt a slow down in progress. The result was that I kept a steady pace around 8:56 per mile. At least that was my finish pace but I never ran under 8:14 and I never ran over 9:19.

The crowds were bigger this year. Non-stop spectators the entire course. Being Austin, there were so many sites to comment on. The funniest for me was passing by a choir singing beautiful church songs along the Drag – the section of Guadalupe that runs by the UT campus. They were singing directly across from the Church of Scientology – Austin. Made me chuckle.

I was nostalgic running through the Hyde Park neighborhood. Speedway has really gentrified since I last lived there and the homes were so pretty. Climbing 11th St. near the finish was easily the most difficult hill of the race. It tops out on Trinity but that’s a false summit and it doesn’t really crest until San Jacinto. From there, it was all downhill and I made my target of crossing the finish line under 4 hours in 3:54. It was a good run.

Next up, ATX

08 Saturday Feb 2025

Posted by in Running, Ultra

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I usually train for marathons. I did for the one in that pic above. I haven’t been tracking my miles post-Bandera, but it feels like I’ve slammed on the brakes these last four weeks. Still, my weight is holding steady at 165. Ten pounds more than in college. 165 is as fit a weight I’ll ever get. I feel good.

As you can imagine, I think about the 50K of the Bandera 100K that I ran, before begging my crew to let me DNF. To not force me to run another segment. I dwell on the course when I’m running. There was a moment when my crew (Brittany Noel) lost track of me because she was planning some crew math for crewing Eric in her head.

I walked up to these people who were standing where race officials might stand. Nothing else about them indicated they might be race officials.

“How do I DNF?”

“You let me take the ankle bracelet off of you,” the lady said as she bent over and clipped the race chip off before finishing her sentence.

And just like that, I was free. I would live to run another ultra. An ultra with a trail. I’ll admit, Camp Eagle had a course. I saw some animal trails, and a few gravel roads. But a runner’s trail? There was some but you had to be looking for it.

While I’ve been training apres-Bandera, my thoughts query the neurons in my head like a dense neural network LLM on an inference cycle. Lately, the search has been on for segments of those 31 miles four weeks ago. Why did I reach the point of exhaustion halfway through?

Like anything, there is dense logic to all the contributing reasons. Top of a ranked list would be because it was my first 100K and I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d look there first. That led to running too hard, too early.

Followed by a trail I wasn’t prepared for, but out of the randomness of the weather, which just seems to be screwing everyone lately, was not the trail I signed up for. Did I just say trail? I mean course.

Then, I think it’s fair to throw gear into the fray at ranking number 3. I chose the wrong pair of shoes. I think the soles of my feet would have been less bruised with a cushy pair of Hokas. I wore my Bushida III GTX Sportivas. To show you the numbers, the Hoka Speedboat 5 has a stack height of 32mm, which is considered soft, versus the Sportiva Bushidas with a stack height of 19mm and considered firm. I won’t throw those Bushidas under the bus though. I could run in them for distances under a 50K. Their grip was unbelievable.

As I approached one rock, oh, let’s be honest, a 2 foot wall, or cliff if that term can apply to mid-thigh-level jumps. I planted my left foot on an adjacent wall of similar proportions, and half-way up, I launched my right foot over the top half of the rock I ultimately needed to climb. It had a Kung-Fu wall climbing vibe. That move alone was such a joyful athletic feat that it was worth running the entire 31 miles, so I think of that memory a lot. Back to point, those shoes had incomparable grip, but they weren’t very soft. My feet felt as if they’d walked over 31 miles of burning coals. They were toast.

More important than poor decisions on gear was that my inexperience led me to run too hard too early. I ran almost the entire distance in heart rate zones 4 and 5. Sure, that’s partly from getting caught up in the excitement of the other trail runners. The narrowness of a single-track trail, course, doesn’t allow for an easy pass and you feel trapped into running fast with runners on your back. You can’t help but keep pace with those around. That single-track trap is avoided by starting in the very back of the corral. I’ll do that next time.

My thoughts are now turning toward the Austin Marathon next Sunday. I didn’t maintain the miles, but I did a really good job retaining my bi-weekly strength and steam sauna routine. My core is still as strong if not better than last fall’s Boulder Marathon. The core can compensate for weak legs, and I don’t think my legs are necessarily any weaker. My goal for the run will be to break four hours. I was on track for that finish time last fall but let myself get low on electrolytes. I demonstrated proficiency in the hydration game on the Bandera run. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t crowed on and on about the absolute unrunability of that course. There were some wins that have me happy and that knowledge will power me through the Austin Marathon.

My other thoughts are on how I’ll run. Hard? Or easy? I’m motivated to break 4 hours and I think I’ll have to push myself a bit, maybe some heart rate zone 4 running. Maybe some zone 5 if I push the rolling hills over Enfield and W. 15th St. Not sure how I’ll run the first 3 miles up South Congress, but I plan to run strong, with gravity, down South First, for the next 3 miles.

That will average out the first 6 miles to maybe an 8 minute pace. That would be too fast for me to run the first 10K of any other marathon, but if you’re in a mood to race, and Austin usually gives me a race vibe, then you want to optimize your pace and form for a surge down South First. Whether or not I’ll maintain a strong pace will become known to me once I hit the rolling hills. Hills are really good at giving bio-feedback. If I run those strong, I might remain strong up to 20 miles. I’m too experienced to ever try predicting anything after 20 miles in a marathon, so that’s my race plan.

My marathon story below began at 16 years of age. My finish times have been slower but trending faster post-apocalypse.

Marathon History

1978    Dallas White Rock (1)          Unknown

1980    Dallas White Rock (2)          3:08

***30 years***

2010    Denver Marathon (1)            3:36 

2011    Austin Marathon (1)             4:23 

2012    Denver Marathon (2)            3:48 

2012    Boulder Marathon (1)           3:58 

2013    Steamboat Springs                4:13 

2013    Denver Marathon (3)            3:47 

2014    Austin Marathon (2)              3:45 

2014    Denver Marathon (4)             3:31

2015    Austin Marathon (3)              3:39

2015    Boulder Marathon (2)            3:30 

2015    Denver Marathon (5)             4:05 

2017    Colorado Marathon  (1)         3:42

***Apocalypse***

2021    Boulder Marathon (3)            4:35

2023    Boulder Marathon (4)            4:30

2024    Colorado Marathon (2)          4:23

2024    Boulder Marathon (5)            4:03

2025    Austin Marathon (4)               3:

On Writing and Generative AI

03 Monday Feb 2025

Posted by in Geek Horror, Novel

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OpenAI ChatGPT 4o created this image. License free. If you’re a writer, then you probably didn’t understand half of that first sentence. I remember when I attended my first writers conference, the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference, back in September 2016. I’ve been a member ever since.

From talking to the other writers at the conference, I quickly discovered writers were as far from being technical as one could be. They referred to people who could format their manuscript in a format acceptable for publication, like an ebook or PDF, as coders. They thought you needed to know how to program to produce a simple PDF, or any other various formats for publication. I thought that was pretty funny. It’s just formatting. I mean seriously, the typical writer I encountered at that conference was intimidated by Microsoft Word.

I would hope times have changed in 9 years, but I doubt very much that the common writer understands anything about generative AI or large language models (LLMs). And if that’s you, then this blog is for you. And if you found any of my words above to be harsh, understand that absorbing criticism is part of being a writer, but you know that already.

You need this primer because of the benefits genAI can offer you – to be productive. Odds are you self-publish. I don’t know the percentage of self-published authors who pay for copy editing and structural editing services. I know that I paid $800 dollars for structural editing on my first novel. And I’ve yet to make $800 in book sales, so receiving those services for free is very nice. For my second novel, I relied on the beta readers, and I enjoyed our collaboration but that took weeks if not months to play out. GenAI is immediate.

So, are you cheating if you use generative AI? Is it unethical? No. The difference between paying an editor for these services and using genAI is in cost. Either way, you are receiving editing services. Your structural editor might suggest alternative wording, or in my case, prompt me to tighten up my writing by deleting 10,000 words. Claude, my AI assistant, has done the same for me. At the very least, you should agree that you can no longer justify to pay someone to correct your typos. Person or machine, the outcome is the same.

Or is it? Copy editing is not debatable. If you don’t use genAI for that service, your editor or publisher will. I can see though that anyone who has yet to use a genAI assistant might feel like discussing their manuscript with a machine would be and will always be inferior to receiving feedback from a human. You won’t be able to truly know until you try the machine.

I won’t get overly technical, but it’s time to get a bit more into the weeds. Currently, you use a web browser to query the internet. Thirty years ago, you visited the library. Now, you sit on your ass and Google responds with a ranked list of links to yet more web sites for you to peruse. GenAI responds with the answer. In a natural language dialog, I might add, which kind of feels like talking to a human. Maybe not Scarlett Johansson, but it’s extraordinarily personal. That’s a productivity enhancement on par with how the internet has saved you a trip to the library.

To understand why it’s such a personal experience, and this is as technical as I’ll get, I promise, you should understand the word, “context”. Your genAI assistant, which is a chatbot, a user interface slightly different from a web browser but one I expect you’re familiar with, tracks your conversation from earlier queries over time. And it learns about you from those queries. My GPT 4o assistant knows I’m an ultra trail runner from my constant queries on electrolytes and running gear. It often wishes me good luck on my next race. For my writing, it’s learning about my story. Context means the AI assistant is maintaining a window, a history of so many words. But it’s not called history, it’s called context. And it’s not called words. Words are tokens.

Computers don’t know what words are. They know numbers. They convert words into tokens, which are roughly four characters in the English language, but that can vary. With numbers the computer uses vectors, or math, to determine the best likely response. I could explain this in more detail but promised not to get too deep. What’s important is for you to understand the cost model is about one penny to send 1000 tokens to the cloud and maybe two pennies per 1000 tokens for the response. 1000 times 4 characters is 4000 words. Well, 4000 tokens. Your manuscript is perhaps 80,000 words. Uploading your manuscript to the cloud costs roughly 20¢ and maybe another quarter for the ensuing dialog. You need to know this to understand why free genAI assistants like ChatGPT or Claude limit your context. Like me, you’ll quickly become frustrated by your truncated dialog and opt to pay $20 a month for more context. More tokens. But start with free to learn that.

“And the operator said 40¢ more, for the next 3 minutes…”

You’re still reading. You’re curious about genAI. There are a few choices in chatbots and their underlying large language models. The world was introduced to generative AI with OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. The GPT stands for generative pre-trained. A lot of work and billions of dollars went into creating a very large database with natural language capabilities. That’s the LLM that processes your queries. That process is called inference where the LLM responds to your questions. Should you use ChatGPT?

No. It’s perhaps the best at providing you with a deeply personalized experience and it’s very nice. I’ve done some research and some testing and can tell you to use Claude for structural editing. OMG, it was like talking to my old editor. I told it I would upload each scene of my prologue, one scene at a time, and ask it for structural editing comments. Sure, it made some mistakes. They were obvious. Like it told me my prologue was too long at over 5,000 words. My prologue is only 2500 words, Claude’s ideal max length. I corrected Claude, Claude apologized and stated he would put more resources into a more deliberate analysis, which he did. But everything else was gold. Claude gets me. Something he does that is so pleasurable is he first responds with what I did right, then begins his critique. Such polite critical etiquette.

Generative AI is a very dynamic space so Claude might not be the best tool six months from now. If you subscribe to a paid version, eschew the annual discount for a monthly plan so you can cancel at any time.

Now, ending with the elephant in the room, I suppose you could use Claude to write your story from the start. That’s what makes generative AI advanced from simply machine learning, it generates content. I can tell you it’s sort of obvious when a story was written by genAI, although you can then edit all those telltale signs. But you wouldn’t really be a writer anymore, would you? You’d be a structural editor.

Bushwhacking Bandera

17 Friday Jan 2025

Posted by in Britt&Eric, Running, Ultra

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I bushwhacked my first 100K last weekend. Well, 50K, I DNF’d after the first 31 mile loop. It was the Bandera 100K, relocated 90 minutes west at Camp Eagle due to hard rain, a church summer camp with a lot of land on the Nueces River. I can’t think of any place on earth closer to hell than South Texas in the summer, but I suppose they make the most of the Nueces River.

That’s Eric’s race face above. What are the odds I’d be standing in a corral with my son-in-law to run a 100K ultra trail race?

I didn’t say “bushwhack” to start out this race report for nothing. There was very little runnable trail at Camp Eagle. There is considerably more runnable trail in Bandera, as I was told by several other runners on the course who’d run Bandera before. I fell once at 3 miles (Windmill A) and again at 8 miles (Windmill B). After breaking my shoulder last year training for this race, falling is sort of a nightmare for me, but these were good falls. The first fall was forward, just like the fall that broke my clavicle. But I performed the perfect roll. I ended up in a plank position with my chest sitting just above a baby cactus. That I could perform that roll was a testament to my strength training regimen. I felt good about it.

My crew was back at the Box Guest House in Bandera. The course relocation created all sorts of logistical problems. Karen, Steve, Susan, and Lucie stayed back in town with Liam and Margot.

Brittany was my official pacer but doubled up as my crew. This photo is a few hours after I finished. She was happy I survived for her formative crew/pacer CV. She was quite good at it.

This is Eric, early into the run still based on his gear, departing the Windmill aid station. The ultra started out below freezing but warmed up nicely into the 50°s. Eric ran super strong, finishing 13th overall. He had a fall too and severely sprained his thumb. We both found our trail legs though once we got going.

Brit wasn’t able to meet us at the first aid station, but the setup was pretty good. I refilled my 500ml bottle with Tailwind instead of my LMNT. And I had enough gels on me.

These guys probably wanted to pass me. I got a lot of that. These official race photos all appear on some actual trail. I can assure you, this course had very little of that. I’m disappointed the course had to be moved, but there was so much that was good about this run.

I executed my fueling and hydration plans perfectly, the best ever for a distance race, and that will help me in my future marathons. I run the Austin Marathon next month. I drank 500ml of LMNT between each aid station, or essentially every hour. LMNT has 1000mg sodium, which is the max a person should consume. I know now that I need the max. It also has 200 mg of potassium and 60mg of magnesium. There is no calcium but I consumed a calcium capsule before the run and at about 15 miles. Magnesium helps the muscles relax and calcium helps them to contract. LMNT kept me on target for all these electrolytes except for calcium. Mortal is the only drink I know of that has calcium and would be my second choice after LMNT, but I’m also going to make it a practice to supplement that nutrient with capsules. I also further supplemented my sodium with a couple of SaltStick Fast Chews every hour. Although my legs were exhausted, I had no cramping issues.

I fueled with Carbs gels. One every hour or between aid stations. It contains 50 carbs, a bit less than SIS Beta Fuel, but 200 calories which is more than SIS. My energy levels felt fine, it was the weakness in my feet, ankles and legs that led me to DNF, even though I felt strong in terms of energy.

I changed into a tank top at the Zip Road aid station and felt so much cooler. I’d waxed my legs and arms and that allowed the sweat to more easily evaporate in the wind. So my gear selections were also a win. I’d even tried acclimating to the humidity by using the steam sauna regularly at the Rec Center. Might have helped, I didn’t feel overly hot but the biggest surprise, other than the nastiness of the course, was that my heart rate was locked into mostly zone 4, followed by zone 5. I expected to run in zone 3 and I felt like I was mostly there. It must have been the effort to hop from rock to rock. I did very little actual running, it was mostly a rock hopping event.

I thought my pace was on target. My watch died after 15 miles but I was averaging a 14 minute pace, which was my goal. I think if there was a flaw in my run, it’s that 14 minutes was probably too fast for me on this course. My overall pace for the 50K I eventually completed was over 15 minutes per mile. But for me to run a 15 or 16 minute pace, I’d need to mix in some walking each mile. Maybe I will next time, although I don’t expect there to be a next time on such a difficult course.

I ran for a ways chatting to Eric’s old college coach, Karl Poetzl, who lives in Houston. It’s such a small world. He ran behind me, allowing me to clear the rocks for him, which I seemed inherently quite good at. My trailing foot would often catch a rock and flip it as my leg moved forward. It never hurt my toe, a credit to my La Sportiva Bushidas, but it was so exhausting for my thighs. I think I ran with the right shoes for this course, but hard to say if the cushion of Hokas wouldn’t have been better. I’ll continue to experiment with shoes. I’ll wear Hokas for the 3 marathons this year as those will be on paved roads. Karl completed the 100K, 8th in his 50 year old division, just under 17 hours which qualified him for the Western States 100M lottery.

Eric had a strong run. Brit and I crewed him through his last 3 aid stations, He finished 2nd in his age division and 13th overall. He didn’t care for the rocks anymore than any of us. It didn’t allow him to stretch out his legs on the downhills which is one of his strengths. If anything, runners had to slow running downhill to avoid certain death.

You’d think I’d be disappointed having to DNF in my first 100K ultra, but I was fine with it. It would have been too risky to run another loop, and really, I would have had to walk most of it and might not have made the 24 hour cutoff. Nailing my nutrition plan and the training itself were both wins. I haven’t been this fit in 9 years. I expected to also be as fast as the last time I weighed 165 pounds, but that’s not the case. I’m a half hour slower in marathons now and that’s just age. But understanding my nutritional needs for long runs is a huge win. And being paced 5 miles by Brit was a lot of fun. I got to see her foot work – she’s a good trail runner. I think I can complete the distance on an easier course and I’ll try again next year.

Not Bandera

10 Friday Jan 2025

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I wanted to title this post “Bandera”. It’s the Bandera 100K. But it’s not Bandera. Not anymore. The rains from Thursday forced the event to be relocated 90 minutes West at Camp Eagle, along the Nueces River near Rocksprings. Meaning, I’ll have to wake up 90 minutes earlier than planned.

It’ll be more inconvenient for my crew than me. I expect a similar course, similar hills. Similar caliche soil that might clump onto my shoes if still wet enough tomorrow. And it appears to be about 5° cooler further west. Likely because the elevation is 1000 feet higher. But it will warm up into the 50°s. I’ll begin by wearing gloves but shouldn’t need a jacket, perhaps two shirts initially. The running vest serves as a jacket of sorts.

I typically blog a post before marathons, mostly to soothe my nerves, where I predict my pace. It’s easy to predict a range based on my conditioning, but of course so many things can go wrong with long distances that guessing correctly is partly luck. I don’t have any experience at 62 miles, nor this trail, so really hard to say, but I know what I want to run. I want to run under a 14 minute pace. 16 minutes would be more realistic and that might be my overall pace, but I imagine I’ll start out running a 12 minute pace for the first 15 miles or so. It’s hard for me to run slower than that unless the hills are tougher than I expect and I find myself walking more in the first loop.

I expect plenty of walking in the second loop. I hope not too much as I really want to finish before bed time. The sun will drop around 6pm and I hope to finish before 10pm, so I’ll be using the 800 lumen headlamp my pacer and daughter, Brittany, gifted me for Christmas for a good 4 hours. I’m comfortable running in the dark with a head lamp and I’ll be running so slowly by then that it won’t be a factor. I’ve printed out the chart below, an overly optimistic projection, for Brit to crew me with.

My Apple Watch SE won’t last more than 10 hours, even in low power mode, but I’ll be using it to track my heart rate. If I can refrain from too much running in zone 4 or 5, I should be able to keep my fueling and hydration in check. Really, unless those hills are a bugger, I should be mostly running in zone 2 which is a very comfortable pace. I don’t expect to ever come close to exceeding my lactate threshold. Heart rate zones are determined by your max heart rate, which is mostly determined by your age. I’ve tailored mine with my level of conditioning using the Karvonen method, which suggests my max might be as high as 170. Experience tells me though that if I breach 170, I might be experiencing A-Fib, especially if I instantly go from below 130 to 170. Which is why I intend to track that metric. I’m also doing it to make sure my cognitive abilities are such that I can read my watch and tell Brit my heart rate if she asks. If not, I should maybe consider a DNF.

You can track my progress here: http://edsresults.com/bandera24/

Trail Spirits

03 Friday Jan 2025

Posted by in Running, training plan, Ultra

≈ 6 Comments

Sotol stands as a quiet sentinel of the desert, its long, slender leaves fanning out in a crown of green and silver. A hardy survivor of arid lands, it thrives beneath the relentless sun, its roots gripping the dry earth with tenacity. The leaves, rigid and sharp-edged, shimmer with a metallic sheen in the afternoon light, as if the plant itself were forged by the desert’s heat.

Running along the length of each leaf are rows of small, dagger-like thorns – delicate yet unforgiving. They trace the edges like the teeth of a saw, catching glimmers of light at their tips. This decoration is its defense, a silent warning to any who might venture too close. To brush against sotol carelessly is to feel the desert’s quiet bite, a reminder that even beauty here demands respect.

As the Sotol matures, its towering flower stalk reaches skyward, sometimes stretching ten feet high, crowned with clusters of pale blooms that sway in the desert wind. But below, the thorns remain, standing guard like loyal sentries, ensuring that the Sotol’s grace is not without its edge.

Oddly, Sotol isn’t a cactus, it’s a type of asparagus. The Texas type of asparagus that will take you out with its deadly thorns. I’ll run past 62 miles of them a week from now. There are many things to fear about running 62 miles. Death by a thousand cuts shouldn’t be one of them but at the Bandera 100K Ultra, the Sotol makes the rules. The Sotol is the master of the Hill Country State Natural Area. The trail is there to serve runners’ flesh to the Sotol.

I’ve tried to prepare as best I can for this challenge. Blowdown on my East Boulder Trail has added some challenge to my otherwise pedestrian trail. Its hills might mirror the Bandera trail and now I have downed trees to navigate. And I survived winds at the Boulder Res that nearly lifted me off my feet. Good prep for the Texas wind, which I expect to be a steady 10 mph. All good training prep. I completed my training today with 12 miles on the LoBo Trail. That gave me 100 miles for the week – the first time in 9 years I’ve pushed myself this hard. It feels good to know I’ve completed what I set out to do.

That statement might seem premature since I’ve yet to actually run the 100K, but with goals like this, the training is everything. A lot could go wrong next Saturday, but it won’t be from a lack of training miles, or a lack of studying nutrition, or a lack of training my body to fuel and hydrate over those hundreds of training miles. But there was one thing I’d yet to complete this morning. I still needed to pay homage to the trail spirits, and in Bandera, the God of those trail spirits is the slashing Sotol.

Turns out Sotol makes an excellent spirit in the form of distilled asparagus, 38% alcohol by volume. I had a shot tonight to mark the completion of my training and to shout out to the Sotol that guards the trails in Bandera that I’m ready. Having drunk its distilled spirits, I’ll be one with the Sotol next Saturday. I’ll be protected from its spears and destined for glory in the Texas Hill Country.

Sixty-Two at Sixty-Two

30 Monday Dec 2024

Posted by in Ellie Rose, Margot, Running, Ultra

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I ran 70 miles last week, the first time in 9 years that I’ve run that far in a single week. Today’s 22 miler has me set to do it again this week. I’m closing out the year running strong.

I got in 3 good runs while down in Austin, twice around the lake and once on the greenbelt. It rained on me in the pic above. That warm, soft rain so typical of Texas in the winter.

The Austin Greenbelt was the perfect prep for Bandera. It’s essentially a trail along Barton Creek and there are good sections of cliffs with rocky footing like you see above.

Karen and I stayed at my favorite place in Austin, her cousin Liz’s Casa del Sol on S. 2nd and Oltorf. I can run through the Bouldin neighborhood and reach Lady Bird Lake in 1.2 miles. Here’s some of the yard art from Bouldin.

Margot Fay saw Santa everywhere she went in Austin. Like a toddler Ted Lasso, she believes.

Ellie wasn’t able to join us in Austin because of her new job as a data analyst at Dish. She won’t have PTO until March. Our darling friend Wendy invited Ellie over to spend Christmas with her and Chase.

Ellie Rose and Chase have been best friends since grade school.

These two have been besties even longer. They were the hosts with the most serving a couple dozen family members Christmas dinner. Karen’s father golfed nine holes the next day.

Most all of us are in this dinner photo. I’ll see Susan and Steve and Liam in a couple weeks in Bandera – they’re my crew. Promises were made at dinner for me to run the 2026 Austin Marathon with Chad and Laura. The other Laura.

Margo Fay again, at her grandparent’s mountain home. I’m off for a second week. My only plans are to run every day. Today included cold 25 mile-an-hour winds off the water at the Boulder Res. Just more good prep for Bandera where I’ll run 62 miles at 62 years of age. Happy New Years all y’all.

Mud, Ice & Snow

30 Saturday Nov 2024

Posted by in Running, training plan, Ultra

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I consider the East Boulder Trail to be fairly pedestrian. The workout and any technical points come from the hills. There’s a nearly 3 mile section of hills that I run through twice, once at the start and again at the end on the return. Today’s 6 miles out, 6 miles back gave me a 6 mile flatish run in between the repeated hilly sections.

Add mud and ice and snow and this course became very technical today. It gave me the perfect 12.5 mile workout. Footfalls took thought. Such great training for Bandera.

There’s about one and a half months left before I run Bandera. My first attempt at a 100K. I feel ready.

Winter is Slipping in

24 Sunday Nov 2024

Posted by in Running

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Winter is slipping into Boulder County. I know because I’ve been out there running in it. Twenty-three miles yesterday. Twelve today. I’m starting to wear gloves on my weekly evening runs.

There’s snow on the Indian Peaks and the air’s been wet and cold. Colorado’s most humid months are January and February – the winter. It might be less humid in Bandera for my ultra in January. Still, I’m going to keep to my steam sauna and waxing regimen. Discipline.

Around the Res

24 Sunday Nov 2024

Posted by in Running

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My 20 mile run is to the res and back. I looped around it though yesterday for an extra 3 miles. I’m starting to run marathons for training. Please. Someone. Save me. From myself.

The cool thing about looping the res is I got onto the Boulder Backroads on the back-side. And those roads and the trail that connects back are hilly. It’s a good 3 miles to add to the workout.

The 50° weather was great for running, and apparently tolerable for the 3 rowers on the water. Boulder is slipping into winter. It feels good to get outside to enjoy it.

The Boulder Res and Back

09 Saturday Nov 2024

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Running in the Colorado fall is so perfect. I got in 20 miles today after 3 days of cold, wet snow. To the Boulder Res and back. I haven’t been getting in the miles lately. Daylight Savings Time was hard on me. Weekends are my time.

I don’t know if that’s a bad training plan, getting it all in during the weekend, but that’s the time I’ve got. I’m going to try harder next week to run after work in the dark with a headlamp. I probably need some practice running in the dark. My current estimated run time for Bandera is between 14 and 17 hours, in January, so I’ll be running into the night for sure. 3 hours sounds like a big range, I can usually predict my marathon times the day before within 30 minutes. But this isn’t 26 miles, it’s 62, and I’ve never run that far before.

The really cool thing is that in addition to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law crewing me, my son-in-law just registered for the race. Unless he just treats it as a training run for his next 100 miler, and really, even if he does, he’ll be competitive to win it. I’d bet on a top 3 finish.

And Brit is gonna pace me, likely in the second half. Guidelines only allow for pacers in the second half, but my age can have pacers the entire course. This was us running the Desert Rats 50K in Fruita last spring. This is gonna be a fun family affair.

Strength

03 Sunday Nov 2024

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In my day, it was rare for coaches to think much of strength training for distance runners. But in high school, my jr and sr year coach was recently graduated from Baylor University, and was a standout lineman on their football team. Coach Wagner. So, way ahead of his time, he had us perform strength training, as in weights, twice a week. That’s Coach above in a photo with teammate Marc Jurnigan from my cross country team. Likely taken at the Texas State Meet we qualified for as a team in 1979.

You can’t look at this photo of me above and not think I was a strong looking distance runner. My senior year, my team didn’t just win the 2 mile relay (4×800) at every track meet of the season, we set the meet record for the event nearly every week. I’ve been a fan of strength training for distance runners ever since. BTW, RR was for Round Rock, not Road Runner.

Traditionally, coaches have always felt that time was more wisely spent putting in the miles for distance runners. They aren’t wrong on that. Strength training has many benefits, from staving off repetitive use injuries to contributing somewhat to endurance, but from a time perspective, a distance runner is going to benefit mostly from running the miles. It’s an aerobic activity after all. But what about ultra runners?

I don’t know if this thought is pervasive, but I’ve read enough to know that strength training is a good idea for ultra runners. You can only run so many miles in training each week. Lifting weights takes time too, but a separate routine from running can find another time in the day. And think about it, you’re not going to run any more miles each week training for an ultra than you would have for a marathon. I’m currently strength training at the Longmont Rec Center 3 times a week. 50% more than I ever did in high school or college. I’m lifting considerably less weight on my arms than I did back then, but I’m impressed with my progress on my legs. My legs are half the size currently than they were back in the day, but I’m working on them.

The pic above is of me and Doug Hall running the very first Capitol 10K in Austin in the spring of 1978. Doug died later that summer, in my arms, in a tragic car accident. I didn’t know then how traumatic that was for me, but I know now that the incredible positive influence of my high school sweetheart I paired up with the following fall probably saved my life. She was a runner too. I’ve been running ever since. I suspect this was one of those life events that burned running into my psyche. Running drives my emotions to this day like nothing else.

I didn’t beat Doug that day. I never, ever beat Doug in a race. But I kept running the Capitol 10K and improved.

I’m still running. My current goal is to complete the 62 mile course in the Bandera 100K in January. I’ve completed a couple of 50Ks at a 14 minute mile pace. I’m hoping to complete the Bandera 100K at a 14 minute pace. That’ll have me competitive with the top 3. I’m still racing. And I’m still working on my strength.

LMNT

20 Sunday Oct 2024

Posted by in Running, Ultra

≈ 3 Comments

Pronounced “element”, LMNT will be my electrolyte for the Bandera 100K. This stuff has more salt than the Dead Sea. 1000 milligrams! The 200 mg of potassium and 60 mg of magnesium are good quantities too. This will give me exactly what I need for magnesium, and possibly a bit more than I need for sodium. The potassium is a bit light but more than most anything else.

My initial plan was to consume a mix of electrolytes, three different brands. One would be heavy on sodium, the other heavy on carbs, and another a good blend. But complexity is stupid and I know I like LMNT. I’ve been running with two different mixes generally, one in each bottle, but I ran 20 miles Saturday with just LMNT and felt great. I can get my carbs from gels. Probably SIS Beta Fuel Gel but the jury is still out on that.

For variety, I’ll eat foods at the aid stations, and drink some of their Tailwind, which has a strong blend of electrolytes, one of the strongest for calcium. I have all this in a spreadsheet if you’re interested in seeing my game plan.

In Training

13 Sunday Oct 2024

Posted by in Running

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Some runners have this attitude where they are insulted if you call them a jogger. They are a runner. I’m so much worse than that. I don’t workout, I’m in training. It’s a fantasy I enjoy, a 62-year old man’s delusion. Judge me if you want, but I’m happy.

I consider this last week to be my first official training week for the Bandera 100K. The previous week was a recovery week from the Boulder Marathon. It’s not too much of a stretch to say I’m in training, because it’s rare I ever track my miles. I think doing so leading up to the ultra will give me some confidence knowing I put in the miles. I put in 51 miles.

More importantly, I did strength training 3 days this last week. That’s a lot for me. Not every runner considers strength training important but I do, especially for my age. My goal is to continue a routine of 3 days a week up to race day in January. I have a 3 month pass at the Longmont Rec Center, mostly for their sauna but it makes sense to use their weights there too. I could join a gym but I’m a public school kind of guy. I like the rec center.

Which means I also got in 3 days in the sauna. What I’ve read on acclimating to heat and humidity is to spend 30 minute sessions 3 days a week in the sauna. That’s harder than I expected. It’s exhausting, sitting there in a steam bath. I have experience racing marathons in the Texas winter and the humidity is tough; probably harder for me coming down from the dry Colorado air. I’m hoping this works.

For the next 3 months, expect this blog to be a steady stream of ultra training reports. Oh, and that’s my new running hat in the photo.

Boulder Marathon 2024

05 Saturday Oct 2024

Posted by in Marathons, Running

≈ 6 Comments

I survived my 18th marathon. That’s how I know it’s time to run a 100K ultra. I’ve yet to DNF in a marathon. The outcome in an ultra is a bit less deterministic. I have run two 50K trail ultras but that distance isn’t much further than a marathon. I ran well, hitting my stretch goal of a 9 minute pace. No one’s more surprised than me.

Sunday’s Boulder Marathon was a good training run for January’s Bandera 100K. I kept to my fueling plan really well. I planned to consume well over 300 carbs in 4 hours, mostly from the SIS Beta Fuel gels, and I feel like I did. The good news is my stomach was fine and I felt strong the entire run, pushing myself to run much faster than my typical training pace of 10 minutes per mile. I ran under my stretch goal for the first half, averaging an 8.5 minute pace. I even maintained a strong 9 minute pace for the 3rd 10K. I didn’t really fall off pace until the final two miles when my hamstring cramped a couple of times.

I know the bucket hat looks stupid, but I got a lot of compliments on it. Function over form.

Which suggests I didn’t hydrate well enough. I don’t think I missed my sodium plan by much but it’s apparent I need more than 3,000 mg of sodium per 4 hours. I should plan to double that, which I think is still safe as long as I’m hydrating. I found it difficult to drink as much electrolytes as I did, so I might focus on eating more salt chews. Cramping caused me to lose 5 minutes and subsequently lose 1st for my age by 2 minutes, but more important is to learn from my race experience. That’s one point of races, learning where to adjust the plan.

I’m disappointed to have surrendered my first place position in the final mile, but I’m super happy with my race. I ran to plan and met my stretch goal. And learning from it for Bandera is gold. I’ve also determined I need more strength training. That mitigates cramping too. Exercises like squats, lunges, and deadlifts target the main muscle groups used in running. A strong core supports proper running form, reducing fatigue and cramping. Calves and Hamstrings are prone to cramping, so strengthening them can help. My strength isn’t weak. I target 3 days per week but generally only do strength training once a week. I’ll strive to do better for Bandera. I have 3 months.

Around mile 20 in Gunbarrel

Here are some great stats from the race if you’re into that. They show I went from 2nd to 1st for my age in mile 16 and gave it back up in the final mile. The Boulderthon does some really good things, from these superb timing stats to the best aid stations ever.

  Course  Interval  Chip Time Place  
 TimeDistanceTimePaceDistanceTimePaceOverallSexAge
Mile 1*7:17:07 AM18:328:31/mi18:328:31/mi272221M 2M60-64
Mile 27:25:36 AM217:008:29/mi18:298:28/mi272221M 2M60-64
Mile 3*7:33:54 AM325:188:25/mi18:198:18/mi261216M 2M60-64
Mile 47:42:12 AM433:378:24/mi18:198:18/mi261216M 2M60-64
Mile 57:51:07 AM542:318:30/mi18:558:54/mi257215M 2M60-64
Mile 67:59:07 AM650:318:25/mi18:018:00/mi262217M 2M60-64
Mile 78:08:15 AM759:398:31/mi19:089:07/mi261216M 2M60-64
Mile 88:16:58 AM81:08:238:32/mi18:448:43/mi266220M 2M60-64
Mile 98:26:41 AM91:18:058:40/mi19:439:42/mi274226M 2M60-64
Mile 108:34:38 AM101:26:028:36/mi17:587:57/mi274227M 2M60-64
Mile 118:44:47 AM111:36:118:44/mi110:1010:09/mi336277M 2M60-64
Mile 128:53:07 AM121:44:318:42/mi18:208:19/mi326270M 2M60-64
Mile 139:01:42 AM131:53:068:41/mi18:368:35/mi291242M 2M60-64
Mile 149:09:57 AM142:01:218:40/mi18:158:15/mi276230M 2M60-64
Mile 159:18:55 AM152:10:198:41/mi18:588:57/mi274229M 2M60-64
Mile 169:29:25 AM162:20:508:48/mi110:3110:30/mi274228M 1M60-64
Mile 179:37:40 AM172:29:058:46/mi18:168:15/mi264221M 1M60-64
Mile 189:46:13 AM182:37:378:45/mi18:338:32/mi260217M 1M60-64
Mile 199:55:17 AM192:46:418:46/mi19:049:03/mi251206M 1M60-64
Mile 2010:04:46 AM202:56:118:48/mi19:309:29/mi250206M 1M60-64
Mile 2110:15:04 AM213:06:298:52/mi110:1810:17/mi233198M 1M60-64
Mile 2210:25:00 AM223:16:248:55/mi19:569:55/mi228190M 1M60-64
Mile 2310:34:56 AM233:26:218:58/mi19:579:56/mi251203M 1M60-64
Mile 2410:44:46 AM243:36:109:00/mi19:509:49/mi245197M 1M60-64
Mile 2510:56:19 AM253:47:439:06/mi111:3311:32/mi261209M 1M60-64
Mile 26*11:09:32 AM264:00:579:16/mi113:1413:13/mi291232M 2M60-64
Mile 26.211:12:11 AM26.24:03:369:17/mi0.22:3913:13/mi291232M 2M60-64

Quarterly stats below further show I was running under my stretch goal for 3 quarters of the distance.

  Course  Interval  Chip Time Place  
 TimeDistanceTimePaceDistanceTimePaceOverallSexAge
1st Quarter*8:04:08 AM6.5555:338:28/mi6.5555:338:28/mi261216M 2M60-64
2nd Quarter*9:02:31 AM13.11:53:568:41/mi6.5558:248:54/mi276230M 2M60-64
3rd Quarter*10:01:27 AM19.652:52:518:47/mi6.5558:568:59/mi250206M 1M60-64
4th Quarter11:12:11 AM26.24:03:369:17/mi6.551:10:4510:47/mi291232M 2M60-64

After gaining a better understanding of my body’s sodium requirements, the next area of learning revolves around my max heart rate and lactate threshold. Understanding this better will facilitate my training for the ultra in January. My average heart rate during the marathon was 153. The age-based max heart rate math suggests 158 is my peak. My peak heart rate Sunday was 181, so clearly my max is somewhere above the average for my age.

I was never winded, although I started breathing heavier in the final 10K. This tells me the 150 range is well below my lactate threshold. What this also tells me is that I should start to maintain my runs in the 150 range. I generally run in the 130 range. So I need to train a bit harder. I don’t have the time to put in many more miles than I’m already running, but I can squeeze in what is called HIIT for High Intensity Interval Training. I need to challenge my lactate threshold. That will improve my endurance and performance in less miles. That’s my second lesson learned and my plan for the rest of the year.

Learning and planning. That’s what makes racing fun.

Pre-Race Jitters

28 Saturday Sep 2024

Posted by in Boulder Marathon, Running

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This photo is of my son-in-law Eric hugging my granddaughter Margot at one of the first aid stations in this weekend’s Bear 100 Miler. This is a big weekend for big runs. My buddies Keith and Bob ran a 50K ultra in BV today.

I’m pretty comfy now, sitting in my Boulderado Hotel king-sized bed, but at 7am tomorrow morning, I’ll be lined up to run 26.2 miles. It’s hard to sleep knowing that. I’m obsessing over the thought of pushing my pace. Going out fast hurts in the end. If I do, I probably won’t be able to hold the faster-than-I-can-really-run pace beyond the half-way point; so really, it starts hurting in the middle.

I ran both the 2023 Boulder Marathon and the 2024 Colorado Marathon at a 10 minute pace. I think I can do better. Maybe a 9 minute pace. That would give me a finish time under 4 hours. I’d be really happy with myself to run that fast. I do believe I can finish in 4:30, if all goes well, which would be about the same as my previous, recent marathons. So, 4:30 is my official projection, and 4 hours even is my dream goal that I’ll fall asleep thinking is possible.

If I’m bold, I’ll start out running with the 3:45 pace group. That’s a bit under a 9 minute per mile pace and would qualify me for Boston if I could hold it. I can’t. I could probably hold it for the first 10K, maybe even the first half. Then it will get hard. Really hard because that’s what starting out too fast does. I could start out slower and the entire run would be much more comfortable, but that won’t help me train for Bandera in January. Another strategy might be to ignore the pacers and simply queue up in the D corral, which is intended for anyone running a 9 minute pace. That’s likely what I’ll do.

I feel like accelerating my body’s demand for energy might help me to test my fueling and hydration plan for the Bandera 100K. Because an ultra assumes you got in the training miles and performance comes down to fueling and hydration. And the trail spirits being in your favor. This run is just a training run for the next one. This is how a runner thinks.

The wild card will be the heat. It’s going to be a bit warmer than earlier forecasts. Plus, I haven’t been training that fast. My training runs have been around a 10 minute pace. So one could say I’m a bit delusional, and I am. It’s part of what makes me a fiction writer. I do believe I’ll be safe being able to hydrate at the 16 aid stations that carry Mortal Hydration Mango and don’t plan to carry water bottles. I plan to carry a half dozen salt chews, but the aid stations will also have SIS Beta gels which I’ll be fueling on in Bandera, so perfect practice. This marathon has the most abundant and well-stocked aid stations I’ve ever seen. I plan to take full advantage of that. Being able to stomach all the fuel and hydration is perhaps another wild card. There are porta-potties at every aid station.

You can track me here starting at 7am, Sunday morning.

Fall Racing Season

22 Sunday Sep 2024

Posted by in Boulder Marathon, Britt&Eric, Margot, Running

≈ 1 Comment

I have a new running hat – the bucket hat style of serious ultra runners. This hat alone makes me an ultra runner. The bucket hat style is brilliant, and this REI version of it worked out well in the rain this morning. I’m a happy camper. I’ll be wearing it for next Sunday’s Boulder Marathon. You can track me here, starting at 7am Mountain.

You can tell it’s fall in these photos. Some trees are turning color and the air was 49° as I launched into my 16 miler this morning.

The cool temps helped me average a 10 minute pace. I’m hoping to run a bit faster than that in the Boulder Marathon. If my son-in-law Eric has a strong performance at the Bear 100 Miler on Friday, that’ll put some pressure on me to do well. You can track Eric here on Friday.

The other reason you know it’s fall is because Margo turned 3 on Saturday. Her birthday always marks the end of summer.

Rooftop Sunset

14 Saturday Sep 2024

Posted by in Victoria BC

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I proposed to Karen at the Austin Hyatt rooftop restaurant in 1986.  Thirty-eight years later, we dined atop the Seattle Hyatt at Nest to watch the sunset.

Fires from somewhere else on the planet filtered the sun indistinguishable from the moon.

And I was counting my lucky stars to still have Karen to warm my bed at night.

Mile Zero

08 Sunday Sep 2024

Posted by in Running, Victoria BC

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Mile 0 refers to the start of the Trans Canada Trail that begins in Victoria. I got in some really pretty miles here this past week.

I ate seafood absolutely everyday, including some great sushi in the Cook Street Village nearby.

The hotel my condo is located in is called Parkside, because it’s next to Beacon Hill Park, where I ran through countless flower beds to reach my ocean front path for my daily runs. These peacocks roam around the entire neighborhood. Headed down to the ferry now to take the slow boat back to Seattle. It was a good trip.

Dallas Road Waterfront

06 Friday Sep 2024

Posted by in Running, Victoria BC

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This last week was a working vacation in more ways than one. I worked from our condo in Victoria B.C. And I ran every day as I’m training for the Boulder Marathon on Sept 29th.

The first photo above is me running along the Dallas Road Waterfront, and this pic immediately above is my view of it, and the Straight of Juan de Fuca, as I descend down Beacon Hill onto the coastal path.

I’ve been running further down Dallas Street than on previous visits to Victoria, giving myself a good 5 mile run. I’ve kept my pace at or under 10 minutes per mile, but the important thing is I’ve been running every day after work. This trip hasn’t interrupted my training regimen. I’ve even gotten in some strength training in my condo hotel’s gym. I’ll see if I can keep this travel fitness routine going next week as I’ll leave here Sunday for one night in Seattle, then off to STL Monday for a work trip. Hoping I can keep at it.