Spring Rhythm

This has certainly been one of the wettest springs in Wyoming in eight years that I’ve been around.  The past two weeks have had snowfalls measured in feet, and this weekend we’re forecasted for 2-4 inches of rain on top of that slushy melting snow and completely saturated soil.  Flood watches are up, as you’d probably expect.  I know this is all wonderful for the land, especially after seeing the devastation fires have been causing in Canada.  As for my own selfish desires, it makes for terrible spring trail running.  I've often been forced to run on pavement to avoid the shoe sucking mud.  Gross.  I do however highly recommend the precise grip and fit of the Salomon S-Lab Sense Ultra 5 SG to handle slick, snowy, and water logged single track.  Oddly enough, even though the running on dry dirt has been a rare treat this season, I think I’m in the best shape of my life, and I credit that to finding a new sense of rhythm.

Last year was logistically pretty easy for training; Jenny was too pregnant to do much strenuous exercise and as teachers we have the summer off.  I could pretty much run whenever I wanted to.  Now things are a little bit different, I have two kids that deserve all the love and attention in the world and Jenny is signed up for El Vaquero Loco 50K, and we’re both working.  Yet, somehow I’ve found the rhythm to still fit in 60-80 mile weeks.  As a family, we’ve found our groove this spring.  Jenny and I still cook all of our meals from scratch, spend time with our kids, spend time together, get in our exercise, and still get a decent (at least 7 hours) amount of sleep. Here is what Monday through Sunday week often looks like for us:

Monday

Gabe: Rest Day

Jenny: 60 min run

Logistics and Dinner: Mondays are easy.  I’ve been staying home with the kids every Monday this spring as part of my FMLA leave.  Its unpaid of course, which is tough, but totally worth it.  I literally just play all day, its amazing.  Maybe I bake some cookies or muffins too.  After Jenny get’s home from school she’ll go out and run while I cook dinner with the kiddos.  This week we had quinoa/lentil pasta with red pepper cream/yogurt sauce.

Tuesday

Gabe: Track workout

Jenny: Strength training

Logistics and Dinner:  On a day like this I’ll go pick the kids up from daycare while Jenny goes straight to the gym.  I’ll start cooking dinner while still playing with the kids.  Jenny will walk in the door around 5:30, and I high tail it over to the track while Jenny finishes up dinner.  We’ll eat at 6:45ish and have kids in bed by 7:30-8.  8-10 is time for Jenny and I to relax together.  Dinner this week was sweet potato-quinoa waffles with fried eggs, bacon, avocado, and tomato.

Wednesday

Gabe: 90 minute run and strength training

Jenny: 60 min run

Logistics and Dinner:  I do my best to get up early once a week before the kids arise from there slumber and do 30 minutes of strength training.  Its not the highlight of my week, but I think its important for mountain running.  After school, I’ll go pick up the kids while Jenny gets her run in right away.  I’ll balancing playing with cooking dinner and we’ll eat at 5:45 when Jenny gets home.  This week I made some pesto (basil, sunflower seeds, peas, olive oil, garlic), and slotted it into griddled sandwiches with red peppers and fresh mozzarella.  We’ll spend some time together as a family after dinner and then I’ll be out the door a little after 7 for a sunset run that is usually a mix of trails and pavement.

Thursday

Gabe: 70 min run with long intervals

Jenny: 45 min run

Logistics and Dinner: I'll run right after school while Jenny gets the kids from daycare. Then she'll make something ridiculously good like white bean-spinach artichoke dip that we will eat with red peppers, carrots, celery, and tortilla chips.  After some family time and getting the kids to bed, Jenny will go out to cruise around as the sun sets, or maybe head over to the gym.

Friday

Gabe: 60 min trail run

Jenny: Rest

Logistics and Dinner: I’ll drive straight to a trailhead right after school and enjoy some mud.  Jenny gets the kids and starts making pizza!  We'll use our top secret GF pizza crust recipe with a tomato-yogurt cream sauce with zucchini, peppers, and spinach on top.  Left over bacon too if we’re lucky.  Family time the rest of the night.

Saturday

Gabe: 20 mile trail run

Jenny: 7 mile trail run

Logistics and Meals: Saturday morning is waffle time.  Sometimes Jenny will go knock out her run for the day while I whip up some waffles. We’ll all hang out and stuff our faces the rest of the morning.  In the afternoon, I’ll head to the mountains to do my thing.  Dinner Saturday night is something like grilled salmon with oven sweet potato fries and roasted kale.  Family time Saturday night or have some friends over.

Sunday

Gabe: 15 miles

Jenny: 5 miles

Logistics and Meals:  Sunday morning is also waffle time, of course.  We’ll make waffles as a family, drink coffee, and hang out.  After a trip to the grocery store its time for church in the mountains.  I'll head out for a run and Jenny goes when I get back. Dinner is usually something like coconut curry with pineapple and a bunch of vegetables.  Somewhere in there one or both of us usually runs or bikes to the park with the kids as well.

One note on our training schedules: I’m working with Ty Draney again this year, which is great except for the the regular ass kicking, and it sure is nice to not waste time and energy coming up with effective workouts.  Ty’s certainly got me fitter and faster than I was 12-months ago at this time.  Jenny is working with Steve Bechtel at Elemental Training and she has never been more stoked about her ultra training.

A few other notes on food: After each workout we each have a bottle of First Endurance Ultragen recovery drink for chocolaty protein goodness.  Breakfast during the week is always oatmeal laced with chia seeds, berries, almond butter, and a berry/spinach/kale/flax/banana smoothie.  Lunch is always leftovers plus a huge spinach and kale salad that probably has some avocado, pumpkin seeds, peppers, carrots, feta cheese, and hummus.  Snacks throughout the day are usually fruit, nuts, or something delicious we baked.  I have celiac disease so we all stick to a strict gluten free diet.  If you want to know our secret waffle or pizza crust recipe just send me an email and I’ll give you an address for you to send $1 million dollars to.  Just kidding, sharing is caring.  My Mom taught me that.

Well that’s about it.  That’s our rhythm this spring.  It’ll probably all change soon, or be totally different next year, but at the moment everyone seems generally happy and healthy.  Our youngest is 9-months old now and Jenny’s getting back to pre-baby fitness, and I should be ready for Scout Mountain 100K in a month. I hope the trails in Pocatello are muddy… I’m exceptionally prepared for that.

Have you found your spring rhythm?  What works for you?  If you have a family, how have you worked ultra running around family and work?  Leave a comment below!

This is a photo from last year, but it really doesn't make a difference: mud and Salomon S-Lab Sense SG

Family Time

Standard weekend breakfast

Family time in the backyard after a run

Highlight of the spring

Injury Recovery, Snow Running, Skate Skiing, and the 2016 Race Season

I spent much of the fall and early winter trying to recover from that obnoxious hamstring pull from Wasatch back in September.  It was a long, tedious process, and no doubt my impatience led to some  setbacks.  I unconsciously adjusted my gate to take the load off of my hamstring which led to some knee pain and calf tightness that I'm only recently getting a handle on.  Fortunately, I was able to keep it together in the fall for one glorious long run to Cathedral Peak on the Bears Ears Trail, but that seems so long ago now.

October peak-bagging on the Bears Ears Trail in another lifetime

For the past few months, my running reality has looked more like this:

2016 Twin Mountain Trudge

Dare I say it was colder than it looks?

The winter has been full of cold and dark pre-dawn road runs and weekend post-hole running, and if the snow hasn't been knee deep on the Saturdays, its been icy and slick.  To be honest, I kind of enjoyed the change in scenery for awhile, but now its definitely getting old.  I'm looking forward to the spring sunshine and maybe even a little bit of warmth.  Besides snowy running, I think I've spent more time skate skiing this winter than anything else.

Skate skiing is fast, fun, and guaranteed to get your heart pumping.  We're fortunate here in Wyoming to have hundreds of miles of Forest Service roads that during the winter are groomed for snowmobiles, but happen to work quite well for the skinny skis.  After my disappointment at Wasatch I was really motivated to run an early 100 miler, but my lovely wife helped me realize how dumb that was, and reminded me that its important to take a break.

I wanted a challenging winter project, something that genuinely scares me, something that I'm not sure if I'm really capable of.  After staring at a lot of maps I eventually came up with the idea of a skate ski loop through Yellowstone National Park.  I've always wanted to spend some time in the park during winter; it looks magical, isolated, wild, and ice cold.  I dreamt up a route that will go through many of the parks highlights, including the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Old Faithful, Yellowstone Lake, the Hayden Valley, and many other geyser basins.  I added up the mileage and it turns out the route is 150-miles.  I decided to commit, and with a little persuasion, I was able to get two other endurance junkies to join me, my friends Evan and Kevin.  We are going to attempt to ski from Pahaska Teepee to Old Faithful, mostly by moonlight, sleep for the afternoon, and ski the next night around the Grand Loop Road back to Pahaska Teepee.  I wanted a winter project that got me out the door during the dark cold hours of winter and this has done the trick.

Maybe some sunny Saturday training as well

I'm intimidated by a few aspects of this trip, but particularly the potentially dangerous cold and the challenge of adequate calorie consumption.  Yellowstone is often the nations ice box, and temperatures regularly dip well below zero at night.  -30 degrees fahrenheit is not that uncommon.  I don't stay as warm as I used to, so managing layers and sweat will be critical.  Staying warm and energized in those conditions requires an incredible amount of calories. Normally while summer mountain running, I consume roughly 300ish calories per hour, so I was doing some googling to figure out how much food to pack for a ski trip and I learned that skate skiing is the most energy consumptive sport on the planet.  Turns out a nordic skier burns 700-1200 calories an hour, which means over the course of, say, 30 hours I might burn 30,000 calories.  How does one pack that kind of fuel for skiing?!  I won't pack that many calories, of course (although it would be fun to try), and I'll have to dig deep while being a little bit calorie deprived.  I suspect I will mostly subsist off of homemade waffles and Justin's Chocolate butter, but I'm still working on that. I'll do a little write-up on that adventure when its all its done.

After the Yellowstone "Grand Loop 150" ski trip it will be a quick turn around to the racing season.  I don't usually get gut feelings about things, but I am feeling really positive about the 2016 season.

Here is what I have in store:

March 28 - Behind the Rocks Ultra 50 - Moab, Utah
June 4 -Scout Mountain Ultra 100K - Pocatello, Idaho
July 23 - Never Summer 100K - Gould, Colorado
September 3 - The Rut 50K - Big Sky, Montana
September 16 - Run Rabbit Run 100 (Hare)- Steamboat Springs, Colorado

I feel like these races are all nicely spread apart so that I should be able to give a fully committed race effort at each event.  I love the 100-mile distance, so Run Rabbit Run is the big goal for the year, and I'm super excited for hopefully outrageously yellow aspen leaves, crisp fall air, and beautiful blue Colorado skies.  All of the other races are exciting as well; I carefully picked them all and didn't sign up for anything that didn't get me antsy to get out the door and train.  They are all in beautiful places and its another good opportunity to push myself hard and let my competitive spirit out.  Am I going to see you at any of these 2016 events?

Scene from 2014 The Rut 50K