Appointments and Updates

So on a crazy Wednesday last week I had my massage appointment at 9:45, doctor at 10:45, and dentist at 12:00. Of course I did all this knowing how late my doctor always is I arrived at 10:50 and waited until 11:20 to actually get in to see him (hence the brilliance in booking my dentist, a five minute drive away, at noon, and not earlier).

Massage was good, lower back extrememly tight from working on deck - ongoing.

Doc is concerned I have LVH (Left Ventricular Hypertrophy - google it. It's too hard to explain other than the left ventricle of the heart gets enlarged from "excessive exercise" (is that what I do?), restricting blood flow to the aorta, potentially causing chest pain, heart disease and the like. He said the ECG was abnormal so is setting up an appointment to see a cardiologist for an ultrasound to measure the wall thickness of the left ventricle to see if there could be problems. As it's not an emergency, it'll be a couple months until I get in so don't hold your breath waiting for an update.

Dentist took x-rays of the loose tooth from Diez and found it to be fractured and in need of replacement. I had forgotten it was the same tooth as about ten years ago that had a root canal becuase I smashed it before. The x-ray showed that it was mostly filling and resembled a hollow tree, not very strong. His suggestion was to see a specialist (cha-ching$$$) to see what they suggest but assumes that they'll go with what's called an implant (no silicone involved) where they screw into the bone and put a crown on the screw. I'm thinking a gold crown would look killer right in the front. I guess an alternative would be a denture but they think the denture wouldn't be very stable because of it's size and location. They are, however, covered by the dental plan. Seeing as the implants aren't normally covered, I asked the receptionist how much they usually run. "Usually", she says they cost a couple thousand dollars. I'm thinking a gap in my teeth is cheaper with better conversation possibilities. I need to make a call to my benefits lady at work tomorrow to have a better idea of how to tackle this one. Next time you see me I could be sportin' a gold tooth with a diamond in the middle or no tooth at all.

Diez Vista 50k

Being on the receiving end of a cold the last ten days I wasn't sure how this race would turn out. On top of that I was dealing with a ton of issues needing attention around the house. Not that I'm making excuses, because if I didn't think I could race, I wouldn't race or I'd treat it as a long run day.

Friday night before was spent finishing up part of our back deck and a few other odd jobs that needed to be done. I hadn't finished putting my stuff together and taping my feet until 10:30. Not that I'm making excuses, I've just been more prepared for a race in the past than this one.

The day dawned warm and sunny. No, wait a minute, that was my dream before I awoke to dark and rainy. It was overcast the whole day with a steady drizzle greeting every runner out in the open throughout the day. At least under canopy it didn't seem so bad. We were even treated to snow at three different areas of the course.

Tracey arrived at our door at 6 a.m. and we headed out to Port Moody. Tracey was going to take some pictures and get in a run of her own while waiting for the race to unfold. We arrived at the perfect time of forty-five minutes ahead of the start, just enough to avoid the bathroom line-ups and get everything together. As people were getting their numbers and sweatshirts, I heard one person registering with the name of Hal Koerner. This guy wins almost every race he enters, having bested everyone last year at the Western States 100mile. Other names that I heard being passed around as late entrants were Brian Morrison, Gary Robbins, and Matt Hart. All of them extremely seasoned veterans in trail running. It made for an interesting day.

I, admittedly, started out faster than I probably should have, possibly due to how I ran Chuckanut with the leaders in my sights. I didn't want to let the fast guys go but after about twenty minutes of heading up, up, and up Diez, I knew I had to back off at least a little. The thing I remember most about this race two years ago was that the flagging was a little sparse and not so easily spotted. Seeing as I ran this part a while back (albeit the opposite direction) I had some idea how to traverse it and stay on track. I was within sight of Matt Hart for a bit and with him in the position of "the guy in front", he was prone to a few "pauses" while he looked for the right route. This may only take a second or so, but it throws you off your pace and you have to get back up to speed. This enabled me to catch up to him and use him as a trail blazer for a bit. We chatted here and there and eventually Aaron Pitt closed the gap and was with us, after I took the lead and surely slowed us down.

After a steep, steep descent, we came to a fast flat stretch where we caught up with Hal Koerner and could see Brian Morrison in the distance. I'm sure this caused me to go faster than I would have on this section of flat. As we were nearing the drop bag aid station, we passed Hal (who dropped at this point from a recurring plantar injury), came out of a trail, and were supposed to cross the road and continue to another trail that would lead us to the aid station. I honestly did not see any markings and from memory of an old race map, remembered we turned up the road. The funny thing was that there was the same pink flagging tape along side of the road so thought it was the correct way, not knowing that it was actually tape put there by Hydro indicating those trees were to be taken out. Anyways, we were almost past the parking lot where the aid station was when people started waving us towards them. In we went where we grabbed our stuff and I heard someone say, "What were you guys doing coming down the road?". Obviously we had, or I should say, I had, made a mistake. Matt, Aaron and I ran together wondering what had gone wrong and whether a DQ was in the works.


Funny enough we ran into Tracey at this spot and I asked how many people were ahead of us. She said two, so we figured it was the leader then Brian Morrison. When Brian came up behind us ten minutes later, we agreed we (I), screwed up. Brian convincingly passed us and this is where Matt fell back and eventually dropped due to nagging hip discomfort. After more of the upwards trudging, Aaron fell back a bit with problems of his own. I always saw Brian ahead of me but just couldn't bridge the gap, not that I was overly concerned. Around this point I was starting to feel crappy, whether it was the snow coming down, cold wind, my cold, or just going out too fast and paying for it, I'm not sure. Near the bottom of the out and back, Gary Robbins passed me looking absolutely awesome. On the way back up he passed Brian to stay in second place. Of course, I didn't really see too much of that as they had both gapped me quite nicely. Through the power lines again and over some rocky terrain I was in a real low spot. It took until the last really steep ugly stretch to get some energy back. I started taking in more Carbopro 1200 and this seemed to put something more into my legs.

While drinking from one of my bottles, as I'd done a million times in the past, pulling on the tab with my front teeth, the tab didn't pop out and instead broke one of my teeth!! I looked down to see if first some of the plastic had splintered off and was stuck in between my teeth but it was fine, it only felt that way because one of them was loose. Wasn't that just the icing on the cake for how I felt.

The last steep part was as bad as I remembered it from two years ago and the down to the lake was equally enjoyable. However, I remember the final leg to the finish being really long, and today it was quite nice. I even picked up the pace some and was running solid until out of the blue there was a mountain of stairs to climb. Although this wasn't as bad as the Dirty Duo stairs near the finish, they hurt nonetheless. It was only two hundred feet to the end so had to suck it up and look good and do a decent pace to the end. Unlike '06 when I swore I wouldn't do this race again, I was quite happy with how it went overall. I improved five spots and twenty-five minutes. Today my legs were tired but not the deep soreness I've had in the past which is a good sign and I'm looking forward to the training for Miwok coming up in a month. 200 kms down, 1061 to go.

XXXIV

A couple weeks ago I went to my family doctor to have him check me out and sign a form for the Spartathlon entry ensuring them that I was fit to run in the event. He's a funny guy from Korea who can't really fathom the distances that I run. He was the one about five years ago who said I should stop running long distance (marathons at the time) if I didn't want the arthritis in my big toe to get worse. Also when I was driving the bread truck many years ago, because my blood pressure was so low (tired all the time) he thought I might have had bleeding in my stomach and sent me for tests. I'd rather not discuss those ones at this time. I've heard a lot of similar stories from people who's doctors simply advise them to stop doing what they're doing and that will make everything all right instead of seeking alternate methods of curing.
So he did a couple checks and was surprised at my heart rate (low) and wanted me to have an ECG done (it's been a while) and have some blood tests to make sure everything was on the up and up. I went to the BioMedical centre near by the other day right when they opened at 8a.m. because you can't eat anything for ten hours before the tests and, as you can imaging, I was starving. I get there right at 8 and there's already a line-up of at least ten people!! I guess everyone else had the same hunger pangs and wanted to get in and out as soon as possible. I went home and came back at 9 and went right in. Lesson learned.
I sat in the chair reclined all the way back while the assistant hooked all the wires up to my arms, legs, and chest. After a minute or so she said we were all done and was it normal for my heart rate to be so low? I said if it's under 50 then, yes, it is. She looked at it for another minute and said she wanted to have someone else look at the graph that printed out. A couple minutes go by and she says she wants to phone another branch where they have cardiologists working and fax the printout to them to look at it. I laughed and asked why? She said in her six years working there she hadn't seen a rate so low - 34!! That shocked me because I take my pulse quite often first thing in the morning and it's never been below 40 or 42. Afraid I was going to drop right then and there she asked me to sit down while she faxed them.
Another few minutes pass and she comes out stating that the cardiologists were a bit concerned but after faxing it to my own doctor, he assured them that because of what I do that it was alright. Way to go Doc!!
I had a similar incident when we were applying for life insurance nine years ago and my vitals were "below the normal range" and had to undergo another round of more detailed tests to prove that I didn't have some sort of malady. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be a freak. Carrie advised me that Miguel Indurain's resting heart rate used to be 28 so I have a ways to go.

Long Run

I can't remember having done a run more than four hours in training since way back in '05 before H2H which, I think, lead to my first bout of shin splints. That one was around 5:15 all on the road. It makes me cringe just thinking about all that pounding on the hard surfaces. Never again will I go that distance unless it's in a race and even then that's once or maybe twice a year.
Last weekend I did 4:40 on the trails, throwing in four long 2 mile repeat hills. It was only 28 miles and due to the slower speed I felt pretty good after. It was starting to snow at the top of the mountain and it was only then I realized how freezing my hands felt. I didn't dare stop for fear of cooling down and getting even colder. Seeing as I had my pack on with extra bottles, it would have been too easy to throw in a toque and gloves before I left home but I figured it was the end of March, how cold could it be?? Lesson learned.
This weekend is a run between 5 and 5.5 hours which I'm going to do closer to home out on the country roads where the roads have softer grass or gravel shoulders to run on. This is also to prevent the legs from getting too thrashed in the trails a week before Diez. Hopefully with less steep climbs I won't be too beat up.

Chuckanut 50 km

I've been looking forward to racing this event ever since I did it two years ago. Last year didn't work because I didn't have the mileage in my legs to be competitive with myself and I was doing the triathlon thing of course. Also, it sold out before I even thought to look at registering, but that's beside the point. I think it was fate because like I said, I wouldn't have been properly prepared. I thought about how it had been two long years since the 2006 race as we started out on this one and I felt very satisfied knowing this was going to be a fun one. My only goals were beating my '06 time of 4:29 and finishing in the top ten. There were a few heavy hitters here so I was looking forward to gauging my fitness. Most notably was Scott Jurek who competed in the Way Too Cool 50km just seven days earlier in California. His resume includes seven wins at the Western States 100 mile, winning the Badwater 135 mile Death Valley to Mt. Whitney race, and twice winning Spartathlon, to name a few.

The weather was supposed to be non-wet but that didn't work out well, at least until we started. All the way down the I-5 travelling to the race it was pouring which didn't bode well for the condition of the course. I was travelling with Carrie, Tracey, and Scott Corsie, a Burnaby Fire Fighter, who was doing the race, and finisher of a 150 mile Sahara desert stage race in Egypt last November. It had been raining off and on all week so I figured we were in for some muck. Quite a contrast to 2006 when it had been warm and dry leading up to the race and the day itself was beautiful. I felt supremely under-dressed in just shorts and a t-shirt when everyone else had arm warmers or long-sleeved shirts on. I was chilly before we started but the fact that the rain stopped about five minutes to eight was a relief. After we got going it was alright but my fingers were never all that warm for the whole day.


We started out and I guess there was a pack of about eight of us with two more further off in the distance. They were really easy to see because one had a red shirt on and the other an orange one. After two miles or so we come out of a small section of trail and had about three more miles of basically flat, easy running. No one was going very fast, I thought everyone was keying off Jurek or another one of the fast guys at the front. I felt like keeping up a good pace so motored past everyone until I was about a hundred feet in front and in third place. I was clipping along like a metronome doing a 6:58 - 7:03 pace all the way to the first aid station. I guess at that point guys behind me had stopped to fill bottles but I didn't have the need so kept right on going. This put a bit of a gap between them and me and as we entered the forest and the climb to Fragrance Lake I could see the two leaders not far in front of me.

All the way to Fragrance Lake I tried to keep a steady pace and the heart rate low but I know I was going too hard. I felt strong and relaxed but kept in the back of my head the thought of all the other climbs that were to come. I guess I figured I could survive them due to the fact I'd trained here so much in the past. After Fragrance Lake the downhills to the second aid station was where I really noticed the mud being a factor. I kept thinking that the two hundredth person to go through here was in for a rude surprise at the condition of the trail.


At the second aid station I powered through without stopping and was briefly (about five seconds) in first place until Bryan Dayton from Boulder took over his lead again. Second place at the time was Jeff Hashimoto who mistook me for Matt Simms momentarily. I was quite flattered because Matt is an exceptional runner. Jeff and I traded places back and forth up the next thirty minute climb to the top of the mountain via the gravel road to aid station three. Every time he stopped to walk I would pass him and same when I stopped to walk. Bryan just kept on motoring the whole way up. I never saw him walk the whole day, and I could see him in front of me for nineteen miles.



I fumbled a bit looking for my drop bag at this aid station and thought I'd be on my own for a while but managed to catch the leaders again after ten minutes through the most technical part of the race. Once we broke out onto some flat and rolling terrain I was starting to feel like not racing and just trying to maintain a steady pace to the finish. You know, when the legs get really heavy and mentally you're not feeling the greatest? It was a couple miles later on a long climb that Scott Jurek and the eventual second place finisher, Peter Ellis, went past me. Floated past me is a better term for it, they looked awesome. That was the last I saw of him or Bryan Dayton. Jurek was in view once in a while but he too was gone soon enough. I got ahead of Jeff who was having cramping issues and settled into fourth.


The long twenty-five minute decent from aid station four to number five actually felt pretty good, but I knew when I hit the bottom and started back on those flats I wouldn't be so happy. I was right. I think I was doing eight minute miles all the way back and was in the familiar mood of, "I don't care if anyone passes me, I'm tired". I really only had one gear at this point. With around a mile to go as I passed people they would cheer for me and then about fifteen seconds later I could hear them cheering for the next guy behind me. That's when I knew I was in trouble. Brian Morrison went by me with three hundred metres to go looking really fresh. He did a couple shoulder checks to see if I was going to be a threat but I obviously wasn't. I had a feeling he had a good sprint in him if I made a charge. I've never had anyone cruise past me so close to a finish before and it bothered me for a bit afterwards. You know how you think once you're done that you could have gone faster? Well, I felt pretty good with my result and bettering the 2006 time by fifteen minutes in worse conditions and I am truly over it. Plus it's a bit of a boost seeing the results and the time difference between first and sixth being only five minutes.



Overall I'd say I'm happy with this one and that I actually raced it. It'll take a few more events to make me know what I can and can't do and I'm looking forward to figuring all this out.

Diez Vista in three weeks!!



Chuckanut 50km 2008 - 5th place, time 4:14, 150km of racing down

I'm In

Cool. I've been wanting to do the Knee Knacker for a few years now and finally hit the jackpot with the lottery along with 259 other lucky folks. Now all I need is my four hours of trail maintenance to fulfill the race pre-requisites.

New Canadian Running Magazine

Hey there's a new magazine out there all to do with Canadian content. I even made pg. 16!!

"Bentley, Whelan repeat winners at Haney to Harrison 100k
It was a cold, wet day for the 11th running of the Haney to Harrison 100k on November 3 in B.C. Darin Bentley of Surrey, B.C. won the 100k race for the third straight year in a course-record time of 7:39:44. The race featured all four members of the Canadian men’s World Cup 100k team, with Bentley surging ahead at the halfway point to finish 35 minutes ahead of fellow World Cup team member Darren Froese of Victoria.

Tania Whelan of Surrey triumphed in the women’s race for the second straight year with a time of 10:15:22, more than two hours faster than second-place finisher Heather Flaherty of Nevada, Iowa.
In the concurrent eight-person relay race,

Peninsula Runners from Vancouver emerged victorious in 5:42:13, followed closely by the Islanders team from Victoria in 5:43:32. The Striking Vikings from Edmonton won the women’s division of the relay in 7:11:53, eight minutes ahead of the vfac Hustling team."

Check it out at Canadian Running