Mount Diablo Marathon

So, yesterday I ran the PCTR Mount Diablo Marathon. I met up with several friends that I've known from many other races and ultra events. It was a great crowd.

Particularly, I met up with Addy, who I promised to run with. We took it easy and along with time we took for photos and admiring the views, it took us 9hrs 10 minutes to complete the marathon distance. This has to be the longest time that I've taken to run a marathon, but not the longest time I've taken on an ultra trail race. The weather conditions were fabulous, the trail was dry, but most of our course was single track trails that were pretty steep and covered in loose material. It was really technical, especially the last 8 miles of downhill.



This photo was taken somewhere in the first few miles of the course. We were climbing almost constantly from the start up to the Summit around mile 9 of the course.




When we reached the Summit, we were encouraged to climb to the top of the observation deck to view the surrounding landscape. Awesome!






The early morning overcast hasn't burned off yet, in the valley that we climbed out of.







Here are my friends Addy and Karen. Addy & I ran the complete distance together and had a great time. Karen didn't spend as much time taking pictures as we did, so I think she finished an hour ahead of us.



This is Addy as we're leaving the Juniper Aid Station for the second time.
We're on our way to the Summit for the final time with less than 10 miles to the finish.

To read more about our run, check out Addy's blog from my favorite blogs list. She's an English major and is so much more prolific in her writing than I am.

Santa Cruz Half Photos

Here are a few shots taken along the SC Half course.

This photo is on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean in Wilder Ranch. This is about 6 miles into the race and I'm averaging a 7:30min/mile pace.












On the way back to the finish, somewhere along West Cliff Drive.

Warm Run Day

The weather has certainly picked up around the SF Bay Area this week. It must have been close to 80F out there today.

I ran a nice 6.5 miles along the Guadalupe Creek Trail up past the SJ Airport. I tired to push a little bit more on the way back and completed the run with a 7:48min/mile average.

Now on to tomorrow's San Jose Fit training run -- a really short one at this time of the season -- then Sunday's Mt. Diablo Marathon.

TreeSpirit Photo

This is the photo that we took for Earth Day on Sunday. As you can see, we're all pretty anonymous. I'm the one up at the top of the image on the left. There must be at least another 40' of the tree above the top of this image.

To see more of Jack's spectacular images, check out his website.
http://www.treespiritproject.com/

Fun Run

Today was Adobe's Springtime 5k Fun Run. We run 6 laps around the Children's Discovery Museum (http://www.cdm.org/) in Downtown San Jose. at previous fun runs I've been the lead runner and really haven't had any challengers, so even though I've set pretty good times, I haven't been really pushed. Today was a little different.

We met at the Fitness Center at noon and walked over to Discovery Meadow as a small group. Once we'd arrived and stretched a little we described the course to everyone who hadn't done this before, and then we were off.

Starting out there was a group of 4 of us in the lead. I set the pace and made it a brisk one, but one that I was relaxed with. Well, the other 3 guys were jostling behind me and I kept feeling like I was being pushed, so the overall pace increased.

We completed the first two loops with a lightning 6min 20sec pace, and we didn't slow down. After the 3rd loop we'd lost one guy and a second stopped to stretch. That just left Dave & I to complete the 5k neck and neck. He seemed to be much more capable than I felt, so I just tried to hang on for the last 3 loops around the museum. We kept getting faster.

We completed the 6 loops for our 5k run and we were still neck and neck. I tried to pull away at the last feww hundred feet, but Dave just stuck with me. We cross the finish line in a photo finish, but wihtout the camera evidence to show who was first. ;-) We called it a tie. Final 5k time -- 18min 35sec. That's the fastest I've ever run this distance. Probably about 2 minutes faster than anything I've done before. Wow! I probably wouldn't have pulled that off without Dave to pull me along.

One or two of the other guys set personal best times today, too. The weather was great and we had a great time.

My next race is the PCTR Mt. Diablo Marathon on Sunday. This won't be a personal best for me because of the close to 8000 ft of climbing. However, I'm going to run it with my friend Addy, so we're looking forward to great weather and great company.

Earth Day

Earth Day started pretty early for me today. I dragged my butt out of bed just after 5:30am, so I could make it down to Santa Cruz before 7am. It was the Santa Cruz Half Marathon this morning.

I had planned to meet up with my SP friend Addy, but I didn't see her at the start area -- there were quite a few people there, dispite the bad forecast.

I arrived just before 7am to find that they were having trouble with the bib number handout and timing chips, so they were delaying the start for 10 - 15 minutes.

Since I'd tweaked my knee just last week during the 50 mile run, I had thought that I wouldn't run this morning and I'd just hand out flyers for San Jose Fit, since we're already into our program now. However, when I got there, the energy was up and I was fire up to try running. I made myself a promise that I would stop running and walk back at the first sign of a problem with my knee. I started at the back of the pack to stop myself from going out too fast. It took a good 4 minutes for me to cross the starting line from my position, so I didn't start my GPS timing until I hit the start.

Off we went. There's a short uphill right at the beginning, so a lot of people had trouble with that -- especially the people who should have started at the back. I started out easy and just ran along.

The weather was awesome! Considering the forecast for rain, we had a great time. The clouds rolled back just before the start and we hd blue skies above us for the entire run.

The course runs from the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, along West Cliff Drive to Natural Bridges State Park, around and into Wilder Ranch, looping around the bluffs and back the way we came.

Since I was taking it easy, I didn't push too hard along the way. Starting at the back meant I could keep passinng people through the run, until I found the group running my pace. This didn't really happen, though, as I kept passing people all the way to the finish and set a new PR for the Half-marathon (1:38:59 -- if I can keep this pace for another 13.1 miles, I get the Boston Qualifier that I want.). The last 100ft of the course takes you out on the beach at the Santa Cruz pier. Not the best running surface, but at least it was only a short distance.

Since I didn't pay for the race, I refused the medal from the volunteers. It's not like I need a t-shirt or medal for the half. ;-)

After the run, I walked back to my car, grabbed the flyers and plastered as many cars as I could, until 10:00am. At that time, I got back tot he car and headed over to UCSC for a TreeSpirit Photo.


http://www.treespiritproject.com/

Jack Gescheidt takes some awesome photos blending the beauty of trees with the beauty of the naked human form. He recently took a photo at the UC Berkeley campus in support of saving the grove of old growth oak trees. Today, we were trying to create a photo to increase the awareness about the UC Santa Cruz campus plans to develop certain forest areas around the campus. There were a couple of dozen people who came along to help out, or just lend a hand and some support. My wife drove down from San Jose to appear in this photo, too. It was a great a experience, enjoyed by all. Even though it was a little cool and wet, and we needed a ladder to start our climb up the tree, once we were up in the branches it was fine.

I climbed up to the top of the photo frame and found a spot off to one side of the proposed shot. We were all given some finishing touch instructions from Jack and then we disrobed. I was able to store my clothing out of the picture, on a branch on the back side of the tree. I didn't want to climb naked because of the temperature and I wasn't sure how my feet would react, having just ran 13.1 miles. Fortunately, the tree was quite smooth, from all the other people who've climbed this tree before us. The footing was secure, as were the hand and arm support locations. I had no problems arranging my body close to the tree in order to obtian the look that Jack was trying to get from the image. Trying not to shiver, we all stayed still for a few minutes while Jack took some long exposure shots on B&W film. Then he took a couple of shots on his digital camera, so that we would all be able to see the shots after we got down out of the tree.

A few people had to leave right away, so they climbed down and got dressed. The rest of us remained naked in the tree for a few more minutes, so that Jack could take a different angle shot. One that was more vertical to capture more of the height of this amazing tree that we were standing in.

We were back at our cars and heading home by 1:30pm. Time to get something to eat and get home for a refreshing shower.

Knee is fine...

Well, almost anyway...

A quick visit to my chiropractor to make sure there was nothing wrong with the joint itself. Turns out that it's just a strain of the ligament, so rest and ice should fix it up in no time.

I did yoga today, followed by 2 miles of walking on the treadmill -- no running. I've iced the area twice and I'm applying ALCiS to it a couple of times a day. ALCiS is a topical pain reliever that I picked up at the post race gathering for the Los Gatos Great Race on Sunday. It seems to work pretty well and basically applies asprin directly to the affected area. Along with the icing I'm not really getting any pain in the area, though I know I need to be carefull with it so as not to cause a problem that will hinder me for a longer period.

There's still some minor swelling around the knee that I need to take care of with the ice.

American River 50 mile.

Saturday I participated in the American River 50 mile endurance race. We ran from Sacramento, CA, near the Cal State Sacramento campus, up stream along the American River, past Folsom lake and on to finish at the Auburn Dam Overlook in Auburn, CA.

The weather wasn't all that kind to us. Although it was nowhere near as bad as they're going to have in Boston today for their marathon.

The rain, cold, and wind just added to the extreme endurance thrill of the event. Of course, the slippery mud which caused me to fall during a moment of lapsed concentration, around mile 35, causing me to tweak my left knee, requiring that I walk the last 6 miles, really added to the experience, too. ;-)

Since I had to walk so much I didn't break my previous time for the course, so I'll have to come back again next year, I suppose. I completed the distance in 11hrs 52 minutes, and I have the blue fleece jacket to prove it. ;-)

No I have to rest my knee so that I can run the Mt. Diablo Marathon in two weeks.

The advantage to walking the last 6 miles is that my quads feel like I did a long run, but aren't shot like they normally would be from a 50 miler. ;-)

Things that worked well:

Eating enough -- cookies, chips, m&m's, melon, pb&j, gu, brownies, chicken noodle soup. All good stuff to keep my energy up and not mess with my stomach. I had no stomach issues related to food.

Changing shirt and jacket half way through the 12 hr run was a good idea. I was able to warm up a little from that and get a little more comfortable. At least for a while.

The choice to wear Brooks Adreneline Trail shoes was a good one. These shoes have good motion control support, so I was able to wear them on the asphalt portion of the race, as well as the dirt/mud trail section. This saved time at the half-way point, in that I didn't need to switch from road shoes to a pair of dedicated trail shoes.


Things I could improve on:

Pre-Race Carbo-unloading -- a good friend of mine tells a tale of how he goes for a short half-mile run before heading off to the race. It serves multiple purposes. It provides a preview of the weather conditions, provides a little warmup in preparation for pre-race stretching, and the big one is that it fools his body into thinking that he's on his run and that it's time to dump those undigested food materials. Since he's coming back to the house before really heading to the race, he has that last chance to make use of his own facilities, as opposed to the shared, gross, ones available at the starting line, or along the race course.

Since I didn't take this to heart on Saturday, I found myself in need of a restroom around mile 5. I managed to find one at mile 16.5. By which time my bowels were in an uproar. Fortunately, one quick visit left me feeling *much* better. ;-)

Don't lose concentration! So, the next thing to note is that you shouldn't move along a muddy, slippery course with your head held high, looking at the sky, while drinking, because when you do that you slip and fall and tweak ligaments that will stop you from running the last 6 miles of the course and completely screw up your finish time.

Even if the weather seems OK, if it's been raining, take your gloves with you when you change clothes at the half-way point. My hands were freezing by the end, especially as I had to do so much walking. I could hardly hold anything in those last few miles.

Know that your iPod Nano is going to rollover the time at 10hrs, so it thinks your 50 mile run only took 1hr 51 minutes and therefore won't upload to NikePlus.com because their server won't validate the run data. Ugh! I could have reset and started a new workout at the halfway point, but I wanted to get the 50 mile as a new "longest" run record. There goes 50 miles of my challenge accumulation for the month. I'll never catch up with everyone else now.

Flash ah AH Savior of the Universe...

Well, there I go again with the Queen lyrics. ;-)

I start an online Adobe Flash course today, through the DeAnza Junior College. It should be interesting and hopefully it'll be useful, but it's going to take some of my free time.

Sunday Running...

A nice relaxing 16 miles on Sunday. I met up with Audrey, Dawn, and Rossanne and we ran from Campbell Park to Los Gatos High School. There we picked up Mike and ran back to Campbell Park. That was the first 12 miles.

We left Dawn to relax in the park, while we ran another 2 miles out and back to make the 16 miles total. Average pace was about 9:25min/mile. Really great for such a long run.

That gave me enough fast miles last week to give me a 3:33 marathon finish, had I run all the fast miles together. This is the fastest Parrott Predictor week that I've ever had. Really nice!

George Parrott, known affectionately as "Coach George" on the Dead Runners Society listserve, presented this idea a couple of years ago. He suggests that a runner can run no faster in the Marathon than he runs his fastest 26.2 miles in a week during training.

Bicycling to work on Friday morning...

Well, it's not quite the lyrics to the Queen song, but it's close.

So, it's Good Friday, so my kids and my wife are all off school today, but I have to work. So, I decided that I would ride my bicycle the 11 miles from my house, along the creek trails, into downtown San Jose and into work. My company provides secure bicycle cages in the parking garages and we have an onsite gym, so it's really easy to park the bike and get a shower before heading into the office.

I love this job. ;-)

That was a great way to start the day. I'm going to take a class at lunchtime. I think it's time to try the kickboxing class. I'll let you know how it goes.

New earring...

After our naked hippie crunchy granola hot springs weekend, I went and bought a new ear ring. Something a little more robust that the one I've been wearing for the past few years. I used this as an excuse to checkout the place where I'm planning to get my other piercings. The place looks pretty good and I got some reasonable answers to my questions about the healing process.

At the Hot Springs Passion training retreat, I also met two people who had body piercings and was able to chat with them about their experiences. We'll see how things go after AR50 mile.

Edit

Water Breathing revisited

So, still at Harbin, our next experience with Water Breathing was amazing.

Our first experience was about relaxing. This one was about controlling your breath and breathing deep and fast. Apparently, this was the precursor to the out of body experiences of Shamanism. The fast, deep breathing caused an imbalance in the blood gases which caused the muscles to tingle and the body to shudder. By the time I'd finished I could hardly move my quads and forearms. My fingers were not cramped, but were constricted, as were my lips and face. It was the weirdest feeling.

After lunch we took a hike around the resort and hit the meditation pools again. Being a Saturday there were far more people in the pools that the previous day. We didn't stay long, since we preferred the seclusion and less strict talking policy of our conference center. I chose to lay around naked and soak up some sun.

Before dinner, we tried a similar fast, deep breathing exercise while laying on the conference room's carpeted floor and listening to really loud drumbeat music. I was glad that I'd chosen to wear shorts for this experience, since I started to feel some sexual arrousal this time. Although the experience wasn't quite as intense as the previous water experience, I still felt the tingling hands and legs. Wow, all this just from breathing! If I'd known that breathing was this much fun, I'd have tried it earlier. ;-)


More incredible food for dinner. Vegan nut loaf, some incredible soup, and various salad fixings. Yum!

Tantra. Now, I've heard of the term, and I saw it on the schedule, but I really didn't understand what it meant. Following a short break after dinner, we began with another heart sharing exercise, but this time with the partner that we came with. So, my wife & I sat close and began to talk heart-to-heart. I think I'm getting better at this.

The basic premise for this is to touch each other in a way that the person being touch likes. Now the only way to know if the person being touched likes the touches is for them to tell the person touching them. So, this exercise was to lay down close to each other and for one person at a time to be the toucher and to follow all the exact instructions about type of touch, pressure of the touch, speed of the motion and all that. First we did the exercise avoiding genitals, but then repeated the exercise afterwards without any limits except our own. That one was a little too much for my wife, who was very explicit that in a group setting there would be no genital fondling. This too was part of the Tantra communications. You have to verbalize your boundaries so that both partners are aware of them and comfortable with them. I didn't have any issues with this, since we were all in different corners of the room and no one was really interested in what everyone else was doing, it was all very much focussing on the partnerships.

Anyhow, once this exercise was over, the goal was to move into the pool and practice some Tranta along with the water breath. However, my wife was pretty tired from our hike, the Shamanism, and all the emotional expenditure of the day and didn't feel up to participating in anymore group activities, so we retired to the sleeping area and called it a day.

Naked Yoga and Sharing

Saturday morning's schedule started early, so I got up at 6:30am so I could head out for a run around the 1100 acre grounds of Harbin before our 8am Yoga practice.

The place is pretty hilly, so I keep running up and down and around the area. I got back to the conference center with about 20 minutes before Yoga. I went to shower and worked out that in the dark I'd setup in the women's bathroom. Fortunately, Kim had about as much of a problem with me using those facilities as I did, so I just stripped down, while she was brushing her teeth, and I jumped into the shower. I hadn't taken a change of clothes to the shower, so I walked back to the sleeping area with just my towel and my sweaty running clothes. I walked through the main open area where LiOr was about to start Yoga. He asked if I was joining them because they were just about to start. Well, I've always wanted to practice Yoga while naked, so I put my dirty clothes against the wall and dropped my towel on the floor and stayed to practice Yoga naked. I thought that perhaps someone else would join me, but noone took up the hint. At least at that time. ;-)

Breakfast was granola and fruit, along with toast and other sundries.

After breakfast LiOr had us just walk in circles aroudn the room. Past each other, faster, slower, random direction changes. Then stop. Take the hand of the nearest person and now do some trust drills. Walk around leading the other person while their eyes are closed. Faster, Slower, random directions, switching which person leads. This exercise gave me some insight into how much trust my friend's blind running friend has in him when they are running marathons. She has to put complete trust in him that he will make sure that she doesn't trip and fall and that she will get back to where she came from. It's incredible when you're being led around. I knew there was nothing on the floor except pillows, but I kept thinking about my toes.

At the end of that piece, we had to sit down with this person that we really didn't know that well, and share some intimate knowledge. This stuff is really difficult for me. I have trouble opening up, but I gave it a go. I think if I'd gone second instead of first that I might have had courage and inspiration to say something meaningful. As it was, I think I simply waffled my 5 minutes away.

Grouped into two fours instead of four twos, we then had to share how we had felt about the previous heart sharing, amongst this new bigger group. I still wasn't with my wife in this group, and I think that helped me to relax into the sharing. These people don't know me, and have no preconceptions of my behaviors. It was pretty good.

Now, the slightly unusual part. What do we feel that we need to be nurtured? One at a time, the four of us had to tell the other three what we wanted from them to feel nurtured. We had massage oil. They had 6 hands. We all got naked. I had initially thought that I would embarass myself by becoming sexually arroused during my turn. However, although the touch of two beautiful women massaging my body, while I was laying naked on my back, the experience wasn't sexual. I really enjoyed giving massages to those same women, too. Still naked at the end of this, covered in massage oil, we all hugged and shared how the nurturing had made us feel. Pretty cool stuff.

Given a short break to cleanup before hitting the pool again for more water breathing, I followed my wife back into the shower to help her wash off the oil from her back. Of course, two of the other women were in there, too. I really like these clothing optional resorts. Everyone is so relaxed about nudity.

My Naked Hippie Crunchy Granola Weekend

Yes, there was nudity, and yes, there was granola. Well, ya gotta eat something for breakfast, right? ;-)

My wife & I went to a Passion Training retreat at Harbin Hot Springs, at the north end of the Napa Valley. The schedule for the weekend had things like yoga, breathing, and water breathing. Hey, I can do those. This should be a nice relaxing weekend. Plus, the Hot Springs pools are clothing optional, meaning that most people are naked when soaking. Now, that's just gotta be a good combination for a relaxing weekend.

We drove up on Friday and stopped for a few tastings at St. Supery and Beringer wineries. We arrived at Harbin in the late afternoon, but our first scheduled event was dinner at 7pm. So, we took some time to walk to the pools and try soaking. The main pools are a quiet zone. They don't allow talking in the area and the extremely hot 114F soak pool is silence only. That's really tough when you're trying to get into water of that temperature without screaming.

Even though it was Friday, there were many more people at Harbin than we've seen at other Naturist resorts that we've visited in the past. In combination with the quiet zone, we decided that this wasn't the best place for us, so we went back to the conference center where we would be staying for the weekend. We had about 1/2 acre of buildings and grounds for our group. That included bathrooms, a kitchen where our meals were prepared, about 1000 sqft sleeping area, two outdoor 98F pools and a large 1000sqft+ indoor area for our main conference facility.

All of our food for the weekend was vegan because that was the preference of the organizer. For Sunday lunch we had some awesome baked yams. Towards the end of the weekend he told us about a previous conference he'd hosted where people asked about meat in their meals. He brought two live chickens to the kitchen and told those wanting meat that they were welcome to prepare it themselves. As for the rest of them, they prepared their lovely vegetables.

After dinner we began the training. LiOr introduced himself and the aims and goals of the training. Basically, we were going to learn how to focus our lives and passions. Yeah, pretty vague, but there was more to it when he described it. We started with some breathing techniques in the conference center, then moved that practice out to the pool. There were eight of us, plus LiOr, and we were all able to fit nicely into one of the small pools. Of course, it was dark by this time, but everyone stripped down and used the warm outdoor shower to rinse ourselves before using the 98F pool. Ah! The water was devine. ;-)

So, the idea with the breathing was to put floats under your knees and lay back in the water while your partner supports your head so that your head stays above water. This gives you close contact with your partner ( there were 3 couples and a pair of very good friends, who weren't lovers ). This gave you an opportunity to develop a deeper level of trust in your partner, while developing the breathing skills that would be built upon throughout the weekend.

This exercise ended close to 11:30pm and hugs all around before heading to bed. So, getting hugs from my wife was fine, but even though we were in the pool, it was still a bit weird to be hugging 7 other naked strangers. However, this certainly was an ice breaker, even though there wasn't much chance of any ice in water that warm. ;-)

Of course there was really no reason to put any clothes back on. Why would I? Everyone had already seen me naked, what's left?