Running Heroes

When asked who their running heroes are, most runners would probably start to name off the Olympians of yesteryear; Billy Mills, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit.  Some would even name a few of today's elites, but when I think of my running heroes I think of some of the men and women who taught me and inspired me and accepted me as a new runner.

In the past month I have been fortunate enough to see and chat with some of them and I feel so happy and lucky to have done so.  Fred and Jeanne McCurnin, Curt Krieger, and Dave Nauman were four people that I admired and learned a lot from as I began my running life.

Not only are all four of them excellent runners in their own right, but they are wonderful people and were terrific role models to me and, indeed, good friends.

Now I see myself becoming a running role model to others in the Duluth community and I often think of these four running heroes of mine and hope that I can pass on my love and respect for the sport of running as they did to me.

The Great 888

So in my life there's running and running and running and blah, blah, blah.  It's not that I get sick of it, not at all, it's actually my favorite topic, but there comes a time when I need a break from heel to toe drops and fartleks and letsrun.com and "can I order this in a different color".  So last weekend, I got to take a vacation!
Now normally, I don't like vacations.  I don't really like to be away from work for too long, I get nervous.  But I was really looking forward to this trip.  And so off Gretchen and I went to southwestern Wisconsin for a foodie road trip.
The drive down through the Driftless region was amazing.  Hills and valleys were everywhere, filled with lush green trees and terraced fields of corn and hay and straw.  Cows were spotted against the pastures, leisurely munching on the green fields.
And the idea of "leisurely" was the theme of the weekend.  Our first stop was in Westby, WI.  Westby is a small, Scandinavian town with a nice B&B, a great gift shop and a gentle home town feel.  From there we stopped into nearby Viroqua for dinner at the Driftless Cafe.  The Driftless is a really nice, funky little place with delicious food and a great atmosphere.

Cool pint glass at the Driftless

After spending some time in Viroqua, we continued on, driving through the Kickapoo Valley.  It seemed that everywhere you looked out the car window was another post card view.  It was stunning scenery.  We stopped at the Nordic Creamery to get some real Wisconsin cheese and I have to tell you, it was amazing!

Ellie at the Nordic Creamery

Our next destination was the National Mustard Museum!  Not a local mustard museum, not a state mustard museum but a NATIONAL Mustard Museum!  It was a blast!  The NMM is a place that simultaneously pokes fun at and pays respect to mustard.  It's a place filled with thousands of mustards for sale and you can sample any of them.  Plus a mustard hall of fame and gift shop where you can buy items from the fictional university, Poupon U, bacon frosting and mustards of the world.

National Mustard Museum

Norwegian mustard

Bacon frosting

After spending the night with some friends in Verona, we made our way to New Glarus to spend some time in the very Swiss town.  We ate at a delicious restaurant called the "Glarner Stube", which means "the living room of Glarus".  I had a pork schnitzel sandwich and red cabbage, very Swiss-German!  We also stopped at a delicious Swiss bakery that I would describe as Pastry Heaven!  It was like Christmas in July for a pastry lover like myself!

about 1/3 of the yumminess in the bakery

After downtown New Glarus we took a quick peek at the New Glarus Brewery, which was a very impressive place!  We got there not long before they were closing for the day so we didn't get a chance to tour the grounds but we did get a tasting and I can attest that they do good work there!

Part of the New Glarus Brewery

From there we headed to Albany to stay at a great B&B, the Albany House, and an amazing dinner in this tiny little town called Monticello.  The restaurant, called "The Dining Room at 209 Main" offers incredible chef created dishes that rival anything the New Scenic Cafe has to offer.  I had the barbequed cajun shrimp and andouille sausage with cheddar grits, sauteed greens and a smoky roasted garlic sauce.  Gretchen had pan seared wild caught king samlon filet with tomato and kalamata olive conasse, roasted fingerling potatoes, haircot vert and a light fennel cream sausce.  Our appetizer was crab and avocado on fresh herbs with truffle vinaigrette and a micro green, radish and cucumber salad.  Yeah, it was that kind of place!  The service was wonderful and the food was even better and there's nothing like their famous dessert, the sticky toffee pudding with roasted pecans!

Before driving back to Duluth we stopped at a quaint little town called Paoli, which offers about 2 blocks of wonderful gift shops and outstanding galleries.  

Our round trip mileage was exactly 888 miles for the weekend and we can't wait to go back to such a fun and relaxing area, to re-visit some of the things we loved and to do some of the things we didn't have time for.

Been Away So Long

So it's now been 2 months since my last post.  2 months!  Wow, I need to get my butt in gear.
Well, I've pretty much filled those 2 months with running.  And working.  And sleeping.  And then some more running.  Such is my exciting life!
One nice run that I did want to post about was a 23 miler a couple of weeks ago on the Voyageur course.  I started at the zoo, ran out for about 2 hours and ran back.  I really like that course because there's a bit of everything.  Even though I prefer running technical single track over anything, it's nice to break it up a bit with some easier ski trails and even some road.  The Voyageur course offers all of those things.
Starting down at the zoo means a long climb up to the Spirit Mountain ski hills.  A nice thing about this is that you simply can't start your run out too fast, the climb won't let you.
The trail along this section was pretty dry as our low snowfall winter has made nearly all of the local trails very runnable, very early in the season.  But as I got to the ski hills, I was surprised to see such massive piles of snow still on the mountain.

This particular guy was right in the middle of the trail and about 10 feet high.  I had to decide, do I go around it, or over it?

Over it.  Here's a view of the bay from the top of the snow pile.  Fortunately I was able to avoid any altitude sickness!
So I plugged on to Skyline and in to Magney-Snively park.  The notorious, swamp infested park west of Spirit Mountain.  Full of horse holes, and mud holes, and probably some R.O.U.S.s!  However, this year it wasn't too bad.  Not that I really mind getting wet and muddy on a trail run, in fact I welcome it, but I have to admit, it was nice to not have to deal with it too much.

So as you can see by the picture, it's a dry year at Magney!  However, this little puddle, and a few others were pretty much unavoidable so the usual outcome occured:

Nice and muddy shoes!  Just the way I like 'em!
After leaving Magney and hitting Skyline again to cross Beck's Road, I took the long down into the Mission Creek/Fond du Lac trails.  I really enjoy this section (heck, I like them all!) but it's nice to have a long down hill and then flatten out along the creek for a bit.  The trail does require a couple of Mission Creek crossings, which I decided to rock hop through this time.  On race day I just plow through the creek.

So from here I continued on for a bit until turning around and doing it all in reverse!  All in all it was a great day on the trails.

I couldn't agree more!

Gorgeous Day in Hartley

Today was the kind of winter running day that you dream of.  I like to do my Sunday runs later in the day so I can sleep in and run in the warmer temps and I'm so glad I did that today.  My plan was to do between 2 and 3 hours in Hartley, looping around the guard rail loop and what I'll call the swamp loop, making a nice figure 8.

I started at the parking lot at the Nature Center and hit the guard rail loop first for a clockwise turn around the trail.  The trail itself was perfect, packed down but still soft from the fresh snow we received and the warm temps of the day.  I knew there was a possibility of some slippery ups and downs so I wore my Salomon Fellcross.  They proved to be the perfect shoe for the situation.  I think having the right trail shoe for the conditions is akin to choosing the right kick wax for your skis and I nailed it today.

After the guard rail loop, I cruised over to the swamp loop and then back to the parking lot.  Then, I turned around and did the same thing in the opposite direction.  Then, I turned around and did the same thing in the original direction again.  Overall, I ran 2:41 and loved every minute of it.  The temps were perfect, the sun was shining and the trail was incredible.  Great day!

Podcast on Running Form and Minimalism

I'm a big fan of Dr. Mark Cucuzzella.  I've met him and worked with him in Colorado, corresponded with him through email and appreciated the work he's done for the running world.  He recently was a guest for a podcast on http://trailrunnernation.com/.  He speaks on minimalism, running form and injuries.   I've always liked his approach toward minimalism.  He's an M.D. so he can speak to the science side of running, he's a highly accomplished runner so he can speak to the performance side of running and he leads clinics for thousands of people every year so he can speak in simple, understandable language to everyone.  I encourage every runner to listen to what he has to say.

http://trailrunnernation.com/2012/01/dr-mark-cucuzzella-drops-knowledge-bomb-nation/#comments

Arizona and the Coldwater Rumble

As Hypo and I entered the airport last Friday night, the temperature in Duluth was -6 degrees F, making it a perfect time to fly to Arizona.  So we boarded a plane at 7:30pm Duluth time and set off for Mesa where we would land at 10:30 Arizona time and be met by Clint to drive us to Fountain Hills.  We would then try to quickly get some sleep before waking up at 4am driving for an hour to get to Goodyear, Arizona and the Estrella Regional Park for the Coldwater Rumble 50k.

Around 60 runners lined up at the starting line for the 50k.  We started the race in partial darkness and cool temperatures in the 40s.  I had high hopes of finishing well in this race, so when the gun went off, I started out quickly and joined the lead pack of about 6 runners, one of whom was Hypo.

With myself, Hypo, Deb and Marcus in the 50k and Clint in the 19k, we were going to make sure that Duluth was representing well down there.  I had gone in to the race with a lot of confidence and a willingness to push myself to compete, something I haven't had for races in the past few years.  Lately, as I've gotten older, I've been mostly competing with myself, with the course.  But I'd like to make 2012 a year of trying to push myself beyond that and get as fast as I can, so I went into this race with that attitude.

I wasn't sure what running in Arizona would be like.  I had seen pictures of the course online and I didn't think it looked too difficult.  The hills weren't anything worse than what I run in all the time here in Duluth and the trail didn't appear to be too technical.  Pictures can be deceiving, I soon found out.  But before the trail had a chance to make an impact on me, the sunrise did.  Never have I started a race in a more beautiful setting.  The sun was rising over the mountains, there were a few clouds in the sky and there were colors everywhere.  Cactus were silhouetted black against the painted sky.  It was incredible.

We started out fast and held the pace for quite some time.  Normally, I don't like to start out fast, but this time I did for a few reasons.  One, as I mentioned, I wanted to push myself more than usual.  Two, I wanted to run with Dave a bit and show well for Duluth Running Co.  Three, it was a blast!  We were racing along the single track trails, at mid 6 to low 7 minute pace and it was so much fun.  I told myself at about 4 miles that I should really back off because I'd probably pay for this later but I decided not to because it was just so much fun to run like that.

So we kept rolling along and the pace settled down some as the terrain dictated us to.  We ran through very technical and rocky single track, requiring constant attention on your feet.  Though the scenery was stunning, you could only enjoy it for quick glances or you'd run the risk of tripping on any of the many sharp and loose rocks that littered the trails.  For those who know the Rolling Stone NMTC race, it was a lot like the start of Rolling Stone but with sharper rocks and for about 30k of the race.

If the course wasn't extremely rocky, then we were usually running in old river beds which were sandy washes.  They were like running on a beach and each foot fall would sink about 2-3 inches into the sand.  While some of the washes were short, maybe 10-20 meters, others were quite long, 1/4 mile to over a mile at times.

We did have a few miles in the longer 31k loop that was straight and a slight downhill.  This was an old jeep road and it was a welcome respite from the single track but like the dried river beds, this road was very sandy as well.  By then we had hit mile 10 and I was running with a really cool guy from Flagstaff.  We were chatting about stuff and cruising along nicely, sitting in 4th and 5th place, respectively.  We were reeling in the 2nd and 3rd place guys, one of whom was Hypo and got in to the aid station just as Dave was leaving it.  My confidence at that point was really high, as I was feeling great and was putting together a good race.  That would soon change.

We hit the 13 mile mark in 1:41, I had fallen just a bit behind and dropped into 6th place by mile 15 but I was still running well and not far behind the others so I wasn't really worried, there was still plenty of running left.  However, for me, there wasn't plenty of good running left.

At about mile 16 I started to really hit the wall.  I was slowing considerably and was not having a good time.  The fast pace, though fun, had burned me and I was having to regather myself.  I hoped I would be able to relax for 2-3 miles and then get back into running quickly again and try to chase down a few people.

As I mentioned, the course was very rocky.  By that I mean that there were loose rocks and protruding sharp rocks but even the trail itself was pretty much rock.  These were not the soft, dirt packed trails we're used to in Northern Minnesota.  No, these trails were pretty much like running on the road, and my legs were soon feeling like they were in a road race.

So I trudged on to the Start/Finish area where the 31k loop ended and the 19k loop began.  As I neared the Start/Finish I contemplated dropping out.  My legs were shot and my spirit was diminished.  Never have I been that close to dropping out of a race but to be frank, by that time in the race I wasn't really having a lot of fun anymore.  But no, by the time I got there, I knew that there was no way I was going to drop.  Dropping out because I'm not having fun is lame and not something I ever want to do.  So I went out for the 19k loop and struggled mightily, trying to slog on and run with a bit of pride.

And slog on I did.  It's probably the best way to describe my form for the next 8 or so miles.  I was shuffling along, my legs and my feet feeling a lot like they did at Sawtooth, simply beaten up.  But as often happens in ultras, I came back to life.  I don't know what happened or where it came from but at about 4:15 I started feeling pretty good again, and for the first time in over an hour, I was really running hard!

I was starting to feel good again and even caught a few people who had passed me during my bad stretch.  I had no idea what place I was in and I didn't really care by that point but I was just really happy to be running and having fun again.

So I came into the finish area with a time of 5:08:42, good enough for 13th place overall.  It was a disappointing finish given my expectations going in but it was still a great opportunity to be able to be in Arizona for the weekend and to run on those amazing trails.  The day was made even better as Dave, aka Nacho, went on to win the race rather handily, despite falling down the side of a mountain and cutting up his knee pretty badly.

Hopefully we'll get a chance to get back there next year and Hypo can defend his title and I can do even better.  And even if this race didn't quite go the way I had hoped, I still had a blast.

Evolution of the New Balance 110

Sorry to keep going on about this particular shoe but attached is a link to a great story on the evolution of the 110.  If you're a shoe geek, like me, you'll find it interesting.

http://www.irunfar.com/2012/01/the-making-of-the-new-balance-mt110.html

I really like the feedback of both Erik's and Tony's desire for and approval of a more aggressive lug pattern.  I think what some people forget about aggressive lugs is that while they obviously provide better grip on the ups and the downs, they also provide cushioning.  So if you have a very minimal trail shoe, with very little midsole in it, but the shoe has very aggressive lugs, you therefore get a lot of cushioning.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the article.

Last Long Run Before 'Zona and More Thoughts on the 110s

This weekend proved to be a good one for my running.  Saturday was to be the day of my last long run before the 50k in a couple of weeks.  My plan was to go for 3.5-4 hours on the trails.  Slightly cooler than expected weather greeted Chris, Eric, Gregg and I at Hartley.  We took off for about an hour or so through the park, hitting most of the single track trails around there.  We stopped back at our cars to grab a GU or two, drop a jacket and take off toward Lester.

Crossing Woodland, we ran through the cemetery, jaunted over to and across Jean Duluth Road and hooked up on the Amity Trail.  There we connected with Schuney who ran with Chris, Eric and I for the next couple of hours. (Gregg left us at Hartley as he was planning on going longer on Sunday)

The four of us kept up a nice, leisurely pace down into Lester, back up and out of the park and again over to Hartley.  That got us back to the Hartley parking lot at about 3:15.  The other guys called it a day but I decided to hit the 4 hour mark, so I took another spin around the Outer Guard Rail Loop at Hartley and brought it back in.  My overall watch time was 3:58 and some change but I also started it a minute or two late.  All in all it was a great run, and nice to get that last long run in.

Today, I rolled out a little over an hour on the lakewalk.  It was good to get some of the junk out of my legs after Saturday's run, and of course the scenery was beautiful.

So back to the New Balance 110s.  I've got about 40 miles in them now, mostly trail and I have to say that they are great so far.  I've gotten a few questions about fit for the 110s and here's what I can say to that now.  The 110s are built on a different last than the 101s.  The 110 last is what New Balance calls an SL1 last, it's more performance based.  Basically, the difference is in the midfoot.  It's more narrow in the midfoot to save weight and to try to mimic the shape of the foot.  It's a bit more like a XC Spike through the midfoot and the heel, but as I say that, don't think it's quite THAT narrow, like a Brooks Mach spike or something, it's not quite like that.  It's just a bit more snug than the 101 but it's still very flexible in the upper.

The grip has so far proven to be excellent.  Going up steep, snow covered hills has not been a problem and even more importantly, in my opinion, the confidence the shoes give you on the steep downhills is solid.

Overall, I've been very pleased with how these shoes perform.  I'm looking forward to trying them in the spring and summer when we start to get the real muck and mud.  Of course with the way this Winter is going, it could be in a month or so.

MT110

On Tuesday, I received a pair of New Balance's highly anticipated new trail shoe, the MT110.  The 110 is a continuation of New Balance's highly successful "Minimus" line of shoes.  This shoe is pretty much a hybrid of the MT10 and the 101.  (Confusing, isn't it!)  The MT110 fits similar to the 101 in the midfoot and the heel and offers the same outstanding flexibility as the 101.  The MT110 fits like the MT10 in the toebox area, specifically the stack height of the toebox; meaning it is very low but wide.

Another aspect of the MT110 that is similar to the MT10, and for many it's the most important aspect, is the 4mm heel to toe drop.  Where the 101 is said to have a 10mm drop (I personally think it's much less, maybe 6) the 4mm drop of the MT110 will allow for an even more natural foot strike than the 101.

I think the best improvement in the MT110 over both the MT10 and the 101 is the outsole.  Simply stated, the traction appears to be much better than those other shoes.  (I can only say "appears" because I haven't as yet taken them out on the trails)  Where the 101 offered decent grip on dry trails, it wasn't very solid on wet, muddy trails.  In addition, the rubber compound used on the 101 is a lower quality rubber, which is one major reason why the shoe was so inexpensive.  And while the MT10 offers Vibram rubber for it's outsole, which is very high quality rubber, it's non-aggressive pattern meant major compromises in traction.

It appears that New Balance has found a great tread pattern and used a quality rubber compound for the MT110.  The tread is aggressive, but not overly so.  It should be able to capably handle most mildly muddy trails.

I got a chance today to take them for a run, but only on the treadmill.  I did a few miles and some 1/4 mile repeats in them and they performed wonderfully.  Like the 101 and the MT10, the MT110 does not use an insole, and you can wear it sockless.  I normally don't run without socks but I did today on the treadmill and I can report that I didn't have a single hotspot.

I'm looking forward to getting these things outside, where they belong and seeing what they can do.  I may even use them in Arizona in a few weeks for the 50k.

A Holy Orange?

Has the Virgin Mary appeared in this orange?  Or is it a monkey?  Or is it just a delicious fruit?

Christmas Day Meander and a Battle of the GPS Watches!

Today I went out for a 3 hour long run that I've been planning for a bit.  I was hoping to join the boys yesterday for their respective run, but alas, my retail job meant I had to work on the 24th.  So, I ventured out on my own.

I had a good run, overall.  Starting at Lester, as I usually do, I headed up and started exploring.  The weather was perfect for running long, mid 30's with some wind, though I didn't feel that in the trials.  The trails themselves were in pretty good shape to run on.  With the snow we received the other day, it packed down nicely and covered up the ice that had made many of the single track trails virtually un-runnable.

I wore both my Garmin 405 and my new Nike SportWatch, hoping to see which one was more accurate.  I've displayed my Nike results for reasons I'll state below.  (you will probably need to use Firefox as your browser to fully open the link, it doesn't seem to fully open with Safari)

http://nikerunning.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikeplus/en_US/plus/#//runs/gps/1839879815/1975871872/

I'll start this off by stating that GPS watches are not 100% accurate and sometimes they're not even close.  But usually, they're pretty darn good and it's a nice, though not necessary technology to use.  Both Garmin and Nike, I'm told by my Nike rep, use the EXACT SAME satellites for their respective watches.  I find this to be interesting, but I suppose it makes sense.  I assume the Garmin and Tomtom (the system that Nike uses) simply pay for the rights to use the satellites that probably someone else owns.  That being said, it would seem that both watches would display pretty similar information while on a simultaneous run.  That was not the case.

A few minutes after starting, my Nike watch beeped.  I had hit one mile.  I looked over at my Garmin (I had the Nike on my right wrist and the Garmin on my left) and it read .87 miles.  I felt like that was marginally acceptable difference, especially if I had been doing a shorter run, but I knew that I was going to be pushing 20 miles so that .13 difference over 20 miles would could be rather substantial.  Was I really going to run 18.4 miles or 20 miles or 22.6 miles?  Truthfully, I'm not the kind of person that gets too obsessed about that kind of thing, (you wonder why I even went through this whole experiment then?  Honestly I was just curious) so I didn't worry about it.

I felt like the big difference, though, was in what the two watches said about my current pace.  THAT was vastly different, as well.  (It's to be expected, since the Nike watch had me reaching a mile before the Garmin watch did)  The Nike watch said that I was running at a much faster pace, I believe it was nearly a minute per mile faster!  To me, that's drastic because on these long runs, I want to make sure my pace isn't too fast, especially at the start.

So after a mile, I knew it'd be REALLY interesting to see the differences at the end of the run.  And about a mile later, it all ended.

I nearly reached the top of Skyline, right at Hawk's Ridge, when I ran to the edge to check out the view from an overlook that I'd never been on.  I looked down at my Garmin to check my elapsed time (The Nike watch only displays 2 bits of information at a time and I had chosen to view pace and distance and forgo elapsed time on that watch) and I stared down in shock at a blank screen!  WTF?  The battery had drained completely even though I had fully charged it.  Ugh.

So according to my Nike watch, I ran a little over 20 miles.  I assume that the elapsed time was accurate so I'll count the 3 hour 14 minute run as good.  And my planned little experiment will have to wait another day.  Now it's time to stuff my face with some amazingly good sugar cookies and chocolate covered peanut butter balls.

Another Great Weekend of Running

Last weekend I was able to get in back to back longish trail runs on Saturday and Sunday, this weekend I was able to do the same.  Gotta love Duluth!

Yesterday, Hypo, Ryan and I ran while Schuney biked.  We started at Lester, heading up the COGGS trails.  However, after about 5 minutes on the COGGS, it was evident that they were far too icy to run on so we hopped on to the snowmobile trails and headed up.  Up over Lester we headed to Amity and climbed that trail to Jean Duluth Road, crossed the road and took a right at Vermillion, taking that to the Martin Road where we hopped on the state snowmobile and pretty much made our way back.  Adding a couple of loops here and there, Schuney, Hypo and I got in 2.5 hours of good effort.

Today, Gregg and I ran while Schuney again biked a similar course, minus the Vermillion section.  We got in about an hour and forty minutes.  My legs were very sore from yesterday's run but they were able to loosen up well and I was feeling pretty solid for most of the run.

I'm getting all of this in because I've decided to run a 50k in Arizona in January.  We'll see how that goes, I'll be thinking of it a bit as a training run but I do want to go down there fit and prepared and hopefully put in a solid effort.

So my training continues.  With this race on the horizon and others in the future, I've got an optimistic outlook about what's to come.  Patience has always been a strength of mine and though sometimes waiting can be difficult, keeping a positive attitude is helpful and provides strength.

And speaking of strength, I want to end this post with a video of some bad ass XC running.  Jon Brown, one of the main competitors in the video is a former NCAA XC Champion from the legendary Iowa State University.  Enjoy.

Flying Monkey and a Sunday long run

What a great weekend of weather for running!

On Saturday, I put together our first annual Flying Monkey Prediction Race at Lester.  Eight hearty runners came to partake in our 3.3 mile race along the bike trails, ski trails and snowmobile trails of Lester.

For the prediction race, I had everyone predict what they would run the 3.3 miles in, given a hard effort.  The slowest prediction then got to start first, with the person with the next slowest prediction starting after and so on.  Each person would start a given time after the first person left, based on their predicted time, meaning if the first person predicted 40 minutes and the second person predicted 38:40 then the second person had to wait 1:20 before they could start.  If, say the fastest person predicted they'd run it in 27:30, then they'd have to wait 12:30 after the first person left before they could start.  The first person to cross the finish line wins.

The theory with this is that a) everyone gets a legit chance to win the race and 2) everyone should finish relatively close together.  It creates an interesting dynamic because you have the slower runners in the lead at the start, knowing there's people there chasing them down and the faster runners are in the back, trying to catch people.

I first took part in one of these events in Mason City, Ia with the legendary Curt Krieger and the McCurnins and I've been wanting to put one together up here for quite some time.

I'd say we had pretty good success with the event, mostly we all had a good time, the weather was perfect and most of us got a chance to stuff our faces at Billy's for breakfast afterwards.

On Sunday, I got together, again at Lester for a long run with Schuney, Hypo and Chris.  We got nearly 12 miles of hilly trail running in.  We climbed up Lester, hit some COGGS trails, some ski trails, some snowmobile trails.  We cruised over to Amity and ran up to Hawk's Ridge, came back down the Amity trail, wandered up to Maxwell and came back down the Lester ski trails.

It was a great day of running, with warm temps, little wind and a perfect amount of fresh snow on the ground.  I love running in weather like this and am thrilled to be able to put in some long miles on so many kinds of trails.

One of the great things about winter running is coming home and warming up with some good food and drink.  I poured myself some nice hot chocolate and got to work on some fresh loaves of Swedish Rye Bread.  Nothing like a warm, great smelling kitchen on a Sunday afternoon!

Locate. 8^)

New Shoes

Yesterday, I received a pair of these.

They're the Lone Peak trail shoes from Altra.  I took the on an easy 5 miler tonight on the COGGS trails at Lester.  Altra is a new company out of Utah that currently makes a very small line of shoes, all of them with a Zero heel to toe drop.  That means the the heel of the shoe is not elevated above the forefoot of the shoe, as it is in most traditional running shoes.  Indeed, Altra builds all of their shoes to have the heel and the forefoot on the same level.

Another unique aspect of Altra shoes is the wide, very wide toe box.  The folks at Altra believe that the toes should be able to splay naturally upon impact and that a healthy foot should be widest at the toes.

Altra does not like to think of these shoes as minimalist, but I think they fit many of MY definitions of minimalist footware.  I personally see minimalist shoes as meeting at least three of the following requirements: One, weight.  I feel that minimalist shoes should weigh less that 10 ounces (for a men's size 9), Two, heel to toe drop.  I think minimalist shoes should have no more than a 6 millimeter difference between the heel and the forefoot.  Three, simple upper design.  I think minimalist shoes should have an upper that has very little overlays, allowing the foot to move naturally, to NOT be strapped in by "arch wraps" and "flex panels".  Four, flexibility.  Minimalist shoes should be relatively flexible, again to allow the foot to move naturally.  Others will have their own opinions on what "minimalist" shoes should be, but those are my criteria.

So Altra does not consider the Lone Peak (or their road shoe, the Instinct [the women's shoe is called the Intuition]) a minimalist shoe, and I think it's because the Lone Peak still offers a decent amount of midsole foam, something that's often shunned by the hard core minimalists.  However, the midsole in this shoe is relatively firm.  What I found was that I still had really good "ground feel" without feeling like I was barefoot.

The traction on the Lone Peak seemed to work pretty well.  There was little to no mud on the trail tonight but I had excellent grip on some of the steep downhills and sharp turns.  The shoe has a relatively flat outsole, so there is plenty of ground contact and the lugs are aggressive but not intrusive.

Overall, the shoes performed very well.  Despite being a bit wider than what I normally like for my narrow foot, they still felt agile to me, something that I find to be very important when running technical trails.  I was impressed with the Lone Peaks, enough to replace my X-Talon 212s?  Probably not, but I think many people would like them and they'll make for a great second pair of trail shoes for me and if there's another 100 miler in my near future, I'm sure I'll use these for most if not all of it.

A little spin on the SHT and an RIP to the Talons

Today I went out for an easy 2 hours on the Superior Hiking Trail.  I started at Enger Tower, headed west of an hour and came back.  The trail was in great shape, very runnable (as "runnable" as the SHT can get) save for the wooden bridges and planks which were very slippery.

It's so nice to have so many great trails to choose from in this town.  I can go from technical single track like the Superior Hiking trail, to hilly ski trails, to relatively flat snowmobile trails and get in a long run on any of them, and all of them are within a few minutes of my house.  I feel lucky to live in such a place on this planet.

Speaking of the planet, a couple of weeks ago I came across this video:

When I see this video, I think of the power of "home".  On this single planet, we all have a home.  It may be difficult to think of 6 billion people unified, but this video is evidence that we are, at least in a sense of sharing a home.

RIP to the Talons


After the Living History Farms race, it became apparent to me that my beloved Inov8 X-Talon 212s had ran their last race.  I'd gotten 3 good seasons out of those shoes, literally using them year round.  I'd taken them through mud, rain, snow, standing water, slush, sand, tall grass.  Over rocks, roads, dirt, ice.  Never have I ran in a shoe that was so able to handle all of those conditions so well.  I'll be buying a new pair soon and will look forward to many miles of wonderful running with them.

Living History Farms

This past weekend I traveled down to Des Moines to participate in the Living History Farms Race.  The "Farms Race", as it's known in Iowa, is a 7 mile cross country race that brings in over 7000 people.  It's the largest cross country race in North America.  The course is a challenging one, with 7 creek crossings, plenty of mud and steep hills.

Dave Schuneman, Kandi Geary and Shane Olson came down as well, so we had a great DRC contingent to represent northern Minnesota.  Shane ran the XC race with me, Kandi cheered us on and Dave raced in the first ever Survivor Cross race, a CycleCross race later in the day that ran along the same course.

I've ran this race a few times over the years, but it's probably been about 8 years or so since I last ran it, so it was really fun for me to get back there.  This race is admittedly over crowded, and I knew that the first half or so would be slow so I started off in the middle of the pack.  I didn't start my watch, but I'm sure my first mile was around 10 to 11 minutes.  I didn't really care, running fast wasn't my priority, I just wanted to have fun and re-live the race.

As we twisted our way through some of the living farmsteads of the Living History Farms grounds and the old familiar smell of horse crap filled our noses, I started moving up.  Through corn fields and pastures we eventually worked into the wooded areas of the complex and began our series of creek crossings.  Jumping into the first crossing I must have hit a low spot because I sunk down and the water wet up past my knees.  This caused me to fall forward a bit and my hands caught me as I was heading down, sinking deep into the muddy bank on the opposite side of the creek.  I pulled out both hands and they were black with Iowa mud.

Most of the creek crossings were pretty shallow and only required a step or two to get through them but on 2 or 3 of them, a very steep, slippery bank waited on the other side.  These were a challenge to get up but they are what make the LHF race so famous.  It's why people come, to get really muddy and have a blast!

I finally caught Shane, who had gone out really fast, around mile 4.  I asked him how he was doing, "I'm trying to catch Sponge Bob," he said.  So I took it upon myself to find Sponge Bob, who apparently had been ahead of Shane for the entire race, almost taunting Shane with his squeaky voice and square pants.  I took off, trying desperately to chase down that bastard Sponge Bob.

Literally over the river and through the woods I went, searching for a giant yellow square sponge.  I made the last, long climb up through a pasture, hurdled a few logs along the way and came back into the town area to finish along the main street.  Alas, I never saw Sponge Bob but I had a great time anyway.

Below is a short video of Dave traversing one of the creek crossings during his CycleCross race.  The steep climb up the muddy hill had to be even more difficult with a bike on your shoulder!

A Nice Double and The Folly of Moderation

Today was a great day of trail running for me as I was able to squeeze in not one, not three, but TWO good efforts on the trails!  This morning I did 2 hours out on the Voyageur course.  I started at the zoo and went out for one hour.  I got about a mile (maybe a little less) beyond the Beck's Road before I turned around and came back.

It was interesting because the usual thought is that for the full Voyageur, it's a little more difficult coming back (from the zoo to Carlton) than it is going out (Carlton to the zoo).  So with that in mind, I assumed I'd get back in about 55 minutes since I (a) went out very easy and (b) pushed it a bit more coming back.  Well, I pretty much ran the second half of my run today in the same time I ran the first.  This makes me believe that (a) it's very possible that when doing the full Voyageur that the second half is slower (and if so, is that a result of the course being more difficult or is it more because you're just so damn tired?) and (b) maybe, the difficult climb up to Spirit Mtn. is more than made up for during the long downhill on Skyline and after crossing Beck's Road?  (this being on the way back to Carlton.)  Interesting, I'll have to delve deeper into that mystery.

My second run of the day was the 5.5k NMTC run at Pine Valley.  It sucked!  Okay, truth be told it was a lot of fun.  The trails were great, there were a lot of great people out there to chat with before and after the race, and I didn't puke!  Yep, we'll call that a success.

The course was a roller coaster, (minus the upside down loopy thing) with really nice surface to run on.  My legs were predictably not willing to try to race for 1k, let alone 5.5k but my brain was stubborn so I pushed on pretty much as hard as I could.  By 2k my brain was starting to question itself and my legs were saying "See!  I told you so!  Why the hell don't you listen to me!?"

Well, my legs were pretty much my parents and my brain was pretty much an insubordinate teenager (as it nearly always is) so I pressed onward, consequences be damned!  As it turned out I ended up gaining a few spots in the middle of the course and finished in the top 19 which wasn't too bad, for me.  Plus if you throw out the college kids and the recently out of college kids (which you should, if you're 40) and if you throw out the other people who are simply way faster than me, then I'm sure I finished in the top 5.

As it turned out, today's running was a bit of a tribute to Barb and Gene Curnow.  Barb and Gene have devoted countless hours to the running community over the years; directing the Voyageur and Half Voyageur, and heading up the NMTC races.  They both retired from the NMTC and Voyageur races.  Today was their last event as directors and will be sorely missed as such.  They are living treasures of running in Duluth.  And while I've only known them for a very short time, it's been an honor to assist in the NMTC races, to run the Voyageur and to hear all of their stories of running and runners over the years.

So with today's double that I did, and the fact that they both required some effort, I got to thinking about Moderation.  It's a concept that I'm very familiar with.  I have Norwegian blood, I come from 2 families of Iowa farmers.  Moderation is our creed, our mantra.

However, I've often heard the phrase "everything in moderation".  Now maybe I've blogged about this before, (sometimes I forget where I share with people my version of genius) but the very term, "everything in moderation" is, by definition, NOT moderation.  Because you can't do "everything" in one way and consider it Moderation, you simply must do some things in excess.  Like Chocolate.  Face it, chocolate is a helluva lot better in excess than it is in moderation.  (Again, consequences be damned!)

And as I proved today, running is sometimes better in excess.  (Hell, I probably proved it at Sawtooth but I'm not always quick to discover the obvious)  Moderation would have told me to not run the NMTC race today but I'm really glad I did.  My legs will probably have the final say (parents usually do) but I will sleep tonight pleased with my excess.  I can say, with a moderate amount of confidence, that excess equals satisfaction.  (But not always)

Winter Running (Soon, Tony, very soon)

It's been an amazing Autumn for running, lately.  The temps have been slightly about normal and we've had very little rain.  I really love running during this time of the year for a couple of reasons, one being the weather.  But also, I love the fact that the racing season is over, and you can simply run just to run.  There's a difference between running and training, and it's nice to get out of the training mode for a bit and just enjoy the run for what it is.

That being said, I'm also really looking forward to some winter running!  I love the sound of that first crunch of snow underfoot, the completely different scenery along the trails and the soft, forgiving surface.  The video below, of Tony Krupicka, describes it well.

Humans are incredible

This is an amazing video.  Try holding your breath as long as Sulbin does.

Park 2 Park 2 Park (2 Park 2 Park) and the mindset of mud

Three days of running in a row concluded today with a 2.5 hour run on the trails.  I took off from my apartment on 1st Street and headed up the hill to Chester.  The colors and the temperatures have been amazing lately and it's been great to take advantage of Duluth's incredible trail system.  I plodded along up through lower Chester at a leisurely pace, trying to keep my heart rate low.  A quick loop through upper Chester's ski trails and I was off to Bagley to enjoy the scenery there.

Little did I know, or rather, I had completely forgotten that the NMTC trail race was taking part in Bagley at the time.  I dinked around for a loop in Bagley, trying to stay out of the racers way (luckily I got there as the leaders were finishing up, so I didn't get in anyone's way) and crossed Arrowhead to Hartley, assuming to get lost!

Back to Bagley for a bit, however.  Last Friday, before Saturday's wind and rain, I did a loop through Bagley and was taken aback by the stunning colors there.  The leaves on the maple trees were thick and this incredible neon green/yellow color.  Against a clear blue sky they created this ceiling of gold above me as I ran on the perfect wood chipped trails.  It was one of the most simple, beautiful runs I've ever had.

Okay, now to Hartley.  I actually didn't get lost!  I think I'm starting to get most of that park figured out now.  Anyway, I entered off of Arrowhead, headed over to the guard rail loop, cruised over to the Nature Center, doubled back a bit and exited Hartley again at Arrowhead where I retraced my route back home through Bagley and Chester.

It was a classic day of trails in Duluth!

Despite the rain we had Saturday night and Sunday morning, the trails were very dry, save for a few spots in Hartley along the COGGS trails.  I want to declare, publicly, that I LOVE MUD!  It's one of the great things about trail running, getting dirty!  As I see it, if your legs aren't covered in mud after a trail run, then no matter how good the run was, it still wasn't complete!

When I co-directed the world famous Pilot Knob Trail Race in Forest City, Iowa we had two races per year, a 15k in the spring and a 5 miler in the fall.  Our race and those trails were notorious for being incredibly muddy.   I'm talking about slipping around corners and falling muddy.  Sliding down hills on your ass muddy!  One year for the 15k it was an absolute downpour, the people had a blast!  I remember one lady saying "Why don't they pave these trails?!"  She never came back!

There are some runners who simply don't like running in muddy conditions.  When they encounter a puddle, they will do everything they can to avoid it.  Slowing down to a walk, tip toeing around the edges, their shoulders hunched up as if trying not to wake a sleeping lion.  For some reason, they seem to feel that their running clothes should be treated like their finest dress clothes.  It's the mindset.  The mindset that mud is to be avoided.  At all times.

Me, I go in with the feeling that this is my chance!  Why do I care if my shoes are muddy?  Why do I care if the back of my white running shirts are all permanently stained with mud splatters?  These puddles, these muddy runways are opportunities to bring back my inner child, to get dirty and play!

Life is not always a smoothly paved road that lies down for you and surrenders.  Sometimes it's a hilly, rocky, mud strewn trail that fights back.  Treat each as they are.  Respect each as they are.  And in that present moment do what the situation calls for.  Next time, run right through the middle of that damn puddle!