Sunday, October 16, 2011

35 Miler and Eating My Weight In Junk Food

"Common sense is necessary....more so than high tech. Race to the finish not race from the start, pace yourself, run your own race and don't get sucked into someone else's, walk when you need to, run when you can, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we will hurt." ~ Keven Sayers

Monday, October 10th 2011: 5 miles @ 10:30 minutes per mile.
Tuesday, October 11th 2011: 10 miles @ 11:25 minutes per mile.

Wednesday, October 12th 2011:
35 miles @ 12:37 minutes per mile. This run was so beautiful that I couldn't help but take tons of pictures. I ran along the Arizona Strip dirt road and some other side trails. The moon was almost down when I started running:


Take my word for it, these pictures don't do justice to how amazing the scenery is in this area. The deep red mountains against the deep blue sky just can't be captured by a camera.


I always start this run wondering if there will be anything to photograph that I haven't already. And yet there is always something new that I've never seen before. Even the different lighting or clouds make each trip unique. We got lots of rain last week and I loved how some grass cut tracks through the mud:


I focused on going very slow to conserve my energy for the long run. When I felt like I was at a comfortable pace I slowed down even more. If I'm going to make it through 100 miles I will have to take it very easy and never exert myself. My jumping was a little rusty - it took me four tries before I got this (bonus points for my farmer tan):


There are rarely any flowers here, but with the rain they sprouted up all over. An inconsiderate bug may have (did) crawl up my shorts as I was sitting on the ground to take this picture:


Earlier in the year I ran 34 miles at quite a bit faster pace. Initially I was a little discouraged but then realized that when I ran that far earlier in the year it was around 25 DEGREES cooler. But this time I ran through the heat of the day, and the high temperature for the day was 83 degrees.

In the last few miles I took a new side trail. It was a steep two miles in deep sand but the view from the top was worth the sand I got in my shoes:


Right before I got back to my car I came across a large puddle of water where I could see a reflection of the mountains:


Including my running time plus time stopped to stretch, go to the bathroom, and refill my water, I was out on the trail for more than eight hours. When I finished, I didn't necessarily feel good, but I also didn't feel bad. I felt like I could have gone father if I wanted to, but another 65 miles is kind of hard to wrap my head around.

Thursday, October 13th 2011: Rest. I felt starved for calories. During the day I ate toast, a Butterfinger, a maple bar, an In & Out combo meal, a taco salad, and cheesecake. Now if that isn't a reason to run, I don't know what is!

Friday, October 14th 2011: Rest.

Saturday, October 15th 2011: 20 miles @ 11:35 minutes per mile. I felt so good during this run and took lots of pictures that I'll show you in another post.

This week was a big psychological boost for me in preparation for the ultra. By slowing my pace a little I was able to cover lots of miles and never felt sore. I've noticed that my focus has become doing each run smartly so that I can recover quickly and be ready for the next run. I feel good.

Are you watching baseball playoffs?
Without a doubt! Nothing better than baseball in October.

Is junk food one of your weaknesses?
I never met something from the bakery that I didn't like.

Ever had a close encounter with a bug?
Having a bug crawl up my shorts wasn't as bad as when my hand got stung by a bumble bee and got so fat that my hand looked like the Nutty Professor.

18 comments:

  1. Great pictures! How do you take them? On your phone? A small point and shoot?

    Good job on the running too. You are really logging the miles. Ultrarunning must be something totally different to slow way down past what you think is slow so you can go further. Nice work!

    Keep it up!

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  2. Your pics are always great! You have a wonderful eye and way of capturing an image.

    Nice job on the runs!! That's a lot of miles!!

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  3. Congrats on all the great runs! I'm not a huge baseball fan... so no playoffs for me. junk food is definitely a weakness. When you mentioned a maple bar, I may have drooled on my laptop. and... I hate bugs. if one crawled up my shorts I would've died. seriously.

    my boss (the one who does the ultras) runs along the arizona strip quite often when his fam is down in St George. I wonder if you've ever run into him?!

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  4. I love your blog! and your wicked sense of adventure.

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  5. It sounds like you are being SO smart in your preparation for the 100. you are awesome! and junk food is my life!!

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  6. Awesome pictures Cory and great job on pacing yourself through the 35 miles. I cannot even imagine but you know exactly what you are doing and I admire that a lot.

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  7. Beautiful pictures! And awesome, awesome jobs on your runs!! Super impressed. :)

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  8. Do you ever get sick of hearing how amazing your pictures are? Because they are amazing. You should start a Southern Utah travel magazine. Stunning.

    I can't even wrap my mind around the amounts of miles you ran this week! You went further in one run than I went in the entire week!!!!!!!!!! And you weren't sore. So so so cool.

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  9. 35 mile training run is awesome! Nice job!

    Your pictures are awesome as usual!

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  10. Your pictures are amazing, as are those runs. I love the quote, too.

    I am watching baseball playoffs vicariously. That is, I'm hearing plenty about it living in the epicenter of St. Louis Cardinals territory, and I have to keep abreast of what's going on so I can update my 7 year old to what he missed after he went to bed. Do I care? Only in that it makes my family happy.

    Junk food...mmmm.

    Had a bee fly into my bike jersey on singletrack. My bike handling skills aren't such that I could get it out without crashing. Somehow it made its escape without stinging me. Guess I didn't smell too sweet.

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  11. Beautiful photos, Cory!! And great work on the runs.

    Huge baseball fan here, and I am a Cardinals fan, so surprisingly this is my year!

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  12. Wow! Nice job with your runs! I can't even imagine running 35 miles, let alone 100!! AND, your pictures are absolutely beautiful! I loved the one with the pond and the reflection of the mountain!

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  13. One of the biggest perks at the beginning of an adventure race is being able to eat anything and everything you can think of, because you need to take in as many calories as you can. One of the biggest problems at the end of an adventure race is not being able to stomach anything, no matter how gloriously junky it might have seemed 20 hours earlier :)

    (Oh - and that whole Phillies debacle has made the playoffs a little bit less sweet this year... but still nice to see two small market teams make it to the series)

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  14. The pictures, as always, are breathtaking!

    Your Thursday food sounds so very good. I don't think I could handle too many eating days like that, but I'm willing to give it a try ;-)

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  15. I love all your run photos. You should really get paid to be a running photographer if there is such a thing. You take pretty great race photos and run photos....and those jumps, I'm always left in awe. I was gonna try one at the end of my race but I just didn't think U'd make it an inch off the ground. lol

    I love that cactus (?) photo....it's really beautiful. Those flowers are pretty too and I HATE when bugs interfere /w photo opps. lol

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  16. holy mileage! wowzers, this is quite remarkable! just looked at your side bar...24 days! you are my mileage hero!

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  17. What camera did you use? I love the wonderful colors of the pictures. The moon looks so beautiful too.

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  18. Also, it is all the more vital to show kids good dieting propensities since they will probably be pulled in to garbage nourishment.

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