Seattle

In typical fashion I have fallen behind in keeping this blog updated. I have had the goal for several weeks to put an awesome post together highlighting what I have been up to, but I simply have not had enough time. I am very slowing getting a bunch of video put together that documents the running that I have been doing while I have been in Seattle for the last couple of weeks. I am here doing my final clinical rotation for PA school. It has been intense, I work in the Harborview Emergency Department, we take care of people that are hurt really bad, and are brought from all over the NorthWest. TV ER dramas have nothing on what a real trauma center sees. I work twelve hour shifts, 5-6 a week. There hasn't been much time for anything but work, running, eating, studying (some), and a little sleep. I have still managed to keep my weekly mileage between 80-105 miles, all with lots of vertical. Although I have to drive to get to any trails, it is very worth it, the mountains and trails here are so very beautiful, though I do have to admit that I am starting to miss sagebrush and juniper a little. In a lot of ways it has been pretty lonely up here, my wife and daughter weren't able to come along, and the few friends that I do know here in the big city have been doing lots of traveling for racing and other obligations. Seems strange to be lonely when I am surrounded by millions of people, but the closeness of familiarity is absent. I hope to get out on a few runs with the amazing Krissy Moehl over the next week and half, since she is coming to back in town after a whirlwind of ultra-running adventures, that will be awesome. Hang in there for pictures and video of breathtaking trails, only a week and a half more here then I head home, where I think I will have a bit more time to get those up. Happy running!

Western Pocatello Skyline Loop

I have to admit that I have been down right awful in meeting my goal of updating this blog more regularly. Life seems to have accelerated around our home, between a heavy dose of school, big mileage training weeks and everything that is going on with family we have been running down right ragged. I decided to add some video from last weeks long run (that ended up being not so long because of my daughter's 3rd birthday party). The loop consisted of running nearly all of the western skyline visible from downtown Pocatello. The weather was pretty variable as well as the conditions, but all in all I was very happy with how the run went and how I felt the whole time. If you are interested in the loop that I put together don't hesitate to comment below maybe we can get out an run it together!

The first video is at the summit of Kinport mountain above Pocatello, about 6 miles and 2000' of climbing into the run.

Pocatello Western Skyline Run -1 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

This video is roughly half way through the run after about 4000' of climbing and running an awesome ridge line.

Pocatello Western Skyline Run -2 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

End of the run total of 26 miles and 5600' of climb and about the same of descent.

Pocatello Western Skyline Run -3 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

We had an awesome birthday party later that afternoon after the run!

On a side note I am very happy with how my training has been going up to this point in the year, especially considering a missed most of January due to my achilles injury. Summary of training up through May 1st:

Total Miles 1001.5

Total Ascent 151,000'

April Totals:

Miles 395

Ascent 63,000'

My Running Tour of Idaho

Well in typical fashion I am way behind in updating this blog. I am working on a post about my trip to Peru, but since I still have a lot to write about I am posting this in the interim. This past week I had the opportunity to go to Sun Valley for the Idaho Academy of Physician Assistants annual conference. I decided to take advantage of the trip so I left my rotation a couple hours early so I could get in some quality runs in on the way.

First stop was in the middle of the desert, the Big Southern Butte. Having grown up in Blackfoot, Idaho the Big Southern was something that has dominated the horizon for a good portion of my life, but I have never been out to or up it. After a couple of quick calls on the way out of town I got decent directions on how to access it and some beta about the route itself. Getting there does require traveling very close to the highly secure Idaho National Lab, but even with its proximity to the lab there weren't any guards in Humvees chasing me down while I past by. I parked at the French Cabin and ran the summit road from there. There was a lot of snow on the road but it was pretty frozen which made travel pretty easy with the exception of the occasional surprise of a hip deep post hole step. The view from the abandoned fire lookout on the top is absolutely amazing and something that should not be missed. All in all round trip is 10 miles with 2700' of gain.

View from where I parked the car, the route goes up the middle and wraps up to the left to the summit that is out of sight in this photo.

I hopped back in the car, drove to just outside of Arco, Idaho and then ran up another area that I had driven by but never been to. Just behind the town of Arco is a dramatic ridge line that has a whole lot of graffiti on it. I ran another 10 miles with 2800' of gain to access a high point then doubled back. The trails covered some amazing terrain that I really wished I had taken the camera for, but that just means that I have to go back again! After the run I jumped in the car and finished the drive to Sun Valley arriving just after dark in time to participate in the pre-conference festivities.

I snuck in an early morning run before the conference on Thursday and then met Hank Dart, Brad Mitchell (teammate on the La Sportiva Team) and a whole crew of other Sun Valley runners at the track in Hailey for "speed work". I had never done a track workout before and although running in circles felt strange I ended up getting a great workout that I would pay for the rest of the weekend. Friday I met Brad Mitchell over lunch to put down the Elkhorn Loop (?) a solid 8 miles in under an hour, Brad went back to work and I tacked on a few extra miles to get closer to the mileage goals of the week. I hurried back to make it to the afternoon classes of the conference while stuffing in some delicious calories (in form of a wrap from Wrapcity in Ketchum) in as fast as I could.

With the conference coming to a close the festivities made it hard to get much sleep that night and although I really needed it, I ended up only sleeping a few hours before I got up to meet Hank, Brad, and AJW for some morning laps on their beloved Carbonate before the final session of the conference. Pictured below, Carbonate is a wonderful ridge line near Hailey that is the host to the only available dirt to be ran in the valley. Starved after a long snowy winter these Sun Valley super stars run laps on Carbo to get miles and vertical on dirt. I indulged in a humble two laps that morning because of time constraints but, AJW had plans of four! Each lap is just over five miles with about 1300' of gain each lap. It is an awesome run! I am very grateful for Brad, Hank, and AJW's hospitality in letting me tag along for some great workouts while I was in town.

Carbonate Ridge as seen from Hailey, the trail climbs from the left to the windsock/pole about where the snow starts on the ridgeline.

I made it back to the conference just in time to catch some amazing lectures on orthopedic injuries and bring the IAPA conference to a close. I had planned to meet my friend Andy in Twin Falls to get in some running in the South Hills that he has been telling me about, but he had a change in plans and wasn't going to be able to make it. Still short on my weekly mileage goals I decided to try to give it a go with out a local trail guide. I drove to Twin without telling Andy I planned on going anyways, I had stopped in Hansen to get gas in my car and while I was pumping a very familiar looking Subaru pulled into the gas station. It was Andy whose change of plans had changed and he was on his way out to get in a mountain bike ride. We were both pretty surprised to see each other and he agreed to show me where to start to get a run in. Well it turns out that with the mix of ascent and descent that the trails in the South Hills of Twin it is a pretty good match for a biker and runner to travel together. We took turns beating on each other for about 18 miles of killer dry single track. I got back to the car with that great feeling of being totally worked!

By the end of my tour of running I was pretty tired but extremely pleased with the things I had been able to see and to experience, as well as being in some pretty amazing company while doing so. I can't wait to get out and visit some of those areas again and look forward to more "running tours" of Idaho and beyond!

Off to Peru

Tomorrow I have a huge opportunity to travel Peru as a part of Idaho Condor's annual Medical Expedition. I will be down there for two weeks, providing medical care to the incredible people who live in the mountainous villages of central Peru. This is a rare opportunity as a student to be part of this experience, the demands of most programs do not allow students to be gone for a number of days in a row, but I am lucky enough to be part of a very understanding program who sees this as the amazing learning opportunity that it will be. I am also very excited to be part of the Idaho Condor organization, it is one of few medical humanitarian groups focuses on being sustainable. They work very closely with local medical providers in order to actually make a long term impact on the health care status of the individuals we will be seeing. If you want more info on what Idaho Condor does and how you could become involved click here.

The trip to Peru gets even sweeter when I take into account the fact that I am going to get to run a fair amount while I am down there. I have been in touch with the good folks at inca runners that help organize running in and around Cusco, Peru as well as trips of the Inca trail. Unfortunately I found them a little late in the process of planning this trip and won't be able to run everything that I hoped, but none the less I hope to be able to get in some good runs with them in the small amount of free time that I have. I plan on posting more info about inca runners win I get back but in the meantime you can check them out here.

On the home front things have been going extremely well. I have running more than ever before, and seeing pretty much constant improvement. I have tried to be very cautious in how I have been training so that my body can adjust to the increased work load. It seems to be going better than expected at this point. I had a great opportunity to run with Ty Draney of the Patagonia Ultrarunning Team last weekend. It was awesome to get out for a long run, Ty came down to run on some of the newly dried out dirt, unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. It snowed the entire time we were out, we ran some dry dirt, some tacky clay, some sloppy mud, a lot of trails with a skiff of snow, and a section of mid-calf to knee deep snow. Even though the weather wasn't ideal it was still wonderful run. The next day my daughter Brynlee dressed up as a spring fairy to coax some warmer weather into the region. She must have been convincing enough because all this week I have been running in shorts and a tee shirt on lots of trails that have dried out since Ty was here. Below is a picture of the very convincing spring fairy.

Racing the Dark

Sometimes in the name of training we make decisions that may seem questionable to those around us, particularly those who don't know us so well. Yesterday I had one of those days. I have spent the last couple of days in a pretty intense Advanced Coronary Life Support class and was forced to cut back on training time. Yesterday afternoon I had gotten pretty anxious from the cut back of exercise time and after wrapping up homework and a few chores the day was quickly slipping by. I aggravated my right calf doing a short speed work session a few days ago and decided I was going to get out on the single speed mountain bike, the time of day set me up for a race against the dark. I figured that I would be pushing it so in my haste to get out on the trail I grabbed a Petzl e-lite and threw it in the pocket of my bike jersey.

As I quickly pedaled from my house towards the local trails I noticed the start of a beautiful sunset that was lighting up the sky, I put my head down and pushed the cadence as quick as the single speed would allow. After about 5 minutes on the road and 15 minutes on the trail, I arrived to an intersection that would allow me to return home easily before it got too dark to see, or I could take the other trail and almost certainly leave me on the trail in the dark. After moment of contemplation I made the decision to race the dark on the longer of the two routes. I stood up and started hammering out the miles as quick as my lungs could handle, near the top of my proposed route I realized I was a little ahead of where I thought I would be, and with a smirk on my face I turned up another trail that would add an additional mile and a half. I smiled and even laughed out loud as I stayed out of the saddle pushing the pace knowing that it was going to be a very tight race to hit the trailhead before it was too dark to see the trail.

I hit the top and started the descent back down somewhat cautiously because the light was beginning to fail. This made for a difficult quandary- I wanted to push the descent but couldn't see well enough to do it safely- I pushed as fast as I reasonable thought I could knowing the dark was winning the race. My level of focus increased as the light got dimmer and dimmer making it difficult to see the undulations of the trail, but yet I pushed on. I hit the trailhead a few minutes later and realized the amount of focus the near darkness required, when a car pulled into the trailhead literally blinding me with its headlights. Wow it was really dark! The driver of the car rolled down the window and asked if I was okay, they thought it was really late to becoming off of the trail and were worried that I was hurt or something. I assured them I was great and wished them a good night. I then asked myself if I won the race against the dark, and me only response was yes. The dark doesn't care if it loses or not, it is a great competitor- it allowed my to push and push against its unrelenting pace, and no matter the suffering it forced me to find another gear. It might have been dark when I got to the trailhead, but I won because of the benefits I would reap from racing such a formidable companion. I then pulled the e-light out of my jersey pocket, attached it to my handlebar so cars could see me, and pedaled home with a huge grin on my face!

As an additional note I thought I would welcome the sun's light back to the trails and got up before sunrise this morning to get in a run on the same route that I rode in the near-dark last night. What a cool experience to put the sun to bed and welcome it to the day while out on the trail doing something you love!

Last weekend I raced at the Kelly Canyon trail race, La Sportiva Teammate Brad Mitchell wrote a great report that can be found here.

As Promised.... The La Sportiva Crosslite Review

I said at the end if my last post that there would be forthcoming reviews of some of the quality products I used during the Pocatello 50, well I am going to make good on my word, here you go:

The La Sportiva Crosslite

I have put about 200 miles in my first pair of Crosslites this year, and I am totally impressed. Granted it is not my everyday training shoe,

but I do most of my long mountain runs in them. The fit is nothing short of magic out of the box, I have never been able to pull a pair of shoes out of the box, lace them up and run 20 plus miles in them without a blister, that is until the Crosslite. The have a nice tight heel cup and plenty of room for my toes, the lacing is a little tricky to figure out the first time lacing them up because of the mesh cover, but this is pretty easy to get used. The mesh lace cover really helps keep little rocks and things out of the shoes on loose terrain, which turns out to be a major bonus. The part of the Crosslites that I love the most is the aggressive lugs. They provide tons of traction on snow, mud, scree, and in addition to that they cushion the ride making it a very versatile shoe. In the P50 I was able to charge up the muddy climb (creek bed) on leg two without any difficulties, as well as the snow on leg three without slipping at all (except when I wanted to during the glissade). The shoe drains water and dries very quickly which tops of the features that make this shoe an ideal ealy season and winter trail shoe in Idaho. The shoe is also very light for how burly it is (12.3 oz), I really love how light they are, they are running shoes not hiking boots like

many other "trail running" shoe companies make. The Crosslite is the best trail running shoe I have ever ran in!

As things dry out in Idaho I am going to transition to the Crosslite's trimmed down brother- the Skylite. The Skylite fits pretty much identical to the Crosslite but has a trimmed down sole and only weighs 9.45 oz, they feel like racing flats, the traction is a little lacking for mud and snow but on the hardpack of mid summer it is perfect. For the perfect footwear combo try the Defeet Trail 19 sock coupled with the svelt fit of the Crosslite or Skylite.

La Sportiva Sky Lite

+

Defeet Trail 19

Now go RUN!

Pocatello 50 Tomorrow

Well the big race finally arrived. I am trying to get myself to wind down enough to sleep before the showdown in my backyard tomorrow. It is the first time this year that I have gotten really worked up about a race. This type of anxiety is not healthy, I am a wreck. On the other hand I am confident; I am confident in my training and my ability to gut it out. There are some pretty serious names in the ultrarunning community in Pocatello for the race, including Sean Messner, Krissy Moehl, and some mysterious guy from Connecticut. I am stoked to get out with some of these folks and see what I can do. I have thought and agonized over setting up splits for the race, and I have a general idea, but at this point all I am going to do is listen to my body, be patient (thanks Ty) and run MY race tomorrow. In the end it doesn't matter who wins really, what matters is I give it my best performance and hopefully with all the work that is enough to pull in a good fast finish time and who knows maybe end up on the podium. I am finally getting a little drowsy and this is probably just rambling so I am going to call it a night and try to rest for the big day tomorrow.

Final Countdown to the Pocatello 50

5 days to go until the Pocatello 50 takes its maiden voyage. I ran pain free today, seems as though I finally have the hamstring under control... and I am stoked. A lot of training and focus has gone into getting ready for this race. Word is that there is going to be some sections of snow on the course, but that is to be expected for a trail race in Idaho this early in the year. Even though there will be some snow there is going to be a ton of beautiful single track and amazingly green southeast Idaho landscape. The race directors have put in a ton of work and are going to put on a fantastic event. I have put quite a bit of pressure on myself for this race, given that it is in my backyard and all, but from here on out it is what it is. What I mean by that is I have to run my own race from the beginning; I asked an ultra runner whom I have a ton of respect for for any advice and he replied "be patient and fuel often". I am taking that to heart, I know this course better than any other set of trails out there, I have the home court advantage. In the end the trail will decide who will have a great day. I have made my deposit in the bank of training and all I can do is trust in that work and enjoy the run, after all it is my first 50 mile race ever. I am so excited to meet all of the runners who are coming in from all over the US. If you are still debating whether to sign up or not there is only one more day to register ( www.pocatello50.com ).... the weather is going to be great, the field deep and the trails glorious. I hope to see you there!

The Smell of Trail Running

Running Wild Mountain leg of Pocatello 50 Course-Photo Jared Cambell

Spring is finally here and with it comes dirt, sweet, glorious, wonderful dirt. After a winter full of running on roads/ice/snow it has been very refreshing the last couple of weeks to get out and run on dirt fire roads and single track. Things are starting to get green and it smells like trail running. The very familiar smell of sweat, dirt, trees, all in a wonderful potpourri of smells always makes me think of trail running... so it is the smell of trail running. I have had a really good build up in mileage and have been seeing steady progress in most aspects of training. My legs feel pretty healthy and all in all things are going as good as I can hope for.

This weekend is my first trail race of the year- The Menan Butte Challenge, this is a great race fairly close to home.

The Finish of last year's Menan Race

It takes a very steep trail to the top of Menan Butte, a cinder cone in the desert, takes a couple of loops around the top then back down. This year they added a ten mile category so I think the whole thing will be run twice. To get ready I have been training on lots of hills to get my uphill/downhill strength up to speed with my flat turnover. I particularly enjoy running China Peak in Pocatello via the camelback trail, it climbs over 2000' in around 4 miles and is very steep. I have been able to PR on it the last two weekends in a row, which involved running the whole thing w/o having to powerhike. I followed Saturday's climb up the peak with following the skyline to blackrock, back on the Kat's trail to home rounding off around 24 miles, almost all on dirt. I know that my fitness is better than last year and I am hoping to keep it going through the races I have planned for this summer, especially the Pocatello 50 on May 23.

End of January

January 2009 has already come and nearly gone, unbelievable!  I am always amazed with how quickly time passes when you keep yourself busy.  The days literally seem like they are flying by.  I seem to be pretty much recovered from the mysterious shin pain that showed up last week.  I owe the super speedy recovery to a couple of days rest, lots and lots of stretching and some amazing training advice from a fellow PA student Leslie McGovern.  Leslie was a trainer for a lot of years and she was quickly able to recognize what was going on and give some great info on what to do.  For any interested, Leslie told me that runners are extremely notorious for only running, the strengthens many muscles but it does leave some of the antagonist muscles lacking.  Particularly the anterior tibialis.  When the AT is weak the lower leg compensates by overworking the soleus (the deep calf muscle), and this can result in an array of problems including an aggravated posterior tibialis tendon, extremely sore soleus muscles and many other common maladies that runners face.  Leslie recommended, in addition to stretching, pop-ups.  A pop-up is basically a calf raise where you quickly raise to your toes and then very slowly lower back down.  This directly targets the eccentric motion of the anterior tibialis. Also she recommended using a theraband doing very similar motions to strengthen the anterior part of the leg.  When doing the pop-ups the should be done with a straight leg and with the knee bent, this allows for better targeting of the muscle.  In later discussions with Leslie she explained that lot of runners whose feet slap when they run have a weak AT muscle.  So if your friends are slapping when they run they you should recommend this to them so they avoid problems down the road. 

On a side note I took a quick trip to Las Vegas this weekend to help a friend set-up for a tradeshow and I got in an awesome run on the strip early in the morning.  For the first time in my life I really wish it would just warm up and get to summer.  It was great to run in shorts and a t-shirt without gloves, tights, hat, and without slipping all over the place on the ice.  With the demands of school this year I am only skiing a fraction of what I have normally been able to and to compensate I run more.  Running is my escape, it is my dear friend that is always there when I need him, running is the answer to my problems.  I love it.  And even though I love it sometimes it is a relationship that is strained, sometimes I don't have the time I need to dedicate to it, sometimes it is really cold and I want to tell it to wait for another day, sometimes it hurts when I do it, BUT it is always there waiting and ready to go, it forgives and forgets, running loves me back. 

A little pain

Once again I find myself pondering about what I am certain that runners everywhere commonly do.  How much is too much? How can I tell if I am overtraining? Well from my experience the body speaks, it tells you how it is doing, the trick is learning how to listen.  For many this is a very difficult task, including me.  This post is somewhat bittersweet, it was only days ago that I posted about completing a big training goal and now I was forced to take today off.  By forced I mean that I was feeling what I perceived as a possible serious injury and I decided to sideline myself for a couple of runs so that it didn't become a major issue.  

For quite some time now I have had an array of problems with achilles type pain; I had a real minor achilles tendonitis, followed by an injury involving my posterior tibialis on the same leg, and now I am faced with what I thought was perhaps shin splints, but after a visit to a trained professional, it turns out to be an extremely tight soleus (insert deep sigh of relief here).  All of these problems are related to tight calves, and a tight posterior leg in general.  I am glad that I wasn't given a 6 week jail sentence today yet I am somewhat uncertain of what to do to help clear up this myriad of problems that I seem to have trouble escaping.  I was prescribed lots of stretching and massage.  Jared Campbell shared an awesome study about eccentric calf lowers and how effective they can be in relieving these problems which I am doing somewhat religiously.  What I do want to know is what else?  I know that there are a few that have started to follow what's in my brain through this blog, and any feedback would be very appreciated, I am still pretty new at this and any advice would be welcome.  Hopefully, I can figure out what my training is missing and get things back on track sooner than later.