A Day on Mt Whitney

All summer, I was playing a game of cat and mouse with my injured hip. July was a bad month and it hurt a ton. It would improve some, regress, improve a little more etc. Over the course of August, I started hitting some nice long runs two to three times a week and noticing my hip was okay with that. By the time September rolled around I was doing several 2 to 3 hour runs a week and one or two 30 min runs a week. Best of all the hip was feeling really solid. Somewhere during August, my friend Mike texted me wondering if I was game to take a crack at Mt Whiteny. Like any good ultrarunner, it was an adventure I could not refuse. Our request for a permit was denied due to capacity on the mountain. Then on Saturday the Forest Service granted us a permit for Monday which was two days later. So on Sunday, we packed our gear and drove up to Lone Pine. We got some dinner and checked into the motel. As we were sorting our gear, we were trying to figure out if we were going on just another 22 mile backcountry run or some more epic mountaineering quest. In the end, we prepped our gear like it was another 22 mile backcountry run . A shell jacket, plenty of Gu, camera, water bottles and a clif bar.




Morning came at about 4:30. We had to be out on the trail by about 6:00am to ensure we were off the summit before the afternoon lightning storms hit. When we got to the trail head, we had to take all of our extra food and toiletries out of the car, and put them in a bear locker at the Whitney Portal. Apparently the bears there are fond of breaking into cars that have interesting smells.



We were on the trail just before sunrise. The first 90 minutes went smoothly up to Trail Camp. We were able to run the flatter sections and hiked the steeper sections. We stopped to take some pictures of the sunrise over the Panamint Mountains. At these lower elevations from 8300 feet to 11000 feet, the elevation was not hard to work in. Sure the breathing was a little more labored, but that was about it. After Trail Camp, the trail became more technical and broke above the tree line. The views became huge and the magnitude of this terrain was kicking in! The breathing was getting harder, and I could feel my head getting dizzy at times. The time went by pretty quick and then we were at Outpost Camp. This place sits at 12800 feet and is a little over halfway up the 11 mile climb. We took a break here, ate some GU and looked up at the series of switchbacks awaiting up to the ridgeline that would take us up to Mt Whitney.




After leaving Outpost Camp and hitting the switchbacks, the trail became very technical in terms of a large number of rocks, uneven footing, and small areas with snow and ice. I started to develop a solid headache on the climb out of Outpost. I also had a continuous low grade dizziness. The dizziness would get worse with any form of increased exertion like stepping over some big rocks or trying to run a section of the flatter stuff.

Up we went until we hit 13600 feet where the trail intersects with the John Muir Trail. This was also the point where we finally hit the ridgeline. The trail on the back side of the ridge was excellent. We had huge sweeping views into the eastern parts of Sequoia National Park. The altitude was really hitting us. I was dizzy, and Mike was have a hard time with breathing and felt like his heart was beating a little too hard. Less than an hour later, we were on the summit. The view was excellent. We looked 11ooo feet below us into the Owens Valley and Lone Pine. It was warm and sunny up there, and with the altitude I was fried. Right or wrong, I laid down and slept for about 20 minutes.

Finally it was time to leave the summit. The initial part of the downhill was slow going. We had to navigate a bunch of snow on the trail that somehow didnt seem so hard to go up! Additionally, we were both feeling the effects of the altitude, lack of ample calories, and probably too little water on the way up. We fixed the water issue by filling our bottle up right off of a rock draining snowmelt on the ridge. We were still way above 14k, and figured it was safe to drink. That water along with a GU and we were good to go. As we went down, the air got thicker, and our symptoms abated. By 12800, we were feeling pretty good and opened up into a full out run back to the trailhead.

By the time we got back to the car, I was glad to be done running. My longest run in a year on big terrain to boot, and my hip felt fine. Mt Whitney has been on my "to do" list for 20 years and I am so stoked I got it done. A big thanks to Mike for putting the whole thing together and not relenting on getting us a trail permit.

January Summary

January is in the books and it was a decent one for me. I took one day off due to a cold at the begining of January. Otherwise I ran everyday. I am pretty happy with my fitness level for this point in the season. I am handling a decent chunk of climbing, plenty of intesity and a reasonable amount of volume. Additionally, the extra pounds accumulated over the holidays have come off pretty easily.

January Stats

230 miles
37 hrs 09 min running
23,250' elevation gain


I was lucky as the weather cooperated so well this month. I could summarize the weather in one sentance. Sunny and 75. That makes it really easy to get out there and put the miles in.



This is the Traveling Wilburys of country music! They were called the Highwaymen and were Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristopherson. Another good song to have stuck in my head on the trail!

Resistance Training and Aging

As I get older, it becomes more apparent to me that for every part of training that I am enthusiastic about endurance sports, I am that anti-enthusiastic about resistance training of any type. I do some core work a few times a week and have added some hip strengthening work as well. I have never felt the need to work on the lower body as I get a ton of resistance work running up and down trails.

I have always wanted to develop and maintain my upper body a little bit more. The muscle prevents injury, enhances fat metabolism, and allows more "spur of the moment" participation in other sports and activities where underlying sport specific strength might not exist. Last year I stumbled across a group of guys in NYC who are pretty inspiring. They workout on alot of bars in playgrounds and fitness courses. The group is called the Bar-barians. They are a members only group where admission is based upon completion of the following in 6 minutes

1. 5 muscle ups
2. 45 dips
3. 25 pull ups
4. 55 pushups
5. 5 muscle ups

I am no where near ready to qualify for membership. I recon that it will take most of the year if not more to get to that point. Thats ok as there is no hurry. The main objective is to get in the garage and perform these exercises three or four times a week and develop a little more muscle before I get to old to make any! Its sort of a neat adventure for me because it is way out of my comfort zone and something really new. Its sort of like the path I started in endurance sports some 15 years ago. I had no clue and figured it out as I went along having a blast. I hope this will be a similar type of experience. I will post regularly on my progress with this endeavor. For the record, I started this journey earlier in January. My baseline for one set maxes is

55 pushups
12 dips
7 pullups
0 muscle ups (havent tried one!)

My first goal is just to complete the raw number of reps in one set each then I will start to worry about time.

If you are interested in adopting some of this into your training, start easy. Do lower numbers of reps in more sets so as not to cause any overuse injuries. If you do not have a big weight lifting background (like me), the first key is to develop tendon and joint strength before worrying about muscle development. If you strain a tendon or ligament, all training will cease! So start easy and not like a weekend warrior!

Its a beautiful day. Sunny and warm!! Time to go put in a few hours on the trails!



Polyphonic Spree doing Light and Day live in Japan. This song runs on "auto-play" in mind head on the trails a decent amount of the time

What are you chasing?

I am writing this on the plane as our family heads back from a vacation visiting
family in New York over the Christmas holidays. We had a good time catching up with family and friends. We shoveled an enormous amount of snow on Monday. We showed the kids a good time in NY. And the list goes on.

What was interesting was how a different environment can make you more aware of how we change as individuals. I was at a party where I ran into a few old acquaintances that I had not seen in four or five years. It was eye popping to see either how much I had changed or how much they had changed. After pleasantries were exchanged, I noticed our conversations kept coming back to what fancy schools their kids went to or how many househelpers ( nannies,
drivers etc) they had, or how many bedrooms their Manhattan apartments had. I don't begrudge anyone those niceties. Our kids go to a private school and I do believe in spending for the best when there is a clear benefit. What was interesting was when we discussed who was truly happy, one wanted to spend more time with her kids and the other was nearing some form of low grade burnout from her job. The sad thing was that neither of them seemed truly content in spite of having many of the finer things life has to offer.

For a long time I thought that these types of things as well as fancy cars and
houses were the markers of success that I stove for. Over the last few years, Z and I have undergone a total simplification of life. Starting with her retirement from a busy OB/GYN practice back in 2005 to become fulltime mom, followed by my intentional deceleration of work in 2009, we have learned to live with less. I am lucky that I am in a job where it is very easy to work less. The obvious consequence is that I make less money! On the surface, one might ask why we electively gave that stuff up. The answer lies in what we got in return.


Time

Time to breath, time to spend with our kids, time to spend with each other, time to pursue our hobbies. Time to experience or live life. There are plenty of smart people out there, but to my knowledge no one has figured out how to let us go back in time and relive our lives. Whether it's a 100 mile run in the mountains, game night with the kids, or lunch with Z, enjoying the daily
experience of life is the number one priority to me. And guess what? I am happier than I have ever been and don't miss the material crap at all!

So to answer the question in this blog title, I am chasing time, experience and freedom in life to pursue what I value. For me thats my family and being outside pursuing endurance sports. A luxury car, the latest electronics, and fancy clothes all lose their luster over time. Memories of experience are priceless and never become tarnished. On my deathbed, if I am able to say that I was a true family man, that I was out in nature everyday, and that I inspired others to live life, what material possessions I have will be irrelevant.

Make sure you can live with what you are chasing, just in case you catch it one
day.

Nutrition

As we get ready to start the new year and end the holidays, I always think about ways to improve my diet.  Now that I am 40, I find diet makes a HUGE difference on recovery from training.  When I was 25, I could live on Taco Bell and donuts and still train big miles.  Now, I can still train big, it just requires a focus on nutrition.  

There are a zillion approaches to sports nutrition out there.  I have played around with probably at least a billion of them.  What I have found works best for me is to eat real food.  By this I mean food that does not have an ingredient list.  Things that don't require being packaged.   

The biggest thing I have learned to apply this properly is to have a large intake of raw vegetables.  By this I mean focusing on the leafy greens (think spinach!) and things like red and green peppers.   I do eat cabbage and celery from time to time mostly out of lack of any other of the above veggies to eat.  So now matter what else I eat, I start every meal with a lot of the above veggies.  I give credit to Dr Clyde Wilson for getting me straight on this path.  I find I have a lot of energy, rarely get hungry, and eat smaller portions.   

So what I am suggesting is to eat any of the above vegetables raw with every meal.  Don't worry so much about changing other elements of your meal at this point.  Just focus on huge raw veggie intake.  You will probably notice you start to clean up the rest of your diet electively after you take this step.  That said, I still love dessert (some know it is a fondness for cake! ).  The key is to eat the veggies as well. I also suggest drinking a big glass of water (approx 20 oz) with every meal to make digestion of the veggies a little easier.   

Remember, this is about life changes.  Take small and deliberate steps now.  The big changes come from small steps involving action!!!

Feel free to post your experiences from the New Year New Path plan under the comments section of my blog www.ultrawalz.blogspot.com

New Year New Path

This is the first in a series of short posts that will be about how to get the new year started off right.   

The holiday season is one that seems to rob all of us of our training mojo. There are parties to go to, commitments with family, small amounts of daylight etc.  The causes are many.  The cure to getting the training mojo back or developing some in the first place is to get started!   

The way I have always maintained mojo through this time of year is to lower training volume but keep the consistency of the workouts.  For me in the offseason, unless I am recovering from an injury, I set a goal of 30 min a day running as the daily minimum I will accept.  Also during this time, I will allow one day of the week to be something low key like a walk, hike, swim, bike ride whatever.  The key is to just do something.  

So what I am proposing is that if you are interested in starting the new year right, set a daily goal that is achievable while you are in the habit forming phase.  So as step one of my New Year New Path plan, get some exercise!  I would suggest a daily minimum goal of 20 minutes a day of any form of aerobic activity you like. It can be biking, walking, hiking, swimming, running, kayaking etc.  The activities can also be mixed in any fashion.  The only key is 20 minutes daily.  Also, this isn't weekend warrior intensity. Remember we are building fitness for a lifetime, not til St Patricks Day!   At this point there is no such thing as too easy, but there is a thing called too hard.  So err towards efforts that allow you to maintain conversations and where you are not terribly aware of your breathing.  

Remember 20 minutes on a day you are strapped for time can be something as simple as climbing stairs at work during your lunch break, going biking with your kids, or going for a walk with friends or your spouse on the weekend.  The ways to do this are only limited by your creativity.  

In the coming days, I will continue to post the rest of the elements that are important to integrate into life as you start a New Year New Path.  In the meantime go out there and do some moving! 

I do have a limited number of coaching spots available for this coming year.  If you already have a goal of some type that you would like to achieve from a 5k to an ultra marathon, send me an email!

Looking Forward

This week was lottery week for alot of the races that I want to run next year. As I have said before, it is crazy how these things have taken off. I remember 5 years ago entering a major race a month before the event. Nowdays, these same races fill via lottery six months out. That is a sign of a healthy sport!

I was pretty happy with my lottery results. I got a spot at Miwok 100k and Squaw Peak 50 miler. Miwok is gonna be my A race of the spring and possibly the year. I plan to run Squaw Peak in June as it is an excuse for a road trip and its an area I have never really been too. I am on the fence about running a 100 miler this summer. I am probably going to enter one in July and see how my body feels. As to which one, that is a question. Angeles Crest is in my backyard, but I would also like to get back to Vermont. The other one I have wanted to check out is Tahoe Rim. Thats all a little fuzzy at this point.

So my races are shaping up to look like

3/5 San Juan Trails 50k
3/26 Old Goats 50 miler
5/7 Miwok 100k
6/4 Squaw Peak 50miler
6/? A new 40 mile race from Mt Baldy to Wrightwood and back
7? Possible Vermont/Angeles Crest/Tahoe Rim 100miler

My annoying sore hip appears to be really improving with a shoe change. Funny how little tweaks can make big differences. I am considering buying a pair of the HokaOneOnes. They are pricey, but Karl says they are really durable and you get your moneys worth. If I buy some, I will write a post about them.

This is the last week of "offseason" running. Starting Dec 27, the training begins in earnest for the spring. Enjoy the holidays!