Week in Review: 19-25 June, and Dreaded Druid Hills 10K Race Report

Another triple-digit week, like this:

19 June - 4 miles from Arjun's place back to my house (30 minutes), another 3 miles before church (25 minutes), 8 miles around John Carroll School after church (60 minutes), and 10 more miles (70 minutes) in the Canton/Fells/Harbor area at night.

20 June - 5 miles (35 minutes) at APG, nothing very exciting.

21 June - 5 miles (45 minutes) at APG, including a 30-minute treadmill hill session (1366 feet of climb)

22 June - 13 miles (90 minutes) at APG - hot

23 June - 7 miles (60 minutes) at APG, including a 30-minute treadmill hill session (1569 feet of climb), another 5 miles (35 minutes) in Canton/Fells

24 June - 20 miles (140 minutes) at APG - sorta hot

25 June - 6 miles from home to Druid Hill Park (45 minutes), 1 mile warmup (10 minutes), Dreaded Druid Hills 10K in just under 40 minutes (39:58), 1 mile warmdown (10 minutes), 6 miles from Druid Hill Park back home (45 minutes)

Total Time: 740 minutes

Total Distance: 100 miles

Pretty "standard" week, with nothing terribly exciting to report, except that I'm gradually building distance and speed, and feeling pretty good doing it.

And now, a short summary of the Dreaded Druid Hills 10K:

Dreaded Druid Hills has been a race that I've wanted to run for a while now, but circumstances never seemed to permit it. Not that I was exactly tapered and ready for the race this year, but considering how hard I've been hill-training lately, and how many miles I'm trying to run each week, I figured that this would be a good opportunity to see what good (if any) all of that hill training has done.

On a bet, I wore my Nike Mayflys, which I realized was a bad idea about a mile from my house, when I could feel the hot spots forming under my arches. Sure enough, by the time I got to Druid Hill Park, I had two giant blisters. I decided that popping them was the best course of action (and by "best," I mean "least uncomfortable"), but it was still not particularly fun to run on them (and now they're a little bit bloody under the arches).

The race started, and I took off with the lead pack, running fast and feeling fine, until about three-quarters of a mile in, when I suddenly felt all of those miles in my legs (especially the 20-miler that I ran the day before the race). People started passing me. I did my best to do better than I usually do in hanging on in this situation, consoling myself with the possibility that I might be a better climber than these other runners, and end up passing them later.

As it turned out, this assessment was partially founded. Somewhere around 3 miles, the tide began to turn, as the course got hillier, and those that had gone out fast at the start were now paying for it. I caught three people on the hills, and at some point in the low-30-minute range, I started to pick up speed as the course started to flatten.

Unfortunately, I also saw a number of people who were ahead of me coming from a different direction - turns out that one of the course marshalls had mis-directed some of the runners, so perhaps I didn't get a fair shot at chasing the runners in front of me. Nevertheless, I did catch one more runner on the flat section near the finish (too bad it wasn't one more, because on some level, losing to a shirtless guy wearing jam-length boxer-style shorts is pretty disappointing), and snuck in just under 40 minutes (39:58). Supposedly, the correct and incorrect courses were about the same distance, and since the mis-direction was the fault of the race staff, nobody was penalized or disqualified for running the incorrect course.

In any case, I finished 13th overall, and, as I ran the entire 10K, including ridiculous hills, at around my pace for the Boston Marathon this past spring, I'll declare it some sort of fitness victory (particularly as the middle segment of a 20-mile run).

Finally, a word (or several) on the Western States 100, as I was glued to my phone/computer for most of Saturday, watching it unfold. First off, congrats to everybody who finished (especially Kilian Jornet, the winner, and Dave Snipes, in the first race of the 2011 Grand Slam of Ultrarunning - 3 more to go!), and all due respect to those who ended up dropping, for making it as far as they did. Second (and related to dropping), in arguably the deepest, biggest-name field at the race, there were some big-name drops (Geoff Roes and Hal Koerner, both previous winners, and Dave James, come to mind), and it got me thinking . . .

Having dropped from a couple of 100-mile races this past fall (described in excruciating detail on this blog), I can understand what it feels like to drop, and why somebody (especially a typically fast somebody) might drop. Ultrarunning is a sport full of contradictions, and one that's particularly applicable here is the idea that what you don't know tends to hurt you less. That is, the better-conceived your idea of how the race should go, the less-prepared you are for unexpected circumstances. Things that complicate this dilemma are having run a race before, and, in particular, having performed exceptionally well in a previous year's running of the race. The best way to enter any ultra is to be physically well-trained for any and all conditions, and mentally flexible enough to deal with any and all conditions. A previous win or course-record-setting performance makes the latter extremely difficult. The experience becomes a part of you, and a "building block" of your concept of yourself as a successful runner, so when things stop fitting that script, pulling yourself together becomes even more difficult.

In light of all that, I feel as though I'm in a good place mentally for Badwater. Last year's performance there was good, but not as good as I would have liked, so there are areas where I can easily improve, and I can focus on success in those areas as the race progresses. At the same time, because in some ways, last year's race is a bit of a blur in my mind now, I have no pre-conceived notion of how any part of the race should feel, other than "hot" and "maybe difficult."

Over the next couple of weeks, as the miles pile up, I plan to be focusing heavily on strategies to break through the mental walls that might hamper my performance. If any of them prove to be particularly interesting or insightful beyond the above, perhaps I'll post about them here.