South Bay Cowboys

Two weeks out from the race, I’m still flying high, but it’s time to take a step back and analyze the training cycle so that I can improve upon it in the future.

So what did I do?  I’m not quite sure how to pinpoint the beginning of my training cycle for AC100.  I trained up for and raced Sean O’Brien 100k in February, raced L.A. Marathon in March, and then raced Leona Divide 50k in April, and then I got injured.  All of the early year racing put me in the right position to begin 100 mile training, but my plan had to be adjusted following the beginning of a stress reaction on my right tibia soon following Leona Divide 50k.  So I’ll say the modified training plan began after Leona Divide 50k in April, about 16 weeks out from the race.

The Data:

The following table tracks the total mileage, elevation gain, and longest run for each week leading up to and including AC100.  

You can see that 15 weeks out, I cut mileage in response to the stress reaction forming in my leg.  I had plans to include phases in my training, beginning with tempo and threshold work, then moving to endurance runs, followed by a focus on climbing and distance, but the injury made me scrap that idea.  My new plan was to push on all other fronts to make up for the reduced running. I added a gym routine, with a focus on leg strength and stair climber, I added sauna training, and I focused on big on course runs instead of weekday volume.

Modifying the Plan:

To cling onto some reasonable level of mileage, during the week I shifted from longer pavement runs to shorter 4 to 6 mile, easy runs on the soft wood chip trail in Hermosa and Manhattan Beach. This kept my legs moving during the week, while not being a big enough stressor to stop recovery.  In addition, I added in one to two 30 to 50 minute stair climber sessions during the week. These sessions had no impact on my leg injury, but I credit them for quickly improving my climbing efficiency. In addition, once I felt recovered enough, I was able to add in a full leg day in the gym, including barbell squats, deadlifts, leg curls, leg extensions, as well as abductor and adductor exercises.  I would also keep up with general core workouts in the gym. I did everything I could to strengthen my long running systems, while reducing my weekday mileage.

But there is no substitute for the long run.  The way I crafted my weeks were always to set myself up for a long run on the course during the weekend.  I often took a rest day on Friday to be recovered enough to get out on the course. A huge plus to being out there was that I was also able to form friendships with others training for the race.  By the end of training, I had covered the entire course, and most of it multiple times, which gave me mental confidence. Come race day, I was just connecting all of the shorter runs I had been doing in training.

This modified approach balanced the line between recovery and re-injury, and was inherently risky.  If I just stayed off my legs, I would have healed much faster, but at 15 weeks out I was really feeling the pressure to train.  The discomfort in my leg finally lifted in early July, just in time for for my biggest week, including my longest run at Angeles National Forest 60k.

ANF60k, formerly Mt. Disappointment 50k, is a special race.  It is special because in 2017, the 50k race absolutely destroyed me from of the heat, resulting in my slowest 50k time by almost three hours (See 2017 Mt. Disappointment 50k race report).  At the time, my approach was to tough it out, but now I know that’s an arrogant and idiotic approach to handling heat and that it’s better to proactively manage heat. So 2018 ANF60k (the new, longer distance), was the perfect event to test run all of my heat management tactics I had researched.  Though I was nervous about the longer distance, if I couldn’t handle ANF60k and its heat, I had no business running AC100 four weeks later.

Proactive Heat Management:

After all my research, I came up with four main strategies to heat management: 1) adaptation, 2) stay wet, 3) ice, and 4) cover up.  These are what I applied and ANF60k, to great success, and also applied at AC100.

Adaptation.  If you expose your body to a new stimuli, it will adjust itself to better handle it.  This takes time, but fortunately the body can see the benefits of heat adaptation within weeks.   Some people run in the heat. Some layer on clothes for a run. Some lay towels down on their carseats and blast the heater in the middle of the day.  I changed gym memberships to get access to a sauna. The sauna seemed the most efficient way to introduce high quality heat training to the body. The sauna I had access to was particularly hot at over 200F, so the length of time I worked up to in the sauna was shorter than what I had read about.  I would do intervals, in and out, but work up to at least 30 or more minutes in total during a session.

Stay wet.  For this, I have to give credit to a South African bloke, who I observed using a handheld to wet his head every few minutes during the Angeles Crest Training Camp.  So for ANF60k, I carried a handheld in addition to my drinking water, for the sole purpose of squeezing water on my head. It worked! At 7:15AM in the morning at ANF60k when  the temperature was already 90F, I squeezed water on my head and audibly said “wow, that feels good” during the race. I kept it up throughout the race as the temperature approached 105F.  I also made use of the aid stations to keep myself wet by sponging cold water over my head and shoulders..

Ice.  There are many ways to utilize the ice at aid stations to stay cool.  The idea is to cool your skin, but also cool parts of the body where blood flows close to your skin, including wrist and neck.  And since it’s ice, you get the benefit for a few miles after leaving an aid station while it melts. I had ice in an ice bandana around my neck. I put ice in my arm sleeves around my wrist. I also added it to my water bladder to keep the back cold.  I tried putting it in my hat, but didn’t really need it since I was also using the handheld water.

Cover up. Covering up stops your body from unnecessarily absorbing extra heat from the sun.  Use clothing to reflect as much as you can, even if you look like a dork doing it! Later in the race you’ll be passing the shirtless champs on the side of the trail suffering from the sun.  I used a white shirt, arm sleeves, a draped hat, and sunglasses to protect myself from the sun. And sunscreen! You can change out of the draped hat when the sun begins to set.

For me, the above simply worked.  If I was employing the four strategies, heat was negated (at least up to 105F).  Though I could feel it, the heat was not a factor for me at AC100. Also note, it’s important to test these in advance.  The more heat management you employ, the more time it takes at aid stations and the more weight you have to carry. So find the right balance between defeating the heat while not overburdening yourself.  

What I Would Change:

My average weekly mileage was far less while training for AC100 than it was training for Sean O’Brien 100k.  If I was not injured, I would have been doing my 8 to 10 mile lunch runs, and I think I would have been much better conditioned for the actual race, averaging 70 to 80 mile weeks consistently.  I would have also had workout runs at the beginning of the cycle, which I completely scrapped.

In addition, I would have focused a weekend day on elevation gain, while using the other day for the on-course long run.  Later in my training cycle, I discovered a Palos Verdes trail with exceptional elevation gain per mile if doing repeats. I could accumulate over 6,000 feet of gain in under 14 miles.  The grind was a mental and physical workout that I wish was a more regular part of my training, instead of just the two times I managed to do it in July.

I mostly avoided back-to-back long runs during this training cycle because of my leg recovery.  Back-to-back long runs are a normal occurrence when training for shorter races, so I’d welcome them back when training for a future 100 mile race.  

Though I was fit, I think I could have been much better conditioned for the 100 mile distance, which would have pulled me through the low times more effectively.  Other changes I’d make are less about training and more about strategy, including nutrition and foot maintenance improvements.