The Whos and Hows; Stocking Stuffing Brain Candy

What do runners read about? I would hazard a guess; running! My nightstand is adorned with editions of Runners World and Trail Runner but if you want something a little more substantive finding some quality reads can be a little tougher. Hands up if you’ve read Ultra Marathon Man? You have, Ok now hands up if you have read Duel in the Sun? A few less hands; if you haven’t read the latter you should; Boston at its finest. Well, here are some suggestions on a few you might not have read, not surprisingly they have an ultrarunning slant, but even for the casual 5k runner this provide a great portal into what we, as runners and as human beings, are capable of.

Survival of the Fittest; Dr Mike Stroud.
Were you impressed with Dean Karnazes’ 50/50? In 2003 Dr Stroud and Sir Ranulph Fiennes ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents! The book explores the human evolution, endurance and adaptability. Not overly sciency it’s an illuminating read and if you ever needed a book to motivate you to exercise this is it!

Running Through the Wall; Neil Jamison
Thirty five stories from thirty five ultra runners from the front, middle and back of the pack. Each story, written by the runners and edited by Jamieson, tells the personal tale of highs lows and everything in between. If you ever needed to find an answer to the question “why do you run 100 miles” this is a good place to start!

The Extra Mile: Pam Read
A winner of back to back Badwater titles, a mother and step mother, entrepreneur and Race Director. A reasonably candid story of Read’s life, through to the books publishing in October 2006; including her battle with anorexia. She is a far better runner than she is a writer ergo it’s an easy read and not the page turner it could have been.

Some others that are on my bookshelf:

Feet in the Clouds: Richard Askwith – obsessive fell running in the UK
UltraRunning; My Story: Mike Bouscaren – exploring the elemental side of ultra marathoning
The End of the Trail: John David Fischer – an average runner runs the WSER

The above are focused on the Whos of the sport so I thought I would throw in the Hows. I get asked quite often where can people find info on ultra running, not that I am a very deep font of information; I still consider myself a newbie, but I am always happy to share what little I know, and most of that has come from this book. It is as close to an “All you wanted to know and were afraid to ask about Ultrarunning” as I have seen anywhere:

A Step Beyond; A Definitive Guide to Ultra Running; edited by Don Allison
In a similar fashion to Running Through the Wall, each chapter is written by those in the know, Broken out over seven topics: Training and Racing Advice, Physiology, Making History, Races & Places, Ultra People, Philosophy and Humor and with articles that address subjects that include; Hill Running, How to Walk While Running and The Agony of Da-Feet there are even several for your partner: the inviting "Pacing in a 100 Mile: A Nice Way to Spend the Night" and the prescriptive; "Crewing: Ten Commandments For Those Who Sit and Wait". If you thinking about running an ultra or you have and want to learn more buy this book!

All of the above are ideal stocking stuffers for the runner in your life, if that happens to be you print this post and leave it somewhere inconspicuous for them to see; I find duct taped to the bathroom mirror, underneath the toilet lid or in the middle of their 52" flat screen TV just before their favorite TV show is a good start!

Finally wishing Good Luck to friends racing this weekend; Billy, Patsy (WM24) and Kelly (GGP) at CIM and Frayed Laces looking to BQ in Las Vegas and of course to you if I missed you!

Back to business...

A week has passed and I have now regained the use of my legs, the Sunday after race day was an interesting proposition I considered removing the tray from our youngest's high chair and using it as a Zimmer frame but didn’t in the end, oh the shame! I have also picked up a delightful “pack of cigarettes a day cough”, that gave everyone much entertainment as I reeled about in hacking fits which were muted by non functioning muscle groups. My assumption here was that my immune system had just thrown it’s hands up in despair, although it could, I suppose, be that my body was actually channeling an old age pensioner!?!

Going out for dinner Sunday night as a family proved more entertaining for the restaurant patrons, then I, as they pretended not to watch as I groaned and grimaced while sitting down to and getting up from the table. It was beyond fortunate that we live in a ranch style hours with minimum stairs as they proved, shall we say, challenging up until Wednesday as did getting in and out of the car, still I have no one to blame but myself. With hindsight I should have endured a little more pain on the finish line instead and gone through an extended stretching routine rather than the “ow it hurts, it hurts, that’s enough!” one, so let’s call that lesson #1, I’ll list the others below.

2. Think about the mileage your bag will be at when packing it; I packed it pretty well with “may need” items but on the day what I really needed was a fresh tasting drink, the Amino Vital around mile 42 would have helped earlier in the race along with more of it at that station
3. On the drink front I need to find and way of freshening up Perpetuem; maybe mixing it with a gel will help, I just read that you can mix the gels to get extra flavors; raspberry/chocolate or vanilla/coffee, sounds like a fun night in?
4. I need to try the Perpetuem paste theorem; here you fill a small, think 6 oz bottle, full of Perpetuem in a batter consistency and then chase it with water, so maybe a handheld of water and one of drink would work, the problem is that to trial this you need 16+ mile runs
5. Ensure is a great source of calories but only take one bottle at a time; I think taking two at once caused my stomach sensitivity
6. My race vest is always heavy, it’s packed with all sorts of bits and pieces but most of the weight comes from the water, I could drop a lot of weight if I ditched the water.
7. I could actually ditch the whole vest on the last leg or switch to my lighter race vest, the same goes for out and backs where I pass through the same station twice
8. The Hammer products worked well but I need to be more consistent with them, I stopped taking them when my stomach was icky, around mile 30 and I should have least kept taking the Endurolytes, my face was caked with salt by the time I finished
9. Turn off the moving time function on my Forerunner and use the stopwatch one only; this threw off my timing calculations for the first 30 miles as I forgot to allow for the time lost at the stopping at aid stations

This week I have bee re-reading Mark Vestegen’s book Core Performance Endurance and I can see where there are a lot of chinks in my amour that this can fill. I have been looking at the races that are open for me later in the year and there are a couple of ones that appeal Mt Disappointment in August is one and the Sierra Nevada Endurance Run in September is another, the latter gives me an extra 6 weeks so it has more attraction and it also gets me onto the trails of WSER which is not a bad thing either. But first I need to address the ITB and core. So for the next 6-8 weeks I’ll be laying the foundations for those and working on my running base with the remaining time working up to race day. I am going to tear apart my last training program and redesign it, as mentioned previously it’s too long for me and it needs to be paired down, I’ll post it once I have put it together. I’ve enjoyed the week off, kind of, but now it’s back to business!