When I created my profile on runkeeper and ran my first steps with my iPhone strapped on my arm (in April 2010), my profile goal said “I want to run a half marathon again”. 110 (recorded) running sessions in 18 months later (one third of which in the last 2.5 months) I finally did it. I successfully ran the 23.5km back from work last Friday afternoon!
Now my RunKeeper profile says “I want to ramp up to a marathon… and beyond”. We’ll see how that turns out :]
After the 10k Wolfsrun last saturday, I could not help myself and went back out to see if I really was able to run a 10K again after so long. If I believe my runkeeper logs, I ran a bit more than 11 kms – at an acceptable pace – which makes it now officially official: I can run again without feeling that weird pain in my feet!!!
Of course, running 20km in just a few days interval after so long did have its take on my legs and calves so I had to cool off a little after that. My muscles are going to need some more time to get used to the distance in my new running form. But I already feel like going for a run twice daily and that. feels. damn. good. I have to watch out for not overdoing it (here’s a serie of articles about volume control that I have to study carefully).
Long story short, I start to dream of running the half-marathon I had to drop off from 4 years ago… and more! Oh boy that feels good!
First of all, and because I realized how unspectacular the sand hill picture montage looked like… and because Mr.T (a colleague of mine) provided me with this wonderful “other side of the hill” picture! Here’s how it looked like from… the other side of the hill (warning: this post is sponsored by “Whining&Co” and “SelfCentric AG”). This hill came right after the second muddy-pond, which came right after the aid-station.
This now said, you can understand how I looked like when I finally set foot on some finally-flat ground after climbing the above-described hill… and how I looked like jogging down from it! At those times, the only thing I thought of was my running form, stance and the way I landed my feet on the gravely road in order to clear my head of the negative-thoughts.
Another place where MrT. got a shot at me was at the aid station in the middle of the 5km loop. Looking at the clown face picture and the one where I’m busy thinking “fuck this shit, what am I doing here” you can imagine those were taken at 2.5 and 7.5km… but no. In fact those were taken at a few moments interval… and the clown face is obviously the fake one!!!
After that, it was just running, thinking only about the next obstacle and my running stance. But just for the scenery of it, here’s my arrival at the end of the race, climbing up the very last hill toward the finish line… too absorbed by making-just-another-step too realize that it’s almost over :]
All in all, did I say the race was great? And it made me break the 10km limit for the first time since almost 3 years (but that’s another story to come). I’ll be there next year… if not earlier ;]
This weekend marks a milestone in my “running career”. After a tad more than a thousand days off, I finally took part in an official race again (the last one was the Winter Waldlauf in Erlangen on the 1st of April 2008): the Wolfsman Run in Zirndorf… and it was gooood :]
Let’s put this straight: this-is-no-normal-race. Following the example of the so called Warrior Dash or Tough Mudder or Strongman Run, the Wolfsman run is an a new obstacle race that happened for the first time this weekend in Zirndorf, near Nürnberg. The race is simple: 56 obstacles (28 per loop) going from sand hills to mud ponds, beton tubes to crawl inside, haystacks to climb, tires stacks to stumble into, rivers to cross, metal containers to climb up and down, jumps over all kind of obstacles and of course constant ups and down hills (part of the race took place on a motocross loop) etc. all this spread over a 10 kilometer race that you should run as fast as you can.
The start was done in two phases: the alpha wolves start (solo race) first and the pack start (people racing in groups of 5 and helping each other) 20 min later. The race was built of two 2.5 km loops that crossed at the starting point and that you had to run twice. That means that you had to do each obstacle twice… but also that the race was at most a few hunderd meters away from the starting point and that you had almost always people cheering on the side of the track.
The race started nicely… for the first 200m. After stepping onto some tree logs, we went down 10 m to climb them back-up almost instantly (this actually became a constant: whenever the track could go down, they made us storm down, turn 180° and climb back up right away). A few mud ponds later, we reached the the first artificial hills: 5m drop of sand followed by some beton tubes to crawl into (outch my knees) and a 10 m sand hill to climb back up (there was a rope on the side to pull yourself up, and thus preserve some of the energy you might still need for later – but still some people did not want to wait a bit for a free spot on the rope and crawled their way up in the sand… some of which paid that dearly afterwards). Then came the river (100 m running in 20 cm water), the tractor-tires-stacks and the first pond (breast deep with about knee deep light mud at the bottom to prevent you from walking correctly in there). After climbing on some containers, crawling under an army truck, climbing two cars and crawling under a laid-flat fence we finally reached the first aid-station… which means the first 2.5km were over.
This is me coming out of the aid station… surprisingly alone… nobody to see either in front of me and in my back. I even wondered if I took a wrong turn somewhere.
At the end of this downhill path came another pond. This one was nicer, way less mud, way easier to walk into. Following the pond came another sand hill. No rope this time. I could have stormed it up, but I prefered to get down on all fours and climb it slowly while trying not to burn too much energy. After that, the track got nicer for about a kilometer ; some grass and then 1/2 a kilometer on a street. That’s when I noticed that my shoes (5fingers) were full of sand.
Speaking of shoes, it was also the first official race with my 5fingers ; and the longest run with them was well. Everything went fine and I’m very happy I ran with them instead of some running shoes. There were quite a few other VFFs in the race. I noticed a small dozen. I think the VFFs must have felt lighter after being soaked in water, mud and sand. But on the other hand, some paths were really stony and I had to constantly pay attention where I step, bend my knees and be ready to drop in case I landed on a bad stone.
The rest of the loop was not so fun. A few mud slopes that forced me to walk up. Tractor tires to crawl through and were really “edgy” for the knees. Another knee deep pond to rush through. An uphill crawl that was not fun at all (specially during the second loop when the earth was now completely wet) and a hay stack that almost broke my leg (my foot landed between the hay and the rope holding it while I was climbing down – thankfully I was being cautious and I did not thrown my self forward too hard… so I could twist my leg when I realized I was being blocked). Other than that I came back safely to the start and at the second aid station, ready to start it all over again. That was 5km.
The second loop was a bit calmer ; at least I was not disturbed by anyone on the obstacles, I could take my time on some of them (when you have to climb up a ladder and try not to trip on something before jumping 2m down in a sand bucket for instance ; somehow, this goes very well when you’re fresh, but becomes a bit harder when you cannot think straight anymore). I used the short running pieces to concentrate on my running form, try to get my pulse back to a reasonable pace and try to feel my body to see if – closing on the 7km – my feet problems would come back.
The second part of the second loop was the hardest, but I had some reserves. I think I would have had enough for a third loop – endurance wise – but the explosive part of me wasn’t there anymore. Over the last kilometers, I was rejoined by two runners, which finished a few seconds before me. You cannot see it, but on the left picture here under but you had to climb up a 10m steep hill to reach the finish line… that killed my finishing sprint… but not my smile :]
All in all, the race was really fun. Lots of nice persons running and helping on the side. Nice people at the aid stations. Very nice track ; I mean not nice for the heart, but very well designed so that each could get his own tempo and that almost nowhere I had to come to a halt before an obstacle. I also had a top notch supportive team consisting of MrsV, her brother, her father and a colleague of mine (two of the above will be partaking next year I can tell you – they already regretted not participating this year)!
About the results, I took part in the alpha race and finished 41/204 with a very honest 67 min. I did not have any feet issues and was very happy to run in 5fingers! That was the good choice. Here’s a mug-shot of me right after the finish: muddy, wet, smelly but happy and with already a beer in the hand :]
Rendez-vous next year Wolfsman, we might even have a pack of colleagues by then!
That’s what I heard in an interview of Eric Orton on the ultrarunner podcast this morning.
A few years ago, while introspecting my running form, I wondered if the simple fact that when I was a kid I was way faster (and lighter… and way more athletic) than I am now could be the only reason for the foot trouble I am (was?) observing now. Could it be that my running form was “ok” back then (or at least “less bad”) and that it simply got worse as soon as I put on some weight, changed my shoes to have more cushion and (as I found it back in one of my blog post – in french – from 2007) started heelstriking like hell (and I though it was good… or so it seems).
There seem to be some truth in it… but the future only will tell.
Happy running!