Ragnar - the prep day!

It's here! Rangar is tomorrow! I wasn't sure how the big vacation and then Ragnar less than two weeks later was going to work. It helps that this is the 4th time i'll be captaining this team and am going into the run portion with the idea of getting a solid workout in instead of going for time. Still. I woke this morning AWAKE and ready to get it all done. I'd left more things to do today (day off from work) than i usually would have but I'm sure it'll be fine.  

Most importantly, I went out to breakfast with my mom and cooked another interesting rice bar to try at the relay. The breakfast was a cherry oat pancake with a nice berry additions from the berry bar. Yes, the berry bar. Yum. The pancake was tart and very tasty. 

the rice bar is a food zone portable of sushi rice, egg, bacon, almond butter, almonds, chopped dried apricot with just  a hint of dried ground ginger. I'm looking forward to trying it as it is not sweet. Generally there are too many options for sweets at an event like Ragnar and i am always craving the salty. yay for bacon! The original recipe is a bacon cashew rice bar but i was out of cashews and i thought the ginger would be a nice addition. it calls for raisins but since i'm not a fan, dried apricots will do. 

The handoff

Friends are off to do a fun trail race this weekend. Hmm.  Why yes, I had just made a batch of Feed Zone banana rice muffins (flavored with additions of salt, garam masala and added sweet potato) and had stuck them in the freezer.  They will go to a good home this weekend! Trail fuel for friends. Good Luck! I'm envious. I've always wanted to do this race.  Ahh, trail dreaming. 

Evergreen Grand Ridge Trail Half Marathon

Notice the dirt marks on right - wipeout!

I'd signed up for this race a couple months ago thinking it would be nice to get a supported long run in on trails before the goal 25k one month later. Grand Ridge Trail is one of my favorites - easily accessible, usually pretty quiet and nicely runnable.  

Then a good friend of mine contacted me asking if I were free this weekend. She was flying into town for a meeting and was hoping we could meet up with her.  Of course! this friend doesn't get out to Seattle too often.  We had ballet tickets saturday evening as well so it was no trouble to get another ticket.  Her flight landed early afternoon at SeaTac and she was staying downtown. Lightrail is a great way to get downtown and she'd never taken this one. It would be great if i could meet her at the airport and sheppard her back to her hotel.  It would give us a chance to catch up.  

Oh yeah. That race. I checked previous half marathons on trails and figured I'd be 3+ hours if I were just running this course very easily.  But the previous trail halves were on more challenging courses (Cougar Mountain and Soaring Eagle) and I thought i could be finishing right at 3 hours.  THAT would work. I could get back home, shower and eat and head out to catch bus/light rail to the airport. 

And I looked up the course before the race and realized there was more elevation than I expected. 3 hours? I suddenly got very nervous thinking I'd really have to push the pace to be done on time.  All the logistics of the rest of the day (meeting up for dinner with K and my mom and then heading off to the ballet) started to make me anxious.  Would it work out?

With a race start at 9 am, i had time to sleep in, get breakfast and get off to the trail head with plenty of time. I'd prepared clothing, my running pack and post running gear the night before. I'd planned to be there before 8:30 figuring parking would be pretty tight. I didn't want to have to park too far away.  After I finished, i needed to be gone quick!  The weather, which had been spectacularly crappy the day before, cleared. It was cooler (40s) but not raining. It was breezy but we were mostly protected once up on the ridge.

We started right on time and I breathed a sigh of relief about that.  I'd done a half mile easy warm up.  We start on a slightly downhill rail trail before turning onto the brutal uphill trail. A little more of a warm up before starting that would only help.  I'd really planned to take this first uphill easily. No passing people and just staying easily moving up.  I'd started fairly far back too so that worked well. It was a comfortable pace climbing and soon we were onto the long downhill losing all the elevation we'd just gained.  I did make sure to pass people in here jsut stay at an even effort.

4 gels and 3 baked rice balls + 20 ounces of water

I'd read a great account of one woman's quest to conquer the Cascade 100 and was really struck by her fueling strategy of eating every 30 minutes.  And when things weren't quite feeling right, she upped that to every 20 minutes. The thought of a gel every 20 minutes makes me want to hurl but hey, if that is what your body needs, you do it.  I'd brought some of the handy dandy Feed Zone Portables baked rice balls and my usual favored gels.  I'd planned on eating a gel at least every 50 minutes and supplementing with a rice ball as needed. I carried 30 ounces of water.

And at 30 minutes, i was already feeling i needed something so i got out a rice ball and worked on eating it.  I was also testing how these worked if not fresh. I'd made a batch last week and froze the extras.  Freezing them does change the texture and frankly makes them harder to eat in a race situation. It would be fine for a training run but not for a race. 

At mile 3, i was really questioning continuing. It's a tough start with this course and I debated how hard i was working for pace. I was maintaining under 13 minute miles and started trying to the do the math.  13 miles at 13 minutes per mile equals what? Give me a piece of paper and a pen, sure i can figure it but can't in my head.  I passed the turn off to the shorter distance race and decided I would check this figure at the aid station coming up at 4 miles.  It's fun running in here anyway. We'd finally climbed up to the ridge and were starting my favorite section on a long out and back.

At the aid station, i pulled out my phone and opened the calculator app.  13 mpm times 13 miles equals 169 minutes divided by 60 minutes equals 2.8 hours.  YES!  The course would probably be a bit long on my watch and my pace at mile 4 with the worst climbs and drops done was at 12:45. I could do this.  And i started back up having grabbed a couple potato chips at the aid station and felt more relaxed.

The miles went pretty quickly. I had the rice ball at 30 minutes, a gel at 50 minutes. Rice ball at 1:15 and another gel at 1:30. Conditions were pretty good. We started hitting the returning runners for the 50k/marathon and eventually the half marathoners.  The trail is fairly wide but it did require paying attention so as not to impede any incoming runner plus maintaining a good running line on the sometimes rocky trail.

I got behind a gal who was running very steadily this long downhill before the 7.75 turnaround.  I tried not to crowd her as i didn't want to push here.  The trail drops off pretty quickly and I knew the climb back out would feel impossible if I ran too hard now.  Plus we hit a couple areas where the mud was really, really slick.  Soon enough the turnaround came abruptly into sight just around a turn.  it was just a sign saying "turn around" and a couple jugs of water with little cups.  No table and only self serve for getting water.  There would be no room to put any table anyway.  I laughed at this and took myself and my running pack with water right back around.  The gal i'd been pacing with never caught back up.

The back towards the finish went quickly.  I felt strong and kept moving and monitoring eating and drinking. I'd walk sections of up but would still pass the occasional person doing this.  I had my last gel at 2:20 and figured i was just over 2 miles away from the finish. I wanted to make sure i was fueled for the last steep downhill mile.  I was pretty happy here as I knew I'd be able to be on my way back home by noon.

that last mile is always pretty amazing.  We'd climbed up this same trail but in a line of trail runners hiking steadily. It always looks completely different running quickly downhill.  It's rocky at times but a very runnable downhill and just when i saw the last tiny section before it connects to the rail trail, i tripped.  ARrgh!  My calf threatened to cramp so I bolted back up and started right back running. I also took a bow for the dad and kids waiting around here.  No need to pretend it didn't happen. It surely did but that's ok.  Falling is part of trail running but I failed in my second goal.  No falls!  Next time then, I'll get that goal.

It's a slight uphill back to the finish for a half mile and always seems to go on forever. I could see the marathoners heading out for their second loop and was really happy that was not me.  One gal heading towards the finish was limping along very badly.  I checked with her if she was ok and she assured me that she would make it.

I hit the finish line at 2:44 and was delighted. I got a quick bowl of chile, chatted with someone who'd said "Hi Axxxxx" to me along the trail which caused some puzzlement as i'd not recognized him and headed to my car happy and satisfied.

I ended up 8th in 10 year age group. 3rd if you factor in the 5 year increments.  I'm delighted. Only a couple of minorly bruised knees and slightly bruised hands from the fall.  This upcoming week is a rest week and that will be good. 

And it ended up being a wonderful rest of the day meeting up with the friend, dinner and then ballet.  I'm really glad i got to do the longer distance at this trail race. It's a fantastic event. 

More baked rice ball

 

Why yes, i do have a long trail race this coming weekend.  So I made more baked rice balls this weekend to sample on the run. the peach coconut rice ball just tasted like sweet rice.  Nothing wrong with that but not really much flavor. Pumpkin curry is a huge win!  Very, very tasty.  And because I am pretty lazy when it comes to making perfectly sized little balls of rice, i had a brain wave and got out the trusty ice cream scoop. We use these for cookie dough too so have a couple different sizes.  The top one pictured is a typical ice cream scoop. the lower two are used for cookie dough.  So much easier!  

It's still be a bit challenging to wrap. I've been using just plastic wrap twisted but in my pack, they come untwisted and pop out.  I'll try a bit of tape over the twist this weekend for the run.  

Real food on the run

On the longer trail run Sunday, i wanted to try some real food instead of gels. Why? for longer trail runs, i just get very tired of gels and stop eating. That is bad! So I was recommended a book called Feed Zone Portables.  This is a Date and Almond Baked Rice Ball and I also made a Potato and Sweet Ginger version. Very tasty!  Each ball is about a 100 calories with a sweet/savory taste. There are endless variations and lots of other interesting recipes to try in the book plus some solid facts about nutrition and fueling for endurance activities.  I can't wait to try various other recipes. 

Mixing it up

I'll admit it.  The last thing I like to do during the summer is come home and do any strength training.  It's hot out, I've walked up the hill from the bus and i'm sweaty. I need to set hoses to water or cook or go run track!  The last thing i like doing is doing strength training workouts and when i do them, i slack off in the summer.  There are too many other things to do.

I need that strength training though so what to do? Hey!  A new Barre3 studio opened up close to me.  What is a barre workout?  There are various types (barre method, barre3, lotte berk method) and all seem to use a ballet barre, isometric holds and light weights to strengthen.  It's hard to describe.  I was pretty happy that the class i tried didn't really have a cardio component.  I've got that already!  This doesn't mean i wasn't breathing hard or sweating though.  No, my legs were shaking and my arms were burning with effort.  One of my van mates at Ragnar said that she has found that the barre workouts do the best for her to keep knee and hip injuries at bay.  And judging by the one class which targeted glutes until they were screaming for mercy, i'd agree!  It was fun and I'd do it again. 

It's been great weather this summer and it's been fun to get out on my bike with K.  I'd run many times in Discovery Park but had never biked there.  After a nice walk through the locks on our bikes, we found some huge hill to go up by accident.  That left my legs quivery!  I resisted the granny gear but just barely made it up.  This also gave me a chance to try a new type of fueling on the ride.  The Feed Zone Portables comes from testing on the Tour de France and other major bike events.  Turns out that if you feel rider of long multi-stage bike rides crappy junk, they feel pretty crappy and soon don't want to eat that stuff.  You don't eat when biking?  Bad things happen!  So they set about finding easily cooked, easily digestible ingredients that taste good.

Coconut rice bar with blueberries & chocolate

I tried a blueberry chocolate rice bar made out of cooked rice flavored with coconut milk, sugar and salt and mixed with fresh blueberries and chocolate.  it was super tasty, easy to eat and make. I had one when riding and had one a couple times as a snack at work. It is mild tasting for a snack at work and tastes much better when out on the bike. Freezing it did change the texture and consistency.  Freezing caused it to fall apart easily which makes it a bit harder to eat on the bike and taste was a bit less fresh but still perfectly acceptable.  I cannot wait to try a savory recipe.  I cannot wait to try these on long trail runs too.