My First Homebrew Competition: First Steps

I have entered and judged at a fair few homebrew competitions over the years. Now that I'm an official BJCP judge I have the opportunity to organize one for a local organization that has been planning to do one for a few years but didn't know where to start or have someone willing to do it.
I'm still waiting on final signoff, but I anticipate that will be coming soon and I can start organizing for judging to happen in August 2015.
Entries will likely be restricted to Colorado residents. The number of entries will be determined by how many judges we get lined up, but I would like to shoot for approximately one hundred. I'm also going to encourage our judges to use an electronic scoresheet method that I have in the works. It won't be a requirement, but I would like to get at least one table of judges using it to see how it goes.

Moab Goal

I decided to set a second attempt at the Moan 100 this March as a major target for this spring. In discussing this with a fellow Fitizen I was prodded to share my plan making process.
First, where was I at? I'd been running, but without much focus and without as much consistency as I should. No excuses, I just hadn't had my act together.
To get to Moab and feel confident of being able to finish, I want to hit at least one 50+ mile long run before the race. Preferably two. Three would be ideal.
So how do I figure out if that's feasible? Experience mostly. I have an 'aggressive' training plan template that I have used in the past that I know from experience won't land me an injury. For lack of a better name I call it the 10/20 plan.
The 10 is for the 10% rule. I keep my weekly training mileage increases to 10% or less. This is a good, safe, general rule of thumb for runners in general. The few times I've knocked myself out with an injury were when I ignored this rule.
The 20 is for 20%, which is the maximum amount I will increase my long run per week. This loads the bulk of my weekly mileage to my weekend long runs, enabling me to extend my mileage aggressively and keeping my midweek runs shorter so I can recover better. I'll run three to four days other than my long run, with one or two of those being intense speed work.
So, I set a plan for a very easy first week then applied the 10/20 to ensuing weeks and found that I should be able to get in a couple 50+ milers, with regular easy weeks sprinkled in.
As a result, my weekly long runs will climb thus:
7.2
8.6
10.2
12.2
14.6
...

While my weekly mileage will climb:
16.2
17.8
19.5
21.5
23.7
...

This isn't an approach I recommend for others. I built up to trying it in the past so I know that as long as I'm smart and listen to my body, I can take this approach just fine.
The other important thing about this plan is that because it is so aggressive, if something goes bad and I miss a week, I'm probably screwed.
For this reason, it's good to have a backup plan so your training efforts don't feel 'wasted'. Moab has a 50k (31 mile) race held at the same time as the 100. In truth, this is a much more realistic goal, but if everything goes right, then the 100 is a very real possibility. I'm in better shape than I was when I made my first attempt at Moab and I learned a whole lot from that first experience on the slickrock.

Celebration VI: Day II

We got a later start on Friday as there wasn't anything we had planned for early on Day II.
We caught some of the Droid races, which were a bit disappointing from our vantage point to be honest. It was more of what I would call a skills challenge than an actual race. We also didn't have the beat view, which likely didn't help.
My sister-in-law and I went to a workshop for "Planning Your Star Wars Wedding", which was pretty amusing and interesting. A few of the highlights:
Drunkenmoogle.com - for scifi/fantasy alcoholic drinks
Whengeekswed.com - self explanatory
Never underestimate the value of child labor
I got some great photos on Friday as well, including Wooliees, Vader and a pretty awesome Mara Jade. I also picked up some souvenirs and Nils bought Star Wars (Original Trilogy) Trivial Pursuit, which he gave to me for the lightsaber I bought him.
After the convention, we headed back to our 'cabin' at Fort Wilderness and headed to the pool to relax for the evening

Celebration VI: Day I

CelebrationVI Day 1 summary:
Got to the convention center right around opening, though it took a while to find our way around and get in since my brother, in his Mandalorian Merc armor had to get his blaster checked out. Lightsabers, as elegant weapons from a more civilized era, did not need to be checked.
The hall was packed, like the world's biggest toystore devoted all to Star Wars. There were three different Lego areas, a huge (and expensive) autograph area, lasertag... Well, you can read about all that on the site.
Nils and I wandered around a bit, checking out toys, shirts and prices while waiting for my brother and his wife. We finally met up with them at the Mercs area where my brother was in his element. He posed for pictures with kids and adults in his armor and hung out with other mercs for most of the morning. Meanwhile, Nils, my sister-in-law Arielle and myself wandered around the exhibits, taking photos, posing with other fans, picking up free shwag and drinking in the atmosphere.
We had few solid plans for the day. One was for my brother to get Peter Mayhew's autograph, which we did in the early afternoon. The other was seeing Fanboys, with the writer and director there.
If you aren't familiar with Fanboys, it's about, obviously, Fanboys of Star Wars. It was highly anticipated, but never really saw much of a release. It is essentially a theatrical homage to Star Wars and its fanbase and is a lot of fun whether you are a fan or just know other fans.
The day wrapped up with my brother going off to a Mercs dinner with his wife while Nils and I went to see Expendables 2, which was as epically bad as it looked... So it was a lot of fun.
And now... Day II.

Fitocracy and throwing down the gauntlet

Fitocracy.com is this really great website for "gamifying" fitness. You log and track workouts of all sorts, then the game system applies point values to your workout. The workouts can be weight routines, running, dance, even things like taking the stairs. The site was created by a couple if formerly out-of-shape geeks who found it easier to make fitness fun by thinking of it as leveling up their lives. There are quests and achievements to chase which provide bonus points as well as badges to show off your prowess.

It's a great site for encouraging people to get fit and the social network aspect builds support and encouragement. Personally I've found it to be great motivation to actually track my workouts, as well as encouragement to branch out and try some weights or yoga or other new activities.

The latest feature is the ability to challenge other members to duels. You pick a length of time and see who can run the most miles, lift the most weight or earn the most points during that time period.

This has been a great new tool and has created a lot if excitement on the site. Personally, I've taken the opportunity to throw down the gauntlet against one of the biggest names in running on the site, fellrnr, for a monthlong running mileage challenge. Fellrnr, aka Jonathan Savage, is an ultrarunner of no small skill. He cranks out marathon mileage like most people crank out three milers. I may be the first person to have the nerve to take him on. Realistically, I don't have a snowball's chance, but I think the daunting challenge will provide some kickstarting motivation to take my running up a notch or ten. And who knows what could happen in a month... there are few things I relish as much as a challenge!

The Mazer Cup International

This past Friday and Saturday the Mazer Cup International was held here in Boulder, Colorado. The MCI is one of the biggest mead competitions in the world, that it's held practically in my backyard is pretty exciting. That I was able to get Friday off from work to judge meads at the competition meant exactly one thing... it was Mead-mas!

it's hard to know exactly where to start with the Mazer Cup. I guess the question of how I came to be judging is as good a place as any. While I've been studying for the Mead judge's certification of the Beer Judging Certification Program (BJCP) and have made a point of tasting and evaluating every new mead I come across on top of my sampling of my 30+ batches of my own mead, I didn't expect to be accepted when I volunteered to judge due to the fact that I haven't yet taken the MJCP. Two things played in my favor though. The first is that scheduling an MJCP exam is apparently quite a challenge, so many judges don't have the certification. Secondly, through a combination of illness and other unfortunate circumstances the MCI was short on judges so being available locally on short notice played out in my favor.

That said, in spite of my lack of certification, I think I acquitted myself quite admirably and the conversations I had with the other judges supported that, as I was able to pick out flaws, subtle flavors and give the sort of helpful feedback that I would have expected to receive myself from the other judges for my own mead. It can be a lot harder to objectively judge something you have labored over yourself.

Friday was the commercial competition and I spent the morning judging braggots, which are a beer/mead combination. many of the beer components were barrel aged, which is popular in brewing these days. And for good reason as it adds a lot of great complexity to the flavors of both mead as well as beer. The highlight was a triple barrel aged braggot composed of a stout made with caramelized raisins aged in whiskey barrels, an American brown ale with plums aged in a French merlot barrel and a wildflower honey aged in an oak barrel. Simply put, it was spectacular. Not surprisingly, it went on to take gold.

That afternoon I moved on to tasting sack strength dessert meads. There were a lot of entries and the alcohol content was high so we took our time, but ultimately we came across a mead made with Polish buckwheat honey that was just... amazing. It was everything you could ask for in the style, sweet without being cloying, with a great alcohol/sweetness balance and wonderful complexity to the flavor of the honey.

Finally I wrapped up the evening with a set of dry traditionals which were quite good, but as I'm not much of a fan of dry meads none of them stood out so well for me as the other categories.

When day one was over though, I was left tempering the expectations for my own entries for the homebrew competition. While I really enjoyed my own meads, they didn't have the technical nuance that most of the meads I had sampled possessed.

Saturday was the homebrew portion of the competition, which is when things got more interesting. For one thing, I had to stay alert to make sure I didn't end up judging my own categories. For another, some of the homebrew submissions were... less than stellar. Usually the problem with these was that there was something wrong with the process, such as bottles that hadn't been properly rinsed before bottling (one tasted like Dawn detergent, yikes!). On the other hand, many of them were very adventurous in ways the commercial entries weren't. Some examples include meads made with peppers, and meads aged in bacteria infected barrels to produce sour flavors. Almost every entry provided lessons on things to do and things not to do.

On top of all the meads though, were the people. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that meadmakers are the nerdy oddballs of the brewing community, and that's ceainly not a knock as I'm a nerdy oddball myself. There were a lot of folks from the new England area, which was really great to see, and a lot of volunteers from the nearby area. There were entries, and entrants in attendance, from Canada, Sweden, Slovakia, Germany and Poland and I found myself with a group from Poland and Germany at the awards reception dinner. I dusted off my few remaining Polish phrases from my visit eight years ago (I can't believe it was that long ago) and generally tried to get to know them, which is tricky in such situations.

Soon enough though, it was time for the awards to be presented and for the anxiety in the room to step it up a notch...

Muscle Restoration Therapy

I've been off my running game for the last several months due to an injury that I recently acknowledged was plantar fasciitis. Yup, the dreaded PF. Pretty sure I got it as a result of ignoring some of the cardinal rules of running by adding too much mileage too fast and not giving myself adequate recovery time. Stupid things to do and I ought to know better.

I DO know better, I just didn't listen.

After a chance encounter with Mark Van Akkeren I decided, on his advice, to see Josh Shadle at Tri-Massage (http://tri-massage.com) for some treatment. Mark warned me to bring something to bite down on for the treatment, boy do I wish I had listened.

Josh began by asking me about my problem and the symptoms, and what had been done to treat them. I'd been doing plantar stretches, calf stretches, foot massage with a plastic spiky ball the size if a golfball and icing my foot.

Then he moved on to a series of muscle tests to determine where the weakness in my musculature was that caused the PF.  He found the deficiency pretty fast and began to, painfully, loosen up the affected areas.

The problem, he explained, isn't my calf or the sole of my foot (which he barely touched). Those are symptoms. The calf muscle was overworking due to another imbalance on the outside of my lower leg. The muscles and ligaments there were weak and tight and not doing their job, so other parts of my leg picked up the slack and got overworked.

He loosened up and activated the tight, weak areas and showed my some self-massage to do frequently throughout the day to keep them loose and active.

And that was that. Do the self-massage and I should be fine. No follow up should be necessary. If it's not feeling better in a few weeks, go back for some more deep massage, but usually that's not needed.

But Josh, when can I start running again? Any time. The next day if I like. Running should help strengthen the now loosened and activated musculature. Just take it easy, be smart and do the self-massage often. Ten times a day or more.

I'll admit to being slightly skeptical. It couldn't really be that simple, could it? But this morning the pain in my foot was significantly reduced. My leg feels like hell from the massage, but that's not unexpected, I've had deep tissue massage before and I know the price. If this is the price for health and running, I'll pay it any day.

Muddy Mesa fun

Recently my Saturday run has been up south on Ninth, then along the Mesa Trail in Chautauqua. It makes for a hell of a climb to start and Mesa is a great place for 'quick feet'.
Last week my 90 minute run brought me a respectable 7.5 miles. When I was finished though, I knew I had more in the tank and vowed to get to 8 miles in the same time this week.
In between this week and last, there was the small matter of the first snowstorm of the year here in Boulder. Twelve inches of snow fell, turning Mesa trail into a snowy, icy, slushy, muddy mess.
In spite of this, I still managed to pull off 8.04 miles in the trail nastiness... and I still felt spectacular. Next time I do that route, I'll see if I can push it to nine miles instead.
I also decided to take some video of my feet during one of the descents, being curious to see them myself. I've also posted the video for your viewing amusement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm5vN99lnew&feature=youtube_gdata_player

My loss

I don't normally talk about personal stuff here. Running, architecture, cycling, mead making, n+1... these things are important to me in their way, especially running, but they're not personal. This isn't that type of blog.

Today is an exception. I've felt the pull to share this for a while, and I've decided that ignoring that pull is just not healthy.

So...

A couple months ago my grandmother passed away. 

She had been sick for several months and went downhill quickly and suddenly. So suddenly that in spite of moving up my flight to visit her twice in the 4 days before I flew out, by the time I arrived she had been asleep for a while. In the 24 hours that ensued, I barely left her bedside, I stayed awake all night waiting and hoping she would wake up long enough for me to at least tell her that I love her. She never did, and she passed away right before I left. I'm no stranger to death, I worked in a nursing home as a CNA for a year. I got to know death better than I would ever want or choose. I sat there and saw her draw that last breath... I saw it and in seeing it I knew it would be her last.

My grandmother was a paragon of the loving grandmother stereotype. A feisty little old lady who let nothing slow her down. She knit and crocheted and taught all her grandkids to cross-stitch. She baked goodies, and gave warm, soft, loving hugs that could take away any hurt or pain in a moment. People would practically come to blows over batches of her fudge. She welcomed everyone into her home and wanted nothing more than to cook you a hot meal. The most important things to her were being a mother and a grandmother (and a great-grandmother). That was how she identified, it was who she was. So much so that in her last night, she called out in her sleep for my grandfather. Not by name, but rather, "Dad... Dad..."

She was not perfect. She was human. She would sometimes gossip unpleasantly and like many of her generation, some of her attitudes towards people who were different were outdated and unfortunate. Generally she was aware of this though, and tried not to impart those views on us.

I don't think I ever fully realized how truly special my relationship with my grandmother had been until that last visit to see her. One of my cousins, who had been practically raised by my grandmother, along with her sisters because their mother was divorced, came up to me and told me she was sorry she had always been so resentful of the special relationship I had with gram. I had no idea my cousin had been resentful or envious, and I hadn't realized until then just how special I had been to my grandmother.

I think back on my memories of her and the pain is sharp and hot and frightening, but I reach for them anyways. I think of her bringing me to the bus stop on my first day of kindergarten. I think my other grandmother was there as well, though I'm not totally sure. I remember her coming to my first half-ironman, my mother flew her out to Colorado and kept her to the shade of the 100 degree heat that day. Somehow Gram was the one who spotted me coming out of the water. A few years later she was cheering at my ironman... was that really just two years ago? I think about sitting next to her at the kitchen table in the morning, talking about school, work and my romantic trials and tribulations. She'd fill me in on how everyone was doing in the family... Tell me about bowling every Monday night (at 87 years old). I think about talking to her on the phone the last time and hearing her slipping away and her crying...

Every time I think about these things I feel like something inside of me breaks, and every time the pain is sharper instead of duller. Still, I go back to them because I miss her so badly. Even when she wasn't nearby, I knew she was there... and now she's not. All I want is to have her back.

The Name of the Metheglin

In my last post I mentioned a metheglin that was inspired by a well loved book. The book is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. In it, the protagonist is served a mug of metheglin, which he describes thus:

I took a drink from the tall tankard to give myself a chance to clear my wits, and something wonderful happened in my mouth: cool spring honey, clove, cardamom, cinnamon, pressed grape, burnt apple, sweet pear, and clear well water. that's all I have to say of metheglin. If you haven't tried it, then I am sorry I cannot describe it properly. If you have, then you don't need me to remind you what it is like.
 

Being a bit of a crazed mazer, I immediately decided I had to try making it. I did some research into how the various spices and fruits were used in other recipes to get a grasp on what proportions to start with, since I had done very little experimentation with spices before, and settled on a recipe. I put about a week into deciding this before finally going out and buying myself myself some high quality ingredients and went to work.

Mead is a product of patience, and I am not a creature of patience, so while it's been a fairly short wait for a mead, for me, it's been torturous and I've been half-convinced it was going to be a disappointing or even disastrous batch.

Last week I finally poured off an ounce to taste it since it had finally cleared. A bad batch? I couldn't have been more wrong. It was amazing. Certainly the most delicious thing I have brewed, probably the best mead I've ever tasted and maybe even the best thing I've ever tasted. Well, perhaps not, but I can't think of anything that compares, aside from my grandmother's fudge. I nursed that one ounce of metheglin for more than half an hour (the batch being only one gallon, I wanted to savor it).

 

That said, the batch wasn't perfect, or at least, not exactly what I was planning. The clove was a little stronger than I intended (though my fellow tasters enjoyed the clove) and it was overall sweeter than I had anticipated. The pear was almost indiscernible. The apple and cinnamon were right about where I wanted them, and I'm hoping that the cardamom will be more prominent once the clove is dialed back. Also, I forgot the grape entirely.

For all my nitpicking though, it is truly delightful and if I could never improve on what it is now, I would not mind in the least.

The only thing remaining was a name. With some of my meads, I've gone the amusing route for naming. My first batch was called the Hammer (in reference to a cult neo-classic musical video blog), one of my bacon recipes is Sir Francis Bacon Mead. For others, I've opted for simple, such as Traditional Honey Wine or Apricot Mead. In this case I'm going to go slightly sentimental and name it in honor of the friend who introduced me to the book which inspired the recipe. 

The name of the metheglin is simply Meadow Wine.

Mead Update!

Since my last posting I've been a busy mazer! Let's get up to speed...

Bottled!

First was a pumpkin pie mead that I started last fall. It's a little dry for my taste, but I've got quite the sweet tooth and i think it makes a nice break from my other sweeter meads. It's got a wonderful spicy aroma and bite to it. For that batch I made pumpkin pie filling from scratch and used that in the must.

I also bottled a traditional sweet mead, basically The Hammer but less sweet and less alcoholic.

Secondary!

I haven't moved anything too exciting to secondary, though I do have a quartet of one gallon batches that are ready for bottling. These include a peppermint mead, a saffron mead, an apple cinnamon mead and a metheglin inspired by a favorite novel of mine. The first two varieties are tastily dry, while the other two have been back-sweetened to taste. The metheglin is quite exquisite if I do say so myself.

Primary!

There have been a couple exciting new experiments slipping into primary. One is a show mead, which is a mead that uses just water, honey and yeast. No nutrients, cleansers or any other additives. It's very slow in brewing, but I'm excited about how it will go.

Another batch I'm particularly excited about is a batch of hops and hibiscus inspired by Viking Blod mead, a delicious Danish mead that I've had on a couple occasions.It started off as a 2 gallon batch but I think it will have to expand to 5 gallons because the hops and hibiscus are currently quite a bit stronger than I had intended. That said, it's still pretty tasty.

Apricot Mead

I've ben working on a troublesome Apricot mead for quite some time for a friend of mine. It fermented slowly (somewhat by design), was bitter, wouldn't clear... It's been a very tricky batch.

The clarifying has been my recent bane. I've re-racked it two or three times to get it to clear, heck, even just trying to get all the apricot chunks out. This past Sunday I decided to re-rack it again. To say this mead was not pretty, would be an understatement. Ugly would be a good description. It was a yellowish, milky color and it still had chunks of apricot in it. Overall it looked like something that had curdled and gone bad.

I siphoned the mead off, using a fine net as a filter (which I had done before with this same batch) into a clean, sanitized five gallon carboy. Then I added a clarifier, Kwik Kleer I believe, and tucked it away again. I always take the opportunity to taste a batch when I re-rack or do just about anything to it, but not this time. This wasn't a mead I wanted to look at, much less taste.

Little more than a day later, the transformation has been dramatic. Where before it was a milky brownish yellow. Now almost all the sediment has settled and it's been revealed as an absolutely beautiful warm chestnut color that's begging to be sampled. When I went to check on it, I wondered where I had put it because the change was so complete. I didn't believe that was really the apricot batch I had looked down on in disgust the day before.

It hasn't completely cleared yet, I'll give it a bit more time to finish, but the next time my friend is over we'll certainly be giving it a try.

Stuff I Love - Vibram Five Finger

There are few things that have made running more enjoyable for me than my Vibram Five Fingers.
Early in my running days, while living in Boston, I gave barefoot running a try. The less than savory city sidewalks brought that to a quick halt and I found myself wishing I could just paint a layer of protective rubber on the soles of my feet. When I finally saw a pair of Vibrams, many years later, I was  instantly smitten. It took a while to get a pair, but now I have three.

It would be difficult to get into the exact reasons why I love them so much without going into a long discussion about barefoot running. Suffice it to say that if you asked me who designed the better foot, Phil Knight with his waffle iron or thousands of years of Evolution, I side with Evolution. Vibram Five Fingers enable evolution's work to apply seamlessly in the modern world. They fit like a glove, shed water faster than you'd believe, they're light and warmer than you would expect. I even ran in slush in them with less discomfort than in other running shoes which hold water next to your skin. I have also found them to be absolutely amazing for blister prevention. Beyond amazing really.
 
One complaint I have is that they seem to get stinky faster than most shoes. Fortunately, tossing them in the laundry is also less of an issue than it would be with other running shoes.  The other potential drawback is that they stand out and draw a lot of attention. This isn't necessarily bad, but when I'm out on a run I don't want to have to stop and explain how much I like my shoes all the time.

If I didn't love them, I wouldn't run the hundreds of miles in them that I have.

Focus: In Running & Life

I happened to pick up an article today at lunch on Scott Jurek from a year ago. As it turned out, it was the somewhat infamous King of Pain article, which I had never read.

The underlying theme of the article was focus. Having it, losing it, and trying to regain it. It was a topic I could appreciate as I've been having trouble with my own focus lately. 

Focus is important in running. A loss of focus is a factor in non-running mind. Focus is what got me through my 400+ miles in February. The lack of focus, and an ensuing breakdown in mental discipline, I have determined to be the core of my letdown in Moab. I felt a slipping of my focus this past weekend at the Horsetooth Half. I've even felt the loss of focus recently in my professional work.

So, I've lost my focus, now what do I do about it? There are a few things that I find to be important to regaining focus, as I've had to do before. Or perhaps they're all different facets of one thing. 

The first thing is, as the song says, to accentuate the positive. Find those elements in life that bring focus to your life. If you've wandered away from those things, bring them back, but be careful of overdoing it.

Second, eliminate the negative. Are there specific things that are distracting you or breaking your focus? Find ways to deal with them, whether that's moving away from them or integrating them more healthfully into your life or some other approach.

Third, and probably most important, is balance. For me, life cannot be one completely driven, focused action. To focus well, I need parts of my life to be unfocused as balance to the focus.

This is all common sense stuff of course, but sometimes I find it helpful to go over the basics in order to move forward.

The positive: running is a great focus for me. It's there, it's trying to do its thing, but stuff is getting in the way. The negative: there's a lot of stress built up over my performance in Moab. This is making me more stressed about my upcoming events and compounding itself.

What drove the loss of focus at Moab itself though? Balance. Rather, imbalance. I don't think I gave myself the mental break after February that I needed. After a month of real intense mental and physical focus, I didn't really let up. The physical tension I've felt lately is mirrored mentally. I need to take time to relax mentally.

Another important element here is the realization that I've simply taken on too much lately. I've kept myself so busy that finding time to unwind simply hasn't happened.

The prescription? Simplify. Cut back some of the clutter that's getting in the way. Then take that free time and keep it free. Goof off, relax, unwind, and give myself the mental break that I need.

And try not to think about what will happen if I don't get that focus back in time for the Leadman.

Leadman Prep

The first event of the Leadman, the Leadville Marathon, is now just eleven weeks away, which means the final event of the Leadman, the Leadville Trail 100, is eighteen weeks away. Time is getting short!

In spite of my shortcomings in Moab, I remain confident that the 100 mile distance is within my grasp. The biggest challenges will be the hills and the altitude. I've been running Sanitas fairly regularly during the week to get stronger as a climber, I've certainly gotten faster, chopping seven minutes off my best time in the last two weeks.

I'm also going to work Bear Peak and Green Mountain into my weekend long runs, at least on those weekends when I'm not doing a race, as I did with the Horsetooth half this past Sunday.

So, until the Leadman is done, hills will be the name of the game. Short, intense hillwork during the week and long hills combined into my weekend long runs. Love them or hate them, I've got to embrace them.

An Ultrarunning Tale - 400 Miles of February

I wrote the following for the bi-monthly newsletter of the Boulder Triathlon Club. A few things to note, first, I ran almost the entire distance in Vibram five-fingers. The days I didn't wear them were so cold, slushy and nasty I considered trying to run in my snowshoeing boots, but almost 400 of my total miles came in Vibrams. Second, I finished with a grand total of 423 miles, good for fourth overall, though I consider it to be third. Some guy didn't log any miles until the last night. Imagine running a race and having someone pull off an invisibility cloak as he crosses the finish line five feet in front of you. It's a shady move.

Without further ado... An Ultrarunning Tale.

_______________________

I'm not fast.

Even before I moved to an area populated by the likes of Dave Scott, Tony Krupicka and Scott Jurek (who moved here in January) and which regularly plays long term host to people like Macca, Chrissie Wellington and the Japanese Olympic marathon team I knew that the likelihood of me placing, much less winning, in an individual athletic event was pretty low. Which is fine, I don't run or bike because I want to win, I do it because I love it. This particularly applies to running. I once commented to my grad school classmates that the only thing better than running is sex. Not the sort of comment you live down, but I still believe it.

Being less than gifted in the area of acceleration I was shocked last March to discover that I had placed thirteenth among men, sixteenth overall, in that year's run focus for the USAT Challenge. Sure, I had stepped up my training mileage after deciding to take a stab at running Leadville (an attempt that dissolved halfway through training), but I hadn't been pushing all that hard, had I? How did I manage to finish 16th out of 1200+ competitors? I stared at the rankings for a while baffled. I absent-mindedly did some quick math while looking at the leaders versus myself and found myself thinking an odd thought.

I could win this thing.

So while the run focus of the USAT challenge is not a race per se, the 2010-11 edition is the first athletic competition I've entered where I went in with the goal of winning. Anything less would be a disappointment. The 2010 winner had 350 miles, I targeted 400 as my goal. I didn't just want to win, I wanted to rock it and not have there be any doubt about it.

I wanted to rock it because 2011 is a huge running year for me. The USAT 400 is a target that I set both because I want to win it and because it will lay the foundation, partly physically but mostly psychologically, for the rest of my year. Even if I just get my 400 for the USAT and the miles from the races I plan to run this year I'll log over 900 miles on my feet. Coming into the year my calendar was blocked out for four 100 mile race, one 50 mile race and two marathons along with a handful of shorter races. The confidence from having run 400 miles in one month was something that I felt could really help me through all of that.

There was a catch though, the competition didn't open at all like I expected. One woman, Kathleen Brush, opened the month with almost 200 miles of running in the first week. Last year's winner, Hunter MacLean, also opened up extremely strong. Meanwhile I had decided to dial back my first two weeks a bit to avoid tipping my hand. I quickly realized that not only was that not going to work, but I was going to have to step up my mileage significantly. Looking at that first week's results rattled me and I had to come to grips with the fact that this competition, which I had set my heart on winning, might be out of reach.

A combination of that gut check, bad weather and allowing myself to get distracted by social engagements put my second week off to a poor start and I totaled only nine miles the first two days of the week. I managed to recover though with a strong weekend, I woke up feeling great on Sunday after doing 28 miles on Saturday, so I put in 13 more. I'd have gotten even more in that day, but a midday break to take care of some chores turned into an all afternoon hassle and I didn't get outside again.

Week three I opened with a roar, faded a bit in the middle due to some some soreness in my hip, then wrapped up with a 40 mile effort on Sunday. The hip soreness was troubling, but I was positive it was muscular as opposed to skeletal and a renewed emphasis on icing, and cold water baths after my runs kept it from returning. With week four about to dawn, I braced for war.

Maclean had been posting a ton of miles and wasn't showing much sign of letting up. I had been tracking his daily mileage and figured I had to average 30 miles a day just to catch him. Hopefully he was wearing down a bit while I was preparing to hit my big surge. I considered backing off, shooting for the 400 as I originally planned and having some semblance of a personal life the final eight days, not to mention some well deserved rest. However, with the way my friends and coworkers had been pulling for me, and with how badly I wanted this, I decided to keep going for it. By the end of the week though, it was clear that it wasn't going to happen. 

MacLean had put on a surge of his own and by Friday I figured I would need to average 40+ miles per day the last four days of the competition in order to catch him, he was on pace for 540 miles! To that point 40 miles had been my single day high for the month and while I had a 50 miler planned for Sunday, I knew I couldn't do 40 miles a day for 4 days, not as tired as I was and not with work and other commitments. I briefly toyed with the idea of skipping work on Monday and doing an all-day run, starting at whatever time I got up and ending at the stroke of midnight, the close of the competition.

That was the moment when I realized there had to be something very, very wrong with me. I had to be demented to call out 'sick' at work in order to do a fifteen, sixteen or even eighteen hour run with no organized support the day after a fifty mile run to win a competition that no one outside of a small community had ever heard of, and even fewer cared about. That was when I discovered I really was an ultrarunner.

As of this writing, the event is not over, it's Friday and I have logged 350+ miles. This weekend I'll do my fifty miler and wrap up my 400. I'm not going to skip work in order to make an insane attempt at catching MacLean the day after a fifty mile run and hurt myself (the Moab 100 is in four weeks after all). I may not have won, but I have gained the confidence I felt like I needed. I've run more miles in February than I ever really believed I could, I enjoyed just about every step of the way and I felt far better than I really had a right to feel.

I'm not fast and I may be crazy, but I'll never let either fact slow me down.

Stuff I Love - Touchnote

Ever found yourself on an exotic trip taking gorgeous pictures and wishing the postcards you found better reflected your experiences? Enter Touchnote.com!

Touchnote is a website, and more conveniently an app, which allows you to select a stock photo, or upload your own, and make a postcard out of it which they mail for you.

This is incredibly convenient for traveling, but I've found it to be even better for something else. Like many in the digital generation, my grandparents aren't as savvy or comfortable with digital photos. Since I also live several time zones away, I find myself wishing I had a better way to share some of my life adventures with them. I recently went snowshoeing and then spent a weekend in Moab. 

This is where Touchnote comes in. I just pick out my favorite photo in the midst of my adventure, type up a nice message to the grandfolks, enter their address and presto! In a couple days they get a photo they can share with others and know that I'm thinking of them on my adventures.

Touchnote normally costs $1.49 per card, which is pretty reasonable, but HP has bought 50,000 Touchnote postcards for their webOS users to send free of charge. It's a limited time thing, but I know I'll be sending them even once the promotion is over.

The app is simple to use and navigate, though it doesn't always autopopulate addresses from my contacts correctly. Fortunately, once you have sent a card to someone, the app remembers their address for future use.

All told it's a great service and app that needs only a couple tweaks to be perfect.

The Three Minds of Running

I've alluded to this subject on a couple occasions, but a run the other day left me feeling inspired to expound on the topic of what I call the three minds of running. So here they are, the three minds of running (and their arch-nemesis, non-running mind).

The first mind of running I call zen mind. In this, all the meditative qualities of running are brought to the fore. You are wholly in and of the run without conscious effort. The run is effortless regardless of pace and you may find yourself crossing many miles with little memory of it. Autopilot or cruise control are terms that could be applied, though they carry connotations that are too mechanical. Zen mind is not mechanical, it is reflexive. It is without thought, without being thoughtless. Zen mind is a difficult thing to seek, personally I find it easier to let it come to me. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Those occasions when it does are among the best runs I have had.

The second mind of running is racing mind. In this state, you're focused on how you're running. You're thinking about things like pace, times, mileage, turnover, heart rate, the hotspot on your toe, your hydration level, when to eat next and all those little things that make for a successful race. Racing mind is important both in training as well as during a race and maintaining the necessary discipline of racing mind can mean the difference between a new personal record or slamming into the wall early and hard. In some ways it is the opposite of zen mind as it is very actively focused and very mechanical. Racing mind might be the easiest state of mind to reach for this reason. You simply turn it on. At the same time though, it is like zen mind in that it is wholly of the run, unlike the third mind...

Grocery mind. This is the often wandering mental state where we ponder what to pick up for dinner, how to deal with a problem at work, what to get your girlfriend for her birthday and the millions of other problems we solve when we lace up. This can be good or bad. Sometimes running in grocery mind can lead to running in a distracted fashion, thoughtlessly. We end up going farther than we have time for, get lost, trip over a curb or even step into traffic without looking. Other times it leads to running without thought and bridging to zen mind. As someone who is a big believer in the stress relieving power of running, I have met few problems that didn't feel more manageable after a good run.  I have also found grocery mind to be a more effective bridge to zen mind than racing mind is. While your thoughts may be everywhere but on the run, the stress reduction of working things out mentally combined with the reduction in conscious emphasis on the run seems to make for an easier route to the zen mind state.

There is a fourth mind as well, or perhaps it should be called a non-fourth mind. The non-running mind. It's a state of mind that is antithetical and inhibitive to running. You're stressed or distracted and just keeping moving for so much as a mile is a struggle. Sometimes the relaxing, meditative qualities of running overcome the non-running mind quickly. Other times you find yourself struggling for ragged mile after ragged mile. Non-running mind is the flip side of grocery mind's path to zen mind. If we get stressed out or overly distracted by the mundane issues it can become easy to slip out of grocery mind and into non-running mind.

Mount Sanitas

Leadville is known for some of its hills. The mid point is the top of Hope Pass at 12,600 and is preceded by a 7 mile 8% grade climb of 3,000 feet. Not an easy climb, I expect I'll probably hike much of it.

Knowing that hills and I haven't always been on the best of terms, something highlighted at Moab, some intense hill focus is called for. That's where Mount Sanitas comes in.

Sanitas is a popular local hike in Boulder and while it only reaches 6,863', its 1300' of elevation gain comes in just under a mile and a half (1.4 miles), making the rocky ridge trail a muscle burning 17.5% grade. While Sanitas does not have the length of the Hope Pass ascent, climbing the steep grade and rough, technical footing a couple times a week, in conjunction with some other, longer hillsets, should give me the strength I will dearly need in Leadville.

Stuff I Love - WebOS & WebOS Internals

WebOS is the mobile operating system created by Palm (which is now a part of HP). When I decided to get a smartphone, I went through a list of my priorities. Some of these were hardware related and others were OS related. Among these prerequisites were that it be open source in some way and that the GUI be elegantly designed and intuitive.
iOS has an elegant GUI, although the notifications are pretty obtrusive, but the 'gated community' approach that Apple takes to iOS (and most of their products) is a huge turnoff. If I buy a phone, it is mine, not Apple’s. If I want to open it up or download software from somewhere other than the highly restrictive App Store, then that’s my business. If it voids the warranty, fine, but don’t install software that will destroy (brick) my phone if I choose to do that.
On the other end of the spectrum was Android. I’m a big Google fan, I use a lot of their services (gmail, google voice, docs, Picasa, videos, calendar, tasks, notebook, etc.) and unlike iOS, Android is much more flexible and open source friendly and I really wanted to like Android. But the interface… As I have said many times, Android feels like its interface was designed by an engineer, not by a designer. It lacked (and still lacks) elegance, smoothness and an intuitiveness to the interface. Using it is like trying to talk to an android instead of a human being.
The third path I considered was WebOS. WebOS (on the Palm Pre) has an incredible GUI. Simple, intuitive, beautiful. Nothing more need be said about it. Palm (and now HP) also took an approach to open-source and homebrewing (known as jailbreaking to the iOS crowd) that goes above and beyond. The ability to put the phone into Developer Mode (to jailbreak it) is built into the OS, just type in the Konami code and it unlocks. Easy as pie.
This is where a group known as WebOS Internals comes in. WOSI is a group of homebrewers dedicated to improving and pushing the limits of WebOS. The amazing thing is that HP (formerly Palm) not only tolerates the work they do, but supports it, praising the community in presentations, looking on at Developer Days as they disassemble new hardware and Frankenstein it with old hardware so it will run on unsupported networks and even donating expensive servers to WebOS Internals so they can distribute their work. The latest version of WebOS (v. 2.1) even incorporated some of WebOS Internals work into the operating system. Can you imagine Steve Jobs looking on as someone opened up an iPhone to make it run on Sprint?


When that latest OS version came out, it was announced that it probably wouldn’t be available to older devices like the Palm Pre. Hardware issues were the cited reason, but given the lag on the release of the update prior to that, it seemed more likely that the carriers didn’t want to take the time to review the update, and also that continually updating old hardware would discourage users from buying new hardware. When one provider finally released an update, WebOS Internals swooped in and, totally legally, set up a simple process that combined the new OS installer with the older ones and made it compatible for most of the so-called legacy devices within a matter of a few hours.
By releasing the update package (known as a WebOS Doctor) HP knew what WOSI would do (and has done) and enabled them to do what HP’s relationship with the carriers prevented them from doing, which is get the latest version of the operating system to those who want it. As a result, instead of a 600mHz Palm pre running WebOS 1.4.5 I’ve got a 1gHz Palm Pre running WebOS 2.1 with no fear of Big Brother looking over my shoulder to take away or brick my phone. What’s more, these changes were incredibly simple to make, I’m no computer whiz by a long shot, I just like to tinker a little and thanks to HP and WebOS Internals, I can.