Brandon Fuller

Jury Dooty 2010

Previously.

Got the jury duty notice and had no conflicts so I drove up to Greeley this morning to serve my fellow citizens. Parked, walked over. Had my traveling work bag so I was all prepared to stay the day. Just wasn’t excited about any possibility of a multi-week trial. 90 some percent of the time you are out by noon. All good.

Went inside, sat in the room, and caught up on all things on my phone. Jury Commissioner came in and told us how awesome this is to serve. I haven’t really had to but I agreed its all good and not such a gloom and doom event. The guy next to me was all stressed about not being at his job and making his employer mad. Dude, its the law. Chill out.

Minutes later, a larger dude comes in and it turns out he is the judge. He closes the door and explains that we will be involved in a misdemeanor case of menacing (def: threaten, especially in a malignant or hostile manner). Hey, I do that all the time (or used to) so this ought to be good! The defendant has chosen to represent himself. That’s his right but the judge told us that isn’t always such a great idea without doing your homework. He is a “young man” according to the judge. Well, as it turns out he has a key witness that saw it all and will clear his good name. The defendant saw that witness’ name on the list of witnesses from the District Attorney so he figured he was all good. So he shows up today and they go to inventory(?) the witnesses and his person isn’t there. Turns out the DA didn’t call that person. The list of witnesses from the DA is just the proposed lit. Not who they called. You can’t call a witness not on the list so you don’t get any surprises. But you don’t have to call the ones on the list. That’s how it works. Young Menace didn’t know this. So he is there without a witness and is screwed. Crap. So the judge granted him a continuance and the trial will resume another day when his witness was actually called. Feels like he got lucky via a nice judge on a good day.

And so we were dismissed. Some other jury duty volunteer will get to deal with Young Menace later in the month I suspect. I was home shortly thereafter and back to work.

The Aid Station Plan

In my continuing look into my upcoming race, the Leadville Trail 100, today we focus on the aid stations.

As with any race, there are aid stations. In marathons, these are often long tables piled with cups of water and Gatorade. Sometimes they give you a gel packet too. But that’s about it. However, in ultramarathons, the aid stations is a much bigger deal. It symbolizes a checkpoint as well as provides much needed support for tiring runners.

The race staff provides a variety of supplies at each aid station. Some of the common things are Powerade, water, soda, tea, bananas, cereal, oranges, bagels, candy, PB&J, coffee, watermelon, sandwiches, cookies, pretzels, soup, and more. A runner can get all they need from this selection or they can opt to have their favorite stuff that isn’t on this list delivered via drop bags or their crew.

Aid stations are usually the only places that a runner can receive aid from their crew in an official manner. Crewing in other locations is prohibited and you might face disqualification because you are getting an unfair advantage. Therefore, the crew has to be dialed in and ready to serve as the runner comes into the aid station. Usually, a pretty quick routine is developed for swapping out and in various items and moving on. The goal isn’t to stay at the aid station. The goal is to get what you need and leave the aid station. Standing still does not get you to the finish line faster. But you also don’t want to ignore your needs by not taking that extra minute to deal with some situation that will likely bite you minutes down the road. So get the runner in, get done, and get out. That’s the crew’s job! Kind of like this…watch the master.

The Leadville course has a variety of aid stations. I will detail them here. Lots of my race strategy in future posts will start dealing with sections of the race as indicated by from this aid station to the next. So get used to those names.

0. Start/Finish (Mile 0)

Just for reference.

1. Tabor Boat Ramp (Mile 7)

This is not an aid station. This is merely a crew access point. Crewing is allowed here but there is no race provided supplies. Its just a convenient spot along the way. This will be pretty boring outbound but inbound…the smell of the finish line will start here.

2. May Queen (Mile 13.5)

This is an aid station and a crew access point. Outbound this will be quite congested given all the runners will be still fairly together. I thinking crewing here outbound will be tough. Inbound, this will be the last big stop before the finish.

3. Fish Hatchery (Mile 23.5)

This is an aid station and a crew access point. Things should be spreading out.

4. Treeline (27 miles)

This is not an aid station. This is merely a crew access point. This one kind of makes up for the fact that crews cannot get to the next aid station because of its wooded location.

5. Halfmoon (30 miles)

This is an aid station but not a crew access point.

6. Twin Lakes (39 miles)

This is an aid station and a crew access point.

7. Hope(less) Pass (44 miles)

This is a sparse aid station at about 12,000 feet. All supplies are carried uphill by llamas I hear. You can top off a bottle. No crew access.

8. Winfield (50 miles)

This is an aid station and a crew access point. There is a medical checkpoint here. Once completed, you turn around and just go back the way you came. Crossing all the same aid stations one more time in reverse order.

There you have it!

Never Good Enough

So I am at a doctor appointment this morning…

Doc: You are pretty tan.
Me: Yeah, I am outside a lot.
Doc: With your job?
Me: No, I run an hour or more a day.
Doc: You do triathlons?
Me: Nah, I just like to run.
Doc: You race?
Me: Yeah, getting ready for a 100 mile race coming up.
Doc: 100 miles?!?!
Me: My first one.
Doc: Oh my gosh. Impressive. You know my neighbor runs a lot too. Does some races like those.
Me: Oh, yeah. Who’s your neighbor?
Doc: Her name is Darcy Africa. You know her?
Me: (Rolling eyes) I know of her. In fact, I raced with her in June. She doesn’t know me though.
Doc: Did you beat her?
Me: No. Not quite.
Doc: She’s good, right?
Me: Um, yeah.

See in this area, you might think you are good…but somebody else always knows somebody better.

The Taper Plan

I have bounced this one around for months now. I have reviewed various strategies. Lots of ideas. It all comes down to how I need to prepare for this race.

So some strategies that I have looked at:

1. Do nothing in August

This one is so tempting. Why run at all? Just relax. Frankly, this was the early favorite. But we have 3 training weeks before the race and not moving between now and then is the wrong answer. My fitness will fall (graphs to prove it!). I will gain weight. I will feel sluggish. About the only advantage is that I probably wouldn’t have any aches or pains.

2. Walk or hike in August

This keeps things moving but doesn’t excite the senses much either. I feel like there is some sharpening that can take place here at the end. To me there isn’t a lot of distinction between this and number 1. So I will pass.

3. Run 200 miles a week

Reminder, I am not trying to win this race. Merely put out a great performance that reflects my prepardness. Sometimes reading all these race reports from top 10ers gets me thinking how awesome I am going to be. But reality will set in on race day so let’s stay focused on the goal at hand. I fucked this up at Lake City a bit when I started getting focused on time and place more than I should have when I had only 1 goal.

4. Marathon Taper

This is the one I have most experience with. This involves running then cutting down 2 weeks to 75%, then 1 week to 50%. No running for a couple days before. Then go time. It has been more successful than not for me but I have to get lucky to get it to play out perfectly for the marathon. It did at Boston. It did not at Denver 2009.

OK, so I have no clear winner but I have some strategies.

A. No more 7 days on weeks from here on out. That’s not saying much but at least I free myself from the chains.

B. No off days 5 days prior. This is going to be a key. Poop talk, again. I find that the days off cause my colon to put on the brakes and I start backing up. This is what happened at Lake City. I took it super easy and then on race day I had a lot of stuff to part with before the running started. Not looking to repeat this pattern that has taken years to figure out. Plan out be to run 3-5 miles each day. Enough to shake things loose. Once it does, I will call it. While I surely will visit the bathroom at Leadville in the course of 24 hours, I don’t want to spend most of the first 2 hours dealing with it.

C. Last long run isn’t done yet. Going to run long in Leadville again this Saturday. It won’t be a pace pusher but I don’t plan on walking much if at all. Feel like its the equivalent of the 13.1 hard I always run the week before the 26.2.

D. Mileage cutdown will be marathon taperish. Probably a normal load this week, then cut, then cut, then race.

E. If anything hurts, run less.

So I am flying by the seat of my pants on this one. Just going with what sounds and feels right by extrapolating a bit. Feeback welcome. I mean expected.

Run: Golden Ponds (20.08 mi @ 08:32)

Alright, AUGUST HAS ARRIVED. 19 days and 7 hours until the race begins. So for that many more days and surely thereafter, you are going to hear about this shit if you are reading. Be prepared. In about 2 weeks, you will be yelling at the screen…run this thing already! I hope to start laying out the plans, strategy, course, preview, and more over the coming weeks as time permits. Hopefully, it will inform, entertain and excite you about the adventure that I (and my crew) are about to undertake.

This race has been 5 years in the making for me. Somebody asked me last week on my business trip…so why did you start running? I made up some bullshit excuse about fitness. The truth is…I wanted to run this race. The Leadville Trail 100.

I went 20.08 miles with an elevation gain of 333 feet in 02:51:30, which is an average pace of 08:32. Heart rate average was 137. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Del Camino (11.01 mi @ 07:55)

With Heavenfest only 1.5 miles behind my house, I had to reroute today’s run. Took the east side loop instead. Felt hot and sluggish but the times were decent for what it was. Got to enjoy the fest folks coming back as traffic was backed up alongside me for 3 miles back home. Running is faster sometimes. Hip was hurting for the 2nd 1/2 of the run. I think pavement gets it heated up right now. OK day. Would have like to get up in the mountains but that wasn’t an option today as we are babysitting kids for the weekend and I don’t want my wife to hate me (and my running) any more than necessary. I know all this running takes a toll on time but everyone sees light at the end of the tunnel coming soon.

Congrats to Tony on his CR at White River. He is just plain making everyone look bad at this point. Big show at Leadville? I see UROY in the cards.

I went 11.01 miles with an elevation gain of 229 feet in 01:27:20, which is an average pace of 07:55. Heart rate average was 144. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Union Reservoir (9.03 mi @ 07:36)

LunarGlides. I figured out that my Free 3.0s are tweaking my hip.

Back to the heat. Wasn’t ready for that this morning. Miss that about California a bit. Did my usual loop because they are closing the road for the weekend because of this Heavenfest crap. So I ran through the barricades today while they were setting up because I am such a god damn rebel. Will find other routes for the weekend so I don’t get run over by the massive traffic they expect. Anyway, OK run. Decent pace. Legs were heavy though. Didn’t feel that great but glad to get it done.

I went 9.03 miles with an elevation gain of 120 feet in 01:08:39, which is an average pace of 07:36. Heart rate average was 147. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Mission Peak (5.78 mi @ 13:10)

Another late business dinner last night. Didn’t get back to the hotel until 10:30. Went right to bed since I knew I need to get up early to run again if I wanted to get it in on a travel day. Glenn asked me what I was going to do and I responded “probably back up Mission Peak”. He said he was game. Oddly, he had never been up it. Although, he primarily runs on pavement so this wasn’t an obvious outing for him. But he was game.

So we met at 6 AM and headed out shortly after. Given I don’t get to run with him but a few times a year, this was a nice conversational pace (for me) outing. No attempt at the PR here today. I was itching to but probably wouldn’t have hit it as my legs were a bit heavy. The fog was thick as ever down low but about a mile or so in, I could start seeing the upper mountain. An inversion! I totally fucked up and left my iPhone in the car so no camera. Totally sucked. I just wanted to go light and not wear my vest to carry it. Dumb. We were on an island of land in a sea of clouds.

Anyway, we got above the clouds and the sun warmed the air considerably and I took the liberty of picking up the pace and gaping Glenn to the top. Needed to get my heart pumping a bit more. Ended up being a 45 minute ascent with an HR of 126 average. A full 30 beats per minute less than Tuesday’s ascent average and 40 under a PR effort up this mountain. Its calling my name for a harder effort the next time I am in town. Surely, Luke will be back and can come witness my awesomeness at that point.

Glenn topped out a few minutes later and we took in a few views. I finally figured out what all those tube-looking things on the pole are for. But there is no key/legend! We started descending chatting the whole way down. When we got back into the fog, the temps dropped significantly and the sunshine was gone for now. Blah. Glenn was asking about LT100 stuff and we were debating some strategies. There was a herd of stopped walkers with dogs ahead doing a big pow wow on the trail so I started to slow to get around them and…ouch! Turned my left ankle. Glenn saw the after and yelped for me. Not good.

Kept running and we started discussing this new weakness of mine. Hypothesizing on the possible reasons. I talked about how I was attempting to correct it. Still during this conversation, I stepped wrong and twisted it again. This one brought me to a walk for a minute. What’s the fun of climbing if you can’t run back down? Ouch. Got moving again and loosened it up. More theories evolved. Ideas on how my foot is not lifting from that earlier injury to the tibialis that causes me to drag my foot. How I roll my feet inward as shown by the consistent scratches on the inside of my ankles from the opposite foot. How barefooting has played games with the amount of lift I use per step basically lowering my clearance and catching me on more stuff. And just more paying attention.

We continued the discussion to the bottom of the hill but I forcefully lifted my toes on the left foot in my shoe. I could tell that it mentally made me more confident but also felt better. Hoping I can resolve this soon.

Anyway, great running with Glenn again. He was telling people at dinner last night about the time he paced me to a 3:50 in Napa. I left that race proud but also thinking…I won’t ever run that fast (or faster) ever again! Glad that didn’t last.

I will be back here in the Bay Area in another month. I plan on making more ascents of this peak and its neighbors. Got some exploring to do.

I went 5.78 miles with an elevation gain of 2,092 feet in 01:16:06, which is an average pace of 13:10. Heart rate average was 118. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Coyote Creek Trail (6.00 mi @ 08:48)

Free 3.0s. Didn’t want to get up before dawn so I only got an hour in this AM as our work meetings were to start at 8 AM. Did a random loop along the trail near Cisco and my hotel and returned along the road. Super easy as indicated by the 116 HR average. I am used to running on my schedule when my body is ready. Forcing it to go early isn’t fun and it isn’t happy.

My biggest complaint is that there is no sun here in the AM. I don’t remember this but I was never an early riser when I lived here. Just super foggy each morning. Since I am totally motivated and driven by sunshine, my running is lagging with this weather. However, its pretty cool out which is nice. I could have worn gloves this morning. By late morning, its all burnt off and warm.

Is it time for lunch yet?

I went 6.00 miles with an elevation gain of 9 feet in 00:52:55, which is an average pace of 08:48. Heart rate average was 116. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.