Dirtbag is an Active.com contributor!!!

 
I have been in contact with one of the active.com  content editors about getting a semi-regular gig contributing to the website and those conversations have come to fruition. My first post is up on their website! Its an edited version of the book review I wrote over the summer of Matt Fitzgerald's excellent RUN: The Mind Body Method of Running By Feel. I'm really excited to have something up on this site. The plan is to have regular original Dirtbag content going up two to three times a month, stuff that I might start here but elaborate on there and things that I've been thinking about for a while but haven't figured out how to work into the blog. Fear not, regular readers (both of you), there will be plenty of Dirtbag goodness to go around here still. This is represents yet another step along the path of complete and total world domination.
One more time, in case you missed it above, here's the link: http://www.active.com/running/Articles/Book-Review-Run-by-Matt-Fitzgerald.htm.

Trail Running With My New Toy

Trail Run Day
time- 1:45
distance- 7.8mi

Press Power...hmmm...honey!

Today started out yesterday. Wait, that didn't make any sense. Let me go back. To yesterday. In my DeLorean. It's aluminum, it conducts electricity the best. ...Anyway, yesterday I started playing with my new toy, the Garmin Forerunner310XT. It does everything. Pace, mileage, GPS, heartrate, multisport. Everything. Except like Linux OS. Fail, Garmin. Fail. This seriously threw a wrench into the installation of the software onto my laptop, which runs a thousand times better on Linux than it ever did on Vista. But Garmin is not software agnostic and only likes the two major religions of Mac and Windows. Luckily, the Super Awesome Wife's desktop runs XP, and she spent a lot of time helping her slightly technologically inept Dirtbag husband get the whole thing up and running.

Why does none of this look right?

Honey!

And last night Sean (aka Dirtbag Diesel whether he likes it or not) told me he was planning a trail run with some of his ultra-runner friends today and asked* if I wanted to come along.
(*asked in this case means "come on, it'll be fun, no backing out, you'll love it, we'll see you at 4, ok great)
So of course I agreed. To go trail running, which I've never done. With ultra-runners, who run 100km for fun. Right.
And it was a great time! I love trail running with ultra-guys. Did you know they like to walk up steep inclines? They are used to thinking, "Well, I have 90 more miles to go. So I can run up this steepness and blow a bunch of energy. Or I can walk up it, conserve, and run longer later." This is philosophy I can get behind. We ran at a conversational pace for the majority of the run and I only spent a little bit of it huffing and puffing, unable to participate in said conversation. This my kind of running, especially for the big base building I'm doing right now. Sean and I met up with some friends of his after a mile or two (you'd think I'd be more sure but my fancy new Garmin had trouble locating a satellite right away and started me in the ocean. So I have a map of the end of the run, but not the first five miles. Whoops.) and we ran with them for a while along the ridge and to an old '40s military bunker with one of the best views of the North Shore I've ever had. Then they split off and we ran back to the car.
I did discover from them the one thing Super Awesome Wife would like about ultra-running: Gummi Bears. They are a cheap, easy, light source of straight sugar energy. And these guys had a little baggie they happily shared. What swell guys.

And I'm not that sore yet. If I had run nearly two hours on the road I'd be hurting. But trail running is completely different. This only pain I feel right now is in my feet. And that's not the fault of my VFF TrekSports, its the fault of a Dirtbag runner unfamiliar with trail running and constantly trying to kick roots out of the ground. Roots which are firmly, well, rooted. So aside from some kick-stumble-ouch it was an excellent time out and I can't wait to do it again.
Below is the partial GPS of today's run. If you click on the View Details link at the bottom it takes you to a more detailed look at heart rate, pace, etc. I'm really looking forward to using this as a training tool, without coming to be completely dependent on it. Remember, I'm the guy who thought RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running By Feel was the greatest thing between two covers since Super Awesome Wife and I.  

Macca's Unusual Training Ideas (that I love)

This comes from Ironman World Champion Chris McCormack's blog on his website:

" I say go out and try to get in touch with your perceived exertion and your body rhythm at least a few times a week in all the disciplines of our sport. Most of the time in training, especially when I go to a new town, I often test myself by doing the following.
I leave the hotel room for a run and check the clock before I leave. I then say to myself, okay, I am going to go and run for 1 hour. When I come back I try and see how close to that hour I actually was. I take no watch with me nor do I set any preconceived pace. I run freely and try and feel my way to understanding just how long I have been running by my surroundings and my pace and effort. Funnily enough, the fitter I get the better I am at getting very close to the hour. Early in the season I have gone for what I thought was an hour run and been only 45 minutes. Its crazy how skewed your perceived effort and time can be without the use of tools sometimes. Now I feel very confident I can nail a 10 mile run on feeling without relying on a Garmin to tell me and I could run 90 minutes pretty close to the minute without relying on a watch. It is something I enjoy testing myself with weekly and the more you do it, the greater you will start to feel this freedom of exercise and this tune that you have never paid attention to before. It is this understanding sometimes that will be your biggest strength in a race."

This is such an interesting idea and it meshes nicely with how I'm feeling after reading Run: The Mind-Body Method of Running By Feel (see my review here).  I really need to think on it more before I have too much to say, but I think taking the advice of a two-time world champion might be a good way to go when approaching the next cycle of my own training. Macca better watch out. I just bought his book and soon I'll know all his secrets and then he'd still beat me if I was allowed a motor on my bike and roller skates on the run.