Racing at altitude while not trained to - The Tahoe Relay

The last time before this weekend that I had been to Tahoe, I got married. That weekend was fast, special, wonderful, romantic, etc., etc. and it left no time for me to run. I have never run in Tahoe. Actually, I have never run at altitude. The altitude around Lake Tahoe varies from about 6200 feet up to 7000 feet. I felt every foot of it this past weekend when I participated in my first Tahoe Relay.

I went up there on Friday with a carload of friends and got home last night. I'll make the report as brief as possible, but as some of you know, I tend to be long winded with my race reports.

First indication that I might not do so well during the race was a shake out run of 20:00 on Friday evening before dinner. Maria and I went out and I was breathless within minutes. When we got back to the cabin, I looked at my Garmin and we had run at about a 9:45/mile pace... and my heart rate was close to 150 (but I lied to Maria and said it was just under 140). I didn't want her or the other gals on the team to worry.

I did my best to sleep well that night, but got about 5 hours. I awoke with the sun and the birds singing in the trees (just after 5 a.m.). The downside to that was that I was not running until close to 3:00 p.m. I was assigned the anchor leg (#7), which was 10.5-ish miles. The teams running had to be self supported as there was no aid on the course. The course was the two lane highway that goes around the entire lake, making a total of 72 miles. Our team did a great job supporting itself! We all got along great, and we all helped each other throughout the entire race. We managed to finish in 9:25, which was a team PR. Some of the gals have run the event 4 or 5 times prior, but none of their past teams had been this fast.

Anyway, let's get to my leg. I started at 7,000 feet and finished where the race started, down at 6200+ feet, but there was one very big and long hill climb followed by a good stretch of down hill and then a lot of nice rolling hills. Lucky for me none of the returning runners on the team told me about the hill climb I'd have to make. If I had known I would have freaked out because as it was, I freaked out while ascending it! It was absolute torture for me because I was already feeling winded even though I was only going at an average pace of less than 8-minute miles. I think I climbed the hill at a near walk pace of maybe 13:00 minutes if I was lucky.

After that hill climb, which was at about 2 miles in, my psyche was nearly battered... but I recovered as quickly as I could while running the downhill. I did my best not to take the downhill too fast because I knew my legs would be toast for the rest of the race. I had the BEST views of the Lake during my leg. Just breathtaking. I wish I could have taken pictures. The scary, scary part was avoiding being struck and killed by the motorists up there. The shoulder was literally less than a foot wide at times, and definitely no more than a foot wide unless it was at a turn out. I prayed the rosary during the first few miles! I really thought I was going to get killed by a car.

I saw the team at two mile increments where they gave me water or sports drink. It was salvation to see them at regular intervals. It helped the race go by faster because we were pretty much running all by ourselves out there. I passed one man in the beginning, got passed by a woman just after I crested the monster hill, and then passed a man and a woman in the last 3 miles.

My stomach was kind of upset already, so I didn't take too many fluids although I felt incredibly thirsty. The weird thing is I had been drinking water and sports drink throughout the day to avoid that dehydrated feeling. I have since learned that altitude does very tricky and strange things to the body.

All was fine, I was averaging a 7:35 pace up until about the last 2 miles. And then it just got REALLY cold. My arms, hand, legs and face felt freezing and I could feel my muscles getting very tight. I knew it was getting colder when only one team member got out of the car at the last "aid stop." Although I tried not to slow down, I did. I ended up with an overall pace of 7:46/mile, finishing in 1:21 and some odd seconds. Not since the Ohlone 50K have I been so ecstatic to be done with a race. Within a half hour afterward, I felt so, so, so ill. Just overwhelmed with nausea and headache, and I also felt like I was going to have some major diarrhea. As soon as we got back to the cabin, I forced some food down my throat and drank some sports drink. I took the hottest shower that I could because I was shivering to the bone, and then I put on sweats, a long sleeve t-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt and a thick fleece jacket, and then crawled into bed as soon as the gals left for dinner and the casinos.

I could not sleep though. But after battling with my body in the bathroom, I felt about 50% better. When the gals got back at about 11 p.m., I went out to the family room area and chatted with them until 2 in the morning. I was WIDE AWAKE! I finally just had to will myself to sleep and I might have fallen asleep at about 2:30. I woke up at 6:30 and could not go back to bed.

Strangely enough, I felt pretty good but very exhausted. I was able to go out for a recovery run with the gals, very short and very slow. About 30:00 at a 10:30/mile pace. We were all very tired. I still felt winded, but not sick. I was very discouraged with my race because I know I'm in better shape than my finish time indicated. But Coach Pete reminded me that altitude is not to be taken lightly. He said that under the circumstances, I did very well and that if I take it nice and easy this week, not doing any more than easy running and one day of striders, I should be ready to race my best at the 8K this weekend.

Lesson learned: if I'm going to race at altitude I either have to get up there a week in advance and acclimate as best I can, or get up there no more than an hour before the start of MY leg so that my body does not have time to respond to the altitude change. And if neither option is feasible, then I have to resign myself to the fact that I will not only race slowly, but I will probably feel seriously ill sometime during the race, or afterward.

For now, I'm home. At sea level. Drinking lots of water and trying to eat carbohydrate rich foods for a few days. And I ran very easy today for 41:00 and did not feel sick at all... just sluggish.

Will I return to this race next year? At the moment my answer is no. But not because the race was horrible, it was not! It was well organized for a relay that takes place on a two lane highway. I probably won't go back because the fresh memory of feeling so horrible after the race, unlike any race I've run before.

I will post pictures soon.

I'm going to miss the Squirrel

He's all grown up now! Married within the last year, new career, new goals.

I am very happy for you and very proud of you. Good luck Squirrel & Mrs. Squirrel... and Godspeed to all those kids you'll be teaching! :p

Thoughts on Coaches, and a word on Tyson Gay

I recently got a message via Facebook from another runner friend and he asked me about my experiences with online coaches. Here's what I told him. The names and some details have been blocked to protect the innocent. ;-)

FYI, it's a long response...

"Oh boy, coaches. This is going to be long winded.

Here's why I wanted to find a coach: I have lofty goals in this sport (one among many is to break 3 in the marathon) and I know I'm not disciplined enough to coach myself. I'm also not knowledgeable enough, yet. I have all the books on marathon training and personally, it's just too much thinking for me. I just want to run and not have to think so hard about it.

Okay, so let me tell you about the coaches I've experienced thus far.

FIRST COACH was Coach A, whom I love to death. He's a local runner who's marathon PR is 2:1@. I paid him $60.00/month. He met with me in person every week and called me after every hard workout. He really cared! I love his coaching style.
However, following his programs led to an injury that I'm still trying to 'come back' from. I'm no longer fighting the injury... but I lost so much fitness from all the down time, it's like I'm back to square one as a runner. His programs were based mostly on so-and-so style of training, and while I really liked it, my body just could not handle it.

It was MY fault for not speaking up more when I started to feel that things were going sideways. I was a stubborn, stupid runner! Now I know that. He is constantly apologizing because he blames himself for my setbacks. But seriously, I lied to him most of the time, telling him I felt awesome and to give me more hard stuff to run.

He's always willing to help me, but truth be told, I'm a little gun shy of getting injured again so for now he's not coaching me. When I'm more knowledgeable about certain things, I may go back to him!

SECOND COACH was Coach B (strictly online coach). He's a nice person but not very responsive or communicative.

Anyway, his training style was a little different than Coach A's. A LOT of workouts like this: 10 x 1 mile intervals at slightly faster than MGP with 1:00 recoveries. The QUANTITY of intervals he gave me drained me mentally and physically. The workouts were definitely manageable and doable, but I felt beat up IN BETWEEN workouts. It was like my body could never recover, even with two days between hard workouts. I was not improving with any of my races, but getting slower. I wasn't excited to run because everything felt so daunting. The downfall is he would never follow up with me unless I contacted him.

CURRENT COACH: Coach C, A nationally ranked Masters runner who recently ran a 5K PR of about 14:3#. I found him through the running team I'm a member of (which is another great motivator, by the way).

Anyway, I sent him an email off of his blog and told him about myself, my history with races, my recent injuries, and my goals. He responded right away. His first request was for me to call him so we could talk rather than email. He ended up talking to me for over a half hour... pretty much touching upon everything I had emailed him about.

He said that before we agreed to work together that I had to take several days to do some of the exercises he recommended to me for my problem spots (my lower back & piriformis area, and my ankles). I also had to run easy mileage for a week in conjunction with the exercises. Then he wanted me to touch base with him and asked for complete and total honesty with how I was feeling both during and after each run.

Everything went great and my chronic pains were gone. He said he would help me, but not to send any payment until I got through the first couple of weeks of his training and assessed whether or not I liked what I was doing, and whether or not I liked his coaching style.

I gave him a list of important races that I wanted to run this spring, and within a couple of days he sent me a month's worth of training (again, at no cost until I decided if I wanted to continue working with him). After the first week (which included fartlek work and some track intervals, along with moderate mileage (40), I knew I wanted to work with him.

Almost 8 weeks later, we're still working together and I have improved with my last two races under his coaching. I do not feel beat up after workouts and am so excited to run again!

He understands that I have a life outside of running and completely works with that. We email once during the week, and then he dedicates time to talk to me on the phone on Saturdays for a half hour or however long I need to talk about running/training/racing.

I don't know how to describe his style of coaching, but I think it's more like Coach No-Name, including a decent amount of mileage combined with miler training, hill repetitions, tempos (of course), running on soft surfaces, being a good all around runner and then prepping for a marathon rather than being a good marathoner and then prepping for other distances.

He's going to build my mileage up to somewhere in the 70s for my fall marathon prep (which I start training for in September), and then if I feel good and ONLY if I feel good, we'll talk about the 80s for marathon peak week.

Sorry to go on so long. Anyway, I pay him $65.00/month and it is worth every penny! My husband has even noticed how NOT beat up I am now, and how much I like to go out and run. When I was working with Coach B, he said I was always grumpy and didn't want to do anything else. Not a good thing."

Now, on to TYSON GAY!

He just ran a 19.58 in the 200 at Reebok. The man is just blessed, and no doubt a hard worker, and very talented. What I really remember about his new personal best is not the race itself, but what he said in the post race interview. He said he just concentrated on his form and staying relaxed, and didn't think about much of anything else. Look at what that got him!!! I think what he said is so important for any of us who race and want to improve... concentrate on things you can control, and whatever the outcome is, it is! It might just be a new PR. Thank you, Tyson, for sharing that wisdom with us.

Mini-breakthrough run

I had a breakthrough run today and very unexpected. It was 20:00 w/u and some striders followed by 2 x 10:00 at tempo effort with 3:00 jogging recovery, followed by 15:00 c/d.

My 10 year old son accompanied me on his bike and I'm so glad he was with me. It's always nice to have company when I run.

During the warm up my body felt sluggish, heavy legs, tired, yet mentally alert. Nothing hurt. It even sprinkled on us a bit as I ran the warm up.

I did the striders and every one of them felt great, no pulling anywhere! I set the timer on my Garmin for 10:00 and off I went (no pace feature used). I felt strong, fast (for me) and like I was working very good but controlled. In the last minute or so of the first interval, I could hear my breathing getting more rapid and I could feel a teeny, tiny bit of lactic acid creeping in to my body.

During the 3:00 recovery jog I peeked at the history of my first interval and I ran 1.43 miles at a 6:59/mile average which is currently within my recommended tempo pace according to the last 10K I ran. Thanks to McMillan's calc.

During the recovery I caught my breath and chatted with my son. As the count down timer beeped to prep me for the next 10:00 interval, I got a tiny bit of nervousness in my belly but it immediately went away and I just thought, "Just run it like you did the first one... relax."

I felt pretty identical to the first interval, strong, fast but controlled. At some points I even thought I had slowed down so I picked things up again and just kept telling myself, "It's only 10 minutes and IT'S NOT A RACE!" In the last minute or so I definitely felt some lactic acid but not too much, and my breathing was louder but just about as rapid as the first interval. I ended up running 1.49 miles for a 6:41/mile average. I did not expect that because I really thought I'd slowed down. I think what I was feeling was the work.

After the 3:00 recovery jog, I felt like I could run another interval which is a good thing. Instead I ran my 15:00 cool down home. It sprinkled on us again and I loved it.

My son is so funny, he said, "Mom, it was hard to keep up with you when you ran fast, and I'm on my bike!" I ran through sprinklers on the way home, and he rode through them. The cold water felt so good!

It feels good to be getting a little closer to my previous training paces. I'll continue to be careful though.