Michael: Testing

Leaves carpet the trail
Covering its dangers with
A soft autumn brush.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

The highlands of Panama are a great testing ground for trail racing. Within hours you can face cool, warm, dry, wet, rocky, muddy or windy conditions, and steep, let’s not leave out steep.

Yesterday we went on a 5 ½ jaunt up Volcan Baru to the 6k mark. The run starts with a few miles on a gradual climb up a country road then once you leave the pavement things get steep pretty quickly. At the end of our agreed upon 3 hour turn around time I had gone from 5k ft. altitude to about 10k ft on the 6 kilometers I covered on the trail.

At the time we started at 8:45 a.m. we were running into 25 m.p.h. winds and it was about 50 degrees. There was no wind once we turned off the road and were under the canopy of the mountain. There, the first few ks of the trail were dry and covered with leaves. Towards the top it leaves the canopy and has large stretches of loose, rocky soil and by the afternoon it was pretty close to 80 degrees.

 I ran with a new long sleeve shirt from Craft and my relatively new Topo MT2 trail shoes. For nutrition I took a 5oz flask of a homemade mix of honey, sugar and peanut butter and a Baby Ruth bar. I carried 1 ½ liters of water in my Osprey pack and started with a16 oz. collapsible handheld from Platypus. And with just a few niggles, everything worked reasonably well and I’d use them all again with a few caveats.

I’ll start with the shoes. Outside of the extraordinarily long laces and a bit of upper separation from the sole on the big toe side of the shoe, they worked great and were very comfortable.

But shoes should not have laces that are so long you can use one lace to tie both shoes. Outside of replacing the Hoka pull straps for conventional laces, or swapping out laces for tri-shoe bungee pulls, I’ll live with what the manufacturer sees fit. But these laces don’t; fit that is. Unless I want to become a you tube sensation by inadvertently strangling myself during a fall with my shoe laces, I’m going to have to replace them.

I’m going to keep an eye on the minor glue separation on the side of the foot. If it doesn’t get worse anytime soon, I could see picking up another pair of MT2s, they’re that comfortable. But it is somewhat disconcerting to see this type of wear after only three moderate runs.

I also wouldn’t use them in anything longer than a 50k. Yesterday, after returning to the road after 4 ½ hours running, I could feel my feet wanting the pillowy softness of my Hoka ATR Challengers. But the Topos are so light, flexible and comfortable within a 4-5 hour time frame, I plan on using them for at least the first 16 miles of the Sycamore 100k and I’m hoping to stretch that to 24 miles.

I’ll test them out in muddy, wet and a different kind of slippery surface on Sunday on the Quetzal trail to see how well they grip and dry out under those conditions. Who knows what SoCal will be like at the end of February?

The Craft Facile shirt was perfecto. It’s made of a stretchy breathable material that is comfortable for me from the 40s to the 70s; just what I’m expecting for the Sycamore 100k. I like a long sleeve shirt that has cuffs that I can pull up trombone style and the sleeve will stay put anywhere I put them. Starts to warm up, unzip the collar and pull the cuffs up to make a short sleeve shirt. Starts to cool down, zip up the shirt and pull the cuffs down. All this versatility without any chafing under the arms, nipple burn, or slogging around in a water logged towel if things heat up. I’ll wear this shirt throughout the Sycamore race unless it really heats up or for psychological reasons, I just want to change shirts.

The Platypus I won’t use in a race. But it was nice to have a little extra water then be able to collapse the bottle and put it my pocket. I may use a small handheld for a loop or two during the race just to run pack free for an hour or so.

There’s nothing overtly magical about Baby Ruth bars. I just want to train with some solid food just in case I begin to crave some during the race. But I always like to take Baby Ruths when we do Volcan Baru trail because I used them on my 11 ½ double crossing of the volcano so not only do they taste good, but they have a very positive association with a successful adventure.

This morning I’m a little fatigued and thank goodness have an easy day penciled on the calendar, but I’ll be back out there testing racing gear soon enough.