Head to Toe

 

Native animal

Ragged yet sleek, sly, nimble

Though cautious near us.

 Monday, October 25, 2021

 Here’s why trail races are so intriguing to me; at the beginning of the month I ran one and next week I’ll run another and just about everything except the nearby locations will be very different.

 At the beginning of the month I ran the 25k Bull Dog and this Saturday I’ll run the initial Old Boney Trail 20 miler. Both runs are in the Santa Monicas and will probably feature similar dry hard pack trail conditions, but otherwise there’ll be enough changes to where what I’ll use will be almost completely different from head to toe.

 Next week’s race will be longer, colder and with aid stations spread further apart calling for almost a complete head to toe transformation.

 I’ll use this schematic to demonstrate with a brief justification for the changes:

                         Bull Dog               Old Boney                     Why

1.    Shoes – Salomon Pulsars       Salomon Ultra Glides    The Pulsars were great for about two hours, but as I’m getting older I just need a bit more for longer than that. Plus they don’t fit my Superfeet blue insoles. The Glides have been feeling great in 2+ hour runs so I’m pretty confident they’ll make it for the 3 and change I hope to do Old Boney in.

2.    Socks – Compress Sport Trail Crew socks (same)       Although I’m going to add CEP lite calf sleeves for warmth.

3.    Shorts -      Patagonia            2XU                      The Patagonia shorts with the two deep pockets in back worked great, but with the aid stations spread further apart and the race a tad longer I’m going to use the Naked band and pocketless compression shorts to hold a bit more.

4.    Shirt -         2XU            Ortovox               The race starts an hour earlier Saturday so going to short sleeve wool plus arm sleeves instead of sleeveless.

5.    Hat -           Headsweats (same)      I like the colors.

6.    Gloves-      OR              Brooks                 No real reason.

7.    Equipment -        Simple Hydration          Naked Band        At Bull Dog I started with an empty bottle, filled up at miles 3/7 and was good to go. At Old Boney with the first aid station not coming until mile 5 switching to Naked because it allows me to carry an Amphipod 20 oz. bottle without bouncing, so a little more capacity and no need to use the bottle as a handheld even for a little while which I have to do with the Simple Hydration bottle because shorts’ waistbands just aren’t taut enough until a few ounces are removed from it.  

8.    Hydration/Fuel    E-Fuel/SIS  Beta Fuel/SIS       Tested out the higher carb Beta Fuel on a test run today and no problems over 2+ hours so going to give it a go. Along with my new caffeine kicker – SIS super caffeinated gel with about an hour to go.

9.    Strategies - Hard Charging    Slow Start             With the 7:30 start at Bull Dog and a bunch of fast runners blazing out of the chute, it was hard not to get caught up in the drag of it all and not start too fast. Didn’t seem to hurt me much but am going to be happy to slow it down in the pre-dawn 6:30 start at Old Boney and cruise the first couple of miles until I can see where I’m going. With the extra 5 miles and a few challenging climbs, it should be easier to give my legs a decent 15 minutes to loosen up and then settle in.

It’s still a race and that means rolling the dice and gambling a bit. For example, though I’m familiar with some of the course, some of it will be new and of course never strung it all together. And without any comps from past results it’s hard to judge what an expected finish will be. From what I know of these mountains and past performances over 30ks I’m going to aim high and shoot for 3 hours give or take. That means I’m only going to carry one Beta Fuel in a zip lock for hour two and one SIS gel for the beginning of hour 3. At the beginning of that 3^rd hour I’ll fill up with Scratch Lab from an aid station along with a gel and hopefully that’ll take me to the finish.

 If I have an outstanding race I’ll at least be competitive in my age group and possibly even win and set a very high standard for years to come.

 Anxious to find out if I’ve put together the puzzle pieces to make a pretty picture out of next week’s challenge.