Illness

The inspiration / drive to work out still has not returned. Of course the illness from a couple weeks ago I though was improving did not. In fact it has not improved so much, I am on antibiotics now.  Although different than previous illnesses, It is about the worst one I have had in the last 10 years. Hopefully it will all be over before thanksgiving.

Wall & Zombies

Workout Wall
I have hit another snag in getting 'race ready'  these last couple weeks.  The illness returned making it very difficult to work out or be active in any way with out being made physically ill.  Add to that an increased work load & class load with the passing of my boss at work (increasing work load even more). All this combined to bring me down to only 3 total work out days the last 2 weeks.  I have a lack of energy/desire to move forward.  But I also know that time will strill keep passing & I need to get in gear.

Now that all of that seems to be behind me (other than school which will continue through May) I am hoping come Tuesday I will be able to get running again.  I will say in an effort to be better trained and to make up for the upper body deficit experienced at the Toro Loco I have added to my regimen.  Now instead of just jogging on the treadmill for a distance, I jog 1/2 mile, then its burpee time (9 in 90 seconds) followed by a short walk before jogging the rest of the next 1/2 mile.   Once the running portion of the workout is completed, the number of burpees done = number of situps to complete.  I am hoping in time he burpees will increase during my breaks, in a perfect world to 30 & get right back to the jog. meanwhile overall distance will increase weekly as well.

One source of inspiration is a blog I just came across this week "Live the Tough Life" This is a blog by an Arizona gentleman named  Christopher Rutz who is part of a racing team and the current points leader w/ 2012 Spartan Race Points series, he has also started guest posting on their blog as well.  His time & dedication to "a high level of fitness" (something he has been working on for over 20 years) is an inspiration. Of course it also serves as a reminder that what I am trying to do will take much more time than the one year this had planned for.  Especially when I have 'life' constantly trying to get in the way of these goals.


ZombieBuffet
This past weekend I volunteered at a racing event called he ZombieBuffet 5k.  I had been under the impression it was a zombie obstacle race, in the vein of Run for your lives, but it turned out to be a 5k + zombies.

In any case it was interesting to see a race from the other side for once. From working at registration, to finish line to water stations. It was a bit of an eye opener in both the what to do/not to do on the working side of it.  But also to see a race & its participants in more ways than just as they passed by while on the course.  

Sure there were issues but overall things ran fairly smoothly for a 1st time in AZ race.

Still it was nice to get outdoors & meet some new people in a race related way with out having to hurt myself too much.

Baseline Accomplished

So having completed the Toro Loco, and having had a couple days to think about my performance,  I have a good idea where I stand w/ getting ready for my Trifecta and I have a long way to go.


Running - Although I can USE the treadmill for a long time (ie occasionally jog non stop for up to 45 min equating to 3.5 miles) that does not translate well to the real world. For the TLC I only made it about .53 miles before slowing to walk to rest.  Granted the dirt we were on was so loose one left 3/4 inch deep footprints where they walked, in a very sandy consistency for the first 2 miles of the route.  Starting the race with this just exhausted me.  Temperature also worked against me (as did my pants - more later).  So I REALLY needed water before the 1st obstacle.  At home on the treadmill I rarely drink until the workout is finished with no ill effects.  The solution for this will be longer workouts on the treadmill at more of an angle combined with 'real world' runnign, as much as I am not thrilled with that.

Note the footprints, very loose dirt not the easiest to run in.

Attire - In this race, as in the last one I wore pants (BDUs specifically).  My logic being, wit the crawling that tends to happen, either in dirt or 'mud'  my knees get pretty scraped up.  By using pants I have some level of protection.  Clearly they were unnecessary for this event where there were no crawling obstacles at all. The added weight & airflow restriction more than likely worked to make me warmer & more tired. Maybe I need to experiment with more of a knee length version.


Music - Although very useful on the treadmill. But not so much on the race.  If you happen to go with people, its a distraction and something else to carry around. Even with out people around, while making the videos the cord gets in the way camera visually & audibly due to the short cord. I plan on keeping this for the Super & Beast but need to rethink how it is used especially the track order.


Distance/Time - My time was approx  1 hr 38 min. 
BUt distance, that is an issue.  The race billed itself as a 10k aka 6.2 miles.
Looking at Google Earth, however it comes up as ~5.76 miles - Close to  a half mile difference in length. For my calculations I will err on the side of caution and use the shorter distance. Certainly due to the conversion of photos to a curved surface may cause some discrepancy. I saw some between the billed Spartan Race distance & measured route using the Google too. Of course there is a possibility that the race itself was not accurately measured, using what I saw from obstacle completion & general event management this is completely plausible. 

The TLC 10k race route.

Using this lower value for calculating minutes per mile puts my pace at 17.01 minutes per mile.   Almost as bad as the 1st warrior dash I basically walked through. Sure this distance was almost 2x as much, and I have learned from running at the track my mile times increase with every additional mile after the first one, but all in all pretty poor results as I see it.  When you consider that the Spartan Races will have obstacles with penalties, tack on another 3-4 min per obstacle I fail and ~25 obstacles for the BEAST that equates to a possible 100 penalty minutes + ~222 min for the race = FIVE and a half hours to complete at this pace. 

Granted if Google Earth is off and the race was indeed 6.2 miles then my minutes per mile is improved to 15.81 & it will only be 5 hours for BEAST completion.  Wow.  Definitely need to work on better time.


Upper Body - I know I should not have, but I have neglected my upper body during these last couple months.  I wanted to work on running stamina & losing weight.   Bad idea.  With more upper body I may have completed some of these obstacles I failed AND with Spartan will succeed & miss those possible penalty minutes doing burpees.  Not to mention how much more doing burpees will tire me and that it will take longer to complete them as I progress. One plan it to hit a rock gym a couple times before the 3 races, this will help w/ the upper body AND give me a bit more experience when it comes to the horizontal wall obstacle, possibly saving 30 burpees.  


To sum up I have A LOT of work ahead of me.  starting with more/ faster treadmil times planned.  More hiking & some running outdoors to boost that endurance.  And of course adding burpees  & upper body to the workouts.  

145 days will go by pretty fast with work school & misc holidays impeding workouts.  Hopefully I will be in better position come the Sprint.

Meanwhile the next thing on the calendar is volunteering at a race, the zombie buffet 5k in one month, who knows maybe I will be chosen to be a zombie & get to run some of it. 

Book Review

On my vacation I took some time to read the SpartanRace book they published. 

Joe Desena & Andy Weinberg

You'll Know At The Finish Line
A Spartan Guide To The Sport Of Obstacle Racing
Spartan Press 2012
404 pages FREE
ISBN-13:978-0615675183

Yup that looks fun 

I have to say it has its good point and bad points. 

First of all the book is FREE and is available for e-readers or in PDF format from the Spartan Race website so the price is great & the different format options are very nice.  I read the PDF version which I had some issues with. Being a PDF having the page size be 3.54 x 4.72 inches seemed very odd.  By using this format the PDF itself (in times new roman) seems to be oddly formatted when it comes to reading, from sentence & page breaks to the edge to edge text it is very distracting.  I Was reading this while travelling on both a net-book & on a home PC. But this is personal preference from a guy writing a random blog written in veranda for the most part. Still I would have preferred it in Word or similar format where I could adjust it more to what I like. It is possible a kindle version would have been easier on my eyes as well.

This is original size

The book itself has many sections to it with the history of obstacle racing , with a time line, to their philosophy, detailed information on training ideas and specifically for their events.  Each of the 10 chapters ends with stories from & about some of the folks who have helped in the events as well as just participated in them with some amazing stories of personal achievement.  To me these items were the most fascinating part of the book. To read about how much people are able to overcome & endure in their lives & translate it to these events, or to use the events to inspire them to change their lives is very remarkable.

But I do have a couple more criticisms of the work, which it is clearly stated i the first time the authors have done anything like this, and approached it by just diving in & seeing what happens.  Andy & Joe both wrote the book and it is obvious.  Paragraphs may start with "Joe:" or "Andy:" as if the book is the result of an interview.  In many cases a section will be mostly written by only one individual with their name at the start. Having someone edit the book in a way to massage their viewpoints together may have had a better flow.

Of course in reading the book, although I have done one Spartan Race, and intend to do more. I realize the book is not meant for me to be its audience.  Chapter 5 is all about training for the Spartan Sprint a 3+ mile obstacle course . On one hand they mention how the distance is good for everyone beginners on up.  Then go on to say work up to a five mile run at a moderate pace before attempting the Sprint.  Clearly these two items are not the same in my book. I see a  'beginner' as someone just getting off the couch and in to getting in shape/running/obstacle races to not someone who can already run five miles as a precursor to training for a 3.5 mile race. Yet further in the chapter they make it abundantly clear this is not for beginners. An 8 week workout regimen to train for the event starts on day 1 with jogging 3 miles after a 10 minute warmup and also includes: push ups, pull ups, crunches, and an additional 2 miles of running. From there it just gets more intense.  

So although great information on history, proposed rules for making these kinds of events more 'official' and some good workouts are included along with those outstanding personal stories.  I think They should go back to the drawing board for a second release & make the book & some of its contents more user friendly to the new Spartan Race initiate.

ToroLoco Video

Video of the race is up.

Now you can hear me complain with normal sarcasm, bitchynies, via annotations & a chipmunk voice.

ToroLoco Clusterf*ck

I know the title is a bit harsh. But this was an event in desperate need of MANY things.

Ready to start

Lets start with what was done right.  

The Bibs.  (I think).  
As I dont have my official time yet, I am not sure if they worked. But the Bibs themselves had strips built in to them & were more sturdy than tyvek bibs. So no need for a 'chit' to attach to laces & turn in for recording time.  That was nice.  

Lack of real mud.
most mud was trudging through calf high water/mud.  So easy to clean up from.
**not necessarily a 'right' thing, just nice after the difficulties to not have to wait in lines for showers.

OK and that is it.

Lets talk about the things that need improvement.

Registration.
I am an anomaly.  I was a part of no race.  When I registered they were taking registrations for weeks, yet there was no space to select which race to join (5k Leisurely Longhorn or 10k Raging Bull) I had to email them.  They fixed it for others but me I was part of "Unknown Event".

Parking.  
The car parkers did not have a clue, and people were being parked in such a way they were being blocked in.

Check in.
There were 3 lines, for different parts of the alphabet. Course the signs indicating what part of the alphabet were obscured as they were at knee height, so one person in line & you had no idea where to go.

Most everything

Event Grounds
This event is for people & dogs, but the day started out with  - only a few porta johns & no water areas for dogs. The drinks, those not from the food trucks, were stored outside & then moved to iced coolers, so after a while only not so cold drinks.  (and no Cola or diet, Beer, Beer, Beer, 7-up & water were the options).  The registration, free snacks, store, volunteer check in weer all one tent, making it hard to figure out where to go & get around.  The changing areas were hidden off to the side along with the cleaning area.

Everything not under the 1 tent.

Food arrives

Race Start
So the race was to start the first heat at 8am.   They left more like 8:15 per my phone & watch.
Realizing this I was happy to be in the 8:30 heat, as I feared by later starting heats would be way off with times.

Race Course.
Not a well designed course a few times we wandered aimlessly wondering if we were even still on the right path.  the 5k people were to follow green flags, 10k orange.  I rarely saw any orange flags.

Race Obstacles part 1
You will see when the video is posted this was a difficult course for short folks.  It was not meant for short people at all.  There were several obstacles that were basically get from point A to point B using upper body (rings, ropes, etc.) If you were not tall enough or could not jump high enough you could not even get started let alone make it through.   Just rehanging a few items with 3 inches more rope would have made a world of difference to many of those I encountered on the course.

Race Obstacles part 2
Several obstacles were completely unattended, or even incomplete. There was a set of 4 ropes on the course, no one around & no point to them. Should we go up? maybe rope to rope?  Who knows.  How about the slack-rope over dirt, no water or mud just the ground. So where does one 'start' & 'finish'?  There was a trench we were not sure was still part of the race (due to the aforementioned lack of markings) that had been started water, had been added & some logs & then abandoned, as it was another place no one was around.  I am glad no one I saw got hurt as it would have been difficult to attain aid.

Erika took this pic of one of their staff, the zip line was too slack, and the  pulleys kept getting stuck. She tried to help & her hair got all caught up in it.

Im sure with out thinking too hard I could find more to complain about.  I really had no intention of just ripping on the race, it was a good charity & a good idea. I know from experience it is hard to put on an event, especially the first time.  Things will go wrong. Especially when one is in an 'outlying area' with few facilities. But one also need to think more about what they are doing, that people will have different wants/needs/objectives and that all people are different so sometimes it takes a fresh eye to spot issues that one has become blind to in the planning stages.  

I did get to run a race & get some ideas how to better plan for my upcoming Spartan Trifecta. I met some nice people, and got some exercise (and eegees).

After coming down the slide.

Time behind me is from the 8am heat so a bit misleading. as I was 1:37

But that said, will I do this event again - no.

**UPDATE 9/16**
Apparently this was the second time this event was run, and per some participants this incomplete course w/ bad planning was 100% better than the spring version. (and that they purge negative comments from their FaceBook page)
Makes me wonder how bad that one was.  

ToroLoco minus 1 day

Tomorrow is the ToroLoco Challenge.

Since coming back & planning on getting in shape, I have gotten sick and overworked; consequently I am no where near where I had planned on being physically 3 months ago.

But I signed up & paid my money, so I will do it.

One thing that will make this event different is I will be running it alone.

This is the only race I will have done alone other than my attempt at the Spartan Race over 7 months ago. So what my finishing time is will be all on me.  No "I was waiting on other people." or "There was a line at the obstacle." excuses.

I am happy that someone noticed I was losing weight today, combining with the weigh in on Monday at 183lbs does put me in good spirits.  

IF, and this is a big IF, all goes well Id like to finish around 90 minutes.
But we will see..

In the meantime, here is a look in to my training regimen from this past week.

Yeah I kinda did that. 

And a look at the course as it is listed on their website.

I really just wanted to play on the zip line.

So tomorrow 6.2 miles of being stupid.

Stay tuned..