Countdown to Catamount: Run by feel

It's all fun and games until you crash head first

Countdown to Catamount: It’s less than three weeks until the Catamount 50K, and since that’s all I’m thinking about these days, the newsletter is going to get deep into the weeds on training and race prep heading into the big day on June 27. To set the stage for this entry, I’m right in the middle of a 12-14-16-20 mile buildup over the course of eight days. That last sentence should come with a warning label attached, and as we’ll find out, an asterisk.  

I didn’t realize I had forgotten my watch until I pulled into the parking lot of the trailhead around six in the morning. It was already hot, and getting hotter with temperatures soaring into the 90s and a heat advisory already in effect. If I turned around and went back home to get the watch, I would cost myself an hour of time, an extra hour of heat, and totally screw up the rest of the day’s plans. So, that was out. 

Rather than waste energy getting mad at my mishap, I took a moment to consider my options. In hindsight, being in a relaxed mindset when I got to the parking lot was key. Had I been frazzled or distracted by traffic or whatever, forgetting my watch would have been just the kind of thing to set me over the edge. Instead, I was calm and deliberate. 

This wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if I was going out for a short shakeout run. The point of those kinds of easy miles is to see how your body feels, not how fast it goes. There’s a lot to be said for not wearing your watch/GPS device on every run. One of the key tenets of this newsletter is that you are not your data. (Not entirely, at least.)  

But this wasn’t a shakeout run. It was a monster. On tap was a 16-mile run, 48 hours after completing a 14-miler on Friday. Forgetting my watch may have been a blessing in disguise because the last thing I wanted to do was try to replicate my performance from Friday. 

That 14-miler had been a breakthrough. I nailed the aerobic progression element and crushed the 55-minute tempo at the end. Allow me a moment to bask in the feedback I received from Coach Avery after he checked out the data. 

“Paul, whoa! I checked the numbers on that 14 miler and you negative-split the crap out of that run, dude. That was a really strong run and the numbers absolutely match everything you are saying. You clearly got stronger through the run which is the type of news we want!”

Yessir. 

With that bit of affirmation, I went into the 16-miler feeling confident, albeit measured. Not only was it going to be hot as blazes, I also needed to manage my body, which was still feeling the effects of Friday’s run. 

That, after all, is the point of the back-to-back long run. It’s a chance to mimic the effects of a 31-mile race on your body without having to actually run that distance in one shot. It’s supposed to be hard. Having a watch to understand how hard I was pushing myself would have been helpful. Alas. 

It helped that I had a solid plan in place. Having run in this area numerous times over the years, I knew that if I took a right instead of a left at a certain trail intersection and added that loop to what I had done on Friday, I would get reasonably close to the 16-mile goal distance. I didn’t need a watch to tell me where to go. 

My original plan was to do Friday’s run in reverse to get a different feel. Without the watch data backing me up, I figured it was a safer play to replicate Friday’s run as much as possible. That way I’d have a solid gauge of distance, if not time or pace. 

If you think about it, training is a lot more than just building up miles with a dose of hills and speedwork. It’s also about rolling with the punches and dealing with that hand that you’re dealt. In that light, this was an ideal training run. So, I headed out sans watch with only my wits and my sense of direction to guide me.

And for six or seven miles -- who can tell? -- that’s exactly what I did. I tried to be mindful about going out too hard in the beginning, while embracing the idea that everything I needed to know was already in my head. I found it amusing that I kept checking my wrist in the early miles, but I soon stopped the practice. It was kind of liberating, to be honest.

My body was responding reasonably well and I noticed that I was tall in my strides and moving efficiently. Without the data to tell me how I was supposed to be feeling, I was completely dialed in how I was actually feeling. Which reminded me, I needed a new nutrition plan, yet another cognitive task I had outsourced to the watch.  

Normally on long runs, I consume a gel every hour starting at the one-hour mark. With no way of knowing the time exactly, I decided to take my first gel at the base of a steep hill about 5.5 miles into the run. That way I could practice fueling on the move and give my stomach time to digest as I climbed back to runnable terrain. Pretty smart, if I do say so, myself. 

As I was coming down a stretch that I’ve nicknamed Anklebreaker Alley because of the sheer amount of loose rock scattered along the trail, I began to feel more confident with my ad-hoc approach. I said hello to a couple of hikers who complimented me on my dedication and I was feeling so good, that I outlined what I wanted to say in this piece and how I intended to say it. I was so lost in what I was doing that I didn’t see that little jagged nub of a rock sticking up from the pile. 

Whammmmo! Down I went. 

It’s a strange sensation when you fall. There’s the initial realization that you’re falling, followed by the second realization that you’re not going to be able to catch yourself, and then the reality that you’re about to crash headfirst on rocky, hard-baked trail. 

Having eaten dirt on several occasions over the years, while sustaining a couple of serious injuries, I’m happy to report that I have become better at falling. I tucked my wrists close to my body and covered my head with my shoulder so that the left side of my body absorbed the impact. I cursed, of course, and tried to rein in the adrenaline that was shooting through my body by taking stock of my injuries. 

I was scratched up along the left side of my body from my shoulder down to my calf and caked in dirt, but there was no blood and I didn’t think I had broken anything. Even my sunglasses survived the fall. Despite pulling off a mostly successful crash landing, there was one worrying sign. I had managed to bash the outside of my ankle pretty good and I could feel it swelling up. 

Had this been a race with ample support on the course, I would have absolutely continued. Since I was out here on my own, I had to come up with yet another revamped plan on the fly. Rather than risk having my ankle go out when I was miles from nowhere, I decided to cut the run short by finishing the loop I was on, which would keep me relatively close to my car and give me something like 11 miles total. 

From there, I would keep things open-ended. If I felt like a world beater, I would find another loop to make up the rest of the distance. But if not, then I would call it a day and be thankful for not having to run an extra hour in such stifling heat. 

While I could feel the ankle throbbing a bit, it was surprisingly manageable, and I was able to finish the run while being very cautious on the downhills. When I got to my stopping point, I took a moment to hydrate and eat so I could figure out my next move. Before I got too far along in my decision making process, my ankle spoke up and said, “Absolutely not.” 

I was done for the day, and totally fine with it. 

With the benefit of 36 hours worth of recovery and a few hours on Ammon’s table later that night, I think I’m ok, all things considered. The area below my ankle is swollen and bruised, but I can walk on it with no problem. The left side of my body is beat up and sore. I quickly ended a yoga session after getting into my first downdog because my shoulder simply wasn’t having it.

Aside from that ankle, however, my legs and lower body seem to be working just fine. That’s good because I have a 20-miler scheduled for Wednesday that will be my last long run before the taper. It’s a brutal schedule, but it’s the best way to prepare for a race in such a compressed time frame and I’m totally on board with the approach.  

The most interesting part about this experience was that I didn’t feel like I had run 11 miles two days after logging 14 during a heat advisory. Other than the bumps and bruises, I felt … fine? 

Again, without the data telling me how I was supposed to feel, it was as if the run never happened. The Training Load metric on my watch, which I still don’t understand, was flat. There were no calories burned, no steps taken. Strava has nothing for me in its records. But I did it, and I know I did it even if I don’t know exactly what it was that I did. 

If you only knew, Training Load.

I’m honestly not sure what lessons there are to be taken from this adventure, other than listening to your body is just as valuable, if not more so, than reading your watch. Or maybe it’s to be prepared, so when stuff goes wrong, you can come up with alternate solutions. Oh, and don’t fall. It’ll seriously ruin a good run. 

I’d like to hear from you guys. Have you ever gone out without your watch, either on purpose or by accident, and had a different experience than you anticipated?