Rob Mackay :: Notes from the edge

I’ve been thinking about this for a few months and made the decision on my holidays that I am spending far too much time on the computer and not enough time addressing some of the priorities in my life. Computer time, in most cases if we are honest with ourselves, is wasted time. In the end, blogging doesn’t make me a better athlete and if you really need to know my thoughts, email me and we can go for coffee. (robertmackay@shaw.ca) I’d rather be running…

Thanks to Jarhead and Pano for creating the blog for me, it’s been interesting (at least from my standpoint) and I’ve hopefully become a better writer.

See you on the trails. Rob

On holidays starting today

If my hunch is correct, you and I probably spend most of our day on email. Reading and responding to, for the most part, unimportant messages. ‘Unimportant’ defined as ‘not critical to answer in the next 4 hours’. ‘Critical’ defined as ‘I could really blow this apart if they don’t get an answer right away’.

Our Speed of Response seems to define us. The quicker we hit reply and answer back, the better. Is it efficient, possibly. Is it effective, nope.

On that note, one day I’d like to do a study to see what the real business cost is to an email sent that is supposed to have an attachment but the person forgets to add the attachment. You know the ones, “I’ve attached to this email…blah, blah.” People respond back “Was there supposed to be an attachment, yadda?” Then it’s “Ooops, please find the attachment in this email…”

Add up the salary time wasted on that scenario and I bet it costs North American business millions…

Humans - if we are still here - will be looking back on the way we currently work and have a laugh. Thoreau wrote, “It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?”

Spending 90% of our time ‘going through the motions’ isn’t productive. Spending 90% of our time to create only 10% in results is a tragedy.

I started reading The Four Hour Work Week last night and honestly haven’t put it down until now. Bright lights and Anthony Robbins style writing usually send me running so when I picked up the book at the library and looked at the cover, my eyes rolled.

My eyes rolled back when I started reading, though. I was suprised. The message isn’t a new one but the presentation is good and the author, Timothy Ferriss, is undeniably intelligent (on many levels).

I think what I appreciate most is his frankness. He takes a ‘cut the shit’ attitude towards his own term, lifestyle design. He states at the outfront something that I know but sometimes forget. Successful people take action. Thinking is great but it’s better to be moving forward and correcting your path than planning perfection. He also asks ‘what are you so scared of…?’, and ‘what are you waiting for….?’. Great questions to someone who defaults into ‘bag lady thinking’ when contemplating the future. (ie. if I make a bad decision, quit my unfufilling job or get fired or whatever, I will end up penniless and on the street.)

Full book report to come.

On another note, I’ve decided that I spend too much time on the computer. (wasted time) I’m committed to keep up the blog, for now, but will be weaning myself on internet/email.

Rarely do I feel the need to give a blow-by-blow account of a race but this one was different for two reasons. First, I want to keep a record of the race for future training/planning and second, in retrospect, White River was the best race (single day ultra) that I have done both in racing and in terms of the race organization and course.

That said, DNF’ing and writing about it is like reading a mystery novel with the last chapter ripped out. You never get to see how it ends…

First a few disclaimers.

One, 50 miles is a distance I have done in the past with much less training. Last year I ran STORMY in 9 hours. The first half of White River is tougher but the second half of both races I would say is equal.

Second, my quads/legs were fine. In fact, I ran yesterday and my legs overall were sore but overall felt great. Legs weren’t an issue but my stomach was. I still feel sick as I write this.

Third, my ego is at play here but I didn’t enter the race to come in over 9 hours or to just finish the race. *see my earlier post. I’ve done that before. My goal was 8 hours 15 minutes. I think when we start running ultras we go with the goal of “just finishing…”, then when you are confident and have some experience that you can do the distance you want to see how fast you can run it, then later in your life you go back to “just finishing…”

Here’s the story.

Saturday morning came quick as I was having a tough time going to sleep the night before. We (M and the girls and M’s parents) had met at Crystal Mountain after an epic trip from Auburn. I didn’t realize how far the mountain was from civilization! My father-in-law and I went up first on Friday night and got settled in and the girls met us later in the evening. It was hard for all of us to settle and I remember looking at the alarm clock at 11:45 before looking again at 4:45am.

Waking up I felt OK, not fantastic but OK. Two cups of coffee and I was out the door driving down to the Buck Creek campground - the start of the race. Arriving at Buck Creek was awesome and a bit intimidating. You always know you are at an ultra when you look around and everyone is in amazing shape. It took a while for me to get settled, arrange my bottles, etc. Overall, mentally I was feeling confident and strong. For me, it’s always a bit of a rush getting ready. Then it seems like you just turn around and you get the “five minutes to the start People!…”

In the front of the pack I was able to spot Brian Morrison, Greg Crowther and a few other elites all primed and tense. The gun went and we roared down the airport runway. For the first 7km I was running about 30-35th just going easy and stretching my legs talking myself down with “it’s a long way to go, go easy…” At the 7km mark I was having some tummy trouble so I took a bathroom break. It wasn’t pretty and I had a few of the ‘uh-oh’ thoughts but chalked it up to stress. It was an indication of what was to come at 50km.

I got back in line and the first climb started. The only thing that came to mind was “I can’t believe this is so runnable…” To be honest, I was a bit giddy. The next 6 miles up are a gradual incline and I just plugged along hanging in with a group of 5 runners who looked like they were seasoned vets. I tucked in behind them and tried not to yell out “this is so runnable!” I had trained for steep running and had to hold myself back. The views and course are amazing and we just kept moving up and up.

*At this point I wasn’t eating anything solid and didn’t have anything until 60k - this was my first mistake.

Heading into CP 3 (Corral Pass - 2:48 at 27km), I was a bit shocked to see the leaders coming back past me. I thought that I wouldn’t get to see the front runners but we were only about 3 miles apart. I panicked a bit (slow down, you are going too fast, etc) but kept moving. My parents-in-law had driven up to CP3 to provide crewing - this was awesome as they had to navigate some trecherous switchbacks to get to the station. Joan filled my bottles and John took photos, then I was off. I managed to see Mike Suminski, Torben Lind and Rob Smith on the way down and they were all looking good.

The next section was downhill running (6 miles). I was told that this was the section that would blow my quads up. It was tough but not overwhelming and I was able to hammer down sections of the course and make up some time. A few passed by me (I still can’t believe how fast people can run downhill and I passed a few who were struggling just keeping a steady pace more than anything else. Still I was thinking that I needed to not use it all up before the next massive climb to Sun-Top (59.2 km).

CP #5 (4:30 at 44km) was back at Buck Creek and the fam was waiting there. I came in to what seemed like a huge crowd of people. It’s inspiring because they announce your name and your hometown. I checked my watch and I was 4 hours 30 minutes. I was feeling a bit sour but took the approach that I was doing the typical ultra ‘cycle’ of feeling good, then bad, then good again.

Heading out of CP#5 I came up to the base of Sun-Top and Brian Morrison was walking down. I was a bit confused (I thought he was already coming down!) and asked him what was up and he said he was done. Turning another corner I caught 3 people (2 that I had been going back and forth with but I thought they were long gone and another guy who was running his first 50 miler).

*I made the decision here to take an over the counter energy drink. Stupid. I hadn’t eaten anything since 6am…

30 to 40 minutes later I had a wicked wave of nausea come over me. I was slowing and feeling sick. Then I started to puke. Not much came up but over the next 60 minutes I kept stopping hunched over, feeling sick, then walking. I limped in to CP 6 a bit disoriented but knowing enough to ask for ice cold water. This usually stops the feeling. I was able to fill up on it and start drinking - too fast. 20 minutes later I was back to puking. The next 5 miles up were a combination of puking, walking, sudden bursts of energy and running.

I made it to CP #7 (7:02 at 59.2km) at 1:32pm (check out the hurting here). The medical staff came over right away with questions like, “when did you last eat? when did you last pee?”, etc I was a bit pissed off because the 8:15 time was out of reach (I had lost 45 minutes coming up) but managed to sit down and eat some watermelon and drink Coke. I was ravenous and couldn’t stop eating all the while knowing that I was eating/drinking way too fast. I sat for a few minutes then got up to run down the hill and started off. Only 1km later I was puking again - everything came up.

This was really the turning point. I sat down on a boulder beside the road and contemplated the next 20k. 9 hours was looking like it was evaporating and I had to make a decision. My choices were to grind it out to the finish (done that before!), hang in to see if this would pass or call it a day. I chose the last option and I don’t think I would have been any happier with the other decisions. Call it an ego decision but I really had my sights set on the 8:15, had trained properly for it and I wasn’t prepared to ‘just finish’ the race.

I am kicking myself for the rookie mistakes right now. (even though I hate to admit that I’m still somewhat of a rookie). 3 years ago Dom Repta gave me the advice that I chose to forget, “eat early or you’ll be hurting later…” For White River, I chose wrongly.

That’s an old saying from my Dad that used to bring me back to earth during the football years and I’ve been using this week to get ready for White River. I have the classic case of pre-race hypochondria. Let me list the issues:

1. Woke up with a sore throat and cough. On massive doses of Cold-fx.

2. Right ITB is tight. Knee is clicking.

3. Right ankle is still sore, better, but sore.

4. Feeling like I’ve gained 5 lbs of fat over the weekend.

5. Feeling like I am too skinny (didn’t get strong enough for the hill running)

6. Lungs feeling tight - allergies?

 Forget a running coach, I need a shrink.

I started a fun book last night Your Call Is Important To Us: The Truth About Bullshit

Laura Penny is a Canadian writer, columnist (G&M), etc and wrote a 300 page rant on the state of spin-doctoring in North America. She is a fellow GenX’er and although I haven’t heard her in an interview, her writing most likely mirrors her speech.

Her primary arguement is that bullshitting is commonplace, we (the bullshittee) are numb to the constant barrage of the bullshitters (including business, PR, Advertising, Politicians, and so forth) and in a sad sense we are willing participants in the process. She cites work examples, business examples, entertainment examples, her examples are solid, many and undeniable.

I often wonder what humans living in 3000 (if the earth isn’t a train wreck by then) will think of 20th/21st century North American society. Self-absorbed, self-destructive and self-aggrandizing.

I am reading Eckhart Tolle’s new book and it sparked me thinking about the role of the ‘ego’ and the damage it causes. When I read his stuff, I have to smile - not an ‘I’m so much in control and am way ahead of you’ type of smile but more of ‘Man, I can be a dumbass sometimes’ type of smile. My ego can be big and to be fair, it pretty much rules the show. Not only that, my ego causes me grief and I am learning to recognize when my ego stands in the way of good decisions. Obviously, I have work to do.

His writing, though, has also made me think about ego and running. Do you need to have a huge ego to win? Do you need to have an ego to compete? I’ve come to the conclusion that you don’t in either situation. In fact, during an event elite athletes are so ‘in the zone’ when they are competing well that ego doesn’t seem to play much of a part, if at all. What do you need? I think you need quiet confidence with a deep knowing that you are prepared, flexibility to deal with the inevitable surprises that occur and a willingness to see the run through to the end, regardless of the outcome.

On getting some running perspective, here are a few things/questions we all need to come to terms with;

1. Even if you could run a 2:30 marathon, there would be 1000’s in the world faster than you.

2. Even if I won a single race, you could make the argument that some other faster runner would have won, if they were in the same race. There is always a faster runner.

3. Even Jon Brown, arguably Canada’s fastest marathoner, was 4th in the world, twice at the Oly’s.

4. For Ultra runners: Do you remember who won Western States last year? I don’t.

5. Do you have an ‘I love me’ part of your home where you display your medals, trophy’s, etc?

So who are you (me) trying to impress? Does our running define us? Who cares?

If this is you (and it’s certainly me), maybe it’s time to look again at the ‘Why do you run?’ question.

That runs the length of my right foot is still sore but three days later, much better. Photo to come. More achy than really sore. If it feels alright then I’ll go for 30 minutes tomorrow - any pain and I’m stopping. One more physio appointment on Thursday and if it checks out, then it’s a go for White River. (I am pacing back and forth and ready to race)