Atayne Test: Day 1

Last weekend I received the monthly Atayne newsletter (which if you aren't a Facebook fan of these guys or get their newsletter, please do so right now...after finishing reading this post). In it was the challenge for an owner of an Atayne shirt, who has little in the way of regard for others, to wear that article of clothing for a consecutive eight workouts before washing. The reason for this is to test the odor controlling properties of the cocona (activated carbon from coconut shells) interior of the shirt. So starting today I will wear my moss colored, "4 R's", Atayne shirt for each and every workout (photo to the right is post run, day 1). For this week this includes a run of 35 minutes today on the treadmill (recovery from the long weekend runs), three 45 minute workout medley sessions, four runs in the 45 minute range, and a 25-32 mile trail run on Saturday. There may also be a medium distance run on Sunday, but that depends on the ski plans. After day 1 I can say that the shirt smelled as good coming out as it did coming in. I will see in the morning what a night in the locker room does for it.

As for this past weekend's runs, on Saturday I met a subgroup of the Trail Monsters (Jamie and Blaine) at Bradbury at 7 AM...no, scratch that, it was closer to quarter after since I forgot my running shoes and had to return home for them. Sorry guys. It had been almost a month since I had run with my boy Jamie so it was great to return to the trails with him. Because there were others that were joining us at 8 AM, we had just enough time to head down the trail for about 25 minutes just to turn back. The conversation was light and jovial, aided largely by Blaine's crackpot theory about my favorite drug, caffeine. Please do yourself a favor and head over to his website and enlighten yourself!

At 8 AM, after a little bit over 4 miles on the very soft and slow trails, we returned to the parking lot to join Ian, Lilly, and Echo (her enthusiastic hound). At that point we headed south down Route 9 for a short jaunt on the road to connect with the snowmobile trail that would be our home for the next 2+ hours. The first part of this run is extremely hilly, making it very challenging for the cardiovascular system to get warmed up. Once it is warm, the brain is able to then take in the excellent running that is snowmobile trail running in the white Maine winter. I am generally not thankful of power toys, like snowmobiles, but trail running in the winter up here would be virtually impossible without them. So thank you Mr. and Mrs. Snowmobiler. But next time, take the beer cans with you. There is a five cent deposit on them.

A few miles out Lilly and Echo turned back, followed not too much later by Jamie. I have to throw a big "attaboy" out to Jamie for the spirit he shows when faced with injury. When I first met Jamie, he was bouncing back from knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus. He ran his first 100-miler like 2-3 months later. Remarkable. Now he is overcoming plantar fasciitis with his own brand of shock and awe. It looks like this version might work better than the original copy of this employed by Dubya. A truly impressive work of healing, and his reward will be glory on the Auburn, CA track in June!

Ian, Blaine, and I spent the next 10 or so miles running and chatting, and generally enjoying ourselves in the sun. Although tired at the end, we opted to add an extra mile which gave us just over 19 miles in 3 hours on the day. Other than a sore ankle for the first part of the run (still suffering from the Blackstrap Hell race), I felt great. I am still clipping my ankles numerous times during my long runs, and this trail run left me with a bloody left inside ankle. I think this is partially due to the unsure footing and my lack of strength. This weekend I plan on somehow protecting them. To note a failure, I am still consuming too little food and fluids on my long runs. This was a shortcoming in my training last year that I noticed during the Vermont 100. If I don't train to consume fluids and food, I will suffer on race day. I plan to address this on future runs. To complete the weekend, I got in a 10-mile treadmill run Sunday evening after a full day of skiing with the kids. Not a bad weekend of training.