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Thursday, December 31, 2009

2010 running goals

In brief, here are my goals for running in 2010.

As always, remain (at least mostly) uninjured and in good overall health.

Overall distance goals:
Run my first 100 mile training week.
Run my first 250 mile training month.
Finish the year with at least 2100 miles, preferably closer to 2400.

Time goals (in decreasing importance with the first 2 being real close):
Finish 7th straight Umstead Trail Marathon in under 4 hours (I've never broken 4:08 on the current course).
Finish my first 100 mile race, Umstead 100. The main goal is to finish, but sub 24 hours would be real nice!
Run a sub 20 minute 5K.
Run a 6 minute mile (I've never actually specifically tried to run a single, fast mile)
Run a 3:30 marathon, even better would be to qualify for Boston with a 3:20.
Run a 1:30 half marathon.
Run sub 10 hours at a 50 miler.

Goal Races:
Carrboro Fat Ass 50K (January 2, 2010) - Confirmed
Umstead Trail Marathon (March 6, 2010) - Confirmed
Umstead 100 Endurance Run (March 27, 2010) - Confirmed
Bethel Hill Midnight Boogie 50 mile (June)
Triad Triple Lakes 40 mile
Hinson Lake 24 hour

December, 2009, Overall Running Stats

OK, so I know I haven't posted my Hellgate 100K race report yet. Hopefully this weekend. In lieu of that thrilling tale, here are my December 2009, 2009, and 2003-2009 running stats, in more detail than anyone reading this should want to know.

December 2009
Miles run: 146.2
Times run: 19
Days run: 19 (61%)
Longest run: 66 miles (or whatever distance Hellgate 100K really is)
Shortest run: 2.5 miles

2009
Miles run: 1828.9 (2nd highest all time)
Times run: 290
Days run: 268 (73%)

Average per month: 152.4
Highest month: 191.1 (September; new all time high)
Lowest month: 118.5 (March)

Weeks with at least 1 run: 52
Highest week: 76.2 (new all time high)
Lowest week: 10.0

Average miles per week: 35.2
Average days per week: 5.15
Longest run: 66 miles (or whatever distance Hellgate 100K really is)
Shortest run: 2 miles
Average miles per day: 6.82
Average miles per run: 6.31
Number of runs at least 20 miles: 8

2003-2009 (Since I've been keeping track)

Miles run: 11,268.3
Average per year: 1609.8 Times run: 1642
Days run: 1619 (63.3%)
Average miles per 'run' days: 6.96
Average miles per run: 6.86
Average miles per total days: 4.4

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Hellgate 100K prediction

My official prediction is that I'll finish in 16:53:42.

That is an honest, accurate, non sand-bagging prediction based on a lot of information (see below) as well as my gut feelings of my current state of fitness. If anyone reading this wants to "entice" me to push myself, for instance, by offering cash or prizes for finishing faster, I'm listening! What follows is a brief description of the race, some background on me, and how I arrived at my prediction.



This Saturday (December 12, 2009), I'll be attempting my hardest/longest ultramarathon to date, the Hellgate 100K, directed by the 'infamous' Dr. David Horton. Technically a 100K (62.2 miles), one GPS track of the race has the distance at ~66 miles, w
ith ~13,500 feet of elevation change. Below is listed some great sites for additional information. Highly recommended.

This will be my 13th ultra start and I hope my 12th ultra finish (I DNF'd the 2007 Mountain Masochist Trail Run at ~40 miles, although it turned out I had the flu!). The latest weather predictions are that it will be in the mid to low 20's as the low at the start and maybe mid 30's as a high during the day, but with a 40% chance of snow. I ran the Holiday Lake 50K++ in 2007 where it never got above freezing, but that was only 6.5 hours and almost entirely in daylight. Did I mention this race starts at 12:01 AM on Saturday? Yeah, so the first ~7 hours are in the dark. Luckily I am a night owl and generally don't have problems staying awake when needed. I've run one other nighttime race, a 50 miler that started at 9:00 PM back in 2008. Weather wise, my main concern is ice, not snow or temperature.

My previous longest race is the Mountain Masochist Trail Run, a ~50 mile race in this same geographic area. I finished it a little over 4 weeks ago in 10:56:25. On that day, I got a little off track and ran an extra ~2 miles so I think I could have finished in ~10:30. That race was my best ultra to date, by my assessment. I felt great at the end, better than I have in any other ultra. I feel I could have gone another 10-15 mile if needed. In total, I've finished four 50 mile races (2 of those have been the Mountain Masochist), two 40 mile races, and five 50K's, including Promise Land 50K which shares a portion of i
ts course with Hellgate.

The two biggest "unknowns" to me is the fact that David Horton's races are never the advertised distance and the darkness + difficulty of the course is h
ard to objectively measure. So any predictions based simply on expected pace are likely to be wildly off. To combat this, I figured that the best way to guess my finish time was to see how long it took other people to finish Hellgate who also ran Mountain Masochist. So I trolled through the results of both races and found people who finished both races in the same year. My reasoning was that someone's level of fitness wasn't likely to change greatly in 4-5 weeks (the interval between the two races). I then calculated how much of an increase in time it took people to finish Hellgate compared to Mountain Masochist. Any errors in data are solely mine, and please keep in mind that with one exception, I have no firsthand knowledge of any of the people that resulted in this information. What I mean is, some people may have 'held back' at Masochist in anticipation of running Hellgate. Or maybe someone had a really bad day during one race and a great day at the other. Or maybe they ran with a buddy/loved one at one race and not the other. For this reason, my main focus is the average increase in time. I've also included the finishing (in under 18 hours) percentages, and what my predicted finishing times might have been in the past.













I find it really cool/scary that for a race that at its most is 16 miles longer than Mountain Masochist (i.e 32% longer), it takes most people more than 50% longer to finish! This is true for front runners and people just barely making the cutoffs. As you can see, only 1 "prediction" is over the 18 hour time limit: taking into account my actual Masochist finish time and the "Ice Year" average increase in finishing time. Most predictions are in the mid-16 to mid-17 hour range. My prediction comes mostly from the global average and what I feel I could have run at Masochist this year.

Interestingly, using where I finish in relation to the field has me finishing faster (sub 16 hours? Really?).
I've found previously that I usually finish at or near the 50th percentile (i.e. if there are 100 finishers, I finish around 50th). In previous ultra's I've finished in the 31st, 40th, 49th, 46th, 63rd, 48th, 56th, and 48th percentiles. At Masochist this year, I finished in the 54th percentile of all official finishers, and like I said I felt great and feel I could have gone faster. Even estimating I finish in the 70th percentile at Hellgate this year (given I've never gone this far, etc) has me in the mid to high 16 hour range. The reason I haven't relied heavily on this data for my prediction is that it is much more variable.

So there it is. Keep in mind that this analysis is for fun and as a way for me to have some idea of how long this race may take me. I really just want to finish under 18 hours safely, anything more is a bonus. It's bad enough I'll be away from my family for a few days, I don't need to hurt myself in the process! This doesn't mean I'm not going to try my best to finish as fast as possible. With the predicted forecast, I'm gonna be wanting to get done and around a fire as soon as possible!