My AC100-- Running To And From the Magic Kingdom

I haven't made a habit of blogging my training runs, but my road runs are all that are left of my epic 100 mile run in Southern California this past weekend. Here is an example of how I was able to fit some running in with the time and location restraints of a family vacation to Disneyland. Originally the last day at the park was going to be today Monday, after the AC 100 Mile Endurance Run, but the Station Fire changed "AC" from "Angeles Crest" to (like the 2008 Western States) "Also Cancelled." So we decided to do Disney 3 days straight and then head home.

We drove down to Garden Grove on Tuesday, hitting a bit of rush hour traffic after the last hilly pass in Santa Clarita. The Nüvi GPS and the road map showed clearly that the Angeles National Forest lay on both sides of us. I wistfully looked to the left and tried to guess at the base of which mountain the race would have ended. I also tried to see if there was any smoke from any fires still burning. (I couldn't.)

Our hotel was about one mile from the southern edge of the California Adventure Park. There was a shuttle you could pay for, but it came only every 20 minutes, plus appeared to make many stops and get crowded quickly. This was confirmed by the lines of families in front of all the hotels on Harbor Boulevard with no shuttle in sight. Of course we could afford to pay for the official Disneyland parking lot but it wasn't very close to the park.

To maximize the time my kids got to spend in the park already curtailed by their obligatory afternoon naps, with the bonus of being frugal in tough economic times, I decided that I would drop off and pick up my family, and run to and from the park. I wasn't looking for a lot of training, since I was still recovering from Cascade Crest 100 even as my PCT 100 in the Hood loomed soon. But I didn't want a complete exercise hiatus.

So the routine was this:

Eat the complementary hot breakfast at hotel. Drive family 2.2 miles to park (had to go past the 15-minute parking area and U-turn),

drive back 1.5 miles to hotel. Run over 2 miles into park, directed by text messages from my wife. A little sweaty, but everyone there would be equally sticky in an hour or two.

When either kids shows signs of melting down in the early afternoon, run back to hotel, pick up car, and pick them up. The highs were in the upper 80's so counted as some heat training. Lunch and late nap at the hotel.

Early evening, get complementary dinner from downstairs, bring it back to room.

no free dinner on Fridays, but was more than happy to pay for a tastier meal at Joe's Crab Shack

Drop off family at park. Drink a beer or take a bottle to go (didn't want to miss free beer and wine), run back to park (immediately after eating) and meet them again.

Repeat the return of running ahead at close of park. The beginning of this last run was more technically challenging, weaving in and out of the crowds, pretending I was a running back , avoiding the motorized wheelchairs and carts, and small kids.

To avoid the traffic and save more time, my wife would keep pushing the double stroller and text me her location.

link to the Garmin Forerunner recorded runs, 2nd day

(Note: despite a lot of skillfully jayrunning, still a lot of waiting on the corner for the light to change.)

So, guess I made this work, and barely ran a marathon doing these runs over three days. But I do look forward to the day our kids no longer need the naps, not to mention when my younger son is tall enough to get on the more interesting rides.

one of several rides that go round and round, after a painfully and disproportionately long wait

Number 3 After 3 Weeks, the Final Race of My "Double Tri" -- Up in Smoke-- a Lesson in Contingency Planning for the Most Hopelessly Addicted

Since the RDs' announcmenet last Monday (August 31st) I've had ample time to mull over the cancellation of this year's Angeles Crest 100 Mile Run. This was to be the final installment of my 7-week long Tri-Tri: the Ironman distance triathlon (Vineman) I finished August 1st, followed by a trifecta of more challenging (each with over 20,000 feet elevation gain and loss) 100 mile trail runs, all 3 weeks part, the first (Headlands) only one week after the triathlon. (Lots of 3's, so maybe it's numerically appropriate to post this on 9/9/09.)

When people's homes are burning up or threatened, you can't justifiably feel sorry for yourself, and I haven't been. Although forests need burns to regenerate, the arson-caused fire is a tragedy whose impact has yet to be seen, probably beginning with landslides this winter.

If anything, when I heard the race was cancelled, my body was relieved. I was still so sore from Cascade Crest the day before. During that 100 mile run east of Seattle, every time I thought of running yet another of the tougher 100 milers in just 3 weeks, I would feel mildly nauseated, and have to force the thoughts out of my mind-- I was working enough just to get to the finish. Fairly quickly into Cascade Crest, I was feeling the effects of Headlands Hundred 3 weeks prior.

Of course, experiencing and working through this self-inflicted extra fatigue, was part of the point.

Soon enough though, I realized that once I had set the goal of getting through this crazy late summer race schedule, relinquishing the final leg would be too psychologically disappointing to endure. I had to find another hundred-miler. For most people, finding a replacement on another weekend isn't too complicated. My work schedule is more problematic, since to clear my schedule for Angeles Crest with a family trip, I had to commit to working other weekends.

So for the past week and a half, I've been surfing the web for a replacement run, looking at plane fares, staring at our ED's schedule, thinking through logistics. Wasting hours and hours. (Some of which I was hoping to use to catch up on my blogging.) Losing sleep time. Feeling anxious and cranky. Which I could only partially relieve with running.

I thought of flying the family to Chicago since both I and my wife were off for a week, and then I would fly to central upstate New York to do the Iroquois Trail 100 Mile Trail Race. While I pondered this and other options, Southwest tickets to Chicago doubled in price, on top of all the money to get to and drive around New York. It's way too expensive now to justify. Arkansas Traveller the first weekend of October also looked promising, and the plane tickets still reasonable, but by the time I seriously wanted to go with this option, my October work schedule came out and I'm scheduled for overnights all that weekend. Anything later that that weekend is too far from Cascade Crest to have that added achievement of incomplete recovery time, plus would be too close to San Francisco One Day. I figured I would be able to psychologically endure a repeated loop 24-hour race for the first time only if I could optimize my recovery beforehand. (Though I have been okay running 100 miles more slowly than I could if I were better rested, if I'm going to go for a repeated small loop race, I really want to do as many as I can.)

So finally I'm now two-thirds done rearranging my schedule to try to make Olga's Pacific Crest Trail 100 mile ("Hundred in the Hood") the last weekend of this month. Fingers crossed, wish me luck. Once again, it's getting to the start that's the hardest part. If it falls through, I'll do a shorter local race. But at least you all know that I tried, tried really hard, to finish doing this very stupid custom-made, mini Grand Slam.

Anyways, the lesson here is if it looks like your big race might be cancelled, you don't have time for wishful thinking. Imagine how you'd feel if things fall through and if you need an alternate race fix, quickly get to work on Plan B fast.