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Sent: Friday, February 06, 1998 11:47 AM Subject: Long Run #12 Reminder Hi all, Sunday at 8am. The COG loop and I’m thinking this could be a sick one:-) A sad note, Kevin C tweaked his knee two Sundays ago... Being the stud that he is, he decided to put a few speed workouts on it to see if it was OK!? THEN he thought it would be fun to come out to last Sunday’s run in the DEEP stuff. Needless to say he finished it off. His spirits are high and I wish him a speedy recovery! Let this be a lesson to all of us — these runs are bad enough — DO NOT ATTEMPT THEM IF YOU ARE HURT! That’s it from me — I think you will find the best stuff at the end of this post. Larry T’s had me laughing out loud! Top 3 things I have done to piss people off in a run 3) In the middle of a steep section of a race I asked “when does the hill start” and then took off 2) At a 16.5 mile race where I ran in with the “winner,” I turned around and ran back to the start for a 33 mile long run 1) Just last Sunday — shook trees and dropped snow on Kevin A (only once - he got mad) Dan (about 6 times:-) and Kelly’s heads See you Sunday Go out hard, when it hurts speed up... Matt Carpenter http://www.skyrunner.com The tagline is a joke but if you pull it off I promise you will win every race you enter! ************** >From Larry Threlfall You know you run with the Incline Club if ..... .....your coworkers are so accustomed to seeing you battered and bruised on Monday morning they have quit asking you what happened. .....your upset if you don’t fall at least once during the long run. .....you want to be mentioned in the fall down club. .....you get excited when you see the other runners bleed and even more excited when you bleed. .....people ask you, “how you can run down the Barr Trail on all the ice” and you respond by smiling and showing them last weeks contusions and abrasions. .....you find yourself running up slopes that competent mountaineers would say necessitate an ice ax and crampons. .....your disappointed when the snow isn’t deep enough to require gaiters. .....you visited 13 hardware stores looking for 3/8 inch hex head sheet metal screws because the 1/2 inch screws you tried made holes in your feet. .....your spouse/mate/significant other shakes her/his head as you put more screws in your shoes. .....a 1/4 inch socket and extra sheet metal screws are standard equipment on your long runs. .....you bought a Peak Pass. .....your using the Pikes Peak Road Runners Winter Series (long version) as short training runs the day before your Pikes Peak long run. .....you are anxious for spring so you can get back on the Elk Park Trail. .....you hope spring never comes because you will miss running in knee to butt deep snow. .....two water bottles don’t hold enough fluid to maintain hydration during your long runs. .....your goal is to be the number one blood donor. .....you quit noticing the hills in the Garden of the Gods. .....you know who Ajax is. .....at the Crags on Saturday afternoon, you are running while everyone else has on cross country skis. .....you search through trail guides of the Pikes Peak region looking for runs that will provide both altitude and deep snow. .....you consume more than 4,000 calories per day and more than 6,000 on Sunday. .....your running shoes have grease marks from running on the cogs of the COG Railroad. .....your idea of a family ski trip means dropping the family off at Loveland and then your running Loveland Pass. ************** >From Kevin Caffey Psycho runner sub-routine: 1 “Run till something breaks.” 2 “Get it fixed.” 3 “GOTO 1.” (Hey gang you can send Kevin some get-well mail (or at least some dirty jokes) at (e-mail address removed for www posting)) ************** >From Tim Allison W.r.t. to the incline club being too fast. When you choose to hang with a fast crowd, you must live with the consequences. I guess I was fortunate the first time I went, in that Dan Vega decided to stay back with Larry, Rick H. and myself. Rick was recovering from a vacation in the Caribbean someplace and was huffing, and Larry was sinking through the snow more than the rest of us so he was slowed. But even if I had fallen behind, I would have taken that as a sign I needed to learn to run faster. A while back you asked for suggestions of things to include in your weekly running letter. Here is my list of running lists you might use. 10) Reasons not to run. 9) Reasons to run. 8) Favorite things found while running. 7) Favorite things lost while running. (I won’t believe virginity, but would innocence. One thing I found while running was a repeatedly rising moon in the Garden.) 6) Body parts damaged while running. (Losing body parts comes under 7) 5) Things frozen while running. (Not only did all my facial hair frost to the point I couldn’t see well a few weeks ago, my Gatorade froze!) 4) Things that piss you off while running. 3) Things you’ve done that have pissed others off. (While running.) 2) Your best runs. 1) List of running lists. (Ok gang I gave you #3 above — please send in your submissions) ************** >From Matt Haffner, I enjoyed the run yesterday, although I need time to develop a short stride for the hills, ice and snow. I just moved from Chicago, with its elevation range of 780-785, in September. Running on a flat trail this morning never seemed easier. Please add me to the e-mail list. I look forward to future running with the group. Maybe someday I will be able to keep up with someone. (Talk about revisionist history! When I put Matt H’s post here I realized that I forgot to add him to the Long Run Board. He is there now — sorry Matt H. With 3 Matts in the group this could get tough:-) ************** >From Carol Sauceda, (Pre run e-mail) Some reflections on your first few paragraphs. ALL of you are MUCH faster than me...and you know, it is no big deal, and YES, I run by myself about 99% of the time. And I’m ok with it. It is very nice to be part of this group ‘at large’ and share the same trail/routes for the same time period. AND I am getting faster and becoming a better mountain runner, which is one of my objectives. I believe one of the best ways to improve your running is to go out with others who ARE better (faster) runners than yourself. Just based on statistics, I believe it is reasonable to assume that these types of runs are not going to be appreciated by everyone...but I cannot imagine why not. I absolutely LOVE this type of mountain running, even if everyone else runs off out of site and I end up by myself I still have the most awesome great times just being out on the trails, in the mountains I love. I sincerely appreciate the ‘invitation’ to join in, and if anyone else happens to be worried about being toooooooo slooooowwwww...tell them about me, and they’ll have some company, that is until I get FASTER !!!!! (Post run e-mail) Some thoughts on Sunday’s run. It sure was BEAUTIFUL running through the fresh powder, with the clear blue Colorado sky and the bright sunshine. I was having so much fun, I got distracted and forgot all about the ice flow on Ute trail. When I hit that downhill part, I fell several times, before I could get over to the side of the trail...and thankfully, I am not hurt. In fact, I discovered that the little pack that carries my water bottles makes a great cushion for a softer landing, for when your feet fly out from under you unexpectedly and you land smack flat on your backside ! Another thought to add to ‘reasons why you should be doing these long runs’...you have to get faster, if for no other reason than when the snow stops falling and the ice flows all disappear, you have to get FASTER, ’cause it just can’t get any slower going!!! So, you are guaranteed to improve with time. ************** Also from Larry Threlfall I cannot believe how far it was and how long it took to get to No Name Creek going the “back” way (Ute Indian Trail Route). Matt that is one tough run. Of course you said, “these runs were EVIL.” After getting to the end of Ute Indian Trail and turning on the jeep road that climbs Mt. Manitou it had several very steep places. For the longest time I thought how runnable the road was, then the climbing began. I remember thinking, “I must be higher than the Experimental Forest by now.” I wish I had brought my altimeter. Then when the road topped out and I saw Pikes Peak I knew I was higher than the Experimental Forest. Had I not been following your tracks I would have sworn I had missed a turn and was well on my way to Barr Camp. Finally I descended down into the Forest and No Name Creek. When I got to No Name Creek I only went up Barr Trail about 20 minutes because I knew that would put me at over three hours by the time I got back to my car anyway. Matt I had no idea how much climbing there was after getting to the end of the Ute Indian Trail, nor did I have any idea how far it was from the end of the Ute Indian Trail to the Experimental Forest. Every time I would see the top of a ridge I would hope I was there, usually I wasn’t. Statistics of my run: One fall on ice, many falls in snow climbing Mt. Manitou. One slide of nearly 20 feet on Ute Indian Trail. You know the downhill stretches before reaching the road. No blood. Elapsed time = 3:19:33. I have two questions: (1) While I know we run by time not distance, how far do you think it is from where we park to No Name Creek? (2) What is the elevation at the high point going the way we went today, I mean before starting down into the Experimental Forest? It seems I descended between 300 and 500 feet from the high point. That would put the elevation of the high point between 9,200 and 9,400 feet. (That is if No Name Creek is at 8,900 feet.) Excellent adventure run Matt! Thanks for breaking trail for me today! :-) PS I have pass #13. Damn, I’ll probably be the one to fall off the cirque. Good thing I’m not superstitious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-) (Answers are: #1 5.95 miles) #2 9,179’ ************** >From Glen Ash, What a great run! The snow, which seemed undaunting at first, turned into one of the best runs I have done. Keith and I ran the upper loop together and both had 3 falls. I think Ben also had 3. If needed my PP card # is 24. ************** >From Matt VonThun, Thanks for the detailed instructions on the extended Ute loop. I did the loop today (Saturday). There was a small fresh coating of snow on the trail that made it impossible to detect when you would hit a patch of ice. As a result I had three very abrupt falls. Good luck tomorrow it looks like you guys will have the same conditions. (Well Matt V. that “small fresh coating” you got was a “DEEP TORTURE TEST” the next day!) ************** (This is a long one! At any rate, I loved the very last quote:-) Thursday, January 29, 1998 Copyright 1998 The New York Times By MARC BLOOM On a winter night in 1977, Kevin Byrne, a 17-year-old distance runner from New Jersey, brought a Madison Square Garden crowd of 18,235 to its feet with a record-breaking triumph in the national-invitation high school mile race at the Millrose Games indoor track meet. The announcer called out the time of 4 minutes 8 seconds; Byrne, a hard- working senior at Paramus Catholic High School who had just recorded the fastest Millrose mile, circled the track in a victory lap. The moment, Byrne recalled recently, was electric. No one, though, thought the record achieved in that moment would be lasting. But 21 years later, Byrne’s 4:08 remains the boys’ high school mile record at the country’s most prestigious indoor meet — one of a number of striking curiosities in a sport in which records are broken like eggs at a diner. The national indoor interscholastic record for the mile, 4:06.6, has stood since 1972. Indeed, Byrne’s Millrose mark, as well as the national record, hang disturbingly over the world of American track and field, raising questions about training methods and coaching effectiveness. After all, the country’s tracks are faster, the running shoes better, the knowledge of nutrition greater. Thus perhaps most painfully, American stagnation in the high school mile and other distance races — events that once produced some of the country’s greatest track stars, like Jim Ryun, Marty Liquori and Gerry Lindgren — has forced people in the sport to question the commitment and initiative among young distance runners. “When I show my current runners the workouts our guys did 20 years ago, they don’t believe it,” said Joe Newton, boys’ track coach at York High School in Elmhurst, Ill., whose teams have won 18 state titles in cross-country. “Kids don’t understand what working hard means. My guys drive a car from the front of school to the track, do the workout and get back in their cars.” The consequences have been stark. The high school distance marks set in the 1960’s and 1970’s by Ryun and Lindgren, as well as by Alberto Salazar, Craig Virgin and, among women, Mary Decker Slaney and Lynn Jennings, remain. Only twice since 1969 have high school runners broken Steve Prefontaine’s two-mile record of 8:41.5, and not one of the 30 fastest two-mile performances by boys has come in the last decade. No American distance runner, boy or girl, has come close to earning a medal at the world junior meet. Moreover, an American man has not won an Olympic medal in a distance event since 1976, nor has one prevailed in a New York City or a Boston marathon in 15 years. The feeder system of high school runners — the current crop of which will run in the 25th Millrose Mile on Feb. 13 — appears unable to supply truly exceptional talent. “I find I am recruiting 4:12 and 4:15 milers,” said Frank Gagliano, track coach at Georgetown University. “Fifteen years ago, I was recruiting 4:08 milers, and there were more good runners to go around.” The American slowdown contrasts markedly with the achievement of runners from other countries. Last August, Kenyan and Ethiopian runners broke seven men’s world records in events from 800 meters to 10,000 meters. Last winter, Eamonn Coghlan’s 14-year-old world indoor mile record fell, to Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco. And last year, Ken yan teen-agers, running the 1,500 meters as fast as 3:34, equivalent to a 3:52 mile, set a number of world junior records. For many, then, Byrne’s Millrose performance signifies a kind of lost era when American high school athletes ran on the cutting edge of excellence — in the sun and the snow, through Midwest cornfields and on dusty cinder tracks, sticking to rigorous training regimens and overseen by unyielding coaches. In January 1977, preparing for the Millrose Games, Byrne trained at least 10 miles a day and trekked three times a week to the United States Military Academy field house at West Point, N.Y., for specialized speed workouts. “That Millrose race was the defining point of my running career,” said Byrne, who never reached such heights at Georgetown and is now a 38-year-old business executive living in Langhorne, Pa. “But I never thought my record would last for 21 years.” Training for the mile requires speed and strength, years of buildup and a selective racing program to avoid burnout. In high school, Liquori, who ran in the 1968 Olympics when he was 19, trained at a peak of 85 miles a week with grueling sessions like 12 to 15 repetitions of 400 meters in 62 seconds. But his racing was contained by rules — criticized at the time — which prohibited athletes from running more than one distance event each meet. Today, it is common to find the best high school milers doing little more than half Liquori’s training, but, under more liberal rules, running two and three races a meet. “If you ask kids today to run the workouts we did, they laugh at you,” said Liquori, who at Essex Catholic High School in Newark in 1967 became the last American high school boy to break 4:00 for a mile. “Kids of the 90’s run track like joining the French Club, to be part of something but not in pursuit of excellence,” added Vince Cartier, who holds the indoor high mark at 4:06.6. Cartier said he ran eight miles every day at 5:45 A.M. and then trained again in the afternoon during his senior year at Scotch Plains-Fanwood High in New Jersey. High school track and field participation nationwide has dropped 32 percent for boys and 18 percent for girls in the last 20 years, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Soccer, increasingly popular, is cited as luring top track prospects away from the sport. Reinvigorated regional programs, such as those at the Armory Track and Field Center in upper Manhattan and the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston, have stimulated participation. But while 40,000 boys and girls compete all winter long at Armory meets, the performances on the fast Olympic-style track are slower than they were 30 years ago on a slick wooden surface. Some experts attribute the diminished high school performances to the adult running movement, which stresses an easy-does-it approach to fitness and cautions against the no-pain, no-gain idea. “High school coaches give athletes too many easy days where they run but don’t really train,” said American University Coach Matt Centrowitz, a former New Yorker and 1976 Olympian, whose 4:02.7 high school mile in 1973 is still the state record. “The coaches are joggers themselves and pass on a run-for-fun attitude to their teams.” Salazar, who won the New York City Marathon three times and who started out setting high school records in Wayland, Mass., saw evidence of coaching leniency last summer in Eugene, Ore., at a camp he organized for 42 elite high school distance runners. “Kids aren’t training hard enough, but not because they’re lazy,” Salazar said. “Their coaches have been indoctrinated with a slow-distance mind-set and, in some cases, are more interested in providing a positive experience than demanding tough workouts.” Pat Tyson, who has developed national-caliber distance runners at Mead High in Spokane, Wash., said: “Coaches are smarter today. Maybe some coaches protect their athletes. But the mission is to keep kids hungry for running so they don’t burn out before college.” Some current runners note the example of Bob Kennedy, the 27-year-old American 5,000-meter record-holder and Olympic finalist, known for the modest 40-mile-a-week training he did in high school. The greatest threat to Byrne’s Millrose mark came a year ago, when Jonathon Riley of Brookline, Mass., ran a 4:10.62, and so it is not inconceivable that the 21-year-old achievement will be outdone this year. During the 1997 outdoor track season, Riley and two other milers ran 4:01 to 4:02, raising hopes that the 30-year wait for a sub-4:00 high school mile might end. “I know runners of the past did more training than we do,” said Andy Powell of North Easton, Mass., one of the top runners in this year’s Millrose mile. A junior at Oliver Ames High, Powell ran a 4:09.82 mile last year as a sophomore, then took the summer off from training. “I’m learning what my body can take,” he said. Clearly, Liquori and others believe more was asked, even demanded, of their bodies a generation ago. Lindgren was a 17-year-old high school runner from Spokane in 1964 when he made the Olympics. A year later, Ryun ran a 3:55.3 mile to set the national outdoor mark. “If I threw up in the middle of a workout,” Liquori recalled, “my high school coach, Freddie Dwyer, did what would be considered politically incorrect today. He’d say: ‘You’re a wimp. Get back out there. The snow’s not that deep.’ “ ************** www post 2/1/98 Fresh powder for all! Nothing like a little weather to keep the numbers down — 14 and 1/2 came for the “let it snow” edition of the Ute Pass Loop. Matt H was the newbie today. Despite that fact that the snow made us slow — most of us lost 10-15 minutes in the first hour alone — the high knee lift workout definitely got our hearts pumping! Its odd, I know, but the sicker the conditions the more alive I feel when I finish. I think more than a few in this club fall into that category! Although there were still a lot of falls most of them ended up with a nice soft landing:-) Terrie won the fall-down award for the second time in a row claiming she lost count after six. Kevin C took second with four. NO reports of blood this week. It should be interesting on the COG loop next week when we get up into the really deep stuff. ************** Pikes Peak Passes (let me know when you get one or when you know your #) Kevin # 1 Matt C # 2 Terrie # 3 Matt V # 4 Keith # 11 Larry T # 13 Cindy # 20 Glen # 24 Carol # ? ************** Misc. Stats 30 different people and 2 dogs have come to the Sunday long runs. 35 different people have run up the Incline as a club workout. 41 people are on the e-mailing list.
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