Vulture Bait 2017

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jonovision_man
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Vulture Bait 2017

Postby jonovision_man » Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:23 pm

Anyone else doing it? I'm in for 50k... not sure what I was thinking (but it went something like "I'll lose a bunch of weight and will be in great shape for this, it'll be awesome!").

Pretty nervous about the temps! +26C this Saturday - what's going on . :? Hoping for single-digit highs next weekend!

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Robinandamelia
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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby Robinandamelia » Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:48 pm

This is one race I haven't done yet but want to try. The weekend never works for me.

Good luck though, I'm sure you'll have a great time. I know it's a great event and a fun course.

Let us know what you think!

I'm doing Sticks 'N Stones tomorrow (50K)

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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby jonovision_man » Fri Oct 06, 2017 2:01 pm

Robinandamelia wrote:This is one race I haven't done yet but want to try. The weekend never works for me.

Good luck though, I'm sure you'll have a great time. I know it's a great event and a fun course.

Let us know what you think!

I'm doing Sticks 'N Stones tomorrow (50K)


Nice!

I did the 25km back in 2009... it was great, and course wasn't horribly difficult. I didn't even have trail shoes yet, no trouble.

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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby jonovision_man » Mon Oct 09, 2017 4:37 pm

Robinandamelia wrote:I'm doing Sticks 'N Stones tomorrow (50K)


How'd that go? I checked it out - loops a'plenty, eh? :)

Forecast for Saturday going a bit sideways...
http://weather.gc.ca/city/pages/on-137_metric_e.html

At the moment it's saying high of +19C and sunny. :help: I can't deal with that kind of heat for 50k.

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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby Robinandamelia » Fri Oct 13, 2017 7:21 am

Sticks 'N Stones was a great event. 5K loops were very runnable with a couple of bigger hills. Aid station half way through. The organizers are seasoned ultrarunners so of course it went off without a hitch. They are going to host a couple of more events, including an indoor track event in January.

They had great medals (made out of wood) and awesome swag, hoodies/toque's for 50k and toque's for everyone else. Customized water bottles for age group awards.

It got super hot though, about 27 plus humidity. Not too bad in the forest areas but in the sun yowza. Totally not complaining though, not ready for winter!

Good luck at Vulture Bait this weekend. I'll get there one year. Hopefully the weather cooperates. The temps aren't too bad, just hope it doesn't get too wet.

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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby jonovision_man » Sat Oct 14, 2017 4:53 pm

I DNF'd. I don't know what went wrong - just felt completely off, barely managed 25km, let alone 50km! Heart rate was going bonkers and crashed completely.

More blah blah blah here if anyone's interested:
http://www.marshmallowman2ironman.com/2 ... l-run.html

Too bad, it's such a nice course, and the weather was actually pretty decent (I didn't mind the wet, and the rain mostly held off, just little sprinkles).

Disappointing. I'll be back though.

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Annelizabeth
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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby Annelizabeth » Sun Oct 15, 2017 11:00 am

Suckage

Just curious, if you had not known what your actual heart rate was during the race, just known that you felt you were working to hard do you think you would have gotten as scared?

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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby jonovision_man » Sun Oct 15, 2017 12:31 pm

Annelizabeth wrote:Suckage

Just curious, if you had not known what your actual heart rate was during the race, just known that you felt you were working to hard do you think you would have gotten as scared?


Probably! I was really hitting a wall every time I'd try any kind of exertion, so it would have still been clear something was messed up.

I was still thinking of gutting it out anyway - you don't get to be an Ironman without pushing through bad patches! ;) I knew the course cutoff was 8:30/km and I was still able to keep close to that, even with alllll the walking... until the weird ear thing. That's what got me really thinking "this could be a bigger health thing", and I shut it down.

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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby Dstew » Mon Oct 16, 2017 9:00 pm

I had that happen on the very last long run I ever did - December 2016. We all push through tough patches and in fact when I would wuss out, I would "punish" myself with hard hill intervals, etc. But this time it felt differently and at that time I came across a book, "The Haywire Heart". Although the cover also states, "How too much exercise can kill you and what you can do to protect your heart" but most of the book is not dedicated to stories about those who die but Master athletes with a long history of endurance activity who have restructured their heart into the "athlete heart" and because they pushed through a tough patch, suffered atrial fibrillation. The cases cited were stories of Ironmen, etc who survived but where left with a permanent partial impairment and disability. Having pace makers, keeping their heart rate below certain thresholds.

In short, what I came away with was the extreme endurance activity may not kill you. The odds of any negative result are minimal, one might even say miniscule but ... Given odds of even just 5% or lower, given what I felt that day, it scared the living crap out of me. I went to the doctor and never a good sign when the tech who is doing the EKG starts to get this look of grave concern. And then tries to cover it up with "your heart is still there." Ended up with a number of other tests to confirm I do have the athletes heart. I was essentially told to really listen to my body and so a big reason I moved from running to cycling - cycling does not seem to stress my heart anywhere near what endurance running did. Having said that, after my 100 mile ride, some of the old sensations and not good ones are creeping in. So I have made the decision to back off - a self imposed limit of around 100 K on a bike and with rides of that distance, to make sure I am not going too hard and to take one good rest stop for a coffee in the middle but to stop if I feel I am pushing too hard. I seemed to be able to go just about as hard as want or can for rides of 60 minutes or so but my body is suggesting I watch that.

The bottom line is my friendly advise is to go see a doctor just to make sure. There a hundred factors why your heart rate went where it did that are of no reason to be concerned. There are two or three that are a concern. Here is a link you may find useful.

https://www.velopress.com/category/the-haywire-heart/

http://www.velonews.com/cycling-to-extr ... nce-sports


For my two cents, this is not an issue that develops overnight. We read about 80 year nuns completing an Ironman and contrast that with the same few odd stories of people who die during or immediately after a race. What is not "sexy" or interesting are the athletes that have pushed past a very personal line that they should not be passing. Training is controlled damaging of our bodies and includes inflammation which is terrible over the long run so that when it repairs, we are stronger, faster and have more stamina and endurance. I do not think it is a coincidence that most of the freaks of nature, the outliers who are able to do incredible feats usually are not starting their athletic careers until they are in the 50s or older. They do not have the years of accumulated abuse where youthful enthusiasm means we ignore the call for moderation, for restraint and maybe even sanity. To qualify for Boston, I did two 40 K long runs with that last 5 K at marathon pace. Put some ice, some gels, some pills and a day or two later, I was good to go again. Can get away with that at 40 but 54, not so much. I have always said, experiment of one, if it is not broke, no need to fix it. But when your body and your heart in particular sends such warning signs that may or may not mean anything, I think it is foolish and silly to believe dedication and will power can over come anything. Because it cannot and may fact lead to some very serious consequences in a unlucky few.

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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby jonovision_man » Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:09 am

Dstew wrote:In short,


:lol:

I don't think it's heart condition related - was checked out by paramedics at race finish due to paranoia, but all normal. Ran yesterday, all was fine, heart was fine, responded normally to increases and decreases in pace.

Suspect a combination of humidity and lack of sleep, maybe fighting a bug. Just a bad day most likely.

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Annelizabeth
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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby Annelizabeth » Tue Oct 17, 2017 8:18 pm

dosn't hurt at your annual physical to get a ECG done, just for a baseline.

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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby jonovision_man » Wed Oct 18, 2017 10:10 am

Annelizabeth wrote:dosn't hurt at your annual physical to get a ECG done, just for a baseline.


Yep I'm on top of that, fit as a fiddle.

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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby jonovision_man » Wed Oct 18, 2017 10:19 am

Aaaanyway enough about me... :)

The race itself was really great.

Course was tougher than I had remembered, though - definitely needed trail shoes, especially in the wet.

I had it in my head that the first ~6km was pretty representative of the first half, but it really isn't - it's easy and mostly double track, straight, not too hilly. But once you cross the dam and get off the road it gets dicey. Lots of slippery roots and such to slide on, lots of little sharp ups and downs. Nothing insane, but not trivial (and those around me without trail-specific shoes really struggled).

Very pretty trails, largely in the woods, and nice to always be around the lake like that.

I also remembered longer road sections than there were! It's maybe 3km total over the entire 25km lap.

Skipped the banquet so I can't comment on it... just wanted to get home :?

I'll try 50k again and I think this is the right place to do it most likely.

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Re: Vulture Bait 2017

Postby Robinandamelia » Fri Oct 27, 2017 8:50 am

Way to go!!


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