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Running After the Age of Fifty – A blog by Paul Jurasin

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Running with the Bears – Great Race, People, Place and Cause

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Running with the Bears – Mile 7 of the 1/2 Marathon

Many months ago, as I was looking through the list of races in the California Marathon and Half Marathon Series, I noticed a race with an intriguing name –  “Running with the Bears”.  I visited and was impressed by the professionalism of the race website as I reviewed the information about the race course, location, the charity the race supports and the comments from prior runners.  Over the next few weeks I found myself going back to the website over and over to learn more about Mountain Circle Family Services, the beneficiary of the proceeds and fundraising efforts resulting from the Running with the Bears.  I came to appreciate the services that are provided by Mountain Circle to assist in and improve the lives of foster children in this area.  After telling my wife about all the great race reviews and showing her the awesome things Mountain Circle does, I convinced her to register to run the half marathon with me and make the seven and a half hour trek northeast to the little town of Greenville, California for the race.

In the early morning of Friday, August 14th, we began our drive from San Luis Obispo on the central coast of California, out through the agricultural lands of the central valley, up through the state capitol of Sacramento and finally into the foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada mountains. Human population becomes sparse as one heads into the Sierras as the terrain becomes rugged and beautiful with rivers, deep valleys and gorges, and massive pine forests.  At about 4:00 pm, we arrived at the Taylorsville campground, our home base for the next couple of days, and setup our tent among the pine and oak trees.  Many runners and others were already setup in the campground, but still, there was plenty of space for us.  After the long drive, we were hungry so we drove the 10 or so miles over to Greenville (pop. 1100) for the pre-race dinner in the backyard of the new Mountain Circle location.  After a pasta and salad dinner along with desert, we heard from the race directors, Josie and Shauna, about the Mountain Circle mission to support the foster children of the area by providing them with a mom and dad that they were missing in their lives. Hearing the story of a former foster kid, now a young adult, in person made our support of the group through the race feel more real and well worth the cost and effort to get here.

After returning to the campground and getting and a good night’s sleep, we we awoke early to arrive at the start area six miles away for the Running with the Bears half marathon by 6:30 am on Saturday morning.  Without paying too much attention, we were thinking it was a little chilly in the early morning light until we looked at the car thermometer indicating that it was 38 degrees!  Wow, this is still August, right?   The area around the race start was buzzing with activity by the time we arrived.  The marathon had just started and the half marathon and 10k participants were begiwpid-wp-1440634322580.jpegnning to congregate near the start/finish line.  These are not Chicago Marathon size crowds but rather an intimate group of 500 people on the edge of the beautiful, barely populated Indian Valley surrounded by mountains highlighted by the rising sun.  Cattle grazed across the country road from the start line and throughout the thousands of acres of ranch land stretching before us with a “real” cowboy on horseback in the foreground tending the herd.  As race time neared, in true, small town, laid back fashion, the race director announced that the race would start 10 minutes late to allow the restroom line to clear, which made many people happy.  And, why not, we had all day to finish this race.  There are no time limits. In fact, there are refreshingly few rules to follow.  It gave me time to greet Stella, a blue heeler I met on Friday night that looked like a small version of our own Jackson back home.  There were many dogs getting ready to run both the half marathon and 10K all excited and ready to go.

After the National Anthem, a nice rendition sung live at the start line, the shivering mass of runners began their journey.  Becky and I had no time goal so we decided to run at a comfortable pace and enjoy scenery along with food and drinks at the eight aid stations along the course.  Eight aid stations is a lot for a half marathon and these were not ordinary.  There were the 4077th MASH, hillbillys, cheerleaders, belly dancers, fruit, peanut butter balls and a multitude of other snacks and drinks.  The effort put into this race by the aid station volunteers was truly extraordinary.  The course followed the edge of the Indian Valley along a mostly flat route with some rolling but no killer hills through the half marathon.  As we approached the finish line, something that I’ve never experienced in a race happened.  One of the race directors who is also the executive director of Mountain Circle Family Service, Shauna Rossington, ran the last 35 yards of the race with me to the finish line.  She then turned around and did it again and again with other runners as they finished.  A nice personal show of appreciation for the runners!

After the race, most of the finishing runners stayed in finish area to cheer the remaining runners in, play with the dogs, eat snacks, drink a beer and get a massage (all included in the entry fee). wpid-wp-1440634344466.jpegAfter an hour or two of post-race relaxation the temperatures had warmed into 80s so we gathered our fancy Running with the Bears finisher medals and made our way back to the Taylorsville campground for a nap followed by a stroll in the nearby river.  For lunch, we visited the Taylorsville Young’s Market, which offers a surprisingly eclectic selection of meats, cheeses, sandwiches and gourmet coffee.

wpid-wp-1440634284621.jpegAfter all this, most would think they were done activities.  Not at Running with the Bears!  5:00 pm marked the start of the Hoedown.  The Hoedown is the post-race event complete with dinner, live music, dancing and a bar held in the Mountain Circle backyard in Greenville.  At this event, special recognition was given to the volunteers and fundraisers involved in Running with the Bears.  The organizers and volunteers were amazing throughout the weekend.  People that were performing bag check-in at the race in the morning were in formal attire taking drink orders in the evening all with a smile.  This was a nice way to end a great weekend that was much more than just a race – it is truly an event.

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Hair, Training and Racing

With August upon us, there are only 5 months left in the year.  That seems impossible.  After our 40 mile running trek down the Rogue River Trail in May, we have continued a decent level of training throughout the summer knowing that the fall brings several big races.  Overall, it’s been a good training year having only missed 5 days of running in the last 8 months.

This week, I have two exciting running related events coming up.  The first is on Wednesday when, for the first time in my life, I will shave my head!  Why would I do that?  Well, I challenged my community of friends to donate $1500 in a w0704150753beek to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in support of my Chicago Marathon run in October and if they succeeded I would shave my head.  To my surprise and gratitude, my generous colleagues donated over $2200 to St. Jude and to be true to my word, I will gladly shave my head.  In fact, because I am a big believer in St. Jude and their mission, I would encourage anyone to take a look at what they do and make a donation if you are so inclined.  You can check them out here.  The scary before and after photos of my head to will be added to the Grand Masters Running blog later in the week!

The second event coming up this week is the Running with the Bears 1/2 Marathon on Saturday.  My wife, Becky, and our dogs, Jackson and Scout, are driving north 7 hours to the little town of Greenville, California on the edge of the northern Sierras to participate in a small race dedicated to supporting the foster kids in that part of the state.  We are very impressed by the organization and mission of the organizers of this event as well.  Find out more at:  Running withtheBears.org.

Following Running with the Bears, I will be running the Chicago Marathon in October and the Santa Barbara Red Rocks Trail Marathon in November.  I’m excited to get started!

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Running 40 miles down the Rogue River Trail – A Trip Guide

The months of weekend back to back training days paid dividends in making our 40 mile trail run along the Rogue River trail in southwest Oregon a success.   And what an adventure it was!

The play-by-play:

Rogue River
Rogue River

First this wasn’t a race, it was a three day, 40 mile, guided trail run.  The difference between this trip and a race, at least for the running portion of the trip, for a mid-pack trail runner like me, is minimal.  Even in a trail race, I’m not pushing to gain every second I can. For me, it’s more of an endurance challenge, an estimate of how far I can push the pace and still complete the distance.  With this run, it was much the same.  I put in the effort to run at a pace up to my abilities – but there was no clock and absolutely no external pressure to push through pain for the sake of time.  Internal pressure is a personal thing though and I, like many others, will push through some discomfort just to experience the challenge.   That’s why we run.

My wife, Becky, and I booked this trip back in January through Momentum River Expeditions in Ashland Oregon.  We had been looking for a trail running vacation and after comparing the few guided options available, decided on Momentum’s and convinced a couple of our friends to join us.  We love trail running and to make this an actual vacation, we wanted to be able to run for a few days in a beautiful location while not worrying about carrying gear, setting up camp or cooking every day. This trip was exactly that.   On guided trips, there are several areas where things can go wrong.  The outfitter can have too many rules and be so restrictive that it’s hard to have fun or they can be so relaxed that you feel like you’re on your own without much support.  From our view, Momentum hit the sweet spot.  They provided enough structure to keep everyone going in the right direction safely. The guides allowed people that wanted to run fast to do so while allowing those wanted to move more slowly to do that with no pressure to “hurry up”.  It would be easy to turn this into a Momentum River Expeditions advertisement because they are so good at what they do.  On a guided trip, another thing that can go wrong is that the client’s personalities can conflict causing the group to splinter.  My impression is that this is less common among runners and especially trail runners.  Most trail runners I’ve met are easy going and supportive of each other’s effort level while competitive, for the most part, with themselves.  Our group of 18 runners from Massachusetts, Colorado, California, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington and Australia ranging in age from the mid twenties to the mid sixties were friendly, fun and supportive of each other’s abilities.  A great group to hang out with.

So what was a typical day like?  This is hard to describe for a three day trip without getting into a lot of detail because each day is different, but I’ll try.  With the exception of the first day when we all met at the pickup point at 9:30 am, the outfitter’s staff would have coffee and tea ready at 7:00 am followed by an awesome gourmet breakfast at 8:00 am on the river bank.  I can’t say enough about the quality of the food Momentum put together with direction of chef Orea.  The breakfasts, lunches, dinners and desserts were much more than expected.  Even the coffee was freshly roasted and pressed.  Following breakfast and a trail briefing, each of the runners would roll-up our sleeping pads, breakdown our tents and pack our personal belongings into a dry bag that was issued to us for transport by raft to the next night’s campsite.  By 9:15, one of the running guides, usually Jenn Shelton, would take the self-described slower group to the trail to begin the run.   Jenn is one of the fastest trail runners in the country and had the record for the fastest 100 mile trail run for a female in the USA from 2007 – 2014.  While she has the right to be, she’s not the least bit snobby about her running triumphs while being open in talking about her life stories.  She’s supportive of everyone, genuine, direct and fun to be around.  The faster group would start 20-30 minutes later and be guided by two other running guides one of whom was usually Pete Wallstrom, the owner of Momentum and an accomplished athlete himself.

Before beginning the run each morning, the guides set a meeting point somewhere in the middle of the section of the trail to be run that day.  All of the runners, fast and slow, and running guides would meet at this location to gather and start the second half of the run.  The condition of all the runners was evaluated here to determine if everyone was capable of continuing and if not, to board a raft for the rest of the way downriver to the campsite.  To start the run, both the first and second sections, one of the participants would volunteer to lead the group down the trail at a reasonable pace while the guide followed in the middle of the pack to make sure all were progressing without difficulty.  There was no pressure to run faster than was comfortable for anyone.  The Rogue River Trail is a wonderfully scenic, well maintained trail with little foot traffic.  At least this is true in mid-May.  The surface varies from pine bark to a few rocky sections on mostly rolling terrain with only a few significant hills.  The trail closely follows the river for nearly the entire length with only occasional deviations.  The runners would sometimes find ourselves on some exposed ledges above the river but nothing I would call dangerously narrow.   There are many small creeks and streams, some with waterfalls, that cross the trail and flow into the Rogue.  In some cases, the waterfalls create icy cold pools in which some of my colleagues immersed themselves.  Because the campsites on the Rogue River are first come first served, it’s not possible to know exactly what distance will be run each day.  It’s only known that the total will be roughly 40 miles.   For my group, we did approximately 11 miles the first day 17 miles the second day and 12 miles on the last day finishing at approximately 1:00 pm.  The guides that transport the food and gear get started as early as they can each day in an attempt to acquire the best campsites.  These guides, Erik, Sam and Orea were also very experienced, knowledgeable and more than willing to educate and discuss outdoor leadership, environmental law or any other topic they’ve gained experience in over their years of guiding.

At the end of the run each day, usually between 1:00 and 3:00 pm, lunch was awaiting the hungry runners followed by time to hop into the river, read a book, throw a frisbee around or take a nap.  Our tents were always setup by the time we arrived at the camp and the cooler of cold drinks was waiting.  A gourmet dinner was prepared on each of the first two days with fresh ingredients for both the vegetarians and the carnivores followed by an awesome dessert.  Bananas Foster anyone?

Following dinner, we got to know each other better, had a beer or two and headed to sleep to prepare for the next day.The last day of the run ended at around 1:00 pm on Sunday afternoon with everyone tired and happy.  After a quick lunch and some celebratory champagne, we boarded the vans for the two hour ride to our cars at the start.  For me, the trail was great, the scenery was awesome, the runners were fun to be around, the food was unbelievable and the guides were the best.  I think I’ll do this again!

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Three Weeks to Go – Running the Rogue River Trail

0418150937~2With just 3 weeks to go before my wife Becky and my 3 day, 40 mile run down the Rogue River Trail in Oregon, it’s time to adjust our training strategy.  During the week while we’re working, we’ve been continuing a steady dose of daily short runs with one mid-week, mid length run of about 5 miles.  On weekends, we’ve been doing at least one long, very difficult run of about 14-15 miles on technical terrain and with 1500 – 2500 feet of elevation gain followed by a 9 or 10 mile run on the second weekend day.  This is great training, but we’re finding that the hard run is causing enough strain that the second run on the weekend is lacking in quality because we’re pretty beat up.  This level of training would probably have been OK in our 20s but I have to remind myself that we’re in our 50s.  Starting this weekend an adjustment is in order.

We will begin doing a long but easy run on Saturday of about 3 hours (roughly 15 miles) followed by another 2 hour easy run on Sunday.  The concept behind this change is that the time we spend on our feet during the long run will benefit our endurance without causing the physical damage to our bodies of the technical terrain with lots of climbing and descending.  The 2 hour Sunday will run will also give us a chance to practice running on slightly tired legs which will be likely on the 2nd and 3rd day of the Rogue River Run.  We also need some additional nutritional practice with gels during the run.   At this point Becky tends to use one gel every 45 minutes to keep her energy up while I either have one gel and the start or none at all.  Experimenting with more and less calories will help us to refine to the optimal level.  Everyone responds differently to training and nutrition so it’s not expected that we will both arrive at the same optimal levels.

Updates to come in a week or two!

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Preparing for a Multi-Day Running Vacation

Earlier this year when it was time to plan a vacation for the summer, my wife, Becky, and I decided to do something different.

Trail Running
California Trail Running

It’s something we do all the time – trail running – yet never in this format.  We decided to sign up for a multi-day trail running trip down the Rogue River trail in Oregon.   The concept is that all we do is run about 15 miles per day for 3 days while all of our gear, tents and food is taken down the river in a raft where it meets us at appropriate locations each day.  In addition, the running and river guides setup the tents and cook the food.  For a trail runner this sounds like heaven!  We booked our trip with Momentum River Expeditions  based mostly on reviews and the trip guide.  The guide for our trip is Jenn Shelton of the book “Born to Run” fame in addition to having the record for fastest female time for 100 miles in the U.S.  To enhance the experience we managed to convince a couple of our friends from Colorado to join us.

Being that both Becky and I are in the 50+ age range, we’re attempting to train such that we are in good enough shape to complete the 40 or so mile run comfortably without training so much that we get burned out or injured.  We’ve both started out with a decent base of being able to run 10-15 miles easily.  The trick is to be able to do it for 3 days in a row.  In general, our plan is to slowly increase our weekly mileage with weekend back to back runs increasing to 12-15 miles each with weekly totals of approximately 35 miles.  We’re also doing a mid-week longer run.   So far so good.  We’re about 6 weeks into the training plan and feeling good!

More updates to come.

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Trail Review – Johnson Ranch to Irish Hills

We’ve been doing a lot of trail running in the past few months.  My wife and I try to find a new trail to run as often as possible and have been succeeding in finding at least one new trail every couple of weeks.  Of course, this can’t last forever.  Eventually, we will have run most of the trails near our home and will have to drive continually farther away to continue to get the new trail input.  That’s OK. It’s a good reason to get out and explore.

I always take photos on our trail running adventures and while I have done trail reviews before, I recently realized that doing this on a more regular basis might help others to try out some of the trails we’ve discovered without so much trial and error.

Let’s start with today’s (3/28/2015) run:

Trail Location:  San Luis Obispo, CA

Trail:  Johnson Ranch to Irish Hills

Distance: 5.0 miles

Elevation: Minimum 93 feet, Maximum 643 feet

Surface: Packed dirt, rocks, double and single track

Summary:  This is a scenic, hilly trail with a combination of single and double track.  There is significant foot and bicycle traffic on the trail at peak times of the day.  As always, traffic becomes thinner as you get farther from the trail heads.  I highly recommend this trail if you don’t mind hills.

Photos:

0328150923a~2 0328150916a 0328150856~2 0215150901a~2

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Run for Your Life

A recent study published in the August 2014 issue of The Journal of the American College of Cardiology seems to indicate that runners live longer than non-runners.  That seems like a pretty generalized statement, but the data from the study supports

Running

this.  It appears that even minimal running (5-10 minutes/day) provides significant reductions in mortality rates of 30% for all causes of death and 45% for cardiovascular causes.  The study also shows that those who run longer distances don’t have an advantage over those that run short distances.  In fact, based on a chart in the article, it appears that those who run more the 20 miles/wk or run 6 or more times per week have a slightly reduced benefit.

If we believe this study, which appears credible, being consistent about our running can provide us with the benefit of longevity.  It doesn’t matter how far we run, just that we do it.  Hmmm…. could be the tag line for running shoe company.

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Coming Back

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve written an article for the Grand Masters Running blog. Over 7 months, in fact. Sometimes life fills up all the mind space available.

I try to focus this blog on the challenges of 50+ year old runners and I have come to realize that some of our challenges have nothing to do with running at all. Once we get to that 50+ age group, many of our family members, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers and grandparents are at a point where they are struggling with end of life issues and this has an impact on us.

California Trail Running
California Trail Running

Shortly after I ran the Tucson Marathon in early December of 2013, my father’s health began to quickly decline. He had been fighting prostate cancer for a couple of years and the effects of the metastasis were finally becoming too much for him. For me, living and working more than half way across the country was difficult because I couldn’t visit him as much as I would have liked even though I flew from California to Michigan every few weeks between January and April when Dad passed away. During this time I ran a mile or two every morning but not much more. Thinking back, even though it was limited, I couldn’t tell you what I was doing with my free time during that time period. I can say that my brain had no capacity to write about running though.

Only in the last month or two have I felt like my running has been coming back. My wife and I have been increasing our trail running mileage by finding a new beautiful trail to run every weekend. Fortunately, on the central coast of California, this isn’t a difficult task. And… today for the first time since December, I am sitting in front of my computer feeling like I want to write about running again. So, because I love to do it, I will start writing about running at 50+ years old again.

More to come…..

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Marathon Demographics for the Masters

Since I just ran a marathon a couple of weeks ago, I was interested in reviewing what the recent trends and statistics are looking like for marathoners primarily focusing on the Masters (40+) and Grand Masters (50+) age groups .  The statistics referenced come from Running USA.

In 2012, there were 487,000 marathon finishers in the USA.  This is slightly less than in 2011 but only because the New York City Marathon, usually the largest in the world, was cancelled due to a hurricane.  If the expected number of finishers were added, the overall number of marathon finishers would  have been slightly higher than in 2011.    At least from the marathon point of view, there’s not a growing running boom going on but there is not a reduction either.  Let’s take a look at how the genders and age groups are trending.  In the 40+ age range, the percentage of 2013-12-08 02.56.04women versus men in the marathon is slowly increasing.  In 2006, 60% of marathoners were men while 40% were women.  In 2012, that number changed slightly to 58% men and 42% women.   In 2012, 35% of all men marathoners were over 45 years of age while 23% of all women marathoners were over 45.  Overall, from 2006 – 2012, the percentage of marathoners both men and women over the age of 45 has remained steady at 46%.  When looking at all marathoners in 2012, the median age for men was 40 and 35 for women.  Interestingly, after years of improvement in average marathon finishing times, the times for both men and women have increased year over year from 2010 to 2012.   There is not an obvious answer as to why this may be happening.   A possible explanation may be that an increasing ratio of casual versus serious runners are entering the marathon ranks but that’s just speculation.  I have no data to support that statement.

Other interesting statistics about marathoners are that they run an average of 4.3 days and 28.3 miles per week and they purchased an average 3.5 pairs of running shoes during the year.  That demographic sounds pretty close to the marathoners I know.

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