Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Sulphur Springs 100, a change of shoes, knee update



Sulphur Springs
The Sulphur Spring 100 miler is this weekend. I would like to say I am nervous but honestly I think I have become too dumb to be nervous. I originally signed up for this 2 weeks ago during a short bout of insanity. I ran it last year and thought okay its a loop, its a semi fast course, not to technical and has been dry for the last few years. I am going to do this.

Well forget about dry, currently the course is muddy and looks like it will get worse before Saturday. Wet feet for 26ish hours, been there before and its not fun. Oh well what can you do. I will tape the feet on Friday and spend the next 4 days applying baby diaper rash cream to them twice a day ( yeah I know most of you are thinking what?). I am also thinking of ditching gels all together during the race and just using ensure instead and toying with the idea of running with one of my water bottles filled with coke instead of heed in the second half of the race.

I have the Mohican 100 in three weeks so not a great deal of recovery time but I was thinking that with my base I should be okay. Going to have to really be careful with the feet tho.

My knee seems to be okay. I had a good run of 22k in Milton on bruce trail monday and all seemed good. Really great place to run. The wading through near waist deep water and bog was great prep for this weekend. There was a small group of us so it was a lot of fun. Big thanks to Kinga and Stephan for giving me an invite to go out with them.

New Shoes
At the start of the season I also changed trail shoes. I moved away from Solomon and am now running in La Sportiva. Training in wildcats and racing in Crosslites. I cant believe how light the racing shoes feel. So far so good and am super happy with them.
A huge thanks to Derrick Spafford at Health and Adventure for taking the time to give me a great deal of insight into the different shoes. Thanks man.

That is all.



15 comments:

  1. Glad to hear they're working well for you Chris! Sounds like the traction may be needed for the mud this weekend. Good luck!!!

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  2. It just boggles my mind that in 2 races, 3 weeks apart, you will run what I run in 2 months. I do hope you take good care of your feet & have fun in the mud.
    Do you ever use Perpetuem by HammerNutrition? I feel like it provides very even energy as opposed to spikes of energy like the gels do.

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  3. How on earth do you do it? No sooner than one ultra is done and you're looking down the barrel of another. I'm in awe of your powers of recovery.

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  4. You are crazy is an under statement, but you know that. I'm the envious one! I'll trade Comrades for any one of those 100's any day. Go strong and take care!

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  5. I would not ditch the gels. I agree with boost every lap, so every 3hr you are putting in ~350cal (~100cal/hr) so you need at least 1 additional gel/lap to get close to 150cal/hr, and then you can eat some real food at the aid stations or buy some KFC and have it in your tent! Good luck.

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  6. Glad to hear your knee is ok! Enjoy your new trail shoes and ... your great challenge!

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  7. Good luck Chris - take good care of those feet. You are definitely pushing the sanity barrier :0

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  8. Hi Chris;
    I am on my 4th pair of Crosslites, Mountain Equipment Co-op sells them for under $100.Fantastic shoes, they look like they're falling apart after a couple of hundred miles , but they hold together for 4-500 miles for me. I'm actually getting another pair on Saturday.Not a fan of the Wildcats, too much heel. You might like the Inov-8 212's if you ever see them.

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  9. Good luck in the race, can't wait to read all about it.

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  10. Can't wait to read about the race!

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  12. i hope you had a good race, cant wait to read aobut it.

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  13. Hope your feet made it through with little damage :D

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  14. Thanks for stopping by Chris. I hear the trails are muddy in certain sections at Mohican as well. I did this race a couple years ago and it was very hot and humid with wet feet most of the time (lots of stream crossings and one river crossing). The course was changed this year with no river crossing, more trails (less dirt roads), and more elevation. Hopefully it will be cooler this year.
    See you there.

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