Tag: endurance racing

  • Ode to a Serendipitous Ultramarathon in NYC

    Ode to a Serendipitous Ultramarathon in NYC

    It was in the late afternoon of a Thursday in June when I picked up my phone.

    “Alan, are we going to do this? We’ve been talking about it for so long.”

    While I think my brother,  Dan, was a bit antsy after a long week in the office, the man had a point. For the last few years, we had discussed running a marathon together.

    Marathon Failed Attempts

    It’s not like we hadn’t tried before.

    I made a valiant attempt in college. My friend Gabi and I ran through St. Louis’ Forest Park several times over the course of 8-10 weeks, following a strict four- month training schedule. After a particularly long run one weekend, my knee gave way when I got out of bed the next morning. Gabi and I made the executive decision to postpone our long distance exploits. Turns out that was a good decision, as we both pledged the same fraternity and likely wouldn’t have had much free time to safely finish our training.

    My brother also once tried to run a marathon. I remember one of his training runs while we were visiting family in Indiana. It was Christmas time – cold and windy, and my brother went out for a solo 14-mile run. My family thought he was crazy, but I knew what he was going through. Despite biting gusts in his face during the latter half of his run home, he celebrated a victory that morning. He had officially run a longer distance than I ever had.

    Like me, Dan’s knees started bothering him and he didn’t finish his training. Over the next couple of years, I got into obstacle racing and rock climbing, joining a local gym and racing events like the Tough Mudder, the Spartan Race, and even a zombie apocalypse-inspired mud run. Scary stuff.

    Throughout 2013 and 2014, Dan and I had talked about another attempt. This time, we would train together. We went back and forth, trying to find the perfect race to sign up for. Do we race locally? Do we pick a city and fly there for the weekend? What races are available given our hectic work schedules, upcoming bachelor parties and vacations and conferences?

    Holding Ourselves Back

    Thing is, we couldn’t find a race that “worked.”

    It wasn’t until Dan’s phone call last June that we realized…we don’t need a race. All we have to do is put our shoes on and run. We’ll figure out the details later. Trying to find the perfect race was holding us back from what’s most important. Let’s just start running, and we’ll take it from there.

    He called on a Thursday, and we started our four-month training program that next Tuesday.

    Our Marathon Plan

    The plan was simple.

    We’d follow the same four-month training plan that we had used before. While we both live in New York City, it was easier for us to train alone during the week and then, occasionally, to sync up on Saturdays for longer runs. I would train along the west side of Manhattan, hugging the Hudson River during my runs, and my brother would train along the East River.

    We’d call each other regularly to chat about how we were feeling, to make sure we trained at the same pace, and to psyche each other up for the next run.

    Unfortunately, after about 10 weeks of training and one particularly long run, Dan told me that something didn’t feel right. He had suffered knee and ankle injuries in the past, and he didn’t feel like continued stress was the right decision at the time.

    Finishing Alone?

    I’m proud of Dan for listening to his body, but I was upset that I no longer had a training partner. At that point, I was more than halfway done with my training, and I had just run the longest I have ever run before, a 16-mile Saturday morning session.

    I decided to press on. There were still, of course, some details to sort through:

    • What would I eat the few days leading up to the race?
    • Without aid stations, what water and food would I carry with me?
    • What was my route? How would I hit 26.2 miles running around Manhattan like a crazy person on a Sunday morning, avoiding traffic?

    Enter Joel, Ultramarathon Runner

    Satisfied with my training, I set out to run my “DIY marathon” on Sunday, August 10th.

    A few days prior to the run, I received a serendipitous text message from Joel Runyon, close friend and co-founder of Nerve Rush, an extraordinary human being who recently set out to run seven ultramarathons on all seven continents.

    “Hey, I’m coming to NYC. You around?”

    I responded back.

    ”Yes, any chance you want to run a marathon with me on Sunday morning?”

    I figured, Joel was in the middle of ultramarathon training, so he likely had a longer run scheduled that weekend anyway. My hypothesis was validated when Joel agreed to join me on Sunday. I made a last minute trip to REI to pick up his favorite Clif Shot Bloks, and made plans to meet Joel at 7:00am the next morning.

    The Serendipitous Ultramarathon

    For the more novice ultramarathon runner, finishing the race safely is the most important accomplishment one can hope for.

    The time doesn’t matter nearly as much as listening to your body, knowing how and when to take breaks, and constantly battling the “please stop now this is hurting” voice in the back of your head.

    While I had been training at an 8:00-8:30 min/mile pace, Joel had been working with a professional ultramarathon coach at a slower pace. About 4-5 miles into our run — we both went out way too fast! — we both slowed down. Turns out this was a smart decision, as the temperature quickly picked up to 85+ °F. It was a hot and humid day, not ideal for long distances.

    We ran up the Hudson River Parkway, from 10th Street to 109th Street, where we darted east until we hit the northwest corner of Central Park. We ran the Central Park Loop (a little over 6 miles) two times, then we made our way back to the Hudson River to run home.

    Along the way, we snuck into a 5K race and “borrowed” their aid station, took a quick bathroom break, and stretched where we needed to. Running an ultramarathon, I learned, is about managing your body, and that’s what Joel taught me to do.

    With about two miles left in our run, Joel looks at me and says, “Hey, want to make this an ultra?”

    While ultramarathons tend to follow 50K, 100K, 50-mile or 100-mile courses, an ultramarathon is technically any race over the normal 26.2 mile distance.

    Joel whipped out his fancy GPS watch, and we ran around a couple of Hudson River piers to tack on an extra tenth of a mile, putting our final race distance at just over 26.3 miles.

    I set out to run a marathon, but I learned how to run an ultramarathon.

    This won’t be my last 🙂

    Alan & Joel Ultramarathon in NYC
    Just after Joel and I finished the NYC “ultramarathon.”
  • Inside Triathlon Training

    Inside Triathlon Training

    Ever want to know what it’s like to train for a triathlon? Shot on a GoPro, get inside the mind of a triathlete. This is what hard work looks like, folks.

  • Hood to Coast: World’s Largest Relay Race

    Hood to Coast: World’s Largest Relay Race

    “It’s an epic race, but you can’t do epic all by yourself.” Each year, 1000 teams (12,000 runners) cover 197 grueling miles as a relay team. It’s the largest relay race in the world.

  • Mark Vermeersch & Team Timex [Interview]

    Mark Vermeersch & Team Timex [Interview]

    [youtube id=”hGhj5nLihT8″ width=”600″ height=”350″]

    In this interview, Team Timex triathlete Mark Vermeersch chats about his life as an amateur triathlete for Team Timex, attempting the most difficult Ironman-distance triathlon in the world and his non-racing life as a consultant.

    You can find Mark here:

  • Tackling Adventure with Tim Moss

    Tackling Adventure with Tim Moss

    Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Moss is a beast.

    The Nerve Rush team has spent hundreds of hours culling together extreme videos, amazing athletes and adventurers, so when we came across Tim and started poking around his site, we took a deep breath and asked, WHY HAVE WE NOT TALKED TO THIS GUY BEFORE?

    I’ll let Tim tell you more about himself, but the short story is that he runs an online portal called The Next Challenge, where he encourages people to step outside their comfort zone and to dive into adventure travel. His site is chock full of articles, helpful resources and stories

    Tim is the epitome of the Nerve Rush community, and we were thrilled to connect with him.

    Take it away, sir.

    Who is Tim Moss, and what does he do?

    I am a person who enjoys physical challenges and trying new things. This has led me to climb new mountains, run long distances, travel around the world and so forth.

    More importantly, it put me in a position where others would approach me for help with their own plans: How do I start fundraising? What training do I need to do? How do you write a press release? I built on this and started a website – The Next Challenge – to write about my experiences, provide resources and offer support and encourage to other people.

    You broke a Guinness World Record in a rickshaw? Could you elaborate?

    In 2005, I was on an around-the-world challenge using as many different transport methods as possible. Before the trip was up, I was already brainstorming new ideas from a carriage on the Trans-Siberian Railway. A few weeks earlier I’d hitched a lift in a rickshaw in Berlin and came up with a plan to travel around the UK on one of them.

    It was 5 years before it came to fruition but, after doing some research on forums about the possibility of riding a rickshaw long distance, and signing up as a rider with a London-based rickshaw-taxi company (Bug Bugs – who later gave me the rickshaw I would use), I set off from Scotland to make my way back home.

    During planning I discovered that a couple had only recently set a world record for the longest distance cycled in a rickshaw. I realised it wouldn’t take much effort to go further and, although initially sceptical, a survey on my website indicated a strong preference for me to attempt it. As they say, the rest is history!

    Care to share one hilarious (and one terrifying) story from your challenges?

    I spent about 6 months in Oman last year with my wife where we undertook all sorts of fantastic adventures. They often seemed to go comically wrong though. Our first venture into the desert almost ended prematurely when we got our car stuck in sand before we’d even managed to park and start walking. We spent about an hour digging it out with some Tupperware and the lid of our cool box.

    On a subsequent trip we cycled 90-miles around a desert island on Christmas Day, nearly dying of dehydration by the end. We drove off to celebrate afterwards but when we tried to return to our campsite in the dark, we realised we had no idea where it was and spent several hours driving the circumference of this island, parking every few hundred yards to run onto the beach with a torch.

    My scariest moments come from my earliest expedition which was a mountaineering trip in Kyrgyzstan. On one memorable occasion we found ourselves descending what felt like a vertical ice wall. Struggling to cling to the ice with our axes and the front points of our crampons, my teammate below, Thom, shouted “I don’t think I can hold on any longer” and slipped. He was, of course, tied to me and the added weight pulled me off the ice too. Ben, tied above us on the top of the rope, looked down to see where the added drag had come from and was met with the spectacle of the two of us dangling from the rope that was tied to his harness. Not a good moment.

    Tell us about your first book! How’d that go?

    I recently had the marvellous pleasure of seeing something that I’d written printed and displayed in bookshops. The book is called ‘How to Get to the North Pole: and Other Iconic Adventures‘. It’s a balance of armchair explorer and practical guide to classic challenges like cycling around the world or crossing a desert.

    I wrote a couple of short articles on similar topics for my website like ‘How to Climb an Unclimbed Mountain‘. They were enjoyable to write and seemed to be useful and popular. So I decided to expand them into full blown chapters to combine into a book.

    It was a very painful process to write at times. Unlike telling your own story, with a practical guide book like this, I couldn’t just rely on knowledge that was in my head. Every single sentence had to be checked and cross-referenced for fear of making a casual mistake or incorrect assumption. It was quite tough going towards the end but very satisfying. Researching it also meant getting emails in my inbox from legends like Sir Chris Bonnington, Borge Ousland and Ran Fiennes which was cool.

    Given your site title, I must ask, What’s the next challenge?

    The current challenge has been to swim the length of the River Thames. My wife and I started last year and aimed to carry on this summer. Unfortunately, I had an operation on my shoulder which has stopped me from even the gentlest of breast strokes. That, combined with some health issues over the last few months have sadly meant challenges have rather been on hold.

    Hopefully we’ll be back in action soon.

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    You can read more about Tim on his website, The Next Challenge.