Race Report: Dirty 30

(Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Walking)

This past spring, I set out to train for my first official ultramarathon. Along the way, I decided to log some data and take not of how things differed from my expectations, both in my training and on race day. This writeup will be a little bit of data analysis and a little bit of lessons learned, but mostly just a place for me to reflect.

Huge disclaimers here - I am not a trainer, I’m not a coach, and I have no real degrees in anything sports science-related. I’m not even a real runner, and I’m a newcomer to the sport of ultrarunning. This is just a fun retrospective on what I, a trail running n00b, learned over the course of 18 weeks.

Summary

Training start date: February 1st, 2022

Goal race: The Dirty 30, June 3rd, 2022

Total weeks of dedicated training: 18

Weekly schedule:

• Monday: Easy Z2 run in town

• Tuesday: Speed or hills on trail

• Wednesday: Steady Z2 bike, 60-90 minutes

• Thursday: Tempo on trail

• Friday: off

• Saturday: Long run on trail

• Sunday: Steady bike, 60-180 minutes

Other notes:

• Generally followed a 3 week on, 1 week ‘cutback’ cycle, where I would reduce mileage for a week to let my body recover before ramping again.

• This plan is loosely based off of the advice given in Training for the Uphill Athlete: A Manual for Mountain Runners and Ski Mountaineers, combined with some of my own knowledge of what my body can handle / some biking to make sure I will still be in cycling shape for some longer rides this summer.

• I tracked most of my data using a combination of my Coros Apex watch and a chest strap heart rate monitor. There was a period of time in early May when my Wahoo monitor bit the dust, so I didn’t include the wrist-based optical measurements from those workouts in this analysis, as they were outliers. I replaced it with a Garmin model midway through the month.

• In April, I started throwing in occasional extra sessions. These were always slow Z2 runs/hikes or easy bike rides. I didn’t include these in my analysis, but it should be noted that my physical workload was higher at the end of April/early May because of this.

Training: Data Analysis

Now for the fun part! Over the past 18 weeks, I made a point to log the mileage, vertical feet, pace, and my average heart rate from every workout. Of course, the usual grains of salt apply here - the human body is complicated, and I am an imperfect being using imperfect sensors to measure some messy data. Heart rate can be extremely influenced by sleep, stress, alcohol consumption, temperature, and humidity. Not all miles are created equal; some are steeper or muddier or more technical than others, and some were done on pavement.

To be honest, I thought I would be able to tell a simple, neat story about how I made a training plan, followed it, and got fitter over the course of 18 weeks. Real life isn’t always nice like that. However, I certainly felt more prepared to run a 50k race than I did in December, and maybe that’s the point.

Look at those training cycles! I kept my building weeks to 3-4 weeks in a row with a cutback week in between, which corresponds to each of the troughs. The final trough at week 17 is the start of the taper. There’s probably some real science out there on how long each of these cycles should be, but I found 3-4 weeks was when I personally started to crave a break for the sake of my muscles and joints, and at that point I would reduce volume by about 30% for a week.

I’m actually really proud of myself for getting over 50 mpw without catastrophic injury. While training for the two road marathons I’ve done, I didn’t utilize cutback weeks, and instead blindly followed training plans online that had me ramping up constantly until the race. I had to fight through a lot of shin/knee problems as a result, and never made it over ~40 miles a week. So far, I’ve completed my training with only mild exacerbation of Achilles tendonitis, but it is under control. I chalk that up to a combination of rest weeks and doing most of my mileage on trail instead of pavement.

I realized about a month into training that if I wanted to survive the race, I would need to start chasing vert. I think in the end this was way more important than weekly milage, as the Dirty 30 course boasts a hefty 7300+ feet of vert over 32 miles. This took a lot of mental discipline and forced me to reset how I viewed split times. Instead of trying to go as fast as possible, I tried to simulate race terrain and practice long, sustained climbs. I started thinking in terms of “time on feet” and “vert” rather than pure mileage covered. This also forced me to become more efficient and work on my pacing over longer efforts.

We are now scraping the bottom of the data barrel. I decided to look at my weekly long runs and to see if my heart rate changed over time, to see if I could judge any improvements in fitness over the 18 weeks. I can’t really make any conclusions from this data, although I take it as a good sign that my HR was relatively constant as my long run elevation gain/mileage increased. The outstanding question, of course, is did I get faster?

Well, not exactly. Looking at the same HR data with pace doesn’t necessarily tell me anything, either. At first it seems that my average HR over the long run is loosely correlated with pace, but over time it starts behaving like an unstable oscillation. I think some of this comes down to increase temperatures during my final month of hard training, and then perhaps being more well rested at the end (before my high race HR). However, I never felt like I couldn’t complete a long rrun.

Training: Lessons Learned

1. Practice the downhill

   I’m convinced most of my speed gained through training was purely through technique and being able to navigate tricky terrain and rocky downhills.

2. Pay attention when you get tired

   Early on in the training plan, I had quite a few catastrophic falls on the trail. This often happened towards the end of a run when I got sloppy or tried to check my watch/phone. (don’t do this)

3. Slow down (no, really, even slower than that)

   Although I based a lot of my training on my heart rate zones, I became less disciplined on some runs towards the end. Moving forward, I definitely want to slow down, swallow my pride, and focus on my Z2 base on trail. During the race, I got my ass handed to me by some older folks who were power hiking monsters. I’m now totally sold on the ability to walk very quickly up hills.

4. Treat every long run like a dress rehearsal

   I learned very quickly that after a certain point, running long distances on trail becomes less about running and more about logistical readiness. The right shoes, socks, shorts, sports bra, shirt, sunscreen, hair tie, fuel, water, and pacing can’t be overstated. You never want to try new things on race day, as it can lead to things like blisters or gastrointestinal distress. (you don’t want this)

Race Day: Data Analysis

The Dirty 30 is a technical 50k trail run in Golden Gate Canyon State Park. I don’t think I fully realized what this meant until I got there and spent some of the run climbing on my hands and knees over boulders marked as “trail this way.” If I had to do it again, I would spend more of my long runs on steeper terrain and really try to work on my hiking speed. (I got passed by a lot of older folks who were absolute beasts at the power hike)

Although I live at altitude in Boulder, the majority of the race was over 8000 ft, which is close to 3000 ft higher than where I had been living and training. There were plenty of people who came up from sea level to run it, though, so I probably can’t complain, although I attribute my higher HR during the race to the slightly thinner air.

Overall, according to my Coros, I spent 2% or 8 minutes of this run in Z2 (lol), 49% or 3:38 hours in Z3, and 49% or 3:34 hours at Z4/threshold. This was somewhat unexpected, as I had planned to spend a lot more of the race at Z2, but at no point did I “blow up” or bonk, and so I’ll forgive myself for going a little harder.

Looking at my pace throughout the race, it was highly dependent on the terrain. There were more unrunnable sections (for me) than I expected, including some scrambles and the monster of Windy Peak at mile 28. As previously mentioned, my HR was also much higher right out of the gate than expected, which I blame on the altitude and nerves, although it did lower as my pace dropped later in the race.

When exporting my Coros data, I saw that it broke out my total calories burned to calories/mile. Interestingly, this data corresponded closely with the vert that I gained over the mile. I was fairly certain that Coros uses HR to estimate metabolic rate, but now I wonder if it takes into account elevation gain, too.

Race Day: Lessons Learned

1. Check the weather

   This probably should have been obvious, but being the complete natural disaster that I am, I did not check the weather the morning of the race. Luckily for me, the weather was what I had expected, with a high of 70 degrees. However, I was freezing at the 30 degree start, and I was surprised to see the giant thunderstorm roll through at mile 30. Thankfully, I was able to get back to the finish line before the real rain and hail started, but that could have been a very bad day.

2. Don’t blow by aid stations

   I didn’t actually make this mistake, but boy did I consider it. I was cavalier about fuel/hydration during some of my training runs, as I could always hang on until the end or until the next stop. But during the race, getting behind simply is not an option. I finally learned the meaning of the phrase “ultramarathons are an eating/drinking contest with some exercise in between” and was glad I refilled water/Tailwind and snacked at every chance. Some friends suggested setting a 30 minute timer to eat/drink, and at first that sounded too frequent, but it stuck in my mind through the race, and I think that it made a difference, even if it was just sipping an electrolyte drink.

3. Find more food

   I wish I had done a better job testing out different food options before the race. There are only so many gels that I can eat in one day, and I was probably over-relying on the aid station options for variety and solid foods. I was surprised by the things that appealed to me later on in the race - pickles, ginger ale, salt on watermelon, chips - and I’ll be looking at ways to take some options to-go in the future.

4. Post-race logistics

   I showed up to the race with my gear and a single drop bag for after the race. I didn’t consider packing sweatpants, any extra food or water, or other niceties that would have made my life better post-race. In the future I will make a point to bring some sweats to change into, along with extras like a towel, deodorant, etc.

5. Enjoy the ride

   I don’t think I ever enjoyed running as much as I did during the Dirty 30. The course took us through winding, lush valleys, over rushing creeks, across beautiful ridge views of the Continental Divide, and through fields of blooming aspens. Even when I was crawling on my hands up the rockier parts of the trail, or slogging up Windy Peak, I felt grateful that I was able to participate in such an adventure. After my road marathons, I would finish the race and switch to other sports for a while. These past few days since the race, I’ve been anxiously waiting for the chance to get back on the trail.

Final Thoughts

At the risk of sounding super cliche, training for this race gave me a huge appreciation for my body, my mental toughness, and the beauty of the nature around me. I found that during runs, I learned how to perform ‘system checks’ on different parts of my body, and I developed a sense for how much I had in reserve at different points in a run as well as an understanding of what fuel or hydration I would need to go the distance. Moving forward, I’d love to try to find what it takes to get a little bit faster - whether that be through track workouts, hiking practice, or strength training - but ultimately, I hope that I continue to enjoy the ride.