Zwift Run Foot Pod - Opening Video

Just posted this on Facebook at my Seven Summits Body Group as a live video. Opening the ZWIFT Run Pod for Zwift RUN. I have tried the Zwift Cycling and totally loved it. Tons of fun.

Open the envelope, open the box, pull out the pod, check the quick instructions, insert the battery, and the rest later when I try to connect to Zwift Run.

---

---

Now I will soon try Zwift Run in the next couple of days to see what it's all about. Here are a couple pics from the unboxing:

Here are a couple of pics from Zwift Cycling:

Icy Spikes Running in the Dark

Had to wear my Kahtoola Microspikes this morning. There was a little bit of snow that started last evening at about 35F and transitioned into a freezing slick surface as the temperature descended with the sun. Check out the pic with my spikes and the frosted sheet of thin ice below.

I ran on the recpath as it circled the Cedar Hills Golf Course hill section. It's a common route for those living within a mile or so. It's a bit dark back down by the creek and ponds. I love the sounds of the creek rolling over the rocks. Every now and then you see the glowing eyes of various critters ducking into the foliage as your headlamp beam reveals them.

It has been really cold and damp. A damp cold. The worst kind that settles into your bones. Today was a little windy, which made it feel worse. I wore a slightly thicker base layer top and it seemed to work while running. While walking the dog prior to the run it was sure cold.

In Seattle my heart strap for my Suunto Ambit 3 Peak had decided to become dead. Not sure if it's the strap or the sender unit. I replaced the battery and still no go. That's why I didn't record heart rate on Cougar or Tiger Mountains, and why I've been mainly using the Tickr Run.

I had gotten a replacement strap and sender combo last year when I thought I'd lost mine, and I finally found it in the secret hiding place I'd never forget. Today I opened it up and it paired instantly. It should, being a fellow Suunto and all.

The main reason I had to get this bad boy up and running is that I am going to run Quandary this weekend. The Wahoo Fitness App is good. It works. It records some interesting data from my Tickr Run sender. Some of it only when I'm moving fast enough. The problem is that cell service is spotty on Quandary. I know the places where it is generally consistent. That's not too much of a problem though, as the packet can be resent to Strava later when I do have good service.

The main problem is that some notifications and any use of the camera can cause the app to die a miserable death. Sometimes the data is recoverable, but sometimes Strava spits it back and says it doesn't taste right.

So I can't take any pics on Quandary or send and receive texts Usually I take a bunch of pics if my hands are warm enough. Generally I text my wife progress reports. So I don't really want to be using the Wahoo Fitness App on Quandary.

That leaves me with having to locate the heart strap. I did. I tested it this morning. Now I'm happy.

Expected Weather on Quandary Summit:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On another note - Elbrus access might be easier as the US State Department seems to be no longer recommending against visiting the region: Story Here

Thinking Ahead - Quandary December 15

I have been planning a trip to Colorado in mid-December for a little while now. It's to celebrate an event with a close relative. While I'm there I hope to get a climb of Quandary in. I was hoping to make another climb back at the end of November, but the weather, road conditions, and a transportation issue meant that I could not.

As is typical, I've been monitoring the weather on Quandary, and here is a report from one of my favorite sources... https://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Quandary-Peak/forecasts/4348

The top image is from the summit, and the bottom image is for about where the bridge is near the "closed for restoration" sign. So not too bad for wind, temps, or wind chill. I'm in the middle of a little boot "quandary" (haha) since I've outgrown all my double boots. When the chills go below zero I prefer to wear light double boots, like my Scarpa Phantom 6000 Mountaineering Boot, which is what I did when I climbed Greys with Todd Gilles prior to Elbrus Race 2013. It was quite a bit below zero F that day and I was just fine.

Salomon Boots I'll be wearing

The warmest "mountain" type boots I have right now that fit at all are my Salomon S-Lab X-Alp Carbon Boots (link is to a newer version than I have). They should be sufficient. I wore them last year on a winter climb of Quandary, but had issues with socks and slipping around inside on the descent as the slide locker loosened up. I'll have to manage that I suppose, in the worst case possibly even unzipping and tightening the slide locker at the summit, in the cold, in the wind, prior to descending.

I'll be packing up my gear over the next couple of days, so stay in touch here to get the full scoop as I prepare for whatever my goals evolve into over the next few months.

Morning Road Running - Beginning Groove

After my amazing fun adventure running up and down both Tiger and Cougar Mountains near Seattle Washington, I had to make some decisions.

The weather was awesome. Forties and raining. The trails were wet and smooth. I loved it. I managed to get in about seven or so miles each of the three days I had there. That's about the most sequential running I've done in quite a while. I had some really good paces on the flats, uphill, and downhill. It was inspiring.

But then I had to suffer from the backlash of that. Recovery sucked. 

With my goal of doing a VK this coming year, and possibly Elbrus, it became obvious that my running training needed to change somehow. That how evolved into going back to ground zero so to speak. I needed to start at one mile a day a few or so days a week and work my way back up from there.

It was simply that my mind and body were primed and ready to crank out seven miles for a few days, but no more than that. In the bigger scheme of things this wasn't a really bad thing. Quandary is a 6.5 mile out and back. Cake. But the bigger implication was for training. How many miles a day do I need to run how many days a week to effectively achieve my maximum speed?

Right. Enough that my body isn't really ready to do on a daily persistent basis. Back in 2010 I began with baby steps doing various stepmill, elliptical, and treadmill workouts. I started with very low targets and worked my way up on the way to Elbrus Race. Now Elbrus Race Classic is a 9-ish mile out and back with a lot more elevation gain than Quandary.

So back to square one, which is an outside run over a mile a handful of times a week. Outside because I need to get my shivers out of my system prior to either a fast winter Quandary or any Elbrus.

And that's what I've been doing. Our 'hood at large contains a large semi-circular area adjacent to a golf course and outlining the edge of some hills near the mouth of American Fork Canyon. The knots of streets are cut by a local connecting highway or two, and some of the rec paths. If you zigzag around a bit you can hit just about any mile goal pretty easily without too much elevation gain or loss. If you do want some elevation, there are a few nice steeper roads along the hills.

I started running in the morning, normally after a circuit training routine that I'll share later. I'm up to about 2-ish miles a day a handful of days per week. My pace is decent enough. One day in spikes due to recent freezing rain and snow mixed I averaged around 13:00 + but mostly I've been moving closer to 11:00 + pace. Not too shabby for someone who hasn't run outside in the cold in a very long time.

Those are some of the screenshots from the Wahoo Fitness App I'm using on Android. It's got some klunky bits, but otherwise works good in combination with my Wahoo Tickr Run heart rate strap.

I'll share more on that later, but for now, I'm working my way toward a hike or even run up Quandary here pretty soon.

TTYL!

Thinking of Quandary This Month

I've been chatting with my wife about my goals and plans for the coming year. One is to finally finish up Elbrus, Race or not. In discussing my plans in regards to finishing Elbrus, we thought that perhaps I should try to get in a once-a-month climb of Quandary, regardless of weather. Elbrus has atrocious weather you know. Cold and windy is the norm most summit days it seems. It's only the non-summit days that you get beautiful blue skies.

Since I was able to acclimatize so well for Orizaba in 2013, in spite of living here in Utah at the time, we considered that I could actually just test my 14000' ability to acclimatize regularly, then once on Elbrus, hang out for a day at the Barrels Huts and go up the first nice day.

In any case, it seems reasonable, based on the past. Now for the future.

What shape am I in? Can I acclimatize? Can I get my "running legs" back in time?

Stay tuned ...

Evolution of a Cyclist

Chain Reaction Cycles posted this on Facebook recently, and I realized just how very true this is.

Evolution of a #cyclist #cycling #stravacycling #wahoofitness #kickrcore pic.twitter.com/e8FPmkZG70

— Charles Miske (@tripeakprod) November 20, 2018

Road To Elbrus Lambert Fall Hike

The big reveal. Why am I not at the Qualifier, which happened the day I recorded this?



In a nutshell - fractured Rib. Fell riding on Rodeo at Lambert. On the night of the flaming bee stings. Quite a story. I'll share it sometime. Remind me...

Message From Moab 18 August

Sadly, it looks like Elbrus Race 2018 is out of the picture. Not enough time to get trained and peak, and get a visa, and get the High School Mountain Bike team I coach ready for the impending racing season.

Road To Elbrus - Morgan in the Dark - 13 August

When I first began this whole idea of returning to Elbrus Race, like I did in 2010 and 2013, I hadn't been running at all. I'd even quit running on the treadmill. Training to be a mountain biking coach, in spite of my limited technical skills. I even get to ride with some really super fast kids, so it's tough work for me. I've been so injured this past year that it's been hard to recover and keep up a lot of the time.



For those of you who don't normally follow me, or my adventures, I entered Elbrus Race 2010, but was unable to continue after a lazy cook gave me untreated water. In 2013 I took 5th place in a slightly modified race up to 17,000' in near whiteout conditions. I have written numerous books about my Seven Summits Quest, and my training for climbing, including instruction manuals. Check out my author profile FOR MORE INFO.

Road to Elbrus - Car Chat - 15 August 2018

It's all coming together too quickly. The High School Mountain Bike Races and my position as a Coach for my team. My training to ride with the fastest of my group. Training to run has been put aside for the summer in previous years. What about this year? What about the Red Fox Elbrus Race in May 2019?

Road To Elbrus - Skyrunning Training - 10 Aug 2018

It's like one big game of "what-if" and you know the odds are against you. Elbrus Race 2018? In only six weeks? With enough time to get a Russian Visa? By Mail? Dang I'm a glutton for punishment.

Winter End Musings - Where do we go from here?

It's been a long few years since I ended up returning to work as a "mere employee" and having to waste a lot of time commuting and then sitting at at desk in an office with 26 male employoees and one toilet between us. Since most of them are typical fast-food survivors and need to spend a good deal of time squeezing out toxic waste byproducts while playing on their phones, it's somewhat difficult to stay properly hydrated.

If you can't figure out what the connection is, let me know in a message and I'll spell it out for you.

Fighting the results of my own toxic byproducts of training hard has become a real challenge. Enough so that my training is seriously impacted. Gone are the days of 10 days on and 1 day off.

Learning how to ride a mountain bike while overcoming the delusions of my youth that plague me has been a super difficult challenge as well. My memories of 30 years ago cruising along at 28 MPH on an 18 lb bike with 700 x 20 slicks confound me as I struggle to stay over 15 MPH on my 30 pound full suspension bike. Add in the inverted gravity response to cornering on loose gravel. It's tough. But it's part of the game when you're a certified mountain bike coach for a local high school team.

I also get to spend a lot of time on a trainer, with the bad weather, or should I say typical Utah late winter weather?

I've been on the treadmill a lot, with various levels of incline, and overall it's been okay, though not sustainable at heavy loads right now. I was using an Adidas Footpod and just recently changed to a Wahoo Tickr Run which provides the same data from a chest strap. So far I've liked it and it's a bit more accurate than the pod, which is a mystery to me.

And on top of it all, I've been dreaming about Quandary. Remember my favorite Colorado Fourteener that I've ascended in every month of the year? I kind of do. I was thinking all winter of going out there to do it, but it's been a bad weather and wind magnet all winter long. This shot is just an example. I saw days with > 60 MPH winds and way below 0 F.

Suddenly we get this:

Quandary Summit

Quandary Treeline

What is a sort-of retired, but not willing to give it up Skyrunner to do?

Catching Up With Some Stats

In January I pre-tested working on a new goal. I started by trying to do the rough equivalent of 3 x 1.5 VK's a week on the incline treadmill while I build up my strength. Some of them I had been doing with a 12 lb weighted vest. I should probably also work my way up to a 25 lb backpack.

[Weighted Backpack Treadmill Training Guide]

To be honest, it's a pretty hefty expenditure of energy. It's apparently not recoverable while also getting in 100 mile weeks on the Cycle Trainer and outdoor mountain bike riding.

---

1.5 x VK = > 4.66 mi and > 4921'

 Following screenshots from my Wahoo Fitness App, connected to my Adidas Foot Pod

The footpod calibrates itself whenever I run outside with the GPS on. It's usually off a bit. I'm not terribly keen on it, but it's what I have that connects between my phone and foot.

---

Above are examples of the type of stats I accumulate from my workout. It's pretty strenuous, and I am not able to do it completely hands-free at this point.

Where did I get the idea to do 4.5 x VK in a week?

Let's examine the details about what a VK means. A VK is about 1000 meters of vertical gain over the course of about 5k of distance. Multiply that by 1.5 for the daily goals and you get 4.66 mi with 4921' of vertical gain per workout.

Multiply that by 3 and over the course of the week you get in a bit less than 15 miles and a bit less than 15,000 vertical feet.

A well-known author on mountain fitness has expressed that training goals in the 15,000' per week range put you in an elite group of successful mountain sports folks, and I thought that sounded pretty cool. When I was training for Elbrus Race 2010 and 2013 I was doing between 10k and 15k per week regularly so it sounded about right.

Example stats from a recent trainer ride showing energy expenditure

---

Sadly, my position as a certified Mountain Bike Coach requires me to be able to ride with my team for most training sessions, which requires me to maintain a high level of riding fitness. So right now I am not able to sustain that level of training in the time period I have.

By time period I have, I mean that I only have about 90 minutes per day average to complete this workout, so I have to maintain a speed that gets my vertical in while also getting in my approximate VK simulated workout.

I pretty much took February off from the treadmill and just recently added in Stairmaster workouts to at least break the monotony of sitting on a trainer for 90 minutes per day.

I did some math and think I have an idea of how to at least get in the vertical, if not the miles. I'll report back here when I get that tested out.