The hardest exercise in the world, and a persistence hunt.

I've said many times the hardest exercise in the world is getting up off your couch.

  That was the situation I faced this morning, after a late night and an early morning left me feeling tired and demotivated for anything other than lounging around watching football.  Nonetheless, I got myself dressed (well, if a pair of light shorts and my Fivefingers count as 'dressed') and drove out to the park.

  Why the park?  Two reasons.  The first is that it's a nice trail, I'd done it once with a friend but wanted to run it on my own.  The second was simply a piece of mental trickery.  It was far enough away that once I committed to going I was definitely going to get a full workout in.  It also beat a round of HIIT in that once started, the fastest way back to the car was to finish the loop.  Sometimes willpower is about setting the conditions for success.

  Todays run was at Irvine Park, the Horseshoe Trail loop.  It's 3.7 miles around the border of the park on a mixed use trail.  I met some walkers, a couple mountain bikers, and more than a few horses.  The trail is generally soft dirt with some stretches along pavement, and one dry stream crossing on a gravel riverbed.  I'm actually thinking next time I run this trail I might go full barefoot and just carry the VFF's in case of emergency.

View Irvine Park in a larger map

  There were some hills, though not nearly enough for my liking.  No matter, next weekends run to the peak of San Jacinto will more than make up for.

  On my previous run through this trail I went with a friend who is still working up to more than a mile or two at a time.  We stopped at a few points along the way for recovery and we'd throw in some circuits just to keep things interesting.  We also cut off the last portion of the run to save some time as we needed to get back.

  This time, I wanted to run the trail all the way through and see how it went.  At first I was pretty sure my GPS was having a hard time locking onto a reliable signal, as first the one mile, then the two mile announcements came and went sooner than I expected.  When the announcement for the third mile came with the elapsed time and my average pace it sounded right but I just didn't feel tired enough to have already run three miles.  I knew it had to be right though since I was now in new territory, part of the end we cut off on the previous trip.  I was feeling great; I had plenty of wind, legs felt fresh, and my feet were in good shape. Things kept looking up.  Most of the run I had been alone or passing people going the other way.  Now as I looked ahead I saw a runner entering the trail from a diverging path about 300 yards ahead.  Time for a bit of a 'persistence hunt.'

  For those that don't know a persistence hunt is a pretty unique human hunting method involving running prey down to exhaustion before killing it.  Humans and canines are about the only types of animals on the planet that can successfully persistence hunt.  Nearly all other animals rely on sprinting from cover to overtake their prey.

  I was going to run him down over the next 3/4 of a mile.  He was several hundred yards in front of me, and actually running at a slightly faster pace.  I quickly stepped my own pace up to where I was beginning to overtake him.  I still felt great at this faster pace and was well within what I could manage for quite some time.  So far my prey hadn't noticed me creeping up behind him.  His thudding footfalls  masked my own softer nearly barefoot landings.  I was steadily reeling him in, the gap was now only 100 yards and closing.  Wearing just a light pair of shorts, I wasn't carrying my knife as I normally would.. no matter, this could be done by hand.  50 yards... 25... he knew I was behind now and looked back.  Hemmed in by the trail there was nowhere he could go but straight ahead... Closing... closing... and the leap!

  I landed on his back, my weight bearing him to the ground.  He was shocked to say the least and certainly not prepared to defend his vulnerable throat from my grasping fingers...  I reached out and squeezed...

  Ok, so that part maybe isn't true.  I did run him down though and caught him just before the end of the trail.  Once there we actually exchanged a nice little conversation about where the end of the trail was, as he was looking to get back to the trail head where he started.

  I was quite surprised to have reached the end of the trail so quickly as I certainly didn't feel like I had just run 3.7 miles.  I felt completely fresh and ready to keep running.  I strongly considered running the entire trail for a second loop but I just had too much going on to spend the extra time.  Anyway, check the video below for an actual modern day persistence hunt in Africa.

So just what is this Tough Mudder thing?

As I've mentioned several times in the Blog now, I'm training for the upcoming Tough Mudder.  But what the heck is that?

As you've probably deduced from the name it's another one of those mud runs that have become popular lately.  They label themselves as "probably the toughest event on the planet."  I don't know about that, but it doesn't look exactly like a walk in the park either.

The race I'm scheduled for, the Southern California Tough Mudder is an 11 mile obstacle run in the mountains around Vail Lake in Temecula.  The course itself is a constantly ascending and descending run around the lake, following the shoreline, ridgelines, and valleys.   Perusing the terrain on Google Earth there doesn't seem to be a flat spot longer than perhaps 1/2 mile.  Interspersed throughout the 11 miles are 24 obstacles ranging from 12 foot wooden walls, low strung barbed wire, mud pits, cold water underwater swims, greased ramps, tunnel crawls, buttered monkey bars (possibly with firehose snipers) flaming hay bales, and oh yeah, a live electrical wire gauntlet.  Fun!

You can run individually or as a team, and I've chosen to put a team together.  Myself and several friends are running as "The Axis of Awesomeness".  Yeah.  Don't ask.

So what's the plan?  After extensive research (I must have watched like... six videos!) I determined the most challenging obstacles, and what muscle groups would be called upon to complete the challenge.  First, since it IS an 11 mile hill run I'm running hills.  Lots of hills.  In fact, in the coming weeks I'll be running from the Tramway station at Mt. San Jacinto to the peak and down again.  This is also 11 miles though obviously half is downhill.  However it also starts at 8,500 ft elevation and tops out around 10,200 feet, one of the tallest peaks in California.

My current fitness plan calls for twice weekly runs; one short day and one long day.  My short day is usually around 3 miles, and either hilly trails or deep sand.  Both work your legs and calves especially, muscles I'll need in top shape come the Mudder.  My long run is going to be progressive, currently I'm going 5 miles but I'm increasing the distance by about 1/2 mile each time, until I reach approximately 10 miles.

Individual obstacles will also call upon different muscle groups and unusual movement styles.  The walls, rope climbs, and monkey bars will all require upper body strength, and the ability to pull yourself up repeatedly.  To this end, I'm doing several sets of Australian pull ups.  They differ from a regular pull up in that you aren't lifting your entire body off the ground.  Instead you set your bar low, prop your feet, and pull yourself up as in a pull-up.  You can almost imagine it as an upside (Australian) push up.  The advantage is it allows you to do a much increased volume of exercises as compared to regular pull ups.  Doing 5-10 sets of 10 is a great workout, and entirely realistic.

The cargo net, barbed wire crawl, tunnels, and several other obstacles require you to pull yourself along low to the ground or push constant weights off your head.  For these obstacles I'm doing a variety of push-ups (regular, wide, narrow, diamond, inclined) and bear crawls.  Bear crawls work not only your arms and shoulders, but also are great for your abs and other core muscles.  I do them with my body held low to the ground, and bringing my knees up to my armpits as I crawl.  It's a great overall workout.

For general overall fitness I also am doing body weight squats (prisoner style) and a variety of burpees.  I'm actually doing a 100 day burpee challenge as part of the fitness, adding a single burpee each day for the next hundred days.

My goals are to complete 100 consecutive push ups in less than 2 minutes, be able to do 15 dead hang pull ups, and run 3 miles at a 7 minute mile pace.  Will I make it?  Keep checking back to find out.