December 1000 mile challenge

 December 1000 mile challenge race report

The TL;DR version is simple. I ran 1,066 miles (1,715 km) in December of 2020. It was very difficult and I faced multiple challenges I had to overcome. 

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The unabridged version

My alarm vibrates and starts making noise. I instinctively mute it rapidly as I swing my legs out of bed. Trying not to wake the wife. It’s 2:30 am and my stiff sore legs shuffle out of the room. Inspired by Jocko Wilkins as a way to hold myself personally accountable, I take a picture of my watch. I turn on my espresso machine, load it up, and make myself a double shot. I eat a granola bar coated in a thick layer of peanut butter and drink a sparkling water. Then I sit down and drink my espresso while I browse my phone and attempt to wake up. Then I get dressed and get ready for my first run of the day. The night before I plugged in all my devices and ideally they are all charged and ready to go. I use Aftershokz headphones that are Bluetooth and wireless. I use a Petzl IKO Core headlamp and have 2 batteries for it. The first week of December I was deep up in a trail system and my headlamp died because I forgot to charge it the night before. I had to run 12 miles on a technical trail with my cell phone flashlight. Life lessons. I check my Garmin Fenix 6x pro-solar and make sure it has enough battery. It’s great that it has solar glass and charges in the sun but most of my runs are in the dark and the solar glass will not help me. It’s cold for me in December and I normally start layered up. Probably in the high 30s or low 40s Fahrenheit.  I wear a Patagonia long sleeve Capilene t-shirt or something similar. Probably an old race t-shirt. I wear a windproof beanie, a buff on my neck, and black diamond gloves. If it’s really cold I’ll use the buff to cover my nose and mouth. I then wear an ultimate direction ultra jacket v2, which is windproof and waterproof. I have tons of shorts, lately, I love the Rabbit shorts and the wild patterns of the BOA shorts. The shorter the better. I use feeture merino 10 ultralight socks. My shoes are Hoka One One Cliftons (road) or Challengers (trail). If I’m going out for a long run I’ll wear a Nathan VaporKrar 12L pack. It has enough room for me to shove all my warm clothing in once I heat up. Normally after 5 to 7 miles, I take all the warm clothes off. Side note, I am not sponsored by anyone. I am not an ambassador for any company. I am not looking for any sponsorship or ambassadorship. I only tell you what I use in case you’re interested. What works for me, might not work for you. I also think it’ll be fun to read this in the future and remember what I was using in 2020. For snacks, while I run I have been using LaraBars, Fig Bars and Frooze Balls (you can get them at Trader Joes). After being a vegetarian for 15 years, I went full Vegan in 2020 after I developed a dairy allergy. In cold weather, I try not to drink or eat very much while I run. Ideally, I will run 30 miles on 200 calories and 4oz of water. I have been known to sneak a red bull into my Nathan pack at times. 

This is my routine and I do it the same every morning. It works for me and the discipline in doing it helps get me out the door. It should also be noted that without the support and encouragement of my wife this would not be possible. I run all my crazy ideas past her first and she has to sign off on them. So thank you, my love. I appreciate everything you do for me and did for me during this month to make me successful.

I started off strong with 40.8 miles the first day. I was at work on December 1st but got off at 8 am. So I awoke at 2:30 am and ran 14 miles. Then I drove home and ran another 13 miles. Then at 6 pm, I ran another 13 miles. Part of my hectic work and life schedule was going to require me to break up the mileage into multiple runs. While at work I ran between 20 to 32 miles per day. Depending on how busy we were dictated how many miles I was able to run. More on this later. Knowing that my work miles would be lower I put a lot of energy into running extra miles while I was home. At home, I ran over 40 miles a day on average, I accomplished this by running 31+ miles in the morning and 10+ miles in the evening. Running back to back 45 mile days is very challenging, especially when you still have to participate in daily life. Unlike a race where your entire existence revolves around finishing the race, I had family and work to juggle. It should also be noted that I like to run uphill a lot. In December I ran 70,338 feet (21,400 M) of vertical climbing. It’s flat around the fire station and so while I was at home I was running up and down the local hills. I keep track of all the data on Strava. It’s the best running, biking, exercise app around and as they say “Strava or it didn’t happen.” At the end of December, I was the #1 runner in the world on Strava. Although not the primary goal it definitely made me happy.

Let me explain to you how I can get miles at work. I am a Fire Captain at a city fire department in Southern California. My normal firefighter schedule is 48 hours (2 days) on duty. In the morning, we are required to wake up at 7:00am and then from 8:30am to 10:00am we are allowed to do physical training. I would use that time to run. We have to stay available for all 911 calls at all times and so I run with a radio, listening to the traffic and waiting for us to be dispatched. When we get a call I sprint back to the fire station, pause my watch, run the call and then we return. If I have time then I go back out and run some more. We are also allowed to exercise after 5:00pm. Although, other scheduled work obligations tend to push this time back and then there’s getting dinner, etc. We seem to run more 911 calls around this time as well and so getting miles after 5:00pm tends to be harder. Waking up at 2:30am gives me multiple hours of extra running time while everyone else sleeps. There’s also a lot of overtime. In December, I worked an extra six 24 hour shifts. So out of 31 days in the month, 16 were at work and 15 were at home. Inevitably it is much harder to get high mileage at work and so on my days at home I worked very hard to get more miles.

While at work I was exposed to COVID by a firefighter I worked with for several days. Despite being in close proximity to him throughout the day and sleeping near him I did not catch COVID. I did have to quarantine for a while. As far as COVID goes, I work in Los Angeles County and it seems that it’s ground zero for the outbreak in California. Almost every 911 call in my city is COVID-related. The hospitals are completely overwhelmed with no beds and long wait times. December proved to be a very challenging month and as I write this in January it doesn’t appear to be getting any better. On Christmas day I awoke with a fever, sore throat and slight cough. Anxiety gripped me I thought for sure Rona had finally got me. I had a fever and cough for 3 days and a sore throat for 8. In the end, I tested negative, I suppose I just got the common cold. It did not make running easy though and before I tested I had to wear a mask and socially distance away from my family. 

When reading this report I advise you to disregard how I accomplished the challenge. I am not a coach. I have never been coached. Most of the things I do seem to be in stark contrast to most publications, books, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, etc. I only know what works for me after thousands and thousands of miles run. It seems what works for me is not what works for most people and I am okay with that fact.

In the early morning of December 11th, we were fighting a small fire and during overhaul, a very large piece of metal fell down and smashed my right ankle. The pain was excruciating and I immediately went into panic mode. The next morning my ankle was bright red, hot to the touch and swollen with pitting pedal edema. Not good at all. Stubborn as hell I limped out to start my morning run. Again see my disclaimer about not listening to me. I was able to get 14 very painful miles along with the emotional rollercoaster of panic, anxiety and failure. Was my challenge done? Every step hurt and running was not the pleasurable escape that I craved but now something I dreaded and felt like a chore I did not want to do. The next two days I barely ran 20 miles total for the day, iced and ibuprofened the ankle and continued to stress. The guys at work made things much better by calling me Elephant Man and constantly quoting the 1980s film, “I am not an elephant! I am not an animal.” It’s also always a good feeling when you have paramedics looking at your ankle telling you, “That looks really really bad.” As a paramedic, I knew this was true but ignoring my own advice and good sense continued on. When I got home I discovered that running uphill did not hurt but running downhill was painful. And so I spent more time running uphill. I continued to ice, elevate and use ibuprofen on the ankle and the swelling got better. As the swelling got better so did the pain. And as the pain got better my mileage went back up. Overall, I’d say it took about 11 days for my ankle to return to normal. I am stupid.

I normally get a blister or two during 100+ mile runs. I use trail toes to combat the blisters during races. I am not used to getting them during my daily miles. As I was running 40+ miles a day I started to get blisters. A minor inconvenience which I was able to fix with lube and kt tape. My feet got uglier if that was possible. They are gross.

What do I listen to while I run? During the day I talk on the phone a lot. I am the IAFF local 3624 union president and I make a lot of work-related phone calls. I also use the time to catch up with friends and family. I love music and listen to a wide variety of artists. Depending on my mood I might put on Bach or Pantera. At my core, I love punk rock. I also listen to audible books. In December I listened to 7 books. I also enjoy podcasts. I am always trying to learn new things and make myself better and listening to people smarter than me is helpful. Never stop learning. 

I am as lean as I ever have been. Want to get to 3% body fat? Apparently, all you have to do is run 1,000 miles in a month. Many friends have told me I need to eat more. I assure you when I am not running I am probably eating. I am someone that loves to eat and eating has never been an issue for me. With increased mileage comes increased calorie consumption. My wife went into overdrive and would prepare a vegan smorgasbord of food for me every day. Every meal I would eat 3 meals worth of food and then I would eat more. My appetite was ferocious. I estimate that I was eating around 8 to 10 thousand calories a day. 

How do I recover? A good question and the short answer is I don’t recover. I don’t feel fresh in the morning. Every morning I would feel my sore and stiff muscles and have anxiety that I was injured. I don’t statically stretch but will do a few dynamic motions in the morning to get the blood flowing into my legs. After my long runs in the morning and after I eat I take a nap. I find that napping helps me recover in preparation for my night run. Truth be told I have napped my whole life though and regardless of my running challenge I will continue to take an afternoon siesta.

Other notable factors. In 2020, I gave up eating all sweets. No desserts, candy, etc. I am clearly good at self-torture. Lack of refined white sugar in my diet was a positive for my energy levels and forced me to eat fewer empty calories. I also don’t really watch television. No television at home and occasionally it’ll be on at work. But in general, I don’t have time for it and I don’t miss it. Using my time for things other than television gives me more free time.

In the end, I ended up going 66 miles over. The reality is my love of running and running far overtakes any sense of completing a goal and taking a rest. At the same time as my December challenge, I was seeing how far I could run for all of 2020. I ended up with 8,178 miles and 615,000 feet of vertical climbing. But that is a whole other story. As I write this I still haven’t taken a rest. Although I haven’t been running back to back 45 mile days my weekly miles is still pretty high. I just finished my 44th 100+ mile week and my 7th 200+ mile week in a row. When will it end? Eventually, but not today. This challenge was very difficult and when I set it I didn’t believe that I would be successful. I thought I would fail. I enjoy walking the razor edge of failure and success. Failure and your response to failure define how you continue to move forward. I have failed more times than I have succeeded. When I fail I sit down and figure out what went wrong and attempt to fix it. I repeat the process until I find success. Without failure, you will never truly grow and become better. I am a failure and I love that about myself. Failure makes you stronger. In the end, I remind myself daily that nobody cares so work harder and smile or you’re doing it wrong.

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