tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87382552264022218812024-03-05T03:20:39.429-07:00Hello, My Name is Chris and I'm a RunaholicRandom, rambling thoughts on running and deep insights into the meaning of life. No, wait, just random, rambling thoughts on running....and maybe food....and probably beer at some point.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.comBlogger305125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-62333442173676627132014-07-18T08:32:00.001-07:002014-07-18T08:32:37.632-07:00Catching up (again)Well, here I am again, trying to get caught up on three months' worth of goings-ons. Honestly, everything about my training has been less structured this year and more "take it as it comes". Consequently, I haven't been religiously posting here either. Something about registering for Leadville last year put the fear of God into me. I was genuinely scared of that race and knew that if I didn't train my ass off, I'd have no hope of finishing. Funny thing is, I don't have that same fear of Cascade Crest, even though in reality Cascade is probably a tougher course overall (but at much lower elevation). About a month ago, I was looking back at my running log from last year and was almost astounded by the workouts I was putting in in preparation for Leadville. Like, shocked that I could even complete some of the weekends I did. It's been MUCH more laid back this time around, and that is partially by design. Running is supposed to be a hobby, not a way of life, and this more laid back training regime is my way of proving to myself that I don't have to be a slave to running. Still, I have been putting in some decent miles lately as Cascade draws closer. Oddly, finally buying the plane ticket to fly to Seattle for the race lit more of a fire under my ass than registering for the race itself. Whether or not it'll be enough remains to be seen. My goal for Cascade is to run a sub-24. That seems foolish on several levels but, hey, aim high, right?<br />
<br />
In any case, a couple of highlights from the last few months. First off, my first ever pacing gig at Bighorn in June. I've run all four distances (30K, 50K, 50M and 100M) at Bighorn over the past 5 years (one 50M DNF in there), so this year I had to decide which distance I would run again. I ultimately signed up for the 50K because, well, I don't know why. Just because. Then, a couple weeks later, I found out my friend <a href="http://frontrangerambler.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Mike</a> had registered for the Bighorn 100. I immediately offered to pace him, as this seemed much more interesting and exciting than running the race I had registered for. I'd never paced before, although I've wanted to for a few years now, and I actually know the Bighorn course fairly well, so I hoped maybe I could be of some legitimate assistance. As long as I could keep up, that is. Mike is a fair bit faster than me under normal conditions. At the pre-race meeting just a couple hours before Mike started, the race director's one tidbit of information for pacers was to stay with their runner. As she put it, "If you can't keep up with your runner, you shouldn't be pacing them". Mike immediately said "don't worry", but, truth be told, I was kinda worried. My only hope was that he'd be slowed down to something more my pace by the time I started pacing at mile 48. As it turns out, that was the case, and we ended up running an enjoyable 34 miles together through the night. Mike was ahead of his anticipated splits the entire way and didn't really slow all that much the entire stretch that I was with him. Just a steady diet of running the downs and flats and hiking the ups. Wash, rinse, repeat. He ended up running strong all the way to the finish and coming in easily under his 24 hour goal. Welcome to the Rusty Spurs Club, Mike!<br />
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A week later was the 4th running of the Black Hills 100. As usual, the directing of a 100 mile race was much more exhausting than the actual running of one, but all in all things went smoothly, despite Mother Nature's best efforts. Once again, she had an ace up her sleeve, this time in the form of scattered heavy rains Saturday morning and into the afternoon. The course was a mud pit early on, but eventually dried up a bit when the rain finally stopped for good. Mud be damned, <a href="http://ryanwburch.blogspot.com/2014/07/black-hills-100-mile-keep-it-real-like.html" target="_blank">Ryan Burch</a> laid down an impressive course record run in the 100M, becoming the first person to ever break 19 hours. The bar has been raised (or lowered....whatever).<br />
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That's really about it, I guess. Honestly, don't expect to hear from me again until after Cascade Crest. I've got some training to do...<br />
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<br />Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-7052932610968709242014-05-22T07:50:00.001-07:002014-05-22T07:50:39.447-07:00I suck at bloggingThe title pretty much says it all. Been kinda dead around here for, oh, 9 months or so. Which basically coincides with the neverending winter we had here in South Dakota. So, yeah, that's my excuse. It was too cold.<br />
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Okay, quick recap of what's gone down since the new year. First, and most importantly, the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. Not running related at all, but something that I honestly never thought I would witness in my lifetime. I've been a Seahawks fan since I was 7 or 8, so around '85 or '86, and I've seen a lot of really bad Seahawks football over the years. One near miss in Super Bowl XL and a few decent season before and after, but a lot of suckitude overall. The Hawks' sorry history, combined with hearing non-stop smack from all the damn Broncos fans around here, made it gloriously fun to watch the Hawks completely dominate in the Super Bowl. Boring as hell to the rest of America, but I was glued to the TV for every second of it. <br />
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I also started brewing my own beer. Again, not directly running related, but since so many runners (or at least runners I know) also drink beer, the two kinda go hand in hand for me. So now the free days that aren't spent running are spent brewing or bottling. And drinking beer (i.e., "rehydrating") of course. It's the ultimate recycling program, really. Drink a beer, clean the bottle, refill the bottle. I'm saving the earth one beer at a time. Future generations will thank me.<br />
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On to running matters, I tossed my name into two lotteries this past fall/winter. Didn't get drawn for Hardrock, nor did I really expect to (or really want to this year, honestly....just trying to build up some points for future lotteries). I did, however, get drawn in the Cascade Crest lottery, so I'll be heading to Washington (Seahawks Country!!) in August. I've wanted to run this race for a few years now, just based on the pictures I've seen, not to mention its reputation as one of the "old school" 100s. As a bonus, I have family in the Seattle area (hence my Seahawks fandom) and my dad lives relatively nearby in Oregon, so I'll get to visit some aunts/uncles/cousins I haven't seen in years, and my dad is going to crew for me, witnessing his first ultra in the process. <br />
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As for other races, Ryan and I take a trip to a 50 miler somewhere every spring. The last two years, that race has been Quad Rock in Ft. Collins. This year, we decided to shake things up a bit and flew down to AZ to run the legendary Zane Grey 50. And legendary it was. All winter long, as I trained in blowing snow and sub-zero windchills, I kept thinking that there was no way I would be prepared to run a 50 miler in the AZ heat in April (and when I say "heat", anything over 60 qualifies if you're an unacclimated South Dakotan who has just emerged from a 7 month winter). Turns out that wasn't a problem. We ended up running in what has got to be the coldest Zane Grey in the 25 year history of the event. Temps in the mid-30s, wind, rain, sleet, hail, snow, flooding creeks, mud....other than a plague of locusts (it was too cold for locusts) and the four horsemen (too muddy and rocky for horses), it had just about everything. Conditions were bad enough that they ended up stopping everyone at the mile 34 aid station, so it basically became the Zane Grey 50K. It was a good decision given the weather and I was more than happy to call it a day at that point. Of course, the next day we were golfing in Phoenix on a 75 degree, bluebird sky day. <br />
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The only other ultra "race" I have planned this summer is Bighorn. I signed up for the 50K right away when registration opened because I knew it would fill fast, but as it turns out I'm gonna be a DNS in that one. When I found out my friend <a href="http://frontrangerambler.blogspot.com/">Mike</a> was planning on running the 100, I immediately offered up my services as a pacer. This excites me much more than the idea of running the 50K because, for one, I've already run the 50K, but have never paced, although I've wanted to for awhile now. Also, although I know Mike doesn't feel I owe him a debt, I would like to return the favor for him pacing me for the last 13.5 miles of Leadville last year after he had already paced 2nd place finisher <a href="http://irunmountains.blogspot.com/">Nick Clark</a> earlier (much earlier) in the day. Hey, Mike might be able to claim that he's the only person who paced two runners in the top 150 at Leadville last year, now that I think about it. He should probably get a buckle or something for that. In any case, since I've run each of the available distances at Bighorn over the past 5 years, hopefully I'll be able to impart some course knowledge that will help Mike join the prestigious Rusty Spurs Club (sub-24, for those not down with the Bighorn lingo). Either way, there will be homebrew at the finish line.<br />
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And, of course, I'll be co-directing the 4th annual Black Hills 100 a couple of weeks after Bighorn. In the past three years of the race we've had severe thunderstorms in 2011, unseasonable heat in 2012, and damn near perfect conditions last year. Given how this year has gone weather wise, I would not be shocked to see snow this time around. You heard it here first.<br />
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Stay tuned for my next blog post. Could be next week. Could be 6 months from now. Ya never know...<br />
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<br />Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-26295027650144130242014-01-07T10:03:00.000-07:002014-01-07T10:03:33.306-07:00Still AliveAwhile back my friend Bill gave me some shit for not updating my blog often enough. That was like two months ago. So, here ya go Bill. Hope it makes your day brighter! Anyway, Bill is right...I've been slacking. Honestly, there wasn't much to say after Leadville...or at least not much that really compared to Leadville. But, it's a new year, so I may as well get this thing going again. <br />
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First, I guess a quick recap of post-Leadville 2013 is in order. Took me a few (5) days before I could even walk without pain after the race. Legs felt alright, feet felt like total hell. Never had blisters like that before. Not sure why I did get blistered that bad, but I guess maybe changing out of my wet shoes/socks at some point might've helped (duh). Lessons learned. They healed up eventually and I was back to running. And, I gotta say, it was quite liberating to just run whenever the hell I wanted with no set plan telling me what to do every damn day. One week, I'd put in 40 miles, the next I'd hit 70 plus. No rhyme or reason to it, just doing what felt good. Race-wise, I ran the last couple of races of the Black Hills Trail Running Series, including a personal best at the series-ending South Dakota Trail Running Championships (Unofficial and Unsanctioned). Ended up earning the 2nd place rock in the overall series standings for the year. No bonus points for Leadville (damn). I also made a trip to Utah to crew/pace my friend Ryan in the Bear 100 The plan was for me to run the last 25 or so miles with him, but he ended up calling it a day at mile 51, so I never actually did any running. This was actually probably a good thing as at the time I was fighting off a lingering chest cold/cough and running through the night in low 20 degree temps probably wouldn't have help....not to mention that I couldn't run more than a half mile without stopping to cough violently. Still, I got to see the race up close and it's definitely on my list of 100s to do in the future.<br />
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In December I took my longest ever break from running. It wasn't a voluntary break, but the timing worked out well, I guess. I've had a hernia for years....I mean, I honestly don't even know how long and for a long time I wasn't even sure if it was a hernia or something else. It kind of just came and went. Never really hurt, but some days I would "feel" it more than others. One night in November I made the mistake of casually mentioning it to my wife. I was in the doctor's office the next day. Got it repaired on Dec. 4th and the doctor gave me strict orders of no running for two weeks (I actually was surprised she didn't say longer). As it turns out, the first few days after my surgery the high temp was on the wrong side of zero with -30 windchill, so I wasn't too torn up about not being able to run. Plus, the soreness from the surgery (my first ever real surgery) for the first 7-10 afterwards was enough that even I knew it wasn't a good idea to push things. I did jump back on the horse exactly two weeks after going under the knife and those first couple of runs were pretty rough. Hernia felt fine, legs felt like shit. How does it take so long to get into shape, but you can fall out of it so damn fast?? Doesn't really seem fair. Actually, a month later, I'm still trying to get back into the groove.<br />
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And I'd better find the groove quick. The first race on the 2014 calendar is the Zane Grey 50 down in Arizona on April 26th. I've heard it's got a couple of rocks and a few hills. As for the rest of 2014, I threw my name into the Hardrock hat but didn't get drawn (nor did I really want to get drawn this year). I'll also enter the Cascade Crest lottery in February. If that doesn't work out, then I'm considering the Bear or maybe Superior. I'll also be at Bighorn in some form...maybe racing (50K if I do) or maybe pacing someone in the 100. And the Silver Rush 50 back in Leadville is also on my list of maybes. A lot of it is still up in the air, pending lottery results. For a pastime that is kind of on the fringe of what most people consider sane, it sure is frigging hard to get into some of these races, isn't it??<br />
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SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT!!! - It isn't hard to get into the Black Hills 100 (yet). Sign up today!!! END OF ALERT<br />
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Anyway, there you have it. I'm still here, plugging away. I'll try to post more often, Bill....God forbid you actually spend your work days working! :)<br />
<br />
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Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-28626759642683502022013-08-21T07:58:00.001-07:002013-08-21T07:58:52.726-07:00Leadville Trail 100<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Sometimes you don’t realize how much something has consumed you, has
driven your decision making, either sub-consciously or overtly, until it’s
gone. For me, that something has been
the Leadville 100. Since the day I registered on January 1<sup>st</sup>, I’ve
had one focus and one focus only: train for Leadville. At some point in the last days before the
race I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept past 5:30
AM. Most normal people cut loose a bit
on the weekends, stay up late, drink a few beers and sleep in the next
day. I was typically in bed by 9:00 or 9:30
and up at 4:00 to squeeze in 5-8 hours of running. Add in real-life stuff like coaching
baseball, softball, football and basketball and just trying in general to not become
some dirty, stinky-ass, half-stranger to your family, and some weekends became
quite the juggling act. I’d like to
think I made it through without putting running first more often than not but,
in reality, training for an ultra is a fairly selfish act. If you’re going to do it right (as in, if you’re
going to train at a level that will actually prepare you for the race), you’re
going to make some sacrifices in other parts of your life. Hence stumbling out of bed at 4:00 AM on a perfectly
good Saturday morning and pondering the absurdity of the entire endeavor. Truly, the running part of training for a 100
mile race is easy. It’s the logistics of
putting in the time that’s hard. Lucky
for me, I have an incredibly understanding and supportive wife (who also
happens to be a runner, which helps) and two kids who have never known anything
different….I think they assume that the amount of running that their parents do
is par for the course for ALL parents. <o:p></o:p></div>
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While I certainly trained hard for my other two 100s, I don’t know that
the same level of focus was there. Both
of them, Lean Horse and Bighorn, were somewhat of a known quantity since I had
run shorter distances a those events before and was familiar with the
respective courses. Leadville was a
whole other beast; an almost totally unknown nemesis. While I had seen a couple of sections of the
course from a vehicle a couple of years ago, I had never really set foot on it,
much less run any of it. And then, of
course, there’s the elevation. The city
of Leadville itself sits at 10,200 feet.
The “low” point of the course is 9,200 feet. Upon reaching said low point, you immediately
ascend to the high point of 12,600 feet.
That’s no joke. I mean, trees don’t
even grow up there for Christ’s sake. That
should probably be a clue of some kind.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, with a healthy respect and a good bit of fear of the Leadville
course, I set about training the best I knew how with the trails available to
me in the Black Hills. The training
itself really wasn’t all that different from what I did for Bighorn last year. In fact, I did a lot of cutting and pasting
from my Bighorn plan when I sat down in February to devise my Leadville
schedule. I upped the weekly miles a
bit and vowed to do as many of the long runs as possible on trails, a vow I
ultimately did a fairly good job of keeping.
The simple fact is that there is no way to simulate the high altitude of
Leadville in the Black Hills. I figured
the next best thing was to get my legs and lungs used to running up and down
hills and hope for the best. Crow Peak,
just outside of Spearfish, became one of my go-to trails for achieving max
elevation gain (and loss) per mile.
Three or four consecutive summits of Crow always left my legs feeling
pleasantly jello-ish, but at the same time every time I set foot on the summit
and saw the sign that said “Crow Peak Summit, 5670 Feet), I couldn’t help but
think that the race I was training for STARTED at almost twice that elevation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Despite the uncertainty of just how I would be able to handle a course
at such high altitude, I set a big goal for Leadville: finish in under 25 hours. At many 100s, sub-24 is the de facto “big”
goal; finish the race in one day. I
guess at some point the organizers of Leadville decided its difficulty
warranted an extra hour to earn the “big buckle” (which is, in reality, quite
large). I figured if I was going to go,
I was going to go big. But, at the same
time, heeding the advice of others who had run the race, I was also planning to
run smart; to not chase the sub-25 goal too aggressively and subsequently not
finish at all. With a typical finish
rate somewhere in the 50-60% range, just finishing Leadville isn’t a given by
any means. I certainly didn’t intend to
invest several months and 1800+ miles of training, not to mention a good bit of
money in the form registration fees, shoes, clothing, food, travel, etc. to
come home from Leadville empty-handed, with my first ever 100 mile DNF hanging
over me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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While the actual running of a 100 mile race can be a solo endeavor, and
my first 100 at Lean Horse was completed entirely solo, sans pacers or crew,
many participants bring along a cadre of crew members and pacers that assist
the runner at designated stops along the way and run/walk along with the runner
in the 2<sup>nd</sup> half of the race.
Ultra races are designed in such a way that having a crew isn’t
necessary; you can get by just fine on the supplies provided at the aid
stations. But, having a crew allows you
to have your own personal items and volunteers to cater directly to your needs,
not to mention the oft-overlooked advantage of seeing some familiar faces every
few hours. Pacers can be an even bigger
help, especially in an event such as Leadville.
At most races, the act of “muling” (i.e., the pacer carrying supplies
for their runner) is strictly forbidden.
Hell, it’s forbidden at the Black Hills 100, the race that I
co-direct. Leadville is one of, if not
the only, exception (I don’t know of any others off-hand). In a nod to the old-time hardrock miners and
their pack burros that the race was inspired by, pacers are allowed to carry
anything the runner wants them to, with the exception of the runner themself,
of course. Besides that, it doesn’t hurt
to have someone with fresh legs and, more importantly, a clear head to
accompany you in the middle of the night after 15+ hours of running. For Leadville, I put out a call for help that
was graciously answered by running friends Carolyn and Neil, who offered to
crew (they both still think the actual running of a 100 mile race is totally
insane, but I’m convinced I can turn them toward the dark side). I was also able to line up two pacers,
Johnathan and Mike. In a nod to the
unselfish nature of ultrarunners, and runners in general, Johnathan was on
board to pace two separate sections (about 20 miles total) just a week before
his first 100 mile race at Lean Horse.
Mike happily agreed to pace me the last 13.5 miles after already pacing
another runner, Nick Clark, who would end up finishing 2<sup>nd</sup> overall,
earlier in the night. And Neil, who is
recovering from Achilles surgery and was not really planning on pacing at all,
jumped in to join for a bit as well.
Maybe all of us runners, and ultrarunners especially, are totally insane
in the eyes of the non-runners out there, but you’ll never meet a nicer, more
selfless group of crazy-ass people in your life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I made the trip down to Leadville in two parts, driving as far as Fort
Collins, where I bunked at Mike’s place, on Wednesday night. That left me with a short 3 hour drive to
Leadville on Thursday. As luck would
have it, my friend Paul was hired on by Lifetime Fitness, which organizes the
Leadville Race Series, in June and he and his wife Katie had offered up their
couch for the weekend. I happily
accepted as I had quickly discovered upon registering for the event that
lodging in Leadville during race weekend was a book- a-year-in-advance kind of
deal (small, old mining town with 2600 residents + a couple thousand
runners/crew/family/friends = zero lodging).
Besides the big advantage of being free, the ability to relax in a house
rather than a hotel room (or tent) can’t be understated. And, I got to play Chutes and Ladders and Candyland for the first time in forever
(thanks Wilson!). <o:p></o:p></div>
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As for altitude acclimation, there seems to be two schools of
thought. Either get to high altitude 2
or 3 weeks in advance and train there or get there within a couple of days of
the race and dive into the deep end before your body realizes what the hell you’re
doing. Obviously, I chose Option B and
hoped for the best. I spent Thursday
getting checked in at race headquarters and doing some shopping downtown. Friday was the pre-race briefing and expo and
just general sitting around and making sure all my gear was organized. Neil arrived Friday afternoon and we went
over my planned arrival times at each crew location and what gear I might need. With a fairly ridiculous start time of 4:00
AM, I headed off to bed fairly early, around 9:00 and was actually able to
sleep pretty well, right up until my 2:00 alarm. <o:p></o:p></div>
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After getting dressed and eating some breakfast, I found Johnathan
sleeping outside in the yard, having arrived overnight along with fellow Black
Hills residents Jim and Sara, who would be pacing/crewing for another friend of
theirs. I caught a ride to the start
line with them and milled around a bit until it was time to line up. Often, in those final moments before the gun
fires, I find myself wondering what in the hell I’ve gotten myself into and
questioning why I’m really about to put myself through this. At Leadville it was different. I was very calm and relaxed and just ready to
get going. In no time, we were off.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Start to Mayqueen (0 to 13.5
miles)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The race starts off with a few miles of downhill along paved and then
dirt roads exiting Leadville before jumping onto the rolling, but mostly flat,
single-track trail around Turquoise Lake.
One piece of advice I’d heard from many sources was to not go too fast
on this section, which is fairly easy to do with the downhill and adrenaline of
the start working in conjunction. I did
start out fairly fast on the roads, but didn’t feel like I was really overdoing
it too much. Once on the Turquoise Lake
trail, you fall into a conga line of 900+ runners and passing can be
difficult. I tried to be patient when
the pace slowed along this section, but there were moments when the pace
started to feel ridiculously slow and I ended up jumping off trail to pass
clogs of runners. I’m not sure how many
times I repeated the phrase “On your left, thank you”, but it was a lot. My goal was to reach Mayqueen at 6:10 AM. I got to Mayqueen at 6:10. Woulda been a few minutes faster if not for a
stop to crap in the woods along the way. Off to a good start. Because I’d heard that the congestion here
was a real bitch in the morning, I had told my crew to not even bother and just
meet me for the first time at the second aid station, Fish Hatchery. So, I made quick trip through the aid station
and grabbed some M&Ms and a PB and J for the road.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Mayqueen to Fish Hatchery (13.5
to 23.5 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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This section features the first real climb of the race as you exit
Mayqueen campground and climb Sugarloaf Pass via the Colorado Trail and
Hagerman Road. My legs were feeling good
and I ended up running much of the trail section and then falling into a
run/walk along the road. The climb went
by fairly quickly and it was time to descend the infamous Powerline. As the name suggests, the descent into Fish
Hatchery is along a powerline corridor that is washed out in many places and
features a few steep pitches alternated with flatter, easier downhill
running. This section would become the
bane of my existence later on, but early in the morning it all felt fairly free
and easy, although I did have to make another stop to crap in the woods (this
would be last one of the day, thankfully).
My goal had been to reach Fish Hatchery by 8:05 AM and I rolled in at
8:13. If not for that crap, I would’ve
been nearly dead on again. I found my
crew (or, more accurately, they found me) right away and quickly refilled my
hydration pack and restocked the fuels I had consumed (I was going off of GUs,
Clif Bars and Honey Stinger waffles for the most part). They also had a PB and J ready to go, which I
took for the road. In no time I was out
and on my way for what I was hoping would be a quick section to Twin Lakes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Fish Hatchery to Twin Lakes
(23.5 to 39.5 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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There is actually another aid station (Half Pipe) in between here at
about mile 29 and a crew location a couple
of miles before that, but I had told my crew to skip ahead again to Twin Lakes
to try and avoid congestion. I
anticipated that this section would go by fairly quickly since it starts out
with a few miles of paved and then dirt roads, all of which are fairly
flat. Oddly enough, this was the first
time all day that I really started to feel like the elevation was affecting
me. Those road sections just were not as
easy to run as they should’ve been and I ended up taking some unplanned walking
breaks along the way. After the Half
Pipe crew zone, the course takes to some two track trails through the Half Pipe
aid station and then eventually on to the Colorado Trail again. I was still struggling a bit to find a rhythm
along the road section, but finally found the groove once I hit the single
track. The thing about it was that I
didn’t seem to be the only one struggling in this section….everyone around me
seemed to be in the same boat.
Regardless, by the time the trail descended into Twin Lakes, I was
feeling really good and, although the section overall felt ridiculously slow
and it felt like I had lost a ton of time, I came into Twin at 11:19, compared
to my goal of 11:10, so I’d basically only lost one additional minute. Given that all of my goal times for the day
were fairly arbitrary and unscientific, I was totally fine with that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh34w_XrdGkV4qcxIX18v7SJFKtl5VxvNOQOrMukPQU9Etv_sKPKua0xInRjYkFAAJjHU_F0TmT939f8mUVLMyg_pc6cUrM-NkzoWBEW1SiC7W-neyaGWDFVN0kTiRBWefBTlosOgZP90E/s1600/Half+Pipe.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh34w_XrdGkV4qcxIX18v7SJFKtl5VxvNOQOrMukPQU9Etv_sKPKua0xInRjYkFAAJjHU_F0TmT939f8mUVLMyg_pc6cUrM-NkzoWBEW1SiC7W-neyaGWDFVN0kTiRBWefBTlosOgZP90E/s400/Half+Pipe.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Cruising Through Half Pipe (photo courtesy of Jim Hadd)</span></i><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I did have a moment of near-panic when I couldn’t find my crew right
away upon arriving at the aid station.
The thing about this aid station is that it’s friggin huge. You pass through the aid station tent itself
(which I passed straight through without grabbing anything) and then continue
along some roads that are lined shoulder to shoulder with waiting crews. Before long, I ran out of road and was being
ushered onto the trail exiting the aid station, but still hadn’t seen my crew. I now faced the dilemma of turning back to
see if I had just missed them or continuing on.
As I paused to consider the options, I heard Carolyn’s angelic voice
calling my name (seriously, the amount of relief I felt just then was
substantial). They were positioned just
down the trail from where I was, along the exit from the aid station. Neil had been positioned somewhere earlier,
but we had somehow missed each other. No
big deal in the end as Carolyn and Johnathan quickly got me refilled and
refueled and set me up with my trekking poles and stuffed a jacket, hat and
gloves into my pack for the ascent up and over the infamous Hope Pass.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Twin Lakes to Winfield (39.5 to
50 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This is perhaps the most iconic section of the Leadville Trail 100; the
climb up and over Hope Pass (and then back up and over). At 12,600 feet, it represents the high point
of the course. Just below the pass
itself is the Hope aid station, often referred to as “Hopeless”. Aid station supplies for Hope are carried up
the mountain on a pack train of llamas, creating the surreal experience of ascending
the trail above treeline to come into a field of grazing llamas. The climb starts after the only real creek
crossing of the day just past Twin Lakes.
After running the flat trails to the base of the Hope climb, it was pure
hiking mode after that. I put the new
trekking poles to good use but was quickly feeling the effects of the
climb. This was the 2<sup>nd</sup> time
that I felt like the altitude was taking a toll. Granted, this climb wouldn’t be all that easy
at lower elevation after 40 miles, but being at 10,000+ feet certainly didn’t
help. It felt like I was absolutely
crawling up that hill, probably because I damn near was. I just didn’t have any push in my climbing
legs. I stopped a few times to drink
some water and at one point forced myself to choke down a GU, which took some
considerable effort, but it went down and, more importantly, stayed down. My stomach felt fine, and had all day, I just
didn’t have much of an appetite at that point.
Just below tree line the race leader at the time, Mike Aish, came
bombing down the hill. Not long after,
Ian Sharman ran by in hot pursuit (he would eventually pass Aish and hold on
for the win). <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu7Zad9m8hvr99Uu86v52j7eL9KA0ffXRh5jyyeIJWAyrjOXT0pkP2ahNWNihaEzebEUJgOjzPm3MC7-Vty8qwc7bRu4-zX8o5U86iVXxfbvrO1H51MYAs0JXJQNB7QV7UM4LCHbCTLco/s1600/Hope+Pass+Llamas.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu7Zad9m8hvr99Uu86v52j7eL9KA0ffXRh5jyyeIJWAyrjOXT0pkP2ahNWNihaEzebEUJgOjzPm3MC7-Vty8qwc7bRu4-zX8o5U86iVXxfbvrO1H51MYAs0JXJQNB7QV7UM4LCHbCTLco/s400/Hope+Pass+Llamas.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Llamas at Hope Pass (photo courtesy of Jim Hadd)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="text-align: center;">My totally arbitrary and unscientific pace chart had me arriving at
Hope aid station at 1:20 PM. My actual
arrival time was 1:47.</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">Lost a bit of
time there, but was still well ahead of sub-25 pace, which would’ve put me
there at 3:07. Upon arriving at the aid station, a friendly medical lady took
one look at me and asked me when the last time I’d taken any salt had been
because I had a lot of salt on my face.</span><span style="text-align: center;">
</span><span style="text-align: center;">Near as I could remember, it was down at Twin Lakes.</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">She didn’t seem too satisfied with that (in
fact, her exact words were “Oh, shit”) so she stood and watched while I
swallowed an S-cap and then she mixed up a concoction of Ramen noodles and
instant mashed potatoes with extra salt added in and watched me drink
that.</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">While I was hanging at the aid
station for a bit, Nick Clark came through in 3</span><sup style="text-align: center;">rd</sup><span style="text-align: center;"> and looking pretty
strong.</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">Wanting to get the rest of the
climb over with, I washed my soup/potato/salt concoction down with a cup of
Coke before sneaking out of the aid station.</span><span style="text-align: center;">
</span><span style="text-align: center;">Despite how lifeless my climbing legs had felt the entire way up, the
moment I hit the top of the pass I was able to start running down the other
side and ran basically the entire way down, pausing only to get out of the way
of runners on their way back up.</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">Not
long after cresting the pass, the first runner I saw coming up was Hal Koerner,
who was pacing Scott Jurek.</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">Damn,
running these big name ultras is a like a who’s who of ultrarunning!</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
By the time I got down the other side of the pass to the new Winfield
trail, I was feeling pretty good again, but at some point along here I realized
that I had made a totally stupid and careless mistake up at the Hope aid
station. Upon arriving at the aid station,
a volunteer had asked me if I needed my pack re-filled with water. I reached back to feel how full the hydration
bladder was and it felt almost full, so I declined. Well, turns out that what I had felt wasn’t
the water in the bladder, but my jacket and hat and gloves bundled up in the
exterior pocket. By the time I got down
to the Winfield trail, my hydration bladder was in fact almost empty. I guess I was drinking more water than I had
thought, which was a good thing, but now I was almost certainly going to run
dry before the Winfield aid station, which wasn’t so good. As it turned out, I only ended up going about
a mile and a half without water, so not a huge deal, but it also could’ve been
easily prevented.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Winfield is a ghost town that springs to life for the Leadville 100 and
was quite the madhouse when I arrived.
From all the crew reports I’ve heard, including the account of my own
crew, getting into Winfield with all of the race traffic was quite a
chore. In fact, at one point my crew was
so concerned that they wouldn’t make it into the aid station before I arrived
that Johnathan jumped out of the car and took off running the last couple of
miles to the aid station, hauling a bunch of random crap he thought I might
need with him. Thankfully, another crew
who had gotten past the gridlock stopped and gave him a ride and by the time I
got there my entire crew had made it in.
My projected arrival at Winfield had been 2:30 PM and I arrived exactly
at 3:00, not bad considering I had already been behind my projected time
leaving Twin Lakes and spent a little bit of extra time at Hope. I’ve run 50 mile races (Quad Rock and
Bighorn) in longer than 11 hours, so the fact that I was able to cover the
first half of a 100 in exactly 11 hours was encouraging (or, it meant that I
had gone WAY too fast). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5SOJd9I-rOyLA3JxfAkW3CYPqQDXKeTcnw3NW9L9v6Jt4Jjp8jPKDRNkcJ0Uk8gyjoz1zRQwcSmQau-QQXFOp2-efnuN7cdOKdPw9paiOeP23Oz-xVbUllhC-X78lz5AiN_lngL_6JjY/s1600/Winfield+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5SOJd9I-rOyLA3JxfAkW3CYPqQDXKeTcnw3NW9L9v6Jt4Jjp8jPKDRNkcJ0Uk8gyjoz1zRQwcSmQau-QQXFOp2-efnuN7cdOKdPw9paiOeP23Oz-xVbUllhC-X78lz5AiN_lngL_6JjY/s400/Winfield+2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Re-stocking at Winfield (honestly not sure who took this picture)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Immediately upon arriving, I was told I had to weigh in. The scale showed me down 8 pounds from my
pre-race weight, a fact that earned me a dirty look from the otherwise
nice-looking old lady who was recording weights. She told me to get into the aid tent and eat
and drink, which I promptly did (she seemed serious and I wasn’t about to argue
with her). Johnathan followed me into
the aid tent, where I grabbed a cup of ramen noodle soup and some Coke. As I fumbled around with my trekking poles
and two cups, I told Johnathan to hold the soup cup for me. Not having been brought up to speed yet on
the allowance of muling at Leadville, he immediately said, “No, I don’t want to
get you disqualified.” Ah, so
innocent. I smiled and told him it was
perfectly legit and was, in fact, encouraged here and that he would be carrying
much more than a cup of soup for me in the very near future. Upon that news, we quickly transferred all of
my extra gear (jacket, hat, gloves) to his pack, leaving me with just my water
pack and trekking poles. Carolyn and
Neil had my pack ready to go when I exited the aid tent and with that Johnathan
and I were off to tackle the 2<sup>nd</sup> half of the race.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Winfield to Twin Lakes (50 to
60.5 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgybbC_fozrCSO7WSjG5x_qNh4d_0fVS3wrLoh9YjKRvbqA-6cnKPpH7S8RBGg1NbrZKmVbhZ9JzJlN3oUqvOvCFBMnZUGmo70WgB1UxnklN78qxozuIcVTrAfLXI1Qd59XtGIltojpjDs/s1600/With+Crew+at+Finish.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a>It’s amazing how having someone with you can take your mind off of
things and just make you feel better.
Granted, by the time I reached Winfield I was feeling pretty decent
anyway, but having Johnathan along for the return trip over Hope helped take my
mind off the fact that I did indeed have to make a return trip over Hope. Although the climb back up is shorter, it’s
also steeper, but we made fairly good progress.
And although Johnathan was pacing for the first time in an ultra, he
took to it like an old pro, subtly reminding me every 15-20 minutes that I
should probably drink some water, or take an S-cap, or eat a gel. I didn’t always feel like doing any of those
things, in fact sometimes I wanted to stab him in the eye with a trekking pole,
but knowing that it was for my own good, I grudgingly obliged. I won’t say that the climb back up Hope was
easy, but it certainly went better than the first climb had. As soon as I hit the top, I thrust my
trekking poles back at Johnathan for him to carry and ran down into the aid
station, feeling much better than I had the first time I had arrived
there. I didn’t get waylayed by the
friendly medical lady this time and after drinking some Coke and ramen noodles
(this would be my standard fuel for the remainder of the run as solid foods
just weren’t appetizing anymore), I collected my hydration pack that Johnathan
had refilled for me and took off downhill while Johnathan hung back to take
pictures of the llamas (he was really excited about those damn llamas).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeBIc9qk8Sq9jIEnrz3DikVk_KKqzdo0Bdofq_4SmIbHrJlG442TVqCkRzx9Vg3eh3dAmZngQGEyl93IQtlc_6eYJ3BdenzquL1mpJnQpxgpOH3c4OprTRnH8HWJIPCmciY96cXXSMzHY/s1600/Descending+Hope+Pass.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeBIc9qk8Sq9jIEnrz3DikVk_KKqzdo0Bdofq_4SmIbHrJlG442TVqCkRzx9Vg3eh3dAmZngQGEyl93IQtlc_6eYJ3BdenzquL1mpJnQpxgpOH3c4OprTRnH8HWJIPCmciY96cXXSMzHY/s400/Descending+Hope+Pass.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Descending Hope Pass (photo courtesy of Johnathan Karol)</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
The descent down Hope back to Twin Lakes went by in a blur. I ran the whole way, feeling great and
passing several others who had passed me on the previous ascent. At one point, we came upon a hiker heading up
the hill, holding his bloody nose. I
paused to ask if he was okay before I realized that it was Paul, heading up to
check on the Hope aid station. We gave
him crap because, theoretically, he should be acclimated by now and not suffering
altitude-induced nose bleeds. At another
point in the descent I had to tell Johnathan not to pick up the glow sticks he
was finding on the trail. Being the Good
Samaritan that he is, he thought they were trash and was just trying to help
out. Thankfully, he only picked up one
or two before I realized what was going on.
In no time, we were back at Twin Lakes and Johnathan’s first pacing leg
for the day was done. My goal had been
to reach Twin Lakes by 6:00 PM and we checked in at 6:32, basically holding the
pace that I had been on for the last few sections.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I found my crew right away this time, as Carolyn and Neil were at the
same place I had found Carolyn and Johnathan the first time through. I ditched the trekking poles, gathered my
jacket, hat and gloves from Johnathan and also grabbed a portable charger to
charge my Garmin while I ran the next section (as an aside, this is the first
time I’ve ever done this and it worked like a charm, allowing me to record the
entire run on my Garmin 910….the only downside was that I couldn’t see my time
or pace while it was charging since it only shows the percent charged and time
of day while charging). I also grabbed a
handheld bottle and filled it with Coke as I was done with GUs or any solid
food at that point and wanted to have some form of calories with me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Twin Lakes to Half Pipe (60.5 to
72.5 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Heading out of Twin Lakes is a decent climb, but one that isn’t nearly
as steep or strenuous as the double crossing of Hope. I was able to hike it fairly strongly and
once it was over I alternated running and walking as appropriate on the rolling
sections of road and Colorado trail leading back to the Half Pipe aid
station. I didn’t have a pacer for this
section, but felt fine doing it solo and ended up running a bit with other
runners and their pacers. Somewhere
along this section it got dark enough that I had to dig into my pack for my
headlamp and turn it on before reaching the Half Pipe aid station. Once there, I refilled my pack with water and
my handheld with Coke and grabbed some more ramen soup and some watermelon
before heading out toward the Half Pipe crew zone a couple of miles past the
aid station. While I had told my crew to
skip that location on the outbound leg, I decided it might be a good idea to
meet them there inbound in case I needed anything. When I got there, Neil was ready to pace the
next 4 mile section of roads to Fish Hatchery, something that hadn’t been
planned beforehand, but was welcome nonetheless. Having restocked everything at the actual aid
station, I didn’t really need anything at the crew zone, although I did ditch
the charger since my Garmin was back to 100% and would have plenty of juice to
make it to the finish. The question was,
how much juice did I have left??<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Half Pipe to Fish Hatchery (72.5
to 76.5 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Having just recently completed rehab from Achilles surgery in the
spring and in the process of working his way back into running shape, I think
Neil was a little concerned about being able to keep the pace with me. His concerns were quickly assuaged when he
realized what kind of pace it was he would have to maintain. The miles had started to take their toll and
my legs and feet just weren’t into it anymore.
We alternated running and walking down the road, maintaining something
around a 15:00/mile pace, maybe just a tad faster if I hit a good little
downhill stretch and was really able to hammer it (say, 12:00/mile pace). The
worst part of this section is that you can see the lights of Fish Hatchery
basically all the way from the Half Pipe crew zone. I commented to Neil more than once that those
damn lights weren’t getting any closer.
He assured me that they were but, damn, it wasn’t happening very fast.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
We did eventually get there, however, and it was again Johnathan’s turn
to babysit me over a tough climb, one that will live in my nightmares for many
weeks to come.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Fish Hatchery to Mayqueen (76.5
to 86.5 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Upon arriving at Fish Hatchery at 10:27 PM (27 minutes behind my goal),
I was still solidy on sub-25 pace and, in fact, was almost exactly on sub-24
pace. But I knew that the next section
would make or break my ability to achieve either of those landmarks. The Powerline climb has crushed many dreams
at Leadville. I had heard various horror
stories about it beforehand, but until you experience it you simply can not
fathom how sadistically cruel it is.
Some say it has three or four false summits. Others say there are six. I think I lost count at 27, give or
take. I told Johnathan on at least three
occasions, “If that’s not the real top, I’m going to sit down and cry”. On none of those occasions was it the top
but, to my credit, I didn’t actually sit down and cry (although I wanted to). Also, my headlamp was starting to play tricks
on me. Stumps along the trail were
turning into deer, and I saw hundreds of snakes on the trail, all of which
turned out to be branches or roots upon closer inspection. I kept repeating to Johnathan, “It’s never going
to end, it’s never going to end” and “someone must’ve moved the trail markers,
this hill wasn’t this long when we ran down it”. It was, quite honestly, like one of the nine
circles of Hell from Dante’s Inferno. By
the time we actually did reach the top, an hour and a half later, I was a bit
out of it. My legs were shot, my feet
were raw and my brain was addled. I
wanted so very badly to be able to run the relatively gentle downhill road down
the other side, but I just couldn’t run for more than 50 yards at a time. In fact, I was having trouble just staying
awake, as my headlight beam shining on long, straight, monotonous stretches of
road was lulling me to sleep. Any
realistic shot I had at finishing in under 25 hours evaporated as I walked down
that road, unable to make up any of the time had bled away on the trudge up
Powerline. I was able to pick the pace
up a bit, and wake up, once we hit the Colorado trail again and the
technicality of the single track gave me something to think about and focus on,
but it was too little, too late (and not that fast, regardless) at that
point. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
We rolled into Mayqueen at 2:06 AM, over an hour behind my goal time of
1:00 and a half hour behind sub-25 pace, the first time I’d been behind sub-25
pace all day. That left me with 2 hours
and 53 minutes to cover the last 13.5 miles and finish in under 25 hours. Under normal circumstances, a ridiculously easy
feat, but nothing is ridiculously easy after 86.5 miles. Mike was waiting to take me the rest of the
way into Leadville and he was much more confident about my abilities to earn
the big buckle than I was, but I warned him that this last section would likely
be a long, slow hike around Turquoise Lake.
Ever confident, he said something along the lines of “We won’t rule
sub-25 out” and off we went.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Mayqueen to Leadville (86.5 to
100 miles)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Although by this point I had basically come to terms with the fact that
I was not going home with a big buckle, I also knew that I was going to finish
and probably finish with a fairly respectable time. I was actually kind of concerned that I would
finish painfully close to 25 hours and Mike and I had a conversation about how
it’s almost preferable to finish in say, the 25:30-26:00 range, than to be
within sight of the finish when the clock clicks over to 25:00:00. So, yeah, I was sandbagging a bit, but the
reality was that I just didn’t have enough juice in the tank to make up the
time I needed to make up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As we started the trip around Turquoise Lake, Mike initially made good
on his vow not to rule sub-25 out and tried to encourage me to test the running
legs. And, amazingly, they actually
responded a bit at first and we covered maybe a half-mile at a fairly
respectable (for that point in the race) clip.
But, my 2<sup>nd</sup> wind (or maybe it was my 22<sup>nd</sup> wind?)
didn’t last long and before long we were hiking again. By that point, it wasn’t my legs that were
the problem as much as it was my feet. I
had been feeling some blisters forming for quite some time and the balls of
both feet were absolutely excruciating whenever I landed wrong on a rock or
root, making it exceedingly difficult to run any kind of decent pace on the
suddenly technical trail (none of those rocks or roots were there in the
morning, I swear to God). So, we spent
the time hiking catching each other up on the goings-ons of the day and
enjoying the view of the nearly full moon reflecting off of Turquoise Lake and,
after the moon set, the brilliant starscape and Milky Way up above. The stars really do look closer high up in
the mountains, far removed from any form of artificial light or air pollution.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The long trip around Turquoise Lake actually passed by relatively
quickly, but by the time we reached the roads leading back into Leadville, I
had totally forgotten just how long we had to travel on those roads to reach the
finish. In the morning, on the way out
early in the race, those roads had gone by in a flash. For some reason, in my mind, I was expecting
to leave the Turquoise Lake trail and be back in town soon after, but that’s
not the case. First, you have to cover a
couple of miles of dirt roads before hitting the Boulevard, a three mile long,
straight stretch of road that rises at a gradual but steady pitch up toward
Leadville. I honestly barely even
remember running down the Boulevard on Saturday morning, but I won’t soon
forget hiking up it on Sunday morning.
Like Powerline, I swore several times that it was never going to
end. I could see the headlamps of
another runner and their pacer maybe a quarter of a mile up ahead of us and,
every once in awhile, the headlamps would disappear, which would lead me to
believe that they had reached the end of the Boulevard and turned off, which
meant we soon would too. But, alas, it
always turned out that they had just disappeared over a small rise and would
come back into view a short time later, revealing that I still had a long ways
to go. I knew that we should be getting
closer to Leadville, but there was no indication that we were getting anywhere
at all…all I could see was a seemingly never ending, straight stretch of road
lined with a wall of trees on each side with no streetlights or any other indications
of an approaching town in sight. I was
so out of it by this point that if Mike hadn’t been with me, I ‘m pretty sure I
would’ve become convinced that I had taken a wrong turn and was not in fact
even on the right road. Eventually,
though, the end of the Boulevard did appear up ahead (way up ahead) and Mike
said we still had a shot at sub-26, a totally arbitrary and meaningless goal,
but one that became suddenly very critical to achieve. I couldn’t run at all thanks to the blisters
on my feet, but I could power hike like a sonofabitch, so that’s what I did.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Upon reaching the end of the Boulevard, you find yourself suddenly in
Leadville (after no indication that it even exists for the last few miles, it’s
just suddenly there). A left turn
followed by a quick right deposits you onto 6<sup>th</sup> Street, the final
stretch of road to the finish. 6<sup>th</sup>
street starts of with a short hill, which means you can’t actually see the
finish until you approach the crest of that hill. I gotta tell ya, there are few sights more
glorious than seeing the finish arch and red carpet up ahead when you do crest
that first rise. Of course, nothing at
Leadville comes easily, so after that first rise and a subsequent short
downhill on 6<sup>th</sup>, you have to finish on an uphill. Although by this point it was obvious I would
finish in under 26 hours, I initially had thoughts of running it in all the way
from the top of the first rise. Those
thoughts vanished after two running strides sent bolts of agony up from my
blistered feet. Back to powerhike mode,
but I vowed that, painful or not, I would run across the finish line. As I neared the red carpet, I heard the
finish line announcer say my name and “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger”
playing over the PA system. At the end
of the red carpet, I started in on something that may have resembled a
run. It hurt like hell, but I did it
anyway and held true on my vow to run across the finish. 25:53:14. Immediately after crossing the
line, Marilee, the original race director of Leadville, was there to put my
finisher’s medal around my neck and give me a hug. She said, “Welcome home”, to which I replied “It’s
good to be home.” After that I was met by
Neil, Carolyn, Mike, Johnathan and Paul and I believe my exact words to them
were “Holy fucking shit.” How poetic,
huh?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgybbC_fozrCSO7WSjG5x_qNh4d_0fVS3wrLoh9YjKRvbqA-6cnKPpH7S8RBGg1NbrZKmVbhZ9JzJlN3oUqvOvCFBMnZUGmo70WgB1UxnklN78qxozuIcVTrAfLXI1Qd59XtGIltojpjDs/s1600/With+Crew+at+Finish.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgybbC_fozrCSO7WSjG5x_qNh4d_0fVS3wrLoh9YjKRvbqA-6cnKPpH7S8RBGg1NbrZKmVbhZ9JzJlN3oUqvOvCFBMnZUGmo70WgB1UxnklN78qxozuIcVTrAfLXI1Qd59XtGIltojpjDs/s400/With+Crew+at+Finish.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>From L to R: Neil, myself, Carolyn and Johnathan in the med tent post-race. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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My feet on fire and the rest of my body freezing in the pre-dawn
30-some degree temps, I made a bee line for the med tent to get my feet looked
at. The medical volunteers didn’t seem
too concerned with my blistered feet, but they did take notice when I started feeling
nauseous soon after finishing. After taking
my blood pressure and pulse-ox, they gave me some Tums and Carolyn brought me
some chicken broth. Those things,
combined with a blanket and seat next to a heater, soon had me feeling much
better and I was ready to head out for a shower and a quick post-race celebratory
breakfast at the coffee shop before the crew started to disperse in their
separate directions.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Aftermath<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I guess the first question is: am I disappointed? Short answer: no. Yeah, I wanted a big buckle, but I also
wanted a finish, and I feel like I fought the good fight to earn it. 943 people started the Leadville 100 this
year. 494 finished, a finish rate of
52%. Finishing any 100 is never a given,
much less a 100 such as Leadville, so I won’t take that fact for granted. Will I go back to try and get a big
buckle? I honestly don’t know right now;
much too soon to think about that. I don’t
even know when I’m going to run again, much less what event I’ll run next.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj85H2-Ly0OoeuYjsezSRyszNj-jSs-CDcUwUcpVJCgpHTMys5XLIqIaxo9dOBn7L7Q5ylt8h8Nj6Qjkx7ZvPF0R2fdphvWl5do6FkkPfwGvswf5xynZhViDq3hxpTuLU4ib-Gox3Rghx8/s1600/Buckle+and+Jacket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj85H2-Ly0OoeuYjsezSRyszNj-jSs-CDcUwUcpVJCgpHTMys5XLIqIaxo9dOBn7L7Q5ylt8h8Nj6Qjkx7ZvPF0R2fdphvWl5do6FkkPfwGvswf5xynZhViDq3hxpTuLU4ib-Gox3Rghx8/s400/Buckle+and+Jacket.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Finisher's swag: buckle and jacket (photo courtesy of Johnathan Karol)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Physically, my legs were sore the remainder of the day on Sunday, but a
couple of days later they feel fine. My
feet, on the other hand, are another matter.
I’ve suffered from blisters in each of my 100 milers now, something that
I’ll have to try and remedy in the future, but I’ve never suffered like
this. Two days later and I can still
barely walk because the balls of my feet are so raw and painful and my feet are
so swollen. I’m not sure of the cause,
but I sure hope I can figure it out before the next one (yes, despite all this
pain, there will almost certainly be a next one).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I’ve said thank you to all of these people multiple times already, but
it deserves repeating here in writing for all eternity. So, thank you to Neil, Carolyn, Johnathan and
Mike for your support on the course, whether pacing or crewing. Having friendly faces out there was
invaluable, especially in the wee hours of the morning when I wasn’t quite all
there mentally. Paul and Katie, thank
you for a place to sleep and cook and just hang out over the weekend. And, last but most certainly not least, thank
you to Shannon and Caiden and Chloe for putting up with my obsession and for
your support. Hey, I’m not running this
weekend, we should do something!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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Oh, and I slept until 6:30 this morning. It was awesome.<o:p></o:p></div>
Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-16125720044346631392013-08-12T07:21:00.000-07:002013-08-12T07:21:10.238-07:00Leadville Training Part 10: TaperWell, shit, here we are. It's Monday. At this time next week, I will be driving (or getting ready to drive) back to South Dakota from Leadville, hopefully with a big buckle riding shotgun. Nothing left to do now but wait for the damn race to get here already. The physical part of the training is done, now to get through the mental challenge of the final few days before the big event.<br />
<br />
So, I guess a quick recap of what went down the last few weeks is in order. After the trip to Minnesota, I had planned on one more big mileage week before tapering and that's exactly what I did. Ended up with my highest mileage week of this training cycle with a grand total of 103 miles. That was topped off with a 40 miler on the Centennial trail. The goal for that run was to run smart and easy and still have something left at the end (i.e., treat it as if it were a 100 mile race). That goal was accomplished; I finished still able to run when running was appropriate and my legs were minimally tired afterward.<br />
<br />
The next week was officially the first week of taper, but my first taper weeks are typically still fairly intense, just with fewer miles. So, I still did some speedwork (hill repeats on the Tinton trail) and still got in basically the same mileage in the middle of the week, I just scaled it back a bit on the weekend. I did feel the inexplicable urge to get in one last Crow Peak run before Leadville, so my long run for the week was a 19 mile Crow Peak Triple. Seeing as I was tapering, I decided beforehand that I would run the first ascent and then take it easier on the next two. I also decided it would be a good chance to try out my trekking poles for the first time, so I carried those along with me on the 2nd and 3rd ascents. Once I found a rhythm with them, they seemed to help, so I think I'll bring them along with me to Leadville and have them as an option for the double crossing of Hope and then Powerline on the way back. All in all, I ended up with just over 70 miles for the week.<br />
<br />
This past week was a more significant taper, starting with my first rest day since the last day of June. And, arguably, you could call it my first rest day since May since that rest day in June was occupied with directing the Black Hills 100 and wasn't really all that restful at all, even though I didn't do any running. Truly, I don't really like rest days. They make me feel restless, so much so that I ended up going for two relatively short (half hour each) walks just for something to do. Ended up with about 48 miles for the week, topped off with a trail half marathon, the Victoria Secret Dirty Half, on Saturday. Granted, running a half marathon the week before a 100 mile race may not be the smartest thing in the world to do, but I told myself I'd take it easy and I'd like to think that I kinda sorta did. The fact that I finished 2nd overall doesn't really seem to support that belief but, really, I could've run harder than I did. The simple fact of the matter is that the pace I was running and the depth of the field put me in the position to finish where I did, so I pushed a bit where needed to assume 2nd place and took it easy in other sections. I finished almost exactly 20 minutes behind the race winner, who was the only one to go sub-2 (I ran 2:02:35). Last year there were several sub-2 finishers, so the simple truth is that the field just wasn't as fast this year, and I was the beneficiary. In any case, I don't think I did any damage and it gave me a chance to break in the new pair of Pearl Izumi shoes (EM Trail N1s, if anyone is curious) I'll be wearing for Leadville. And, I've now moved into 2nd place in the Black Hills Trail Running Series season standings, which gives me something to focus on after Leadville (incidentally, after the race on Saturday someone asked me what I had planned for after Leadville and I suddenly realized that I had no friggin clue....haven't thought much about anything BUT Leadville all year).<br />
<br />
This week will be about as easy as it gets. Today is another rest day, I'll put in 6-8 tomorrow and 4-6 on Tuesday and that's it until 4:00 AM Saturday. To break the drive up some, I'm going as far as Fort Collins on Wednesday evening and then heading the rest of the way on Thursday. I've got at least one pacer lined up, possibly two. I've got a crew lined up. I've got a pace chart made. I've got lists of shit I need to pack and things I need to do before I leave. I'm both confident and apprehensive and, more than anything, I just want Saturday to get here so we can get this show on the road!Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-54149400485839691612013-07-25T07:14:00.001-07:002013-07-25T07:14:45.428-07:00Leadville Training Part 9: MinnesotaWhat better way to train for a 100 mile race in the Rocky Mountains at over 10,000 feet elevation than by spending a few days four weeks before said race at under 2000 feet elevation in the flatlands of Minnesota? It's the reverse psychology thing....I'll trick my body into being acclimated to running hills at high altitude by training on flats at low altitude....or something like that.<br />
<br />
One of the challenges of being a normal dude training for an ultra is that, sometimes, life gets in the way. And, honestly, that's not even a really appropriate way of putting it, because most often "life" involves your family, and to suggest that family commitments "get in the way" of ultra training suggests that ultra training is more important, which is definitely not the case. Let's just say that trying to squeeze in the time to have the best of both worlds can be a bit tricky at times. <br />
<br />
Case in point, we spent several days in Minnesota last week, far away from anything you might describe as a mountain. The primary reason we were there was to attend my father-in-law's wedding in St. Cloud, but we also transformed it into a summer vacation and stayed a few days after the wedding in the Twin Cities to check out Valley Fair, the Mall of America, and the Minnesota Zoo. I also got to take my son to his (and my) first ever major league sporting event in the form of a Twins game (they lost 7-1, but it was still a great time). <br />
<br />
Understandably, trying to squeeze in weekend runs of 3-5 hours in the midst of all of these other activities is kind of tough. In fact, it just wasn't feasible at all and, knowing this, I had actually scheduled last week as a cutback week when I made my Leadville training plan way back in February. Probably not all that conventional to have a cutback week this late in the game, just before taper starts, but it is what it is. If I go out and set a course record on August 17th, everyone will be doing it (hell will also have frozen over, but that's beside the point). <br />
<br />
Basically, my goal while I was in Minnesota was to get in at least 10 miles a day, and I largely met that goal. The first couple of days in St. Cloud kind of sucked, to be honest. My father-in-law had told me about a place called Quarry Park that had a trail network (real trails, with dirt, not paved bike paths, which are so often mislabled as "trails") and afters some quick research online it looked like a great option. According to the website, the park officially opened at 8 AM, but I figured if I got there a couple of hours earlier I'd still be able to access the trails, assuming the park would only be closed to vehicles wanting to park there. So, I set out running from the hotel bright and early on Friday morning with aspirations of getting in 20 miles. Right away my legs felt like crap (not sure why) and my stomach didn't feel all that great either (again, not sure why). It was about 3 miles along city streets from the hotel to the park entrance and when I got there it was locked up tight. We're talking 8 foot high chain link gates and fences with barbed-wire on top. It was only 6 AM at this point and I sure as shit wasn't going to wait around for 2 hours for the place to open, so my 20 mile run with some significant trail miles turned into a 13 mile pavement slog down random streets in St. Cloud until I eventually looped back around to the hotel and called it quits. More of the same on Saturday morning, but at least I was able to access the (paved) bike path along the river during my 10 miler that morning.<br />
<br />
After the run on Saturday, we packed up our stuff and headed into the Cities for a full day at Valley Fair. We were there from the time they opened at 10 AM until the park shut down at 11 PM. Not sure how many miles I walked that day, but let me tell ya, it was like an ultra in and of itself (with some roller coasters thrown in). Amazingly, after the long, tiring day on Saturday, I woke up before sunrise on Sunday feeling pretty damn good. Before the trip I had sought some trail suggestions from a Black Hills 100 participant (and our 100K record holder) and he had clued me into several good trails in the area. Our hotel ended up being only 4 miles from one of these trails, so I set out for the Lebanon Hills Regional Park for my Sunday run. This time I drove to the park, which "opened" (no gates at all here) at the much more reasonable time of 5 AM. What I found was a great network of criss-crossing hiking, cross-country skiing and equestrian trails. I ended up running 15 miles and felt like I could've spent a lot more time there just exploring the trail network. While there was nothing there that compares to the terrain of Leadville, or even the Black Hills, I was surprised when my total elevation gain accumulated to over 1000 feet by the time I was done. Relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but better than nothing. That run was followed by a full day at the Mall of America, and then the Twins game, and then some more Mall of America. Kind of wish I had worn my Garmin the whole time just to see how many miles we covered.<br />
<br />
Monday was our last day in the Cities and I headed back to Lebanon Hills to squeeze in 10 miles before we headed to the Minnesota Zoo and then jumped into the car to begin the voyage home. We made it as far as Fargo that evening. Tuesday, the last day of the trip, I didn't technically get in a single 10 mile run, but I did run a 7 miler on the mean streets of Fargo before we finished the trip home and then another 5 miles around Belle that afternoon, so the cumulative miles was over 10. Ended up with just over 77 miles on my "cutback" week, which actually isn't too bad although there weren't any real long runs in there.<br />
<br />
So, now I'm back in SoDak and staring down the barrel of the last real high mileage week of my Leadville training before starting the taper. Only three weeks to go. It's terrifying and exciting all at the same time.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-73478331395002156882013-07-16T09:51:00.000-07:002013-07-16T09:51:31.730-07:00Leadville Training Part 8: Pacing and RacingWhile having a spouse who is also a runner is great in many (most) respects, it does create some conundrums that must be navigated around when one is training for an ultramarathon. This past weekend was a good example. Shannon had planned on running the Spearfish Canyon Half Marathon, which was held on Saturday morning, for quite some time. I was planning on running the 7.3 mile Mystic Mountain Trail Run on Sunday. Somehow, I would need to squeeze a long run out of at least one of those two days so that I could feel warm and fuzzy about my Leadville training. After some careful thought, and channeling of my inner Dean Karnazes, the answer was obvious. I would run the half marathon with Shannon, but I would do it twice, getting in a good long run and pacing her in the process (as an added bonus, this would also be, by far, the furthest distance we had ever run together.....well, whether that was a "bonus" per se, is up for debate, but ultimately it worked out just fine).<br />
<br />
So, my weekend started off with a 3:00 wakeup call on Saturday morning. Honestly, it's at those moments, and not when I'm 50 miles into a 100 mile run, when I wonder if I am truly just a little bit crazy for doing this shit. After the requisite amount of coffee and some last minute preparations, I set off to Spearfish separately from Shannon and parked at the finish line of the half marathon. Being an anal-retentive mileage tracker, I had decided that 30 miles on my Strava feed would look MUCH better than "only" 26.2, so I ran a couple of miles down the bike path and back before starting up the actual half marathon race course (aka, Spearfish Canyon). The race itself starts 13 miles up the road and is almost all downhill back into the Spearfish City Park. My "warmup" would therefore include 13 miles of almost constant uphill to reach the start line. Now, this uphill is child's play compared to, say, running up Crow Peak four times consecutively, but it is just enough to slow you down a bit and the camber of the road got to be a bit annoying. My biggest worry going in was nailing down the timing of the whole endeavor. I didn't want to get up to the start too soon and end up standing around and stiffening up, but I also obviously didn't want to be late for the start of the actual race. As it turns out, I nailed it pretty well, arriving at the start with just under 20 minutes to spare. Once there, I refilled my water bottles, at a PB and J, pinned on my bib (yes, I did register for the race), met up with Shannon and was ready to head back down. <br />
<br />
Our goal was to run sub-2:05, which would be a PR for Shannon. Along those lines, my job was to set the pace somewhere in the 9:30/mile range. Secretly, I thought it might be prudent if we ran just a tad faster on the more downhill early miles, but I tried to keep it no faster than 9:15ish. We quickly fell into a good pace as we headed downhill and started clicking off miles between 9:20 and 9:30 on a consistent basis. Funny thing was, I had somehow tricked my mind into believing that the 17 mile warmup had never happened. When I reached mile marker 5, I didn't think "oh, I've gone 22 miles", it was "hey, we're 5 miles into this thing". It was only when we reached mile 9 that it occurred to me that I had just completed a full marathon. Regardless, my legs felt fine and I tried to keep a nice, steady pace as well as I could. Things were going tremendously well until about mile 10, when Shannon's left calf started cramping. We took a few walk breaks to let it loosen and I was still thinking we could maybe get that 2:05 since we had built a little cushion early on, but the cramps persisted and we ended up running 2:10. Still, not a bad effort at all. Other than some cussing and arguing about how long the walk breaks should be there toward the end, it was a heart-warming couples experience. Well, we're still married at least. Not sure if Shannon will accept any future offers to pace her, though.<br />
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Post-run, my legs felt totally fine and I was actually having a hard time remembering that I had just completed a 30 mile day (again, my mind kept forgetting the first 17). I'll take that as a good sign, I guess, and it left me with some optimism about my prospects at Mystic Mtn. on Sunday. Mystic, which was held for the 43rd consecutive year this year, is the oldest race in western South Dakota and, probably, the oldest trail race in the state. But, in my seven years of living here, I'd never run it. So, being a Mystic virgin, I didn't really know what to expect. Looking at familiar names on past results, I figured that a top 10 finish and something under an hour would be reasonable. The race itself starts near the old townsite of Mystic, of which there isn't much left nowadays. It follows a gravel road for the first couple of miles before heading up some steep single-track on the Bright Angel trail and looping back around to the Deerfield trail and back down to the start/finish. After a few miles of warmup to loosen up the legs, I felt reasonably ready to run hard. Once the race actually started, I quickly found myself back in 15th or 16th place as it always takes me a little bit to get into a rhythm on these shorter, faster races. After about a half mile, though, I started picking people off and, soon enough, had moved up to 8th place. By that time, the top 6 were in a loose group way up ahead and 7th place was also well ahead. Less than two miles in, and it seemed fairly obvious that my goal for the remainder of the race would be to hold onto 8th. By the time we left the road, I could no longer hear footsteps behind me, but wasn't exactly sure just how far back the next runner was. As we headed up Bright Angel, I eventually did hear him not too far back and assumed that I would get passed before the top of the hill. That never happened though, and after topping out I was able to drop the pace back down on the all-too-brief downhill and build a little bit of a gap again. It didn't last long though as soon enough we were heading back uphill, this time on a much more gradual, but much longer, two track road. Again, I thought for sure that whoever it was that was behind me would pass me soon enough but, again, it never happened. After the long uphill, we hit a series of shorter ups and downs and I could hear footsteps behind me the whole way. Finally, we hit the last hill on the course and the lady running the aid station at the top said "all downhill from here" and, I'll be damned, she was actually right (in my experience, spectators/volunteers who say that are very rarely ever right). I tried to hammer the downhill a bit to build a gap but, being unsure of how much further we had to go, I didn't want to push too hard just yet. My shadow was apparently doing the same as I could hear the constant sound of footsteps just a few yards behind me, never drawing closer but never falling back either. Finally, we came around a small bend and I caught a glimpse of vehicles down below. Knowing that the finish was definitely near, I started my final push and could tell right away that the dude behind me had done the same. From there, it was an all out push to the finish, probably the hardest I've ever run at the end of a trail race. It paid off in the end as I crossed the line just a step ahead. We actually finished with the same time (57:54) and, honestly, if the race would've been just a few yards further I probably wouldn't have been able to hold on. As it turns out, our little race within the race ended up being for top honors in the 30-39 age group. Bonus! <br />
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So, all in all not a bad weekend. Some long distance pacing and some short distance racing. Not sure how, or if, it will all benefit me in Leadville. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.<br />
<br />Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-6504165581941845932013-07-10T10:24:00.003-07:002013-07-10T10:24:56.288-07:00Leadville Training Part 7: Getting Down to Crunch TimeIn some ways, it seems like I've been training for Leadville for a long-ass time, but yet it's also flown by. After months and months of thinking "well, it's a long ways off yet", I'm now looking at the calendar and realizing "holy shit, I'm going to be tapering here in a few weeks!". So, inevitably, it's that time in training where you start to question everything you did and everything you wish you would've done and everything that you want to try and do in the remaining few weeks of "real" training.<div>
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The week of the Black Hills 100 was a planned cutback week since I knew full well I wasn't going to get any long runs done during the race (or any short runs either, for that matter). But I was back at it last week, logging just over 90 miles. Of course, the highlights of any ultra training week almost inevitably come on the weekend and last week was no different. Like any good, self-respecting government employee, I took Friday off of work (because who in their right mind takes a holiday on a Thursday and then passes up the opportunity for a four day weekend by actually working on Friday??). </div>
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With the entire day available and a house full of daycare kids, I escaped for a good portion of the day to run Crow Peak. The plan was to get in at least a triple, which is about 20 miles (once I tack on a meaningless road mile just to be anal about it) and 4800 feet of gain. I thought that I might go for a fourth summit if I felt good, but it was clear fairly early on that that wasn't in the cards. Whether it was residual fatigue from the previous, mostly sleepless, weekend or from a track workout on Wednesday morning, my legs just didn't feel as strong as they have on recent outings on Crow. On the second summit I felt like I was actually on the third and the third felt like a fourth so the third became the last, if that makes sense. Still, a good long run with some good vertical.</div>
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Rather than do back to back long runs as is "normal" during ultra training, I actually ran an easy 7.5 instead. Well, easy is a relative term I guess. It was on relatively flat roads and it was short distance, but since I didn't get out the door until late in the morning, it was also warm and humid, two of my least favorite weather conditions. The second half of the weekend long runs actually came on Sunday when I met up with Ryan to run a section of the Centennial trail, from Dalton Lake to Elk Creek and back. This is, arguably, the toughest section of the Black Hills 100 course, with a couple of pretty decent climbs and some shorter rolling stuff that is just harder to run than it seems like it should be. In fact, never before have I ever run this entire section of trail going one direction, much less during an out and back section. It took a few miles for my legs to warm up, but once they did I fell into a comfortable groove and was able to hammer out the entire 24 miles at a running pace (that pace was just barely what you would classify as "running" on the longest uphill heading back toward Dalton Lake, but it was something slightly faster than a walk).</div>
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This coming weekend I'll be doubling up on races. Saturday is the Spearfish Canyon Half Marathon, a downhill road race on pavement. Technically, this will be the first half marathon I've run since 2009, and only the 4th ever. To make it more of an ultra-worthy training run, I actually plan on doing my best Dean Karnazes impression and starting from the bottom of the canyon early in the morning and getting in a good 13-17 mile warmup by running up to the start line. Once there, I'll meet up with Shannon and pace her back down to (hopefully) a half marathon PR for her. That'll give me somewhere between 26-30 miles for the day. It will be, by far, the furthest we have ever run together and the first time I've paced her during a race. This will either be a beautiful bonding experience for us or we'll be visiting a divorce lawyer on Monday. Hard to say for sure which is more likely. Sunday is the 34th annual Mystic Mountain Run, which makes it the oldest trail race in South Dakota. Even though I've lived here for 7 years now, I've never run Mystic. My first year here, I still hadn't delved into trail running and then I've run the Missoula Marathon that same weekend every year since. Because we're traveling to Minnesota for a wedding later next week, I decided not to go to Missoula this year. Bummer that I'll miss that marathon for the first time since its inception, but the silver lining is that I now get to run Mystic for the first time. The race itself is about 8 miles and, yes, I'm thinking of running a couple of loops to get in 16. Just because.</div>
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Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-26493436710575217992013-07-03T13:25:00.001-07:002013-07-03T13:25:38.784-07:002013 Black Hills 100As the old saying goes, the third time is the charm. Not that we royally screwed up the first two Black Hills 100s, but it seems as though we're hitting our stride now that the event has reached its third year. In all honestly, when we started this thing in 2011, we didn't really have a friggin clue what we were getting into. Looking back, knowing what we know now, it's almost hard to believe we pulled the whole thing off that first year. Being an ultrarunner and being an ultra race director are two totally different beasts and, at heart, both Ryan and I are still ultrarunners first. But I think we've figured out how to flip the switch to ultra race director mode when necessary.<br />
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The biggest thing we've figured out is that we can't do this ourselves. Now, that should be painfully obvious, but during the first two years we still fell into the trap of taking too much on ourselves during the event, which led to us running around like meth addicted striped ass monkeys all weekend and totally burning ourselves out. This year, we made it a point to seek out more help and delegate responsibilities more, allowing us to sit back and manage situations more so that reacting directly to them. In particular, we minimized the amount of course roaming activities we did ourselves this year (delivering supplies to aid stations, picking up downed runners, etc.). We were able to do this thanks to the dynamic duo of Royce Wuertzer (new RD of the Lean Horse Ultra in Hot Springs in August) and Nancy Smidt (a seemingly superhuman lady who apparently does not require sleep to function at full speed). Those two put in an untold amount of miles and effort throughout the weekend and made our lives much, much easier. We both actually got to sleep for a couple of hours on Saturday night/Sunday morning, which has never happened before during the event. Hopefully, Ryan and I can repay Royce by returning the favor at Lean Horse. Not sure if we can ever adequately repay Nancy, other than to petition her for sainthood. <br />
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Another major assist goes to Kevin Forrester and Todd Battles, directors of the Tatanka 100 mountain bike race, who did pretty much all of the course marking (I put up some pin flags for about 30 minutes early Saturday morning, they did the rest). One of the major complaints about the event the first two years was the course markings along the motorized section of trail between Dalton Lake and Pilot Knob, particularly for the 100 milers who are running back through that section after dark. It's a gnarly section of trail with a bunch of side trails and the actual route, despite permanent signage, isn't always abundantly clear. Our number one course marking goal this year was to make that section as crystal clear as possible. Thanks to past 100K winner and 100M runner up John Horns hooking us up with a ton of reflective tape from 3M, we were able to put out significantly more course marking this year and, so far, I haven't heard of anyone going seriously off-course (and the few people I talked to who did go off-course took responsibility for it themselves). We seem to have found a system that works well for us, and we will use it for the foreseeable future.<br />
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Another major complaint from past years, and something we have no control over, was the weather. The severe thunderstorm in 2011 and the extreme heat in 2012 took a major toll on the finish rate and times those first two years. Going into this year, we still didn't feel like we had good feel for just how fast or hard this course really was. We assumed that, given decent weather, this was probably a sub-20 course (for the winner) and that our finish rate would be significantly above the 35% and 37% we had in '11 and '12. Well, we were right. No storms and the highs Saturday were in the mid-70s. Jeremy Bradford returned to defend his title and broke his own course record by almost two hours, finishing in an impressive 19:05. The real surprise was in the women's race, which was won by Kaci Lickteig. Now, it wasn't really a shocker that she won it, but the way she did it was pretty incredible. Running in her first ever 100 miler and coming from the flatlands of Nebraska, she absolutely obliterated the women's course record (and the old men's course record) and finished just six and a half minutes behind Jeremy in 19:12. That's seven hours under the previous women's record. Don't be shocked if you see her name at the top of ultra race results for years to come at some of the more well known events. The women's course record in the 50M also fell, with Alison Fraser setting the new mark. Oh, and our finish rate for the 100M this year was 69.5%, basically double what it was the inaugural year. We had 14 sub-24 finishers this year, compared to a total of five from the first two years combined. So, there goes our reputation. And I guess we'll have to order more sub-24 buckles much sooner than we thought.<br />
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All in all a great weekend. There are always things we know we can work on, but it feels like we're getting the big stuff dialed in. Now, to do some refining and fine tuning. And work on getting this thing qualifier status for Western States.<br />
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As for me, back to Leadville training. Obviously, I didn't do any long runs last weekend....the two days of the BH100 were the first two "rest" days I've had since the day after Quad Rock. And they weren't really restful at all...I woke up Monday morning feeling like I had run an ultra of some sort myself (complete with middle of the night leg cramping, oddly enough...sympathy pains??). But, I'm back at it now and as eager as ever to set aside the ultra race director hat for my normal ultrarunner one. I've said it after each of the first two Black Hills 100s and I'll say it again: it's infinitely harder to direct one of these things than to just go out and run it. But both are rewarding in their own way.<br />
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To everyone who either volunteered at or ran in the Black Hills 100 this year, THANK YOU!! I look forward to seeing some of you in Leadville. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-19065207041365717602013-06-17T09:07:00.000-07:002013-06-17T09:07:15.708-07:00Leadville Training Part 6: The Bighorn 30KHard to believe a year has already passed since I ran the Bighorn 100. But, as they say, time flies when you're having fun and here we are in mid-June again. Bighorn is one of my favorite events; beautiful trails and a great post-race BBQ make for an overall awesome experience and the fact that it's a mere three hour drive away doesn't hurt either. I've been running there since 2009. I was just getting started in ultrarunning back then and the Bighorn 50K was just my second ultra. I returned the next year for the 50M and subsequently was handed my first ever DNF. 2011 brought redemption in the 50M and then I finished my 2nd 100 miler there last year. That left just one race distance at Bighorn that I had never covered: the 30K. While technically not an ultra, it is a trail run and seemed like a good chance to stretch the legs and really <i>race</i> a race for a change, as opposed to just slogging through a longer distance with an eye more on finishing than finishing fast. My mission at Bighorn this year was definitely to finish fast.<br />
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As I've mentioned on here before, one aspect of my Leadville training this year is the goal to drop some extra weight before the big race in August. I'm still not sure how much I want to lose, I just know I need to lose some. When I weighed myself back in March before I started my training, I tipped the scales at 209. Definitely not ideal weight for an ultrarunner, although I had been making do for a few years at or near that weight. By the time Quad Rock rolled around in early May, I was down to about 190 and was hoping to see some obvious benefit of that weight loss at QR. That didn't come to fruition as the previously documented digestive issues drove me off the course after just one 25 mile loop. On the day before Bighorn, I weighed in at 183. There's gotta be a benefit to carrying around 26 fewer pounds, right? I was really hoping to find out.<br />
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Obviously, since I'm training for Leadville, I didn't necessarily train specifically for this race....it was just kind of jammed into the schedule and the plan was to basically train through it. Good evidence of that was my fairly heavy weekend the week before Bighorn, which left my legs feeling heavy and sluggish all the way through Wednesday of the following week. I "tapered" for Bighorn with very slow, very easy, very flat runs of 6 and 4.5 miles on Thursday and Friday. By the end of the week my legs felt better, but I still wasn't sure just how much kick I would have on Saturday morning and was wondering if maybe the Crow Peak Quad was a bit foolhardy just six days before Bighorn. Only one way to find out...<br />
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The race starts at the Dry Fork aid station along the Bighorn 100 course. Although labeled a 30K, which would be 18 miles, it's actually closer to 17 or 17.5 depending on who you ask. And although the route includes the steepest incline (The Haul) along the Bighorn 100 course, it is overall a VERY downhill course. From about 7600 feet at Dry Fork, the route ascends and then descends a bit to the first aid station (Upper Sheep Cr) at 7300 ft. Right after that is The Haul, which is short but steep and takes you to the high point of the course at around 8000 ft. And then the "fun" begins in the form of an absolutely quad killing bombing run of a downhill to the Lower Sheep Cr. aid station at 5000 ft....3000 ft of descent in a few miles. After that, the course continues losing elevation, but along much more gradual, somewhat rolling, trails and gravel roads to the finish in Dayton. If you've still got the legs left, you can really hammer the last 5 miles on the road and make up some time. Of course, if your legs are shot, it's the longest damn 5 miles of your life. <br />
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Since the 50K, 50M and 100M all cover the 30K course, I've actually run this course three times before. But, I had never run it on fresh legs, so I was curious to see what I could do without several hours on my legs already. Based on past results, including the results of several local Black Hills runners who I'm familiar with, I was expecting that a top 10 finish was very doable and that, depending on how things shook out, I might even have a shot at a top 5 and an age group award. I pegged 2:20-2:25, which worked out to 8:00-8:15 pace, as a good goal for a finishing time. <br />
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Since it's a point to point route, they bus you to the start and I rode in the back (like the cool kids in high school) with Ryan, who was going for a sub-2 and a new CR, and a few other Black Hills runners. After a fairly long ride, we finally arrived at Dry Fork just in time to see the 50Kers start at 8:00. Because of the popularity of the 30K, they split the race into two waves this year, with the "competitive" wave starting at 9:00 and the "family and friends" wave at 10:00. This meant we had an hour to hang out and talk and basically just mill around. It actually passed fairly quickly and, thankfully, it was a little warmer than it usually is at Dry Fork, so we weren't numb and shivering by the time the race started. I knocked out about a mile warmup run up the road just before the start and the legs felt okay, not great, but the heaviness from early in the week seemed mostly gone. After the national anthem, we were lined up and ready to go.<br />
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Immediately after the start, Ryan and last year's winner took off in the front of the pack. I settled into the top 10 or 15 and tried to find a groove. The first mile or so is a gradual uphill, first on a dirt road and then onto some singletrack. As we neared the top of this uphill I started to find the groove a bit and get my breathing/striding in sync and was in about 7th or 8th when we topped out and started the mostly gradual downhill to the first aid station. Along this trail section I started feeling pretty good and was cranking out the miles fairly consistently. And then the first fall happened. The trail through this section is fairly narrow and infringed upon by large sagebrush. As I was cruising along, my foot and/or shoelace caught on a sagebrush branch and before I knew it, I was down. I managed to catch myself a bit, but not all the way. I bounced up and started running again immediately, but lost a position in the process. I realized quickly that my left shoelace had been pulled loose in the fall, so just before a short but steep uphill I pulled aside and re-tied it, losing another few positions. But, pretty much all of those guys walked that uphill and I threw it into low gear and ran it, so picked the positions back up in short order. Immediately after the hill was the first aid station at Upper Sheep Cr., which I ran through (I didn't use any aid stations all day, as I was carrying a single handheld and had two gels with me). <br />
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Right after Upper Sheep Cr. is The Haul, which seemingly took me about 2 hours to climb last year in the 100 (it wasn't that bad, but it was a slow process of walk ten steps, rest, repeat). This year, I started off back in low gear, with aspirations of maybe running the whole thing. That quickly revealed itself to be a foolhardy strategy, so I started power hiking like everyone else and continued until the grade leveled out a bit near the top, where I started running again. I lost another position on The Haul, but also drew closer to a guy who was in front of me. After the shoe-tying and then subsequently passing one or two guys through the aid station, I had kind of lost track of where I was in the field, but thought it was around 7th or 8th. At the top, I glanced at my Garmin and my average pace up to that point was exactly 8:15, at the low end of my goal for the day, but virtually all of the uphill was now behind me.<br />
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And now the fun begins. The downhill after The Haul is just brutal. It's not smooth, it's not easy and it's not really all that much fun. It's a narrow, sometimes rocky, sometimes rutted out, mostly steep, singletrack that will absolutely obliterate your quads and seems to go on forever. The plan was to run it hard, and I did. Probably harder than I've allowed myself to run downhill in quite some time. That was partly because I was in lockstep with a guy right in front of me (the guy who had passed me on The Haul) and another guy right on my heels. About halfway down, the guy in front of my took a pretty good spill and after asking if he was okay (he was), me and the guy behind me took off ahead of him. Up ahead was another runner and we started gaining on him as we continued dive bombing down the hill. After awhile, it was apparent that the guy behind me was better at this downhill stuff than I am and he bounced around me and was quickly around the next guy and gone. And then it happened again. As I was pounding down the narrow trail, my right foot got caught in the loop of my shoelace on my left foot and I hit the turf. Hard. I took most of the impact on my left knee, which was already bleeding from my first fall, and my right hand, which was holding my hand held bottle. I hit hard enough that the plastic strap that secure the bottle to the carrier snapped, rendering the carrier basically useless. I jumped back up again, picked up the bottle and considered just leaving the useless, broken carrier there until I remembered my car keys were in the pocket. Might need those later. So then I was running down the trail with the bottle loose in one hand the and the carrier in the other. I knew that my left knee/shin were sore and bloody, but it didn't appear as though anything was truly injured. And no one passed me, so no big deal, right?<br />
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Until it happened yet again. Not much later I again bit it, the foot in the shoe lace again the culprit. Sonofabitch! (I actually yelled out a different word in the moment). Again, I took most of the impact on my left leg, which didn't really help things. Frustration setting in, I took a few moments to re-tie my shoes again in an attempt to alleviate the problem (which has never been a problem with these shoes before, although I'd never run this fast downhill on a narrow trail in these shoes either). While doing this, one guy passed me and the other guy I had been gaining on pulled further ahead. I quickly regained my lost position though as he slowed going through the Lower Sheep Cr. aid station, which was just up ahead. At that point, the worst of the downhill was, thankfully, over and the trail leveled out considerably and even included a few short stretches of rolling uphill. By this point, my left shin and knee were pretty sore and my legs were feeling pretty beat up from the downhill. It felt like I was suddenly running at a snail's pace without gravity helping me anymore, but my Garmin told me I was still doing just fine and had cut my average pace down to 8:00, at the high end of my goal range. Would I actually be able to come in under 2:20? If I could hold it together for 6 more miles...<br />
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I was fairly astounded that I had already managed to bite it three times in one race, which is far and away a new record for me. But I wasn't done yet. Not long after Lower Sheep Cr. I took one last swan dive. This one had to resemble a baseball player sliding headfirst into home place, as I landed on my chest with my hands/arms stretched out in front of me and then managed to bounce my chin off the trail to finish it off. I reached up to my chin to feel for blood, but found none, although I now had a bit of a headache to add to the sore knee and shin. I finally decided at this point that I needed to remedy the situation before I did some serious damage to myself and took a few moments to tuck my shoelace loops into my shoes, which, of course, would've been a brilliant move after the first fall. No positions lost, so I was thinking I was in 6th or 7th at that point and I knew I had at least one guy not too terribly far ahead of me, although I wasn't sure how far as the curving, rolling trail didn't offer much in the way of sight distance. Well, turns out it wasn't actually that far at all as not much later I came around a curve in the trail and saw him hiking a short uphill right in front of me. I ran up and over and passed him quickly. Not long after that, I ran past some mountain bikers and I thought I heard one of them say I was in 4th, but that didn't seem right based on who I knew to be ahead of me, so I guesstimated that 5th or 6th was more likely. <br />
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By this time, the trail running was done and the final 5 mile stretch of dirt road to the finish had begun. This stretch of road took ffffffooooorrrrreeeevvvvveeeeeerrrrrr last year in the 100M as I ended up walking 90% of it. Although my legs were tired by this point and my left leg was sore from the extra abuse it had taken, I was still cranking out what I thought was a pretty decent pace for that point in the race, around 7:30 miles. The road is mostly flat with a few gradual ups and downs along the way and I could not see anyone ahead of me within range, so I wasn't really expecting to gain any positions in the final miles. As far as I knew, no one was hot on my heels either, so I was thinking that I was probably locked in position-wise, it was just a question of what my time would be. So, of course, I begin thinking not only about my overall position, but also about where I sat in my age group. I knew Ryan was older, but I suspected that at least two, possibly three, of the other guys I knew for sure to be ahead of me might be in their 30s. So I was right on the brink, possibly outside looking in already. And then I heard footsteps. When this happens toward the end of, say, a marathon, you immediately begin to hope it's just a relay runner. Well, no such luck here. I was running the shortest/fastest distance....seemed highly unlikely that a 100 miler was suddenly running sub-7 miles and about to overtake me. Indeed, it turned out to be the guy who had fallen right in front of me on the downhill. He had recovered nicely and was cruising the road at a good clip, much better than I could maintain at that point. He passed me and was gone in short order, despite the fact that I had dropped my pace into the 7:20s. Not much longer after that, it happened again; footsteps right behind me, a quick "good job" and gone. This was a guy I hadn't seen all day but he had apparently been lingering back in the pack and waiting for the final push. Again, although I felt like I was running well for that point in the race, I just didn't have the speed to keep up at that point.<br />
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By then we were past the last aid station, Homestretch, with only two miles to the finish. I risked a few glances behind me when the road offered a long view and didn't see anyone else sneaking up, so now it really did seem as though I was locked into my current position, whatever it was. It also seemed certain I was definitely outside the age group hardware now, but nothing I could do about that anymore. So I just kept chugging along and in no time was coming into Dayton with the park and finish line just ahead (amazing how much faster that road stretch goes by when you actually run it). For the first time all day I switched the screen on my Garmin to display my total elapsed time and saw it just clicking over to 2:10. Sonofabitch! Of course, that's much faster than I expected to run, but I immediately started thinking about where I could've shaved time (by, say, not falling four times) and come in under 2:10. But, again, nothing to do about it at this point so I continued pushing to the finish. As I came into the park I immediately saw/heard Ryan and his four daughters cheering for me and pushed across the line in 2:11:49. Final check of the results put me at 7th overall and 5th in my age group. Being in your 30s sucks sometimes!<br />
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Okay, so I won't lie and say I'm not disappointed that I didn't get to bring home one of those big ass Bighorn river rock age group awards, but you can't really complain too much about coming in 9 minutes under your stretch goal time. Other than getting up close and personal with the trail more times than I would've liked, the race really couldn't have gone much better for me. I feel like, for the first time, I've really experienced what it's like to race with less weight. I'm fairly convinced that there is no way I could've run this race this fast 26 pounds ago. I'm happy with how things went and even more excited now about the rest of my Leadville training. <br />
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I would be remiss if I didn't mention Ryan's race here briefly. As mentioned before, he was gunning for the course record, which was 1:59. Ryan is in phenomenal shape this year and I suspected he'd give it a run for its money. Well, he did that and more, finishing in 1:57. But, turns out last year's winner was in phenomenal shape too as he ran a 1:56. Sonofabitch! It was a fast day at the Bighorn 30K!<br />
<br />Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-2381053411805138912013-06-11T07:34:00.000-07:002013-06-11T07:34:13.085-07:00Leadville Training Part 5: A different kind of quad rockOkay, it's been awhile (which is a great Staind song, by the way), so time to get caught up here.<br />
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After my abbreviated training run at Quad Rock, I've been pretty much head down, grinding out as many miles as I can in an attempt to wash the bad taste out of my mouth. And, for the most part, it's been working. As I noted in my last post, the training has gone very well since QR and I'm definitely feeling stronger. It's been too long to go into the intimate details, so I'll just touch on some highlights:<br />
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5/23 - My birthday. The big 3-5. Ran 10 miles on the Tinton trail. Nothing too exciting about it, really, but I am in a new age group now, depending on how they split em. Oh, and one of my birthday presents was a brand spankin new Garmin Forerunner 910.<br />
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5/26 - Ran from the Dalton Lake trailhead (miles 29/71 of the Black Hills 100 course) back to the BH100 start/finish in Sturgis with Johnathan, who will be double-dipping as the BH100 photographer and a 100K runner this year. 29 miles and I was still feeling pretty damn good when we got done.<br />
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6/2 - My daughter's birthday. Much more exciting than my own. Besides a rockin One Direction-themed party, I also ran a marathon (Deadwood-Mickelson), where I paced a friend from Texas to a 4:11 finish. I don't run many marathons anymore and found myself extremely disappointed in the lack of food choices at the aid stations. Bananas and oranges? That's the crap I eat during the week when I'm watching my calories. I want bacon and cookies, damn it! There was one aid station that had homemade banana bread, which was pretty awesome.<br />
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6/7-6/9 - This ended up being an interesting three day stretch of training. At some point last week, I got a wild hair up my ass to do a night run, so after my son's baseball game on Friday evening I headed to Sturgis and met up with Ryan for some night running on the Centennial. We started at about 9:30 and covered 20 miles between the Ft. Meade trailhead and some random point between the Bulldog and Elk Creek aid station locations on the BH100 course. Got done a bit before 2:00 AM, drove home, showered and crashed for about 4 hours of somewhat fitful sleep before getting up to run the Hayfever 4 mile race in Belle Fourche. I managed to win that race against a fairly small field, went home, showered again and did some yard/housework for most of the rest of the day. On Sunday, I got up early to tackle Crow Peak, which has become my go-to training location for Leadville. In my last post, I wrote about the Crow Peak Triple I ran the week after Quad Rock. Being an ultrarunner, I'm always looking to up the ante, so the goal for Sunday was my first ever Crow Peak Quad. The first two laps went well and I again managed to run the entire ascent both times (noting that running the entire ascent just one time was an enormous accomplishment in the very recent past). The third ascent was a bit slower, but I ran all but the 2 or 3 steepest pitches near the top. By then, it was becoming a bit of a mental battle as I cruised down the hill the third time, trying to convince myself that I should in fact run one more lap. After eating a snack and refilling my water, I forced myself away from the car for a fourth ascent and came very close to turning back around a few times within the first half mile. Eventually, I managed to remind myself that Leadville will include a fair amount of hiking and that it is, in fact, okay to do some hiking in training. So I did a mix of running and hiking and ground out the fourth ascent in what was actually an okay time (it always seems so much slower in the midst of the fatigue). With that out of the way, the fourth descent was actually my fastest and I felt pretty good, both mentally and physically, when I reached the trailhead again after 25.2 miles and 6200 feet of total ascent. A good 2+ day training block, both mentally and physically.<br />
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This coming weekend is the Bighorn 30K in Dayton, WY. Since I ran the 100M at Bighorn last year, the 30K seems like kind of a cop out, but it's the only distance (out of 30K, 50K, 50M and 100M) that Bighorn offers that I haven't run. And, honestly, I'm really looking forward to hammering out a fast, hard trail run. So much of ultra running is just grinding out slow miles for hours on end. This time I'm actually going to race the thing and see what happens. I'm hoping to bring one of those big damn rocks (the traditional Bighorn age group award) back to Belle with me!Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-15988249301302478252013-05-20T09:07:00.000-07:002013-05-20T09:10:34.949-07:00Leadville Training Part 4: Bouncing backTraining for an ultramarathon (or any race, for that matter) has its ebbs and flows. Some days you feel great, like you could run forever and never feel tired. Other days, grinding out a 6 mile recovery run takes everything you've got. Obviously, you hope that everything comes together and you have one of the good days on race day. In my last post, I whined a bit about how that has not been the case so far this year, with two of the down days miring my runs at Moab and Quad Rock. Fortunately, it seems when your confidence is most shaky, you get a string of the good days to bring it back up, and that's what I got this past week.<br />
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Well, not the entire week. Early in the week I was still have some issues associated with the malady that affected me at Quad Rock. Nothing major, but an inconvenience nonetheless. Once that finally cleared up, I resolved to put Quad Rock behind me with a solid weekend set of long runs. Normally, I would run back to back long runs on, well, back to back days, but this past weekend real life intervened. I am one of the coaches for my son's little league team and we had a tournament in Deadwood Friday evening and most of the day Saturday. So, I tweaked the schedule and decided to run long on Friday and Sunday mornings rather than the traditional Fri/Sat or Sat/Sun. <br />
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Friday's run was the longer (but not necessarily harder) one, 25 miles on the Centennial trail from the Elk Creek trailhead (miles 17/83 of the Black Hills 100 course) to Dalton Lake (miles 29/71). This is arguably the toughest section of the trail with a couple of shorter climbs and then a nice (or horrible, depending on your state of mind) grinder to the top of the ridge above Dalton Lake before finally descending to the lake itself. On this day, after my legs got warmed up on the earlier, shorter climbs, I got into a good groove and was able to drop it into what I call my "grind gear" and run most of the uphills. The return trip from Dalton to Elk Cr is theoretically easier since there is more downhill, but I am inevitably surprised by the amount of relatively short uphills there are along the way, which is one of the reasons this section is so tough....mentally, it's just hard to keep grinding on the short uphills when you think you should be running entirely downhill. But, in reality, it's pretty much all runnable if your legs are feeling good. Mine weren't great, but they were good enough and I ground out the entire run feeling pretty good (and finished the 25 miles about 30 minutes faster than my Quad Rock 25, albeit with less elevation gain).<br />
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After an easy 8 on roads before the baseball games commenced on Saturday morning, I was up at the asscrack of dawn on Sunday to tackle the real beast of the weekend, a triple summit of Crow Peak. The Crow Peak trail is about 6.4 miles total, 3.2 up and 3.2 back down with around 1500 ft of elevation gain per lap. I've run Crow Peak several times and had only ever run the entire ascent once before. On Sunday, my climbing legs felt great and although I thought maybe I should hold back and save something for the 2nd and 3rd ascents, I couldn't "waste" the feeling so just rode the wave and ran the entire first ascent. The descent is a good chance to stretch your legs a bit, but also features some good technical downhill running on the steep rocky pitches near the summit. After refueling at the trailhead, I headed up for ascent #2 and found that the grind gear was working well....well enough to run the entire ascent again. Another cruise back down to the car, another quick pit stop, and back up for ascent #3. I was expecting this one to be a real slog, with a lot of hiking involved, and while it was definitely slower, there were only a few pitches I had to power hike. A quick rest break at the top (it was pouring rain and a bit windy) and I cruised back down, feeling great. I reached the trailhead after 19 miles and a little over 4500 ft of ascent in 3:35, a full 22 minutes faster than the only other time I've run a Crow Peak triple. And, since I still felt great and since nice round numbers have some stupid magical aura, I cranked out another mile on the dirt road to get to an even 20 for the day.<br />
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So, as they have a way of doing, things have bounced back quite nicely. I'll happily ride the wave while it lasts.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-48897799269326591112013-05-14T09:52:00.003-07:002013-05-14T09:52:32.193-07:00Not a great start to the ultra yearSo, here it is early May and I've already run two ultras this year....well, check that. I guess technically, I've run one ultra and one 25 miler (although I guess you could debate until the cows come home about what makes an ultra an ultra....distance or difficulty??). So far, the results have been less than stellar. <br />
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Back in Moab in February, I blew up pretty hardcore at the Red Hot 55K and ended up slogging much of the last half of the race. This past weekend in Fort Collins I was hoping for better results at the Quad Rock 50. I mean, after all, I had run, and finished, this race last year. Weather conditions this year were near-perfect, my training has been going well and I'm 20ish pounds lighter than I was a year ago, so what could possibly go wrong? Well, I've noticed this phenomena where at least one of my kids tends to get sick in the last two weeks before I have a big race. Of course, this is mass paranoia time for any runner, so thoughts of biohazard suits, dowsing the house in Lysol or moving into a hotel room become serious considerations. In the past, their illnesses have never affected my races, although I did come down with my son's flu bug the day AFTER the Fargo Marathon back in 2007. I can't say for sure what happened this time, but I know my son was home sick from school one day in the last couple of weeks before Quad Rock and then on Thursday, just a couple of days before the race, my daughter was diagnosed with strep throat. Awesome. I never caught a fever or felt nauseous or had a sore throat of any kind throughout this period, but on Wednesday I did start to come down with some rather unpleasant diarrhea (too much information?....tough, it has major bearing on the remainder of this story). I was hoping my bowel problems would clear up before the race, but they persisted all the way through Thursday and Friday. By Friday night and Saturday morning, I was popping Pepto Bismol in an attempt to keep things at bay, but it didn't seem to be helping much. <br />
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I woke Saturday morning feeling pretty okay and the race actually started quite well for me. I was keeping the pace under control, my legs felt great and I didn't feel any unpleasant urges whatsoever for the first several miles. At one point, I found myself leapfrogging with Karl Meltzer as we ascended the first climb of the course, which led me to believe that I was either having the awesomest race of my life, or that Karl was having the absolute unawesomest race of his (the fact that he kept stopping to stretch his calves made me believe it was probably the latter). I hit the Towers aid station at the top of the first climb and was still feeling good, ready to pick up some time on the downhill to the Horsetooth aid station. And then the wheels came off. About halfway down the descent, the urge that hadn't yet made an appearance hit suddenly, and I had to make a quick dive for cover to squat in the woods (spectacular pre-planning on my part had included putting some baby wipes in my hydration pack, thankfully). Okay, so I lost a few minutes there. Hopefully that's the only one. I can still hit my goals. My legs still feel good. So back on the trail I went and continued on, feeling great again. For a couple of miles. Then the urge hit again, this time as I was nearing the Horsetooth aid station. Knowing that there were toilet facilities there, I was able to hold off until the bottom of the hill, where I had to wait in line to use the facilities. Another several minutes lost. Sonofabitch. But my legs still feel great. Hopefully THIS was the last time. Onward and upward. I passed through the aid station, said a quick hi to Rob (sorry Rob, I was in kind of a pissy mood....or, more accurately, a shitty mood) and headed up the hill. Okay, feeling good again. I can still meet my goals if I can hold my bowels together. Surely it's done with now, right? Wrong. Again, near the top of the ascent, I found myself squatting in the bushes. Son. Of. A. BITCH. <br />
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By that point, I was mentally defeated more so than physically, which is dangerous in an ultra. Thoughts of stopping after the first 25 mile loop started entering my head and never really left. My legs still felt good, but thanks to the unplanned pit stops I was now well behind my goal for the day and had no idea how many more times I would end up searching for cover. I argued back and forth with myself for the remainder of that loop. I never had another episode after that third one, although I did have a couple of contractions that made me think one was imminent. When I started descending the final hill toward the turnaround, I passed my friend Bob, who was on his way back up on the 2nd loop and he told me that Ryan had dropped at the turnaround (after attempting to run on only one hour of sleep). That pretty much cemented my decision. At that point I couldn't come up with a compelling reason to continue on for another 5, 6, or 7 hours battling an unpleasant condition I had no control over whatsoever. So, I ran the remainder of the downhill fairly hard, called it a day when I hit the start/finish and commenced drinking beer to drown my sorrows. Okay, that's a little dramatic. I really wasn't that shook up about it. Looking back on it now, of course I can armchair quarterback myself and think that maybe I would've been fine and still could have had a respectable finish, but it was always "just" a training run. It just turned out to be a 25 mile training run instead of a 50. And, strangely, the fact that I did finish the 50 last year brought me some peace.....like, I've been there and done that, so it's not as big of a deal to not do it again this year. Ah, the things we'll come up with to justify our actions. Regardless, Nick and Pete put on a great event and I'll likely be back next year. For the 50. All of it.<br />
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As for the rest of this year, one benefit of only running 25 miles of a 50 miler is that your legs don't take all that much abuse. So, my training rolls on. On the car ride home, I briefly considered switching from the 30K at Bighorn to the 50M to try and make up for Quad Rock, but I don't think I will. I'm really looking forward to racing the 30K hard and going for a solid finish (top 10 for sure, maybe top 5??). I have plenty of weekends to put in miles for Leadville, no sense in radically changing my plans now. Right? Well, maybe... Nah... Well..... ???<br />
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<br />Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-88224380195416013322013-05-02T07:47:00.000-07:002013-05-02T07:47:26.903-07:00Leadville Training Part 3: Spring has sprung (again), back to Quad RockOkay, so I'm now two full cycles (8 weeks) into Leadville training and everything seems to be clicking along nicely (knock on wood). The big thing for me is routine. Every week of my training plan is virtually identical in structure. The mileages may vary slightly, but the type of workout doesn't really change much from week to week. Mondays and Fridays are recovery days (6-7 easy miles), Tuesday is a double (usually 8 easy in the AM and 5 trail miles in the PM), Wednesday is speed day (either 800s on the track or hill repeats), Thursday is medium-distance trail day (10-12 miles) and Sat/Sun are long run days. <br />
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It's actually fairly incredible how quickly your body can adjust to the abuse you throw at it. In fact, one thing I've noticed so far is that in some ways my body actually seems to thrive on the abuse. During my cutback weeks, which are in the 55-58 mile range (as opposed to 85-90 miles), I have actually felt more fatigued and rundown than when I'm in a high mileage week. Of course, that could be because I'm coming off of three straight weeks of high mileage by the time I reach a cutback week, but I have yet to really feel heavily impacted by the mileage in the midst of a high mileage week, whether is the 1st week of the cycle or the 3rd. I'm not a physiologist, nor did I sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so I have no explanation for this, just an observation.<br />
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In any case, now that spring has returned, hopefully for good, I'm hoping to really be able to put this training I've done so far to the test, the first test being the Quad Rock 50 in just over a week. I ran the inaugural QR last year as a training run for Bighorn and had a blast. It was definitely the best paced (not fastest, by any means, just best paced) 50 miler I've done and I finished feeling relatively fine, which was the goal. Like I mentioned, my time wasn't blazing fast (11:11), but considering my goal going in was a sub-12 and to not feel like a steaming pile of shit afterwards, things went pretty okay. This year, with more time between my goal 100 and QR, I feel like maybe I can push for a faster time. I'm not going to redline it by any means, but I'd definitely like to go sub-11 and maybe sub-10:30. Of course, thanks to the April snowmageddon (or snowpocalypse, if you prefer), my trail mileage took a hit recently, so I don't feel as prepared as I could be. And I'm not really tapering for this thing, just training through it, but like I said above my legs don't generally seem happy with cutback weeks anyhow (although I still recognize and respect their necessity), so maybe that's for the best. Most of all, I'm just looking forward to some good beer with the Fort Collins crew after the race. After all, that's the reason the vast majority of us run ultras, isn't it??<br />
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<br />Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-52441471753510023422013-04-17T09:00:00.000-07:002013-04-17T09:00:07.014-07:00Leadville Training Part 2: Damn you, Mother NatureOkay, so I've been doing a fairly shitty job of consistently updating the masses (all 2 or 3 of you) on my Leadville training. The first update was after two weeks, I'm now in the middle of the third week of my second 4 week cycle, so that comes out to....a long time ago. In any case, I'll just list some highlights (and lowlights):<br />
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--Overall, things are going well. Weekly mileage has been 80+ for the most part, other than cutback weeks, and I hit 90 last week.<br />
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--Had a good 25 mile run on the Centennial a couple of weeks ago where I forced myself to eat something (I've been using Honey Stinger waffles and chews lately) every half hour on the half hour. This equates to about 320 calories per hour. It seemed to work well. I found that before when I was guesstimating a good time to eat, I was grossly misjudging just how well I was doing about getting enough calories consistently and subsequently falling behind and feeling like shit late in the run.<br />
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--The day after that 25 miler, I ran 15 miles on a 1.25 mile out and back. That sounds like borderline torture , but it actually ended up being a lot of fun. A friend, Johnathan, put together a low-key event to showcase a new trail he and a group of volunteers have been constructing in the town of Whitewood. The plan was that he was going to run for 24 hours and see how many miles he could get in. He had sponsors lined up to donate a certain amount per mile or just a set amount, and they also gathered donations at the start/finish to help fund future trail building activities. Since only 1.25 miles of the trail is complete, that's what we ran on. Johnathan ended up with a 100K; I put in 15 in the evening after a day of watching/coaching my son's basketball team at a tourney in Rapid City.<br />
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--Ran on the Tinton trail just outside of Spearfish a couple of weeks ago for the first time since the first week in December. Tinton gets snowed in pretty bad during the winter because of the topography and lack of overall use in the winter, but it was finally clear and runnable.....or at least it was briefly, which brings me to my next point....<br />
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--Mother Nature is a dirty, dirty whore. Last week we got a two day long winter storm that dumped over a foot of snow, more snow than we've had all winter. It didn't warm up much over the weekend, and then we got another storm last night and today, although this most recent one ended up not being nearly as bad. Still, it's mid-April and suddenly all the trails are snowed in and I'm running in full-on winter gear. Bullshit, I tell ya.<br />
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--Because of Mother Nature, my longest run of my Leadville training so far, a 30 miler this past Saturday, ended up being on roads. Not ideal, but at least I got some miles/hours in. I ended up running the backroads from Belle Fourche to Spearfish and back. I've run from Belle to Spearfish or vice versa several times before, but I'd never done the whole round trip in one go, so it was somewhat exciting in that sense. Adding to the excitement, my brand new Ultraspire hydration pack (I've probably run with it fewer than 10 times) sprung a leak 9 miles into the run. Luckily, I had my cell phone and was able to call my wife and have her deliver a couple of trusty handheld bottles to Spearfish. Other than that, not a bad 5 hour run....my legs were minimally sore later that day or the day after.<br />
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--I've began focusing on how many calories I actually consume every day versus how many I burn and have found that I was a horrible judge of how many calories I could justifiably eat, which is why my weight has consistently been in the 205-210 range for the last several years, despite reasonably high weekly mileage. In the last month of actually tracking this stuff, I've dropped a little over 14 pounds, down into the low 190s. I'd like to get in the 170-180 range before Leadville, which seems doable. After an initial quick drop (I lost like 9 pounds the first week), things have slowed a bit, which is to be expected, but the trend continues to be downward. One interesting phenomenon I've picked up on is that long runs actually result in a short-term weight gain. In the 2 or 3 days after my long run(s), I'll typically add 2-3 pounds, but then those pounds will go away again mid to late week and by Friday or Saturday I'll end up with an overall loss for the week. I've researched the subject a little (i.e., I googled it) and it seems fairly commonplace for distance runners; some sort of reaction by the body to retain water in response to trauma (like, for instance, 5 hours of running).<br />
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--This has nothing to do with my Leadville training, but a quick word on the Boston Marathon bombings. At one point in my running life, qualifying for and running Boston was the holy grail, as it is for many runners. After a few attempts, I did finally qualify after at Missoula in 2008 (that race remains my PR and my one and only BQ). I ran Boston in 2009 and it was one of the most memorable running experiences of my life. The atmosphere there is something you really can't describe...you just have to experience it. So, needless to say, the bombings were quite a shock. Besides the obvious tragedy of loss of life and the severe physical injuries that occurred, the bombings shattered that one of kind of aura that surrounds the Boston Marathon. It really just sucks that an occasion that should be so memorable to 25,000+ runners and their family and friends has been absolutely and forever tainted by such a vicious, pointless act. In a strange way, it almost makes me want to run Boston again even more now, and I suspect that that will be the case for a lot of runners.<br />
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Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-56131467545308016182013-03-20T08:22:00.002-07:002013-03-20T08:22:31.728-07:00Leadville Training Part 1: Winter, Spring and a 5K WinOkay, so I may or may not consistently provide updates on my Leadville training....I guess you'll just have to sit there at your computer every day in giddy anticipation to find out. But I'll give it a shot, so here goes with part 1.<br />
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I "officially" started training for Leadville a couple of weeks ago. No gun went off, no gong was rung (do you ring a gong?), I just went for a run. And it was a cold run at that, a balmy 25 degrees with a brisk 25 mph breeze. Good times. Of course, three days later I was running Lookout Mtn. on a sunny, 70 degree afternoon. Such is the end of winter/beginning of spring in South Dakota. <br />
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My training plan is pretty much entirely homebrewed, based on random crap I found via Google and my own experience of what has worked for me before. It's 24 weeks long and split up into six, 4 week cycles. Within each of those cycles, the first 3 weeks are relatively high mileage (the mileage getting progressively higher with each cycle), and the 4th week is a cutback week. Every single Monday and Friday are recovery days, just an easy 6ish miles. Tuesdays and Thursdays are either doubles (with the 2nd run being a 5 mile grind up Lookout) or medium distance trail runs. Wednesday is speed day, either 800s on the track or 0.2 mile hill repeats on a road outside of Spearfish (those bastards suck). Saturday and Sunday are long run days. I started off with 30-35 miles total for those two days and will bump it up in subsequent cycles. Of course, these days get shuffled sometimes to make room for real life like, for example, when my son has a basketball tournament all day Saturday and I have Friday off, well then Friday becomes my longest run day. You gotta take the miles when you can get em.<br />
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In any case, it's working out well so far. The last two weeks I've logged 75 and 82 miles respectively. This past weekend I ran 15 on roads on Saturday morning and then a 20 miler on the Centennial on Sunday morning. My legs still felt good, so I jumped into a local St. Patty's Day 5K on Sunday afternoon and won the damn thing. It was a small field and it wasn't a blazing fast time (19:39 on a short course), but it still felt good to be able to stretch the legs a bit and still be able to push the pace only hours after a 20 miler. As a bonus, I took home a $25 cash prize, which I think technically makes me a professional runner. I expect the sponsorship deals to start coming in any second now. <br />
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Oh, and I've started doing some core work again for the first time in a long time (we're not talking weeks or months, but years here). I was pathetically sore after the first ab workout and even more sore after running 800s that afternoon (with a side stitch the whole time), but it's getting easier. Amazing how hard it is to make myself commit to 15-20 minutes of core work three times a week, but I have no problem getting up at 5 AM on a weekend morning so I can spend 4 hours running in the mountains. Like a wise man once said, 50% of it is 90% mental.<br />
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So, I think I've got the workout routine down pretty well. Now if only I could add about 5,000 feet of elevation to the Black Hills...Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-26023828167634818072013-02-22T10:53:00.001-07:002013-02-22T13:28:18.461-07:00Red Hot 55K ReportWhen Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer made an appearance, I knew things weren't going well. Now, to be clear, I didn't actually see Rudolph....I wasn't quite that delusional. But at some point in the final miles of the Red Hot 55K this past Saturday, I realized that the song, along with that other Christmas classic "Rockin Round the Christmas Tree" had been playing on a constant loop in my head for quite some time. Why those songs? Who knows? On the bright side, at least I wasn't singing them out loud (as far as I know).<br />
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So, yeah, as far as the race goes, it was basically an exercise in doing everything wrong that you can possibly do wrong. Underestimate the course? Check. Go out too fast? Check. Don't eat enough? Check. Don't drink enough? Check. Excusable for a rookie, I guess, but not for someone who's done this before. All of that combined to turn a hoped-for 5:30 finish into a painfully slow 6:51. But yet I had fun, in a sick and twisted kind of way, which just helps to prove that ultra runners really are batshit crazy....and that we're totally cool with that.<br />
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If nothing else, the trip to Moab made it all worthwhile. Moab is just a cool place. I love the mountains and I will always want to live in (or very near) them, but that doesn't mean the desert canyonlands aren't cool as hell. And, really, February might be the time to go, before it's gets blazing hot. We made the trip down in a couple of days, staying in Grand Junction, CO on the way, which put us in Moab fairly early on Friday morning and gave us a chance to scout out the course a little and just check out the sights in general. <br />
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The race day weather was about as perfect as it can get, with highs in the mid-40s. Thanks to similar weather in the couple of weeks leading up to the race, the course itself was also in fine form and the RD, Chris Martinez, made the prophetic claim just before the race started that it would be a good day for course records to fall. I lined up somewhere in the middle of the pack and before I knew it (literally, I didn't hear a countdown or "ready, set" or anything) we were off.<br />
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I actually felt really good at first, which may actually have worked against me in the end. Rather than try to reign it in and plan ahead for the long haul, I decided to just go with it. Up the first climb and onto the lollipop loop that encompasses the first half or so of the race, my legs felt strong and there never really seemed to be any reason to slow down or walk, other than on a few very short but also very steep pitches of slickrock. The course basically has two high points; the first in the middle of the initial lollipop loop and the second afterwards along the Gold Bar Rim, after the 55K merges back into the 33K route.<br />
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During that first loop, I felt like I was drinking plenty and ate 4 or 5 gels, so I got off to a good start there. But at some point just after we started climbing up to Gold Bar Rim, I started to fade. My legs were suddenly more tired than they should be given the pace I was going and my stomach was starting to abandon me, which threw me into the negative loop of not wanting to eat or drink, even though doing so would've helped in the long run (no pun intended). After passing multitudes of people on the lollipop, they started going right past me in a seemingly neverending Conga line as I trudged up the slickrock. At this point, it seemed fairly apparent that 5:30 was out of the question, but I held onto the uber-optimistic thought that once the course turned back downhill I would be able to salvage a sub-6. Wrong.<br />
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By the time I reached the aid station just below Gold Bar Rim, and the start of the infamous Golden Spike trail, I was toast. It just felt like I had absolutely nothing left in the tank. Still hopeful that I could catch a second (or third) wind heading down Golden Spike, I trudged on. And then I found out just what makes the infamous Golden Spike so damn infamous. I knew ahead of time that we'd spend a lot of time running on the slickrock, but what I didn't realize was just how technical the slickrock would be. Cracks, holes, and 2 or 3 foot drop-offs keep you on your toes and prevented me from being able to fall into any kind of rhythm whatsoever. Also, I didn't expect as many ups during the downhill as there were. We did ultimately lose a lot of elevation along Golden Spike, but not before running down and then back up steep sections of slickrock along the way. By the time I finally got off Golden Spike, I was in all-out death march mode, Christmas songs blaring in my head as I dreamed of the relatively plush single-track forest trails back home. <br />
I did manage some running once we hit the Poison Spider road closer to the finish, which probably salvaged a sub-7 out of the mess.<br />
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So, chalk that one up to experience. All in all, it's a great event....the fact that I sucked it up big time there doesn't change that. It's definitely worth checking out sometime. On the bright side, putting forth such a crappy performance is a good motivator to not do it again....one of the first things I did when I got back home was to sit down and start formulating my training plan for Quad Rock and Leadville. Hopefully, I've learned from my mistakes.<br />
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Before</div>
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<i>Me, Ryan and Paul</i></div>
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Almost Done</div>
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Done</div>
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*<i>All photos are courtesy Katie Anderson, who should receive special recognition for putting up with three stinky runner dudes for the entire weekend (albeit one of them was her husband).</i>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-90497019530833506562013-02-05T09:40:00.000-07:002013-02-05T09:40:38.197-07:00The 2013 Race ScheduleIt occurs to me now that I never wrote a "2012 in review" kind of post, but now that we're into February of 2013, it seems a little late for that. Here it is in a nutshell: ran a few thousand miles, finished the Bighorn 100, no injuries to speak of, generally had fun. <br />
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On to 2013. I hinted at the race schedule in an earlier post, but here is the confirmed list of "big" races I'll be doing this year (i.e., I've shelled out the registration money, so I'm running them come hell or high water (or injury)).<br />
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<b>Moab's Red Hot 55K, February 16th</b> - The idea of running this race was first put in my head by Sundance Trail Run RD Paul Anderson. A couple of years ago, Paul, Ryan, Nathan and myself took a road trip down to Buena Vista, CO for the Collegiate Peaks 50. Sometime this past summer, Paul suggested we do it again with Moab as the destination. I promptly forgot until a couple of days after registration had opened. Lucky for me, they added entries this year and I was able to get in (I think it sold out pretty fast last year). The idea was to enjoy a warmish (but not too warm) desert run early in the season, but from the way it's looking Moab is just as cold as South Dakota right now and might actually have more snow. Oh well, a road trip is a road trip.<br />
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<b>Quad Rock 50, May 11th</b> - Last year, Ryan, Andy and myself took a road trip down to Ft. Collins for the inaugural QR50. We had a blast hanging out with the FoCo trail runners and checking out their stomping grounds. So, Ryan and I are going back for sure. Not sure if anyone else is going with us, but we've got car space if anyone's interested.<br />
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<b>Bighorn 30K, June 15th</b> - After finishing the Bighorn 100 last year, running "just" the 30K might seem like I'm sandbagging it a bit. But, out of the four race distances offered at Bighorn (30K, 50K, 50M and 100M), the 30K is the only one I haven't done, so I figured it's time to complete the Bighorn Slam. Ryan is going too....he won back to back Bighorn 30Ks a few years a go and is going back for one more shot at the course record. I have less lofty goals, but a top 5 finish isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility.<br />
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<b>Leadville 100, August 17th</b> - I've had the idea of Leadville bouncing around my skull for a couple of years now. I'm intrigued by it's legendary status among 100s, but I also have concerns about the spectacle that it has become under the management of Lifetime. But not concerned enough to not give it a shot. Besides that, I've heard from several Black Hills 100 participants that our course is harder than Leadville. On paper, just comparing the courses side by side, you could probably make that argument. Black Hills does have about 4000 feet more elevation gain. But then you have to factor in that little thing called "altitude". Leadville's high point is over twice as high as Black Hills'. Ouch. As with anything, the only way to find out for sure is to experience it yourself, so that's what I'm going to do. And I want a big buckle.<br />
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There she is. Toss in the 5th Annual Black Hills Trail Running Series, co-directing the Black Hills 100, and maybe running a road race here and there, and it's looking to be a busy year.<br />
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<br />Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-25521491070554896922013-01-28T09:39:00.001-07:002013-01-28T09:39:08.690-07:00A different kind of doubleI've run a lot of doubles. In fact, I typically run at least two, sometimes three, doubles per week when I'm in the thick of training for a race. These typically consists of an easy 6-8 miles on roads in the morning before work and then 4-5 miles on hilly trails, usually Lookout Mtn, at lunchtime. Nothing spectacular, just an easy way to get in double-digit miles for the day while sneaking in some trail runs.<br />
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This past Saturday, I ran a very different double. With the Red Hot 55K only four weeks away, I wanted to for sure get in a long run. Shannon and the kids were planning on running the Snowman Shuffle 5K/1K in Spearfish on Saturday morning, followed by a basketball game for Caiden (whose team I coach) in the afternoon. I knew that if I was going to get a long run in on Saturday, it would be best to get it over with before all of that stuff started, so I woke up well before the crack of dawn on Saturday and set out for my run. The plan was to run from Belle Fourche to Spearfish along the backroads, which would end up being about 18 miles and allow me to meet the family at the city park for their race. <br />
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Initially, my run didn't feel all that great. My legs felt fine, but I was moving much slower than it felt like I should be moving. For a long run, that's not really that big of a deal and it's a typical occurrence when I run really early in the morning, but it was still annoying me. Besides that, it felt much colder than the temperature WeatherBug had led me to believe it would be...cold enough that the tube on my hydration pack kept freezing up, which was further annoying me. Finally, though, I moved into a pocket of warmer air (another typical occurrence on early morning winter runs) and fell into a solid groove (yet another typical long run occurrence) and started feeling pretty good as the sun came up. I cruised into the park 18 miles later with about 15 minutes left before the race was to start. My legs still felt pretty fresh so I decided that since I was there and there was a race, I might as well run the damn thing. <br />
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After watching the kids 1K, where Caiden and Chloe placed 1st and 3rd, respectively, we lined up for the 5K. Full-on honesty, there were only 25 or so people there, so this wasn't a stacked field by any means. But there was one guy I knew, Carlos, who I struggle to keep up with on fresh legs, much less on 18 mile legs. The gun sounded and Carlos was nice enough to let me hang with him and chat a bit until we hit the water station at about halfway and then he was gone. I kept cruising and my legs actually felt pretty good, I just didn't have a ton of speed. Ended up with a 20:50 (my Garmin measured the course a bit short) and 2nd place. And the best part? Since the race was a fundraiser for the local Girl Scout troop, they had free samples of Girl Scout cookies at the finish. Not a bad end to a 21 mile day!<br />
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<br />Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-2900280410373099042013-01-03T08:52:00.002-07:002013-01-03T08:52:49.587-07:00LeadvilleI am in. <br />
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I hate committing to a race so far in advance (Leadville is Aug. 17th), but registration opened on New Year's Day and I suspected it would fill up fairly fast, so I took the plunge and registered before I could talk myself out of it.<br />
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Should be a hoot. Or something.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-39965891238277889302012-11-15T10:28:00.001-07:002012-11-15T10:28:34.858-07:00Looking ahead to 2013Culminating with the (unofficial and unsanctioned) South Dakota Trail Championships a couple of weeks ago, the local trail/ultra running season is (un)officially over. Overall, not much to complain about. I missed a couple more of the Black Hills trail series races than I would've liked, but I also got to run one that I really wanted to run (the Sundance 50K) but didn't think I'd be able to, so I guess it all balances out. Looks like I finished 4th in the men's open division of the trail series, just 2.5 points out of 3rd. This is the first year in the series' four year existence that I haven't finished in the top 3, but that's what happens when you miss races. Not a big deal, regardless.<br />
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As is typical of this time of year, the motivation to put in big miles is somewhat lacking. Forty to fifty miles a week, with a couple of flirtations with 60, have been pretty typical the last couple of months. Haven't run more than 15 miles in a single run since the Sundance 50K at the end of September. I've never since I started running ten years or so ago taken a planned break with absolutely no running that has lasted more than three or four days. I tried to take a week off, for no good reason, at about this time last year and I think my hiatus from running lasted all of three days before I caved and hit the trail again. Well, no such plans this year. In fact, quite the opposite since my first ultra of 2013 is actually looming fairly close. I'm signed up for the Moab Red Hot 55K on February 16th. Team South Dakota consisting of myself and friends Ryan, Nathan and Paul (who is actually from Wyoming, but just barely) will be making the long drive over to experience some slickrock racing. Hopefully the weather doesn't suck, because driving across Wyoming sucks ass under normal conditions, much less in the middle of a winter storm. But I digress....the point is that the relatively low miles I've been putting in recently will have to be ramped up soon if I'm going to be in decent shape for a 50K+ in a few months. One of my goals for 2013 will be to not just finish ultras....I've established that I can finish 50Ks, 50s and 100s in relatively decent, front of the middle of the pack times. Now to answer the question of how fast can I do this thing if I really nail the training (and the race itself too, of course)?<br />
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Beyond Moab, the schedule is still a bit up in the air. Ryan and I have discussed returning to the Quad Rock 50 in Fort Collins in May and maybe an excursion down to the Grand Canyon to run R2R2R. I suspect strongly that I will run another 100 at some point next year but am having a hard time choosing which one. All other factors equal, my choice would likely be Cascade Crest in Washington, but that's a fairly good haul from here (although having relatives in the Seattle area would at least make the trip more worthwhile). Leadville is another likely choice. I've heard a lot of opinions (many not too flattering) of how Lifetime has handled the event, but it still has that legendary mystique about it that intrigues me. Plus, I've had several people tell me that the Black Hills 100 is harder than Leadville....wouldn't mind being able to judge that better myself (conceding that I've never actually run the entire BH100 course in one go). The Bear is up there too, but Ryan has expressed interest in running that one and I told him I'd pace him if he did. So many choices...<br />
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Alright, enough of this. Time for a run.<br />
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<br />Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-34215035089638818402012-10-09T15:07:00.000-07:002012-10-09T15:08:42.264-07:00Tinton Trail Picture Tour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I have two "go-to" local trails for running on: Lookout Mtn and the Tinton Trail. Lookout's main advantage is that it's convenient...I can see it from my office window and it's about a mile's worth of warmup running on city streets from my office to the trailhead. Tinton is a out of town a bit, but features gentler, longer, more runnable and generally more scenic trails (while still offering some elevation gain). Both are user-created trails, the primary "user" in both cases being local mountain bikers, but Tinton tends to be much better maintained (some of the Lookout trails get kind of overgrown in summer due to lack of maintenance/use). This is primarily due to the fact that Tinton gets much more use and is partly the venue for the Dakote Five-O mountain bike race on Labor Day weekend.</div>
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This time of year is the best time to be on Tinton, with the cool weather and fall colors in full display (well, almost full display). With a day off on Friday, I decided to head out for a medium distance run (ended up being 13 miles total) and took my iphone along with me. As you will see, I just updated to the new iOS and discovered that my camera now has a panoramic option. So, I've been taking panoramics of pretty much everything. I was hoping to get some good shots of the aspens in full blazing yellow, but was unfortunately a good week or two too late for that as they had mostly dropped their leaves already. </div>
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Lower on the trail you go through some open, recently harvested pine stands (I actually had to go cross country about a mile in to skirt around some loggers cutting right alongside the trail). A little further up, the trail transitions into a mix of pine and burr oak, as seen in the first picture (and you can see that the oak has gone brown....again, a week or two too late). This first pic is also very near the site where I saw a coyote chasing a deer fawn early in the morning a couple of months ago. Straight outta National Geographic.</div>
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The next pic is 4 miles up the trail, in a dense, dark stand of pine. This is where the name "Black" Hills comes from. As you can see, I was starting to get into some snow at this point as I gained elevation.<br />
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My favorite part of the trail doesn't come until you're about 5 or 6 miles up. After running up a drainage, where the trail meanders back and forth across an intermittent stream, you come out into an open area with large stands of old growth aspen mixed in with pine and meadows.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3WdDHrLwaMME-dpXSIp5_Zbx2gnNg2SKFb3XmGCmy8ZCTw3wD3ITBToeEqkrjsnwe2QcnalyovqqKPcRXp5iH26_Bn-DY3MefbgmQPlapDlTCX672X5KPBM56kRxffeH3_oExtqSJEvc/s1600/photo+(20).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="96" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3WdDHrLwaMME-dpXSIp5_Zbx2gnNg2SKFb3XmGCmy8ZCTw3wD3ITBToeEqkrjsnwe2QcnalyovqqKPcRXp5iH26_Bn-DY3MefbgmQPlapDlTCX672X5KPBM56kRxffeH3_oExtqSJEvc/s400/photo+(20).JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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This last pic is just up the trail from the previous one, after the trail cuts directly into the aspen stand. It would've been a much better pic if the aspen were still in full bloom, but alas...<br />
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<br />Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-52073698171889458702012-10-01T09:33:00.002-07:002012-10-01T09:33:52.475-07:00Win some, lose some Two weeks, two races. Last weekend was the Sundance 50K across the border in Wyoming. I was horribly under-prepared for running a good 50K and it showed. I was cruising along fairly well at sub-6 pace (my goal) for the first 25 miles or so, but ran spectacularly head-first into The Wall on a steep section of uphill after the last aid station. As I hiked along at an almost impossibly slow pace I watched the average pace on my Garmin climb higher and higher until it was obvious that sub-6 was a pipe dream. I did make a bit of a recovery on the last couple of miles of downhill, but it was too little too late at that point. Ended up with a 6:24 finish in 6th place (only 20 or so finishers). Beautiful course, especially with the fall colors in full effect, and a bit tougher than I had expected. Would definitely like to give it another go with a more solid training cycle under me. And, for the life of me, I don't know why this race gets so little attention....there should be more than 20-some entrants for this one if the word gets out. Paul does a great job with it and sounds like he'll be adding a 30K option next year (in addition to the existing 10K, which gets a much better turnout than the 50K).<br />
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A week later, this past Saturday, I ran a very different race. My wife signed me up for the inaugural Firefly 5K in Belle Fourche, a fundraiser for a scholarship fund that was scheduled for a nighttime start (started at 8:00). I'm not big into road 5Ks, but I thought the night running idea was a cool one, especially under the full moon, so I didn't complain too much about being thrust into the field. As it turns out, good thing she did sign me up as I ended winning the damn thing. Of course, it's more impressive if I just leave it at that and not mention my time or how many other runners there were. Actually, I'm not even sure how many runners there were...I think the total field was over 60 people, but many were walkers. My time was 20:40, not blazing fast, but actually faster than I really expected given the fact that I haven't done any fast running since.....uh...probably the Hayfever race in Belle back in June (where I finished 2nd to a high school cross country runner....damn punk kids). In any case, it was fast enough and earned me a cool $10 to spend at Subway. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday night.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-38725503074721199012012-09-13T10:05:00.000-07:002012-09-13T10:05:31.532-07:00Dancing with the sun (finally)The Sundance Trail Run is held each year near the end of September just across the border from me in the Bearlodge Mtns in eastern Wyoming. The first couple of years, it was just a 10K and I ran it both years. In fact, those were two of my first trail races. RD Paul, an ultra runner himself and finisher of the Black Hills 100K this year, added a 50K a couple of years ago. By that time, I was fully gravitating toward trail running and was starting to get into ultras and was immediately excited by the opportunity to run one close to home, in the fall foliage of the Bearlodge. Despite my enthusiasm for the race, I have yet to run the Sundance 50K. You see, my son started playing youth football that first year that Paul included the 50K distance and for each of the last two years he has had a game on the day of the race and I've been involved as either a spectator or, starting last year, as a coach. So, I assumed that I wouldn't have the opportunity to run Sundance this year. <br />
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That all changed a few days ago. After several delays, we finally received the full season football schedule for this year (a week after we actually started playing games) and I immediately noticed that our bye week is September 22nd, the day of the Sundance run. Upon seeing this, I almost immediately logged into Ultrasignup and registered for the 50K.<br />
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The bad news is that, assuming that we would have a game that day and I wouldn't be able to run, I really haven't been training all that hard. The last several weeks I've been in the 30-40 mile range with, really, no long runs whatsoever since the El Vaquero Loco 50K on Aug. 11th (my longest run since then was 12.7 miles up and down Harney Peak, the high point of South Dakota, a few weeks ago). I guess you could say I'm well tapered?? Or just undertrained, if you're being realistic about it. Whatever. I may not get another chance to run Sundance in the near future, so I had to grab the opportunity when it arose. My race may not be pretty, but I know the course will be, so that's good enough for me....I guess maybe my (probable) slow pace will give me more time to enjoy the fall scenery. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8738255226402221881.post-64969268800076712582012-08-17T07:38:00.002-07:002012-08-17T07:38:54.254-07:00The Crazy CowboyTo put it simply, my running since Bighorn has been pretty.....meh. I really didn't feel all that bad after Bighorn and took things easy, in no hurry to rush myself back into high mileage/high intensity weeks. Just as it felt like my legs were regaining some of their normalcy, I ran the Missoula Marathon, which just seemed to set me back a couple of weeks. After running long runs on trails for the majority of the winter/spring, my legs weren't ready for a long (moderately) hard effort on pavement just three weeks after Bighorn and I was left feeling much more sore after the marathon than I was after Bighorn. Not really a big deal, except for this other race on the horizon: the El Vaquero Loco 50K (aka "the crazy cowboy"). <br />
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I first learned about El Vaquero Loco last summer when my friends Ryan and Nathan ran it. Located outside of Afton, WY, just south of the Tetons and Yellowstone, the course is brutally tough, featuring about 9,000 feet of elevation gain over the out and back route. Now, I certainly haven't run every 50K in the country, but this one has got to rank right up there with the toughest. Speedgoat in Utah is probably tougher, but not many others can make that claim. To put the elevation gain in perspective, the Bighorn 100, widely regarded as a fairly tough 100 miler, has between 16,000 and 17,000 feet of gain. El Vaquero Loco has over half of that across less then a third of the distance. In any case, at last year's race Ryan met the race director, Ty Draney, who is himself a very talented ultra runner, and offered him a free entry into the Black Hills 100. Ty accepted and, in exchange, offered Ryan and I free entries to this year's El Vaquero Loco (this race directing thing has some perks!....hey, if any Leadville race directors are reading this, drop me a line...). So here we are.<br />
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Eventually, my legs did start to recover a bit from Missoula. I found that the more I stuck to trails, the better they felt in general. But, still, I wasn't able to manage much in the way of weekly mileage. Between starting a new position at work and an admitted lack of real motivation, it's been a struggle to break 50 mpw. One thing I have tried to focus on is elevation gain, so with that in mind I ran two different "long" (in terms of time more so than distance) runs up Crow Peak hoping to whip my climbing legs into shape. The first was a double summit of Crow, approximately 3100 feet of elevation gain in just under 13 miles. The second, a week later, was a triple summit, 4600 feet of gain in just over 19 miles. Still less gain than I'd face at El Vaquero Loco, but the best I can do with what I have available in the Black Hills.<br />
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After that Crow triple, I was actually feeling fairly optimistic about things. The third ascent was a slog, but I was able to recover and still run the descent fairly strongly. Things were looking up. And then I got sick. Nothing starts off a two week taper quite like feeling like a miserable pile of shit for three days. After sitting around feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, with some nausea thrown in, for three days, I got back to running on Thursday (9 days before El Vaquero Loco) and it was one of the more horrendous 4 mile runs of my life. Five miles the next day didn't feel any better. It was like I had taken 3 years off of running instead of 3 days: burning lungs, dead tired legs, pathetically slow pace....it was a mess. Ten miles on Saturday went okay, but not great and then 7 on Sunday was less than remarkable as well. So, a week to go before I'm planning on running a 50K in the mountains and it takes all I've got to run 10 flat miles at a slow pace. Super. Thankfully, things started too look up a bit in the final week before the race as 6 and 7 mile runs on Lookout Mtn. and the Tinton trail felt much better than the road efforts over the weekend. With nothing else to do about it, I was left hoping that normalcy would return by Saturday.<br />
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Ryan and I set off for western Wyoming on Thursday afternoon and were immediately faced with the conundrum of how exactly to get across Wyoming. If you've never tried it before, finding a direct east/west route across northern and/or central Wyoming is basically impossible. The highways tend to avoid going over mountain ranges as much as possible, resulting in a bunch of back and forth travel as you skirt around the mountains instead, which consequently adds significant mileage to what is already a fairly long trip. Ultimately, we chose to head over to Buffalo, across the southern end of the Bighorns and then on to Worland, Thermopolis and Riverton before heading up the Wind River and setting up camp for the night about 20 miles west of Dubois. By "setting up camp", I mean that we crashed in a camper that a friend of Ryan's has parked in a storage shed for use during backcountry ski season. We were up fairly early Friday and finished out the 11 hour or so journey by skirting past the Tetons through Jackson and finally down the Star Valley to Afton and onward to our campsite at Cottonwood Lake (the start/finish area for the race) about 15 miles outside of Afton. We were somewhat surprised to be among the first runners there, but that was fine since it meant we had plenty of campsites to choose from (by late afternoon, the campground was packed). <br />
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Turns out, we chose a campsite fairly close to some folks from Salt Lake City, Jeremy and Ashley, who had volunteered at the Nemo aid station during this year's Black Hills 100, so we got a chance to catch up with them around the campfire that night. That is, until Mother Nature put the kaibash on the campfire with some fairly significant rainfall. As we retreated to the tent for the night, Ryan asked if I'd ever camped in this particular tent in the rain before. Nope, sure haven't, but surely the Walmart special tent will be water-tight, right? Turns out it was, other than a very small leak around the door zipper that didn't cause us any real problems. And the rain was fairly short-lived anyhow. After a fairly fitful sleep that alternated between me being too hot in my sleeping bag and too cold outside of it, my alarm fired off at 4:00 AM and we were up making coffee and a quick breakfast ahead of the 6:00 AM start. A bit of standing around in the dark ensued before moseying down to the start/finish line and taking off with just enough light to see comfortably without a headlamp.<br />
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The course itself is an out and back, starting at Cottonwood Lake and climbing up to and past three high mountain lakes before descending into the Swift Creek drainage and the turnaround at the Swift Cr. trailhead (which is also where the 25K race starts before covering the return leg of the 50K course). From Swift Cr., it's back up and and over and down to Cottonwood. All told, about 9000 feet of gain for the 50K, with a big chunk of that coming in two climbs: the initial 4 mile climb from Cottonwood up to the first, and smallest, of the lakes and then from Swift Cr TH up for a solid 8 miles to the northernmost of the lakes. For me, the plan was simple: take it fairly easy on the uphills (i.e., hike everything) and then try to make up some time on the downhills. Hopefully, this would result in still having the legs to run the final 4.5 miles of downhill at the end. Ultrasignup had projected my time as 7:02 and I myself thought maybe sub-7 was possible if I had a good day, but I really didn't know what to expect on a course like this coming off of a slightly lackluster training cycle and a few days of being sick. So, I just what I got and dealt with it.<br />
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What I got was some absolutely stunning scenery. I didn't carry my camera with me, so I don't have pictures to back this up and words will hardly do it justice, but this has to be one of the most scenic race courses in the country. Once the course topped out near the high mountain lakes, it was like you were running through something you usually only see in magazines or on postcards. Definitely made all of that climbing worthwhile. <br />
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For the most part, my pacing strategy worked. I ran when it felt comfortable and hiked when it didn't (which was often). Ended up hitting the turnaround in 3:25 and knew it was highly unlikely that I was going to pull off a nearly even split and get a sub-7. This suspicion was verified on the long slog back uphill on the second leg. Near the top of said slog at about mile 20, I felt my stomach turn suddenly and before I knew it, I was Tebowing in the wildflowers along the trail with the dry heaves. After three bouts of this (on the third, a very small amount of liquid came up, but nothing significant), my stomach felt much better and would end up feeling rock solid for the rest of the race. I finally topped out not much later and, as hoped, found I was still able to run the downhills fairly comfortably. After one last grinder of a climb coming out of the last aid station, I hit that final 4.5 miles of downhill and was able to run it all. I wasn't laying down 6:00 miles, by any means, but it's all relative at that point. I was moving forward in a running motion, and that was good enough for me. I managed to pass three other 50Kers in the last few miles, and didn't get passed by any, and ultimately returned to Cottonwood Lake in 7:34:53, 21st place overall. Ryan had laid down a smoking good time, running a 6:02 and finishing 4th overall. <br />
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Funny thing is, the day before the race I had been joking with Ryan that every time I ran a 50K, it took me an hour longer than the one before it. My first was Lean Horse, which I ran in 4:46. Then came Bighorn in 5:46. Then Elkhorn in 6:40. Well, looks like the trend continues. Of course, those hour differences are directly proportional to the difficulty of the course. Guess I have two choices: find an easier 50K to run or just go whole hog and run Speedgoat next year (not likely).<br />
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In any case, all in all a great day in the mountains. I'd highly recommend this race to anyone who's into ultras; you'd be hard pressed to find a more stunning course. The race itself is kind of obscure and not well known outside of the Utah/Idaho/Wyoming area, but it's well worth looking in to.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00199683291737559562noreply@blogger.com0