A New Year

I've been meaning to post some 2011 summary stats, but just haven't gotten around to it. I know that I came up a mere 11 miles short of 3000 for the year. That's painfully close, but a full 5 days off in the middle of December while dealing with my blocked salivary gland put the kaibash on any aspirations I had of reaching 3000. Heading into the final day of the year, I basically needed to run a marathon to reach 3000. While I definitely could've slogged my way through 26 miles, I just didn't really see a compelling reason to do so, so I settled for 15 instead.

Winter has been remarkably un-winter like around here. Temps have been anywhere from the 40s to 60s the last few weeks, making for some pretty great January running conditions. Well, up until yesterday, anyhow. We got a dose of reality yesterday with a cold front that brought in sub-zero windchill. But, it's supposed to climb back into the 40s this weekend, so it was a short dose of 'real' winter...for now. The most telling stat is how many times I've run on the indoor track this winter. Haven't been there once yet. Usually by this time of year, I've been there several times. I'm holding out slim hope that I can make it through an entire winter without having to run 200 some laps some morning, but the odds are probably against me on that one.

I'm basically committed to the Bighorn 100. Registration doesn't open until Monday, and while I'll probably hold off for a little bit, I'm basing my training around toeing the line in the Tongue River Canyon on June 15th. One thing I didn't do well this winter is maintain a weekly long run. I ran okay mileage throughout the end of 2011...between 50 and 70 miles per week, I just didn't do many runs of 15 or longer. So now I'm trying to ease my way back into it. The good news is that my body doesn't seem to have forgotten how to do it...kind of like riding a bike (haven't done that in forever either). This past weekend, the first "official" weekend of my Bighorn training, I ran 15 on Saturday and 16 on Sunday and my legs actually felt better on that second run and I ran it faster. Now we'll see what happens when those back to backs turn into 25/15 or 30/10 or 20/20 or 40/10.

The diagnosis

Got done visiting with the ENT (ears, nose and throat) specialist not too long ago. My submandibular gland is still swollen, but it seems to have receded some since a week ago and is certainly less painful (in fact, I'm totally pain free now). Basically have to play it by ear (and nose and throat...see what I did there?) for a few months. If I have a recurrence of pain or the inflammation simply doesn't go away, then surgery is probably a definite. Otherwise, it will hopefully clear up on its own given time.

In any case, I'm back to running and it's about damn time I started focusing since I'm a mere 26 weeks away from Bighorn. So far away, yet so close. I hammered out 11 miles in two separate runs yesterday, which means my mileage for the day exceeded my mileage from all of last week (for some reason, I didn't feel much like running when I was in agonizing pain or drugged up with Vicodin). My second run yesterday was a 4.8 mile jaunt up Lookout Mtn. The mountain appears to be totally snow free when viewed from town, but of course I found some hidden snow fields once I got up there. Really, though, the snow was pretty minimal and was packed down well, which makes for pretty decent running. The fact that I was running outside in shorts just a few days before Christmas is fairly remarkable in itself. And, I was pleasantly surprised that even after all the time off last week, I was able to run the entire runnable route yesterday, albeit slowly. I say "runnable" route, because there's a bit of rock crawling required just before the summit. That stretch might be runnable by someone with mountain goat genes, but not by me. It's even warmer today (52!...on December 20th!), so the plan is to hit the Tinton Trail just outside of Spearfish after work to assess the snow situation there. Alas, snow is in the forecast for tomorrow, so whatever the conditions are now, they are certain to change in the very near future, but I'm determined to tough it out and do as much trail running as possible this winter (even if it requires snowshoes). If I'm going to survive Bighorn, I don't have much of a choice.

I'm Back

Believe it or not, I am still alive. Seems like the last few months just flew by. Really I didn't have much to post about running-wise, but I guess that's no excuse. So, here's a quick update.

My son's football season went well. I found out that coaching football is much more stressful than playing football. I'm pretty sure us coaches agonized over the outcomes of the games much more than the kids did. At 6 and 7 years old, they tend not to overthink things and just go with the flow, which is good. In the end, we had a great season for a first year team. Finished the regular season at 4-3, which earned us the #4 seed in the playoffs. Ended up losing in the first round to the eventual champions. All four of our losses on the year were very close games that easily could have gone the other way....we were literally a few yards from winning at the end of a couple of those losses. Looking forward to next year!

On the running front, I wrapped up the 3rd annual Black Hills Trail Running Series in November. I had managed to win the men's open division the first year of the series and took 3rd last year, so I jokingly stated that my goal going into this year was to finish 2nd so I could have a complete collection of trophy rocks. Well, as it turned out, I finished 2nd, so the collection is now complete. Of course, I'll still be back next year.

Speaking of next year, my tentative race schedule is starting to take shape. I'm about 90% sure that I'll register for the Bighorn 100, which will be my 2nd 100 mile run and my first true mountain 100 (my first 100 being Lean Horse). I'm also fairly sure I'll run the brand new Quad Rock 50 in Fort Collins as a tune-up. Other than that, I haven't decided on anything, but will probably look for something later in the summer, maybe Elkhorn again.

Hard to think of all that running right now considering it's now been 5 days since I ran at all. This is not a voluntary break. I've got an infection in my submandibular gland (one of the ones under the jaw that produces saliva). This infection has made it nearly impossible for me to eat solid foods for the last 5 days, so I'm on a soup and pudding diet, which is getting pretty damn old. I'm on antibiotics and painkillers until I can see a specialist next week to determine if the gland needs to come out (it probably does, since this has happened in a less severe fashion before). I'm getting pretty restless though. I wasn't told not to run, but I've been playing it safe. It doesn't help that the weather right now is pretty spectacular for December in South Dakota and here I am sitting inside, sipping soup. Patience is not one of my virtues, and my patience is running out...

While I'm here, I suppose I better do some advertising for the Black Hills 100. Ryan and I are now the principle owners of the event (under the guise of our new company, Dakota Endurance). Jerry will still be helping out, but is gradually retiring from the race directing business (he has sold Deadwood-Mickelson and Run Crazy Horse to his co-director Emily and Ryan and I will be gradually taking over Lean Horse as well). For Black Hills, we are currently offering a post-Western States lottery discount for the 100M event. Through December 31st, registration for the 100M is $24 off ($175). Just go to Ultrasignup and register. Response has been good so far. I don't have the data, but I would venture to guess that our numbers are up from this point last year and we have some returnees, which is good (it means they didn't totally hate it last year).

That's it in a nutshell. I'll try to be more vigilant about posting, but I've said that before. Hopefully, I can get this damn gland thing taken care of and actually have something of interest to post on the running front.

Merry Christmas!!

Change of seasons

I'm not just talking about summer to fall. Summer racing season is all but over for me. I had thought it was over after Elkhorn the first weekend of August, and I guess it turns out it was thanks to my DNS at Lean Horse a few weeks ago. So, finally, after about 4 months of train, taper, race, recover, repeat, I can just go out and run for the hell of it with no specific goal in mind. I am still finishing up the 3rd annual Black Hills Trail Running Series, where I currently sit at 2nd place in the Men's open division standings. Just had a trail series races this past Sunday actually, the 8.1 mile Thunder Run where I took 5 minutes off my time from last year and finished 6th overall. That 5 minutes is probably a result of two factors: 1) I'm in better trail shape this year and 2) Last year the Thunder Run was my first race after the Lean Horse 100 and I was still somewhat feeling the effects. Only 3 more trail series races left, although I will definitely miss one of them and, hopefully, two (more on that later). The one I will definitely run is the 10-10-10K, which was actually on 10/10/10 last year but is now on 10/9/11....as the directors say, it still adds up the same (think about that one a bit).

Football season has also begun, which directly relates to my mention above that I'm hoping to miss two of the last three trail series races. My son is playing on and I am an assistant coach for the Belle Fourche Cardinals of the Black Hills Youth Football League, which consists of teams from Belle, Rapid City, Wall, Spearfish and Box Elder. It's full pads, full contact, 11 man football on full size fields (which is kind of odd for me since I played 8 man football on an 80 yard field back in my high school days in Montana). We had our first game last Saturday and scored our first win over the Wall Eagles 27-18. The one remaining trail series race I will definitely miss is the Sundance Trail Run on Sept. 24th because we play the Rapid City Steelers that day. As it turns out, the league championship game is on Nov. 5th, the same day as the "unofficial and unsanctioned" South Dakota Trail Championships, the final race of the trail series. The Cardinals still have 6 games of the regular season left to earn a top 4 seed and berth in the playoffs, and then would need to win a playoff game, but I would choose them playing in the championship over the trail race any day. Go Cardinals! (as a die-hard Seahawks fan, I honestly never thought I would ever under any circumstances utter those words)

DNS at Lean Horse

Well, I jumped out of the Lean Horse 50K just as fast as I jumped into it. I had hoped to run a fairly fast 50K this weekend, maybe even contend for the win in a small field, but I spent most of Friday night tossing and turning with some stomach issues. Woke up a couple of times convinced that I was going to puke, but never did. The stomach settled down for a couple of hours and I actually got some sleep, but when I woke up I couldn't stand the thought of eating anything and everything just felt off. Running 31 miles did not sound like any fun at all, so I pulled myself from the race and spent the day doing race directing duties instead. It wasn't easy sitting at the finish line watching the first 50K runners come in and wondering if it could've been me, but my stomach was still off then. I didn't each much of anything all day...pretty sure the first Hammer Gel I tried to take if I had run would've come right back up. My daughter had the stomach flu earlier in the week and my son ended up getting it on Saturday too. Just unlucky timing, but better that this happen for this race than for one that I trained a long time for and invested a bunch in. If it would've happened before the Lean Horse 100 last year, I would've been devastated. As it was, I was disappointed, but it's not a huge deal. Feeling better now, so time to focus on the remainder of the trail series races.

Congrats to everyone who finished Lean Horse this weekend! Some pretty amazing performances...the overall winner of the 50M crushed the women's course record and ran the 2nd fastest 50 ever at Lean Horse. The 100 winner ran a 15:34, ten minutes off of the course record. Pretty brutal heat this year. It got up to 102 in Hot Springs, a little cooler (mid to high 80s) up in Custer and Hill City.

As an example of why we refer to the Black Hills 100 as Lean Horse's evil stepsister, there were 29 sub-24 finishers at Lean Horse this weekend. Only 32 people finished Black Hills period, and only 2 were sub-24. Yes, Black Hills had a severe thunderstorm, but Lean Horse was hot.

Okay, one more

When I ran the Elkhorn 50K a few weeks ago, it was with the assumption that it would be my last ultra for the year. Lean Horse and Sundance were both out because of my son's football schedule and I certainly wasn't planning on traveling anywhere outside of the area for another one this year. Well, as so often happens, plans have changed. My son's team won't be participating in the multi-team scrimmage this Saturday (we just got our pads on Sunday, so the kids have barely had a chance to learn how to put them on, much less play with them). That means my Saturday morning is now free and my name is now on the Lean Horse 50K entrant list (along with a whopping 15 others).

This means I will be pulling a double duty of sorts this weekend. The original plan was to arrive in Hot Springs after the scrimmage on Saturday and fulfill some race director-in-training duties alongside Jerry (the race director) and Ryan (the other race-director-in-training). Now, I'll be in Hot Springs on Friday to help Jerry and Ryan out, run on Saturday morning and, after a quick shower, resume some directing tasks.

I've run the Lean Horse 50K once before, back in 2007. That was also my first ever ultra. I ran it in 4:46 (still my 50K PR) and finished 2nd overall after leading much of the race but eventually fading and getting passed at about mile 20. The course is different this year and should be somewhat faster. Back in 2007, the 50K runners never set foot on the Mickelson Trail...the race was a straight up out and back starting in Hot Springs, heading out on Argyle Road and then turning back about a mile short of the Mickelson. This year, all three races (50K, 50M and 100M) will start about 11 miles west of Hot Springs at the Minnekahta trailhead. This will put us on the Mickelson right away. We'll be on the trail for about 14.5 miles before hitting Argyle Road for the final 16.5. So, fewer hills this time, although all of them will come in the last half of the race (but it will still be a net downhill overall). Either way, this is a much faster course than either of the other two 50Ks I've run (Bighorn and Elkhorn), hence my PR still standing from that race four years ago (four years? really??).

To put the Lean Horse course in perspective, consider the Elkhorn 50K I just ran back on the 6th. That course featured almost 7000 feet of elevation gain over 31 miles. The total elevation gain for the new Lean Horse course is under 1000 feet. To further put that into perspective, consider the route I run once or twice a week on the Lookout Mtn trails in Spearfish. A 4.4 mile loop on Lookout includes about 900 feet of elevation gain. So, at Lean Horse I'll be stretching that same amount of gain over a distance that's 7 times longer. Piece of cake, right?

The toughest part of preparing for this race (if you can call what I've been doing preparing....it's been a very low mileage recovery mode since Elkhorn), is getting over the trail mentality when it comes to pace. Most of the ultras I've run recently have been on fairly tough mountain courses, where 11, 12, or 13 minute pace were the norm (for me, at least). I would like to run Lean Horse in 4:30 or so, which would be sub-9:00 pace. In my mind, that sounds really hard for an ultra, but I think I need to get past the idea that the course will affect my pace. In reality, I should be able to maintain a good pace over a relatively flat course fairly easily...I did it in training for the Lean Horse 100 several times last year and I just ran the Missoula Marathon at sub-8:00 pace back in July without pushing myself too much. Of course, I haven't done many flat long runs this year because my focus has been on trail running, so I just don't feel as comfortable in that realm right now.

In any case, this is probably way too much thought to put into a race that I just found out I was running two days ago. My intent is to run comfortably, but steadily, early on and see where that leaves me when I hit Argyle Road. If I do that, I should end up near my PR, and given the small field, probably at or near the front of the "pack" as well.

Elkhorn 50K Report

I've wanted to run Elkhorn for a couple of years now. I grew up in Montana, have run several marathons in Montana, but had never run an ultra there. Unfortunately, Elkhorn just never fit into my schedule until this year. Still, I kind of wavered back and forth trying to decided if I actually wanted to do it. After running two 50 mile races (Collegiate Peaks and Bighorn) in May and June, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, if anything, to finish off the summer racing season. The Lean Horse 50K or 50M was tempting because of its proximity, but a schedule conflict there eliminated that idea. After running the Missoula Marathon in July, I finally took the plunge and registered for the Elkhorn 50K, opting for a "short" ultra (and, man, I ended up being VERY glad I didn't register for the 50M).

One of the draws of Elkhorn is that my cousin John lives in Helena (the nearest city to the race). John ran the 50K last year and was registered again this year. He has also run the Missoula Marathon with me the last few years and we finished within a minute of each other this year. So, free lodging with he and his family and someone to run at least part of the race with. For the cherry on top, John is also a home brewer and a pretty damn good one at that, so free homemade beer too. It's like an ultra runner's dream come true!

I made the 8ish hour drive over to Helena on Thursday and spent that evening and pretty much all of Friday just hanging out at John's place and basically just sitting on my ass. After a fairly rough weekend last week, where my legs just felt totally dead, I was erring on the side of caution and resting as much as possible heading into the race. On Friday evening, John and I drove out to the packet pick-up/pre-race dinner. This is wear things started to get a little crazy. Now, Montana is a big state geographically speaking, but a very small one population-wise. Inevitably, when I tell someone I'm originally from Montana they say, "Oh, do you know so-and-so from Montana?" More often than not, I don't....the population isn't THAT small and it's spread out over a large area. Well, my experience at Elkhorn did nothing to dispel the myth that everyone from Montana knows everyone else from Montana. Beginning with packet pick-up, I ended up meeting four random people who I knew or who knew somebody I knew. First off was one of my friends from college who was at the pre-race dinner with some of his friends who were running. I knew he lived in Helena, but had totally forgotten that fact until I looked up and saw him standing there. Then, the lady handing out the race packets recognized my name...turns out her mom was my grade school English teacher. The next day at the finish line I ran into a guy who was my lab partner in Ecology class back in college and another guy who knows one of my best friends from college. So, yeah, apparently everyone in Montana DOES know everyone else. In any case, the pre-race dinner was fairly decent. Nice relaxed scene and I scored a free pair of shoes at the prize drawing after the meal.

Race morning was nice and cool...about as good of weather as you could hope for in Montana in August. This race has experienced some pretty hot days in its history and I can't even imagine how much tougher the already brutal course would be with temps in the 90s. I'm pretty sure it never got out of the 70s while we were running and I never felt hot...in fact, in some places I actually got chilled.

There are three events at Elkhorn: the 50M, the 50K and the 23K (totally random distance there, but I think that just happens to be how far the lower loop of the trail is). The 50M had already started at 5:00 AM when we arrived. The 50K start was at 7:00 and then the 23Kers took off at 9:00. All three events follow parts of the same course, which is almost entirely singletrack trail save for the first (and last) mile and a half along a dirt road. The 50K course follows the dirt road out to the McClellan Creek trail, which heads basically straight south past the Teepee Creek aid station (which isn't open yet the first time through) at about 4 miles. From Teepee Creek, the trail continues south and starts the first big climb of the day, ascending up and over a ridge to the Elk Park aid station at about mile 7. Elk Park marks the beginning of an 8 mile loop, which first takes you downhill to the Wilson Creek aid station and then up the 2nd big climb of the day back to Elk Park at roughly the halfway point. From there, the course follows the same trail back down to Teepee Creek at mile 19, which is an active aid station this time. And this is where the fun begins....the toughest climb of the day heads up from Teepee Creek and along a ridge, eventually topping out and then descending a little bit to the Casey Meadows aid station at mile 23. Another shorter climb takes you out of Casey Meadows before you drop into the Jackson Creek drainage and start heading down to the final aid station. However, that downhill is interrupted (quite rudely) by one more steep but fairly short climb before heading back down to Jackson Creek at mile 28. From there, it's downhill for a ways on the trail and then back on the road to the finish line. All told, approximately 6,900 feet of elevation gain (and subsequent loss) over the course of 31 miles....nothing to shake a stick at.

My overly optimistic goal heading in was to run a sub-6. This would be only my 3rd 50K. I ran a 4:46 at Lean Horse a few years ago, which means nothing considering how flat that course is. I also ran a 5:46 at Bighorn two years ago on what is certainly a much tougher course than Lean Horse, but I wasn't really sure how it compared to Elkhorn. I knew sub-6 would put me in the top 10 almost assuredly and possibly top 5. A lofty goal for me, but what did I have to lose?

As the race started, I felt okay. Not great, not bad, just okay. The first stretch to Teepee Creek is almost all uphill, but gradual enough that it's totally runnable and John and I ran almost all of it. After Teepee Creek, we hiked much of the climb up to Elk Park and I did not feel good at all on that section. Considering that I was less than 8 miles into the race and was hiking, I felt like I was working WAY too hard. My legs didn't feel into it and I was starting to feel some impending digestive issues. After Elk Park, John started to pull away from me and I eventually decided that a trip to the bushes was necessary if I was going to be able to run this downhill section properly. As I had hoped, that did the trick and soon enough I was feeling much better and running fairly well. In short time, I caught back up with John and we ran into the Wilson Creek aid station together. He pulled ahead of me a ways on the subsequent climb (all hiking) back up to Elk Park, but we hooked up again at the Elk Park aid station and started the descent back to Teepee Creek together. This was the high point of the race for me. It only took me 15 miles or so to find a groove, but I did finally find one. Descending back down to Teepee Creek I pulled away from John and passed three other guys who we hadn't seen since climbing the same hill earlier in the race. By the time I reached Teepee Creek, I was feeling great and was actually thinking that I might be able to make up enough time over the rest of the course to be somewhat close to 6 hours (my pace had drifted so much on the first climb to Elk Park that that goal seemed lost early on).

And then the climb started. Actually, I felt very good for at least 3/4 of the climb to Casey Meadows. I was power-hiking all of it but was consistently passing 23K runners and wasn't getting passed by anyone. My legs and stomach both felt solid. At what I thought was the top, we crossed a meadow and I was all psyched up to start running some downhill. Except there was no downhill. Instead, the course headed up more, steeper than before and extremely rocky. And just like that, I hit the wall. My legs started to quiver, I started feeling lightheaded and was sure I was going to hurl (which is appropriate, considering the race is put on by HURL - the Helena Ultra Runners League). I pulled off the side of the trail, hunched over and waited for the inevitable to come, but it never did. The nausea faded eventually and I continued on. My last mile up that climb was somewhere in the 23:00 range. Just brutal. Finally, the climb did end, but by then I wasn't so eager to run. I tried a few times, but the trail was so rocky that my pathetic shuffle just resulted in tripping every few steps, so I was resigned to more walking. Eventually the trail did smooth out and I was able to achieve something resembling a running gait as I approached the Casey Meadows aid station.

The climb out of Casey Meadows featured more walking. This climb wasn't nearly as steep and under normal circumstances I would have run much of it, but normal circumstances are fairly abnormal during an ultra, so hike I did. Along that climb, I got passed by the 1st place 50 miler, who was absolutely cruising and ended up crushing the course record. John also caught up to me on that stretch. I knew by our position high up on the ridge and the finish line's location at the bottom of the drainage that eventually we would have to lose quite a bit of elevation, but the trail just didn't seem to be cooperating. We were heading down, but gradually. I finally asked John if the damn trail ever went down for real and he pointed ahead. Sure enough, there was the turn onto the Jackson Creek trail. I was able to do some decent running here and again pulled ahead of John. About halfway between Casey Meadows and Jackson Creek, the downhill is interrupted by a short but steep climb. By this point, my legs had absolutely no appetite for going uphill, no matter how slow. I started slogging up the hill and got hammered again by a wave of nausea. Again, I pulled off to the side of the trail, hands on knees, and waited for the inevitable. And, again, it never came. I continued the slog and soon enough was running back downhill into the Jackson Creek aid station.

John caught back up to me at the aid station, although I pulled slightly ahead as I left sooner. There's just a short bit of trail after the aid station and then the course meets back up with the same road we started out on. When I got to the road, I looked back and John was right behind me. I walked for a bit until he caught up and then we shuffled together down the road. By this point, we were both fighting cramps and would each have to take short walk breaks, but always ended up catching back up with each other. With about a quarter mile to go, we saw John's wife Vanessa and his son Jack cheering us on and, as we passed them, Jack ran out to pace us to the finish. John and I ended up finishing side by side (not hand in hand, although I'm sure that would have been a tear-jerking moment) in 6:40:23, about a minute faster than John ran last year.

All told, not a horrible day on the trails. I definitely underestimated the difficulty of the climbs. I had some cramping issues, but nothing debilitating. My nutrition was pretty poor...I don't think I ate any gels after the last big climb and the last two aid stations didn't have any Pepsi, which I had been drinking at all previous aid stations, so I basically didn't take in any calories for the final 10 miles or more (other than a few chunks of watermelon, which doesn't even really count). I was drinking plenty...ended up emptying my 70 oz. hydration pack a couple of times. I just need to learn to force more calories down, something I think I let slide here because it was "only" 31 miles. Of course, it was easily the toughest 31 miles I've ever run. All in all, a great event with some pretty spectacular trails and scenery. They say that if you can finish the Elkhorn 50M you are probably ready for a 100 mile race, and I would say that's true. I myself didn't finish the 50M, but after running the 50K I feel like I ran at LEAST 50 miles. It's a tough course, but well worth checking out.