Go slow to go fast.

Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race

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Location:

Westminster,CO,USA

Member Since:

Nov 11, 2009

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

Finally started learning how to run in '09 after totally botching it up for the 14 years prior and dealing with chronic IT injury...have had zero IT band pain since fall of '09 and have run way more than ever before in my life...loving it.

PR's

Road Mile: 4:44 - Pearl St Mile August 2011 

2K: 6:32 - Uni HIll 2K 2011

3K: 10:07 - West end 3K 2011

5K - 16:53 - Turkey Leg 5K 2011

10K - 38:38 - Butte to Butte Eugene OR 2003 

Half - Never raced a half

Road Marathon - 2:57:19 - 11/12/2011 - solo.

Trail Marathon - 4:48 - Kings peak August 2011

55K - 4:59:54 - Moab red hot 55K 2011

Short-Term Running Goals:

Be healthy, run injury-free, listen to my body.

Sub 16 min 5K

Sub 34 min 10K

Sub 2:40 Marathon

    2012 Tentative Schedule

  1.  Quicker Quaker 5K January
  2. Boston Marathon - April
  3. ??

Long-Term Running Goals:

Get stronger, faster and more fit as a runner and biker to allow for bigger adventures as the years go on.

Still be running in my 80's.  

Personal:

I'm married to Nan Kennard and she kicks my butt at running.  She has beat me handily in every race we have done together except for a downhill mile we did once.  She is my running inspiration.  I'd like to run a marathon with her someday and actually keep up.  

My Personal Blog

My Family Blog

My Business Blog 

Favorite Blogs:

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Bare Feet Lifetime Miles: 282.68
Cycling 2011 Lifetime Miles: 291.40
Altra Instinct July '10 Lifetime Miles: 637.35
Altra Instinct Sep '11 Lifetime Miles: 481.45
Altra Lone Peak Lifetime Miles: 157.50
Altra Instinct Black Lifetime Miles: 69.00
Altra Adam Lifetime Miles: 27.50
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
68.2529.409.000.00106.65
Inov-8 Roclite 295 Miles: 55.40Five Finger Treks Miles: 39.75Cycling 2010 Miles: 183.20New Balance 790 Miles: 4.00Bare Feet Miles: 4.00Five Finger Sprints Miles: 3.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 182.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
11.500.000.000.0011.50

I got up early (5:15) and ran the Goshawk ridge trail loop today.  The way I run it this is an 11.5 mile loop with 1235 Feet ascent.

The last time I ran this loop was Feb 12.  That day I ran the loop in 1:54 - 9:59/mile.

Today I ran it in 1:38:51 - 8:36/mile -  which was a comfortable pace.

Its cool to see the incremental improvement in fitness by looking back at past results.

This is a gorgeous run in the early morning.  Its largely in the shade and pine trees.  It's a pretty fast trail because its never very steep.  I stopped running it for a while because I was more interested in the higher, steeper climbs.  But it was really fun to come back to this trail and be able to do a faster paced trail run.  I remember when I was running this in the winter the climb up goshawk ridge seemed hard.  Today it seemed super easy.  I guess that's due to fitness level and also being accustomed to 800+ ft/mile climbs lately.

Also enhancing the fun of the run this morning were the really great sounds of two albums I got recently: Band of Horses: Infinite Arms and Yeasayer: Odd Blood.  I really enjoy a lot of the songs on both albums, and a couple songs in particular on both are outstanding.

Did an hour of pushups, pullups and core p90x afterward.  Feeling groovy. 

Inov-8 Roclite 295 Miles: 11.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(5)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.250.000.000.005.25

Nice and easy cruise around the neighborhood in the evening.

Listening to a new Album by Arcade Fire: suburbs.  Decent stuff, not sure how much I like it yet, it will take me a couple listens to decide.  Not bad though...and 3.99 for an entire album is hard to beat (as long as it doesn't totally stink I guess) 

Five Finger Treks Miles: 5.25
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.200.005.000.0010.20

 Was planning to just run an easy cruiser on some trails this afternoon with a friend Rob.  We warmed up together for 2.5 miles, but then he needed to slow down for a bit, so I decided to go ahead and do an out and back section to the top of goshawk ridge and had a chance to chat with Rob more.  It was nice to kill two birds with one stone, talking some business a bit in addition to getting a nice trail run in.  I guess most 'business people' go golfing for their business meetings...I like the trail a lot better.  (Rob's a colleague real estate investor who I do deals with sometimes)

Then it turned into a tougher run than I planned.  Because the out and back section was a mile out and a mile back.  So to try to catch back up to him was going to take some serious effort.  I put it into higher gear as soon as I left him.  And it took me 5 miles of running to catch back up.  He did  just over 3 miles before I was able to catch him.  I was pushing pretty hard to catch back up to him, but it felt good to get a tempo workout in the middle.  Then the last 2.5 it felt great to cruise in the last section of rolly and then down hill back to the cars and catch up with Rob. 

These were my stats for the middle 5 miles - 42 minutes - 8:24/mile pace - 5 miles - 750 Feet ascent/descent.  (Looking back at monday it took me about 45:30 - 9:06/mile pace to run that section)

 It was basically 2.5 miles up to the top of a ridge gaining about 300 feet/mile.  Really fun quick pace runnable trail, but pretty hot out.  Then 2 miles down hill, with about a .5-.75 uphill grind at the end which is where I finally caught Rob at the top of.

Super fun run, felt great, glad I was able to squeeze a run in with good company this afternoon since it wasn't happening during my morning service duty hours (On the home stretch...just 9 more service days til I relinquish my service master title.) 

total today: 10.2 miles - 1:33:54 - 9:13/mile avg. 1100 Feet ascent

Inov-8 Roclite 295 Miles: 10.20
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Well...its Leadville 100 cram time...starting today.  This week I think I'll be mostly a mt. biker.  Then back to running next week.  I need to get at least some semblance of some biking legs before saturday...we'll see how that goes.

I did 30 awesome single track trail miles today in the Buffalo Creek Area by Pine, CO.  It felt great.  Wasn't really hard at all actually, so I think Leadville is going to be fun.

I definitely don't have a very strong biking legs right now though, so I'll be taking it pretty easy next saturday.  It takes a lot more than 300 miles over a 6 month period to actually be strong on a bike.  But my fitness is good, and the mountain running has definitely helped.  Its just not the same though.

Todays ride was 3:28 - 30 miles - 3400 Feet ascent/descent.  Probably about 3:10 of riding time.  We were taking it pretty easy, stopping at the top of the climbs to eat, and swap bikes, and stuff.  

The area down there is absolutely phenomenal for fast cross country non-technical riding.  It's got some nice climbs, but nothing too steep, and really, really awesome 5-7 mile down hills of superb, smooth single track.  It is exactly the type of mountain biking I really prefer.  I'm not a huge fan of ultra technical mt. biking...its fun, but I like the smooth faster stuff better.  

Cycling 2010 Miles: 30.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Crazy busy day today. Service from 6-10am - worked until 6pm - running errands with the family until 8. I was exhausted from a stressful work day made worse by only getting 4+ hours of sleep.

But I managed to head out for a quick easy mt. Bike ride on the roads for 35 minutes, and I felt a lot better afterward.

Cycling 2010 Miles: 8.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.000.000.000.004.00

As Nan and I did our normal Sunday night planning for the week, it became clear that this was going to be a busy week. And today lived up to that again.

Up bright and early for another glorious 4 hour shift at my service post! (Just 6 more of those lovely opportunities, I'm not counting though)

Then another full busy day of work in the office for some and out making rounds to houses and meeting with contractors mostly. I definitely don't have a problem keeping myself busy, but fortunately I enjoy what I do and mostly that I am the boss, so that when it gets annoying and demanding it makes it pretty tough to blame anyone but myself.

Then in the evening Nan had lined up a babysitter so she could go to her workout and so I could finish my work, and also get a workout in while it was still light out.

I had a really great mt. Bike/run in the evening from about 6-8.

I am riding the top of the line $7K Fuji carbon frame, 24 pound, XTR components, extremely sweet bike which my buddy loaned me for the week to do Leadville with. And it is not disappointing me at all. I can attest to the bike making a huge difference in comfort, speed, and enjoyment of the ride. That thing is seriously so smooth to ride. It just flies over anything. 25-30 mph and super rocky and bumpy fast section decents tonight and it just glides right through it all. And then having 24 pounds instead of my old clunkers 30 pounds going uphill makes it pretty sweet too. (I'm still kind of in a dreamy state as I reminisce about how fun it was to ride that bike tonight if you couldn't tell, I'm really looking forward to seeing how I fare on it for 100 this weekend.)

I'm still waiting on getting my other new bike back which is why I'm borrowing his for now.

Anyway, back to the workout...so I was riding at the flatirons vista trailhead, where I ran goshawk ridge last week. Most of it is rideable, but the 1 mile section at the top up to goshawk is off limits to bikes.

The perfect excuse for me to squeeze in a run.

I rode the 4.9 miles and followed an Xterra racer guy named Matt as he pushed a solid pace . I was happy that I had no problem hanging with him.

Then I stashed my biking gear, and threw on my NB 790's which I had stuffed in the back pocket of my jersey (very nice how easy those things are to pack around since they are so minimal)

I then did 2 laps up goshawk ridge and back, which was really fun and felt great. Averaged 9:09/ mile for 4 miles with about 650-700' of vert.

Then hopped back on the bike for a really fun and fast return trip 4.9 back to the car.

I love doing run/bike combo days, they are totally fun. I am getting really excited to be done with my service hours so I can do more of them in the early hours before the early summer mornings are gone.

The bummer about today was I only got to spend about 30-40 minutes with my kids, and that was totally fantastic time, and was the highlight of my whole day, but I was bummed that I was so busy that that's all the time we had together. It made me reflect on when I was travelling for work years ago and regularly being gone for 3-4 days or a week at a time and how bad that sucked. Even just 30 minutes a day, is so much better than nothing. But its also far from ideal for me, and so I'm grateful that its temporary, and that today and tomorrow are less busy, and that next week I get to spend a few full days traveling with my awesome family. There's just nothing in the world that is as enjoyable and fulfilling to me as spending quality time with my family.

New Balance 790 Miles: 4.00Cycling 2010 Miles: 9.80
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Just had time for a bike ride this morning and did the Marshall Mesa loop - which is a 14.9 mile loop, about half on awesome single track, and the other half on dirt road and a couple miles on paved road.  It's a fun loop that I used to do all the time and i have never been able to break an hour on it on my mountain bike before.  Today I think I rode it in right about an hour.  It was actually 1:05 - but I stopped to chat with my old Bishop, Bob Ure from our previous ward.  I saw him running down the trail and so we had about a year and a half to catch up on...I didn't look at the watch, but I'm pretty sure that took 5 minutes or so, because we talked about a lot of stuff.  

Oh well..doesn't really matter, but I was trying to see where my biking fitness was compared to last time I tried this last year, and so I was pretty pleased that I was able to hold a 15 mile/hour average on it pretty comfortably.  I started out really slow to warm up, and I was never really going all that hard, just steady riding the whole time.  So i'm glad.  

I still think there's a good chance the 100 miles of leadville is going to totally work me over on Saturday.  But I'm glad that my overall fitness level is good, even though my specific biking strength and endurance surely isn't as good as it could be if I had actually trained more than 3 times in a 1 week period.

I'm also getting antsy to run more, I can't wait to go running for 8 or 10 miles tomorrow when I'm in Leadville.  

Cycling 2010 Miles: 14.90
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(3)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.000.007.00

really easy run around leadville.  Loved the weather at 10,000 feet, so comfortable!

Five Finger Treks Miles: 7.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Race: Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race (104 Miles) 09:57:06, Place overall: 311
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

HO-LY CRAP! That was the most fun I have ever had on any mountain bike ride or any type of race ever.  Seriously fun.  I felt fantastic and full of energy all day.  Literally zero tiredness, zero fatigue, zero energy issues.  I felt strong all the way to the finish and it was odd to me to be blowing past all the carnage the last 30 miles of people cracking left and right.  I honestly wished the race were longer at the end and was kind of bummed about having it come to an end.  To the point where I was itching to go for a run after because I felt so good (I didn't end up running after due to lack of time though).  I'll write a detailed report and post a video report of the race later.  But needless to say I was really pleased with and absolutely loved doing that race.  I went into it hoping to just have fun and that my legs would hold up for 10 hours.  The legs held up perfectly and I had way more fun than I could have anticipated.

My full race report and video is on my blog here

Cycling 2010 Miles: 104.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(7)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.000.003.000.007.00

As inspired by George, I did some simms hill repeats today since its close to home.  And it felt really good.

I started out REALLY slow.  My left hip had some minor soreness, probably from the weekends efforts report.  But it warmed up after about 2 miles and felt fine.  Here are my splits for the hill repeats (the hill section I ran is .48 miles):

5:26 up (11:22 pace) – 3:45 down (7:52 pace)

4:36 up (9:37 pace) – 3:33 down (7:25 pace)

3:30 up (7:18 pace) – 2:37 down (5:24 pace)  - Kind of funny to see my uphill pace drop 2 minutes per mile each lap.  I’m sure that last lap though was approaching the limit of how fast I can run up that hill because my heart rate was in the mid 170′s at the top.  I’m sure I could run it faster, but probably not much at this point.

I took the first lap really easy both ways, just to continue my warm up really.  After each lap I just rested for about 15 seconds grabbing a drink of water then headed back up.

The 2nd lap I decided to put forth moderate effort both ways.  But I didn’t pushed a bit harder on the uphill than the down.

Then the 3rd lap I wanted to push it really hard.  It felt cool to run up the hill faster than I had just run down it.  To look down at my pace and see it in the low 7′s surprised me, but I just kept at it and was able to hold it pretty steady to the top.  Then I went all out on the down hill too.  My mile pace for that total mile up/down the hill was 6:21/mile.  Which I was pretty pleased with considering its a 190 foot ascent over 1/2 mile.  Not sure if I could have repeated that last repeat time again though.  I think sometime I’ll do that again and see if I can 2 or more laps at the pace of my last lap.

Then I just ran easy 9 min pace the couple miles back home.  I really enjoyed the progressive pushing workout.

Five Finger Treks Miles: 7.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.000.000.000.004.00

Just did 4 miles really easy at night, first time I had the chance all day to get out.

Five Finger Treks Miles: 4.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.000.000.000.004.00

Did some really fun wakeboarding this morning on a glassy echo lake at 7:30 Am.

Then the storm came rolling in around noon while I was doing a really easy 4 miles on the rail trail.  I'm feeling really good.  I'll probably do some more easy miles tomorrow at some point, and then really looking forward to running up Kings on Saturday. 

Five Finger Treks Miles: 4.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.500.000.000.005.50

Awesome, very leisurely run with jun up the trail at Henry's fork.

We got up to the trailhead and set up camp, then had nothing better to do than squeeze an easy run in.  Went up to a lake that was really pretty, then back to camp for dinner. 

Five Finger Treks Miles: 5.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Race: Quest for Kings Marathon (26.2 Miles) 05:45:42, Place overall: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.8025.400.000.0026.20

I finally did my first official marathon...in a somewhat 'unofficial' race.  Unofficial in the sense that there was no entry fee, no timing chips, and only 4 entrants.  Only 2 of which started at the same time!  But it was indeed a race, and it was my first official Marathon race and it was a blast.  I now have a marathon PR of 5:45!! (shouldn't be too hard to get that down I suppose, that is a TOUGH marathon course)

Jun organized this race, and initially more people were going to come, but it only ended up being 4 of us in the end.  The rules of the race were this:  Start your clocks at the trailhead fence at Henry's fork, tag Kings Peak, and stop your watch at the fence when you get back.  Fastest time back to the fence gets to keep the Cowbell.

It just so happens that from the fence, to the peak and back is exactly 26.2 miles.  But it also just so happens, that it is only 26.2 miles exactly if you take a specific route through the gunsight pass cutoff.  Craig and I took this route, but on the way back we cut off about .8 miles by going straight down off gunsight pass and avoiding a big long switch back...so my actual mileage to the peak and back was 25.4.

Here were my race goals in order of priority:

  1. Appropriately pace myself to enjoy the entire day.
  2. Properly fuel myself to finish feeling strong like I did at Leadville last week
  3. Win the race
  4. Finish the course between 5:00-5:15

Pre-race

the night before, Craig and I did a super easy 5.5 mile run up to a lake, which was fun.  We hung out after, had a nice big dinner of pasta and cheese bread, and chatted around the fire on a gorgeous, clear mountain evening.  We were going to start at 6:00 am, but we didn't get to bed until midnight because of waiting for Craig's parents who got lost, so we opted to sleep in until 6:30.  Scott, who had arrived at 2 am apparently, gave us a nice wakeup call at 5:40 since he of course had no way of getting the 'sleep in' memo.   We still went back to sleep til 6:30, then had some oatmeal in our tent and got up to get going.

Scott left just before 7 am to get a bit of a head start, and Craig and I took off at about 7:20.

 

Craign ringing the bell to start

 

The night before, Craig and I organized our packs and fueling, and I packed approximately 2300 calories total between 3 EFS liquid shots (1200 calories), 3-4 servings of 1st endurance optygen and ultragen, and 1 clif shot.  I ended up using between 1800-1900 calories total throughout the race, which was between 300-350 per hour average.  I took them in really consistently throughout and it worked perfectly for me.

Start to Elkhorn Crossing - 5.45 miles - 58:19 - 1000 Feet net ascent

The first 5 miles are pretty mellow and steady.  But there is almost no part of the trail that isn't rocky or root covered.  I was feeling fresh, and the pace was easy.  My heart rate was quickly at about 149-150, and I just kept it there.  I was content to keep a very relaxed, conversational pace.   Oddly though, the conversation part wasn't much there.  It was like Craig and I used up all our conversation the night before on our run and around the fire, and now there was just nothing left to say.  But really I think Craig was just kind of solemn and quiet because almost from the first step he just wasn't feeling it for some reason.  He mentioned a side ache within the first mile.  I asked if he thought our pace was too fast, and he thought it was fine.  But I let him take the lead for the next couple miles because I hoped he could get into a rhythm.

We had made a plan the night before, that we would try to stick together and push each other up to the peak, and even possibly back down to gunsight, and then open it up and see where the last 10 miles took us.  I was really hoping he didn't fall off pace before gunsight, because I had no clue about the course, and I knew there were going to be some navigational issues at the top section when there was no trail.

Fortunately, craig held the steady pace, and we motored on.

Elkhorn to Gunsight supposed water stop - 4.3 Miles - 56:50 - 1250 Feet net ascent

 

Looking up toward the peaks we're heading to

 

 

Craig cruising through the beautiful valley

 

During this section we caught Scott who had started 30 minutes before us.  He was looking strong, and held with us for a while.  But toward the end, Craig seemed to be fading just a bit as it got steeper.  I just focused on keeping my heart rate between 148-150 - and I was able to easily run almost all the inclines while keeping it there, so I did.  But toward gunsight it was opening up a gap on Craig.  I really didn't want to be opening a gap at that point, but I also wanted to keep my steady pace, and I really wasn't pushing my heart rate at all.  In fact, I have raced all day at LOTOJA with my HR in the 160's, so 150 is a conservative all day pace for me.  But I was content with it.

I stopped at the bottom of the final push up gunsight because Craig yelled from behind that there should be water there.  He caught up and we searched a couple minutes for water, to no avail.  The flow wasn't good enough.  So we kept going.

 

Me heading up toward dollar lake

 

 

Almost to gunsight pass, about 2 hours into the day

 

Gunsight to the final ascent - 2.5 miles - 55:12 - 1100+ feet net ascent

Just over gunsight pass there was a snow field where we wasted a couple more minutes searching for water.  I packed snow in my hand held bottle because I was unsure if there was going to be another location to get water.  This was pretty concerning to me, so I felt that having snow was safer than nothing.  The night before, Craig was totally confident there would be flowing water at Gunsight (don't worry craig, I forgive you;), so I had decided to only fill my hydration pack with 40 oz. instead of 70 oz.  Mistake!  I should have kept the 70 oz. and I could have avoided multiple stops.  But I thought it would be nice to have a little less weight.  In an unsupported mountain run of 5+ hours, it's definitely a good idea to go over-prepared rather than under.

Anyway, we got snow in our bottles, but a few minutes were lost, and we were on our way again.

It was clear at this point that Craig was really not feeling it, because at my comfortable pace I kept creeping ahead of him.  He told me the way to go around gunsight, but I still made a mistake and went too high.  The problem was there was a MASSIVELY HUGE cairn marking the way to go, and it was way above me.  Craig warned me to stay low, and I thought I was, but it was a huge marker.  Anyway, I came around a ridge and looked around to see multiple peaks, a huge rock talus field, and I had ZERO clue which way to go.

I looked back to find Craig, and he was nowhere in sight.  I kept moving forward, not even knowing which peak I should be aiming for.  moments later, I looked down and Craig was hundreds of yards below me moving through the valley.  I yelled for him, which I realize now was pointless.  Obviously he knew where he was going, and I just needed to get back to him.  He saw me and waved the direction.  I cut down the hill toward him and within a few minutes was back up to him with not too much effort.

I'm glad I was back with him, because he could show me the way to go.  If he wouldn't have been up there with me I'm certain I would have spent a bunch of time lost on the wrong route in a super slow talus field.

The next bit of fortune was we hit a small river crossing!  Nice...fresh water.  We both found a clear hole and filled up our water bottles.  That was a very welcome water source, and gave me confidence that I would have plenty of water for the round trip now.  If that water would not have been there, I would have gone through some serious dehydration that day for sure.

Final climb to the peak - 3/4 mile - 24:20 - 775 feet net ascent (included 2 minute stop talking to faceless ghost)

 

Craig on the summit, really windy up there

 

As we left the saddle before the ridge to the peak, we saw Eric (facelessghost) picking his way down the boulders toward us.  That was a huge surprise!  What the heck was he doing up here??  Oh yeah, there was a race going on.  He just didn't bother to tell anyone he was going to participate!   OK, turns out he did email Craig at the last minute, but we didn't get the message.  And somehow, he managed to get onto the trailhead in the morning at 6:30 WITHOUT seeing us, even though our campsite was within 100 yards of the trail head and RIGHT on the road.  Weird.  Kind of a bummer too, because it would have been cool to know that he was in the race, and have another person to be pushed by.  Although, he is out of Craig and My league I think.

We talked for a couple minutes and we parted ways.  Apparently he had spent some time lost trying to find his way too, and still hit the summit in under 3 hours.  Craig and I knew we were both out of the running to win now, since we weren't even on pace to hit the summit in 3 hours, and we're not as fast as him to begin with.  Oh well, it was cool to meet you briefly Eric, look forward to hearing how the day went for you.

Summit back to above Gunsight pass = 2.5 miles - 54:32

 

We passed Scott pretty close coming down from the summit

 

I made it to the summit in a still conservative pace, keeping my HR at or below 150 the whole time.  And I put a gap of 5 minutes on Craig.  At the top I took some video, and then fumbled in the wind for a couple minutes trying to untangle my headphones.  I realized I had them, after all, thinking I hadn't brought them, and I decided it would be nice to have some tunes on the way down if I was going to be alone for a while anyway.

Passed Craig a few minutes later, and then saw Scott coming up shortly thereafter.  I was surprised to see Scott so close, and really happy for him.  Nice job Scott!   You pushed a great pace up to that summit!

Craig caught me half way down the descent, and I was glad to see him in better spirits.  We pushed together back to the water hole on Anderson pass.  I filled up a bit faster this time and kept going, opening up a small gap.  It was really tough running down this section.  It's a tundra field and there are TONS of rocks.  And they are all super sharp.  It's just not fast going down at all and it beats up your feet pretty good.

But we were moving steady enough, and around through the cutoff back to gunsight I ran past 2 runners coming up.  I recognized Andy Dorais, who Nan and I knew from her days at BYU, and so I stopped to chat with him.  He was running with Kyle Perry, a pro runner for New balance who won the NCAA steeplchase in 2009.  It was cool to catch up with Andy.  And during my stop, Craig caught back up and we all chatted a bit.  As you can see, we were really intensely focused on our time in this race...er...something.

It was funny because Kyle commented that was the farthest he had ever run.  It was about 11 miles in.  And I thought...wow...he's got a tough day ahead of him.  We bid farewell and were off again.

Gunsight to Elkhorn crossing down - 4.43 miles - 42:32 - 9:36/mile

At this point, Craig needed to search for some more water, but I had plenty in my hydration pack so I pressed on.  I just kept my pace locked in at about 150 HR and pushed down the mountain.  It was pretty steady running, but still not super fast.  I really thought I could crank out a bunch of 7:30 miles down this part, but it was just too rocky and hard on the feet.  There were sections where my pace got into the 6's, but then others where it was back up to 10 and 11 min. per mile just because of the terrain.

Elkhorn crossing to Finish - 5.46 miles - 53:50 - 9:52/mile

And the same thing again on this section.  I felt fine.  My legs and most especially my feet were getting tired at this point.  The feet had taken a beating on all the rocks.  But I still thought I could go faster down this section.  But it wasn't the case.  Mentally I was totally content keeping my pace at 150 HR.  And the trail is just too darn rocky to really get a smooth rhythm going.

But nevertheless, I still did this section 5 minutes faster down than up.  I'm pretty sure that every other person in the race and otherwise did this section slower coming down than up.  It's just a long haul through a rocky trail.  And it is also really rolly.  It's not just down hill here, it actually has a bunch of short uphill sections.

But overall I still had plenty of energy and was still well fueled.  And my legs still felt totally fine.  The only thing hurting were my feet, and my left hip a little bit.  So it was not a problem running all the uphills, and I ran every step of the last 10 miles.  In fact, I still felt just as powerful on the uphills as I did in the morning, didn't mind them at all.

Finish Totals: 5:45:42 - 25.41 Miles - Avg HR: 143 - 4637 Feet Ascent - 4637 Feet Descent

 

Craig and I afterward in our matching colors, not intentional. Still unsure who got the cowbell at this point

 

So I finished, and felt great.  I didn't feel like I was pushing a very hard effort the last 10 miles, and kept half expecting Craig to catch up to me.  I wouldn't have minded if he did, because I would have enjoyed the company and would have loved it if I had somebody to push me harder through that last section.  As it was I was content at my 150 heart rate and just enjoying the cruise down to the finish.

Not at any point during that race did I not enjoy myself.  Although my feet were pretty tired toward the end, I still found myself really enjoying being out there, and cruising through the mountains.  We had phenomenal sunny weather, and it was just gorgeous out there.y sa

Craig came in 12 minutes later, and I was glad to see him pretty close behind, I figured he wouldn't be far.

We enjoyed relaxing in the river after, and drinking lots of cold fluid.  We packed up our camp and hung out.

I spoke to two other runners who I passed on the trail coming down.  They said they had seen Eric running down earlier, and he looked hashed.  That surprised Craig and I, and made us wonder if he had beaten us after all.  The other two runners said I looked totally fresh compared to Eric.  And I did feel really fresh...I ran past them almost like they were standing still at that point.

So with the unknown of Eric's time, Craig had to keep the cowbell until further review of who the actual winner was.

Later that night I got a text from Craig saying that Eric finished in 6:01.  WHAT?!?  Total surprise to me...with how fast he was at the peak, we were sure he would have slaughtered us.  He really must have blown up or something though, because he was slower going down than he was going up.  But it turns out he did add 2 miles going down because he went around the valley below gunsight instead of taking the cutoff.

I made it to the peak in 3:14, and my descent time was 2:31.  I think Eric said he was at the peak in like 2:55, which puts his descent at 3:06.   Even with the 2 extra miles, its clear that he must have hit a wall or something.

SWEET!!  A WIN FOR ME!  Oh, and you better believe I feel totally accomplished since I beat 3 OTHER PEOPLE!!  No but seriously though, beating Craig is definitely an accomplishment, because he is a very solid mountain runner, with a bunch of solid races this year.  And, beating the faceless ghost is totally awesome!!  I am 100% certain that I could not beat him if something drastic hadn't happened to him at the end, because his pace in his previous races blow mine away.  He beat Craig in the sapper joe 50K by almost an hour, and it wasn't like craig was sitting around, he took 4th that day.  So I will just have to bask in the momentary glory of having beaten him on the 'Quest for Kings' while I can!  Thanks for letting me win Eric!  And so apparently I get the cowbell for the year.  Can't wait for the rematch already!

Goal Review

So how did I do on my goals in this race??  Let's see...

  1. Appropriately pace myself to enjoy the entire day. - NAILED IT!!  Don't think I could have possibly paced myself any more even than I did.  And I thoroughly enjoyed the entire race because of it.
  2. Properly fuel myself to finish feeling strong like I did at Leadville last week - PERFECT! Thanks again to 1st Endurance and Vespa, I felt energized the entire race.
  3. Win the race - HECK YEAH!! Can't believe I actually beat faceless ghost, but 'thems the breaks' I guess.  Too bad he ran 2 extra miles!
  4. Finish the course between 5:00-5:15 - Didn't pull that one off - don't really care that much though, as that was my lowest priority goal.  And I'm certain even with the same pace I ran and just not wasting time on the course I could have done it in 5:30.  Next year I can probably go sub 5 if I keep improving my fitness.  That's a TOUGH course though, not to be underestimated at all, even though the ascent vs. mileage numbers don't appear very daunting compared to other courses like north fork.

Conclusion

MOUNTAIN RUNNING IS FUN!!!

(most pictures courtesy of craig)

Inov-8 Roclite 295 Miles: 26.20
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(10)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Got my new replacement mt. bike put together this morning and took it out for a short spin.  It felt really good...looking forward to some more fun rides on it this fall.

Cycling 2010 Miles: 8.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Add Comment
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
4.000.000.000.004.00

Did a super easy 4 miles barefoot around my neighborhood today.  Surprisingly it was an easy pace and I did it in 29:08 - 7:16/mile.  Apparently my body is totally recovered from the Marathon Saturday.

I didn't have any soreness in my legs after the marathon except for on the outside of my lower legs.  I think that was just because of the rockiness of the terrain.

Now I just need to make a training plan for the next 4 weeks leading up to the steamboat 50.  I'm getting pretty excited for Steamboat.  I'm healthy and injury free and I'm in the best distance running fitness I've ever been in.  And I think I've finally figured out a race fueling strategy that works well for me.  So I'm really looking forward to trying my hand at a 50 miler.

Bare Feet Miles: 4.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
2.004.001.000.007.00

I felt good today.  In my warm up I was going 7:30's up a slight incline and just feeling a nice spring in my step.  So I decided to just do a 7 mile loop of some sort holding a 7:00 avg pace.

I ended up changing my mind because Simms Hill was calling my name when I got to the bottom of it.  So I decided to do a 3.5 mile out and back with a large hill in the middle and see if I could hold 7:00 pace.

I did the half mile up Simms hill in 3:43, pushing a pretty moderate pace but not maxing out by any means.  Then I continued up Simms for another 3/4 mile and turned left up the hill on 128 for 1/4 mile until the 3.5 mile turnaround.

Coming back down was fast, averaging between 5:30-6:30 depending on the steepness.

And I was averaging 6:54/mile total after 5 miles, and feeling great.  But I had to make a 1 mile climb back up the hill to my house.  That was tough!  By the top of the steepest part I was pushing really hard and struggling to hang on to 8:30/mile, but my avg was still 6:59 by the top, and I was able to cruise the last 3/4 mile home easily in sub 7:00.

Totals: 7 miles - 48:46 - 6:58/mile avg - 470 Feet ascent

The last hill was really tough, but otherwise it felt great to cruise at that pace.  Here's the run elevation profile.  There's not much in the way of flat running around my house.  Which is fine by me!

 

Five Finger Treks Miles: 7.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 182.00
Comments(3)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.500.000.000.007.50

Was going to run up green mountain from Eldorado cayon mesa trail today, a 12.5 mile run total.  But I forgot my watch and I was going to be really pushing my available time limit as it was.  And then my calves were kind of sore from my harder speed effort on Thursday.  So I decided a couple miles in that I would just run up bear canyon for a while and turn around early so I wasn't late for getting home to head out with Nan.

It was a hot day, but I felt pretty good overall.  Just a bit tired and mentally not really into pushing myself super fast up the mountain.  7.5-8 miles with about 1500' of ascent was sufficient.  I felt great flying down the decent. 

Inov-8 Roclite 295 Miles: 7.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

Just did a quick mt. bike ride close to home today, not feeling like doing anything today, but it felt good to get out and move around, and the new bike is super fun.

Here's a short video from Kings peak last week before my phone died at mile 20.

Cycling 2010 Miles: 8.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(5)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
3.500.000.000.003.50

Not feeling it on the running scene this week, for the first time in months.  Actually not feeling it ever since last Thursday when I was totally feeling it.  I cranked out a really fast run last thursday (for me) and maxed pretty hard going up the last hill for a really solid 7 mile effort.  And it felt great.

But ever since then my calves have been sore, and my left hip kind of tweaky.

Saturdays run I just never did feel quite right.  Didn't run again until last night, and I just went REALLY slow (9:11 pace), and felt very minor twinges periodically in my left hip.  

I don't like that.  Rolled out my glut and hip a bunch and it feels better.  I doubt its a big issue, but I don't want to have any nagging pains at all going into the Steamboat 50 in 2.5 weeks. I think I'll hit up some ART this week.

Five Finger Sprints Miles: 3.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
68.2529.409.000.00106.65
Inov-8 Roclite 295 Miles: 55.40Five Finger Treks Miles: 39.75Cycling 2010 Miles: 183.20New Balance 790 Miles: 4.00Bare Feet Miles: 4.00Five Finger Sprints Miles: 3.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 182.00
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