Like the canyon

1:20 on the rough and wild BST South trails.  Ice has started to melt, but it's still pretty western out there.  Started late and looped around a bit above the house and headed out around the headhunter loop and back with waterfall to 29th.  Didn't see a soul, but if I had to guess I was following Forrest and Go fastie BJ or Jon from the set of fresh shoe tracks on the trail in front of me.  Seems I have been doing at least half of most runs in the dark lately.  I've taken a light, but haven't used it much, something enjoyable about running on the dark trails.  Love winter running

Crowded little 7 or so tonight.  Everyone's run'en these days, good to see, especially the HD.  Things feeling good except this 4 inch blister on my arch from my fancy new $200.00 orthothic foot beds. Would give up a couple of  upper body apendages to run pain free for a week straight.

BST North

Hour on the trainer. Steady effort.

Little bender on the big hill above the house. Hadn't been up there in a while so I got in a few laps.  Foot hurts running on flat ground, but felt fine on the steep.  Trail's in great shape.  Wore my old Yaktracs today, decided I prefer those much more than the much touted Microspikes.  Lighter by a long shot, keep my foot closer to the ground on hard ground, fit to the bottom of my foot better. Not quite as grippy on pure water ice, but then neither are Microspikes all that grippy on the clear stuff.  Anyway, there's one rant and here is another.

If any O-town runners actually read this, thought I'd post my somewhat novice but relevant observation on a hidden danger that exsists on a trail many of us use all time and probably take the risk for granted. Some may not be aware, but there are a couple of significant avalanche paths that cross the trail on the upper part of the Malan's Peak trail.  The elevation and aspect, North to Northeast, put it in the bullseye for some of the instability that exsists this year, and really, every year during times of instability.  These paths have slid multiple times every winter that I have run up there.  They luckily go naturally and I assume during a snow loading event such as heavy snowfall of wind from the south-southwest and luckily no one has been in the way yet.  While not typically huge, the slides that occur in these spots are more than enough to burry a person.  Another thing to keep in mind is that the trail does not go through the starting zone, but does cut right through the deposition zone.  This means that a human triggered avalanche would have to be remotely triggered, or started from a distance, below the starting zone.  Something that isn't likely all the time, but during times of high instability as we have had this year, it is a real possibilty.  Just keep it in mind, maybe check the Avalanche Forecast before you go if there is any doubt. 

Sorry in advance my phone didn't upload the whole pic on a few of these:

This is the biggerst starting zone and slide path.  Notice the scubby trees in the slide path with Pines in the areas where it doesn't slide.

This is looking down off the trail from the same spot.  Notice the trail below (center).  Same thing, scrubby trees with pines on the sides of the path.  Frequent slides keep the big trees from growing here.

Smaller path a little further up trail.  Notice the avalanche debris piled up in the gully.  Harder to see due to new snow since the slide.

Looking down trail you can see where this path comes across the trail. This is below the big statring zone from above.

Deposition zone below the trail.  Full of avy debris right now, just not apparent because it's coverd by a little new snow.  Wrong place, wrong time and someone could end up in there.

Potential trigger for a slide.

A very uncrowded 10 miles on a pretty much snow and ice free BST North at sunset.  Great run. Almost pain free. Finally.

AM: couple runs on the sunny groomers. You know skiing's bad when even freshly groomed runs are, well....not fun.

PM: 8 slow miles on the buttery dry trail. 4 miles of indescribably miserable trail. Frozen, cupped snow, mud, solid ice, slush and everything in between. Will be avoiding BST South of 12th for a while.

12 miles, slow-n-easy.

Some of the old injury aches flared up a bit on last night's run. 3 longish days in a row was probably a little much on top of a slightly higher mileage week last week (higher than the last month-and-a-half  for me, but not high for most) . That and the Malan's binge on Saturday.  Gotta remeber to take it slow.  Tough to do when things feel so much better than they have in months. 

50 minutes on the trainer.  Steady.

9 or so north of 12th.  Ran a few miles on the flat dirt canal road.  Running on flat and smooth terrain is so much different than trails. I think I need a little more of that just to mix it up.  Took the BST down to the nature center parking lot and back to 12th with the upper loop add on.  Trail is in great shape, no mud, very little snow. Pretty dark the last couple miles. 

Lots of the regular ultra/trail running folks out again tonight.  Really good to see so many people getting after it consistently.  There is something about watching groups of bright blue LED lights spread out behind me on a dark trail that gets me fired up to run a 100 miler. 

9 miles or so, vert? 1500.    

A distracted hour or so wandering the trails at sunset that included:

A little trail running

Some impromptu bouldering

And sunset watching.

I got out for my run about 7:00 and managed to link together 45 minutes or so of somewhat dry and snow free trail above the house. Enjoying running in the light beam lately. 

I'm pretty sure I had a dream last night that looked something like this:

I've enjoyed the winter for what it is, but would really like just a little more.....please.

14 mile slugfest up on the dry trail.  Couple laps around the canal road to BST loop.  A little flat road type running for 5 or 6 miles of this one.  I find it hard to pace myself on the road.  I see all that flat, wide open terrain and wanna punch it up and run too fast, which, in reality, is quite slow. What can I say, I'm a trail jogger.  Ran one of the back's with the go-fastie, and ran another back with a guy from Logan who drove down to run on the dirt. Great day out, perfect weather.  First no-bennie run of the season. No skiing to avoid the Dew Tour Madness.

50 minutes on the spin-o-meter. 

A great video put together by go-fasie-Jon of our Windriver Cirque trip from this past summer.  After this winter, I'm ready for some more adventures of this sort.

Thanks Jon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oudnMJy01g&feature=share

Half way through a ten day course of antibiotics, an injury with a 5 month recovery and the resulting inconsistent training left me with very low expectations going into this year’s Red Hot 55K. But, a race is a race, and when the gun went off, I planned to give it 100% of whatever might happen to be in me, and I really had no idea what might be there. So I lined up with no splits and no plan beyond having a fun day in the sun out on the red rock and see how far I could crawl into the pain cave.

Which is where I quickly found myself as the first 4 miles or so we were clipping along at a low to mid 7 minute pace. I don’t run that fast often, and, other than one sea-level jaunt on vacation over a month ago, haven’t run that fast since some pre-injury running late last summer. I felt comfortable, but odd, to be moving rapidly along the flat, smooth dirt roads. I could tell my slow legs wouldn’t tolerate a pace any faster and probably wouldn’t last 34 miles at this pace. Crazy thing is, I was going backward. I was 30-40 places off the front and falling back as people were motoring past like I was walking.

It was tempting to turn it up a couple of notches and stop the bleeding, but I told myself to hang on to this pace and save some strength for the last half. After a fair bit of climbing and a fun section of technical running I came into the mile 13 aid station at 1:39, not bad if the mileage is correct, and hit mile 17 at 2:20. At that point, I knew there were just a couple more miles of dread and we would hit some terrain that is a bit more comfortable for me.

About 19 miles in, the course makes a dramatic change, going from mostly smooth dirt road to technical steep slickrock with lots of climbing and descending. Once on terrain that suits me, I started turning up the effort a bit more. I kept telling myself to roll another log on the fire and let it burn. I was running hard through these miles and really digging deep. I was relieved to find some reserves and be able to push the pace in the late miles. As soon as I hit the rougher ground and turned it up a little, I started catching people. I passed 3-4 people on the big climb up to mile 23 and just kept reeling people in. I think I moved up 10 or so spots through the 6 mile slickrock section, getting passed once myself by a motoring Greg Norrander.

The last three miles or so revert to dreaded road with some techy stuff here and there. I tried to hang on and keep turning my legs over. I was pretty cooked at this point and my legs were screaming from the hard effort and lack of miles. There were a couple of runners in front of me and I set a goal to pass them both before the finish. I got one easy and the second guy was moving pretty well and it took a good effort to get by with a mile or so left to run. I put a bit of distance between us and backed off a bit as the next runner was out of reach. I glanced back at the last corner and still had a good gap on the guy behind me so I just kinda cruised it down the last hill. Right before the finish, like 50 yards, I luckily took out my headphones just in time to hear the gap getting closed in a hurry. I glanced back and was about to get passed by the guy I had passed a mile ago. Into full sprint to the line and the guy didn’t back down at all, I had to sprint all the way over the line, with my him 6 inches off my back. Crazy finish.

I crossed the line in 5:23, ten minutes slower than last year but totally happy with the time. I put it all out there and didn’t leave anything in the tank. Tank just wasn’t as deep this year. Found Shane who was waiting for me with a cold Mtn Dew. Then had a great time watching the rest of the O-town crew come in. Tom finished about 1 minute behind me and I am glad I didn’t catch sight of him earlier. Finding another gear out of fear of the dreaded, and too often experienced, late race “Tom pass” would have hurt badly. Nick, Cory, Shane, Aric, Ryan, Melinda, Molly, Chad, Kasey, Phil, Jamie, and Ron all finished strong and happy. I think just about everyone set PR’s or finished their first Red Hot.

34 miles, 4000-5000 vert, 9:30 average pace

Couple Highlights and Lowlights for my own notes:

-Nutrition was perfect (other than prerace dinner)

-Crampy legs?? More Scaps and water, lack of miles and road specific miles?,

-Crampy at site of injury? a little concerning, feels ok now.

-Pace and effort was perfect for where I was at fitness wise. left it all out there

-Good mental race, stayed in my own race for the most part.

-Stomach was a little off (training?, electrolytes off?, pre race dinner?, heat (relative)

Off

60 minutes bike.  High cadence, easy effort.

4 hours on the hill this morning.  Silty and wind blown, but pretty much had the place to myself.  Might almost trade a so so snow year for less crowds.  Doesn't matter how good the snow is if it's gone in 30 minutes.  I was still laying down side by side fresh tracks at 1:00 today....hmmm.

Got out for a slow and easy run tonight just before dark. Beautiful out tonight. Wasn't running much faster than the dog walkers, but if felt great to get out.  Soreness is gone.  hip/groin a little touchy but not too concerning. 

Big work day.  Guess I gotta pay the piper once in a while.

Got out for a run late and felt like a plie of rocks.  Dragged the whole way.  Seemed everything hurt.  Sometimes they are like that I guess.  Coming down the hill to Rainbow, I actually turned left and ran up the Bird Song trail from for the first time ever.  Fun little diversion for sure. I just wish it went somewhere that didn't require a 1/2 mile on the road to get back to the trail or doing it as a long out-n-back.  I actually poked around a bit to try and find a way to link back to the BST, but no go.  Oh, and just for you Nick, I had some lady's damn German Shepherd charge me, plant two paws in my chest and lunge full teeth at the side of my head.  Followed up by "oh sorry, he's really friendly, I think he's just playing" I love dogs, but that one needed to be on a leash. 

6-7 miles, some hills, really easy pace.    

Hour or so easy pace. Finally feeling a bit of pep in my legs agian. Well, compared to last night's slug-o-thon. Ran into Pablo and talked to him for a while in my broken spanish and his broken english. The one thing that came across without words was his excitment to be running. The kid can move fast! Hope he gets in a few races this year. I think I talked him into the Buffalo run. If he signs up, a bunch of people, myself included, will be finishing one spot further back.

17 miles, mostly relaxed pace.  A few pick ups in the middle including linking together a three fast-ish miles for a trail jogger.  Felt good to get out, legs felt pretty flat after about 6 miles, but all the rickety stuff felt pretty solid, which is really good. Longest training run since the before the Bear 100 in September....how long is that??...almost 6 months, geez injuries suck.

38 mostly really easy miles for the week, including a 3 mile equivalent for the hour on the bike Tuesday.  Not bad for a recovery week after a hard race.  Want to ramp it up a bit in the coming weeks if the body will take it.  

17 miles, 2800 vert, 9:15 ap.

Boulder field trails with Indian and Hidden Valley add on up to the icey sections of each. Lots of hikers out tonight. Spring must be in the air.

9 miles, easy pace, legs a bit heavy.

AM: Cold and cloudy couple of hours of dust on crust skiing. Better than just crust I suppose. 

PM: Cold and clear 10 miles on the BST norte.  Felt better all the way around tonight.

60 minutes on the trainer.  Moderate effort.  Really wanted to run tonight, but a late parent/teacher conference and a serious snow storm doused my motivation. May not sleep tonight in anticipation of a REAL powder day manna.  :)