Like the canyon

Another run up to Malan's Peak.  I think I am addicted, but its so easy, the trail starts a couple of minutes from my front door!  Again, even after the new snow, the trail was in great shape.  Thank you to the Ogden area hardcore folks who get out when the snow is deep and pack it out for guys like me. I was able to run every step from 27th street to the peak again. It feels so good to be able to run this trail!!  It took me 1:01 RT, it used to take 55 minutes to an hour just to go up on dry trail, and that was pretty hard effort.  Back in those days, a guy passed me running up the switchbacks (the trail is about 2.5 miles one way with around 2250 of climb, 1800 ft of that up steep switchbacks in the last 1.5 miles) and I recall thinking how impossible that seemed to be able to run on that kind of terrain. Even 6 months ago I thought, #1 I could never run this trail and #2 I could never break 40 minutes up. Now my PR is 35:15 on dry trail, and yesterday taking it easy on snow packed trail it took me 39 minutes. Now, none of this is fast in the real world of fast, but for me, it's a good gauge of my improvement. And a good start to the new year.

7 miles on the trails in the dark.  Super fun.  Suprised how many people were out on the trails in the dark tonight.  Had to dodge a few mtn bikes and saw a few other lights bouning along here and there.  Sure beats the 'mill and the road.

Good 3 hours on the trails today.  Felt great, lots of climbing. Malan's peak to BST 22nd to south end gate to Malan's again.

5 on the 'mill at 7:15 base pace.  1/4 mile interval on each mile up to 3 miles at 6:15. 1/4 mile interval at 5:50 on last 2. Wanted to run a little harder but the legs were still a little heavy from the long run on snowy trails Saturday . . .crazy how much running on snow saps the power! 

7 miles on the trails in the dark.  Snow is turning to ice and getting pretty beat up.  Need another storm to clear the air and freshen up the trails.

30 minutes on the treadmill - YUK! couldn't bring myself to run in the gunk outside.

Good run on the trails.  12 miles or so with about 3000 ft of climb, wanted to do more, but I'll get to that. Wore my Yaktracks for the 1st time today as I knew the trail would be a little icy.  Wow! like running in spikes! Flew from 27th street up to Malan's peak in 35:30, and was able to really push the downhill like I could on dry trail, great workout.  Fished off by running an out and back on the BST.  The goal being, (smart or not?) to run a hard hill then push through the rest on tired legs, which worked for a while . . .  My whole family has had a chest cold, I knew my turn was coming, and sure enough about 10 miles in I was keeled over on one of the BST trail markers wheezing, coughing, and gasping for breath, walked the last mile  up Taylor Canyon, pulled the plug early and ran back to the car.  Hope this goes away quick!

First miles in over a week.  7 slow on the 'mill.  Still not over this nasty cold.  Figured mabey I could kill the bug with a long, hot, slow run since 5 days of skiing couldn't do it.

7 miles on the 'mill again.  Nice and slow for 5 with last 2 miles at 6:30 to test the legs and lungs, felt o.k. but not great, still trying to kill this cold!

Felt better today so I thought I'd take it outside.  Power hiked up Malan's Peak in the dark. Tried to run down but it hurt on the knee I tweaked skiing Saturday and I agrivated this D*#mn cold!  The wheels haven't come off yet, but the lug nuts are getting loose! Beautiful night though with the big moon out.

Banished to the treadmill almost all week.  I tweaked my knee last Saturday and can only run pain free on flat even terrain . . .treadmill.  2 weeks till the Red Hot 50k+, hope this gets better quick.  "Nice" 12 on the 'mill today.

Nice hour and a half on the trails tonight.  Lots of up and down.  Felt great to be out in the hills in the cold and dark.  I have really started to like night running, the whole world is reduced to the globe of light in front of you. Nobody around just you and the trees and snow, plus, for some reason, running slow feels fast! Good news for me is the knee is calming down alot and after 2 weeks the cold is finally gone! Good new for eveyone else, nothing for me to whine about.

7 miles on the 'mill.  4 miles at 6:45, 2 miles at 7:15, 1 mile walk. 

3.5 easy on the 'mill, 8.5-9 min miles

Great run tonight! Started out feeling sluggish. legs felt heavy and didn't want to turn over, but I needed to get in a good hard run today and Saturday before the Red Hot 50K.  15 minutes and 500 vertical into climbing Malan's the switch flipped and everything felt easy.  Felt like I floated up the trail, tagged the top turned around and flew down, tagged the sign at the bottom turned around and ran the whole second lap.  Never been able to run an entire second lap so I was very pleased running the final steps to the top and looking out over the lights of town.  Turned on my lights and ran faster on the second descent than the 1st. Another bonus, tonight was the first time I have ever done this trail and not passed anybody!  All by myself out there.  What a blast! one of those rare benchmark runs where everything seems to come together.  10.4 miles 8800 vert up/down.  4400 ft of climb 1:58. 

7 miles today with a lot of climb.  Pretty good week for vertical, for me anyway.  I think I totaled about 9500 ft.  Went out late in the afternoon after skiing in the morning and the snowy trails were mashed potatoes, tough to run . . . . .even worse for the knee I tweaked skiing today, AGAIN!  Even though it's my first love, I think I'm done skiing for a while this year.  I feel like I'm just learning to really run and I don't want to blow it by getting injured skiing marigal snow.  Alot of pain tonight, not too much swelling, hopefully it will cooperate this week and get back to 80-90% for Red Hot.

I'm leaving tomorrow for the Moab Red Hot 50K+.  Ahhhrr, 2 days ago I was ready to pull the plug on the whole thing. This ski-knee was super sore, apperantly a strianed Meniscus.  It's still a tender, feeling maybe 75%, hopefully it will go numb!  Ran a slow 4 miles Wenesday to try and loosen it up.  Seemed to work, it definatly feels better than it did.  Was hoping for a good race, we'll see what happens.  I'll be happy just to take the day as it comes. 

I gotta say though, I am really looking forward to some miles on dirt!! I haven't run more than a couple-a steps on dry ground since the Chimera 100K in December! Smart or not, I haven't run a single step on the pavment all winter, stuck entirely to snow packed trails and the 'mill.  Haven't gotten too many long ones, but alot of hill work and a little speed work here and there, we'll see how that pans out 4 hours in on Saturday . .. .     

Red Hot 50k

I was really looking forward to this race to get in some miles on dirt under the warm sun, but  as I was driving down to Moab from Ogden Friday afternoon, something on the stretch between Price and I-70 didn’t look right? Oh, it was the foot-and-a-half of snow on both sides of the road.  Solid snow covered ground all the way into Moab, no exaggeration; you could ride a snowmobile from Price to Moab.  My first thought was, so much for running on dirt.  My second thought was, even if there is only a quarter mile on dirt it would be more than I have run on solid ground in the last 2 months.

Sure enough, lots of snow at the start, and lots of snow on parts of the course.  Most it was no big deal, just snow packed roads, but we probably had a solid 3-4 miles of real snow that varied from 160 lb breakable crust (I’m 180 so . . .) to mid calf to sometimes knee deep junk snow to plow through.  The go-fastie guys up front must have really had it bad through that section.

Despite the snow, the weather was great, sun out all day, I ran in shorts and a t-shirt.  I usually have at least a little nervous excitement before a race. Not today, I was excited to run, but not nervous.  Maybe it was the lack of expectations because of the knee injury? I was totally content to take what the day gave me.   Before I knew it, it was 3-2-1 go, and we were off up a snow covered Gemini Bridges road.    

I started off next to a strong Ogden area runner named Tom Remkes.  I knew if I could stay anywhere near Tom I would have a good race. I ran with Tom for a ways then lost track him as we wove through slower runners.  As we reached a long flat section I could see I was in about the front 1/3 or so of the pack. Good I guess, everything felt great, no knee pain, low heart rate, just in cruise mode.  Into the first aid station, no one I was running near really stopped, I was planning to fill the bottles on my waist belt here, but wasn’t sweating much due to the cool temps, and not wanting to drop a bunch of places, I topped off my hand bottle and kept moving.       

As we left the aid station, the pack I was in was really moving fast and happily, I felt comfortable with the speed.  Not for long, within a mile or two we hit the 160 lb crusty snow section. I had to really slow down as about every fifth step my 180 lbs would break through deep and my knee would let me know not to do that again.  Tom passed me at this point and I tried to just latch onto his hip and go with him.  Luckily this section didn’t last long and we were soon into deeper soft snow and I could move faster and pain free.  A good group of us stayed together through the climb, alternating walking, slogging and running through the deepest snow and short, dry sections.

After what seemed like a while,  we were back on snow packed road and cruising down to the 3^rd aid station.  I settled in behind Tom and a few other and tried to match thier fast pace as we slowly reeled in a group in front of us.  All felt great, though I noticed myself running a little tense and favoring my right leg.  I had to keep telling myself to relax my legs and let them spin.  It seemed just as I would settle into a relaxed rhythm, boom, I would step on a rut or rock wrong and zing the knee. 

Into aid 3 and, again, super quick aid stops, everyone seemed to just grab and go.  Good because it’s quick, bad because I wasn’t paying attention to how much I wasn’t drinking and I ended up pretty dry at the finish.  A common mistake for me, I gotta learn!  

The next section pretty much did me in.  To this point the course was mostly road or snow, and with the exception of the breakable crust, had been fine with my knee.  The next section was almost all slick rock. The short up and downs and uneven/unforgiving footing had me dropping expletives every few minutes as pain would shoot through my right knee.  Super frustrating because I usually thrive on this kind of terrain, I love to try and float over rough terrain fast and let the legs go limp and blast the downs, not today.  I just keep telling myself, relax, it is what it is today, just enjoy it.  I managed to hang on to Tom and few other guys I had been running near up the big climb to the 4^th aid station. As we started the downhill, All I could do was manage a shuffle trying to keep from tweaking anything again, and I watched as the group I had been running with pulled quickly ahead.  From that point to the finish it was me passing a few people here and there, but mostly I got good at saying “hi, great job!” as trains of runners went by.  I felt fine, and was having a blast, had plenty of energy, I could still go uphill o.k., but the legs were shot from too much braking and running tense to favor my right leg. 

The course was definitely what I expected. Wide open and fast through the first half with lots of climbing/descents some longer, some shorter through the last part.  Moab is beautiful and this race does a great job of highlighting that. Great views, fun terrain, good turn out of strong runners.  Gotta love the ultra community too.  It’s great to come into the finish as a mid-pack runner to hear cheers from faster runners who have walked back up the course to rally in slow guys like me.  I finished in 6:05, which I was totally happy with.  In my head I had hoped to be about 5:45-6:00, that was before the strained Meniscus.  I might have been able to pull off a 5:45 healthy, who knows, maybe, maybe not.  The course was 1.5-2 miles short this year, but it seemed the finish times weren’t any faster, I think due to the snow.  If I had to guess I would say 10-15 miles of the course were snow covered, most of it packed out and no big deal.   

Overall I am completely happy with my race.  I used to really struggle with stomach issues and cramps, but through the end of last year and so far this year I have been able to avoid all of that by sticking to First Endurance gel and S-Caps (obviously no sponsorship bias here, they don’t give free stuff to slow guys, this stuff just works for me) with the occasional banana and some pretzels thrown in at aid stations.  Feels good to finally have nutrition more or less dialed.  I gotta remeber to drink better out there though!  Mentally I felt great, never had that “where is the next aid station” feeling.  The pace of the race always felt intense; there was always someone just in front or a pack of people coming up just behind me.  The knee hurt, but to put it in perspective, I ran the first few miles next to a guy with a prosthetic on one leg from the knee down.  A little temporary knee pain is nothing compared to the challenge that must have been.

Got my Red Hot race report up tonight and did 40 minutes slow on the treadmill.  Quads a little sore, knee is loosening up and feels better already.  My left leg is sore from toe to hip from carrying my right leg on Saturday.  Because my knee was a ski injury and not just overuse from running, I am going to the Orthopedic on Friday AM just to be safe, but I'm sure it's just a bad strain.  I'm not letting a knife or scope anywhere near my leg though.

Legs feeling loose again.  5.5 miles on the 'mill at 7:40 pace.  No knee trouble at all on the flat, steady hampster wheel.

Went to let the Orthopedic have a look at my right knee this morning.  Doc took some pictures and inflicted decent pain with a series of yanks and twists.  Diagnosis, strained MCL with and a probable torn Meniscus.  Yep, I knew it hurt for a reason.  I left after about an  hour with a new, giant, knee brace and a follow up appointment in 2 weeks. Doc says he'll have another look and may suggest going under the knife.  Patient says "aint a knife getting within 10 feet of my knee." 

I'm supposed to stick to the treadmill or bike for at least 2 weeks.  Well . . . I'm confident this thing will improve alot in the next two weeks.

Got out and walked the dog this morning on part of the Striders 10k course.  It was good to see some running friends on the course and cheer them on.  Quite a pack of runners out there this morning, there was a solid train of runners for at least 20 minutes.   

Got in 2 hours on the treadmill this afternoon.  13.5 miles.  Didn't feel great today, low energy, felt like I had to work really hard even though the pace was kinda mellow. My knee was pretty sore after running.  Iced the knee down good and got out and did some yard work to keep it loose.   Counting the race last Saturday, I ended up with 65 miles for the week, not alot for some, but a good week for me.  Everything but the knee feels great.

Good 40 minute tempo run in the 'mill.  Kept the pace between 6:45 and 6:55 with a 1/4 mile interval every mile at 6:20.  At 40 minutes slowed down to 8:20-8:30 or so for 20 more minutes to finish off the hour.  Ended up with 8.3 miles for the hour.  I guess that's the nice thing about being new to this running thing,  I think that's the furthest I've ever run in a hour. 

The knee hurt off and on, it's getting better for sure, but still feels a little loose.  

A little insight if you happen to be running on public treadmills.  If you get on one and it doesn't work, step over at least 2 treamills to start, don't get on the one right next to the broken 'mill, unless you get entertained watching people try to figure out why the treadmill won't start, then look at you like you know somehing about why it isn't working unitl you take off your headphone and say "ya, it's broken".  Happened 3 times in a hour, and at least 10 people fiddeled with the thing for like what seemed like a minute or so each. Hilarious.  

Easy 45 minutes, 8:30 pace. Treadmill again.

8 more treadmill miles. 8:15 base pace with 2.5 miles thrown in at 6:40 to keep it interesting. Starting to burn out pretty bad on the running in place thing.  To be on the safe side, I am even staying off the roads.  I really miss the trails.  Every day on the way to and from the gym I look up at Malan's peak (tonight bathed in alpenglow with beautiful clouds hanging on Mt Ogden) and think about how much I wish I could get back up there. Really enjoyed runnning that this winter, especially the night runs.  The last time I ran Malan's was at night and it was a solid double, running 100% of both laps for about 4400 vert in 5 miles.  That was almost 3 weeks ago.  Hopefully I haven't lost too much by running only flats.  I am thankful that my knee isnt so bad that it keeps me from running at all.  Seems like it's getting much better.  One week till the MRI, and the decision on surgery.   

Took my 10 year old skiing this morning.  We stuck to the groomer s and took it easy and my knee held up great! We got home around 1:00 and it was just too nice out to run inside, knee be darned. 

I had heard the BST north of 12^th street was pretty much snow free.   So it wasn’t long before I was lacing up the trail runners and grabbing a gel or two and a water bottle, and to the skeptical looks of my wife, heading apprehensively out the door for a trail run. 

I was so excited locking up the car I dropped my keys in the mud twice.  I was worried about my knee, but it has been feeling great, I just didn’t want to be reckless and reinjure what has started to heal.  Walking over to the trailhead I just kept repeating to myself, “take it easy, watch your footing, if it gets gnarly or snowy and you have any knee pain walk and head back.”   

I took off up a pretty good initial climb, snow free, mud free single track!! What a blast!!! Legs were just flying, I pasted 4 mountain bikers who were climbing the same hill.  When I got to the 1^st technical descent and through the rocky, rough flat spots I was defiantly running with the brakes on a little, just waiting for pain in my knee.  Nothing.  Everything felt great! My pace increased and I just motored along on REAL DIRT up, down, through the rocks and a little snow.  Felt like spring!  I was having so much fun I didn’t even notice I had been going out for over an hour.  The further north I went the more mud and snow to where I was running in pretty deep slushy snow continuously.    

Turned around and headed back.  Through all the climbs, snow and a little mud I didn’t break my run once.  Everything felt strong!   Best run I have had in recent memory.   After a few missed and wrong  turns, I finished up in 2:20.  On the knee, I got a little careless in the last ½ mile and caught a rock wrong with my toe and tweaked it a little, stupid. Other than that very little to no pain!!  YES! YES! YES! Still going to take it slow and I will be on the ‘mill most if not all of next week.

Easy 40 minutes on the 'mill. 8:25 pace. 4.5 miles or so, forgot to look.

1 hour on the trails.  I said I wasn't going to do it this week, but it was so nice out.  Took it easy and enjoyed it. Knee was fine.

Wonderful 11 miles on the trails tonight.  No knee pain at all!!  Ran a solid pace, felt great! Cranked it up the last 2 miles to test things out, ran 'em in 12:58, a 6:29 ish pace, on mostly rocky, twisty, single-track trail. It was pretty much downhill so the speed, even for slow me, is not that impressive, but my knee didn't complain even a little about the extra effort. 

Easy hour on the treadmill. 

I finally put a picture up.  I couldn't resist, the clouds broke this afternoon and Malan's Peak came out in all it new snow glory, so I snapped this picture from town.  I write so much about running Malan's Peak I thought I would put up a pic so the couple of people who actually read this once in a while can get an idea what this run is like.  The image is kind of small, but if you look close I marked the approximae route. The trail starts a few blocks from my door and it is about 2250 vertical in a little less than 2.5 miles, most of the vert comes in the last 1.5 miles, when you leave Taylor Canyon and head south up to the peak.  I've run this so much this winter that I have started to feel a real attachment to the place. 

Great day for running! (it's a long post,  but it was a good day)

I've been kick'en around upgrading to the 50 miler at the Buffalo Run, but looking at the course map and knowing a little about Antelope Island topography, I have worries that the course might tap into the deep seeded hatered (mental weakness) I have for running on wide open,  flat dirt roads.  It's so bad that Pony Express would be my Hardrock and HURT all rolled into one long personal nightmare. (sorry Davey).  Anyway, The RD, Ultrajim, sent an email out this week about a long training run out on the island today.  We would run one 25/50k loop with the optional addition of running part of the 50 mile course. 

Perfect, get a preview, see if I can handle it, and get to bug Jim about letting me change races. Me, and I'd guess 30 or so other  people showed up at the trail head, pretty good for a training run.  I was pleasantly suprised with the terrain on the 25/50k loop. Lots of climbing, not real steep, but we went up for sure, a good section of single track, and some "roady" sections that were a little tough. 

I felt great! such a good run.  I completed the 25k loop in 2:12, which, even with some fade on the second loop, would put me under 5 hrs for the 50k, I felt great and still had pleanty of gas in the tank.  Missed a few turns here and there, one really bad, probably ran an extra 3/4 mile and climbed an extra bit  (picture 5-6 of us standing on top of a hill with no where to go all saying to each other "hey I was following you . . .well I was following you . ." while we looked at the other runners on the correct route far below.) to be fair,  I missed a turn toward the end and shaved a mile or so, but with the other "wrong ways" along the route I came out about even.

When I got back to the car no one else was around, I wanted to get more miles, but I had no idea where to go, so I filled my water and headed north, toward the biggest, steepest hill I could see. Legs still felt great as I started to climb. I ran every step the top of Buffalo Point  (?? I think that's what the sign said when I ran by) I'd guess it was a  400-500 ft climb, not alot of vert, but steep. Cruised around on the plateau on top checking out the amazing views to the west, headed back the long way and ended up with 19.5 miles. 

Everything felt great, no knee pain, no issues at all. The pace was fast for me, but I had tons left for some reason, I couldn't belive I had run 19 miles, it seemed like an easy 5.  Wish everyday felt that way. To cap it off, I ran a hilly 4 tonight on the local trails, still felt like I had plenty of energy. 23.5 miles for the day. 

Good, warm, sunny, hour and half on the trails with my buddy Troy.  11 miles.  I'm loving this weather, it's great to finally be outside running regularly!

Easy 5 on the treadmill.

Sweet Malan's run tonight.  Trail was an icey bobsled run but I managed to keep two on the ground most of the time.  Felt easy for some reason, one of those peak runs where you run out of trail, but wish there was more in front of you. Alpenglow and chilly breeze made it feel like winter again.

Great 30 minutes on the trails at dusk.  Door to door in 35 minutes. I love this place!

Long run the hard way

I’m not usually an early bird when it comes to running, but with family stuff to do today and a pending storm in the afternoon I mustered it up and got out early today.  I wanted to get one more tough, long run in before tapering for Buffalo.  There is quite a bit of dry trail down low around here right now, but most of it has mellow climbs and requires out-n-back-running in circles to get in mileage.  I hadn’t run on the trails below Snowbasin all winter, so I felt like I was gambling a little to try and head that way not knowing if would be packed out.   Should have known those hardy snowshoers  had been hard at it all winter making great, packed out trail.  I started at in Ogden Canyon at the Wheeler TH and headed up! Wheeler to icebox to maples to Snowbasin.    

I have had this idea all winter that running up the ski runs before the resort opens would be a good way to get vertical, so that was the plan today.  I learned a couple of things immediately. One, while skiing on corduroy groomed snow is dreamy, running up steep corduroy groomed slopes is TOUGH like running uphill on slippery sand. Two, hills that seem flat while skiing are STEEP when running up them. Three, running down groomed runs is almost as much fun as skiing them.  I felt good in that I was able to maintain something resembling a run from base to the top of Snowbasin,  ran from Earl’s to Needles lodge, 2300 vert, in 49 minutes, which for me is good time even in the summer.  From the top of Needles I headed South to Strawberry and climbed up a little toward the top of that lift.  Looking at the time, I turned around before I got to the top.  Ran down Strawberry to Penny lane, headed back toward the resort base.  I ended up taking a packed trail down to Snowbasin road and running down the pavement, ( I was looking at all the skiers headed up to where I had already been that morning,  what a great feeling being up there on the hill , just me, the sunrise, good music, and a couple of snow cat groomers) after a mile or so, I dropped  into the East fork trail and making it back down to Wheeler’s and the car. 

Had a great run! Felt a little sluggish.  Miles? I don’t know, about 15-17 I would think, just knowing the miles of most of it from summer runs.  Total vertical, about 4700 ft.  My dog insisted on going this morning, and rather than have him wake up the family I took him knowing he couldn’t run with me on the ski resort, but figured he could sleep in the truck as well as at home.  I felt bad on the way back home and still had a little time, so we ran my short loop in the rain on the trails above my house netting another 3 miles.  Total running time 3:55.  Total miles? 17 or more for sure, vert  5000 ish.  Dog’s happy, wife and kids are happy, I’m ecstatic.  Great morning, love this running thing!

11 on the BST north.  I'm pretty powered down and the legs are heeaavvy from Saturday's snow slog.  Took it easy and just cruised, not that I had alot of choice since apparently someone unlocked the gate on the mountain bike pen, stopped counting at 25 (no kidding).  Looks like the days of having that trail all to myself are gone for a while. Looking forward to a few easy days.

Nice 40 minutes on the trails at dusk.  South BST, to Indian trail until it got too snowy to BST to boulder field trails to service road to BST. Running in circles.  Mountain bikes have discovered the south BST is almost snow free, like ants at a picnic. Jaker dude looking strong though.

Another evening on the trails.  Got out right at sunset, no one around, just me and the dog. 

Finished off with a barefoot session on the hardwood chasing my 2 year old around the living room.  I love to watch and learn from his form, those kids run perfect, quick turn over, head up, straight back, mid-foot strike. Pure Joy!! Wish I hadn't forgotten all of that. 

2.5 hours on the trails today.  Got out late in the afternoon, warm sunshine, cool breeze, just me out there, it was fantastic.  Took it easy, no watch at all, just ejoyed it and let the legs spin. Last long run before Buffalo  . . . .50K/50 mile??? better decide quick. 

The BST north of 12th runs right above a grid bolted climbing crag called 9th street.  Back in my climbing life I used to spend alot of time there and am, for better or worse, responsible for a share of the grid bolting.  I watched, as I ran by,a guy trying a few times to pull through the crux of a short 5.11, each time he would get right there and go swinging back onto the rope.  The most vivd memeories came back of warm spring afternoons pulling on stone.  As I watched him, and having done the route so many times, I could feel the holds he was struggling with, the two inset crimps, the small nub for your left foot, the smooth stong pull of lat muscles as weight shifted to the left foot, hoping it doesn't blow, and make the long reach up and left to the coarse, inset jug, pull through, clip the last bolt and cruise to the chains.  Climbing was such a huge part of my life for so long . ..  I guess I really miss it once in a while. 

Easy 3 miles to spin the legs before the 50 on Saturday.  Hope I feel better Saturday than tonight. Longest 3 miles ever. 

This is long, but I was really excited about how it went.

Going into this thing I was a little apprehensive.  I have only run one official 50 miler, and the 50 mile race course at Buffalo definitely didn’t suit me.  I’m not fast enough to run well on the many long flat sections and was anticipating a suffer fest.   Friday night I was a little more nervous than usual and didn’t sleep much, driving to the race I was a bundle of nerves.  As I got onto the island and was pulling into the parking area, I could see Crocket’s green light on the high on the hill above the parking area.  He was on lap 2 of his hundred mile run, probably about mile 60 or so, out there all night, by himself running, Awesome! For some reason as soon as I saw that, all nervousness went away and switched immediately to huge excitement, I couldn’t wait to get out there!! Thanks for the inspiration Davey!

With a cold breeze blowing, we took off in a train of headlamps and flashlights a little after 6 AM.   I love running in the dark and it was fun to watch as the leaders lights streaked out ahead of the pack.  I felt great going up the 1^st hill and settled into the first 10-15 runners.  We cruised quickly up and onto a flat/downhill section for a mile or two until we hit the first real hill, a short but steep little grunt up to the first aid station.  The 4-5 guys immediately in front of me started power hiking and I settled into my uphill running trot that I have gotten used to from running up Malan’s peak so much this winter.  A friend of mine, Trace Lund, who was behind me here, asked at the end of the race why I choose to run up hills like that in an ultra.  My answer, I don’t feel I work much harder trotting uphill than I do power walking, heart rate stays low, legs feel better at the top than they do making the run/walk/run transition, works for me for some reason?  Smart or not? I don’t know.  What’s good fro me though is I actually ran the entire course except for one little hill before the 3^rd aid station going out,  and I walked the hill back to the same spot on the way back because I was changing out my Ipod and needed stuff out of my pack.  I am feeling all that running today, that’s farther than I have ever run continuously by double. Ouch!

After the first aid there was a 3 mile out-n-back.  On the way back through I passed Twinkies going out, he was probably 10 minutes or so back.  After getting through the out-n-back and heading into a long, straight downhill, I glanced back and noticed Twinkies closing fast.  That would be the theme for the next 4-5 miles.  At the bottom of the hill there was a long section of switch backs climbing back up to the aid station.  At each turn, I’d do a Twinkies check and every time it seemed he had moved up about ½ a switchback, he was flying! I kept thinking, I’m glad he’s going to catch me because I want to run with him, but, geeze I don’t want to try to keep up with him!  We ran together for the next 10-15 miles.  He’s a strong runner and really pulled me along through that section.

Twinkies and I got thorough the hilly section together and headed down to the East shore of the lake for the dreaded long, flat, out and back to the ranch at the south end of the island.  I had expected this section to be wide double track or dirt road for some reason, but was pleasantly surprised to find it nice single track.  The first part was a short out-n-back, and guessing that there were few fast guys we didn’t see, I estimated Twinkies and I were running in the top 20 or so.   We hit the turn around  with Twinkies leading and after we made the turn, I jumped in front to break the wind for a while, I ran for about 20 minutes or so and hadn’t heard from Twinkies, so I glanced back and I was all alone.  I hoped he was alright, but I kept plugging along, slowly reeling in a couple of guys. 

The good news about this section is the aid stations are about an hour apart, so just as the tedium starts to really set in, you hit an aid to break it up.  I was running nice and consistent; it took me 58 minutes from Frary aid to the Ranch and 58 minutes from the Ranch back to Frary on the way back.  The leaders went by on this section going back.  Those guys are so impressive, just haul’en! I could see the grit and determination on their faces. Made me think of the quote in Lance Armstrong’s book, I think it says “it never gets easier, you just get faster” I could see that in these guys, inspiring for sure!

The good news for me on this section is that I came to the conclusion I was making pretty good time! I finished my marathon distance in just a little over 4:00 (about the same time I ran the Ogden Marathon a year ago), 50K under 5 hours (unofficial PR by more than an hour).  I had run splits Friday night, like I always do for every race, not because I’m that analytical, but because it calms me down.  Figuring time between aid stations, assuming pace, and totaling it all, I came up with an 8:45 finish. Whatever! no way!! I figured I’d shoot for under 10 hrs, but wrote down the splits anyway just to see. At the Ranch I was 20 minutes ahead of my 8:45 finish splits, What the . . .no way! But I was stoked! I had also concluded I was in the top 20 from counting runners going the other way.  Much, much better than expected!

I turned around at the Ranch absolutely determined to hang on to where I was at.  I gritted down took off with no one close behind.  I passed Twinkies on his way out looking happy and strong, I knew he was hoping for a sub 10 too, and from where he was at I knew he would make it easily! I was excited for him.  Also passed Crocket on his way out to the Ranch, mile 80 or so for him!, he was keeping a good strong pace and looked great! I gave some encouraging words as I went by.  Passing all the runners on the way out really gave me a mental boost.  As I got to the back of the packers I was totally impressed with these guys. I think it takes a ton of guts to be out there all day, just plugg’en for the finish, every bit as impressive to me as the lead guys.  Maybe because I can relate to them better having been there plenty of times.   

Lot’s of long stretches, lots of lonely running. I passed a guy I had been yo-yoing with all day at Frary aid other than that I didn’t see anyone for a long time until I ran into my good friend Dana  running out to pace a friend in.  She’s a tough marathoner (sub 3 hr I think) and my sometimes treadmill buddy at the gym and a long time friend (we grew up in the same ward) so it was good to see her out there.  I keep trying to talk her into ultra’s, I think today finally convinced her.

The most exciting moment of the race for me happened when 2 HUGE bull Buffalo decided to race me to a 10ft wide opening in a chain link fence.  No kidding.  Just as I was getting to the end of the shoreline trail, Two huge buffalo took off down the hill headed for the same gate opening as me.  They were probably only 20-30 yards in front of me and moving really fast! We were on a perfect collision course. Here I was playing chicken with two 4000 pound buffalo. I lost. I stopped, giving them plenty of room. 

I finished off the last 6.5 miles uneventfully.  There were a few guys closing from behind, just close enough to push me along at a good pace.  The last section of single track was really fun, lots of ups and downs, rocky, kept my mind occupied instead of thinking about how tired I was. Hit the final dirt road, my yo-yo buddy was closing, I gave it all I had, he passed me in the last 1/4 mile, I jumped on his tail and we ended up neck and neck to the last turn where he had a little more in the tank and pulled a head.  It was good though because it got me under the finish banner in 8:29!!

I couldn’t believe it! A PR by over 5 hours! I never, ever thought I had that in me. I was 15 minutes faster than what I thought Friday night was a crazy time.  I was certain I would get my tail handed to me on the flat section by all those fast marathon kind of guys, but I held my own out there, never getting passed until the end and even managing to pass a few folks.   Preliminary results had me at 17^th overall, totally happy with that for my second 50 miler.  I know in the real world of fast it’s not that great, but for a slow guy like me I’ll take it all day long!!

I hung around the finish cheering in friends.  My buddy Trace came in just behind me in a good time.  Twinkies finished really strong and in a great time as well. It was good to meet Jun, who had paced Twinkies.  Hope they both suffered no ill effects from the short ride they took in my beat up Toyota back to their car. 

 Overall, this was a great race.  Seemed very well organized. I don’t know where they found the aid volunteers, but they were the nicest, most helpful and hardest working I have ever seen at any race.  They were out getting drop bags for people, filling bottles, asking what they could get you, helping me get my pack on and off.  So great these guys put so much into that, making everyone feel like a rock star.  The RD Jim (ultrajim on the blog) did an awesome job! There were a lot of people there to manage and it all seemed seamless, and he had plenty of treats at the finish!  Highly recommend running one of the distances at this race!

Easy 40 minute ride to spin out the legs. 

Easy cruise of my short loop on the trails above my house.  Snowing really hard! Legs still tight, but not sore at all.  I might ask my wife to lock my skis in the closet tonight and throw away the key, cause it's gonna be reeeallly hard not to go in the morning. My knee is much better and I reeeaally don't want to screw it up again. 

Signed up for the Logan Peak tonight.  Gonna wait on the 1st 100 unitl Bear in the fall. I decided I would maybe like a pacer and/or crew for my first one, and, for some reason, I couldn't talk anyone into going to middle-of-no-where Wyoming to hang out all day alone, then run all night and listen to me whine then drive me home and listen to me whine all the way about how hard that was. Oh, speaking of whining, I almost pulled the trigger on Speedgoat .  . . .

45 minutes on the trails. Muddy! Climbing gear good, flat running gear not there yet.

Oh, and I skied, carefully, for about 3 hours this morning, Sweet!

8 miles at 7:50 on the dreadmill.  forgot how bad I hate that thing.

Hour and a half or so on the BST north of Rainbow.  Ran from 12th st to the nature trail parking lot on mountain road and back.  Really like that section of trail, single track, lots of ups and downs, some nice groomed trail, really rocky technical sections, lots of twists and turns, just a blast to run. No watch, just cruised and enjoyed it. Perfect weather, nice and cool with warm sun.  Felt great, finally felt like all the gears are back after the 50 miler 2.5 weeks ago.    

Best sinlge ski run of the year this morning too! Timed a gate opening right and had about 2400 vert of perfect fall line, wide open, untouched powder all for me! Perfect!!

Wife and kid left this morning to go visit family in South Carolina for a week.  With a weekend to kill, and wanting to get in a Grand Canyon double this spring, I think I'll head south and run across the big ditch a couple of times.  Rest'en up today for the big run on Saturday! Oh ya :)

 (I'll get some pictures up as soon as I can figure out how to load them)

I had put a Grand Canyon double on the “to do” list for this spring, and when my wife got a deal on a flight  to South Carolina to visit family, I figured I ought to take advantage of the home alone time and get in a r2r2r.  Ideally this trip would have had a little more space between the Buffalo 50, but sometimes you just gotta take it when it’s given. 

I pulled into the south rim just before dark on Friday. I planned a very early start, so to save time and a few bucks, I parked my Subaru 20 yards from the Bright Angel trail head and crawled in the back for a few hours rest.  

Alarm went off at 1:00 AM, not that I was sleeping much anyway.  This was my second r2r2r and it was shaping up to be just like the first which was in mid-October 2009.  I was alone on that trip too. Before that  I had never  really seen the Grand Canyon, other than stopping quickly on a trip to Havasupi a few years ago, nor did I know anyone personally who had done this run.   I had heard about it being done, and thanks to some good info on Crocket’s blog, I had what I needed to get it done, I hoped.  On that October trip, I underestimated the drive and pulled into the lot at the trail head well after dark on a moonless night.  I got out of the car and to a stiff, cold breeze and looked at the big black hole in front of me.  I was so nervous I thought I might puke.  I tried to sleep, didn’t work, got up put on my gear, grabbed my lights, still so jittery  I could hardly think, and took off into the relative unknown in the pitch black at around 1:00 AM.  I made it, and I liked running through the canyon at night, plus it put me back at the car early enough to get a good chunk of the drive home done on Saturday.   This trip, like the one last October, was a moonless night (not planned) and I was solo again and leaving around the same time, only this time, no jitters. 

One of the “don’t hike into this canyon unprepared” warning signs that are all over the place says something about taking more food than you think you will need. There in a lot of NPS hype on those signs, but I’ll take that advice next time.  Moron (me) that in a minute.  I took off down the trail at 2:00 AM in the very, very dark but under a beautiful star filled sky.  Almost immediately I was reminded how ROUGH those rim trails are.  If you read many Grand Canyon reports, one thing you will see is some mention of water bars, oh yea!, lots and lots and lots of ‘em, and any section that doesn’t have them is probably really rocky or sandy or both.  I was running clumsy and the Grand Canyon at night alone is not the place to be doing that, every few minutes I would catch a toe, land wrong on a foot, or worst of all, tweak my still not completely healed knee.  It was rough going and I started to have some doubts, but I was making better time than last year and I made Indian Gardens in 41 minutes versus 50 minutes last year.  I kept a good solid run going to the river and turned up the river trail kept chugging up hill in the beach sand to the silver bridge.  At the bridge, I turned out my lights and the dark closed in around me.  It was black enough that I didn’t even feel comfortable walking forward with no light on the flat, metal bridge with huge railings.  The sky was awesome, unlimited stars framed by the canyon walls.   I stopped at a deserted Phantom Ranch to fill water, and headed up the well groomed North Kiabab trail toward the North Rim.

I ran every step of the 7 or so miles to the care taker cabin at Roaring Springs.  I felt great, legs were spinning with no effort, even the climb up over Ribbon Falls felt easy.  I just enjoyed listening to the roar of Bright Angel creek and running along in my little globe of light, nothing but black in front and nothing but black behind.   I was thinking how this was like the approach I was trying to take to my running, trying to be in the moment, to take what the day has, to operate in the present and not worry too much about the rest of it.  I got to the cabin in 3:45 and filled water, knowing this was the last between here and the rim, and ditched a bunch of stuff to get on the way back.  I was getting to be twilight, so I also left my lights.  I walked for a bit until I came around the corner and could see Roaring Springs.  I had not been listening to music to that point, but wanting to hit the rim under 6 hours I put in my headphones, and thought, “time to get  to work! “and started running.  I loved running up the technical trail, small, fast steps, planning every foot placement, looking for the easiest most efficient way over a big water bar,  just felt good.   The trail was beautiful; I had worried about snow, but had seen very little to this point, though the melting snow on the rim caused awesome little waterfalls in several places along the trail.  I ran all the way to the bridge, then alternated hiking and running through the red stone to the Supi Tunnel.  Which I hit at about 4:25.  I was making much better time than I had planned, I hadn’t intended to push the pace at all, but was just trying to run comfortably.  

After Supi, it was like someone flipped the snow  switch.  No snow on one side of the tunnel, tons and tons on the other side, and the tunnel is only 30 ft long.  From Supi to the rim there were many, many sections of trail completely covered in snow drifts.  Some really sketchy sections that were frozen solid, where I had to side hill across steep snow slopes in old, frozen foot prints, and where a slip would have been a slide for life with consequences.   Progress slowed prudently through most of this section.  After picking my way up and over and around lots of snow, and being very thankful for the few dry sections, I started to wonder if I was ever going to top out, but soon enough I came to the signs that mark the North Rim, time 5:40. It was completely deserted of course, and completely winter.  I stood on snow, the tops of the trail info signs, I would guess about 8ft tall, were under my feet.  I stopped just long enough to snap a few pictures and headed back down.  The sun was now warming things nicely and some of the Sketchy sections felt a little more manageable. 

I knew I had left before any other r2r2r folks, and that the North Rim was closed for winter, so I figured this I would be a pretty lonely adventure.   As I figured, I had run for 6 hours and crossed the Grand Canyon and I hadn’t seen another person since walking out of Bright Angel Lodge on Friday night.  I had expected to run into people coming up, but was almost back to Roaring Springs and still hadn’t seen a soul.  I started to wonder if I was the only person going to the North Rim, ‘till I came around a corner and almost went head on with a couple of guys about my age.  They were hiking up to the rim from Cottonwood Campground and were totally shocked to see me running in shorts and a short sleeved shirt coming down from where they were going.  I think the quote was “where in the He## did you come from?”   I didn’t really stop, just exchanged a few words as I passed, and I yelled back over my shoulder that I had started at the South Rim that morning.  I could hear expletives and shouts of encouragement echoing down the canyon as I ran on.

I made a quick stop at the cabin, running time 6:50, to get my gear and grab some food.  When I opened my stash bag I was shocked to see I had not closed the pop top completely on one of my EFS gel flasks and it had leaked out most of its contents, about 300 precious calories.  Not only that it had gotten into and melted my S-Caps. Moron! I took stock and had 2 partial gel flasks left, one in my bag 1/2 full, plus the little salvaged from the spill and the one I had with me, ¼ full, and 4 S-caps.  About 400 calories left for 5-6 more hours on the go, not good for me as I usually shoot for 200 calories p/hour.  I knew I could get through the rest of the run; it would just be slower and more painful. 

I took off down the fun, but long section back through Cottonwood Campground, past Ribbon Falls and to Phantom Ranch.  After Cottonwood I started seeing a few groups of R2R2R runners coming up the trail.  They all were very concerned about the snow conditions.  I assured them they were manageable.  At Ribbon Falls a runner popped on to the trail about ¼ mile in front of me going down canyon.  I thought “where did he come from?” He was running fast and I pushed hard to try and catch him.  It took a while but I eventually caught up just as we started into the box section.  We talked for a while, he had run down from the south rim and turned around at Ribbon, his 1^st question was the same as mine when he saw me, he couldn’t believe I had already been to the north rim.  While we were talking I made a second huge mistake.  I had been running with my gel in my hand and must have dropped it when I turned off my music, by the time I realized it, it was too late to go back.  Another 100 or so calories I would not get.

 3^rd big mistake, not bringing emergency cash for Phantom Ranch, I made it in at 8:35, in the 10-15 minutes I spent there I almost started begging food, pathetic.  I was already feeling bonky, I had 8 plus miles and a very big climb to go.  I hit half of my gel and started off on Bright Angel trail to the south rim, figured I’d hit the last half at Indian Gardens with a little over 4 miles to go.  If it really came down to it, I figured there would be lots of tourists along to way with bags full of food; I could go begging then if I had to. 

I felt fine to Indian, I wasn’t moving at a record pace, but was passing people and not getting passed, so I was doing o.k.  I caught up with a couple of great guys who were on a rim to river to rim hike.  We chatted for a while, they asked if I needed anything, I said not yet but maybe later.  They moved ahead at a good pace and I found them a few miles later in the shade at Indian Gardens.  I filled water and didn’t stop, just headed out to the steep switchbacks ahead.  A pretty cruel view if you’re not feeling great, you can see every step of the huge climb in front of you.  My fast buddies caught and passed me again, only for me to pass them resting on the shade again a bit further up the trail.  A pattern that would repeat 3-4 times all the way up, with me eventually winning the” turtle and the rabbit” type race by being first to the rim.  It was comforting to know they were around though as I was in the midst of the worst bonk I have ever had.  Painful, sick, headache, couldn’t think straight, all I could do was slow down, get my heart rate a little lower and keep moving. 

I came around the last switch back and powered up the last 100 yards among the crowds of tourists, trying to get in under 12:30.  Pretty slow, but faster than the first time, given my state up the last 4 miles I was just happy to be there.  What a strange feeling to cross that imaginary finish line!  No clock, no cheers, no finisher metal, nobody to pat you on the back and say congratulations,  just the sweet satisfaction that I had done it, and the nice German couple wanting me to take their picture. 

I limped to the car, grabbed my food bag, stuffed down 2 S-Caps and ate an apple, drank a Coke and within 20 minutes felt 100% better.   I sat on the bench looking over the canyon, enjoying some more treats with a feeling of total contentment.  I have never felt so much satisfaction from running as I have when finishing a r2r2r.  Maybe it’s because you can see the whole thing stretched out in front of you, maybe it’s doing alone, with no support, on my own terms, maybe it’s the beauty and scale of the place.

 A couple in their mid 40’s came and by sat at the end of the bench I was on.  I could tell they had been hiking so I asked how their day was, they commented how they had made it all the way to the river, and how it was the hardest thing they had ever done, and how incredible it was.  I could see the same satisfaction in them that I felt.  They asked how my hike had been and how far I had made it, I said I had been to the river too and left it at that.   

Easy week for me.  Lots of  r&r as I was feeling pretty beat up from the two long runs so close together.  I took the week off and have not felt so recovered and ready to run in weeks. Looking forward to a good week running for next week and starting to train up for the Squaw Peak 50 (I better get in!)

Spent most of the day watching the little dude and doing much neglected yard work while my awesome wife went to Orem to race in a sprint triatholon.  This is her thing, and she is good at it! We have a place in our kitchen where we hang various running metals and junk.  Between the two of us it has become quite a collection.  I have contributed lots of finisher metals and a few age group place metals. But as for my wife's contribution, pretty much if you picked up any metal with a 1st-3rd on it, there would have at least an 80% chance that it belonged to my wife.   Let's put it this way (I'll brag on her a bit, she is such a natural athlete) she decided last night at 9:00 PM to do this race, I got her bike ready, and it had been so long since she had ridden it that both tires were completely flat and it was covered in dust.  She hasn't swam a stroke in at least a year, and just started running again 2 weeks ago. Well, today after the race she came strut'en into the back yard with a 1st palce age group metal around her neck.  Another one for her on the wall of fame.  I'm so proud of her, but geeze, sometimes it's just doesn't seem fair! 

I did get a hour run in on the trails. Perfect weather, perfect day!

The snow is finally off Indian Trail, this is one of my favorite runs in the area.  Started at the top of Lake street and ran to the Ogden Canyon Trail Head and back.  Maintianed a nice easy run the entire way except for a couple of snow field crossings.  Lots of climbing, lots of technical trail, 90% snow free,  great run.  I borrowed my wife's Garmin, so I actually have real numbers for this run too.  10.20 miles, 2 hours 3 minutes, 2855 vertical. 

BST north from 12th street.  Ran my regular route out and back on the high trail to the nature center parking lot on mountian road.  Took the Garmin again as I had never offically clocked this route.  9 miles, 1600 vertical.  Glad I have that one on the books.  I hate running with that computer on my wrist, I find myself constantly racing my virtual self.  Legs heavy at the start, felt better after about 45 minutes, ran my last mile in 7:09.  Feels great to finally be running again, instead of tapering for and recovering from big runs over the last 4 weeks.

BST from my new trail head at the top of Lake street. Run the service road to 22nd then out to the 1st switch back above the gate in South Ogden, down to the gate and return.  I took the new Garmin again to get the elevation change as I knew the mileage, in fact I have a love/hate relationship with this section of trail because I know it so well.  I know split times to every turn, bridge, rock and tree along the trail.  If I run it with a watch it always turns into a tempo run, as I get competitive with myself and try to run faster splits, self torture really, I know I'm a freak. The Garmin only makes it worse.  Though it did result in a solid run on rough trail for me. 7.65 miles, only 800 ft elevation gain (feels like more to my legs), 8:20 pace. 

Easy 4.

No running. Wife got Jazz tickets for our anniversery, Great game to attend! Up late, big run tomorrow.

I wanted to get a big run in today as there aren't that many Saturdays left until Squaw Peak (thinking positive about the wait list).  I figured I would combine some runs I had done earlier in the week and, after giving it the good eye from town and deeming it relatively snow free, throw a Malan's Peak in the mix as I haven't been up there in a while because the trail has been a slushy mess. 

I was actually a little nervous leaving as I knew the route would test my fitness and I hoped I would pass.  I started out by running the Indian Trail out to Ogden Canyon and back from the top of Lake Street. I maintained great running cadence all the way out and back and  I was super happy that it felt much easier today than Monday and there was much less snow.  Going out toward Ogden Canyon, I must have passed at least 4 scout troops, a theme that would happen all day?? no problem except they don't like to get out of the way, like driving through a herd of cattle. 

Back onto the BST with 10 miles and 2850 vertical complete.  I picked up the hand held water bottle I had stashed and headed South to Taylor Canyon, hoping not to get squashed by F-Dudes on mtn bikes (note: not all mtn bikers are f-dudes, but there are lots on the BST in Ogden, go figure?). 

At Taylor Canyon, I was determined not to break the run I had maintained to this point.  I was going to run Malan's on tired legs, I have run it plenty, but never been able to do it with alot of miles on the legs and going into the climb I had 11 miles and 3000 feet done.  Like I always say when writing about Malan's, the thing is STEEP!, I alwyas knew the vert, but today, with the Garmin , I could get a good look at the profile, climbs about 2100 ft in a little less than 2 miles. I was shocked that It felt relatively easy, ran every step less about 100 yards where the snow was too bad.  I passed about 10 people hiking up, even a  fit looking couple who were power hiking hard, I always wonder if the shuffle is any faster than a power hike.  Kinda fun, cause I got kind words from them all as I passed them coming back down. 

Hit the BST intersection again, with 15 miles and 5100 vertical down at 3 hours.  I picked up my stashed bottel again and headed South, I wanted to run out and back to where I turn around on my short loop, about 5 miles RT from where I was at.  Ran about a mile and a half and started doing the math and relized I needed to cut it short to take my 10 yr old to his soccer game. Turned around at that point to not push the clock, got home right on time, to find my wife had taken the boys early, which is fine, but I had plenty of go left in my legs and would have loved to run 'em into the ground.

For me, and my mediocre running talent, I am totally happy with my progress, 7 months ago just getting through one part of this run was a big deal, a year ago I could barely run 3 hours straight on a flat road. I still had plenty in the tank at 16.5 miles and 5300 vert.  I am excited to keep pushing and see what else I got.   

PM RUN

Got 2.5 easy  miles in at the park with the dog after the soccer game.  Ran'em barefoot on mostly grass, a little dirt road and some paved path, felt awsome.  I have really been trying to incorporate the barefoot type stride into my running for about 5 months now, and it has made a huge difference!, I'll save that for a later post. 

Week:  52 miles, 10,700 vert.

Arrrh! long, tough work day. The kind that makes you wonder if doing your own thing is really worth it! Rolled in the door at 7:45 PM, needed a run badly, the family was just sitting down to dinner, my awsome wife basically pushed me out the door, saying get out and run, we are fine! I'm soo blessed to have such a supportive family.

Getting dark, didn't take a light, tired already.  Why not punch out the front side of Indian trail to the shack as fast as possible.  Put the peddle down and churned hard up the hill in the fading light.  3.3 miles, 1350 vertical in just under 30 minutes. I havent pushed that hard in a while. 

I was still feeling wound up from work as I headed back down.  I passed through the backside of Warm Water canyon in the dark with no light, there are more than a few places that you wouldn't want to blow it back there, think BIG drops with narrow trail.  As I came onto the East slope, I was suprised that I could see my shadow on the hillside, I turned around to see a huge full moon coming up over mt. allen!  Funny 'cause at that same moment one of my favortie running songs came on my player.  I stood right there and said thank you to the Universe.  All the work stuff went away right then. 

Total run 6.6 miles   

Follow the link to see why Cold Play Viva la vida is a favorite: (may have already seen this)

www.vimeo.com/4600647

No run today.  Sometimes being 100% in the day means staying home and helping with the pinewood derby car. Legs pretty fatigued from yesterday, another nutty long work day, gotta get a big one on the books tomorrow.

Good, tough mid week run. 27th to Malan's (felt easy today) to Indian (over the top, past the shack and 1/2 way down to Ogden Canyon) Back to 27th.  Ran 100%. stopped for a few minutes to scope a new connector trail that needs to happen between Cold Water Overlook and the Mill Fork of Indian trail. (would make for a killer Mt Ogden loop from Ogden)  14 miles, 4100 vert.   

Same route today as last Saturday only this week I did it backwards, starting at 27th street to Malan's Peak then Indian Trail over to the Ogden Canyon TH and back.  I also added a little more BST this week. (Note to myself: when the weather is bad, just get out the door, once your moving you dont notice it)

The reverse loop is either much tougher or I was way off today.  I actually ran faster this week, but suffered bad maintianing a run back up the climb out of Ogden Canyon.  Weather was off and on, mostly snow.  It was snowing hard as I was running over Indain Trail and there was 2-3" inches of fresh snow on the trail 1/2 way up Malan's.  I had to break trail on Malan's even though I got out late, around 10:45. Suprising no one had been up there, and I didn't see anyone on the up or back, which is odd, even when I run up there in the dark I almost always see a couple of people.  Beautiful up there today though, running through the fog and snow.  The great thing about the trails around here is they are rocky enough that even after a good soaking like today there is almost no mud. 

Malan's felt good, I always wonder as I start up that how it will go. Like a rock climb or boulder problem that you have dialed, but it's right near your limit, so you always wonder if you will pull it off.  Churned up it steady today though, kept the heart rate low and cruised to the top in 38:.40 Sick of the slushy snow mess through the top though 1/2 mile or so, it needs to melt out, please!  Everytime I run through there I have been sliding out and tweaking my lower back a little, I'm so dense though I forget until I get there and do it again, then I think "oh ya, that's why my back hurts" Dumb!

Feel so lucky to be able to get out and cruise over so much awesome terain in a relativly short period of time. Gotta love trail running, so minimalist, just me a gel in my pocket, a little water, shorts, shoes and a long sleeve shirt.  People I did see out today were in full winter gear carrying good size day packs.  Like I have said before, a year ago, one of these segments would have been my tough run for the week.  At the end of my run today I was coming up a short but steep little section on the BST, a section that, a few years and 50 lbs ago, when I finally decided to get back in shape, I always had to walk even though I was only 1/2 mile into what was then a tough 2.5 mile jog. Today I made the extra effort to really punch through that section hard, at mile 15.5 with over 5000 vert on my legs, just to remind myself how far I have come.   

Overall run, 16.25 miles, 5490 vert, 3:28.  got really powered down at the end of the last climb, hung on and maintained a run through 100% of the 16.25 miles.  It was so foggy on Malan's I didn't even take the usual sight seeing stop. 

Not alot of miles this week but managed about 11,500 vertical. 21,000+ for two weeks.  next week I'm backing off the climbing a little and trying to get in more distance.

Easy 7 on the BST north. 

Slight cold coming on, maybe allergies? Short run chasing my 2 yr old.

Took the Garmin out tonight to clock a route I have been running alot this spring but didn't have hard numbers on distance and climb.  Started at 12th street and ran north on the BST to what I call "dead end." Basically follow the BST until it ends at a small canyon and a stand of trees, run cross country downhill to the service road below, run North until the trail ends, run back to 12th staying on the upper BST trail. Its a perfect run for me, lots and lots of rocky technical sections (keeps the mtn bike rif raff to a minimum) with good up and down. 

Legs have been feeling pretty beat up from all the climbing over the last few weeks, started out nice and easy, ended up feeling good after I warmed up and had great speedy (for me) run.  12.65 miles, 2160 ft climb, 8:40 pace.  8 of the 12 mile-splits were between 8:15 and 7:40, last mile (flat/downhill) was 6:08.  Had a couple of slow miles up the hilly sections and through my first mile and a half warm up.  I feel really good about the speed given the technical trail and moderate effort.  I have really been working on running more relaxed over nasty terrrain, my knee is still only maybe 80% so I find myself running with the brakes on at times, but I finally feel it starting to come together. After 2 weeks of running up 20% + grade climbs most of the hills on this section  of trail are feeling pretty flat :)

YIKES! my wife just let me know a friend of ours has a VIP entry into the Ogden Marathon for me if I want it . . .. I said o.k. only problem is I havent run on pavement on purpose since the Ogden last year where I ran a blistering fast 4:01 ;) I think this one will be a no taper afair, I really dont want to take an easy week at this point.  Should be a good training run and a fun day.   

Totally unremarkable run on the BST.  South to the Beus Canyon TH parking lot and back. Legs heavy today, couldn't get in a rythmn.  12 miles, 9:12 pace, ended up with 1785 vertical. 

Of other note: I saw the legendary local Jaque Glidden out walking on the trail today.  I don't know how old he is, he doesn't look like he has aged a year in the 15 or so I have known him.  You would never guess it to look at him, but the guy is/was quite the hard man.  He held the speed record on the Grand Teton for years and years, something like just over 7 hours round trip, if you've done it in a day, you know how remarkable that is. There are still unrepeated routes in the Canadian Rockies that are Glidden FA's.  He was a professor at Weber State for years and used to issue a challange to any student in his class that if they could be him in a foot race he would give them an automatic A.  He never lost, as far as I know, even as he approached retirement.  Original ultrarunner I guess.  I always get ecited to see him out on the trails, makes me hope I can still be out there looking strong into my 70's or beyond.

Top of 27th to Malan's Peak to BST, to Indian over to Ogden Canyon, down Ogden Canyon to the BST north side, 6 mile out and back on the high trail to BST from Rainbow back to Taylor canyon, hands on knees hiking up to the Malan's overlook and a jerky shuffle back to the car on 27th. Ran 100% of the loop until I got back to Taylor Canyon, heading back up to Malan's overlook the tranny went out and I had no more uphill gear and was reduced to a slow hike.  Nothing left in the tank after that one. Stomache bad all morning for some reason. 19.8 miles, 5640 vert, 4 hours.  Week: 55 miles, 10500 vert.

7 miles for the 1st time on the North Ogden section of the BST.  Fun to get out and run through the foothills where I grew up.  I spent hours up there as a kid, funny how much smaller the world is as a thirty something. Things and places I remember as huge or really far apart are actually quite small and close together.  Lots of memories though, things I hadn't thought of in 20 years.  Slow run with lots of detours and stops.  Bad news is I had to limp back to the car for the last mile and half with sharp pain in my calf??? hope and pray its just a slight strain.  Felt it a little Saturday, was slightly sore through  Monday but nothing yesterday until the run.  ARRRHH!

Took the dog out for a very enjoyable 5 on the trails at sunset.

Took the dog and my calf strain out for a walk on the trails tonight. Things felt o.k., not anywhere near running yet though.  Marathon is out, no big loss as I wasn't really planning on it unitl a week ago anyway. I learned a few things on the walk. First, leave at home once in a while: watch, (especially the Garmin), music, expectations, outlined plans.  Second, take most of the time: a clear head, the dog, love of the trails and mountains.

The story of this race really began on Friday night for me.  A week or so ago I got offered a spot in the Ogden Marathon, but  I had completely written off running with my friend’s # due to a strained soleus/calf  that knocked me out on Monday.  So, driving home from work at 5:30 on Friday night my phone rings and it’s the girl I was going to get an Ogden Marathon entry from asking if I wanted her packet and number?. . . . .. Hmmm?? . . ., strained Soleus felt o.k. on my walk Thursday night??? Maybe?? . . . . My answer was  “let me get back to you in an hour or so.”  Got home,  and the packet and number were already there waiting . . .dang it! More pressure! I put on my shoes and went for a walk/run on the trails to see how things felt . . .after about 5 miles I thought  “not bad, a little tight, but I could probably pull it off. 

Me being me,  I hemmed  around about making a full commitment to myself all night.  Did I really want to risk further injury for a race I had no intention of running and have not really thought about much at all?  About 9:30 last night I got my stuff together, set it out like I was doing a long run and, still not totally committed, went to bed and set the alarm for 4:00 AM. 

Alarm went off, I thought naaah, hit snooze and went to sleep.  Then the thought hit me, “if I go to the finish to watch my wife’s friends run I’ll kick myself all day for not running.”  Got up, grabbed breakfast and my gear and I was out the door, hurt calf, no taper, poor diet and all.   I had no idea what pace I could run or what to expect really, I just haven’t run for speed or on flat, smooth ground for a long time.  A good fun, training run is all I kept thinking.

I got to the start pretty late and ran into my brother-in-law at the bathroom line.  I think they could put 1000 toilets up there and there would still be a 20 minute line.  We talked, the line didn’t move, the race start got down to 2 minutes,  then 30 seconds, then me running across the field as the train of runners poured through the start.  I stood at the start line banner for a minute or so and waited for a friend I knew was running and said hi and good luck to several friends as they went by.  I jumped in with my friend and we talked and ran slow for a ½ mile or so, I sped up a little, looked back and she was gone.  Bummer,  we have run together the other two times I have run this, the 1^st time she  literally pulled me to a 3:46 finish in my first, and off the couch, marathon. 

Story gets short from here out.  Felt good on the down hills at the start, no calf issues.  Running on pavement on purpose for literally the first time in a year sucked!  Sorry to you guys who like it, no offence.  I read on Davey’s report that he ran on the dirt shoulder when he could and sped up when he did, I had the exact same experience, only my experience was about 1:00 p/mile slower than his experience.  Splits for the first 8 miles were consistently between 7:40 and 7:50, which I was good with.

Mile 8-9 or so is where the story gets short.  My calf started to flare up bad after only a few miles on the flatter part of the course.  I thought,  first, “slow down”, second “stop at the next aid station and wait for you bro-in-law and run/walk at his slower pace to the half point where he had a car parked.”  By the water station it felt a little better so I kept going, then it would flare again, and I would think “ok stop” then “why not just get to the half.”  On and on like this for 4-5 miles. 

At that point, and for the rest of the race it was really in my head, I was worried about messing up my whole summer over one dumb, unplanned run.  My splits dropped immediately from high 7’s to mid to high 8’s.  Except for a few slow miles, that’s where they stayed the rest of the race.  My gate felt weird, between the knee I hurt skiing and now right soleus/calf strain, my poor left leg has had to carry my  injured right all year.  Most of my acceleration was coming from my left leg and I could feel my left hip and hamstring aching all the way through the rest of the run.  Oreo, on his marathon report, said about his ITB issues, “one leg says go the other says whoa!” Perfect description.   

I was hammered at the end.  Last two miles were rough.  Marathon’s are very hard for sure.  I’ll take 50 miles on dirt anytime, much easier.  It was good to run a couple of miles with friends along the way and see even more at the finish.  The weather was perfect, beautiful day.  I finished somewhere around 3:41, I forgot to stop my watch and haven’t seen my chip time.  I qualified the girl whose number I had for Boston, not that she would run, but she’ll have fun explaining that to friends and family for a few days.  I managed a marathon PR and hit the half at about 1:46 which is also an unofficial PR.  Given the craziness of it all, I am totally happy with how it went.  My calf is tight and a little painful and my left leg is going to be sore tomorrow, but it should all recover o.k. for Squaw Peak in a few weeks, I hope.  (oh ya, I’m OFF the wait list and in the race!)  If not , I’m sure I’ll be dumb/stubborn enough to be out there anyway.   

Easy 3 in the rain on the service road.  Things feel ok, no real muscle soreness, right lower leg a little funky still.

Nice 7 miles in one hour.  Amazing ot me how much faster 7 miles go by on the trail! yeehaa!  Perfect temps and weather. Amazing sunset run.  Legs are recoverd from Saturday, calf still a little tender.  arrrh!

Nice 5 at sunset again.  Enjoying what are prabably the last weeks of comfortable evening runs on the bench, it's gonna get hot someday.

12 the hard way today.  Yesterday I had the thought that I might be able to get to one of the local high peaks without crossing too much snow as it is lower in elevation and seemd to be, at least from the valley, mostly melted out.  With the weather last night and this morning I should have changed plans, but I dont usually mind a little weather and am getting a little burnt out on the lower trails and I need a good last long run before Squaw taper begins. 

I headed out a little late to let the weather calm down and when i pulled into the North Ogden Divide trail head it wasn't terrible at the start, just cold and very windy. No other cars there today, just me and the trails, nice!  I headed up the Lewis Peak side and was hoping to beable to run all of the initial climb, its very steep, but short a little less than 1.5 miles, it gains 1300 feet.  Most of that vert comes in the last mile. 

With in 10 minutes of starting the clouds moved in and it started to snow, hard! there was already about 3 inches on the trail of fresh from over night and it was acumlitaing more fast. Next came lightening, multiple strikes, lots of thunder and it was close.  Snow turned quickly to a heavy gropple and the wind was blowing it sideways.  I continued up and the snow got deeper, 4-5 inches of fresh, and lots of winter snow pack on the trail.  (It's the last part of MAY for (insert explative)!!.  I'm so sick of running in snow!) Toward the top of the switchbacks the trail comes out of the trees onto an open meadow, I told myself if the Thunderstorm had not passed when I reached this section I would turn around rather than risk it.  With in 30 yards of me getting into to open section a lightening strike light up the sky very brightly and a huge boom of thunder followed instantly.  I made a u-turn without even hesitating and headed down.  

Got to the parking lot, the lightening was fast and furious all the way down the trail, bright enough that it would startle me several times, never mind the thunder.  The worst of it moved through, so I crossed the street and headed up the Ben Lomond trail.  I knew the switch back section would be melted out, but beyond that there is multiple feet of snow still.  I ran the 2.5 miles up to the top of the switch backs in 2-5 inches of fresh snow and gropple. At the top, enjoyed the view of the very green Ogden Valley and very white snow on the mountains surrounding it.  Headed back the parking lot and repeated the Lewis Peak climb to my high point, headed down and ran half way back up the Ben Lomond side again.  Nothing quite as inspiring as running in circles.  By the last lap the snow was melting and the trail was an ankle deep river of muddy ice water, gotta love spring in the Wasatch!

I wanted a much longer/harder run today.  A little disapointed I didn't get more in, but I felt beat up today, legs are heavy and I am feeling kinda burnt.  Maybe its the weather?  I keep telling myself this is how I'm supposed to feel at this point, I should be tired, but I miss those fun, fresh leg days when running feels more like flying than pulling my heap up one more hill.  4 more days to put hay in the barn, then recovery/taper for Squaw, hopefully the spring will be back in the legs on the 5th.

Today, 12.5 miles 3740 vert 

Great run tonight! Malan's PR for both the up and the round trip!  I haven't run this thing hard since early last fall, and, guessing most of the winter snow would be off the trail, why not give it a punch and see wha these tired legs got?  From the trail head to the crossing on Taylor Creek bridge where the real climb begins I was 9:50, a good time for me here is 11:00-12:00.  I kept the pedal down up the ridiculous steep section to the overlook and hit that point at 15:50! (uusal push it time to here is around 19:00) I knew I was on serious PR pace. Legs were starting to feel a little heavy, but were holding up for as beat up as I have felt latlely.  Heart rate and breathing felt good.  From the lookout through the next switchback it doesn't let up at all and gets to the ridiculous steep right toward the end, climbing 1200 ft in a mile through here.  This is where it got nasty, first 2 inches of slush, then three, then top of ankle deep sections that were very slick, then solid snow/slush 4-6 inches deep and an inch of mud under it all.  This slowed me down a little and took more energy to plow through.  I topped out in 34:40, spent a few on top trying to take in the view and tried to fly down, I bit it a couple of times in the deep snow/mud section but still managed to make the trail head with a 51:43 moving time.  WhoooHOO! Not too long ago it took me 50 minutes to get to the top.  I PR'ed but felt much better than the last time I went for it.  Last fall I remeber sitting on top feeling like I was gonna pass out! and my run down wasn't fast at all.  Feels great to see improvement. 

Noticed this on a few blogs latley, so here is the Garmin junk! for the run 

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/34473301

No running today or yesterday.  Both my calf strain and knee are ticked about the hard effort on Monday.  Knee was really painful yesterday, hurt to even walk normal, calf is super sore today.  Knee feeling much better today. Whine, whine, whine! Cleaned the dust off my bike, put air in the flat tires and managed to remeber how to clip into my peddals for a good 1st real bike ride of the season yesterday.  Felt good despite the wind. 25 miles and no saddle time for 8 months = sore! 20.2  avg mph for 20 miles and had 5 or so slower through traffic.  Hope I can get in a few runs Fri/Sat before winding down for Squaw Peak 50 in 10 days. Geeze, that came up fast! 

What a weekend.  I can’t believe how antsy I feel.   Usually Sundays are spent in a happy, restful haze of exhaustion and satisfaction from a good week of effort and a solid Saturday run.  Yesterday was the first Saturday spent without significant physical activity in at least a year, last was probably the family trip to So Cal a year ago, and I can’t remember how long it has been that an easy Saturday didn’t occur on vacation.  I got out for a nice slow hike on Saturday, but wasn’t work by any means.   Some solid work in the yard took the edge off but has still left me with a weird combination of nervous energy and laziness.  Not really the taper I wanted going into my big race.

The culprit at the bottom of all of the inactivity is my knee/calf issue that flared up with a vengeance last Monday on my hard effort on Malan’s Peak.  I have noticed that my knee has been aching in direct proportion to the strain/pain I have in my calf.  The knee came first, which I’m sure led to a favored stride which led to the calf, which in turn affects my knee.  It was bad enough on Wednesday that when I attempted to trot with my 10 year old across the infield at his track meet (he’s making papa proud as a member of the Ogden City Track Club!) I couldn’t put two strides together without very sharp pain.  I went for a good ride on my road bike Tuesday and even that hurt my knee to push it hard. 

If you’d asked me Wednesday night, I would have said Squaw Peak was out.  Slowly things are feeling better.  I have made a self diagnosis that would make a witch doctor proud and come to the conclusion that my tight calf is pulling my lower leg slightly out of alignment (recent MCL strain from a ski injury has given me an abnormal degree of lateral movement ) and causing my knee to track poorly in the joint?? Like ITB knee issues but in the lower leg??   Deep, solid massage seems to take the edge off of both the knee and calf. 

Bottom line is it is frustrating that going into my focus race of the spring I may not make it to the starting line.  The only race I have really felt solid going into this year was Buffalo Run 50.  Red Hot was fresh off the ski injury; Ogden Marathon was run with this new calf strain.  I have an appointment with the Orthopedic on Thursday, if he says I’m not going to cripple myself by doing Squaw I think I’ll still give it a go, pain allowing.  

Got the all clear from the Orthopedic he said something like "well, you probably won't cripple yourself on Saturday" I took that as a go? Really, he said the knee isn't too big a concern, kinda is what it is, he thinks the sharp pain of late is due to the calf tighness and pain changing my stride and  puting more stress on the knee . . .who knows? The 2 ART therapy treatments on my calf seem to have loosened things up a bit. I went out thonight for the first runnning steps in almost two weeks, felt like crap as expected, took 15 minutes to remember how to run and that left me 10 minutes to cruise.  Got in a few strides and a little up and down.  Knee pain . . .on a scale of 1(mild) to 10 . . . 6 sometimes, 2 most of the time, 0 once in a while.  Anyway, I'm in! I'm going to start Saturday.  Maybe me and Oreo can tie our 2 bad legs together and finish in a good old fashion three legged race style on our 2 good ones.  No time predictions, too many health variables at this point.  I'm going to give it what I got, all I got, and hopefully beat my smoke'en fast 13:40 from last year . . .

I have a hard time being on time for races.  This one started at 5:00 AM and living in Ogden, I told myself I had to leave home at 3:15 to make sure to be there on time.  I left at 3:40.  I made it, barely.  Got my number, pinned it on, ran to the porta potty, ran to the start, before I could think, or catch my breath it was GO! I was running down the river path. 

I settled in with Ogden runners Tom Remkes and Matt Connors.  I think I have started every race this year chasing Tom.  We kept a good pace going on the pace path weaving in and out of runners, within a mile or so there weren’t too many in front and we had picked up another Ogden runner, Chad Carson.  All three of these guys are a lot stronger runners than I, first mistake was trying to keep up with them.

We started the climb and I felt horrible, I had first noticed how hard I seemed to be working on the river trail, and our pace wasn’t terribly fast.  My legs felt heavy and my heart rate was pinned.  I stayed with the local guys into Hope aid, and came in right at my planned split, but I felt terrible, couldn’t catch my breath, and couldn’t get my legs to work.  I slowed down here and tried to settle in, but nothing seemed to help.  Uphill grades that should have been easy felt impossible and steep stuff almost shut me down.  The good news was, my knee was holding up and had very little to no pain at this point. 

The suffer fest was torture though.  I felt like I hadn’t trained at all.  I started to seriously consider a DNF.  I couldn’t get my head around what was wrong, but there was no way I was up for 10-12 more hour of it.  I knew my buddy Nick (oreo) would have pacers at aid 6, the end of Hobble Creek road, and made up my mind that if I wasn’t feeling better, I would quit there and take one of their cars back to the start. (whimpy I know) I even came up with a good name for my failure, KneeNF. 

I hit mile 14, the top of the first big climbing section, with my heart rate still pinned and legs that felt like they were 100 pounds each.  My split was within 5 minutes of my plan, but there is no way my effort should have been this hard at that pace. I rolled over the top and tried to relax on the long downhill into Hobble Creek canyon. 

On the descent things started to come around.  My heart rate dropped a lot, my legs seemed to loosen up, my knee acted up, but I knew I could live with that.  I ate and drank a lot and just tried to cruise, not pushing, not holding back.  I came into the aid right on my split time and felt much better, I grabbed a drink and banana and kept cruising.  I knew the test would come on the paved uphill to aid 6.  I hit the pavement, expecting the heart rate to shoot up as it had, but it didn’t and my legs felt like them old selves, loose and much stronget than the morning climb.  I ran strong, and passed about 4 people.  I kept a good run going all the way up to aid 6 and hit the gate at 4:56.  I wanted to be there under 5.  I felt a 100% better, the KneeNF was out for sure. It was good to see the Froerer boys there waitning for Nick to come in.

I’m not sure what switch had clicked in my body, but I felt like it was all working the way it should be now.  The best way I could describe the horrible over worked feeling up to mile 14 is to use a term from my climbing days, flash pump!  I hadn’t run in two weeks truing to get my knee back to running shape and it just took time to get the blood flowing again.  

The rest of the race went as, or better than planned.  I ran 95%  of the dirt road from aid 6-7 and split it in 48 minutes, and ran most of the way to Little Valley aid.  Arriving at 6:40, about a 50 minute split.  I knew an hour between 6-7 and from 7-8 was a good pace fro me so I was happy with my effort.  I got passed only once from aid 6-9, and that was by the 1st place overall girl, who was motoring very strong!  I managed to pass about 5-6 people through this section. 

The weather was awesome, a little hot, but there always seemed to be a breeze to cool things off.  The long technical, muddy, snowy downhill from Windy Pass to the paved section was really tough on my knee and slowed me down a bit.  After what seemed like forever I came into aid 10, grabbed a cup of ice water and a cold towel (thanks aid station folks) and was out for the 3.5 (seems like 8)  miles down the pavement to the finish.  I kept a solid trot all the way down but was passed by the second place girl (again motoring fast) and another guy in the last ¼ mile. 

Finishing this race is awesome! There are always hoards of people cheering and John Bozung puts out the best post race eats out there.  I finished in 11:06 which was a huge course PR for me.  I was two hours and forty minutes faster over my time last year.  2 weeks ago I was hoping for a little faster time, but that course is TOUGH! I don’t know how much faster I could have realistically gone even if everything was 100%.  That’s three 50 mile races in the books (2^nd Squaw Peak, plus Buffalo run this year) I love that distance. Long enough that you can really settle in and enjoy it.  Overall a great day.  I had a blast hanging out at the finish with my family and friends who had raced.  I was great to cheer in all the runners, for some reason I wanted to stay at the finish until after my finish time last year, I couldn't believe I was out there for that much longer last year! geeze that was a long day.  Lookng forward to Logan Peak in a couple of weeks, hoping my knee will let me race. 

40 minute walk on the trials with the dog.  Legs feel o.k. other than sore.  Knee feels pretty good, unless my legs are too sore to notice the knee? 

28 miles on the bike. 20.8 average.  Great ride. Perect weather. Good to spin out the legs.

Nice and easy 4.5 on the trails tonight.  Things feeling solid, legs good, knee good! energy a little low, proabably allergies, gonna take it somewhat easy for another week and keep things on the mend. New pic is a Norrander shot from Squaw Peak comming off windy pass headed into aid 9, mile 40 ish.

Gotta get to sleep, suposed to run with the Big Guns early if I can get out of bed.

Shorty ealry AM.  3.4 miles 1200 vert. 

Geeze this weather is all backwards! It rains on good training Saturdays and is hot and sunny on race Saturdays.  I was suposed to meet a couple of friends early this morning  for a run up Ben Lomand peak. I woke up and the wind was ripping.  Checked the NOAA site on Mt. Ogden and it was clocking steady at 45 mph with gusts to 65-70, ARRHH, looks like another long run on the low trails. 

My friends changed plans with the weather report and were going to do a long out and back on the BST, I couldn't get  motivated to get out the door and running another loop on the BST didn't help spark any fire either.  I headed out solo an hour or so later with no clear plan, but knew I wanted to start with Malan's Peak.  By the time I left the wind was still ripping and it was raining hard, sideways.  I put on a light weight gore-tex shell over a long sleeve shirt, a hat, and some light gloves, (dressed like winter in June???)  With in 5 minutes I had my hood on too, the wind was blowing rain right down my jacket and the trail was a river. Luckily the Malan's trail is very rocky so very little to no mud. 

I maintained a nice steady run, dodging limbs and one tree that had been knocked down by the wind,  all the way up and passed several groups of very wet people coming down and one group of two heading up.  I hit the top in 39 minutes and the wind almost knocked me down when I crested the last little rise.  At this point I figured I'd better stay close to home and get some climbing in.  I ended up running a two more laps up and down from the second bridge in Taylor Canyon.  On the third I continued all the way to Malan's Basin.  I ended up passing the group of 2 I passed on first my lap a total of 5 times, by the 5th I apologized for making them stop and get off the trail so many times.

My Garmin was on some who knows what mode so I don't know exact numbers but from today, but looking at past runs I can say 6000 vertical, 10.25 miles and I know the time 2:49.  I ran pretty easy and took the downs mellow to go easy on my knee, the pace seems slow but there was alot of up, there are no flat sections on this route, except for maybe a 1/4 mile stretch into Malan's Basin, so that means about half of the miles were climbing so that's 5900 vert in about 5.5 miles.  Equals out to about 1100 vertical ft per mile for the climb, give or take a little. Finally, I was able to run a complete 3 laps up Malan's.  I had done 2, but never 3, feels good to have the training paying off.  Knee was a little stiff after and my right calf has a little twinge, but everything seems to be on the mend,  ART is awesome! (thanks Aaron) gotta keep it together and strong for 2 more weeks, Logan Peak baby! (was my favortie race last year) Really looking forward to a fun day, lots of friends running, My best friend's wife, a girl from my ward growing up, 2 of my wife's college friends, lots of Ogden area runners, and one of my long time friends who ran this and Speed Goat with me last year, oh, and I get to chase Twinkies all day too!       

Casual 7.8 miles, 1900 vert. Legs, heavy but good. about 1:20.  6:45 in the car when I left, 8:05 when I got back. No watch, no water, no gel, no rain, no snow, no mud, no wind, nobody but me and a perfect trail. :)

6 miles easy BST south of 22nd street. 

Steady 5 miles, 500 vert.  Legs good on the flats, I don't have much of an uphill gear though, My legs have felt heavy and slow going uphill the last two days. They've got 20,000 vert on them in the last 10 days so I guess I shouldn't expect too much life to be in them at this point. 

Really enjoyed all my running this week despite yesterday's episode (Jun was the privy to the rant).  Aches and pains are subsiding and things feel good.  2 weeks ago when I was walking the dog up Taylor Canyon I wondered how long it would be before I could bomb down that trail agian with my knee feeling as it was.  I feel very grateful that things have come back together as quickly as they have. I have approached every run the last few days casually and set out to go how I felt: up, flat," fast", slow, no real plan, just out enjoying the trail and moving over it.  Looking very much forward to getting out for some high elevation running by the end of the week.  I need to start thinking about winding down for Logan Peak, probably won't slow down too much going into that one.   

Totally dead 7 miles, 1000 vert, started out good chasing and passing a group of mtn bikers, wheels came off shortly after and I survival  "ran" the rest of the way. 

10 miles, 2600 vert, up high, took it easy, perfect weather.

SLEEEP! needed rest was headed for the bucket!

Got out for a nice 8 earlyish.  Just under tempo, BST with varriation.  1250 vert. 

Good solid 6 miles up wheeler to ice box to art nord and back the same way.  Got out late, finished right before dark. Beautiful out tonight.  1100 vert.

Work sucked! some people are nuts! 3 miles at sunset. 500 vert.

Logan Peak was my favorite race last year.  Beautiful, lots of varied terrain, lots of climbing and good, fast downhill.  The course is perfect for a summer run, on the shady side of the mountain in the morning and running in shade through deep woods in the afternoon.  I was really looking forward to this one and everything felt great going in to the race.

I was happy to see the RD had altered the start/finish this year to a more direct route through the park and up to the trails, cut the pavement section down to a ¼ mile or so and eliminated the grueling uphill paved section to the finish. I didn’t realize they had made this change as we lined up and I stood where I though mid-pack would be, which, because we were going the other direction, was actually the front of the pack.   Before I could adjust to my usual spot we were underway.  I quickly found myself running behind a bunch a bunch fast looking guys in racing flats and singlets that said something about St George Running club.   Things shook out quick, with the leaders pulling steadily ahead and a few others catching up. I settled into about the top 10 or so for the climb up Dry Canyon.  On the climb legs felt great, lungs were burning, I started to worry that I had caught a bit of the nasty cold that everyone I work with has had all week.  (felt funky Friday night too, like cold sweat, but I thought it was nerves?)  I held steady and settled in behind BJ and John? both are local Ogden runners and were moving strong.  They slowed a bit and I passed them, but I was working way too hard for the pace, couldn’t breathe.  We all stayed together to the first aid station and I think a couple of others were in our little conga line, but after the aid station I didn’t see them again. 

Bj and John blew through the aid and fired the jets, I grabbed a cup of water and followed but within a few hundred yards caught something with my foot and was face down on the trail before I knew what hit me.  I never fall running (I run too slow) so it shook me a bit and by the time I got moving again the Ogden guys were long gone.  As I came around the traverse to an open section of trail I could see two people in front of me I assumed it was the Ogden guys, as I got closer I could tell it wasn’t.  With the exception of passing one guy on the South Syncline section, the two in front of me at this point would be who I would be chasing for the next 23 miles or so.  Once in a while the gap would close a little, but from the start of South Syncline, through the climbs to the second aid and on to the climb to Logan Peak they would stay a consistent minute or so ahead of me.  I started to wonder, because they looked so casual, if they were just running hard enough to keep me back because every time I closed the gap they would move out again to a one minute gap or so. 

Things felt good for me around the South Syncline loop to the second aid.  The climbs were still there as I remembered them, but seemed much easier this year.  My legs felt good, but my lungs were working hard.  I made a very quick stop at aid 2 and was off to Logan Peak.  Shortly after the aid the trail opens up to a clearing with a long sight distance.  My two “pacers” were still a minute or so ahead, when I got to the end of the clearing I looked back and nothing, no one near at all.  Up to this point I hadn’t see a soul behind me.  I was in a weird gap, right at the end of the faster guys and a ways ahead of the mid pack.  At the end of the clearing is a bugger little climb, and at the top I could see the leaders just getting to the tower on Logan Peak, amazing, I still had a mile or more and 1000 or so feet to climb to get there. About at this point, I passed a guy standing at a jeep who told me I was number 14.  As I made my way up Logan Peak, the Ogden guys passed me coming down, they were killing it! Running in the top 8-9 for sure, pretty good for their first ultra.  As I topped out and rounded the antenna, I looked to see who was behind and still nothing but a lot of clear trail.  I bombed down the snow field and within a minute or so I saw a red streak come over the rise, Twinkies! And he was moving fast.  We passed each other just as I reached the saddle at the bottom of the climb and he was starting up, probably 7-10 minutes apart. I yelled my customary TWINKIES! as I usually do when we pass each other on an out and back in a race.  He said something about being right on my tail.  I would run with fear of being passed by a red streak the rest of the race.

Coming back through aid 2/3 I was surprised to see my “pacer” buddies just leaving as I came in.  Running up the jeep road to the single track cutoff I was slowly and steadily reeling one of them in.  As we made the turn onto the single track I was right behind him, he fought for a bit, then let me by, it wasn’t over though, as he stayed pretty close all the way around the North Syncline loop.  About half way through this section I started to see “pacer” number 2 just in front.  Soon enough he saw me and picked it up and was gone.  Rounding the corner and heading down into Dry Canyon for the big descent to the finish, I looked back and was alone again, no one behind at all.  I blew through the last aid and put the pedal down as hard I had in me on the downhill. Within a few minutes I passed a hiker coming up and he said there were 2 just in front of me.  I cranked it up a little more, and soon could see “pacer” #2 and another guy.  I caught pacer #2 pretty quickly and he pulled over and let me by, the other guy saw me coming and picked up the pace, it took me a mile or so but I eventually caught and passed him.  I was running hard to pass these guys and, after passing them, knew I had to keep up the pace to stay ahead.  It hurt, but it was good to really give it all I had.  The last few miles were hot, but generally uneventful, except the 20-30 cows I had to stop and herd off the trail! and the tongue lashing I got from the rancher, which I ignored with a friendly wave.  Probably cost me a minute or two because the beasts just wanted to stay on the trail and I couldn’t pass in the thick trees.

I finished in 5:20-5:21 and I think was 10^th or 11^th overall.  (looked at current reults and I was 10th) That was 35 minutes better than last year and my best overall finish yet! Finally a top 10.  It wasn’t my best day physically, the cold, which I know by how I feel now is indeed a cold, took a little energy out of me, but I really felt like I gave it 100% and never really took my foot off the gas.  I had very little in the tank at the end and am very happy with the way everything went.  I raced hard all the way through.  At the finish I had a great time talking with friends, hanging with the family, and cheering in the many close friends who ran today. Good to finally meet FRB'er and really fast racer Jon,, we have a couple more races in common this year so at least he'll know who the slow guy is yelling at him on out and back sections. Great race, great day!  Thanks to the RD and all the volunteers.

Things learned: Legs feel better on race day if I run consistantly the week leading up to the race. A carb isnt a carb, eat better the day or two before. Run thy own race.  And something else???I'll have to ask my wife, I rattled it off to her earlier.

Recovery is going great! legs are a little heavy, but no soreness at all from the race? 1st time that's happend.  Out for an easy couple tonight with the dog. Hot!

Really looking forward to a good 6 weeks of hard training.   Lots of long runs planned.  First one up is from Avon to Mountain Green, maybe this weekend?

Wow new month already! Yikes that 100 is coming up too fast.  First real run of the week.  It felt good to take a few easy days after Saturday.  Started at Wheeler to Maples to the CW overlook and back.  On the way up, when I came off of Maples onto the trail up to the over look I slowed a bit to hit my gel and drink some water.  2 guys on bikes tried to pass me, I took a sip of my water, but it back in the holster, gave the guy a glance and shifted gears and took off, leaving them in the dust!  I got to the top hung out, watched the sunset and headed down, passing them still on the way up, both gave me a funny look.  I love that we can run up hill faster than most people on bikes, like revenge for all the times they about kill me on blind corners and I think it kinda blow their mind.  Anyway, I got out late and had the pleasure of running up in nice evening shade and caught the sunset from the overlook and raced the fading light back to the car. I lost, and ended up runnning the last 3 down a very dark trail with a crappy light.  14 miles 2450 vert. 9:04 pace. 

Easy 4, hot!

1st trip up BL for the year, ran into the go fasties BJ and Jon on their way down, talked for a bit.  Went by lots and lots of chatty hikers.  I got out too late for the annual 4th of July crowd. Remkes signed the book saying they beat the sun! Too early for me! Legs heavy today and my energy was very low, run felt really long.  Diagnosis, grass allergies kick'en in hard and I started out about a quart low on fluid and it only got worse from there. Oh, and I gotta eat mo bettah.  Beutiful day out overall and great to finally get to a real peak. ??time?? Garmin shorted on the way up, reset on the down and ran  low 9:'s to high 7's. 15 miles or so, 3600ish vert.  7300 vert this "weak" and 38 miles or so.

Malan's peak tonight.  Its been a while, and I think that this trip was one of only a few this year on completly dry, snow free trail.  Moderate pace, topped out at just a scratch under 37:00 and continued into the Basin for a river and back RT.  Going to the creek in Malan's Basin added about a mile and another few hundred feet of climb, making thr RT from 27th just under 6 miles and 2400 vert.  Made the RT in 1:07, but I should give myself a miniute mulligan for the bush that caught my headphone chord and ripped the da*# thing right off my body!  I had to dig around in the weeds looking for my player, none the worse, just dropped a few sweet words.  Doc C. says he's run that RT in under an hour, that's fast run'en!

Semi annual Zion 24 hr with some good friends.  We seem to do a couple of these every summer and they are ususally a high light of the season.  We left Teusday after work, drove in around midnight, dirt camped on BLM land and woke early to see what canyon we could get a permit for.  No plan really, just to have fun and see what we could do. The top couple of choices, Kolob Creek, Echo, Mystery, were either closed (snow belive it or not?) or already sold out, so we eneded up doing an sorta obscure cnayon outside the park called Birch Creek.  What an awesome canyon! great canyon, cool narrows, beautiful rappels, and it is an easy out and back from the car, well sorta easy.  It dumps out out in Orderville canyon and my buddy Nate was nice enough to hike out to the car while three of us continued down Orderville and out the Narrows to catch the shuttle to meet nate at Zion Lodge.  half hour cat nap and some frisbee on the grass and it was back home by bed time.  Got some good, tough running in down Orderville for about 4-5 miles. 

Easy 4 Wheeler/Icebox.

My own little version of Speedgoat this morning.  Wanted a long run today as this week has been, well, weak on miles.  Parked a car at the top of N.O. Pass Friday night with the plan to end up there somehow.   Got up and out the door by 5:25 headed for the BST and south to Beus Canyon and the "trail" to Mt Ogden.  Ran the 5 miles to from home to Beus very casual, amazing how easy and fast that section of trail goes by when you're taking it casual.   Usually when I run through there I'm racing some stupid imaginary split time from like 2 years ago. Hit Beus and started the very long climb to Mt Ogden.  The first mile or two of the Mt Ogden trail are great single track next to the creek and deep in the woods but it deteriorates quickly from there.  Lots of overgrown trail, lots of roots and bushes across the trail, made for a pretty slow go. No big deal, I had along way to go and wasn't trying to push the pace and the climb is tough, 5.5 miles and 4150 vert from the BST/Beus junction. I  passed a group of about 10 or so in the first mile on the way up and chatted for a few minutes with Doc R on his way down, other than that I was out there alone. 

I really enjoyed the top part of the climb, the trail opens up to some beautiful meadows and the grade backs off so I was able to run cool trail up high with an awesome view of the valley below and peaks above.  Eventually I was on the hike/scramble section to the top of Mt Ogden. I hit the top in an easy paced 2:48 from my front door, ended up being 11.2 miles and 5120 vertical. I love this peak, other than the huge radio towers, its a small, craggy summit with an 800ft or so drop directly to the East.  I have made a habbit when I get to Mt Ogden to also traverse the exposed saddle to the north to summit Mt Allen at the same time.   Mt Allen is the twin peak north of Mt Ogden proper.  I always forget how exposed that section can be, if you stay on the ridge you end up doing a little easy 5th class with about 500 feet of air behind your rear end.   

  I sent my wife a pic from the top of Mt Allen, hung out for a few minutes remebering all the great days I have had skiing from this same spot in the winter, and headed down to the top of the Snowbasin tram at about the 3:05 mark.  One of  the tram cars was parked at the top, so I walked out on the platform and opened the door and sat inside for a minute or two, I've spent hours on this thing in the winter, its so different in the summer up there, no snow, no cold, no people.  I headed out for the descent to the base of Snowbasin running the service road for a while, using the mtn bike single track and eventually running down the ski runs at about the half way point.  I hit he base area at 3:40 at about 15 miles.

I filled up with water at the base of the Needles gondola, talked with a few friends who had road biked up and hung out with a buddy running the lift.  It was fun to tell them that I had started from home and was planning to run to down to South Skyline and over to the top of North Ogden divide.  I was feeling great and put my pack back on to head out, went to grab my phone to send my wife another pic, and . . . .no phone! I had it in my front "vest" pocket on my shoulder strap, and it was GONE!  Knuckle head me has my entire business on my phone so losing it would be reeallly bad. 

Well, I knew it was somewhere between where I was and the top of Mt Allen.  Only problem was my descent route was all over the place, service road, trail, off trail. I had slid out about a 1/2 mile from the bottom and thought that was most likely where it was, but wasn't sure. I knew I would most likely not beable to see it as i was all over the mountian.  I knew I could roughly follow my descent back up . . . .if only I could hear it ring?? I Called my wife from the lift op's phone and asked her to call my phone over and over again for the next hour, poor thing, but she was a sport and agreed.  I turned around and started climbing.  Phone wasn't where I fell, not where I stopped to rise my face in the creek about half way up, arrrr! Started thinking I may have left it on top of Mt Allen.  I made it all the way back up to ajust below the top of the John Paul lift (basically the top of the resort about 800 ft below the peak) and was resigned to going all the way up if nessesary, when . . .I heard it ring, my trooper wife, I had 96 missed calls! Phone tucked away safely I started the long haul back down.  The detour added 4.5 miles and over 2400 vert.  I still felt ok energy wise, my legs were a little hammerd when I got back to the base at a little over 20 miles and 7600 vert but the detour had used up all my gel on the climb and had a little over 5 miles to run down the Maples/Icebox trail to get to the bottom of Wheeler Creek where I had more gel and some water stashed.  I called my ever patient wife and gave her a heads up that she may have to pick up a very bonky husband in about 45 minutes. 

I thought if I get to Wheeler and feel good I will continue, if not I'll get a ride.  Well, I got a ride.  I was pretty trashed at that point.  25.4 miles, 7700 vertical, 6:31 including all stops and some slow, phone looking hiking.  Great run, need to complete the whole thing soon.  Nothing like getting a killer big mountain run from my front door.

Work is insane.  Glad the family is out of town, wouldn't see them anyway.  16 hour day tuesday, 14 hour day today.  Got out for a late 5 in the dark.  Easy pace, felt great, actually had more energy when I got home, even though it was 10:45 PM. Guess it's good ultra trianing in a sick kinda way.

Work remains insane.  Another 14 hour day.  There is light at the end of the tunnel, and a light on my head still from the easy 5 on the trails tonight, again in the dark, again good ultra training . . . . I think?

This one has links to pictures below, finally!

 I love adventure runs!  While its fun to go with friends, I always seem to get the most personally from solo trips, especially when they are to new areas and on trails I’ve never been to.   Something about stepping out into wild places with no one but you to depend on to get yourself through it. I guess that’s the adventure part, or the stupid part?

This adventure started way too late on Friday night (ahh, the joy of working for yourself).  I rolled out of town at 8:00 PM headed for the Big Sandy trailhead in the Wind River Range in Wyoming.   I have been into the “Winds” a few times before a long time ago, but always from the north end, never from Big Sandy, which is why I should have brought a road map.  Me being me, I glanced at the Wyoming Gazetteer,  found the trailhead, thought it looked straight forward enough,  put the map back on the shelf and left, dumb!

I was feeling like a genius when about a half hour out of Farson Wyoming I saw the familiar brown sign pointing to the right onto a dirt road saying Big Sandy Entrance, yes! I knew it was straight forward.  Two miles later I was running a hamster maze of unsigned dirt roads in the very, very dark trying to find the trailhead, no luck.  Called a buddy I knew would be awake, had him google it, ummm, not much there either, called another buddy, woke him up and asked him to look at his guide book, yep that did it. All in all what should have been a four hour drive, I made six by leaving the map home.  Brilliant, 2:00 AM arrival at the trail head, nice!

I threw my mat on the grass next to the car and crawled in my bag to sleep a few hours, only I couldn’t because the sky was unreal, it’s not often you get to look up in that kind of darkness on that clear of a night, wow!

Mosquitoes! Everywhere! I woke up at dawn, it was freezing and the sky was now filled with mosquitoes.  I’ve spent time in notorious blood sucker areas from Alaska to the Yukon tundra, nothing like these swarms, I killed four in one hand clap! Cold and bugs, no sleep, I crawled deep in my bag for another hour.  Up at 8:20, on the trail by 8:30, mosquitoes.   The trail started out as perfect single track through a green meadow next to a beautiful river, does it get any better?  Today it would.  I had never been here before and had really no idea what to expect.  I had heard a lot about the area from friends who climb in the Cirque of the Towers, so I knew names and a little topography but that was about it.  My very thorough planning (about 5 minutes with the Wind River South map and a route recommendation from a friend) had my estimated route distance at 28 miles and I was planning to get to the Cirque of the Towers area and head off trail Northeast over a high pass, cross around the back side of the Cirque and come back to the trailhead, making a big loop.  Plan B was an out and back to the Cirque if snow blocked the pass.  

I saw a few people within 2 miles of the trailhead, a couple of day hikers and solo girl with a big pack, other than that, not a soul on the whole loop! Awesome, but a little unnerving out in the middle of nowhere.  I made my way at an easy pace to Big Sandy Lake, incredible!  Beautiful mountain lake surrounded by green meadows, wild flowers and high granite peaks.  Made a hard left onto the Jackass Pass trail and started to climb up toward the Cirque of the Towers, within a few miles the scenery became so amazing I think I was tripping over my jaw, absolutely stunning, green, snow, huge granite walls, unbelievable.

As I was climbing toward the Cirque I noticed a side trail that went directly to a high ridge rather than the main trail which went up a long gradual valley.  I took the shorter route and was soon standing on a saddle above one of the most beautiful valleys I have ever seen.  Big alpine lake, creeks in every direction pouring down off of steep boulderey hillsides, huge granite spires.  The side trail I had taken ended here and I had to boulder hop, bushwhack a little, and cross a few creeks, one over waist deep to get to the bottom of the valley.  No sooner had I reached the shore of the lake and the trail, I had to leave it again and start to climb to the pass (Texas Pass I think ) to cross over to the next valley.  I was happy to find a faint trail up a good portion of the initial climb, but it soon petered out as I got above tree line.  I was slogging uphill through a beautiful high alpine meadow filled with granite boulders.  I noticed another set of tracks crossing a few of the snowfields, they looked funny, then I realized they were bear tracks! They were kinda melted out so they were not real new, but for sure bear tracks.  Kinda funny, because I noticed me and the bear choose about the same route, I guess he was headed for the same pass.  I was on very open hillside with big sight distance, so I figured if he was still around, one of us would be aware of the other while we were still a ways apart.

I hit the high pass (11,940 ft on the map) at about 11 miles and looked into the next valley and saw two partially frozen lakes and still not a soul to be seen, just me, a bear somewhere, and big mountains.  Perfect! Other than the bear.  I descended  to the lakes singing out loud to my music and hooting all the way down.   The lake shore was basically dry tundra with no trail, just cruising on soft grass and hopping over rocks.  As I descended through another shallow pass, the whole hillside I was running on started to be covered in yellow and purple wild flowers. I sat down for a few minutes to take it all in. unbelievable. 

Eventually I hooked back up to a trail and cruised at an easy pace down a broad, green ,open valley then into the trees again and about 9 miles of perfect single track past lake after lake all the way back to Big Sandy.  I saw two people hiking up about 1 mile from the trail head and a couple sitting in a meadow a few miles out from Big Sandy, so in 25 miles I saw 5 people and all closer than 2 miles from the trailhead, nothing like having the place to yourself.  I think the universe gave me a little love today for suffering through the week I had at work.  Everything was absolutely perfect.  Body felt fine, weather was made to order, sun in the morning, clouds and breeze in the middle of the day, a short rain storm 5 minutes after getting back to the car.  I felt no need to push pace at all, I ran comfortably when I could, hiked cautiously when conditions warranted, and stopped and took it all in a lot.  Absolutely, hands down, no doubt about it, best run so far!

Ended up with 24 something milkes and 3700 something vert all above 9000 ft.  The Garmin link is on Sunday the 18th post.

PICS!

First part of the trail

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495088387635281474

Big Sandy lake

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495088420567643458

Climbing to the Ciurque

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495088420567643458

Looking back toward Big Sandy (about where i took the detour to the Cirque

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495088441162794722

Trail into God's country (the Cirque) Peak in the center in Pigora, Texan pass is in the far right of the picture (snow field on ridge)

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495088457688334002

Won't let me paste anymore??? I'll put more in the 18th post along with the Garmin Stuff.

SEE SATURDAY'S POST FIRST

Here's the Garmin stuff, look at it on Earth setting if it will let you, much more entertaining.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/40802130

Looking down on Lomesome lake in the Cirque

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495088479157856578

From the shore of Lonesome

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495088486678788242

Looking down on the Cirque on the way up to Texas Pass, notice Pingora on the right

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495088496228854274

Looking down form Texas onto Billy's Lake (this is the draing I followed back out)

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495088510211647842

Wildflower covered hillside looking down on Shadow lake

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495120379695013570

Looking back up toward Shadow lake (valley I cam down)

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/WindRivers#5495088549653076498

Beautiful 1/2 marathon late (started at 7:30) on the trails below Sowbasin. (Wheeler/E Fork/Green Pond/Maples/Icebox) Got back to the car just as it got too dark to see.  Great run, felt solid, tempo pace. 13.11 miles, 1900 vert, 1:51. Wish they all could be like that.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/41108340

Got out late again tonight, this time headed for Ben Lomond Peak.  I have been wanting to do a late one up there all summer and with the fam out of town figured I better get it in while I had the chance.  Nothing like sunset from up there, really nice tonight with the clouds, a little summer time alpenglow.  Was kinda hoping to have the place to myself as it was so late, but apperantly the all the local moto jockeys like Ben Lomond sunsets too, geeze there must have been 10 up there.  Nothing like huge dust clouds and 2-stroke exhaust to make your run all the more enjoyable.  After the forst 3 or 4 miles most of 'em had cleared out so it was just me and the mountain. 

Made the peak in 1:39, despite several delays letting trains of moto's go by.  Made the round trip in 2:55 including a few minutes of sight seeing on top.  Actually one of my better times to the peak, which I felt good about as my legs had no pep tonight and I felt like I was in cruise mode. The RT time is a little slow but I had to run 3/4 of the descent with the headlights on.  All in all a great run. Saw lots of goats up close and personal, man those guys can move fast over gnarly terrain! Got back to the car a little before 10:30. 15.5 miles 3950 vert.

Pretty good 3 days for me.  25 on Sat, 13 Mon, 15.5 tonight.  53 miles, 9400 vert so far this week, and 3 more days to go.     

Easy 5 tonight.  took it nice and slow with the dog.  Ran some, hiked some, stopped to let the dog play in the creek alot.  1100 vert.  Dog says it's too hot.   

Lewis Peak tonight.  Left the trail head at 7:00 or so, I'm going to have to change up the schedual once the family gets back, but for now I am loving the late evenning runs up on the high ridgelines.  Beautiful run tonight, Lewis is not the most stunnig peak in the area, but the trail up offers some of the best views.  Mt Ogden to the south and Ben Lomond to the north, ogden and ogden valley to the east and west.   I felt great for having 60 miles and 10,000 vert on my legs already this week.  I wasn't breaking any speed records, but kept a run going all the way from the trailhead to the peak and back.  Sometimes shuffeling along isnt much faster than walking, but it sure feels better to be a runner rather than a hiker.  Peak time 1:01, RT 1:58.  One crash and burn, one mose and one calf, one good sized buck, lots of sage grouse.  Just under 11 miles, 3200 vert.    

Easy 3 AM before picking up the family

It was hard to get out of bed for this one.  Its been a pretty big running week for me in both miles and vert and I'm beat!  I've made to all the peaks in the area this year except Willard, so that's were I was headed this morning.  Basically the you run to Ben Lomond and continue on for a few more miles and hills to the North toWillard Peak. 

Leaving the trailhead my legs really didn't want to run, it was like jumping in cold water, deep breath, hit start on the watch and start turning them over. With in a 10 minutes or so things felt better and I noticed two guys closing in from behind and a third a little further back, I thought oh man, I hate getting passed, so like it or not the race was on.  I held them off for the first mile-and-a-half, but they came by and being competive I jumped on their tail and hung on pretty good, all the while making excuses in my head like"I bet they haven't run 60+ miles and 15,000+ vertical this week"  and "I bet they aren't doing 20 miles today".  I'm such an idiot, realizing this, finally, I backed off and let them go and with in minutes they had both stopped and were waiting for their slower buddy. Both complimented me on the pace and said they were only going a couple more miles.  Figures. Ha!   

I was pretty cooked from the informal race and settled into an easy pace for the rest of the climb.  There are two little climbs once you hit the ridgeline on the way to the peak, if you've run or rode this trail you know them.  They both come after a relativly flat section and after you have already been climbing steady for four miles.  I call the first short one the "grunt", and the second longer one the "groan".  If I'm feeling good I run both of these, otherwise they are hikers.  I ran 'em both today and figured why not try and run every step to the peak, something I've never been able to do.  The switchbacks up the last climb were tough and the last 100 feet to the peak is almost straight up and nearly killed me, but I made it, ran every step!  I must have looked like he## 'cause there was group on top and one of them said to me "we'll get out of here and let you throw up" Ha! Time to the peak was 1:41 today.

Cruised over to Willard, passing lots of folks hiking over from the parking lot at inspration point.  Made a hard right and started the rough climb back up to the peak.   Hung for bit, checking the view, looking through the amazingly old peak register (see pic below) and just enjoying it as I rarely get to this peak.   On the way down I followed the rocky ridgeline, short cutting a half mile or so back to the trail.  As I traversed the ridge I got into a huge heard of mtn goats.  Like with in 20 feet of some big billys.  I kept thinking I hope those things don't tend to charge folks.  They gave me a good look over, decided that I was obviously not in any condition to be any sort of threat and headed on own the hill.

Made my way back over to Ben Lomond, talked for a while with some friends who had ridden up on motorcycles.  Cruised down and caught up to the local Wasatch 100 veterens.  These guys have finished Wasatch over 12 times each (that's a pretty small club).  I walked along and talked to them for most of the decsent.  I gleaned as much info about 100 mile strategy as I could.  Basically they scared the hell out of me.  Yikes! 

20 miles, 5200 vert.  long day, standing on the rim of the bucket, need some rest. 7 day block is 92 miles and just about 19,000 vert.  Everything feels solid, other than tired. 

Pics below.

Ben Lomond with Willard to the right from trail

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomond2010#5497564899805418146

View from top of Ben (mt ogden and Lewis in background)

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomond2010#5497564924922286274

View looking back to Ben from Willard

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomond2010#5497564934120698162

Next 2 are goats

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomond2010#5497564942951881842

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomond2010#5497564958663800146

Craggy Ridge I follwed back to trail

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomond2010#5497564970453260482

Check out the date on the peak register, its been there that long, still in perfect shape and has entries up to today 7/24/2010, There are names of friends in there from when they boy scouts, that's a piece of history! (Willard)

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomond2010#5497602762641279058

Same Snowbasin trail 1/2 marathon as last Monday.  Ran it a little faster tonight than last week, 1:49 for 13.1. 1940 vert.  About got killed by two mtn bikers on Green Pond , luckily I had a feeling it might be coming and stepped to the right side of the trail just as a guy came flying around a blind corner.  He almost put it in the dirt to avoid hitting me, and I had to jump sideways to miss his handle bar, just as I caught my balance his buddy came around the corner even faster and about took us both out.  Explatives and apologies exchanged, and all was good agian in few seconds.  Other than that, not another person out.  Really pushed the downhill hard tonight, had splits from 6:40 to 6:58 for 3 miles and my Ice Box split was 7:20, last mile down Wheeler was 6:41.  I'll take it for technical single track.  Route was Wheeler/E.Fork/Green Pond/Down Little Cat at Snowbasin/Maples/Icebox/Wheeler.  A little rain tonight made it nice.  Great run, I expected a little more fatigue after last week. Calves are a little tight, me thinks its time for some more ART.

Lewis Peak tonight.  11 miles, 3150 vert.  2:00 hours. Tough and I'm tired.  I took my camera tonight and would have some great shots but the battery was dead. doh! Unbelievably cool sunset, dropped below the clouds just as it went behind the horizon, turned everything red and orange, nothing like summer alpenglow, an awesome view in every direction and a camera in hand with a dead battery.  Nice! 

A little side story:

Parking lot had one car in it, trail was empty, thought I was all alone out there until I turned the last corner headed to the peak, and there, on the peak sat a very tired, out of shape and inexperienced looking father and 3 boys, guessing ages 12, 7, and 5. We talked for a bit, the older boy asked how long it took me, I said an hour, he said they started at 3:30.  Well, it was currently a little after 8:30 (that's 5 hours to go 5.5 miles)  and getting dark fast.  I asked if they were headed all the way down or spending the night?  They said all the way down.  Ever been up here before? nope. Geeze, maybe I was wrong, but they sure didn't look like they were prepared, or had planned for what would end up being close to a 10 hour day in the mountains by the time they got back to the car, in the dark, with thunderstorms all around the valley.  The trail is not straight forward in the dark either, lots of side trails and unmarked forks. I asked if they had lights? yes, and they showed my 3 small flashlights like you would by at a dollar store.  I asked about water, they said they had a little but thought it was enough.  I had nothing to offer them, one light, 2 gulps of water and I was out of gel.  I wished them luck, told them to be safe and headed down.  I worried about them all the way down and on the way home I saw a cop parked on the side of the road, I pulled over and explained the situation, that they were fine when I saw them, but somebody might start to worry  (there is no cell service up there so if they were way over due they couldn't let anyone know) and call it in, and I wanted to let him know where they were and that they were o.k.  Right now its 11:00 and I'm sure they are still on the mountain, hope all is well. 

Easy paced 5 with 850 vert on the bench above home.  Loving these monsoon evenings.  Cooler temps, a little rain, a lot of alpenglow, even a gray rainbow that popped out right as the sun was going down, never seen that before. Geeze I love living here!

Good old Indian Trail ount-n-back tonight.  I haven't run through here since early spring.  Made me think about how long a summer of runnig it has already been and brought back good memories of the magic of first early spring runs on dry trail through the moutnians.  Why is it that every run this week I have watchted the sun sink below the horizon? Are the days getting that much shorter already, or am I just getting out later? Noticed fall colors starting to show on the low brush, some bright reds and yellows already.  Hard to belive its only a month or so from going into full color change on the higher ridges.  It was a hot one out there tonight, but I was reminded to enjoy these warm nights and good trail because it won't be long 'till runs are on icey single track with 2 foot snow banks on each side and I'll be dreaming of dirt under my feet again.

9 mile sweat festival, car said 91 when I got out and it was very humid, baked all the way up the West slope. 2700 vert, stopped short of the canyon TH on the out-n-back.  Easy pace, but felt hard.

I love running through the mountains in the dark.  There is something to having the world reduced to the 20-30 ft of glow on the trail in front of you and a huge starry sky overhead.  But running mountain trails alone in the dark comes in degrees of intensity for me.  Starting in the dark and knowing it will be light when I finish the run is a piece of cake and regular fare.  Starting in the light and knowing it will be after dark when I finish is a little more intense, (or freaky) starting in the middle of the night and knowing you are doing a solo long run to a remote mountain top and back is always high on the intense/freaky scale.   Its always really hard to step out of the truck at a trailhead in the dark, turn on the lights and head off alone into the black knowing it will be more black and more alone when you return.    

With the higher degree of freak, comes a higher degree of reward.  Last night's Ben Lomond run will no doubt go down in memory as one of the best of the summer.  Running alone in the dark across high mountain ridges definatly tunes up your senses.  Knowing I'm out 7-8 miles from the nearest person tends to make me pay attention.  Being on the peak at 1:30 AM was serene.  No wind at all, totally silent, watching lightening storms way out west of the GSL and far off to the east, meteors streaking across the sky and a bright half moon lighting up the surrounding peaks. I signed the register and noted the time.  Under my name I wrote a hello to a friend I knew would be up there arond 7:30.   

Only one notiable animal encounter.  About a mile from the peak a big mountain goat walked out on the trail about 30 feet in front of me.  He stood there acros the trail, looking at me and not moving.  The stand off went on for a bit too long and next thing I know I'm talking to him, "sooo, are you going to move, or what?" "don't make me huck a rock your direction" Nothing.  Fianlly I turned out my lights, and he was off, full sprint up the trail. 

If you are wondering why the middle of the night? well first, out of schedual necessity (my wife and 10 year old were entered in a triathlon Saturday morning and wife and I needed a night out together  Saturday night equals no time for a long run. On the tri reuslts, I'm happy to report they both came home with hardware, wife 3rd place age group, 10 yr old 3rd place overall in the kids tri out of what had to have been 150 kids competing.  It was awesome to watch that kid get after it.  He swam like a pro, tranistioned like he had been doing it for years, and ran down the only runner in front of him, made papa very proud! And I don't think my wife has ever come home from a triahlon without a place medal, made hubby proud again) second, the adventure of it, 3rd, 100 miler training. I need a couple more good night runs like that to tune me up for the Bear 100 in September. 

 Run stats: 16 miles, 4000 vert. Day started at 6:00 AM, worked 10.5 hours, run start time 11:30 PM, Peak 1:25 AM, car 3:10 AM, bed 3:45 AM.  Sleep of the dead unitl 6:45 AM.

Last two week totals: 138 miles, 28,500 vert, most of it over 8000 ft in elevation.  Add in 50-55 hour work weeks each week on top of it, and well, I (and they) needed a little family time today. 

No time tonight, just 5 easy to keep the dust off.  850 vert.

Wheeler/Icebox/Maples/Overlook to top and back.  Seems this area is my weekly mid grade tempoish run.  14 miles tonight, 2450 vert 1:08 to overlook, 53 minutes back down, 2:01 round trip.  Couldn't get'em turn'en over tonight, just no gas in the tank. Definatly feeling the accumulated fatigue of higher milage with alot of vertical over the past three weeks.  I need to keep it on for another 2-3 weeks to be where I want going into the hunski in Sept.  Not sure how to approach the 50K next week?? long training run I supose. 

Went for an ART session on the calves and a spot on my hip/upper glute that has been bugg'en for a couple days.  That stuff is some kind of voodoo.  I went in with a good degree of stiffness and some pain, walked out feeling perfect.  Though, he almost made me cry working on the hip, geeze that was painful, but took the knot out immediately. 

Short and easy 3.5 with 650 vert, then out for dinner with the family.  Needed the easy day, the ART, and a little family time to recharge the system.

Very nice 11 and 3100 vert tonight.  Best time yet to Lewis Peak, up in 58 minutes, RT in 1:45.  Wasn't really trying, just felt good to crank it up a little.  Not a soul around anywhere.  Hard to believe I can have a trail that amazing and a peak all to myself for two hours. Worrisome little thunderstorm just to the west over the Lake kept things lively as the trail is right on an exposed ridgeline for a good bit, not a great place to be in a lightening storm. 

I ran in my La Sportiva Crosslites tonight, a shoe I bought a year ago, but have been using alot lately.  Had been running 100% in the Wildcats for about a year, but after using the lighter shoe again, concluded they a little heavy and clunky. I am really liking the light minimal shoe. The crazy thing is i have also have been mixing in running in the Hooka One a couple times a week.  How's that for footwear phychosis?  I like the Hooka, don't love'em, but they feel good when my legs and feet are feeling beat up after alot of miles.  To me the analogy is this, running in the Hooka on really technical trail is like tying your shoes with gloves on, you can do it, but it feels clunky and awkward.  But then I tend to be clunky and awkward anyway, so maybe its just the pilot not the craft.  

3 Peak Link up. 30.6 miles 8235 vert. 6:50

3 week totals: 215 miles, 46,500 vert

I have always wanted to link up Ben Lomond, Willard and Lewis P.eak in a good long day, needed a long one today so that was the plan.

Getting comfortable being uncomfortable is a big part of the training goal for the 100 miler in 6 weeks and that was what today would be for the most part.  Right out of the gate things felt bad, legs slow, gut churning.  The morning, however, was very nice, off and on rain showers, nice and cool. 

Had to keep it in low granny all morning and clocked my slowest time to BL this year 1:58.  Even the night run was a little faster.  Coming back from Willard Peak, walking off trail along the ridge line I stumbled into the now familiar (both me with them and them with me I think) heard of Moutnian Goats.  They moved off just far enough for me to walk by, and stood and watched.  Crazy, like 15 big billies 20 feet away looking at me like "there's that knucled head runner again"

I felt a little better on the way down from Ben Lomond to the car, 7.8 miles in 1:03, my watch clicked 20 miles just as I opened to the door. I refilled and was off for the long, hot haul to Lewis Peak.  I was cooked and it was mostly a hike.  For comparison, I ran this earlier in the week in an hour, today it was 1:30.  I ran most of the way back to the car, though a couple of the rollers about did me in.  Great run, long, run, hot run, gald to be done run. 

PICTURES: (one loaded the rest are links, sorry)

Looking back toward Mt Ogden from the trail:

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomondLewis#5503394072766838594

Lewis Peak, Malan's and Mt Ogden (look close for the red dots)

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomondLewis#5503394082586313794

Up Close and personal with the goats (no zoom here)

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomondLewis#5503394103889824226

Looking up back at Ben from Willard

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomondLewis#5503394133905916946

Lookinb Back at Willard (cool off trail ridge route where the goats hang marked)

Trail to Ben Lomond from Lewis trail

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomondLewis#5503394175111779250

Ben and Willard (just behind and to the left) from Lewis

http://picasaweb.google.com/110731470557570571093/BenLomondLewis#5503394237601854658

Easy 3.5 recovery run. f.l.a.t.. no vert, none at all.

Weekly snowbasin trail run.  13.13 miles, 1900 vert, 1:55.

Still have most of the uphill gears, checking splits for the same trail over the last 4 weeks, my uphill miles are with in seconds of each other over the previous weeks runs, some miles faster some slower.  The downhill gears are all jammed up though.  Running almost a minute or more slower splits downhill than previous weeks.   

4 Miles easy. 

6 miles, 800 vert.  moderate pace, feeling a little recovery coming on, I guess its taper by default for this weekend.  Race or not, I needed an easier few days.  I was getting really spacey and forgetful at work, had no energy durning the day, and eating everything in sight.  When I get like that I know its time to back off a bit.  Still not planning on really running hard on Saturday, I'm still pretty beat even after a few easier days.  We'll see how it feels on race day.  No nagging pain, body feels healthy, just fatigue, knee got a little tweaked coming down Icebox on Tuesday, had to walk for a bit to mellow it out, but felt o.k. tonight.  Looking forward to a fun weekend in Stuuur Valleah Wyom'en!

Going into this race I was feeling very fatigued from four weeks of hard training focused on surviving the Bear 100 in 6 weeks.   I approached it with absolutely no expectations other than to run how my body felt and push to the point I felt I was able. Last place or top 10 didn’t matter; I just wanted a long run on some new trail and to enjoy the day. 

I drove up to Afton late Friday night and turned on the dirt road to Cottonwood Lake just after dark, pulled into a campsite with some friends who had come up earlier and was sound asleep by 10:00.  I woke up to the sound of rain on the roof of the Toyota, got out pulled my running shoes inside, and checked my watch thinking it was time to get up anyway, only 12:30, nice! I don’t think I have ever slept so soundly the night before a race.

Woke up feeling fresh, drove the few minutes up to the start, and, as is my typical thing, was still at the car sorting through gear when the RD called one minute to start.  I threw my drop bag in the pile, ran into the group lined up at the start just as we rolled out.  I hit start on my watch and settled into an easy, comfortable pace.  Right away the front guys opened a gap and 10-12 of us were in a tight group ahead of the main field as we started into the initial climbs.

I stuck with my plan to run as I felt and not get caught up in any pace or trying to race.  As our group hit the first steep section, most everyone started hiking.  I felt good, my legs felt light, breathing was easy so I and a few others kept up a run and soon three of us had moved pretty far out ahead of rest.  I was leading our little group of three, with a guy from Pocatello behind me and Leeland Barker behind him.  When we got into open sections I could see the lead group of three had a couple of minutes on us already and the rest of the initial group of 10-12 strung out a few minutes behind.  I didn’t know it at the time, but course record holder Luke Nelson was way off the front of the lead pack. 

Toward the top of the initial 2900 ft climb, Leeland came cruising by me, giving me a little thumbs up and a friendly smile, Pocatello guy followed and I tried to keep up settling in behind those two.  This is how it would stay for the rest of the climb and pretty much the rest of the race.  The most awesome part of the race was coming over the top of the first big climb, we had to drop over a high ridge and down into another valley.  As we crested over the top, the whole valley was covered in fog with the peaks sticking out of the thick clouds, and a gorgeous sunrise just coming over the horizon, unbelievable!   

We descended into the clouds and had a surreal 3 or 4 miles running through dense fog, pines, aspens, and wild flowers everywhere.  I was running pretty close behind Leeland and company, but the fog seemed to absorb all of the noise, it was totally silent, very strange, but one of the coolest experiences I’ve had in any race or even run.   

Eventually we crossed over another ridgeline and started the long descent down to the turn around.  The trail was very runable, but technical enough to keep your mind occupied.  We ran down forever, it seemed to just keep going, luckily it was a stunning place to run, huge green valley,  through meadows filled with thousands of  wild flowers, in and out of stands of trees.  I knew we were getting close to the turn around when what I thought was the 25K ( runs the same course but starts two and a half hours later, running one way on the course back to the 50k start) frontrunner came by.  Turns out it was the 50K leader, Luke, way off the front of our race.  He looked totally fresh and was flying. Amazing. 

Pocatello guy and I pulled into the turnaround together at 2:55.  We left together few minutes later, both commenting on the long uphill grind back to the high point.  I had to make a pit stop, so let him go, which was fine, I really didn’t feel like chasing him all the way back up. 

The climb back out was indeed a long grind.  Most of the first part was runnable, but soon turned into a hike.  Passing many of the 25k runners on the way back up kept things interesting.  I stopped at the last aid station, right before the last big climb, to get a little water, at that point the first girl and another guy from the 50k went by.  I thought, "I know I wasn’t here to race, but I hate to get passed in the last miles."  I turned it up a little on the big climb and got by the guy again, but couldn’t catch the girl.  I thought I could get her back on the descent, and as we went over the top she had about 45 seconds on me.  I rolled into the descent and went by her fast and kept the peddle down for a minute or so to get a good gap, then tired to settle into a cruise down to the finish.  I glanced back and the guy was close and coming up fast.  I thought, "geeze I really didn’t want to run this that hard", but took off anyway not to get caught.  I held him off, but had to run hard to do it, blasting by many more 25k'ers and nearly going full superman into the dirt a couple of times.  After what seemed like forever, the campground came into sight and the welome finish, 6:32 I think, overall time, a few minutes behind Pocatello guy and about 10 behind Leeland.

The finish was casual, lots of great snacks, a tasty barbeque, lots of huckleberry soda.  I chatted with Jon and Cody for a minute, congratulating them on another amazing run.  Hung out with some friends who had run the 25k and Tom and Kasey from Ogden, who finished the 50k together a bit behind me.  Tom wanted to head back up the course to find his wife and some other friends who had not come through yet.  He, Kasey and I hiked back up about 2.5 miles, it was fun to cheer for the back of the packers and hang out with those two.  They are a blast and both are far more experienced than I, so it was good to get pointers for my 100 miler coming up.

This was by far the most scenic race I’ve done to date.  Great course, great trail conditions, all around one to do again for sure.  Very challenging though.  Next to Speedgoat, my hardest 50K by far.  7^th place overall, which I am totally happy about!

Ended up with 37 miles and 9800/10,000 vert or so. I never eally had a race hard attitude, except on the last descent.  No nerves going in, no expectations at all, just to go at a good hard tempo pace (thanks Jun) if I had it in me.  One of my better races, physically all was great, though I hit a low point (more mental) toward the end of the big climb back to the lakes.  I hope I can adopt the attitude I had in this race more often going into future races, I think it will work for me as I tend to get a little wound up if I let myself.   Oh, and one thing that became glaringly apparent in this race, I can run/shuffel uphill o.k., but I SUCK at hiking! I've got to work on the power hike.  Especially the power hike/run/power hike transition.

Easy two mile recovery hike with the family.  Amazing how much effort it takes to heard a 2-year-old and a Golden Retriever up a single track trail next to a creek. Good times had by all.

Easy hike up to the overlook on Malan's. Couple miles, 1000 vert.

7 miles on the bench above the house. Easy pace to start, moderate to finish, 900 vert.  Missing the high trails, gotta get out there tomorrow.  Legs were feeling pretty beat early in  the week, but starting to come back around. 

11 miles 2900 vert, Lewis Peak at sunset.  Nice to get out on the ridges again and get to a peak.  It's been a while.  Started out feeling like a hero, ended like a zero, legs still a bit testy from Saturday.  Ran parking lot to peak and back non-stop, well, throw in a little shuffeling here and there. Should be fun for all you Skyline hardcores on Saturday!

Skyline Marathon and Half Marathon.

 I had big ideas to get up early, drive to the start, run to the half start, pick up my gear for the aid station I was to crew, hike to the station, hand out refreshments, clean up and run to the finish. HA! Ya, alarm went off at 4:00 AM legs and body said uhhh no.  

Instead, arrived at the half start a little later than I was suposed to (suprise), met my aid station buddies, Casey and his son, picked up our gear and instructions and I set out few minutes behind Casey for the steep 2 miles up to our aid station. I jogged slowly unitl I caught Casey and then we walked and had a good time talking up to our station.  We got there, nothing! we both understood all the stuff woould be there, and nothing.  Oh, he must have ment to the other intersection, about a mile and another big climb further up.  Well, runners weren't far behind so I ran hard to the spot, got set up, Casey and son showed a few minutes later, and runners very soon after that.  close one!

Had a great time handing out goodies all morning.  It was great to see all the local trail runners out supporting the race. Mozzer and Gdoc were rock'en and looked great!  Shane Martin killed it in like 3:43 for 26.2 and 5000+ vert! geeze! I think he won by 20 minutes.  I got to sweep the course down the South Skyline to Windsurfer aid.  Great time, but following the back of the pack very slowly down a 7 mile very runnable descent in 90 degree heat was, . . . . well, good mental training.  I was happy to see Oreo there, and even more happy to ride with him in the 'burb back to the finish for some sweet popsicles and treats! Thanks buddy!

Great race! one to do next year.  I know I take it for granted because I run it all the time, but this has to be one of the most beautiful courses around and its on single track for 98% of the race.  Folks that had never been out there before were in total awe!

 11 miles or so, 2000 vert ish.

Week totals: 31 miles, 6000 vert, weak week, that's o.k. I needed it.  Back to the grind next week, whaaahooo! :)

Perfect temps tonight, a little rain yesterday made the trails mmm, mmm good!   Great run up Wheeler/East F/Green Pond/ added in the Cold Water overlook/down Maples and Icebox.

First hard run since the Loco over a week ago. A little rest last week got the wheels spin'en good.  Best times from Wheeler gate to the Art Nord gate (16:30) Bench at Middle/East fork split (41:55) School Hill (1:01).  Kept it right around a 7 minute or under pace for the 4 miles from the top of the Overlook to Icebox, at that point it was just a little too dark to keep up the pace.  Felt easy tonight, blame it on freshish legs and cooler temps. Love runs like that. 

17.28 miles, 2810 vert, 2:29,  (8:39 average pace)

Easy spin around the local trails.  6 miles 620 vert, nice and mellow.  I swear the easy ones are harder than the hard ones sometimes.  I have to go into them with the mindset of not caring if a 300 lb 80 year old lady passes me, I WILL NOT RUN HARD. 

Ben Lomond Peak with a little add on toward Inspiration Point from the North Fork trailhead tonight. First time running that section, I have always started at the top of the N. Ogden divide, running to where it intersects the North Fork trail at the base of the final climb.  Learned a couple of things about the North fork trail as compared to the regualr route.  I thought it would be shorter (it's not) I thought it might be as pretty (it's not, but close) I thought it would be more climbing (it is) I thought it might be the dreaded "green tunnel" (it was).   All in all a great run, felt a little flat going up the last climb to the peak, but might have been because I kept stopping to watch all the goats (20-30 right near the trail) All by myself up therre tonight, not a soul seen on the whole 16.5 miles.  Oh, and some Jacka$$ took the summit register.   

Run totals: 16.5 miles 4280 vert, 2:53, plus a little time on the top and goat watching.

Made the saddle in 1:10

Looking into cirque between Willard Peak and Ben Lomond

 Willard Peak from North Fork Trail

Eden, and the Ogden Valley from B.L. Summit

Looking South from peak (Lewis, Mt Ogden, Fransis)

Sorry couldn't resist the obligatory goat pic

Malan's to end of switchback above the overlook with a little BST add on.  No watch, guessing 1500 vert, 4.5 miles.  Worked on the run/hike/run thing up Malan's.  Confirmed that I suck badly at hiking.  I feel so much better running, when I hike it's clunky and and slow.  It trip on rocks, stumble around, lose footing. Running seems to allow me to float over junk that gets in the way when hiking??

Malan's is a steep pig, I forgot how much so.  Appetitie is coming on with a vengeance again with the increased effort this week.  4 weeks to the Bear.  1.5 weeks to keep the peddle down, then coast into the start line. (gotta work on hiking) 

One more random thought.  Need to go shoe shopping.  Bad timing with a 100 miler looming, but the 'Sportiva Wildcats aren't cutting it any more.  They feel heavy and clunky now after running so much in the Crosslites and Hokas.  I've also decided the shoe is too tall for the platform, seems I roll my ankles alot in them.  Crosslites are too minimal for a 100 miles (for me anyway) Hoka's are great for shorter runs on mellow terrain, but in my opinion, are terrible on loose, rocky, or off camber trail (like horrible).  Suggestions??  If nothing really feels perfect I will fall back on the Wildcats. They are sturdy, fit well, and have never given me any type of blister (knock on wood).

Easy 5 mile cruiser on the bench.  550 vert.

 Nothing better than running a long loop route through the mountains.  This one is a classic in my opinion (other than the mile long death of a bush whack straight down hill).  I have done this one once before, exactly a year ago.  I added on a little more this year, starting from the house and running the first 4.5 miles on the BST, rather than driving to Beus Canyon trail head. 

The route is best described by the Garmin link and the pictures below.  Went into it planning to go at an all day (100 mile) pace.  Beus Canyon is pretty much a hike (nasty overgrown trail and steep).  Bit of billy goating between Mt Ogden and Mt Allen.  Nice run down through Snowbasin (tried to stay out of the way of the 50K/100K mtn bike race going on).

Great run, total blast!!. Love a great loop and a door to door, got 'em both out of this one! Check it out.

Run total 25 miles, 7250 vert.

Week totals: 64 miles, 16,400 vert or so.

Started and stopped the watch at the trailhead so need to add 1.5 miles and 150 vert for the out-n-back from home

 (15:34 pace, sounds slow I know, but I am totally happy with it given some of the very slow sections, (bushwack, ridge hike) and the overall nasty terrain.  I had a lot left in the tank at the end and that is close to the pace I think I can handle at the Bear)  

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/46522611 (Earth or terrain setting on the map is best)

Beus Canyon (almost tropical in there, very humind, no wind lots of wet ferns urrhh!)

 Overgrown upper Beus trail (yep its there, now I remember why I only hike this trail every six months or so)

 Awesome section above tree line heading to Mt Ogden/Allen

 View from Mt Ogden looking north at Allen, lewis, BL (windy!!)

 Looking east to the Ogden Valley and Snowbasin (route descends to parking lot visable in center of pic) :)!!!

 Big drop to the east. (windy!!!=sketchy)

 Lookin back at Mt Ogden on the way across the Allen, route follws the spiney ridge.

 Looking down Cold Water canyon from Allen (route descends to Snowbasin and climbs back up to the ridgeline opposite of view, red line is the bushwack from he-double L)

 Top of ridge (Cold Water overlook) from previous pic looking down the line marked (hold your nose and jump in!)

 View looking out from Cold Water overlook (Mt allen can be seen in the distance)

 View looking up Cold Water Canyon from Indian Trail (Lots of people out hiking today, can't blame them it was beautiful!)

 Looking back up Taylor Canyon to where I had been from the BST ( allen/ogden) (this is taken at exactly where the loop connects)

 Perfect single track bliss of the Indian Trail

This one blew the dust of the slow legs.  A little rain and cooler temps got me wanting to run Malan's to the creek in the basin and back for my tempo run.  There has been a sort of informal competition going on with some of the runners in town for best time on this out-n-back from the top of 27th to the creek in Malan's Basin (gotta touch water).  The best time so far this year according to Corey J is 1:06.  I made it in 1:08 a month or so ago.  So I thought if I was feeling it I would see what I could do. 

Hit start on the watch and took it eas y the first bit to see how I felt.  Things felt o.k., so I let it go a little.  My split at the overlook was 15:18 (PR) so I guess it was on. Gutted it out to the top and crested the peak at 33:39 (PR).  Tried to keep the legs moving up the hill past the peak before dropping into the Basin.  Finally crested over the short climb to some blessed downhill running, hit the creek in the Basin at 39:40, the hill back out of the Basin had me about ready to kill over dead, back down to the peak, and cranked it back down the descent and finished in 1:02:45 (PR).  I've heard that it has been done in the past under an hour, I always thought that was never possible for me, well maybe I can get there.  I also thought that sub 30 on Malan's was impossibe for me, well I'm starting to think maybe that's doable too.  

Kinda funny that a run with a 11:13 min mile average could be considered fast.  And, well, it isnt really, I would love to see what a truely fast guy (or girl) could do.  Thing is, the trail is so steep and gnarly that running up is slow and you have to keep the brakes on somewhat coming down to avoid full flight and crash. Perfect temps, perfect run, really felt great to turn up the pace for a shorter fast run. 

5.5 miles, 2300 vert. 

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/46924780

Easy 4.5 on the bench. 

6 miles on the trails in the dark.  Legs still worked a bit from Monday's effort. 

Blahhh! Felt like garbage all day.  Chest congestion, tired, achey.  Thought it might be a cold, but pollen counts are way up on grass and weeds, both are toxic for my allergies.  So not sure what's up.  Set out on a run with good intentions, got about a half mile out, turned around went home and went to bed.  1 mile. :-)  Slept 10 hours, feeling a little better. 

Still feeling really low energy and congested.  Seems having a cold is a pretty common theme on a few blogs this week.  I'll accept that may be what's going on with me, though allergies are most likely. 

Got out tonight for what I wanted to be a moderate to tempo paced run.  Legs weren't there at all.  Am I still feeling it from Monday's hard effort?? or is it this funk?? The way I have felt this week I'm starting to think the red-line effort on Monday may have been too much.  I feel  like I have been right at my body's recovery limit in this training cycle (especially when combined with very long and stressful work days) and Monday may have pushed it over a little. One thing I know it did was aggravate my knee a bit.  It's felt a little tweaky all week (pops a lot, some pain).  I know it will calm down in a few days. 

7 miles easy to moderate pace, 750 vert. 

My half-arsed training plan for this 100 mile run coming up was to back off a bit on the mileage the last few weeks and work on power and speed a bit to cap off the endurance base and speed up the slow legs with a little faster running.  Given that, I wasn't planning a big mileage run today, but wanted to run a moderate distance a little faster than normal.  With the funk I've had all week, I wasn't sure either was a possibilty going into the run.

The plan Friday night was to run Ben Lomond, just out and back to the peak, from the pass and try to PR the route.  I haven't really run that trail hard all year as usually I'm combining it with a longer run, or have felt crappy and tired going into it.  Like I said, the funk (cold or allergies) has left me feeling low energy and crummy all week, it was still hanging around on Saturday morning so I had no idea what to expect.   

Starting the watch at the trailhead, I decided not to look at it until the place I ususally to a split check, at the first switchback overlooking Ogden Valley. The plan was to run a what felt like a moderate to hardish pace to there and check my split to see where I was at. Sometimes when I feel crummy what feels like a fast pace is actually slow so I was happy to see I was 3 minutes up on what is my normal moderate pace at the check. Just before the overlook, I could see a guy run/powerhiking a half mile or so in front of me, and decided to use him to push me over the top of the switchback section by being determined to pass him before he topped out.  I actually caught and passed him much more quickly than I expected and topped out the switch back section another 1:30 ahead.  My next split is the last switchback befroe the trail crosses to the West side of the ridge.  50 minutes is ususally a good time for me to here, today it was under 46 minutes. Funny, I passed two guys hiking here, and one of them asked if I was going for a 2:30 round trip? Kinda funny 'cause that's exactly the number I had in mind.  I said I hoped so. 

I hit the saddle before the last climb at 1:05, passing another couple of hikers here.  Started up the last climb and the wheels started coming off.  The last switchbacks turned into a staggering red-lined combo of run/shuffle/hike/run/shuffle/hike/try-not-to pass-out suffer fest. I couldn't breathe at all, I felt like I was at 12-13,000 feet not 10,000.  The congestion in my chest was still lingeing just enough that I couldn't catch my breath.  I was seeing stars as I appraoched the last couple hundred feet of climbing, but my watch was ticking close to 1:30 and I really wanted to get there at or under 1:30.  I staggered and weezed up the last little grunt to the peak, passing a couple of, now frightened at the sight a of guy who looks like he might die, kids in the process.  I grabbed the summit register box to keep from falling over, looked at my watch, 1:30:15, close enough and a huge PR.  I open the register, stuck my head inside for few seconds (probably looked like I threw up in there to those poor kids) no reigister book still (note: take one up next time) .  Caught a couple of breaths, turned and headed down, passing the startled parents of the startled kids on the way down. 

I left the peak at 1:32, I tried to calculate in my foggy head if 2:30 was possible, couldn't do it, tried to remeber if I had run the down in under an hour, couldn't do it.  I leaned downhill, let gravity pull me and tried to keep my feet under me.  Looking at my mile splits after the run, its funny how they go straight down in time from 8:35 in the first to 7:10 on the last, each mile getting faster on the way down. The descent went by fast. It was fun to re-passs all those I ran by going up.  Power hike/run guy was shocked that I had been to the peak and back already, 2:30 time guy, gave me a good cheer and some encouraging words.   

I hit the end of the trail in 2:31.  Ahhhrrr! so close.  I'll take it though, a huge PR for me.  I felt really solid coming down and felt pretty strong the whole run except the last climb.  That's 2 huge PR's this week.  I'm really happy with where I am at overall.  A little more speed work next week, combined with one or two longish runs and it'll be a slow coast to the Bear 100 start line. 

Run stat's 15.65 miles, 3485 vert. 2:31

PR: for Malan's up and round trip and Ben Lomond this week! About 38 miles, 7500 vert or so. 

Easy 4 miles with a few strides mixed in (I think?).   Ha, don't know that I have ever posted that I did "strides" before, I think I know what those are?

Moderate paced and very unremarkable 9 miles below Snowbasin.  Bike race held on these trails a week-and-half ago left a mess.  Picked up 20-30 gu wrappers, pulled 2 plastic trail marker signs from the race, pulled dozens of flags (the wire kind with the pink flag on top and flagged trees).  C'mon people!! It's great to have a race on these trails, but sweep'em when you're done!

9 miles, 1250 vert, caught a toe on a rock or root at least 10 different times. (dropped a few sweet words about the 8th time!)

3 mile hike/jog with the dog.  Knee is sore from the clumsy runn'en yesterday.  I'll give a few days.

Got out for a good 7 miles tonight.  Body is starting to feel human agian after the hard efforts last week.  Actually running tonight rather than shuffling along. Amazing how long it takes to recover from an all out effort or two. Felt about 80% tonight, ran moderate with a few pick up's (fartlek) mixed in.  Had to put in the word "fartlek", another roadie word like "strides"that I don't really know what it means, but I figured Lilly might say "fartlek this" which I thought would be hilarious. :)

***NOTE TO ME** I think the mistake I made, which seems minor, was the couple of miles I logged running barefoot while shagging golf balls on the beach at Bear Lake on Sunday.  Usually this is my total decompression day, no physical activity, no stress, lots of rest.  A couple of miles in deep soft sand, while not a major workout, meant I didn't get the deep rest my body needed.  That and the Oreo shake, cheetos, Diet Coke o.d., chocolate chip cookies, bad Asian food on Saturday night, potato chips, and what ever other junk I could scrape up (Geeze now I'm sounding like a few brothers that hang out on this blog :) )

7 miles, 850 vert, moderate, knee tweaky, but not as bad

Last hard effort run before the Bear 100 in less than two weeks.  I have taken it pretty easy all week, felt flat from last week and my knee was tweaky from running like a clutz early in the week, which clumsiness was probably the result of feeling flat from the week before, funny how its all related.  I still managed some runs, though nothing approaching a harder effort. 

Plan today was to get a solid run up Lewis Peak, then take it easy on the way down.  Figured it would be some good vert and an hour or so tempo pace with a easy 45 minutes to finish.  Felt great up the initial climb, fully recovered legs, but still have the congestion going on a little.  PR pace to my first split at the end of the flattish section on top of the switchbacks, PR pace to the high point.  Wasn't really planning a PR run, but as I rounded the last corner to the peak, my watch was just over 57:00  (PR is 58:15) I gave it all I had up the last hill and pretty much dove to the top hitting stop at 58:10. PR! barely!  I was gasping for air though, gotta get past this slight cold in the next two weeks.  ( I'm sure its a cold now as the pollen counts are way down). Took it very easy on the down, taking almost as long to get back down as the up. 

This is the last hard effort before Bear. All running form here on out will be at a for fun pace.  Proabably just cruising with no watch and not too many miles, maybe a few pick up's here and there to remind my legs that they aren't on perma-vacation. 

Bear training is done!!!!  Lots of highs and lows over the last 6 weeks.  I really feel like I put in all I could given the amount of time I had available to train and the load my body would take. I am feeling strong, I have PR'd all of my usual test/training runs in the last week and a half. Everything feels healthy except my knee, but I know how to deal with that.  Just gotta recover and enjoy a few easy runs over then next 13 days. Trick is going to be believing in the work I have put in and knowing it will be there race day, even with the let up for the next two weeks.   

As for the Bear,  dead last or a strong finish, doesn't matter to me.  I'll take what my body has to give, and I'm going to ask it for 100%. 

Very enjoyable 3 miles on the bench right before dark.  Easy pace, no watch, quit while still wanting more miles, perfect.

9 miles on the Wheelers/ ice box/ etc trails late.  No watch, no music, no plan, just enjoying the change in seasons.  Crazy how fast the leaves are changing.  Had to switch on the lights at Art Nord, talked with a mountian biker most of the way down who was using my lights to see.  A few pick ups, 9 miles or so, 1700 vert or so.  Easy pace overall. 

11 miles around the trails below Snowbasin.  A few good pick ups, with a couple miles sub-7.  Legs feeling great, fresh, but a little sluggish.  One week to go!! Gotta remeber the race starts on Friday, doh!

Funny thing, I called a friend who had said she was interested in pacing part of the Bear to she if she would like to run a 15-20 mile section.  I aplogized for the short notice, she started rattling off all the things she would have to cancel, but said she was totally up for it and would be there for sure.  In my head I was thinking geeze you sure know your schedual well and are pretty booked if you know exactly what you have going and what to cancel a week in advance, but I didn't say anything to her.  I ended the conversation saying I would get with her with more details later and probably get her some stuff to bring for me.  We hung up and about five minutes later my phone rings and she asks what time the race starts tomorrow! Now that's a good friend and pacer.  She thought I was calling her at 6:00 PM the night before the race to pace me, and she said she could do it! wonder what went through her head when I said I'd get more details to her later?? Hilarious!

Very easy hike/run with the dog.  Ran into a couples of old friends who were coming down from Malan's.  Hadn't seen them in years so it was good to catch up.  3 miles or so.

Easy paced 11 miles part way up Ben Lomond trail and back.  Legs sluggish on the climb, felt good on the down. Most miles were sub 8:00.   Having a little shoe dilemma, been running in my Wildcats as they are what I am planning to wear at Bear, but I seem to run crazy clutzy in them.  Catching toes, tweaking knee, ect.  Bought some Inovate 320's last week, and have put some miles on them, but not crazy about the fit or feel.  I've run hunreds of miles in the Wildcat, I think it's the shoe, but need to pay better attention when running in them.

Spent a couple of hours reading Wasatch race reports and scaring the hell out of myself.  Seems like most of them go, "felt good to such and such mile, wheels came off, threw up lots, couldn't eat or drink for a while, finally came around and cruised to the finish" Holy sh**!!, Really?? Guess that's the deal with these things sometimes.  Whahoo!  Seriously, I'm a little freaked, but totally excited about this thing.  From my very first trail runs, 40 pounds heavier and a more than a few years ago, I remember running 5 miles in an hour or so, being totally cooked, and thinking, "all I have to do is that 20 more times and its a hundred miler!" Ha! Well, this is what its come to.

Ended up with about 36 miles this week and guessing 6500 vert or so. I feel totally recovered, maybe too much so, worried my legs are getting lazy :)  5 days! (beat you to it Jon)

Easy to moderate 5.5 on mellow grade trails.  Scared the living day lights out of a poor kid on Icebox.  Came up behind him while he was hiking behind what was probably his mom and dad . I thought for sure they had heard me say "trail" a couple of times, I even gave the obligatory throat clear a few times.  I got right behind him and said "trail" in a normal voice, not loud at all.  Poor kid had no idea I was there until he heard that . He jumped at least a foot in the air and climbed right onto his mom's back, literally.  He was about 10-12 years old, so he almost knocked his mom over.  I felt terriable and apologized as I ran by to the sound of his mom and dad giving him a tounge lashing for being a freak! Ha! 

Getting my stuff together for the Bear.  Like a freaking expedition.  I've traveled for a month with less crap I swear.  The calories are what is blowing my mind.  1000's. and 1000's.  Now if it was only chocolate cake or brownies instead of, you know, "fuel". Ready to roll! wish this thing started tomorrow, I'm bouncing off the walls!

This thing is a hundred miles long.

Short version:

Great race, better than expected, no major issues, great support by family and friends, will do it again.

Long version:

I am finally sitting down to write this thing and I don’t even know where to start.  What an incredible experience.   Going into this thing, I thought I might just be a “one and done” 100 mile runner.  You know, get it done, check it off the list , put it behind me and have more ”fun” running 50 mile and 50k type races.  I couldn’t really understand to allure of running multiple one hundred mile races, being out on course for a whole day and night or more, and the drama that always seems to go with the reports and stories of running that distance. 

Well, if this race was any indication, I think I have found my favorite distance. I absolutely enjoyed every step of the entire race.  There were significant highs and lows (more about that later) but overall, a completely positive experience.

I was a bit of a wreck in the weeks leading up to the start.  I was more nervous than usual  about the unknown.  I had run up to 50 miles, but never beyond, and I had no idea what waited for me in the night during the second half of the race.  I had been told all the horror stories of hallucinations, sickness, stomach shutting down, crazy hunger, sleepiness beyond anything experienced before and on and on.  Basically everything I had heard scared the hell out of me.  Interestingly, as race day approached my nerves started to relax to the point that standing in the dark at the starting line, listening to the countdown, I was totally calm and excited to get after it.   

The go was given and we were off into the night.  A couple of blocks on the road and we were on the dirt heading up Dry Canyon.  I could see FRBer Jon a few yards a head, and spent the first little bit running next to Tom, Corey, and Scott Jamie.  I didn’t realize it, but I guess Scott grew up in the Ogden area, so here we were a bunch of Ogden runners (3 with incredible talent and experience and one wannabe) laughing it up in the first couple of miles.  Pretty quick Scott took off, next Tom, and Corey and I stayed together all the way up Dry Canyon, talking with lots of other runners along the way.  The pace was very comfortable, just as it should have been. 

It seemed we reached Logan Peak aid very quickly.  Amazing how much easier that section felt at that easier pace than when I have done it  in the past during the Logan Peak race at full red-line pace.  Once we passed the Logan Peak aid, every step of the course would be new territory for me. 

Leaving the first aid, we enjoyed a nice gradual climb for a bit up a road through thick pines before cresting a saddle and starting the long descent into Leatham Hollow aid.  After some nasty descending on loose rocky road, the course split off onto absolutely perfect single track trough thick pines and aspens.  This was the best section of trail on the whole course.  I felt great and let it roll pretty good through this section catching and passing a few people, most of whom would catch and re-pass me in the next 19 hours or so.  It was in this section that I passed Davey moving well downhill. 

I pretty much blew through the Leatham aid.  I grabbed a banana and a hand full of watermelon, FRBer Cody said hi and told me Jon was just up the road, I said, ya right, just a couple of hours up the road.   There were about 8 of us leaving the aid at the same time and it turned into a bit of a footrace up the wide mellow grade road to Richard’s hollow.  It seemed one guy would speed up and we would all follow, on and on, until we were all probably running faster than we wanted to be. 

I was kind of frustrated with myself for getting caught up in that at that point.  I had told myself going into the start “my race, my pace.”  Mentally, I kept up the mantra that the only concern I had was the 30 feet in front of me and 1 foot behind me.  I didn’t care who was chasing and I wasn’t going to run a pace faster than what I thought was conservative no matter what was going on in front of me.   

I got through Richard’s Hollow pretty quick, taking a minute to say hello to the Moore family who I spent the day with last year helping out at the same aid station.   The climb up to the 4^th aid station, Cowley, was getting pretty hot and I hit my first low point here.  The trail was great and canyon we were in were stunning, but my energy was low and I couldn’t seem to get moving as quickly as I liked.  I had been running with a couple of guys and they were good company, but as I waivered they pulled away and I was alone for the first time in the race.  I stepped off the trail to take care of business (the standing kind, clear as water by the way) and just as I got back on the trail and going again the first girl came barreling by.  I looked up as she went past and could see the determination and work on her face.  It was exactly what I needed.  It snapped me out of my lazy low spot and I jumped in behind her and let her pull my up the trail.  Within a few minutes I was feeling great again.  She asked if I wanted to pass, I told her no her pace was perfect, and that I appreciated the lift.  Within a mile or so we caught and passed the group I had been with.  We crested the long climb out of Richard’s hollow much more quickly than I thought we would and endured another boring, but smooth dirt road descent into Cowley aid. 

I pulled into Cowley a good hour ahead of my estimated splits.  I was really hoping that my wife and friends were able to see on the live updates that I was ahead on my times so that I wouldn’t miss my buddy Melinda who would pace me from Right Hand fork to Tony Grove.  After pacing me, she then planned to spend the night as crew and company for my wife as they would follow us to each aid station that allowed crew beyond Tony Grove.  I was also concerned that I might miss my wife and 2^nd pacer Cody, a friend from Logan, at Tony Grove.  I told them 6:00 at the earliest, but was looking like I might be there between 5:00 and 5:30.  As it worked out, Melinda was literally walking up the aid station table just as I came into Right Hand Fork.  Perfect.

We grabbed my drop bag and took off.  About a mile up the trail, I realized I had left my S-Caps in my drop bag at the aid station, and had no extras on me.  I was hot and I was fighting a few cramps and testy stomach already.  My awesome pacer volunteered to run back and pick them up while I went ahead.   I continued on slower, so that she would be able catch up quickly.  I stopped for a minute at the creek and soaked my shirt which helped.  A half hour or so had gone by and nothing.  I hoped all was o.k.  Just then I noticed something on the trail in front of me, a package of 6 S-Caps, pretty much sealed, that somebody had dropped.  I guess if we had just trusted in fate she wouldn’t have had to go back.   Eventually she came back up the trail, but was pretty beat from having to run so hard to get down to the aid and catch back up. We enjoyed a nice fast paced run down into Temple Fork.  A quick thanks to Brian K for pointing out the tricky right hand turn onto single track off of the Temple Fork dirt road.  Might have missed that, thanks.

Poor Melinda was trashed when we got to Temple from having to run flat out for probably nine miles so she elected to get a ride up to Tony.  I settled into the second longest climb on the course, from Temple to Tony Grove, about 2600 ft in 5.5 miles or so.  I knew it was going to be a grind, and it was, thankfully most of it was in the shade and all of it was beautiful.  A few false summits later I found myself running nice single track downhill through the pines and over to Tony Grove lake.   My buddy Cody, was waiting for me at the lake and ran with me the last ½ mile or so into the aid.  As we approached the parking lot I could hear my sweet wife and Melinda cheering loudly for us, a welcome sound that would lift my spirits over and over again for the next 14 hours. 

I changed shoes here, switching from my Wildcats to my Hoka’s.  When I took off my socks, my feet were pretty trashed.  I have never ever had any foot issues at all, not in long races, not in long training runs, heat, water, never an issue.  Leave it to my first 100 to have my first blister issues.  I spent way too long dealing with that and chatting with my wife.  Thankfully she kicked me out of there or I would have been there for who knows how long.

There is a short climb out of Tony Grove, and Cody and I took it pretty easy.  Chatting about the race up this point and being glad that I was way ahead of where I thought I would be which meant  we would be done earlier hopefully.  When we hit the long descent into Franklin Basin, I let it roll a bit and soon we were flying down perfect single track with stunning views in every direction.  The fall colors were really out up here.  We were clicking along at a sub 8 minute pace downhill which neither I nor Cody could believe that I had in me after 50 plus miles.  All good things come to an end though, and just before we got to the Franklin Basin aid I hit a bit of a low and we ended up walking the flatish section before the aid. 

We pulled into the aid station right at dark to the cheers and encouragement of my wife and Melinda.  I changed shirts into a long sleeve, grabbed my jacket and lights and sat down in a chair at the car to do inventory on my gear.  Again, it was so comfortable to sit and chat with my wife that it was hard to leave and we ended up spending way too much time stopped in the chair.  Which really, I’m o.k. with for this one.  My goal was to finish and to have a good time doing it.  I was alright being conservative and relaxing a little.  I know I could have shaved an hour off my time if I had been a little more efficient about this, but that’ll come next time, for this one it was more about getting to the finish than getting there particularly fast. Oh, and I had some hot chicken soup broth here, ohhh that hit the spot.

Leaving Franklin Basin, I was extremely cold.  I took a good ten minutes of uphill hiking to stop shivering.  I knew the next 20 miles or so were going to be the crux of the course.  Cody and I named the section between Franklin and Beaver Creek the three wicked witches, because if you look at the elevation, there are three climbs in a row that look like witch hats, pointy, straight up and straight down.  We were now rolling into the first of the three witches.  It was dark and my stomach felt horrible.  The thing I feared most coming into this was stomach issues.  I have to be really careful about what and when I eat even in shorter races. I had no idea how my gut would react after so much time and so many miles.  My legs were good, but we were crawling uphill because every time my heart rate would rise my stomach would get fowl right off the bat.   We saw lights coming up from behind and I said to Cody I’ll bet that’s Tom and Chad, even though I hadn’t seen them since passing them before the first aid station.  I knew Tom would be flying on the last half, and just had a feeling that was him.  We pulled over to pee and let them pass, and sure enough it was Tom and his dog followed by Chad and another guy.  Tom made some funny remark about going out too fast, I said ya, ya rookie mistake.  I could hear Tom yelling back at me for the next ten minutes even though he was well out of sight “come on Bryce, keep up!” “get up here” “you got it”.  Such a good guy, the encouragement really dug me out of that low and soon enough we running along again following the lights out in front of us.  The stomach issues would come and go throughout the night, but were never horrible, and I never puked!

We only got lost twice, and probably lost a good 30 minutes.  The first time was coming out of Logan River.  A lady told us to head down the road to a glow stick, turn left and cross the river.  Well we turned left at the glow stick, and after following several cow trails around in the sage brush figured out we turned too soon and made our way back to the road and down to the correct turn.  After crossing Logan River we had a great time on the gradual climb.  As we got higher the trees thinned out and we were able to turn out our lights cruise by the light of the huge full moon. It was awesome!  The second time was both coming into and leaving Beaver Lodge (another aid we spent way too much time in).  Just couldn’t find the right trail (it was poorly marked).  Thankfully Darcie G and her pacer bailed  us out on that one and we followed them and had a good time talking part way up the road to Gibson Basin.  I was feeling good and started to run again, telling Darcie and her pacer as we went by that I was sure we would see them again in a few minutes when this high spot wore off.  They cheered us on and told us to stay strong.  Gotta love the people that do these races.  

Gibson Basin was cold.  Like scary cold for me.  I was shivering uncontrollably as we walked out of the aid station, despite having drank a cup of hot broth and carrying another.  I couldn’t get warm.  My incredible pacer Cody, gave me his jacket to put over mine and encouraged me to run a bit harder to warm up.  Did the trick perfectly.   It’s unbelievable what an awesome job he did.  Made the whole race for me.  Kept me focused and moving when he needed to, pushed me just the right amount.  We had some great conversation.  He took care of all kinds of little things that made a huge difference, from holding my gloves when I needed my hands, to opening gels for me when my fingers wouldn’t work. To having very detailed course notes on him and a GPS with aid stations marked, and only telling me when we were very close to the aid stations, not saying we still have 4 miles to go (in fact refusing to tell me when I asked if we still had a long way to go), but instead waiting until we were close the saying, hey we’ll be there in ½ mile lets pick it up a but for this last stretch.   Having my wife out there also made a huge difference.  It was indescribable how great it felt to come into an aid station and have her there taking care of us.