Logan Peak Trail Race -Short Report Awesome run, did really well. Shaved an hour off my time from 2 years ago. Beat Jon's course record by a half hour, and still finished 4th. Very happy with it though. 1st Jon Allen 2nd Ty Draney 3rd Corbin Talley 4th Cody Draper All of us finished within 3 mins of each other. Gory details later.... T-4:29:49 (by my watch) (9:38 ave pace) Longer Report... My first attempt at this race was 2 years ago when it was in its first year and Paul and I decided to run it as a training run. We ran hard, but took long breaks at all the aid stations and at the top. We still finished 4th and 5th, but left me wanting more (ie, I wanted to do it much faster). I didn't get a chance to last year due to injuries so this was the year. My goal was to stay in the top 5 overall, but knew it would be a challenge due to the big names there. We had Jon Allen (course record holder from last year), Ty Draney, Karl Jarvis (ultra marathon extraordinares), and Corbin Talley (fast guy who now does trail races), and Leland Barker (3? time winner of the Wasatch 100 and trail running legend). Never mind the other unknown 70+ starters. Serious competition for us. The race starts out at ~5000 feet up on the Logan bench. We all start up the hills in a comfortable uphill climb pace that lets us chat. We quickly settled into a group of 5 that turned into 6 within a few miles. We kept the uphills slow and easy to conserve energy for later. The course climbs to about 8000 feet by the time we hit Aid Station 1 (4.5 miles into it). My splits for the first section were: 9:09, 10:52, 15:21, 15:40, 15:44 (including stopping at aid 1). The second section of the course takes you on the South Sincline trail which for much of it is a jeep trail that is rarely used. We kept together still as a group of 5 (Jon, Karl, Ty, Corbin, and myself). That really help pass the time. That and the views, they are awesome. This section felt good and some went faster on the downhills, but we all joined back up for the uphills. Other than a few snowy and muddy sections, this section was ideal. Splits were: 9:58, 7:21, 7:42, 12:48, 9:49 The third section is the big climb up to the peak. We left aid 2 in a group (still) and worked our way up the snowy ridge. One section was especially snowy/icy and I pretty much slid (on my shoes) down the whole thing. Once we worked our way to the top, we took a few min break and took some photos and admired the view before blasting the downhill. Our split at the top was 2 hours and 42 min. My time 2 years ago was 3 hours and 5 mins. Wow. On the way down, we followed the trail, but stayed on the ice as much as possible as it was fast to skid/run down. My feet got a bit wet here and was the beginning of trouble for me. I quickly focused on making it to the third aid station with as little effort as possible and put the feet issue out of my mind. We had some slow sections as we were forced to re-climb the ice fall that we slid down the first time. Corbin and Ty got stuck on it and couldn't climb up it without sliding back down. They soon caught up to us to resume our pack running (much more fun) Splits for this section: 12:09, 10:21, 14:38, 12:37, 7:50, 7:37 After Aid #3, we still had quite a bit of climbing then desending, then more climbing, then more desending (get the point?). Jon took off on a rather steep section of downhill, and my legs just wouldn't let me keep up. I slipped to 5th for a while and "clomped" down the hills. Jon says I run too loudly. Sorry Jon. During all that clomping, my foot slid around in the shoe and I felt a nice warm spot on the bottom of each foot. Great. I stopped to tighten my shoe and that helped for a while. At this point the order was Jon, Ty (both out of sight but not too far), Corbin, myself with Karl not to far behind. I focused on staying in contact with Corbin by running most of the uphills and going slow on the downhills to save the feet. By the last climb, I could see Jon and Ty about 100 yards ahead, but had lost sight of Karl (good, 1 down). The guys (Jon and Ty) blasted down the canyon and I never saw them again. I debated about stopping at the final Aid Station #4 for some fruit, but thought I could make up time lost by not stopping. Splits for this section: 10:33, 9:18, 6:37, 7:40, 10:59, 9:56, 7:47 The final section is a nasty downhill (the opposite of the first 4.5 miles of the race). My foot was done for and so I gritted my teeth and ran on my toes best I could. It is really hard to run on your toes on a steep downhill. I lost Corbin during this section and resigned myself to 4th, since I coudn't go any faster due to overworked quads and running on my toes. I did get a glimpse of him on Deer Fence trail (200 meters ahead), but he took off and went into his patented Corbin kick (we joked he was a 12 min 5K guy and I still think he is). Other than the nasty pounding my body took, I was still managing the last section rather well. I remember that 2 years ago, I was on a death march over the last 10 miles of the race. Things felt much better this time around. This year I survived the downhill and limped on in to the finish. Splits for this section: 6:56, 6:25, 6:12, 7:06, 7:18 (pace). Split for the second half was about 1:50 mins. (2:25 in 2007) After finishing, I took off the shoes to assess the damage. Not pretty. I had large 2-3 inch circle under my left heel that had split open and was oozing puss. The right foot had a smaller blister that had not yet popped. I ended up limping around for the rest of the day. I am not sure if I will be able to run for a while until this chunk of skin heals up. Oh well, it was well worth it. Still one of the toughest races around and by far the hardest one I have ever done. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to put themselves through massive amounts of un-necessary pain. T-4:29:49 (9:38) 161 ave 182 max 7700 feet of ascent, 7700 feet of descent according to the course maps (Garmin had it at 9200 for both).
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