Old Man Still running

December 21, 2024

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Location:

Saratoga Springs,UT,

Member Since:

Jan 31, 2008

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Local Elite

Running Accomplishments:

2016 Finished 12 100-milers during the year.  86 career 100-mile finishes, 9th in the world.   First person to do 6 consecutive summits of Mount Timpanogos.  Won Crooked Road 24-hour race. Achieved the 5th, 6th, and 8th fastest 100-mile times in the world for runners age 57+ for the year.

2013  First person to bag the six highest Wasatch peaks in one day. First and only person to do a Kings Peak double (highest peak in Utah).  I've now accomplished it four times. 

2010 - Overall first place Across the Years 48-hour run (187 miles), Overall first place Pony Express Traill 100.

2009 - Utah State Grand Masters 5K champion (Road Runners Club of America).  National 100-mile Grand Masters Champion (Road Runners Club of America). USATF 100-mile National Champion for age 50-54.

2006 - Set record of five consecutive Timpanogos Summits ("A record for the criminally insane")  See: http://www.crockettclan.org/blog/?p=42

2007 - Summited 7 Utah 13-ers in one day.  See: http://www.crockettclan.org/blog/?p=14 

Only person to have finished nine different 100-mile races in Utah: Wasatch, Bear, Moab, Pony Express Trail, Buffalo Run, Salt Flats, Bryce, Monument Valley, Capitol Reef.

PRs - all accomplished when over 50 years old

5K - 19:51 - 2010 Run to Walk 5K

10K - 42:04 - 2010 Smile Center

1/2 Marathon: 1:29:13 - 2011 Utah Valley

Marathon - 3:23:43 - 2010 Ogden Marathon

50K - 4:38 - 2010 Across the Years split

50-mile - 8:07 - 2010 Across the Years split

100K - 10:49 - 2010 Across The Years split

12-hours 67.1 miles - 2010 Across The Years split

100-mile 19:40 - 2011 Across the Years split

24-hours 117.8 miles - 2011 Across the Years split

48-hours 187.033 miles - 2010 Across the Years

Long-Term Running Goals:

I would like to keep running ultras into my 60s. 

Personal:

Details at: http://www.crockettclan.org/ultras/ultracrockett.pdf Married with six kids and six grandchildren.  Started running at the age of 46 in 2004.  My first race since Junior High days was a 50K. I skipped the shorter road stuff and went straight to ultramarathons.  I started as a back-of-the packer, but have progressed to a top-10-percent ultra finisher.  Wish I would have started running at a much earlier age.  Have had several articles published in national running magazines.  Check out my running adventure blog at www.crockettclan.org/blog

Favorite Blogs:

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Total Distance
17.00

I went up Lone Peak for the first time with my bro-in-law, Ed. He had had been up it several times and did his best to guide me up. We started from Suncrest at 5 a.m. in the dark and stuggled to find the right dirt roads to lead us to Jacobs Ladder. After about 20 minutes, we finally arrived.   We could see some headlamps of hikers heading up Corner Canyon, so that helped us merge to the right trail.

Lone Peak summit is at 11,253 feet.   We would end up climbing about 6,500 feet. Quite the workout!

Dawn arrives, about 2,000 feet up.  Lone Peak to the left of me.

At the bottom of Jacob's Ladder, in the dark, we met the hikers heading up.  We said hi and then started pushing very hard up the the very steep trail.  Holy Cow, that thing was steep, but I knew it was great training for Wasatch in two weeks.   We made very good time and reached the meadow in about 1:10.   Here, our troubles started.

Ed running through the meadow

I should have read the trail description.  "Many people get lost just past the meadow so pay attention to your route from this vantage point."  Oh boy!   We were running pretty fast at that point and saw a hiker to the left, so my eye naturally missed the important junction.  The trail descriptions warns:  "The fork to the north (left) leads to the Outlaw Cabin.  DO NOT follow this trail."

The trail to the left was marked well so we continued a climb up to the top of a ridge.  But then the trail started heading down.   I knew it couldn't be right and Ed just couldn't remember.   Finally I was convinced that we should head back to the meadow.  We ran into the hiking dude, and he assured us that we were going the right way.  We followed his directions, but again once up on the ridge it all seemed wrong.   Finally the dude made his way up and he again insisted that we just weren't following his directions.  He pointed the way and then it dawned on me he wasn't heading up to Lone Peak summit.   I asked, "Are you going to Lone Peak?"  He said yes and pointed to a small knob overlook nearby.    I shook my head and said, "no that isn't Lone Peak."   We quickly left, headed down toward the meadow, found some cairns heading up, tried to follow them but the trail disappeared.  We bushwhacked and climbed clear up to a massive ridge to get our bearings and did plenty of bushwhacking.  Finally, I insisted that this was all wrong and convinced Ed that there must be a major junction in the meadow that we missed while we were running fast.  The hiker dude had misled us.   After about an hour delay, we returned to the meadow and sure enough found a junction.

Finally we were on the right trail.  I expressed concern that with the hour delay, I did not have enough water.   I had planned on a five-hour adventure, but this would be much longer.   We decided to continue.  The rest of the hike to the summit was a challenge and frustrating.   We just couldn't push the pace fast because there was too much route-finding.  If we went too fast, we kept going off trail.   Ed's memory of the route was not detailed enough to help much.   So we pushed ahead at a good clip, but not blazing fast.  We caught up with the hikers we had greeted below and thankfully they gave me about 16 oz. of water.   I drank most of it immediately and started to feel better.  But I was still dehydrated.

Me and Ed on Lone Peak Summit

The altitude was really bothering me for some reason.  I kept getting very dizzy.  I'm guessing that dehydration was a factor, but I was bothered that I was having so much trouble at 11,000 feet and above.   Finally we reached the summit and had a nice break talking to a little family at the top.   If I throw out all the time we lost going off course, I believe we made it to the top in 3:30.

Looking toward Utah Lake and my home

Down we went and I was now in good spirits again.   But that didn't last long because everytime I pushed the pace faster, we would lose the trail.  It was frustrating.  But we descended pretty fast.  After the meadow I really kicked it into gear for awhile and we lost elevation super quickly.   But then I had to slow down.  I only had a few drops of water left and I knew I was badly dehydrated (I think I was down about 6-7 pounds from the start).  Each time we ran into hikers we asked for water.   Finally, near the bottom of Jacob's Ladder a young hiker gave me about 12 oz.   That would be enough to finish.  We ran again, pretty fast and made our way through a maze of jeep trails back to Suncrest.

Our adventure took about 7 hours.   But when we were on the right trail, it was about 3.5 hours up and less then 2 hours down.

I'm not sure if I will do it again any time soon.  It is just too tough to go fast unless you really know the trail.  I think it would take me 2-3 times more to learn the trail well enough to go fast.  I think a 4.5 hour round trip is possible for me.  If I do it again, I would need to haul up much more water and cache some half-way up.

 

Montrail Wildwood - Red Miles: 17.00
Comments
From Twinkies on Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 20:53:12 from 67.166.71.60

What an adventure. Your pictures are great.

From Maurine/Tarzan on Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 11:21:05 from 97.117.63.224

Yeah - you run out of water a lot. I know you like your handhelds, but wouldn't a camelback (or something similar) be better in situations like these?

I did notice Paul Collman on one run had taped one of the handheld rigs onto the larger water bottle. That might help on some runs give you extra fluids.

From jun on Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 20:51:54 from 207.59.19.194

Glad you made it up there ok. I've heard that is a tough trail to hike, but I didn't realize that route finding was that difficult. That's too bad. If and when you decide to go again, let me know. I'd like to join you.

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