Old Man Still running

Recovered from the Moab Red Hot 50K+ last Saturday.  See the movie I made of it.

Eight tough treadmill miles.  Much of it 5-10% incline without holding onto the front of the machine.  The quads and hips really felt it.   I need to really start getting serious about hill training.  I'm only half-way there.   My performance at the race Saturday was OK, but just wasn't where I want to be.   My next ultra will be Old Pueblo 50-mile in 17 days.  There are some serious mountain climbs in that race.   I need to push hard now.

I traveled up to Ogden (one hour away) to again run in the Striders Winter Series 10k.  I ran in it last year and knew that is has a tough hilly course.  To make it a little more challenging this year I think they took hoses to some portions of the road and laid down some slick ice....at least it seemed like it.  Fun stuff.

The first mile has a quarter-mile hill to get your heart pumping.  I went out with the top 20 runners to drag me up that hill and then I did my best to get my feet rotating on the long downhill.  My first mile splt was 6:34, not bad considering the hill.   For the second downhill mile I ran 6:27.  So far, so good.  But on next flat mile, my legs started to feel heavy and I was passed by a large group.  I just wasn't warmed up yet.  I clocked the second mile in 7:11.

Now the fun came, almost all uphill to the end.   Chad Carson was running very close to me.  He's an experienced and talented ultrarunner.  I ran several miles with Chad during the 2007 Squaw Peak 50.  He's a great guy.   He had already put in 16 miles earlier in the morning so was struggling on the uphills.  I had no excuse like that, but I thought my uphill strength felt pretty good.   I was finally warmed up and not red-lining on my heart rate and breathing.  My mile 4 split was about 7:50.   The toughest hill started at mile 5.  I kept a solid run going and caught a few runners.  Chad caught me at the crest of the hill.  I was determined to keep up and pass him.   I found my foot speed and cruised down the hill passing Chad and several more runners.  My mile 6 split was a slow 8:30.   It felt like I was doing much better than last year, but the clock didn't agree.   I finished in 46:21, ten seconds slower than last year.

I grabbed a donut and then decided to run the course backwards.  I knew my ultrarunning buddies Cory Johnson and Tom Remkes were sweeping the course (running behind the last runner.)    I recovered fast and enjoyed running up and down that crazy hill again.   I linked up with Cory and Tom at the last aid station.   We had a good time talking about our upcoming races and Tom made fun of the way I blasted fearlessly down the slickrock last Saturday at Moab Red Hot 50K+.  Both of them are in the movie I made at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8htsdXqtpSg 

Instead of walking it in behind the last runners, we did various loops in the neighborhoods.   I ended up doing about 5 extra miles. Turns out I ran up most of that crazy hill three times today!   It was great fun and I enjoyed being out running with the guys.   We reached the start/finish area just as the last runner was finishing.  As we almost got to the finish we spent about ten minutes helping a woman runner find her lost diamond earring that fell off in the home stretch.  We were successful in finding it.

It was a fun morning.  Thanks to John at Striders for his hard work on this race.