Old Man Still running

Four mile walk with the dog, scouting out my tomorrow morning's crazy run route.

This morning, I did something pretty crazy.  I ran a marathon before dawn, making it into work at the normal time.  Right above my house is a ridge that the locals call Rattlesnake Ridge because of so many rattlesnakes that like to make their homes in all the cracks in the cliffs.   Around that ridge is a pretty flat dirt road that loops around the ridge.  The loop is about 1.035 miles, very close to a mile.   The loops are fairly smooth except for an area that is being crowded by new development.  They have dumped some mounds of rocks as they are constructing roads a little lower.  So the trail through that section is a little more technical, with some rocks to trip on.  The entire loop has about a 50-foot elevation climb/descent.  

From my house the approach is 0.7 miles with a 250-foot climb.   So, to get a marathon in, I would need to do the approach, run 24 loops, and return home for 26.24 miles.   I was up for the challenge and hoped to finish it in about 4:15.   It would be a challenge because it  would all be in the dark and include a total of 1450-feet of climb/descent.   4:15 seemed to be a good goal to get it done without pushing too hard.

I left the house a little after 1:30 a.m.  My wife is out of town so no "you are crazy" comments would be forthcoming.   I took up with me three bottles of fluid and some Reeses for some energy along the way. 

A nice moon was out to light my way.  I decided to alternate the direction of each loop, which would help me keep track of the numbers and help my legs to have some variation.  I felt funny about using my bright flashlight much up there at this time in the morning, for fear of attracting attention from the overly ambitious Saratoga Springs police, who have their offices less than a half a mile from my loop.  I could just see a police cruiser coming up there and then having to explain my crazy adventure.   So, for the first 12 miles or so, I ran almost entirely by the moon-light.  It slowed me down somewhat, but was a great challenge.   It was neat to look down to the neighborhoods lighted below.

After 4 a.m., I was more confident about turning my light and started to for a least a half a loop.   On the west side of the ridge, which is usually very quiet because you can’t hear any noise from the homes or roads below, I heard a strange roar of an engine above me.   I was very surprised to see a truck driving down from the ridge.  Someone had spent the night up there.  Last evening, I noticed a young man rappelling of the cliff up there.  It must have been him.

By 5 a.m., the homes and roads below were waking up as more cars were on the roads making their way to work.  I only had a few more loops and I pushed the last loop pretty hard.   I finished the 24^th loop, gathered my stuff and headed home.   My finish time was 4:17:47 for my early morning trail marathon.

climb 9:06
1 8:56
2 9:15
3 9:06
4 8:59
5 9:29
6 9:40
7 9:59
8 9:37
9 9:53
10 9:56
11 10:06
12 9:57
13 9:34
14 10:14
15 10:30
16 10:38
17 10:06
18 11:17
19 10:14
20 10:45
21 11:53
22 11:31
23 11:12
24 9:29
return 6:28
total 4:17:47

Another zero day.  This is a taper week for me because I will be running in the Desert RATS 50-miler in Fruita, Colorado on this Saturday....more desert slickrock and dirt road running.  For 50 or 100-milers, I have found it really does not help at all to run very much during the week before a long ultra.   I ran that marathon distance training run on Monday morning, at that is really plenty.  I had no soreness at all from that run. The only thing that normally helps during my taper weeks is a few easy miles to keep the muscles happy so I don't feel those phantom taper pains.

After this race, I'll need to figure out my training strategy for my next two races.  First Ogden Marathon, and then Squaw Peak 50.  Both are totally different, requirely radically different training.   I'll need to hit the hill training hard for SP50, but also need to do tempo/speed training for the flats of Ogden.   It should be an interesting challenge.

Another zero mile day today.  That is four in a row!  Gee and some people think I'm always running.  Tomorrow is race day in Fruita, Colorado.  The weather looks like it will be very similar to my other two desert races this year, perfect weather.  High around 63, low around 36 at start time.  Partly cloudy. 

I've never run this Desert RATS 50-mile race before, but I have heard that it is fun one.  Looks like most of it is on tough mountain bike trails which some good single track.  I'm taking two of my sons out with me.  They will bike around and have some fun while I race.

I do plan to race (as opposed to just finishing).  It will be tougher, since I don't know the course, but I think I'm ready.   I hope for about a 10:30 finish which would probably be a top-15 finish out of about 60 starters.  I also hope to win the 50+ age group since my buddy Todd Holmes won't be there.   But running with mostly Colorado runners is tough.  They are fit and fast, and have altitude on their side.  There is also a 25-mile race going on at the same time with about 150 runners.   My planned 25-mile split time (4:40) will probably rank about 40th among those runners.   After completing the 25-mile loop, we will have to do the loop again in the opposite direction.

Full race report now at: http://www.crockettclan.org/blog/?p=145

I finished the Desert RATS 50 in Fruita, CO in 10:46:16, 24th overall and 1st in the old foggie 50+ age group.  It was a wonderful run.  The temperature was great (high about 65), but I still became badly dehydrated at one point. I need to do more afternnon training.  I also took a wrong turn and wasted 5 minutes or so.  I had a great time.  Two of my boys came with me and mountain biked while I ran.  Home in the evening.  It was a fun Saturday.   The course was easier than expected even with the 8,000-foot elevation gain/loss. My full race report will come in a few days.

A few quick details.   This race is run on mountain bike trails above the Colorado River.  The terrain is similar to Moab but with less slick rock.  The 50-mile race runs concurrently with a 25-mile race.   The 50-milers run the loop twice, the second loop in reverse direction.  About 40 miles of the course is smooth single-track.  There is about 8000-feet of climb during the two loops, most on four long climbs from the desert floor up to the plateau.   On the first climb I was frustrated that I couldn’t keep up with the top 30 runners, but once at the top, I was able to blast by a long train of 20 runners who just didn’t have the technical speed on the downhill.  Because it was on single-track, the only way for me to pass them was to go "off road" and do a slingshot sprint around 4-5 runners and then swoop back in line.  It felt like I was racing Nascar.  I eventually passed them all and and had "clean air" in front of me to run as fast as I pleased.  I reached the first check-point (mile 5.9) at 53 minutes.  That was nine minutes faster than planned, so I now understood why I was having trouble keep up.  It was just too fast.   The next 12 miles or so was a blast, rolling trails on a shelf above the Colorado River.  I discovered that I struggled to keep up with the runners around me until the trail became more technical, then I had speed about 50% faster than the others and could catch up or press ahead.   At mile 9.2 I made a blunder and took a wrong turn out of the aid station.  I recognized my mistake after a few minutes.  I probably wasted about 6 minutes and fell behind about  one-half mile from those I was running with.

The elite front-runners came running toward me at the 21-mile mark.  They were eight miles ahead.  Amazing.   I finished loop one (25 miles) in 4:42, just two minutes slower than planned.   By mile 30.9 I was back up to 5-minutes ahead of my planned pace.  But then the afternoon became warm and the climbs were tougher.  I spent the next couple hours picking off runners ahead of me one-by-one.  I pushed very hard from miles 34-37 to pass a couple runners.  In doing so I became pretty seriously dehydrated.  I noticed heat-stroke symptoms.    Chills, light-headed, not sweating.  I quickly took action, took two electrolyte pills and pushed the fluids.  I backed off my pace significantly.  I had built up a big lead over anyone behind me, so no one caught up to me, but I took an extra 10 minutes off my pace to recover.   Within a half hour, I felt much better.   It was only about 60-65 degrees, but I just wasn’t drinking enough and taking in enough electrolytes.  Also, I just haven’t trained much in these temperatures so far this season.

During the final huge climb at mile 45-46, I was really lazy.  But then I recognized Milada Copeland from Utah, hot on my tail, less than 3 minutes behind.   That woke me up and I started to push much harder.   Once on top, I knew that no one would catch me during the last three-miles to the finish.  It was mostly downhill and I still had good downhill speed.     I finished in 10:46, which was 16 minutes slower than my goal.  I knew where I lost those 16 minutes (6 minutes from wrong turn, 10 minutes from dehydration episode).