Old Man Still running

It is time to train for the Wasatch 100, which is just a little over two months away.  I need to start doing mountain climbs much more.   Yes, I do have the Tahoe Rim 100 in two weeks, but that will be more like a training run.

I did another early morning run up to the top of Lake Mountain, about ten miles round trip with almost 3,000 feet climb.   I was very sluggish the entire time.  Just couldn't find the energy and motivation.  The ankle pain was bad and was very discouraging taking all the fun out of it.  It was slow.

On the bright side, I did get the run done.  Since I was so slow, I was able to enjoy watching the dawn arrive.   When I started the run, an almost full moon was sinking ahead of me below the top of Lake Mountain.  As I neared the summit, Venus was ahead of me rising.  And then coming down the red glow of dawn could be seen across Utah Lake above Timp.  As it became lighter, the green of the wheat and corn fields of the massive Church farm were a beautiful contrast to the red glow reflecting off the clouds.   It was a wonderful morning.  Too bad I felt slow, old, and fat.

PM

Walked a mile at lunch, ankle felt much better.  I almost convinced that my Vasque Velocity shoes just irriate the tendon too much.  I made an appointment with Golden at Runners Corner to help me search for new shoes.   A shame since I've probably run in 30 pair of those shoes over the past several years, but it may be time to move on to newer technology.  I also have two new pair, $150 wasted.  Oh well, my sons all have the same foot size so they are pleased when I give them shoes, usually worn out shoes.

I went on a beautiful tough run this morning.   We went up to Midway to stay for the first time in my Dad's new summer home.   At 4 a.m. I left the house with flashlight in hand, not knowing anything about the trails, but headed up the mountain.  I ended up going up Faucett canyon, and climbed 2,000 feet all the way to the top of Middle Mountain overlooking Midway and Heber to the east and the back of the Wasatch range to the west.   I ended up on the Wasatch 100 course about at mile 94.2, a mile away from Pot Bottom, the last aid station. 

The road I took up was a rough ATV trail in a small canyon bottom that at many points was a pretty severe "V" shape.  It made it pretty challenging running down.  I discovered that the only way to run without slipping and falling was to keep zigzagging back and forth on the walls of the "V."  Just as I would almost start falling I would bounce over to the other wall which would slow me back down and then I would bounce back to the other wall.  It was great fun.  I decended as the dawn appeared.  It was a beautiful way to begin the day with a great challenging climb.

This run really psyched me up to get ready for Wasatch 100.  I did finish Wasatch back in 2006, but ran poorly during the night, wasting 1.5 hours trying to recover at Brighton.   This year I hope to redeem myself and have a strong race.

My ankle felt great.  Go figure.  I have no idea why it felt much better today compared to yesterday.   I did take an Aleve, maybe that helped.

Yesterday I went to Runners Corner and Golden spent a good amount of time with me taking a look at my shoe problems and had me try various shoes.  As it turns out, I think my trail shoes have been almost a full size too small.  My feet have likely grown a little with the 13,000+ miles over the past few years.

I selected the new La Sportiva Wildcats.  I tried them out on the tough run up to the summit of Lake Mountain, with 3,000 feet of climbing and plenty of rough surface, my 26th summit.   The shoes fit great and gripped the rocks well.   My only concern is that they might not have enough motion control to protect the injured tendon.  But I was able to run hard on the downhills without feeling like I was thrashing my feet.  That is a nice feeling.   That has been my biggest problem during the past few 100-mile races.

My uphill strength seems to be improving.  My round trip was 2:17 which is typical.  My PR for this run is 1:50 which is very fast and was done when the road was much smoother.  I think I'm ready to start attacking Timp.   My number of Timp summits is at 56.

I gave the ankle a break and ran a much flatter run this morning.   I ran over to the Talon Cove golf course and ran the fairways of holes 6-12.  I run on the fairways and cart paths, avoiding the tees and greens.   Once I got to the 13th hole, I decided to stay on holes 13-15 for awhile because they are away from the houses.  On some holes I woke up dogs and they were barking too much, so away from the homes this wasn't a problem.   Running holes 13-15 is about a 1.2-mile loop with hills.  Hole 13 is a nice downhill par 4, Hole 14 is a level Par 3 (all cart path), and Hole 15 is a steady uphill par 5 hole.   I ran this loop 5 times.  My split times for the last four loops were, 9:52, 9:40, 8:46, and 9:41.   I pushed it pretty hard on sections.   From there, the dawn was arriving and I ran up into the foothill neighborhoods on the other side of Redwood Road and finished up with trails behind Rattlesnake Ridge.  Total climb was probably about 1,000 feet during the run.  So far this week I've climbed about 9,000 feet total.  Not bad.

Went up to Scout Camp at Scofiled.  Got up at 3:40 for a long run while everyone was sleeping.  It was great found exploring routes.   I finally ended up at the Scofiled trailhead for the trail that heads up to the Highline Drive 12 miles away.  I ran up that canyon (Potown Creek) all the way up to Bear Ridge where I witnessed a fantastic sunrise glowing through the apsens.   It was amazing.   I was up around 9,000 feet.   I returned more directly, now knowing the route and saw a beautiful deer bounding near me.  I was on the lookout for it becuse I noticed fresh tracks that had bee laid down after I had passed there before.  Sure enough, there it was.   The lake was beautiful and there were already fisherman out on it.   I blasted down the hill in the scout camp and returned to our camp just in time for a great breakfast.   What a great way to start a morning.  I think i did about 2,000 feet of climbing.  That makes 11,,000 feet for the week.

Still at scout camp up at Scofield Reservoir, I again got up very early, the sixth straight day that I was out running around 3:30 a.m.  I’ve never done that before.  I’m going to have to catch up on sleep.  For today’s adventure, I decided that I would run all the way around Scofield Reservoir.  I bet no one has done that before.  My route turned out to be 18 miles.

I quietly left camp as the boys and leaders were snoring away after a lively evening that didn’t stop until midnight.  So, I was working on only three hours of sleep.  I did have a few cat-naps during the previous day.   I ran the loop clockwise, first running north out of the camp and state park and onto the pavement, Rt. 96.  All was quiet in the early morning and I only had about four cars pass me in either direction.  I pushed the pace a bit on the pavement.  I was feeling good and my problem ankle was doing well.  Yesterday I did some work on my shoe tread and insole to carve off some material to relieve some pressure on the outside of my foot.  It seemed to work very well, because my foot was never in much pain on this run.

As I was running along, my thoughts turned to the Colorado Mountains were several friends were running in the Hardrock 100, the toughest 100-mile race in the U.S.   Local runner, the best in the world, Karl Meltzer won the race as I was running along, in 24:38.

I reached the far south end of the loop and ran through the little town of Scofield which was still very much asleep.  It was now about 5:15 a.m.  I was still on the pavement.  The loop has about 10 miles of pavement.    The sun started to rise and again today cause the clouds to look like they were on fire.  It was an amazing scene.

I finally reached dirt road as several fisherman drove by and stopped to fish at Fish Creek.   I was now in familiar territory, reaching a point where I had passed by in my yesterday’s run.  As I ran along the wide dirt road, I passed by a couple massive cabins.  I scratch my head and wonder why people want expensive cabins out here.  There are no trees and it tends to be pretty windy.  I guess they must have a great love for fishing and ATVs.  Sitting under a cool tree in your yard isn’t an option.

To finish my run, I had to zig-zag up some roads and then decided to save a mile by doing a short bushwhack directly toward the scout camp.  I descended a steep slope and then quickly connected to a trail the scouts had pounded out with their feet in a grove of trees where they did wilderness survival a couple nights earlier.  The downhill run was fun as I bounded through grass and jumped over logs.

I spilled out into the scout camp, ran past the rifle range, and waved at all the camp staff who were all out picking up trash in a wide open field.  I’m sure they wondered who this early morning runner was.  I made the final climb up to our camp and arrived just as everyone was waking up.  Perfect timing.

It was a wonderful early morning run.  It was pretty level, most of the way, I probably only climbed about 1,000 feet.  My time for the 18 miles was about 3:15

PM

Returned home in the morning. After an afternoon nap, went on an 4 mile run with the dog.  I felt no ill-effects from the long morning run.  In fact I felt vey strong and fast.   After I pooped out the dog, I dropped her off at home and continued on a hill run.  The legs felt great.   I finished it off with a mile run through the development, running on a strip of grass along the parkway.  I pushed it very hard.  Neighbors driving by must think I'm weird running on the grass instead of the road and path like everyone else.  But the grass is tougher and energizes me, forcing me to lift my legs more and push harder.   I did get a few friendly waves from passing cars.   It was a very good week of training.   I'm so happy to be out training again.  It feels like I'm almost back to where I should be after that setback from the injury.