Old Man Still running

Another day of rest. Trying to heal up a nagging internal injury.  Saw the doctor (specialist) today and he wasn't concerned at all, understanding the amount of running I do.  He didn't even tell me to lay off.   So, I'll put up with it for another month, get through Wasatch and Bear and see if it heals up.

I was very encouraged by my Timp run on Saturday morning.  Crushing my PR by 25 minutes felt very good and I wasn't running at race pace, probably about 85%.  So, I'm feeling pretty happy about my training progress.  I wish I lived closer to the Wasatch course and could do some training on it.  Oh well.   Altitude at 11,000+ was not an issue at all Saturday.  That is kind of surprising because I do most of my training around 5,000 feet and have only got up above 10,000 feet once per week.

Park City Marathon on Saturday.  I entered it to force myself NOT to enter Leadville 100 again this year....just too expensive to go out to Colorado this year.   So I'll go do a nice long tempo run at that Park City altitude and have some fun.

I was out running a little before 3:00 a.m.   Went up into the Lake Mountain foothills to find a trail loop I failed to fully locate last week.  I succeeded this time.   It is a 1.7 mile loop with about 250 elevation climb.   I started the loop in the northeast corner and headed south up a canyon, a steady climb, ending with a short steep climb up onto a ridge.  Here is where I lost the trial last week.  The grass is high and when I looked closer, I could see a double track road that traversed around the ridge into the next canyon.  It was pretty level, but challenging because of the dry grass, sometimes waist-high.  But the grass was sparse enough and would just hit against my legs in that section.  Once in the next canyon, it is a nice fast descent down the canyon to the main road that runs along the Church farm.  I needed to hop over a log fence.  I think the fence was put up about eight years ago.  That explains why the grassy road doesn't receive traffic anymore.  But it is great for running.

I ran the loop six times.   My times were: 23:42, 20:31, 20:02, 18:39, 20:54, and 28:17.  So my fastest loop was just a little faster than an 11-minute mile.  That shows how tough the loop was.   I'm sure I could do it quite a bit faster during the day, but with the dark, at times my flashlight wasn't good enough to illuminate the trail through the grass, so I just had to feel the trail.   It was a good workout.  Working the climbs felt good.

I was able to watch the moon, just a sliver, rise above the Wasatch mountains, with Venus above it.   Orion was low in the sky to the right. As I finished, there additionally was a glow behind the mountains as the dawn was arriving.  Not a cloud in the sky.

Slept in.  I had a weird running dream when I woke up.  I was running lap 99 of a 100-miler.  Of course the course was inside a building.  Almost all my running dreams involve running inside houses.  Go figure.  A couple weeks ago a running dream was outside but it was distressing because I was running right behind some front-runners and when we turned a corner I saw a runner ahead purposely  move a barrier so that runners behind would take a wrong turn.  Even though I saw him do that, I took the wrong turn. (I'm not very smart in my dreams.)  I was very mad that this runner did this.

Planning on running Kings Peak on Friday and then Park City Marathon on Saturday.  So there is no reason to go crazy about mid-week miles.  Resting and healing.

PM

Ran with the dog six miles from the house up to the top of a canyon on Lake Mountain.   The little dog got pooped out near the top, but with a five minute rest she was able to keep up on all the downhills.   I need to do more afternoon runs to get some heat training in.   At Wasatch it always is hot from Alexander Ridge to Lambs Canyon.

I ran up to the top of the highest peak in Utah, Kings Peak (13,528 feet). The summmit gets about 5,000 visitors per year. However, few people run from the trailhead to summit and back in one day. Most people do a three-day backpacking trip.  This was my 8th Kings Peak Summit and the sixth time I have done the summit in one day. I made the run with jun and his neighbor Eric. Read jun's detailed writeup here.

The trail is very technical including about five miles of bowling ball trail and another three miles of boulder hopping.  It is very tough.  I worried about Eric, a road running, doing this run as his first major trail run.  It did check back his speed, but he did very well.

Our run was about 13 miles in and 13 miles out, with about 5,000 feet elevation climb. I signed up for this run in order to get more altitude training before Wasatch 100. I really enjoyed the run up, but had a rough time running back down because of record warm temperatures. It wasn't really that hot at that altitude, but I just haven't been training at all in the heat, so it really affected me. It sapped my energy with about 9 miles to go. I recovered some, but later ran out of water and became badly dehydrated. I finally had to dip into a side stream with two miles to go. I hope there weren't any nasties in the water. It sure tasted good.

It turned out still to be the fastest summit and round trip I have ever done. It was 3:40 to the summit and 6:58 round trip running time. I did stop the watch at the top and a few times waiting for the others to catch up.

My splits heading up were:

Alligator Lake trail: 0:27

Elkhorn Crossing: 1:00

Dollar Lake sign: 1:22

Trail sign: 1:36

Gunsight Pass: 2:09

Andersen Pass: 2:53

Kings Peak Summit: 3:40

My pace from Andersen Pass to the summit was pathetic. The altitude above 12,000 slammed me. I kept getting very dizzy and would have to stop and get blood back in my head. I even stayed away from the cliffs, for fear I would faint and tumble off the mountain. Ha, ha. Once on top, in a few minutes I felt fine. No headache, which I usually get up there.

After returning to Gunsight Pass, as I started to kick it into gear in an attempt to catch up to jun, I took a major face-plant.   I did a shoulder roll, but bruised and scraped up my leg, shoulder, back, and bloodied a finger.  I layed on the trail for a couple minutes with Eric looking over me.   Finally I felt a little better and got up.   That is four bad face-plants in only one week.   That took the wind out of my sails.  I decided to take it easy the rest of the way.

I ran in the Park City Marathon, my third road marathon of the year.  What's up with that?  Am I converting to the dark-side of running?  Well, actually, this marathon is not your typical road marthon.  It is run at altitude and has about ten miles of dirt.  The hills are never-ending and it makes an amazing huge circle around the valley, visiting Deer Valley and Park City.  I think this marathon experience would be very attractive to ultrarunners.

Well, yesterday I ran marathon distance, doing a much tougher run up to the top of King's Peak (13,528 feet) and back with 5,000 feet of climbing.  What was I thinking running a marathon the very next day?  I've never been accused of having judgement that makes sense when it comes to my running.  Yesterday's mountain marathon left my legs somewhat tired, but not sore.  I was more worried about the stress my system experienced due to severe dehydration.  Also, I had only slept about 8 hours over the past 48 hours.   It was not the best way to rest up for a marathon.

However, I was excited to run in Park City because I really wanted to have a good long tempo run at 7,000 feet.  I didn't study the course much and was very suprised to discover how many hills we had to climb.  Oh well, what goes up, must come down, and I had a great time blasting down some hills, especially when they were dirt hills.

I wasn't very serious about this race.  I lined up mid-pack at the start, talking with my friend Jim.   As we were talking the horn sounded.  Oh, I guess I better start running. My race started very good.  I was surpised how well my legs felt.  I had to dodge and pass tons of runners, but my first mile was 7:17.  I lost track of the mile signs, but I reached mile 4 at 30:28.  Not bad, about 7:30 pace on some good uphills. Mile 5 was 6:59 and mile 6 (hills) was 8:36.  I kicked it back into gear with a 7:26 mile 7 and a 8:01 mile 8. 

About that point, the wheels came off my race.   I knew I just couldn't sustain that pace today.  We were running on the long railroad trail which was dirt.  I loved the dirt and the views of the valley, but after awhile I was ready for something new.   Mile 9 was 8:39, Mile 10 was 8:54,  Mile 11 was 10:10, and Mile 12 was 9:51.

I next started to have severe gastro problems, very uncomfortable.  My pace slowed significantly to 10:31, 12:11, and 11:41.   We then made a long hot climb up to Deer Valley, doing a loop.  I recovered somewhat and no longer had scores of runners passing me.  Next splits were 11:11, 9:40, and a fast 8:13 as I enjoyed cruising the downhill, passing many runners.

I was now in "hang-on" mode as we ran above Park City.  10:23, 10:53, bringing me to mile 20.   The gastro problem was crippling me.  So, no other choice but to take an 8-minute bathroom break.  Pretty funny to take such a long break during a fast marathon race.  I believe the dehydration from yesterday just stressed out my digestive system too much.  Bummer.  I worried that I would need to visit every porto-poddy from there to the finish, but I didn't have to.

Oh well, I now was back in top shape.   I looked at my watch and realized that finishing in sub-4 hours was very unlikely.  However, I had plenty of spring in my step, so why not end this marthon training run in fine shape?  

Mile 21 was 8:52, Mile 22 was 9:38.   I then dug deep on the downhill to the finish and really kicked up the speed, passing probably 30-40 runners along the way.  I eventually caught up to runners I had seen at mile 20 before my long break.   It was becoming very hot.  I drank as much as possible and started to splash myself with cool water.  My final miles were: 8:06, 8:03, 8:42, and 8:16, with a 1:35 for the home stretch.  It was a great feeling to finish off strong.

So I finished my 5th marathon in 4:05, my slowest time.  But how many of those other runners also ran a marathon distance yesterday?  Ha, ha.

As I was resting at the finish, I saw Smooth finish about 20 minutes after me.  She had an impressive race!   I wished I could have watched others finish, but there was no shade at the finish and it was getting hotter.  I decided to just head home.

It was a wonderful two days, getting in some great altitude and heat training.