Old Man Still running

Pony Express Traill 100-mile Endurance Run

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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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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Total Distance
109.00
Mizuno Wave Elixer 5 - Green Miles: 7.00Hoka Miles: 100.00
Total Distance
5.00

Tapering. Road and treadmill miles. Also doing heat training.  Half hour in the hot tub, kicks working the hamstrings (they tend to get taper pains, so working them is good on race week).  Weights and core work. Drove to and from SLC with the heat on.  Brutal.   Will reach 79 degrees on Friday during the race.

Trying to keep all the runners happy but not caving in to special requests.  Race bags stuff, plenty of Hammer products.

Mizuno Wave Elixer 5 - Green Miles: 5.00
Comments(3)
Total Distance
2.00

More heat training. Here's my theory about heat training and it seems to match some theories among Badwater runners.  You don't have to spend weeks getting your body used to the heat, it can be done in just days.  Two weeks probably is ideal but one week can be plenty.  Also, you lose it fast, doesn't store up.  I think it is kind of like getting used to altitude.  Takes a couple weeks.   With a week of daily heat, I think it helps combat the nausea and effects of heat during a run.   Today again did hot tub and then drove with the heat blasting in the car for about two hours total, both.  Today it felt much easier than yesterday.

Getting your body used to dehydration is another matter.  I think that takes a long time working your body through stress over and over again. I don't purposely get dehydrated, but it happens enough that it isn't a big deal and I can go many miles with an empty bottle.

Friday shouldn't be that bad, approaching 80 during the race, but it only lasts a couple hours. With an hour earlier start this year, I should be up and over Dugway Pass during the hottest part of the day.  It is usually cooler on the other side.  Hopefully when I hit Blackrock the sinking sun will be cooler.

Mizuno Wave Elixer 5 - Green Miles: 2.00
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Total Distance
2.00

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Race: Pony Express Traill 100-mile Endurance Run (100 Miles) 20:53:05, Place overall: 1, Place in age division: 1
Total Distance
100.00

The brief version for now:

5th annual race, we had a much more competitve field this year.  The race starts in two waves, slower runners at 5:00 a.m. and the faster group at 7:00 a.m.  The race is run on dirt roads and is a very fast course with less than 3,000 feet climbing.  I am the race director, but again this year I raced.

I started out very fast as usual.  I reached mile 16.6 in 2:16, that is 8.2 minute miles, a crazy fast pace to start a 100-mile race.  I was in the lead by 17 minutes.  I soon started to pass all the early starters from both the 50 and 100-mile races.   My lead extended to over three miles, but I became very distracted by race director duties, including greeting all runners I passed and some times slowing to answer questions.   I wasted probably a half hour dealing with a safety issue when a runner was ignoring a rule and refusing to respond to direct instructions and warning.  He was upsetting several runners.  Finally I caught up to this early starter and had to threaten disqualification.  It bothered me that he was ruining my own race.

But still I held the lead all the way to the turnaround at mile 58.5.  However, I lost the lead at mile 59 when I had to stop.  For the past 12 miles the heat (80 degrees) had pounded me.  My stomach was in high rebellion and I threw up over and over and over again trying to find something it would accept.   Finally at mile 59 I got into my crew car (cars drove along providing support for each runner instead of aid stations along the way). I turned on the air conditioning and rested as I sipped on coke.   The first and second place runners passed me as I stopped.  Finally after almost 15 minutes of rest, I pushed myself out of the car, feeling much better and started running again.   Jun was in fourth place just a hundred yards back or so. When he saw me start running again he commented to his pacer that this would be the last time he saw me.  It was.   I started running faster than I had since mile 34.

The sun went down and the temperature dropped to 71.  At mile 68 I passed the second place runner. I was about two miles behind the first place runner.  OK, I was now feeling good and fast, the stomach had recovered and I was able to eat again.  I considered, could I regain first place?  I didn't really know how far ahead Ed was, but I put together a strategy in my mind.  I knew Ed was used to racing pretty flat coursed.  Up ahead we and a long nine-mile climb. I had the strength to run uphill and I was sure I could get up that hill faster than Ed.  But I knew I had to chase him down without him detecting it.  If he did, he would run faster to keep his lead.

So, I figured out a chasing strategy and discussed it with my crew-guy who was driving along.  Because a half-moon was out, I would run the entire nine miles without turning on my light so Ed wouldn't see it. (You could see lights for miles across the desert)  Also, usually when you catch up with your crew, the crew drives forward a defined amount of miles (in this case 2 miles), so the runner ahead can see the headlights of your crew car moving forward and thus figure out how far behind the runner is.  I explained to my crew guy, Josh, that we would use a trick.  Josh would not drive ahead until I was a mile ahead of him, and then he would go forward 2 miles.  So, Ed would think I was still two miles back from where Josh stopped his car, but in reality I would be back only one mile from that point.  Our trick worked.  Josh would report that Ed was ten minutes ahead, then eight, and finally four.  I would have Josh wait as much as 15 minutes, so it seemed to Ed that I was still 2 miles behind but I was only one-half mile.  Josh and I were having great fun with the trick.

Finally I reached Dugway Pass.  My friend Carl was at the checkpoint there and he asked, "Do you have a light."   I replied, "I'm sneaking up on him"  Carl laughed and said he knew what I was doing, he had seen me do similar things before.   I looked down below the pass and could finally see Ed's headlamp moving pretty slowly down the steep road.  I had told Josh to not go over the pass for 12 minutes.   I was going to attack the lead.   I blasted down the steep road in the dark, still without my flashlight on.  Ed approached his crew car and started to fill his drinking bottle.  When I was only about 30 yards away, I turned on my bright light.  I really surprised Ed.  "Is that you Davy."  I replied that it was.  All he could say is, "Well the win is all yours now."   I passed him by very fast and shortly later Josh started driving over the pass to rejoin me.  I flashed my light up to him so he could see that I was now in the lead.

When Josh drove up, as I refilled, I explained that our strategy would now shift.  Josh would not drive forward until Ed caught up to him.  Josh would then drive forward to me and report how far ahead I was using his odometer.  Josh grinned, understanding this new trick.  "I'm learning from the master." He said.  I laughed, we were having a great time.   With each two miles, I extended my lead by a half mile.  When I was about a mile and a half ahead, I told Josh that he no longer had to measure the distance.   I had "dropped" Ed for good.  Now I finally turned on my light and even shone it behind me so he could see my position.  I explained to Josh that this was to "demoralize him" making him feel like he could no longer catch me.  First place was again mine to keep.

On the stretch of road we were on, in the dark you could see lights over 12 miles ahead.  Finally I reached a two-mile lead.  My next worry was, where was Jun.  I knew that he was smart enough to use similar tactics to sneak up on my.  But I soon could see his crew car lights and understood that I was about five miles ahead.

So on and one we went on the long-straight Pony Express road.   Friends heading in their car to the finish would stop and report about the runners behind.  Ed was struggling, but Jun was moving very well.  I knew that if I could finish by 4:00 a.m., I would have the win.  So I just kept pushing.  I detected that Ed was about 30 minutes behind and Jun way further back.  Finally Jun's dad driving to see where Jun was, reported that I was just 1.7 miles from the finish.

I pushed up the last hill and reached the finish at Simpson Springs in 20:53.  I won the race again for the second straight year.  It is rather embarassing to win my own race, but I wasn't going to hand over the title, someone else would have to earn it. It also was a 100-mile distance PR for me by 14 minutes.   Along the way, did my fastest 50K ever and fastest 50-mile ever. 

Ed finished at 21:30:00 and Jun came in at 22:46:12.   All three of us had broken last year's course record, but I had lowered in by more than two hours.  I had hoped to break 20 hours, but the race director distractions and the sickness during the heat prevented that.

For the next eight hours, I greeted finishers and awarded them their belt buckles.  I was thrilled that finally a woman had finished the race.   The last runner came in at 29:41:24.

The KSL Outdoors show co-host, Russ Smith managed our race headquarters.  He and I called into the show.   I'll link to a recording later.

Out of the 19 starters, 15 finished.  In addition, 19 runners ran the 50-mile race, 14 finished including Maurine, ScottW.   Course records were also set in that race.

I went home very satisfied.  The race seemed to be a great succcess.  The heat pounded everyone, but the finish rate was good and I saw lots of smiles.  Thanks to my great race staff of volunteers, seven of them.

Hoka Miles: 100.00
Comments(21)
Total Distance
109.00
Mizuno Wave Elixer 5 - Green Miles: 7.00Hoka Miles: 100.00
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