I'm retired from racing. Really.

AM- 11.5 easy, except picked it up on the last 2.  Legs felt a lot better than mid-last week.  Should be ready for Saturday, hopefully.

AM- Ran with Cody and Paul for about 5 miles, including 2 tinman tempo miles, then 3 more with Paul, then home. Then I drove to PF for Bagel Tuesday- ate a nice Einstein's bagel, ran 4 miles, then another bagel. 14 miles in all, 1:43:30.  No work today cause I'm staying home to watch the kids while Marci is at girl's camp this week.

AM- Cody and Paul were both no-shows, so I ran 7 miles with 6 strides by myself.  Saw sleepyhead Cody heading out just as I was finishing my run.

PM- 5.5 easy.  My legs and body aren't feeling all cooped up and hyper like I usually do during a pre-race taper.  Hmm.  The funny thing is I already had this many miles last week by Tuesday morning...

AM- 4 easy with both kids.  Threw in a few striders.  Should be fun tomorrow.

Note: For anyone who has never seen the crags, I found a few pictures of me running them here and here, and of some random people climbing down them here and here.

Wahsatch Steeplechase- I almost did this race 4 years ago and ran the uphill as training, but this was my first time racing it, and first time seeing the downhills.  I stayed at Chad's house last night and got caught up with him- thanks for letting me crash there, Chad, and I hope everything works out with all happening in your life.  Only slept about 4 hours, normal pre-race jitters.  At the start I met Fritz and said Hi to Twinkie.  The weather was absolutely perfect- 50 deg, overcast, no rain till after I was finished.  After talking to Chad and after zero hill training for 3 months, my strategy was to go moderate on the ups and downs, saving my energy for the flat 6 miles at the end.

A group of 6 went out very fast, inc. Fritz.  I was in the second group with Karl Jarvis and Dominick Layfield (knew them both from last year).  Moderate pace out with a bit of walking on the steep uphills.  The last mile uphill is a doozy, with 21% avg grade.  Umm, yeah, that's pretty much a slow slog.  It finally ended at mile 8 and we hit the crags- some very rocky, often technical rocks.  I knocked out my two front teeth as a teenager jumping on rocks like this (toe caught as I was jumping 3 feet down- landed headfirst- knocked out cold and buggered up my teeth [and brain, if you ask Marci]), and so am always somewhat cautious on rocks like that.  The crags went for a mile and I probably lost 1-2 minutes on Karl and Dominick.  Never saw them again. 

Then the downhill starts.  You can't really call it a trail for much of the downhill, maybe a faint deer trail.  Some of it was very runnable, but much was far, far too steep, and also very overgrown with bushes.  And mud.  And more bushes.  I call it the suicide downhill.  I was stepping on bush stems which were slick, occasionally falling.  I probably lost another couple minutes here and got passed by 2 more guys who were much more kamikaze than I was.  I barely broke 12 min mile due to the 1250 ft elevation loss and very technical footing- yep, almost walking speed.  They had even strung some rope at a few points for safety, and they certainly were needed.  As Fly noted, "This section is described as '2.5 miles of quad-burning, gut-wrenching, knee-breaking downhill on an overgrown, root-infested single-track trail...' I'd add that it was also wet and slick."  I agree with Fly, except that I seriously question the liberal use of the word "trail".

But then at mile 11 we hit City Creek Canyon and 2 miles of glorious downhill on a road.  I was about 6 min pace, with some portions being 5:30- my quads felt strange at first from the previous down, but quickly firmed up.  I was happy with my pace and figured I would eat up a few runners.  At mile 12 you jump onto a very nice, runnable, smooth singletrack for about 3 miles.  It undulates a bit, with just enough uphill to remind you that your legs are, indeed, very tired.  Finally passed one of the kamikaze downhill guys, which I thought put me back into 10th place.  More down on road and singletrack- I spotted one more runner with only a half mile to go, so really pushed hard and passed him with a few hundred yards to go.  Felt tired but still running strong at the end, which I'm very happy with.

I wanted 2:25-2:35, so my 2:34 is good.  I can definitely improve at least 2-4 minutes just by being familiar with the course, plus can improve my fitness- I am definitely not near peak racing form yet.  I really enjoyed this course and will be back.

Splits (will fill in later):

 

Mile	Split	Ascent	Descent	Comments
1	7:26	239	46	Easy start
2	10:18	566	20	Nice singletrack up
3	9:00	366	76
4	9:25	434	60
5	10:13	432	119	Running in 7th
6	11:22	569	73
7	19:50	1086	25	Big, big uphill- walk the whole mile
8	16:35	378	401	The crags- really slowed me down
9	11:43	20	1258	Suicide downhill.  And that's an understatement
10	8:14	45	629	Still steep down
11	5:52	17	355	Finally hit runnable downhill on pavement
12	6:05	26	229	Still fast
13	6:41	68	195	Beautiful rolling singletrack
14	6:16	34	219	Still singletrack
15	6:50	53	265	And more
16	6:06	47	273	Back on the road
.34	1:58 (5:48 pace)	11	57	Push to the finish