Justin Park

A.M. - First run outside in two weeks. Standard 9-mile route. Kept it real slow. Glute is the same.

A.M. - 60 minutes on the treadmill. Very similar to Wednesday's run. Except I didn't go above 9.5 mph and had a little more incline toward the end. Felt good aerobically, but glute is about the same.

P.M. - 21 miles at lunch. 5 laps on the route described in Wednesday's post. My co-workers worked until ~12 tonight. I got out early because I was heading-up our ward family campout tonight... I'm in for a full weekend of work. Go live for our new system is Monday.

A.M. - 12-mile route. Glute didn't feel great, I slept in later than I should of, and just wasn't mentally ready to go longer.

Worked until after 2 AM. Anxious for the next few days to be over :)

Rest day...Well, not really, 17 hour work day.

A.M. - Slept in, but was able to drag myself out of bed and slog-out 6 very slow miles. No biking today. Haven't biked since Friday. Worked until after 3 AM.

A.M. - Slept in late. Did my 9 mile course, very slowly. Felt better energy-wise and glute-wise compared to yesterday.

P.M. - Got off work early (i.e. just before 7) and managed to get home and get out for a ride just before 8. Did 29 miles out on Wasatch and 1300 E. to the top of Suncrest and back. Felt good to get in the ride, but could help think to myself how mixed-up my priorities are...A good father/husband would have traded the ride to spend time with the wife and kids who he'd barely seen over the last 4 days. Grateful to have such a wonderful patient wife.

A.M. - Same route as yesterday. I've been doing all outside runs so far this week because I've had such a hard time getting out of bed and I can get a outside run done faster than going down to the gym. Today's run felt better than the last couple days. More energy and glute felt a bit better.

P.M. - Lunchtime ride. 5 laps on lunch route (~21 miles). Would much rather have my afternoon canyon ride, but as is the theme of my running/biking training lately... Something is better than nothing.

A.M. - 60 minute treadmill run. Not fantastic, but the best run I've had in three weeks. Glute still far from perfect, but feeling a tiny-bit better day-by-day. Felt pretty good and relatively loose this morning, so I decided to rev it a little (relatively speaking). All flat:

5 minutes @ 9.5 mph
15 mins @ 10.0
20 mins @ 10.5
20 mins @ 11.0

The 11.0 definitely challenged me. This would have been a walk in the park three weeks ago. Glad to have gotten it in though. Hopefully, can build upon. Stretched out real good afterwards, but the glute got a bit tight on the ride home and the ride to work. Took a couple Ibuprofen and it has felt good most of the day.

P.M. - 21 mile lunch ride.

Ultimate Challenge is Saturday. Really looking forward to it. Hobble Creek 1/2 is next week, Pocatello is in 3 week. Questionable at this point whether I will attempt either of those. I'm going to take it day-by-day.

A.M. - 12 miles. Glute not so good today.

The Ultimate Challenge (road cycling)

This was my second year in a row doing the Ultimate Challenge. Although the course was much different than last year, this year's installment did not disappoint. It was super fun. The fact that it happens the same day (and just hours before) the Tour of Utah riders ride it really adds to the excitement and atmosphere. This year, the course started at Snow Basin and featured climbs up to Guardsman Pass via the Park City side and Little Cottonwood to Snowbird (113.8 total miles officially, but 115 according to the bike computer). For those of you familiar with the Ragnar Route, the first ~66 miles follow exactly Van 1 and Van 2's second legs. Last year, the course started in Park City and climbed Alpine Loop, Suncrest and Little Cottonwood (~102 miles). I think this year's version was harder. This year there was 12,381 ft of climbing, whereas last year was around 10,000. The climb to Guardsman's was very challenging.

Let me make it clear that this was a ride, not a race. So I don't have an official time or finishing place. There was somewhere in the neighborhood of 500-600 participants who started the day. I'm not sure how many finished and there were options to cut it short at 76 or 104. I would assume most folks went for the full length, but its hard to know. There were open starts every few minutes between 6:30 and 7 AM. I started at 6:35 and based on what my mom/dad said I was the 17th finisher. My time was ~6 hours 37 minutes.

My strategy for this ride was similar to last year. Let it serve as a good training ride for LoToJa. Take the early part real conservative, ride with groups of other riders as much as possible, draft, and put the hurt on during the later tough climbs up Guardsman and LCC. Things went largely according to plan.

The first 40 miles were pretty uneventful. Just rode easy with other rider through some really really pretty scenery in the Wasatch Back. Last year I had to take potty stops at both mile 20 and ~40. This year I made it to 40 just fine, which was a good place for a stop. From mile 40 to the next stop at 78, I road with an awesome train of good riders. The time just flew. It was really good riding with them. After the stop at mile 78, the climb of Deer Valley/Park City/Guardsman (whatever you want to call it) started. I expected it to be steep, and it certainly was, and long. We also had a healthy headwind to contend with. I went into low gear mode and soon found myself at the front of our group and pulling away with one other dude (skinny, young, talented climber. I later saw him at the finish and learned that he is just 16 years-old!). He hung with me as we gapped everyone else in our group and slowly picked-off other riders ahead of us. The young dude stayed right on my back wheel and I was waiting for him to try and surge around me. He never did. He hung onto me for about 2/3rds of the climb and finally started to fade. I realized early on in the climb that I was working real hard. Harder than I had hoped to at that stage in the ride. I wanted to save something in the tank/legs for LCC, but knew that I was working and that I'd likely pay for it in LCC. I'm not real familiar with the climb up Guardsman from that side. At one point I thought I was getting close and then I saw the sign the said 5k to the top. I was thinking to myself, "you have to be kidding me!" I pressed on, still moving pretty efficiently, but working. There was a lot of dancing off the saddle. Alas we hit the upper switchbacks and then the last couple miles (on steep crappy road) to the top of Guardsman. I passed several folks on the climb up and didn't get passed, but I suspected I had overdrawn. I stopped briefly at the the rest station at the top of Guardsman to refill my bottles and get some food. I didn't want to stop again before the finish. This rest station was right where I usually ride to on my BCC/Guardsman 50 mile rides. The rest of the ride was on what I'd consider to be my "home turf" given how frequently I ride Big and Little Cottonwoods. I wanted to take the descent down BCC with some other riders, but my group was back quite aways and there were only a couple other riders at the station and they didn't look like they were in a hurry to get rolling again. I didn't want to waste much time at the station, so I took off alone. The story going down BCC was headwind. Not terrible, but I had to work all the way down and I was solo. I didn't see anyone else who was part of the ride until after the "Sev Gut-check" (see Strava) on Wasatch.

Once on Wasatch, the day was definitely warming up now. The rider were all spread out. There were some riders up in the distance. LCC was looming a few miles away. I had already passed the 105 mile mark. I past the 104 mile early stop (for the wusses who didn't want to brave LCC :) j/k. While on the ascent up the Sev Gut-check, I met up with a non-Ultimate Challenge rider who had ridden from Salt Lake and was heading to LCC for what sounded like his first time (he asked me how many miles it was to the top). He knew I was part of the UC and commented that I still looked pretty good for having already ridden as far as I had. He had no problems sticking with me up Sev Gut Check through about the first mile of LCC, then he dropped back.

Now LCC. I'll admit I had a cocky attitude about this part of the ride. I knew I'd be tired by this point, but so would everyone else. I envisioned myself schooling everyone up the climb. Well... I didn't quite happen that way. As we started the climb I was concerned that I had overspent going up Guardsman. The first couple miles were okay. Much like last year, I just spun up the mountain in low gear picking off folks here and there. My parents passed me during the second mile and they saw me. They pulled over a couple times to cheer. I didn't want them to annoy me playing leapfrog so I asserted that they go wait for me at the top. I wasn't in the mood to negotiate.

Then things got a little ugly. I basically bonked. The cadence went way down and my pedal strokes became labored. I was constantly changing my hand positions, out of the saddle for a few strokes, back in for a few, then back out again. Getting pretty uncomfortable. Thinking to myself, I would like to just stop. I never did, but the thought crossed my mind a couple times. Last year's ascent up LCC wasn't this hard. A couple thoughts on this: (1) I worked harder leading up to LCC this year than last year. I my opinion, Alpine Loop and Suncrest are cake compared to Deer Valley/Guardsman; (2) Given the recent injury, I'm not in as good of shape this year compared to last year.

Notwithstanding, I knew I only had a few (hard) miles to go to Snowbird. I was still passing (a few) people. A mile or so before Tanner's Flat, two dudes flew right past me. One said to me, "just keep it steady." I recognized one of the guys from the group I had ridden with from 40 to 78. He looked good. I never caught him. I did catch the other guy though at Tanner's Flat later on because he stopped. The rest of the way, I think two other riders passed me (not terrible, but a little disappointed it happened). There were a few times where I went over to the other side of the road and rode down for a few seconds just to give the legs a rest. It worked, because when I started ascending again, I felt stronger. 

I saw some spectators give a Coke to their rider and thought to myself how good that looked and wanted one. I was tempted to ask for one, but didn't happen. Fortunately, there were other nice people handing out water and I got a couple bottles, chugged them and poured the rest down me. I choked down a granola bar and that seemed to help. I felt better for the last third of the climb. It felt like an eternity, but eventually I passed the 5k, 4k, 3k, 2k, 1k, and 500m to go signs. I was never so happy to reach Entry B at Snowbird. Then it was just 300m downhill to the finish. I crossed the line at 1:12PM. The first few minutes afterwards felt much like how it feels after a marathon. I recovered fairly quickly though.

In retrospect, the LCC climb wasn't a disaster. I was actually still pretty good, especially after having already ridden 110 miles before doing it. It just felt like hell. I'm happy with the effort. I'm sure it took more time than last year, but I doubt it was much more.

I met up with my folks and my kids (my wife was working today). We grabbed lunch and enjoyed the beautiful weather and fun Tour of Utah atmosphere. There were a bunch of people there. We watched the first few professional riders finish around 3:40'ish. Then we headed down the canyon and home. 

Long-and-short, mission accomplished for the day. I'm hoping this serves as a good stimulus for LoToJa, it should. I'm happy with how things turned out. Really had a lot of fun doing this ride and look forward to doing it again. 

A.M. - <30-minute treadmill run. I was anxious to see how the glute was going to feel running this morning after not running since Friday. Got to bed a little late last night and had to get to work for an early morning, so I caused myself to be pressed for time. The glute wasn't feeling that great. I kept things pretty slow and just wasn't into it. Had to stop before I even hit 30 minutes to rush off to work. Pretty frustrated. This is the time of year you want things to be humming, not hung up by some stupid injury...

A.M. - No run today. Had a nice Millcreek ride (~40 miles).

A.M. - 60 minutes on the treadmill. All at 8.5 mph. Started flat and increased by 0.5 every 5 minutes with the last 5 mins at 5.5. Glute is okay at this speed or slower.

A.M. - Short-out-and-back on the standard course.

A.M. - Another short out-and-back. During the first half of the run, the glute felt the best it has in a month. The second-half it was more uncomfortable.

My boss took me and a couple other guys waterskiing today. We played pretty hard. I'm going to pay for it the next couple days.

No run today. Thought about it, but had a late night catching up on a work project and am pretty sore from the water sports yesterday. Resting the glute isn't a bad thing. I've mailed in my Fall running season anyway.

Slept in and worked for a couple more hours. Finally made it out in the early afternoon for a ride under an overcast ski. Good ride to Big Mountain and back (~66 miles). Would have done the extra 4 around my neighborhoods to make it an even 70, but the winds were gusting strong at that point and I didn't want to deal with them anymore. Coming back on Wasatch, BCC and LCC were bellowing like no other.

A.M. - 5 easy miles on the treadmill.

A.M. - Millcreek ride (~40 miles).

A.M. - Big Cottonwood ride to Brighton (~40 miles).

My front bike tire had a big bulge in the side of it by the end of my ride this morning. Stopped by the bike shop after work and dropped a pretty penny on a new set of tires, a GPS bike computer (to this point I've only ever used my running Garmin for rides), and a better bike light than what I've been using. Excited to play with the new toys. Good news is that the chain and rear cog are in good shape.

A.M. - Little Cottonwood ride. My new bike computer says its about 23.5 miles instead of the 25 I've been counting each time I do this ride. So I've been overstating my mileage :)

A.M. - 9 really slow miles on the standard 9-mile course. Glute/back is so-so. I don't think I'm damaging it running real easy, but I think racing is out of the question for a while. Pocatello is a definite no, and SGM is looking more doubtful with each passing day. It's a bummer, but I'm okay with it. I learned long ago that there are up and down times (up and down years) with running. This is definitely turning out to be a 'down' year, but fretting about it isn't going to do me any good. Just need to focus on licking my wounds, healing-up, and living to run another day.

A.M. - 8 miles out on the standard 9-mile route. Really slow again. Had to cutoff the last mile so the wife could get going somewhere she needed to be. During my run, the LCC half marathon was going on. It looked to have a pretty good turn-out. The first 8 miles of that race have to be brutal coming down that steep canyon. I'd be interested to hear from some folks who ran it to see what they thought of it. Ran with the race on the way back for a while on Little Cottonwood Canyon Rd; with the the 9-minute pace folks.

P.M. - 42 mile ride north on Wasatch to Parleys and then back on Wasatch to South Mountain and home. Was hoping to get in more of a ride than this, but I got started later in the afternoon than I should of and it started raining as soon as I left the house. It got progressively heavier as I went north on Wasatch. Lighting and thunder was going wild and I convinced myself that it just wasn't smart to keep going, especially to try riding up into a canyon. I decided to turn around and try my luck going south. The weather got substantially better within a few minutes. Made it to South Mountain and thought about going up Suncrest, but I was wet and out of will power, so just decided to head home.

A.M. - 9 miles on the standard route.

P.M. - Lunch ride (~21 miles).

A.M. - 7 miles on the standard out-and-back.

P.M. -Millcreek ride. The weather looked awesome at about 5:40 when I left work. Go home and ready and out the door. As I was riding north on Wasatch, I could see dark clouds looming in the west. The sky got progressively overcast as I worked up the canyon. Almost the instant I reached the top and turned around, I felt the first rain drop. It just progessed the whole way down. When I got to the bottom of the canyon, I was met with a nasty wind and pelting rain. It was getting pretty dark too. The 10+ miles home would not be my definition of fun, but I made it home safe (~40 miles).

A.M. - 6 easy/slow miles outside. Same story with the running. Glad to be able to be doing it, but I've just got one speed right now and its about 9 min miles.

P.M. - Big Cottonwood ride (~40 miles).

A.M. - Seven miles.

P.M. - Little Cottonwood ride (23 miles).

A.M. - Normal 9-miler

P.M. - Lunch ride (~21 miles)

A.M. - 12 mile course. Longest run in a while.

P.M. - Ride to Big Mountain (~70 miles)