Running on Twinkies

I am up at my parents house in Newdale, ID today. I ran one of my old routes that I used to run in high school. I felt like I was running fast but I was no where near as fast as when I used to run this route. This weekend we are taking are kids to Yellowstone. Should be lots of fun.

Spent the weekend in Yellowstone. We stayed in West Yellowstone and went into the park two days. We did a lot a hiking to geysers and waterfalls. Sometimes I was pushing a stroller, other times I was carrying a kid in a backpack, sometimes I had a kid on my shoulders, and occasionally I was just walking. The kids loved it. We definitely need to do it again some time. 

This morning's run, I was running through West Yellowstone when I found a trail. The trail was called Riverside Trail. It went about a mile through the trees, then came to the Madison River. It was a cold morning and there was a lot of steam coming off the river. The trail followed the river for about a mile then looped back through the trees and back to the start. I really enjoy finding new trails to run on.  

Today is 09-09-09. So I ran 9.09 miles at a pace of 9.09 min/mile (6.6 mph on my treadmill). I was going to wait until 9:09 p.m. to start the run but decided to run earlier so that I could get in 9.09 hours of sleep tonight. Okay that last part was a joke, I never get in that much sleep.

Tonight I ran with the "Dirt Tours with the Front". This was the first run that they had hosted in about 2 months. Nate the host for the group has been in Eugene, Oregon and nobody picked up the slack while he was gone. 

The run started at Morris Meadow in the avenues and ran up to Twin Peaks. Nate was running strong tonight but I backed off the pace a bit a just took it easy. I didn't want to burn myself out before the marathon on Saturday. I just wanted to get in a good run to stretch my legs out. The evening weather was nice and I enjoyed a nice sunset as I drove home. 

No miles today. I am running the Mid Mountain Marathon is Park City tomorrow. This will be my third time to run this race. In 2006 I finished in 4:23. In 2008 I finished in 4:03. I would love to break 4 hours this year, but my training through the summer has been hit and miss, so I might not be able to do that. I am going to shoot for the average of my two previous times and come in under 4:13.

Unfreakin' Believable!!

I beat my time from last year (4:03:02) and still did not break 4 hours. I missed is by 100 seconds. If I had just run each mile 4 seconds faster I would have made it. O' well I'll get it next year.

Before the race my stomach was a little upset, which played an interesting roll in my race that I'll get to later.

Before getting bid numbers there were three waviers we had to sign. One for each of the ski resorts that the trails goes through, Deer Valley, Park City, and The Canyons. Some of the wording on the wavier for The Canyons was very funny. It said "I further recognize that The Event offers more challenges than regular Alpine activities in that I may launch off a jump and will attempt to cross a body of water while on skis or a snowboard." I don't remember doing that last year. Unfortunenately they hadn't added these features to the course.

If anyone has been considering running this race, I would highly recommend it. They have the nicest prerace bathrooms of any race that I have been to. I'm talking world class restrooms. They actually aren't even called restrooms, the sign on the door said 'Gentlemen's Lounge'. Well, after taking care of business in the Gentlemen's Lounge, I headed outside to do some stretching and warm up.  

We got started a little after 8:00 a.m. The first mile is on the road to get the field spread out. I think there were about 200 runners this year. I took the first mile a little fast to get a good position on the singletrack. The rest of the course is singletrack with lots of ups and downs. The hills are actually pretty mello compared to the other races I have done this year. My pace for the first couple of miles was faster than I had expected but it felt comfortable so I didn't slow up.

About mile 9 I took a chocolate clif shot. At mile 10 there was an aid station and I drank some gatorade. After a half mile my stomach let me know that it did not approve of that combination and I stopped and puked for the very first time during a race. I was a little nervous after puking because the first time I ran this race I got dehydrated. I didn't want that to happen today. After a few minutes I felt fine and drank well at the next aid station. Luckily my stomach approve of everything I comsumed after that. I didn't use any more clif shots after that, instead I used shot bloks. They had both clif shots and shot bloks at each aid station.

When we came around a bend on mile 12, I pointed out to the guy who was running by me that we could see the finish from there. It's a mental challenge to see the finish but realize that we're not half way yet. I crossed half way at 1:56, so I was ontrack to break 4, but I also knew that the second half of the course had some difficult sections. 

Miles 18 thru 20 are challenging. Most of it is runable but there is a lot of uphill and I was going pretty slow. There is a large steep hill on mile 19. On fresh legs this hill would be no problem but after 19 miles it seems like a monster. I had to walk up it, I think most people did.

After crossing the high point on the course (around 8500 ft) it got really fun. The downhill singletrack is great. I still had a good amount of energy and was able to go fast on the downhill. The are several switchbacks where you can see how close you are the the next person. Some of the corners on switchbacks were difficult to run fast.

On the way down I was moving at a good clip when I caught my toe on a rock or a stump. I thought I was going to go flying into the trees. But after a few scary steps trying to get my feet back under me and not fall on my face, I was upright again.

Towards the end there are a few rolling hills that are challenging to run. I knew I was close to 4 hours so I ran the uphills. After coming over the crest of the last hill, I could see the finish again. The time was 3:55. There were still a few switchbacks to get down to the finish and then run around a building and into the chute. I really pushed down those last switchbacks, but it wasn't quite enough. I finished at 4:01:39. I am still happy with this finish. It was a great race and more bloggers need to come a run it next year.

Here are my splits 
Mile 1: 8:17
Mile 2: 9:37
Mile 3: 9:42
Mile 4: 8:44
Mile 5: 7:55
Mile 6: 8:55
Mile 7: 8:17
Mile 8: 8:37
Mile 9: 9:35
Mile 10: 9:42
Mile 11: 8:56
Mile 12: 8:24
Mile 13: 9:00
Mile 14: 9:41
Mile 15: 11:13
Mile 16: 10:43
Mile 17: 10:20
Mile 18: 13:38
Mile 19: 13:47
Mile 20: 12:10
Mile 21: 9:24
Mile 22: 10:03
Mile 23: 10:46
Mile 24: 8:52
Mile 25: 7:38
The course was about 1 mile short according to my GPS. 

I'm sorry that this blog is so long, but the race did take me over 4 hours to run. 

Ran tonight with Dirt Tours. We ran the Red Butte circuit. It was my first run since the marathon. My legs felt pretty good, but they are still recovering. There was a bunch of tiny bugs out tonight. I got bugs in my mouth and bugs in my eyes. When the run was done I had tiny little bugs pasted all over my forehead. 

Mueller Park Trail. I started up at 6 a.m. It was still dark and I had to use my headlamp. When I got to Elephant Rock there was a group of 4 people the who had just hiked down from Rudy's Flat in the dark. I continued to head on up the trail. About 10 minutes after Elephant Rock it was light enough that I could turn off my light. I made it to Rudy's flat in 1:20. That's about 5 minutes slower than normal, but still great. A large group of scouts was camped at Rudy's. I chatted with them for a minute while I ate a clif bar, then headed back down. The downhill felt great as usual. On the way down I passed several bikers and hikers coming up. Today I also saw three other runners on the trail. Saturday's are busy at Mueller Park. I made it down in 54 minutes which is a great time. 

Avg pace up 12:42 min/mile (1900ft Gain)
Avg pace down 8:34 min/mile (1900ft Loss) 

I didn't sleep in this morning and actually got up and got a run in. I ran the Bonneville Shoreline Trail to the Radio Towers. I then went up to the second set of towers. I considered running up to the third set, but didn't have the motivation to do so this morning. The weather was cool this morning but not cold. 

Yesterday was a terrible day at work. There are 457 people employed at my work. Yesterday, 246 of them were giving termination notices. I was one of the luckly ones that will still be employed. This was the first layoff we have had since the economic down turn. The company thought that they could keep everyone employed and make it through but ended up with a big loss. Hopefully we will make it through now and this won't happen again. I am glad I still have a job but I feel awful for all the people that I have worked with who are leaving.

I ran with Dirt Tours tonight. We ran up City Creek Canyon. The grass is getting really tall along parts of that trail. In some spots it was up to my shoulders. I've never seen it that tall before. I usually don't post my splits for training runs, but tonight they were pretty good, so here they are.

Splits: 9:48, 9:12, 9:12, 8:58, 8:21, 8:16 

No miles today. I am resting up because I have a race tomorrow. I am running the Xterra Wheeler Canyon 21K. 

I got to sleep early last night a got a great night sleep. I woke up at 4 a.m. I drove to the finish of today's race. It finished at Snow Basin Ski Resort. I got on the first bus and we headed down to Pineview Resevoir. I got my number and did some stretching and got warmed up. It was about 45 degrees. Perfect tempurature for starting a race.

We started at 7:35 after a loud canon went off. The first two miles were on the road. I was trying not to start out to fast but was averaging about a 7:30 pace. After crossing the spillway we went down Ogden Canyon just a little then headed up Wheeler Canyon. Up and Up and Up. It was all runnable but kept going up until mile 7. Then we went downhill for a 1.5 miles. The downhill was great but it was short lived as the rest of the course was basically uphill with an ocasional short downhill. When we came out of the woods at the finish we had to go uphill for about 200 yards before turning toward the downhill finish. I finished in 1:45:08. As I was crossing the finish line they anounced "Matthew Ricks from Bountiful, Welcome back to the Party." I was expecting my time to be closer to 2 hours, so I was excited. I also placed 3rd in my age group. This is the first time I have placed in my age group this year. I got a medal for it and a box with 6 vanilla bean Gu's. The course was beautiful. The leave were changing colors and the trails were awesome. I also qualified to attend the Xterra Xduro World Championship in Hawaii on Dec 6, but I don't think I will be able to make it.  

Mueller Park Trail. I ran up to Elephant Rock today. I was surprised how good my legs felt after having raced on Saturday. On the downhill I had to keep reminding myself that this was supposed to be a recovery run and not to go too fast. Mueller Park is great this time of year, the colors are all changing and the temperature is perfect.

Legacy Parkway Trail. Tailwind for the first 2 miles. Turned around. Strong headwind for last 2 miles.