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2011 Race schedule/Results
1/8 - Quicker Quaker 5K - 17:53 - 21st
2/19 - Moab Red Hot 50K - 4:59:54 - 13th
4/30 - Kohl Elementary 5K - 17:26 - 9th
6/26 - Logan Peak Trail Run (28)
8/21 - Quest for Kings peak Marathon
11/12 - Solo Free Fall Marathon
My Daily Training Log/Blog-
Category Archives: Trail Runs
Basic Boulder Marathon…ish run.
More like the Basic Boulder Mountain 25K run today. Which I was perfectly ok with! We definitely didn’t approach the marathon distance by any means. But with the snow and ice I didn’t hear any complaints from anyone. We basically just ran up flagstaff, green, bear, tagged SoBo, down shadow, and back across the mesa trail to baseline. I think it was about 15 miles or so, 4.5K’ vertical, maybe a bit more, not sure really. It was a nice easy cruise with enjoyable company.
Since I hadn’t run up a mountain since August and had relegated myself to mostly flatland running the last couple months I was unsure how my legs would hold up on the steep stuff.
As it turns out everyone (except JV who was way off ahead after Green) was keeping the pace on the easier side of casual and so I held up just fine. I felt really good actually, which surprised me. The steep ups and downs were not an issue. But we were only clicking off 20 minute miles at some points, definitely not what could be classified as any type of hard effort.
What a great run though! I met a lot of cool folks, and had a great time chatting and catching up with a bunch of others. Boulder certainly does a great job of attracting a bunch of nice people who like to run trails.
It’s funny to me how many people I met who live within about a mile radius of my house who I had never met before. I guess I should get out more? Ryan C, Scott B, Jay, Eric D. all live in that radius and yet we’ve never crossed paths, though we’re all probably out running in the same places every week.
Here are some pics of day that I snagged:
Jack, a great host. And a bonus pair of legs helped him win the sprint at the start line!
JT getting ready to throw down, JV was having none of that
Scott wins best retro gear once again
Milling around on top of Green for a while, Nick P. hunching over to install some traction apparently
Scott and Dakota surveying the land from Bear Peak, as the wind started getting pretty cold after hanging out there for 10 min.
Ryan Cooper and Geoff R. on the Bear
The obligatory S. Boulder peak shot. We didn’t stay there long.
At the beginning I was running with Brandon, Tony, and Jeff V. It was great to chat with so many people. I run so much solo that I almost forget how nice it is to run with other people sometimes. We made quick work of Flagstaff without spikes, but I was glad that Tony and Jeff stopped atop flag because my altra instinct road shoes weren’t going to cut it going up in the snow and ice from there. Virtually no tread or traction on those babies. But I can’t bring myself to wear any other shoes because none fit me so well. At least their trail version just got released and is on its way to my home as I type.
I chatted with Scott B. and Johannes on the way up to Green and didn’t realize how far we had gone until we all of sudden popped out on the peak and everyone stopped. It was still a pretty large group on top of Green. The pace was super casual. But from here it started to break up. Tony K. needed to resist the other peaks and bail here. And the rest of us got strung out depending on who had spikes or not. I chatted with Dakota most of the way down from Green and across the west ridge of Bear. Then one of my spikes was coming off so I stopped to fix it and found myself in back of Nick Pedatella and Ryan Cooper. Had a chance to chat with Nick about his awesome UTMB and bear races, as well as chatted with Ryan as we approached Bear. But Nick P didn’t have spikes so I found myself wanting to move faster and ended up catching back up to Geoff who was at the tail end of the group ahead as we got to the peak.
We sat around on bear eating, drinking, chatting for a while. And left just as we were all about to get really chilly with the wind up there.
We did the quick out and back over to S. Boulder and didn’t spend much hanging out up there. I fell in behind Jurek coming down from Sobo and asked him about his book that he is about to publish. Sounds pretty cool, a memoire of his running career so far among other things. He, Geoff, Jay R. and I were making pretty quick work of the shadow canyon descent when all of sudden one of my spikes broke. The rubber piece ripped on one side. So I stopped and turned it around real quick, and that served well enough to get me down Skunk the rest of the way chatting with Geoff.
We all stopped at the bottom of skunk and took off the spikes, and it was nice for most of the way from there, but I wished I would have had them on to avoid a big face plant on a super muddy corner by NCAR. My road Altra instincts were not a really suitable solution for the conditions without the spikes on. And whatever Geoff was wearing at that point seemed to have plenty of traction because on the slick descents and muddy ascents he and Scott gapped me pretty fast. I was slipping all over the place, but didn’t feel like digging the spikes back out at that point. So I watched them cruise on ahead as I made my way slowly down the slicker sections. Still had an enjoyable pretty much solo run in for the last couple miles. Caught up with Brandon F. and chatted for a while. Passed a few others, and then caught up and ran in the last couple blocks with Eric Dec. Super fun morning run with a bunch of cool folks.
Posted in Running Logs, Trail Runs
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Pacing Steve at the Wasatch 100
I’ve wanted to be involved in the Wasatch 100 for quite a while. I grew up in Salt Lake area and knew people doing the race when I was young. And I was always blown away by it, and intrigued, and have wanted since then to do it someday.
Last weekend I got some first hand experience with the Wasatch 100 and it was a ton of fun. And I had the best seats in the house thanks to Steve! My friend Steve Young invited me to pace/crew for him which was a real privilege. I was very proud to be a part of Steve’s team. And since the dude was absolutely crushing the course and running near the front of the race the whole time I was able to watch the top 6-10 runners through all the major Aid stations up to Brighton. And then I got to tag along with Steve for the last 25 miles to the finish and experience the epic-ness of the last 25 crazy miles of a 100 miler.
It was a very, very cool experience. I can’t say that I wish I was the one running the race though. That looked painful!! I can see myself signing up to run it some day, but I was really glad to be a crewer/pacer this time around.
So here’s a re-cap and some photos of the trip this weekend…very fun times!
Steve driving us over to Utah
My buddy Craig Lloyd, his son Tyler, and Steve chatting at the very nicely brief pre-race meeting.
This has to be by far the most organized and well run race I have ever witnessed. The pre-race meeting was all of 15 minutes in length. Very nice. And throughout the race it was extremely apparent how well organized this race is. It almost seems like they have been doing it for 30 years. Craig was going to be pacing Scott W since he didn’t get picked in the lottery this year.
The start at 5:00 am sharp. The weather was fantastic, high 60′s, maybe even 70 degrees.
After we watched the race start, Rick (my fellow pacer/crew member for Steve) and I went back to our friends the Caldwell’s to go back to bed for a couple hours. Then I got a leisurely hour jog in with Layne, chilled out at the house eating breakfast etc. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Steve was apparently running in 5th place, according to the race website! Impressive. After a while we headed over to Big Mountain (mile 39) for our first crew stop for Steve.
Timmy Parr, already having stomach issues, not a good sign. He was leading earlier but already dropped to 3rd place.
Meltzer coming in to big mountain in 4th or 5th, up from 9th
Steve coming into Big Mountain in 6th position. photo credit www.irunfar.com
Apparently until this year, nobody had ever won this race after being the first one into Lamb’s Canyon. Evan Honeyfield changed that this year. He led the race from a third of the way through all the way to the end, and finished in the 3rd fastest time ever. Very impressive.
photo credit www.irunfar.com
Steve above leaving Big Water aid station in Millcreek (mile 62). Still smiling and looking strong despite having stomach issues starting at mile 45. Can you imagine heading out for another 50 miles when your stomach is already betraying you? That would be tough…but Steve was still smiling and making it happen. That would be the theme with Steve all day that I saw him. He was smiling, enjoying being out there, and running extremely steady and strong despite his stomach and legs hurting.
Steve about to head out of Brighton, photo credit to www.irunfar.com
I lost my phone at Brighton in the rush to get out on the trail with Steve. So I don’t have all the pictures or video I took. But thankfully a lady called me who found it and is sending it to me so I’ll probably post some video later.
I ran with Steve from mile 75 to 100 and had a great time. It took us about 6.5 hours to do that section, and I’m sure it was brutal on Steve. But he was incredibly persistent and steady. Even though his stomach was totally unhappy the whole time, he still managed to sip down EFS liquid shot and half diluted coke throughout the first 4 hours. And he just kept cranking out the steps and the miles in the dark.
The trail on parts of that section is just horrendous. Sometimes it drops 500 feet in way less than a mile down a washed out and rocky or deep dusty trail that is really hard on the feet and quads. Other sections are really awesome and run-able single track. It wasn’t bad on fresh legs, but after 75 miles I can only begin to imagine how bad that whole stretch must have hurt.
But Steve was incredible. He just pushed out the miles in the silence of the night, as steady as ever.
He was in 5th place leaving Brighton. He had been in 5th or 6th place basically all day long. Just running a very even paced race. His goal was to run the course in under 24 hours, and as long as he just stayed steady he was going to crush his goal.
Jared Campbell got to Brighton 12 minutes after Steve I believe. And he eventually passed Steve at mile 93 at the pot bottom aid station. We got to the Aid station and Steve sat down for the first time probably about 40 miles. Then moments later Jared came into the aid station being paced by his wife Mindy. Congrats to Jared on a steady solid 100 miler as well.
They were in and out, but Steve was busy eating a peach and an orange that seemed to be going in alright which was good news.
He didn’t stay long though, he got up and we headed out. But then he was shivering badly. I threw a jacket on him and some gloves. Then moments later he was spewing forth everything in his stomach.
Feeling better after that, he continued up the trail. He made solid and steady work of the last climb, and then the last 5 miles were down hill on pretty easy to run trails and a mile on the road.
His roughest patch was from mile 85-93 from what I could tell. That was the part where he was most silent and just pushing through, barely getting food in, but doing a great job of sipping on some calories as he could. It must have just been a silent sufferfest. I was totally impressed the entire time with how he just kept moving. He didn’t complain or stop ever. Just kept plugging away. The only time I recall him even sitting down was at the Pot bottom aid station at 93 miles, for a total of about 3 minutes tops. He mentioned maybe 4 times total all night that he was tired or that he was hurting. Steve has got a very positive attitude that clearly is part of his key to his proven success in ultra running. He set the course record in the Moab 100 this spring. And now to place 6th in a highly competitive, and one of the most challenging 100 milers out there further witnesses that he is a super talented ultra runner.
Steve crossing the finish line. The relief of being done very visible on his face at that point. photo credit to www.irunfar.com thanks to Bryon from irunfar.com for the fantastic coverage of the race!
When he crossed the finish line the clock was at 22 hours even and he was in 6th place. I’m extremely impressed and proud of Steve for what he accomplished out there. To place 6th in that field and in that time on that course is an incredible display of toughness, training, and talent. It was really cool to be part of the experience with him.
Steve and the 14 others who ran under 24 hours being inducted into the royal order of the crimson cheetah.
After partially experiencing Wasatch, I’m still blown away by it and the people who have completed that race. Winning that race is an incredible accomplishment. But anyone who finishes that thing within the time limit had to display a very serious amount of mental and physical toughness.
Congrats to Aric Manning for nailing his goal and going sub 30 hours!! And a huge congrats to Scott Wesemann for finishing despite insane bloody blisters on his toes that he had to deal with the last 30-40 miles. Also, great job to Davy Crockett who finished his 7th 100 miler for the year just 2 weeks after the cascade crest 100.
My first Bobcat
I was stoked and a little bit hesitant to continue up the lower Bluestem trail this morning when this little guy scampered around the corner in front of me.
(not my photo, looked just like this guy though)
After waiting for about 30 seconds and pondering on whether an overprotective parent had me in its sights already, I bounded up the trail after it. He had run off into the brush and I didn’t hear or see another sign of life. But it was pretty cool to see the little guy. I see foxes and coyotes a lot, but that was a rare sighting for sure.
I probably did run a little faster after that. But that was mostly because I had to be home in 40 minutes and still had 6 miles to go.
Quest for Kings Marathon v.2
Running Kings peak is significantly more challenging than it appears to be on paper. The data says its ~26 miles with 4200′ vertical. That sounds like it would be a pretty fast mountain course compared to say, speedgoat 50K, or other races that have 9-11K’ vertical over about 30 miles.
The challenge with Kings Peak is that after the first 10 miles it turns into a boulder hopping, tundra traversing, rock scree scrambiling, slick snow traversing, boulder climbing fest all at 12-13,000 feet. And it really takes its toll on the average time. To give you an idea of how slow it makes you go, check out the splits below. I went from averaging 10:30 for 10 miles, to averaging 18 min/mile for the next 5.5 miles. And there is only 1500′ vertical in those miles. Its just challenging terrain. That being said, I feel like I could do that section much faster. But its a tough call because over exerting yourself at that altitude can cause a significant energy drain, and then I may not have had much left for the last 10 miles.
Splits at major points:
Gunsight pass up: 1:45 – 10 miles – 10:30/mile avg
Gunsight to Summit: 0:55 – 2.75 miles – 20:00/mile avg (2:40 total)
Summit to gunsight: 0:44 – 2.75 miles – 16:00/mile avg (3:24 total)
Gunsight to trailhead: 1:24 – 10 miles – 8:24/mile avg
Total time: 4:48
Splits from 2010:
Gunsight pass up: 1:55 – 10 miles – 11:30/mile avg
Gunsight to Summit: 1:19 – 2.75 miles – 28:43/mile avg
Summit to gunsight: 0:55 – 2.75 miles – 20:00/mile avg
Gunsight to trailhead: 1:36 – 10 miles – 9:36/mile avg
Total time: 5:45
Here’s a link to my garmin data – the garmin data is messed up though, because I didn’t have GPS signal when we started. Then I accidentally bumped the stop button 9 minutes above Gunsight pass coming down and didn’t notice it was off until Gunsight. When I stopped the clock at the trailhead it was at 4:39. Then I turned it on again to jog a bit more and forgot to turn it off until 4:51.
But I was able to verify close to my exact total elapsed time because Facelessghost (Eric) and I started the run together, and he didn’t have any glitches with tracking his time. The time of day on my watch was 1:11 pm when I finished. When Eric came in, the time of day on my watch was 2:10.
Eric posted his gps data here and his full elapsed time was 5:47:25 – so taking off 59 minutes, that would make my time 4:48:xx.
The elapsed time on my watch when I reached the trailhead was 4:39. So I accidentally had my watch stopped for 9 minutes apparently.
I’m really glad I was able to head out and run Kings again this year for multiple reasons.
1. It’s just a really fun peak to run to.
2. It was great to run with the elusive Faceless Ghost
3. It was great to see such a marked improvement in fitness from one year to the next, and that’s always encouraging.
So I took 57 minutes off my time from last year and get to take home the Cowbell once again! Obviously the consistent speed work and 50-60 mile weeks for the past year make a pretty big difference. I think I could have gone faster though had Eric been up front pushing with me the whole way. He definitely pushed me to a better first 10 mile split than last year. Truthfully, next year I really hope Eric is uninjured and fit and that I’m trying to chase him down the whole day, because I’m pretty sure we could run that course under 4:30 if we were pushing each other. But don’t be mislead, that course is way tougher than it lets on. On paper it seems like you could for sure do it under 4 hours if you’re fit. But the top 3 miles of boulder scrambling, tundra, and 12-13000 feet on this route really take their toll.
I had a great time running with facelessghost and trevor the first 10 miles and then I was solo from there.
I went through a few minor low energy points on the upper section, where I would just feel tired so I would start to hike, or stop for a second to catch my breath and suck down some EFS liquid shot.
Then I’d keep moving, and within moments each time I would feel pretty good again and start running or moving faster. EFS liquid shot is the best endurance energy product that I’m aware of. That stuff works like clockwork for me every time. I never have any problem sipping down that stuff all day. And ever since I started using it last summer, I have without fail had plenty of energy all day on all the long distances events I have done. Not ever even coming close to bonking. I dig EFS.
I used about 14 ounces total throughout the day. Which is 12-1300 calories probably. But I also carried a Red Bull up the trail for the first 5 miles and stashed it at the bridge at Elkhorn crossing. That was really, really nice to have at 20 miles in, I assure you of that. I was very glad I did that. I only carried 70 ounces of water with me, between 1 handheld and a 50 oz. nathan bladder. And I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to suffice. But I didn’t want to stop and search for water and waste time messing with it up high, so I brought the red bull to tide me over to the finish.
It ended up working out great. Because I was nearing the end of my water supply as I got down to elk horn crossing. And that Red Bull was very refreshing. And it gave me a noticeable boost in energy. It was also a nice thing to look forward to on miles 15-20.
Each mile coming down from Gunsight pass it was my goal to average sub 8:00 pace. That’s what I focused on and it helped when I was feeling tired, just to focus on one mile at a time, and give myself a bunch of mini milestones to try and hit. I did hit 5 of my last 10 miles in the 7:30-7:50 range. Another few just over 8:00 pace. And on one of the miles I hit 10:47 because I was messing with grabbing the red bull and dumping it in my water bottle, and re-fitting my pack etc. But it was nice to have the Red Bull reward stash giving me motivation to get to Elkhorn crossing.
I was completely out of water by the time I had about 3 miles to go, and that wasn’t a huge deal because I was so close to the end. But I did notice myself losing energy. So a couple different times as I was passing by the hordes of hikers coming down, I stopped and bummed some water off some people. That only took 15-20 seconds each time and was well worth it, and I was appreciative of the few gulps of liquid people gave me.
Thanks to Jun for organizing a fun day, it was a huge bummer you weren’t able to make it, you were missed. Thanks to Eric for coming up and running. And congrats to Davy Crockett for pushing through a double Kings peak Ascent starting the day before and going overnight…gnarly stuff! Good seeing Scott W out there too for a moment at least, who started at midnight in a double attempt.
I highly recommend running Kings peak at some point to anyone who likes running peaks. Its a really cool peak to run to. Its so far from the trailhead that the majority of people that ever make it up to that peak take 3-4 days to do it and have huge packs. Just hiking it in one day would be an all day event for most people so its not that common I don’t think.
Sunny Saturday fun
I woke up at 4:30 this am and drove an hour and a half to pull weeds in this field.
It was a service project for church, had a good time chatting with the guys I rode up with and back.
Then I attempted a 24 mile loop from my house, to bluestem, to mesa, to doudy draw, to marshall mesa, singetree, marshall rode and home.
But I lost motivation after I got over to Coalton road in superior. The 90 degrees was starting to set itself in upon me and I decided to call Nan to come pick me up on Marshall road.
Gorgeous run though, and I felt great, until the end when the sun had sucked all the water out of me. Ended up running about 16.5 miles ending in old town superior with 1000′ total vertical in about 2:15- 2:20.
Some views from the route:
Bluestem Trail
Doudy Draw
Marshall mesa near coalton road
Swimming at Scott Carpenter Park with the family after the run…the water was nice and cool…very refreshing.
Posted in Family fun, Running Logs, Trail Runs
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Green/Bear/SoBo & the TDF
In honor of the first mountain stage of the tour de france I decided to go ride my bike up a bunch of mountains.
Just kidding. While I do love riding a bike of any variety, I couldn’t bring myself to spend the 3.5 hours this morning riding when I could spend it running over a few peaks. I wish I had time to be bike and run a few hours a day…but alas, I have to choose at this point. I still love watching the Tour de France though. More this year than ever before since I just visited France and rode on many of the routes and mountains they are riding this year.
Today, being the first stage of that variety actually. They climbed the tourmalet today, which we also climbed in May. So I was pretty eager to watch the stage today. The crowds were slightly bigger for them than when we were there. Here we are standing at the top of the climb after riding it. It was very similar conditions as the tour stage today with clouds at the top, but the clouds parted for us. As you can see, there weren’t many people cheering us on at the top, as compared to today when the summit had thousands of people lined up all over the place.
Nan, Me, Matt and Ashley (my sis. and bro-in-law)
Within minutes of getting to the top, Jurgen Van Den Broeck showed up. He couldn’t quite hold our pace as it turned out, so we beat him to the top. But here he is pictured, in one of his training rides on the TDF route. We chatted with him and his manager briefly.
On the stage today it was cool to see Frank Schleck attack the leaders today looking strong. I like watching Frank and Andy. Bummer about Radioshack all being pretty much beat down and crashed out of this years tour at this point. It would be a total miracle if Levi or Kloden made it back to the podium at this point…not happening.
Anyway, as for my morning run, I got in 3 summits up the aforementioned peaks, about 5000 feet of vert. and about 16 miles on the route that I ran. Tons of fun. Took it pretty easy and was out for about 3.5 hours leaving at 5:45.
There’s a lot to love and enjoy about July. But two things high on the list are long mountain runs in 65-70 degree sunshine and the Tour de France. Its slightly harder to get started working each day I have noticed though. Oh well…work can wait until August.
Here are some pics from this am.
1.5 miles from home at the trailhead
Green Mountain summit marker
Green Mountain/boulder view from Bear peak
S. Boulder peak from Bear
Logan Peak Race report
The week of the race last week the course kept getting shortened each day. Until by race day, it had gone from an epic 28 miler to logan peak with 7200′ vertical, down to an 11+ mile out and back up dry canyon with 3500′ vertical.
I was minorly bummed that we couldn’t run the whole course, but it wasn’t going to stop me from having a great time running and racing on Saturday.
I ran with the lead pack from the get go. I raced hard and did my best to flood my mind with positive thoughts the entire run. I didn’t wear a GPS and was unconcerned about my pace or heart rate. Just focused on running as hard as I could up the mountain, so I could give myself a fighting chance on the down hill. I ended up placing 5th overall after a hard and fun hour and 51 minutes of running. But I took a wrong turn at the end, so technically I am probably DQ’d, but it wouldn’t have made a difference in the placing. It was a really fun race. Here’s some more detail on how it went down:
I was in 3rd place after 25 minutes after surging past Ty Draney who was starting to walk some of the steeper parts. He wouldn’t let me go though. He would drop off a ways back, then surge back up. After a few minutes of that he took the lead and I didn’t go with him and he put a gap and was out of sight a few minutes later. This was the toughest part of the race for me. I had to keep repeating to myself that I was fit, strong, and fast. So that I would keep pushing and not just ease off the pace. I had memorized this poem on the way over to Utah and I found myself repeating it over and over to myself on this section while I was alone. It was a good distraction from the pain, and motivated me to keep pushing and thinking positive thoughts:
The Victor – C.W. Longenecker
If you think you are beaten you are. If you think you dare not, you don’t. If you like to win, but you think you can’t, It’s almost certain you won’t.
If you think you will lose, you have lost. For out in the world we find, Success begins with a fellows will. Its all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are. You’ve got to think high to rise. You’ve got to be sure of yourself before you can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man. But soon or late, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can!
In between repeating that poem to myself, I would tell myself I was strong and I would finish in the top 3. I’m pretty certain the forced positive thoughts helped a lot in keeping out the mediocre thoughts and slacking to some degree. But by about 1000′ to go in the climb, it was getting pretty steep, and I was starting feel worked. And my right foot went all numb, which felt extremely weird and annoying to run on. I was in 4th place at this point behind Seth Wold, Joe Furse, and then Ty Draney. Some guys were coming up behind me at this point. So I stopped to shake my foot out and get the blood flowing again. I’ve had that happen before on steep sustained climbs, and I knew it would just take about 30 seconds of standing there to get the circulation going again. So 3 guys passed me. But I kept two of them in sight.
Then we arrived at the snowy part.
I was the only one in the top group of runners who had packed micro spikes, and I was all about using them now after packing them up. I noticed a pretty quick difference. It only took 20 seconds or so to put them on, and I was still right behind Tim and one other guy and we had to go straight up a steep snow bank. They started slipping all over and going really slow and I just blasted right past them. Within a minute they were out of sight behind me as I went flying full speed across a 1/4 mile section of tracks running straight across a steep snow field. It felt good to be able to take advantage of the spikes after having carried the extra weight up the hill. This put me into 5th place by a good margin as we hit the turn around.
Seth Wold however, was 8 minutes up on me at the turn around. Joe Furse was next, then Ty Draney and Chris were together coming down and had a few minutes of lead on me.
After the turnaround I did everything I could to blast back down fast. One time I took a super man dive across a snowy section when one foot sunk to my knee.
After about half way down, running as hard and as fast as I could and having gone close to 3 miles and 2500′ descent, my quads were getting pretty worked. And I wasn’t catching sight of the guys in front.
As I reached the dry gravelly section near the bottom of dry canyon, I took my eyes off the trail for only a moment to see the view of the canyon and soon found myself in what felt like a slow motion stumble to the earth. And then I had skidded to a stop on my left side.
I jumped back up, saw a gash in my left knee, and started running again. It was a little slow and painful at first, but soon enough I regained my tempo, not wanting to get caught by the dudes behind. But at that point I lost hope of catching anyone in front.
Then I missed the turnoff to the trail at the bottom of the canyon and went running at probably a sub 5 minute pace straight down the road. I was disoriented and had no clue where I was. I ran north through a neighborhood, when I should have been going south to the park across the shoreline trail. Finally I stopped a car in the middle of the street to ask where the park was.
I made it back to the park, via the wrong way, but still in 5th place. The next guys didn’t arrive until 3 or so minutes after that.
I enjoyed that race a lot. I liked the shorter distance actually…it made it pretty fun to just go all out the whole time. It was quite a different experience than the pace I would have been able to sustain for 28 miles.
I missed out on a lot of action in front of me though. It turned out to be quite a battle at the lead. I thought Seth had it in the bag…but Ty and Chris actually caught up to Joe on the descent, they must have flown! And then all three of them sucked up Seth who said he was just jogging pretty easy with a HR of 120 on the way down. But by the time they passed Seth they were near the bottom of the canyon, and he turned on the speed. He re-passed them, and Joe was the only one to hang, but he couldn’t out kick Seth. They ended up in a sprint to the finish with Seth beating Joe by only about 1 second.
Sprint to the finish, followed by a puke on the nearest tree by Joe. Way to give it everything you had Joe! You were so close.
Then Ty came in followed by Chris. I arrived about 4 minutes after Chris, about 5 minutes behind the leaders. So I gained a few minutes on Seth on the down hill, but didn’t gain anything on Joe or the others.
Ty finishing third
Chris finishing 4th, he took a spill on the descent also it appeared
A slightly bloody finish
The risks of bombing the descent. Better keep my eyes on the trail next time. It could have been a lot worse I’m sure…
Oh yeah, and the fall. So I cleaned out the gash in my knee, and surveyed a few folks as to whether they thought I should go get some stitches. It was a pretty unanimous consensus for stitches…so I headed to the “5-minute clinic” south of town. Glad I did too, I would much rather not get an infection in my knee if I can at all help it.
So in the end…it was a bummer we couldn’t run to the peak and around the awesome single track up high. But not enough to ruin the fun time had racing and being out on a beautiful morning in the mountains. I especially enjoyed the snowy sections of the course up high.
Kudos to the RD and volunteers for putting on a great event, despite the challenges with the weather and the course.
L to R: Seth, Joe, Chris, Cody (injured reserve list, CR holder last year), me, after the run.
Posted in Race Reports, Trail Runs
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75 degrees. I like it. Weekly review 5/1-5/7
Picture rock trail at Heil Ranch, looking toward Lyons
What fantastic weather we got today to end the week with. 75 and sunny in Boulder is hard to beat.
Training is going well for me lately. I took a couple months of easing back in and doing more of a flat and 5K focused training keeping the mileage at 200 in April. And that did a lot of good for me. My body felt really great the entire month of April and still is feeling fantastic. I don’t have any lingering issues and that makes me even more excited about the weather turning so nice.
Today kicked off my transition back into longer weekend runs to take advantage of the sun shine and dry trails, and to start more specific preparation for Logan peak at the end of June. After that I’ll take it a bit easier to recover fully in July and then build up in August again to get ready for the Steamboat 50.
This week’s training was really enjoyable and went just how I like it.
- Monday: 6.5 miles – 53:29 – 8:13 avg – 910′ vert – up Table mesa, skunk cyn, mesa trail, down bear. Went really easy at first then realized I had to push the pace on the down hill to get home in time.
- Tuesday: 8.5 miles – 1:47:00 – 12:35 avg – 3190′ vertical – Green mtn from Chataqua – Did the middle route up gregory to greenman in 45:03 at a pretty steady, but definitely not all out effort until the last 2 minutes. I could really feel that 45 minutes was way harder than it should be if I ran that type of terrain more regularly. That is where my focus will shift over the next 6 weeks because otherwise I’ll get seriously worked over by the 7400′ of vert spread over only 14 miles at Logan peak coming up.
- Wednesday – 10 miles – 1:21:36 – 8:09 avg – 1100′ vertical - Another beautiful morning to cruise the s. boulder trails. Marshall, lower bluestern, upper bluestern, mesa, down n. shanahan.
- Thursday – 11 miles – 1:24 – 7:43 avg – 700′ vertical - Speed workout day. Brendan joined me which was great, its always so much better to do speed workouts with someone. The workout felt smooth. I really like getting at least one day per week of fast turnover running in, it has made a big difference for me in improved fitness and speed doing that consistently over the last 8 months. Here were my splits/workout, with 2-3 min recovery down hill between each set:
- 1/2 mile up hill – 3:03 – 50′ ascent
- 1 mile – 1/2 up, 1/2 down – 5:53 – 70′ ascent, 70′ descent
- 1/2 mile up – 3:06 – 55′ ascent
- 1 mile – 1/2 up, 1/2 down – 5:56 – 80′ ascent, 80′ descent
- 1/2 mile up – 3:05 – 65′ ascent
- .3 mile – 1:46 (5:53 pace) – up and down pretty steep with 27′ net ascent
- Friday – 4 miles – 35 min. - barefoot on the bear creek bike path – 8:30 ish pace. At the beginning of April when the weather warmed up I started the enjoyable habit of running barefoot on Fridays. The bike paths all over town are really smooth and comfortable to get around on barefoot. Ran short on time today not getting out the door quick enough though.
- Saturday – 18 miles – 2:43 – 9:06 avg – 2250′ vertical - Easy cruise through the mountains on an immaculate day! I guess people were saying it was windy in Boulder? It definitely wasn’t windy at all up at Heil Ranch. Felt great to get out for a longer run, it had been a few weeks. I could tell it had been a while though because my feet got tired after 12-13 miles. Or perhaps it was all the rocky sections up at Heil.
- Weekly Totals: 58 Miles – 8 hrs 46 min – 8400′ vertical
- April Totals: 199.5 miles – 28 hrs 30 min – 17,000′ vertical – 975 push ups – 390 pull ups – 6 days core exercise
Here are some more pics from Heil today:
Looking down at st. vrain canyon from the top of Heil.
A section of the nicer smooth single track at Heil
Picture rock trail view
30″ Rattlesnake I came within inches of stepping on. He got freaked out when I prodded him off the trail with a stick and started rattling like mad as he slithered off.
Posted in Running Logs, Trail Runs, Weekly Review
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Mid-run creek icing (in the snow)
Schlarb and I met for the weekly Thursday green ascent this am, despite loads of new wet snow. It was actually pretty nice out, the temps weren’t below freezing. And the soft heavy snow felt kind of cool to run on…until it got really steep, then it was kind of annoying.
After a short warm up, we decided to head over the mesa and up bear canyon. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to match my pace from last week though with all the heavy snow on the trail. It was worse than I thought it would be though.
Once we started the climb up the canyon, it was ok for a while, then pretty quick we arrived to a section where it seemed every tree in the valley was intent on stopping anyone from moving up the trail. Tree after tree was overloaded with snow and hanging right in front of the trail. We had to duck under them all, or go around. It totally threw off the running rhythm.
At one point I was literally on my hands and (bare) knees crawling through a 6 foot tunnel of overweighted tree limbs that left about 1 foot of space to get under. It was laughable actually. Any hopes of matching my time from last week were out the window, although I was feeling pretty fresh and the legs had plenty of energy.
Then on the first river crossing I saw jason’s foot print on a precarious rock in the middle, and I knew I needed to be careful there in order to stay up right. So I slightly slowed down…then promptly I found myself striking the ground hard with my left elbow and noticed my entire left side of my body submerged in the down flowing stream.
Fun! This is a great time to ice out the legs anyway I thought…maybe I’ll just chill here for a bit.
Oh wait, that wasn’t my thought at the moment after all. I jumped out of the creek pretty fast, pretty shaken from the abruptness and chilliness of it all, and continued up the path. Now wanting to turn around and run down because that was quite lame and it hurt, and the path wasn’t getting any easier.
But since Jason was up ahead, I had no choice but to press on and not be lame and just bail on him making him wait at the top forever wondering if I was alive.
That was a good thing I guess. I struggled to get back into running again for a few minutes, then settled back in to enjoying the beauty of my surroundings. I never really got cold that I can recall, but my elbow hurt a bit.
Anyway, I made it to the top in 44:30, a good 6 minutes slower than last week. It was fun though, mostly, and it was really beautiful out there this morning. Jason was a good 5 or 6 minutes ahead of me I think. Maybe I still have him beat (which would be totally meaningless but fun to razz him about anyway) for the time being on the time up that route…we’ll see what his exact data was!
Coming off the north side of green it seemed like foot high snow in some spots, definitely giving my bare calves a nice ice down. It was great…now I know how to save all sorts of time. Just combine the after run icing with the run itself and voila…efficiency!
Total for the morning 11.65 miles- 2:30 – 3100′ vertical.
And here are a few pics Jason snapped from his phone
New FKT for Jason and others to promptly obliterate
This morning, in a surprise turn of events, the vote was unanimous in favor of running up bear canyon to green for the weekly Thursday morning green mtn. jaunt.
OK, I’ll admit, it was easy to get everyone to vote the same since I was the only one that showed up. I’ll also admit I’m kind of glad I was, because I’m pretty sure I would have succumbed to the ever-persuasive Schlarb and run up the ampitheater route had he not been sick this morning. While I enjoy the company, I really enjoy the bear canyon ascent. It is definitely my favorite route to the top of Green mountain. Probably because I can actually run the whole way whereas on the steeper routes I’m more efficient hiking in some spots. So George, hopefully you will post this FKT to a new page with fastest known times for that version of the ascent so I can then hopefully convince Jason to add that one to the rotation. Maybe he’ll see the light once he tries it out. Then again Jason, I get why you and other mountain goats like the steeper routes…because you are actually capable of running them. Maybe my tune would change if I were more fit. Also, this FKT is only a FKT to me, as I’m certain many people have clocked way faster times on this route that I don’t know about.
Anyway…The route I clocked today was from the sign posts at the start of the bear canyon single track at the junction of the mesa trail and the bear canyon trail. I stopped the clock at the summit marker. I started at chataqua and warmed up for the first 3 miles across mesa over to bear canyon. I felt a lot better starting the climb after a 30+ minute warm up.
Here were my splits:
- 22:17 to Bear west ridge trail junction
- 12:15 from there to the 4 way
- 3:42 from 4 way to top, plus 7 seconds to the summit marker.
- Total: 38:21
- Stats for the ascent route: 3.01 miles – 1842′ vertical – 950′ vertical for the first 2 miles – 890′ for the last mile.
Totals for the morning: 10 miles – 1:58 – 2700′ vertical.
I ran a really slow warmup, and ran down from the summit to chataqua really slow. Running up, I ran pretty steady for the first 2 miles, then the heart rate jumped way up from there to the 4-way and I pushed it pretty good. But the last section from the 4-way up I went as hard as I could. And I was holding onto the summit marker gasping for air at the top. It seemed like it took a good 4-5 minutes for my heart rate to settle back down. Maybe not that long….but that last fifth of a mile from the 4-way definitely got my heart pumping hard.
Based on our comparative times, I’m guessing that Schlarb could run that 3 mile route in under 30 minutes. Although, I feel like my effort today was somewhat stronger than the 45:06 I did on the greenman route last week. But this route is shorter and has less vertical than the middle route up greenman. It’s .2 miles shorter and about 450′ less of vertical. I am interested to see what others would post on this route.
It was exceptionally gorgeous out there this morning. Being on the peak in the stillness of the morning sun, alone, gazing at the snowcapped Indian peaks wilderness after I could see straight again, was really, really nice.
And as a trail report, the only ice left on the trail anywhere I could see is just the short section of switchbacks on the north face going down greenman. And that is almost gone too.