just remembered

I finally ran the Grand Canyon R2R2R this spring -- AWESOME!

hello?!

If you forget your password, it has obviously been a while since you wrote anything . . .

Training is in full swing for the Black Hills 100 coming up towards the end of June.  Today I ran around 3500 vertical in about 17 miles as a kinda BH100 simulation.  My thinking goes and/or went as such -- I need to get used to quick bursts of up-down activity and the course I ran today simulated this idea by including about 9 climbs and descents in a rather short amount of running (each climb consisted of roughly 300 to 400 vertical feet and was followed by a similar descent).  Although the BH100 doesn't look massive in terms of big time climbs, the elevations seems to be ever-changing and I felt the need to at least somewhat mimic that idea today . . . in terms of getting ready for the Black Hills, too much of my everyday running probably consists of big climbs and/or descents that come natural to the terrain around here.

Coyote Call

Great foothill run on shoreline trail -- basically Hogle to City Creek and back with a couple of zig-zags thrown in for good measure. Admittedly I cheated today by sleeping in and avoiding any "chance" to break trail after the first (maybe second if you stretch the definition a bit) storm of the season . . .

I didn't hit the trails until this afternoon and figured my only real goal was to stay relatively consistent on the snow and ice . . . good times. Thanks to the number of people who spent the early hours doing all the hard work, the running ended up being quicker/easier than I expected with the trail being packed almost the entire way.

Highlights: amazing sunset and cool coyote moment.

As I turned on my headlamp -- just before the descent into dry fork -- a couple of coyote howls echoed from the hills surrounding and the necessity of returning home sent me running toward them with a bit of extra adrenaline -- a better kick that the mocha clifshot I had saved for the last few miles. The next mile and/or mile-and-a-half were an awesome combo of music playing on my ipod (deak kennedy's, velvet underground, and the dead came in succesion), coyote howls, a group of deer rushing out of the way, a singular star, and more typical nighttime views of my headlamp reflecting off the snow. Good times.

I felt like this was the first run that really tested me in terms of distance and effort over a sustained period since Bear . . . and I have been happy to see how quickly I have recovered since getting home. A good start to the training ahead . . .

January

I have been digging the running as of late . . . I am still throwing down relatively light mileage (47 last week, with a goal of about 50 this week) . . . but the time on trails has felt good. It may all be an illusion, but it seems like the average pace of my runs lately has been fairly strong . . .

The past couple of weeks has been filled with some of the best winter running I can remember since moving back to Salt Lake almost a decade ago. The trails are fairly dry and generally pretty fast for this time of year, which has meant I have been able to do a decent amount of climbing and at least some of it at a strong-consistent pace. In addition, despite the lack of storms moving through the area, the inversion has been survivable (typically there has been enough wind to clean things out every few days and although there has been some pollution there have been almost no red burn days --- YEAH!).

Two of the best runs since the New Year in terms of running at a good-solid pace include a PR on the "mountain lion" run that connects the steepest route up Mt. Van Cott with some Red Butte trails and a new Red Butte-Shoreline loop that I am using as a time trail/tempo course for the next few months in preparation for running in the Black Hills. The loop is right around 6 miles and has about 1000 feet of vertical which is relatively close to the vertical-ratio listed for the Black Hills race. Both of these runs gave me a chance to push the pace over a middle distance . . . In more traditional training, I ended up running through the Buffalo of Antelope Island the other day -- 16 miles with no food or water -- and ran about 15 miles in one of the few storms of the season along the shoreline trails with what turned into a group of about 6 runners . . .

The one thing missing from my training so far this season is long runs. I still haven't gone much beyond 20 miles and am trying to decide how long I can continue putting in mostly shorter runs . . .

This has been a ramble of thoughts, but it's one of those nights where I simply needed to push out some ideas/memories about the past couple of weeks. My general feeling is that the year has started off well -- knock on wood.

Back into training

Obviously it has been quite a while, since the last time I wrote. After Bear, I went into a bit of a forced hiatus from training as a result of achilles tendonitis. Ironically the injury seems to have had more to do with yoga than running -- during my post-Bear training cycle I was experimenting with adding variety to my overall exercise routine and either caused or aggravated the injury. My initial attempts at simply suffering through the pain seemed to only make running and even non-running time miserable. Eventually I surrendered to the inevitable and decided to take about 10-11 days completely off from running. After the complete break, I started my training at basically zero again . . . last week was my first week back at the 50 mile mark and included my first run since September at the 20+ distance. I think it's relatively fair to say that I am back in at least winter training mode although a bit behind where I have been the past couple of years in January (and definitely a couple pounds heavier than my normal December-January weight) . . . despite the general setbacks of October and November, December turned out to be a fairly good month of running in the sense that the trails are frighteningly clear of snow and I have been running on dirt more consistently than sometimes happens in the winter.

General Reflection on 2011: I would say that overall the year was one of my strongest years, if not my strongest year of racing. The fact that I DNFed at Bear puts a damper on all this nonsense, but I raced more during 2011 than any other year and in further reflection I kind of believe that part of what happened at Bear might have been an example of mental/physical burnout leading me to take impatient/unnecessary risks. Thankfully, the rest of the race season went fairly well with the highlight being the fact that I finished 3 - 50 mile races in the top 10 and completed Western States well under the 24hr mark. In addition to these races, I thought my improved time and finish at Speedgoat was a good sign that my mountain climbing is getting a bit stronger or at least more stubborn. Unfortunately the exhaustion of August and September (and the subsequent injury in October) were a bit of a downer, but thankfully the year ended on a high-note and I have been sincerely enjoying running again during the past few weeks.

Race Goals 2012: Still taking shape is the best way to explain my race schedule for this upcoming season. I am currently signed up for the Black Hills 100 and Squaw Peak 50 in June. I am considering a couple of other races (ideally one more 50 and one more 100), but am planning to race considerably less this year than last. I am also uncertain of what my exact goals will be in June since the two races are so close together -- kind of hoping to run SP50 strictly as a training run, then race BH100 relatively hard with the number one goal being to finish and only start worrying about pace/time/place in the latter stages of the race. Beyond racing, I am hoping to simply make sure that I keep my training at an enjoyable although relatively high level. Most importantly I want to make sure that after June, I give myself a solid amount of time for mental/physical recovery before racing again. In fact, I may leave my race schedule as empty as it currently stands until after June and then decide on a couple of additional races dependent on how I feel . . .

REST!

I am in full (fool) on rest mode.

THE BEAR . . . got me . . .

DNF at the BEAR 100 . . .

went out too fast, my stomach turned, I wobbled into the Logan River aid station, tried to recover, and failed . . .

obviously not the best of days in terms of final results, but I feel like I gave it my all and that finishing was less important than the realization that for the first time in a long time (perhaps really ever) I was truly bold at my approach to the 100 mile distance . . . ever since dropping out of Wasatch a couple of years ago, I have run with this almost handicapping determination to never drop out again.

Obviously, I am not glad that I dropped out; I am, however, glad that I finally really tried to push the envelope all the way open at Bear this year . . . even at Western States earlier this year, and Wasatch last year, I always made sure that my pace was sane and sober -- sure the wheels may have temporarily come off, but in each case I knew I would get to the finish line. I made sure that my pace, my strategy, my attitude left enough in the reserves that I would get to the finish line one way or another.

I think that is probably a fairly wise way to attack ultras, but I also know that Bear was the first race in quite a while where I truly risked -- I knew I was in danger of dropping out a few times during this race and could have (maybe should have) backed off the pace to make sure that every thing worked out o.k., but I wanted to know what my body/mind could do when pushed to the limit . . . yeah, I made some mistakes and backing off the pace would have given me the chance to recover, but until it was simply too late I kept finding myself eager to push, eager to feel a new sense of danger in how I was attacking the course . . . all these things are relative but for me I was running as close to threshold as early and for as long as I ever had at any distance beyond 50 miles . . . the only bummer for me in some ways is that I still don't know what would have happened had my fickle stomach been able to keep things under control -- but that was part of the deal. I knew the pace and the caloric intake were pushing my digestive system (the calorie-source thing still needs to be worked out for the future) and should have maybe listened to some not so subtle messages that were coming my way; however, I felt like if I was serious about pushing the pace long term I needed to keep pushing the calories down . . .

here is the actual day . . . I made it to Logan Pk. (Mile 10) about 5-7 minutes ahead of schedule and this was despite a couple of annoying shoe moments along the final climb . . . Leatham Hollow (Mile 20) 10+ minutes ahead and running with a fun group of people . . . Cowley (Mile 30) 15 minutes . . . Temple Fork (Mile 45) almost 25 minutes ahead of schedule and starting to really think that my new pace goal was starting to gear itself closer to 22:45 than 23:45 . . . obviously from these splits you can see that I lost focus in terms of maintaining the relatively smart race that I had designed in my mind's eye prior to start and was starting to really think this was going to be my day to go FAST (again a relative word) . . . the climb from Temple Fork was the first sign that things might not be moving quite as well as I had thought -- in fact minus a little bit of the climb out of Right Hand Fork everything had felt pretty easy until Temple (don't get me wrong -- I knew I was moving faster than a smart safe race needed me to go and I knew that I was 40+ miles into the day, but I felt good) . . . coming out of Temple Fork I noticed my heart rate escalate and backed off the pace for a little while to get things back to "normalcy" but still found myself at Tony Grove campground on target to go under 23 and foolishly thought I had things under control physically and mentally . . . then coming out of the aid station my stomach completely revolted and I threw up 3 times in the matter of 10 steps . . . despite this being a pretty bad sign of things to come (and way too early in the day for such nonsense) I kinda thought there was still hope that my stomach wasn't completely gone -- in fact as I walked out of this moment I ate some ramen and put down some more calories . . . but the end was near . . . I gave up on putting things in my stomach and found that even drinking water was difficult to say the least . . . but I slowly worked through some chomps and kept drinking (I was after all still way ahead of pace and wasn't feeling completely thrown yet) . . . but this is where a bit of common sense would have told me to slow way down, get things under control and be happy with finishing another 100, but I still wanted to find out if my body could fix itself without me slowing things down too much . . . I continued to fight to Franklin (mile 62) and though I had slowed down, I was basically running 24 hour pace between Tony and Franklin at least close enough to pretend things were still repairable and that I could without too much insanity probably pull off 23 hours . . . I might have been better off had the wheels come completely off because when I got to Franklin, despite needing to take a break, I pushed off in too much of a hurry . . . this is where I really should have sat down, put in some calories, and let my stomach settle -- but instead I accidentally found myself on a death march to the next aid station . . .

I sat down on the side of the trail in the dark and nearly went to sleep at one or two points during this stroll . . . I threw up for the final time -- the bile from a ginger chew that a passing runner gave me in the hopes that it might help rescue my stomach . . . and wobbled along at a pace so slow that the night cold was definitely starting to take over . . . if it had been a bit warmer I am pretty sure I would have simply curled up and passed out but instead I decided my best bet was to just do the one foot in front of the next routine till the next aid station where I would work to get warm and give my stupid stomach one more shot at bouncing back . . .

Logan River (Mile 70): fire, sleeping bag, tent . . . I spent over an hour (maybe two) it's all a bit hazy in my head . . . trying to motivate for a march to the next aid station (about 6 miles away) but never got myself to the point where I was willing to walk out of there . . . I have done the death march to the finish before, it's better than a DNF but it's not much fun and I honestly felt like I had risked everything I could on the day . . . there were moments heading into the logan river aid station where I was afraid I wasn't going to make it that far and without sounding too dramatic felt like I knew my limits had been reached on the day . . . I had given it 100% and despite sincerely considering spending the night in a tent at Logan River before marching towards the finish in the morning decided a DNF was the right decision . . . If I hadn't already run 6 ultras this year including 100 miles at Western, I probably would have pushed on to the finish (and more importantly I probably wouldn't have pushed so hard so early) . . .

so here's the deal: I am bummed I DNFed but I would do it again and by it I mean the whole thing -- run hard and fast early, keep pushing when the signs first materialized, and then when I went too far to continue: drop . . .

I want to thank my crew for being there in my race of foolishness: Cara and my dad . . . Once again Cara rocked it by knowing how to kick me in the ass when I needed it and when to have some surprise in store at crucial moments to make me smile (she even knew to tell me to slow down, but also knew me well enough to keep it to herself) . . . Doug had a rocking map of the course that was way cool to look over the night before and it was once again cool that he drove all the way down to Utah for another race . . . anyhow my biggest bummer for the day was that I couldn't join all the other runners in finishing -- there is a part of me that feels like I let down other runners by not finishing, but in a strange sense I feel like the act of pushing the pace and pushing my limit (to the point of going beyond my limit) was in fact what the sport is actually all about . . .