Six, twelve, twenty-four

THE LEFT

2011-05-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I ran the Bishop High Sierra 100K. This race consists of a 20 mile, 50k, 50 mile, and 100k distance. Looking for a 50, this was the race that fit my schedule. However, given my rule that you have to run the longest distance offered at any race, it was 100k or bust.

Erica had once again agreed to crew me, so we got to Bishop on Thursday evening and settled in. One great thing about the race is that it is the focus of the town for the week. Everyone knows about the races, and I was told that this is the second biggest event in Bishop behind Mule Days, which as everyone knows is THE thing to do in the Eastern Sierra. I found that the people fell all over themselves to help you and make you feel welcome. For that reason alone, I would suggest the run to anyone thinking about it. It made you feel pretty special.

After scouting the course on Friday and throwing down a couple of Erict Schat turkey sandwiches (don't miss this place if you go) it was off to the briefing dinner. As I sat down, I started chatting with the people at my table. Through the course of the conversation, I found out that two of them knew Scotty Railton. Of course they did. I swear to God . . . Then it was off for a good night's sleep before a 5 AM wakeup.

At the race start

The race course started at 4500 feet, climbed to 9500 feet, doodled around 8000 feet or so for a while, then dropped back down to 4500 feet at the 48.5 mile mark, where you could turn right down the downhill 1.5 miles for home and a 50 mile finish, or make "THE LEFT" which brought you on a 12 mile out and back over a 900 foot climb each way before the 1.5 mile home stretch to earn the 100k finish. It was fear of THE LEFT that motivated me throughout the race.

At 6 AM sharp, we were off. The race started out easy enough with sandy rollers around the base of the Tungsten Hills for about 5 miles before the climbing started in earnest. It was hard to set a good rhythm as with all the different racers out there, it was hard to settle in with a pack traveling at your speed. Coming out of the CDF aid station, where the serious climbing started, I settled into an easy rhythm of running for 2 minutes, hiking for a minute on the sustained but gentle uphill. The climb would be about 5,000 feet over the next 15 miles, so it was largely mellow, but hard to figure out whether I should be running or walking. In the end, I think I paced it pretty well for me.

View of the climb after the 5 mile mark. This grade was fairly consistent from mile 5 to mile 20. The goal of the climb is the left shoulder of the snow covered mountain to the left.

Another view of the climb, but from further up. Again, the goal can be seen in the lefthand side of the picture, just beneath the snowfield.

An unusually steep section of the climb. Most of the first 10 miles of the climb was fairly mellow, if rocky and consistent.

Here I am running out of the Buttermilk aid station, about mile 11 or so.

Another view of Mt. Tom, I believe, with dead tree for visual oomph.

Still climbing . . .

Finally, after climbing for a number of hours through open exposed scrub, we came into some trees where the trail kicked up a notch from the Edison Loop aid station to the turnaround. This out and back (semi-loop) section of the overall out and back climbed up from about 8000 to 95oo feet in 3 miles and then turned around, coming back to the aid station on a different trail. At the aid station, instead of doing the big climb, the 50K folks turned around, leaving only the 50 and 100 milers. Unfortunately, this is where my stomach started to go south. I lost everything I tried to put in at the aid station only steps up the trail. Uh oh. Temps were still cool, probably in the 50's, but I knew I was sweating and losing salt, and I couldn't get anything to go down. Welcome to running at altitude. I started to put it into good hiking gear here, as this was the steepest of the climbing yet, and passed a few people on the way up. From this point forward, I would pass 7 or 8 people and only get passed by 1, so that tells me my pacing was pretty good. At the top of the climb, we punched a hole in our number and turned around for our first significant downhill of the race. WHEW! I was ready for some steady running, and glad that we skipped this climb on the way back.

On top, at the turnaround! Finally!
On the way back down. You can see where the 11 mile aid station is at the left-hand side of the fin of rock. The 5 mile aid station is close to the green fields you can see in the valley. That's a long way up!

On the way up, we had navigated 4 or 5 significant snow fields, and those were a lot more difficult on the way down. There was one especially difficult one that had a steep descent where I fell and slid down on my butt. The lady running the small aid station at the bottom of the snowfield had no problem believing I was a Florida native transplanted to San Diego. The rest of the descent was fairly uneventful. Back down at 8,000 feet, there was now a 6 mile out to the farthest part of the course and then 6 miles straight back. This section would turn out to have 4 significant steep climbs and 4 descents, broken up by an aid station halfway in between. Good thing Erica was there to crew in the middle. I was feeling pretty tuckered and nice to see a friendly face. Off I went through the final 2 outward climbs out with spaghetti o's in hand. Erica waved me a fond farewell. And there was a new member of the crew this year. Erica brought her dog, Killer, along. His contribution, from as far as I can tell, was eating items that other runners dropped on the ground. For a team to be successful, everyone has to know their role . . .

Finally I got to the Bishop Creek Lodge turn around. That meant, being an out and back, that I had to go back over those same 4 climbs. But they were much easier on the way back, not only because they were less steep, but you also knew you were working your way back down.

Headed into Bishop Creek Lodge. There was about a half mile of pavement to run . . .

One of the climbs going back towards the base of Edison Loop. A rare piece of singletrack trail.
Killer is overseeing the proceedings. Thanks for the help, buddy!

The run back to Edison Loop went well and after a few miles of rollers, it was off on the downhill. This section went as well as I could have hoped, and I was able to keep a relatively high speed (high for me) as I ticked off the aid stations heading back down towards THE LEFT. One thing I would change was my choice of shoes. I had essentially road shoes on thinking the road would be a lot like California fire roads down near San Diego. Nope. Very rocky and should have had real trail shoes, as the rocks slowed me up in some sections. Live and learn.

Finally, several miles past Edison, at what had been the 9 mile aid station on the way up, the course split off for a different trail down to the finish. The only major problem on the way down was another round of vomitting in response to some coke. So, no liquids for a while then either. Also, temps were increasing into the low 80's as we descended, and I was sweating profusely. I could feel the salt caked on my face, but couldn't muster the oomph to take any real food or drink for a good 10 miles or so. And my energy level suffered for it as I started to slow significantly towards the bottom of the descent. Fortunately, Erica was there at several of the aid stations with a kind word and a frozen water bottle. With nutrition problems developing and sore feet and tired legs, I started thinking about THE LEFT. Make the turn for a respectable 50 mile finish and be done with it, or suck it up and get up and over the 12 mile out and back. I came into the 48.5 mile aid station at about 12 and half hours. Here was the crux. Do I drop down or stay out for another 4 hours, 13 miles, and 2000 feet of climbing?

View up from the 168 aid station, approximately mile 46.

Coming into the aid station. You can see the white flap from my french foreign legion hat flapping in the breeze . . .

Coming into the Mile 48.5 mile aid station. Will I have the courage/stupidity to make THE LEFT?

Yes! After a very brief stop, off I trudged, having made a deal with myself earlier that I could walk the whole out and back if I needed to, just so long as I sucked it up to do the distance. The climb up to the Sage Summit aid station was a bear, much longer and steeper than I expected just because I didn't know where I was going. There were a few steep long pitches, and some flats and short downs that I should have ran but didn't because I was mentally low. Finally, I saw the Sage Summit aid station down a short hill and down I went. Those guys got me picked up, filled me up with some broth and pudding (perfect!) and down I went through the infamous switchbacks to go down into the valley to pick up my poker chip. That 2 mile section went well and then another mile back to the base of the switchbacks. I ran almost all of that and was picking up momentum. So far so good.

Now the other section I had heard about and dreaded . . . THE CLIMB. I have to tell you that it wasn't that bad. I had heard terrible things about the climb back to the Sage Summit aid station, but while the first part was steep and sandy, once the switchbacks started, it wasn't bad at all. Coming out of the aid station, night had finally and firmly settled, and I took out my light. The stars were brilliant overhead and in the distance, I watched lightning illuminate the clouds over the White Mountains. An unbelievable sight that made the next 1/2 hour of rollers along the crest fly by until I started my descent back to the finish. All in all, while I was slow going out to the poker chip, I ran fairly strongly coming back. And the image of the tranquil yet turbulent night sky over the Sierras is one that I will keep close for a long time.

Not even stopping at what had been the aid station at THE TURN, I kept on going through the camp and got my 100k finish at 16:23 or so, which was almost exactly what my training had predicted. I would have liked to have been a little faster, but I'm not sure I could have broken 16 for the race on that day, so I was pretty happy. I had a great time visiting with the RD after the race. You cannot ask for a better director. She genuinely loves her race, loves her racers, and loves her town. Her energy is contagious.

Chatting with the RD after the race. All the white on my chest and face is dried salt from sweating way too much.

Whew! Glad to be done!

I haven't seen the final statistics, but my understanding is about half the 100k runners either didn't finish or didn't make THE TURN and instead took a 50 mile finish. I think I finished like 30 out of 40 or something like that. I'll check the results when they are posted. All in all, glad I did it, and it was a great challenge. If you are looking for an ass-kicker of a 100k, this is the race for you.

As a post-script, I piled into the car still in my race clothes and race number, dirty, salt covered and utterly exhausted. As Erica was driving us back to town, we got pulled over by a police officer because the left tail light was out. He came to my side of the window and the following exchange occurred:

Officer: License and registration.

Me: Here is the registration. Its my car and the light is my fault.

Officer (Looking me up and down with his light): Sir, are you one of the crazy people that just ran 62 miles?

Me: Why, yes sir, I am.

Officer: Have a nice night sir, and get some rest.

So being an ultra runner does have its advantages . . .

Thanks as always to Erica and Killer for crewing, to the great volunteers for staying out there for us, to the RD for putting on a great race, and to the city of Bishop for all of their hospitality. And to Officer Smith for having a little mercy on a very tired runner.

Back in Business

2011-03-04T22:58:00.000-08:00

Whoa, a blog post?! It must be getting into training season again. Yep, it is. Welcome back to those who stumble across this again. Its been a long off season. Last I left you, dear reader, I was through with Rim to Rim to Rim and staring an off-season in the face. So, what have I done with my time? Well, not much. I didn't take nearly enough time off, spending just a week not running, and that was only because I was worried about tendonitis. About once a month I did a run of at least 5 hours, so my endurance is OK. I tried to work on speed, but wasn't as dedicated as I should have been. Same old story.

So, here we are in March. January brought the birthday run which was 40 miles. It went pretty lousy in that I did 20 miles of PCT with Gonzo from I-8 to Mt. Laguna, but it was a miserable time. I don't know what went wrong - probably not enough drinking or salt, but I hit a major bonk and died. It took a long nap and a lot of mountain dew to get me back on the trails, but eventually I finished my 41 miles. Next year I get to tack another mile on.

What else has gone on . . . . I did a snowshoe race up in Lake Tahoe, a 10K, and came in 9th overall and first master (40+). That was pretty cool, even though it was a very small race. Snowshoe racing is fun. I can see getting very used to doing a few of those a year. When we had the big dump of snow last week, I went out for a few hours and had a ball. I may have found my "thing". Also had a great run in Joshua Tree in the snow as well.

The other fun thing is that I went and dropped some dough on a really fancy Garmin 410 with heart rate monitor. I'm pretty serious about trying to trim some time off of my runs, and the watch is a cruel taskmaster. I don't want to wear it on every run, but it became time to start being a hardass once and a while. So far, so good. I still need to learn about zone training for the heartrate stuff, but I am enjoying the graphic depictions of my runs. Now if I can just figure out what they mean. I've included some of my runs below. I've also decided that its time for more pavement speed work. I'm reading The Lore of Running, which I've renamed The Bore of Running because it is so freaking dry, which has convinced me I need to do two things - more shorter speedwork and lose weight. So I bought Training Weight, a great book about endurance athletes and weight, and am trying to eat better. So far, pretty good, but could be a lot better.

That's all for now. I'll try to post more now that I'm training again and get some pictures out. Here's my graphs for a few of my runs . . .

Rim to Rim to Rim

2010-11-11T17:07:00.000-08:00

So someone once said why climb Mount Everest, and the answer was, "Because its there." This provides the explanation, if there is one, as to why to run the Grand Canyon rim to rim. Running from side to side of one of the natural wonders of the world is awful tempting. But why rim to rim to RIM? Well, when you are on the other side, unless you have someone willing to drive 6 hours to pick you up, you have to haul your carcass back to the other side. So Rim to Rim to Rim is a function of practicality as much as it is anything else.

When I realized I had some vacation time to burn, running Rim to Rim to Rim became a reality. I was fishing for companions, but everyone had other plans, so I knew I would be running on my own. I looked at the most popular routes down and up the canyon as I was going to be running alone and unsupported, so wanted to be assure that if I gave up along the trail that some other hiker would find my sorry carcass. There are two routes on the South Rim. The South Kaibab trail is the steeper and shorter of the two. It is also supposedly the most scenic as it traces a ridge line. The Bright Angel trail is longer with a water stop at least halfway up and more frequent depending on the season. I decided to take South Kaibab down and Bright Angel up to ensure that I saw everything on both trails. If I had to do it again, I would probably go up and down South Kaibab. Before ascending Bright Angel, you run for about 2 to 3 flat miles, which makes the climbs up to the South Rim, once they start, very similar on both trails. And Bright Angel has some pretty scenes, but no open vistas like are supposed to be on South Kaibab. Assuming you can carry enough water, and in late fall you can, South Kaibab is probably the way to go.

South Kaibab Trailhead a little after 3 AM. I had brought my camera but forgot the memory card, so all pics were taken with my cell phone. I apologize in advance for the so-so quality.

So, fast forward to last Monday at 3 AM. I was standing on the precipice of the South Kaibab trail, a 6.5 mile plunge to the bottom of the canyon. I had a pack which weighed between 5 and 10 pounds with the following:

4 20 oz. arrowhead water bottles

rain jacket

3 turkey sandwiches

2 pop tarts

ziploc of chips

24 packets of roctaine gu

mints

ipod

salt pills and Tylenol

chart of mileage, elevation, and water availability at landmarks

cash and credit card for Phantom Ranch for canteen

That seems like a lot, but I wasn't sure exactly what I would need, and there wasn't much of a safety net if things went wrong. My main concern was that I had enough food, because it would suck to get really hungry and not have enough to eat. I tried to choose as much salty food as I could knowing that I have trouble with getting salt pills down. Of course one thing I forgot was the memory card to my camera, so that meant the only pics I would have would be the ones taken with my cell phone. Oh well.

It was a little chilly as I started down the trail. It was a little after 3 AM, and I was hoping to finish by the time the sun went down between 5:30 and 6 that night. I was in a long sleeve under a short sleeve under a vest with a beenie and gloves as well as compression shorts and regular cargo hiking shorts and my new La Sportivas. The descent was fairly relentless, but went smooth for the first hour or so. It was hard to get a rhythm because of all of the wood and stone barriers that were built in the middle of the trail to divert run off. Once or twice I had to search for the trail, but no mishaps all and all. Until about 4 or 5 miles in when my light started to flicker. Uh oh. It wasn't a battery problem as the light would come back when I would wack it, but soon it would start to flicker again. And with all of this weight, I had chosen not to bring a back up light. Stupid mistake. Nervous about my light, I tried to get down to the bottom of the trail as quickly as possible. On the radio, Art Bell was talking about EVP's which are electronically recorded ghostly voices, enough to keep me focused on the trail and give me the creeps more than once. At one point, I got low enough that I could look behind me on the south rim and see the lights of the lodges up above as well as a single light on the north rim, which I have no idea what it was given the north rim lodge was closed.

Finally, I bottomed out at the black bridge over the Colorado River which I crossed relatively quickly and made my way into Phantom Ranch. This is a collection of cabins and a campground surrounding a fully powered canteen. As I ran through, the crew was up cooking breakfast, and I could smell the flapjacks and bacon cooking. Yum. I came up on a worker to ask where the water faucet was and scared the crap out of her as I'm sure she wasn't expecting anyone at 4:30 in the AM wandering around the camp. It had warmed from 35 at the trailhead to about 50 at the ranch, so I stripped off my beanie, longsleve, and gloves and stuffed them in the pack. Knowing the next water was in about 9 miles, I made sure I had 3 full bottles and headed out.

This is the view of the "black bridge" which ran over the Colorado along the South Kaibab trail. This is much later that day coming out of Phantom Ranch, looking back over Bright Angel Creek.

The next part of the run was really nice and gentle along Bright Angel Creek, even if it was gently uphill. I was still running in the dark, with the babbling of the brook calling me along. On either side of me, I could sense great cliffs climbing above me for thousands of feet. The footing on the trail was good, but my light was faltering more and more. That made me determined to try to keep my speed up and hit the south rim again before dark, as rain was supposed to hit that night, meaning an earlier sunset than usual.

The 8 or so miles from Phantom Ranch to Cottonwood Campground were gentle but with some steep rollers. It was all runnable, so I ran it, trying to take advantage of my legs while I had them. It was definitely uphill, but very gradual. After coming out of the canyon, I came out into an open boggy area as there was finally enough sun to put away my light. I could make out lots of small cottonwood and other trees with yellow leaves surrendering to the fall. Graceful, rugged red walls soared directly above me to my right, and across the creek, I saw rock walls of red, yellow, and white climbing dauntingly high, dusted with pines that looked like pins from where I stood now, but which would tower above me by the time I arrived.

At Cottonwood Campground, campers were just starting to stir. Knowing I would be coming back through there and that it was getting warm, I stashed my rain jacket and warm weather clothes as well as some gu packs behind a tree and pushed on. The mistake was not spreading them out to dry so that all my warm clothes were still wet when I would need them later.

About a mile and a half later, I was at the caretaker cabin, another water fill. This is a ranger station that used to be a private residence. The house looked fairly comfortable, and much to my surprise, even had a basketball hoop in front. Man, I can't beleive I didn't have a ball to shoot. Next time, I'm going to figure something out, even if its bringing a deflated beach ball. From here, it was still 6 or so miles to the top, so I filled all my water bottles, although the morning was still cool and gray clouds were rolling in from the north.

Oh, what a brilliant place for a hoop! And me with no basketball . . .

After the cabin, the trail started climbing in earnest, and the power hiking began. From the cabin to the top, I ran probably 10 to 20 percent of the way up as opposed to the 90 to 95 percent running I had been doing to this point. Its never super steep, but very, very steady. The winds were really strong through here, and I had to take off my hat to keep it from blowing away. I was later told that winds in the Canyon were gusting to 50 mph. I would believe it.

I was hiking quickly when I did hike and soon came to Roaring Springs, which is an incredible sight. This one spring supplies almost all the water for the north rim trails and Bright Angel Creek. The springs literally rip out of the side of the mountain and are framed, at least in Fall, by yellow and red smears of vegitation. Pushing past, I came across my first two hikers of the day who I quickly put in my rear view mirror. Past Roaring Springs, the footing on the trail got a little unsure and the fall if you tripped, precipitous. At one point, the trail actually descended to a bridge which gave a nice break to the climbing legs, but back up it went. Finally I went through a tunnel which I knew meant 2 miles to the top. By this time, I had finished Art Bell, not only the EVP's but his night of Halloween ghost stories, and was onto Jay Mohr hosting the Jim Rome show which provided for a few laughs as I grinded up the last switchbacks. The climb just seemed to go on and on, and you never felt like you were making any progress.

A fairly poor shot of Roaring Springs. You really can't appreciate how much water is just gushing out of the side of this mountain unless you see it yourself.

Finally, I saw the sign for the north rim. I walked over and touched it and saw it was 10 AM, almost on the dot. It was about an hour slower than I wanted to run it, but I also wasn't pushing at all, not only because I wanted to "enjoy" the run as much as possible, but I also wanted to make sure I had legs left for the climb out the South Rim. I turned around and headed straight back down the trail as it was cold on top and windy. Fairly anti-climatic. At this point, I had 21 miles and about 6000 feet of climbing on my legs, and I felt like it. I was ready for some downhill. After about a mile down the trail, I found a nice place to stop with a nice view of the canyon. I stopped here and ate a sandwich which I had to force down. The chips tasted good though and I had about half of the pop tart I brought. It was getting harder to take food, but I was being good about taking gels, so things were OK on the fuel front.

After about 10 minutes, I hit the trail again. Running downhill felt good, and I started to stretch my legs except the sections with the tricky footing and steep falls which I picked my way through. I ran into a few hikers coming up from Cottonwod Camp on my way down and stopped for a minute or two to answer questions about conditions, etc. At this point, I was onto my book on tape, enjoying Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is about a bunch of hardasses running around the Spanish Mountains fighting the fascists. Great book. As I passed Roaring Springs, I ran into a couple who had left South Kaibab at 5 and asked to see the bottom of my shoes as they were literally following my footsteps. They were running rim to rim where a friend was picking them up. I wasn't smart enough to think of that, so I pushed on thinking about the giant climb I still had ahead of me. Fairly quickly I was at the Caretaker Cabin again where I filled up one water to get me to Phantom Ranch, again rueing my lack of basketball.

This is coming down into the only bit of uphill between the North Rim and the Caretaker Cabin. A pretty typical view of the trail which you can see stretch on for miles in front of/behind you.

After another mile and half, I was back at Cottonwood where I gathered all my cold weather gear. The ranger had found it and taken all of my gels I had left and put them in a metal box, leaving me a note that all food had to be properly stored. I thought that was a little excessive as gels seem extremely non-food like, but not a big deal. Reweighted, I headed down through the bog and into the box. At this point, the run was frankly becoming kind of a grind. It was nice to see the creek which danced jauntily over the rocks next to me, and I was awed by the sheer walls of the canyon in the box, but at the same time, I was too busy looking at my feet to make sure I didn't trip to truly enjoy the vistas, and my energy was starting to wane.

Finally, I pulled into Phantom Ranch about 1:20, a little ahead of schedule, meaning I had made up some time on the way down. At the Ranch, I took a break. I tried to use the phone down there to check in, but I wasn't smart enough to figure it out. Oh well. Inside, the canteen was bustling with people staying at the Ranch, many enjoying ice cold Tecates. I bought a lemonade and took a couple of tylenol which helped my aching feet. After sitting for about 20 minutes, it was time to head out again for the big climb back to the South Rim. On the way out, I passed 3 gorgeous mule deer, much darker and grayer than the mule deer in California.

The Silver bridge which connects Phantom Ranch to the river trail over the Colorado River.

But the climb didn't come for a while. First, I ran across the silver bridge which leads to the river trail. Then it was another rolling mile and half to the Bright Angel trail. As I turned up the trail which runs along Pipe Creek, the grade turned upwards. There were 4 or 5 trail crossings which required agile stepping or wet feet. I chose the former. The trail at this point was very runnable, but I didn't have the energy or the desire. Maybe if it were during a race, but for my purposes, I was pretty done. As I moved along, a heavy shower hit with big cold drops. It felt good as the day had warmed up into the upper 60's. As I left the creek, the climb to the south rim began in earnest. Up and up and up it went. I quickly drained my water which I had refilled at Phantom Ranch. I knew there was a refill at Indian Gardens, but it seemed never to come. In retrospect, I thought it was 4 miles from Phantom Ranch when it was 6 miles. That's what I get for not looking at the chart I had brought for this very purpose.

Spring out of the side of the canyon walls along Pipe Creek.

Finally, the trail leveled out, and Indian Gardens came, an oasis of shade trees in various colors with a peaceful brook running right through the middle. I refilled my water and headed up for the last push. I knew from here it was 4.5 very steep miles back to home base, so I prepared myself to push up 3 segments of a mile and half each. I looked at where the trail went, and all I saw was a 600 foot vertical stone wall. How the hell was I going to get past that?! Further up I saw some short switchbacks, the Devil's Corkscrew, way up by the rim. How the hell was I going to get up there?! Well, I guess I was going to find out.

As I looked back from where I came, I saw a storm obscuring the north rim and the river. Uh oh. That didn't look good. I made it up to the 3 mile resthouse, 1.5 miled past Indian Gardens, and temperatures had lowered considerably, and the winds had picked up to gusts of abot 50 mph again. After a 3 minute stop, I kept going, knowing that now I was not only racing the dark but the storm as well. I quickly lost that race as not 5 minutes after leaving the rest house I got nailed. I could see my breath as the rain hit hard. I put on my rainjacket, and quickly found it was utterly ineffective. Thanks for nothing, Sierra Designs. Within 10 minutes, I was soaked as temperatures dropped even further and the winds contined to hammer. My cold weather stuff which I had not dried earlier was worthless. Not a good combination, and I was freezing cold for my lack of foresight and crappy raingear. As I steadily climbed through switchbacks, the rain mixed with sleet. At this point, I was fairly miserable and just wanted the thing to be done, but I knew at the rate I was moving, I still had at least an hour to go. I was doing some running through here mixed with power hiking just to try to keep my temperature up. However, my legs were pretty trashed, and I occasionally found myself losing concentration and literally staggering uphill, a mistake of temperature and failing to take any food for the last hour and a half.

At the 1.5 mile house, I again ducked into the structure and took a break out of the wind, gulping down a quick gel for some energy. As soon as I stopped moving, I started shivering uncontrolably, and I was rapidly losing light, so I quickly just headed back out on the trail to finish the climb. The trail finally evened out a bit, and the rain and sleet turned to snow, making it much more bearable as I wasn't actively getting wet anymore. I was nervous as I was losing the last bit of light. I tried to open my pockets to get my flashlight, but my numb fingers weren't responding very well. I finally got it out, and it faded in and out, occasionally going out altogether for 3 or 4 seconds at a time. But above me I saw the lights of the lodges fairly close, so my spirits were raised as I staggered through slippery mud that stole 1 step for every 2 or 3 I would take. Then I struggled across a slick, icy and snowy trail, watching to make sure I didn't lose my footing. The winds hadn't abated, and I don't think was ever as cold as I was for the last mile or so of that climb.

I went through a couple of short tunnels and then there it was! Artifical lighting, I have never been so glad to see you. I stumbled up into the Bright Angel Lodge a little before 6. I looked at the thermometer outside as I walked in. 21 degrees. It had been 65 at Phantom Ranch just 4 hours and 3800 feet ago! I threw my pack down and literally laid out in front of the roaring fire they had in the lobby, stripping off as many of my wet clothes as I could take off with a clear conscience. As several well dressed patrons of the lodge walked by, they cast glances at the muddy bedraggled figure laying prostrate in front of the fireplace. A few asked what I had been doing. When I told them, most shook their heads in disbelief or disgust. Probably both.

Having warmed up, I had to then walk about a half mile to my hotel. I gathered all of the stuff not wanting to put the wet stuff back on and then headed out across the parking lot in shorts and my short sleeved shirt. Man was that ridiculously cold. I walked into my hotel room which was already warm. Oh did that feel good. Then the warm bath. Even better!

Overall, I'm glad I did it, but it wasn't as great as I thought it would be. As I was in the Canyon most of the time, you don't get the spectacular views as if you were looking over the rim. There were lots of pretty scenes inside, but the run was mostly a grind up either side of the canyon, which didn't entail much running. Good to cross off the life list, but probably not something I would do again unless someone wanted me to go with them. At the end, I just really wanted to be done. Of course, the weather had a lot to do with that.

As for how hard it was, its hard to judge because I wasn't racing and had full training weeks leading into it, but I would say it was not as hard as Jemez, but harder than most 50 milers, and it was about 5 miles less! I was pretty sore the next day and am still not ready to run 3 days later. Next goal - Doughnut Man! More on that on Saturday.

Tall Trees. Tough Trails. Jerky Owls.

2010-08-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

My nemesis!!! Or at least he looked a lot like this . . .

Most race reports begin with something regarding the crack of dawn. However, I knew nothing about dawn on race day because I was snoring away in my hotel room as the race mercifully didn't start until 10 AM. Finally around 8 AM I woke up, ate a bunch of bananas and fruit bars and made my way to Easton for the race start. After a quick 9 AM meeting, there was some general milling about, some pancake eating, a lot of water drinking, and some last minute sitting. The weather was going to be great, high's in the mid 60's with little chance for rain. At 9:55 we enjoyed the Canadian and US national anthems, the latter played on a baritone by a runner in a trucker hat and long colorful socks. Yes, this was going to be a different race.

The view at the start. Hello, Easton!

These are all the supplies that get hauled out to the various aid stations for the race. Tell me these RD's and volunteers aren't the best!

In addition to the above, they haul out all of these drop bags to the various locations.

Warming up for the national anthem? I hope he didn't run with that thing . . .

I particularly respected the fact that the Canadian flag was mounted on a hockey stick.

I don't exactly look ready for a race, do I? More like a saunter . . .

At 10 AM we were off, headed down a long gravel road. The beginning of the run was the usual nervous chatter as each runner found their place in the pack and a little bit of rhythm. After about 2 miles, the grind began as course tilted upwards. I found myself behind my buddy Mike, which told me I was way ahead of where I should be. We chatted a lot as we transitioned from rutted fire road to the single track of Goat Peak. The climb went by relatively quickly, and before I knew it, we had hit the top. I had been thinking about the climb for weeks, and with it under my belt, I realized I could have a pretty good day because it went by a lot faster than expected.

Get out of the way! Here I come . . .

After some rolling stuff, we hit our first real aid station and a cranking downhill where I hooked up with a fellow So Cal guy from Hunnington Beach who was a complete hardass having run just about every major race you can imagine. From somewhere behind me, Mike came blazing past and up the next climb of 1500 feet to the PCT, with a quick stop at the aid station at Blowout Mtn. on the way.

Looking back somewhere around mile 20 at Cole Butte, which was at mile 10 of the course. We ran down those switchbacks, then up a similar set to get to Blowout Mountain, which was the mile 15 aid station.

Almost every race report I read of Cascade Crest lauds the PCT section of the trail, which starts about mile 16 or so, and now I understand why. It is miles and miles of mostly runnable, cushioned trail, with some rocky sections thrown in during the clear cuts. The section from Blowout Mountain to Tacoma Pass was a ball, with lots and lots of fun downhill where you could just put it in cruise control. Somewhere in this section, I heard the sound of gravel falling, and down came the cliff came rolling a pica, which is like a little rabbit, coming to stop right on the trail in front of me upside down. He quickly righted himself and stared nervously at me. Don't worry little fella. I have other things to do than mess with you. Too funny to see an animal wipe out much like I was doing all over these trails. I ended up with 3 or 4 good falls before it was all said and done.

Typical section of trail in the trees . . .

If there were no clouds, you would see Mt. Ranier. You can just see the base above the ridgeline.

Somewhere in this section, I dropped in with John, who was going for his fifth finish, and David, who was going for his fourth. I sucked information from both those guys. The conversation was flowing lightly as we pushed through the forest. Both John and David were behind their normal pace, but I still felt like I was a little faster than I had any right to be. But everyone told me to push during the first afternoon because once darkness hit, it was going to be a long slow night, and by the second dawn, you were in a series of climbs which made it difficult to gain ground. So push I did.

Where is that guy? Volunteer and/or crew looking down the trail at incoming runners at Tacoma Pass aid station. Crews do a lot of waiting, wondering when their guy or gal is going to come bursting out of the woods demanding gels and body glide.

Hey, who's that guy? Took you long enough . . .

As we talked, I realized that David was the same guy who I finished Jemez with. Ha! When you are running these things, you rarely see anyone's face, just the back of their legs if they are in front of you or just the trail if they are behind you. Anyways, he and John and I worked as a team, the three of us pushing each other along for miles and miles. I was happy to pull into Tacoma Pass where Erica was waiting with my new ultra secret weapon - Spaghetti-o's. Yes, that childhood treat that everyone loved. I have a problem getting enough salt in these races because I can't take salt pills easily, so this was my solution - cold, right out of the can. And it worked great. Packed with sodium and easy to swallow, they went right down, and I ate a whole can during the climb out of the aid station. In fact, I probably ate too much, which is difficult to do during these races. And I can say throughout the race, I had no cramping problems, although I attribute the cold weather for some of that as well.

The breakfast of champions. Somehow, I don't think that this is what they are serving the Olympic marathoners this year . . .

My initial goal was to make Meadows Mountain at Mile 41 by darkness or a little after, and I got there about 15 minutes after busting out my light. Somewhere David got a head of the group, but as I busted out of the aid station, burgeoned again by Spaghetti'0's from Erica and some soup, I knew John was behind me somewhere. I also knew per our pattern in the last 15 miles that he would spend more time in the aid station and catch up to me somewhere on the trail. Sure enough, after about 15 minutes, he came barrelling past me, and I waved him on feeling I couldn't keep his pace as the thick dark of a northwestern mountain night took hold. But about 10 minutes down the trail, I passed him back as he adjusted his pack, and we fell in to a rhythm again, not really saying anything, but at least me taking comfort from another light in the darkness.

There was lots of stumbling on rocks and some nasty stubbed toes, but generally the night moved along. I was soon at Olalie Meadows where I wished a quick hello to Scott who is the RD for White River as well as the aid station captain. Not wishing to upset my cooperating stomach by experimenting with one of his famous pirogies, I kept going over what the race director had said would be the hardest section of the course, leaving John to enjoy the hospitality of the aid station. After a very rocky downhill on the PCT, it was up on a service road. And up. And up. The RD joked that he sent us up to the top of the ski hill so we could enjoy the view, even though when we got there, it would be pitch black. Let me tell you, that hill goes on forever. Its never super steep, but steady, and everytime you think you are close to the top, it goes up and around another bend.

Over the top, I enjoyed the view of, well, nothing but pitch black as I looked straight down a ski slope. Here we go. Jemez again . . . . I had heard last year's descent was an impossible slide down. This time they routed us down some of the ski slope which was literally baby step after baby step with a steep decline, lots of loose rocks, and no trail. But then we switched over to another slope which was more runnable. As I made my way down, here came another set of lights. It was John again! Taking some strength from the company, I made my way onto a mountain bike trail with lots of broken bridges and obstacles that looked like they could dump someone into the drink pretty fast. Finally, it was out onto some paved roads, John and I running step for step towards the aid station in the distance. We finally pulled in together around 12:45 AM at mile 53. And there were Scotty and Erica! YES! Time for the halfway recoup. I was a little nervous because I was pretty trashed and everyone had said the second part of the course was harder than the first.

My vest had broken, so I quickly changed into a new one and pulled a hat over my head. Somewhere I had misplaced my longsleeve, so it was going to be a chilly night. It was probably in the low 40's at the station, and probably mid 30's up on the ridge where I was heading. Oh well, just had to keep moving. I had my gloves and hat to keep me warm. I ate a grilled cheese and Scotty handed me some "soup" that ended up being hot chocolate. Oops. Oh well, I probably wasn't going to sweat much in these conditions, so as long as it was warm, it didn't need to be salty. You just can't get upset at these races about things like the long sleeve or not having the right soup or there's a hill you didn't expect or whatever or you will mentally break down. You have to be able to just go with the flow and make the best of what's around you. If you can stay positivie, you will likely finish. That's definitely my biggest attribute at these things. Its certainly not my running ability . . .

I had planned to walk out of that aid station, but there was a little bit of downhill and some lights ahead, so I put it in granny low and started to run. John had left the aid station ahead of me, so I knew there was no chance of catching him again, and I just found my own rhythm. As it was a paved road with a bright moon, I kept my light off and made my way the best I could, proud to be running most of the section, and I even passed a few people. In fact, from this point forward, I would pass 15 or so people and only get passed by 1 person that I could remember, which is a good sign that I paced correctly. Given that I ended up finishing about 10 from the end, I have to assume at least some of those people dropped . . .

As the paved road turned to gravel and I hit the 1800 foot climb to Kachelus Ridge, I suddenly felt my head being pounded and scraped up from behind and a buffeting of wings. I screamed and started throwing my arms around. Whirling about, I saw an owl hovering a foot away, talons at the ready. What the hell?! I watched it swoop away as I hurried up the hill. I put my hand up to the back of my head, and it came away bloody from the owl attack. As I wrote earlier - what the HELL?! As if 21,000 feet of climbing over tortorous rocky trails wasn't enough, they sicked the wildlife on you as well? I thought I had prepared myself for everything the course would have to offer, but I hadn't subjected myself to any avian assaults. My bad! I laughed as I climbed up, picturing the RD with a little remote control hiding behind the bushes . . .

My noggin bearing the results of the owl attack. The talons cut straight through my hat!

Heart pumping now, I moved up the hill as quickly as I could. I saw a few lights in the distance and used them as rabbits to keep me motivated. After a long climb, I pulled into the top of the ridge at mile 60. To my surprise, David was there, and so was John! Glad to see them again, David and I pulled out and headed down the hill. After a few miles, my knees were really killing me from all the agressive downhill on the hardpacked road, and it definitely cut my pace. But David and I generally talked and pushed each other down the hill, pulling into the aid station at mile 67. I took some extra time here to get metally prepared from the aptly named "Trail from Hell", which consists of a 1/2 mile or so bushwhack along a steep hillside over fallen trees followed by an undulating rooty and rocky challenge along the shore of the lake.

John and David beat me out of the aid station thinking I was ahead and they were going to catch up as usual. I headed out on my own and hit the "trail" which was just random footsteps along a 30 degree muddy slope. I was moving slow, trying to keep to the side of the hill, climbing over downed trees and following from glow stick to glow stick when suddenly the hill gave way on me. I slid about 30 feet down the side of the hill bounding off of a few trees on the way down. Ouch. I put my flashlight in my mouth and used all 4's to climb back to where I saw the next glow stick, literally moving 2 steps forward, sliding one step back. Once I made it back, I put my ipod on to listen to Jay Mohr doing the Jim Rome Show which I had taped a few months backed and saved just for this trail, knowing I would need something to keep the spirits up. Disappointed to have lost time, but not wanting another fall, I pushed it carefully over the next few hundred yards . . .

Once I hit the actual trail, darkness was starting to fade, and I have to say that I really liked this part, probably more than others did. I love short steep climbs and technical stuff, as it suits my build. Its also much easier, I'm sure, in the early gray of the morning, which is when I was there, where you can see the obstacles ahead of you and plan the best way to assault them, as opposed to the middle of the night where you need your light to illuminate every little step. Before long, I had caught David, and I would even occasionally see John in the distance around the lakeshore. We finally pulled into the aid at Mile 73, and I was ahead of schedule, having done the trail from hell in about 2 hours and 15 minutes, or about 15 minutes faster than I planned, even with that epic fall (or fail as the case may be!).

A quick trip to the trees to answer nature's call put me way behind John and David on the long grind out of Mineral Creek, and I wouldn't see them again until the end. What I've found at these races is that I always lose ground on the long gradual climbs, and this race wasn't any different as I trailed and ulitmately lost touch with a large group going up the 7 mile, 3,000 foot climb to No Name Ridge. At mile 75, Erica was waiting with spaghettio's, and she walked up part of the trail with me, taking my cold weather clothes and getting me set for a long day still. I knew now barring disaster that I would finish, but I could sniff a PR if I could keep it going, which would be something to set a PR on this course. Unlike most ultras that start early, because this one starts at 10, I still had an entire day of running instead of being done in the morning. With that in mind, I pushed as hard as I could on the road climb, which wasn't that bad at all, if a little long. There were some nice views along the way and soon I was at the station at Mile 80. I threw down a banana pancake and some ginger ale and another new favorite, apple sauce! Brilliant idea, No Name Ridgers! I had two of those as I pushed for the Needles.

On the long climb out of Mineral Creek at about Mile 75. The slope wasn't too bad; it was just a slog.

Runners up in the distance. I could not keep up with them and got dropped. Long climbs are on my "Needs Improvement" list.

The Needles are a series of steep short climbs, maybe 1/4 mile for the shortest to 1/2 mile for the longest which are as infamous and dreaded in Cascade Crest lore as the Trail from Hell. Definitely the steepest part of the course, but as I said about the trail from Hell, I tend to do well on short steep bits as they require brute strength, which, being a big guy, I have some of. My goal was to make it through all the needles without stopping to catch my breath, and I would make it. Small mission accomplished.

View of an Alpine lake from somewhere along the Needles.

The second needle was Thorpe Mountain - and out n' back - and I was told to head up the mountain and grab a ticket to show I was there and come back. It was a 1/2 mile steep switchbacking climb that I was glad to crest. As I reached the bottom, I realized I had forgotten to grab a ticket! Oh no! Wait a minute, what's this in my pocket? Thank God, I did get a ticket. I was starting to lose it. Time to get to the finish.

The section from Thorpe to French Cabin actually went pretty quick as I powered through the 2 needles there and hit the second to last section of the course. I have to say that the Needles weren't all that bad. Yes, they are steep, but they are manageable if you have any legs left. Just one foot after the other and you are through them pretty quick.

At the Cabin I tried some bacon and quickly coughed it back up. Oops. Time to get moving and get this thing over with. I knew, barring disaster, I had a finish and likely a PR. This proved to be the most difficult part of the race for me, because knowing this, I just wanted it to be done, but I still had 12 miles and several hours of running to cover to actually get there. It made the last part of the race seem to last forever.

From the Cabin to finish was downhill with one last needle to get over pretty much right out of the aid station. From there, it was a lot of rooty downhill that seemed to take forever. I thought I would be down a lot faster than I actually was. It was fun trail, but my legs were shot, so I was struggling just to get through, and mentally, I just wanted to be done. I passed a few folks in here, but was getting frustrated as I saw time slipping away. I was so close, I didn't want to give a PR up now. Plus, I had a shot at sub-31 hours which would be great. I tried to power along as best I could. I ran into a couple of guys with a map. How far to the trailhead? 1.9 miles, they said. Great. Then, 20 minutes later, I ran into a race volunteer. How far to the trailhead? 2.5 miles, she said. Not so great. I looked at where we had to get down to, and knew that the race volunteer was correct. Oh, man. I looked at my watch. Get moving!

A particluarly smooth section of the last trail . . .

Finally getting spit out the bottom, my legs were rubbery and my stomach was rumbling, which happenned a lot during the race. It was wild in that I was stripped so raw, my stomach would rumble, I would eat a gu, and I could literally feel my body resupplying. One more cup of spaghetti-o's . . .

I told Erica that I was going to walk it in from there. It was 3:30, I was mentally fried from that last section that never seemed to end, and I had 1.5 hours to cover the last 5 miles to get sub-31. Well after eating some and walking some bumpy gravelly stuff, I felt pretty good and didn't want to go out like a chump, so picked up the pace and started "running" again, which at this point was a distorted lurching motion, kind of like Frankenstein going out for a jog. But it was faster than walking, so off I would go, literally counting down in my head, making myself run for 5 minutes on, 1 minute off. 300, 299, 298, etc. until zero when I started the whole process again. Soon I was off trails and onto pavement, which meant I was a little over a mile away. I could see the overpass that was near the finish, but it seemed like it was so far! Oh well, keep it up. 300, 299, 298 . . .

I passed a deer who was grazing next to the road just before coming back into town, and then it was up onto a trail next to the railroad tracks. I could see the finish! There were a couple of guys yelling and waving. I yelled back and started pumping my fist to myself, listening to the Clash and pushing the last 1/4 mile or so to look good for the ladies at the finish! I recognized one of these guys as Scotty as I got closer. But they were still jumping up and down, and yelling, more than I thought was warranted, but OK. Thanks guys, I guess. Just then I sensed movement over my shoulder as a runner came around to pass me. (At least it wasn't the owl!)

I don't consider myself a very competitive guy, but something deep inside me tripped and I dug into my guts to try to hold this guy off. I mean, who really cares? But I guess I did. As I turned it up a notch, I glanced over my shoulder and he was still there. Damn it, that first burst should have snapped him! I went WAY deep and found one more gear. I still have no idea where that came from, but I was able to muster just enough to keep him off, finishing with a "leap" and a fist pump. I feel like a fool now, battling for 69th place against a guy who was at least 10 years my senior and undoubtedly a better runner, but nice that I could find a little something really deep when I felt like I had to. He was a great sport and was very gracious about my idiocy when I should have just crossed the line together with him which to my mind is more in the spirit with the sport. Oh well. lesson learned, and it makes for a funny memory. About 500 yards from the finish, head down, just trying to make it in. When suddenly . . .

Ah, crap! Where did he come from. C'mon now, dig for something!

Hey, it looks like I'm actually running as I try to hold him off! Or that I'm pulling an invisible tractor . . . Whew! That was tough! Better get out of the way there, camera guy!

So final results were 30:32, a PR on any 100 mile course for me by 40 minutes (and only 5 seconds faster than the guy behind me!). This is a brutal course, much harder than Grand Teton and San Diego, not as hard as Wasatch, but comparable. There were pleny of beautiful views, supportive volunteers, and fantastic runnable territory. As the shirt said, "Tall Trees. Tough Trails". Put it on your list for a beautiful, well-0rganized, well-supported challenge.

My belt buckle. Me: "I ran 100 miles for this?" Charlie: "Why yes, yes you did". Erica looks on proudly (?) in the background. She is the best crew EVER. I recommend her to any ultra runners looking for a crew person . . .

Thanks again to Charlie the race director, all of the volunteers who helped out, Erica for being the ace crew that she always is, and to all my fellow racers who make the sport what it is. Hopefully I'll be running again by the weekend and start thinking about what's next, but right now, its all about savoring the buckle for a little while. Thanks for reading . . .

CHEERS!!

Last training . . .

2010-08-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

Trying to squeeze in a few quality runs before Cascade Crest. On Wednesday, I did a semi-double ascent of Cowles Mtn. It was getting dark and had to bail out of going all the way down for the second ascent. Had real heavy legs still, but made it to the top in 37 min. on the first climb, so only lost about 3 min. Felt strong the second time up as well, so that was a good sign.

Friday, did a modified training loop with Anders, who is a complete hardass. For any of you dear readers that think I am crazy, Anders is training for a double in which Saturday he is running Noble Canyon, a difficult 50k in the Laguna Mountains and Sunday he is swimming a 10 mile swim. That's right, not 10K. 10 miles. He is an ultimate hardass. And he does all this while being a partner at a major firm and raising 2 twin boys in Kindergarten. Everytime you think you are a hardass . . . .

Anyways, it was good to knock out the run, although we shorted the loop as we had plans for later that night. Good to hit the trails with him and good to hit the trails at night with a light again. I forget what a difference it makes. I'll need to do a couple more night runs to keep practicing. Its a totally different world.

Saturday was trailwork where I met Larry, some ultra hardass who has been racing and directing races since the 70's. Great guy with some great stories. Sunday I did the training loop, which I ran in 3:25, only 10 min slower than when I was peaking for New Mexico. While it was slightly worrisome, I definitely was not pushing it, figuring discretion was the better part of valor for this loop. Plus, with temps in the upper 80's, it was easy to take the slow way out. But legs felt fine at the end, and I have no residual soreness today, meaning I have more in there to call on - another good sign. And saw 2 great small horned toads, which I thought I had pics of, but it didn't come out. One had a lot of red on it. They were together on the trail, each a few inches long. Very cute.

Starting to get my head around the 100 miler. My goal is just to finish and run within myself. Really looking forward to running with Pete all day on Sunday. Assuming the body holds up, I think it will be a good run, as I don't have any pressure on myself for this one. Just want to show up and get a buckle and see some sights. Lots of football on the radio as well, which always makes the time go by.

Nothing much planned for the rest of this week. I'll head out Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday for sub-2 hour runs, including a couple of night runs. Just trying to maximize rest at this point.

Time to taper?

2010-08-12T22:12:00.000-07:00

So not much to report. Just trying to shake the rust out of my legs just in time for another taper. Did a canyon run with Gator on Monday as a shakedown and felt OK. Followed it up with a double ascent of Cowles Mountain. While my time on the ascent was only a few minutes slower, definitely was still feeling tired. I will do 2 hours tomorrow and 4 hours on Sunday, then taper it back down for the race. Ready to end my season. One more big push . . .

Back on the trails

2010-08-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

So, I'm glad to be back on the trails. This week I went to a good friend's wedding in Minnesota, just north of Duluth. I had a great time, including a fun 18 mile kayak down the Bois Brule river. On Saturday, it was my first time back on the trails. The north shore of Lake Superior is traced by the Superior Hiking Trail, a 230 mile mostly single track that goes from Duluth to Canada. The Sawtooth Superior 100 is run on it every year.

Looking at the profile, one would think it wouldn't be that hard. But the trail is a relentless up and down, gaining and losing 200 feet at a time. As for the trail itself, it was like a 2.5 hour tire drill when one considered all the roots, rocks, holes, mud, and other obstacles. I took on a 13 or 14 mile section from north of Split Rock to Gooseberry Falls, and it was a tough grind for legs a week out from a 50 miler.

The run was entirely single track, but often you couldn't see the roots and rocks because they were overgrown with grass. I had a great time pushing up the hills as it all was entirely runnable, but it really took its toll as I tried to keep the pace as high as I could. There were several people out on the trail, and at least half of them asked me, "So, who's chasing you?" It was like some kind of cult.

Anyways, it was a little slower than I would have liked, but not too bad, and yesterday did the canyon run and felt pretty good. We'll see what I can get done today at Mission Trails. I'm building to a 4 hour run this Sunday, and then it will be tapering back to get ready for the 100 miler in 2 and a half weeks. We'll see how it goes. Its all about focusing again after my success . . . .

This was the widest section of trail I saw all day. Can you see the roots? I couldn't.

This is an old shelter where you can sit out a storm or sleep. These were scattered every few miles. The trail was excellently marked and gave great mileage posts.

This is the view of Lake Superior from one of the high vantage points. You could see some of the old lighthouses from on top.

Here's one of the waterfalls. I imagine they are much more impressive during the early Spring. As it was, it was very pretty.

White River 50 Report

2010-08-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

I have a distinct memory of the night before my first ultra, standing out of the balcony of the Crystal Mountain resort, looking nervously out into the forest that climbed the ski slopes over the ridge, wondering how I ever was going to get through 50 miles. Eventually I did it, but not without 12 hours and 40 minutes of extreme suffering and joyous views and a new respect for not only the runners who do this sport but myself as well. This was White River, and here I was again, 4 years later, ready to do my first repeat ultra. I had trained for this race all year with the goal of making White River my first sub-12 hour 50 mile race which had been one of my three goals every since I had started running. I knew if my training numbers held up, I should be in pretty good shape, but numbers on a training run often don't correlate to the race itself. So, here I was nervously milling about with 225 other runners waiting for the start. Erica and I had enjoyed a good dinner with Mike and Fran the night before, and it was good to catch up with them as I had enjoyed their company at Jemez. I had a good night of sleep, and I had filled up with 2 bottles of water, 2 bagels, and 2 bananas. I was ready.

Before the start. Ready for a day in the pain locker.

And GO! Everyone was off, heading down a dirt road next to an airstrip, some 10 or 12 people wide. After 2 miles, we funneled down to a single track and then shot out onto a loamy trail consisting mostly of mud and decaying trees. It was like running on a track made of the spongy material you find under a kids' swing set, only with a few roots and rocks thrown in to make it a little more fun. The trail, like most trails on the offing for the day, wove its way sinuously around massive trunks and parted carpets of ferns. Eventually we crossed the highway and then wound our way through even prime old growth forest where the struggling gray dawn barely registered. We roly-polied this trail for another 2 miles where the first aid station awaited.

The start. The shirtless Jesus guy in the middle of the picture is the guy who won the thing in under 6.5 hours. What a stud. Hats off, Anton!

Of course, I had assumed my spot WAAAAYYY at the back of the pack . . .

After a quick bottle exchange with Erica, it was another mile and a half and then the first climb started, which was about 3000 feet over 7 miles or so. It started steeply, including a staircase, but quickly mellowed into a long slog with bouts of running and power hiking mixed together. I had gotten stuck behind someone who had started probably too fast but was now clogging up the singletrack with no way around. Soon the conga line stretched out behind us some 25 runners long. Finally, I followed some other runners around the front and pushed up the hill. As the trail would lead you to the edge of the cliffs, you would be rewarded with expansive views of Mt. Ranier, and you could see the airstrip and people mingling 2,500 feet below at the start line. As I ran, I spoke with a few people, easing into what was going to be a long day. I especially enjoyed talking to Tom who used to live in San Diego and trained on many of the same trails and even knew some of the same people. Finally, I came into Ranger Creek aid station at mile 12 at 2.5 hours into the race, about 15 minutes ahead of schedule.

Typical section of early trail. Ooooh, very Lord of the Rings-esque. Where's Elrond?

In the conga line on the stairs. The guy who took this, who's name I don't know, was hovering in the bushes snapping shots. Thanks to whoever took this! Apparently, he was being devoured by mosquitoes at the time. And thanks to Mike for sending it along!

After a very brief stop of less than a minute, I was up and away up the final 400 feet of the climb. At least this was how it had been advertised, but in fact, some of the steepest pitches of the climb waited ahead, and it was at this point that I was passed by the first downhill runners, including Anton Krupica. What a joy to watch him run, even if it was only for 5 seconds as he came barrelling past. There were a few steep bits left to go, but mostly they were short, and I was making good time as everyone had finally sorted themselves out about to where they would be for most of the race, give or take 10 spots or so. Finally, I got to the ridge, and the fields were littered with wildflowers of every shape and color. I also was enjoying a Mt. Ranier eclipse as the monolith dominated the view, and I could see the sun dancing in the deep blue chutes of the glaciers. As this was an out and back section, I had to dart off the trail time to time to allow the faster runners to keep their momentum headed back. While this interrupted my rhythm, I enjoyed seeing all of the runners ahead of me, especially the strong ones, and everyone gave each other words of encouragement as we were all in this soup together. It was also great to see Mike running so well, and I had to nimbly execute a high five before he got past me.

Photo by Glenn Tachiyama, who, besides being an accomplished runner, lays like a sniper in the bushes and then takes absolutlely fabulous photos of you. For anyone who wants to see what an ultra is like or just loves great photos of the NW, I encourage you to go to his site which is http://www.pbase.com/gtach/root. Mt. Ranier, obviously in the background. This is "charging" down to the aid station about 17 miles in.

I came into Corral Pass, enjoyed a quick snack, and then pushed out. Unfortunately, it was about here that I began feeling some cramps in my calves which limited my ability to push on the uphills coming back to the ridgeline, although it was nice to have runners stepping out of my way as opposed to the other way around. I was able to push through some rough spots by taking salt and staying right on the edge of cramping and pushing the downhills, knowing a long downhill section awaited me. Once it started, I was off, and I blew through Ranger Creek the second time, pausing only to fill my bottle as they sent us down a different trail back to the start line which was roughly the halfway point. My only worry at this point was getting enough salt in me, as I was still a little crampy and had sweat through my shirt.

As I plunged down the five miles of switchbacks between Ranger Creek and the halfway point at Buck Creek, I realized that I should have stopped for some food at the aid, as I had to slow down on the switchbacks to get some energy gels and salt pills in my system, and what I gained by not taking a minute at the aid station I lost by having to refuel on the run, costing me valuable momentum and time. I did manage to pick off about 8 runners on the way down from the top of the climb before Ranger Creek, but I was only able to average about 10 minute miles, when I should have been able to go at least 2 minutes per mile faster. But I felt strong when I pulled into Buck Creek at about 5 hours and 50 minutes, which was about 1/2 hour ahead of 12 hour pace and almost exactly where I thought I would be when I did my pre-race calculations. I was hoping to see Scotty there, but he was nowhere to be found. I did have a great but quick chat with Erica, who was a perfect crew as always. She gave me some frozen bottles and gels for the road, a quick good word of encouragement, and I was off.

At the halfway aid station. I think I shoved the kid behind me out of the way because he was standing between me and Goldfish.

And I'm off like a herd of turtles for the second half of the course . . . .

My biggest worry in the next two miles was how to manage my cramping. I looked down and I was covered in salt from my dried sweat. I vowed to keep pushing salt down my throat and headed for the Suntop Climb. This was a long 8 mile climb, the first 2.7 of which gained 1,700 feet in 2.7 miles through exposed switchbacks. In training, I was knocking out these kinds of climbs with regularity. But this was a different animal today for some reason. I was struggling mightily, and people were passing me like I had thrown out an anchor. I would guess I was passed by 15 people, and while I had gone out extra aggressively anticipating that I would need time in the bank, so I knew I would be getting passed by people, I had not counted on getting passed by THAT many, especially that badly, as I simply could not get my legs to match any of their pace. I kept trying to catch onto the back of a train, and kept getting dropped within 20 to 30 seconds. Finally, I made it to the aid station at Fawn Ridge, but doing the math, I thought any chance at 12 hours was gone barring a miracle.

I knew I needed a minute to get the morale up, as I was going to finish this thing regardless, so I bolted a few cups of mountain dew and a few bananas, my old friends. I also had some salted potatoes and goldfish and then took off up the final section of this climb. The second section was in tree cover and much less steep, with finally some runnable flats and downs mixed in. My legs were coming back, and I was starting to pick off a few of the runners that had passed me before. But the cramping was getting worse. To combat it, I tried to take my 8th salt pill of the day, but promptly yaked it straight back out. Well, that was it for pills for the day. I’d have to do it on Nuun drink, which is an electrolyte drink you make by dropping an Alka-seltzer like pill into a bottle of water, and salty snacks. Hmmmm. As I went to swing my legs over a stump, I felt a tightening and a paralyzing pain up and down my right inner leg. As I looked down, my right foot was turned out at a 90 degree angle from my other leg as I suffered groin cramps the like I would wish on no other. I limped up the trail, begging the muscles in my leg to relax and let go, cajoling them, pleading for a little speed. I was thinking that I was just starting to feel good again, and now this! I quickly recalculated the time in my head and realized that I had made a stupid mistake on the Fawn Ridge climb. When calculating how much time I had left, I had been looking at clock time, not elapsed time, on the run, so my chance at 12 hours was intact! I did some quick math, and I was going to have to push to try to make it to Sun Top no later than 3:45 PM, but now I was done with all but the last mile of the climb, and then came the downhill, my specialty.

With renewed vigor, I hit the downhill from the false summit to the base of the last climb. This was a one mile steep up, but my legs were recovered, and I enjoy relatively short steep ups as I have good strength for shorter climbs as opposed to the longer ones where I’m too big to make great time. This rocky straight up SOB was right up my alley, almost Xeroxed from Mission Trails, so I powered up this last bit, knowing that the top was soon at hand. I was able to pass a few more of the people who had passed me earlier on this last bit and popped out on the top, with some threatening clouds in the distance and thunder rumbling around the valleys. Last time I had been here, I was so hungry I stuffed down two whole costco chocolate muffins. This time, I had just wretched up a salt pill and was in so-so shape. I took in what salt I could by eating salty boiled potatoes and chips and took off for the 6.6 mile downhill. I left at 3:40, which gave me 2 hours and 50 minute to hit my goal. Knowing that my cramps would not let me push the pace much on the last 6.5 flat miles, I knew I had to try to go for broke on the downhill, where my cramps didn't affect me.

Another Glenn sniper shot, this time from the top of the last climb. Ready for some downhill! What's really funny is that I have the same shot from my 2006 White River race, and I am making the exact same dumb pose. As Bugs would say, "What a Maroon!"
Mt. Ranier from Suntop. This was taken the day before when we were checking out the course. On raceday, there were threatening clouds and thunder, although, disappointingly, never any rain.

I bolted out of the aid station and onto the downhill fireroad. As I left, another guy who had passed me earlier headed out with me. I hit a hard pace, and he matched me stride for stride. If I faltered a little, he would pull ahead, and then I would pull up a little, and he would come up to me. Without saying a word, he and I pushed each other down the hill, cutting every corner, nearly stride for stride. We weren't necessarily competing against each other as much as teaming with each other to make sure the other wouldn't break and using our momentum to catch whoever was sitting in front of us as we flew past other runners, using them as rabbits to chase. What was really special is neither of us even so much as glanced at one another as we pushed it as hard as we could. We had an unspoken bond between us as runners and racers, and talking about it just would have spoiled it. While I now know his name from looking him up in results, I probably won't ever speak to him. He ended up finishing the race about 10 minutes behind me, and as he crossed the line, he went out of his way to walk up to me, give me a fist bump and a smile, letting me know that he had felt the same way, and melted into the post race crowd. I may never see him again, but I treasure those 50 minutes, as that is how long it took us to run miles 37 to 43.5, which doesn’t sound fast, but those are the fastest miles I’ve ever run in an ultra, not to mention one where I had already been running for 10 hours. Unfortunately, I left my partner behind on the very last portion of the section as I bombed into the last aid station where Erica was waiting with another bottle and a good word. I stopped briefly and then bolted out onto the trails.

Erica got this picture of a guy running the race in sandals. He is one of the ones who passed me on the bad climb to Suntop. I also saw 2 guys with vibrams, one of whom had taken them off and was running in bare feet. I think I lost to all 3 of them!

Last M&M's for 7 miles!

Off for one last push through Skookum Flats. 12 hours, here I come! At least, that's what I hoped . . .

This was Skookum Flats - 6.6 miles of eminently runnable, rooty, rocky, mossy, old growth fun. However, my legs were completly shot and starting to cramp again. I had 1 hour and 50 minutes to make the finish. Normally, of course, not a problem, but with cramps and fatigue, I thought it was going to be on the close side as I felt completely spent. My strategy for this whole section was to run until I cramped, then walk until it eased up, then repeat. At first I was able to go 6 or 7 minutes of slow running, but as I got farther and farther in, and as I tried to push harder and harder, the cramps came faster and faster to the point where it seemed like I was running 400 yards and walking 100 yards.

The Skookum Flats trail . . .

I got passed by a few people on this loop. Not knowing how long the section was, I asked them as they went by how much further did they estimate we had to go. I got varying numbers, none of which I trusted and all of which made me nervous. There were no mile markers, and I had no ability to discern what my pace was with all the starting and stopping and fast walking and slow running. Finally, I was passed by someone who turned out to be Van Phan, who has finished more races than I will ever start. She said that we had "about" 3 miles to go at the bridge. 2 minutes later, I crossed the bridge. It was 5:30, so I had an hour left to beat my goal, but it had taken me 50 minutes to cover 3.5 miles, and I had actually been able to run big sections of that, and now I was running only for 1 to 2 minute chunks at a time. The trail wound along the river's edge from time to time, and I would look out for the river, as I knew if I could see a bridge, I would be close to the finish as it was .4 miles from the road to the line. I pushed ahead, running when I could, finally even running with cramps on areas of open trail where there was nothing to trip on. I’m sure I looked like some mutant old growth penguin waddling stiff-legged through the forest. I looked at my watch. 20 minutes to go. A little panic started to creep in. I had NOT worked this hard and come this close to let it slip away.

A shot of the White River. It really is White! Now where is that damned bridge . . .

In the distance, I heard a voice that said "Up here!" Looking around, I saw a guy dressed in red about 400 yards ahead of me. He was standing at the end of the trail. "You made it!" he yelled. I looked at my watch. It was in the bag. I was so happy I screamed back at him, yelling in tongues. I still have no idea what I said. I had made it! As I dumped onto the road, I grabbed the guy by the shirt with both hands and told him I was going to marry him. If I had the energy, I would have kissed him, so lucky for us both I was too tired. I simply turned up the road and made my way towards the turn to the finish. Coming around the last corner with .2 miles to go, I let myself spend a moment thinking about all the hard work and training and sacrifice in the last 4 years and all the help and advice and good thoughts and words I had gotten from friends to push me along to this point. And now, it was coming to pass. For 30 seconds, as I trotted down the dirt road, I just let it wash over me, and I can’t remember ever feeling so completely and simply satisfied.

But the end and the glory awaited! As soon as I came out of the trees, I could see the finish! Everyone who was left started to cheer, as they did for every runner who finished. I heard Mike and Fran say congratulations as I was coming up the final bit, and as I bunny-hopped over the finish, there was Erica and Scotty! Fantastic! It was great to see Scotty, as my original White River has been his idea (although he hadn’t bothered to show up for it - ha!), and he was the one who got me into trail racing instead of just trail running. So it was nice serendipity to see him at the finish.

Whoa! I almost look like a real runner! Look at that concentration and focus!

Or not. Here I am giving Gator jaws to the crowd instead of just running the 200 yards to the finish. See previous caption about being a Maroon.

I literally made it 3 steps and collapsed into a chair. Mike and Fran came up, and I had a ball talking to them, hearing about Mike’s race (he crushed it), and talking the usual BS with Scotty and Deeser. My final time - 11:45:55, good for 147th place out of 194 finishers and 226 starters, or almost the exact same relative placing as Jemez. After a salty cheeseburger and fries on the way home, I was starting to feel myself. I hopped on a scale at Uncle’s house in Seattle. I weighed 210 when I left Seattle on Friday AM, and I weighed 192 less than 36 hours later. I lost 18 pounds!!! That, as they say in fancy doctor offices, is not good. I also will be losing 4 toenails, have a giant raw spot on my chest from where my bandana knot was rubbing, and have a hickey like bruise on my neck from my hydration pack. I'll just tell people its a hickey - it sounds much more macho. I also have a couple of other hickey/raw spots from the belt on my new running shorts, but those will remain safely tucked from view . . .

Mike says he runs for the chair. How true. I made it about 3 steps before collapsing into this one, very proud but very tired.

So, how does it feel having nailed a life goal of a sub-12 50 miler? Well, for one, I’m not changing the name of the blog. But it feels amazing. Of course now, 2 days later, I start to think about where I could have made up minutes, where I let some mental weakness slip in, and how I could have raced it better. It was a good racing day, but not my best, so the question is how much faster can I get? I’m definitely going to keep pushing, but it won’t take away the deep satisfaction of getting this finish in the books. Big thanks to Deeser for crewing, for Uncle and Aunt and the girls for putting us up in Seattle and feeding and taking care of me (and for the awesome footrub Aunt K!), for everyone who sent good thoughts my way as I’m a big believer in good karma, and to everyone who gave a crap because its fun for me to share my adventures on the trails. Next up - Cascade Crest 100! I’ve got a month to rest up . . .

Success!!

2010-08-02T11:39:00.001-07:00

Sorry to those who check the blog from time to time, but I've been a busy boy. Notably, I may need to rename the blog, as I finally made it sub-12! I finished White River 50 in 11:45 and change. More info and a full race report as soon as I get some pics to go with my boring words, but the short story is that I killed it the first half, died on the first half of the second climb, and then picked up the last quarter to come in with some time to spare. Feeling fairly good today and should be ready to do some hiking tomorrow and running again by the weekend. Just in time to taper for Cascade Crest!

More soon . . .

Long time coming

2010-07-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been out of touch. A week and a half without a post. Naughty naughty. Well, this was the last week of training. A real push. Highlights of the week were a double ascent of Cowles Mountain at 34 minutes per ascent, a 3 hour loop in Mission Trails partially at night, and a couple of canyon runs, including one in which I would have finished under 1:20 but I slowed up to let Gator catch me as I was gapping her pretty bad. Poor girl is starting to show her age, and she was really straining to keep me in site, so I backed off the last 2 miles to let her come back to me. But I know I would have had the time, which is good to know.

The week culminated yesterday with a double ascent of Palomar up the Oak Grove trail. This is a 7 mile out and back on 2 miles of techinical single track followed by about 5 miles of fire road. From the start, there is maybe400 yards of downhill on the whole climb. Its about 3600 feet of climbing to a fire tower as I've written before. So the first ascent went very well. It was still cool with a breeze, so I could make some time. I was up and back down in about 3:05. Not bad, but not great. Still, I was very satisfied. After a brief break in the AC of the car and a snack, I hit the road again.

This second time up was very difficult. It had gotten to the mid 80's and I was feeling a ridiculous week of training in my legs. In the end, it was up and back in 3:40 the second time. Disappointing, but I was glad to knock it out. It took a lot out of me, and I was sore all day long and am still sore today.

Lots of great reptiles from this week.

Too bad this guy was blurry. The biggest horned lizard I've ever seen, maybe the size of my palm. He was in mission trails, but I also saw another on Palomar.

This was towards the top of Palomar. These gopher snakes can grow pretty large. This gives you a decent idea about his size. This is the entire roadbed of the fire road, so you can see he's pretty long.

This is a specked rattlesnake. I've never seen one before. Absolutely beautiful. I also saw a red rattlesnake, which is fairly rare. In fact it was the second I've seen, and both were on the same trail on Palomar and about the same spot about 2 years apart, so maybe they are the same one. Palomar definitely has more rattlesnakes than anyother spot I've been. Sweet.

Training runs

2010-06-24T22:37:00.000-07:00

OK, its been tough training while the World Cup is on. Up at 4:45 to watch the first game, then second game is 7:00, get done by 9:00, head to work, then ditch out for early lunch at 11:30 for the third game. So early runs have been right out, and then I stay at work late to make up for my late arrival and long lunch.

So training has been sporadic. Its been Ok, but I haven't hit my groove yet. The most fun I've had our repeats up Cowles Mtn. The climb is about 1400 feet over 2.2 miles, so its not bad. Roughly a third of what my climbs at white river will be. The climb took me 38 minutes during a 6 hour run on Saturday and 35 minutes doing a single run up, so climbing rates are good. But on my 6 hour run, I did flats after 2 trips up and down Cowles. It was poor, and I really struggled, adding in some walks. Pretty lousy. And I still haven't gotten a lot of the runs I need, while my eating has been poor because I keep going to watch the games. ARGH!

My only funny story from this week happened today. As I was changing for my evening run, just as I had my pants around my ankles, here comes a police car and pulls up behind me. Oh man, now what? Do I quick pull up my pants? That looks pretty suspicious. I decided to keep on changing, but I have my eye in the rear view mirror watching to see what this cop is going to do. Finally, he pulls up next to me, rolls down his window, and asks me about a trailer that is parked on the street in front of me. Holy crap, that was close. I don't know if he was waiting until I was done changing or whether he pulled up randomly after I was done.

So that's my cop run in. Hopefully 4 hour run tomorrow, 2 hours on Saturday afternoon, and 6 horus on Sunday. We'll see how it works out . . .

Volunteer

2010-06-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

I spent this past weekend volunteering for the San Diego 100. I had sent an e-mail to Scotty Mills saying I was available to help. I was expecting aid station duty or something similar, but because I had some ultra experience, I was asked to help mark the course and put in touch with Brian Gonzalez, alias Gonzo, alias Bad Rat, alias 9 toes Brian. He asked me to meet him at 8 AM at Big Bend in the Cuyamacas. There we loaded up packs and drove to Sweetwater. In the packs we had signs, reflectors, duct tape, 5 rolls of marking tape each, and 1 gallon pitcher of chalk plus the usual running stuff - gels, water, etc.

We headed out up the course with the goal of marking from Sweetwater back to Big Bend which is I would guess about 15 miles of the course, maybe a little more. I had never marked before, but it was fun. You try to picture yourself as a runner at that stage of the race, in this case mile 70 or so, running the dark. How often do you need to see a marker? What are the chances you are going to stumble down the wrong trail? Then you figure out how to keep everybody safe and on trail with as little stress as possible. So when you come to a dry stream bed, you mark the heck out of it so you know not to wander up the bed and to follow the trail. When you come to a turn, you put all kinds of ribbon and signs so you can't turn the wrong way unless you were trying to get lost.

Anyways, as a back of the packer, I know I LOVE seeing trail markers, so we marked the crap out of the course. It took us from about 9 AM until about 1 PM. That's a slow rate of travel, but you are stopping every couple of minutes to put on a marker or drop some chalk or something similar. So not only does that give you delays, it chops up your rhythm. I guess Brian had been marking for days. He is a beast, as he kept up a good pace and showed no signs of fatigue, despite nearly breaking his big toe. Twice (thus the monniker 9 toes).

Saturday, I said I'd help mark and sweep. So first we remarked a 5 mile loop. Then I headed home as I had to coach, and when I came back out, I was asked to check some markings because a horse race had shared our course. The horses had trashed much of it, so I repaired about 10 miles of markings making sure it was obvious. I felt relatively confident that it looked good, so I drove up to the start line and Brian and I ran another 6 or 7 miles pulling markers from the Laguna section of trail that was all done with as it was the first miles from the AM. By the time I got done, I was ridiculously hungry and killed it at the Viejas buffet, where I'm sure I looked and smelled like a homeless guy. They had all you can eat prime rib for 10 bucks. They lost a LOT of money on me.

On Sunday, Brian called early saying there were some lost runners who had fortunately been found by the time I got up there about 7 AM. Given we were short of some people and had lots of work to do, I pitched in to run some alone and pick up the trail. For this, like on Saturday, you run with a giant yard trash bag and pull down all ribbons and markers and pick up the trash as you go if you find any on the trail. As you might imagine, the bag starts pretty light but it adds up pretty quick and soon you feel like Santa Claus running down the trail with your 10 pound trash bag. All in all did 16 miles of cleaning up, and Brian did at least that much, so that a good portion of the work of cleaning up was done with. I said I could help more, but haven't heard, so I'm probably in the clear. I have some pictures, but need to develop them as they were on a disposable camera. I'll post after I get them done.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I'm not sure how much positive training I got, but I did get a lot just from the experience of hanging around all of these great ultra people and getting to see some people run and push themselves, and the miles I did weren't chicken feed. I know how much I've enjoyed racing so it was nice to give back. I really recommend it to anyone who either has raced or who hasn't but wants to see what its all about. I had a ball, met some great people, and will be looking forward to doing it again.

Hopefully back to a normal training week this week. I have about 3 to 4 weeks of good positive training before I have to start my taper for White River, so I want to take advantage of it. Tomorrow will be the canyon run, Wednesday will be the run from practice, Thursday will probably be a run from softball, Friday will be the course, Saturday an early AM Mission Trails ramble and Sunday will probably be Palomar again. Or I might skip Saturday and Sunday do a Palomar double. That would be hardass.

I have nature on me!

2010-06-07T20:46:00.001-07:00

So it was an interesting set of runs this weekend. Friday was the usual course, and I was on record pace. I ran most of South Fortuna except the stairs, and I was on top of the last bump of North Fortuna in 49 minutes, but then I saw something fascinating. There is a species of wasp called a tarantula hawk. These wasps prey specifically on tarantulas and other big ground spiders. They sting them, effectively paralyzing them. Then they drag them into their burrow, lay their eggs, and the larvae eat them alive. Gruesome!!

So as I rounded a corner, I was distracted by a flash of orange, and sure enough, here was a tarantula hawk attacking a tarantula! So here's the philisophical dilemma: Do I stay and watch this unfold, something I've seen in nature films but never seen before in person? Or do I push on and keep my record pace? I was pretty torn, but ultimately decided to stay and watch. In the end, I run trails to have unique experiences, and while I would like to get faster, it was worth taking a break to watch, especially knowing that I had a great 50 minute workout.

So I watched the wasp sting the tarantula, then leap back and wait to watch its handiwork. The spider flipped onto its back and twitched for a minute or two. Then the wasp came on top of the spider to see if it was paralyzed. And it was.

Sorry this is blurry. Its a blowup of a pic from my camera phone. You can see the wasp doing its business.

Afterwards, I watched it haul the poor spider into its burrow. The whole thing took about 10 minutes.

Here she's dragging away the spider for a nasty death.

After the break, it was hard to get the motivation going to push it again so I cruised to the finish. Saturday, I did two hours early in the canyon as I was headed to Palm Springs. Sunday, I took the tram up to Mountain Station on San Jacinto to run up to San Jacinto peak. Unfortunately, there was still too much snow, so there was no way to get up, at least running. I was able to do about 2 hours on lower trails and call it a day.

So today, I ran up at Crystal Cove. I did about 12 miles in 2.5 hours with about 2,000 feet or climbing. Not bad, not great. Didn't have tons of energy, but did all right. There was lots of snake sign - undulating marks in the loose dust on top of the trail. Finally found a sucker in the back part of the park. He was the longest gopher snake I've ever seen, like 4 feet. Got a quick pic of him as he headed into the brush.

This weekend will be volunteer work for the SD 100. Trailmarking all day on Thursday, then sweeping and other similar stuff on Saturday. I'm guessing I'll do about 20 miles on Thursday and another 30 on Saturday. I might help on Sunday too if they need it. Always good to give a little back . . .

Here's the gopher snake headed for cover . . .

recovery!

2010-05-31T20:51:00.001-07:00

So, we are 9 days post Jemez, and recovery is relatively complete. I took a few days off, and went for an hour hike on Monday then a short run on Wednesday. I took Thursday off, but Friday did an hour and a half on Glorious Ridge with Justin Evenson. It was good to get back on the trails with him. Saturday I did almost 3 hours in the canyon, doing the tailgate loop while listening to the Lakers game. After hiking on Sunday and going to check out Star Wars in Concert (very good, if a little cheesy and over the top), Monday was a new challenge - High Point!

High Point is the highest point on Palomar Mountain. Starting from Oak Grove, its a 13 mile out and back with 3,600 feet of gain. I picked this one because it should be relatively similar to the climbs for White River at between 500 and 600 feet per mile for several miles. My hope was to get up in 2 hours and 10 minutes and down in 65 minutes. I made my time goal, but was up to the top in 2 hours, and it took 70 minutes to get down. I definitely bonked on the way down, which isn't too surprising given that I only took two gels on the way up and none on the way down. Went through 3 frozen water bottles and could have done another. It was mid 70's at the start at the bottom and mid 80's at the bottom, so it was starting to get warm.

The climb starts with 1,800 feet of gain in 2 miles on technical single track. Definitely some work to get up. It dumps onto a series of fire roads which are fairly mellow for a mile and a half or so, but then kick up before another 1/2 mile flat section through shady oaks and then a final steep kick to the finish at high point. There is a multi-story fire tower up at the top that is sometimes open, but was closed today so that they could do some safety work on it. After about 7 minutes on top, I headed down. I hadn't made it 1/4 mile when a rattler struck at me. It wasn't even close, but it was a wake up call. I have no idea what it was thinking. Its funny because the last time I was here, I had a close call where the rattler struck and missed. Twice! Both times its head bounced off my ankle as I danced and screamed like a 13 year old girl at a Justin Beiber concert. So, the lesson is that they have some grumpy rattlers up there.

Among other sites were numerous blooming wildflowers that were populated with big bees. I thought they were carpenter bees, but they might have been bumble bees. I wasn't taking a close look. There is a great view of the observatory from the top. A possible long run will be to get dropped off at Oak Grove and picked up somewhere in Palomar state park, or, even better, to run down to the state park, then back up and over again. That would be tough for sure. I'll have to scout it out.

More soon!

A view of the fire tower from the top. I'll bring a better camera next time because you can get some good pics from a distance. You can see it for the last 2 miles or so of the approach. A good target.
The view of the Palomar Observatory from the fire tower.
A southern Pacific rattler! This was the culprit on Monday, but the last guy who struck at me was a red rattlesnake which are rarer. Neither one makes a good dinner guest.

Jemez 50 Miler

2010-05-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

So the Jemez 50 miler is in the books. This is a 50 mile race on rough trails in northern New Mexico with 12,000 feet of climbing in 5 major climbs, three of which go over 10,000 feet. A good race, supposedly one of the toughest 50 milers in the country. The short version is that I finished in 15:36. The long version is below . . .

Here's the profile of the race.

The trip was a pretty typical one. Scotty was waiting for me as I walked off the plane, and after a line at the Hertz counter that reminded me of the bread lines you used to see in cold war Moscow, we finally got our car and headed from ABQ to Los Alamos. Unfortunately, we missed our exit by about 30 miles, and by the time we got to the briefing, we were fairly late. Scotty’s friend Mike and his wife Fran were there and gave up their seats at the table to us. Mike was planning on running the race at one point, but he was recovering from Massanutten, so he turned it into an impropmtu vacation. After scrounging up the last of the spags, we listened to Caballo Blanco of Born to Run fame and headed back to the room. Actually, Mr. Blanco didn’t have much to say and seemed painfully shy, but his you tube video he showed was interesting. Apparently if you finish this race that they put on in Copper Canyon, you get 500 pounds of corn. I guess you are supposed to give it to the indians who live there, but I might be tempted to keep it. I REALLY like corn muffins. But I digress.

After going through my bag and discovering my portable XM and camera had been stolen out of my checked bag (bummer), I organized the rest of my stuff and hit the sack.

I was up before the alarm went off, and about 4:10 AM, Scotty and I rolled from our hotel in Espanola, about 20 min outside of town. The only problem was that neither of us had bothered to check the directions to the start line before we left, although I had some idea of where we were going. Scotty was able to find the directions in his bag , and we made it with several minutes to spare. After some socializing and half a donut and the usual port a potty stop, the crowd started moving down the road, meaning that the race I guess had started. I missed it.

Scotty and I at the start. Scotty looks drunk. Probably too many donuts. All pictures here courtesy of Scotty thanks to my camera getting stolen. Stupid US Airways.
Mmmmm, donuts.

So off we ran through some horse stables and then onto a horse trail system that paralleled the road we had ridden in on. The first 5 miles were rolling, and Scotty and I were still together at the first aid station where I stopped for a quick refill at 57 min or so. I then headed out, but didn’t see Scotty. I figured he was up ahead somewhere and put my head down for the first big climb of the day. It was pretty straight-forward - switchbacks up a burned ridge that were fairly steep. You could see the runners all out in front of you, which made for quite a sight. At the top there was a small aid station, so a quick refill and a few chips and then straight down a moutainside. I mean straight down on a game trail that zigzagged in an approximation of switchbacks. I had a ball and bombed down the trail, passing a few people that had gotten me on the uphill. Before I knew it, we were at the bottom at a ladder over a dam. After a quick climb it was onto an idyllic trail through the trees along a creek.

Running the roly polies at the start before aid station 1.
After aid station 1, after running through a creek bed, you headed up the 1600 ft. climb of Guaje Ridge.

Runners all going up Guaje Ridge. Every white speck is a runner. The crest in the picture is about 3/4 of the way up. From there, its a quick traverse and then a final push to the top.
Here's the famous ladder climb. It comes right after the descent from Guaje.

For whatever reason I was already struggling a little, which was a bummer because this trail was very runnable, and I was running maybe 3/4 of the time. I did have a yard sale wipeout at one point with my radio going one way, pack another, hat another, etc. It was crazy. Every muscle in my body cramped - hamstrings, calves, chest, biceps, etc. It took me a few minutes to shake this off, but then was up and at it again and actually ran a little better. But I took the cramping as a sign to eat more salt pills and did just that. Passing through the aid at mile 10, it was a 2 mile climb with 1800 feet of gain to Caballo Peak. At over 10,500 feet, it was one of three climbs over 10,000 feet. Then it was straight back down the same trail again. The climb was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, and it was great to see the leaders come bombing down the trail, as usually you don’t get to see these guys. It was also great to get good words from everybody and give them right back. There is a brotherhood/sisterhood to trailrunning that you don’t get in any other sport that I know of. We are all out there together, and we want to do our best, but we want you to do your best as well and let the chips fall where they may. Its a fraternity of idiots. Misery loves company, so they say.

Believe me, this elk was feeling better than I did after my fall and cramp session.
Typical section of the creek trail on the way to Caballo.
Heading up Caballo. This gives an ideal of the typical steepness of this section.

From the top of Caballo. You can see the Pajarito ski area in the background. We would top that for our last major climb of the day at mile 34.5. This was mile 12.

So up we went, then around a random tree at the top, then back down. I had thought Scotty was way ahead of me, but he was coming up the trail still, battling the altitude and the three ultras he had done in the last 4 weeks as well as a bad back. Crazy. That dude is monster tough.

Again, I passed people on the downhill but couldn’t keep it going when I got back to the creek. Pretty soon it was a steep climb out of the drainage onto a really fun jeep road to the Pipeline station. This is where I took my first break, pillaged my drop bag, and ate a groovy grape popsicle. I was doing a poor job of eating and staying with my salt pills, and nothing looked good at the various food tables except for that beloved otter pop. While I got organized I talked to a girl who was thinking of dropping to the 50K at that point. We were about 5 hours into it and only covered 17 or 18 miles. But, I told her, we had also covered 3 of the 5 big climbs, and there was only one cut off, at mile 36, so why not stick with it and try to make the cut, and if she got pulled, then she did knock out a 50k and gave it her best shot at the same time. I have no idea if she took my advice because I took off, but if she did, given the climbs coming up, she probably hates me with all of her heart and soul for talking her into going on.

A typical section of the climb to Pipeline. It is steep and somewhat forgotten about given the other climbs, but no fun.

The plunge off Pipeline to the Caldera was ridiculous. Take the steepest slide at the water park, one that’s about 300 feet tall and straight down, then cover it in 2 feet of dust and loose gravel. Then run down it. That’s pretty close. When it straightened out, it was great, but in the process of going down, I almost lost my otter pop. Very uncool.

The big descent with the Caldera in the distance. No pictures really capture how ridiculously steep this is.

The view of the Caldera from the top. The road we would run on runs through the center of the picture than off to the left.

The Caldera was probably my favorite part of the run. It was an undulating fire road that cut across this giant meadow framed by 10,000 peaks all around. It was very runnable, and I made decent progress with a few walking breaks. Before I knew it, I was at the mile 21 aid station. A quick clean out of the Pipeline drop mess that was all in my shoes and I was off on the cross country portion of the course.

Running a typical section of Caldera fire road.

The first part was a pleasant gradual climb across the clumped grass of the meadow. The second part started with bouldering section followed by a climb straight up the side of the mountain. And I mean straight up. To paraphrase Tim Robbins in Anchorman, no switchbacks, no mercy. I was climbing well though for someone my size and at my place in the race and managed to pass a few people I had been swapping spots with in the Caldera. Topping out over 10,000 feet a second time on Cerro Grande, there was some tree jumping and then onto a primitive trail that became a very runnable trail along a creek downhill. Unfortunately I started pooping out here so didn’t hold my pace as well as I should have on this section. Rat bastard. At some point, we had to go over a barbed wire fence. Somehow, I screwed this up and caught my running shorts on a barb. Thus ended my shorts which I had run every ultra I have ever run in as they ripped from top to bottom. Luckily I had tights on underneath, so I was able to run through despite my wardrobe malfunction.

The Cross-country portion. We would go into the trees, then up to the saddle and up to the left to top out on Cerro Grande.
Just a fun day of bouldering. Or not.

After awhile I came on the Pajarito aid station and decided I needed to try to get some food down here as nutrition was becoming a real issue. Fortunately, they had the magic formula that worked at Grand Teton: potato soup! Salty with lots of carbs and easy to swallow. Between that and some ginger ale, I was ready to go again, and headed out. I pulled into a group of 4 of us and we just put our heads down and did the gentle climb. It was getting hot, but I was not affected too much by either heat or altitude or wind. It was about 80 I guess in the canyons, and the wind was blowing at a steady 20 and gusting to 40, but the wind was cool, I thought, and I felt pretty good considering the mileage I had put in to that point. When I pulled into the Townsite Lift station, I heard someone calling my name, and it was Mike and Fran! Man was it good to see a familiar face. They were super encouraging and snapped my pic as I got ready for the last big push of the day.

It started gentle enough, and I let it lull me into a sense of security. It went from runnable to straight up parallel a double diamond ski slope. And there was no trail. You would run from an orange flag next to a rock to an orange ribbon on a tree 200 feet and 200 vertical feet beyond to an orange ribbon tied to a squirrel another 200 feet and 200 vertical feet ahead, etc. Finally, I saw the top. Nope. This was just the top of this ski slope. But you could still go higher on the mountain, so off you went perpindicular to the slopes, still going up. Finally I came to a blue bench made of skis and sat down for a minute, enjoying the view of the Caldera and literally hanging onto my hat in 40 mph winds.

You would think the top of the lift would be the top of the climb, right? Not in this mother scratcher. You do get an idea of the steepness of the climb, however.

About 5 minutes after continuing, I had reached the top of the final climb over 10,000 feet after 3200 feet of climbing, 1,800 of it in the last mile and a half. I came to the downhill to get me back to the ski lodge that was the 36 mile cutoff. I still had plenty of time, so I wasn’t too worried, but the steepness was similar if not more than the Pipeline drop, so instead of following the flags straight down, I ran my own switchbacks until the trail ducked into the woods and became runnable. I ran over several of the mountain bike obstacles to provide a little variety and came cruising into the ski station. There were Mike and Fran again! Too sweet. With a few more good words and the news that Scotty was hanging in there, I took off up some gentle slopes towards Pipeline again. I ran what I could and probably could have done better, but was at Pipeline before too long. I had thought it was all downhill from there, but there were two climbs to go. They looked intimidating as I came to each of them, but they really weren’t that bad. And I ate another Otter Pop at Pipeline to give me some strength.

Looking back from just past the ski lodge aid station. The slope we ran down is on the right.

Then came the fun. It was 8 miles of downhill ridge running, and I was hauling butt! Well, relatively speaking. I had saved enough to really do some damage here and was having a blast, although it would have been more fun with someone to chase. I blew through the second to last aid station and kept going. About 2 miles after that, things fell apart. I tried to take a salt pill and blew banana chunks and whatever else was rotting in my stomach all over myself and the trail. I then tried to take a gel about 2 minutes later and lost it and more banana chunks. That was it for eating for the day, so I knew I had to milk what energy I had left before I lost it. I kept it together for about 2 more miles, and then the bonk came. I struggled through the bottom of the canyon into the last aid station.

Typical section of the downhill ridge run.

From there it was 2 miles back to the top and I chatted with a guy from Spokane for most of the way, the first person I had seen on the trail since mile 31. Eventually he had some legs and took off and I fast hiked it up to the blacktop where I stumbled a few steps across the finish in 15:36, good for 83rd place. Of course, Mike and Fran were there to cheer me in, and we had fun chatting and cheering for Scotty and the other runners when they got there.

My shirt after the race, covered in dirt, grime, banana puke, and snot. Wearing white for an ultra is not the best idea for the fastidious. Fortunately, I don't fall under that category.
My ripped shorts. Such a bummer. I bought these for 50 cents at a Goodwill store in Tucson in 2002 when I needed something to play basketball in. I've worn them for every ultra and long run since. So sad. Maybe I can repair them with some more duct tape. I have no idea what the goo is next to the rip.

Overall, it was a killer race. I heard 300 started and only 100 finished (I was later corrected that 158 started and 100 finished - 63 percent finish rate, no doubt lowered by some who dropped to the 50k option which can be awfully tempting . . . Thanks for the correction, Beist!), with the rest either dropping or dropping down to the 50K. So 83rd ain’t too bad, but room for improvement for sure! I could have run stronger on the flats and the very last climb. Bleah. Well, it was a training race, and I’m already feeling up to run tonight - a good sign! If I can use this as a stepping stone to White River, then I’m in good shape. As usual, I was relatively unaffected by the heat and altitude, but I still need to get stronger on the flats to cut serious time off. The good was the climbing, the views, the company, and having some legs for the last 10 miles. The bad was walking some of the early flats and the some of the downhill from Cerro Grande when I should have been tougher and losing track of my nutrition.

Big thanks to Mike and Fran for the good words and friendly faces, to Scotty for bringing this race on the radar, and to the race director and all the great volunteers out there who make it possible. More soon! Bring on White River! Sub 12 here I come!!

Two weeks to go

2010-05-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I posted, but I've been keeping busy. I managed to set 2 new course records, including a 1:16 on my Friday night run and a 2:59 on my Fortuna/Kway Paay course. The only questions I have for the upcoming race are can I hold my climbing pace over a 2 mile versus 1 mile climb, is the altitude going to affect me, and will I have anything left in the legs for the fun downhill to the finish. I will be interested to see just what I have left, if anything. My goal for the race is just to make it to the cutoff in 12 hours and then see what happens. If I get it faster than that, great.

So, one of my interesting adventures was last week when I did the illegal train hike. Its a 13 mile hike from Jacumba to the desert that goes along abandoned train tracks. You go over 22 trestles and through 14 tunnels, or something like that. Most of the time you can walk along the tracks, but sometimes you have to walk on them like in Stand By Me across the bridges. The highlight is the Goat Canyon Trestle which is the longest curved wooden trestle in the world. Yes, that's a lot of modifiers, but its a very cool bridge, with catwalks and so that you can explore. There are also abandoned tunnels where the tracks used to run that now house bats and other critters.

I also made another trip up to San Jacinto. After only a week, the snow had receded significantly, and I was able to make it another 15 minutes or so up the trail. Still climbing relatively well, at least for me. We'll see what that means for the race. I'm mildly confident, but nervous. My times have been pretty good, but 50 miles is a long, long way.

Here's the view from the high point I reached on San Jacinto. All below was a thick snowfield. Pretty nice. I'm going back up to Idyllwild this weekend for some acclimatization. Won't be a lot of running, but will be hanging out at 6500 feet. That should help for the race, I hope.

Here's something you don't see everyday. Found these guys heading down from Monserate. Fed them pretzels, which they seemed to like.
The first tunnel on the hike. That's Mrs. Hamlet in front about to enter.
This was the NAFTA train. There were 3 abandoned trains on side tracks. This one had a bunch of passenger cars from a Montreal commuter train and a Mexican caboose. Go figure.
This is the Goat Canyon trestle itself. Very cool and rickety.

This is a desert iguana. He was the nicest one I've ever seen and was pretty docile to boot.

After getting to the car, I found this big horn sheep horn. Too cool! Next to it was a big horn ewe skeleton that had gotten tangled in some wire. It looked like maybe she strangled herself? I hope it was quick. It was kind of sad.

Less than two weeks to the race!

Winter wonderland

2010-04-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

So the week proceeds apace. After taking Monday off, I had the chance to scoot up to San Jacinto on Tuesday. My thought was I could do the first two miles of the trail, which match almost exactly two of the climbs from Jemez. Well, joke was on me. I expected some snow. But after about 1/2 hour, this was what I got . . .

Very pretty, but not super conducive to doing hill repeats. I struggled through the snow in my trailrunners and shorts for a while, but really, it just was a pretty hike in terms of training value, which isn't the worst thing in the world . . .

On the way home, this was the view:

These are lenticular clouds. Straight from Wikipedia, the Reader's Digest of the internet:

Where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains, a series of large-scale standing waves may form on the downwind side. If the temperature at the crest of the wave drops to the dew point, moisture in the air may condense to form lenticular clouds. As the moist air moves back down into the trough of the wave, the cloud may evaporate back into vapor. Under certain conditions, long strings of lenticular clouds can form near the crest of each successive wave, creating a formation known as a 'wave cloud'. The wave systems cause large vertical air movements and so enough water vapor may condense to produce precipitation.

So there you have it. Anyways, I think they are very interesting, and you don't see them all that often, particularly in dry Southern California. I didn't see any UFO's. Bummer.

Wednesday was a run through the canyon with Gator in the morning. It was raining lightly, so the tall flowers and low grasses were all bent over with the weight of the light rain that had been falling. Gator and I went crashing through them, and they left wet petals and leaves all over us. By the time were were done, I was soaked, not from the rain, but from all the moisture on the vegetation. We both looked like something from Swamp Thing!

No big plans for the next couple of days. I'm in a minor taper. I'll go for a run tonight from softball and then in the morning with Gator as tomorrow night is beer fest at the Padres game! Saturday will be the long run and Sunday I will be trespassing along the Goat Canyon Trestle. Hopefully more pictures then . . .

Where have I been?

2010-04-25T18:24:00.000-07:00

Wow, its been a while since Iposted. When I last left you, fair reader, I was preparing for an assault on the 2 lap 6 plus hour run. Well it was a failure. I don't know whether it was the two hours of running I did the night before or whether it was the heat (80 degrees) or just what it was. But I made it through the first lap in 3:13, which was about what i figured I would do. As I headed up north fortuna for the second lap, I got to the top and completely lost the will to go on. There was no other way to put it. Sad. I headed back to the car, with a run of 5.5 hours, but I shorted myself another trip up South Fortuna and Kway Paay. Weak, weak, weak.

I took Monday off, then Tuesday headed out in the AM for a slow run with the dog. Wed. was a good run as I ran home from the Padres game in a light rain. It was about a 12.5 mile run in about 2:15 to 2:20 on the pavement, an unusual run for me. Thursday was my usual Friday run, which I did in about 1:30 pace, partially because it was done partly in the dark, but I also didn't go as hard as I could go as I kept getting texts about the draft and couldn't help but respond. I like where most of the Gators went, with three going to the Pats and one to the Broncos. I'm not going to be popular at Chargers games.

Friday I took off, and Saturday was attempt two at the double loop. I headed out at 10:05, the start of the Padres game. Up through the grasslands, I was feeling pretty good. I decided to take it fairly easy and not push the pace too much, but try hard to stay within myself. I did the north Fortuna climb in 20 min, which is pretty fast, but I felt very comfortable. There was a runner ahead of me to pace me, and I caught him going downhill, running fairly aggressively. I had a little hip pain after getting all the way down to Shepherd's canyon. Up and over Shepherd's Hill and through the canyon, then 15 minutes from the benches to the top of the South Fortuna stairs.

I was feeling fairly strong, and cruised down the saddle and into Oak Canyon, pausing only to give a hiker with a sprained ankle my frozen water bottle. Then I hit Kway Paay and made it up and down in about 50 min., finishing the first loop in 3:02, a record, which is remarkable because I felt I was within myself the whole time. After half a turkey sandwich, I was back on the trails in about 8 minutes or so. I started out walking and finishing my turkey sandwich, then hit the run button. My legs were tired, but not overly so. I did the North Fortuna climb in about 23 min., so I wasn't losing too much time, although my climb to the saddle took about 13 min. and I had to make up some time on the way to the peak. Everything felt good going down, but I was definitely getting tired and struggling on the flats.

I took a 2 minute break to sit at the benches and then pushed pretty regularly up south fortuna. I did more walking than I wanted to do after i got to the top, but I knew I was going to be close to 6:30 for the total time, which was on the early side of my goal. I struggled down through Oak Canyon and took another 4 minute break or so. Up Kway Paay I went, figuring I had 1:15 to get up and down and still stay under my 7 hour goal. I switched to music and tried to push up. I had to take a few pauses on the steepest part, and made it back to the car in 53 minutes up and down Kway Paay, meaning 6:38 for the run.

That puts me about where I wanted to be for the New Mexico run. I would have liked to have been a little faster, but this was a 25 mile run with about 2700 feet of climbing, or roughly 1/2 of what I will have to do for Jemez. That puts me at about 14 hours or so, I would guess, for New Mexico. Not bad.

Good wildlife on the loop. 3 roadrunners, which is very unusual, and a jack rabbit and a garter snake. Also, lots of good lizards. Pretty fun. Tonight will be a run for the heck of it with the dog and then Monday off and then back on the usual plan. We'll see how it goes . . .

Strange days . . .

2010-04-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

Wednesday's run was an odd one, and I let it throw me off my game. There was lots of wildlife of the two legged variety. My plan was to do my new modified loop - grasslands, north fortuna, shepherd's hill, south fortuna, kway paay. All told it should take me between 3 hours to 3:15. I've only timed it once, and it was 3:10, so that was the goal. Well, I was well on pace going up north fortuna, and I was trailing a figure that was maybe 400 yards ahead of me. Whoever it was was matching my climb up to the top perfectly (time -20 min. - that's good!). So North Fortuna has a couple of bumps on the ridges as you come to a peak, then down and to the real peak then a third false peak, and then a small rise by the highway before a rocky descent off the ridge. Well, as soon as I hit the first peak, I started motoring and caught what turned out to be a girl by the second peak. When I was about 20 feet away, I yelled that I was coming behind her so as not to scare her when I came bounding up along the trail. It had the exact opposite effect and she screamed. I apologized as I scooted by her on the narrow trail, but she shrank from me with fear and revulsion in her eyes, none of the mirth that usually follows a scare that turns out to be a false alarm. She was clearly freaked out. I wondered why she was out there by herself. It was almost 7, and for a hiker, it meant at least an hour back to the nearest trailhead, wherever it was, which meant she was going to be out here alone. Given the unfortunate events of Chelsea King, who was found about 5 miles north of the park (for any out of towners, Chelsea King was a 17 year old cross country runner who was snatched and killed while trail running in Lake Hodges apparently by a sex offender out on parole - very tragic), I can't blame her for being spooked, but for christ's sake, lady, don't be out in the middle of a giant park at night by yourself. Show some common sense. Speaking of which, I'm probably lucky I didn't get maced.

The rest of the run went fairly uneventful for a while. I was on a good pace, when three things happenned. First, I started to get really hungry. These long, post work, skip dinner runs need to be better thought out, and I need to bring a sandwich with me. Gu's aren't getting it done. Second, it started to get dark, and on a technical trail, I was surprised how much it slowed me down. Third, I ran into an episode of the Jerry Springer Show. Well, almost. I ran into two people who were barefoot(!) hiking down from North Fortuna who had forgotten that it gets dark and who were stubling along the trail. Since I had a light, I offered to walk them in, shining the light behind me. The lady struck up a conversation and told me all about herself, and that she was a great runner, a great navigator, a great seamstress, had great night vision, etc. You get the point. Her boyfriend was an ex-marine living in Pacific Beach. He told me that he had just gotten his second DUI, while the girlfriend had just gotten out of jail after a DV stint for attacking her father and kicking in a door. Great. After we reached the trailhead, they still needed help because, for some reason, they had stashed their cell phones and shoes under a bush instead of at the car 100 yards away. Finally, left them at their car (how they were going to get out of the locked gate is anyone's guess) and headed up Kway Paay, but at this point I'd loss massive amounts of time. I did the Kway Paay climb and called it a night instead of tacking on the extra 1/2 hour I was planning on running in the park.

I did love my new Wildcat trail runners. The did a great job on the loose DG of the saddle and Kway Paay, and my foot didn't slide too much. So far a success. Listened to the Lakers drop their last game to the Clippers. Clearly on cruise control waiting for the playoffs.

Thursday, had a late deposition, so took Gator in the canyon for a run, but shorter than I had planned and skipped a chance to run that night and again this morning. Feeling lazy and eating a lot. Need to beat that. We'll see what this evening brings. I forgot my running clothes, so if I go home, I doubt I will go back to Mission Trails and waste time. I will probably do a reverse loop in the canyon or something along those lines. Not as much climbing as I should get, but we'll see. Tomorrow maybe a short one in the mountains and then Sunday a challenging double new loop, so hopefully somewhere between 6 and 6:30 of hilly technical running . . .

Til then . . .

An unfortunate weekend off . . .

2010-04-13T15:28:00.000-07:00

Well, as the name of the post above demonstrates, it wasn't the most productive weekend. It started great. I ran my usual Friday course in 1:21. Again, this course is about 7 miles and involves about 1300 feet of elevation gain. My previous record was 1:28, so I shaved 7 minutes over 7 miles. Its amazing what you can do when you are climbing well. A great sign that my speed is getting closer to where it needs to be. I think my best case scenario on this course is probably about 1:15 if everything went perfect and I was a little lighter and stronger. But I'm psyched to average 11:30 miles on the course. And I saw snake species number 4, a gopher snake! He even did his rattlesnake imitaiton routine, curling up and striking and hissing at me.

The rest of the weekend, however, did not go as planned. I went up to Seattle and was hoping to do a scout run on some of the trails for the 100. Unfortunately, 2 days before my trip, a storm dumped 3 feet of new snow on all the trails in the Cascades, putting the kibosh on that idea. Because I had family and friends to see, I ended up doing no running whatsoever over the weekend, which is the first time that's happened since Japan. Monday I went to Discovery Park which is a beautiful park with some old growth that used to be a military base. There is a nice 3 mile loop trail, but that connects to several beach trails and lets you go up and down the hill. I also put some street time in, including a run by the locks and the fish ladder. In front of the dam where the locks are located, there is a rope that runs from one side to another upon which one can often see fabulous waterbirds. This time I was fortunate enough to see a belted kingfisher, which are usually somewhat elusive. This guy was pretty determined to hang out where he was, and while he would flit off, he would always return.

Anyways, always good to run in the NW, although I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to do some more, especially on the trails. But it was chilly and damp and the beach had the deep smell of brine that is so pervasive along the Washington shore.

This morning was just the usual canyon run with Gator on my new trail shoes. I'll give a review later. As you may remember, my last pair of fancy trail shoes were a disaster on the GTR. What will become of these, who knows? I'll give the full report on my La Sportiva Wildcats soon.

OK. Interesting pictures

2010-04-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had a run that can only be described as delightful. I often take forgranted how beautiful San Diego can be and lament that I am not in the Northwest. However, days like yesterday serve as a good reminder.

After work, I went to Mission Trails about 6:15 or so. I wanted to be done running by 8, so instead of doing some hardass climbing, I decided to run Spring Creek Canyon. This is a canyon that runs north-south from Mission Trails, underneath SR 52, and then out onto what may or may not be the Miramar MCAS. I say this because it used to be off limits, but now there are signs which merely discourage use and the use of the area by dogs in particular. Where this nature preserve stops and MCAS starts is anybody's guess. There are a few signs around that warn of live ammo, but often I've seen them on the way back on an out and back with no sign on the way out, so I don't think even MCAS knows.

There is a great run which I've described earlier in which you can connect Spring Creek with Oak Creek Canyon to make a fun loop. That was my intent as I headed out. Once under SR 52, you can either veer to the right to stay on the main path, which involves a fairly easy creek crossing, or you can veer right up a small fire road for about 50 yards onto the single track. I love the single track because it is undulating and has a few small, steep climbs. Either way, the trails are fairly deserted except for the odd super mountain biker who LOVE these trails, so keep your eyes out and, in my opinion, yield the way because these guys need to keep their momentum up to take some of the steep climbs. As you go, there are several spur trails that you can take off to the left. All of these lead up to the series of fire roads that penetrate the hills between Oak and Spring canyons and all of which may or may not be base property. They have official looking gates.

Today, the weather was perfect, in the low 70's, and the sun was down so there was a cool breeze. The trail up the canyon is a slight uphill the whole way, so you always feel you are working harder than you should be, because the grade is not very perceptible, but you can sure feel it on the way back. It being late, I had the canyon to myself. There were bushes bursting with yellow flowers up the slopes of either side of the gentle hills framing the canyon, and every once and a while, there would be a bush with big pink flowers. After about 3 or 4 miles, you hit a "y" junction. The well traveled path for the Oak Creek loop goes to the left. However, there is a fainter trail that goes to the right that I had never taken. Intrigued, I took the fainter trail to the right side of the ridge. This was an excellent choice. The trail meandered through encroaching vegetation burdened with yellow and pink flowers. After about a quarter mile I came up short for a tarantula that was crossing my path. This was the first live one I have seen in San Diego since I first moved here in 2003, although I know that they are around and can be out in force. I took a picture and gave him a wide berth as I continued up the trail. Not 5 minutes later, I pulled up again as another hairy arachnid ambled across the trail. Nothing for two years, then two in 5 minutes! Neither seemed particularly perterbed by me, although in photographing one with my water bottle, he raised his front legs, presumably to threaten me and make himself look even bigger.

Typical stretch of upper Spring Canyon trail.

Thirsty little buddy?
Tarantula 2! Both these guys were smaller than the ones I remember seeing in Tucson.

Leaving my hirsute friends behind, I headed up a beautiful switchback through knee high grasses and gained about 400 feet to the top of the hill. As I traversed around the hilltop, in front of me lay 3 quarters of a mile of gorgeous double track downhill. This was what trail running was all about. As I watched the sun set over the verdant hillocks separating spring canyon from oak canyon, I let my feet lead me through gentle undulations, rocky enough to keep my attention on the path snaking through the grass leading me back towards the canyon. After about 6 minutes of trail running heaven, I flew down the steep, loose, rocky last 200 yards back to the canyon floor and followed the wider main trail not towards Oak Creek, but back down Spring Creek Canyon and towards the car. I raced only against darkness as I put miles quickly behind me, taking advantage of the slight downhill camber of the trail.

On the traverse. You can see Glorious Ridge (as I've dubbed it) runing from top right to left in the picture.

I made it back to the car just as dusk was reluctantly fading into night, the entire run taking about 1:40. However, I had very little climbing in the last two days that meant . . .

Monserate! Followers of this blog (of which there are 0 as far as I can discern) know that this is one of my favorite climbs because of its sheer pointlessness. It is a 2 mile, 1200 foot rocky climb to nowhere located directly next to Interstate 15 in the hottest part of the county with a lot of burned out vegitation (although it is recovering from the fires finally) and no wildlife to speak of except for biting flies. However, its a convenient stop when returning from Riverside court to take a break and get some miles in, and it certainly makes you feel hard just being out on its slopes.

Today was a double ascent, a first for me. It took 28 minutes the first time up and 29 minutes the second. That is in line with my climbing from earlier this year, and also in line with my climbing times from Kway Paay (19 min to go 900 ft over 1.1 miles). I'm encouraged that my climbing is going well, if not spectacularly. What is most encouraging is that I can climb at the same rate for 2 climbs with only about 12 min. of active recovery. And less than 24 hours after a well paced 1:45 run the night before. I even had some wildlife as I spotted two striped racer snakes about 2 minutes apart darting off the path and into the bush. Its getting to be snake time of year. YES! (Oh, and another rattler on an hour hike Tuesday with Erica and Killer on the west side of Mission Trails).

Stock footage of a striped racer.

My plan is to run tonight after softball and to take Killer since Gator is pretty tired from her earlier runs this week and has been feeling off. Killer has yet to do a run more than 45 min, and this is two hours of mixed trail and pavement with some busy roads and big hills. Its an experiment. We'll see . . .

More boring words, no interesting pictures

2010-04-06T09:29:00.001-07:00

I know, I need more pictures. I didn't bring a camera with me today, and if so, not sure what pics I would have taken. Nothing special, for sure.

No interesting stories to tell, so you may as well skip to the next entry. Ran in the canyon this morning. It was 45 degrees at the start and 60 by the end, so I was too warm in my vest and long sleeve. Bad decision. Took me 1:37, which is pretty close to my best time, and that included a bathroom stop, so that's a pretty good sign that my "speed" is staying where it is.

The big disappointment this week was that I missed the earthquake. It happenned while I was out running and didn't feel a thing, but some of my books were out of my bookshelf and all my pictures at work got knocked down (although someone put them back up again. No idea who. Just noticed that. Weird.)

National championship was last night. I wasn't too interested in which predominantly white school's upper class fan base would go home happy, but I have to admit it was a good ending. I was frustrated the last two weeks with all the Hoosier references. ARGH! Butler is in the same league as Gonzaga and has been either in the top 10 or on the cusp of being in the top 10. They have a future NBA starter and likely another NBA draft pick after that on the team. In fact, 5 years from now Hayward will be a starter in the NBA while the Duke guys will be on the bench in the NBA or will be playing overseas or making money with an MBA somewhere. So enough with the David and Goliath references. Butler was a very good team going in who got a lousy seed (should have been a 4 seed or even a 3). Congratulations to them on a great season, but lets view them in the proper light, and not in the light a story hungry media feeds us, OK? Great.

Odd week

2010-04-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it was a good end to the week, but it was an odd one. Thursday, I split my time, doing a very lame hour in the morning with Gator to take advantage of the muddy conditions.

Trying to make up for it, I did a run Thursday in Cuyamaca, going up Cuyamaca peak. It was a fun winter climb and super spooky. There was a thick fog and a light mix of rain and snow. Visibility was about 5 feet, and I had to scan my light side to side just to see the edges of the trail and stay on track. It slowed me down, taking 51 minutes to make the climb, but it was good to be back at altitude and the spookiness of the dead and dormant trees looming over the trail with the fog floating through them provided a spooky backdrop.

Friday was a poker game at Greg's, so it meant trying to slip in a run some other time. Fortunately, the office closed early, so I was able to slip out and grab an hour and a half in Penasquitos. Nature's call brought about a handful of leaves and chafing problems, and the single track was very overgrown and difficult. But the flowers were out and the creek was flowing, so it was pretty, if nothing else. A funny sidenote when I got back was I was talking to Kate, a new attorney at work, who asked if I would be interested in running with her friend Ryan when he moved to San Diego. Well, after a few moments of conversation, it turns out her friend happens to be Ryan Hall. Yeah, maybe I'll go show him the ropes, teach him a thing or two. Or not.

Saturday's run went much better. I put the Michigan State game on and took Gator to Mission trails. We did a double ascent of North Fortuna from Oak Creek. The first trip up took 19 minutes, and the second one took 18 minutes. Both of those were encouraging (900 feet over a mile and a quarter on loose DG). My new downhill running is going pretty well too. I like the cycling tip of turning over and gripping the downhill with my feet that I got out of a random trailrunner letter to the editor. It works pretty well for me, but takes concentration. Anyways, spent a total of about 2 hours at the park doing some flat stuff after the up and down.

Sunday was the new modified loop (6 climbs, including Grasslands, Powerline, North Fortuna, Shepardson Canyon, South Fortuna, and Kway Paay). I need to figure out some exact distances, but it seems like its about 12 miles with about 3000 feet of climbing. Did it in about 3:10, and then did 50 minutes of flat running that went pretty well, if a little slow. Didn't feel too sore, so probably had a little more I could have given, but fairly satisfied overall. In two weeks, I'll do a double loop to see how that goes. If I can go 6.5 hours, I'll be pretty psyched. That puts me right on track for a good performance in Jemez.

More soon with some pics, I hope!

Wednesday ultra encounter

2010-03-31T21:00:00.000-07:00

Had a good run today. Did my new modified loop, with 4 climbs, grasslands, telephone pole, north fortuna, and south fortuna. If I had time, I would have thrown a Kway Paay at the end as well. Its about 2200 feet of climbing, and it went pretty well. At the beginning, I saw my first rattlesnake of the season, as you can see below. He was a baby sucker, about 8 inches. I got him off the trail so he could have a chance tonight, when its supposed to get cold and rainy. On a lark, I ran the first 2 climbs entirely and about a quarter of the way up North Fortuna. Interestingly, it only cut a minute or so off my total North Fortuna climb (about 22 min). So not sure of the benefit of running unless you are really trucking it. Anyways, came down from North Fortuna and worked my way into the wash where I ran into Erica and Killer. coming out of there, ran into another ultra guy, Don, who was on a recovery run from a 50k about 1.5 weeks ago. He was pretty strong, and it was work keeping up with him on the way to the top of the South Fortuna stairs. He dropped me on the little rollers up to the peak, but I was able to catch up on the descent. He seemed like a careful descender who still had some lactic acid saved in his quads from his last ultra. I had no such handicap, and I had a nice descent back to Oak Creek Canyon.

Total time was about 2:20, which wasn't bad considering the walk in the wash and the snake pit stop. Listened to the Lakers get thrashed by the Hawks. They are clearly in a malaise and need the playoffs to start. They really miss Bynum's shot blocking inside. Hopefully the rain comes tomorrow . . .

First rattler of the season! Still messing with my new phone and trying to figure it out. I hope to have some better pictures soon.

First snake of the season! This was from Sunday, I think, at the top of North Fortuna. A California King Snake. It was a great wildlife run as I also spotted a road runner and a the biggest horned toad I've ever seen, who was as wide as he was long. They are fairly rare in San Diego County, but I see them every once and a while in Mission Trails. I think they are doing OK there.

Not much to report

2010-03-30T22:42:00.000-07:00

Easy run this morning. Did my Tuesday canyon run. Took about 1:50 or so, probably not that fast. Didn't have any energy, but managed to push through. Don't have too much else to report. Rain comes tomorrow, which means good running, and maybe some snow on Thursday AM. Hello, mountains!!

Blogger's back!

2010-03-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

Well, its been a while, but I read somewhere that if you are going to blog, you need to be consistent and need to stick to a theme. OK, I can handle that. I'm sure I will ramble, but lets talk about the "offseason" and what I've done in the last week, now that training has officially begun.

The fall was a lot of shorter runs in the canyons, with just running anywhere that sounded good with no particular goal whatsoever. The only run that was consistent was my Friday speed run over the two Fortunas and my Sunday longish run which was 3 to 4 hours throughout the fall. Then, the winter trip to Japan brought a 3 week hiatus to running, but I hit the ground refreshed and ready to go for the New Year.

The Spring was more of the same, trying to concentrate on faster speeds on flat trails. I would say I was mildly successful at best, but I had a lot of fun on a lot of different trails.

So why start blogging again? Well, I have a race suddenly in my focus. On a whim with Scotty's pushing, I signed up for the Jemez 50 miler. I will post more on this race soon, but it looks like an asskicker. My goal on this one is to use it as a training run. It has 12,000 feet of climbing over 52 plus miles. Actually, the climbing all seems to be in the first 36 miles, with lots of fallen trees, scree descents, gnarly switchbacks, cross prarie gopher hole jumping, boulder field navigating, and double diamond ascents and downhills mixed in for good measure. My goals are pretty simple:

1. Climb hard and steady. Get a good pace and stick to it and be able to climb the last climb with the same speed as the first. And no breaks.

2. Downhill speed. The goal race, as I will discuss in later posts, is White River in July. I would like to break 12 and get closer to 11. A huge part of that is going to be the ability to effectively run downhill, which requires guts, training and quads, baby, quads. Jemez has a lot of big, long downs, so it will be a good testing ground, especially with a few hours of flat/rolling downhill on the last miles to simulate the trail at the end of White River.

3. Pacing. I want to be in the 36 mile aid station between 11 and 12 hours and be done in 15 hours. Those are pretty modest goals, but it will require pacing to get there. I'm going to try not to go out too hard.

4. Gear. I want to start talking to others and seeing what gear they are using. I'm guessing I am missing a huge chunk of it because I don't shop anywhere other than the local big 5/Walmart for shoes, clothes, etc. So I've got my eyes open for ideas.

5. Bear sighting. Someone last year saw a bear. I want to see one.

Pretty modest goals, but remember this is supposed to be a training race. I don't want to be out of action for 2 weeks before and 3 weeks after. I need to be able to recover from this quickly, as its only about 8 or 9 weeks out from White River. Focus!

Pics and more discussion about White River soon. But a quick recap of last week's training. Canyon run with Gator in the AM. 1:45. 20 min of relatively easy work in Mission Trails in the evening followed by about 1/2 hour of hiking. Wednesday was a run home from work. Long day, about 2.5 hours of road and trail mix. Thursday I skipped due to technical difficulties. Friday AM I ran the cayon with Gator, again in about 1:45 or so. Friday night I set a 2 Fortuna record from my new starting spot with a 1:28. That was a surprise, but I've been finding that I can almost run faster with tired beat legs once I get a little warmed up. The other helper was this old hardass who I met at the saddle between the Fortunas. He had run all the way up from Oak Canyon and was headed all the way up to North Fortuna. He was slow, but steady, and while I beat him to the top by a good minute to minute to two minutes, he never stopped and was a steady churn. It was his first time, he claimed, to try the climb in 3 years. Well, he sure looked like a hardass, and it spurred me on to a big finish.

Saturday was a double ascent up Kway Paay. That's about 875 feet climbing over a mile. I did it twice with two harrowing trips down. Things I learned? my climbing rate is still good but with plenty of room for improvement. I also have been working on my downhill technique. I've found on the loose Dg stuff, quick steps are key, and let the momentum take you to a degree, and just go with the flow. Don't let your foot stay on the ground, or it will slide out from under you. Other good advice I read was to run with your hands slightly forward and to picture your legs like you are biking, saving some jam on the ol' quads. Generally, I think it works, but I have some trails to test it on pretty soon that will be hard to beat.

Sunday was 5 hours in Mission Trails, or the length of time for the elite eight to play out. I also wanted to maximize climbs, so I did the 900 foot climb up the wall, through the saddle, and then to the summit of North Fortuna. After that, down through Shepherd's canyon, up the short steep climb, back down into the Wash, up South Fortuna (700 fet in 1/2 mile or so) then back to Kway Pay for another 1 mile 900 foot climb. I was pretty wasted by the time I got to the top, so I took about 5 min up there, then ran back down to the car where I took another 5 min in the air conditioning. Then headed out again for the second half of the Duke game. Basic grassland running with a climb up half of Kway Paay to finish the day. And then a grape slushy reward.

All in all, not bad for the long run. I could have been stronger and will be stronger, but given my successful Friday and Saturday runs, I can't say I was shocked to not have a great time. But a copious amount of wildlife. Saw a road runner, BIG san diego horned frog, a beautiful California King Snake about a foot long getting a taste of Spring, a giant alligator lizard I'd estimate was a foot long at least including tail. Anyways, a good end to the week. I'll put some pics up later this week.

Rain and snow coming Wed. Bring it.

End of the week update

2009-09-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

Well, ironically after posting the picture of my toe and musing about the nail still being attached, off it came on Wednesday, with the nail on the little toe on the same foot following on Thursday. It has been a really hectic week as I am trying to prepare a Petition for Review to the California Supreme Court, so it is eating up my time, but I have gotten some dcent runs in. Yesterday was an hour and a half through Knott's Grove and into Poway on the trail system. The trees in Knott's Grove are planted in honor of dead children, and they are covered with trinkets and have little Christian symbols and statues around the base of the tree. Its pretty creepy at night. Very Blair Witch-esque. But yesterday was warm and sunny, so it was more poignant than scary.

Today was the usual Friday run. My record up and down the Fortuna Spine and back was an hour and 18 minutes. I was able to do it in an hour and 21 minutes tonight, and that included about 1/2 hour in the dark with flashlight. It was great to get a fast run in again tonight. Another sign of recovery, now that we are about 3 weeks out. I'm going to take a day off tomorrow, then a hard pre-tailgate run on Sunday which should be fun. I need to start thinking about another race . . .

Random pictures downloaded from my phone

2009-09-23T07:56:00.000-07:00

I actually mounted this buckle then wore it out to a celebration dinner. I was told I looked like an oil baron.

This was my toe one day after the race. You can see the bliter and the edge of the nail on the bottom. Amazingly, the nail is still on. Bizarre.

This was a quick shot of sunset in the Tetons during the run. Pardon the finger in the shot.

This was sunset in the Cuyamacas running up Stonewall Peak in my last long run before the race.

This was on the flight out to the Tetons. Larry Johnson is my co-pilot.

Erica v. Turboproppy. Who will win?

Erica and Justin at the Chargers game. Remarkable because Erica actually took a good picture. She must be drunk . . .

From the Stone Beerfest, held at Cal State San Marcos, home of the Cougars. Step right up, all you eligible bachelors!

Yes, another Cougar joke. I'm that immature. Can you imagine the comedic potential of actually going to school there?

A week's worth

2009-09-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

Normally, I would have more to write after a week, but its been a slow running week as I recover. My main interest this week is how fast I can recover. So I'm going on my third week of recovery, and I figure if I'm ever going to do the Grand Slam, that's probably about the amount of time for recovery that I would have. Last week, I got a run in on Tuesday, as I blogged, and then did my usual run with a few twists on Friday night after work. Good to get in the hills and back on Fortuna, but it was brutally slow, as I expected. Was stronger on the uphills than I expected and no significant knee pain, all of which was obviously a good sign. Starting to get dark here for after work runs, so a light is mandatory equipment. Did see a scraggly looking deer about 3/4 of the way up South Fortuna. Weird place to see one, but it headed down towards the San Diego River when it saw me, so at least it knew where to go.

Sunday was a taligate run. My tailgate run is a 3 to 3.5 hour run starting in the canyon and doing a complete loop through Marian Bear and Rose Canyons, closing the loop by cutting through Miramar Nursery and running next to the dump to drop under the 805/52 interchange. Its more scenic than it sounds.

Anyways, I was nervous on this one for a couple of reasons. One, I forgot my phone, so if things went bad at any point, I was on my own. Secondly, I needed to leave by 9 AM to get to the tailgate in time for the festivities, so there was a bit of time pressure. My worries, thankfully, were unfounded. I was up at 5:15 and out the door by 5:25, light in hand and Gator by my side. The run was completely and mercifully uneventful. My favorite part of the run comes when I get on the other side of Gennesse, where I stop at University City High to hit the water fountain. From there until I hit the streets by the house, it is extremely unusual to see anyone, even at the nursery. Saw 2 coyotes this time around, and when I got to the nursery along the fence that edges the Miramar runway, there were about 30 ravens all lined up on the barbed wire. As I ran the gauntlet, they didn't even move, just sat there and croaked at me. Eerie. The only other problem was that the hole in the fence I usually cut through had been partially repaired, meaning now I have to crawl through it. Difficult after 2:45 of running. But I made it in about 3:05 total with tired legs.

Tuesday was an hour run in the morning with Gator in the canyon which felt pretty good. Overall, I would say I"m not recovered, but I'm close. I think its safe to say that I need 3 full weeks to even think about being recovered, but given how tired I was after the canyon run, I need another week to say I"m ready to go. I think I need to figure out a way to speed up the process . . .

I'm back, baby!

2009-09-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

Well, after an aborted attempt on Sunday, I tried again yesterday to get a few miles in, and although slow and laborious, I was able to get a good hour of running in with only a little pain behind the knee. The biggest pain was in my eardrums as I listened to the Chargers struggle unnecessarily with the Raiders. By the second half I was home watching the game, sending negative texts as I watched yet another listless performance by a team that just doesn't seem to care. Frustrating, but tempered by my successful return to the trails. I'll take at least one day off if not two before trying again, with the goal being a 2 - 3 hour run on Sunday AM. Here's hoping . . .

Recovery

2009-09-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

So its a week after the race, and the recovery is ongoing, to be generous. I tried my first run today and didn't even make it half a mile. I was slowed by pain behind my knee, of which I'm particularly wary. I figured discretion was the better part of valor, and packed it in. I probably won't try to run again until next Saturday, giving it plenty of more time to recover. I may do some more active recovery, trying to ice it, etc.

The week went as well as could be expected. It was difficult getting through the airports, and I needed someone to drive me around for a few days, but I settled in before long. My gait finally returned to normal sometime around Thursday or so, which was about the first time I was able to put my feet back in shoes. I hit the exercise bike hard on Saturday. It felt good to get a sweat on again. I'll probably get on the real bike for a while today to get some outside time. At least that's the plan. Or maybe I'll hit the kayak. Something like that.

We'll see what happens for the rest of the week.

Wrap up - the long version . . .

2009-09-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

I was up before the alarm went off at 4:45. Having gone to bed at 9, I actually got a lot more sleep than usual before these things. It helped that the start line was 200 yards from the hotel room. I did my usual pre-race shower and actually was able to use the facilities. Twice. Mentally, I went over everything I had done up to that point, including the night before. I had pasta alfredo and grilled chicken for dinner, eaten pretzels and other salty snacks like a fiend all day, and couldn’t even count the number of cups of water I drank which led to the same number of night time trips to the restroom.

At 5:30, I woke up Erica and walked over to the check-in and gave them my name. I had weighed in the night before at 210, down 15 pounds from Wasatch. And that was after all the snack binging. After a few minutes, we wandered as a group out to the start line. The shadow of Fred's Mountain loomed in the darkness as first light barely started to filter through the pre-dawn. We all knew that soon enough, we would become all to familiar with every step up to the top. Erica took a few start line photos as we milled about nervously in the chill air.

Yours truly, ready for a day or two of ass kicking.

The course was a loop course. Each loop consisted of 3 parts. The first was a climb up Fred's Mountain, a 1900 foot climb in 2.8 miles made up of steep slippery pitches followed by short flatter periods of recovery. The second loop was Mill Creek, in which, after a short climb, you descended 1600 feet or so on single track through aspen and pine forests. You then made up 700 feet of that on a 3.3 mile paved climb, followed by rolling hills which gradually led you upwards followed by about a 900 foot climb over a mile before a final long sharp drop back to the base area. The final loop was Rick's Basin, a series of gradual climbs and descents through fields strewn with wildflowers and aspen stands with views of Mt. Moran dominating the landscape.
At 6, with little fanfare, we were off up Fred's. The day before Erica and I had taken the chairlift to the top and hiked down to get a feel for what I was in for. Actually, upon arrival at the Grand Targhee resort on Wed. I had tried to climb to the top, but got on the wrong trail and ended up on a nice peak across the valley. Be that as it may, I knew the climb had several steep pitches of 100 yards, followed by more mellow climbing. The key was to power through these steep stretches and recover on the rest of the climb. On the way up the grind, I fell into conversation with Ryan. Our pace was easy but steady. We talked about football, about God, about raising kids. A pretty far ranging discussion about everything for being in the middle of a very long race. About 3/4 of the way up, someone yelled, "Turn around!" I spun around to see the majesty of Grand Teton and the surrounding mountains aglow in the first pink dawn. Certainly worth slowing down for. Looking back at the Teton's on the initial Fred's climb. About 5 minutes from the top on the first lap.

Finally, the rocky road made a final turn to traverse the side of the mountain and under the chairlift, with a final steep switchback to the top. Once there, the buffet was set out. Grabbing a quick banana and handful of Cheezits I was running down the mountain. Ryan went to hit the porta-john, and I leaned forward, letting gravity carry me down the mountain. I ran hard but watched my step. I had seen Erica take a tumble hiking down the day before, and before the race was over, I would see double digit wipeouts on the slippery gravel inclines, including a kid taking a head over heels roll. At about this time, the 50 milers started on the course, and I got to see every one of them as they began what we had just finished. Many were even running up the slope. I gave everyone some encouragement but saved some good words to a runner I had just met, a Gator fan living in Atlanta - Lane, which would be repaid in spades later on. I put my head down and concentrated on my footing. Suffering only a few missteps, I made it back to the base aid station in about 1:15. Stopping only to strip off my vest and light, I attacked the Mill Creek section.

It started with a 400 foot climb over about a mile or so. It seemed pretty easy after Fred's, and I had already run it as part of my misadventure in attempting to scout the first climb on the previous Wednesday. There was a single track traverse of about 400 yards, and then a bombing downhill on double track. Towards the bottom was set up two gatorade style water jugs, so after a quick refill, I ran hard all the way to the bottom where the double track went through a cattle gate and became rolling, mostly downwards single track. I ran this entire section, even the uphills, using my downhill momentum to push me up the brief ups I encountered. The single track wound its way through aspen stands and sage brush fields. The track was mostly cambered with difficult footing, but I soon found myself with company in the form of a runner from Washington DC. We scooted down a few switchbacks and out onto Teton Canyon road, a dirt road that led directly into the heart of the Teton wilderness. We headed the other direction, towards an RV .7 miles down the road that made up the next aid station. I expected to see Erica here, but was about 15 minutes ahead of my best projected time. I stopped there briefly to get a banana and Cheezits and off I went onto the pavement for the 700 foot climb.

The traverse to the long drop into the Mill Creek basin.

Coming into the aid station at the bottom of the paved climb.

This ended up being my strongest section throughout the race. I found I could get into a fairly good rhythm and keep it up. There were several switchbacks which allowed me to cut lines to curves to save some time, although my head was on a swivel for cars. There were also marvelous views of the Tetons. About ten minutes in, Erica came driving by, disappointed she had missed me at the station. I asked her to meet me above and put my head down to keep climbing. As I talked with the racer from DC, he revealed that he had aspirations of sub-30 hours, but he had done no aclimatizing at all and was not used to elevation. I had my doubts if he could do it, but altitude affects different people in different ways. I also was worried for myself that I was hanging with the sub-30 crowd, but didn't feel as if I was pushing it, so I decided to keep going at my pace. Soon we reached the aid station at the top of the hill where I grabbed a snack from Erica, grazed yet again, grabbing a turkey sandwich and a PBJ and headed off into the last part of the Mill Creek section.

Headed up the second and steepest switchback of the paved climb with the runner from DC.

I had heard bad things about this section but I didn't find it to be as bad as I was expecting. The trail was in poor condition, and it was rolling which made it hard to find a rhythm, but again running the shorter uphills made it go by fairly quickly. My DC companion had lingered at the aid station, so I was on my own as the trail rejoined the single track I had left a few hours before, and as I went through the cattle gate, the big climb out awaited me. I called it the hidden climb because it doesn't really show up on the descriptions of the race, only in the elevation profile. It wasn't too bad - just a steady slog. However, once you crested the ridge, there was a "bonus" climb of another few hundred feet. I say that because while you were back on the trail you went out on, this was a little side trail that took you up even further, so just when you thought you knew where you dropped in, you actually had to keep climbing a little further. A shock the first time, not so bad after that. I was able to make some good time dropping into the base aid station and then went out into Rick's Basin.

Out of the aid station and onto the rolling hills . . .
The beginning of the big climb out of the Mill Creek Basin.

Coming into the base aid station to refuel before Rick's Basin.

There wasn't much to this section. Somehow, even though you ended the same place you started, it seemed to be more climbing than dropping, including a nasty little climb towards the end to get you out of the basin. I managed to run this entire section and ended up doing the first 25 mile "lap" in 5:45, about 15 minutes ahead of where I wanted to be. I used some of that time at the aid station to get some real food in me, turkey sandwiches, and then headed back up Fred's for my second trip.

Flowers in Rick's Basin. You can see the return trail on the far hill.

This second time up was about the same as the first, which I took as a good sign. I felt about equally as strong, although this time I didn't have any company on the way up except sports radio. Thankfully, cloud cover kept it cool for the race, and my food and liquid strategy was working perfectly. I drank almost exclusively water on the course, relying on salt pills every 20 minutes and drinking Nuun, a calorie free electrolyte drink at the aid stations. I also took Gu Roctaine pouches every 45 minutes or so, and ended up eating a lot of bananas and potato soup.

View going up Fred's - about 1/4 of the way up.

On the traverse to the top. This is about 10 minutes from the end of the climb.

View from the top of Fred's. You can see the base station at the bottom of the lift.

On my way down Fred’s, I got a piercing pain in my right big toe that got worse and worse every step. Soon it was clear that there was a serious problem. I tried adjusting my gait, but with every step my toe was jamming into the end of the toe box causing excruciating pain. I had no alternative but to gut through it, which I did for the next 20 minutes before reaching the base aid station. By the time I got to the bottom, I was clearly limping. I quickly asked Erica to grab my other shoes and changed out of my expensive Mt. Masochist shoes which I had been trying and training in and went back to my cheap ass outlet Addidas shoes and headed down to the Mill Creek section again. I noticed as I changed shoes that the front of my sock had worn away against the toe box. Not a good sign. I definitely made the right decision to take the extra time.

There was nothing much eventful that happened the second time around Mill Creek, although the change of shoes helped tremendously. I kept my pace as high as I could. It helped that on the rolling hills after the paved climb, I felt a pop on my right big toe meaning the toenail had finally given way, easing the pain instantly. I could feel it flapping around in my sock, which was a little disconcerting, but better than the pain on every step that had been there before.

Typical section of Mill Creek single track.

By the end of the rolling hills, I was beginning to feel a little fatigue, but it was manageable. Pretty soon I found myself going around Rick's Basin for a second time and then working towards the halfway point. During the two previous sections, I had been swapping places with a Japanese guy and an ultra veteran named Hans. Hans, I knew, ran races almost every week, varying in distance from 50K to 100 miles. He's a complete hardass. The three of us swapped spots for a while as came around to do lap 3. As I returned to base, it was 6:45. I had completed the first two laps or 50 miles, in 12 hours, forty-five minutes which was about fifteen minutes faster than I had thought would be my absolute best case scenario. Excited, but wanting to make sure I was rested for my third trip up Fred’s, I took a few minutes to change into night clothes, putting my vest back for the climb.

Rick's Basin, the second time around.
Halfway!

The third time up Fred's was beginning to turn into a grind, but I knew if I just kept it up, I would put in a really good time. This was the time to focus, think about all the training I had put in, and run a race, not just survive it. With renewed energy, I made it up the final steep traverses, catching the Japanese runner and his wife who he had picked up as a pacer. On the descent, I dropped him for good, not to see him again until the finish, taking chances on the steep slopes and taking advantage of all the training I had done out at Mission Trails with hills just like these. Towards the bottom, I had run out of light, and it was time for night running mode. I pulled my little blue flashlight out of my pocket for the final pitches down to base.

At the bottom, I realized that it was going to be a warm night, relatively speaking, and I decided to stay in short sleeves and a baseball hat all night. It ended up being a very good decision. I also realized, as the OU - BYU game faded into the night, that it was time for the Ipod Shuffle and put the radio away, for good, as it turned out. With Art Bell as my companion, I said good bye to Erica who was headed to bed, and I headed out into the Mill Creek section. I was stopped about a half mile up by a coughing spasm that turned into dry retching. Bits of phleghm pellets came flying out of my throat and literally bounced like superballs off the packed fire road. I am assuming that this was from the dust I inhaled, and I gravely hope that I never see anything the likes of that again.

I ran as fast as darkness would allow. The footing on the trail was very difficult but I had practiced night running and was able to keep it going at a decent pace. It was on this section that I first felt some pain in the back of my knee. As I pushed it down towards Teton Creek Road, it got worse and worse, but because of the nature of the trail and the darkness, it didn't slow me down relatively speaking as I could only go so fast, and soon I was through the aid station at the bottom of the paved hill and making good time up the paved climb, where I passed a few more runners although got passed once myself. As I began the rolling hill section, I realized that I didn't have too much left. I was actually looking forward to the long climb where I put in some running, trying to empty the tank while I still had the will to do so. The full moon cast out long shadows through the trees, and a few raindrops fell as the night lengthened. While I had meesed up taping the Gators game, I had the Chargers game from the night before and listened to that to help pass the time.

Coming back down to the base aid station, I went right out into Rick's Basin. As I went out, Hans was coming back in from an aborted start at Rick's to change shoes. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had seen the last fellow hundred miler I would see for the rest of the race. It was about 2 AM. Hans was the first runner I had seen in 2 hours, and I would not see another until the first trail marathoner passed me some 6 and a half hours later.

It was now that I had my lowest moment of the race. I felt completely outside of my body, like I was watching myself run instead of experiencing it. I couldn't feel my feet hitting the ground. It was nice in a way because it kept me from suffering, running in this dreamlike state. My whole body felt like it was at the dentist’s office. On the top of one of the rises, a deer stood silently watching me run past her. I stopped for a minute to watch her, then kept going when she bounded out of site. I realized my good time was in danger of slipping away unless I refocused. I started slapping myself in the back of the neck and pinching the inside of my arms as I ran, trying to get it back together. I didn't really feel like myself again until I came out of the basin and into the aid station where I didn't dare say a word about it to any of the aid people. I was not going to get pulled now. It was 3:30 AM. I was done with 75 miles in about 21 and a half hours, the last lap taking 8 and a half hours, which was about what I was expecting with the dark.

I took a few moments to sit down and pull myself together. I ate some pizza, took some mouthwash, and drank some Coke. Giving myself a mental once over, I felt pretty good considering what I had been through. If I could just keep up the pace, when the sun came out, which was about 2 hours away, I should be able to pick up the pace and have a shot at even breaking 30 hours, something that I thought would have been impossible. With a deep breath, I launched myself up Fred's for the last time just as the clock passed 4 AM.

I made a nice slow steady progress and eventually made it to the top without stopping, meaning I had done the climb 4 times without taking any breaks, one of my main goals for the race. I surprised the aid personnel on top who had all been sleeping. As I announced myself, they all jumped up and scrambled to get me whatever I wanted. I was quizzed about how much salt had I eaten, how much had I been drinking, etc. They sent me down the trail, where I had to make a quick pit stop, which went much better than could be expected, then down Fred's the final time. It was here that I realized that something was wrong. I literally could not run downhill. I couldn't put any weight on my left leg without searing pain behind my right knee. Before it had been an annoyance, but now I knew I had a problem. As light began to filter through the scattered pines, I hiked as fast as I could to the bottom.

Going through the base aid station, stopping only long enough to shed my vest and light, morning broke cloudy and windy. I ran with soup in hand up the climb to Mill Creek, figuring that if running downhill was going to be difficult, I could at least take that energy and try to run uphill. I could only go in stretches, but in between I pushed hard on my hiking. Coming to the start of the long downhill, I tried again to give it a go, but the pain stopped me in my tracks. It was no good. Resigning myself that 30 hours was no longer possible, I hiked as fast as I could, running a few steps here and there when I could, but paying for it dearly every time I did. By now I was listening to Edgar Allen Poe which clashed with the bucholic beauty of late summer in the Tetons, but yet kept me alert and moving forward, head on a swivel for ravens or a cask of amontillado.

View of the Tetons from where the Mill Creek Trail meets Teton Canyon Road. Ready for breakfast!

At the bottom at last, I saw Erica who had just missed me at the bottom of Fred’s. Glad to see a friendly face, I sat down at the aid station for a quick breakfast of French toast and sausage which hit the spot. However, trying to get up from my chair, my knee locked, and I was barely able to get up. That worried me, and I realized that if I wanted to finish, I needed to go conservative for a while. With my sore knee now bothering me vaguely even on the uphill, I hunkered down for the paved climb, which went as well as any of the three times that preceded it. It was here that I began to be passed by the trail marathoners who had started at 7. Every one of them gave words of encouragement as they passed, remarking at what a hardass I was for doing a hundred miler. This was exactly what I needed to hear, and after each one left me in his or her wake, my pace would pick up for a few steps spurred by their energy.

I figured at the top I would give my knee a break, so I sat down and ate some bacon, but getting up again was much more difficult than even the bottom of the hill, and I could not extend my knee for at least 10 minutes after leaving the aid station. I knew that was my last sit, and was glad that I only had about 10 miles to go. Shortly after this, I was passed by a trail marathoner who took a nasty spill. I helped her up, dirty but unbroken and off she went. Finally reaching the base of the climb out of Mill Creek, I looked at the time and saw that breaking 31 hours was still possible if I could pull any downhill speed at all. Knowing this, I put some Frank Zappa on the Ipod and tried to attack the hill as best I could. I actually passed a couple of trail marathoners, and pulled them up the hill in my wake. Coming to the descent to the base aid station, they left me behind, and I realized that I could not run downhill even a single step. I had used up my emotional kick to pull me as fast as I could up the hill, and even my reserves were now spent. Looking at the time, I knew that it wasn’t enough, and that 31 hours was likely out of reach as well. I settled into a rhythm to ensure that I would finish without hurting myself to the point that I would be forced to drop.

Finally I came on the base station for the last time. I did not stop, giving Erica my pack and grabbing my Gator shirt on the fly. I knew if I sat, I literally might not be able to stand up with my knee. Making one last attempt to run, I realized now that my knee wouldn't even let me run uphill, so I hiked as fast as I could. I managed to keep up a good pace and had put on my running music, but I was ready to be done. It was frustrating being limited. I was able to give it a push the first mile to mile and a half, but soon fell back into a steady pace, completely spent. The alpine heat that we had escaped the day before was bearing down on the back of my neck, and I quickly went through the bottle I had. At the base of the last climb, I passed Chirag, a 100 miler who had trained entirely in Florida, mostly on stairmasters. He was finishing his second lap, having been felled by altitude. I admired that he had come back out after a nap to finish as much of his journey as he could, and his pacer was by his side helping him along. I gave them a quick pat on the back and a good word and struggled up the last climb.

Trail through Rick's the last time through . . .

Finally, I was on the dirt road to base and could hear the finish line. As I emerged from the final Aspen stand, I stumbled down the grass hill to the finish, with the announcer saying "Here comes another 100 miler!" There was a loud round of applause, and I let the emotions of my finish take over as I started to shake crossing the line. One of the race directors put the medal around my neck while the other shook my hand and gave me my buckle, which always cracks me up. I had finished in 31:18, almost 2 hours better than my best goal time I had allowed myself to consider. It was good for 11th overall, which given the number of entrants isn't near as impressive as it sounds, but was easily my best finish even percentage-wise in an ultra to date.

At a crawl down the last hill . . .

Finished!
About 5 minutes after the finish. Still living off of endorphins. Wait for it . . . Wait for it . . .

OK, they're gone. Ow, ow, ow! Contemplating the act of getting into the tub. It would take a while.

So, overall, the run was a tremendous success. I regret that I suffered an injury that took sub-30 or 31 hour times from me, as I still felt decently strong over the last 30 miles or so, but perhaps that injury was caused by my speed on the first 70 miles, so who knows. I could not get treatment for knee after the race, and it is still very sore today, meaning I can't even extend my knee half of its normal range of motion. As for my toe, the nail is barely on, being held by the skin cuticle, and a blister the size of my thumb has formed at the base, allowing me to see the outline of the base of the nail. Needless to say, it’s a matter of time before that goes.

A tremendous thanks to Erica who was out there almost the entire race at every aid station making sure I had what I needed and who helped me throughout the week making sure I was rested and ready and who shepherded me back through the multiple airports on the way back to San Diego, making only a few wheelchair jokes and stepping on my toe only a few times. Also, thanks to those to who sent texts or calls or thoughts my way while I was out on the course. Every little bit helped, and I needed every one of them.

Was all the time, sacrifice, and pain worth it? Damn straight. To run a strong race reflecting the amount of training and work that I have put in has been tremendously rewarding. Thanks to all who have followed along and helped along the way. I could not have done it without all of you.

As for what's next, well we'll wait and see . . .

Finished!

2009-09-07T01:33:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note that I finished the 100 miler. My time was 31:18, good for 11th overall. Full wrap up coming . . .

Day before . . .

2009-09-04T17:14:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting in my room watcing Tulsa v. Tulane thinking about the run. I have to eat dinner around 7 and then go to bed. Have my drop bags ready. Its supposed to be hot tomorrow, mid-70's, which is even warmer when you are at altitude. Took the chairlift to the top of the climb today and walked down. The climb will be harder than I thought, as it is sections of flat followed by steep uphill. The footing is also questionable. Wish I could calm the nerves.

The presentation was quick and painless. Interesting video from a 60 year old nun that is running the 50 about how she helps AIDS orphans. Something to think about. Trying to eat and drink and stay off my feet. Good swag in the bad. Nice long sleeve, but I love the beanie cap with the race logo down by smartwool. Superior. Now I have to go out and earn it.

Talked with a couple of the other runners. Two were from Florida. One has never been at altitude before. Like him, I just have to keep remembering to put one foot in front of the other and it will be over soon enough. As long as I can keep moving forward, I should finish. The cut offs are pretty generous. Any good running I get in is a bonus that will knock the total time down. Oh, and one of the aid stations will have bacon. How much sweeter can it get?

More on Monday . . .

In Wyoming . . .

2009-09-02T15:25:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm here at the race site. Pretty nerve wracking. Today I tried to do the trail that was supposed to be the first climb. Unfortunately, I took the wrong trail and went to the top of the next mountain over. But it ended up being the first 1.5 miles of the next section of the course, and the total climb was the same as the main climb, just on rougher trail. It went pretty well. The bummer is that I wanted to do the exact climb so I knew the clues as to what I would be looking for as I went up. Thinking about taking the ski lift to the top and walking down on Friday early to get it done once. I was able to see the entire trail from where I was up on the next mountain over, so I know where it gets steep and can look for the clues, like the big switchback starts the last push for the top. Anyways, sort of a bummer, but nothing I can't deal with. Breathing was OK at altitude, legs felt pretty good, all systems relatively go.

Scouted out the course and saw the aid stations that I could drive to. Overall, I'm feeling pretty good about it. The trail looks gorgeous. The views of the tetons are everywhere and look fabulous. Temps are comfortable, trails are in good condition, so we'll see what happens. Tomorrow is a drive through the Tetons and Yellowstone National Park with some walking around Old Faithful, etc. Friday will maybe be a walk down Fred's Mtn. and check in for the race. Already went to the store for water, snacks, etc. Pretty soon its put up or shut up.

Goals: The best case scenario as I see it is 33 hours given that the elevation is exactly half between San Diego and Wasatch and 33 hours would be the average between the two finishing times. I'll be stoked just to get a finish period.

Other good news: ESPN radio comes in well here with live football from 8 PM to 11:30 or so. Of course, its Idaho State v. ASU, but whatever. Have a shot of getting the Wyoming game as well which would be right in the middle of the afternoon. We'll see about that.

Last few runs . . .

2009-08-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

It was a quiet week. Nothing special. Decided to buy my first pair of trail shoes. Went Montrail Mount Masochist. They've gotten great reviews, so I figured what the heck. It feels like running in clogs. I tried them on a one hour jaunt in Mission Trails on some of the rockiest stuff I could find. It was great not to have to watch my step. But they felt really weird on the fire roads. I did another 4 hour night run in them in the mountains on Sunday. Liked them a little better. The run was fantastic. Did the Cuyamaca ascent and then turned it around and did the Stonewall Peak climb, went down the backside in the dark with my backup light and then back around to some more trails behind Paso Picacho. From Stonewall I saw a fantastic sunset between the Cuyamaca peaks and it was beautiful, red and purple. And from Cuyamaca at night, the entire Milky Way was out. Looking back, I saw the lightning flashing every 10 seconds over the desert in distance. The way back was populated with lots of kangaroo rats. Super cute with big eyes and ears. I was even able to pick one up and hold him before he hopped away. A fantastic run, but I"m still not sure about the shoes. They are so damn stiff. Picked up a new pair of my cheap ass Addidas just in case. The run is less than 2 weeks away. I'm nervous as hell. Crap.

NFL Predictions, Part 2

2009-08-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

So the taper is going fairly well so far. Did 1:45 yesterday at 6 AM. Legs were really sore at first from the 50K the Sunday before, but felt better as I went along for a few minutes and worked out the kinks. I will go for night runs for the rest of the week to practice, and then back to early AM runs for the 2 weeks before the race.

Now, back to the NFL . . .

NFC East:

1. Eagles

2. Giants

3. Cowboys

4. Redskins

I think the Eagles have upgraded the offensive line which was already good. They should have some depth now at running back, and I think will play some inspired D all year for Jim Johnson, although they will miss his game adjustments and scheming. The Giants have a great OL, and that will be their strength, running the ball, but I can't see Brandon Jacobs making it a whole season and they lost Derrick Ward. In addition, without Plaxico, they just don't have the receivers, and Eli is terrible at keeping hold of the ball. Completley overrated. The Cowboys will be the same old mess with Wade Phillips in charge and Romo at the controls. And I don't know what to make of the Redskins, but they are a revolving door of free agents that never seem to get it together. I think Jason Campbell will be improved, but I don't think it will be enough.

NFC North

1. Minnesota

2. Green Bay

3. Chicago

4. Detroit

This was a hard one. I think this is the best division in football. Minnesota was missing a QB and has one now along with the best line, defensive line, and running back in football. If Percy Harvin can come through, they could be really dangerous, even though Favre will turn the ball over and his arm is becoming a noodle. I think Green Bay has an improved DL and will produce points. I like Rodgers, GB's OL, and the receivers there, but the OL isn't as strong as teh Vikings. Chicago will be improved on the OL with Pace, the QB with Cutler, but their defense has been declining and is more reputation than anything. And Detroit, well will be Detroit, but I think they are going to be better and can't lose 16 games again. Kevin Smith is going to be a fantasy stud.

NFC South

1. Saints

2. Falcons

3. Panthers
4. Bucs

I think the Falcons may benefit from having balance and experience. It depends on if Matt Ryan can keep growing and if Roddy White keeps playing after getting paid. I'm suspect. I think Turner is going to get dinged up after so many carries last year. Add it all up, and I see the Saints maybe scoring as many points as last year, maybe a few less, but with Gregg Williams running the D, I think they tighten things up. The Panthers D will get them places, but Delhomme is too streaky, and the runners both had career years. I don't see that happening again. As for the Bucs? Pathetic. I'm too disgusted to talk about it.

NFC West

1. Arizona
2. Seattle
3. 49ers
4. Rams

I think Arizona is the best team in the division. But that's not saying much. Kurt Warner is the fantasy football version of musical chairs. When the carousel stops, and Kurt ages 30 years overnight, don't be the one holding the bag. Seattle still has Hasselbeck and has other talent around, but an aging offensive line, a questionable running game, and a bunch of medicore receivers. Their defense is OK, but I can't see them doing better than 8-8, maybe 9-7 considering their division. The Niners will be better, and I like their new philosophy to pound the ball, but they are still a few years away. But the Rams - they may be the worst team in the NFL. No receivers, an aging Bulger, no line, a suspect defense - the Rams have no hope anywhere in their future.

Wild cards? I'll say Falcons and Green Bay. And I'll say Green Bay goes to the Super Bowl. In your face Favre.

Let the taper begin . . .

2009-08-18T20:37:00.000-07:00

So, I'm on my second day in a row without running. I will run again tomorrow, but for now . . .

NFL Predictions!

AFC East
1. Patriots
2. Jets
3. Dolphins
4. Jets

OK, consider me an unbeliever. The Dolphins have that "we were good once, but with a harder schedule, we will struggle to go .500" like the Bears a few years ago. I think the Patriots are older and not what they used to be, especially on defense, but I think they are the class of the division. I like the Jets draft and I love their line, but I think think they are a year or two away yet. Rex Ryan is the Lane Kiffin of the NFL.

AFC North
1. Steelers
2. Ravens
3. Bengals
4. Browns

I always think the Ravens are going to be better than they are because of their defense and their running game, two elements that I always overvalue. They might miss Rex Ryan in the end, and with a sophmore slump QB and no receivers, I just don't think they have it. I like the Bengals who have a good offense and have improved their defense, but there just isn't the character to make a serious turn around on the team. I think the Browns are a joke, and I'm not a fan of Mangenius. Too many mediocre QB's, RB's and DB's.

AFC South
1. Indy
2. Houston
3. Tennessee
4. Jacksonville

This is a hard division to pick. I think Indy will miss some of the coaching they've lost, and I don't think Anthony Gonzalez is a Marvin Harrison, but they still have Manning, and I think they've improved their defense. I think they are in a crap shoot with the Texans. If Schaub can stay healthy, they finally have a go to running back, and their defense has made big strides. Tennessee I always underestimate, but Fisher always does a great job. I just don't think they have enough receiving talent and a questionable quaterback in Collins who doesn't seem to come through in the clutch. Jacksonville doesn't have a plan other than hand the ball to Jones-Drew and has lost too much along the defensive front to be competitive.

AFC West

1. Chargers
2. Raiders
3. Broncos
4. Chiefs

No doubt Chargers are the class of the division. Yes, I'm biased, but they are teh super bowl favorites and better play like it. Too many people are down on the Raiders. Yes they are a joke of an organization. But they have a decently stout defense and a good running game. A-ha, those two magic elements again. Unfortunately, Russell is a joke and will turn the ball over too much as for all of his talent, he is a terrible decision maker. The Broncos will need a while to make whatever changes they need to make, and they will miss Cutler and who knows what is going on with Brandon Marshall. The Chiefs have been the worst team in football the last 2 years. I can't see anything changing this year.

Wild Cards - Houston, Tenn
AFC Champ - Chargers

Tomorrow - the NFC!

The Goofy as Hell 50k

2009-08-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

Good last weekend! On Saturday, I knocked out Cuyamaca Peak after doing trailwork that involved a climb up Stonewall Peak, which is a nice 2 mile climb up to a place where you can view the entire SD 100 course which really puts it in perspective. Trimmed a bunch of brush on the way up, then made it back by noon to do Cuyamaca Peak. Knocked it out in 1:12 and did the 2.7 mile 1700 foot climb in 49 minutes. That put my hopes up, but last week my long run was difficult.

However, today was a different story. I did 3 of the 9.3 mile loops. Temperatures were perfect, low 80's with a breeze. First, I figured out that what I eat the night before is apparently not influential on my results. Last night was a chargers game, so my preparatory meal consisted of about 7 pieces of spicy fried chicken, half a container each of dirty rice and mac and cheese, 3 biscuits, and 2 or 3 beers and a giant mountain dew. The only adverse effect that I could tell was I had burning farts during the run that were slightly uncomfortable, but not as much as for someone who would have been running behind me.

Lesson 2: No Gatorade. I'm a big supporter, especially as they every bottle sold means money in the pocket of Urban Meyer and the boys. However, it seems to make me feel a little off every time I drink it, so I think that's enough of that, at least for now. I think at GTR 100, I will skip out on the carb drinks and just go for water, salt tabs, and Rocktaines, which is an expensive proposition as those things cost 2.50 a pouch. Apparently made with liquid gold, it sits well with my system and always seems to stay down. I could care less about the freaky amino acids or whatever else they put in there that's supposed to be helpful. As long as it sits in the stomach, I'll keep shelling it out.

Anyways, the run went great. Did my 15k loop 3 times and a 5k loop after that. Total run was 50k with 5000 feet of gain in exactly 7 hours. My pace was 13.5 minute miles. I was aiming for 14 to 14.5 minute miles, so obviously I was successful. That puts me in the back of the mid-pack for some of the 50k's with similar elevation gain, and this was a training run, so I was encouraged by that. I wanted an 8 hour run, but that did not seem to make sense after getting through 31 miles. I figured better to underdo it then push it at this point only 3 weeks out. I kept thinking that it was great knowing that this was exactly 50k (actually I think it is actually a little bit over as the 15k loops I think are more like 9.6 miles than 9.3, but whatever), but who the hell would run a race where you loop the same trails 3 times and then do a 5 K that covers the exact same course. Pretty goofy. Good practice for me, but I can't see this race catching on. But if anyone wants to shoot for my time, well, there you go.

Philisophically, I'm not sure whether I should be this excited, because while I pushed it, I never felt lousy or had to push through anything extraordinary, so not sure if it toughened me up. However, it was really good for my confidence, which goes a long way for me. Did the last 5k with 200 feet of gain in 30 minutes, so finished strong and felt like I had some left. We'll see if it means anything come race day.

The other thing that was notable was on my 3rd time up South Fortuna, some guy passed me like he was standing on an escalator. I don't know who this guy was, but he was clearly a runner and clearly a hardass. Whoever he was, if he's not on top of trail races right now, he will be soon.

Now, the taper begins. Let the laziness erupt!

Final Push

2009-08-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

So, the final push is here. Kicked it off on Sunday with what was going to be 3 loops of my Mission Trails course. Didn't turn out that way, unfortunately. The first loop went well and did it in 1:55. Then it started getting hot. I was drinking as much water as I could, which led to my feeling sick. My body couldn't process enough water to keep my hydrated, so I ended up with side cramps and feeling bloated and sick the whole run. Even with that, I finished the second loop on pace, at about 4:15. On the third loop, I got to the bottom of the last climb in 6 hours, pretty close to on pace for my goal of 25 miles in 6 hours. However, I was feeling really sick, so I laid down. Just then I stumbled across a pair of lost runners, so I guided them back to the visitor's center, which still gave me two climbs, but much different than pushing up South Fortuna one last time. Sort of disappointing. After doing the climb and run into the visitor center, I hiked the last climb and the road back to the car. Total time about 7:30. Total miles was probably about 30. Not bad, but not as strong as I would have liked.

Monday was a day off, then Tuesday was an 1:45 with Gator in the Canyon at a decent pace. Pretty fun and good to run with the Big G, who was a superstar. Yesterday was 3 hours without a break in Mission Trails. Did the Quarry Hill, South Fortuna, down the saddle and game trail up to Telephone Line Hill, then out to Mission Trails Dam, then up Oak Canyon back to the Saddle Trail which I took up and then up to N. Fortuna (which is about a 900 foot climb in 1 mile) then down through Shepherd's Canyon, up an unnamed hill to the rim trail, which I think is one of the hardest trails in the park but is still one of my favorites, then down the trim trail back to the car. Not sure of the mileage, but I'd guess between 2500 and 3000 feet of climbing.

My legs are tired today, but not too bad. Short run planned, then Saturday will be a repeat of the Cuyamaca climb. Last Saturday did this climb after a morning of trail work, which is identical to the biggest hill in GTR , in 1:15 up and down, a great time. I will try to match that. Sunday wil leither be Vivian Creek, or another 8 hours in Mission Trails. Then comes the Taper! :)

Catch up time . . .

2009-08-03T21:48:00.000-07:00

When last you heard from me, I was talking about the glory of Monserate. So what have I been up to? Well, glad you asked. On Thursday, it was an easy run with Justin E. A lap around the Piedras Pintadas trail (actually less than a lap), and we decided to call it a day. As a result of this, Justin has pledged to get in shape. As an incentive, I've offered him a dinner at Donovan's if he runs twice a week between now and October 1. How hard is that? We'll see if he accepts . . .

Friday was 2.5 hours on the trails of Mission trails. I did the Gorge Trail and Hill, the Fortuna double, down through Shepherds' Canyon, bushwacked up to the top of Portabello Hill, then out the rim trail. Not too fast, but satisfying to be out there and still feel strong.

Saturday, I decided to do Mt. San Jacinto. This is the second highest peak in Southern California at 10,840 feet. Originally, I was going to do Mt. San Gorgonio, the highest peak. However, the main access trail, Vivian Creek, was closed due to "bear activity". When I hear this, I think about 1000's of bears running all around the trails, doing bear like things like eating picnic baskets, shitting in the woods, and generally causing mayhem. Apparently, the real story is that there was one bear who was threateningly hanging out a lot. They don't really know how to deal with bears in So Cal . . .

So anyways, San Jacinto it was, via the Marion Mountain trail. On the drive up, it was 70 going through Hemet and after my 20 min. drive to gain 6000 feet to Idylwild and the trailhead, it was 73. Huh? Gotta love microclimates.

This trail is a 12 to 14 mile (depending on who you believe) slog with 4800 feet of gain. The first two miles are horrific, but really, it doesn't relent. Most of the first 2.5 miles is on broken single track with lots of fallen logs and loose dirt. Then you go through a series of switchbacks covered in pricker bushes. Then through a campground and the last switchbacks up to a scramble to the top. There were some groups, but the top was crowded with all the people who had taken the easy way on the tram from Palm Springs and then 4.5 miles from there. San Jacinto tops out at 10,800 feet, pretty good for So Cal. Took me about 2:45 to get to the top.

I don't know about a hard hat. I'd rather have a rocket up my ass to help get me to the top.

Great views from the top. You can see from the Pacific on a clear day all the way through Joshua Tree and out to the Salton Sea.

I spent 10 minutes at the top eating a sandwich. I had actually brought too much water (it was a very comfortable trip up), so gave out a couple of frozen bottles to people at the top who were grateful for some refreshment to cool them down. Then back down. Had hoped to get down in an hour, but took about 1.5. Felt like I was going decent, though. I always wonder just how long this trail really is.

The drive back is through Hemet, which may be a fine town for all I know, but I sincerely doubt it. It was about 96 going through. Hemet is a collection of stoplights specifically designed to slow your progress and frustrate you to the point that you pull off at one of the chain restaurants and drown your frustrations in a plate of fries. My favorite spot there? The Colonel's Buffet. That's right. All you can eat KFC. And the best part? It has a drive thru. I'd like 14 buckets of chicken, 43 biscuits, extra gravy and a diet coke. To go.

Sunday was a fun 2 and half hours in the evening. Was going to do the loop, but wanted to get some actual running after the climb on Saturday, so did the Spring Canyon to Oak Canyon loop. This is a long run up the canyon with a real gradual elevation change, then a climb up to the roads that run on the military base for a quarter mile, then a drop back down and back under the bridge to Oak Creek Canyon. The run down Oak Creek is a ball where you get back that subtle climb the whole way. Nice to strech the legs and ran the whole way, taking a 1 minute walk break every 10 minutes, just like I plan to do in the race.

Monday was a day off and Tuesday and Wednesday have been good runs in the Canyon. Trying to rest up for a big push this weekend. Only 1 month to Grand Teton!

Monserate Moment

2009-07-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, I climbed Monserate. For all of its beautiful Italian name, I would venture to say that it is easily the most grinding mountain that I train on. Located about 20 yards from the freeway, its an old hardscrabble eroded trail that climbs 1200 feet in 1.9 miles. It is surrounded by avocado farms, and the whole way up, I have to crank up my radio up to 11 to drown out the trucks on the freeway. When you get to the top, I'd like to say that the whole horizon opens up, with stunning views from Palomar to the ocean available. Instead, essentially you look down into some guy's pool. I've never even seen a hot chick sunbathing next to it. Even Jerry Schad has nothing nice to say about this trail.

Having said all that, I love to train on it. It is hardass. There's no flowers, no wildlife, no distractions. Just hot climbing. Bring it.

Did an up and back during the middle of the day on the way back from a meeting, which is always nice to break it up. Did the climb in 32 minutes which is a good sign. Was going to do a double, but duty called at work, so had to hustle back after just one trip. Made up for it by doing a good hour with Gator in the AM at a decent tempo, then 2:15 in the western fortuna hills including the Fortuna double north and south, shepardson canyon, and a bushwack to the top of Portabello hill. The highlight may have been finding a small horned lizard, my second in a week. These little guys are hard to find, so that was a good spot. Still no good pics however.

Run tonight felt pretty good. It was much cooler for some reason (only low 70's), so my frozen water didn't melt, leaving me pretty thirsty. My latest trick before runs has been nibbling on pretzels to up my salt intake to avoid cramps. So far, so good. I've felt a little full, but no cramps at all, so I'm going to stick with it for now. I'll leave the chia seeds for Scotty.

A lovely view from about 1/4 up Monserate. This was taken in 2006 just after everything burned, making it even more lovely than it is now . . .

The beautiful commanding view of the water tank from the top of Monserate.

Mission Trails Hero, Part 2

2009-07-27T22:18:00.001-07:00

So, my goal on Sunday, after two days of partying with my favorite pseudo super heroes and manga loving perverted old men was to crank out 3 laps of my course. Unfortunately, with guests in town, I didn't get out there until 1:40 PM. By that time, the temps were in the mid-90's. Gulp. So I loaded up my pack with 4 bottles and off I went. I was at the saddle in 35 minutes, which is my first goal, but things started to go downhill from there. With the heat from the clay soil baking my face like a piece of tandoori chickent, my legs got heavy and my bottles got emptier. I believe I had the early symptoms of heat sickness, getting lighthead and nauseous. My pace slowed to a crawl as I forced myself over South Fortuna and down the backside through Oak Canyon to the car. Ah, sweet AC. I had gone through 100 oz of liquid in 2 hours and 20 min.

With 60 oz . of water left, having spent 20 min bringing my temps down in the AC, I headed out again, with the temperature having dropped to a chilly 89 degrees. The second lap actually went better than the first. I made it around again in the same time, 2 hours 20 min., which tells me that a lot of that first lap was problems with the heat, not my legs, so that was good.

My adventure this time was on the second lap. As I came through Oak Creek Canyon, I ran into a lady and her dog. The woman was obviously upset and kept shifting from one foot to another. "There's a snake up there," she said, "and it won't move."
"What kind?" I asked.
"I don't know," she said. Since she didn't say rattlesnake, I figured it was probably a king snake or gopher snake coming out. Wrong. On the thinnest section of trail in the whole park sat a 2 foot ornery rattler, easily the orneriest one I've ever come across. The woman said she had thrown some rocks at it. Well, again, rattlers move when disturbed, so she must have hysterically chucked some gravel at it and missed.

I'll take care of this, I figured, picking up a baseball sized rock. An underhanded lob and PLOP it landed right on his midsection. The snake did not budge. I couldn't believe it. I picked up another and threw it with some velocity, nailing it again. Again, it held its position, rattle going full speed. There was no way around this guy either. The trail was probably 18 inches wide, and he was smack in the middle of it. We could have gone back over a hill, but I thought I could take care of it.

Looking around, I found a dead tree branch, about 4 foot long with some branched at the end. I picked it up and used it as a snake handling stick, entangling the snake in the twigs at the end and then lifting him off the trail. As I did so, he struck 4 TIMES at the branch, the whole thing shaking each time with the violence of his bite. Finally, I used the stick to trap the snake and urged the lady to come through while I still had control.

Unfortunately, the lady had freaked out by this point and froze right behind me.
"How sure are you that you have it?" she asked.
"Well, ninety-five percent sure." Wrong answer. She wouldn't budge. Finally, I picked the snake up again and forced it another two feet up the hill, but I could see him squirming.
"Lady," I said, "this is it. Now or never." She finally went behind me as I used the stick and my body to shield her and her dog. Then I left that crabby snake to himself and picked up my run home with some extra pep in my step.

Never a dull moment at Mission Trails. Tomorrow will be a double ascent of Monserate, which is 1200 feet of gain over a little less than 2 miles, then a run down the ridge, a few hundred more feet of up just for a kick in the pants, then all the way down to start one more time. Think it will be a good one. A lot like Fred's, and it will be hot, but I've done it before, and its not too bad, just steady. Again, good practice for Fred's and the rest of the race. Wednesday will be speed work, probably in the canyon, while Thursday will be an easy day. Loose plan is to get up to the mountains on Sunday for a San Gorgonio climb. We'll see how that goes.

Two laps!

2009-07-23T23:11:00.000-07:00

Finally, two laps! As a reminder, each lap was about 1600 feet of climbing and 9.3 miles. My goal was to do the first lap in 2 hours and to do the second lap in enough time to equal 25 miles in 6 hours. My general plan is to do the first Teton lap in 6 hours, and try to get 8 hours in each subsequent lap. That would be 30 hours, which I think is not going to happen. I think I'll be a little over 8 hours at least, but if I can get the first lap in 6 hours, that means that I have to run about 20 minute miles to put me in at 31 hours. That would be pretty sweet and certainly plausible.

Anyways, to meet that pace, 25 miles in 6 hours, I needed to be able to do the first lap in about 2 hours and the second lap by 4:25 (figuring that I will need to do about 14 minute pace). It was a bit cooler than it has been (only 83 at the start) so that helped. I made it to the saddle in 35 minutes, which was about what I had planned. The climb up Fortuna was a grind, but on the way down I saw a San Diego Horned Lizard, which are relatively hard to see. They are getting rarer because their food source, which are native California ants, is disappearing due to competition from invading Argentine Ants. San Diego Horned Lizards won't eat them for some reason. Just fussy I guess. According to the web site where I found this picture, the poor guy pictured below had a honey do list.

The trip down from the saddle went well, and I was back at the truck at 1:55. I took 5 minutes to reload my water and gu's and grab my flashlight. Heading out again, my legs felt all right, and I was on top of the saddle again in the same time it took me to get there on the first lap. Unfortunately, it started to go a little south from there. I really started feeling tired on my next trip up Fortuna, and had to break out the flashlight.

The technical trail at night started to slow me down at night. It was difficult to pick out a good line as there was not a lot of depth perception. As I got to the saddle, there was a group of people coming up in the pitch dark with glow bracelets around their heads and wrists and no lights. I don't know who had the idea to have a rave on top of Fortuna, but I can think of better places. Don't know what kind of sound system they could carry up there . . .

Footing down the saddle was difficult, like skiing in the dark with a penlight, but made it down and stumbled through the tech trail, making it to the road, where I almost got hit by a bat. The run ended with the coyotes calling on Kway Paay. Total time: 4:15, 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Had it not been nightime technical trail, I think I could have shaved another 5 to 10 minutes off of that, so the run was a success.

By the end of the first lap, I was soaking wet. I think I sweat more than anyone I've ever met. So I was changing in the dark parking lot at 9:30 PM when a couple of guys pulled up in a jeep and got more of a full moon than they were expecting. Oops.

Probably no run today to give me some time to recover. I will try to grab a short one in the AM, but want to rest for a 3 lap effort on Sunday . . .

Overdue update!

2009-07-21T21:57:00.001-07:00

Man, its been a while. Sorry about that for the 3 or 4 people that actually stop by and spend some time reading this. So it started with my attempt at a double on Thursday. I wanted to do 2 laps of the Mission Gorge course in 4 hours, which I knew would mean 18.6 miles with about 3400 feet of climbing, right on par with the first 2/3 of a loop of the hundred. The run went pretty well, but real life intruded and I had to abort the second loop after making it up to the saddle, but I did the first loop in 1:50 and was on the exact same pace on loop 2. I had to leave off the loop from the saddle through the third climb and South Fortuna, but was able to do the rest and felt strong. Here are some pics looking down the saddle and back up the saddle. They don't call this the wall for nothing! And the footing is extra treacherous with loose DG all the way down so it is more like skiing than running. This was demonstrated all too clearly, but we'll talk about that towards the end of this entry.

Looking up the saddle.

Looking down the saddle. Not a fun run down, as you will read . . .

After that was an easy run to end my training week on that Friday morning just to stretch the legs. Then it was a long trip to Chicago. The drive from Chicago to Holland, Michigan was super boring and full of construction. It was a shrine to orange barrels, although the way back, where you could see all the rusty buildings, power lines, and burned out housing projects was probably worse. Anyways, took Saturday off and Sunday was an easy run with my brother and brother in law up Mount Pisgah, which is a sand dune you used to be able to run up, but now have to take stairs. Lame. Anyways, its about 160 foot climb in a quarter mile up some steps, so it was a good workout with some really fun sandy rolling trails through the woods afterwards.

Mount Pisgah Stairs looking down

Mount Pisgah Stairs looking up

Monday was 1:45 in the canyon with speedwork. Felt good to stretch my legs.

Today was an adventure. I was going to do 2 laps, but was thwarted again. Was a little slow on my first lap, but doing OK when I was coming down off South Fortuna. Suddenly, I saw a red and white helicopter circling North Fortuna which then came straight for me. He looked at me, then flew back towards North Fortuna. Then I started down from the saddle. I was about halfway down when a woman came running up towards me. "Are you the medic?" she asked. "My brother is unconscious and covered in blood." I said I wasn't, but sprinted for the top of the saddle to signal the helicopter. Reaching the saddle, I was able to get the helicopter's attention, and they lowered a guy via a cable. We then made our way to the fallen mountain biker who had gone over his handlebars when he wiped out on the loose DG I had been talking about earlier. We all pitched in to help to get him secured. They then hoisted him out, and I helped bring the bike back to the parking lot, but my 2 lap run was shot again. Hmmm. I'm hoping the karma will help me more than the extra lap would have. The guy looks like he's going to be OK, with just a minor concussion and a lot of road rash. Yikes!

Arriving helicopter.

His sister and friend helping to get him secured.

The guy was messed up with the biggest fat lip I've ever seen and lots of nasty road rash, but still managed to try to smile for his picture. Tough hombre. Nicely done.

Hauling him up to the helicopter . . .

. . . and off to the hospital.

Tarantula!!

Comic-con week. We'll see what goes down running wise. I'll be getting my geek on all week.

Daily Double

2009-07-15T21:47:00.000-07:00

I forget what the title is from, but doubled up today, and put myself in jeopardy. Get it? HA!

I am training every day, for several days in a row, because I am going to miss out on a weekend of training. But last night, real life got in the way, so that meant two today to make up. I went out on a rather flat 2 hour tempo run in the canyon in the AM that went remarkably well. However, because it was extra muggy out, by the time I got back, my clothes were all a different color from all the sweat gathered in them. Ringing out my shirt, I was able to almost fill the sink. Cool.

For my afternoon run, I headed out for an easy hour at Mission Trails. The legs took a while to kick in, but then I settled into a slow rhythm. On the way up the Quarry Trail, I saw a guy frozen in place. Looking down, I saw the rattler along the trail between him and me. I would say during summer, I see one a week, either in the canyon or at Mission Trails. Seeing two of us, the sucker realized he was outnumbered and headed back into the bushes. However, this was, as you will see, just part of his master plan.

I continued up over Quarry Hill, then down to the Rim Trail. However, where you had been able to skirt the construction earlier, they had constructed a new fence to stop poachers like me. Jerks. So I decided to retrace my steps back to the car as that was going to be about an hour anyways. As I came back down Quarry Hill, I looked off to the left just as my foot was landing. There in the bushes, at the same place I had saw him before, head sticking out maybe, MAYBE, 3 inches was my friend from earlier who had taken up ambush position in the low lying scrub. He made a strike at me but came up just short. He then high tailed it back into the safety of the bushes. WHEW!

This is my second close encounter with a rattler since living in San Diego. The first came running down the Dripping Springs Trail where a red rattler, fairly rare for San Diego, made a strike, but didn't get his mouth open in time, bouncing instead off my ankle. So far, so good.

Tomorrow night is a double loop of the Mission Gorge 15k, which will be 18.5 miles and 3400 feet of climb. The goal is 4 hours. We'll see.

I owe an NBA post. There's big doings on the horizon. I promise one tomorrow.

Did someone say Daily Double?

Recovery day

2009-07-13T20:01:00.000-07:00

Today was an easy recovery run. My quads are totally busted up, which is actually a good feeling as its been a while since I've been really sore. The Cuyamaca Peak fire road is all paved, so running down it twice can definitely put a hurt on. Did a nice bike ride home to loosen up, then met Justin for a run in the canyon. Took a nice, easy pace and then a climb up The Slide. Not much else to report.

Oh, and a shout out to Who?!

Weekend wrapup

2009-07-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

Saturday I was thinking I would do something strong, but I wanted to get an actual run in instead of hiking up some ridiculous slope, so I hit the canyon with Gator and did 2 hours with her at a real steady pace. Felt pretty good and Gator, as you can see, was a trooper, especially when we got to the creek and she could cool her little paws off.

Today, I wanted to get some elevation and some climbing, so I headed to Cuyamaca Peak. The fire road is paved, but its 1700 feet of climbing over 2.7 miles, so pretty close to the 1,800 foot 2.8 mile climb up Fred's Mountain. I wanted to get the feel for it, so I went up to start the run, then did some of the course of the San Diego 100, then back to Cuyamaca Peak to get it in again. Temps ranged between 80 and 92 degrees during the 4 hour run. All in all about 3800 feet of climbing over 4:10 total time with a ten minute AC break in the car. Ended up going through 136 ounces of drink and still had bright orange pee. Also went old school, having a sausage mcmuffin for breakfast and then a bottom half of a second (sausage, cheese and half muffin) for a meal before the second climb. Felt pretty strong overall considering conditions such as heat and fatigue from several days of running and such.

Celebrated a good weekend of running with a treat of pizza port, with 2 beers, and a shake for desert. More than I should be eating, especially considering the breakfast, but seemed appropriate today. I'm not all that worried about it. Probably a break even day . . .

Oh, and good wildlife. Saw a flock of wild turkeys, a whip snake, lots of acorn woodpeckers, and a road runner. Pretty sweet.

View from Cuyamaca Road

View from San Diego 100 Course. Both burned in 2007, but the lower slopes of Cuyamaca burned fiercest, leaving a forest of charred skeleton trees.

This is the view going up the lower slopes of Cuyamaca Peak. This lasts about 3/4 of the climb.

This is the last quarter or so, maybe less. Nice and shady, even at noon on a 90 degree day. Great views from the saddle of all of East County and even, on a clear day, to Mexico and the Salton Sea.

Cuyamaca Peak the first time up.

Cuyamaca Peak the Second time up.

Wildlife central

2009-07-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I will label tonight's run a "recovery run". I was hoping for something better. I knew I needed a 2 hour run to kick off my weekend, having done a little bit of speed work yesterday, or speed work as far as I am concerned. So I decided to do my usual Friday loop with an extra loop up the quarry trail added on.

My legs felt like they were filled with sand and water on every climb, but I ran up most of the quarry hill. Reaching the top, I decided that I would be marching the rest of the hills. Even with that, had to stop for 2 min. on the climb up South Fortuna Stairs to pop a gel. Felt better after that and made it up to the top. Felt like I was dragging a grand piano the whole time, but ended up doing the 2 hours and did the Fortuna Loop in 1:31 while I was shooting for 1:30. Its only about 12 min. more than my best time, so while not great, it wasn't bad either. I don't know the mileage, probably around 8 with about 1700 feet of gain.

But, what was fun was running down North Fortuna. I decided to practice my footwork and power down this rocky technical trail. As I ran towards the intersection with the perimeter trail by SR 52 I was watching my feet and literally almost ran face first into a mule deer doe who was minding her own business. For almost getting run over, she sure seemed calm, neatly taking one leap over a bush, on which she promptly started to graze.

As I left her after watching for a minute, I almost tripped over a very healthy looking coyote maybe 200 yards down the trail. I didn't see any of his buddies, but coyotes don't hunt deer, so I don't think there was any association. I think it was goofy luck, but he sure was pretty. They can get pretty mangy out there. And it was only the 3rd or 4th deer I had seen out there, so that was cool. And seeing the wildlife seemed to put a spring in my step on what was otherwise a bit of sweaty drudgery.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking about Scotty out there killing it in Colorado. He seems to be well in front of the cutoffs, so that's looking good. GO SCOTTY GO! I put in for it this year, but didn't get it (for the first time in race history, no one got in from the waitlist). Maybe next year. And I'll get the scoop from Scotty. Anyways, I'll be hitting refresh several times through the night . . .

Good training tonight

2009-07-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

Did a good trainig run tonight running the Mission Gorge 15k course. Its 9.3 miles as designed with 1560 feet of climbing. I do a little change just to make it 9.5 miles and 1600 feet. The last time I raced it, I did it with my friend Justin and paced him to a 1:46 finish in his first long race and first trail race. The first time I did it, they sent us up a wrong turn so we added another half mile and 300 feet of climbing and finished around 1:40. This time I did it as a training run. My thought is that eventually, I will do 3 laps to simulate one of the loops of the GTR 100. 3 loops would be 28 miles and 4800 feet of climbing, so its off somewhat, as I need 25 miles and 5000 feet of climbing, but its a good simulation.

So with that intro out of the way, I did it in 1:40 which I feel is pretty good for training. My thought is to do the 3 laps in 6 hours which will be a good goal for my first loop in the race. We'll see. Felt a little too tired after 1:40, but since I will probably try to do it in 1:50 or so when I'm doing multiple loops, it hopefully shouldn't be that bad. I'd like to feel decently fresh after finishing the first lap, take a 5 minute break and head out again. We'll see how that works out. But for now, I'm pretty satisfied . . .

Catching up

2009-07-09T07:23:00.001-07:00

A whole 3 days without posts? What in the world am I doing? Monday was a day off. However, since I am going to Michigan a week from Friday and will do little if any running that weekend, I have a lot of training to pack in between now and then. So, I'm not expecting to take day off until that Saturday to make up for the 2 day enforced break.

On Tuesday I hit the trails around Crystal Cove State Park after my deposition didn't go. The area is a neat area of 5 or 6 intersecting parks, making it very easy to piece together a long trail run with lots of up and down. The hills are steep and hot, making it good training grounds with the reward of killer ocean views from the top and a run to the ocean if you want to do it. However, as I was to find out, they have some draconian rules of which I was not aware.

From where I started, the initial run to the top is fairly steep and steady, but manageable. There are a few hard pitches, but none too bad. I felt I had the strength to run the whole section, but tried to make myself walk some so I was training myself to walk fast. One of my surprises at North Face was that when I did walk the uphills, people were flying past me while usually I can walk right past people. That told me I need to practice that more, so I am.

At the top there were a number of options, so I ran about a mile or so down a number of the choices. As I made my way towards the far end of the park, I ran into another runner. As we chatted, he seemed surprised to hear I had come from Laguna Highway. "You know," he said, "that they close those lots at 4 PM. You must have come a long way to run to that entrance." Oops. I didn't.

Looking at my watch, it was a little after 4. I turned around and ripped as hard as I could for the parking lots. Luckily it was all flat or downhill on the way back. I made it about 4:25 or so, just as I was getting written a ticket. Fortunately, the guy was super cool and let me move my car. I found some street parking down the road, hopped a barbed wire fence, and headed back out.

Unfortunately, however, I had been counting on running to a water fountain at the end of the highest trail in the park, so I had no water bottle and was now going on an hour and a half without water. I decided to just run as much as I could to get a workout in. It was hard to get back into a groove, but I was able to get another hour in, including some steep climbs, so though it wasn't ideal, it wasn't too bad. The views were great, the cactus and thistle were blooming, and I was REALLY thirsty at the end. All in all, about 2:45 of hilly running, with 1:45 of real quality stuff including my pell mell downhill to catch up.

Last night I had to work late and had some stuff to do so I didn't get the kind of run I would like. I just went in the canyon and took Gator with me, which is always a plus. We did about an hour and half, but Gator's paws were still sore from Saturday's adventure, and I wasn't that into it. The plus was it was a night run on the trails with the light, which is one of my favorites. If I have any advantage, and I'm not sure that I do, its that I tend to run well at night. While most are looking forward to dawn, I can't wait for the sun to go down! All in all, a relatively flat hour and a half, but ran pretty well with a little bit of speed and felt I had plenty left at the end.

I'm afraid tonight will be the same, although I'm going to try to make it to Mission Trails. We'll see. This weekend I'm planning on a double ascent of Cuyamaca Peak which is simlar to Fred's Mountain in that it gains about 1800 feet over 3 miles. It will be tough and hot. Then Sunday, I'll probably head up San Jacinto via Marion Mtn. Both of these are tough runs and will give me time at elevation. San Jacinto, as I will write about, is ridiculous. A chance for me to work on my uphill hiking prowess as there will be very little running . . .

Easy day

2009-07-05T22:17:00.000-07:00

Not much to add today. Did my usual tailgate run which is a loop from Clairemont down to Marian Bear Canyon through a use trail along 805, then follow the canyon, under the 52 by I-5, then into Rose Canyon, and Rose Canyon back under 805 to where the Marine Base starts. There are only 3 climbs of note, and they all come at the end, and even then they are short but steep. Each of the climbs is probably 250 feet over 1/4 mile, so its three really steep efforts on tired legs, but not much really. All told, the run took about 3 hours, 10 min. A bit warm. Tried Heed for the first time. The jury is out. Took 3 gels during run. Probably should have taken more even with the Heed as ran out of energy at the end.

Tomorrow, a much needed day off . . .

Mount Woodson

2009-07-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

Today I ran up Mount Woodson and took Gator with me. I got a late start, which was a mistake as I will explain later. Anyways, got there about 10:45 or so. I'd never been to Lake Poway. It was crowded for the 4th, with the smell of charcoal already in the air. The trail around the park went straight uphill then back down to the shore of the lake. That's where the trail up Mt. Woodson began.

From there, the trail is about 2.8 miles with approximately 2,000 feet of gain. It was double track for the first mile and a half, then a steep half mile of short switchbacks followed by a more mellow approach to the summit. By the time I was headed up this trail, it was about 80 degrees. I had a liter and half of water to share between Gator and I. Most of it was gone by the time we got the top. courtesy of my thirsty dog.

To make matters worse, most of the trail is along an area that burned two years ago, meaning the ground was dark and soaked up the sun, making it extra hot on poor Gator's paws. On the way back down, she would run from shade point to shade point, trying to lift her paws quickly to keep them off the hot soil. Finally, I had to leash her up and "encourage" her down the mountain, but that slowed us to a walk. When we got back down to the lake, Gator plunged in for a paw soothing swim.

The climb up took one hour, but it took about an hour to get back down as well. Had I been without the dog, the climb would have been about 55 minutes or so, not bad considering it was about 12 hours after my longer run last night. Temps at the finish were in the mid-80's. I'll be doing this run a lot as it almost exactly mimics the run up Fred's Mountain for the 100 miler, so I can build my strength and get an idea of exactly what I have to do 4 times. I expect I'll be doing some double climbs as well.

Tomorrow is my usual fall pre-tailgate football run to get some easier time on my feet to end my step back week. Should be about 3 hours or a little more with very little elevation gain. I will try to concentrate on running without stopping except at the water fountains. I am also going to bring Heed for the first time as I got a great deal on some at REI. We'll see how it goes.

Weekend training plan

2009-07-03T22:04:00.000-07:00

This is supposed to be a step back weekend, but having signed up for a 100 miler this week, it is hard to hold back. I'll try to take it easier this weekend, but I wanted to do my usual Friday afternoon run with a twist. As opposed to doing just one lap, I wanted to do the dreaded steps up to South Fortuna summit twice (see picture to the left). With the race coming up being 4 loops, I think I need to do a lot of loops around courses to get used to running the same terrain again and again. In that spirit, I ran my loop, cut down into Suycott Wash, then went back up S. Fortuna.

From the best I can figure, I did about 12 miles with 2,500 feet in 2.5 hours for 12.5 min miles. Had 3 gels during the run and drank 40 oz. of lukewarm water. I was tired at the end, but not dead by any long shot. This is in line with where I want to be right now. The loops at GTR 100 are 25 miles with 5,000 feet of climbing, so I did roughly half of one of those loops on pace for a 5 hour loop, although there obviously would be much slowing. Still, climbed well, used my sirius portable which worked remarkably well, and then finished with some music. All in all a good run. Tomorrow will do something more mellow theoretically and then a 3 hour non-hilly run on Sunday before I start stepping it up again on Monday.

On the NBA front, the only news is that Hedo Turkgo-glue is signing with the Raptors for "personal reasons" because he and his wife like the city better. I get that, but he's not going to have a lot to work with up there. He's a third bannana kind of guy, sort of a Lamar Odom-esque personality who needs someone to play off. Not sure if he can step up as a second guy and how well he'll play off of Bosh. Apparently they are paying him all the cap space they are getting from not resigning Marion, Delfino, and Parker. Lets see if he can keep his Magic karma going. I think he will regret not signing with Portland or the Magic in the long run professionally, but its cool that he likes where he is going to be.

Oh, and did a little decorating tonight. Can you say Fathead?

NBA doings

2009-07-02T22:45:00.001-07:00

OK, back to the NBA. Two major moves so far.

First, Detroit signed Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva, signing each to a multi-year deal. I can't help but think that this is going to end badly. They still have about 4 mil in cap room, but do they really think these are the two players to get them to the top? If not, why bother? Gordon, at his best, is a streaky shooter capable of putting up 40 point games here and there. But he also disappears for long stretches. And while Charlie Villanueva is sort of like a very poor man's Rasheed Wallace, he also is inconsistent and is not much of a defender. To top it off, both have had motivation problems.

The real problem is by trading Billups, the Pistons do not have a floor leader to put it all together. Rip needs someone to get him the ball. Villanueva and Gordon need a strong floor presence or a strong coach to keep them in line. And as there is currently no coach in Pistons land . . . Don't get me started on how Dumars is ridiculously overrated. Yes, a good player and made some smart moves, but this is the latest in a series of bloopers.

Now, Artest to the Lakers. Hmmm. I'm not wild about this move either, but I don't hate it. It seems like a knee jerk reaction to the Spurs getting Richard Jefferson. The Lakers, of all teams, should know that you can't have too many people who need the ball. It was a lack of touches that led to Artest's split with the Pacers. Yes, he'll play great D, but he's a little older and he won't play the D they want without getting his shots. I'd rather see Odom getting those touches, assuming he's coming back, which I think he will be. And they signed him to a 3 year deal. Its going to be hard to keep him motivated. While everyone in LA still pretends to like Kobe, I can't see Artest falling in line. First time Kobe tries to do something, well, Kobe-like, Artest is going to punch Kobe in the face. But with so much talent, its hard to say no.

The other intriguing thing is what does this do with Phil coming back? Does he see this as another Rodman and pique his interest? Or is he, in the words of Lethal Weapon, too old for this shit?

And where does that leave the Rockets? Screwed. Yao's injury looks bad, bad, bad. Like not playing ever again bad. And now they got spurned by Martin Gortat. Gortat? Rockets GM Morley shows up at his door at 12:01 to woo him (with the idea of a T-Mac-Gortat-Ariza triumvrate?) and Gortat still goes to the Mavs, who just found the big man who can clean up around the basket that Eric Dampier was always supposed to be. A nice fit. Sorry Rockets fans. It looked so good just a month ago, but that was the apex of this team for quite some time.

And the Lakers did the right thing to not sign Ariza for what he was looking for. Ariza was unbelievably hot during the playoffs, but that is like signing the Super Bowl MVP from his one game performance. Ariza is a nice player, a good defender, but he has offensive lapses and is another up and down player. You knew he would command more than he was worth after his playoff run, and good for him, but Lakers did right by letting him walk. Now, whether replacing him with Ron Artest is a good idea? Hmmm.

Decision?

2009-06-30T21:37:00.000-07:00

So I think it is going to be Teton. The logistics are the big pull. Also, I've been reading a lot of reports, and everyone has good things to say about it, so I'm pretty tempted. Finally, I really enjoyed Yellowstone, so it would be fun to grab a race in that area again. I'm 90 percent certain. I'll let it percolate for week or so.

Well, coming back to this post a day letter, so much for percolating. I'm all signed up for the Teton 100 on the Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend. I have the hotel reserved, the flights booked, the car rented and the plan in motion.

Teton is 4 25 mile laps, with 4, 975 feet of climbing on each lap. The lap starts with an up and back, 1900 feet in 2.8 miles then back down. This is, obviously, the hardest part of the race. After that is a 14.5 mile section called Mill Creek which has a quick steep up followed by a long descent, mostly on a mix of double track and gravel road, followed by a 3.3 mile uphill on pavement, then onto singletrack for 6 miles or so back to the start area. The final lap is a 5.5 mile loop called Rick's Basin which is mostly rolling single track. Then repeat. Three times.

I'm pretty psyched to do this run. I think it will be challenging, but doable. There's a little less than 20,000 feet of climbing, which is 7,000 less than Wasatch, which I was able to finish in under 36 hours. So, the goal is to be to train like I did for Wasatch, maybe a little harder, and see if I can't come in under 34 hours. I want to do a race and not worry about the cutoffs. From everything I have read about, this race is super supported (longest distance between stations is 4 miles) and the race directors do everything possible to see you across the finish line.

The plan is to take a vacation around the race, get there a few days early and relax, drive through the tetons and Yellowstone, go up Fred's Mountain once or twice just to see it . . .

So, now that the race is picked, on to the training . . .

Choices, choices, choices

2009-06-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

No run today in order to get in a little rest. Didn't even bike into work or swim or play ball. Felt good to be lazy for a day. The big question now is what ultra to sign up for? I was going to do Angeles Crest, but I did not realize that it filled up or had a limit. It does. It did. Crap.

So I spent a good part of the evening trying to figure out what 100 miler to do next? And then what races can I fit in the schedule around it? I wanted to do something in September to give me enough time to do a summer training push, but could do something as early as August. Looked briefly at doing one of the "easier" 100's, like Lean Horse, which only has about 7000 feet of climbing, but I want to do races that keep my eligibility for Hardrock and extend it for a year or at least are of that quality. I also want enough time to feel strong for the race and properly train for it. I think my base is good, but I want to get stronger and faster and work more to make sure I don't have a repeat of my recent flameout at North Face.

So, I've narrowed it down to 3 choices: Headlands Hundred, Teton 100, or the Bear. Pros and cons of each:

Headlands Hundred Pros: Easy to get to, can do a training weekend on the trails, run on famous ultra trails like Dipsea and Miwok without the hassle of trying to sign up early enough to get in, beautiful views, good amount of climbing, generous cut offs

Headlands Hundred Cons: Not a hardrock qualifier, comes early for me (August 8) giving me about 2 weeks of training before I have to taper, not one of the "name" races, not in a location I haven't seen before, 50 miles of out and back, then 2 25 mile loops on the same trail (this can be a pro and a con - more on that some other time)

Teton 100 Pros: Hardrock qualifier, beautiful area with beautiful views, great start line and time (at ski resort - would be nice to roll out of bed and onto the start - and to duplicate that for the finish), area of the country I haven't seen much, reasonable amount of climbing (20,000 ft.), generous cutoffs, should be relatively cool, first week of September date still gives 6 weeks for hard training

Teton 100 Cons: 4 loops of a 3 clover leaf course, including one out and back leaf, a total of about 14 miles on a paved road (3.3 miles per loop), lots of cars allegedly on the dirt road portions, dusty, very cold at night, difficult to get to (15 hour car ride or flight plus 1 hour car ride, meaning flight home on 100 mile legs . . . ), race between 7 and 9 thousand feet so lots of altitude training which can be difficult in San Diego in summer

The Bear Pros: Hardrock qualifier, loved race in Wasatch last year, lots of great fall colors, should be cool, 100 miles point to point, haven't seen this part of country, can drive to it, is latest race I'm considering (last week of September) giving me a full 8 weeks of hard training before I have to taper, reasonable elevation gain (22,0000 compared to 27,000 for Wasatch), generous cut offs (35 hours for buckle, 36 to finish), driving means traditional post-race Vegas buffet visit (but see below!), could do Mt. Disappointment as good training gauge

The Bear Negatives: Done the drive before, conflicts with Chargers-Dolphins game (although the race starts on a Friday, so theoretically, I could get on a late Saturday/early Sunday flight and make the game), very cold at night, very hard climbs at end of the race, questions about organization and marking with higher chance of getting lost, probably lousy radio reception, so may not be able to listen to football, etc. during the race

So that's it. Looking it all over, I think it will probably be the Bear, especially if I can hook up a flight back for the Chargers game the next day. I'd have to skip the Vegas buffet, but I think I can find enough stuff at a tailgate to make up for it. It will be difficult walking to the stadium, etc., but maybe that will be half the fun. We'll see . . .

Oh, and all of this goes out the window if Scotty can somehow get me into Cascade Crest, which would be my first and easy choice over all of these

Weekend wrap up

2009-06-28T22:06:00.000-07:00

Had nice runs Saturday and Sunday and calculated some of the mileage and elevation, although I'm not sure how accurate it is. Friday was 7 miles and about 1,000 feet of gain in an hour 15 on mostly fire roads with about 25 percent technical single track. Saturday was 10 miles or so in an hour 45 min with about 500 feet elevation gain. Its one of my favorite runs from my front door with about 10 percent on the road and the rest on single track, although its not particularly technical. Took Gator who was outstanding.

Haven't gotten a chance to check today's mileage. Was going to do the same loop I did last week, but had to make a pit stop at the beginning which took me off that route. So I ran Oak Creek Canyon all the way through the Marine Corps base, filming location for Top Gun, easily the most offensive movie of all time. It always gives me pleasure to pseudo-tresspass on their trails. (It is unclear from the signage where the park leaves off and the base begins.)

I then ran up over the fire roads and down into Spring Canyon which I ran back to the park. Ended with a climb up Kwaay Paay peak, which is about an 850 foot climb in 1.1 miles. There wasn't a ton of climbing on this run, with a gradual climb up to the fire roads, then this climb up Kwaay Paay. Took about 3 hours 45 min. Have no idea what the mileage was. It was in the mid-90's at the start and cooled to 78 by the end of the run at 7:15. Was very careful to take in a Roctane gel every 1/2 hour except for the last one. Also had a 100 calorie brownie pack to mix it up a little. Went through a 24 oz. Gatorade and 3 20 oz. waters and was still a little dehydrated by the end according to the pee test.

Generally satisfied with the weekend. Nothing outstanding, but was encouraged by today where the only large period of walking I did was on the Kwaay Paay climb and to get to the fire road. On the way up the canyon, I walked one minute out of every 10. On the way down the canyon, I didn't walk. I took one 5 minute break after 2.5 hours to simulate an aid station. Ran for the first 3 or 4 minutes up the Kwaay Paay peak and on the very few flats on the trail. Legs are very tired so feel like I gave it a very good effort, although know I have a lot of room for improvement. Run was on 100 percent single track, most of it pretty technical. Also walked for an hour and half at dog park in the morning, so I think all in all pretty good. Fuel for the run was a subway six inch ham sandwich half hour before heading out. Entertainment was sports radio and a 2-0 Padres win with Chad Gaudin pitching a one hitter in Texas. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Mission Trails Friday

2009-06-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, did a nice training run at Mission Trails with my friend Andy. Up Quarry Hill, over to the Rim Trail, dropped into Suycott Wash the hard way, running the reverse of the Xterra 15k, then up where I usually drop in at the south side of the wash and back out to the car. About an hour and 15 min. Only walking was the top part of the drop in trail. Legs felt heavy but manageable. Wish I felt a little better on the climbs.

Right before we reached the construction area by the stacks, narrowly missed a little rattler, about 3 feet long. Andy hadn't seen a rattlesnake before in the wild. Not sure exactly where he's been to not see one in San Diego County, but he put on a good show, giving us a good rattle before heading off into the bushes.

I'll have to use map my run to see what the mileage and climb was on the run. It was an interesting link of some of the eastern trails that I had not done before. Next week it will be back to my usual Friday test. On tap today will be a couple of hours in the heat followed by a giant steak dinner at Donovan's courtesy of Greg.

Main victory for the day yesterday? Fending off my desire for fried ice cream at Casa de Pico. I'd guess I'm down about about 5 pounds so far. So far, so good.

Oh, and the mystery around Rubio continues. It wouldn't be the worst thing if he stayed in Spain for a few years to work on a shot . . .

Where goest thou, Rubio?

2009-06-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

That seems to be the big question after the draft today. Rubio's people are making a lot of noise that Ricky might be staying in Spain. I might too given what I can see from the TimberPups. Look, I don't think Rubio is going to be all that. He's great in transation, but he's skinny as a rail, has the usual Euro defensive liabilities (with apologies to Mickeal Pietrus), and doesn't function that well in the half court. He's Steve Nash before the haircut.

But, in this draft, he is one of the 3 or 4 guys who has a great shot at being a long time starter in the NBA, so he does have some value. And already teams like the Knicks are circling the Pups for a chance to clean up their leavings. What superstar free agent wouldn't want to play with a flashy passer who wants to get them the ball in transition? Oh, Pups. You amuse me. Oh, and apparently, the Knicks could have had the number 5 pick which turned into Rubio for Wilson Chandler and Larry Hughes. Really? Hmmmm. Lets see what they are willing to give up now. Something tells me the Wolves aren't going to do this deal for expiring contracts . . .

So, lets talk about the pre-draft trades to see what went down.

Vinsanity and Ryan Anderson to the Majerks for Courtney Lee and some salary cap throw-ins - OK, I get that New Jersey wants cap room, but what is their plan B? I mean who are they going to build around? Devin Harris and who? Its a shame because I really like Devin Harris. As for the Majerks, while I generally hate Vinsanity, I think this deal works for them. Orlando has the best offensive rebounder in the game who has very little skill at creating his own shot. Why not let him chase Vinsanity's crazy shots and throw them down for easy points. Consider them alley-oops! Howard doesn't need the ball to be successful. Jameer Nelson doesn't need the ball to be successful. Rashard Lewis is happy fading back to the perimeter and hucking them up from there. What the didn't have was a guy who could create his own shot and finish. Now they do.

Shaq to Cleveland for a few more bucks in Robert Sarver's wallet. Why is Phoenix always doing this? You want to know the picks Phoenix has literally given away in the last few years to stay below the luxury tax? They have given away picks that have turned into Rajon Rondo, Rudy Fernandez and Luol Deng (who also could have been Andre Igoudala). And worse still, the ex-Sonics still have Phoenix's unprotected first rounder next year which they dumped to shed Kurt Thomas. What a joke. Someone needs to save that team. The Suns fans are good fans and don't deserve that. For the Cavs, why not? You gave up Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic? What, they didn't want a box of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame towels as well? This won't fix Cleveland that needs athletic wing players to throw down LeBron feeds and actually defend to protect Mo Williams and the rest of that group. But those guys fall off trees in the NBA, so I expect Cleveland to land a few.

Richard Jefferson to Spurs for Fabricio Beef Jerky, Bruce Bowen, and Gymkata. How do they do it? Think of the Spurs starting 5 now, assuming Pop will let Manu's bald spot into the starting lineup: Manu, Mr. Longoria, Tim Duncan, Richard Jefferson, and fill-in-the-blank token white American, probably my man Bonner (former Gator). Your bench still might need help, but Finley is good for a few minutes, both George Hill and Roger Mason proved capable for stretches, and they got the steal of the draft in Dejuan Blair who I think is going to be a beast. They need a little size on the bench, but who is not going to want to come there to play with that lineup? I don't know if they have their mid-level exception, but could they bring Sheed and would he accept a role on that team? He would be a great 6th man. Regardless, there is enough there that they put themselves up in the list of contenders again.

Oh, and no way Amar'e goes to the Warriors for Curry and Biedrins and Brendan Wright (who has potential) without Amar'e agreeing to an extension. Otherwise you give up a legit big man (Biedrins) and a fan favorite with lots of potential in a run and gun system like Nellie's (or the Suns) for one year of a superstar who promptly bolts. Not even the Warriors can be that dumb, can they?

Something actually about running and ultras next post, I promise. Still suffering from NBA post-draft-itis.

T-wolves have their guard up?

2009-06-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

So, the NBA draft was tonight. Frankly, the NFL could take a few lessons. Two rounds knocked out in about 3 hours. I can't think that picking which fat guy will better protect a quarterback's blind side is that much more difficult that deciding which 6 foot 9 inch athlete will sit on the end of the bench.

Be that as it may, while the draft was fairly predictable, the Twolves draft doesn't make any sense to me. I get that there could still be stuff in the works, but the Wolves GM insists that he thinks Rubio and Flynn can play together. Neither has a great 3 point shot. Nor can either one really create his own shot other than getting to the rim. My thought is that they don't think Rubio is ready yet, so they took Flynn for now, thinking they can trade him down the road. But that's a high price for a short term solution. I have to think they could have gotten a veteran backup for the number 6 pick. And then they trade Lawson for the Nuggets first round pick next year? With that team, it is likely they converted the 18 pick this year for a pick in the 20's next year. That just doesn't make sense. Why not take a guy in Europe and let him develop for a while off your salary cap if you are concerned about finances? It was a haphazard draft by a team that has seemed to lose its direction.

The most annoying thing about GM's in the NBA is they rarely have a plan. They just draft the best talent available and hope it works for the best. Terrible. Look at San Anotonio. They know they needed athleticism and toughness, especially on the glass. What did they come away with? Dejuan Blair (highest rebound per acl ratio!), who is a beast inside and on the glass, Jack McClinton, who is a lights out shooter for Duncan to pass to and can run up and down the floor, and Richard Jefferson, for whom they gave up an over-the-hill one dimensional Bruce Bowen and Fabricio Beef Jerky (both of whom will likely be bought out and may resign for the minimum back in San Antonio).

It takes a plan people. Know what style of team you want and go get the guys to fit the bill. Don't draft Shaq and play half-court if you are the Suns and geared to run. Don't go get over the hill star names whose games don't mesh at all. Don't take a guy because of a name or just because you think he's the best talent there. If there is someone who is close who is going to fit your system or improve your chemistry, use your brain and get this guy, no matter what the pundits say. Its your team. make it yours, not theirs.

More thoughts on the draft and trades tomorrow

On the workout side, lifted weights in the AM, did my bike commute to work (25 miles and 45 minutes each way) then went for an hour run before dinner in the canyon. A pretty good day if I could have only put down the cheese fries before dinner . . .

Introduction

2009-06-25T13:35:00.001-07:00

So, what's this all about? Well, its pretty simple. I've been an ultra runner for a few years now. I have 1 50k, 3 50 mile races, and 2 100 mile races to my credit. In most of these, I feel like I've been battling the cutoffs, and 2 most recent performances (last at Wasatch 100, missed time cut at North Face Endurance Challenge Bellingham) have convinced me that I want to do more than just finish ultras. I'm not looking to win my age group or anything. I'm just looking for respectability.

So, given that, I came up with 3 times that are progressively harder, but that, I think, put you at least in the mid-pack somewhere. Just like "real" marathoners go under 4 hours, these times are my mental equivilent of what "real"ultra runners do. Simply put, I want to do under 6 hours for the 50K, under 12 hours for the 50 miler, and under 24 hours for the 100 miler.

Of course, you can't cheat and get your time on a road course or something like that. It has to be a real ultra, with hills and rocks and sticky gu packets and bee stings and lots and lots of hard work.

So that's it. I'll post some more about my race history coming up and start using this as my training diary, and if you find it interesting at all, come along on the ride with me . . .

Oh, and as you can guess from my picture, I'm pretty into my dog, too. Her name is Gator, and she has been my training companion for years, although she's starting to slow up now that she's 9! So this blog is going to have a lot about her, and about the NBA, and about sports in general, and who knows what else will come to mind. Thanks for looking!