Hit the Dusty Trail

Easy t'mill run today.  I helped some friends move yesterday and the going up and down stairs all day carrying heavy objects did a number on my legs.

Hill repeats with the NUTS group on the BST south of Taylor Canyon.  Nothing like dodging all the mountain bikes.

1450' gain

Trail miles north of Rainbow Garden with Aric.

Did a few miles on the trail north of north Ogden divide.

ran on the t-mill.  4.2 @ 7:30 pace.  Hoping to get somewhere around that pace at the marathon this  Saturday.

Ran another 4 at a 7:30 pace to gage my fitness for Ogden.  Felt pretty good.  If I can maintain that pace for most of the race, then a BQ will happen.  Not sure if I'm going to run Thursday and Friday or not.

So this is a short report.  I ran Ogden.  While one of the most scenic marathon courses, I couldn't help but wish I was on a trail instead of asphalt.  Nonetheless, I persevered and finished, just not with the time I was hoping for.  I wanted to be down around 3:30, but had to settle for a 3:47.  Sigh!

I could blame it on all sorts of things but it really boils down to not enough training and not enough consistent training.  That's the real reason, the excuses are, carrying a little too much weight, my sciatic was acting up a little, my joints hurt from the pounding downhill, yada yada yada.

Actually, the first ten miles were pretty good.  I was maintaining a 7:30 pace, then after that I couldn't manage a sub 8 at all.

I could bore everyone with the splits, but suffice to say that it was ugly.  Just about everyone I knew in the race finished faster than I did.

If nothing else, the race was a wake up call to get my act together and start training much better, especially with the line up of races on my schedule this summer.

Next up is the Timp Trail Marathon this Saturday down near Provo.  The course looks much more scenic than Ogden and added bonus, it's on a trail.  No time expectations for this one, just a good time for several hours doing what I like best, running thru the woods with complete abandon with a few of my friends.

A little recovery run after the marathon.  More like a hike with some short jogs thrown in.  Went out to Antelope Island wife my lovely wife.  She rode the horse and I walked/shuffled.  The legs are still trashed, but tomorrow I start hitting the hills and trails hard.  8 weeks of training before Swancrest and the mileage has to go up.

Hill repeat day.  5 x .55 with Aric and Joel.  1114'of total gain.  I thought it would suck pretty bad having run Ogden two days ago, but I actually felt not to bad.  Soreness from the marathon is pretty much gone.  Just a little tired.  One of the repeats was actually one of the fastest times I've done on that hill.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/33685660

Ran into work this morning.  Kind of a struggle as I'm still a little tired from the marathon plus the hill repeats last night.  Still, it was a good thing.  Hopefully I'll feel a little better this afternoon.

Ran on some nifty trails at Wolf Mountain Ski Area.  Went with Aric and Joel to check things out for a couple of trail races later this summer.

Some trail miles with Aric north of Rainbow Garden.  1150' gain.  Legs are still pretty tired from Ogden, but since Ogden I've also put in 37 miles.  Includign a long run and some hill repeats.  No wonder I'm tired.

Timp Trail Marathon is a new race put on by Shawn Christian and Marc Collman.  The course is on the west side of Mt. Timp above Orem.

I had no expectations going into this race.  I ran Ogden marathon last week, took zero time off after that, jumped right back into training and thus had somewhat tired legs.  To say the weather was a challenge today is an understatement.  It rained at our house all night long and rained most of the way down to Provo this morning.  Not only that, but the temp was 40 degrees.....in late May.  What's up with that?  Since it was 40 outside, I knew that we'd be up in snow given that the race course went to a high point of over 7700'.  Even if this would have been a nice day the course would have been a tough one.  When everyone started at 6am, there was a light rain falling.  This rain continued to fall for the first couple of hours, then quit.  At times there was snow coming down on us as well.

The first half of the race actually kept us below the snow level, but at that point, the steepest climb of the day was there for us to enjoy.  Roughly 800' of gain is about .6 miles.  Keep in mind that if the ground was dry this would be a hard climb.  Now add in the fact that the trail was slick, slippery mud.  Two steps forward, one step sliding back.  Now we were up in the snow, about 2 inches worth.  The trails didn't have snow on them, just very cold muddy water and mud, lots of mud.  Did I mention that there was mud on the trail today?

After that inital hard climb, we cruised for a bit then started up a canyon.  The trail took us along steep cliffs where a slip over the edge would result in getting hurt really bad or death.  It was gorgeous though.  This is why I run trail races.  This climb up the canyon eventually took us to the high point of the course, a little above 7700'.  This climb was pretty steep as well, about 2000' in 3 miles. At the high point there was about 4-6 inches of snow on the ground.  The trails were still just had lots of mud and water.

After the high point, the rest of the course was pretty much downhill.  We did have a couple more short but steep climbs. 

After the last aid station at 21.5 miles, the course became a downhill cruiser.  By this time the sun was trying to peak out and the views became even more spectacular with all the snow up on Mt. Timp. 

Well organized race, good aid stations.  Beautiful and very tough course.  Just what I like.  I'll run it again next year.

One thing I did notice is that I wasn't nearly as tired and painful as I was after Ogden.  That road pounding just did a number on me.  Give me a trail  any day.

Here's a link to the course mapped by my Garmin.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/34172537

Oh, did I mention that the course was muddy in places?

Hill repeat Monday.  6 people showed this week.  All of my repeats were sub 10 minute pace, not bad for this hill.  The last two I went anearobic the last .2 I think.  All I know is the last two hurt.  Kind of nice today.  With the iffy weather very few mountain bikes were out.  1572' gain.  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/34479556

Ran into work and back today.  I felt pretty good on the run in, a little tired but strong.  Only had to yell profanities at two cars.  One of these days that's going to get me in trouble.  The run howm was a little more tiring.  I would have gone just over 20 miles total but some hot babe in a Mercedes honked at me when I was about a half mile from home, so I got in.  Good thing it was my wife.

A few trail miles in the evening north of Rainbow Garden.  Sprinkled on us.  I'm so tired of the cold wet spring here in Utah.  I want some warm 80+ weather.  Oh, and sunshine would be nice too.  Supposed to be a great, tough, beautiful ccourse.  Lots of huge names in the ultra world will be there.

Holy cow!  What a day.  Race started promptly at 6am in a light rain and temps around 40.  The first few miles were uphill followed by some super sweet single track thru the forest and along side the mountains.  Cruising along with a small group at about a 9 minute pace was too much fun.  Even though I was wet, I wasn't cold at all.  Trail conditions were a little mudy in the first part but not too bad.....yet.  It's when we started descending to the first aid station that the trail got really bad.  Slippery mud everywhere.  You couldn't avoid the stuff.  It didn't help that the people in front of us had trashed the trail for those behind.  Such is the life of a mid packer.  After the first aid station we started climbing up toward Kinport Peak.  I had been told that there was a 1 mile bushwack that was super steep.  Well, the RD wasn't lying.  The bushwack had us going from flag to flag.  As we got higher, the wind got worse and the rain turned into a driving sleet.  It didn't help that we were on an exposed ridge and the wind was reaching gale force.  The sleet wwas falling heavier and heavier.  Sleet hitting your face at 40mph hurts, alot.  I thought I would get really cold going  up thru this but amazingly didn't.  I was in shorts, a long sleeve t, short sleeve t, beanie, winter gloves, and my cheap rain jacket.  The only thing that really got cold on me was my hands.  With the gloves soaked and the wind hitting them, pretty soon I couldn't feel my fingers and I was really worried about frostbite.  As a few of us were climbing together, we came across a runner that had started back down.  He was going hypothermic because he wasn't dressed t-for the conditions.  He had no hat, no gloves, wearing Vibrams, shorts and a short sleeve t.  Luckily, some of us other runners had some extra clothes adn we got him dresssed.  I gave him a rain shell with a hood that I had in my pack, somebody else had extra gloves.  Meanwhile, we kept climbing.  It seemed like forever until  we reached the top but it was really only about half an hour.  The conditions as we neared the top were near whiteout, we couldn'tt see from course ribbon to course ribbon.  Wiuth the wind driving from the left, we had a tendency to drift right.  This meant that we missed the course markings as they went left.  finally at the top a group us realized that wee were essentially lost.  We started down a 4 x 4 road because we saw footprints  in the snow.  After about a 1/4 mile of that we met  the group in front of us.  They had lost the course markings too.  One of the group was familiar with the course and eventually we were able to find the course and start back down the other side of the mountain.  This part of the course was on a 4 x 4 road, so following the route was easy.  As we got back down below the snow line, things warmed up some adn we were able to make some good time.  I forgot to mention that while we were on top in the blizzard, we did stick together and made sure the guy that  was going hypothermic made it down safely. 

I had decided after that little jaunt on the mountain that I was dropping at the next aid station.  I knew that we were going right back u that hill and wanted no part of that.  Just way too dangerous.  It was a search and rescue operation waiting to happen.  As it so happened, at that point the race directors  made the decision to pull the plug and halt the race.  So now the race became one of making sure everyone was accounted for and safe.  Meanwhile, I caught a ride back tot he start/finish and got into some dry warm clothes.  As people  were starting to trickle in a few of use decided that we needed to get some food going.  The plan was to have chili for everyone post race, but the people  in charge of that were nowhere to be found.  So we got the chili going, got out the rest of the food and started feeding cold, wet hungry runners.

the RD's definitely made the right decision to halt the race.  Conditions on the mountain tops were horrendous at best.  We later heard that Scout Peak, the high point of the course, had 6" of fresh snow.  Ultrarunners love a difficult, demanding course, we're masochistic that way, but we don't want a course where the chance of death is a real possibility.

So, kind of disapointed that I didn't get to finish, but certainly understandable.  I'll be back next year, the course looks like it would be stunning in good weather.

Here's a link to a  short article in the Pocatello paper about the race.

http://www.journalnet.com/sports/local/article_f3711a2a-6ba5-11df-a0b4-001cc4c03286.html

Easy recovery run from Pocatello.  1400' gain.

Hill repeat Monday.  Did 7 of them then added some extra miles for a total of about 15.  Good time.  Lots of people out on their semi annual trek on a trail so they can say they were out in nature.  2630' vertical.