Hit the Dusty Trail

Hot, hot, hot.  Went running at lunch.  I had to dro by Striders Running store and thought I'd just run up there at lunch.  It was a warm run and not too fast.  Glad I had a water bottle.

Did the run into work thing this morning.  Legs are feeling much better.  Still somewhat sore, but not nearly as much.  I don't know if anyone else experiences this, but on the way in to work from the train station I got really lightheaded.  Not to the p oint of passing out, but a really disjointed feeling.  I feel fine now.  Anyone else had that happen to them?  I have had it happen numerous times over the years.

The run home was p[retty uneventful.  Just an average run.

Almost tanked the run into the train station this mroning. I was (and still am) very tired. It's so hard to get to bed early during the summer when the sun is shining. Good thing it's Thursday and I can leave work early. I plan on taking a nap this afternoon.

Yea! I actually left work at 1:00.  The run home was fine, kind of warm but not too bad.  Added bonus, I got to take my nap and it was a good thing. 

Ran from Elbow Fork (6500') in Millcreek Canyon up to the Upper Big Water parking lot, then past Dog Lake, on to Desolation Lake and turned around at the radio towers near Scott's Pass above Brighton Ski Area.  Much of the run was well above 9000'.  I was trying to get an idea of my training for altitude and it seemed to go ok.  I found that I could actually run the more gentle uphills even at 9500'.  Downhills were not an issue.  It was also a last long training run before the Tahoe Rim 100 in 2 weeks.  The Tahoe Rim course only goes to 9200' briefly, no sustained mileage above 9000', so that's good.  My time was right at 4 hours to the turn with the run out being mostly uphill.  The time back was 2:50, so not too bad for some very technical trail running up high.  Total time was under 7 hours and I stopped numerous times to take in the scenery, and made one wrong turn that ate up about 10 minutes.  That makes my pace somewhat slower than last week's race, but I was happy with it.  It took me several days to recover from last Saturday's race so doing the run today in the time I did was good.

Going up to Dog Lake there were way too many dogs, literally hundreds, and all off leash.  Although I have 4 dogs of my own, dogs off leash bug me because I've been bitten while running.  Only one showed anything beyond a passing interest and I told the owner to get her dog as I had been bitten before.

Lots of mountain bikers once I got past Desolation.  All in all, a very busy trail day. 

Did the run into work thing this morning.  This might be the last time for a couple of weeks.  Between a business trip and tapering for a race on the 19th, the long runs are done for awhile.

The run to the train station went ok, I pushed some since I felt good.  the run home from the train station started out not ok.  I felt somewhat lightheaded and walked for a bit.  I called my house and left amessage telling my wife to come pick me up, but she didn't get home until just before I got home.  Meanwhile, I started to feel much better and actually felt pretty good the last couple of miles.  Maybe low blood sugar?  I ate a granola bar on the train and maybe it just took a bit to kick in.  I think I need to eat more, especially in the afternoon.

Did an easy run at lunch.  I've missed the past couple of days due to being out of town on business.  It's hard to go running when you go on an overnight trip, get in late, and leave righta fter your meeting.  Oh well, I'm on a taper anyway.

Well, I don't know how easy these miles were.  I fulfilled my 8 hour trail work requirement as part of the price of admission to the Wasatch 100 on Saturday.  We met at the Orson Smith trailhead in Draper, then went 5 miles uphill, gaining 4000', gathered up some tools, built about .15 miles of trail thru the forest, ate lunch, then ran the 5 miles back down to the trailhead.  Actually it was a lot of fun.  There were about 10 of us and all were fulfilling the trail work requirement.  For a lot of trails in the Wasatch National Forest, this is the only maintenance or work that gets done on them.  I highly recommend doing some sort of volunteer trail work, especially if you use them a lot.

Just a few easy miles.  My trail work run on Saturday left my legs just a little sore, so I'm not doing anything too difficult this week.

Probably my last run before Saturday.  Felt really slow.  Makes me wonder if I'm undertrained for my race.  I guess I'll find out then how well trained I am.

Well, I failed to complete the Tahoe Rim 100 mile race today (http://www.tahoemtnmilers.org/trt50). This race took place on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe in the mountains above the lake. The race starts and ends at Spooner Lake State Park, makes its way north for roughly 26 miles, turns around and comes back to the start. If you're running the 100 mile race, you get to do two laps. With the start at 5am, we all took off in the dark, some had lights, but most of us didn't. The sky started to get light after about 15 minutes and by 5:45, it was plenty light. The first several miles are a gradual uphill to the first aid station. Spooner Lake is at 7000' and the first aid station (Hobart, 6 miles) is at roughly 7900'. On the way to Hobart, we passed Marlette Lake. This is a small lake that overlooks Tahoe. Once we left Hobart, we had 5 miles to go until the Tunnel Creek aid station. This section was uphill for the first part and downhill into the aid station. During thsi section we were treated to views of Marlette Lake and Lake Tahoe some 2000' below. Tunnel Creek aid station was the main aid station of the race as the 100 mile runners would go thru here 6 times. After going thru the Tunnel Creek aid station we had to do a loop called the Red House loop. This was a 6.3 mile loop that descended to 6800’ (the lowest point on the course) then came back up to the Tunnel Creek aid (7900’). This section was the one most people complained about due to the steep uphill/downhill portion just outside the Tunnel Creek aid station. I didn’t think it was too bad given some of the trail climbs here along the Wasatch. After leaving Tunnel Creek again, we headed north along the ridges above Lake Tahoe and behind one of the ski areas that line the lake. This section was the longest between aid stations at 9 miles. It was also one of the highest with over 8 miles above 8500’. I talked to several people who had come from sea level and they were having a difficult time with the elevation. The trail from Tunnel Creek to Mt. Rose was absolutely stunning. Most of it was along the ridges above Lake Tahoe and since the day was sunny and clear, the views were spectacular. Several times I had to stop for a moment just to take in the views. I would have fallen on my face if I had tried to do that while running. This section of trail also made for great running, nothing really difficult technically, mostly fairly smooth trail. Lots of fun. Over the final couple of miles into Mt. Rose, there were lots of hikers. Naturally we did get some strange looks, but everyone tried to encourage us as we went along. By the time I got to Mt. Rose, my pace was slowing down a little bit. To this point I had managed to maintain a sub 23 hour pace. This was encouraging since my goal was around 26 hours. I figured that I would put a little time in the bank since night time running tends to be a lot slower. However, my legs were starting to get a little tired. I spent about 10 minutes at the Mt. Rose aid station trying to recover a little bit and eventually left heading south for the start/finish 24 miles away. After a couple more hours of running, I came back into the Tunnel Creek aid station. I spent about 10 minutes there before heading out for the high point on the course, the aid station at Snow Valley Peak (9000’). The climb up to there was fairly gradual with lots of switchbacks. I was still feeling fairly good, but still slowing down. I was glad to get to Snow Valley because that meant there was a sustained 7 miles of downhill to get back to the start/finish. This is the section that started my undoing. I love running downhill, but by the time I got back to the start/finish, I was entertaining the thought of dropping out. Knowing the condition of my legs, I figured that I probably wouldn’t be able to complete another 50 mile lap. I sat at the start/finish for about 20 minutes, washed the dirt off my feet, changed socks, ate food and figure I’d go out for at least one more section and see how I felt. I made it out of the start/finish to Hobart before dark and really started to think about dropping, but I thought. I’ll give it one more section and headed out for Tunnel Creek. I had to turn on my headlamp about 1 mile out of Tunnel Creek. I ended up walking almost the entire way from Hobart to Tunnel Creek. I knew then that my race was probably over. I knew that I couldn’t walk the remaining 39 miles and make the time cutoffs and I knew that my legs weren’t in any shape to finish. I sat at Tunnel Creek for about an hour before making the decision to drop. So, what did I do wrong? Clearly not enough long runs. My longest two runs were 24 and 28 miles. These two runs should have been in the 35-40 mile range. You can’t fake a lack of training in a race like this. Overall I had the training mileage. What did I do right? I tried something a little different here. I went with an almost entirely liquid diet. Usually I will eat some solid food during the race, but this never really sounded good. Every aid station had Ensure and at 250 calories each plus liquid, these were great. They went down easy and really boosted my energy level. The other food I really like at a 100 mile race is Starbuck Frappacino’s. Talk about some rocket fuel with all that sugar and caffeine. If nothing else, this race served as a great long training run for Wasatch in Sept. On a side note, I did get to meet a couple other members of the Wasatch Speedgoat Mountain Racing Team (www.wasatchspeedgoat.com). The winning time was about 18:51 and the top two winners actually agreed to cross the line together, thus splitting the $1000 first prize. The overall finish rate for the 100 mile race was 57%, somewhat on the low side. I’ll be back next year to redeem myself, collect the beer glass and beer, and the nifty belt buckle.

My first run since Saturday's race.  The legs felt kind of heavy, but I wanted to push the pace some anyway.  Felt pretty good for the first couple of miles, then I started to slow down a little.  Still, it was a good run.  I did feel like going further, but figured I'd better not today.

Ran up the trail from Fernwood trying to get a little hill work in. Although it's primarily a hike, I tried to push it fairly hard to give the legs and lungs a good workout. Didn't see any rattlesnakes, but I was looking. Always a good time when you see one of those. Saw a fellow ultrarunner going up as I was coming down. We stopped to chat for a few minutes. He was running from the Wasatch start in Kaysville all the way to the maintenance shed up Farmington canyon, 18+ miles of tough running. I figure he'd finish after dark. Once I got home I decided to get another mile in on the treadmill with the slope set to 12% (max). I set the pace to 5 mph just to see if I could run it (slowly). I did manage. I'd like to build that up to an hour at that slope and pace.

Ran at lunchtime. Nice and warm.

Ran to the train station today.  I was planning on doing a little speedwork on the way, but i was so tired that just trotting along took effort.  Not really looking forward to the afternoon commute back home.

Well, I didn't go running today, but I did run an aid station for the Speedgoat "Get High" 50K at Snowbird ski area.  Karl Meltzer and Scott Mason put this on and it is one tough 50K trail race.  11,000' of gain in 31 miles and none of it is below 8000'.  the aid station i was at was on the Mineral Basin side of the Peruvian Tunnel (20.3 miles).  We could see the runners coming down the ridge from Hidden Peak (11,000') on their way to the top of Mt. Baldy (11.068').  We were at about 10,500' and the runners were just coming up after a hard 2500' climb.  The winning time was 5:50 by Ryan McDowell (his wife won overall last year).  To give you an idea of how tough this course is, on a flat course and 50k winning time can be in the nieghborhood of 3:30.  Ryan is no slouch when it comes to mountain running.  Anyway, I had a great time volunteering, got to enjoy some beautiful scenery and see plenty of my fellow trail running friends.  If none of you has ever volunteered at a race, I highly recommend it.  You end up having way too much fun.

Ran from North Ogden divide up the trail to the top of Ben Lomond peak (9712').  Roughly 3000' of gain.  My goal was under 2 hours.  My  previous fastest time was 2:10.  This is 8.2 miles of uphill trail.  I did manage is run it in 2:05, so a new best time.  I did run large protions of it, so I wasn't unhappy with the run.  My running at higher elevations is getting better I think, although it amazing what a difference only a few hundred feet make in the abiliity to breathe.  Based on my effort, I'm calling the uphill part a marathon pace even though the pace was closer to a 15 minute pace.  The downhill part was lots of fun and I managed to do that in 1:24 for a roughly 10 minute pace.  Not too bad given that some places are so rocky that you have to walk unless you want to risk a sprained or broken ankle.

I took 70 oz. of water and it was just about the right amount as I ran out about half a mile from the parking lot.  It was quite warm  when I came down, but there was a nice breeze to help keep me cool.  On top, the temp was probably in the high 70's with a nice breeze up there as well.  I did see some mountain goats when I was on top, so that was pretty cool as I've never seen them in the wild before.  Some other people on the top said that they saw over 20 just hanging out on the cliffs.

Ran in to work this morning.  I thought I'd be a little tired from yesterday's effort, but I actually felt pretty good, so that's a good thing.

The run home was even easier.  As I left work and started to run, my daughter called.  I ended up walking the 2 miles to the train station as I talked with her, missed my usual train and had to take a later one.

Pushed the pace a little this morning.  I need to do that more often.

Nothing special about the run home other than the train had some issues with its computer.  We were stopped on the tracks for about 10 minutes while it was reset.

Did some interval work today at lunch. About 1.3 warmup, 4 x .6, 1.3 cooldown. Not much of a cooldown given the heat.