Hit the Dusty Trail

Just a hike with my wife up the north Skyline trail. She was on the horse, I was on foot.

Easy run at lunch. Felt pretty good. Last run before Wasatch. last mile in 8 minutes.

Well, I finished the Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run. This race has got to be one of the toughest things I have ever done physically. Here’s a synopsis of my race.

The race started at 5am Saturday morning. 223 runners took ff in the dark down the trail. I felt really good. I actually slept the night before, a whole 5 hours. I figured the runners would thin out after a couple miles, but I got caught up in a conga line and couldn’t get around anyone for a while. Probably a good thing since I have a tendency to go out too fast anyway. I had a pace chart made up with my splits from last year (up to 61 miles, where I dropped) and times for 24 thru 32 hours. At each aid station, I could check the chart and see how I was doing.

The day started cool and never warmed up a lot. Probably into the upper 70’s at the highest. Very pleasant for running.

My goal was to stay close to my times from last year and then see what happened after mile 61. As the day wore on I found that I was gradually falling farther behind last year’s times. Then between Lamb’s Canyon (53.1 miles) and Upper Big Water (61.7 miles) I made up 50 minutes. Now I was on pace with last year’s time. Last year I dropped at this point due to the cold. This year, I was prepared for it.

I left the Upper Big Water aid station (61 miles) and started power walking the climb to Desolation Lake (9000’). By now it was dark but no big deal, running trails at night is fun and challenging. Got past the Desolation Lake aid station and Scott’s Pass Aid (10,000’) and started the descent into the Brighton Ski area aid station. This is the point at which the wheels started to come off. While at Brighton I noticed that it felt like an asthma attack was coming on. I took a couple hits off my inhaler, but that made absolutely no difference at all. It still felt like I was breathing thru a couple of drinking straws. I spent an hour at Brighton trying to see if this would go away, but it didn’t. So my pacer and I left and started making the climb to Point Supreme (10,450’), the highest point on the course. It was tough. I had to stop every couple of minutes just to catch my breath because of my asthma. For the remainder of the race, it was like this, if there was a climb involved, I would have to stop every so often to catch my breath. I could still run downhill’s and flat portions. I was so glad when the course started to really drop in elevation after about 87 miles. I could really tell that the air was thicker and that made running much easier. My pacer and I managed to run the last 5 miles almost continuously until I finally crossed the finish line 34 hours, 23 minutes and 11 seconds after starting.

This is my third 100 mile race this year and I think this one took the most out of me. Physically, my legs and the rest of me are actually not as sore as I have been after other races. This I attribute to some strong training and other races leading up to this one. My lungs are still not right so I’m making an appointment to see a Dr. My asthma has never reared its ugly head in a race and came completely out of the blue. It could have been the altitude or the extremely dusty trails. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t any fun.

At any rate, I did finish the race, but it wasn’t pretty.

Here’s some trivia about my race:

Distance – 100 miles

Total elevation gained – 26, 882’

Total elevation lost – 26, 131’

My time – 34:23:11

Winning time – 20:18

Average altitude – Something above 8000’

Highest point – 10,450’

Did my first run since completing the Wasatch 100. Legs felt great. Ran part of the Mountainview Trail on antelope Island. This is a fairly level trail that follows the east side of the island from the north to the south. Went with my wife and a friend of hers. They rode horses, I ran. The run south felt great, I was turning 9-10 minute miles with no problem. I beat the horses by about 20 minutes, took a short nap at the lower Frary Peak parking lot (our turnaround) then started back with them. The run back was a little slower at first. I felt really sluggish ad a little lightheaded. I grabbed a granola bar from my wife, ate it and felt much better and was able to take off again. Managed to beat the horses again, this time by about 10 minutes. My wife's horse always thinks he has to keep up with me ad will place his nose right in my back and trot along. As long as I don't do any sudden stops, he won't run me over, but I have to keep aware of where he is.

After we got home, I felt really tired, like I wasn't fully recovered from Wasatch yet. The legs weren't sore, just tired.

The weather was perfect for the run, nice breeze, sunshine, cool air.

With all the snow in the mountains, I'm sure glad Wasatch wasn't this weekend. That would have been miserable.

Went around the block at lunch. Pushed the pace for a nice tempo run. Felt really good. Temp. was perfect, light breeze.

Ran on one of my favorite trails today. Started at 22nd St. in Ogden and ran south.

finally went to the Dr. last week for my breathing issues with running Wasatch. he diagnosed me with a constant, low grade asthma but coudln't rule out HAPE. Hard to diagnose HAPE after the fact. He said that the cells lining my trachea were inflamed all the time and that contrbutes to the breathing problems. Anyway, he put me on Claritin and a twice a day mist decongestant. Guess, what? I can breath so much better all the time.

I felt so good yesterday that I really pushed the pace, especially going uphill. I ran hills yesterday that I never run. I'm paying for it today though. I'm kinda sore but that's ok with me. Time to get back into a little training for the Goblin Valley 50k on Oct. 22nd. After that, rest for a month then start training for the Ogden Marathon next year. It's a great day!

Ran at lunch. Nice day. Little sore from yesterday's run.

Ran BST from Fernwood south to Kaysville and back. Now that I can breathe decently, I find that I'm running uphills that I would have walked in the past. This feels pretty good. perhaps I can gain some speed back this winter. I thought I was losing speed due to old age and altitude. I may be, but we'll see what happens when I start serious training for next year's Ogden marathon later this winter.

Ran Fernwood to Hornytoad junction. 49:12.69 up, 36:01.39 down. I think my previous best time was around an hour. Roughly 2000' of climb in 3.5 miles.Fall colors are gorgeous.

Ran around the block at lunch. Pushed hard. Gorgeous day. Started to slow down a little during the last 1.5 miles. Figure it was sub 8 pace up to that point, not counting stoplights and crosswalks.