Hit the Dusty Trail

Went up to Malan's Peak.  Little cooler up there plus a breeze.  2375' vert

Made two runs today.  The morning run was along the BST north of Rainbow The second run was up at Cutler Flat.  Never been there.  Need to do some more exploring there.  1700' vert.  8000' vert for the week.

Ran along the BST south of 22nd street.  Felt  pretty good so I pushed it some.  1200' vert gain.

Ran from Rainbow Garden south along the BST to Beus Canyon.  then up Beus Canyon to the saddle just below Mt. Ogden.  Holy cow that was a tough climb.  Then down the trails at Snowbasin to the base area.  Over to the Maples trailhead, down the Maples trail to Icebox Canyon.  Thru there to Wheeler Canyon and down to Pineview Dam.  23 very tough miles.  Took a little over 6 hours including all stops and about 15 minutes at the Snowbasin base area.  Still some pretty good cornices at the top of Snowbasin we had to glissade down.  5500' vert gain.

Hill repeats.  Did five of the things.  Wasn't as bad as I thought it would be after doing 23 mountain miles yesterday.  1200' vert gain

Nice little trail run from Rainbow south to Strong's canyon and back.  1400' vert gain

Went out in the afternoon.  Pretty warm, in the low 90's.  Just did an easy run on some trials.

Did a run with a couple of friends up Ben Lomond Peak and back, then up the other side to Lewis Peak and back.  8500+' vert gain.  Saw an amazing sight.  About 40 mountain goats, including babies, from 50-100 yards away.  It was amazing to watch them scamper up vertical cliff faces like it was nothing.  Very cool.  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/39937791

17,800' vert gain for the week.  I think that's the most I've ever done in a week outside of a race.

Ran along the BST from 22nd street.  Still kind of tired from Saturday's run so it was pretty slow.

So I had big plans to go up to Malan's Peak today.  It was about 95 degrees out.  Well, about a mile into the run I was light headed, and a little dizzy.  I went for another 1.5 and decided to head back down.  I think either it was the heat or the fact that I was pretty hungry, een though I ate a snack before I left work.  Went back out for a few more miles around the house once the temps cooled off some.  Felt much better.

Tried another after work run in the heat on a trail.  This time I went north from Rainbow Garden.  Very exposed to the afternoon sun so I knew it would be hot.  Got a little light headed again, but by the time I got to around 1.4 miles I felt much better and completed the miles I wanted to. 

Pluses for running  in the heat.  I had the trail all to myself.  I saw exactly one mountain biker and one runner the entire 7 miles.  There was a reasonably nice breeze the entire time to keep me a little cooler.  Heat acclimation.  Minuses, it's dang hot out there.

Spent the evening marking the trail for the NUTS half marathon.  Didn't finish until 11:30pm.  It was a great night run though.

Took off about 45 minutes before the NUTS half started and rechecked the trail markings.  Everything looked good and everyone had a great time.  Cody Draper was the winner.

Went up Ben Lomond peak this morning.  I felt pretty good so I attempted to meet a goal that I've had for a few years.  Do the up rrun in under two hours.  My fastest time has been 2:05, so I knew I could go under 2:00.  I probably didn't push as hard as I should have on the lower part of the trail but by the time I hit the last climb (1.7 miles, 1000') I was panicked and really started to push hard.  Ever tried running hard uphill on a very rocky trail, while at 9000'+?  Yeah, by the time I hit the top I was pretty winded, but when I looked at the Garmin, it said 1:59:45.  I had done it, not by much, but it was done.  Needless to say, I felt pretty good once I caught my breath.  Spent the next 30 minutes watching mountain goats scamper around below the peak, then took my time on the run down.  1:38 down.  I'm sure if I pushed that part I could go under 1:30, but I'll save that for another day.  Right now I'm happy with the run up.  I think I may be ready for Swancrest now.  Doesn't really matter, the race is only two weeks away.  Taper is the order of the day for the next couple of weeks.  I hate tapering.  It feels like such a waste not being out running as much.

Ran a whopping 4.2 on the BST from 22nd street.  Nice and warm, about 95 degrees.  Went slow.  I hate tapering for a race, it feels like such a waste.

Had an awesome run up Wheeler creek to Art Nord, then up to Green Pond and back down thru Ice Box canyon.  Felt great.  Finished 20 minutes ahead of everyone else on the run

Went on a run on a trail near my sister's house in Oregon.  I've passed this trailhead numerous times and have always wanted to go up it.  Today I had the chance.  Went up to the top of Hardesty Peak, 4200'.  Came back down the Eula ridge trail thinking that it would be about the same distance back down.  Wrong.  What I was hoping for was a roughly 8-10 mile run.  I ended up with 14+.  No a bad thing since I was running thru some awesome old growth Douglas fir.  Some of these trees were 5-6 feet in diamter and a couple hundred feet tall.  Super quiet in the forest as well.  I only saw three other people the entire run.  I thought that was kind of unusual since it's a Saturday and there were several other cars at the trail head.  Oh well, no people is fine with me.  All in all a good run onb a trail I've been wanting to explore.

So my friend Aric tells me several months ago about this new 100 mile race in Montana called the Swancrest 100.  I checked out their website and saw all the warnings about grizzly bears and decided that I had to be a part of this race, especially the first year. What's not to like about running through the woods wondering if you're going to meet up with a large carnivore.

The other thing about this race is the controversy surrounding whether it should go on or not. A little background. Several months ago the race director approached a conservation group called the Swanview Coalition about helping out at the race, maybe running an aid station in exchange for a donation to their cause. No response except that a few months later Keith Hammer, the head of this nefarious group gives a 60 day intent to sue the forest service over issuance of a permit. Something about a commercial endeavor of this type needing an environmental impact assessment. This guy is a complete tool. Now I definitely want to run this race just because of idiots like him.

So the training commences, blah, blah, blah, and before I know it Aric and I are driving up to northwest Montana. It's a lot further away than I thought.  Also, sushi in Whitefish, Montana is not as good as sushi here.

The original thought was to just get a room Thursday night and Saturady night but the race director offered us the use of his floor, so we took him up on it. As usual I got about 2-3 hours of sleep before it was time to get up and get ready. Thank goodness this race didn't start until 7am instead of the usual 5am start for most 100's. We drove over to the finish area and caught the shuttle to the start, about 45 minutes away.

As we were waiting around for the race to start, a local couple came up to Aric and I and started talking to us, telling us how exciting this event was, could they bring us anything as they were going to be hiking up to one of the aid stations.  Just super nice people.

So, the race starts and I’m in the lead.  Definitely a weird feeling but no one else wanted to jump out in front.  I lead for about ¾ mile before the eventual winner took over the front runner duties.  After a mile on paved road, we turned on to a forest service road and not too much longer I was in about 8^th place, where I really belonged.  After about 10 miles we came to the first aid station.  Not too bad, don’t remember my time but I felt really good.  Then we hit the trail.  Talk about overgrown.  Shoulder high brush blocked our view of the trail itself, so there was lots of tripping over rocks and roots.  A couple hundred yards in we saw our first pile of bear scat. Yep, there really are bears in these here woods.  Good thing I had bear spray handy.  So pushing thru all this brush slowed me down to a walk for the most part.  After a couple miles of this, we came to an avalanche debris field.  We were warned about this in the prerace briefing but holy cow!  The course was marked with ribbons since you couldn’t see the trail at all.  Buried under several feet of broken trees, limbs, brush etc.  This section ended up being a climb over all this debris from ribbon to ribbon.  Really slowed me down.  Finally got past all that and began going up the hillside on a decent trail.  Switch backed up a couple thousand feet until I crossed a rdige and began actually running along the mountainside.  This began the story of the rest of the run, lots of ups and downs where you really couldn’t get a good running rhythm going.  Just as you’d get running you’d hit a steep enough uphill to force you into a walk.  Then there were all the rocks, just like around here.  As we got closer to the Napa Point aid station (19 miles) we encountered a couple groups of people.  First was a group out on what looked like an educational outing.  They cheered us on.  Next was a forest service ranger and a couple others with him.  I imagine he was keeping an eye on things given the noise that Keith and his group were making.  Then there was the ass Keith Hammer with some of his cronies.  Just watching.  They did step off the trail so we could pass and I did say hi to him.  As I was fueling up at the aid station he came walking out of the woods.  I later found out he had been writing down license numbers of cars and videoing the aid station.  Did I mention that he's an ass.

Ok, now we had a 24 mile section to the next aid station.  This was something new for me.  I’m used to generally less than 10 miles between aid stations so this required a different strategy.  I took four gel flasks, a couple of bars and a full hydration pack (70 oz).  We knew that there was water along the trail but I didn’t know where.  This section of the race was absolutely stunning.  For the most part we were on the ridges above the treeline, so lots of incredible views.  I could see several thousand feet into the valleys below, I could see all the way into Glacier National Park, over to the Flathead valley.  This was way cool.  We were crossing small snow fields and I filled my pack with snow from one of them.  About 5-6 miles into this section was an area of cascading water down the rocks.  I took a minute to drink, wash my face off and just enjoy the moment.  That was some good tasting water.  My mistake here was not refilling my pack.  I still had lots of snow in it but eventually I drank all the water and was left with just the snow.  The next 10 miles or so were kind of dry for me.  With no water in my pack, I couldn’t eat gels or anything else since I had no water to wash it down with.  Needless to say the eneregy level went down and I slowed down.  Eventually I came across a very small creek and was able to fill up, then eat some gels and get my energy back up.  About 3 miles alter I came into the Six Mile aid station.  At this aid station you had to make an out and back trek to the top of Six Mile peak.  I wasn’t looking forward to this as I was really tired, but out I went.  1 ½ miles later and 1000’ higher I was on top of the peak picking up a playing card to verify that I made it.  The view was definitely worth the trek.  This kind of rejunvenated me and I was able to hoof it down in pretty good time.  I got back into Six Mile, sat for a few, fueled up and bolted out for Quintonkin, six miles away.  By now it was starting to get dark and abouf half way I had to turn on the headlamp.  Parts of this were very runnable and I took advantage of this to try and make up a little time.  I came out on a forest service road that just went up and up for what seemed like forever, ugh!  At the end of this road was the Quintonkin aid station (52 miles).  By now it’s about 11:30pm, dark and getting a little cool, but not bad.  I stood next to the fire and tried to warm up, eat, and drink.  Just as I was getting set to leave, in comes Aric, so I waited for him and we took off together.  We had debated dropping here as we knew that finishing under the time limit would be next to impossible, but we decided to go forward and see what happened.  This was another long section without aid (16+ miles) and the first three miles were all uphill.  So up we went.  Eventually we were above treeline again, but now at night.  It was clear out so the stars were nice and bright and we had about a half moon to see by.  Going along the ridges here was fun.  Very rocky with some steep dropoffs.  I pushed a large rock off one dropoff just hear it go crashing down below.  It seemed like it crashed forever, must have been a really long ways down.  There were a couple of points where we stopped for a couple minutes to reat.  We were both getting tired and sleepy.  At one point I just laid down in the middle of the trail and took a five minute catnap.  This section also had eight miles of constant downhill and this started to wear on us.  Lots of trees across the trail that we had to duck under or climb over as well.  Eventually we arrived at the Broken Leg aid station (68 miles) and called it good.  With only 11 ½ hours left to go 32 miles, we knew that we’d time out.  Still, I felt pretty good, just really tired.

This was definitely a different kind of race.  With all the ups and downs, brush, and long distances between aid, I think this race is more difficult than Wasatch. 

Post race festivities were great, flank steak, potato salad, ceasar salad, local made huckleberry ice cream and a keg of beer. 

Only 20 runners of the 44 who started managed to finsh.  I will definitely be back next year with a better plan for finishing.

Technical details -

Shoes - La Sportiva Raptors, like them, good cush on the sole and plenty of grip

Pack - Nathan 70 oz. race vest

Food - 1st Endurance EFS Liquidshot.  I downed 6 of these flasks for a total of 2400 calories, I also ate some food at the aid stations.  I would estimate I downed 3000+ calories.  Need to eat more.