Catching Up

It has been a while since I posted, I guess racing 4 weekends in a row caught up to me and I have just been extra short on time. A lot has happened since I last posted I will try to break it into short paragraphs instead of individual reports:

Me just before the finish line at the top of Sun Valley- Photo Mike Newby

First- two weeks ago I raced in the last of the La Sportiva Mountain Cup Races- The Shop to the Top in Sun Valley. Similarly to Jupiter Peak the competition was stout and the race was tough. This one involved about 3000' of climbing from the Elephant's Perch store in town- a flat mile road mile to start it off and then all the climbing in 5 miles to the top of Baldy Mountain, aka the summit of Sun Valley Ski Resort. I was still feeling the effort from the week before at El Vaquero Loco, and knew that I would be lucky to get top ten, especially when considering the local Valley talent on top of the runners traveling in to solidify winnings in the cup. The race started super fast with the leaders running a sub 5 minute first mile, I ran it in about 5:04, once we hit the dirt I tried to open it up and hammer on the first climbs to distance myself from some of the pack, it worked I went from 6th to 3rd where I stayed for another mile or so until I was passed by Wray Landon, then a little later Bernie Boetcher, then Brad Mitchell, putting me into 6th. The spacing between Bernie, Brad, Wray, and I was about the same, just close enough to occasionally see the person in front, not close enough to be able to close easily, and not far enough ahead of the person behind to feel comfortable about your lead. That spacing was a recipe for suffering. I kept trying to surge to catch Wray, and stay ahead of Kevin? who was just insight behind me. I was able to hold on to 6th, Simon Guttierez won, Matt Byrne 2nd, Bernie 3rd, Brad Mitchell 4th, Wray 5th. The first two broke the 9 year old course record by an olympic runner, and I managed to finish in 1:01:33, about 8 minutes back from Simon. After all the racing in the last month I felt very happy with that finish.

La Sportiva Team Shot after the Shop to the Top- Photo Mike Newby

Since the Shop to the Top I have been pouring my focus into getting ready for the Bear 100 in September, I have tried to increase distances, slow down the pace, and do more back to back long runs to get used to running fatigued. I really have no idea what I am doing, but hopefully it works out. I did a night trail run using a custom Black Diamond Icon which I plan on using for the race, the light is freaking awesome, but night running is scary even with a super bright light. I ran a local very well used trail, but I ran it alone at around 11 pm, I am a grown man but man I am scared of the dark- I put down my second fastest time ever on that 6 mile loop just because I was afraid the whole time. I also had another epic this weekend while doing a long run in prep for the race. I set my sights on a local ATV trail called the Boundary Trail, I figured it would be a fairly moderate 30 mile run, and that is what I was ready for when I left my truck at 6:30 am on sat, I had about a liter and half of water with Banananuun in my new Ultimate Direction Wasp running vest, a flask of First Endurance Gel, and a Probar. Well it turns out the trail is very loose, has a lot of climbing: 10,500' ascent and the same of descent, and is just a tenth of a mile short of 40 miles (I was also using a gps trying it out before the Bear- I heard it might be extra useful with the way the course is marked). Needless to say, I didn't have enough water, food, or mental prep ready for that big of a day. Thankfully I was able to get water at a campground at about mile 22 (after drinking out of a couple of very questionable streams) and was able to limp it in, in just under 8 hours. It pretty much wrecked me for a day or two but after some recovery I feel like it might have been a good thing to do after all.

Stay tuned over the next week for some exciting announcements, some product reviews, and more info on my prep for the Bear!

El Vaquero Loco

Tanae, Myself, Dusty, Kathleen happy to be Sporting El Vaquero Hoodies post-race.

I ran the 50k Vaquero Loco this past weekend and it once again proved to be one of my favorite races to date. Going in to the race the weather was looking little questionable which had both my wife (she ran the 25k) and I over-packing and preparing for the worst. Starting at about 11:30 the night before the race it started raining and hailing which continued off and on for most of the night. Although I slept very little, I got out of my sleeping bag feeling pretty good, outside it was much warmer than last year, even though it was overcast. As I jogged back and forth between our tent and the start I could tell my legs were feeling really good and it was going to be a good day. In my mind I had hoped to beat the previous years' course record and perhaps even go under 5:30. In addition to my goals I knew there were plenty of heavy hitter runners including Jared Campbell, Leland Barker, and many more that I figured there would be some good competition and lots of pushing the pace.

At 6:00 we lined up at the line drawn in the dirt, got some last minute instructions from Ty and headed out to the sound of a cowbell. A very light rain was falling, the temps were nice and cool, and there was barely enough light to see the trail under your feet. I pretty quickly moved into the lead were I commented to Jared Campbell- " I always go out to fast and pay later" to which he replied " Life is too short to go out slow," so I went. I know that I run uphill better than anything else and the first 3+ miles are all uphill. I pulled ahead enough that I could no longer hear anyone else breathing or stepping. I woke the Sheepherders up as I ran by there tent and all of their dogs came out to wish me well, snow began to fall instead of rain. Just before I crested the top of the climb I glanced over my shoulder to see how close Jared and co. were behind me, I saw no one. " Well," I thought, " I better put some more distance on them so when it falls apart later I might be able to hang on". I crested the pass and descended the switch backs at a nice rolling pace.

The aid station volunteers were in the beautiful valley at the bottom of the switchbacks and they greeted my as I ran on towards the aid station. Just past the aid station I startled a small black bear (he startled me as well when he barked at me), who quickly scurried up a pine tree just to the left of the trail. After the scare I sang out loud for the next couple of miles to make sure I didn't scare any other forest residents. The predominant landmarks seemed to show up much faster this year than last, the 3 short switchbacks just prior to the lakes, the sign marking the beginning of the long descent, and the slickrock just before the swift creek aid station. I continued to feel really good and actually passed the aid station volunteer about a 1/4 of mile down the trail from were he would be setting up, he asked if I needed anything but because of the cool temps I had hardly touched either of the bottles I was carrying, I told him thanks, went off the trail to get around his horses and pushed on down trying to make it to the turn around before the 25 K start. About a mile from the turn around I ran into Wray Landon followed by a the rest of the 25 K racers, including my beautiful wife who was running her second trail race and the furthest she had ever run before. She and our friend Cathleen were in good spirits and cheered loudly as I went by.

I hit the turn around in 2:36:00, spent a couple of minutes dropping layers, pulling the gels out of my "drop bag" (a small ziplock), and topping off the bottles. I headed out taking note of the time to see how much of a lead I had on the rest of the racers. 7 minutes later I passed Jared and Kevin, and I also began to catch 25 k racers. The traffic stayed fairly constant of 50 k racers headed down and passing the 25 k racers going up for probably 30 minutes before it started to be more spread out. I passed Tanae and Cathleen again and again they boosted my mood with their cheering. Surprisingly I continued to feel really good throughout most of the climb back to the aid station, which I ran through without filling up again because I still hadn't needed much water. I power hiked and ran up the next steeper portion of the climb, I looked back once to see a runner in red, who I thought was Kevin closing quickly, this lit a fire in me and I hammered up the next few hills, got a little off course and hammered some more, when I crested the climb I glanced back and saw no one but did not feel at ease, I pushed hard all the way to the second lake where I slowed a little to take in the outstanding scenery. I caught another 25 K runner, who surged when I approached which helped keep the pace really moving, this went on until the aid station, he stopped and I rolled on- hoping that I had just enough water to finish.

Just before the start of the last climb I glanced at my watch 4:56 it read, I thought that if I pushed I might be able to go under 5:20. The last climb up the switchbacks went well, I was able to run a lot of it and still felt good as I topped out. I spotted another 25 k runner and set my sights on catching him to help push the pace, I passed Mike Sullivan from Pocatello just before the sheep camp, and then rolled on. Every thing felt better than it should have, I was able to just keep pushing. I crossed the line at 5:23:33, breaking last years course record by almost 17 minutes. Over all I was surprised with how well things went, I never really bonked, nor felt like I had to really hunker down in the pain cave. I then promptly stripped down to just my shorts and jumped into cottonwood lake to celebrate, it was soo cold, but very refreshing. I had to hurry to my tent to avoid hypothermia, I changed and came back to the finish to enjoy Huckleberry Soda, Hamburgers and good company while I waited for my wife to come in. My good friend and training partner Dusty Pena came in just 6:59 and change squeaking in under his goal of 7 hours. Kathleen finished in 4:34 a few minutes ahead of Tanae (4:40), both of them had huge smiles on their faces. I was so proud of Tanae for accomplishing so much this summer to get ready for this, and to do it on her birthday made it even sweeter! Tanae- you are simply amazing!

I can't say enough good about the Vaquero, Ty does an amazing job, has wonderful aid station folks, and just an amazing event, but do not take my word for it- put in on your calendar and come race it yourself next year, you will not regret it!

Jupiter Peak Steeplechase

First I have to apologize for the blog silence, since school broke for summer (10 days) I have been away from my computer and technology in general at my parents house in Northern New Mexico, I have a lot of pictures and video to post on that later. First things first though- yesterday's race in Park City- the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase. This race is part of the La Sportiva Mountain Cup, and because of that it is a big deal. I had the awesome opporunity to meet some of my Sportiva Team mates- Jason Bryant, Megan Kimmel, Catilin Smith, and Bernie Boetcher plus two other that I already knew- Brad Mitchell and Karl Metzler. Apart from the large number of La Sportiva athletes there were also a lot of other sponsored runners from all over the US.

Ok, there were a lot of big names at the race, "stop freaking out" I told myself, but it wasn't easy, I look up soo much to a lot of these runners and I felt like just walking around with my mouth gaping wide open asking for autographs or something. Also given the concentration of talent I knew that the race was going to be tough, lots of very strong runners. The course itself was right up my alley, it had 3307' of elevation gain/loss in 16 miles, the first half up and the second half down. I enjoy running uphill, I tend to be pretty good at it especially if it is technical, the only downfall to the race is the downhill, I don't love to run down but was hoping to hold my own.

Warming Up with La Sportiva Team mates- Photo Tanae Nelson

I warmed up with a Jason, Caitlin, Brad, Bryon Powell (irunfar.com), and Shiloh Meilke (Vasque). It was cool to be with lots of other people in yellow. After about 15 minutes of warming up I stripped down to the Sugoi La Sportiva Race singlet, Sugoi 42 k shorts and grabbed my Ultimate Direction hand bottle filled with EFS and headed to the starting line.

The race started at a reasonable pace with a lead pack somewhat quickly separating from the rest, as the climb continued the pack kind of exploded with a couple of runners pulling away and the rest of us stringing out behind them. I held about 6th until Bernie Boetcher fellow Sportiva runner hammered by about 1/2 up the climb. Just before the top on the very steep scramble section I passed one runner, who mumbled something about this being a "running race" as we power hiked up the steep section, I pulled back into 6th, but knew it probably wouldn't last because of my marginal descending skills. I have found through this summer of racing that I am much better and enjoy ascending quiet a bit more than it's downhill counterpart. I ran past the false summit and the real summit still in 6th and started the descent, the course wasn't marked really well at this point and I held back a little to make sure I wasn't pulling a repeat of the Speedgoat by getting off course. As soon as I spotted the runner I passed on the last ascent headed the same way I was I turned it up hoping to hold him off at least for a while. I wasn't able to hold him off too long and he passed me going very fast.

After seeing all of the runners at the start I told myself " make sure you finish top ten", I figured that was a pretty reasonable goal, and when I was passed I fell into 7th and felt a little discouraged it didn't leave a lot of room for error. I poured down the hills as fast as I could, but to no avail was passed again, this time by Jon Allen from Logan who is a very talented runner. Okay I said to myself that is it, it is time to hurt and hold 8th. I shifted gears, to a somewhat painful pace and pushed with all my tired legs could do, near the end we turned on to the Spiro trail which has lots of switchbacks and out of the corner of my eye I spotted Brad Mitchell creeping up on me, I opened it up as much as a I could knowing it wasn't far to the finish. I managed to hold him and finished 8th overall in 2:03:01, Brad finished 12 seconds behind me, if he had a little more distance he would have caught me for sure.

The La Sportiva Mountain Running Team- Photo Tanae Nelson

Considering all of the running and road biking I did during my vacation last week, I was very happy with my overall time and effort. The field was very deep, deeper than any other race I have done this year and I feel like 8th was pretty solid. I also had the great opportunity to cool down with the other runners on the La Sportiva Team, getting to know the people you admire as runners is pretty awesome! I am trying to get a post put together of the runs I did in New Mexico while on vacation, including some pics and video from the new flip camera we just bought. Check back soon! Also check out El Vaquero Loco 50k- my wife and I will both be headed to Star Valley Wyoming to race in that this weekend to celebrate her 29th birthday. She will be running the 25 k her furthest distance yet- she is going to do great!