The Challenge of Balance

2012 US Ski Mountaineering Championships

2012-01-09T11:08:00.001-08:00

Start of 2012 US Champs

With winter being absent in most of the western US, I think there was a lot of uncertainty going into this years US Ski Mountaineering Championships. Training, for me at least, was very challenging due to the limited snowpack. For many of the racers it would also be the first race of the year, which also added to the unknown.This year's race had a larger field than last year, and certainly a deeper field both on the men's and women's side of the race. Not only were there a lot of fast looking folks lined up at the start there was a bunch more super light race gear and speed suits than I have seen at a US race. At that point I knew for sure it was going to be a barnburner!

Going Anaerobic!

In typical fashion the first few minutes after the start were spent getting deeply anaerobic, but the pace did relax (slightly) as the field started break up a little. I found myself in third, about 200 feet behind Marshal and Scott Simmons who were setting a blistering pace out front. By the time we hit the 1st transition I had moved up on Marshal a little but Scott was skiing out of the transition zone as I came in. He had a 30-40 second lead. The first descent was pretty rocky at the top, but skied relatively well. Bryan Wickenhauser caught me in the descent as I was skiing a little timidly. I pulled into the transition right behind him, Scott again was just finishing his transition and skinning away. The next climb I pushed hard to try to gain in Scott and put some ground on Wick and Marshal, but I don't think I accomplished much of either. The second descent was a bit dicey at top, but like the previous was very skiable as we got further down. Scott had already left the transition when I got there, he was hammering! I pulled out of the transition just ahead of Wick and there was a good size group of racers finishing the descent as I started skinning towards the gondola. Yet, even pushing at red line I wasn't gaining on Scott. I worked on fueling a bit, hitting the First Endurance Slurry that worked so well during ultra racing this past summer.

Digging Hard Near Corbet's Cabin

When I hit the boot pack I found the extra gear I had been trying to get all day, I finally started to make up some ground on Scott and actually caught up to him as we topped out. I tried to stay close as we traversed Pepi's bench, but again he pulled away a little. As we worked our way around under Corbet's I gained just slightly hoping to get to the boot transition at the same time. Scott left the boot transition a second or two ahead but I was able to reel him in, he graciously let me pass and I set to work at building a little bit of a lead. Seeing my dad, wife and best friend James at the top of the booter added a bit of pep to my tired legs, I left the top transition about a minute or so ahead of Scott. The long decent down from the top was surprisingly skiable, but took its toll on my weak ski legs. The lack of snow has been ok for uphill training but I haven't had any race pace downhill skiing yet this season. Scott caught me at the bottom and we skied into the transition together. I hit a solid transition and pulled out just ahead of Scott. I knew this was the last chance to get ahead so I fully buried myself in the deep recesses of the pain cave to pull away from Scott, when I hit the top of the last climb I had about a minute lead. I charged down the final descent hoping to not get caught. 2:38:58 after the start of the race I crossed the finish as the 2012 US Ski Mountaineering Champion. Elation is probably what best describes how I felt.

So Happy to be Finished!

The entire race I battled with Scott, he raced so very well and I can't help but feel so humbled that in the end I was able to sneak away for the win.

2012 US Champions-Sari Anderson and myself

There were so many strong racers in the field, including a handful of new faces. My LaSportiva Teammate Sari Anderson also had a stellar race to claim the women's National Title, and I have to point out an impressive performance by Jason Dorais for 3rd place, who even after having skin issues on the first climb came back to capture the last podium spot. One more racer I have to point out is young gun Micah Thatcher, who at 15 years old finished in under 4 hours with only 1 day of skinning prior to the race, look out for him charging to the top in the next few years. Finally here's a nod to my friend Toph White for sticking to it even when it got tough, strong work buddy!

Future Superstar Micah Thatcher

Men's Podium- Left to Right- Scott Simmons 2nd, Myself, Jason Dorais 3rd.

As always Forest Dramis and his incredible crew of volunteers put on a solid race. Thanks! Also thanks to Jackson Hole Mountain Resort for providing us the chance to invade the mountain for a day, to OR and the other race sponsors for helping make it all happen. I need to thank La Sportiva for making such incredible gear, it truly gives an edge over the rest. Last but definitely not least thanks to my mom and dad, beautiful wife, and my daughters Chloe and Brynlee for supporting me through all the training and simply believing in me.

Full Results Here: http://jacksonrandoneerace.blogspot.com/

Awesome video from the race!

Gear:La Sportiva RSR ski and binding
La Sportiva Stratos boot
La Sportiva Race Suit
La Sportiva pomoca race skins
Camp Speed Helmet
First Endurance EFS, EFS Liquid Shot, and Ultragen.
Patagonia capilene base layer.

Breaking Radio Silence

2011-12-31T07:34:00.001-08:00

Pickin' Pumpkins for Haloween

I have to admit that this blog post is long overdue. I really haven't posted anything in the several months. I have sat down several times to start writing it, but have then either felt completely uninspired to write anything, not had time to write about all that has happened, or have let the ADD take over and spent time blog-stalking, catching up on twitter, or mindlessly surfing in search of the end of the Internet. To be honest I just didn't feel like writing, I needed to check out for a while.

2011 was an incredible year for me. I had an incredible Ski Mountaineering season with a 3rd at the US Championships, 4th at Grand Targhee Skimo Classic, and 4th at Bridger Bowl Skin to Win. The 3rd at the champs earned me a spot on the US Skimo Team and I had the chance to go to Italy for the World Championships where I placed 19th in the teams race with Pete Swenson, 42 in the individual race and 32 in the sprint. I came back to win the Wasatch Powderkeg two weeks later.

Skimo Racing in Italy

After an awesome skimo season I switched gears and started the run season. I won the Menan Butte Challenge to start the season off, then spent a long weekend in Zion at the Vitamin D camp. I chased that with a solid 6th at the Pocatello 50 and then a summer of focused training that took me up the Tooth of Time in New Mexico countless times, up Pikes Peak, had a ton of fun shooting a video for ultraspire and a enjoyed long weekend at Hardrock pacing Matt Hart.

Hitting the TH after Running the Grand Teton

As my fitness started to get solid I headed to Utah for the OR retailer and threw down at the Uphill Challenge (3rd) then the next day battled for a 3rd at the very competitive Jupiter Peak Steeplechase. The next weekend I defended my title at El Vaquero Loco, then two weeks later attempted to break the car to car record in the Grand Teton. I came up short but put down a very solid 3:33:00 overall time. I tapered over the next couple weeks and went into the Wasatch 100 as fit as ever. I had an epic race ( in a good way) and finished 2nd, only being bettered by my good friend Fast Evan Honeyfield. Two weeks later I was honored to pace UltraRunning legend Roch Horton at the Bear 100, which was a heck of a good time. Nearing the end of the season Ty Draney and I took advantage of racing fitness and headed out to do the Great Salmon Run. That final run took a lot out of me and I was admittedly broken, both physically and emotionally, after our 52 hour sojourn in the Frank Church Wilderness area. Since then I haven't really written on the blog. I was tired, I was broken down after an incredible year of training and racing. I needed to get off the radar for a while and digest what had happened over the summer and reflect on how incredibly lucky I am to be able to do the things I do.

Ironically, though I was pretty down for a while, most of October actually. Maybe it was due to not having any specific training goals, there was also some big uncertainty with employment and some tough financial times as well. I spent a significant amount of time reflecting and trying to plan for the future. I didn't "train" in October or the first week or so of November. I did get out and run some but mostly just to be out, no specific workouts. I also roller skied a fair bit and tried to get on skis a few times. As the middle of November rolled around I started to train for skimo season, mostly just volume but also a few intensity workouts.

My family and the Draney clan headed down to St George to celebrate thanksgiving with Bryce Thatcher and his family. It was a good excuse to get out and run some good dirt, play by the pool and warm up a little before the long Idaho winter. We enjoyed an awesome thanksgiving day run with Bryce and his boys up Signal Mountain, then we completely stuffed ourselves. The next day we took our families to Zion and spent the day hiking the trade routes of Angel's Landing and The Narrows. The next day Ty and I set out to run the Zion Traverse (and break the FKT) which went well for about 20 miles until Ty started to have some hip pain which evolved into a significant hitch in his stride. We pulled the plug at the grotto, and brought both of our running seasons to a close (for real this time).

Family Picture After Climbing Angel's Landing

After thanksgiving I tried to focus hard on skimo training, but December has been so warm and dry in Idaho that staying motivated to ski has been very difficult. I have been pretty stubborn though and I think my skimo fitness is finally coming around, good thing to as the US champs are just over a week away! With the US champs on the horizon and a few other big skimo races not to far off I have already started to shift focus to the upcoming run year. I am very excited about the upcoming season so far my schedule is looking like this:
-Chuckanut 50k
-Pocatello 50 or San Diego 100
-San Juan Solstice ( if P50)
-Pacing at Hardrock
-El Vaquero Loco
-UTMB (lottery dependent)
-Wasatch 100 (lottery dependent)
-Bear 100 (if I don't get into UTMB or Wasatch)

Smiling...Even Though the Snow is Aweful

I will likely throw in a few other shorter races as tune-ups and like always the entire schedule is slightly subject to change. I entered into the Hardrock Lottery, but wasn't drawn, and I had given thought to the Grand Slam but wasn't keen on coughing up the cash for the Western States Lottery (sometime I'll write my thoughts in that). I also plan on sending as much time as possible running in the Tetons and am going to take another stab at the Grand sometime late summer.

One last thing, for those of you still reading, I am incredibly excited and humbled to announce a change in sponsorship for this upcoming season. I have been invited to be a member of the Patagonia Ultra-running Team. As a youth I dreamed of being a mountaineer in the pages of a Patagonia catalog, and it is quite literally a dream come try to represent this incredible company (and everything they stand for) for this upcoming run season. I have to say it is so awesome to actually be living my one of my dreams! With that I am off to a New Years Party, hopefully next week I will have time to post a summary of the last year, also I have been approached about having some guest posts on the blog, so there may be some varied content coming your way. Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!

The EPIC Great Salmon Run

2011-10-03T21:17:00.000-07:00

To simply say that the Great Salmon Run was difficult would be the same as saying that a category 5 hurricane feels breezy. I am writing a couple of different reports on this trip and I think the combination of the reports will get closer to painting the entire picture from various angles, here I'm mostly just going to write what comes to mind as I chronologically illustrate what went down.

As I said in my previous blog post I have been looking forward to running down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River for quite some time. When the time finally came to leave my house on Thursday afternoon, I felt a little nervous. This trip had a lot of "unknowns" and all I could do was hope they would all come together without too much difficulty. Ty Draney, Handsome Matt Irving, and I made the drive to Stanley on Thursday, ate at The Bridge in Stanley and headed to the Boundary Creek Put-in. The campground was all torn up so we drove right to the launch area, hopped out of the truck and quickly changed into running clothes to try to catch some of the fleeting light. Handsome Matt had come to try to document the beginning and end of the trip and we wanted to make his efforts worthwhile. The light was pretty flat, so we went back to the truck, threw our sleeping bags on the ground and spent some time covering logistics and making sure we all had an idea of the route. We then went out and got a few more pics before heading to bed.

Me running early..fast! Photo Ty Draney

We woke around 6:00 am and finally got out of our bags about 6:45. It was pretty cold (weather showed it was 25 in Stanley) and Ty and I got antsy to get moving. We planned on taking some more pics but a huge day pushed us out before the light got very good (sorry Matt). The first miles felt pretty good, we were fresh, the trail was dusty but smooth. All in all things went really well all morning. It did seem that it was taking longer to get to the mile notes I had put on the map, but they correlated to river miles and not trail miles, we figured we were covering extra mileage but not sure how much.

We bummed cokes off of some very friendly rafters that were putting in at Indian Creek (river mile 28) and got moving again. We cruised in to the Middle Fork Lodge around 2:00 pm and headed in to thank them for supporting us and Save Our Wild Salmon. It took a bit to find the workers, but they were friendly and supportive. After the Lodge it got really hot, both Ty and I were drinking a 16oz bottle every 20 minutes or so, and we felt like we were still getting behind. This slowed our progress some, and it soon became evident that we were not going to make it to the Flying B in time for dinner. Headlamps came on around mile 53, and we pressed on shooting for Camas Creek (60) to sleep.

Ty cruising some awesome Middle Fork singletrack Photo Luke Nelson

We got to Camas about 10:00 and found a small group of 3 rafters who had just gone to bed. Irwin, one of the rafters, introduced us to his friends, let us sit by the fire and even gave us some hotdogs and muffins. It was awesome. We were able to dry our socks over the fire, eat the best hot dog I had ever had and sleep about 5 hours on the soft sand. I have to mention here that our "bivy" consisted of Patagonia Ultralight down hoodies, and Speedwork tights. I had thrown in a SOS reflective blanket just in case which was nice to lay on adding a little warmth. We got up just after 3:00 am and before 3:30 we were moving again.

The next 8 miles went relatively quickly and we rolled into the Flying B just after 5:00 am. Some of the ranch hands were up getting things ready to take out a hunting group, we hoped we could join them for breakfast. Turns out on most mornings they serve breakfast at 7:00 but today it was 6:00 for the hunting group. We both sprung for the buffet ($20) and waited the 40 minutes for food. While the hunters talked about what we were doing we proceeded to stuff 6-7000 calories of bacon, hash browns, fried eggs, and tang into our hungry bodies. At 7:30 we headed back out on the trail. We had been out 24 hours and only covered half of our distance.

Ty near the end of the Middle Fork Trail Photo Luke Nelson

Because of our massive food consumption it tool a while to be able to run again, but when we could we both felt really good. 10 miles later we left the Middle Fork and began to climb into the Bighorn Crags. Within a half mile the whole trip began to start a downward spiral. We took a turn into Waterfall Creek and after 15 or so minutes it vanished. We searched around, scoured the map for clues, hiked up a ridge, saw what we thought was the trail, and bushwhacked down and across to it. We followed it for a while and it to disappeared, more bushwhacking, staring at the map, followed by bushwhacking, a faint hint of trail, bushwhacking, bloody shins, desperation, and suddenly a trail. We debated which way to take it and after some deliberation we followed it back to the north. It led us to within a half mile or so of where we went wrong. We spent 5 hours off trail to get back nearly where we started. Back on track we tried to make good time to the Crags, so we could meet Handsome Matt for pictures before losing the light.

Terrace Lakes looking back towards the Middle Fork. Photo Luke Nelson

The Crags themselves are one of the most amazing places I have ever been, but it was hard to enjoy them with how worked we felt, and how much we still had to cover. We pushed through the lakes, and found no sign of Matt. It tuns out he left an hour before we got there...oh how different it would have been if we had met him!

Running in the Bighorn Crags. Photo Ty Draney

We kept pressing forward now with darkness settling in for a second time during the trip, our bodies ached, but we knew it would be too cold to hunker down near the lakes at nearly 9000'. We had to keep moving. Just as the sun set we heard an amazing sonnet of an elk bugling quite near to where we were, we joked that he was cheering us on, but now I think he was trying to warn us...

Darkness settles in over Mt. Mcguire (?) Photo Luke Nelson

The trail down Clear Creek from Mirror Lake was rough, very rough. It looked to be a relatively low angle trail following the creek. I even had been told it was a "great trail". Just after negotiating a weird section of trail we saw a sign pointing to Panther Creek. I felt relieved, that was our final destination so we were going in the right direction. The trail continued to deteriorate, but we kept moving. Soon the trail would be ok, then vanish. We would bushwhack around, cross the creek, and then find something resembling a trail again. This went on for hours. After losing the trail for the millionth time around 1:00 am, Ty said he needed to lay down to sleep for a little bit, to try to recharge. We went back up the trail to get out of the cold by the creek, put on our Ultralight Down coats and Tights and laid down. Then we heard thunder.

39 hours of being on the move, we lay down to take a break and it starts to rain, luckily the Forest Service Maps are huge, we both took one, spread it out over us and laid under the map during the downpour. Ty dosed off for about 40 minutes but woke up to me shivering under my map and survival blanket, time to move again. The next couple hours were some of the most desperate times I have ever had in the mountains, the trail was essentially non-existent and seemed to continuously be crossing the creek. At one point we searched for 20 minutes without being able to make forward progress. We had to hunker down until daylight.

The canyon walls were tight, no flat area. Ty found a log and we propped up our feet against it, put all of our clothes on and wrapped the SOS blanket over our shoulders. Waiting out the 2 hours until daylight. We didn't get much rest at this point. About every 20 minutes we would have to change our position either because we were shivering too much or because our bodies hurt too much. This cycle lasted most of those two hours until daylight. To make it worse, we were not sure where we were, we felt very lost and were pretty much exhausted. When it got to the point that we could hardly handle to discomfort any longer, it started to get light (and very very cold). With light on our side we were able to make better route-finding (all bushwhacking at this point) and made ok time down canyon. Every once and a while a small section of trail would appear, but then quickly disappear.

5 hours of travel later, we heard a yell. I immediately asked Ty if he heard it too, as we had both been having some visual hallucinations during the night, he did and we scoured the area for signs of life. After a few minutes we saw him, HANDSOME MATT! He had started up from the truck with food figuring we were out. He had been moving for about an hour, and he affirmed we were in the right area but he hadn't been able to find the trail either. We devoured the bananas and apples he had brought up (even though we still had a few gels left) and continued the tedious process of bushwhacking our way down. It seemed easier though now that we knew we were going the right direction and that we were going to get out without requiring some type of rescue.

At 11:20 am, we had finally reached the end of our journey. We had been out for 51 hours an 50 minutes, ran 130+ miles, and climbed nearly 20,000 feet. It is still way to soon to fully wrap my head around this trip and all that happened out there. It will take weeks, months or maybe even years for me to fully process it. I will be posting a full gear and nutrition report later this week or next, as well as look forward to a post from Ty, on the La Sportiva Mountain Running Blog, and a few other places. We have raised about $1000 so far for Save Our Wild Salmon, it is no too late to donate to them, they are really passionate about what they do and really are making a difference.

A very special thanks needs to go to Patagonia for making the kind of gear that make this trip possible. I am quite certain I would not be writing these words if it wasn't for their quality gear. Also La Sportiva, they make an incredible shoe that can perform under all conditions and keep my feet as intact as possible. I need to thank my wonderful family, particularly my wife, Tanae, this trip was tough on them, and they were doing a lot in the background to make sure we would get home if something went wrong. Finally, thanks Ty, that was a big one and you didn't kill me for coming up with the idea, and you kept me motivated and moving the whole time. THANKS!

The Great Salmon Run

2011-09-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

A few summers ago I was fortunate enough to be able to spend the entire summer working as a whitewater guide on the Middle Fork of the Salmon. It was not my first time on the river, as the Middle Fork had been my first wilderness multi-day river trip just prior to my 18th birthday. When the opportunity to spend an entire summer on the Middle Fork came about I took it without hesitation. One visit to the Middle Fork left me yearning to return to it’s awe-inspiring clutches.

Me rowing Tanae down the Middle Fork in 2006

There are very few places on this planet that can compare to the wildness of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area, through which the Middle Fork of the Salmon River flows. The natural and pristine immaculately preserved, throughout most of the river there is hardly noticeable traces of mankind's heavy hand. Without fail, at the end of our six day trips down the river our guests would express their experience with phrases like “trip of a lifetime” or “time of my life”. I would thank them with a smile, knowing inside that it was my life and I would be able to repeat the voyage in just over a days time. When I finished work for that summer I teared up as I drove home knowing I wouldn’t be back for a season. I knew I would still be able to go back, at some point. Humans are not the only frequent visitors to the Middle Fork as it serves as the return route for salmon. It’s headwaters are spawning grounds that are thousands of years old. Yet, unlike myself there are many things that threaten the ability of Wild Salmon to return to the Middle Fork, including many hydroelectric projects on the Lower Snake River, into which the Middle Fork eventually flows.

Ty "the ace" Draney is as good of company one can find for this kind of trip

For a couple of years now I have tried, unsuccessfully, to win the lottery for a permit to float the Middle Fork of the Salmon. It has been quite depressing every year to be turned down, knowing that my return to paradise is delayed. Wild Salmon are in the same situation, trying to return, but inhibited by obstacles outside of their control. During a run with a friend a little over a year ago an idea was hatched, to “run” the Middle Fork. Not to run it in a fifteen foot raft but to run the trail that follows the river for over seventy miles. After a year a planning and logistics the stars have aligned for Ty Draney and I to “run” the Middle Fork. There have been obstacles along the way but we will not be deterred, in the same way we hope to draw more awareness to the issues facing Wild Salmon so that they to may “run” freely in the Middle Fork and it’s headwaters once again.

Sweet Logo Save Our Salmon Designed for the Run

We have partnered with Save Our Wild Salmon to help raise awareness for what they do. Please visit their website at this link: http://bit.ly/sos_greatsalmonrun2011

We are planning on carrying a spot messenger so you can follow along here: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0G1xIJHOXiHO2q8H0RqWYUrYVdiYfb89J

This is probably the first time I have set out to run where there is a higher cause then my somewhat selfish pursuits. Hopefully it will just be the beginning. Special thanks in advance to Patagonia for really stepping up to make this happen, also thanks to Ultraspire and First Endurance without these companies quality products this type of adventure would not be nearly as comfortable or really even possible.

Wasatch 100 2011- The Perfect Day

2011-09-12T22:26:00.001-07:00

Getting Ready to Run

A good friend of mine has told me several times that someday you will have the perfect 100 mile race, then you will spend the rest of your running career trying to have it again. Well this past Friday, I had the perfect 100 mile race. Before I go into the details of the day I need to thank the very important people who supported me through the race. First my amazing wife Tanae, she puts up with me training everyday, and makes lots of sacrifices for my running...thank you sweetheart! I also need to thank my dad, Steve Nelson, for being my crew chief for all 3 hundred's I have done. He does such an awesome job at getting me taken care of and moving, couldn't do it without you dad! My mom gets a special thanks this year for watching our daughters (Brynlee and Chloe) while I spent the day in the mountains. Finally, a huge thanks goes out to Ty Draney, who happens to be the best pacer on the planet. Ty knows how to keep me racing smart and when the time comes he knows how to get me moving. Thanks Ty!

Ok, now for the race report. I had several goals going into this race, or any hundred for that matter. Number one goal is to finish, two is to have fun. In addition to those goals I wanted to run controlled to Brighton (75 miles) so I would have some race left, and I wanted to break 20 hours. I am pleased to report that I met all of those goals! I will write a short section on gear and nutrition at the end, including a recipe for the EFS slurry that I raced on all day and as far as the report it seems logical to me to break the race into 6 sections, so here we go:

Section 1-Start (0) to Francis Peak (18)

The weather at the start was perfect for running, and as the 5:00 got close I gathered near the front with Karl, Evan, Jared, Timmy and several other familiar faces. From the gun I found myself running with Jared and Karl out front. We stayed together until Karl stopped to adjust his ipod and in the shuffle I found myself in front. We had been running at a very comfortable pace, all listening to music. I kind of zoned out and before I realized it I was alone. I told myself going in to the race that no matter what I would run my race, it was easy to do by myself, no pressure to hang on. I cruised up the climb and was surprised not to have anyone in sight when I crested chinscraper. I just kept cruising and jamming to my music until high on the ridge before Francis Peak. The wind up there got pretty intense, I shut off my music since I couldn't hear it anyway. Once out of the wind I cranked the tunes and about 500 meters before the aid station Timmy Parr caught me and passed moving quick. I rolled into the aid station swapped out fuel bottles, topped the water and pulled out behind Timmy as Evan rolled in.

Section 2- Francis to Big Mountain (38)

The next section was one of my favorite from the race. I felt really good, didn't get lost on the very overgrown trail before Bountiful B, and just after Bountiful B Evan caught me and we ran together for quite a while. A while after Sessions lift off we caught Timmy and the three of ran together into Swallow Rocks. It was starting to get hot here and I was having to ration water just a bit to make sure I didn't run dry for long. The folks at Swallow Rocks were great, they had popsicles!! While they filled my bottle I enjoyed half of a popsicle, and then took the other half for the road. Evan and I ran together for another 5-10 minutes then he pulled away on a climb I chose to walk. It would be the last time I would see him all day. I continued to run my race, cruising along until I rolled into Big Mountain. I was greeted by Bryon Powell of IRunFar followed immediately by my dad. I was glad to see the crew at the aid station, I swapped fuel again, filled up on water, stuffed ice under my hat, got a hug from Brynlee and headed out.

An awesome hug from Brynlee at Big Mountain

Section 3- Big Mountain to Lambs (54)

Last year this is the section that started a very rapid decline for me. I was a bit gun-shy of how it might go and given that the heat was starting to get to me I opted to slow down a little to keep things together. I methodically worked my way along the ridge trying to move smooth with out trashing my quads on the long descent down Alexander Ridge. Karl caught and passed me just before the Alexander Aid Station, and he was flying. I was super excited to see Karl moving so well especially considering his recent back trouble and flu. He was still in the aid station when I got there, but left before I did. I spent a few minutes there drinking as much water as I could trying to drop my core temp a bit. I left the aid station after 11 glasses of water and had to move slow for a few minutes while my body absorbed it. I took a minute at the spring to dunk my hat, shirt and pack, in hopes of staying cool through the "oven". As I came back to the trail I spotted Troy Howard coming quick. I was feeling pretty good and hammered up the trail trying to get a bit more of a cushion before Lamb's. I pulled into Lamb's still feeling really good, I was hot but not in the hole. I took a few minutes in the aid station to eat a peach (amazing!) and my crew dumped ice in pack to try to cool me off a bit. I walked out of the aid station accompanied by super star pacer Ty Draney, and spent a minute or so eating another popsicle.

Ty "the ace" Draney getting ready to pace

Hydrating at Lamb's

Section 4 Lambs to Millcreek (62)

Troy had passed me while I was eating the peach at Lamb's, but Ty and I caught him on the road when he stopped to answer an urgent call of nature. Overall still feeling well we powerhiked/ran the ascent and then I heeded to Ty's advice for the descent to MillCreek: "Run it just like a bullrider one leg on each side and head in the middle" he elaborated that it meant something like run it just fast enough you aren't braking and trashing your quads or overstriding and doing the same. I felt like we were able to move really well and before long we were doing the Millcreek 5k of road to the aid station. I was amazed that I felt ok running much of the road, with only occasional powerhiking.

Ty and I meeting my dad at Millcreek

Section 5 Millcreek to Brighton (76)

Once again my crew were rockstars, and in just a few minutes fuel bottles were swapped, water filled and popsicle in hand I walked out of the aid station super happy to be out on the trails. Ty kept me moving well up the climb to dog lake and through another "bullrider" descent. We caught a glimpse of Karl just before Desolation lake and came into the Deso aid station just behind him. At this point I had a small glass of soup and one of coke. Ty went for the spicy squid jerky, which just the thought of made me a bit queasy. I continued to stick to the plan of running my race and staying in control of the pace. About a mile before Scotts Pass we caught Karl, and continued on moving well along the rolling ridge-top terrain. We made quick work of the aid station and really cruised pretty much the whole descent to Brighton. At this point I was feeling great, so happy to be running well and not anywhere close to the suffering that I was doing in the same place the year before.

Coming into Brighton

A Hug From Brynlee at Brighton to keep a smile on my face!

Section 6- Brighton to the Finish.

I was ecstatic to be at Brighton well before dark, my crew tuned me up in the parking lot outside of the chalet and when things were all set I went in weighed in, had another glass of coke and soup and headed out with Ty just a few steps behind me. Before my first 100 mile race, the Bear 100, Roch Horton told me the race doesn't start until mile 75, as we left Brighton I looked at my dad asked where Evan was. He replied that he head left 34 minutes ago, I said ok and then said well I hope he is ready to race, because I am chasing him. With that I headed up the trail determined to at least shorten his lead. We had to turn headlamps on just a few hundred feet before cresting Catherine's Pass (it was amazing to see that section in the twilight!). Internally I was amazed with how good I still felt, I hoped it would continue. Ty and I just rolled along through Ant Knoll and beyond. I just kept cruising as fast as my legs would go, there were sections that I had to slow a bit because of the rough, torn up trail, but for the most part the miles just kept ticking by. I kept an eye on my watch knowing that the sub 20 goal was within reach, but was going to be tough. At Pot Bottom, mile 93 I had two glasses of coke, and left with 1:19 left to break 20 hours. At that point I decided to run every step of the 1 mile climb out of the aid station and to push the pace as fast as I could down to the finish. Again there was some very technical descending that forced a slightly slower pace, but all in all I moved well. I hit the road at 19:46:26, I knew I could break 20 hours, but I forced myself to move as quick as I could to get to the finish. I crossed the line in 19:52:41, the last mile was a 6:15! My parents were there to see me finish as well as Tanae and many other dear friends. I was so overwhelmed with all the emotion of the day...I felt so great!

Elation at the Finish Line

Overall the 2011 Wasatch 100 was an amazing expereince for me. I met all of the goals I had going into the race, had a wonderful day in the mountains, in good company, and with great support. I need to also thank La Sportiva, Ultraspire and First Endurance for their wonderful support in my training and racing. Without their wonderful equipment/fuel I would not have had the same amazing day in the mountains.

My Dad and I at the Finish

Evan Honeyfield and I at the Finish-yeah Idaho!

Gear:

Shoes: La Sportiva Fireblade

Pack: Ultraspire Spry (first 76 miles) and Surge (final 24)

Socks: Defeet trail 19

Shorts: Patagonia Long Haulers

Shirt: Patagonia Airflow Sleeveless

Headlamp: Black Diamond Icon

Fuel:

EFS Slurry: In a 10oz flask mix 3 oz EFS liquid shot, 1/3 scoop EFS then top with water. For the very first and last flask I also added 1 scoop pre-race (a la holy hand grenade) Over the day I consumed about 11 of the 10oz flasks. Apart from the popsicles, peach, coke and a few cups of soup no other fuel was consumed. I carried 2 10 oz flasks at a time as well as 17 oz of plain water.

Ultragen: I ALWAYS consume ultragen after a race and at Wasatch I had 3 bottles. I also had the chance to share Ultragen with a lot of runners and their pacers througout the day as they finished, which I thought was awesome. I know their recovery will be better for having used it.

The Grand Teton and El Vaquero Loco

2011-09-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

I have been absent from writing here for a bit. A couple of weeks ago I ran up the Grand Teton. I was trying to crack Bryce Thatcher's 28 year old record, I wasn't able to do so, but did come closer than anyone (as far as I have been able to verify) since Creighton King 29 years ago. I wrote about it here and here.

Also I have been working on but haven't finished a report on this year's El Vaquero Loco 50k. I was able to defend my 4 year winning streak and had a wonderful day out in the mountains of Wyoming. A post will show up in a week or so (self-imposed deadline).

Thanks for coming by!

A trip to SLC to visit the hurt locker and Outdoor Retailer

2011-08-11T14:40:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I had the chance to head to Salt Lake to help Ultraspire launch their new killer lineup of hydration products for running. Par for the course I tried to squeeze as very much as possible in a short amount of time, mostly to make sure I got my "money's worth". I came home completely exhausted, but very, very happy. I had a couple of great race results, some solid runs with great friends, and the Ultraspire launch was super successful. So you can get the idea of the whirlwind that was my trip, here is a play-by-play of how it went down.

Wednesday
7:00 pm- Left Cimmaron New Mexico to drive just outside of Colorado Springs and spend the night sleeping in my truck at the rest area. Arrived at 11:30.

Thursday-
5:00 am-wake up, drive 30 minutes to airport, realized as I was walking into airport at 5:45 that flight leaves at 6:00. Mad dash through the airport, special escort through security, was "that guy" as I got on the flight and they shut the door at 6:02.

7:45 am- flight lands at 7:45, spent next 15 minutes trying to hitch a ride to salt palace, end up taking shuttle.

9:00 am- finally get through the lines to get into OR, head to Ultraspire booth. The final products look so solid, can't wait for the general public to get their hands on what Bryce and the crew have put together. Spend next few hours at the Ultraspire booth or wandering around the show.

4:30 pm- meet and greet at Patagonia footwear, had a great time hanging out with Ty, Bronco, Clark and Krissy of the Patagonia UltraRunning team.

7:00 pm- Ty, Bronco, and I head up mill creek for a run, good "easy" pace for 8 miles, stop at sushi then take Bronco back to his sketchy hotel, drive back up to the McDermott house,in bed around 11:30.

Friday
8:00 am leave the McDermott house and head for OR. Spend an hour at Ultraspire then head over to watch Ty on the treadmill during uphill challenge. He ties Nicolas Mermoud at 1.53 miles in 15 minutes at 15% grade.

10:30 am- rest of morning spent wandering and watching heats at Uphill Challenge.

1:15 pm- change and start warming up for my turn at the uphill challenge, it's hot outside. Stoked about the new pair of LaSportiva Vertical K's that I am wearing.

2:00 pm- start of Uphill Challenge against Zach Miller. We both go out hard, I hang on for the win, set the bar at 1.74. It was really tough, spent 35 minutes cooling down.

4:00 pm- watch final heat of Uphill Challenge, I was still leading when it started, but both Matt Byrne and Ricky Gates surpass me with 1.79 and 1.78 respectively. 4th finished at 1.64.

6:00 pm- meet at Ultraspire booth to go to dinner with the whole Ultraspire crew. Ty gives Gary Robbins a piggyback partway. We have a great dinner at Thai Lotus, eat a ton of food and have a ton of laughs.

11:15 pm- back at McDermott's for some sleep.

Saturday
6:00 am- wake up and head to Park City for Jupiter Peak Steeplechase, last of the La Sportiva Mountain Cup series. Legs feeling a sluggish from the previous day effort.

8:00 am- race start, lead group goes out hot, try to run within myself for the ascent. Get chased by moose just before the final climb, lose a minute or two. Hit the top in 4th, run hard all the way down, pass one runner as he misses a corner, run scared to finish in 3rd. Body. Is. Wrecked.

11:30 am-races awards, then back to SLC for shower and lunch.

1:00 pm- back at show, hanging out at Ultraspire booth.

6:00 pm- Big group of runners head up Millcreek for the annual Boxing Bear Running Club night run. Did desolation lake loop, 13ish miles. Finish in time to go to Molcasalsa for amazing burritos.

12:00 midnight- head back to McDermott's to sleep.

Sunday
7:00 am- up and headed downtown so Ty can get on the road back home.

9:00 am- meet Krissy and head to OR. Spend morning wandering around with Rock, Catherine, and Krissy.

3:00 pm- Ultraspire booth teardown, all hands on deck took the booth down in just under an hour. Krissy and I head above to the Marriott lobby to wait for shuttle to airport.

6:00 pm- dinner at the airport, Krissy and I head to our flights just before 8. I sleep the entire flight.

9:00 pm- in truck in Colorado springs, three and a half hour drive back to New Mexico. Had to stop 45 minutes before home to take a 20 minute power nap, because was getting sleepy behind the wheel.

1:30 am- head hits the pillow, hard time sleeping because body hurts.

Turns out it was an awesome weekend. I had some very solid races, training has been paying off. For the first time I felt like I could hang with the top level runners, and not just hang on, but actually race them. I have a hard time believing that some the things I have been able to do are real, not just a fairytale. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunities to get me where I am, particularly the support from Tanae and the girls. Focus is now turning in the El Vaquero Loco 50k this weekend, a top secret project in two weeks, and the Wasatch 100 in 4. Beyond that there are some other big runs and projects Ty Draney and I are working on, more updates to come....

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One Blurry Week

2011-07-20T13:56:00.001-07:00

The San Juans in the Rearview a few weeks before Hardrock

In typical fashion I am a bit slow in updating, but just over a week ago I finished up a whirlwind trip to St George, UT and Silverton, CO. I went to St. George to work with UltraSpire on a new video commercial they are working on for Outdoor Retailer. I met fellow Elite Immortal ( that's what Ultraspire calls their athletes), Krissy Moehl in the airport and from the moment we got off of the plane item was just a whirlwind of filming, product testing/feedback, voice over interviews and all around good times. We were able to see some amazing areas of St. George, the even had me considering moving to that area. In what seemed a blink of an eye we were headed back to the airport to fly to Grand Junction and then drive in to Silverton, where both of us would be serving as pacers at the Hardrock 100.

Aid station shot of Matt's gear

Just being in Silverton for Hardrock was awe inspiring. It was the first time I have helped crew or pace, and I had the privilege to be part of the team for Matt Hart. The night before the race we had a great dinner and spent sometime going over splits and plans for the next day. In typical fashion we went to bed early, just to lay in bed waiting for the morning to come. The whole house was up early, Matt and Dakota eating breakfast and the rest of us lazily getting ready. The start was super exciting, but weird being on the outside of the line.

Darcy Africa looking strong coming into Ouray

After runners went out we headed to get caffeinated, eat and then drive around to the first aid station. Pretty much the rest of the day was a blur of driving rough roads, seeing Matt and the other runners for a few brief moments and then repeating. In the early evening a got ready to run with Matt from Ouray to KT, around 35 miles.

Jared Campbell looking out from the pain cave, about to leave Ouray

Dakota showing the weight of 50 more miles

Matt eating a small feast of "real" food at Ouray

Great picture of Ellen Parker as she described Matt's status coming into Ouray

Matt was in good spirits when he got to the aid station but was feeling the effects of the first 50+ miles of Hardrock. We made constant forward progress all night, at times it wasn't much more than hiking pace. Just before the dawn Matt got really cold because of his inability to consume calories, he was wearing both of our jackets, gloves and a hat, yet was still having a hard time staying warm. Just after dawn I sat him down and made him eat before descending into Chapman aid station. At the aid station he rested for about an hour and then rallied pretty much the rest of the way to KT where I passed him back to Ellen. I hitched a ride back to the start finish to wait for Matt. He came in just under 35 hours thoroughly worked but happy to be done.

Matt actually running into the finish to get under 35 hours

FINISHED!

All the UltraSpire athletes that either ran, paced or ran an aid station at Hardrock, there was lots of solid product testing going on, you should start getting anxious to get your hands on one of these packs!

The next day Tanae and I ran back up to Ice Lake to get one more taste of the San Juans before having to head back to work in New Mexico. Overall it was an incredible trip, with list of running, friends and good time. In a side note overall training has been going well with 147 miles of running in the 8 days following Hardrock. Things should start coming together for a very solid Wasatch 100.
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La Sportiva X-Country Review

2011-07-05T10:32:00.001-07:00

I'll admit that I am a long time fan of La Sportiva running shoes. In many ways it seems as though their shoes are built specifically for my narrow, low volume feet. For several years now my go to shoe has been the Crosslite. This spring Sportiva introduced a new lighter weight cousin to the Crosslite- the X-Country.

At first I was a bit skeptical about this new shoe being too minimal for a true mountain running shoe. It is several ounces lighter than the Crosslite, yet the fit is surprisingly familiar. It is immediately noticeable that it is much lighter than the Crosslite and after the first run my lower legs tell me it also has less foot drop.

As I have run in the X-country for the last month I have found myself reaching for them more than any other shoe in my closet. I am always surprised with how well the shoe protects from rocks. Even on wildly fast and rough descents the minimal midsole seems just enough to protect my now callused feet from jagged intrusions of trail. The aggressive tread pattern works very well in all conditions, even scrambling on hard granite slabs, part of one of my current trade routes, the shoes grip very well and have yet to let me down.

Over the last few years I have ran many pairs of Crosslites into oblivion, normally good for around 300 miles. I now have 350 on my first pair of X-Countries, and they look to have at least another 100 on them before they need to be retired.

To be totally honest I haven't really found anything that hasn't been up to par on this new shoe, the only negative, which turns out to be personal opinion only is the color selection of the shoe. Sportiva is well known very rocking yellow, so it isn't a surprise and after a few dusty or muddy trail runs the bright yellow is muted to a very tolerable shade.

Here is the link on La Sportiva's website to the X-Country: http://www.sportiva.com/products/footwear/mountain-running/x-country

If you have any questions about the X-Country, or any other La Sportiva shoe for that matter, leave a comment below and I'll try to comment back as soon as possible.

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Desert Solitude

2011-06-29T11:02:00.001-07:00

The view of a ridge I run almost daily...it's awesome!

Once again I find myself way behind in updating my blog. I could go on and on about all of the reasons why I haven't, but I'll skip that for now. The day after the Pocatello 50 my family and I loaded into our truck and made the ling drive to Cimarron, New Mexico. We took the longer, more scenic route though Silverton, Colorado. It is always a ton of fun to camp with the family, and I really love the freedom of a nomadic lifestyle. After two days of travel we arrived in Cimarron and settled in.

It has been awesome here at Philmont so far. It has been very warm (hot) and dry, which has resulted in some fantastic training. I am learning to love the Northern New Mexico landscape, the cactus, desert peaks, and the heat. The move here brought a great change of pace for me and my family. I eat at least two meals a day with my family, have more time to train and actually get to be a part of my little girls day while they are awake.

A few weeks ago I had planned on pacing my good friend Ty Draney at the Bighorn 100 , but do to some unfortunate events with his house and excessive groundwater we couldn't get away for the race. Since I was en-route to the race when I found out I diverted to Colorado Springs and ran Pikes Peak instead. I had a great run, enjoyed spectating some if the chaos on the incline early in the morning, and truly savored the solitude of running on the upper mountain essentially alone.

This is a picture I found in the Internet taken from the bottom of "the incline"

Another web pic showing the route up Pike's via the Barr Trail

Next week I am heading to St George for a few days to work on a project at UltraSpire HQ, then off to Silverton to pace Matt Hart at the Hardrock 100. Really looking forward to the fun that will be had at those two events and getting to hang out with some superstars of UltraRunning. Now I'm off to run, you should do the same!

Finally the title to this blog is homage to Edward Abbey's masterpiece The Monkey Wrench Gang, which I just finished reading. The book has really got me thinking about environmental responsibility and what more I should be doing to protect the wild places that I love. I don't plan on doing any true monkey wrenching any time soon, but have made some personal goals and taken steps to be a stronger and better advocate for the wild places that are so close to my heart.

The original artwork...buy here- http://www.abbeyweb.net/books/ea/monkey_wrench.html

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2011 Pocatello 50

2011-06-03T13:47:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite times of the year is spring. Springtime in Idaho has to potential to dish out any type of weather, at any given time, for just about any duration. It is uncertain and ever changing, just like life. Springtime is also Pocatello 50 time. Par for the course, uncertainty was in the air as this years race approached. The course conditions looked to be difficult, especially considering the more than 300% above average snowpack in the Portnuef range. The weather was particularly fickle, even for Idaho, but if you didn't like it you could wait five minutes because it would be different. The weather forecast seemed to change about every six hours the entire week leading up to the race. Finally there is always the uncertainty of one's performance in the race. This one seemed to occupy my thoughts a little more than usual, mostly because of fewer training miles this year than the last couple, but far more time training (mostly skimo). I was uncertain and concerned about how the skimo training would transfer over to a tough springtime ultra.

Start finish area for the Pocatello 50

At the preface meeting I had the pleasure of seeing lots of Pocatello locals who had been working hard together ready for the this years race and was excited to see several very strong ultra runners who had come from all over to sample the trails of my backyard. Having so many strong runners on sight also increased my nerves a bit, the race was going to be fast and furious!

Race morning came early, but with what appeared to be favorable weather, though I was leery because of the frequent changes. I choose to run with an UltraSpire race vest so I could carry a jacket through the early legs of the race. Right on the hour Ryan McDermott, one of the fantastic race directors, sent us off. The first mile on the pavement was very controlled but still separated off a small lead pack as we headed onto the single track. Ryan Burch and Dakota Jones lead the charge, with myself, Mike Foote, and Zach Miller a little ways back. The chase pack shuffled around a bit, absorbed Ryan, but Dakota stayed out front. Mike and I commented that we both wanted to run very controlled early and we ended up running together into the city creek aid station.

Mike and I coming into the City Creek Aid Station

I snuck out of the aid station just ahead of Mike and about two minutes after the start of the 50k. I worked my way through a bunch of the 50k runners in the lower city creek trail and Mike caught me just before the upper city creek section. Zach had blown off the front on the descent before city creek, as well as Ryan. Mike and I caught Ryan just before the bottom of the Barkley Section, I busted out my new Black Diamond Ultra Z Poles and pulled away on the ascent. I stopped at the aid station at the top for broth and Mike blasted past, Ryan passed me during the first 1/2 of the descent. At the bottom of Midnight I stopped briefly to empty my left shoe of a very annoying rock and to take a sip from the Monument creek. I had a slight low because I hadn't eaten EFS Liquid Shot with the broth, I hit a little extra and got on my way. Just before the West Fork aid station (mile 32), my good friend Fast Evan Honeyfield caught me and we ran together for a while before and after the aid station, that is until he dropped me.

Evan about to drop me on the climb up Valve House

On a side note Evan dropped me on the same hill that he did the first time we met and raced each other at one of the fall Pocatello Trail runs. On the long climb up to the east fork of scout mountain trail I seemed to have lost a couple of gears and ended up just grinding up the climb. I got a good boost of energy just before the out and back as I caught up to my amazing wife, who was running her longest trail race (or longest run). With the adrenaline boost I picked up the pace towards the aid station.

Stuck in one gear just outside of the Scout Mountain Aid Station

I took a few minutes at the aid station to fill up the water in my pack and eat a little real food. The legendary Roch Horton made quick work of my stop, with help from my brother in law Casey, and in a snap I was back on my way. I climbed back up to the junction feeling a bit stronger. It was great to see so many other runners on this section, the format had all three of the distances in this section and it was great to encourage and get encouraged by all of the familiar faces. Just after the out and back Glen Merril, an amazing runner, dad, and all around good guy, caught me and we agreed to push each other, he pushing on the descents, and I on the ascents. This arrangement really lit my fire as Glen was really rolling on the descent. We passed a bunch of other runners on the way down and made great time back to the West Fork Aid.

Glen and I pulling out of West Fork heading into the last 7 miles.

I dropped the pack at the aid station and grabbed one of my favorite handhelds ever, made by UltraSpire. Glen rolled out just behind me and we climbed up west fork together for a bit, until eventually I pulled away. I had hoped Glen would be able to stay on, but I was feeling really good and put the hammer down. The whole race I was focused on staying controlled until the last 15 miles. With Glen's help we hammered down the 7 from the aid station, and now it was my turn to push. I focused on reeling in runners ahead of me and pushed on through some tough sections. When I finally topped out on Corral Creek, I noticed that if I really pushed I could maybe go under 9:15 which would be a 40 minute PR. I started rolling the downhill, I passed Pocatello legen Rick Goode, got some great stoke, and kept pushing. I hit the road and with 1.5 miles left and a quick glance at the watch new if I really pushed I might go under 9:10. I leaned down the hill and as best I could dug in. I ended up crossing the finish in 9:09:45' more than a 45 minute PR and in 6th place.

Overall I am very stoked with how my race went. I finished 7 minutes faster than Dave James' course record, which was right where I had hoped to be. The course conditions were tough and I would have never guessed that Dakota would have been able to put up such a solid time, nor would I have thought that there would be 6 runners under the old CR. I was surprised how I felt throughout the whole race, which was really good for the most part.

After the race I had the opportunity to give out full bottles of First Endurance Ultragen to runners as they finished the line, it's very nice to be able to share with fellow runners something that works so very well for me.

Just a few of the happy runners recovering with the help of Ultragen

I have to mention the run of a good friend, Travis Taylor, who finished the full 50+ mile race after two previous attempts. Although he had some foot issues he rolled in with a smile on his face!!

Gear for the race:
shoes: La Sportiva Crosslite
Shirts: Green Layer Long sleeve and short sleeve La Sportiva race jersey
Shorts: Patagonia long haul runners
Pack: Ultraspire surge, Ultraspire handheld
Food: EFS wild berry liquid shot, EFS mild grape drink, Ultragen fruit punch recovery drink at the finish.
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Public Service Announcement: Moose Are Dangerous

2011-05-15T16:51:00.001-07:00

Over the last several years I have run literally thousands of miles on the trails surrounding Pocatello, Idaho where I live. While running the majority of those miles I was alone or with my trusty training partner, a black lab named Pedro. I have seen a lot of incredible things, including some wildlife. I often am asked if I am afraid of mountain lions or bears, to which I firmly respond no. I generally do explain that I am a bit fearful of the dark (you might laugh but go run a trail at night in the dark and see if you don't "quick step" occasionally from the rustling in the trees) and that I am afraid of moose.

I am not sure where the fear of moose comes from, but I have always been a bit leery of them when I spot them on or near the trail. Well as of Friday afternoon I now know why I was always timid around them...because the are big, unpredictable, and in the case of the one I met down right mean. So here's the story:

Not my new friend, but you get the idea...photo by Natures Pics

I wrapped up work just after noon on Friday and took the opportunity of some extra time to get in a nice long run. Since the Pocatello 50 is coming up soon I convinced Tanae to drive me to West Fork (race start) and my plan was to run into town via the first 16 or so miles of the course. The weather was great and before long I was ticking off the miles. As ran past the Beaver Ponds on Dry Creek I commented to myself that it was strange that I hadn't seen any moose yet as they tend to be regulars to the ponds. I didn't expect to see anyone on the trails and was surprised to see another runner about 1 and a half miles up from the Gibson Jack Trailhead. The runner was headed the opposite direction, meaning he had just come from the trailhead, so I let my guard down a bit and really started to roll, particularly after I started the last 1/4 mile descent to the TH. I rounded a blind corner and bam! Not 6 feet ahead of me was a moose on the uphill side of the trail, but with her head and neck blocking the trail. It immediately was obvious that I wasn't the only one startled by the situation.

Now take a second to reflect before I continue on. I run a lot, and to most I am pretty much the opposite of intimidating. I am skinny, really skinny and wouldn't be the kind of guy you would pick to be on your side for a fight. So here I am 6 feet away from a 1200 pound animal that is probably 6 or so feet tall, that must have seen me as a threat. I quickly glanced back to see if I had an escape, which I did, but it was ugly...at this point the trail does a couple of quick switchbacks before crossing the swollen Gibson Jack Creek and then a climb up the far bank to the parking lot. Directly behind me was a steep thicketed hillside with few large trees (none climbable) with a deep creek at the bottom. In the half second or so it took me to look behind me and then back to the moose she decided I needed to die, and when my eyes turned enough to see her she made a weird huff, pinned her ears back and was charging. Without delay I turned and leapt off of the trail into the thicket. My pace would have rivaled anything Usain Bolt has ever done mixed with a bit of duck and weave. I tucked in behind a Doug Fir and it was a good move. As my shoulders got behind it, she came through close enough to brush me as she blew past. I didn't let her gain the advantage and shot off behind her and continued my trajectory towards the creek, crossing the trail on my way.

The section of trail just before my "run-in"

I hit the water with a leap from the shore, it was nearly chest deep, but the copious amounts of adrenaline in my bloodstream didn't allow the water to slow me down. As I hit the far side, the angry moose hit the water, it slowed her more than it had me and I was up the embankment and on the trail before she had cleared the creek. I sprinted to the TH where I leapt into the back of a pickup truck that was pulling into the lot (much to the surprise of the driver) as the moose came into the lot. She ran straight through the TH area and up the trail I should have come down. The whole experience lasted a minute or two but felt like an eternity. The truck driver got out and I explained what had gone on leading up to where he joined the story. The moose had climbed up onto the hillside above the trail with the reason she was so aggressive- a calf! I was pretty shaken up, but convinced the guy in the truck I didn't need a ride home and with one eye on the moose ran up the trail away from her. Not ten minutes later I saw another moose, this time from a distance, and I altered my route to get to high rocky ridge lines sooner than I had planned. My nerves couldn't take another race against a moose.

I share this experience with any and all who will read it so that next time you are out you might be a bit more wise about the locals (wildlife) and what to do if you encounter (surprise) a grumpy mother moose. Here is a link that covers moose safety: http://www.outdoors.org/publications/outdoors/2010/learnhow/responding-to-moose-encounters.cfm

I know I did several things that I shouldn't have (#1 surprise mother moose with her calf) but it is something that could happen to any person recreating in moose habitat. The bottom line is that I am glad i am here to talk about it and that moose really are amazing creatures...but I like them more from a distance than up close!

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Vitamin D Camp Days 3 and 4- All In

2011-05-14T09:55:00.001-07:00

After two days of exploring the classics of Zion the time came to really get down to business. Prior to the trip the Matt Hart had suggested that maybe we go for the whole traverse, I was very uncertain as to whether or not I could even run that far, especially with the miles that were planned prior. I hadn't run more than 21 miles since Wasatch last year. It would be a stretch. When we finished on Friday night I felt much better than expected and rolled the dice, I committed to be all in for the whole enchilada.

Day 3: We were extremely lucky to have the support of Jim from Ultraspire who had volunteered to crew us water at the 35 mile mark and to meet us at the finish to drive us back to entrance of the park. Since we didn't have to shuttle cars/water we got the rest we needed Friday night. We left the hotel at 5 sharp and 30 minutes later we were at the East entrance trailhead. After a few minutes shuffling gear and other necessities we hit the trail at 5:45. It was just light enough to see, everyone was pretty lighthearted to be getting started on what would turn into a fantastic day on the trail.

Justin and Bill running towards the sunrise just after the start of the traverse

The miles rolled by somewhat uneventfully, with the exception of the scenery which was simply amazing. It was nice to hit familiar territory when we rolled into the junctions with the trails that we had traveled in the day before to get to Cable Mountain, everyone really rolled the descent towards the Weeping Wall TH. In order to complete the traverse we had to run the two miles of road between Weeping Wall and the Grotto, which would have been the low point of the run except for the amazing scenery of Zion Canyon. We refilled water at the Grotto and set to work climbing Angels Landing and onwards to West Rim.

Bruce, Bryan, and Matt ascending towards the West Rim

Up to this point I had been blown away by the scenery of the Zion, but the climb up to and being in the West Rim are so much better than anything else we had seen, simply put I fell in love with Zion on the West Rim. It started to get hot as we topped out so a few of us headed to the west rim springs to refill bottles, we were lucky to run into a couple of backpackers that filtered water for us so we didn't have to risk it or use iodine tabs. We continued to tick off the miles along the West Rim, although Justin and I stopped several times just to take in the stunning panorama just off the trail. The group spread out a bit as the day went on, but we re-grouped at any critical intersection or amazing viewpoint. We passed a group of backpackers just after Potato Hollow, but quickly put them behind us as they were burdened with very large and heavy packs. I can't help but think that they had to have been envious as we cruised by.

Just a taste of the amazing scenery from the West Rim

After several hours of running we met Jim, who had prepared the most amazing ice water that perhaps I had every tasted. We spent a few extra minutes with him shooting some photos, after all he is a photographer and he had volunteered to come out, it was the least we could do. (hopefully the photos turned out awesome). After half an hour or so we hit the trail again and descended into Hop Valley. The running changed a bit here, it got very sandy. At times very deep loose sand.

Self shot (sort-of) just before the Hop Valley

Once in the Hop Valley we ran along the and in the river as the trail seemed to follow it's course. About the time I was completely over running on the beach we started the brief ascent and descent to the Verkin River. We ran into another group of backpackers that that gave Justin and I quite the show as they stripped boots etc to cross the knee deep 20 foot wide river that we just ran across. The rest of our group rolled in about half way through the circus and stopped only briefly enough to have a near miss with a flying boot.

On the far side of the Verkin I started to smell the barn, I wanted to push the pace a bit. We rolled until we started to climb towards Lee's pass then progress slowed. There were several river crossings, more sand, and just enough mileage for me to completely bonk about a mile before the trailhead. I hit to gels back to back and almost instantly came around. It was just what I needed to feel strong going into the finish. We finished the 50 mile traverse with just over 10 hours of run time, and a total of just under 12 hours out on the trail. It was great to have finished that traverse and to have burned the amazing vistas that Zion has to offer deep into my memory. After a quick stop at the hotel we hit the local Mexican restaurant and began working on recovery.

Justin making quick work of the climb into Hidden Canyon

Day 4: I have to admit that I woke up pretty sore from the previous days effort, but I knew it would be helpful to shake the legs out before hopping in a car and driving home. After quite a bit of debate we ended up heading towards Hidden Canyon, which meant once again climbing out of the Weeping Wall Trailhead. We got our latest start of the trip leaving the hotel just after 8. After the shuttle to the trailhead, I found that hammering the climb felt pretty good, so away I went. Justin pulled in right on my tail with the rest of the group tailing back just a bit. We quickly got to the end of the maintained trail, from where the adventure really began.

Bill, Matt, and Bryan on one of the primo trails of Hidden Canyon

We pushed our way up the canyon another mile or so until we got shut down by time constraints. It was really fun coming back down with a bit of scrambling mixed with running. Before we knew it we were back at the trailhead waiting for the shuttle.

Matt happy to be running in Hidden Canyon

I hadn't quite got my fix so when the bus passed the Temple of Sinawava Trailhead I told the crew I would meet them in a bit (I had packed before we left so I figured I had 30 minutes to spare) and hopped off the bus. I was really interested in seeing the start of the Zion Narrows since I remember my dad talking about them and some of the trips he had done there. I wove through the tourists as I ran the mile path to the start if the narrows which were closed due to high water. I went as far as I could, took a moment to take in the view and the motored on down the path. Just after the bus pulled out it started to run funky, we ended up stopping at a pull out and waiting for the next bus to take us to the entrance. I was then behind schedule, I sprinted through the park entrance to catch a bus that was just pulling out, which took me back to the hotel. I got there 5 minutes before we had to check out, I rinsed off in the shower and with a minute to spare was ready to hit the road.

Overall Vitamin D camp was a HUGE success. We all spent lots of time in the sun (and have the burns/tans to prove it) and got in lots of quality miles. I am certain I will be headed back to Zion before to long, it is too beautiful no to. Huge thanks to Matt Hart for organizing the trip and to Jim from Ultraspire for the amazing support on the traverse.

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Vitamin D Camp Days 1 and 2- Getting Started

2011-05-13T11:00:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I had one of the best and funniest 4 days of running that I have ever put into that short of time. It all started a few months ago when there was talk of some runners from the northwest needing some vitamin D and out of concern for their well being Matt Hart started working on the logistics. As the time got closer the 4 days were titled Vitamin D camp and through a series of incredible circumstances, including the hospital that I work in moving to a new building, my schedule opened up enough to be able to attend.

Vitamin D Camp Day 1: I left Pocatello on Thursday morning and got to Salt Lake about an hour before the rest of the crew's flight landed. I headed over to the trailhead to start soaking in a bit of sun. The famous Bryan Powell of irunfar.com showed a few minutes before Matt Hart, Justin Angle, Bryan Estes, Bill Huggins, and Bruce Grant rolled up in Matt's van. Just moments later we were heading up the trail towards mt. Wire. The altitude took it's toll on the guys from the northwest, but everybody climbed strong. We took a super fun technical descent back down to the shoreline trail which looped back to the cars. First run down- 8 miles with 3000' of climbing, it was then off to Whole Foods for some lunch and groceries and then the drive to Zion National Park.

The crew on the top of Angel's Landing

Day 2: We caught the shuttle from our hotel just after 7:00 and headed into the park. First stop was the Grotto and the subsequent ascent of Angel's Landing. We tried to get there early so we could avoid crowds on the technical portion. Our plan worked, we pretty much had the trail to ourselves. We topped out in about 37 minutes, enjoyed the views for a few minutes and then made our way down. We then headed to the Weeping Wall trailhead.

Matt Hart and Justin Angle headed up towards Cable Mountain

From there we first made our way up to Cable Mountain. It was awesome to see Angel's Landing from above. On the way back Justin nearly stomped on a large rattlesnake that was sunning itself on the trail, which in turn upped the pace for the next mile or so as we all had a good surge of adrenaline. It was starting to get hot so we did stop a couple of times to dunk hats and splash cool water on ourselves to try to keep from overheating. As we neared the trailhead we turned out of the canyon and ascended one more time to Observation Point. The group spread out a bit on the climb as we were all starting to feel the miles weighing in. There were a lot more people on the trail at this point and quite a few enjoying the vista. Of all the views of the day I think the one from Observation was the best.

Justin pointing to Observation Point from the structure on Cable Mountain

After all had topped out we put rubber to the road and descended down to the trailhead. We caught the shuttle a few minutes later and headed to the hotel. After nearly 25 miles of running and 6000' ascent I think it is safe to say we all were a bit tired. After cleaning up we headed of to one of the local pizza places and consumed enough calories to make up for the ones we had burned during the day.

Day 3: Here's a teaser for day 3: we did a big traverse

More to come tomorrow!

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- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Menan Butte Challenge, Finally Back At It

2011-04-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

Me running near Macchu Picchu near the end of a Humanitarian trip to Peru- Photo Zach Allen

Well it is about time I write something here, the electronic cobwebs were getting pretty thick, not to mention the digital dust bunnies! Yesterday marked my first trail race of the year, the Run Around The Rim which used to be called the Menan Butte Challenge. It has been a couple of months since I wrote anything here, but I have been posting some over on The White Room. Honestly the ski mountaineering race season took a pretty heavy toll on me this year and it has taken a while to come back. Actually I am not sure if I have fully recovered even now.

I have been spending a fair bit of time running trying to switch from skimo fitness to trail racing fitness, which has proved to be fairly difficult. All of the high intensity training on skis left my tendons pretty soft since there wasn't any "pounding". As I have spent more time on the trails it shows that although my cardio motor is ready to rock, the legs are not quite ready. I have had to deal with several minor issues that border-lined on injury.

Picture form the start of last year's race the first climb is a doozy! Photo Tanae Nelson

I was very tentative going into the Menan Race this year. The course favors my strengths as a trail runner and I have always had pretty good results. I showed up for the race a little early and was delighted to see many familiar faces. I even had the chance to warm-up with Chris Lundberg from Jackson, who is always a strong competitor. He mentioned that he was also a bit nervous about how the race would go as he had just gotten back from running Boston a few days prior! In the last minute briefing before the start the race director added a bit more pressure by introducing me and talking about some of the running I had been doing over the last couple of years.

Chris was rocking a beard again this year, but last year's was more intimidating- Photo Tanae Nelson

I was surprised to have a very lean college aged runner holding on during the entire first ascent. Normally I can get away from the crowd on the way up the Butte, but this guy was stride for stride until nearly the top. Just after the crest I couldn't hear him anymore and so I put the hammer down trying to gain some ground. It worked since I ran pretty much the rest of the race all alone. On a small out and back I saw Chris and Eric (the lean guy) duking it out on the descent to the turn around, but at that point I had a pretty solid lead. I still pushed hard trying to reel in any runners ahead of me on the shorter course, I did pass a couple on the last descent to the finish line. I crossed the finish line in 42:09 for what was thought to be a 12k, although it felt a bit shorter.

I am very content with how things went in the race, it felt really good to push my body to a hard effort. I hung around for the awards and things then as runners packed up and headed out, I grabbed my Ultraspire Surge and headed back up the Butte to get the long run miles in for the week. Since I had raced hard for 6 of the miles I felt pretty content with an additional 14 on the butte, especially since I totaled out just shy of 6000' of ascent for the day (1500' in the race and 4482 after). Final Results Here

Gear for the race:

La Sportiva Crosslite 2.0

Green Layer La Sportiva Race long sleeve

Patagonia Long Haulers

First Endurance EFS (with half a scoop of First Endurance Prerace).

After the race I dropped to a green layer t-shirt and grabbed the UltraSpire Surge, I fueled with 1 EFS liquid shot and plain water.

Hopefully this race was enough of a confidence booster that I can break out of the slump that I have been in for the last month or so, that coupled with some big plans for this summer should give me the motivation to train hard and keep this blog updated with some quality content. If there is anything trail or skimo related that you would like to hear about leave a comment below. I am thinking of doing some gear/nutrition reviews as well as some training info in the near future.

Bonus pic- Running along Lake Barcis in Italy as a way to "shake out" between the World Cup Races-Self Portrait

Leaving For World Ski Mountaineering Championships

2011-02-13T20:16:00.000-08:00

Well, the time has come. On Tuesday morning I will head to the airport to get on a flight that will take me halfway across the world to the Ski Mountaineering World Championships. I am already starting to get pre-race anxiety and I don't actually have my first race until Saturday 6 days from now. During my trip over there I will be trying to post daily on La Sportiva's new Ski Mountaineering Blog: The White Room. Head on over there if you want to get caught up, I also put a post up there today about preparation and packing. I may also be posting a bit here on some more personal feelings about the races and the event. Also another source for info is the World Champs Website.

I want to tell all of you who have helped me to get to this point whether financially or from your support alone, that I am deeply grateful for you!! I would never have been able to do this on my own, and most of all I need to thank my beautiful wife Tanae for her commitment and support through all of this, Tanae you are amazing, there isn't anyone I would rather share my life with than you!

So here we go!!!

Links:

World Championships Website: http://www.claut2011.org/en/

La Sportiva Blog: http://www.lasportivawhiteroom.com/

Bridger Bowl Skin to Win

2011-02-13T11:46:00.001-08:00

A couple of weeks after the US champs and Targhee I made the drive north to Montana to race at Bridger Bowl. I had been to Utah the week before and gotten in some pretty good skiing with the SLC Samurai and Andy Sherpa, as well as zone rowdy luging with Karl Meltzer and a crew of some of the best ultrarunners in the US. I think I may have had too much fun and not enough sleep over that weekend. The previous mentioned coupled with lots is handshaking at the OR Retailer trade show was the perfect recipe for a cold. The whole first part of the week I was struggling with a head/chest cold. At one point I felt I should bag the weekend and not make the drive to race, but of course the Thursday night I started to feel better and decided to at least show up. Friday I hopped in the car, put Aron Ralston's Between A Rock and A Hard Place audiobook in the radio and put rubber to the road.

The book made the 4 and half hour drive go by pretty quick and soon enough I found myself in Bozeman with some time to kill before the pre race briefing. I headed out for a short run to loosen the legs up after the drive.

It was great to catch up to some friends I hadn't seen in a while at the race as well a to hang out with some friends I rarely see outside of skimo racing. After the briefing I went to dinner with Brian and Amy then we headed to the hotel Brian and I decided to share instead of sleeping in our cars.

I woke up race morning feeling ok, but not great. During my warmup I felt pretty crappy, which cranked up my nerves. This lead to me attacking very hard at the beginning of the race ( I was unable to hold myself back, which regularly leads to my demise). I held a very hard pace up a little more than half of the first climb, until I had been caught and passed by a couple of racers. Then the head games began. The first part of the first descent traversed the ridgeline and I lost ground on the up/down terrain. Then we dropped into hidden chute which was some great steep skiing. I left the transition in 4th just off of the leaders, but as it turns out I would stay in that spot for the rest of the race.

For all the effort I put in I could not reel anyone in and stayed in no mans land all alone ad I struggled through the ascents and descents of the race. Near the end of the race we traversed the ridge for a long time. I was totally blown up and floundered along the challenge terrain. I was grateful to hit the final descent and decided to let 'er rip all the way down. Very near the bottom I was skiing a bit too fast for my legs and ended up going down in a ball of fire as a ragdolled for a hundred yards or so. I collected myself to finish off the race still in 4th. I finished about 7 minutes behind Brandon who had won, Cary Smith was 2nd, Chris Kroger 3rd.

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed with Joe this race turned out, but I think it was related to having been sick and maybe a touch overtrained. A group of us skied together at Bridger the rest if the afternoon, it was a ton of fun to ski with folks that I frequently only race against and realize how talented of athletes they all are. Not only do they race fast but they ski strong even when just having fun. Even though I was bummed about the race it turned out to be a great weekend with good friends
in the mountains.

Video from the race

http://bridgerbowl.com/mediagallery/dailyvideo/2011/01/29/

Grand Targhee Ski Mountaineering Classic

2011-02-13T10:56:00.001-08:00

The day after the US champs nearly all of the same competitors lined up for the 2nd world qualifying race of the year. I had made the decision early to push hard but to listen to my body as I was convinced that yesterdays race had taken it's toll.

While warming up i felt like my legs were a bit heavy, but responded well to a quick pace. When the gun went off I allowed some of the racers to go out ahead of me. I chose to hold back at a pace I could maintain throughout the race. By the top of the first climb I was in 5th or 6th and feeling pretty good. The pack had broken apart on the climb and descent. The transition at the bottom of the descent went well and I headed out in the mix with the usual suspects. A group of three of us formed a chase pack up the second climb as we tried to reel in Brandon and Reiner. I made a move on the bootpack up Peaked trying to give myself a lead for the descent down the cat skiing territory. I did have a small lead but lost it and more on the descent where the deep heavy snow worked me over.

I made a very rough transition and surging from adrenaline charged up the final climb of the race. I reeled in and past a couple of racers and was determined to make up lost ground. Through the haze that had formed from pushing very near max pace I noticed someone right on my tail. It was Travis Scheefer, a very strong racer from Colorado. I told him to hang on and we would try to catch the leaders. We pushed hard passing another racer or two and closing on Brandon and Reiner.

We hit the transition area right on the tails of Brandon, Reiner having left a moment prior. I again flubbed the transition and left right after Travis. I failed to keep pace on the descent but managed to finish 4th. Reiner was 1st, Travis eked out 2nd, Brandon 3rd and I was 4th, with only 52 seconds separating Reiner and I.

All in all I was very happy with how the day went. My body responded well to the back to back races and seemed to handle the workload well.

Equipment:
Boots: La Sportiva Stratos
Skis: Ski Trab World Cup
Fuel: EFS Liquid Shot

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US Ski Mountaineering Championships- Full Race Report

2011-01-13T16:00:00.001-08:00

I finally have found a few moments to put together this race report. After this past weekend of racing things have been crazy. Its been a busy week at work, I had a ski patrol training, a couple of meetings for Idaho Condor, and I have been trying to get things ready for a trip to Italy in a few weeks.

Some of you reading this may be not really have any idea what Ski Mountaineering Racing is. In a nutshell you climb up mountains with your skis on your feet (with the help of climbing skins) and when you get up there a ways you take the skins of, lock your boots and ski down. Then, repeat. Below is the course map to the US Championships race which took place on Saturday. It turned out to have around 7800' of vertical ascent and pretty much the same descent.
Going into the race I was feeling pretty good. I was well rested, injury free and had put together a pretty solid block of training. Although I felt good I was very nervous, I wanted to qualify to go to Italy very badly, but I knew that the competition would be very fierce. From past experience in the few races that I have done I was certain that to finish any where near the top would require a prefect day.

After an uneventful trip to Jackson from Driggs, I got checked in and went outside to warm-up for the dance. Normally I can get a really good idea of how things are going to go during a race within the first few minutes of a warm-up, Saturday was different. My body felt good but didn't seem really peppy, I was able to easily knock out a few short hard sprints, though I felt a bit off. Nerves were quite high as a tremendous amount of lycra lined up at the line drawn in the snow, I did my best to keep my mind clear and calm.

The countdown...3.2.1..and we all charged off of the line, immediately I caught myself and forced myself to pull back. There is always a mad dash at the beginning but getting caught up in it can lead to blowing up far too early in the race. I settled in the middle to back of the lead pack. The pace at this point felt strangely easy, something I could surely maintain. Without increasing pace too much I found myself in about 5th as we hit the 1st transition. I made a quick transition to DH mode and hopped out of the transition in to the Alta Chute in 1st. Within a couple of turns I realized that I had left my ski legs back in Pocatello as I floundered my way down the steep chute, I crashed, lost several places to skiers having a better descent, then collected myself and charged on to the next transition.

Again I had a quick transition and pulled out right behind Brandon and Reiner, the second climb went by quite quickly and once again I found myself struggling to ski well as we descended the Tower 3 chute. Again we transitioned, this time I found myself in 4th, right behind Pete Swenson (past national champion), and I figured I was in a good place tuck in and follow his pace for a bit. The large lead pack had kind of broken up, but nearly all pack was strung out within a few seconds of the racer ahead an behind. Again the climb seemed short as we hit the top of the Gondola, and transitioned to the 1st of 2 bootpacks. I held onto my 4th place, this time right behind Reiner.

The pace up the bootpack seemed very easy, "too easy" I thought to myself several times and I began to plot some strategy for the next booter. At the top of the booter I tucked in behind Brandon, Reiner and Pete for a short traverse and speedy descent down the Coombs Chute. As we transitioned to uphill I made my move and pulled out first into Tensleep bowl on the way to the infamous Corbet's Couloir.

You see my plan at this point was to skin hard to the base of the booter up Corbet's hammer the climb and hopefully buy myself a bit of a lead for the big descent. I felt I needed a lead at this point to stay in the top 5 due to my poor skiing skills of the day. Things worked out just as I planned and as I started hammering up the booter I began to distance myself from the lead pack. I had probably gained 20 seconds or so until just before the bottom of the aluminum ladder that climbs the final 6o feet of Corbet's.

I struggled for a few seconds to get onto the ladder, then rallied up as fast as I could, I tried my best not to squander the small lead as I skinned the last bit to Corbet's Cabin at the top of Teton Village and I managed to tranisition and head out as Pete, Brandon and Reiner were pulling in.

The DH went pretty well, all things considered. My legs felt pretty trashed so I tried to conserve energy as much as possible while skiing just beyond the edge of control. Pete and Reiner past me on a straight line groomer and Brandon (I think that was the order at least) past me in the icy bumps nearer the bottom. Everyone was still in the transition as I rolled in and after a quick change I managed to leave in 3rd behind Brandon and Reiner with Pete hot on my heels. After a few minutes of ascent I had a skin start to fail, my heart sunk this could blow the whole race, but I kept my composure, scraped the snow off and put my head down to catch back up. About 3/4 of the way up the final climb I past Pete and held him off to the transition. Just as I pulled into the transition, Reiner left in the lead. Brandon left right on his tail and I left a few seconds back. I pulled out all the stops on the final descent to make up ground and hold onto 3rd place. I wasn't able to catch anyone, but I didn't get caught either.

The three of us posed for a picture by the Race Organizer, and threw a round of high fives as the rest of the competitors started rolling in. It took a few minutes but it started to set in that I had managed to not only qualify for Italy but was able to finish second US racer only 32 seconds behind the new national champion Brandon French. Reiner had finished first a few seconds ahead of Brandon, but since he is Canadian he can't be the US champ or be on the US team.

I continue to be blown away with how well things went during the race and even as I write this am still totally out of my mind with excitement. After the awards we headed back to our friends house over in Driggs to rest and get ready for the Grand Targhee Ski Mountaineering Classic the very next day....

In the next couple of days I will post a race report about Targhee, and a post about the equipment I am racing on. If you are reading this and are at all interested in helping me get to Italy and represent the US at the World Championships please leave a comment below and I will get back to you.

Also here are some interesting links, videos and articles about the US Championships:

The race website has links to Powder Magazine's coverage, Outside Magazine, and a couple of YouTube videos.

The Idaho State Journal Wrote this about me. This article was picked up by the Associated Press and has appeared in at least 6 papers/websites in the last couple of days.

And Montana Snowsports wrote this.

There are also upcoming interviews from RestWise, First Endurance, and La Sportiva which I will link to this report when they are published.

Gear I raced on this weekend that I feel contributed heavily to my success:

Boots: La Sportiva Stratos

Skis: Ski Trab Duo Race World Cup, with Trab race binding

Nutrition: First Endurance EFS (fruit punch) and EFS liquid Shot

2011-01-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

US Ski Mountaineering Championships 2011

This past weekend was one of the biggest weekends of Ski Mountaineering racing that has ever gone down in North America. Saturday was the US National Championships held at Teton Village, Wyoming. Many people were commenting, including the Canadian National Champion, that it was the deepest field assembled for a Ski Mountaineering Racing on this continent. I am going to put together a full blow by blow report of the US champs race as well as the Grand Targhee Ski Mountaineering Classic that happened the next day, in the next week or so. Until then here are some pics and results.

Charging up the last of the climb up Corbet's Photo James Hlavaty

Leading the race ahead of the chase pack up Corbet's Photo James Hlavaty

On the podium with 1st Reiner Thoni (CAN), 2nd Brandon French, 3rd me Photo James Hlavaty

US Champs Results:

Men's Pro:

1- Reiner Thoni 2:39:14

2- Brandon French 2:40:04

3- Luke Nelson 2:40:38

4- Pete Swenson 2:41:34

5- Bryan Wickenhauser 2:42:10

Women's Pro

1- Janelle Smiley 3:07:21

2- Sari Anderson 3:08:43

3- Monique Miller 3:16:24

4-Amy Fulwyler 3:18:47

5- Jari Kirkland 3:22:45

Link to Powder Magazine Story Here

Grand Targhee Ski Mountaineering Classic

Men's Race:

1- Reiner Thoni 1:40:47

2- Travis Scheefer 1:40:50

3- Brandon French 1:40:52

4- Luke Nelson 1:41:43

5- Bryan Wickenhauser 1:42:04

Women's Race

1-Sari Anderson 1:54:36

2- Janelle Smiley 1:57:15

3- Monique Merril 2:05:40

4- Jari Kirkland 2:07:18

5- Amy Fulwyler 2:07:36

December Update

2010-12-20T19:19:00.000-08:00

Reflecting on the end of another year as the sun sets in Idaho

For those of you who occasionally follow my blog I thought I would let you know that I am still here. Things have been busier than ever with the new job, training and family. I have been working really hard to get ready for Ski Mountaineering Racing this season. I figure it will be a great compliment to running. La Sportiva has really stepped up to help me out with this Skimo season as I will be racing in there incredibly amazing all carbon race boot the Stratos. I am working on putting together a post about the boot, it is so amazing it deserves a post all to itself.

Also you may have noticed I added another sponsor to the sidebar- Restwise. I was lucky enough to be able them to the mix and have been diligently using their program for a couple of months. It has helped me to see the importance of inculding recovery into my training and not stopping training to recover. More on Restwise in the near future as well.

Since it is Ultra lottery season I have been throwing my hat in the ring for a couple of big races including Wasatch 100, UTMB, and Hardrock. I am not sure which (if any) I am going to race, as I only plan on running 1 hundred mile race this year. Actually I am planning on stepping down my race distances a bit focusing on 50k and shorter mountain races for the most part. There will be a 50 mile or 2 in the mix, but I am waiting on finalizing some sponsorship plans before finalizing the entire race schedule.

Finally one more project that I have been working on is about to go public, I am particularly excited about it, but until it goes live I am not going to say exactly what it is. Regardless I am very amped about this upcoming season.

Hopefully with some time off from work during the Holidays I will be able to get a few more updates out in the next couple of weeks.

Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

A Quick Trip in the Mountains...Literally

2010-10-24T18:56:00.000-07:00

On Friday I finally found the time and managed the logistics to do something I have been wanting to do for a long time, a speed attempt on Mount Borah. Mount Borah is the highest peak in Idaho, at 12,662' is stands proud in the Lost River Range of Central Idaho. The previous ascent record was likely held by the very talented mountain runner Tom Borschel, who several years ago climbed from car to summit in 1:37:00. There was also talk of a nordic skier from Sun Valley having climbed it in 1:32:00. Tom also held the car to summit to car record of 3:05:00. With an ascent in the neighborhood of 5200' in 3.9 miles all of the previous times were fast, going after the record would be no gimme.

Originally I had tentatively planned on attempting this in the latter part of September but due to some lingering issues with my knee after the Wasatch 100 I postponed for awhile. Early this past week I noticed a few hour block of free time in my schedule that coincided with a good weather window. Literally the night before I made the final decision to go up the next morning, I made the arrangements to go see patients in the hospital a couple hours earlier than normal and as soon as I was done I hit the road. A couple of hours later I rolled into the trailhead. I was pleasantly surprised to be the only car in the parking lot. After getting my gear together, I snapped a quick pic with my Iphone of the trailhead sign with the watch zeroed out, I started the GPS and headed out.

I tried to manage my pace on the way up with out totally blowing up but was definitely pushing right at lactate threshold the entire time. I hit the base of Chicken Out Ridge in just under 50 minutes and figured that I would have a shot at the record. I did get a little off track while pushing through the ridge which cost me a couple of minutes, but once I hit the down climb to the snowfield I really hunkered down and pushed hard to get to the summit as fast as possible.

I hit the summit in 1:26:42, and by the time I got my Iphone out of my pack to snap a pic of my watch with the summit register it was 1:27:03. I spent a little over 2 minutes on the top trying to stuff my lungs back into my chest, writing in one of the summit logbooks, shooting a short video and eating a little food before heading back down.

Self portrait on the Summit

I had used Black Diamond poles for the ascent and they turned out being the key to a rapid descent. I hammered pretty aggressively down to Chicken Out Ridge, I then stuffed the poles in my pack and scrambled as quick as I safely could. I ended up off track and low off of the ridge which resulted in a pretty exposed traverse to get back on the route without backtracking. I figure it cost 5-8 minutes. Once below the ridge I was really able to get the legs moving and make quick work of the rest of the descent.

I stopped the watch as I tagged the trailhead sign and spent a few minutes putting my lungs back in my chest for the second time. I snapped a few more pics with the Iphone and another short video, packed things into the truck and rolled down to Mackay Reservoir to soak my legs before driving back home.

I am very amped on how things went. My legs held out well and my knee was totally pain free the entire time. I wore my heart rate monitor for the whole trip and after I got home I was surprised to my HR average was 171 on the ascent and 165 for the whole trip. I had my lactate threshold tested in the early spring and it was 167 then. I would really like to get it tested again because I think I have improved it a bit over the summer. Now it is time to get to business getting ready for Ski Mountaineering Races that are coming up in just over a month from now.

Wasatch 100 Race Report

2010-09-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

I wrote a complete Wasatch 100 report for the La Sportiva Mountain Running Blog, it can be found here. It's pretty long so give yourself a little time. Feel free to comment here after reading it to let me know what you thought of the report.

El Vaquero Loco

2010-09-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

Let me start this post by saying that El Vaquero Loco is still my favorite Ultra that I have run to date. It is an event that our family looks forward to all year long, and this year we got to enjoy it even more than normal because a bunch of our friends from Pocatello joined us for the race this year. We went to Star Valley early the day before the race to make sure we could get a good campsite and the Start/Finish. By the time night fell we were surrounded by many of friends and families enjoying a wonderful summer night in the mountains together. There was a pack of little girls running around getting into things and having a ton of fun while the rest of us took it easy and got prepped for the race the next morning. After roasting marshmallows with the kids and eating enough s'mores to get a solid sugar buzz I went to bed to try to sleep a bit before the race.

the girls having too much fun

Race morning came early but I felt ready to get after it, although it was a bit cool it was perfect temps for running hard. In the initial minutes of the race I could tell it was going to be the day that I had hoped for and I put the hammer down from the start. When I crested the top of the first major climb I was greeted with one of the most amazing views of the sun on the high peaks, and a low cloud layer filling the valley giving the appearance of islands in the sky. I savored the view as I descended towards the mist. I was running alone out front enjoying my time out the miles came and went as I passed the major landmarks of the course including my favorite high mountain lake of all time. I was eagerly greeted by the kids that were helping out at the swift creek aid station who seemed a bit surprised that I had arrived as quick as I did. I didn't linger as I had the goal of hitting the midway point before the 25k runners started, in hopes of avoiding the congestion of passing them on their way out and then passing them again on my return.

I did make it to the turn around a few minutes before the start, was able to swap my bottles and grab sunglasses faster than a Nascar pit stop thanks to the attentiveness of my wife who is a super crewer. I charged back out of the turn around, noted the time on my watch and rode the adrenaline wave away from all of the people. Jon Allen and I crossed paths about 7 minutes after I left the aid station so I knew I had a bit of a cushion, but I knew I had to keep pushing so he couldn't reel me in, and so I could stay ahead of the fresh legs of the 25k runners. I was still in the lead as I a passed the swift creek aid station, and was again stoked by the kids who were happy to see me still in first. Just out of the aid station I got caught by super strong ski mountaineering racing champion Pete Swenson. I am convinced that Pete is just legs and lungs and he hammered past, I kept with my plan of constant forward motion and let him go. He was running the 25k so I was still in a good place. I passed my favorite lake and the aid station folks told me I was the first runner back, which meant that Pete must have gotten off course. Suer enough about 10 minutes after the lake Pete caught me again, but this time we ran together for I while. I knew we were getting close to being done so it was time to bury the needle a bit. Pete finally broke me and pulled away at the bottom of the two huge switchbacks that make the climb up balls pass. He got ahead some but not out of sight and just after cresting the hill I was able to start reeling him in on the final descent to the finish. I passed Pete about 3/4 of the way down the hill and try to hammer to stay ahead. I hit the campground still in the lead and about 100 yards from the finish I spotted my 3 year old daughter Brynlee cheering my in. In a split second decision I scooped her up and started carrying her towards the finish, her extra weight made my calfs cramp and freak out with the extra load, but I hunkered down and finished just seconds ahead of Pete.

Bryn and I finish the 50k together!

I had the perfect race again at the vaquero. I finished in a time of 5:12:50 taking 11 minutes off of my old course record, I had met the goal of hitting the turn around before the 25k start, got to carry my daughter across the finish, and I was able to spend an amazing weekend in the Salt River Range with my family and close friends. We had friends finish the 25k and the 50k, for some it was the farthest they had run, for others it was a huge challenge just to finish, and finish they did. We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying Huckleberry sodas and burgers at the finish line, cheering in runners and swapping war stories. It was one of the best weekends of my life!!

My friend Missy posted some great pictures of the race here.

Gear:

La Sportiva Crosslites

Brooks Sherpa short

Green Layer long sleeve and t-shirt La Sportiva kit

Smith Pivlocks

Ultimate Direction hand helds

Kona Kola Nuun

EFS liquid shot

Nuun Headsweats visor

Whew, what a week!

2010-09-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have a couple of half finished reports that will be up soon- one for El Vaquero Loco, another for the epic Wasatch 100, and another on turning 30. Given that Wasatch, turning 30 and the birth of our newest addition all happened in a 5 day period last week I have been a little too busy to finish them. I should be getting them up this week... but for now here is a photo of 6 lb 2 oz Chlöe Skye Nelson!!!

Graduation!!

2010-08-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

The week after the Speedgoat was something I had been working very hard to accomplish for several years. I finally graduated from school! Granted I have graduated a few times in the past but this should be the last time. On Friday August 6, 2010 I walked across the stage and received a Masters Degree in Physician Assistant Studies. Tanae had managed to pull off a huge surprise for me by helping my parents get to town from New Mexico without me knowing. It is the busiest time of year for my dad at work and since the live so far away I had assumed that the wouldn't be able to make it. They did, and it was a total surprise.

Brynlee loved the funny graduation hat- Photo Diane Nelson

I guess this means I need to get serious about that college fund- Photo Tanae Nelson

After graduation I rode my bike home, beating my parents and Tanae to the house to open the door for another surprise. Many of my close friends were hiding in the backyard for a BBQ. I was so stoked to have all my friends and some family there to celebrate this achievement.

Outdoor Retailer Summer Market

2010-08-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

For many years I attended several trade shows a year when I was working as a buyer for an Scotts Ski and Sports, a specialty outdoor retailer in Pocatello, Idaho. That kind of event gets into your blood. When I decided to go back to school for to become a PA I wasn't able to attend for a couple of years. This year I was able to get down to SLC, not as a buyer, but as an athlete ambassador for La Sportiva and Nuun. I was invited by Trail Runner Magazine to participate in the Uphill Challenge. Apart from the Challenge I was able to check out what La Sportiva has coming down the pipe for next spring, catch up with a lot of friends who work in the industry, and see other friends who had come as athletes. One highlight for me came when I has hanging out with Krissy Moehl and she introduced me to Kelly Cordes. Kelly is a Patagonia Alpine Climbing Ambassador and has been a hero of mine for quite some time. Turns out he is a really cool guy and super friendly!

The Uphill Challenge is a timed event where two athletes hop on a treadmill, side by side, set at 10% incline and they have 15 minutes to go as far as possible by controlling their own speed. In short it is 15 minutes deep in the back of the pain cave. I had done this event a few years ago as a retailer and faired pretty good but this time would be different. Several top ultra and mountain runners were signed up for their 15 minutes of fun, including some of the people I admire and look up to most in the sport- Krissy Moehl, Roch Horton, Anton Krupicka, Scott Jurek, Ricky Gates and Max King to name a few.

I was assigned a time fairly late in the day which gives you the advantage of knowing what you are up against but the disadvantage of waiting and watching people throw down. When my turn came around I was paired with Dan Dehlin who runs for Vasque and was putting the final touches on his prep for the Leadville 100. We were actually very well matched and pushed each other very hard from the start. When the "dust" settled and the blurry vision went away I had covered 1.99 miles, at the time putting me in 2nd place. The last two competitors of the day were Ricky Gates and Max King, two of the strongest trail runners in the US. They both went super hard and finished ahead of me, but not too far. I finished 4th overall, and was super stoked about the results, even though it is only a short 15 minutes on a dreadmill, it helped me to feel pretty good about my current fitness. I took a picture of the results if you are interested to see how some of the superstars of trail running did, and if you want to test yourself go find a treadmill, set it at 10%, set a stop watch for 15 minutes and see what you can do!

Wasatch Speedgoat 2010

2010-08-26T07:52:00.000-07:00

My race at this year's Speedgoat requires a little back story so there is a little better understanding of why the race unfolded the way it did. I had been in Seattle for the 5 weeks prior to the race and the last 2 1/2 weeks I was working night shifts. Thursday morning before the race I got off work at 8:00 am, promptly went to my apartment and slept as long as my body would let me- about 3 hours. I then loaded the car, ran a couple of last minute errands, and pulled out of Seattle a little after 1:00 pm headed for home. I did the drive in pretty much a single push other than stops for gas and one brief nap (30 minutes) in Eastern Oregon. I pulled into my driveway just after 2:00 am. I was kind of wound up from the drive and it took me a while to fall asleep. I got a couple of hours of sleep and then had a meeting for Idaho Condor, I got home from the meeting, packed, and hopped in the car to drive to SLC for the race the next day. We stayed with our good friends the Mcdermott's, again I found it kind of hard to fall and stay asleep, but that made it easier to get up early to get to the race start on time. I was sleepy but didn't feel tired and figured although I hadn't slept much that my body was ready to race.

Start of the Speedgoat -photo Tanae Nelson

When the race started maybe it was adrenaline only but I felt great, I quickly went to the front of the pack and fell into a good rhythm pushing up the initial climb. A small lead pack consisting of myself, Nick Clark, Kevin Shilling, and Nicolas Mermoud pulled a little ahead and traded positions several times on the way up to Hidden Peak.

Me leading the pack, still very early in the race- Photo Tanae Nelson

As we worked our way to the top I started to fall apart. I knew it was way to early in the race for something like this to happen, but I wasn't feeling a bonk, it was different. I couldn't find my race gear, just a steady consistent pace, too slow for racing hard. I had come into the race fully intent on winning, I quickly came to the realization that it wasn't going to be my day.

At some point I had heard that Karl was going to give $100 to the first person to the top of Hidden Peak that then went on to finish the race, as we neared the final mile or so before the top I saw Nick Clark who had pulled ahead and figured that if I hammered I could beat him to the top, get $100, and then just limp it in for the next 25 miles or so. I put the hammer down and passed Nick just 100 feet below the summit, I hit the aid station completely toast and then headed out to climb Baldy. Nick caught me fairly quickly, and not long after Kevin Shilling passed. There was a significant gap between us and the rest of the field at this point, with no one hot on my heals I was left alone to deal with my tired body and to work through some serious mental issues. It was the first time that I could not find race pace in an ultra. I generally have prepared/rested well before and it was a tough pill to swallow. I finally made the decision to just relax, run the pace I could, and enjoy my day in the mountains. When I finally decided this it was like a huge burden was lifted off of me. "No pressure to race, just run- after all you love to run!" I thought to myself.

My daughter Brynlee ready with the cowbell at the finish- Photo Tanae Nelson

Turns out that while I was dealing with my mental issues I had taken a wrong turn at the top of Sinners Pass (that several other runners had taken including Nick and Kevin) and ran the wrong direction into the aid station captained by Roch. I filled the bottles not yet having realized my mistake and headed out, on the short out and back I had seen Nick and Kevin running together on my way in, and saw at least 15 runners on their way to the aid station on my way out. When I reached the point where the trail splits I went to head up the way I hadn't come and there was a volunteer stationed at that point mentioning to go the way that I had come from, I then realized my error. She said I would owe a penalty lap, and to tell the folks at the next aid station. I then headed up the sam climb I had descended. In my newly found headspace I was comfortable with stopping to fill my bottle from a spring and occasionally looking around to really enjoy the beauty of the Wasatch. I got to Larry's Hole aid station still alone and mentioned the penalty lap, they said they would figure it out later and to head out.

I started to fell pretty good on the climb to the tunnel and was happy to be moving along easy and relaxed at a pretty good pace. Encouraged by how I felt I tried to pick up the pace, but still near race gear. "Oh, well enjoy what you have," I told myself. The rest of the race went somewhat uneventfully with some highs and lows, but overall I felt good. After topping out on Hidden Peak the second time I tried to push the final descent, I hadn't been caught yet and had no intention of getting caught in the last couple of miles. I dug in pretty hard and leaned downhill all the way to the finish.

Glad to be crossing the finish line!- Photo Tanae Nelson

I finished in 6:18:10, in third place. Kevin had won breaking the CR in 5:43 and Nick was close behind at 5:46. It turned out that everyone behind me had been given penalty laps and so they ran extra mileage, after some deliberation on Karl's part times of those who had done the penalty laps were reduced putting Nick Pedatella finishing just a few seconds behind me. I guess it was a much closer race than I had thought!

Although it wasn't the race I had hoped to have I think I learned more from it than I would have if things had gone to plan. Funny how that works. I had a wonderful day in the mountains, a good run, and was very excited to spend time with my family after having been away in Seattle for so long.

LOOK OUT! Here comes a smattering posts.

2010-08-26T07:39:00.000-07:00

Life has been busy. I'm not going share the 100 excuses of why I haven't updated this blog in a while, but what I am going to do is put up a series of short posts about what has been going on for the last few weeks since I got home from Seattle. So if you haven't been back in a while I don't blame you, actually I get a little annoyed when the blogs I follow aren't updated. Well, here's some updates, welcome back, and hopefully once I get these up I will finally get into the habit of updating more regularly (we'll see about that).

Photo I took with my iphone while driving a couple weeks ago.

Things that go bump in the night!

2010-07-25T20:52:00.001-07:00

Sunset from the trail to South Tiger

The last few weeks here in Seattle have been strange. I am working night shifts at the Hospital, which really throws me out of whack. I am not sure when to sleep, when to run, when to nap , etc. What I have discovered is that if you get tired enough it is pretty easy to fall asleep immediately upon laying down regardless of time.

Well last week a good friend, Krissy Moehl, got back to Seattle after a series of road trips all over the country and she was also experiencing a weird sleep-wake schedule. We had planned on going for a run Thursday evening and at some point during the day Krissy hatched the idea to make it a long run, and a night run. I quickly jumped on the idea since I had been staying up all night the last few nights anyways, it was my day off, and that meant I would be able to stay on the "night work" sleep schedule. We meet a little before 8:00pm shuttled a car to the South Tiger Mountain Trailhead, and just after 8:00 headed out for our roughly 34 mile TSCCT. (Tiger, Squak, Cougar, Coal creek, Traverse).

South Tiger Mountain Trailhead pre-run

We had a great run right from the start, our route went up South Tiger Mountain where we were welcomed to the mountains by lots of Lupine, and the sun's final light of the day. The miles went by quickly and somewhere just before the last climb to the summit of Middle Tiger Mountain we stopped briefly to put on headlamps. Prior we had a discussion about when it was the right time to put on a headlamp, we didn't reach a definite conclusion and we ran until it was too dark to see my own feet. Just after we put headlamps on we startled something big that crashed off into the woods. We stopped to see if we could identify what the something was but it just crashed off into the abyss. We hit the anti-climactic summit of Middle Tiger and took the plunge of a descent back to the fire road that lead us to East Tiger Mountain. As we gained elevation again we ascended into a thick mist that added a surreal ambiance to the run. After hitting the East Tiger Summit we dropped out of the Myst and worked our way over to the West Tiger group.

The ascent up West Tiger 1 led us again into the myst that had thickened quite a bit from half hour previous. It was so thick that we had to pull headlamps off of our heads and carry them to limit the reflection of the light. West Tiger 2 and 1 both came and went quickly after that.

Summit Shot on West Tiger 3.

We made quick work of the descent off West Tiger 3, spent a little time route finding and buzzed into the town of Issaquah. We got some very strange looks when we went into the Shell Station at a little after 1:00 am to refill water, we left the bright city lights behind and made the rolling climbs up to the top of Squak Mountain, and let the legs roll on the descent towards the road crossing to Cougar Mountain. We opted to summit Wilderness Peak to make sure we hit the high points along the entire route and even took a few minutes to leave a note in the summit logbook.

Logging our route in the Wilderness Peak book.

The final leg of our run flew by as we made the descent back to Red Town Trailhead, onto the Coal Creek trail and finally to the car we had left at the YMCA several hours earlier. Quite early in the run Krissy started to pick out the treat that she would want at the end of the run, and at 3:00 am two very hungry runners loaded into the car looking for some yummy food. This actually turned out to be the crux of our trip. The grocery stores and gas stations all closed on the way back to the other car, but we did see a sign for an IHOP, so after picking up the other car we headed back towards food bliss. Well as luck would have it IHOP a restaurant known to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, was closed for cleaning. We took it as an omen and headed our separate directions towards home. In a last ditch effort I stopped at the 7-eleven a few blocks from where I am staying... bought the most delicious Klondike bar ever which was followed by a mouthwatering liter of chocolate milk. Not moments after finishing the treats I laid down and slept until about an hour before my next night shift. What an incredible night shift I had on my day off!

Seattle

2010-07-19T21:32:00.000-07:00

In typical fashion I have fallen behind in keeping this blog updated. I have had the goal for several weeks to put an awesome post together highlighting what I have been up to, but I simply have not had enough time. I am very slowing getting a bunch of video put together that documents the running that I have been doing while I have been in Seattle for the last couple of weeks. I am here doing my final clinical rotation for PA school. It has been intense, I work in the Harborview Emergency Department, we take care of people that are hurt really bad, and are brought from all over the NorthWest. TV ER dramas have nothing on what a real trauma center sees. I work twelve hour shifts, 5-6 a week. There hasn't been much time for anything but work, running, eating, studying (some), and a little sleep. I have still managed to keep my weekly mileage between 80-105 miles, all with lots of vertical. Although I have to drive to get to any trails, it is very worth it, the mountains and trails here are so very beautiful, though I do have to admit that I am starting to miss sagebrush and juniper a little. In a lot of ways it has been pretty lonely up here, my wife and daughter weren't able to come along, and the few friends that I do know here in the big city have been doing lots of traveling for racing and other obligations. Seems strange to be lonely when I am surrounded by millions of people, but the closeness of familiarity is absent. I hope to get out on a few runs with the amazing Krissy Moehl over the next week and half, since she is coming to back in town after a whirlwind of ultra-running adventures, that will be awesome. Hang in there for pictures and video of breathtaking trails, only a week and a half more here then I head home, where I think I will have a bit more time to get those up. Happy running!

Wahsatch Steeplechase 2010- Race Report

2010-06-22T18:15:00.000-07:00

Just posted my report of the 2010 Wahsatch Steeplechase over on the La Sportiva Mountain Running Blog- check it out here.

The quick report- 1st place 2:16:00, but check out the report for the details and pics.

Palisades Lake Adventure Run

2010-06-15T19:38:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I had the opportunity to meet up with Patagonia Ultra-runner extraordinaire Ty Draney for a nice outing in the mountains. Our family was headed up to the in-law's cabin near Palisades Idaho. Given that Ty lives fairly close to that it just made sense to get together. Our planned route involved about 21 miles, of which roughly 16 miles was unknown to either of us. Our goal was to run past the Palisades Lakes, up Waterfall Canyon, over the ridge line into Cabin Creek which would lead us to Big Elk Creek very close to my in-law's cabin. Instead of boring you with a detailed description I chose some pics and video of the run to show the beauty and potential of this run.

Ty setting the pace up along the shores of upper Palisades Lake. We then headed up waterfall canyon, where we started to encounter snow (uh-oh).

We found a poor soul who didn't make it through the winter.

Ty had just explained how he thought the moose had died, I am not sure what lead to this expression.

Palisades Lakes Run with Ty Draney from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

Although we weren't exactly sure where we needed to go, the scenery was great.

Routefinding became difficult as the snow got deeper, here Ty points the "way"

Untitled from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

After running in the snow on the ridge for quite some time we committed to what looked like the correct way to descend and made speedy time over the remaining snow.

We discovered fairly quickly that the canyon we had chosen was not the one with the trail leading down cabin creek, which meant we had descended into "hell's hole" according to our map. Even though it had an ominous name it turned out to be beautiful, but trick with some steep descents.

Mandatory creek/waterfall jumps. Here Ty makes an expert leap which at first glance seems straightforward, but if you look close about 4 ft to his right the landscape drops away. This was the only way down and it required this jump right at the top of a 30 ft waterfall. After his success Ty simply said, "don't fall."

Safely below the waterfall huck, Ty poses with the scenery...which was amazing.

Now back to business.

Great picture that shows what we just descended, we were treated to many amazing waterfalls.

Hell's Hole didn't really live up to it's name until the last mile, which turned into a serious bushwhack through nearly impenetrable willows. In a moment of desperation Ty attempted the creek route, which worked well until the stream dipped to beyond acceptable depths. We then just pushed on until we hit the Big Elk Creek Trail.

In the end the run turned out to be incredible, it took us longer than anticipated but with several miles of the trail under snow coupled with a couple of route finding mistakes and not having been on the loop prior, it wasn't a big deal. I think we were very lucky to get to see all of the bonus scenery in Hell's Hole that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. You truly cannot have much better experience than a day in the high mountains traveling under your own power!

2010 Pocatello 50

2010-05-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

My legs after 34 Miles of awesomeness at the finish area of the 2010 Pocatello 50. Photo by Tanae Nelson

Well it would be a gross understatement to stay that this year's Pocatello 50 was a difficult run. As many have already reported the race was called off early because of arctic weather conditions including rain, snow, sleet, gusting winds (some estimated 40-50 mph), and very poor visibility on the high mountain ridges (of which this race has many). The start of the race was some of the most pleasant weather of the run, about 35 degrees with a very light drizzle. After the short section of pavement from the start to the Slate mountain trail the lead pack formed, Brad Mitchell and another relay runner were putting down a blistering pace and before the top of the first climb (about 3 miles into the race) they were out of sight not to be seen again. Joe Grant and Scott Jaime were right on my heels and commented that I would be their tour guide for the day to keep them on track. At this point in the race it started to rain a little harder and the trails quickly got greasier and greasier, by the time we descended dry creek towards the Gibson Jack Aid Station it was downright difficult to stay on your feet, the once pristine ribbon of smooth single track became a virtually frictionless slice of slimy mud.

The three of us went through the Gibson Jack Aid station with Joe in the lead, then me followed by Scott. We were all right together when we started to ascend the Wild Mountain climb and the wind started to blow, the rain also turned into a very solid gropple (think micro-hail). I pulled ahead of Joe as did Scott as we switched from run to power hike up the steep off-trail section. With every step the conditions deteriorated, the wind blew stronger and the visibility lessened, by the time we summited it was difficult for me to get on route and I probably know this section of trail better than the back of my hand. It was so cold rime ice was forming on all of the sage brush and on our bare legs, my hands went numb and it quickly became impossible to open a gel or drink out of my now frozen hand bottle. Joe pulled ahead a little on the descent down Cusick creek, but I pulled in to the City Creek Aid station within a minute or so with Scott right on my heels. It was much warmer at the low elevation aid station but still raining and as I passed race director Jared Campbell on my way out of the aid station he asked how it was and all I could think to say is that is was "for real up high". I then charged out of the aid area looking to catch Joe before he put too much ground on me. Before the top of the City Creek trail I had caught and passed Joe, as did Scott who stayed glued to me on the ascent up the downhill course. As we topped out we were once again in the epic wintery conditions, but I knew this time would be worse; we stayed above treeline for longer and we were running straight into the wind, it was very hard to keep positive about how it felt. Scott passed me on the descent into Midnight Creek and commented "it is a different world up here". I ran consistent down Midnight, but started to bonk a little because I was unable to open the gels that I had in my pockets, in desperation I started to squeeze them until they were pressurized and then bite into the package. This would cause them to burst open and I think I probably was able to get a little more than half of the gel in my mouth. At the remote Midnight Creek Aid Station I sipped a little warm Ramen broth and set to work to try to reel in Scott.

Just out of the aid station I had to stop to relieve myself and when I started to run again the bonk came on in full force, since we had been out of the wind for a while now my hands functioned enough to open two gels which shortly after consuming I came around very quickly. In the midst of the bonk though, Joe passed me. Now I had two guys that I needed to catch. Once I topped out of the Monument climb my legs started to feel much better and I began to move really well. I worked very hard to gain back the lost ground, I could tell that I was getting some of it back because both Scott, and Joe's footprints (easily separated by distinct tread and knowledge of sponsors) were getting clearer in the nearly 2 inches of newly fallen snow. As the descent continued the snow turned into 2 inches of super slush and then more sloppy mud trails. About 300 yards before the Mink Creek aid station I was told by a volunteer that the race had been shut down by the race directors and the 34ish mile mark of the Mink Creek aid station would be the finish, seconds later I was caught and passed by a relay runner. It was just after 11:00 am.

At about 10:30 in the morning the race directors made the decision to stop runners at their next major checkpoint. Ryan Mcdermott one of the RD's had been on course on Wild Mountain and saw first hand the carnage that the weather was dishing out to runners, people were very quickly getting hypothermic, disoriented and lost in the area above treeline. After helping several people get back on course and leading some back to the Gibson Jack Aid Station he got into a car and drove around to City Creek Aid Station to speak with Jared Campbell the other RD about stopping the race. Jared wasn't there though, he had gone up on a 4-wheeler the other way to help out runners after hearing reports from people coming into the aid station that runners were in a bad way. Ryan was able to call Jared on a cell phone while Jared was up high and a mutual decision to stop the race was made. I am sure it was a difficult decision to make, but it was absolutely the right decision. Runners were held at the next major aid station after that point.

I ran into the Mink Creek aid station finish line in 5:12:00, just a few minutes back from Scott who finished the Pocatello 50k first, and Joe who finished about a minute behind Scott. All in all I am very pleased with how the race turned out for me. I ran the first 34 miles almost 50 minutes faster than last year and was still feeling very good. My strategy in the race was to run the first two legs fast but save some for the last leg were I had planned to leave it all on the course. I was still within striking distance of both Scott and Joe and feel like there was still a lot of racing to be done. A friend who emailed me a few days before the race said this would be "a great race to compare year-over-year" and I couldn't agree more. There has been substantial improvement and I am nothing but optimistic about what is to come for the rest of the year. A huge thank you needs to go out to my wife Tanae who did an amazing job crewing for me at City Creek, my daughter Brynlee who was an awesome cheerleader and a full-on trooper as she endured the whole day we spent in the mountains, and all my friends and local runners who volunteered to go out on an unplanned sweep carrying clothes and food to help out any runners that may have been in need- thanks Andy, Dave, Jenna, Joe, Cory, and Kevin. On a final note all runners were quickly and efficiently accounted for by the Amateur HAM radio operator group that Ryan and Jared had brought in to help with the event. There were some really cold people out there and runners really worked together to take care of each other during the event. The camaraderie after the event was at a level much higher than I have seen at any other race before, epic adventures have a way of bringing people together, and this year's Pocatello 50(k) was nothing short of EPIC.

Gear:

La Sportiva Green Layer long sleeve race shirt

La Sportiva Fireblades (Crosslites would have done better in conditions, but my neuroma responds better to the fireblade)

La Sportiva headsweats visor

Ultimate Direction Handheld bottle (only drank one all day-no refills)

Nuun- Kona Cola

Sugoi gloves

brooks HVAC synergy short

Finally I didn't get many pictures of the race, if you are reading this and would like to share some of yours please leave a comment.

Pocatello 50 in 2 Days

2010-05-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

Well, it has finally arrived. With just two days to go I am very optimistic that my foot has turned the corner, I am well rested, and it is time to race! Pocatello 50 is one of my favorite races to do because it gives me a chance to race in my backyard and show off my stomping rounds to a lot of other runners. It is a difficult course and the weather may be sub-optimal but regardless I am pretty amped for the race and ready to see what dividends training will pay out this year. There is some stout competition coming including but not limited to Karl Meltzer, Scott Jaime, Matt Hart, Sean Meissner, Joe Grant, AJW, Ty Draney, and a whole lot of other guys/gals that on any given day could throw down. I am pretty excited to get back to my cozy corner in the deep dark corner of the pain cave! I'll post a full report after the race.

Perhaps Too Much Training

2010-05-16T17:47:00.000-07:00

Well coming off of what has been the biggest training block that I have ever embarked on it seems as though I found what my current limit is. A week ago Saturday I headed out with Jon and Cody to run leg one of Pocatello 50 plus a few extra miles. My left foot was a little sore going into the run, and throughout continued to be a nuisance. The following day it hurt much more than I expected so I decided to take a couple of days to see if it would mellow out. Well a week later and only about 30 miles of running and it seems to be feeling a little better, but is not totally better as I would have hoped. Best I can tell I have developed a small Morton's Neuroma, mentally this has been a huge blow. I am as fit as I have ever been, ready to have a great racing season and now it is all uncertain. I think I am probably just using this post as a way to release some frustration that I have with this injury, for which I apologize to anyone reading this, the intent of this blog is to share with the world how I try to maintain balance in my very busy life and sadly this is part of that balance. I would dare to say that right now things are out of balance, a significant part of my daily routine has taken a hit. It is interesting how when the delicate thread of balance that is my daily routine is rocked, even with what at the surface appears to be a minor injury, how large the repercussions are in the other aspects of my life. My wife would say that I have been a little irritable, but in all my spare time that I have not been running I have checked some major projects off of my wife's honey-do list including a rebuild of the shed in our backyard and re-finishing the hardwood floors we found under three layers of linoleum in our kitchen. I am also spending the extra time prepping for my last exam in PA school that I have to take until after graduation when I would then take the boards. So in the end this injury has been a mixed blessing to dedicate time to things that needed taking care of and let me body recuperate from the heavy training load that I had been putting on it. I have an appointment to see a good friend tomorrow who happens to be a fantastic physician to discuss what to do now so that I can get running again without having this injury slow me down any more. If you have personal experience with Neuroma's or have any good recommendations of what to try please leave a comment below.

Pocatello 50 Leg 2 Recon 5-7-10

2010-05-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

Today I ran the 2nd leg of the Pocatello 50 backwards to see the conditions of the course. I took along my Mino HD to take some video of the conditions for people who are looking to get some training time on the course. Hopefully you enjoy!

Pocatello 50 course leg 2-1 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

Pocatello 50 leg 2-2 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

Pocatello 50 leg 2 -3 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

Pocatello 50 leg 2-4 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

Pocatello 50 leg 2-6 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

Pocatello 50 Leg 2-8 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

Western Pocatello Skyline Loop

2010-05-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I have been down right awful in meeting my goal of updating this blog more regularly. Life seems to have accelerated around our home, between a heavy dose of school, big mileage training weeks and everything that is going on with family we have been running down right ragged. I decided to add some video from last weeks long run (that ended up being not so long because of my daughter's 3rd birthday party). The loop consisted of running nearly all of the western skyline visible from downtown Pocatello. The weather was pretty variable as well as the conditions, but all in all I was very happy with how the run went and how I felt the whole time. If you are interested in the loop that I put together don't hesitate to comment below maybe we can get out an run it together!

The first video is at the summit of Kinport mountain above Pocatello, about 6 miles and 2000' of climbing into the run.

Pocatello Western Skyline Run -1 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

This video is roughly half way through the run after about 4000' of climbing and running an awesome ridge line.

Pocatello Western Skyline Run -2 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

End of the run total of 26 miles and 5600' of climb and about the same of descent.

Pocatello Western Skyline Run -3 from Luke Nelson on Vimeo.

We had an awesome birthday party later that afternoon after the run!

On a side note I am very happy with how my training has been going up to this point in the year, especially considering a missed most of January due to my achilles injury. Summary of training up through May 1st:

Total Miles 1001.5

Total Ascent 151,000'

April Totals:

Miles 395

Ascent 63,000'

My Running Tour of Idaho

2010-04-12T19:32:00.001-07:00

Well in typical fashion I am way behind in updating this blog. I am working on a post about my trip to Peru, but since I still have a lot to write about I am posting this in the interim. This past week I had the opportunity to go to Sun Valley for the Idaho Academy of Physician Assistants annual conference. I decided to take advantage of the trip so I left my rotation a couple hours early so I could get in some quality runs in on the way.

First stop was in the middle of the desert, the Big Southern Butte. Having grown up in Blackfoot, Idaho the Big Southern was something that has dominated the horizon for a good portion of my life, but I have never been out to or up it. After a couple of quick calls on the way out of town I got decent directions on how to access it and some beta about the route itself. Getting there does require traveling very close to the highly secure Idaho National Lab, but even with its proximity to the lab there weren't any guards in Humvees chasing me down while I past by. I parked at the French Cabin and ran the summit road from there. There was a lot of snow on the road but it was pretty frozen which made travel pretty easy with the exception of the occasional surprise of a hip deep post hole step. The view from the abandoned fire lookout on the top is absolutely amazing and something that should not be missed. All in all round trip is 10 miles with 2700' of gain.

View from where I parked the car, the route goes up the middle and wraps up to the left to the summit that is out of sight in this photo.

I hopped back in the car, drove to just outside of Arco, Idaho and then ran up another area that I had driven by but never been to. Just behind the town of Arco is a dramatic ridge line that has a whole lot of graffiti on it. I ran another 10 miles with 2800' of gain to access a high point then doubled back. The trails covered some amazing terrain that I really wished I had taken the camera for, but that just means that I have to go back again! After the run I jumped in the car and finished the drive to Sun Valley arriving just after dark in time to participate in the pre-conference festivities.

I snuck in an early morning run before the conference on Thursday and then met Hank Dart, Brad Mitchell (teammate on the La Sportiva Team) and a whole crew of other Sun Valley runners at the track in Hailey for "speed work". I had never done a track workout before and although running in circles felt strange I ended up getting a great workout that I would pay for the rest of the weekend. Friday I met Brad Mitchell over lunch to put down the Elkhorn Loop (?) a solid 8 miles in under an hour, Brad went back to work and I tacked on a few extra miles to get closer to the mileage goals of the week. I hurried back to make it to the afternoon classes of the conference while stuffing in some delicious calories (in form of a wrap from Wrapcity in Ketchum) in as fast as I could.

With the conference coming to a close the festivities made it hard to get much sleep that night and although I really needed it, I ended up only sleeping a few hours before I got up to meet Hank, Brad, and AJW for some morning laps on their beloved Carbonate before the final session of the conference. Pictured below, Carbonate is a wonderful ridge line near Hailey that is the host to the only available dirt to be ran in the valley. Starved after a long snowy winter these Sun Valley super stars run laps on Carbo to get miles and vertical on dirt. I indulged in a humble two laps that morning because of time constraints but, AJW had plans of four! Each lap is just over five miles with about 1300' of gain each lap. It is an awesome run! I am very grateful for Brad, Hank, and AJW's hospitality in letting me tag along for some great workouts while I was in town.

Carbonate Ridge as seen from Hailey, the trail climbs from the left to the windsock/pole about where the snow starts on the ridgeline.

I made it back to the conference just in time to catch some amazing lectures on orthopedic injuries and bring the IAPA conference to a close. I had planned to meet my friend Andy in Twin Falls to get in some running in the South Hills that he has been telling me about, but he had a change in plans and wasn't going to be able to make it. Still short on my weekly mileage goals I decided to try to give it a go with out a local trail guide. I drove to Twin without telling Andy I planned on going anyways, I had stopped in Hansen to get gas in my car and while I was pumping a very familiar looking Subaru pulled into the gas station. It was Andy whose change of plans had changed and he was on his way out to get in a mountain bike ride. We were both pretty surprised to see each other and he agreed to show me where to start to get a run in. Well it turns out that with the mix of ascent and descent that the trails in the South Hills of Twin it is a pretty good match for a biker and runner to travel together. We took turns beating on each other for about 18 miles of killer dry single track. I got back to the car with that great feeling of being totally worked!

By the end of my tour of running I was pretty tired but extremely pleased with the things I had been able to see and to experience, as well as being in some pretty amazing company while doing so. I can't wait to get out and visit some of those areas again and look forward to more "running tours" of Idaho and beyond!

Off to Peru

2010-03-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I have a huge opportunity to travel Peru as a part of Idaho Condor's annual Medical Expedition. I will be down there for two weeks, providing medical care to the incredible people who live in the mountainous villages of central Peru. This is a rare opportunity as a student to be part of this experience, the demands of most programs do not allow students to be gone for a number of days in a row, but I am lucky enough to be part of a very understanding program who sees this as the amazing learning opportunity that it will be. I am also very excited to be part of the Idaho Condor organization, it is one of few medical humanitarian groups focuses on being sustainable. They work very closely with local medical providers in order to actually make a long term impact on the health care status of the individuals we will be seeing. If you want more info on what Idaho Condor does and how you could become involved click here.

The trip to Peru gets even sweeter when I take into account the fact that I am going to get to run a fair amount while I am down there. I have been in touch with the good folks at inca runners that help organize running in and around Cusco, Peru as well as trips of the Inca trail. Unfortunately I found them a little late in the process of planning this trip and won't be able to run everything that I hoped, but none the less I hope to be able to get in some good runs with them in the small amount of free time that I have. I plan on posting more info about inca runners win I get back but in the meantime you can check them out here.

On the home front things have been going extremely well. I have running more than ever before, and seeing pretty much constant improvement. I have tried to be very cautious in how I have been training so that my body can adjust to the increased work load. It seems to be going better than expected at this point. I had a great opportunity to run with Ty Draney of the Patagonia Ultrarunning Team last weekend. It was awesome to get out for a long run, Ty came down to run on some of the newly dried out dirt, unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. It snowed the entire time we were out, we ran some dry dirt, some tacky clay, some sloppy mud, a lot of trails with a skiff of snow, and a section of mid-calf to knee deep snow. Even though the weather wasn't ideal it was still wonderful run. The next day my daughter Brynlee dressed up as a spring fairy to coax some warmer weather into the region. She must have been convincing enough because all this week I have been running in shorts and a tee shirt on lots of trails that have dried out since Ty was here. Below is a picture of the very convincing spring fairy.

2010 La Sportiva Mountain Cup

2010-03-02T17:39:00.000-08:00

Announcing the 2010 La Sportiva Mountain Cup Schedule, below is the press release:

La Sportiva brings you the 2010 premier trail race series, highlighting 10 of the best trail races in North America. Whether you are a middle-of-the-pack runner or a podium finisher, this series is for you! You might win, you will have fun!

Get details and sign up at www.mountaincup.com

Race Schedule

4/3/10 Mt. Penn Mudfest 15 km

Reading, PA

5/22/10 Jemez Mountain Half Marathon 13.1 mi

Los Alamos, NM

5/28/10 Rock2Rock Run 10 km

Asheville, NC

6/5/10 RothRock Challenge 30km

State College, PA

07/18/10 Barr Trail Mountain Race 12 mi

Manitou Springs, CO

08/07/10 Squaw Valley Mountain Run 3.6 mi

Squaw Valley, CA

08/07/10 Jupiter Peak Steeplechase 16 mi

Park City, UT

08/08/10 La Sportiva Eldora Trail Race 11 km

Nederland, CO

8/7/10 Mt. Ashland Hill Climb 13.3 mi

Ashland. OR

8/21/10 Up and Over 10 km

Taos, NM

http://mountaincup.com

February Flying By

2010-02-24T12:22:00.000-08:00

Family Backcountry Tour

Another month has pretty much flown by, I am not updating as much as regularly as I had hoped for this year. Something to work on for sure. This post is going to be somewhat of a hodge-podge because there are a lot of things that have happened in the last couple of weeks that I need to report on.

First something that is coming up this weekend. One of my favorite events of the year is coming up this Sunday, the Matt Barrett Memorial Telemark Festival and Randonee Race. I am not much of a Teleskier but I thoroughly enjoy a good ski mountaineering race beat down. The race this year will have a long course option that hasn't existed in the past. The course will roughly have 3000' of climbing and 3000' of descent. It will travel over groomed, untracked, off-piste and will have a brutal boot pack to really make your lungs scream. Please tell anyone you think that might be interested, we need good attendance so we can continue to have this event in the future. For those a little less adventurous there will be a short course option about 1200' less climbing/descent on mostly groomed runs. Cost is $25 and race starts promptly at 8:00.

Red Hot 50k

A couple of weeks ago I made the trek down to Moab, Utah for my first race of the year. As I rode down with my good frien Ryan Mcdermott, I realized with each passing mile that it wasn't going to be the race that I had hoped for. I wanted to go down south to get a nice warm run on dirt. Well there was snow all the way to Moab, and the thermometer in the car never topped higher than 35 and that was in Salt Lake when we left. We has dinner that night at Eddie Mcstiffs with Karl and Cheryl Meltzer, Matt Hart, Jared Campbell and Mindy Knoles. We got to enjoy each others company for quite a while because our waiter forgot to put our order in the system and he didn't even offer a discount even though we waited over 2 hours for our food.

The race itself started cold 16 degrees. There was some confusion when the gun (yell) went off because we weren't sure if it was the real one or not. The pace from the start was brisk but manageable on the snow covered road. There were areas of the trail that had snow a little over knee deep which slowed the pace and increased the difficulty. When the 50k course joined up the the 33k course things dried out and the pace again picked up. At this point I had fallen off the lead pack was getting caught by some of the racers that were smarter from the start, including Ty Draney. We finally started climbing again which permitted me to start pulling away again as I am a much stronger climber than flat runner. When I hit the top of Golden Spike I was starting to slip into the cave, so I stopped filled my one hand bottle and then took off again. Shortly there after I got caught by Anita Ortiz, I tried my best to hang on to here but my legs couldn't do it and the extra effort put me deep in the cave. Ty Draney caught me again and proded me to go with him but I just didn't have it and watched him go. I hit two gels in a row and finished my water figuring the aid station should be pretty close. I then got some bad news, the aid station was two miles further away than planned because the jeeps couldn't get in as far as they thought, luckily there was still lots of snow in the vicinity so I started eating as much as I could. After about 15 minutes I started to come around and set my sites on hammering to the finish. I finished in 4:53:00 in 9th which is a 50k PR for me. I was glad I hadn't gone with Ty because he got off course and ended up finishing 11th about 7 minutes behind me. I convinced Matt Hart after the finish to go soak legs in the Colorado river (which had snow on the banks and ice floating down it. He manned up and soaked for about 5 minutes I could only manage about 2 minutes. Ryan had a rough race, finishing a couple of hours after me. Shortly after he finished we hopped in the car and drove to SLC, I then got in my car and drove to Pocatello. I got home around 1:00 am, the next morning I had to go to Pebble to ski patrol, which was pretty rough since I was probably undertrained for the race. It took a couple of days for my legs to come around but all in all I was pretty happy with where I was fitness wise, it also jumped started my training helping to spur motivation to train harder.

I am going to finish off this post with a bit of sad news. Last Sunday a good friend and amazing athlete Wray Landon was killed in an avalanche while skiing the South Teton. Big Wray was an outstanding guy that always managed to to work me over whenever we met up for a run or a race. He never boasted about his accomplishments even though he was phenomenol at nearly everything her did. Wray I'll miss you man! Steve Romeo did a great write up and report on Big Wray over at Tetonat.com (Click Here for the link)

Wray and I on the Podium after Menan Butte Challenge

Wray and I enjoying the beat-down together

Long Run Mini-Epic

2010-01-31T21:37:00.000-08:00

Sheridan Summers and I went out for a long run on Saturday. Due to an unfortunate series of events, mostly me forgetting to pick up his snowshoes, we ended up having to resort to plan B then plan C as we kept getting denied on various routes that we had initially planned on. We ended up running an unknown snowmobile road in what we thought was the right direction. We lucked out, even though we both got a bit nervous, and ended up coming out to the road a few miles from where we had left the car. All in all it was a great run, tough because of the snow, but I good time none the less. Here is my first video of the year:

Shotgun to a Knife Fight

2010-01-24T18:46:00.000-08:00

Dreaming of Dirt

The title to this post may be a little misleading. I have not actually been taking a firearm to a fight of any kind, but that is the approach that I taken for bringing this achilles injury into its final healing process. Given that I am highly motivated to get this injury healed and I am very interested in medicine I have recently done nearly every treatment that has been shown to be effective in treating achilles tendonitis. This week I have continued to use the nitro patches on my achilles every night, I have had graston technique performed, deep tissue massage, provoke B12 and procaine injections in the tissues around the tendon, and weighted eccentric calf raises until the cows come home. After hitting the injury with this shotgun of treatment I feel like I finally have had some good progress this week and the achilles is finally feeling healed. I will start ramping up the running this week and see how it holds up and I am very optimistic that I can finally put this behind me.

I am planning on racing the Red Hot 50k this February as my first race of the year and I am really stoked to get out on dirt this early in the year. There have been a lot of big things happening in trail and ultra running this last year and I am committed to step up my intensity in training and racing in order to keep being competitive as things heat up. I was once again offered a spot on the La Sportiva Mountain Running Team and on the Nuun Ultrarunning Team, I am very excited to have this wonderful companies backing me again this year as well as the La Sportiva associate sponsors: Ultimate Direction, First Endurance, Petzl, Green Layer Apparel, Julbo, Headsweets and Defeet. With great sponsors and renewed motivation I think it is going to be a wonderful year. Look for some upcoming posts on a tentative race schedule, nominations for Ultrarunners's wife of the year, and some winter running techniques that I am currently working on.

First Post of 2010

2010-01-10T17:22:00.000-08:00

Well it has clearly been quite a while since I posted, I think mostly it was because I have been dealing with an injury that has kept me from running until last week. After the 40 on Dusty's birthday I noticed a lump on my achilles, I had had this lump before right after the Bear 100. I decided to take it seriously, take some time off and really get it healed so I can start 2010 strong. Well it turns out this has been a very difficult injury to get taken care of. I have tried lots of stretching, eccentric calf raises, and then added some Graston technique treatments from a good friend that is a trainer at the local university. At this point the lump was completely painless but still there. I tried running on it last week and no pain but the lump got a little larger, that is when I decided to see the local sports med doc. At the doc we did an ultrasound to check the integrity of the achilles, it showed a very small partial tear and some discongruent fibers. The doc has seen a lot of athletes and feels comfortable with me to continuing running, we also decided to try using low dose nitro patches on the achilles at night to help promote healing, there is a lot of good research about nitro patches for tendinopathies and other than the headaches it seems to be helping.

Granted injuries are part of this sport but this has been particularly difficult to deal with. I would be interested to hear what the couple of you that read my blog what you do to cope with an injury. Please post below.

Also I thought I should put up a summary of 2009: total mileage: 2015.9 miles, total hours: 281, total elevation ascent: 348, 353. Pretty good year for me, considering that in the past I have never ran more than 600 miles in a year.

40 for 40

2009-11-23T12:28:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine, Dusty Peña, turned 40 this past week. Several months ago he hatched the idea that for his 40th he wanted to run 40 miles. As the time approached we worked on a couple of routes that might be possible in late November, and crossed our fingers that the weather would cooperate. Two weeks out Dusty was running a local road half marathon and aggravated an old calf injury forcing him to drop at mile 8. This was a major blow to the 40 for 40 plan. He was pretty determined to still get it done, he got several massages and did lots of stretching. Then the weather turned its head, the forecast called for beautiful weather until the day we had planned, then it dropped 20 degrees and called for wind and snow. Two nights before Dusty called and we committed that no matter what we were going to at least try on Saturday morning.

Just as called for we woke up to 26 degrees, wind and a light snow. Undeterred we met at Dusty's house at 8:00 ready to give it a go. Sheridan, a local runner who ran a lot with us this summer, drove straight from working all night to the house stoked to run his first ultra. We met Aaron Spurlock, an solid 100 mile runner from Pocatello, at the trail head. After a few minutes of trying to decide exactly what to wear for the first 20 miles we snapped the mandatory pre-run photo and headed off.

As soon as we hit the trail we were running in snow, as it would turn out about 37 of the 40 miles would be covered in at least 2 inches of snow, at times up to 8. We moved along in good spirits enjoying each others company, the weather has mellowed some, it had mostly stopped snowing, wind wasn't too strong and it warmed to maybe just above freezing. About 6 miles into the run we ran through the high point for the day, Scout Mountain, it was pretty cold and windy up high but didn't last long as we descended into the trees and lower elevations. Before we knew it we ticked off the first 20 and were back at the car. Dusty's family was there with hot broth and cider to warm us up before the second half. Most of us also switched into dry clothes/shoes while enjoying this very well stocked aid station. Todd Packer also came up to run the second half with us and right before Aaron Spurlock froze we left.

We were welcomed to the second half of our run by the sounds of gunshots unnervingly close as we trudged up some of the only dry single track of the day. During this section of the run the wheels started to come off the bus for Sheridan, who hadn't slept all night, and Dusty was in kind of a bad place as well. We knocked the pace back a little and continued moving forward so we wouldn't get hypothermic. We came across some very fresh cougar tracks in the snow which helped keep the "herd" close together, no one, after all , wanted to be cougarbait. The group splintered just a little on the final descent because it was starting to get dark and no one wanted to get be-nighted. We finished in 8:43 just before dark, in total we climbed 9000 feet and descended 9300. It was Dusty and Sheridan's new PR for distance and a great run for all. Happy 40th Dusty and thanks for having a big birthday so we had a good excuse to run a long ways.

Bear 100 Gear and update since race

2009-10-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

Well it is about time that I get around to posting what I said I would in the Bear report. If you want to go straight to the gear scroll past this paragraph, otherwise I'd like to take a second to fill you all in on what has been going on since the Bear. I went back to work/school at the Midtown clinic in Ogden where I am doing my second rotation for PA school on Monday. Interestingly enough I saw several patients on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday that were diagnosed with the infamous H1N1 flu. I was starting to feel pretty good, the soreness was almost gone, the one blister I had during the race was nearly healed, a couple ugly toenails had fallen off, when on Wednesday night after work I started to cough... well I got sick, Thursday I woke up with a fever of 103, that climbed to 104 accompanied with vomiting. By 6:00 that night I was on my deathbed, and the wonderful Hall family that I am staying with took me to the Emergency room , where they gave my IV fluids, anti-emetics, pain killers, and anti- fever drugs. A couple of hours and a couple of liters of fluid later I felt a lot better. Sadly the sickness overcame the meds and Friday night I ended up back in the ER for another round of fluids, my blood tests from the day before came back and my flu test which was positive for H1N1, thanks patients at Midtown! My wonderful wife met me at the hospital on Friday night and took me to her cousins house outside of Park City and she nursed me back to health over the weekend. I stayed at the cousins until Wednesday when I felt I had enough strength to go back to the clinic for a half day. During the flu I lost 15 lbs and was lighter than when I started High School, I was pretty weak, but gratefully I was on the mend. I went for a very easy run on Thursday night just to stretch my legs, it didn't feel very good at all like I had hoped that it would. Last weekend I went back to Pocatello and being at home for the first time in 3 weeks was what I needed to get things back together, I went for a 3 hour mountain bike ride on Saturday, got plenty of rest and came back to Ogden Monday for another week at the clinic. This week I got out twice on my bike and tonight went for an hour long run on the Shoreline trail and up Taylor Canyon, I finally felt like a runner again, and man it is good to be on the run!

So after the update here is the gear list from the Bear 100 (with hyperlinks if you want more info on the gear):

Shoes: La Sportiva Fireblade

Socks: Defeet Trail 19 (2 pairs)

Clothes: Sugui 42k split short, La Sportiva Race Singlet and Tee shirt (both sugoi brand), Sugoi Icon armwarmers, La Sportiva team jacket by Sugoi as well.

Hydration: Ultimate Direction Fast Draw extreme hand bottles (4-my crew would have two ready for me at each aid station). During the night I used the Ultimate Direction Wasp pack.

Headlamp: Special make-up Ultrarunning Black Diamond Icon- Thanks Roch! In the morning I used a Black Diamond Ion so I would run slower and could stow it easily once it got light.

To Drink: I used Nuun in both hand bottles all day and at the aid stations at night. I used a lot of different flavors but prefered the Orange Ginger and Kona Cola (on the rocks is the best thing ever!). I also had a couple of Red Bulls, and 2 ensure protein drinks.

Food: I ate mostly gels for the first 60 miles, I had 1 flask of First Endurance EFS Liquid shot, and the entire flavor rainbow of Gu (37 of them throughout the race). During the night I sucked down another EFS flask. I also ate 6 or so Turkey avocado sliders, lots of orange slices, chicken noodle soup, one potato, some very smoked lentils (I ate them in the middle of the night, they had been cooked over the fire and you could taste the smoke), and two bottles of First Endurance Ultragen Recovery drink at the finish. In addition to food I also took about 12 Sportiene chews that were recommended by ultra-running super star Krissy Moehl, it is a type

of herbal anti-inflammatory (no ibuprofen induced kidney failure for me!) it really seemed to help keep the edge off of pain during the race.

Music: ipod shuffle from mile 19 to 60 (ironically I grabbed my wife's without noticing and listened to a little more pop than I would have preferred), once I picked up my pack at Beaver Ski area I switched to Ipod Nano with a pretty heavy metal mix that I used off and on to help fire me up to push hard in the last 25 miles.

Pacers: The Legendary Ryan Mcdermott, and "Fast" Evan Honeyfield.

Crew: My outstanding Parents, Steve and Diane Nelson, for the whole race, my brother in law Casey during the afternoon, my lovely wife Tanae for the evening and night section, and my beautiful daughter Brynlee for 3 aid stations in the evening.

The look I made after running a 50 mile Pr and realizing I still had 50 more to go!

I really can't believe the logistics that it took me to get everything ready for this race, if you have any questions about the gear that I used or if you would like me to do a full on review of any of it just drop a comment and I'll get you all the info I can. I am just finishing gathering pictures of the race and should post a bunch the first part of next week. Thanks for reading!

The Bear 100 Mile Endurance Run- The Full Monty Report

2009-09-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: this is a very long and detailed report, if you just want the finish details scroll down to the last paragraph, also over the next couple of weeks I will be posting photos, gear lists, and other thoughts about the running of my first (but definitely not last) 100 mile ultra.

Well it has been a little over 48 hours since I finished running the Bear 100, and it really hasn't settled in yet. I don't think I ever had my mind fully wrapped around the task of running that kind of distance. Actually I still don't think I have my mind wrapped around it, I mean 100 MILES! That is pretty darn far to cover on your own two feet, let alone doing it in one push. I have to admit that several times (too many to count) before the race I openly admitted that it was a crazy thing to attempt, but I felt justification in the fact that 100's of other people run these every year.

Fast forward to Thursday night before the race, I went to the pre-race meeting to get the info on the course. When I was dropping off my drop bags I joked with Leland Barker the race director that I wasn't sure if I would be capable of finishing, to which he threatened "if you don't I'll have to kick your butt!" I wasn't entirely convinced that he was joking so I made sure to deepen my resolve to finish. To those of you who have been around me much during the last two summers since I started trail racing you know very well how nervous I am the day before the race, well this was no exception, the butterflies were in full effect from the moment I woke up on Thursday until I trotted off of the line on Friday morning. I slept poorly, I had a hard time eating, I was anxious, my resting heart rate was up- frankly I was a mess. All I wanted to do was start running so I could get to the task at hand.

Considering the race as a whole I had an absolutely awesome day overall, I got a little queasy a couple of times but never threw up, even at the thought of downing another gel after having eaten 40+ I was able to keep my stomach contents down. I suffered for a while when I got too hot and couldn't cool down, but none of this really brought me down too far.

I had the opportunity to run the first 9ish miles with ultra-running hot shot Geoff Roes, who turns out to be a pretty nice guy. Geoff, Eric from Montana and I ran together behind a small lead pack, we went pretty conservative and enjoyed the steady climb up and out of the dark while chatting about other races and fun runs that we have done. Just before the Logan Peak aid station Geoff pulled ahead and that would be the last time I would see him. I think Eric stopped at the aid station, and I didn't, so I was alone. As a matter of fact, that was pretty much the last time I saw any other runner on the course. I cruised into the Leatham Hollow aid station a few minutes off of the split that I had hoped for, but given my number one goal was to finish the race I didn't let it get to me. I was glad to see my mom and dad just before the aid station ready to try there hand at crewing for the first time. The had everything ready for me to switch shirts, drop my headlamp, grab my ipod shuffle, switch bottles and be on my way. It was energizing to see so many familiar faces and have them cheer for me as I went by. Things were pretty unremarkable through the next aid station. At the Richards Hollow aid station Pat took good care of me and hurried me on my way.

Just after the aid I caught another runner, he wasn't carrying any water, pack or anything, I don't think he even had socks on, and honestly he didn't look real well. He surged a few times but I eventually passed him and didn't see him again. This section of the course was beautiful, the temps were nice, and the trail very runnable. There was a pretty long section of dirt road that had pretty deep moon-dust that I didn't love but it went by pretty quick. At the Cowley aid station I took a couple extra minutes to try to get some food down, as well as extra water because it was starting to get hot, again my parents took awesome care of me. I cruised out of the aid pretty fired up to push for a while. There was not a lot of shade for the next several miles and my stomach started to complain a little about how I was hitting it with gels so regularly, I slowed a little to try to get it to settle down which it did. As I approached the start of the out and back coming into Right hand Fork I saw Troy Howard just finishing that section meaning he was about a mile ahead. I quickly got to the aid, ate, poured water on my to try to cool off, and just before I left, Casey (my wife's brother who lives in Logan) warned it was a tough section ahead. Great, I thought, a tough section in the hottest part of the day- this is going to be awesome!

Casey was right, it was a pretty tough section, there was very little shade, and my body was starting to complain a little about what I was doing to it. This was pretty much the hardest part of the race for me physically, I was bonking and had a hard time getting things back under control. I ended up jumping in a beaver pond at the top of Temple fork to cool off, and then tempted fate by drinking out of the same creek because I had ran out of water and needed more fluid. I had to dig pretty deep to keep running to the Temple Fork aid Station. Once again my parents were awesome, crewing me like experienced pro's, and with a little extra help from Karl Meltzer about what I needed to be eating I started out feeling a little better. The climb from Temple to Tony Grove was more difficult than I expected and this is probably the lowest point of the race for me, I let things get to me mentally, and really fell of the wagon for a while. It ended up being pretty emotional for me coming into the Tony Grove aid station, I guess for a couple of reasons: I had just gotten over a tough stretch, my feet hurt, I had just broken my PR for the furthest I had ran (previously it was 50 miles in 10:13) now at 51 miles that I covered in 10:13 meaning I also PR'd for a 50 as well, and also my wife and daughter had now joined my folks as my crew. There is nothing quite as awesome as having your 2 1/2 year old daughter say "daddy runnin' fast" as you hobble into an aid station. After a few minutes of foot repair, eating and drinking I headed out, eager to get to the next aid to pick up Ryan Mcdermott who would be pacing me.

The run from Tony Grove to Franklin Basin was gorgeous, I was feeling pretty good, and was super stoked to see Ryan waiting for me just outside of the aid station. Ryan quickly took inventory of how I was doing, and started lining things up to make a quick aid station that would meet all of my needs. I can't express how grateful I was to have Ryan to run with for the next fifteen miles, he was very energetic, extremely supportive, and really helped me to get my head back in the game to start moving quickly again. He snapped things into place at the Logan River aid station, making sure I ate enough, and then hurried me on towards Beaver Mountain Ski area. Ryan's continuous support and watchful eye got things in place and trending the right direction to make the last part of the race a success.

My super crew was ready to rock again at Beaver, they had things already for me, they even rubbed vaseline on some hot spots on my feet while I sucked down some chicken noodle soup- they were awesome. Before I knew it I had left Ryan behind and started out on the last 25 miles with "Fast Evan Honeyfield". I had told Evan before the race that when I got to him we would be leaving it all out on the trail, he had some mercy at first and let me move slow to get my stomach under control from the soup and things that I had eaten at Beaver, but before too long we were pushing right along. We made pretty good time to Gibson Basin, where we were treated to smoked lentil soup, but we didn't stop for long. Just outside of the aid I thought I saw lights coming up on us, and the hammer went down. We ran every step to Beaver Creek aid, where my dad and wife were still diligently crewing, at this aid station we were in and out, I made the mental decision that everything hurt as bad as it was going to so I might as well push. We made good time running and power-hiking pretty quickly to the final aid station- ranger dip.

This time a sucked down soup, tucked a red bull into my Ultimate Direction Pack, and went out ready to bring it home. Evan did an awesome job pulling me forward in this section. He would run just a little ahead, if I sped up, so would he, always just pulling me along. When we crested the hill and looked into the valley one thought came into my mind-shit- it was a long ways down and my legs were trashed. As we came out of the trees Evan spotted a light moving down the trail a ways ahead, without saying a word it was obvious we were going to try to catch up, again Evan led , pulling me on as I tried to keep my sore legs turning over. The descent was long, steep, and loose, but we motored right along.

Just as the trail turned and leveled out, we rounded a corner to come upon a runner with a hand held light- it was Leland. I was glad to see a familiar face, and as we all pushed down the atv trail together he turned to me and said " well I guess I don't have to kick your butt!" I was so happy to hear him say that, it lifted my spirits and tired legs. Leland took point for our running group and led us to the stream crossing just before the finish. As we crossed the river we saw another set of lights ahead, the three of us all sped up a little and in short time we caught up to Phil, who was pushing along having an out-of body-experiencing and on his way to crushing his 100 mile PR. We ran past Phil, he called to Leland who dropped back for a minute then caught back on. As we got to the corner 100 yards or so before the finish line, Leland said his foot started to hurt and he dropped back, my dad was waiting at the corner and he ran the last 1/4 mile in with Evan and I. I was stunned that I had finished 100 miles and all I could really do was sit down on the grass exhausted.

I finished at 3:55:19 am or in 21:55:19 good enough for fourth place. I am very happy that I never threw up, didn't get lost, and not once did I ever think of quitting. My crew-my dad, mom, Tanae, and Casey were the best I could have asked for, THANK YOU. Ryan and Evan were amazing pacers, I am sure that I wouldn't have done it without their support and encouragement. I owe a special thank you to my wife for putting up with all of my eccentricities as I trained and prepared for this, and for my daughter for always being excited for dad to go running. There are so many people from the ultra-running community that shared very valuable advice and encouragement- you know who you are- thank you. I need to also thank all my friends and training partners in Pocatello and beyond who supported me and ran with me this summer, including those who came out to the Tuesday night runs on a regular basis. Also thanks goes out to all of the cool people I met at all the races we went to this summer, thank you for making us part of your extended running family. Finally, I send a huge thank you out to Buzz Burrell, and Laura Fryer at LaSportiva who took a chance on a kid from Idaho and provided amazing sponsorship throughout this summer. Look for more info and pictures from the Bear 100, as well as some fall adventure runs that are in the works in the near future.

Catching Up

2009-08-31T21:29:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

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!

Wasatch Speedgoat- A lesson from the Pain Cave

2009-07-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful morning, Snowbird Tram- Photo Greg Norrander

Saturday I toed the line for the Wasatch Speedgoat 50k, the brain child of superstar ultra-runner Karl Metzler. I have an attraction to technical, elevation laden races and with Karl's claim of the "the toughest 50k in the land", I expected a fun filled day in the pain cave. The race starts at the tram deck at Snowbird ski area, where I think 126 of us lined up, heard some brief instructions from Karl and then were sent off into the first of many ascents. Right from the start one runner took off at what seemed to be a totally unsustainable pace- it was less then five minutes later I caught and passed the runner, pulling into the lead. Sometimes after lots of training and racing it all falls into place, Saturday was shaping up to be that day for me. I felt outstanding- strong legs, controlled breathing, quick pace- it was starting out as one of the best runs I had ever had. After the first climb-descent-climb combination I ran into a speed bump in the form of a moose w/a small calf. Immediately my mind shot to the mental picture of Karl getting chased at Hardrock and I stopped dead in my tracks. I yelled, waved my arms and did all I could to try to get her moving, but all she did was look annoyed. Within a minute or so Christian caught up to me and together we were able to scare her off... frustrated that I had lost the lead I had built I pushed the pace a little to try to get it back, Christian had been training for Hardrock and was FIT! He was on the waiting list and unfortunately didn't get in , but he was clearly ready for this race. It took a while but I eventually I pulled away and put some distance between us. I pulled pretty hard the rest of the way up the climb to the top of the tram, hit the aid station, and hammered on towards the climb over Baldy.

Feeling good at the top of the the first major climb near the tram- Photo Greg Norrander

At this point I was feeling awesome, moving quickly I continued to distance myself from the crowd over Baldy and down towards Mineral Basin, the flags were set clearly but I thought I had read that the course went over the front so I delayed a minute until I could see Christian make the turn as well, to which I promptly charged towards Larry's aid station at the bottom of Mineral Basin.

I hit the aid station, asked for a bottle refill and was told, " go down the road a little ways and turn right", cool I thought let's make this lead bigger, I hit the split button on my watch and I turned it up, striding out down the road, I noticed that the strap on my handheld had come undone when it was filled and fiddled with it to get it re-threaded and then opened it up down the road. After a few minutes of running I started to notice that I hadn't seen a marker in a while and got a BAD feeling, I ran a little further-still nothing then I came across a mess of intersections all unmarked, panic set in, I tried right- it looped right back to where I was-CRAP I missed the turn, I turned around started up the hill only to see Christian coming at me, he was having the same bad feeling and we turned around climbing back towards the aid station. Well about 30 feet from the aid station was the right turn we had missed, I hit the split on my watch it read 18:30- we lost nearly 20 minutes and now I was in around 11th. While fiddling with my handheld I had ran right passed the well marked corner, Christian had dropped a bottle about the same spot and must have done the same.

As you might expect I was mad, mostly at my self for not seeing the corner, I tried not to dwell on it, and put my focus into catching Eric Storheim who was now in the lead. I passed several runners on the climb up sinners pass, and several more on the descent into Mary Ellen Gulch, by the time I hit the double track I was back into third and running hard. I passed Krissy Moehl, who was checking course markers- she told me to "run smart" which actually made me reflect for a second on the pace I was pushing to catch up- I backed off just a little. I rolled into Roch Horton's aid station where Eric and Jay were still fueling up. Roch sprayed me down with cold water and scolded me for not drinking enough out of my bottle's- he was right I had been so focused on catching up I was blowing eating and drinking. I drank some red bull cola, got sprayed again and headed out about 2 min behind the leaders. I knew a big climb was coming and put the mantra of "come on back to me" in my mind. It took a mile or so but I eventually reeled them in, and chose to hang with them for a bit to recover from the effort I had just put in to catch up.

When I figured we were pretty close to the top I made a move to pull into the lead, Eric and Jay dropped in right behind me, we passed Krissy again, just before the top, as we started down the hill I remembered Krissy's advice from the Pocatello 50-"Just let it roll on the downhill", which I did, I pulled into Larry's aid station in the lead, but barely, I grabbed an S-cap and glass of water and headed out right behind Eric who didn't stop at the aid at all. About 100 feet from the aid station the wheels came off my bus, I got really hot, dizzy, and began to have tunnel vision. I stopped running and started walking slowly-I was in trouble. Jay zipped by and I got cozy deep in the pain cave.

Digging deep in the dark part of the pain cave- Photo Greg Norrander

All I could muster out on the climb out of Mineral towards the tunnel was a walk-a slow walk in the park kind of walk. The perfect race was over. I had pushed too hard to catch up and was paying the price. I got to the tunnel aid station had some more coke and hopped into the tunnel-it was cool in there and was a great relief from the heat, I kind of just wanted to lay down in the tunnel where it was cold, but embraced the dark end of the pain cave and started digging to see if I could reel the leaders back in. I let the next descent roll, and hit the climb up the ridge under the tram feeling better- not great but better.

Near the top of the second to last climb-Photo Greg Norrander

I put that climb behind me, descended into little cloud bowl(?) and started up the snow. I was getting real hot again so I stuffed my shorts w/snow and packed handfuls into my armpits to try to cool down, it worked and also kept me moving. Just pass the top of the snow Jay and Eric passed me on their way down a solid 15-20 minutes ahead of where I was. I put my head down and once again started digging in the pain cave. I got some words of encouragement at the top from Jared Campbell, Missy Berkel, and Sarah and Sterling Acree as I turned down the final descent. I pushed with all that I had left down the descent but was unable to catch Eric who finished 1st and Jay 2nd, I finished in 3rd, and after all was said and done was very happy with my effort and how the day ended up.

A few thoughts on the Speedgoat- Karl is sick, he managed to squeeze in 10,748' of gain and the same loss in the course, just when you thought you were done climbing, he sent you down and up again to make sure you were getting your money's worth. Moral of the story, don't get off course, it nearly guarantees a visit to the deep recesses of the pain cave. I loved the race- for some reason I enjoy a good suffer, it really makes you feel complete when you have to push harder than you think you might be able. Can't wait for next year's race-hopefully no scenic detours next time!

Full Results Here

Great Pics by Jared Campbell and Greg Norrander

Racing the Dark

2009-07-09T07:31:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in the name of training we make decisions that may seem questionable to those around us, particularly those who don't know us so well. Yesterday I had one of those days. I have spent the last couple of days in a pretty intense Advanced Coronary Life Support class and was forced to cut back on training time. Yesterday afternoon I had gotten pretty anxious from the cut back of exercise time and after wrapping up homework and a few chores the day was quickly slipping by. I aggravated my right calf doing a short speed work session a few days ago and decided I was going to get out on the single speed mountain bike, the time of day set me up for a race against the dark. I figured that I would be pushing it so in my haste to get out on the trail I grabbed a Petzl e-lite and threw it in the pocket of my bike jersey.

As I quickly pedaled from my house towards the local trails I noticed the start of a beautiful sunset that was lighting up the sky, I put my head down and pushed the cadence as quick as the single speed would allow. After about 5 minutes on the road and 15 minutes on the trail, I arrived to an intersection that would allow me to return home easily before it got too dark to see, or I could take the other trail and almost certainly leave me on the trail in the dark. After moment of contemplation I made the decision to race the dark on the longer of the two routes. I stood up and started hammering out the miles as quick as my lungs could handle, near the top of my proposed route I realized I was a little ahead of where I thought I would be, and with a smirk on my face I turned up another trail that would add an additional mile and a half. I smiled and even laughed out loud as I stayed out of the saddle pushing the pace knowing that it was going to be a very tight race to hit the trailhead before it was too dark to see the trail.

I hit the top and started the descent back down somewhat cautiously because the light was beginning to fail. This made for a difficult quandary- I wanted to push the descent but couldn't see well enough to do it safely- I pushed as fast as I reasonable thought I could knowing the dark was winning the race. My level of focus increased as the light got dimmer and dimmer making it difficult to see the undulations of the trail, but yet I pushed on. I hit the trailhead a few minutes later and realized the amount of focus the near darkness required, when a car pulled into the trailhead literally blinding me with its headlights. Wow it was really dark! The driver of the car rolled down the window and asked if I was okay, they thought it was really late to becoming off of the trail and were worried that I was hurt or something. I assured them I was great and wished them a good night. I then asked myself if I won the race against the dark, and me only response was yes. The dark doesn't care if it loses or not, it is a great competitor- it allowed my to push and push against its unrelenting pace, and no matter the suffering it forced me to find another gear. It might have been dark when I got to the trailhead, but I won because of the benefits I would reap from racing such a formidable companion. I then pulled the e-light out of my jersey pocket, attached it to my handlebar so cars could see me, and pedaled home with a huge grin on my face!

As an additional note I thought I would welcome the sun's light back to the trails and got up before sunrise this morning to get in a run on the same route that I rode in the near-dark last night. What a cool experience to put the sun to bed and welcome it to the day while out on the trail doing something you love!

Last weekend I raced at the Kelly Canyon trail race, La Sportiva Teammate Brad Mitchell wrote a great report that can be found here.

Summer Time

2009-06-30T20:13:00.000-07:00

I love summer! I thought that I might just leave this post as a one liner, then thought I better elaborate a little. I love summer because I love barbecuing with friends and family after long runs. I love summer because the days are long, which means I still get to run during the daylight even when school is going full throttle. I don't feel so much like a nocturnal runner. I love summer because the trails are good and the ones in the high country around Pocatello are clear of snow and totally runnable. I love summer because I love running, for a good majority of my life I just wanted summer to get out of town and winter to get here so I could ski, since my complete conversion to running I have found a passion for the dry, sunny time that is summer.

Some of the prime high country single track of Pocatello

I have finally gotten back into the groove with my training, running injury free for over two weeks now. It feels so good to be hitting training goals and running strong and free. Yesterday we had our second group trail run here in Pocatello and a group of us enjoyed warm temps and an outstanding 5 miles of singletrack together. If you are reading this and would like to come, we meet every Tuesday (from here on out) at 6:15 at Scotts Ski and Sports in Pocatello- we would love to have you! Now you should probably turn off you computer and go enjoy summer!

Wahsatch Steeplechase

2009-06-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

Near the top of the Crags- Photo Greg Norrander

This past weekend I made the trip to SLC for the Wahsatch Steeplechase, which is one of the top trail races I have done. The course is pretty tough- 4500' of climbing the first six miles and then all down hill from there. The highlight of the race for me is the section called the Crags which occurs pretty much at the top of the climb. The Crags are rated 5.4 and require some pretty quick thinking and solid route finding skills on order to maintain a quick pace.

Traffic on the Crags-Photo Greg Norrander

Great view of the Crags- Photo Greg Norrander

After coming out of the Crags there is a steep descent to the Smugglers notch aid station, and then a ripping descent down to City Creek that is steep and overgrown, where getting lost, tripping, and constantly struggling to stay on track is the theme. Once at City Creek it is a pretty mellow down hill that includes a little too much road and some sweet singletrack that leads back to the start finish area.

I have been struggling with minor injuries for a little over a month, which has caused my training load to be significantly less than I would like it to be and given the low training I had relatively low expectations going into the race. I decided to take an opportunity to work on race strategy- typically I go out too fast and just get cozy in the pain cave (not in the deep dark part of the cave, but more like in the entrance of the cave where you can hang out for a while). So, I decided to go out strong but conservative, my mantra was " be patient". I held on to the top 3 or 4 runners for the first 3 miles or so and then started to ease up just a little. The leaders pulled away but not too far. I keep an eye on the runners ahead of me as we cruised up the gorgeous ridgeline towards the crags, when the trail got really steep I backed off and powerhiked, which I would normally not do until I was forced to... but it paid off as I started to reel in the leaders.

La Sportiva runner Jared Campbell happy to be on the Crags- Photo Greg Norrander

When we hit the Crags I was in 5th, but felt really good and started to push it, especially when it was very technical because I tend to be strong in the more difficult and technical terrain. I passed one runner about two thirds of the way through the Crags and decided it would be a good time to turn it up a notch.

Me-very happy to be running- Photo Greg Norrander

I felt very good as I passed the very friendly aid station folks and started the steep descent with a smile on my face. I have been working on downhill running a lot, since I feel weaker in that area, and that training has been paying off. I was able to just let my legs roll through the steep descents down to the City Creek Trail.

Almost to Smuggler's Notch- Photo Greg Norrander

At the aid station at the bottom the volunteers said I was in third, weird because I didn't pass anyone on the descent, but that section of the trail is very overgrown and it is quite easy to get off the trail and disoriented in the thick brush. Since I now had a shot at getting on the podium I figured it would be a good time to get into the cave and push, I felt solid as I leaned forward, increased turnover and let gravity pull me down the gentle grade of the road, yet I eagerly looked forward to getting off the road and back on the singletrack.

Appearantly I had entered the cave a little to aggresively and found that I was becoming sloppy with my foot work on the trail, very uncharacteristic for me. Moments later I hooked my left toe on a rock and immediatly had to revert to the years of imaginary Army training I had as a kid by throwing a flying somersault roll mid-stride. I was suprised how quickly I was back on my feet and running with very minor damage- a little trail rash on my left knee and a couple of blown up gels in my Ultimate Direction FastDraw hand bottle. I scolded myself for not paying attention and put my focus and clean, relaxed turnover and good footwork/placement. I rolled into the finish area with a time of 2:26 and some change, and good enough for third place. Appearantly the battle for first was pretty intense as Evan Honeyfield and Fitz Van De Kamp ran the last 7 or so miles shoulder to shoulder, with Evan pulling away to win by 20 secs finishing in 2:19:42. I guess my own time would have been faster if I had some company, but I ran the last 11 miles or so all alone.

Overall I was very happy with this years Steeplechase and highly recommend this race to anyone who loves running in the mountains!

Winner Evan Honeyfield and Myself- Photo Tanae Nelson

Adding Balance to Training

2009-06-06T17:13:00.000-07:00

As far as training is concerned it has been a very rough month for me. The two weeks before the Pocatello 50 I had to back way off because of a hamstring strain, I had a couple of days after the 50 that I took off to let me body heal, and for the last week and a half I have held back because of a mysterious pain behind my left patella. All of these injuries have been on the same leg and it seems as though these injuries are all related. I think this because of a calf pain that nagged me most of the spring, which was also on the left leg. As I ponder the time that I have missed running because I of these injuries I started to investigate what could be at the root of the problem. After some serious google searching and talking to various health-care professional runners the consensus seems to be the un-balanced training of just running all the time. Because of my general lack of time in my life I try to concentrate all of my time on running alone, by doing that I am always moving in one l plain, forward, because lopsidedness the muscles in my legs that are responsible for other movements and supporting the running muscles have become weaker and more susceptible to injury. Thus the dilemma, I am short on time to begin with, I want to run more, but to run more and be healthy I need to add additional workouts that aren't running which means running less. It has become a difficult choice and hard thing to accept, but if I stay on the track that I am on now I will be more prone to injury which also means running less.

I have spent considerable time searching the web and reading different running coaches opinions on the matter, and it I feel that the most promising info, at least as far as my situation is concerned, are some well known workouts put out by Jay Johnson, a coach in Boulder Colorado for what appears to be Nike athletes. He was highlighted recently in running times with a series on building a better runner. Starting last week I began to incorporate the Myrtle routine and the pedastal routines before every workout and using the canonball cooldown after. (click on the title for a link to the workout). Although I have not fully recovered from the mysterious knee problem, it seems as though these may help balance out my workouts and not take up too much time. I am going to keep pushing forward, and cross training until the knee is healthy... hopefully healthy enough to race this weekend at the Wasatch Steeplechase.

As Promised.... The La Sportiva Crosslite Review

2009-06-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

I said at the end if my last post that there would be forthcoming reviews of some of the quality products I used during the Pocatello 50, well I am going to make good on my word, here you go:

The La Sportiva Crosslite

I have put about 200 miles in my first pair of Crosslites this year, and I am totally impressed. Granted it is not my everyday training shoe,

but I do most of my long mountain runs in them. The fit is nothing short of magic out of the box, I have never been able to pull a pair of shoes out of the box, lace them up and run 20 plus miles in them without a blister, that is until the Crosslite. The have a nice tight heel cup and plenty of room for my toes, the lacing is a little tricky to figure out the first time lacing them up because of the mesh cover, but this is pretty easy to get used. The mesh lace cover really helps keep little rocks and things out of the shoes on loose terrain, which turns out to be a major bonus. The part of the Crosslites that I love the most is the aggressive lugs. They provide tons of traction on snow, mud, scree, and in addition to that they cushion the ride making it a very versatile shoe. In the P50 I was able to charge up the muddy climb (creek bed) on leg two without any difficulties, as well as the snow on leg three without slipping at all (except when I wanted to during the glissade). The shoe drains water and dries very quickly which tops of the features that make this shoe an ideal ealy season and winter trail shoe in Idaho. The shoe is also very light for how burly it is (12.3 oz), I really love how light they are, they are running shoes not hiking boots like

many other "trail running" shoe companies make. The Crosslite is the best trail running shoe I have ever ran in!

As things dry out in Idaho I am going to transition to the Crosslite's trimmed down brother- the Skylite. The Skylite fits pretty much identical to the Crosslite but has a trimmed down sole and only weighs 9.45 oz, they feel like racing flats, the traction is a little lacking for mud and snow but on the hardpack of mid summer it is perfect. For the perfect footwear combo try the Defeet Trail 19 sock coupled with the svelt fit of the Crosslite or Skylite.

La Sportiva Sky Lite

Defeet Trail 19

Now go RUN!

Pocatello 50

2009-05-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

Tom Borschel and Myself pulling out front on the first leg- Photo by Greg Norrander

Well a couple of days have passed since the inaugural Pocatello 50, I am still digesting the race and all that I learned from my first 50 mile ultra. Before I explain my experience at the race, I want to recognize the excellent work done by race directors Ryan Mcdermott and Jared Campbell. As the pre-race preparations began to unfold the day before the race, it became blatantly obvious the amount of work that they had put into the race, down to the last detail the race ran extremely smooth- great work guys, thanks!

The Pocatello 50 is not an easy 50 mile race, Jared Campbell said at the pre-race meeting "you are going to earn a finish in this race". The 50 miles gains 13,500 ft of elevation, loses that same amount and was broken into 3 legs which could be ran as relay teams or one big loop if you felt up to the challenge. I felt quite a bit of pressure going into this race mostly because it was held in my backyard , on trails that I train on every day. I had received lots of good advice about being patient and holding back at the beginning, as well as fuel and drink plenty early. As we all know advice is only good if it is implemented; I tried to heed the advice but in the end went out to fast and did not fuel enough. I put the first leg to bed rather quickly and minimized time at the aid station.

Coming into the City Creek aid station, end of leg 1-photo Greg Norrander

Shortly after the aid station I entered a "dark place", not a dark place literally but mentally. I had not kept up enough on electrolytes and bonked harder than I have ever bonked before. Instead of holding the pace I had intended for the second leg the wheels came of the bus and I ended up walking for around 6 miles. In the midst of the darkness I was experiencing I was considering dropping out to end the suffering. That is when Mike from Park City saved my day, he caught me and gave me a couple of S-caps. It didn't turn things around immediately but about 45 minutes later I was running again. The second leg finally came to an end and I had started to feel much better. At the aid station I ate quite a bit of food, drank a red bull and some coke. I also drank a whole bottle of First Endurance EFS drink which really brought me back to the race. I left the aid station with renewed drive to finish the course and run well, I did still have 20 miles to go and the biggest climb of the race over Scout Mountain.

Just before the end of the second leg- photo Greg Norrander

Due to the large amount of food that I consumed at the aid station I wasn't able to run really fast but felt pretty good moving along. About 3 miles up the trail I caught up to ultra-running legend Krissy Moehl, we worked together for the rest of the race to keep each other moving and positive. Krissy pulled me along for some of the tough sections and I like to think that maybe I pulled her along some as well. One of the highlights of the race was the glissade off the top of scout mountain that cooled the legs and sped up the pace at the same time. Krissy and I crossed the finish line at 10:13, good enough for 4th overall. David James one the race with a time of 9:16. The times clearly show the difficulty of the course. (results here)

In the last couple of days I have reflected a lot on the race as I work the soreness out of my legs, I can clearly see where I made mistakes in not fueling enough early and going a little too fast in the first 17 miles of the course. I also learned that in a race that long you can feel great, real bad, and then recover to still have a good race. I am very grateful for my wife who worked as my crew during the race, to Mike for bailing me out when I needed it most, and for Krissy for helping me finish strong. It was a wonderful race, well done Jared and Ryan, I can't wait for next year! As I get photos loaded to my computer I will try to add some additional updates.

Gear Used:

Shoes: La Sportiva Crosslite

Socks: DeFeet Trail 19

Shirt: Sugoi Shirt (La Sportiva Kit)

Misc: Headsweats La Sportiva Visor, Ultimate Direction Fast Draw Plus, First Endurance EFS (grape flavor) drink. Look for reviews on most of these products coming soon.

Pocatello 50 Tomorrow

2009-05-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

Well the big race finally arrived. I am trying to get myself to wind down enough to sleep before the showdown in my backyard tomorrow. It is the first time this year that I have gotten really worked up about a race. This type of anxiety is not healthy, I am a wreck. On the other hand I am confident; I am confident in my training and my ability to gut it out. There are some pretty serious names in the ultrarunning community in Pocatello for the race, including Sean Messner, Krissy Moehl, and some mysterious guy from Connecticut. I am stoked to get out with some of these folks and see what I can do. I have thought and agonized over setting up splits for the race, and I have a general idea, but at this point all I am going to do is listen to my body, be patient (thanks Ty) and run MY race tomorrow. In the end it doesn't matter who wins really, what matters is I give it my best performance and hopefully with all the work that is enough to pull in a good fast finish time and who knows maybe end up on the podium. I am finally getting a little drowsy and this is probably just rambling so I am going to call it a night and try to rest for the big day tomorrow.

Final Countdown to the Pocatello 50

2009-05-18T19:41:00.000-07:00

5 days to go until the Pocatello 50 takes its maiden voyage. I ran pain free today, seems as though I finally have the hamstring under control... and I am stoked. A lot of training and focus has gone into getting ready for this race. Word is that there is going to be some sections of snow on the course, but that is to be expected for a trail race in Idaho this early in the year. Even though there will be some snow there is going to be a ton of beautiful single track and amazingly green southeast Idaho landscape. The race directors have put in a ton of work and are going to put on a fantastic event. I have put quite a bit of pressure on myself for this race, given that it is in my backyard and all, but from here on out it is what it is. What I mean by that is I have to run my own race from the beginning; I asked an ultra runner whom I have a ton of respect for for any advice and he replied "be patient and fuel often". I am taking that to heart, I know this course better than any other set of trails out there, I have the home court advantage. In the end the trail will decide who will have a great day. I have made my deposit in the bank of training and all I can do is trust in that work and enjoy the run, after all it is my first 50 mile race ever. I am so excited to meet all of the runners who are coming in from all over the US. If you are still debating whether to sign up or not there is only one more day to register ( www.pocatello50.com ).... the weather is going to be great, the field deep and the trails glorious. I hope to see you there!

Battling Injury

2009-05-11T10:45:00.001-07:00

Thursday of this week I was in the middle of a great tempo run when I started to feel a little twinge my left hamstring just proximal to my knee. I initially thought "you're just pushing hard and things are just fine". Well as I continued so did the discomfort, actually it turned into pain, I promptly cut the run short and walked/jogged back to the car. I iced it as soon as I got home and started to deal with all of the mental distress I had accumulated while walking back to the car. Given that I am a little less than two weeks away from my first 50 mile race (The Pocatello 50) and what I consider one of my most important races of the year, this was a major blow. I was a little more than half-way through my last big week before tapering and really wanted the 30 mile run I had planned for Saturday.

When I woke up on Friday my leg was stiff with point tenderness and I started to panic. I called in a round of favors, that afternoon I had an evaluation to make sure no tearing had occurred, E-stim ice massage session, Saturday morning I had another E-stim, ultrasound, ice massage session, followed by a massage for 35 minutes that focused entirely on my left hammy later in the afternoon. Sunday was the 3rd day in a row that I did not run, and I did more ice massage. I came to grips that my fitness is not going to suffer too much with the lay off and I could start the taper a little early.

Today (Monday), my leg is feeling much better, no stiffness and very little tenderness with palpation. I am planning on an easy run today just to loosen up the leg and feel it out, cross your fingers for me. This relatively minor injury has shown me that taking time off is one of the hardest things to deal with mentally, but I am certain now it is what probably saved my race. I guess only time will tell, but I am taking the optimist's route and think that I will emerge stronger (and more rested) than before!

Menan Butte Challenge

2009-04-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to race in the Menan Butte Challenge for the second time. I really enjoy this race because it starts off with a very steep climb up the north side of the Butte. Right from the start it gets you to redline. Last years race was a very exciting with Pat Bragassa, Wray Landon, and myself going back and forth for the lead, and with a little luck at the end I was able to win.

I have been anticipating this race for quite sometime, it was going to be the first race I would be a defending winner. I expected Pat to be at the race, as well as Tom Borschel (fellow Sportiva teammate and all around wicked fast runner) and many other fit and fast local athletes. Saturday morning came around and things were really falling in place for me, I felt rested, healthy, and ready to rock. Pat and Tom were both at the start and quite a few other fit looking folks.

When the race started I headed out at a solid clip, that I felt was sustainable for the entire climb, the pace was fast enough to quickly pull me into the lead. I hit the top of the crater (the top of the 1350' climb) in right around 8 minutes and glanced over my shoulder- nobody right on my tail. My lungs were burning but felt pretty good, my legs felt great so I opened up my pace until the bottom of the crater. From this point I really tried to keep my cadence high, just as a started up the far side of the crater I glanced back again- this time I could see Pat about 200 meters back, I turned it up a notch up the slickrock climb to try to put more ground between me and Pat. The course is a figure 8 so I made the turn back into the crater and started to pass alot of racers who were on their first trip into the crater. Having someone in front always helps me to turn the pace up and I quickly passed 8-9 racers on the short descent and the path through the center of the crater. I then turned up the climb that led to the maze, again I peaked back- this time I didn't see Pat, but I didn't let that fool me into slowing down. I picked my way through the maze as quickly as possible. It was much better marked this year than last which made it much easier to follow a quick path. I again found myself amongst other racers as I descended back down the front of the Butte towards the finish, all of which were very gracious to give the space I needed to keep moving quick. I finished the 5.5 mile course, 1350' gain/descent in 35:32. Pat finished 2nd about 1:30 back and Tom 3rd a few minutes behind Pat. Full results here.

It really was a great day for me, legs felt solid and fitness was were it needs to be. I had the chance to meet several very wonderful runners from SE Idaho and Wyoming, it was a super fun race and post-race. I am really grateful for all the work that Michael and the folks at Personal Best Performance did to make the race go so well. After the awards finished and people started to head out I climbed the Butted again and did 4 more figure 8's on the course. There I met two different scout troops, a couple of large groups of college kids and a few small families all hiking on the butte. I must have seemed crazy to them, just running around and around on top of this old lava dome, but at least they were friendly, sometimes cheering for me as I passed them for the 4th or 5th time. I put in a total of 23 miles w/ 4,500' of gain on saturday, the legs felt good, I am very happy with how the day turned out!