Ultraspire R&D in the Philippines

Par for the course I am slow in writing about the amazing things that continue to happen to me.  After spending a few days in Southern California after the San Diego 100, which included Sea World, surfing with the crew from Patagonia in Ventura, and visiting the Patagonia HQ, we hit the road home. Almost as immediately upon arriving home I was packing again, this time I was headed to the Philippines to work on R&D for Ultraspire for a week.

Chloe and Brynlee checking out the turtles at Sea World

Brynlee and I getting surf lessons from Patagonia rockstar Allison 

Brynlee getting the hang of it

The travel to the Philippines is exhausting, and I managed to have an epic travel day with mechanical delays, runways closures and airport bivys.  I arrived at 6:30 am, 8 hours later than planned, so instead of going to bed and sleeping of the jet lag time warp I went to the hotel gym and hammered on the treadmill for 45 minutes.  I then got to meet up with the Thatcher's at the buffet breakfast before we hit the road for a 3 hour drive from Manila to Marivelas.

Sushi, fried shrimp, potatoes and a waffle.  What else do you eat after 45 hours of travel?

I fought fatigue on the drive as I tried to stay awake and absorb as much as possible of this new country.  Late in the drive the fatigue won out and I dosed off.  What seemed like moments later we were arriving at the Dongin Entech Factory building that does the majority of Ultraspire (among others) production.  We spent the next 4 hours getting things organized and setting priority lists of projects.  At 8 pm we stumbled back to the car and then to the house we were staying in.  We ate and then I collapsed in bed, exhausted but excited for the early morning run planned for the next morning.

Micah Thatcher loads up on supplies- Fish Crackers?

Fridge on a motorcyle

4:45 am the alarm on my iPhone brutally drags me from sleep, but an instant later I am dressed and headed upstairs.  The whole crew Bryce, Melanie and three of the Thatcher boys; Micah, Josh, and Matthew and myself all head out for a morning trail run.  Stepping outside was a shock, I am conditioned to expect cool temps when I leave my house this early, well not in the Philippines.  I was greeted by a blast of hot humid air, and with a smile I headed out to into the morning.

Micah and I near the top of Mount Terak

Bryce and Matthew on the way up Terak

The next several days went by in a blur, early morning runs, a quick breakfast, off to the factory.  Lunch around 1:00 (an amazing homemade lunch prepared by Manon), back to the factory until around 8, stumble home, eat, to bed, repeat.

Lady Manon-this lady can cook!

Just one of our many delicious meals

 It was so incredible to be involved with developing many products and concepts at this level.  It grounded my thoughts on how quality products are made and how talented the Philippino workers are to be able to sew such complicated pieces of equipment with such outstanding accuracy.  Before I knew it we were having a farewell Ice Cream party with the sample room crew and loading into the car for the drive back to Manila.

The Sample room after everyone has gone home

Some of the crew working hard

Pattern cutters, and sewers showing off Ultraspire Bottles

In Manila we had a wonderful dinner with Peter at a fancy Asian Fusion Restaurant before heading to the hotel to sleep a couple of hours.

Mango Shake- so good

Maybe we shouldn't have watched Lord of the Rings when we should have been sleeping before our 4:30 am flight!

 4:30 am found us in the hotel lobby getting ready to make the travel slog home.  It was fun traveling back with the Thatcher's instead of being solo.  We were able to take advantage of the Sky Lounges which made travel a little more comfortable, even for a dedicated dirtbag like myself.  Interestingly we experienced delays on the way back home that resulted in missed connections and more delays, but delays aside I wouldn't hesitate to hop on the flights to make the same journey again.  I am very thankful to the crew at Ultraspire for allowing me to be so intimately involved with developing products and thanks the the Thatchers for an awesome trip.

Menan Butte Challenge, Finally Back At It

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

Outdoor Retailer Summer Market

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!