What Would Jason Do?

Moab Red Hot 55k 2012 Race (and other ramblings)

2012-02-20T21:20:00.001-08:00

Allison and I headed up to Moab this past weekend so I could run in the super popular, mega fabulous Red Hot 55k trail race. I hadn't run this race before but it garners huge accolades each year so I registered as fast as I could last fall when registration opened. It's a good thing, too, because it filled up in less than 24 hours, I believe. I hadn't gotten in the amount of training I'd hoped to so I went into the race very relaxed and with no pressure on myself at all. This felt great! In fact, I was so relaxed I forgot to pack running socks (I nabbed a pair at Gearheads though.) It was rad...I packed some shoes, running shorts, gloves, arm sleeves, two gels, a flask of EFS liquid shot, visor, sunglasses and a single hand bottle. No drop bag and no aid station planning. I didn't even pay attention to how many aid stations were on the course nor how far apart they were. I was just going for a training run in a scenic location with 200+ friends. Saturday morning dawned clear and quite warm, actually. At the Gemini Bridges TH, the start line for the race, it was in the upper 20s and the sun was out. No wind. Stellar. The race started at 8:00am and enjoyed running up to about mile 12 with Ryan and Susan as well as chatting with a couple of other friends along the way. The pace was pretty relaxed and I was trying to save my legs and feet for later in the race. However, at mile 8 the ball of my right foot starting aching pretty severely. I had worn my La Sportiva X-Country shoes and that was a bad idea for this course. I love those shoes but on a course with lots of rocks and slickrock running, the lack of real cushion on those shoes did me in. I managed to grit it out the rest of the race but I had to stop a few times to massage my foot and toes to get the blood flowing again. I ran a few miles in the middle of the race with Steve Bremner. It was great to converse with him for a bit before I started feeling the miles a bit and had to just zone out with my iPod for the rest of the race. The slickrock running from miles 21 to 25ish were really tough on my feet and legs. Off-camber running that just didn't allow me to get into a groove or any real running cadence. My quads were feeling it. I felt pretty good otherwise, though, taking a pull of my EFS every now and then and washing it down with plain water. I finished in 5:25:17 (39th of 200), reaching my goal of sub-5:30 with some good padding. I was damn beat by the finish, though, and it took me a good 30 minutes of sitting down and drinking chocolate milk before I felt ready to be conversational and jovial again. I guess that means I really did leave it all out there on the course, though, so I'm pleased with that. The post-race scene was great! Soup in bread bowls, music, lots of conversation and beer were in high supply. The afternoon was gorgeous making it great for just hanging out under the sun. I hope to return to this race next year but with some more adequate shoes!

While the race was a blast and I met my goal, the true highlight of the weekend was the tower climb Allison and I did on Friday before the race. We drove up north of Dove Creek, CO, to a camp on Thursday night so we could climb Psycho Tower on Friday. Psycho Tower is a wildly exposed but very moderate desert tower climb and I was psyched to climb it with Allison. So much so, I thoroughly documented it.

The climbing was just plain fun. Not scary, not difficult and way airy. Such a cool little summit way back in the middle of nowhere. Take a look at the movie and let me know what you think if you'd like.

Already falling behind

2012-02-09T20:48:00.000-08:00

At the start of this year I was thinking I'd be all on top of blogging, once a week. Well, five weeks into the year and I'm already behind. I think that's a good thing, though. Not that many (any?) people are reading my blog regularly and waiting with baited breath on my next post. And besides, I'm behind on blogging because I've been occupied doing other more exciting things. So yes, a good thing! Last weekend was really very rewarding. It started out on Friday evening with Allison and I having some friends over for frito pies, movies and beer. We watched the encore portion of P2yche, a climbing movie, before watching the movie 50/50. The movie was quite good with a genuine feel to it. And having a big group of friends over for great company was really enjoyable. Makes me want to do it more often. We had hoped to climb Saturday but an unexpected snow storm Friday night dropped 4 to 6 inches of snow thus canceling the climbing. There's never any shortage of fun things to do around here so Bill, Steve and I went and did some backcountry skiing/boarding in the Jemez finding really, really good powder despite having pretty low expectations while driving up there. After all, it hadn't snowed much in the past month. We were pleasantly surprised. So with the snow being so good, I went back up into the Jemez on Sunday with Sam and Josh for a much longer ski tour with more approaching and returning than actual turns but very rewarding because of the work involved. It's been a very busy work at week and I didn't get to run at all until tonight, Thursday, after work. The days are getting longer and this was my first evening post-work run since November. Hooray for longer days and thanks to Tom for getting me out this evening. I'm not bothered by the workload these days, though, it's really been fun work and to really motivate me more, I actually received a decent raise this week despite tight budgets all around. Definitely no complaints! Also, I'm super psyched for a development that has gone down this past week: I'm going to Denali again this June to climb and ski/ride it with friends Aaron, Josh, Sam, Andy and Sarah. We nailed down the details and purchased airfare to Anchorage for a two-week trip in late May/early June. I'm super excited for this trip. A great objective and a wonderful team of great friends. Can't go wrong! It's been nine years since I first climbed Denali and I'm excited to visit the mountain again with more experience and age now.
A photo of me hauling a sled on Denali in May 2003.

First month of 2012 is in the books

2012-01-31T17:11:00.000-08:00

Allison climbing "Face Off" (5.12a) at the Overlookfrom BlogPhotos

The week started out a bit frustrating when I discovered my right knee was a bit swollen on Monday morning after an 11 mile fast pavement run Sunday afternoon. Given that, I didn't run all week. So zero miles last week in the running department. But the swelling was gone by Wednesday and it feels fine after 12 miles of running this week so far. The swelling is a symptom of a torn meniscus I know I've had in my right knee since 2007. Not sure where the tear came from but I found out about it after I ran the Hardrock 100 miler in July 2007 and the Leadville 100 three weeks later. By mile 70 of Leadville my knee looked like a cantaloupe. It was a long, slow last 30 miles that night/day. I saw two knee docs after that incident and the first one, Auge, was ready to cut immediately. The second opinion from Dr. Lubowitz of Taos Ortho was more conservative and I went with that. I took it easy for a month or so and hadn't had any issues with my knee since. So I'm hopeful my increased mileage and hard, fast pavement running was the impetus this time and it won't recur any time soon. We'll see. Otherwise, a standard week at work and home. Wednesday was a day to celebrate at work when we completed the migration of all employee email accounts from our cyrus servers to the Exchange servers! Wednesday night was a fun night of bouldering at the SF climbing center. Friday night Allison and I watched Ides of March and found it to be an excellent movie. I had no idea what it was about going into it so it was a complete surprise. Saturday morning enjoyed the unseasonably nice weather with some rock climbing at the Overlook before going home to wait for a new mattress delivery between the hours of 2 and 5pm (that didn't show up until 6:30pm!) It was worth the wait though and we're digging the new mattress.

Nat on "Thorazine Dream" (5.11+)"

Sunday was another fun day of rock climbing at Diablo Canyon near Santa Fe. I'm in full-on projecting mode of "Clovis Hunter" a very cool 5.12b in the Solar Cave there. I gave it three attempts on Sunday falling once above the most difficult crux. And it was a shit-show full of entertaining value for the onlookers. I was trying to clip high on the fifth clip and fumbled with the clip like a complete noobie climber. It must have looked way sketchy for the crowd. Embarrassing. But I gave it 100 percent each time and really enjoyed the climbing. The biggest news is that Allison and I purchased airfare to Spain for two weeks at the start of April. We're psyched! Going to be tourists and check out the new sport climbing mecca of northern Spain. Way excited! Now to work out the rest of the logistics for the trip. Got any suggestions?

Some snow sliding, running, and climbing. A solid week 3.

2012-01-22T20:37:00.000-08:00

After the holiday on Monday it was an average day at work on Tuesday with a hearty lunch run of 7.7 miles with Tom before more on-going email migrations at work Tuesday night. Migrations were OK despite some network issues that caused us to restart ~50 migrations (out of ~300). Still, I was home by 8pm. Wednesday I skipped running for lunch and instead went to check out the new snow from Tuesday's storm up at Pajarito Mountain with Amy. We were pleasantly surprised by the 6 to 8 inches of new snow on the Townsight run and vowed to return the next day for lunch too. Wednesday night I got my plastic climbing on down at the Santa Fe Climbing Center. Allison is taking a 10-week training-for-climbing class down there on Monday and Wednesday nights so I've been trying to get down there once a week with her. I'm not a fan of the roped climbing there but the bouldering is really quite fun and a good workout so I've been enjoying doing that. Thursday morning I was motivated enough by the snow at Pajarito to get up early and head up for a Dawn Patrol lap with Tom and Sarah. It's always a bit difficult to roll out of bed early but once I'm up there, I'm always very happy I motivated. Thursday's reward was great with an incredible sunrise as we neared the top of our 1,000' ascent.

Tom at sunrise during Dawn Patrol Thursday. From BlogPhotos

Amy carving a lunch lap turn. From BlogPhotos

Friday I went on a solo run to try to run Santa Fe Baldy. I've done this run the past two Januarys and wanted to keep the streak going. However, I was a week late for ideal running conditions and only made it ~4 miles to the meadow called Puerto Nambe before being stymied by loads of new snow from Monday/Tuesday. I tried to push on but the post-holing was just too frustrating and slow. I even tried some crawling on the snow surface to avoid post-holing but doing that in minimal running clothing wasn't very pleasant nor efficient. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day and I still ended up with 8 miles and ~2,000' vertical of activity out of it.

My crawling tracks in Puerto Nambe. From BlogPhotos

The shortened trip up SF Baldy afforded me more shopping time in Santa Fe so I finally purchased a new Cal King mattress to replace our aging, sagging mattress. It was pretty ballsy to purchase a mattress without Allison giving it some test laying but that's how I roll. I'm pretty confident I know what she likes in a mattress and I hate burning up time shopping for things like this so I just went in, negotiated a bit and got 'er done. It gets delivered next Saturday. Ironically I had the best night of sleep I've had in a long time that night on our current mattress. Man I slept well; it was awesome. Friday night I ended up bouldering at the Santa Fe Climbing Center again for a few hours with a great, fun group of people while Allison had her "Monday makeup session" (since Monday was a holiday). Allison, Nat and I went climbing down at Diablo Canyon outside of Santa Fe on Saturday meeting up with Amy, Aaron, Claudia and Hagen. The day started out beautiful and warm and slowly got colder as the clouds and wind picked up. Still, it was a very productive and enjoyable day of climbing with Allison, Nat and I all sending routes we hadn't sent before in the Solar Cave. Allison and I both sent Lucy (5.12a) while Nat sent the super fun Clovis Hunter (5.12b). Amy and Aaron finished establishing a new two-pitch 5.12a route called Icarus and both of them then promptly sent the route. It looks very cool and I'm excited to try to climb it the next time we can get down there. And I managed to get a few pretty good photos thanks to the decent cloud cover.

Nat on Clovis Hunter at Diablo. From BlogPhotos

Sunday was crazy windy in Los Alamos for much of the morning so we did some chores around the house until around noon when Allison took Bill's dogs for a walk around the neighborhood and I went for a saucy 11 mile run that felt fast by my standards. I was encouraged by running a decent-for-me pace and still feeling quite good even though it was only 11 miles. I'm hoping to get out for a run of twice that length this coming weekend to see how my legs are feeling in anticipation for the Moab Red Hot 55k race in a month. We wrapped up the weekend with a pizza and beer session at Bill's while watching the NFL NFC Championship Conference Playoff game between the 49ers and the Giants. I was pulling for the 49ers and they lost. But now I'm pulling for the Giants in the Superbowl because I'm damn tired of the Patriots. I'll sign off on this post with a badass time-lapse movie of Yosemite scenes. This is really impressive and inspires me to try to do more time lapse movies despite not owning a motorized dolly or decent video editing software. Until next week!

Second week of 2012...

2012-01-16T20:39:00.000-08:00

The second week of 2012 is in my books. It was another good one. I'm a night behind on my weekly blog because today is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday so it felt like a Sunday despite being a Monday. Speaking of MLK Jr., if you're interested in his life and the story of his assignation, I highly recommend reading "Hellhound on His Trail" by Hampton Sides. I read it last year and really enjoyed it.
This week was pretty standard. I didn't get to run as much as I had hoped but managed to get in a couple decent lunch runs and one ~17 mile run on Saturday morning. The faster pavement runs with undulating terrain feels like good training for the Moab Red Hot 50k+ next month. I don't expect a super fast time at the Red Hot and instead just hope to run and finish an ultra without IT band pain after being plagued with IT band irritation all last fall. Saturday afternoon Allison and went climbing down at the Overlook to squeeze in a few routes and replace an aging bolt and hanger on a fun arête route called Paul's Boutique. We had replaced four of the five bolt hangers (and upgraded the anchors) a few weeks ago so now the route is fully upgraded.
I worked a couple more nights during the week on our ongoing project of migrating all the email accounts from the old system to the newer MS Exchange infrastructure. Things went smooth and the nights were short.
Friday night we had a small pizza party and movie viewing session at our house to watch the highly-acclaimed ski/snowboard movies "The Art of Flight" and "I.All.Can". Both films are phenomenal! If you haven't seen them yet, check out the trailers below.

Allison and I went climbing with friends Nat, Matt and Gabriela at the scenic and fun Utopian Vistas crag along the Rio Grande Gorge near Taos, NM on Sunday. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we really enjoyed ourselves. I enjoyed it so much I'm still quite sore now, more than 24 hours later!

Gabriela on "Nirvana Blues" at Utopian Vistas. See more photos.

2012. A New Year, Some New Blog Action

2012-01-08T21:17:00.000-08:00

I've been really bad about blogging despite enjoying it quite a bit. So while I don't "do" New Years resolutions, I'm going to try to make a concerted effort to blog more by writing weekly recaps. I'm not sure anyone at all reads my blog but I'll enjoy capturing what I'm up to and I'm constantly inspired to blog more by blog-constant friends such as JV who's always on top of it. The year 2012 started off excellent by unwinding at home after a week in Las Vegas, NV visiting Allison's Mom and climbing with good friends at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Allison and I were both in bed by 11:30PM on New Year's Eve so we didn't see the new year come in. New Year's Day I got out on a "12 for 2012" run with many local friends in White Rock, NM followed by a great brunch. I ran approximately 1,250 miles in 2011 and it felt great to start 2012 off with a solid pace 12 miler. Later that day, Allison and I tried to do some cross-country skiing on the local nordic trail but found conditions too icy and sketchy for our liking so we punted after a short bit.

From Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, NV. December 2011.

Monday was the New Year's holiday so I got out into the New Mexico backcountry for some skiing with Andy, Bill and Steve in an area called Big Tesuque. Considering it had been sunny and dry in NM for over a week, the riding was quite good.

Andy skiing Big T

At work, we've been migrating user email accounts from the long-standing Cyrus email servers to the new Microsoft Exchange service using a product called Transend. I wasn't impressed with Transend initially but that once we got it figured out, we've been doing 200-300 user mailboxes per night without much issue. This means I worked a couple nights during the week but not too late so it's not a problem. I ran some more during the week managing a total of 23.5 miles, all pavement. I'm going up to Moab, UT for President's Day weekend in February to run the Moab Red Hot 55k trail race so I'm getting some minimal training in. Running roads should be good for that course, I think. Friday was my regular Friday off from work and I went out rock climbing with Daniel to a not-often visited nearby location called the Sewer Crag named for its proximity to the White Rock sewage treatment plant. The climbing is a lot of fun on great pocketed basalt that's common along the Rio Grande Gorge. We established and bolted a new 5.10+ route we called "100 Years of Solitude" that was fun to establish and climb. Despite the proximity to the sewage treatment plant the climbing and scenery is wonderful.

Daniel on the FA of "100 Years of Solitude"

Friday night I drove up to near the Great Sand Dunes, CO with Bill to meet up with our friend Jeff for a weekend of 14er climbing and camping. Saturday morning we drove up the Lake Como road to about 10,000 feet taking advantage of very little snow in CO this season. We then hiked up to setup a high camp above Lake Como that morning. From there we continued up basin to climb 14ers Ellingwood Point (14,042') and Blanca Peak (14,345') in some gnarly cold wind. We got descended back down to our high camp by 5:30pm to eat and settle in for the night. It was great fun to meet up with Jeff for this fun outing. I typically do one winter 14er trip per season but with the low snowpack in Colorado this season, I may be back up there again this winter.

From Ellingwood Point (14,042') and Blanca Peak (14,345'), CO. 2012-01-07

I bought a new album this week, Awolnation's Megalithic Symphony after listening to it repeatedly on Spotify. I highly recommend it. All in all, a great week! I hope the next 51 are just as entertaining.

2011 Salida Run Through Time Marathon Race Report

2011-03-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

2011 Salida Run Through Time Marathon Race Report
Salida, CO
March 12, 2011
3:49:03
16th overall (129 starters) Official results
4,500’ elevation gain/4,500’ elevation descent
Garmin Connect Report
SportTracks Per Mile Report

This was my third time running this race and it just keeps getting better. I ran it for my first time in 2007 and finished fourth overall in 3:38:21. In 2010 I ran it despite having the flu during the race and finished in 4:28-ish. This year the race substituted the last six miles of dirt road with six miles of fun, more difficult single track trail that had been recently built. This change was awesome! The new singletrack trail was very fun and made for more late-race difficultly which I appreciated.

Hunter and I had drove up to Salida on Friday after work arriving at the newly built Hampton Inn around 9pm after dinner at the East West Grill in Alamosa (a favorite food stop of ours). The Beist had made the room reservation and had planned to join us for the weekend but ended up with food poisoning on Thursday night after nearly three weeks abroad for work so he didn’t make the trip with us. Our friend Dan had planned to join us as well but had recently come down with a case of metatarsalgia and had to bow out of the race at the last minute.
Hunter and I enjoyed a quiet night of sleep at the Hampton Inn and got up at 6am on Saturday. The day had dawned beautifully and any worries about the weather were nixed. I ate a banana, some yogurt and a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. I washed it all down with 16oz of strong coffee and a bottle of orange juice.
We arrived at the check-in right around 8:00am and got checked in quickly before a short course briefing from RD John MacManus.
We all cross the bridge to the railroad tracks and got lined up for the 9:00am start time. The weather was perfect for a late winter run with a predicted high in the mid-50s. I started in shorts, a short-sleeve shirt, light gloves (I always get cold hands), my visor, sunglasses, a hand bottle full of vanilla EFS liquid shot mixed 50/50 with water and my iPod. In my shorts I had three gels and 10 endurolyte tablets (I only consumed two of the endurolytes during the race).
At 9:00am we all took off and I ran the first few miles catching up with friend Jeff Kunkle as we warmed up along the dirt road and short bit of pavement road. I hadn’t seen Jeff since last year’s run so it was great to talk to him for a bit as we ran. This was also good for my strategy--don’t start out too fast so I’d feel good later. Soon enough Jeff and I left the pavement behind and began the long, steady run up the dirt road. Jeff throttled back a bit around mile four so I put on my headphones and began cranking A Day to Remember from my iPod to slowly throttle up my pace.
As my paced picked up a bit I began passing a few runners on this long climb. I passed by the first, small aid station without pause as I still had plenty of fluid in my hand bottle. Shortly thereafter I said, “Hello” to another runner and he introduced himself as Jacob. Turns out he was from Santa Fe, NM, so we chatted for a short bit before parting ways. I was feeling very good and still had enough fluid in my hand bottle to pass through the second aid station without stopping. I was very pleased to have run the entire uphill to this point while feeling great and continuing on to the turn-around at mile ~10.

Around mile 9, though, I saw the lead runner, Timmy Parr, already on his way back and looking strong. Just behind Timmy was Nick Clark, Dan Vega and Ryan Burch all looking strong and hauling ass back. A couple minutes before the turnaround I saw my friend Brian heading back already. Brian and I had been hyping up a friendly competition between us for the week preceding the race and, obviously, I was losing. Brian had four minutes on me and is a very strong runner. I knew I had my work cut out for me to catch him.

I reached the turnaround at mile 10 at 1:30:35 into the race meaning I had averaged an 8:53 pace to that point. Knowing that much of the remaining distance was downhill, I was encouraged and pleased with my pace to that point.

At the turnaround, I filled up my hand bottle and consumed my first gel of the race. As I started back and picked up my pace down a short downhill I passed an older, gray-bearded, long time Salida runner that said something like, “Do you know who that woman was?” (referring to the lead woman that had just passed by us.) Since I was wearing my headphones at the time, I pulled them down and said, “I’m sorry, what did you say?” He replied, “Oh, that’s right, you only heard the disc jockey. I hope you get attacked by a mountain lion.” I couldn’t believe this guy was such an asshole and was taken aback enough that I laughed and said, “Ah, that’s fine, it’s worth it” or something to that effect. As I thought about it in the next 15 miles, I really couldn’t believe that jerk had the gumption to say what he said. For some odd reason, a number of runners (mostly old school runners) have something against runners that wear headphones while running and I get that. But to wish a mountain lion attack on a runner because he/she wears headphones is just plain retarded. For starters, did he really think a runner would hear a mountain lion coming up on them even when not listening to music? No way. That’s how mountain lions operate--you don’t hear them before they attack. So that’s a super weak argument that borders on complete idiocy. And secondly, if that’s this dude’s MO, I don’t want to hear what he has to say anyway so I’d rather just keep listening to my motivating music rather hearing his nonsense. OK, sorry for my rant there...

I really enjoyed seeing my friends David, Tom, Sean, Hunter, Steve and Deb heading towards the turnaround--it was quite the boost to see them. I continued to feel great and run almost all the way to the next aid station. There I came up on the runner in front of me as he slammed a PBR at the aid station. I couldn’t imagine drinking a beer at that point but it did remind me of the cold beer in my car back at the finish line so I kept on cruising through the aid station without stopping to refill my bottle. I did suck down my second gel of the race here, though.
To this point the course was the same but I knew around mile 20 we’d get onto some new single track and I was excited for that.

I ran the next few miles solo without seeing anyone until I caught a glimpse of Brian around mile 19. I timed it and he was 1:30 ahead of me. I was gaining ground on him. I still felt very good. And I could see the town of Salida again. We were closing in on the finish so I kept on churning.

At mile 20 I unexpectedly came across the aid station where we were to turn off onto the new single track. I hadn’t expected this aid station (I didn’t read the race manual very well) but was very happy it was there because my hand bottle was getting low with water. I filled up, thanked the aid station folks for being there and eagerly turned onto the single track. This new section of trail was really fun! Twisty-turney with some technical obstacles--I was loving it. And then I saw Brian up ahead just a few seconds on me. Another minute or so and Brian stopped and let me pass by. I slapped him on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go, Brian”.

And then the trail made a sharp left up an abrupt and short-but-steep climb. All my running steam evaporated but I saw a couple more runners ahead of me and power-hiked as hard as I could to catch up to them passing them just before the top of the climb. At the top of the climb I felt rejuvenated and quickly found my rhythm again. A number of times I looked back over my shoulder expecting to see Brian coming back at me but that didn’t happen.

Just before the last aid station around mile ~23, I stopped to pee and suck down my third and last gel of the race. I then noticed another runner coming up strong. It was Rick Hessek from Colorado Springs. He seems to make a habit of passing me in the final few miles of any race we run in and this was no exception. I tried to up my pace to hold him off but around mile 24 I stepped aside to let him go by. I could see Salida now and we were close to the finish. The single track, while enjoyable, continued to wind around Tenderfoot Mountain more than I had expected and we were running away from the finish line. But, soon enough, we were down at the flats and on the homestretch. I looked at my watch and while I had been hoping to beat my PR of 3:38:31 on this course, I knew that wasn’t going to happen but I knew I’d be able to finish well under 4 hours and was super stoked about that.

I ended up crossing the finish line in 3:49:03. The new six miles of single track trail at the end was more difficult than years previous so I was very pleased with my time. It was one of those rare races where everything went well for me. I paced myself well, ate and hydrated properly and just felt great the entire time. I had a great race and great time out there with my friends and everyone else.

Right shoulder surgery...

2010-11-29T16:33:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, November 17th, Allison and I made the hour-long drive up to Taos so I could have my right torn rotator cuff repaired by Dr. Guttmann of Taos Ortho. It's now 12 days later and I wanted to write about my experience so I don't forget details about my recovery. And perhaps this information will help others going through a similar procedure get a better idea of what to expect.

The surgery itself took about three hours and went smoothly. Guttmann cleaned up a bone spur on my humerus, cleaned up some roughage on my labrum (apparently I may have dislocated my shoulder at some point but I don't ever recall doing so), repaired the tear in my subscapularis and ended up doing a biceps tenodesis (cut the normal attachment of the biceps tendon on the shoulder socket and reattached the tendon to the bone of the humerus taking the pressure off the labrum and ultimately making the shoulder stronger.) Guttmann found that I am missing a tendon in my shoulder that most everyone has. This helps explain why both my shoulders are injured (I have a SLAP tear, incurred in spring 2009, in my left shoulder that I haven't had repaired, yet...)

As you might expect, this operation was pretty painful. Allison drove me home that afternoon as I was in a stupor with a completely numb right shoulder and arm--I had received a nerve-block shot prior to surgery which lasted until 1:30am the next day. For the first 3 nights post-op I took the prescribed amount of percocet throughout the day and night along with an Ambien sleep aid at night. But these drugs, especially the percocet, made me feel odd as well as made me urinate A LOT. So I stopped taking them as soon as possible. By Saturday, I was done with them.

The first few nights of sleeping were not very good. I had to sleep in the shoulder sling they sent me home in. That involved sleeping propped up a bit and meant I had to stay on my back all night. I'm more of a back-sleeper anyway, so that part didn't bother me but not being able to roll to my side was tough. I wore the shoulder sling all night, every night, for a week after the surgery. After that, I started sleeping with it off but with a bank of pillows to my right so I wouldn't be tempted to roll over on to it. So far, that has been working great.

It was suggested I wear the sling as much as possible during waking hours for six weeks. But after six days, I felt confident in my arm's range of motion, the very little strength that had returned and my ability to protect it well and I pretty much stopped wearing the sling. I still wore a bit here and there for a couple more days but I've found I'm pretty cognizant of my arm's ability and whereabouts and I can keep it relaxed and reasonably safe sans sling.

The day after surgery I began doing the self-PT that was prescribed by Guttmann. That meant taking the arm out of the sling, straightening my arm while it was supported by my other arm, lifting the arm to 90 degrees (perpendicular to my chest) and holding it there for 20 seconds. I was quite surprised at how soon after the surgery I regained that range of motion. The arm was completely weak and couldn't support itself but with the assistance of my other arm I could hold my arm at 90 degrees for 40+ seconds at time. Roughly a week out of surgery I was able to lift it to ~120 degrees and now, at 12 days post-op, I'm able to lift it to ~150 degrees and hold for a minute. It's a bit uncomfortable, especially during the first lift of a set, but I don't feel like I'm straining it much. I've also been doing no-weight, but unassisted, bicep curls with no pain. My bicep muscle feels like it's been punched really hard by some big, tough guy, but doesn't have shooting pain. In a couple days I got to my first real physical therapy session so I hope to get a feel for where I'm at in my bigger scheme of things.

Other random indicators of return of range of movement. I was able to type with both hands about three days after the surgery. 10 days post-op I was able to wipe my ass and brush my teeth using my right arm. That's a good thing because neither orifice was getting as clean as it should have been getting. 11 days post-op I could hoist my arm up the steering wheel of my car and drive for a while with my arm outstretched. I still haven't operated the column shifter of my automatic Honda CR-V with my right arm yet, but feel I'm close.

And now, some photos...

Passive arm-lifts 12 days post-op

2010 Cascade Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run Report

2010-08-31T21:02:00.000-07:00

Cascade Crest 100 Mile Race 2010
Snoqualmie Pass, WA
8/28/2010
28:29:01
45th overall (~125 starters)
~22,000 feet elevation gain/~22,000 feet elevation descent

The top seven reasons you need to run the CC100:
#7. The loop course. I strongly dislike courses that run multiple loops on the same short loop. Out-and-backs are also not desirable because you're seeing the same terrain twice. Point-to-points are OK but require some additional logistics. A course like the CC100 that is one big loop is great. You finish where you started and see 100 miles of new terrain.
#6. The relatively low elevation. OK, maybe it's not relatively low for many runners but for me, living at 7,500', knowing the course highpoint is ~5,800' is really nice. My lungs never hurt and I never found myself gasping for oxygen.
#5. The 10:00am start time. The 10am start time makes awesome sense. Why make runners wake up by an alarm at 3:30am to cram down breakfast at an unusual hour when they're going to be up all night anyway? The extra sleep, and less worrying about the alarm going off, makes for better rested runner and a more energetic night of running on race day.
#4. The PCT. 30 miles of beautiful, soft singletrack running along the Pacific Crest Trail early in the race is amazing. Just don't hammer too hard here if you haven't been training really hard. It's tempting!
#3. The crew-friendly aid stations. If you have crew, they'll love the ease of accessing the crew-accessible aid stations. It's recommended that crews do not go to aid stations after Lake Kachess so they'll even manage to get in some decent sleep before you finish.
#2. The huckleberries. Huckleberries abound in many places along the course. Yum! Just don't spend too much time stopping to pick them up.
#1. The super fantastic race staff. The RD, Charlie Crissman, is a genuinely nice guy with a solid ultrarunning background. He knows how to run this race and will even present finishers with an ice cold beer at the end. The volunteers at all of the aid stations are extremely helpful, friendly and experienced. There was bacon at at least once aid station! The race has maintained the feel of an old-school, genuine ultra despite the growth of ultrarunning.

Photo: Descending Thorpe Mountain at mile 84. Photo by Glenn Tachiyama.

I considered it a destiny of sorts when I accidentally got signed up for the Cascade Crest 100 2010. How does one accidentally get signed up for a tough 100 mile trail race? My good friend and frequent outdoor partner Bill really wanted to run the CC100 race again after having to drop out at mile 88 in 2008 due to a knee issue. But Bill was out of the country in February when the mail-in registration opened and needed someone to mail in his registration and I was happy to do that for him. I filled out an application with his name and then wrote a check with his name on the memo line. A week later when the list of entrants was posted on the CC100 website, both our names were on the entrants list. This posed a bit of dilemma for me. I was tentatively in a race that looked very appealing to me but one that I considered very difficult. I hadn't finished a 100 miler in three years. I wasn't sure if I could run another 100 miler. But then again, Bill had nothing but high praise for this race and he would already be going so I'd have some company for at least part of it. My sister lives in the Seattle area so I'd likely get a chance to see her and her family. After deliberating for over a month about what to do, I finally decided it was destiny for me to run this race. I emailed the race director, explained the situation and offered to send a check for my registration if he'd take me. He did and it was set.
So why did I deliberate for so long and consider this a destiny of sorts? Well...

Exactly a year ago, after a serious rappeling accident, I was limping around with a severely sprained left ankle and torn medial meniscus in my left knee and I was in so much pain I couldn't imagine ever running a trail race, especially a 100 mile trail race, again. I honestly thought my days of trail ultrarunning were over. But thanks to some great physical therapy from my PT Carl Dickson, a well-done menisectomy by Dr. Lubowitz and the amazing healing powers of the human body and mind, I was able to run a trail 50k, the Palo Duro Canyon race, two months after my accident. With my success at Palo Duro I knew I could still run trails of moderate distance and was encouraged by that thought. But I wondered just how far my healed knee and ankle could go. Then in the first half of 2010 I was able to run the Orcas Island 50k, the Jemez Mountain Trail Races 50k and the San Juan Solstice 50 miler. I was very pleased. But could I run 100 miles again as I had in Leadville in 2005 and 2007 and Hardrock in 2006 and 2007? I wanted to find out.

Bill and I stayed at the Aster Inn in Cle Elum and met up with my friend and soon-to-be pacer, Jon, on Friday night for dinner in Cle Elum. After a restful and full night of sleep that night, we leisurely readied ourselves for the race and headed to the start line at the firehouse in Easton, WA. The race staff supplied a decent breakfast of pancakes, fruit, sausage and coffee. We ate there and got checked-in. My brother Dylan had flown up to Seattle a couple days earlier to visit my sister, Leigh Ann, and her family and then crew Bill and I for the race. We went over any last minute and details and got ready to run. The weather was great with a forecast for a clear sky and cool overnight temperatures to match the unseasonably cool daytime temperatures. Perfect for running.

At 9:55 am, the Canadian anthem was played while a girl held up a Canadian flag affixed to a hockey stick. After the Canadian anthem, a runner played the American national anthem on a brass instrument (I don't know instruments). We all lined up and headed out at 10:00am. The run starts out on a dirt road heading south out of Easton before heading up the long and steep climb up Goat Peak. It's notorious for being hot here but with the cool temperature this year it wasn't bad at all. And apparently the trail is frequented by motorcyclists but we only came across one during the entire climb. Near the top of the climb we were treated to an awesome view of the Cascades and, eventually, the lower glaciers of Mount Rainier (the upper portion was obscured by clouds). I was really enjoying running an ultra with Bill again and having his company for a while. I wasn't expecting it to last too long on account of my poor training, though.

Bill and I ran together and eventually settled into a nice pace with some other runners after the descent from Cole Butte aid station. Because the terrain was very runnable, Bill and I were both consciously holding back on our pace so we'd have the necessary “go juice” later in the race. We got on the PCT and really enjoyed the running on this section of the course. Soft dirt and smooth tral in some very dense tree sections with a gently downhill grade made for effortless and enjoyable cruising on into the Tacoma Pass aid station at mile 23 where we first got to see Dylan, there to crew us. Both of us were feeling good here. However, due to a severely bruised heel about a month ago, my left heel was starting to feel a bit touchy. I took the opportunity to change shoes here into some new Saucony Trail Guide 2 shoes—my favorites. I figured the newer shoes would have better cushion and I noticed the extra cushion immediately.

Bill left the aid station a couple minutes ahead of me on account of my shoes change. After leaving Tacoma Pass I was alone for a while and really fell into a zen-like state for a bit as I enjoyed smooth, in-the-trees running with a breeze in the distance filling the air with a relaxing rustling noise. I was really thankful and glad to be right there, right then. I passed a few runners on the short climbs and eventually caught up to Bill to enjoy his company again. However, once we reached more sustained downhill running, Bill cruised on ahead as I took it easy on my left heel and descended slower. I would be behind Bill by a few minutes until around the Meadown Mountain aid station at mile 40.

Bill and I reached the Stampede Pass aid station at mile 33 with him in front of me by a few minutes. It was great to see Dylan and Jon here. I had originally planned on switching from my hand bottles to a hydration pack here but the evening was warm and I'd clearly make it to the Meadow Mt. aid station (mile 40) where I'd see Dylan and Jon again before dark so I switched to my Nathan waist belt instead. This allowed me to run with just one hand bottle while still carrying ~20oz of fluid on the belt along with a headlamp. Bill left the aid station here about five minutes ahead of me and that was the last I would see of him until the finish. He just simply rocked it the rest of the way.

The running to Meadow Mt was enjoyable and nice, again. At Meadow I made the short walk down the hill to the aid station to grab some boiled potatoes and ended up chatting a short bit with a PCT thru-hiker that just happened to be there that night. I grabbed my beanie and gloves here expecting cooler temperatures going into the Olallie Meadows aid station and I'm glad I did—it did get chilly by the time I reached Olallie. I got into Olallie about 20 minutes after sunset requiring the use of my headlamp for about 3/4s of a mile before the aid station. By now I had noticed the onset of some ass-cheek chaffing and hoped the folks at the Olallie aid station would have some vaseline on hand. After eating some super delicious pirogies at Olallie, I asked one of the volunteers if they happened to have some vaseline. She looked in the first aid kit and came up empty but asked one of the other volunteers, Scott, if he knew of any. He said, “lemme check in my truck, I think I have some under the seat”. He came back with a big container of vaseline stating, “only an ultrarunner would have some vaseline under the seat of the truck.” Excellent.

I left Olallie after about 10 minutes of enjoying the station. It was nearly completely dark by now but once I hit the service road that would take us to the top of the Hyak ski area, I was able to turn off my headlamp and enjoy the ambient light. Until the top of the climb up the ski area, I had been feeling great. My legs were strong, my stomach had been easy all day and my IT band was not bugging me at all. For fueling, I had been drinking a 50/50 mix of water and First Endurance EFS “gel”. It was working miracles—keeping me fueled while keeping my stomach smooth. But as I reached the top of the ski area climb and looked straight down the ski run we'd descend into Hyak, I knew my quads were done. And I was right. It was a slow and tough descent down the ski run and into the Hyak aid station at mile 53. I was a bit diappointed by this fact because the ski run itself looked very much like the ski run I run hill repeats on at Pajarito ski area at home for training. But with the darkness and the condition of my legs, it was a tedious descent.

I was psyched to get into the Hyak aid station around 10:30pm. Knowing this would be the start of a long night, I took my time at Hyak and ate a few cups of soup, downed some boiled potato chunks and drank a cup of coffee. I got my hydration pack here so I'd have a rain jacket and extra light along as well as be able to give my hands a break from carrying bottles. I left the aid station around 10:50pm bidding the staff a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (they had a Christmas theme going on). The next 2.5 miles were on flat pavement paralleling the I-90 interstate and, for once, I actually looked forward to pavement running. My quads felt like they had very little left so it was nice just cruise pavement for a while. Eventually the road turned to dirt before the long ascent up to the Keechelus Ridge aid station. By now the bright, waning moon had come up so I switched off my headlamp and enjoyed the light of the moon for the ascent. I think I startled the Keechelus aid station folks when I stumbled in in the dark, unannounced around 12:45am. I ate some more soup, some potato chunks and a rice krispy treat before heading out.

The descent from Keechelaus down to Kachess Lake went OK. It was very runnable along a dirt road and I did my best to run as much as I could but was still getting passed by a good number of runners. The wheels were coming off the axles, so to speak, but I knew I'd soon have the company of my pacer, Jon, for the rest of the night.

I got into the Kachess Lake aid station at mile 68 around 2:30am, I think. It was dark and cold, I know that for sure. Apparently there was a chocolate fondue inside the Hawaii-themed aid station tent but I hardly noticed any of this and certainly didn't feel up to making the extra ten steps to the tent to see this fondue for myself. I sat in a chair next to a propane heater and ate as much soup as was handed to me. I stayed in this aid station for about 20 minutes, I'm guessing.

Jon and I left the aid station anxious to see the famed “trail from hell” that takes runners along Kachess Lake. The trail is aptly named for sure. The first part, just getting to near the lake, doesn't resemble a trail really. Lots of log hopping and one big tree that had “hug me” painted on it where hugging the tree was actually the best way to get over it. Beyond that, more log hopping, sketchy side-hilling above precarious slabs and a high log crossing over a side stream stick out the most in my mind. In a few spots a fall would result in about 60 feet of bouncing followed by an abrupt finish into the lake. On the bright side, the trail was so mentally engaging that I did not fall asleep on my feet as I've been known to do on occasion in other 100s. Jon told some great stories about climbing and skiing with the likes of Henry Barber, Lynn Hill and Alex Lowe along this section and hearing his stories was a great distraction for the sleep deprivation and pain in quads and feet.. For his first time pacing in a 100, he did an awesome job. A natural.

We rolled into the Mineral Creek aid station at mile 73 just as the sky was starting to get light around 5:30am. Then came the climb from Mineral Creek to No Name Ridge. A long, seemingly never-ending dirt road ascent that had me wondering if we'd strayed off-course somewhere. A climb couldn't be this long, could it? Yes, it was. Maybe it wasn't really that bad but at this stage in the race with legs that didn't want to work anymore, it felt interminable. But, as with all things, the end came and we were there, at the No Name aid station at mile 80. And, as a bonus, my friend James was there working the aid station. It was good to see him again and enjoy some of his homemade chocolate chip pancakes before we headed into the “needles” section to Thorp Mountain.

It's funny how, at mile 80 with 20 miles to go, I think, “OK, almost done with this.” Not quite really. And on this course, not even close. Jon and I enjoyed the start of the ridge trail heading to Thorp Mountain but steep climb after steep climb, I started to wear down mentally now. Until now, I had just been worn down physically but I was still positive and strong mentally. But the steep climbs, including a ½ mile total out-and-back up Thorpe Mountain were really taking a toll on my mind. I found myself apologizing to Jon a few times for my colorful language as I cursed the trail and each successive climb that seemed totally unnecessary. But nothing else to do but carry on so carry on we did until we reached the French Cabin aid station at mile 88. Upon nearing the aid station, a volunteer yelled the magic word, “Bacon! We got bacon!”. Bacon. I was a hurting unit but found temporary relief from my physical and mental anguish as I savored a handful of tasty, warm strips of bacon. The volunteers at French Cabin were very friendly with a great sense of humor which helped to perk me up. As I left the station, one of the women said, “OK, see you next year?” I looked back with her with a wink and a laugh which I'm sure she understood to mean, “hell no.” But in a nice way.

You see, the master plan of which I hadn't shared with many people, was to run and finish the Cascade Crest 100 as my final 100. I've really enjoyed the experiences of all the 100 milers I've run. I've learned a lot about myself and have a deeper appreciation for the human body and mind as a result of my experiences in 100 mile runs. But I've never been very good at 100 milers. And after having surgeries in each knee, I don't want to over do things now so I can enjoy running for many years to come.

So I was in no way being disrespectful to the aid station personnel or the Cascade Crest 100 race director when I gave my non-verbal reply to her question about seeing me here again next year. I had a brutal 12 miles ahead of me and that would be that for me and 100s despite just how awesome the Cascade Crest 100 race is.

Motivated by this thought, we left French Cabin and made the last real climb of the course up to a saddle before encountering some very runnable trail along a scenic canyon and stream towards the last aid station, Silver Creek, at mile 96. This section, while very runnable, felt endless. I cursed the trail on many occasions and stopped a few times to take off my shoes and rub my aching feet and quads. I was shot. But I was close. As the saying goes, I could smell the barn. Jon could sense my deteriorating mental fortitude and dug into his joke bag and came up with some good ones that got me laughing. Again, he was making my tough situation more bearable. I knew I signed up for this and this was to be expected, I just needed to be reminded about that fact every now and then.

We then passed a couple of hikers heading up the trail and asked how far. I was sure we were at most a half mile from the aid station so when the woman replied, “we’ve been hiking for 35 minutes to this point” I was floored. Really? That meant at least another mile and half to the aid station. So I grinned and grunted and kept on moving. I’d try to run, or, rather, shuffle, a bit here and there but mostly just walked. Big drops in the trail posed the biggest difficulties requiring me to turn sideways and steady myself with a hand on the ground or nearby tree to step down. Yep, the quads were goners.

And then, finally, we could see the aid station at mile 96 down one final short hill. I refilled my water bladder with some Gu2o drink and ate a full Heath bar and half a Payday bar. Chocolate, toffee and nuts always taste great. The volunteers had to be able to see how spent I was and were very positive and encouraging. That helped a lot. I didn’t sit down nor did I linger. Four miles and change to go and I wanted nothing more than to take off my shoes and sit down. We left the aid station after about five minutes and I had to make one last bathroom stop in the trees. I also took the opportunity to sit on a log, take of my shoes one last time and massage my feet. It felt so good I didn’t want to put my shoes back on! But I did and we got going.

We followed a new pipeline that felt and looked like motorcycle track whoops. We then got onto a dusty dirt road for a bit before making a hard left turn and getting on a light use trail paralleling the frontage road along I-90 towards Easton. Once we hit the overpass over I-90 I stopped once more to take off my shoes and rub my feet. Jon had sent a text message to my brother letting him know we were in the final mile or two. It was flat paved road but I couldn’t really muster any running so we walked. Finally, we entered the town of Easton and rounded a corner between two buildings and the finish line was in sight!

Here, another runner came from behind me to pass by while giving me the encouraging words, “there it is, we’ve done it!” Indeed we had. It had been a long, tough one for sure but we had done it. Bill, Dylan, Jon and I had done it. I saw Dylan and he trotted up to meet Jon and I. I thanked Jon and then Dylan for their work in helping me reach this point and finish this amazing race. I then saw my sister, Leigh Ann, along with her husband and three kids near the finish line and nearly cried. They were all here to support and cheer me on for the finish of this crazy, selfish-yet-transcendent experience. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw another runner sprinting up fast. We had just run 100 miles and while I was going to finish in 45th place in a race with no glory at all, my competitive instinct kicked in and I broke into a sprint. I wasn’t going to be passed by anyone in the final 50 yards of race if I could help it. I was really sprinting and caught myself wondering just where in the hell did this come from? Ten minutes ago I felt like I barely had the energy to walk. And from this I learned that even when we think we’re totally depleted and running on empty, there’s always something more there if we want it bad enough.

I sprinted across the finish line and immediately got hugs from all of my family. It felt great and I was elated to be surrounded by so many people I love. It was special. Very special. I found that even with minimal training (~25 miles per week) and an unplanned five week taper, I still have what it takes to finish a 100. And with that, I finish 100s. Bittersweet.

San Juan Solstice 50 2010 Race Report

2010-06-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

This is what hurtin' looks like at Slumgullion at mile 40.

San Juan Solstice 50 mile race
Lake City, CO
June 19, 2010
11:12:40
26th overall
SJS50 2010 official results
My SportTracks GPS data

It had been a tumultuous previous 9 months in terms of running for me. In September 2009 I had knee surgery on my left knee (menisectomy) and in February 2010, during the Orcas Island 50k, I ended up with some severe-feeling IT band pain that lasted throughout the spring. Needless to say going in the SJS50, my confidence was low. I hadn't run a 50 miler since my knee surgery and my IT band hadn't been tested at the distance since I began rehabbing it after the Orcas Island run. I'm extremely pleased to report I had no knee pain or IT band pain during the SJS50 this year. But my stomach did cause me distress...

Weather conditions for this year's race were ideal for a fast run. Clear sky, low water in the stream in Alpine Gulch, very little snow on the divide and a tailwind along the divide helped serve up some speedy times for the front-runners. Unfortunately I'd been running only 25 to 30 miles per week so I couldn't take better advantage of the stellar conditions. And then there was the stomach issue too.

Running from the start to the first aid station, Williams, at mile ~16, I consciously kept myself in check and didn't bomb down the beautiful singletrack into Williams like I normally do. During the descent down towards Williams I passed by a familiar-looking face and asked him if he was Brandon. Yes he was. Nice to meet you, briefly, Brandon.

My primary goal this year was to feel good going from the Slumgullion aid station at mile 40 through Vickers Ranch to the finish. In my previous four years in a row on this course, I'd always felt like crap on this section. So when I arrived into Williams at 8:15am, my legs were feeling good and I felt like I had done a good job of keeping myself in check. I had run the final few miles into Williams with Mike Priddy and enjoyed his company.

Also, since I wasn't well-trained for this race this year, I decided to experiment with food a bit and opted to eat a peanut butter and jam sandwich at Williams and Carson. As tasty as they were (and I had eaten some on recent training runs), I think they resulted in my stomach trouble all day. I ate one as I left Williams en route to Carson and think I ran/hiked well up to Carson by 9:45am. At Carson I was still with a few of the other Los Alamos runners in the race—David Coblentz, Brian Crone and Blake Wood. Leaving Carson, I munched on another peanut butter and jam sandwich as I hiked out of Carson with my two hand bottles of water, a full gel flask, two gel packets and some electrolyte tablets. No jacket necessary this year, thankfully. Blake ran by me running strong up the hills and I'd only see him again once more leaving the Divide aid station. David and I were together until the descent off of the course highpoint, Coney Peak (13,330'), when David just plain took off. Somewhere around here I realized I could not stomach the idea of any gels and each time I drank some water I felt like I had to burp repeatedly before I could really run. I soon realized there was no way I'd be eating any gels so I dumped out some gel from my gel flask to save weight. I ran when I could but mostly power hiked all along the divide eventually reaching the Divide aid station at mile ~31 around 12:15pm. The only thing that sounded even remotely good to eat was watermelon so I sat down at the aid station and ate three pieces of watermelon and refilled my two hand bottles with water. Also, I dumped the remaining gel from my flask into the garbage bag.

I was tempted to hang out longer at the aid station but it that would just prolong the inevitable so I got up and started walking out of the aid station. From the divide aid station it's a bit of climbing before the real descent into Slumgullion begins so I just walked it. About ½ mile out of the aid station I found a stump in the trees and sat down for five minutes. I was feeling pretty awful and just wanted to rest for a bit. I knew I was getting a bit dehydrated, too, so I drank about half a bottle of water while I sat before getting up and moving again. As I hiked over the last bit of uphill before the descent, a runner named Rhonda (she finished third female overall in the end) ran past me. Rhonda running by me helped inspire me to run again so I thank her for that. I followed her down the descent running as much as I could and eventually passed by her as we ran into Rambouillet Park before it goes uphill for a short bit. At the top of the climb Rhonda passed by me again saying that she'd see me on the descent again. I stopped to empty out my shoes which probably wasn't really necessary but it was a fine excuse to sit down again.

The final descent down the often steep and technical dirt road to Slumgullion normally beats me into submission but today my legs were feeling good despite my stomach trouble. So I ran rather well downhill into Slumgullion passing Rhonda once again before reaching the Slumgullion aid station right about 2:00pm. At this point I knew I would not be able to run a sub-11 race since it takes me a solid 2+ hours to run the final 10 miles of the race.

Allison was waiting for me at Slumgullion with a chair and all the things I had written down that I'd want. It turned out all I really wanted was the chair. No way could I eat another peanut butter and jam sandwich, I couldn't stomach the idea of gels, I was feeling pretty beat. Then I saw Tom Stockton who had dropped out earlier and that, for a moment, tempted me to follow his lead. But I was only 10 miles from the finish and I couldn't really consider dropping out. So I just sat. And that's when I noticed a kid with a popsicle. It turns out the aid station personnel had just brought in some popsicles! Tom and Allison got me a banana popsicle and it went down real easy. So easy, in fact, I asked for a second one and ate that too. At least I could eat something.

As I sat eating my popsicles, Tom, David and Blake's wives all helped encourage me to get going again. Again, was just prolonging the inevitable so after downing a half quart of water to wash down the popsicles, I grabbed my two hand bottles , and headed out about 2:10pm.

My two hand bottles had a gel in each bottle sling in case I started feeling good enough to eat them but I never did. It turned out for the final 30 miles of the race I ate only five pieces of watermelon and two popsicles. I did, however, swallow my fourth and final electrolyte tablet of the day just before climbing up to Vickers. The heat was a bit stifling, as usual, in the aspen groves going up Vickers so I stopped to take off my shirt for the final segment. Also, I had been wearing my iPod so I cranked up some hard, fast screamy music (A Day to Remember), and started the climb. Ironically, I actually did feel pretty good and had my best “Vickers section” run ever. I power hiked pretty strongly up the climb and even noticed that I was slowly reeling in some runners ahead of me. Once I topped out on the climb and began running through the four meadows up on top, I began passing runners. I passed one runner just before the Vickers aid station and another one while in the aid station. I still couldn't stomach the idea of food but ate two pieces of watermelon at the aid station before heading out.

It was now 3:28pm and there were roughly four miles to go to the finish. I did the math in my head and thought for a while that I could still finish by 4:00pm. I was never very good at math and I presume you can see that from this miscalculation. Nonetheless, it inspired me to run fast and while my energy level wasn't very high, my legs still felt very good and I began to run hard (for me) down the hill. At times I was running under 8 min/mile pace and eventually caught back up to Rhonda. I passed her with some encouraging words and soon thereafter passed another couple of runners. I'd never felt this good on this descent so despite a pretty miserable day to that point, I was stoked to be feeling so good at mile ~47. I normally end up getting passed in the last few miles of this race so it was quite encouraging to be passing by others instead.

At 4:00pm I had just entered the streets of Lake City so my hopes of finishing under 11 hours were dashed. Still, I ran when I could and eventually crossed the main street through Lake City, Gunnison Avenue. I looked back over my shoulder to see the last runner I had passed on the descent coming up strong. I was again motivated and picked up my pace to turn the final corner before the straight-away to the finish line. The clapping, cheering and whistling further motivated me and I ran across the finish line at 4:12pm. I pretty much just collapsed into the shady grass and laid there for 15 minutes before mustering the energy to move and go drink my typical post-race recovery drink—a quart of chocolate milk.

Happy to be at the finish line

SJS50 is a tough course for sure but it was particularly rough for me this year with my lack of mileage before the race and my unusual stomach trouble during the race. But at least two very big positives came out of the race for me. First, I finally felt good for the final 10 miles of the race through Vickers and second, my IT band did not pain me in anyway. Also, my left knee surgery doesn't seem to have negatively impacted my running. I still ran a pretty respectable time and it was a gorgeous summer day in the mountains. I'm lucky to have the means and opportunity to run race like this in such spectacular locations. I have no complaints. Thanks for reading.

Postscript: My five SJS50 times and finishes...

2006 - 11:47:47 (26th)
2007 - 10:35:44 (11th)
2008 - 10:57:51 (18th)
2009 - 10:56:12 (13th)
2010 - 11:12:40 (26th)

Orcas Island 50k 2010 Trail Race Report

2010-03-01T19:31:00.000-08:00

Orcas Island 50k Trail Race 2010 Race Report
February 6th, 2010
SportTracks Activity Report/Splits/Map
Finish time: 5:38:16
20th place overall (Official results)

From Orcas Island 50k and Seattle, 2010-02-06

I can’t remember if I had formally met James Varner, the race director for the Orcas Island race, before but it didn’t matter. I had a good vibe about James and when he was looking for some running company in the Los Alamos area in November 2009, I was glad to respond to his solicitation email and glad to offer him a place to stay as well. Certainly I knew of James from his time spent at the Hardrock 100 with one of my strongest memories of him being at the 2007 Hardrock when he wore a shirt to the pre-race meeting that said “Run Bush Out” and he just barely got into the race the day before because he had been fairly deep on the wait list.
But all of that isn’t really relevant. What is relevant is that James stayed with Allison and I in November 2009 while mapping trails in the Jemez area for a mapping company called “Dharma Maps.” Not only was James a great house guest, cooking great meals and leaving no trace of his visit, but he also suggested a fine race that he directs, the Orcas Island 50k in February. We chatted only briefly about it but that was enough to convince me I should check it out. And with my sister and her family living in the Bremerton, WA area, it was a done deal.
It was the first time either Allison or I would visit the island and it turned out the logistics for getting to the island from Bremerton were a bit more convoluted than I had expected. Nonetheless, after driving a couple hours with two ferry boat rides thrown in, we arrived on the island on Friday night around 4:00pm. After massages at the Orcas Island Spa and dinner at Lu Lu's, we checked into our room at the Cascade Harbor Inn around 9:00pm with no daylight left to enjoy the fine view the room’s deck had to offer.
We woke up at 5:30am for a hasty breakfast and coffee in our room and out the door to the Moran State Park’s Camp Moran by 7:00am. Camp Moran served as the start/finish area for the both the 20k and 50k races. The bunks at the camp had been procured by James for exclusive use by the race participants. A nice touch for sure and I’d come to understand James goes to great lengths to make his races both socially fun and environmentally friendly. As a race director he’s setting the bar high in terms of environmental responsibility for races. He organized carpooling and shuttles for racers to get to and from the starting line. The race participants’ shirts were purchased from local thrift stores and then imprinted with the race logo. The pre and post race foods were organic and were served using reusable cups, bowls and flatware. There were only two aid stations and users were strongly encouraged to use their own bottles for fluids and where cups were supplied they were reusable cups. And I’d venture to guess any awards that were given were also recycled or recyclable but I didn’t run fast enough to find out.
It was a competitive race for sure.
We all lined up at the start line, 380’ elevation, at 8:20am—ten minutes before the race start. The race started on a two-track dirt road and there was quite a crowd as this year’s race crowd was the biggest in the race’s five years of existence. A smattering of fast-looking, scantily-clad runners took the front spots while I settled in about 25 people behind the start line. For the past couple of years I had been lining up front (although I still wore more clothes than most of the runners towing the front line) but times are different now. It was February and I hadn’t been training like I should to be competitive. Some of that is winter laziness for sure but a larger part of it is a result of the rappelling accident, and subsequent injuries and knee surgery, I had in September 2009. A badly sprained left ankle and surgery for a torn medial meniscus in my left knee has left me with poor confidence in my leg’s strength and ability as well as some discomfort in my left knee while running. With this in mind, my goal for this race was really just to finish as close to five hours as possible. I knew I wouldn’t be competitive but that was actually a relief in that I could enjoy the scenery and conversation with other runners a bit more.
When James yelled “Go!” the front runner started off fast on the slight uphill start. I settled in with the other runners around me and only kept the front runners in sight until we turned right onto some single track about a half mile into the race. Our pace for the first mile was 9:00/mi. and it felt tough. Since I live at 7,500’ and this course’s highpoint was 2,409’, I expected to feel much stronger than I was feeling. But at least it was a gorgeous day.
The weather was beautiful. Leading up to the race, I had heard stories of snow and cold from previous years but that was definitely not the case this year. The El Nino season had left the Northwest drier and warmer than usual and there wasn’t a drop of snow on the course this year. The sun was out and, as I would later find out, the views to the east were clear enough to yield the beautiful sights of Mount Baker and Mount Rainier.

From Orcas Island 50k and Seattle, 2010-02-06

I started the race in a short-sleeved shirt, shorts, light gloves, a visor and my Saucony Guide TR shoes. This was perfect attire for the nearly 40 degree weather with no wind. I also carried a single hand bottle and a 5oz gel bottle. The first 5.5 miles head west at first and then north while winding up towards the summit of Mount Pickett at nearly 1,800’ feet elevation before winding down back towards the start/finish area for the first aid station at mile 9.9. I reached the first aid station in almost exactly an hour and a half—a pace of roughly 9:15/mile.
Allison was waiting at the aid station with a fresh hand bottle full of HEED and a new 5oz. bottle of gels and a couple packets of gel. I grabbed the goods, briefly chatted with Allison about her morning thus far and then headed back out. At this point I was guessing I was close to 15th place but it was hard to tell with a smattering of 25k runners interspersed with the 50k runners as well as some early-start 50k runners in the mix. I was feeling good but realized I had been favoring my right leg quite a bit in order to avoid too much hammering on my left knee, the knee I had undergone a partial medial meniscectomy on in September 2009.
As I began to run uphill towards the powerline climb, I began chatting with a local runner who had run the Hardrock 100 in 2007, I believe. He cautioned me about the upcoming steep, difficult climb between us trading short stories of Hardrock. When we hit the big powerline climb, I relished it. Because I had been favoring my right leg, my right IT band had become irritated and painful on the downhills so I looked forward to the climbs where I could push hard in the oxygen-rich air and give my right knee a break from the pounding. I felt quite strong on the climbs and made up a couple of positions until we turned left at the top of the powerline climb onto some beautiful singletrack at the northern end of the course. The singletrack trail running for the next three miles was easily some of the best trail I’ve ever run. Seriously. The trail had a perfect slight-downhill grade composed of non-technical soft dirt in a gorgeous lush green setting. While I enjoyed this section I would have really enjoyed it if my right IT band irritation hadn’t been so bad. Still, I held a decent pace of about 9:00/miles to the left turn at the northern end of Mountain Lake. This intersection was poorly marked with only a small log laid across the main trail to indicate we should not go that way. Thankfully I could hear a couple of runners ahead of me off to the left which confirmed my suspicion to turn left. I later learned the markers at this intersection had been nefariously removed by some hikers or some other non-race-related party and that a couple of the front-runners had missed this critical turn resulting in many extra miles run by them.
At first the distance to go along the lake shore looked daunting but as I ran along Mountain Lake’s east side, the dam at the southern end of the lake came up quickly and I found myself at the water-only aid station at mile 19 at 3 hours, 10 minutes into the race. From here the course climbed steeply towards the summit of Mount Constitution, the course’s highpoint, 2,409’, at mile ~22. During this climb I met a runner named Des from Victoria, BC who was running this 50k as his first ultra. He had a 50 mile planned for this spring and this was a good training gauge for him. We were holding a decent pace up the climb and while I felt I could push it a bit faster, I was enjoying the conversation and wasn’t in a competitive position anyway so I kept with him until near the top of the climb.
As I contoured up around the east side of Mount Constitution towards the summit I was blown away by the views of Mount Rainier, Mount Baker and eventually, Vancouver. I slowed down to a slow walk to take in the view for a bit just before coming around a corner to see a photographer sitting next to the trail. I quickly faked a few running strides for the camera before settling back into a walk to savor the view for a few more steps. The sun was shining and the snowy mountains across the bay beckoned my spirit. (I’ve climbed Mount Rainier twice but never Mount Baker so I resolved to head up there soon to try to climb it.)

From Orcas Island 50k and Seattle, 2010-02-06

I reached the summit of Mount Constitution almost exactly four hours into the race. My super small drop bag consisted of a packet of HEED, two gels and a packet of shot blocks. I took it all and filled up my hand bottle with water to mix up the HEED. I also ate a few boiled potato pieces dipped in salt before continuing on, downhill for a mile and a half. The steep downhill was brutal on my lightly-trained quads and irritated right knee and I took over 16 minutes to go downhill one mile. I couldn’t wait for the downhill to end! And finally it did. I was back on that beautiful section of runnable trail I had encountered between miles 13 to 15 and ate up the slight uphill running holding a pace of 12 minute miles for the next few miles gaining a lead on a couple of runners that had caught up to me on the steep downhill section.
But of course, all good things must end and at mile 26 it was time to head downhill again where I again experienced a good amount of pain in my right IT band. However, I managed to adjust my stride enough to make it more bearable and stave off any would-be passer-bys down to Cascade Lake at mile 28.5. Here we turned right to go around the northeastern end of Cascade Lake in a counter-clockwise direction to the finish.
I felt pretty spent after the downhill of the previous two miles but choked down my package of shot blocks and the last bit of my HEED. I was thankfully mostly flat, gentle rolling terrain of the final few miles and slowly ramped up to a decent pace of about 9:25/mile along the lake’s shore. Soon I could hear the cowbells and clapping that marked the finish line and felt a surge of energy to keep running at my steady pace to the finish.
I hit the short bit of pavement in the parking lot and then back onto the final dirt road hill to the finish and kept running that final bit of climbing. I then made the left turn to the slight downhill to the field at Camp Moran to the finish and really strided it out not feeling my IT band at amongst the surge of adrenaline. I crossed the finish line 5 hours, 38 minutes and 16 seconds after starting to the smile of James Varner. I thanked for a truly beautiful, challenging and laid-back race before hobbling with Allison to the car. We had mis-read the ferry schedule and thought that if we left immediately we could make the ferry at 2:40pm so against my better judgment I folded my wasted legs into the car immediately and we drove 25 minutes to the ferry only to find the 2:40pm ferry was a no-cars, foot-passengers only ferry. Well damn. The next ferry wouldn’t be until 6pm so we drove back to Camp Moran where I could walk around a bit and enjoy some of the super tasty organic vegetarian stew and a couple cups of IPA from the beer keg. So not catching an earlier ferry was not all bad.

Palo Duro 50 kilometer trail race 2009

2009-10-18T19:08:00.000-07:00

From Palo Duro Canyon 50k Trail Race, 2009-10-17

10/17/2009
50 kilometers
5:09:15
9th overall (Official results)
Official race website
My GPS stats, splits and map
Photos

“Man, those two guys are taking off fast”, I think to myself as I look at my watch to see we're running a 6:30 min/mile pace. We're about a half mile into the race, running with headlamps and flashlights after the 7:00am start a few minutes ago. It's dark and I'm following the fastest two runners. The three of us are ahead of the other roughly 150 runners that started the 50 mile and 50 kilometer races at the same time. I take a quick look back to take in the sea of blueish white lights bobbing up and down.

I probably shouldn't be up here with the front runners and wonder how long I'll be able to hang with them. Six weeks ago I had a rappelling accident that resulted in a severely sprained ankle and a partially torn medial meniscus in my left knee. A little over a month ago I had surgery to remove the torn part of the meniscus. I'd run a mere 16 miles in the past 6 weeks but my competitive race attitude takes over and I'm out front running as if I'd trained for this race. Definitely it won't last but I figure I'll put some time in the bank and limp it in to the finish later if needed.

Beautiful light and color on Friday evening.

The running is great. The trail is smooth dirt passing through a desert environment. There are no big climbs but plenty of small rollers passing over hills or through creek drainages. The stars were out when I awoke at 5:00am but now we have a very nice cloud cover which, thankfully, would last most of the morning and only break about the time I finished the 50k race.

The course is basically a figure eight with a large loop on top and smaller 6 mile loop on the bottom. 50 milers run the entire outside of the figure eight as one big loop four times. The 50k runners run the bottom loop of the figure eight once to start and then two of the big loops along with the 50 milers. Most often, the trail is paralleling the paved roads in the canyon so crew access is simple and frequent with the numerous aid stations. Because of the frequent aid stations, there's no need to carry more than a single hand bottle and some gels in this race. A pack would just be extra weight and extra heat on the runner's back later in the race when it gets hotter.

I start the first, small loop with just a hand flashlight. I have a long-sleeved shirt over my sleeveless shirt and shorts on the bottom. Aggressive trail shoes are not necessary on the smooth trails either. I run in very basic trail shoes that are basically glorified road shoes (Saucony Excursion TR3s). The first aid station, at the middle of the two loops, is Phil's at 3.6 miles. I get there around 7:30am and by now it's light enough that I can ditch the flashlight there. It's also warm enough that I ditch my long sleeve shirt. I drop these items by a kiosk-like sign and head back 2.3 miles to the start/finish area to complete the first small loop at 7:50am. Allison hands me a hand bottle and my gel flask and I don't have to stop. At this point I'm in second place but it's way early in the race, 6 miles into it, and I'm sure that won't last considering my lack of training in the past 6 weeks.

Again I'm at Phil's AS at mile 9.5 where Allison is again waiting for me. I quickly spray some sunscreen on and grab my visor and sunglasses. While I'm doing that, another 50k runner passes by and now I'm in third. So it begins now eh? My slide down the ranks. I'm used to this feeling, though, as I often go out too hard and slowly lose places but this is still early in the race. But I'm OK with that...I'm soley focused on my goal time of “around 5 hours” and also assessing how my knee and ankle are feeling as I go. So far, they've both treated me well in the race and I'm pleased with that.

After leaving Phil's and embarking on the large loop for the first time, I'm quickly impressed with the landscape. This part of the course heads deeper into the backcountry of the canyon leaving the sounds of the paved road behind. Small pinnacles and little sandstone towers rise up on top of the red-dirt foundation mesas. It reminds me of the Grand Canyon on a much smaller scale. The leaves on a few of the trees are changing yellow. The clouds overhead keep things cool and pleasant which is a good thing since there is virtually no opportunity for shade out here. After close to 2.6 miles, I pass through the remote Dos Loco Senioritas aid station—a station run by two self-proclaimed crazy ladies. They are making enough encouraging yells and claps that I could hear them from a mile away. It was awesome. With my hand bottle and gel, I'm well-stocked and don't need to stop at the aid station and just wave as I pass through. The next section of the course is very scenic passing through and around brightly-colored dirt and sandstone to the Janda and Lyle's aid station 2.7 miles from the Dos Loco Senioritas aid station.

Allison was again waiting for me at Janda and Lyle's because this one is on the paved road just a little over a mile from Phil's aid station. I don't need anything from Allison here and again keep moving through the aid station. I run on the trail along the road from Janda's to Phil's and switch out hand bottles with Allison at Phil's. Af ter a short, scenic bit of running from Phil's to the start/finish area, I've completed the first of two big loops, along with the initial small loop, in 2 hours, 45 minutes. Allison tells me I'm in fifth place at this point. I knew that, though, as I had been counting the runners that pass me.

I start the second, and final, big loop and chat briefly the fourth place runner ahead of me. We're both thankful for the high clouds that are still keeping things cool. I pass through Phil's again to change out my hand bottle and gel bottle with Allison. I'm starting to feel the effects of running pretty fast with no training and tell Allison I'm likely to slow down and be later than expected at the remaining aid stations. My groin muscles are starting to feel very sore and tight , my calf muscles are tightening up and my right knee is a bit sore, probably from involuntarily favoring my right leg to protect my left leg joints a bit. However my energy level is strong and running at this relatively low altitude is resulting in plenty of oxygen.

I end up walking up the small hills and tiny climbs mainly to change my stride a bit to work the muscles a bit differently. Occasionally I stop to stretch my legs and groin muscles. The leg pain is starting to be more constant and steals my focus from running and enjoying the scenery. But pain is a fine indicator that we are alive and I do my best to welcome it. It's not unexpected and it's not terrible.

I stop briefly at the Dos Loco aid station to refill my hand bottle half way and to take another electrolyte tablet. I've been on a schedule of taking an electrolyte tablet and a big shot of gel from my flask about every 30 minutes. On the trail again I pass a couple of 50 mile runners and look back to see another runner coming up fast. At this point, the 50k and 50 mile runners are all interspersed but the 50 milers are, expectedly, taking it a bit slower than us 50k runners. When I see a runner coming up on me, I know it's another 50k runner. I stop to pee and let the runner by. Just outside of the Janda aid station again, I get passed by one more 50k runner. I think I'm in 7th place now but have lost track. Also, I realize I won't be able to finish under 5 hours. I pass through Janda again without stopping and say hello to Allison and tell her I'd like a half-full water bottle at Phil's. It's a slow, lonely jog for me from Janda to Phil's. I see no one else and don't hear the cars passing by.

At Phil's for the last time Allison gives me the half full water bottle and asks when I finish. I tell her it will be about 10 minutes after noon, 5 hours and 10 minutes for the run. I can smell the barn now, so to speak, and want to run faster but my legs won't have anything of it. I can run but not much faster than 10 minute miles. I do what I can, passing a few 50 milers when, about a mile from the finish, I see another runner coming up on me. She passes me with an encouraging word, “we're almost there!”. I know it and I'm excited. I get my pace just under 10 minute miles and hold it as long as I can which is almost to the finish line. The finish area is full of runners and families and the cheering gets me excited and I step up my pace to the finish at 5:09:15.

I receive my finisher's hat and find Allison so I can go lay down in the shade somewhere and stretch out my limbs. Both legs hurt all over and I can barely lower myself to the ground. My lower back is sore, my shoulders are sore from too much tensing (something I frequently do with my shoulders) and, oddly, my left bicep is quite sore. I'm not upset about the pain and, in fact, I relish in it. It feels great to be feeling this wasted again. Six weeks ago while I sat in the emergency room after my rappelling accident I was sure I wouldn't be trail running again until early 2010 at best. I far exceeded my expectations and ran stronger than I could have hoped.

The Palo Duro trail race is a very good race and one that I would recommend and hope to run again. There's a 20k “fun run”, the 50k and the 50 mile. I'm not sure I'd run the 50 miler on account of it running the big loop four times and getting very hot in the afternoon with no shade but the other, shorter distances would be good fun. The camping in the canyon is very nice including hot showers at the campgrounds. The race staff were quite friendly and the runs were well organized.

The difference a month makes

2009-09-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

OK, so really it's been 33 days since I had my rappelling accident at Gallows Edge in White Rock Canyon but I'm going to round down to a month. As we've all noted, I was very lucky to have only sustained a badly sprained left ankle, a torn meniscus in my left knee and some other minor bruises and scrapes.
The recovery has gone amazingly well and quick--I was walking without the ankle boot after three days and climbing again within four days. I didn't need but one of the pain killer pills they prescribed to me for my ankle.
Then I had an MRI done via the Taos Orthopaedic Institute and it showed a bucket handle tear in my medial meniscus in my left knee. On September 15th, Dr. Lubowitz at Taos Ortho performed a partial mensicectomy on my knee to remove the torn meniscus. He quantified it as a "substantial tear" and removed a good bit of meniscus but said things went very smooth and looked very good.

A partial meniscectomy is a relatively minor knee surgery that's performed arthroscopically involving only a couple holes cut into the knee--one for a camera and one for tools. I was walking without crutches the day after surgery and climbing easier routes five days after the surgery. It's now two weeks since the surgery and I've had the sutures removed and my knee is almost back to complete range of motion. Also, I never experienced any pain in the knee post-surgery. It's safe to say it's been a great recovery.

My ankle sprain is healing well and is mostly pain free all the time. I can walk and jog without discomfort but there are some certain motions that produce an acute, sharp pain deep within the outside of my ankle. I've been visiting a friend, Carl Dickson, who's a physical therapist and he's been working the ankle very well and that's been extremely beneficial.

As for exercise, I haven't ran any appreciable distance since Aug. 26th and I'm itching to. However, I have been hitting the stationary bikes pretty often and just today, after Carl's suggestion, have started elliptical trainer work. My goal that I haven't told many people about is to run the Palo Duro 50k trail run on October 17th. Obviously I won't be setting any personal record but know that it will feel good to get back to trail running. I feel very lucky that I have the potential to return to trail running less than two months after my accident.

Again, I appreciate all the kind words and encouragement from all my friends and family. It's been a very positive experience for me and has kept me motivated to heal strong and quickly.

Day 4 of the recovery

2009-08-31T16:31:00.001-07:00

It's been four days now since my accident at Gallows Edge in White Rock Canyon. The support from friends has been awesome and I'd like to say a huge "thank you" to all of you that have stopped by to visit or called--I'm way stoked to have so many great friends!

My ankle feels unchanged since the day after the accident. It's still huge, super swollen, very tender and now multi-colored. The good news is, though, that I saw Dr. Garcia today and his prognosis is that I didn't break anything but really sprained it good and tore ligaments. Apparently the purple coloring is a result of all the blood from the torn ligaments. He also believes I didn't do anything to my knee despite the fact that I think I did. The knee ligaments all seem good but I think I've torn the meniscus. (Speaking from experience from my other knee.) I still have an appointment with Taos Ortho next week for a second opinion (I take my legs pretty seriously.) I've been very pleased with Dr. Lubowitz and Dr. Guttman at Taos Ortho in the past.

In the meantime, Dr. Garcia suggested I start working my ankle up and down and in circles a few times a day to keep the healing ligaments from healing too tight. The up and down isn't so bad but the left and right movements hurt like an MF right now. Going into it easy. I've taken some photos the past two days showing my ankle and plan to keep adding to the photo album. Keep an eye on the album if you're into checking out gross injury photos.

Falling on basalt hurts

2009-08-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

It must have been a nightmare. Seriously, I don't do that. I know better. Way better. I've been climbing for over 12 years without an accident and just plain know better. Only rookies do that. Apparently not so.

When I awoke in my bed on Friday morning I was hoping it was a nightmare but when I looked down at my left foot wrapped in a bandage and covered with an ice pack and felt the discomfort coursing up my leg, I was painfully aware it wasn't just a nightmare and I had definitely fucked up. It could have been worse though...when a climber rappels off the end of his rope it's generally a lot worse than a severely sprained ankle (with torn ligaments), a bruised left ass cheek and a scraped left arm. Yes, I had been very lucky.

On Thursday evening I had driven down to Gallows Edge to replace some anchor hardware on four routes there. I had been given some hardware in support of the Anchor Replacement Initiative (ARI) and wanted to replace some of the weird anchor setups there that involved chain links bolted directly onto the bolt stud using washers. It turns out I didn't need to drill but one new hole because the existing stainless steel bolts looked great. So I just replaced the hardware that was attached to the bolts. Also, while down there, my friends Matthias and Lee had been looking to establish a new route that they had top-roped before.

For all of this work I did what I normally do for working on routes--I setup a single line static rope anchored to some huge blocks. My static line is about 60 feet in length and since I planned to only work on the top of climbs and drill some holes for Matthias and Lee, I didn't need a longer rope. I did all my work with using a Grigri on the single static line which allowed me to rappel down and stop to work with the Grigri locking up on the rope, as designed, while working. I replaced three anchors and drilled the holes/installed the bolts for Matthias and Lee without issue and things were going great. Our friend James showed up and had been planning to climb but his partner bailed on account of the weather. It had rained once while we were down there and it was looking threatening again as the evening wore on.

Matthias and Lee climbed their new route and got ready to head out. I wanted to replace the hardware on a route called Planet of the Apes because it also had some non-standard chain-on-bolt action going on. It was getting darker but I still had plenty of light to replace this one anchor. So I moved my rope over to this route leaving it tied around the huge boulder it had been tied around all night. This boulder, though, was some distance from the route I was now working on. Matthias and Lee headed out but James stuck around to walk out with me after I replaced the anchor. The anchor replacement went fine but just as I was finishing up I dropped a piece of the old chain I had removed. By now it was getting pretty dark, a ominous looking storm was brewing to the south and I was engaged in conversation with James. I told him I was going to zip down to the base of the route to pick up that chain and that he could take down the rope once I was off rappel. I started rapping down and got down at least 2/3rds of the route, maybe more, when I noticed a curious and quick sensation--the rope whipped through my Grigri.

In that instance I knew exactly what I had done, knew I was fucking stupid and knew things were about to hurt. I did my best to stay upright and spot a landing and crashed into the ground. I think I fell maybe only 10 or 20 feet (I don't really know but I plan to go back with the same rope to rig it the same way and find out for sure) but it doesn't take much when you're falling onto blocky terrain. I let out a big 'ol "Ouch!" more because I expected it to hurt rather than it actually hurting. It was all over in an instant yet I felt I had time to ponder my future and think about how the next months were going to be spent laid up with some injury. I crumpled into the ground with my left side against the wall and then thought, "OK, you just fucked up big time but landed feet first and are still cognizant." I quickly assessed my situation and for a moment thought I was the world's luckiest SOB as I could still wiggle my extremities and actually didn't think I was injured. I yelled up to James that I had just rapped off the end of the rope but was OK. I think I might have even said I was off rappel, obviously, in an attempt to lighten up the situation.

I felt my knees and ankles and stood up without issue. I took a few steps and noticed my right side was completely fine. My left side, however, was not as good. My left ankle felt broken, my left knee was sore, my left ass check was super tender and my left arm was scraped up pretty good. I could still walk, though. So I told James I'd limp back up there to get my pack and asked him to pack up some of my gear into his pack. All the while, James was staying level-headed, positive and extremely helpful. I took advantage of the shock and limped quickly around and up to the top to gather my stuff. (I had left some hardware and a hacksaw in a hole/cave up there so if anyone wants to go get that, I'd appreciate it.) (Edit, 8/30/09-Daniel was kind enough to go pick up the gear on Friday.)

James coiled up the rope, we loaded up our packs and donned our headlamps as it was fully dark by now. Thanks to James taking most of the gear, my pack was pretty light and I limped/hopped up the trail. In places where it was steep I could use the rocks on the side as support and in places where it was flatter, James offered up his shoulder for me to lean on. We slowly moved up and near the top I asked James to go up a bit and drop his pack so he could take mine. He graciously did this and we limped to the car with good efficiency. It took probably 30 minutes to get out whereas normally I can hike that in 15.

At the car, I took off my harness and drank some water while James went back to retrieve his pack from the canyon edge. He came back to the car insisting he drive me home but I was feeling completely aware and since I have an automatic car, a screwed up left foot wasn't an issue for driving. I insisted he need not drive me home and called Allison to tell her why I was late. I told her James had helped me out and that my plan was to drive straight to the emergency room because I thought I had a broken ankle. She said she'd meet me there.

James has had some medical training in the past and checked my pupils, palpated my upper and lower body to ensure I didn't do any damage to other parts of my body that weren't my chief complaints and reluctantly let me drive myself home. James' help was invaluable.

I arrived at the hospital around 9:00pm and had beat Allison there so I limped across the parking lot into the ER. It was a short wait (we're lucky to have such a quality emergency room and hospital here) and I was visiting with doctor Chadwick in short order. Dr. Chadwick told me a story of him breaking his ankle on a volcano hike somewhere where they did not have very good medical care and how it was quite the ordeal for him. This made me feel better for sure knowing that there is life after an ankle break/sprain. The nurse cleaned out the scrape on my arm and I had x-rays done on my left elbow and left foot. Dr. Chadwick came back with the good news that my ankle was not broken but that had likely torn the ligaments and obviously I had sprained it big time. My elbow checked out OK and is just bruised.

I'm at home now icing and elevating my ankle and will see an orthopedist soon for a better picture of my injury. I've got a walking support boot for my ankle but otherwise feel OK. My left knee feels sprained or strained and I hope it's not anything serious. I definitely cannot sit on my left ass cheek. I now have time to ponder how lucky I am after a moment of completely stupid inattention. I have taught new climbers how to climb/rappel and stress the importance of tying a simple knot in the end of the rope so something like this doesn't happen yet I failed to practice what I preach but thankfully got off very lucky.

Addendum, 8/30/09: Thank you to everyone calling, stopping by or emailing me to give your support--it means a lot. I've had a lot of people comment with something like, "Well, no doubt you learned a lesson and won't do that again." The thing is, I knew better already and can't say that I really learned anything new from this. The notion of always tying a knot in the end of your rope when rappelling has certainly been reinforced but was something I was already well aware of. This accident was a result of rushing to get out coupled with being distracted by external forces (and not tying a knot in the end of the rope.) If anything it should serve as an example to others to slow down and pay attention to details even when circumstances are pressing and distracting.

Oh, for trains

2009-07-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

I'm now recalling why I enjoy the desert southwest—the lack of humid heat. We are now traveling from the mountains of Italy and Austria to the Mediterranean coast at Marseilles, France. It's been a whirl wind day of trains to achieve this distance. We started at the train station in Innsbruck, Austria at 8:30am on a trip of nearly four hours back to semi-familiar territory in Zurich, Switzerland. The bonus part of this day was that all 4 train legs of the trip were to be via first class seats on the trains.

In Zurich we boarded our second train of the day to Geneva, Switzerland. This was the fanciest train I'd been on yet and at one point we had one of the entire first class coaches all to ourselves. This leg of the trip was 2 hours and 45 minutes. We broke down and bought some very expensive ham sandwiches on this train as well as the most expensive can of coke ever imaginable-- 4.80 CHF! Highway robbery.

At the Geneva train station we had close to an hour and a half to wait for our next train to Lyon, France. I managed to connect to a free and unsecured wi-fi connection there to get caught up on email and chat with the Beist for a bit via gmail chat. All sounds well back at home if not a bit rainy. Here, while waiting in the Geneva train station I really started to notice the heat. It doesn't help matters that I'm wearing the same “travel shirt” that I've worn for at least 6 days of this trip without a wash. It'll be in dire need of a wash after today's wearing, though!

Once we got on the train at the Geneva station headed for Lyon, France, the first class section was completely full but we were able to find standard seats next to each other. I'm not all bothered, regarding comfort, to sit in th standard fare area but I am quite a bit disappointed in that we paid for upgraded seats and did not get what we paid for. Such are the trains here it seems. Often times you pay for your entry on the ticket but must pay an additional fee to guarantee a seat. The train to Lyon started a bit late and got delayed for a few minutes on en route leaving us with an extremely tight transfer time of 7 minutes in Lyon to exit the train, get our bearings, find out which gate we needed to head to for our next train to Marseilles and get there. This task was made more difficult by the fact that we each have a decent sized duffel bag full of climbing gear with mine weighing at least sixty pounds. Not so nimble nor discreet.

We when exited the train in Lyon the first thing I noticed was the heat. Second, I noted the huge crowd. It seems at least two different trains had just dropped their load of passengers off simultaneously on the same platform. We got to moving and both looking around as if we were on that show “The Great Race” but without the fame and fortune or nearly the same drama. Not-so-long story short, we made it with a couple minutes to spare and boy is this is a train! It's the train known as the TGV which is an abbreviation for something in French that translates roughly to “super fast train that doesn't stop much, if at all, along the way.” And the seating in first class is super comfortable complete with a desk and tiny desk lamp allowing me to type comfortably on this here laptop as I watch out the window the late-day light illuminate the whirring French countryside.

We'll very soon be arriving in Marseilles and are staying at the Holiday Inn there. It looks as though it's a 5km distance from the train station to the hotel so we may be up for a decent walk with heavy packs or perhaps we'll try our broken French to catch a taxi instead. I just know that I very much look forward to a shower this evening. And, looking further ahead, the dry desert heat of the American southwest. I do miss it along with my family and friends there.

On the road (and rails) again

2009-07-28T08:18:00.000-07:00

From Dolomites Day 7, Vajolet Towers, 2009-07-28

Back to the city, Innsbruck that is. But just for a short bit. Tomorrow morning we leave for a full day of trains from Innsbruck to Zurich to Geneva to Lyon to Marseille, France where we'll spend the night and then drive to our friend Rick's house north of Marseille.
Since I last updated the blog here Allison and I got to do some more climbing on Falzarego Pass as well as experience a very fun via ferrata (Lipella) that included an 800m tunnel and some fun, exposed climbing near some waterfalls.
We also spent a couple nights in rifugios in the Rosengarten group of the Dolomites to climb routes on the three Vajolet Towers. One Vajolet Tower, Delago Tower, was a primary reason we opted to come to to the Dolomites and it was all we had hoped for! I've posted some new photo albums at http://picasaweb.google.com/halladay of the days' action.
The time we spent in the Dolomites was fantastic. The views often breathtaking, the people extremely friendly and the climbing full of history and very fun. It is with some sadness that I leave that area of Italy but I now have a good feeling for the Dolomites and fully intend to return. They're that great!

Dolomites exploration ongoing

2009-07-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

From Dolomites Day 4, "Mariakante" and Sella Pass. 2009-07-24

We're back in Cortina tonight at the familiar Hotel Impero. It's a great little hotel that is centrally located, has fast wi-fi and the staff are great! Yesterday Allison and I climbed a fun 8-pitch route called "Mariakante" on the Pordoispitze and spent the afternoon hiking around Sella Pass. The whole day was beautiful but as we went to sleep in our hotel in Canzei last night, a thunderstorm raged through for a few hours yet made way for a beautiful day today.
So today we slept in, ate breakfast at the hotel and then drove over Sella Pass to Gardner Pass. Just over Gardner Pass we parked and went up for a fun day on the Via Ferrata Brigata Tridentina. It was our first via ferrata experience and one that we really enjoyed. The day's weather was fantastic and the climb experience great. It's awesome that so many people, families included, get out on these via ferrata adventures!
Tomorrow we plan to climb on th Falzarego Towers near Falzarego Pass and maybe squeeze in another via ferrata before driving to Canazei again to stay the night in the Rifugio Gardeccia tomorrow night. Monday night will have us in the Rifugio Alberto near the Vajolet Towers before we drive back to Innsbruck on Tuesday afternoon. It may be a while before we're back online after tonight, though. Thanks for reading!

Enjoying the Dolomiti

2009-07-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

From Dolomites Days 2 and 3, 2009-07-22-23

Thursday...it hasn't even been a week since we left Los Alamos and it feels like we've seen and done a fair bit. This is awesome.
This evening we're in Canazei, Italy for the next two nights. We've climbed in the Dolomites the past few days and it's been amazing. Beautiful weather and a truly mind-boggling amount of rock. It's everywhere! After spending a couple days in Zurich, Switzerland and a day in Innsbruck, Austria I was way burned out on the cities and was super stoked to get outside in the Dolomites on Tuesday. Yesterday we were skunked on the big 14 pitch route we wanted to climb (three slow moving parties ahead of us forced me to downclimb the first pitch and tuck my tail between my legs.) We then went to climb a 6 pitch easy route and found it completely choked up with groups and none of them appeared to be moving at all! So we did a shorter 3 pitch route, super easy, to a cool summit.
We got up early this morning and was the first party on that 14 pitch, 5.7, route (south arete of Tofana di Rozes) and it was awesome. And the cool thing is, the weather today was quite a bit better than yesterday so we felt avenged.
We'll be climbing around here the next couple of days before heading back to Cortina for a night and then to Rifugio Alberto for two nights to climb in the Vajolet Towers area hopefully.

Not much of a city boy

2009-07-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

From Europe Days 3 and 4, 2009-07-21-22

I'm not a fan of cities. I can appreciate city life and function for a short bit but I was at the end of my appreciation by the time we left Innsbruck, Austria this morning. The crowds, the heavy European smoking, the noise and the traffic. It was nice to see all that in the rear view mirror this morning when we picked up our rental car in Innsbruck and drove the 2.5 hours to Cortina de Ampezza, Italy.
And now we're very happy. This quaint mountain town is still pretty big in size but it's situated high in the Dolomites and feels full of life. I can't quite put my finger on it but everything about this area feels so much more friendly and appropriate than either Zurich or Innsbruck.
We checked into our hotel, Hotel Impero, and pretty much made a beeline for the Cinque Torri area to get some climbing in. This area is at about 7,400 feet and easily accessible via a five minute ski lift ride and a 10 minute approach hike. It gave us a good opportunity to get warmed up to the limestone of the Dolomites. All the hillsides in the area are a very lush green and rock simply juts out of the hillsides making for some very dramatic mountains.
We plan to spend the next six days around here in the Dolomites with a night or two in a rifugio but most likely mainly doing day trips from hotels in Cortina and/or Canazei.

European vacation 2009, Day 2

2009-07-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

From Zurich, Switzerland, 2009-07-19

Photos, day 2.

Boy, we were tired. And, thankfully, our room was very dark. We slept off a major chunk of the jet lag this morning sleeping in until 7:30am. Once we got moving we headed downstairs to the restaurant in the lobby where our included breakfast was served. This was no American continental breakfast either. Bacon, eggs, sausage, fresh bread, fruit, yogurt and a pile of oranges and a juicer to make your own fresh-squeezed orange juice. Awesome! No doubt I over ate a bit but we weren't planning on a lunch so I was just being cautious.
It was an overcast and windy morning so we packed our jackets and umbrellas in the backpack and hit the streets. First stop was the Schweizeriches Landemuseum near the train station. For 10 CHF each we enjoyed a bit of natural history swiss-style and then attempted to understand the all-German Swiss history exhibition which was very nicely done but impossible to understand.
From there we caught the train to Uetliberg, a decent foothill with a footpath to the summit and viewing tower at the top. This area boasts what are likely the closest trails for running and hiking and we enviously waved at a number of trail runners out there. Also, along the trail is a mini-scale map of the planets one can follow for nearly 8km along the ridgecrest to the Adliswil tram down. We hiked that trail for close to two hours as the day got better and better. It even ended up a bit warm at time.
We caught the bus/tram back to city center and went in search of good chocolate at a shop called Teuscher recommended by Brian Crone's wife. The first one we found at 4:07pm closed at 4:00pm. So we hopped on the tram down to Bellevue where another one was supposed to be. Whilst down there we figured we ought to check out the Kunsthaus modern art museum but found it cost 23 CHF each and was only open for another 30 minutes so we bailed on that. Instead, we rented a paddle boat for 18CHF for 30 minutes and paddled across Lake Zurich and back dodging the big tourist boats along the way. It was odd when I rented the boat...the guy barely spoke, took my 18CHF and driver's license and said, "OK, take the orange one for 30 minutes." That was it. No orientation, no forms to fill out, no guidelines. So we hope paddling across the lake between big tourist boats was allowed. When I returned the boat I saw other renters filling out paperwork and getting the rules spoken to them.
We did find the Teuscher in the Felix Cafe after that and scored four truffles. Tasty! After dessert we went in search of dinner. Casa Mia was another Italian place that came recommended but we found it closed. Naturally I gravitated towards beer and we popped into the Brasserie Federal which claims to have more that 100 Swiss beers. Problem was, the menu had no English on it and our question to the waitress, "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" was met with the stern answer, "No!" and she walked away. OK, time to move on to that little Italian place we passed on our walk towards our hotel. I don't recall the name but it was a tasty and quite enjoyable.
Tomorrow we hit the rails with a 9:40am train to Innsbruck, Austria. We should get there around 1:30pm and will be staying at the Hotel Goldene Krone for one night before renting a car and driving south down into the Dolomites of Italy. While it's been fun exploring the city life a bit and gettin' cultured, I feel much more at home away from crowds and up in the mountains so I'm looking forward to getting into Italy.

European vacation

2009-07-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

Allison and I hit the skies yesterday for a three-week trip to Switzerland, Austria, Italy and France. Our first stop finds us in the Hotel Novotel in Zürich, Switzerland where I'm writing this from. It's the first visit for either of us to Zurich and so far we're really enjoying it despite the fact that neither Allison nor I speak any German--the predominant language here.
I was impressed with how easy it was to go through customs and be on our own in Zürich. We arrived this morning and purchased 24-hour public transport pass for 12 CHF each which allows us unlimited transport on the city trains, buses and trams. It took us a little bit of time to figure out which train to take from the airport to the main station. This wasn't too bad at all except for the fact that I was schlepping around our big North Face duffel bag with our climbing equipment (to be later used in the Dolomites) and it was a bit uncomfortable. A short 10 minute walk from the main station got us to our hotel where they were able to let us check in early (we arrived in Zürich at 7:15am and were at the hotel by 8:15am).

After checking in we got out for a short bit to take the tram downtown to visit a couple of the more famous churches in the area. The Fraumünster church has some amazing stained glass by Marc Chagall which I could appreciate. We then found ourselves very tired (we had been up all night on the flight) so we wandered back to the hotel to nap for a few hours. In the evening we went exploring downtown again and ate dinner at an Italian place. A quick stop at the Coop grocery store for snacks and we were back at the hotel ready for bed.

Tomorrow we plan to go visit the zoo, hike at Uetliberg and a couple of the museums before leaving for Innsbruck the following day.
The view from our hotel room at night.

2009 San Juan Solstice 50 Mile Race Report

2009-06-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

Hanging with Mom at the start/finish just before the race.

6/20/2009
50 miles
10:56:12
13th overall of 109 finishers
Unofficial results
Official race website
My GPS stats, splits and map

8 ounces. It's amazing to me the difference 8 ounces of material can make on a day like this past Saturday during the San Juan Solstice 50 mile trail race. This was my fourth time running this fantastic race and by far the worst conditions I've experienced during the race in those years. But I digress...

For some reason going into the race this year I schemed up the goal of trying to run it under 10 hours. 9:59:59 is what I was shooting for. In retrospect, I'm not sure where I got off thinking I could pull that off considering my fastest time on the course is 10:35:44 and I've only been running an average of roughly 35 miles per week this year. But what the hell, I went out for it. But if you view the results from this year's race you'll see I barely made it in under 11 hours in 13th place overall. Yeah.

From the start at 5:00am I went out with the first group of roughly 12 runners and hung in there until nearly the turn off up into Alpine Gulch when I realized that pace was too much for me and would put me in at Williams around mile 16 well ahead of my goal time of 8:15am so I slowed up. The sky was mostly cloudy making for a warmer-than-usual morning and the river crossing in the gulch were way easier than in 2008. In fact, I could still feel my toes by the end of the crossings so I knew it was warmer and less wet than previous years. Sections that normally have a snow field in them were dry and clear...it looked like a different gulch. I reached the Alpine aid station at mile 7.5 at 6:36am which was right on my schedule. I stopped to refill my single hand bottle with water and kept on moving.

Up on the ridgeline above Alpine there was also very little snow and it was a beautiful morning. The view of Half Peak across the valley was stellar and while there were clouds in the sky, it didn't look too threatening. I got into a good groove and rolled with it making fine time down into Williams at mile 16 at 8:06am which was faster than I had planned but I was feeling good. I came into the aid station with Helen Cospolich and would follow her until the Divide when she just plain took off! It was awesome.

My plan to "shave" off 36 minutes from my best time on this course was, besides running a bit faster, to really minimize time at the aid stations. I did this by not ever changing shoes, socks or any other clothing as well as having bottles pre-filled and a firm plan for switching bottles and fueling quickly. My Mom and Matt were invaluable as my experienced crew and did a fantastic job of getting me in and out of the aid stations super fast. So I can only blame me for not running fast enough in between the stations. :-)

The run from Williams to Carson seemed to go quickly and without any issues and I got into Carson at mile roughly mile 22 at 9:26am. I filled my two hand bottles, ate some Clif shot blocks and looked up at the divide and the sky. It looked quite nice and for a moment I contemplated leaving my 8oz GoLite Virga jacket in the drop bag but thankfully thought better of it and tied it around my waist before heading up. I did my best to keep Helen in sight on the climb up to the divide and managed to do that until just below Coney Peak (~13,300') when she motored on ahead.

As I neared the summit of Coney Peak I looked south to see some very dark, menacing clouds engulfing Rio Grande Pyramid and knew we'd soon be in the weather too. Sure enough a couple minutes after I "ran" over the summit of Coney Peak the snow started to fall. At first I figured it would be a short-lived snow squall but after about 15 minutes it looked like it was here to stay so I donned my jacket. The wet flakes were huge and prolific and it was pretty surreal for a bit. I thought back to earlier in the morning when I was running in a sleeveless shirt and sweating and how that seemed like a different day compared to the current weather. Then the wind began to blow a bit harder, the snow flakes got bigger and it got cold. (See the videos on Joseph Lea's blogpost about his experience this year.) I wished I had brought along gloves but got clever and stuck one of my hand bottles in my jacket pocket so I could suck a hand into the sleeves of the jacket. On my right hand (the windward hand) I wrapped my hand in my cotton handkerchief that I normally use to wipe sweat off my brow and jammed my hand into the hand bottle sling effectively making a cotton mitten. This worked great for the long jaunt to the Divide aid station at mile 31 at noon straight up. At this point I was still on my schedule for a sub-10 run but was feeling the fast miles I had run earlier and the cold weather wasn't helping. I was burning more calories just trying to stay warm in the adverse conditions.

I filled a bottle of HEED at the Divide aid station, ate a vanilla Hammer gel and then got moving again. Standing around for too long would only leave me colder. As I left the aid station I was pretty sure I saw my friend and frequent training partner David Coblentz striding up the hill into the aid station. For the first time I ran the whole section from the Divide to Slugullion without seeing another person. This is not to say I was way ahead of others but rather the clouds and snow were so thick that at times visibility was maybe 50 yards. It was pretty surreal and I wondered how people who hadn't been on this course would manage through this section...it's pretty obvious following a well-established two-track but I know if I didn't know the course well I'd be second-guessing myself wondering if I was supposed to turn off or something. Also, I was hoping folks behind me were prepared for the weather. It was pretty nasty.

Then, to make things more difficult, the super wet dirt road turned to a gloppy mud that began sticking to my shoes making them feel a few pounds heavier not to mention slick! I got in the habit of kicking the bottom of my shoe on big rocks as I passed them to knock the mud globs off. I repeated that procedure all way down into Slumgullion at mile 40 at 1:40pm. I had hoped to arrive at Slumgullion at 1:20pm for my sub-10 goal. Being wet, cold, 20 minutes "late" and a bit beat up at this point I knew sub-10 was out of the question now. My fingers were a bit numb so I asked my Mom for my gloves out of my bag and struggled to get them on. By this point it was raining rather than snowing at this elevation but I figured dry gloves on my hands for at least a little while would make me feel warmer. I spent approximately three minutes at the aid station which I believe was the longest of all my aid station stops during the race.

I left amongst spirit-lifting clapping and hollering and felt very grateful for everyone being there encouraging us runners in our endeavor. The climb up Vickers has always, always kicked my ass and this year was no exception. I don't know what it is...it's relatively low in elevation and in aspen groves so you'd think it would be easy but no! I struggled my way up thinking, "OK, next year I'll feel good at this point." Yeah right! About half way up the climb I heard a familiar voice from behind. David Wilcox was charging up the hill smiling and encouraging me to get a move on. He passed me and I tried to hang with him for a bit but knew it was not to be. We kept on moving up and into the trees to the flat section when the rain finally started to abate. I lost sight of David but kept running as much as I could across the top of Vickers through the three meadows. I've learned to count the meadows before the final aid station. Just before the Vickers aid station came into view the 10 hour mark slipped by. Yep, not this year. I reached the Vickers aid station at 3:06pm and didn't stop at all but thanked the volunteers there for letting us run through their property and for being there to support us.

The sun had just come back out and it looked like it was shaping up to be a fine afternoon. I stopped to take off my jacket and gloves and tied them around my waist. The descent down from Vickers is always tough on my quads and this time was no different. Also, I had to make a pit stop in the trees to take care of some trow-dropping business. Refreshed a little bit, I got back on trail and tried to run as fast as I could. It was now looking like that sub-11 would be a challenge and I was sweating it. These arbitrary goals are tough sometimes. I finished the descent and was back in town running the final mile or so into the finish when I looked back to see Coblentz only a couple hundred yards away! Nice, David, nice! The competitive adrenaline kicked in and I stepped up my pace. Plus, I knew it was going to be tight for sub-11 anyway. We crossed the bridge and made the final left turn towards the finish. I was still sprinting as best I could and got psyched to hear the cheering and cow bells ahead. The positive vibes were nearly overwhelming as I entered the park and across the finish line just a bit more than a minute faster than my time last year.

2009 Jemez Mountain Trail Runs 50 Mile Race Report

2009-05-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

5/16/2009
50 miles
10:11:19
5th overall of 104 finishers
Official results
Official race website
My GPS stats, splits and map

Going into this year's JMTR 50 mile race, I had two goals--feel good on the descent of Pajarito Mountain and finish under 10 hours. The first goal was a result of my terrible downhill performance last year on Pajarito Mountain when I went into the race under trained on account of a five week trip to India in March/April of 2008. In the 2008 race I had felt pretty good until I crested the Aspen run and started down the slightly snowy, slick and steep descent and realized I had nothing left in my quads and that it would be a long 14 miles to the finish. I wanted to prove to myself I could do better. My secondary goal of finishing under 10 hours was certainly possible if I had a good race and things went well.

When we started the race from the Posse shack at 5am I started out front alongside Ryan Burch as we trotted down the short bit of pavement and turned onto the dirt road. I had met Ryan last year, and maybe even earlier, and knew he was a nice, strong guy and I expected him to win. He and I chatted for a while during the first few minutes along the dirt road and then we cranked down into Bayo Canyon and Ryan was gone! I was thinking he might be going out too fast but as it would turn out, he was way strong and ran a super race out front solo the entire time. Very inspiring.

For the first few miles through the first aid station I ran with Glenn Mackie and we also chatted a bit. He was coming from Dallas, TX for this race and I was super impressed with his running considering the altitude. But I think it didn't take too long for the altitude to start affecting him and he slowed behind me a bit after the first aid station. I then ran along with Greg Feucht as we ascended to Guaje Ridge and enjoyed a nice sunrise under the cloud deck above. The day was turning out perfect for running with an overcast sky and a cool temperature. It was definitely a bit humid for Los Alamos and I found myself sweating a great deal more than I normally would at 6:00am in the morning. I reached the Guaje Ridge aid station at mile 7.1 at 6:15am, quickly filled my one hand bottle and dropped down the North Mitchell trail into Guaje Canyon. I really enjoy steep, technical descents and I felt I was making good time on the other runners behind me on this section.

Down in the canyon the running up canyon was really pleasant and certainly scenic with the stream flowing and a little bit of sunshine poking through the clouds. I ran into the Caballo Base aid station at mile 10 at 6:50am and saw a number of familiar faces working the aid station. I'd later learn there was a bear hanging out near the aid station watching the runners. The out and back run up and down Caballo Mountain was, as always, steep and hard. I ran only near the the start of the climb and near the top and reached the Caballo summit at mile 12 at 7:30am...40 minutes for that climb isn't too bad. The view of Los Alamos and the Rio Grande valley was stellar this morning. I ran down fast but a bit conservatively as I wanted to save some legs for the Pajarito Mountain descent that was 23 miles away. A few downed trees along the trail kept me attentive and in check from going too hard. I was running in second place at this point and feeling good. I refilled my hand bottle at Caballo Base again at mile 14 at 7:47am and headed up Guaje Canyon on one of the two portions of the course that I often consider to be hot. As I neared the top of the canyon and started heading out on the cruising trail towards the Pipeline aid station the third place runner at the time, Dakota Jones, came up behind me and we chatted as we ran into the Pipeline aid station at mile 16 at 8:25am. As I neared the aid station I let out a little whoop to let my family members running the aid station--Mom, Matt and Dylan--know I was coming in.

Their aid station is notoriously awesome! The homemade shelter my Mom and Matt made for last year's race was again erected and well-stocked. I wanted to spend more time admiring the well-appointed aid station but I had a long way to go still. I grabbed my second water bottle filled with HEED powder and filled up both hand bottles. I also grabbed my electrolyte capsules and a few gels for the long section through the Valles Caldera, over Cerro Grande and down Cañon de Valle to the Pajarito Canyon aid station. The initial descent from the Pipeline aid station is a steep, loose and sketchy slide down the pipeline "road". I started down with Dakota behind me but it sounded like it was coming down faster than I was so I stepped aside and sure enough, he flew right by me. As we ran down into and through the caldera I was sure to take in the view as it is a phenomnal, wide open place to run. Dakota gained a bit on me through this section and I ran into the awesome Valles Caldera aid station at mile 20 at 9:03am. It was a quick stop for me to fill up my two bottles and get going again.

From the aid station the course leaves the nice dirt road and starts out along a cattle trail over a small stock pond dam and then cut cross country to the saddle south of Cerro Grande. As I ran along the cattle trail towards the cross country section I noticed Dakota had missed the cross country intersection and was continuing south along the cattle trail. I whistled and yelled his name but I don't think he heard me. When I got to the intersection I realized the problem...nearly all of the pin flags we'd stuck in the ground had been knocked down and/or chewed up by the elk. I really hoped Ryan hadn't missed this section but I knew he had run this course last year and hopefully remembered where to go. Since I had marked this section of the course two weeks earlier I knew where to go and ran along stopping to pick up and stick the flags that were spaced about every 70 feet or so back into the ground as I knew there'd be 100+ other runners behind us and this wasn't an obvious section of course. Along this section I met Jason Wolfe and then Dakota looked back to see us going across the big meadow and came back to meet up with us for the climb up through the talus, up to the saddle and to the summit of Cerro Grande.

On the Cerro Grande summit I stopped briefly to dump some small rocks out of my shoes and Jamil Coury cruised by me there. I was now in fifth place and looking forward to one of the most runnable, nice section of the course--the descent down the great single track of Cañon de Valle. It was a great descent and I was looking forward to seeing my Dad and Allison at the next aid station. I didn't see anyone else on this section and ran into the Pajarito Canyon aid station at mile 28 at 10:46am. I had been hoping to arrive there at 10:30am but was still feeling good and hoping I was running a smart race and saving some juice for later. At the aid station I grabbed a new gel flask and refilled my two hand bottles--one with HEED and one with water--and left the aid station having spent only about a minute there.

I always dread the climb up Pajarito Canyon despit the lush beauty of the canyon because it is a notoriously hot section of the course. However, this year the clouds kept things relatively cool and reasonable. I still decided to take off my shirt and run without it to the Townsight aid station and enjoyed the slight breeze cooling me off as we entered the Geist's Gap section of the course. Geist's Gap is a section of trail that was a the brainchild of Bill Geist who really wanted to avoid running the pavement of Camp May road during the race and convinced us to improve an old, faint two track through the forest paralleling Camp May Road. The effort was worth and I always enjoy this section of the course. I followed Jason Wolfe into the Townsight aid station at mile 32 at 11:43am feeling good and ready for the last big climb of the course up Pajarito Mountain. I had hoped to get into the Ski Lodge aid station at mile 36 at noon and realized there was no way that was going to happen. But I was feeling strong and still in fifth place so I wasn't too bothered by this realization.

Jason and I left the aid station together and talked briefly as we headed up the mountain. He was making ground on me but I did my best to keep him in sight for some added motivation and that worked well. We held a good pace going up the mountain and over along the crest to the summit and then dropped down the run called Oops! As I descended the run I looked back to see Harry Harcrow and another runner not far behind me. I then looked forward and noticed I could no longer see Jason Wolfe when I should have been able to see him. There was an intersection that left the main trail we had been running along and I assumed he'd missed this intersection so I whistled and shouted his name hoping he'd hear me and come back on track. The wind was blowing now, though, and I didn't get a response. I figured he'd run into runners going the other way and realize the mistake soon though. And now for the moment I had been waiting for...my goal number one.

I crested the Aspen run and looked straight down familiar territory. I recalled last year having nothing left for this descent and was super stoked to feel so good as I started down fast and strong. I think I even gained a bit of distance on the runners behind me on this descent this year. I ran into the Ski Lodge aid station in fourth place at mile 36 at 12:44pm to a surprise crowd of my Dad, Allison, Pattie and Roger. Very cool! I loaded up my two hand bottles and grabbed a couple extra gels and beat feet out of there pretty damn quick.

Photo by Jim Stein

The run out Cañada Bonita to the Pipeline aid station was good and I kept a good pace saying hello to incoming 50k runners and passing a number of outbound 50k runners too. As I entered the Pipeline aid station at mile 39 at 1:18pm I again shouted a "yahoo" before my family there could see me so they knew I was coming. At the aid station I utilized the water sprayer that I purchased specifically for the race this year. Dylan refilled my bottles and I was on my way again ready for the final 11 miles to the finish. Oh, but first Dave suggested I stop for a photo with the inflatable durable thick vinyl "love ewe" sheep and I couldn't refuse.

Just when you think the climbing is done, there's one more long climb on the dirt road leaving the Pipeline aid station! I tried to run as much of this as I could which wasn't much and I quickly resorted to power hiking. Near the top of the climb I glanced back and saw Harry Harcrow not far behind and this motivated me to run more. Thanks Harry! In short order I reached the turn onto the upper Guaje Ridge trail and enjoyed the nice single track running down the ridge trail to the Guaje/Mitchell aid station at mile 42 just before 2:00pm. Sandy was there to welcome Harry and I we got there and graciously filled up my hand bottle. At this point I realized I wasn't likely to finish under 10 hours because we had about seven miles to go and only an hour to run it to finish under 10 hours. Nonetheless, it was worth a try and Harry was definitely motivated for it. It was out of my sight in no time.

These final seven miles can also be brutally warm on the open, treeless lower ridge but heavy clouds and a threat of showers, along with some decent wind, kept things very nice all the way down to the final aid station, Rendija, at mile 48 at 2:48pm. As usual, this aid station run by Maura and Nena had a theme and definitely a party feel to it. This year it was Christmas in May at the aid station! I was pumped up to hear the aid station personnel shouting my name as I came into the aid station and only stopped long enough to gulp down a cup of water. The adrenaline of being so near the finish motivated me to run out of the aid station and start up the hill. As I got near the first switchback I slowed to start power hiking with Nena, Maura and the rest of the crew shouted up to me, "No walking!" Damn! So I picked it back up and ran to the next switchback and slowed again only to hear "No walking!" being shouted again. I was shamed into running again and couldn't wait to get out of sight of the aid station so I could walk! But really the extra motivation got me running the entire hill up to the contouring singletrack back towards the tunnel. Thanks to all you wonderful aid station volunteers! Although I knew I wouldn't make it under ten hours I ran continually through Bayo canyon up to the cutoff up to the final stretch out of the canyon. This final stretch of single track is cut deeply in the tuff and I did end up walking this last climb out of the canyon but of course had to start running again before I turned the corner where everyone would see me heading to the finish. I heard cowbells, clapping and shouting and picked up the pace to the finish line at 10:11:19.

It felt great to be done but was especially encouraging that I ran the course 30 minutes faster than I had last year and felt quite good the entire time. As usual my Dad did a fantastic job crewing for me, my Mom, Matt and Dylan did a fantastic job manning the Pipeline aid station and the run was a great success all around. I'm already looking forward to next year where I'll hopefully actually finish under 10 hours!

Buffalo Run 50k 2009 Race Report

2009-03-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

3/28/2009
50 kilometers (32.63 miles actual)
4:40:50
4th overall of 151 entrants
Official 50k results
My SportTracks GPS data report and map
My Picasa Photo Album
Official race website

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As I sat in the Salt Lake City airport the morning after the run, it was blowing and snowing with a temperature of 36 degrees outside and I couldn't believe what a gorgeous day we had yesterday for the Buffalo run on Antelope Island. The nasty Sunday weather also made me really appreciate the fact that the run was yesterday versus today. It would be miserable out on that course a day later. We lucked out and had an awesome day for a great run on a very scenic island.

Bill, Minesh and I had flown up to Salt Lake City on Friday before the race and got checked in for the race at Striders Running store in Layton. A snow storm had just passed through the area the day before leaving the Wasatch mountains a bright white and deposited some snow on the higher peak on Antelope Island. We heard that despite the new snow up high, the course for the run was in great condition with only a few muddy spots. Bill would be running the 50 mile course while Minesh and I planned to run the 50k course. For a bit I had considered the 50 mile course but because I had recently run in the Old Pueblo 50 mile race and I had heard the 50k course was more enjoyable, I stuck with the 50k.

We awoke at 4:15am on Saturday morning in our hotel in Layton for a quick breakfast and then nearly 30 minute drive out to the island. As we entered the Antelope Island State Park and drove over the causeway we immediately got the feeling the race was very well organized by the number of “parking nazis” (as RD Jim Skaggs referred to them) using lights to direct us to the parking near the start. We found the parking and rambled the hundred or so yards to the start area to find some tents setup and a couple of campfires raging to keep us scantily-clad runners warm while we waited. Jim Skaggs was easy to spot wearing his unique buffalo hat. He gave us a pre-race briefing of the course to the 50 milers and showed the runners where to line up. At 6:00am the 50 milers took off running amongst the usual whooping and hollering. It was dark and pretty chilly with the temperature in the mid-30s and a light wind blowing but the sky was clearing promising a nice day.

From Antelope Island Buffalo Run 50k and 50 mile race 2009, 2009-03-29

The Beist takes off for the 50 miler.

Minesh and I loitered around the campfires and chatted with some friends that we've made during meetings at other races. Karl Meltzer and Scott Mason (WasatchSpeedGoat) would be manning the Lower Frary aid station in the 50 mile race and were loading up drop bags.

The time came for Minesh and I to get ready for the 8:00am 50k start. I chose to ditch my beanie, gloves and running pants so I'd start with just my visor, sunglasses, long sleeve shirt over my sleeveless shirt, shorts, hand bottle and my Saucony Xodus trail shoes. This would be my first long run in the Xodus shoe which has turned out to be a nice little shoe.

From Antelope Island Buffalo Run 50k and 50 mile race 2009, 2009-03-29

As all of us 50k runners lined up, no one was anxious to step up to the start line. Since I planned to run the course hard I decided to step up to the line and then a few others finally did so too. When we all took off running at 8:00am, I was the leading the pack for the first few miles which made me uncomfortable for two reasons: First, I'd never been on the course and hadn't studied the map very well and second, I'm not used to running in that position so it felt odd. I was wondering if my pace was too slow or too fast. One look behind me confirmed that I didn't appear to be going too fast...plenty of folks were with me.
The course starts uphill on a long switchback up the east side of major ridge on the north end of the island. As we rambled up the hill I began talking the the runner next to me, Jesse, from Bozeman. He had spent a summer in Los Alamos working at LANL in the Theoretical Division. Pretty cool to meet another runner here that was familiar with Los Alamos. His friend Don and other friend, Nikki Kimball, were right behind us up the hill. Once we crested the ridge and turned to the right along the ridge we encountered the only herd of Buffalo I'd see all day and ran past them with them standing about 50 feet away. Pretty awesome and huge beasts but no match for us bunch of mountain goats. Baaahhh! We next hit a nice, fast descent into a saddle between the two high points we'd be running around all day. At this point I was running in the group of the front four and saw Bill coming uphill with a couple other 50 milers on their return of the loop. Bill was looking strong and we high-fived as we passed by each other. From the saddle it was another steeper descent before some flat running and then up the steepest climb on the course to the first aid station, Elephant Head. Up the steep hill the three other runners in our group started power walking but I had to pee and took the opportunity to keep running up the entire hill to gain some ground so I could pee without falling too far behind. I went out ahead of the others and no doubt they were thinking, “He's gonna burn out running the steep hill.” But when they reached the top of the hill and saw me peeing on the side of the dirt road at least one of them said, “Good idea, I need to do that too.” I got back on track and passed through the aid station without stopping. I still had plenty of gel in my flask and my single hand bottle was half full. We' be back at the AS in five miles so I was set.

We busted off right onto some fast downhill trail/old road and the four of us were flying down with a pace of about 6:00/mile for the next mile. At the bottom of the fast section we turned left and started up a gradual hill that eventually led to some very runnable switchbacks up and back towards the aid station. The scenery back here was phenomenal with a view of the open water over to some snow covered mountains on the lake's west side. Here the group started to break up a bit and three runners moved up about a minute ahead of me and a fifth runner. At the top of the switchbacks another runner in tan came up on me and the other runner and passed us just before the Elephant Head AS at mile 10.5. At the AS I went looking for my drop bag and it took a few minutes to locate it. I grabbed an extra three gels, refilled my water bottle and headed out. A few hundred yards out of the aid station I realized I had meant to grab my electrolyte tablets but had neglected to do that. But they did have S-caps at the aid station tables so I knew I could get some at the AS at the start/finish area before starting our second lap.

On the return to the start/finish area we ran on a new trail that stayed pretty low on the ridge's west side. This trail was really fun and fast and we made good time back towards the front of the ridge looking down on the start/finish area. I believe I was in sixth place as we descended down to the start/finish area. About a half mile out from the start/finish AS I noticed the front runners all heading out on the dirt road along what I knew was the 50 mile course. I thought this was odd as I didn't recall the course description stating anything about that. When I reached the aid station as just over two hours, I filled up my water bottle again and grabbed a few s-caps while swallowing a couple for good measure too—I had been sweating pretty decently in the last hour. As I got ready to leave the aid station, two of the front runners came back up the dirt road from the 50 mile course area asking, “hey, where do the 50k runners go?” A woman at the aid station said, “out that way along the dirt road and then eventually back here.” It sure didn't sound right but the three of us went for it anyway and starting running along the dirt road out away from the loop we had just ran. As we ran I looked over to see Tim Long, whom I'd met a couple of months ago at the Ghost Town race in southern NM. I said hello as we passed by. But as we neared the parking area I really started thinking this was wrong. I didn't recall the course description staying anything about an out-and-back and my GPS watch was now reading 16.3 miles which was already more than half the distance of a 50k...if we were going to run that loop one more time that would be more than 50k. So I hollered at the other two and told them I didn't think this was right. We saw an official-looking truck of some kind with two guys in it and stopped to ask them if they knew where the 50k course went. They didn't know but another guy standing nearby told us he didn't think it went out where we were headed. That was enough confirmation for me and all three of us turned around. There was a runner in brown ahead of us who I was pretty sure was a 50k racer also so I whistled at him but he was wearing headphones and didn't hear my whistle. We got back to the aid station and a different woman was now telling us the 50k runners didn't go the way we were going and pointed us back onto the loop we had just run. It would have been nice to get that information before we headed out the wrong way rather than being directed to go the way we went but the bonus distance was good for my training and we lost only about 8 minutes total. It was just a small heat-of-the-moment misunderstanding on all our parts--no worries!

From Antelope Island Buffalo Run 50k and 50 mile race 2009, 2009-03-29

Buffalo!

Back on the course and starting the second loop I ran as much as I could up the initial hill but got passed by another 50k runner. At this point I had lost all track of where I was in relation to other runners because I expected a few had passed by when the three of us were off track for a bit. So now with this other runner passing me and three others I could see up ahead, I was hoping I was still in the top 10 at least. I reached the top of the ridge and started running along the top and could see one runner ahead of me. At the saddle he stopped to pee and I passed him there. It was an uneventful cruise to the Elephant Head aid station again save for yielding to all the other 50k and 25k runners coming up towards me. At the Elephant Head for the third time I found it congested with many of the other runners and had to wiggle my way to the water container to fill up my water bottle at the aid table. I still had a good amount of gels so it was a quick stop and back onto the fast downhill section again. Earlier I had ran this section at about 6:00/mile pace but now, at mile 20 I ran it a bit slower but was still pleased to maintain a sub-seven minute pace. I was coming up on another runner in front of me and as I passed him he asked my name and said, “Didn't we meet at the Moab Alpine to Slickrock 50 miler last fall?” Indeed we had. We reintroduced ourselves...his name is Shane and he had run an awesome MAS 50 miler last fall just a couple weeks after running the Wasatch 100. I opened up my pace using my long legs to my advantage and cruised to the bottom of the descent. I knew I was likely to slow down on the climb up again so I wanted to move as fast as I could on the descents.

Going up the runnable switchbacks again I ran a good bit of them slowing to a walk only a few times and mostly so I could change up my pace and take some of the strain out of my groin area that was starting to feel the effects of running as hard as I had been. As I topped out and ran back along the contours towards the Elephant Head AS again, I noticed another runner coming up fast and strong. He passed me right before the AS. At the AS for th last time, I filled up my hand bottle with water again and grabbed one more gel and an extra S-cap for the final five miles to the finish. I left the AS before the other runner but not long after I left he came cruising by and I told him how strong he was looking. I was impressed. I shuffled down the steep descent as fast as I could go at this point and then held a decent pace along the contouring trail to the final decent climb back up towards the saddle. Here I noticed that strong runner had completely stopped and was cramping. I pulled the S-cap out of my pocket and gave it to him as I passed him because I know how much it sucks to cramp late in a race. He was thankful and slammed it down. At the saddle another runner, Greg Norrander, had been making good time on me came up and passed by me as I slowed to pee one last time.

We were now on the homestretch towards the finish line with only a few miles to go. The cramping runner had made a good recovery and came up behind me and introduced himself. His name was Sandy and he again thanked me for the S-cap as he passed me. I told him, “No worries, now go finish under 4:30!” We were at 4:20ish at that point so I think we both knew that wouldn't happen but it was motivating to think about that. A few minutes later Sandy cramped again and I passed by him once more. As we turned the corner and could see down to the finish, I slowed for a moment and Sandy passed by me one last time. I did notice Greg in front of us was slowing just a bit on the descent so I hoped to catch up to him before the finish. At that moment Sandy yelled to me with some encouraging words so I picked up my pace to keep up with him. As we descended we continued to pick up the pace eventually passing Greg about a mile from the finish. We hit the flats just before the final short hill that then led to the short downhill finish. Sandy finished about 30 seconds ahead of me and I came in at 4:40:50 feeling like I ran as hard as I could. It took me a few minutes to decompress before I could shuffle the 100 yards to the car to get my recovery whole chocolate milk, extra clothes and a chair. I ended up driving the car back to right near the finish because I figured Bill and Minesh would appreciate not having to make that walk.

I sat around the finish area drinking chocolate milk, water and beer, in that order, (I had a few hours to hang out) while ringing the cowbells for finishers and eating chips. I also indulged in a bowl or two of the potluck buffalo stew which was quite tasty. I had never eaten buffalo before. It was a beautiful afternoon to hang out on the grass waiting for fellow Los Alamos runners Bill, Nena and Minesh to finish.

From Antelope Island Buffalo Run 50k and 50 mile race 2009, 2009-03-29

Beist finishing strong for a 50 mile PR.

From Antelope Island Buffalo Run 50k and 50 mile race 2009, 2009-03-29

Nena finishes up her 50k run in 7:30ish I believe.

From Antelope Island Buffalo Run 50k and 50 mile race 2009, 2009-03-29

Minesh coming into the finish.

Old Pueblo 50 Mile 2009 Race Report

2009-03-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

3/7/2009
~52 miles
8:30:21
7th overall out of 124 finishers
Official Website
My Picasaweb Album
Official Results
GPS watch data report

The head wind was killing our gas mileage and had been for the past 100 miles. It was Friday afternoon and Dan, Mom, Matt and I were pulling into the Fleet Feet running store in Tucson, AZ having driven down from northern New Mexico all day. We were there so Dan and I could run in the 20^th Old Pueblo 50 mile trail race south of Tucson. Neither Dan nor I had run in this race before and we were looking forward to running a new course. In fact, Dan had never run a 50 mile race before so this was going to be big for him. Mom and Matt had graciously offered to join us to serve as our crew.

After picking up our race packets we drove out to near the start line at Kentucky Camp, an historic homestead not far from Sonoita, AZ. The wind was blowing, as it had been all day, so we found a relatively sheltered camp area in the valley a mile short of Kentucky Camp in some grass. For dinner we cooked up some tortellini and sauce and hit the sack pretty early opting against a campfire given the strong winds.

4:00am came all too early but I had slept very well so I easily awoke to make my standard pre-race breakfast of one cup of strong coffee and a toasted bagel with cream cheese. As I finished eating my bagel the masses of runners began driving by on the dirt road towards the start line. Dan, Mom, Matt and I arrived at the start line around 5:20am finding time to obtain our cloth bib numbers, drop our drop bags in the appropriate piles and huddle around with friends Ryan, Susan and Nicole waiting for 6:00am to come so we could start running and warm up.

From Old Pueblo 50 Mile Run, Tucson, AZ, 2009-03-07

I opted to start without a headlamp based on the suggestion from my friend David who'd run this race a few times before. I lined up just behind the first row of runners on the start line and wished Dan a good run. At 6:00am sharp we all did the usual hooting and hollering to signal the start of the race and headed off and up the initial 200' climb on the dirt road. I started the race in shorts, no gloves, a visor, sunglasses and a long sleeve shirt over my short sleeve shirt. It was about 30 degrees at the start but no wind so my clothing situation was perfect for me. After starting up the hill, I saw the lead pack already taking off and reacted accordingly by upping my pace and keeping them in sight up the hill. It was dark with no moon but there was already enough ambient light to run without a headlamp. Once we crested the initial hill it was plenty light and we were really off. I ran a few paces behind a runner I didn't know and we were running in about 6^th and 7^th place. We kept a good consistent pace going through the first aid station at mile 3 where I didn't stop and continued on up the hill. At mile 3 we turned off the main dirt road and headed up an old two-track before turning onto some sweet single track along the Arizona Trail. Along this section the sun came up and the scenery was beautiful. I love the desert and at sunrise it was magical. We had to pass through a few cattle gates along this stretch and I even managed to jump over one rather than opening and closing it behind myself. I knew I wouldn't be doing that on the way back over this section later in the day.

I ran into the mile 7 aid station at 1 hour, 2 minutes (1:02) and realized Iwas moving pretty fast. I was feeling good, though, so I made the stop quick picking up a couple gels and my extra hand bottle before continuing downhill on the dirt road. We made a hard right turn onto another dirt road that I nearly missed but volunteer in a truck pointed me in the correct direction. I was getting a bit warm so I pulled off my long sleeve shirt and tied it around my waist. I wouldn't have a chance to drop it off before the aid station at mile 25 where I'd first see my Mom and Matt. At this point I was pretty much running by myself and would continue to pretty much to the end. The run down in this sandy road canyon was great and I ran through a ranch where two dogs were hanging out next to the road. They were very friendly so I took the opportunity to stop to tie my shoes and pet them briefly. Awesome dogs. Further down the road I came to a triangle intersection. The right fork was flagged and the left fork was not so I went right but immediately after that there was flagging going left back towards the left fork. This didn't make sense to me. Why would they flag it to the right and then back left immediately afterwards when they could have just flagged the left fork initially? So I opted to not turn left and stayed right for a bit. After about 100 yards I hadn't seen a flag so I turned back and ultimately got back on track. I rolled into the mile 13 aid station with much relief after second-guessing myself for the last 10 minutes at 1:53. I slammed a packet of Carbboom energy gels and refilled my bottles with water for the climb up to Gunsight pass. As I left the aid station, two other runners came in just behind me so I felt motivated to really push a bit up the climb.

It was getting warm but still nearly perfect running weather as I ascended the pass. I had heard the backside of the pass was very technical and I was looking forward to seeing that and running it as I enjoyed technical running. At the top of the pass I finally had a view towards Tucson as well as the view east that I had much of the morning. Running down the backside was indeed very technical and took some solid concentration to keep from twisting an ankle or tripping. At the bottom of the hill it was more fast dirt road runnning south along the base of the mountain to the aid station at mile 19 at 2:48. I again ate some more Carbboom energy gels and refilled my bottles with water. As I started to leave the station I started to head out on the wrong road and was quickly corrected by one of the volunteers. Another one said, “Head down that way and soon you'll turn left on another road.” There just happened to be a road heading left just a few yards out of the aid station so I jokingly started to head down that road and said, “oh yeah, right here?” and looked back smiling. It took them all a second or two to catch my joke as I headed the correct way.

I felt I was holding a good pace here along the rolling dirt road but looked back at the top of a hill to see another runner behind me—the first I'd seen in many miles. So I stepped up my pace a bit as I passed the end of the dirt road through a gate into some private land for a bit. I could now see the mile 25 aid station and was looking forward to seeing Mom and Matt for the first time since the start. I heard the cowbells beckoning me into the aid station and reached it at 3:43 where I ditched my long sleeve shirt, refilled my water bottle and grabbed a gel flask for the big pull up the hill to mile 29. My goal was to run the entire hill and I set off and did in fact run the entire hill except for a short stint where I had to urinate on the move. This section up the hill was pretty warm and dusty thanks to some decent traffic along the road. As I neared the top of the climb I started to turn left onto the road we had initally turned right onto after aid station at mile 7 but was corrected by another volunteer. This was odd for me since I rarely, if ever, have trouble following a course. I came into the aid station at mile 29 at 4:24 and the woman there said I was in fourth place. I knew that wasn't true and was sure I was in 6^th or 7^th place. I grabbed some more gel and filled up my hand bottles with water and HEED before getting back on the portion of the Arizona Trail we had run in the morning.

I ended up walking a good bit of the climbing on this section and was happy to run down into the aid station at mile 33 at 5:10. Apparently I had a drop bag here but had forgotten about that so I just filled my bottles and kept on going. Leaving this aid station we were back on a dirt road running up a slight incline for a bit before turning left onto a more technical road and down into a drainage complete with an old windmill and some water in the creek. I was still running alone and really enjoying being back in this area on such a beautiful day. As I neared the aid station at mile 40 another runner, Mike, came up from behind. We had leap-frogged a bit since mile 28. I felt I needed to “go see a man about a horse” so I pulled off the course and found a suitable tree and rock to take care of business. Back on track I came up on the mile 40 aid station to the sound of, “Now that's what I'm talking about!” This was a now-familiar sound to me as I have heard this man at a couple of different races in the last year. I gave him the knuckles as I passed by him into the aid station at mile 40 at 6:29. Mom and Matt were here to help me with a quick time through the station so I filled up both hand bottles and grabbed some more gel. One of the station volunteers offered to take a photo of me and Mom so we posed briefly for the photo op.

From Old Pueblo 50 Mile Run, Tucson, AZ, 2009-03-07

From the mile 40 aid station it was a long, gradual grind up a dirt road along a nicely running creek. Mike passed by me again here and we talked briefly. He was from Phoenix and hadn't run this race before either. We informally paced each other along the road and onto some singletrack which led to a technical dirt road and then a crossing over the stream again before some nice singeltrack to the mile 46 aid station. Here, Mike moved out quickly and I tried to keep moving fast too. A quick bottle fill up for the final stretch. A short distance out of the station Mike and I encountered another cattle gate that he graciously left open for me. From here I would barely see him much until the final stretch to the finish. This section to the finish was longer and more difficult than I had expected. We crossed down and through a couple of drainages, climbed a long hill and then paralleled the finish line area running along a mesa top. It was definitely getting warm now and I was ready to be done. My GPS watched beeped mile 50 at 8:20:29 but I was still far enough from the finish that I could not see it. Now I really wanted to finish under 8:30 and was really pushing it and slowly coming back up on Mike. I averaged about 9:00/mile for the last three miles and finally could see the finish line at the top of a small rise. I put my head down and was sprinting as hard as I could towards the finish so I could come in under 8:30. But then I hear the crowd saying, “No, go back, you missed a turn.” Sure enough, I was supposed to go right around a truck instead of left. So I stopped dead in my tracks, rand back and around the truck the correct way to finish in 8:30:21. I probably wouldn't have made it under 8:30 anyway but....

I sat down to my quart of chocolate milk and enjoyed watching a few more finishers before Dan came in at 9:39:40. The post race scene was great...burgers, beer, music, good chat and fine weather. This race was really enjoyable and I hope to make it down there again.

Ghost Town 38.5 Mile Ultra Run Race 2009

2009-01-19T22:32:00.000-08:00

1/18/09
38.5 miles
Anywhere between 4,200 and 5,000 vertical feet gained depending on who you ask.
My Picasa Photo Album
Full results
Top 10 finishers, etc. listing

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Admittedly, 38.5 miles is an odd distance for a race. Typical ultras are 50k, 50 miles, 100k, 100 miles and beyond. But 38.5 miles still has a nice ring to it. It’s like a 60k with a bonus mile or so. For the past couple of years I had seen the advertisement for the Ghost Town 38.5 race in Ultrarunning magazine and knew that one of these years I’d check it out. But the 13 miles of pavement involved with the race ultimately kept me from taking a closer look at it. But in the fall of September 2008, my friend and frequent running partner David Coblentz mentioned he was going to give it a try. He also told of the impressive scenery in the area and high chance of good running weather in January in Hillsboro, New Mexico. With my plan of running the Old Pueblo 50 miler in early March 2009, I thought the GT would be a great training run and so I signed up. Then the list of Los Alamos area ultra runners entered in the GT grew and soon there was at least 6 of us heading down there. It was a low-key and enjoyable race for sure. This is how it went down according to me…

Susan, the race director, along with her husband, Matt, have been putting on this race for four years now. My understanding is that the first year was an all-pavement affair (for which I’m glad I missed) but the past three years have all been roughly the same involving an out-and-back course starting and ending with 6.5 miles of pavement with 26.5 miles of dirt road and trail running in the middle. The starting elevation is around 5,300’ with a high elevation of about 7,000’ ( profile from my GPS watch ). Also, for the first three years, this race has been mostly “under the radar” of many ultra runners. That changed this year when some fast dudes showed up including Andy Jones-Wilkins (AJW). Until now the course record had been 6:06:00 set by Albuquerque runner Ed Heller. I hoped to best that time and go under 6 hours and I knew AJW and a few others would likely do the same and finish in front of me. Looking at the list of entrants before the race, I told a friend “I’ll be super happy to finish under 6 hours and finish in fifth place.” As I would later find out, I nailed that prediction.

At 6:00am on Sunday, 72 of us runners all hooted and hollered as we set off from the start line. A relatively warm morning (26 degrees) with no wind and a bright waning moon allowed me to start in shorts, a sleeveless shirt, a light wind jacket and gloves. The pace started out pretty quickly and I went off with the lead pack of six of us—Tim Long, Andy Jones-Wilkins, Bobby Biles, Scott Eppelman, Ed Heller and I. As we topped the first minor hill of the first 6.5 miles of pavement running we were hit with a stiff, cold head wind that lasted until we neared the turn off from the pavement to the dirt road. I was very happy I decided to keep my wind jacket on at the start! The pace was brisk for the first six miles (8:09, 8:25, 7:49, 8:12, 8:12, 8:33) but I knew Ed was a veteran of this race so I figured this was a good, solid pace if he was holding it. But as we chatted he confessed to me that we were going out much faster than he’d ever gone out!

Once we hit the dirt I laid back a bit and dropped back to about 30 seconds behind the main group of five ahead as I didn’t want to over do it too early. Honestly, I hadn’t been training too much through the winter opting instead to do more rock climbing and snowboarding and I really didn’t want to make my all-too-frequent mistake of going out too hard.

The running surface was now a rolling dirt road that was gradually heading uphill. After about two miles of dirt road we hit a very short out-and-back spur to the station 2 aid station where I refilled my single hand bottle with water and grabbed two more gels from my drop bag. My fueling plan was to eat a single gel packet every 30 minutes and drink water as much as I could. In the end, this worked out great. It made for quick aid station stops and was an adequate fuel amount. After this aid station we all started to break up a little bit with Ed and I taking up the rear of the lead group. The road began a steady grind uphill before cresting out and dropping steeply down some 500 vertical feet in about 1.5 miles. OK, so that’s not super steep but compared to what we had been running, it felt steep. I commented to Ed that the hill would be a joy on the return and he said “yeah, but then it’s 9 miles downhill to the finish.” I looked forward to that.

Typical course view and condition. Pretty gorgeous in the Gila National Forest!

At mile 12.7 we all turned left onto the 4 mile round-trip out-and-back spur trail. This was a rugged but beautiful section of the course and definitely my favorite part. It was an old road used to access a mine. The “trail” here obviously sees little traffic these days and crosses a small stream many times. Numerous small, clear pools of water lined the trail and for a short bit we ran along the base of a huge limestone wall complete with a large natural limestone arch! I nearly tripped a couple times as I looked up at this wall and arch considering the climbing possibilities!

As I ascended the last, super technical section of the out-and-back I saw Tim coming back down followed closely by AJW, Bobby and then Scott. I was in fifth position at this turnaround. On the way back down this spur, I made good time as I tend to move pretty well on technical descents and ended up passing Scott to move into fourth position. It was along this section that I saw many of my friends heading out while I headed back. I gave hoots, hollers and/or high fives to David Coblentz, Bill Geist, Tom Stockton, Dan Hadlich and many others. I love out and backs for the very reason of getting to see friends along the way!

Back on the main road we continued heading out to the big turn around. It was rolly with plenty of loose, eroded sections of road to keep my mind in the run. I had been running with my iPod off until this point but with the group broken up and no sight of anyone in front of me or behind me, I turned it on and turned it up for some motivation. For this run I’d be rocking to Silverstein and Strung Out.

Not actually on the course but a good view of the Gila National Forest from Emory Pass the day before the race. Lots of space out there.

At about mile 18 we began a long, technical descent to the turn around at Cave Creek at mile 20.6. Shortly before the turn around I saw Tim and AJW coming at me again not too far apart. Those two were holding it close and I knew it was going to be an interesting finish for them. And just before I reached the turn around Bobby cruised on by me on his way back in too. I took a bit of time at the Cave Creek aid station (station 4) futzing with my jacket and gloves and decided to leave them both there. I picked up a second water bottle here and filled it up thinking I had already poured some HEED drink powder in the bottle but as I left the aid station I realized I had not done that so I had two bottles of water. I promptly poured out half of one bottle as I wouldn’t need that much water to the next aid station. As I began the grind up the technical climb back out of Cave Creek I again saw all my fellow Los Alamos friends and got a boost from their positive comments. I power-walked some bits of the hill climbs and cruised into station 3/5 again to swap out one of my bottles for a bottle that actually did have HEED in it and grab some more CarbBOOM gels.

Leaving station 5 was again a bit of an uphill grind but it was over quickly and I was into more rolling terrain and trying to keep my pace up around 10 minute miles or better and was feeling pretty good. I couldn’t see anyone in front of me but also couldn’t see anyone behind me so I just kept doing what I was doing hoping to hold onto fourth position to the finish. At station 6 I added some more HEED powder to one bottle and filled the other half way with water and got moving again. I didn’t see anyone come in behind me there either. But as I hit the rolling and smooth dirt road out of station 6 and neared the pavement again, I looked back to see a runner coming up fast from behind. I was totally impressed with the speed of this guy! Just before the pavement I stopped to take a leak one last time and the runner coming up from behind passed by me. It was Pete Stevenson looking super strong. Once we hit the pavement I tried to keep up with Pete’s pace but my legs were having none of it. Pete just blasted off into the distance. Pete’s speed gave me some serious motivation and I knew if I could keep pushing hard enough to stay under a pace of 9 minute miles, I could hit my goal time of under 6 hours. I kept pushing and cruised right on past the last aid station, station 7, at mile 34, smiling at the nice and encouraging aid station volunteers. I knew it was going to be close and I didn’t want to stop now. I started to see buildings and knew it wasn’t far. Then I saw the line of cars parked in front of Susan’s house and could hear some clapping and yelling. I ran an 8:30/mile for the final mile to finish in 5:52:15. It felt great to have met my sub-6 hour goal with a race performance that I was very pleased with.

From Ghost Town 38.5 Mile Race, 2009-01-18

The afternoon was spent lounging, drinking four New Belgium 1554 beers, eating the super tasty homemade food and cheering on the rest of the finishers until my friend Minesh finished. This race was his longest ultra to date and he finished in 10:37:ish with a gutsy effort.

An excellent post-race BBQ with a few beers around the campfire topped off a great day of racing.

Full results have not been posted yet but the top ten finishers list has been:

1. Tim Long, 41, CO, 5:21:01
2. Andy Jones-Wilkins, 41, ID, 5:21:06
3. Bobby Biles, 42, NM, 5:43:39
4. Pete Stevenson, 35, CO, 5:45:39
5. Jason Halladay, 34, NM, 5:52:15
6. Scott Eppelman, 42, TX, 6:02:10
7. Marty Duchow, 46, CT, 6:06:41
8. Ed Heller, 46, NM, 6:14:16
9. Paul Grimm, 40, CO, 6:19:30
10. Dave Coblentz, 46, NM, 6:20:54

Urban adventure running in Bellevue, WA

2008-12-02T18:01:00.000-08:00

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On Monday afternoon this week I found out I got to go to Bellevue/Redmond, WA to meet with some Microsoft folks for work. I didn't have much time to explore my running options and knew I would have much time to actually run since it was a 36 hour round-trip trip but I did want to get out at least a little bit. My friend Rose contacted her sister and brother in law that live in the area and they made some fine suggestions like Tiger Mountain and Mt. Si. Unfortunately, it turned out I had a couple hours only so I checked Google Maps and saw that my hotel was nice and close to a green space called Bridle Trails State Park. Hey, it was green and had the word "trails" in the name so I figured it would work. And it did.
I ran up there with no more than a hand bottle and a map of the area bike trails folded up in my pocket.
I didn't get out until 3:30pm and knew it would start to get dark around 4:30pm. The run started on paved bike trails along highway 520 and then I found the turn onto the Bridle Ridge Trail that would lead to the park. I got a bit confused by a short detour into a very small wetland area and cruised through that short loop. (Later, I saw on the map that the wetland is right next to the Microsoft West Campus!) Finally on trail, I ran along the northern edge of the Bellevue Municipal Golf Course and then finally hit the northeastern edge of the Bridle Trails State Park.
Once in the park the running was darker because of the tree canopy above and the waning daylight. The trails were sloppy and muddy thanks to heavy horse traffic they evidently receive. Trail intersections were frequent but unmarked and I hadn't a clue which way was which so I just began following small signs that showed a dog print or something. Ironically, it appears dogs aren't allowed in the park? This was fun adventure running as I saw no one else and had no idea where I was going. I eventually popped out on a major road but didn't know where I was. Most of the traffic was going to my right so I went with it until I hit a major intersection at 116th NE St and 60th NE St. Now I could find on the map where I was and voila! I had made a nice little loop through the edge of the park. I headed east on 60th NE until I got back to familiar territory and and cruised on back to the hotel.
It was a great little run of 12 miles in a completely foreign place to me.
Now it's time to check out a Thai place Rose recommended and then read up on the stuff we're supposed to talk about tomorrow at Microsoft. That'll be another adventure, albeit of a much different type.
I'll be back in NM tomorrow night. Yippee!

October 2008 in Review

2008-10-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

Seems I'm getting on this old blog about once a month for updates so here's a run down of how I spent my month of October:

October 1-5: Allison and I traveled to the Grand Canyon with her sister and brother in law where we hiked, camped and even floated down the mighty Colorado River from Glen Canyon Dam to Lee's Ferry.
From Grand Canyon, AZ, 2008-10-01

October 10-12: Allison and I drove to Boulder, CO to attend George and Courtney's wedding. It was a beautiful, intimate evening wedding and it even snowed a bit! On the way up to Boulder we managed to get in a few hours of climbing at Shelf Road Saturday morning. Otherwise, it was a drizzly and cool weekend.

October 17-18: Dan and I had a great time hiking some 13,800'+ peaks in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. The weather was amazing and the hiking fantastic. On Friday we hiked 20 miles and 4,800' vertical up Rio Grande Pyramid and Saturday was a 13 mile, 4,200' vertical day up Half Peak.
From Rio Grande Pyramid, 2008-10-17

October 25-26: I got out for a nice 13 mile loop run with David Coblentz through Bandelier National Monument.
From Bandelier Run, 2008-10-25
After the run I joined Allison, James and Nate at the Dungeon for a bit of climbing. Allison came so close (one small slip) to sending the project she's been working on this month, Gangland, 5.12b.

On Sunday I went up to Sugarite State Park with Bill, Chris, Mark, Minesh and Rose for some enjoyable basalt climbing in a secluded location.
From Sugarite State Park, 2008-10-26

It's been a great October so far! November promises to be a great month too with a continuation of great weather in the near future and some great trips planned with friends. Also, my sister and her family will be coming back to New Mexico for bit between moving from Hawaii to the Seattle area so that'll be great too.

Moab Alpine to Slickrock 50 mile race 2008 (and some climbing too!)

2008-09-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

9/20/2008
50 miles
11,000' vertical gain, 12,000' vertical descent
10 hours, 42 minutes
Map from my Garmin Watch
Photos from my camera
Photos taken on the course during the race from Sean Cunniff
Photos from Greg Norrander (Pro quality)
Full results

Wow, so it's been weeks since I blogged at 'cha y'all. Sorry for that. It's been a fun few weeks so I hope to write about that soon but for now...I'm sitting here stiff and sore after running the Moab Alpine to Slickrock 50 mile race yesterday. This was my first time running this low-key, high-quality race and I really enjoyed it. If you like easy, flat 50 mile races, this one isn't for you but if you enjoy amazing mountainous terrain with super scenic views of canyonlands, put this race on your calendar for next year!

The pre-race on Friday was very relaxed and small. Only about 45 runners signed up for the race. Allison, Mom and I met up with Sean and Mike (running in his first 50 mile race ever) at the pre-race in Moab on Friday evening and we got the course briefing. It was all very informal and mellow and I really appreciated that. After dinner at Pasta Jays with Mike and Felicia, we drove to a campsite right near the start line at the Pack Creek Picnic Area in the La Sal Mountains. Camping there in the national forest was awesome with a campfire and the waning but bright moon. The only thing not awesome about it was the gigantic patch of goatheads that Allison and I pitched our tent on unknowingly. Well, even after realizing the mistake and adding another beefy tarp under the tent, we both still ended up with deflated Thermarests in the morning. (I later found 17 holes in mine and 6 holes in Allison's.) Nonetheless, I got a good night's sleep and awoke at 4:45am.

It was a warm morning and it was much easier to get out of bed than it often is at higher, colder runs. After downing a toasted bagel and 12oz of coffee I got my growler on and then headed over to the start line a few minutes before 6am. It was a small group of runners and I liked that. I started wearing shorts, sleeveless shirt, a visor, sunglasses, GPS watch and iPod. Also, I made a bold (and perhaps foolish decision) to wear a new pair of La Sportiva Fireblades that I had only run 7 miles in up until race day. The gamble paid off and I really liked the shoes. The low delta-H (10mm) is fantastic. :)

We all got going at 6:00am at the trailhead at 6,400' under the bright moonlight following the Pack Creek dirt road up for a few miles and eventually catching the Pack Creek trail which paralleled a decently deep river gorge on our left. The fall colors were amazing and as we climbed higher I had to take it easy so I wouldn't trip as I looked around to take it all in. The glowing light of the sunrise illuminating the red rock of Canyonlands to the west was phenomenal.

The first part of the course climbs hard from 6,400' to 10,400' in about nine miles to the La Sal 4x4 jeep road crossing through some scenic meadows along the way. From there it was descent on a jeep road and then more single track through some more nicely wooded areas with great views to the valley to the second aid station at Squaw Springs at mile 14. I enjoyed more great single track (and suffered a hard but non-painful digger) on the next section of single track to Oohwah Lake at mile 17. More climbing and more fantastic views summed up the next section of trail to the Geyser Pass aid station at mile 20. Allison and my Mom were crewing for me and were at Squaw Springs, Geyser Pass and Warner Lake and it was great to see them there!

After Geyser Pass came the climb up Burro Pass to the course's highpoint at 11,000+ feet. That was an awesome climb as at one point I looked up to watch the runner ahead of going up the pass and noticed the moon, appearing very large, above his head and above the pass. I wish I had taken my camera! The other side of Burrow Pass was a steep, technical descent that downhill mountain bikers love. I kept myself in check on this knowing I didn't want to beat up my quads just yet. I eventually rambled into the Warner Lake aid station at mile 26 in 6 hours, 5 minutes. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do--go out a decent pace but hold back enough so that I could run more later on the fast dirt roads. I was hoping for negative splits and I ended up with that. (5:50 for the first 25 and 4:52 for the last 25.)

The climb out of Warner Lake to the top of the pass into Miners Basin was an ass-kicker but I had some company (Shane who had just ran the Wasatch Front 100 miler a couple weeks ago) to commiserate on the way up. Shane would go on to finish in 10:01 in second place! On the descent into Miners Basin it rained and hailed on us pretty good for a short bit but that felt nice, actually. The Miners Basin aid station was done up in "saloon style" complete with liquor. I just went for the chicken noodle soup and some water though. From there it was a fast downhill on dirt road to the pave La Sal loop road where we turn left and run uphill on the paved road for a couple miles to the Kokopelli trail turn-off. The paved road kinda sucked but the killer view of Castleton Tower and Castle Valley more than made up for it!

After a quick stop for a bottle refill at the Kokopelli trail turn, I shuffled my way down the Kokopelli trail through the recently burned area. On my way down I passed a guy with a dog on his way uphill and he shouted, "Go Hilltoppers!" I didn't recognize him at all but he obviously knew I was from Los Alamos High School somehow. He would later catch back up to me and explain he had been talking with Allison earlier and that he, David, was from Los Alamos originally. Cool!

Thing started to get warm as I ran onto the Sand Flats Road and aid station at mile 36. I filled both my water bottles and reveled in the thought that the finish was only 14 miles of all downhill dirt road away. I actually managed to run most all of the remaning 14 miles at a decent pace (~9:00/mile) and felt good. I knew my race strategy had paid off as I distanced myself from the runner behind me and passed another runner that had been in front of me. It felt wonderful to actually be feeling good in the final 10 miles of a 50 mile race. That's a rarity for me. One short spur road off the main Sand Flats road was a bit rough as we had to run on a good bit of slickrock and rough terrain (but it was a nice change to get off the main Sand Flats road) and I hit the last aid station at mile 42.

I tanked up on water there, down some more gel and an electrolyte tablet and started going for it. I ran almost all of the final hot, open road to the finish walking only a couple of short uphills. With a few miles to go I took off my shirt as I felt I was overheating a bit. And then, just like that, I rounded a corner and saw the finish line at the Slickrock Bike Trail parking lot and kicked into as high a gear as I had left to finish in 10 hours, 42 minutes which turned out to put me in sixth place overall. I sauntered over to the shade of the CR-V where Allison and Mom had been waiting for me and just collapsed into the chair. It took me a while to get motivated to move but the thought of a shower, food and a beer in Moab was very motivating!

This race is awesome! The last seven miles are pretty brutal but the rest of the course really makes up for it. The low-key style of the race is very appealing to me and the terrain is some of the most scenic I've ever run.

Long week trip coming up!

2008-08-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya...
Allison and I are headed out for the week first to Lake Mead, NV for a friend's birthday party on Saturday and Sunday and then on up to City of Rocks, Idaho for a number of days climbing with our friends Rose and Chris. It'll be awesome. On the way, as we drive through Salt Lake City, UT, I'll be stopping to pace my friend David for the last 25 miles of the Wasatch 100 mile trail running race. I've never seen the course so I'm excited to run part of it and support David in this great race. I'll be back online in 9 days or so. Enjoy your holiday weekend.

Here's a great photo Bill took of me climbing Colossus, 5.10c, at sunset in City of Rocks, ID last time we were there.

Taos Up and Over 10k trail run, 2008-08-23

2008-08-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

Taos Up and Over 10k
8/23/08
6.2 miles
2,600' vertical
1:04:05
Third overall, second male overall
Full results

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After last week's ascent run at Pikes Peak, I wanted to take advantage of some decent training I'd been doing recently so I headed up to the third annual Taos Up and Over (TUAO) 10k run with Allison, Chris and Rose. Rose and I both had run in the Pikes Peak Ascent last week but Rose was in wave two and had disappointedly been turned around at the A-Frame during the PPA so she was really looking for a finish at Taos.
The TUAO runs 2,600' vertical feet up the ski area and then back down via a course that's all dirt road jeep trails on the mountain. Neither Rose nor I had run it before.

This race was the complete opposite of last week's race on Pikes Peak. For one, the weather today was perfect. Also, the race is super low key and there were probably only 60 runners there. It's also much shorter. :) Just like I like it.

At the 9am start, I started in the front and quickly settled into second position at a comfortable pace. Unfortunately, though, I've come down with a small cold so my lungs were immediately feeling tight and somewhat burning. I was not optimistic about the lungs holding up but as I got higher, they felt better. My strategy was power hike on the steeps and hope those that were running ahead of me would tire out from the inefficient running up steep stuff. After about the first mile I was in fourth position and watched the first female and first male head up looking strong. The runner in third was running up the steep stuff and generally slowing down so I knew it wouldn't be long before I was able to pass him. I passed him just before the first water station where I powered down a gel and cup of water and kept the power hiking alternating with running on the lower angle terrain. At the top of the climb at mile 3 I watched the first male crest over in pursuit of the first female. I hit the top of the climb in 43:52 and hoped I'd catch the runners in front but as I looked down, I couldn't see them and figured I wouldn't catch them. The views of the highest peak in New Mexico, Wheeler Peak (13,161'), were awesome. The descent followed steep jeep roads down that were a bit loose at times so it was challenging. I was still able to run fast down though and held a 6:14 minute/mile pace for the entire 3.2 mile descent. I moved quickly and didn't expect to be caught and didn't expect to catch anyone. That's how it went all the way to the finish--uneventful and pretty quick. I finished in 1 hour, 4 minutes and 5 seconds for third overall, second male overall. For my effort I won a free day lift ticket for Taos Ski Area and now that snowboards are allowed, I'll definitely use it! Rose came in around 1:17ish which was good for third female overall. A very productive day for the Los Alamos runners!

At the start. Beautiful weather!

After the first switchback.

Finish! Note the awesome white balance of this shot. Allison used my chest for the white balancing.

Miles Fitzgerald finishes up around 1:11

Rose finishes in her matching skirt/shoes combo!

Pikes Peak Ascent 2008-08-17

2008-08-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

Pikes Peak on Sunday morning after the storms on Saturday during the ascent.

I found myself leaning my shoulder and head into the electric hand dryer in the Pikes Peak summit house, rubbing my hands together and grimacing in pain as the blood and feeling returned to my purple fingers. To the tourists walking into the restroom, I must have looked like some idiot as I continually restarted the air cycle of the dryer by pushing the side of my forehead into the big silver button.

I had just finished running my first-ever Pikes Peak Ascent in what many are calling the worst conditions ever for the race. When the race started in Manitou Springs at 7:00am, it was drizzling and the temperature was around 50 degrees. When I arrived on the summit of Pikes Peak after 13.32 miles, 7,815’ vertical feet of climbing and 3 hours, 12 minutes of running, it was snowing, the temperature was 32 degrees, the wind was blowing between 20 and 30mph and there was an occasional flash of lightning accompanied by some thunder.

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That morning, just before the start gun fired, I took off my wind shell jacket and tied it around my waist knowing I would appreciate it later above treeline. The forecast for the summit of Pikes Peak called for snow and winds up to 20mph. In the jacket pocket, I stashed a light beanie. On my body I wore a long sleeve synthetic shirt over a short sleeve synthetic shirt, shorts, smart wool socks and some lightweight trail running shoes. I had a pair of very light gloves in the pocket of my shorts. I also decided to carry a pair of cycling arm warmers in my other pocket. For fuel I carried a single 20oz hand bottle and a small gel bottle filled with about four gel packets-worth of Carb-Boom strawberry-kiwi energy gel.

The race started off well and I watched the fast runners shoot on ahead as I tried to stay towards the back of the front-runners pack. JV (Jeff Valliere) was gone and out of sight in no time on his way to his 2:53:34 finish so I locked onto friend Jeff Kunkle and made my best effort to keep him in sight for as long as I could. Not having run this race before, I was sure what kind of pace to hold down low and Kunkle had completed this race many times so my strategy was to just keep an eye on him to help pace me.
As we funneled into a single line of runner from the pavement onto the trail to reach Barr Trail, I watched Kunkle about 8 people ahead of me and tried to keep it that way. I expected it to be more hectic and tough to pass people on the trail up the Ws but it wasn’t very difficult. Everyone was very considerate and moved over if they felt someone else coming up behind them.

I set off on this race hoping to run it in 3 hours, 10 minutes. Using the online PPA pace calculator, I memorized three major split times along the course so I would know how I was doing on my way up. At the top of the Ws, I should be at 38:13. I ended up at 37:00. At Barr Camp I should be at 1:36:34. I ended up at 1:32:06. And at the A Frame, I should be at 2:15:21. I ended up there at 2:12:31. For my part, I did a pretty good job of pacing myself. I owe a lot of that to Kunkle too. I managed to keep him in sight, and even talk with him a bit, up until the Barr Camp. After that, though, he charged off to his 3:02:33 finish and I didn’t see him again until the summit.

Personally, I was feeling pretty good and on schedule for my 3:10 finish. The light rain was off and on but never very hard and the wind hadn’t kicked up. But that all changed when I came to the A Frame with about three miles to go. From here, we were out of the trees and into the full winds and snow. The trail began to get slushy from the wet snow and the winds got stronger as I got higher. When I was headed southerly it was a full-on headwind so I would tuck one hand into the pocket on my shorts and with the hand that was holding the water bottle, I’d stick it behind my back so it wasn’t exposed to the wind. When I’d hit a switchback towards the north I’d keep both hands in front of my body to keep my hands out of the wind. I had gloves on my hands but they were so light and damp they weren’t helping a great deal. I did end up using one of my arm warmers as a “mitten” on my right hand for a while which I think helped. The trail in the final few miles is trail constructed through talus so the footing got a bit slick but never too treacherous. As I got higher I could begin to hear the announcer at the finish line up above but because of the dense fog and snow, I couldn’t see up to the summit. Then, just after a volunteer standing next to the trail shouted, “less than a quarter-mile to go!” there was a bright flash of light followed quickly by a clap of thunder. This motivated me to push things a bit more and I cranked out what I could to the finish.

I was feeling good but the cold kept me from pushing it hard to the finish and I ended up two minutes behind my goal time with a finish time of 3:12:00 exactly. As I crossed the finish line I was immediately given a finisher’s medal by a volunteer (the volunteers that endured the conditions for hours on Saturday ought to be given huge stipends!) and pointed to the building where I could change and get some hot beverages. Allison was there at the finish to greet me (she had been standing out in the cold and snow for a quite a bit—what a trooper!) and give me my bag of warm, dry clothes.

En route to the summit shop, I stopped by the moving truck to pick up my finisher’s shirt. At this point, the wind was howling and the snow was blowing sideways. I quickly ran over to the summit shop where a guy yelled at me, “This building is for tourists and customers only, not for runners. There’s a building back that way where you can change.” Well, I knew that Allison was in the building and that there were restrooms with electric dryers in there so I told the guy, “I’m just going in to find my girlfriend.” With that, he gave a skeptical look and let me pass by. I found JV, Kunkle and Allison all waiting in the foyer of the building. I grabbed my dry clothing and ran into the men’s restroom inside to change. My body’s core temperature was still reasonable and I didn’t feel hypothermic but my fingers were completely numb. I had a very difficult time using the zipper on my jacket and untying my shoes. I went straight for the electric hand dryer and got to business undressing. Forgetting that I was among tourists and not fellow runners, I stripped down and threw all my wet clothes into the sink as I rubbed my fingers and hands under the welcoming warmth of the hand dryer. As the feeling and blood returned to my fingers, I grimaced in pain as another guy in the restroom stared at me probably wondering just what the hell I was doing. Runners. Yeah, we're different.

After getting into my dry clothes I headed out and found Allison again. We had heard they were considering closing the road down so we hustled out to the parking lot to find a shuttle. Allison had parked a few miles down the road at the Devil’s Playground so we hopped into a waiting shuttle van and endured a slow, tedious ride down the road to the parking area.

We got into Allison’s car and had an uneventful drive down the mountain and back to Manitou Springs where we met up with JV, Jeff, Jean, Wayne and Mark for some food and giant margaritas at The Loop.
I ended up 84th out of 762 runners in the ascent. Full results can be viewed here. Some good stories from the Colorado Springs Gazette... Peak Throws All its Tricks at Ascent Runners and Storm Pushes Many Ascent Runners Back Down.
And how about some more photos?

Hanging with the 14erWorld.com crew underneath the awning at the laundromat before the race.

The scene at the finish line just before JV, Kunkle and I finish.

JV (in blue) just after finishing. And to think he almost left that jacket at the start line!

Kunkle finishes strong sans hat or hood. What a toughie!

There I am rounding the corner to the finish line. I'm running, really!

Finishing strong! Or something.

Mount Audubon run and hike, 2008-08-09

2008-08-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

JV power hiking up Mount Audubon when the sun was out briefly.
I know it's over a week since I was up in the Indian Peaks Wilderness (IPW) but it was a great outing with my friends Jeff and his wife Allison so I figured I'd write up a little bit about it. Plus, JV did the hard work and posted a nice write-up on his blog so my job is a bit easier. :-)
I had never been up in the IPW but had read numerous reports and seen many more photos from the area. Bill and I were up in the Boulder area staying with JV and Allison so Bill could compete in the 5430 Triathlon that weekend. While Bill was checking in and scoping the course on Saturday, JV, Allison, their dog Sierra and I headed up into the IPW to run/hike Mount Audubon. It was a dubious weather day to start with low clouds and a cold wind but once we got going, and as the day progressed, the weather improved. The trail is well-traveled so it was easy going and offered some great views of Long's Peak and Mount Meeker to the north. "Hey JV, what's the peak over there?"

You won't see me swimming 1+ miles

2008-08-11T22:29:00.000-07:00

But you can see Bill Geist in his first ever triathlon...a half Ironman called the 5430 Triathlon in Boulder, CO. I was up there with Bill this past weekend visiting our friends Jeff & Allison and Heather while Bill got to spend 5:17:17 swimming 1.2 miles, biking 57 miles and running 13 miles on Sunday.

I've only "competed" in one triathlon, the Los Alamos Triathlon, back in 2004 and that wasn't pretty but it was fun. The swim killed me because my idea of swim training was to go to the pool the day before the event and swim 100m with huge breaks every 25m. So it was awesome to see Bill and the other competitors jumping into the Boulder Reservoir to swim in open water like that. I would have required arm floaties to make it out alive! The full photos that I took can be seen here. The full results of the race can be found here. I'll let you know when Bill is going to compete in a full Ironman....

What a week...

2008-08-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

Busy at work for sure. I missed my regular, daily lunch run on Monday and Tuesday due to an aggressive project at work. But I did manage to get out today for the regular Wednesday Guardrail Grind at the bottom of the Camp May Road. This lovely quarter-mile section of guardrail beckons us each Wednesday so we can run 8 laps on the very steep paved road. A time of 2:20 or less up the .25 hill is quite good. Hard average is 2:30. My PR is 1:58 and I don't do that very often. Today was a hot day but the rain came in about halfway through the repeats making for a nice reprieve from the heat. Check out the details or just click the map below. If you want to join us next time, let me know.

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And speaking of working too much...Bill and I had hoped to leave town Thursday around noon to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park and climb the Casual Route on the Diamond of Long's Peak in a a car to car effort on Friday. But the workload has dictated that we will not do that. But our backup plan is nearly as fun...we're headed for the Cynical Pinnacle in South Platte on Friday instead. From there we'll stay with our good friend Jeff Valliere in the Boulder area and do something fun involving mountains and trails on Saturday. Sunday Bill is competing in his first triathlon, the Boulder 5430 Triathlon long course. Wish him luck!

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Now playing: Hawthorne Heights - Breathing In Sequence
via FoxyTunes

Would you eat this?

2008-08-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

As a part of our bi-weekly Los Poblanos Organics fruit and vegetable box this week, we received an absolutely awesome eggplant! Check this thing out:

Then, we cooked up some croissants for dinner and found a matching partner for this badboy eggplant:

Yummy!

Hill repeats how I love thee...

2008-07-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

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Now that I'm recovered from Hardrock (I only ran 60 miles so recovery was pretty quick), it's time to focus on my next planned race, the Pikes Peak Ascent, on August 16th. I've never run this race but it's 7,000' feet of climbing in 13 miles so I know it'll be tough. I hear 3 hours is a way solid time so I'll be shooting for 3:20. My naivety could be fueling that time estimate? We'll see.
As for training, I feel hill repeats will be crucial for a good time in the PPA. With that in mind, I resumed the Pajarito Mountain hill repeats today. The standard repeat is straight up the Aspen Run. A typical run up the run to the top of the Aspen chair is .63 mile and 1,110 vertical feet. I ran my first lap up in 16:53--not quite a PR but close. It took nearly 11 minutes to run straight down Aspen. On the second climb, I took it much easier and stopped to urinate and completed the run up in 19:33. To descend I ran one of the more circuitous mountain bike trails down through the trees between Big Mother and Little Mother. More runnable but slower with a descent time of 13:03.
Each time I go up there to run, I consider how lucky I am to have such a great place to run and train so close to home. It's green, cool and high so the views are amazing. I'll be up there at 5:20am this Tuesday and Thursday to run a few repeats before work. Hope to see you there!

Hardrock 100 2008

2008-07-14T06:24:00.000-07:00

Coming into Telluride around mile 27

For the third year in a row, I traveled up to Silverton, Colorado to run the Hardrock 100 mile trail run race in the wild and scenic San Juan Mountains July 11-13. I ran and completed this tough race in 2006 and 2007 finishing it once in each direction to become the "true Hardrocker" as they say. This year I threw my name into the lottery again and ended up 17th on the wait list in February when they did the drawing. By the end of June, enough people had bailed out of the race that I was officially in. However, before that time, I hadn't fully committed to the race mentally so when I decided to run it again this year, I wasn't sure how I felt about it.

It's an awesome scene and I feel like I know so many other Hardrockers that I really enjoy going to Silverton to see everybody and feel the excitement surrounding the race but personally I guess I wasn't ready to run it again. But when I did start on the race on Friday morning at 6:00am, I decided I might as well see if I could run it pretty hard.

That was a bit of a problem! I went out secretly hoping for running under 32 hours but I told no one about this. Since I had finished Hardrock in 2006 and 2007, I knew I could finish the race so I figured I might as well try to really run it. At at mile 35 (really early in the race!) it became obvious to me that I hadn't trained enough to run that pace and I started really feeling it.

The biggest climb in the race comes out of Ouray starting at mile 43 at 7800' to Engineer Pass road at 12,900'. I picked up Bill as my pacer in Ouray and felt like I was crawling all the way up to Engineer Pass road. When we reached Grouse Gulch at about mile 60 a little after midnight, I had lost all desire to continue. My legs still felt pretty good but I was wiped out energy-wise and mentally I just didn't want to commit to going on and going over Handies. Had I not finished the race before in this direction, I would have continued but I had had enough for this year.

It was a great ~60 miles and, Bill, I really appreciate your crewing skills and pacing company from Ouray to Grouse Gulch. Mom, Matt, Allison and Dylan, you guys did a wonderful job of crewing for me and I really enjoyed seeing you all at the aid stations along the way. Thank you so much for taking the time to come support me!

The Hardrock is an amazing 100 miler and there is a great feeling of family amongst all the runners and their families. I'm sure to be back there next year but to see it from the crewing/pacing/aid station side of things. It'll be awesome!

Also, Bill posted some of his photos from the race if you're interested...

Google Earth video of our travels to and in the Thangsing Valley, Sikkim, India

2008-05-14T20:23:00.001-07:00

I've been working on a slideshow presentation of our trip for the Los Alamos Mountaineers in June 2008 and came up with this Google Earth video of our travels. There is no sound because I intend to narrate the video as it is show during the presentation but if you want to check it out on YouTube, take a peek:

Josh's photos from the India trip online!

2008-04-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

While I've been severely procrastinating in regards to sorting and captioning my photos from our India trip, Josh did an awesome job of getting his photos organized, captioned and online. You can see them all here. He broke the trip photos into three chapters to make going through the photos much easier. Post a comment here and let him know what you think!

A few of my favorite photos from India

2008-04-08T04:11:00.000-07:00

I have over 2.5GB of photos from our India trip that I've been sorting through a bit. I plan to post them in a web album at some point but no doubt that will be a while. But in the meantime, here are a few that I really like or that tell the story a bit...

Monks playing cricket at the Enchey Monastery.

We're huge in India...

Sarah and Sam enduring the long drive from Gangtok to Yuksam.

Our group at the lookout above Dzongri. Kangchenjunga and Pandim are the major peaks in the background. From left to right: Me, Sarah, Sam, Dawa our guide, Josh and Suraj our liaison officer.

Jopuno, 5,936m. We successfully climbed the west ridge, the ridge going from lower left starting on the glacial snow to the summit.

The "A-Bomb" sunset from our 16,000' camp on Tinchenkang.

Josh descending the rock face section on Tinchenkang in a snow storm on our summit attempt day.

Kangchenjunga in the moonlight from our basecamp.

After the storm cleared, Sam descending the west ridge of Jopuno on our summit day.

Our big mountain family at Thangsing camp before we hike out. The group includes Dzo drivers, porters, our cook and his assistant, our liaison officer, guide and us.

Super friendly school girls at the border checkpost of Sikkim and West Bengal.

Ah, the taste of green chile

2008-04-06T18:12:00.001-07:00

Hey, we all made it back home safely and without incident! After a couple of long flights (9 hours from Delhi to Frankfurt, 11.5 hours from Frankfurt to Los Angeles), a night in Los Angeles and a short flight to Albuquerque this morning, we were reunited with our fair state of NM this morning around 9am.
The flights were rough for me. First, Air India had an antiquated Air Canada 747 in poor condition that has the least leg room of any jet I've ever been on. Then, despite not having any stomach issues the entire trip, as soon as I got on the jet, I started up with the diarrhea which is still with me even now. On top of that, I came down with a head cold a day before we left for home. It was one miserable trip back!
But, despite a wacked-out stomach, I was eager to get some chile so Allison and I headed straight to The Frontier restaurant where I enjoyed my last bit of gluttony for the trip. From now on, it's diet time and time to shed some of these extra pounds I amassed while playing tourist in India post-expedition.
I'm unpacking and sorting through five weeks of mail, both electronic and postal, and just happy to be back home again. It was an amazing trip with some truly wonderful companions and I'm wildly thankful to have had the opportunity to make this trip.
In a few days I hope to have some photos with captions and a story online and when I do get this up, I'll post the link here.
Thank you Sam, Sarah and Josh for an amazing excursion. It was awesome!

Delhi Sandwich

2008-04-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

We made it successfully to Delhi last night after a nice drive from Darjeeling to the Bagdogra airport yesterday morning. It was sad to say goodbye to Suraj as we'd become good friends in the past month but we'll stay in touch via email and maybe come back to explre North Sikkim sometime.
Today we'll take a taxi (and hopefully an auto-rickshaw!) around Delhi and check out Lodi Gardens at the recommendation of my co-worker Giri. Tomorrow we leave here at 7:30am flight to get back in Los Angeles around 6pm on Saturday night. We stay the night there and leave early Sunday on flight back to ABQ. We're almost home and we are looking forward to being back again.
India has been fantastic and I can't wait to show you all some photos and tell you all the details about this wonderful journey. Thanks for reading and saying hello here!
Jason

Happy Birthday Allison!

2008-04-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

Hey, today, April 1st, is Allison's birthday! Let's all wish her a happy day!
Thanks!
Jason

In Darjeeling, ain't no foolin!

2008-03-31T20:43:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Jason here. First, thank for all the super awesome comments on the blog so far! We really appreciate everyone saying hello and leaving your thoughts about our trip. Second, let's here it for Allison for all the time she's put into this page and posting all the updates! Allison, the four of us here say...THANK YOU!!!! You're the best.
We arrived in Darjeeling yesterday after spending a night in Pelling, West Sikkim. Pelling is crazy, it's just a bunch of hotels on a hill. Really, just hotels. I don't know how the town is sustained. We couldn't even find a market?!? On our drive from Pelling to Darjeeling we stopped at a holy cave and hot springs along the river and had lunch in a town called Naya Bazaar. As we ascended from 1200' by the river at Naya Bazaar to Darjeeling at 7200', we passed by numerous tea plantations perched improbably on the very steep hillsides. It's mind-boggling how much agriculture is done on hillsides that drop so steeply.
It's been an awesome trip for sure. Here in Darjeeling now for a couple days we'll be doing the tourist bit and will be consuming loads of tea and food. Now's the part of the trip where we get all fat and happy like most tourists. We're SO psyched about how our expedition went! The trek in was fantastic, we summitted one of the peaks and saw some amazing territory. Each morning we'd wake up with a stellar view of Kachenjunga and I was just glad to be alive and in such a wonderful and amazing place. When we left for this trip I figured if we summitted just one peak of the two, I'd consider that total success given we had no knowledge of the routes and difficulty involved. Yahoo!!
It's been fantastic but I'm also looking forward to getting back home to enjoy spring in the Southwest and see everyone back in New Mexico. See you all soon!
Jason

Friday Evening, Tshoka

2008-03-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

Jason phoned from Josh's cell phone and left me a voice message. They were at Tshoka which is about 10,000 ft. It was snowing and raining some. He said they are 1 day away from Yuksum. He said in Yuksum they should be able to take their first shower in 24 days. Jason said that pretty darn sweet.

Leaving base camp, Wednesday AM

2008-03-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

Jason phoned and said they were packing up base camp this morning and moving down into the valley. Sam and Sarah had made more attempt on Tinchenkang. He said they got around 18,500 ft and the conditions on the mountain were bad. The rock band had a lot of ice rime on it. After packing up base camp they were going to make a trek to Goecha-la Pass. Goecha-la pass is just below Kanchenjunga, the 3rd highest mountain. Then it would be a 2 day hike out. He said he would try and call Saturday or Sunday.

Base Camp, Monday Morning

2008-03-23T20:57:00.000-07:00

More snow, Jason said it had snowed overnight. Jason said even the guides thought the weather was unusual, with this much snow this early. They had talked with Sam and Sarah at the 16,000 ft camp yesterday and were going to talk with them today via radios. Sam seems to have upset stomach. The same that Josh had a day or two ago. Jason didn't have much to say since he has been at base camp for the last couple of days. His hike to the lake was nice.

Base Camp, Sunday Morning

2008-03-22T21:08:00.000-07:00

I heard from Jason this evening and it had snowed again yesterday. He was glad to have a second rest day. He was planning a hike to lake (maybe Samiti Lake?) where a lot of trekkers go. Sam and Sarah were preparing to go to the high camp on Tinchenkang. Jason and Josh decided, if the weather cooperates they will go for the summit from base camp. Jason said if the weather did not improve maybe they would head out a day or two early to do some tourist activities.

Jopuno Summit Day, 5,936 meters

2008-03-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

Jason called tonight. He and Josh made it to the summit of Jupuno yesterday. Sam and Sarah made it to around 18,500 ft. Jason said it was an 18 hour day. They left base camp around 3:30 am and reached the summit around 1 pm and returned to base camp at 10:30 pm (He said the cooks prepared a big dinner). Jason said the day started out clear and became cloudy around 10 am (like the last couple of days, he said). Jason said they climbed a 45-50 degree snow slope, to a rock band then to very loose rock. Jason described it as loose shale. Jason and Josh did not have any summit views because of the snow. He said the descent was tricky with the snow on the loose shale. He said today was a rest day and his feet and toes were sore from the 5,500 ft up and then down.

Jason said there was some sort of strike going on in India (bus?, road?) so they may have to charter a helicopter back.

18,400 ft Jopuno

2008-03-19T06:46:00.000-07:00

I heard from Jason this morning. He and Josh made it to 18,400 ft on Jopuno before it got very windy and they had to turn around. They were going to cache some ropes and axes but decide to keep moving up because the weather was nice but turn windy. Jason said the west ridge is nice, with a 45 degree snow slope then some rock to the summit. They cached the ropes and axes at 17,000 ft and tomorrow they all will be going for the summit. Jason said it had been nice at base camp, good food and it was nice to sit with everyone in the evenings. Hopefully I will hear something tomorrow evening.

18,000 ft and snowing hard on Tinchenkang

2008-03-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

Jason called tonight. He said they were moving back to base camp. They had run out of food and fuel. After a couple nice days of weather, it has turned snowy. Friday night when he called it had snowed. Sam and Sarah had to descend from their cache trip in the snow. Sunday, he said, Josh and him had made it to 18,000 ft and it started snowing hard and the visibility was zero. He said the day started clear but soon turn bad. Jason and Josh picked up the cache at 17,500 ft and with heavy packs was a slow descent to 16,000 ft camp.

They have decided to move back to base camp and hopefully dry out for a day or two. They may try to summit Jopuno next. Jason said they could just go from base camp for that summit. It was a short call but still great to hear his voice.

16,000 ft High Camp

2008-03-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

Jason called and left a voice message. They were at the 16,000 ft camp. They had taken a cache to 17,500 ft. He said the glacier looked interesting but he thought they could make it. Tomorrow they will try for the summit.

Moving to High Camp - 16,000 ft

2008-03-13T06:17:00.000-07:00

Jason called last night but it was a short couple of calls because the satellite phone kept dropping the connection. Grrr:( They were moving to the 16,000 ft camp today. It was a beautiful day. They were hoping to head for the summit on Saturday. Josh and Jason are starting to feel better. Now Sam might have the head cold but is feeling well enough to move higher. And that is all we got to talk about.

14,000 ft Base Camp

2008-03-11T07:53:00.000-07:00

Jason called this am. Yeah! They were at their base camp at 14,000 ft and had established a high camp at 16,000 ft and left some gear there. Jason did some recon up the ridge to 17,000 ft and said it looked good. They plan to move up to the 16,000 ft camp and maybe go for the summit on Thursday or Friday. He said both him and Josh had head colds but nothing serious. Jason said the weather was good and they were above the clouds in the valley, the views are spectacular. I can't wait to see the pictures. Hopefully I will hear something on Saturday or Sunday.

8:00 pm Sunday, Thansing Valley

2008-03-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

Jason said they made it to Thansing Valley. They are about 1,000 feet below their base camp. The last couple of days have been shorter hiking days. Jason got to go for a hour long trail run above 13,000 feet. Tonight is the first night they have slept in tents. They had been sleeping huts before tonight. Jason said the food has been good and plentiful. They had apple pie for dessert! Yum.

Tomorrow they should be at base camp and be able to do some recon for the mountains they want to climb and maybe start climbing one on Tuesday. The weather has been clear in the mornings and cloudy in the afternoons.

Tshoka Saturday Morning

2008-03-07T19:54:00.000-08:00

Jason called me this evening from Tshoka on Josh's cellphone! Amazing. Everything was going well. Tshoka is around 9500 feet. Yesterday, most of the day was snowy and rainy. They were heading to the next town which I think he said was Dzongri but could not hear well.

Yuksam Friday Morning

2008-03-06T18:49:00.000-08:00

Jason called from Yuksam. Friday they start hiking for base camp. It should take around 3 days hiking to reach base camp. Jason said the jeep ride to Yuksam was steep ups and downs. He said the weather has been good. Jason said the terrain has been jungle-ish. He said the people have been very friendly and the food, good. The food has been more Asian inspired than Indian.
The satellite phone was cutting out so we didn't get to talk long.

6:45 am Thursday, Gangtok

2008-03-05T21:42:00.000-08:00

Jason called and left a voice mail message for me.
They were in Gangtok. They had spent the day touring monasteries and shopping in the markets. In Gangtok there are big banners for them, t-shirts and later on Thursday a press conference is going to be held. Also later today they will be driving to Yuksam.
They are hoping to start hiking on Friday and maybe get to basecamp on Saturday. Jason said he was looking at the third highest peak in the world, Kanchenjunga. He was looking at 20,000 feet gain from his hotel window.

Kangchenjunga Picture

He said their guide, Barap was a class act, very well organized, great skills. Until next time....

Bagdogra

2008-03-04T07:14:00.000-08:00

8:30pm Bagdogra, India

Yeah! I just got to talk to Jason via the satellite phone. He sounded alittle tired but very excited about their trip. They had met up with Barap of Sikkim Holidays and he is a very nice. And yes all the luggage had made it. The weather has been nice and is a little rainy, but Jason is hoping in the morning he might see Kanchenjunga, the third-highest peak in the world from his hotel window. March 5th they will take 5 hour jeep transport to Gangtok. Thursday, March 6th they will take another jeep transport to Yuksam where they will be begin our trek into basecamp.

Everyone was feeling good but tired from the traveling.

Delhi - Bagdogra

2008-03-03T20:23:00.000-08:00

Jason sent me an email this evening.
We are in Delhi getting ready to go to Bagdogra. This places is nuts! And very polluted. Yeah, the time thing has really thrown me off. Its 12.5 hours or something. (Delhi time zone is 12.5 hours ahead of MST). All our bags arrived which is AMAZING! We'll fly to Bagdogra today to meet Brap and then get on the jeeps.

2008-03-03T01:26:00.000-08:00

hello from Malaysia! As Allison posted our original flight to Delhi was cancelled so affyer a 14 hour flight (thankfully I scored an exit row seat for that leg!) through Taipei and to Kuala lumpur, we found ourselves with a few hours to explore downtoown KL. It was about 30USD each way for a taxi into the city and it was nice to walk around the very modern downtown area. In one hour we head off to Delhi (finally).let's just hope our bags arrive there with us.
We are still on schedule to catch our original flight to Bagdogra on Tuesday morning to finally meet Brap there.
thank you Allison for the last update here!
Jason

LA - Kuala Lumpur - Delhi

2008-03-02T06:46:00.000-08:00

After arriving in LA, Jason gave me call with an update.

Soon after landing the group found out their flight from LA to Frankfurt had been cancelled due to engine trouble on the flight coming from Frankfurt.
Now they had to collect their 12 bags and find a new flight. As it turned out only 10 bags came out and 2 were missing. Eventually the 2 bags showed up.
Their first option which would fly them to JFK with an overnight stay in New York quickly filled up.
Their next option was to leave LA at 11:35 pm fly to Kuala Lumpur via Malaysia Airlines, arrive there 12:05 pm with a 6 hour layover then fly to Delhi and arrive at 11 pm. Originally they should have arrived in Delhi at 4:30 pm.

Jason said he wold try and call from Delhi. Until then have a good day.

officially on the way!

2008-03-01T14:46:00.001-08:00

well we have started the trip! If its not packed, we dont need it, right!? Were in ABq at the airport having checked our 12 bags and paid $400 just for the extra bags. Ouch! I'm using the fancy iPod touch I got from Allison for valentines day to make this post.
Its always a bit tough to start these trips leaving friends, fAmily and 'normal' life behind. I'll miss you all.
See you in April!

Map of Thansing Valley

2008-02-28T22:44:00.000-08:00

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Click on the icons for a description of the location.

Sikkim Callllllllllllling!

2008-02-24T21:50:00.000-08:00

Sikkim Callllling was the subject line of one of the first e-mail messages we received from our Indian team expedition coordinator and member, Barap Namgyal Bhutia, of Sikkim Holidays in Gangtok, Sikkim, India. From all of our interactions with Barap via e-mail thus far, we're expecting quite a character and look forward to meeting him.
In late 2007 Sam and Sarah started scheming up a five-week expedition to Sikkim, India and asked me if I'd be able to join them. Climbing in the Himalaya has long been a desire of mine so I quickly moved on the opportunity and secured the time off from work (some vacation time, some leave without pay time) and committed to the trip. Rounding out our team of four is Josh.
So now were six days away from leaving and I wanted to give my friends and family some more information about our trip by posting it here on this blog and also hope Allison will be able to update this blog for us while we're out so anyone that is interested in our trip can just come here and check the latest post to hear about our progress. Also, I just signed up for a GrandCentral account so I might be able to post voice updates to the blog from the satellite phone. Technology just keeps blowing my mind even more. We'll see! But, in the meantime, here's some more information about our trip.

We depart from ABQ on March 1st, 2008 going through LAX, then Frankfurt and finally Delhi, India. We arrive in Delhi way early on March 3rd. We'll stay the night in Delhi that night and then fly to Bagdogra, West Bengal on March 4th assuming we aren't plagued by delayed/lost luggage on the flight from the US to Delhi. (That seems to happen on most of my previous expedition trips.) March 5th we'll take jeep transport to Gangtok and, I assume, do a bunch of shopping for food and supplies. March 6th we'll jeep transport to Yuksam where we'll be begin our trek into basecamp. It's a three (or so) day hike into basecamp in the Thansing valley.
Once at basecamp we should have roughly 20 days to explore and climb the peaks around the valley. Our main objective peak for the trip is Tinchenkang (6010m) but we also hope to take a look at Jopuno (5936m) and perhaps Frey Peak (5830m).

Around March 28th we'll hike out and hopefully spend some time in Darjeeling before going back to Delhi to spend a day or two before our flight back to the US on April 5th. We'll be back home on April 6th. Whew!!

Alright, my yearly blog post!

2008-02-24T21:14:00.001-08:00

I came here to put up something about my upcoming trip for a mountaineering expedition to India and realized it's been almost exactly a year since my first, and only blog post. That's pretty pathetic considering blogs were designed to be easy, timely and informative. None of which this blog is. Wow, a year! I've experienced and seen a lot of different places and things since my initial post here....

Climbed a 13,900+ foot peak in Colorado in winter with Bill and Dan
Ran my fastest marathon (3:38:29) in a trail marathon near Salida, CO
Saw my brother, Dylan, get married to his wonderful wife, Amber
Climbed a great 12-pitch Sandstone route in Red Rocks, NV
Directed the Los Alamos Mountaineers annual climbing school
Drove all over the southwest with Allison on a week-long climbing trip
Enjoyed some wonderful spring snow climbing in Colorado with Bill
Celebrated our nation's independence with family and friends climbing at El Rito, NM
Finished the Hardrock 100 for my second time finishing 18th overall in 33:36:20
Climbed the Ellingwood Arete on Crestone Needle in the rain with Aron
Traversed between two mountains in the Elk range in Colorado that few will likely repeat
Battled the Incredible Hulk with Bill and really enjoyed it!
Lost a wonderful friend
Climbed not one but two routes on the Shield in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico with George, Aron, Bill and Dan
Slithered and rappelled through some awesome canyons in Robber's Roost country, Utah
Experienced Thanksgiving in Las Vegas with Allison, her mother, Minesh and Laura
And headed south to Mexico to climb for Christmas with Allison and Bill

It'll be hard to top a year like that! I had so many wonderful times with friends and family and am so thankful for the life I've been able to lead. The loss of our friend Greg Bayhurst in 2007 was definitely a low-point but at the same time, it was a reminder that we should all live our lives to the fullest and enjoy this time we have on the beautiful and mesmerizing planet. And with that sentiment in mind, I'm reminded why I came back to post here on my blog...my upcoming trip to the Indian Himalayas...

What Would Jason Do?

2007-02-27T19:23:00.000-08:00

Apparently I won't blog! I set up a blog thinking, "Man, I have some cool stuff to say," but it turns out either I don't or don't have time for it. Maybe someday I'll get more serious about this stuff. In the meantime, I do stay somewhat active on my personal website, summitpost.org and mountainproject.com so you can check those out. I also update my online photo albums at Picasa Web Albums so there's another option for more time-wasting on the internet.

Keep it real,
Jason Halladay
Los Alamos, NM