Asymptotic Running

Grand Canyon Running

2011-10-24T22:21:00.000-07:00

The Grand Canyon had been a bit of a letdown for me on my last visit. We had spent a week visiting parks in the southwest including Mesa Verde, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, Canyonlands, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Bryce and Zion were my favorites by far. This time, however, instead of doing a moderate day hike down and back from the north rim, I was making the ultrarunner pilgrimage from the south rim to the north rim and back. Experiencing the Grand Canyon from one side to the other was incredibly awesome and completely worth it. Highly recommended, not that it needs it given the vast numbers of runners and hikers we encountered. That was actually the biggest surprise to me, the number of runners and day hikers all along the route. I had expected large numbers of people near the trailheads but was shocked by what seemed like multiple busloads of people in the middle of Bright Angel Canyon, ten or so miles from either trailhead.

We parked about 1/2 mile from the South Kaibab trailhead a little after 6am and jogged the 1/2 mile to the trailhead to start the run. I had read a lot of reports suggesting a 4am start from this trailhead in order to leave before the first mule train. I highly recommend starting at 6am or first light, whichever is later since the first mule train reached the bottom before us with this timing. We did meet a mule train coming towards us just after we crossed the bridge at the bottom but that did not cause much of a delay. The second reason for leaving at daylight is that I would rather finish the final climb at the end of the day with a headlamp (which I did) than run down the trail by headlamp. For some reason, I am thinking maybe the color of the dirt, depth perception was very difficult on this trail despite the bright headlamp I used. Kudos to everyone who goes down by headlamp, but given the steepness and the number of logs/steps built into the trail I would think going down in the dark would really slow you down a lot whereas I was going to be moving slowly climbing back up to the rim at the end of the day regardless.

I lucked out to tag along with Shad and a group of great runners from Las Vegas which meant the logistics were all taken care of for me. However, if you are looking for logistical help, Andrew Skurka's website has lots of great information. The Garmin recording of my run is here.

Wonderland Running

2011-10-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

Reflection Lake

I have been dreaming about running the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier since moving to Seattle and learning about the trail. This year was supposed to be the year and I had planned to run the trail with three friends over three days in early August. Well the late snowpack blocked that plan, so I came up with a second chance, which was to run the trail with another friend, Bruce, in two days, Sept. 10-11. We had decided to start at Box Canyon and run clockwise, stopping at Mowich Lake where Bruce's wife would set up camp for us and get us re-fueled and ready to run the second half on Sunday back to Box Canyon.

We started at 5:45am in the dark from Box Canyon and now I wonder if we were running this section of trail the same morning that Joe got stalked by the cougar. Fortunately, we did not see any dangerous wildlife and the day started out well. We made a slight diversion from the Wonderland Trail at Longmire in order to fill up on water without having to purify it and then began what my guide book calls the pie crust section of the trail. As you can see in the elevation profile below, there is one climb followed by another and then another.

Each climb took us to a slightly higher elevation than the one before and we spent more and more time exposed in the sun. Unfortunately for a heat wimp like myself, the beautiful day we had was accompanied by temperatures in the high 80s which was more or less unprecedented in Seattle this summer. The heat combined with the tough climbing really took its toll on me and despite the stunning views of the mountain and its glaciers, I began thinking they had chosen the name Wonderland for the trail more out of wondering if people could survive it than for the sense of wonder the views inspired.

St. Andrews Lake

As we dropped down the last major downhill section of the day to the Mowich River, I began wondering whether I really wanted to run another day like this the following day. I sat by the river waiting for Bruce before starting up the final climb to Mowich lake and I could hear large rocks thudding against obstacles as the river swept them downstream. The power of the mountain, glaciers and rivers is amazing.

Suspension bridge over Tahoma river

We had to turn on headlamps not long before reaching the campground at Mowich and we were overjoyed to find camp set up for us including a shower tent! I didn't know such a thing existed, much less that it would be waiting for us. We got cleaned up and fueled, but ultimately decided we were not up to running another 40+ miles the following day with little or no option to bail along the way if things weren't going well. I think this may have been the hardest ~50 mile day I have ever done. 47 miles with 14,372 feet of climbing took us 14 hours and 9 minutes (Click here to see Garmin recording).

Puyallup Glacier

To see some of the section of the Wonderland Trail we skipped, we went back two weeks later to run the Northern Loop. I highly recommend this route as a great introduction to the Wonderland Trail that doesn't require any overnights or complicated logistics. We drove from Seattle on Sunday morning to the Sunrise trailhead at 6400 feet and started running just before 8am. The weather was forecast for rain and it had in fact rained the whole time we were driving from Seattle making us question whether we really wanted to run or not. About the time we started running, fully dressed in rain pants, jackets, hats and gloves, the rain stopped and we eventually got enough break in the clouds to see the mountain at times. We took the Sourdough Ridge trail for a mile or so to connect to the Wonderland Trail headed west. The Wonderland Trail gets much closer to the glaciers on the north side of the mountain than it does on the south and western sides. The trail goes right next to the Winthrop Glacier followed by the Carbon Glacier. Seeing both the upper icy regions of the glaciers broken by crevasses as well as the lower parts covered in dirt and rocks and ending in a river pouring out of an ice cave was spectacular. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a camera due to the poor weather.

Route map of the northern loop. Double click for more detail.

When we got to the Carbon River, rather than crossing the suspension bridge and continuing on the Wonderland trail, we turned right onto the Northern Loop trail and started heading back towards Sunrise. The first climb was killer! About 3000 feet of climbing and I made the mistake of trying to hike as fast as possible for about the first 1000 feet to try and stay up with Bruce, but I eventually realized that I was burning my legs out and we were not yet half way through the miles for the day. The northern loop trail has fewer views of Rainier and the glaciers, but there are two basins with lakes followed by the Grand Park which is an amazingly flat broad open meadow which just seems bizarre after all the glaciated river valleys we had been crossing all day. We passed numerous hikers on the Wonderland Trail, but not a person all day on the Northern Loop trail. It was a bit of a death march at the end as we climbed the last hill through Berkeley Park and back to the Sourdough Ridge trail. Overall, it was 33 miles with 10,363 feet of climbing which took us 9hr 43 min (Click here to see Garmin recording).

One of many bridges the park service establishes each year.

I'm not sure what my next Wonderland run will be but I know I will try to run some or all of it every summer. I don't think I could ever get tired of the scenery on the Wonderland Trail, even though you have to work hard to experience it. I think my next attempt will be to run the complete trail in three days. If you have enough cars and camping gear you could leave a car with camping gear at Mowich and then start at White River campground going to Mowich on day 1, on to Longmire on day 2 to stay at the Park Inn, and then back to Mowich on day 3. This should be feasible without recruiting crew assistance.

Online resources for running Rainier:

We benefited from Jason's description of how he did the trail in two days.
More detailed resources are available at the volcano running website.
Fastest known times are posted here.

Circumnavigating Mt. St. Helens

2011-08-07T22:14:00.000-07:00

I had thought off and on for a couple of years about running the Loowit trail around Mt. St. Helens, but had never made it a very high priority. We were planning to run the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier the first weekend of August, but the late snow this year ruined that plan. Running around Mt. St. Helens rather than Rainier seemed like a great replacement plan, but it wasn't clear that the Loowit trail had melted out enough to run it either. After a week of web searches and calls to the ranger station (reports ranged from completely snow free, to sections of the trail completely snow covered), we decided to give it a go.

I found a couple of great guides to running the Loowit trail here and here, so I won't attempt to make this blog post into a complete guide. I will say that if you are an ultrarunner living in the NW, you should really make a point of doing this run. It is truly spectacular! The varied scenery ranging from moonscape, to wildflower meadows, to deep canyons and forest combined with the incredible views, not only of Mt. St. Helens but also Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier make this a compelling experience.

The route around the mountain. We did get lost and significantly off trail for a mile or so at the north-east end of the loop.

We decided to start our run from the Windy Ridge trailhead on the northeast corner of the mountain and to follow the Loowit trail counter-clockwise around the mountain. We started about 6:45am after getting a decent night's sleep in the truck despite the continual screaming wind for which the trailhead is aptly named. A dense fog had settled in overnight and we started out hoping we would not make it around the mountain without ever seeing it! However, within a few hours the sun started breaking through the clouds and we could see the glorious mountain we were traveling around.

The scenery on this run turned out to be so much better than I could have imagined, but the pictures below can do better justice to this than I can with words (additional photos here). I think we lucked out in running this route at pretty much the optimal time this year--the snow had melted just to the point that the trails were passable (despite the need for some snow field crossing) but there were still many streams flowing so that water availability was never a problem and the mountain was incredibly green with many wildflowers. The Loowit trail is difficult to follow as the markings (primarily cairns and posts) tend to be frequent near popular day hiking spots and pretty much nonexistent in between. We managed to get off trail and thoroughly lost for a mile or so on the Studebaker Ridge before realizing we were below the trail. After hiking directly up the ridge for what seemed like way too long, we rejoiced to find the trail again. There are many steep gullies to climb in and out of and in many places the trail is fairly sketchy in that the trail is extremely narrow on a steep slope with loose footing. However, even with my agoraphobia, I managed without any problems other than going very slowly in these sections. I think my least favorite section was traversing the field of large lava rocks on the south side of the mountain where each step seemed like a russian roulette shot at an ankle injury. We were fortunate to finish before darkness fell just under 14 hours after we started with the Garmin racking up 36 miles and about 7500 feet of climbing. Big thanks to Rich for making this adventure happen!

View of Mt. St. Helens from the parking lot at the Windy Ridge trail head the night before.

Rich as we are about to start in the fog.

The first few miles were a foggy moonscape.

Mt. St. Helens from the north as the fog begins to break up.

Some of the elk that we saw. They create many false trails which adds to the difficulty of staying on the proper route.

I'm guessing we encountered peak wildflower season.

Mt. St. Helens from the North.

The Toutle River canyon.

Plunging down the sheer walls at the bottom of the Toutle canyon.

East side of Mt. St. Helens

Twin Buttes at the south-east corner of the mountain.

Mt St. Helens from the South.

Lots of water was flowing in the gullies.

Picking our way across the fields of lava rocks.

Mt. Hood

Mt. St. Helens from the east.

Rich on Windy Pass (4885 ft).

Mt. Rainier

The sun setting on Mt. Adams

Mt St. Helens from the north as we finish the loop.

Stumbling through the snow at Knee Knacker

2011-07-18T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Knee Knacker course.

I've been wanting to visit Vancouver for what seems like forever. I'm not sure why it took so long, but we finally got our chance. Gary Robbins had suggested the Knee Knacker as a good event to run in the Vancouver area so I put my name in the lottery back in February and was lucky enough to get accepted into the race.

This is really a must-do event. I'm not sure why it hasn't received more publicity south of the border. Not that it needs more participants. It is already so popular that you have to enter a lottery to get the chance to run. But most of the participants are from British Columbia. In fact it's so popular that people that don't get to run volunteer in droves--there were more volunteers than runners and they even turned volunteers away. It's easy enough to do the trip in a 3 day weekend, but the Vancouver area is so beautiful and there are so many things to see and do, I would suggest adding a few more days onto your trip as we did.

Downtown Vancouver with the mountains in the background.

The course is extremely technical--rocks, roots, staircases with lots of climbing. It was hands-down the hardest 50K I have done. It is a point to point course following the Baden-Powell trail from west to east starting near Horseshoe Bay and finishing in Deep Cove. There are magnificent views of the Vancouver area as one summits the first major climb, Black Mountain and even though it feels like you are deep in the wilderness, one is never far from the North Vancouver suburbs and several times the trail dips down into residential areas before climbing back into the hills.

The race started at 6am which seemed on the early side given that the race is over by 4pm. For those of us who prefer to sleep a littler later, insult was added to injury by having the buses leave the finish line at 4:35am to take us to the starting line in time for the 6am start. I met Scotty in the parking lot at 4:30am and we took the first bus together. It was good to hang out with him prior to the start especially since there were so few familiar faces.

Runners at the starting line.

and climbing.

Climbing . . .

The course includes over 8,000 feet of climbing, about half of which comes within the first 6 miles. It had only been three weeks since Big Horn, so I tried to take it easy on the first climb and then assess how I felt. Nothing felt easy about the first climb other than stopping to take pictures, but soon enough we were reaching the top to be greeted by the large amount of snow still on the top of the mountain.

View from the ascent up Black Mt.

Vancouver obscured by the clouds.

The snow section was my slowest split (relative to the rest of the field) of the day. I'm not sure how much of it was my lack of experience running on that much snow and how much was the lack of traction on my Hoka shoes. The other funny thing about the shoes was that the cushiony material in the sole hardens up considerably in the snow so when we finally cleared the snow and started down the dirt road, it felt like I was running on slabs of brick. However, that quickly went away and the shoes were excellent cushioning to prevent the knees from being knackered by all of the technical downhill sections still to come.

Elves greeted us at the top of the hill signaling the first aid station.

Slippery running.

Stairs down as far as you can see.

Technical? They weren't kidding.

I felt the best over the second half of the course--probably because it is a lot easier than the first half and finished in 7 hr 9 min in 81st place. The race finishes in a beautiful park with a beach which made it easy to soak tired legs in cold water. I can't recommend this event highly enough--put it on your bucket list now!

2011 Big Horn 100 miler

2011-06-21T07:01:00.000-07:00

I entered the Big Horn 100 miler to make up for the empty feeling I was left with at Coyote Two Moon when the race was canceled as I reached mile 84 in March. At the time it seemed important to finish a 100 miler and I wanted to leverage all the training I had already invested so I entered Big Horn. It turned out to be exactly what I needed. A big part of my motivation to run ultras comes from the scenery I am running through. Over the last year and a half without any real plan to do so, I ended up entering many more events than I ever had before. I think training had begun to supersede having fun this year and mentally I didn't feel motivated going into Big Horn. It didn't take long running in scenery like the pictures below to remind me why I love ultrarunning. How many chances will one have to spend a day running in mountains like Big Horn?

The Big Horn race is early in the season for a high altitude mountain course and this year the deep snowpack and late spring in the west left the race directors in a scramble to find a workable course. They did an amazing job to find a route that maintained most of the normal course while allowing the volunteers to pack in supplies to the many aid stations needed to supply not just the 100 mile race, but also 50 mile, 50 km and 30 km races. The new course route replaced the final 7.5 miles of the normal course (thus reducing the maximum elevation from 10,000 down to 8,000 ft) with a 7.5 mile out and back section (the lower spur in the picture below) which we did both on the way out and on the way back in. According to the map corrected elevation from my Garmin recording, the course had about 17,000 feet of climbing (see elevation profile below). Prior to running this race, I had considered an out and back course design much less appealing than a loop course, but it actually worked out really well. I reached the 50 mile turnaround point just as it got dark enough to turn on my headlamp so I got to see all of the course in daylight and it was nice during the night to have some familiarity with the course already.

Course route, starting and ending in Dayton, WY

I'm not going to try to give a blow by blow of running the course. As usual my goal was to go out easy, especially for the first big climb which took us from 4000 ft to 7500 ft within the first 10 miles of the start and then try to maintain as steady a pace as possible while taking as much advantage as I could of the downhills. The weather was pretty much perfect except for an intense wind. It seemed that the wind would suck the last bit of oxygen left at altitude away before we could get any on the first climb. The course was perfectly marked so route finding was never a distraction. I tried to maintain a fueling schedule of alternating a gel with either honey stinger chews, lara bars, or honey stinger waffles every 30 minutes but it was only a few hours before everything started tasting too sweet leading me to rely more on gels (still sweet, but easier to get down), perpetuem and turkey/cheese sandwiches whenever the aid stations had them. I got a big mental boost during the first half of the race when Dan Paquette offered me some unanticipated crew support at Dryfork and Footbridge aid stations. Dan was at the race to pace Seattle speedster Jon Robinson who finished in 4th but before pacing he gave me some great positive mental energy.

My favorite section of the course was from about mile 40 where we had our first major descent down to the Little Big Horn River (pictured below). The views down into the canyon were amazing and it was a blast to fly down the hill even knowing we would have to climb back up it later. After crossing the river at the Footbridge aid station we got to run back up the canyon along the other side. The leaders of the race passed me on their way back to the finish line as I headed up the canyon as darkness approached. For some reason I always look forward to night falling during these events--maybe to use the darkness as an excuse to slow down? The cooler night air felt great and I had renewed energy as I started downhill and towards the finish line for the first time. Later during the night the full moon made for a beautiful view. One of the odd things about the race for me was that from mile 40 to the end I hardly saw anyone except for people going the opposite direction. I was surprised when I finished in 25 hr and 10 min or so (the time has changed on the race website results) to find that I was in 14th place.

Little Big Horn River

Overall, I cannot recommend this race highly enough. The beauty of the scenery was just stunning and the race was extremely well run. If you don't feel like doing the whole 100 miles, you can always sign up for the 50 mile, 50 km or 30 km events. After finishing, I spent most of the day in Scott Park cheering on finishers and hanging out with the large contingent of Seattle runners who had made the trip out to Wyoming.

Desert whining: Zane Grey 50 miler

2011-04-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

I have tried to think of ways to turn this into a positive race report, but I am stuck on whining. Zane Grey just kicked my butt. There's no way to dress it up. Within an hour of starting I was sucking for air and I never felt that I really caught my breath the entire race. About two hours into the race I pulled out of the conga line I was in and forced myself to slow down by taking a pit stop and eating a snack. I thought this would help but it didn't really. I didn't feel terrible at this point, just out of breath. After mulling over the feeling, I realized the last time I had felt like this in an ultra was at Where's Waldo which covers a similar altitude range of 5-7,000 feet. I had been worried about overgrowth on the trail and about the forecast heat, but had not given much thought to the altitude. The discovery that I was wearing my Where's Waldo shirt seemed like a clear curse which I was unable to remedy until I reached the mile 33 aid station and unfortunately changing shirts didn't mitigate the problem at all. To cut a long day down to a few words, I felt on the edge of bonking all day. Slowing down to deal with the altitude may have helped, but then the heat kicked in with a high temperature of about 80 degrees, the rocks pounded my feet all day and I just never got into the zone that usually makes these events so fun. I don't know if was the combination of heat and altitude, or lack of recovery from Coyote Two Moon, or something else but I have decided to write it off as just one of those days.

I had been excited about this event ever since I realized it was held in the same Tonto National Forest that I run in when I visit my in-laws who live east of Phoenix in Gold Canyon at the Peralta Trailhead. I had visions of the Zane Grey trail overgrown with cacti similar to what I have experienced when running from the Peralta trailhead. On our two hour drive north to Payson, the nearest town to the Zane Grey trail, it became clear that those visions were misguided. Not surprisingly given the higher elevations, the cacti had disappeared and the vegetation was a mix of scrub, grass and trees. The trail was established in 1870 and follows along the south edge of the Mogollon rim which provided magnificent views throughout the day like the one below:

View of the Mogollon rim.

View away from the rim to the south.

The trail has the reputation of being difficult to run in part because it is frequently overgrown with manzanita and other scrub that bites back when runners attempt to go through it. An army of volunteers had really outdone themselves this year clearing the trail as you can see in the photo below. Previous finishers should be jealous at how much easier it was this year!

The organization of the event was very low key although very well executed. I was surprised at the low turnout for the pasta dinner the night before--are there excellent restaurants in Payson that no one told us about? The race was unusual in not having any kind of pre-race briefing either the night or morning before the race but the course was exceptionally well-marked which was particularly helpful given the difficulty of following the trail itself which frequently disappeared in dry gullies or grasslands with many overlapping false trails. Fortunately, Francine was able to drive me to the start and pick me up at the finish. The point to point nature of the course was definitely part of the appeal for me, but I was surprised that there was no organized transportation to help solo runners get back to the starting line after the race.

Double click to see detail.

Lots of short climbs.

I can't explain it any better than the FAQ page of the race website:
"No, race management does NOT provide transportation to or from the race. The race is a point-to-point run starting in the town of Pine, finishing in Christopher Creek. If you cannot manage the logistics of either getting there or getting home, do not run this race. There will not be transportation back to Pine provided from the finish."

The volunteers and radio operators kept my spirits up on a difficult day but I'm glad I experienced Zane Grey. I finished in 12hr19min but never felt comfortable running the entire day.

2011 Coyote Two Moon: Omens and portents

2011-03-21T08:21:00.001-07:00

The alarm went off at 2am and I jumped out of bed to dress quickly and grab my stuff. I had gone to bed at 8pm and managed to get at least 4 hours of sleep. I had decided not to try to eat anything before the start. I got into the rental car for the 15 minute drive to the start and was cruising between citrus orchards when a bunny jumped out in front of the car at the last minute and with no time to react I winced as I heard it thump under the car. Was this an omen of things to come? I had trained harder for this event than any previous and had even asked to change from the midnight to 3am starting groups--was I going to get run over by the 27,000 feet of climbing?

Coyote two moon bills itself as an event rather than a race. It is certainly the most unique ultramarathon I have participated in due to the mad genius of race director Chris Scott. There are numerous pre-race activities including two dinners, bowling, fun runs, and lunch. One of the most unique characteristics of the race is the staggered start. Instead of starting all or most of the runners together, runners are grouped according to expected finishing times and start in waves ranging from 6pm Friday night and ending with the elites at 10am Saturday morning. The staggered start has several advantages over the traditional format: the trail isn't clogged with runners at the start, you meet the people who are likely to run at your speed prior to the start, you encounter more and more rather than fewer runners as the event progresses, and finally, everyone finishes within a 3-4 hour window on Sunday morning so everyone is together at the end for brunch/awards.

Last year I did the 100K option at Coyote Two Moon as training for my first 100 miler and had a great time so this year I decided to return for the 100 miler. In fact, this was my Christmas present to myself and I won bonus minutes for registering for the event on Christmas Day. There was a blizzard last year and the finish rate was only about 20%. I kept telling people that lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice, so we wouldn't have snow again this year. I don't know if that is just wrong, a bad analogy, or what, but nothing could have turned out to be further from the truth. The forecast prior to the race was rain on both Saturday and Sunday with snow levels down to four or five thousand feet and a National Weather Service Advisory. I had arrived in the area on Tuesday to sunny skies and 70 degree weather so the forecast was hard to believe and by Friday it sounded like the worst of the weather wasn't going to arrive until Sunday after the race was finished.

Finishing the Coyote 100K in 2010 as the sun rises over the remains of the blizzard (Photo by Leslie Gerein)

I think there were 9 of us starting at 3am which gave us 27-31 hours to finish the course in the 6-10am finishing window. Although I really hoped to finish within 30 hours, I was nervous about being in this start group since some of the runners in the group had finished other 100 mile races several hours faster than I. My pacing strategy for this event was to go out a little harder than I had in my previous 100 milers. We walked most of the first 4 mile climb in the darkness and this turned out to be the only time during the race when I could see the moon. I was surprised to meet several groups of people coming down the hill. Apparently there was a whiteout when they climbed Topa Topa, the highest peak of the course at 6300 ft and the combination of snow, wind and low temperatures made them too hypothermic to continue. Apparently the flattened bunny and the frozen runners were not enough of a hint for me to figure out what was coming and we continued climbing.

Map of the route as recorded on my Garmin (the last 3-4 miles were in the car after the race was canceled and I forgot to turn the watch off). Double click on the picture for a better view.

Weather:

To cut to the chase, although the sun rose brightly over Topa Topa as we climbed it in the early morning, the nice weather was not destined to last.

The view from Topa topa looking to the ocean and the Channel Islands.

View overlooking the green Ventura valley.

Topa Topa behind me as I stop at the Topa aid station for the third time.

Shortly after passing Ridge Junction aid station around mile 40, snow flurries started. The flurries didn't last long and I had not really worried about the weather. As I left the Cozy Dell aid station (~mile 65) just after 7pm and turned my headlight on, the rain started. It was so nice to climb out of Cozy Dell without the steep mud slope where I fell and slithered in the mud last year! But the rain became more and more persistent. When I arrived at the top of the ridge, the rain had turned to snow and the whiteout conditions reminded me of last year. I felt a little cold and looked down to realize that my jacket was unzipped because I had been hot climbing up to the ridge top. My fingers had gotten so cold in the few minutes I was on the ridge, that I could not get them to zip the jacket up! I was sure I was going to get pulled from the event at the next aid station (fortunately only two miles away) for being such an idiot and so obviously not prepared for the weather! I was forced to run the entire way including the uphill to stay warm and the wonderful folks at Gridley Top soon had my jacket zipped up and my headlamp batteries changed and I was off to Gridley Bottom. The trip down was uneventful but the rain continued. When I arrived at the aid station I changed into a dry T shirt, put a warm long sleeve shirt on over that, changed into dry socks and then put tights on over my wet shorts. This was more or less what I wore during last year's Coyote Two Moon blizzard and I thought I was set. I started back up for the third and last trip to Gridley Top aid station and made it about halfway when I passed a group of people on their way down who informed me the race was canceled and I needed to turn around and go back down to Gridley Bottom. At first I didn't believe them, but the next group of people got me turned around and headed down. I had made it 84 miles on the course in 22 hours. In retrospect it is funny that I was thinking furiously on the way up of all the reasons why I would be able to make it the 8 miles along the ridge line in the blizzard despite the fact that I was cold at lower elevations and was completely soaked. In particular my gloves were soaked and I don't see how I would have kept them from freezing into a block of ice once I was back in the snow storm. Despite all this, the 100 miler brain fog had me convinced I could run through anything even though in retrospect I don't think I really had the right clothing/gear for the combination of heavy rain alternating with snow and high winds.

After turning around, I had to go about 3 miles back down the mountain to the Gridley Bottom aid station. I felt bad for the people who had made it all the way to the top before being sent back down, but even worse for the volunteers who were stuck on the ridge top for the night. The volunteers at Gridley Bottom quickly got us into cars as they became available and my running adventure was over, 87 miles and 23 hours after it began.

Pacing:

I was worried about my calf going into the race since I had strained it at the Orcas 50K in early February. It held up fine and overall I felt the best ever during a 100 miler. I completed the first 25 miles in 6 hours and the first 50 miles in 12 hours. I knew I wouldn't hold that pace and I think I was on pace to finish in about 26-27 hours if the weather had not turned. I'm not sure the weather slowed me down much except at the aid stations where I definitely needed more time to change into dry/warm clothes. My elevation corrected Garmin showed 26,000 feet of climbing and I still had a a few thousand feet of climbing left, so I am wondering if the course is closer to 28,000 feet than the 27,000 feet quoted on the web site.

Highlights:

Getting to Ojai in time to participate in most of the pre-race activities (bowling, Friday lunch) definitely was a big improvement over arriving Friday evening as I did last year.

Roch Horton leads the group in a sing along at Friday lunch.

The climb up Topa Topa at sunrise with the light glistening on the ice coating everything definitely made the climb worthwhile and convinced me that the 3am start was the right choice (it still would have been dark going up Topa if I had started at midnight).

Magical views from Topa Topa shortly after sunrise.

Seeing Jeff Browning bombing down towards Cozy Dell with Justin Angle in pursuit was amazing. Browning is an animal! I had thought I was going fast enough that the fastest runners wouldn't catch up to me (despite the 7 hour head start I had) but as with so much of my thinking during the race, this idea was wrong and it would not have been long before I was passed by the elites. Last year I learned to trust Chris Scott when he decided not to cancel the race during a blizzard and this year I am sure that he made the right decision to pull the plug. Despite my confidence in the decision, it does leave a feeling of unfinished business. I will be back to Coyote Two Moon, and I may have to sign up for another 100 this summer. Big Horn anyone?

The happy crew at Gridley Top station an hour or two before darkness and the storm hit. So was the bunny flattened by my car a warning for these volunteers? Or a sign that the race was not going to make it?

VO2 Max Testing

2011-02-11T14:49:00.000-08:00

With some time off between jobs, I decided to indulge my curiosity and head to Seattle Performance Medicine (SPM) to have my VO2 max and lactate threshold tested. I had recently read Heidi Dietrich's report of her experience with the testing and being a scientist and a runner I couldn't resist getting tested myself. The test started with collecting baseline data. I was fitted with a mask and the air I was breathing out was measured for 15 minutes to analyze resting metabolism. Then I switched to the treadmill, keeping the mask on, for the VO2 max test which consisted of running at a slow pace (6 mph) as they gradually increased the incline. They will continue to increase the incline until you beg for mercy. At least hopefully they let you off at that point. At a 10% incline they also increased the speed to 6.4 mph which surprised me a bit. I am used to running uphill at slow speeds but I guess it made more sense not to draw the test out too long. I called it quits at a 15% incline. After a short break, it was time to get back on the treadmill and perform the lactate threshold test. This time the treadmill was held at a 1% incline and the speed was gradually increased and the test ended when they detected that I had crossed the lactate threshold which I think happened at a speed 9f 9.5 mph.

Analysis of the data collected showed that:

VO2max = 69 ml/kg/min

HRmax = 188 bpm

lactate threshold: HR = 176 bpm, %VO2max = 83%

The explanation provided was that these numbers were all good. I was surprised in particular that the lactate threshold occurred at 83% of VO2max which is a balanced ratio according to SPM. I would have expected a recommendation to try to increase the lactate threshold due to the preponderance of endurance training compared to interval training that I do, but according to SPM it is at the right place relative to VO2max.

The number that didn't make sense was that I reached the lactate threshold at a relatively slow pace. So despite the high number for VO2max, I was very inefficient in converting oxygen/aerobic energy into running speed.

An additional problem was identified from several of the tests. The resting metabolic test showed that I was burning excessive protein and that essentially my body was in a catabolic state. When I was running at low intensities, I was burning excessive fat relative to carbohydrate. Finally, although my maximum HR was good, my heart rate recovery was excessive (I didn't realize that could be bad!). All three of these results suggested that my muscles were depleted of carbohydrates.

Specific recommendations:

1) Increase post-workout carbohydrate fueling: 1.5 g carbohydrate/kg of body weight within 30 minutes of finishing workout, plus an additional 1.5 g carb/kg weight before 2 hours are up.

2) Perform a sprint lactate test to measure anaerobic capacity.

3) Perform blood tests for hormonal/nutritional markers.

4) Begin high intensity sprint and strength workouts to improve anaerobic system.

Final impressions:

I really decided to have the testing done on a whim and had not thought through what it would mean to get the results. The results really are just numbers. If you want to know how good a runner you are, do a few races and you will know where you stack up. But now that I have the numbers and the recommendations, I am very optimistic that I can use the results to significantly improve my training. I would not have realized I was under-fueling without the testing results. And my general approach to training has been to train more. I think the results of these tests suggest that adding more mileage is much less likely to be beneficial than will be increased strength and speed training. I would highly recommend the staff at Seattle Performance Medicine if you are interested in being tested. I will post a follow up in a few months with the results of the blood tests and my initial assessment of the sprint/strength workouts. Does anyone else have experience with this kind of testing that they are willing to share in the comments?

Links to other VO2 max testing reports:

Orcas Island 50K

2011-02-09T18:37:00.000-08:00

The 50K on Orcas Island is the first running event I have ever done in two successive years and I plan to continue to enter every year. It is like summer camp for runners even though it is not summer and I never liked summer camp. Most people take the ferry over on Friday and make a weekend of the event and I plan to do that next year, but this year I got up at 3am and drove to catch the 5:35am ferry arriving on the island just before 7. The shuttle got us to the starting area just before 7:30am so I decided to jump in with the early start rather than sit around for an hour waiting for the race to start.

My goal going into this race was to take it easy and use it as a long training run for next month's 100 mile event at Coyote Two Moon. I hoped that the combination of having already done high mileage the week of the race combined with the smaller crowd of the early start would reduce the chances that I would get caught up in race adrenaline and go out too fast. I think this strategy worked for the most part. Scotty and I were actually late for the early start and started after everyone else had gone through so we did do a bit of catch up passing people at the beginning, but surprisingly quickly the runners had spread out and we were working up the first major climb, Mt. Pickett. I walked a lot of this climb and definitely took it easier than last year.

After coming back down and running into the field of 25K runners who were headed out towards Mt. Constitution, I arrived at a trail junction with a sign, 50K, 2nd time pointing to the right. I was sure that I had not been to this intersection before, but there was no sign for which way to go the 1st time through. Baffled, I stopped and pulled out the 3 page detailed description of the course from the race website which I had brought along just for situations like this. Unfortunately, I could not find any reference to an intersection we were to go through 2 times at this point in the race. Carsten, whom I had met earlier on the way up Mt. Pickett, arrived having backtracked to the confusing intersection. He said he came to a paved road, and I found in the course description that we should come to a paved road next, so we decided to proceed straight. As we continued, the route seemed to match the course description, but we didn't see any course marking. We were pretty sure something was wrong, but we knew we were near the aid station so continued on. We reached the aid station, which was back at the starting line, but when we explained that we thought we were lost, James Varner, the race director said we should have turned right at the intersection and we would need to backtrack and run the correct course to be credited with a finish. I was a little surprised given that we had run an equivalent if not longer distance, but it was for the best since we encountered several groups of additional runners who had taken the same wrong turn we had and we got them turned around. Gary Robbins was fixing the sign at the confusing intersection when we got back and we proceeded to the aid station for the second time. Note to race directors/people marking course: if you are going to have a sign marked "2nd time" at an intersection, make sure there is also a sign saying "first time". Otherwise our poor oxygen starved brains can't make sense of it!

The next section of the race, the power line trail, freaked me out last year because it so steep as you can see in the picture below. I was mentally prepared for the hike this year and it didn't seem so bad.

Runners hiking up power line trail.

View looking back during the power line hike.

After running a fairly level trail around Mountain Lake, we headed back up Mt. Constitution but this second route is much more runnable than the power line trail. I was hoping for some good pictures from the summit, but the clouds/mist pretty had rolled in by this time pretty much obliterating the view.

Mountain Lake

I finished in 7 hr, 6 min over an hour slower than last year. Despite wanting to take it easier than last year, I was little surprised at how much slower I was since it still felt like I was working pretty hard. The Garmin totals for this year's race were 34 miles and 7800 feet of elevation gain compared to 30 miles and 6800 feet last year. There were some course changes this year which seemed minor to me, so I am not sure if the differences in mileage and elevation are real, just a result of getting lost, or reflect course changes. Did anyone else record greater elevation gain for the course this year?? You can see the whole course route on the island in Google Earth view below.

I spent the afternoon hanging around the finish line chatting, drinking beer and watching dogs misbehave. One dog managed to leap up and grab a giant cookie out of a small child's hand. The child thought he was holding the cookie up out of the way but it was really at perfect height for the dog. The cookies were definitely worth jumping for, but fortunately there were plenty to go around. Scott Krell took hospitality to a new level by setting up a burrito bar out of his van in the ferry parking lot and feeding lots of hungry runners including me! This is really a must do race, I can't recommend it enough.

2011 Running plans

2011-02-06T10:56:00.001-08:00

I'm a bit late getting around to posting this. I finished up 2010 with higher mileage in December than any other month which boosted my confidence to sign up for an early season 100 miler, the Coyote Two Moon. I signed up on Christmas Day as a present (we'll see?) to myself and promptly earned bonus minutes for being the only person crazy enough to sign up on Christmas. Having a 100 miler in March will require some high mileage in January and February. At this point I am trying to keep my schedule free from races in August and September to maximize the opportunity to do some adventure runs (think complete Wonderland trail) during the snow free time in the high country.

I finished off December running in Arizona. My in-laws live adjacent to the Peralta Trailhead into the Superstition Wilderness east of Phoenix and I love running there in the winter. The trails are not well maintained once you get a few miles from the trail head, so you have to be willing to endure some torture from nasty desert plant life ripping your legs to shreds, but it is worth it for the scenery. This year the weather was sunny and in the 60s and the views are endless as you can see in the pictures below.

Rattlesnake Mountain

2010-10-13T17:32:00.000-07:00

Another day of excellent fall weather led me to my first run on Rattlesnake Mountain. It's only about an hour from Seattle just off I-90 and I am surprised in retrospect that I haven't done this run before, but I have been lazy and rarely drive past Tiger Mt which is slightly closer. The Rattlesnake Mountain trail covers 11 miles from Snoqualmie Point Park to Rattlesnake Lake. I started at Snoqualmie Point and turned around at Upper Rattlesnake Ledge for a round trip distance of 16 miles. If you want a shorter route, the best views by far are from the Grand Prospect viewpoint which is about 5 miles from the trailhead at Snoqualmie Point.

My out and back route starting from Snoqualmie Point Park at Exit 27 off of I-90.

The view from Grand Prospect overlook (Mile 5).

Mt. Baker

Glacier Peak

About 0.7 mile past Grand Prospect, I wandered off the trail onto a gravel road for about 25-50 yards and crossed over the ridge to suddenly get a nice view of Rainier--which was never visible from the trail.

View of Rattlesnake and Chester Morse Lakes from upper Rattlesnake ledge, where I turned around.

Granite Mountain

2010-09-22T22:03:00.001-07:00

Sometimes on a sunny day in Seattle, you just have to do what it takes to spend some time in the mountains even if you can't go very far.

Lookout at the top

Looking down at the trail

Mt. Baker

Mt Rainier

Crystal and Denny Lakes

Sahale Arm

2010-09-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

Last year I got my first real taste of adventure running when Scott and I did the approximately 40 mile loop around Devil's Dome (Read Scott's writeup here) in the Pasayten Wilderness in the North Cascades.

Approximate map of our route.

My biggest motivation to go out trail running is to experience the scenery, and it occurred to me while running Devil's Dome that much of the best scenery is in wilderness areas or parks that won't grant permits for organized trail running events. At that time, I thought I would do more backcountry running in 2010 and spend less time at organized running events. Well, I could not have been more wrong as I have run an ultramarathon event every month this year so far except for June! And I really haven't done any adventure running at all! With fall rapidly approaching, I wanted to get in a few running adventures in the backcountry before the snow if possible. Last weekend Scott and I returned to the North Cascades to climb up to (but not onto) the glacier at the base of Sahale Peak. Despite starting off in light rain with fog and clouds, this is an amazing route that I highly recommend. It was really more of a hike given the challenging elevation gain (just over 4,000 feet in 6 miles) although many of the switchbacks leading up to Cascade Pass are runnable. As you can see in the photos below, the mountains, lakes and glaciers which abound on this route were mostly hiding in the fog on the way up. Shortly before we reached the campsites at the top of the ridge where the established trail ends, we were surprised by a couple of backpackers descending. They had camped on the ridge the night before and warned us that it had snowed! I have to say I was glad that I had not been camping up there that night. Sure enough, we were soon forging our way through a few inches of fresh snow. Combined with the fog and mist it was pretty much a complete white out when we arrived at the top. Scott made me nervous by approaching as close as possible to the glacier which I thought might be hard to judge given the fresh snow. Then we waited for close to an hour hoping for the skies to clear and we could not have been more richly rewarded! We both took pictures furiously as the mists swirled and cleared and we went from no visibility to stunning views of mountain peaks and glaciers in every direction. Some of the pictures are below and you can find more pictures and description in Scott's writeup.

The route map up to Sahale Arm.

Scott leading the way towards Cascade Pass in the morning mist.

View into the Pelton Creek basin.

Doubtful lake in the mist on the way up.

Scott approaching the snow line.

Sahale Peak (elevation 8680 ft)--it's further away than it looks (we're at about 7800 ft).

I couldn't get enough of the views of the glaciers on these mountains!

Me floating on the clouds!

Sahale Peak from Doubtful Lake.

Looking into the Pelton Basin on the way down from Sahale.

2010 Cascade Crest 100

2010-08-31T10:09:00.001-07:00

My first experience at Cascade Crest was volunteering to work at the Mineral Creek Aid Station at mile 73 in 2008. That was also my first exposure to a 100 mile race. I must say that I didn't leave the event thinking I needed to enter the race. Quite the contrary! People arrived at our aid station pretty beat and they faced an 8 mile uphill climb on gravel roads at that point. Watching them climbing up the road out of the aid station as we told them 'only a marathon left' looked painful. Too painful. The best part of volunteering at the aid station was meeting Rich, Scotty, Linda and Terry all of whom returned to Cascade Crest in 2010--Rich and Scotty volunteering, Linda pacing and Terry racing. I'm still not sure why I decided to try first one and then ultimately two 100 mile races this year. I guess the struggle to finish the Where's Waldo 100km last August convinced me to step my training up a notch.

Cascade Crest is a loop course that starts and ends in Easton, WA just east of Snoqualmie Pass as you can see on the map from my Garmin recording below (we ran the loop in the clockwise direction):

My pre-race thinking about the course was dominated by two words. Sustainable pace. Trying to figure out how to target a sustainable pace in a 100 mile race has been driving me crazy! And then, even if you figure out a reasonable target, how do you try to achieve/maintain it in the event knowing that your pace will vary all over the place due to mountain climbs, downhills, technical terrain, aid stations, etc? Now that I have been recording and logging my runs for over a year using Garmin devices, I decided to review some of the data to try to look at "sustainable" paces.

Here are the average paces I ran in a variety of races over the last year:

Where's Waldo 100km (2009): 14 min/mile (~10K vertical)
Coyote 2 moon 100km (2010): 15:46 min/mile (~19K vertical)
Massanutten 100 miler (2010): 16:30 min/mile (~16K vertical)
White River 50 miler (2010): 11: 55 min/mile (~9K vertical)

It was clear at White River that the pace I ran was not sustainable for the entire 50 miles, much less longer. So looking these data over it seemed reasonable to pick a target pace of 15-16 min/mile for Cascade Crest. That still left me with the problem of how to decide during the race if I was on track or not. Unfortunately I still don't have an answer for that. The initial section of the race has two substantial climbs, so I decided to hike these climbs without attempting any uphill running and then see how I felt. You can see the elevation profile for the beginning of the course below:

The weather for the race turned out to be pretty much perfect. Highs around 60 and lows around 40. The cool temperatures made some of the exposed climbs much nicer than they sometimes are. Here is a picture of me at the starting line about an hour before the start. Unlike most 100s, this one starts at the highly civilized hour of 10am! And they even feed you pancakes before you start. Charlie (the race director) gave an excellent pre-race briefing recognizing all the people who helped put the race on and reassuring all the runners that we were there to run in a supported event. If it didn't turn out to be our day, we should stop rather than push too hard. My favorite line was "by the time you need course markings, you will know what they look like". That probably saved 20 minutes compared to the typical detailed explanation of the course that you immediately forget anyway!

We started off on a couple of miles of dirt roads leading to the first climb up Goat's Peak. You can see where we were headed below--Goat's Peak is the mountain with the rock formations at the top:

After hiking for an hour or so up the narrow switchbacks leading to Goat's Peak, we were rewarded with gorgeous views like the one below:

By the end of the race, we had to make it to the far side of the big lake and then loop back along the mountain ridges on the other side. I had hiked up most of Goat's Peak chatting with BJ and we stayed together through Cole's Butte before I lost him somewhere on the way to Blowout Mountain. Shortly after Blowout Mountain, we turned onto the Pacific Crest trail (PCT) which we would run on for the next 30 miles. What sweet single track! On a clear day, there would be some nice views of my favorite mountain (Rainier), but during the race it was playing hide and seek behind the clouds. Below is a typical trail view from this section:

I made it to Stampede Pass (mile 33) and my first drop bag around 5:15pm and took a quick break to change socks due to a slight hot spot on my left heel. I picked up my headlamp and a jacket for the coming nightfall and expected cool temperatures. So far everything had been going extremely well--I was eating regularly every 30 minutes or so and staying well hydrated with water and Nuun. I continued on the PCT and eventually climbed up a wall to arrive at Mirror Lake at sunset. Despite a lot of tents/campers, the sunset over the lake was a beautiful way to end the day. I turned on my headlamp around 8:15pm just after I had passed the lake.

My all time favorite food at an aid station came next. I had never heard of pirogi before and have to admit to some hesitation when the crew at the Olallie Meadows aid station offered some. They are a homemade pasta or dumpling with (in this case) a potato filling. Piping hot and served with a cool yogurt sauce on the side, they were a miracle. I had two helpings and then set off for one of the nastier sections of the course. There was a climb up gravel roads to the top of one of the Snoqualmie Pass ski areas at which point the nearly full moon emerged above the mountains across I-90 and made for a beautiful moment to set off bushwhacking down one of the ski runs which was extremely steep with very poor footing. Fortunately we had been forewarned about this section and I just took my time and tried (successfully) not to add to my record number of face plants for the season. After a short road section to cross the highway, I arrived at Hyak aid station (mile 53) about 11 pm. Scotty and Rich were at Hyak and it was great to get their encouragement and be waited on (that was some good hot chocolate Rich!) while changing into a warmer shirt and picking up my gloves and re-stocking gels/food from my drop bag. I had done the first 53 miles in 13 hours for a pace of 14.7 min/mile which was just slightly faster than my goal of 15-16 min/mile.

The next section of the course was probably one of the faster ones for me as it was mostly dirt roads with a moderate uphill for 5-6 miles followed by 6 miles of fast dirt road downhill. I just felt like I was floating down the hill and apparently passed some people I knew without realizing/acknowledging it (sorry Matthew!) I quickly paid the price for a 'easy' section when I started on the next section which is also known as the 'Trail from Hell'. I have to admit I had assumed the difficulties of this section were exaggerated. Well I can now say for certain that they are not exaggerated and in fact for me, are probably understated. I did not just walk all of this section. I literally inched along the route. I can't call it a trail because it wasn't. It started as a bushwhack, but even after there was supposed to be a trail, it was so narrow, washed out, and covered with fallen logs that I can't call it a trail. I mentally fell apart on this section and was passed repeatedly by other runners--all of whom were walking. It definitely didn't help that the course guide said to go 4.6 miles and then turn right onto a real trail. In reality (at least Garmin reality), it was 7 miles until the junction with a real trail. I took advantage of this slow section to use a neat trick that Brandon clued me into--I had brought along a Duracell USB battery which allowed me to re-charge my Garmin 310XT while it was recording the route, thus enabling me to record the entire 100 miler, rather than just the first 18 hours or so that a full charge would cover.

About halfway through the Trail from Hell came one of the harder tests of the course for me. I have to admit that I have a significant case of acrophobia. I discovered this as an adult when I tried to go up the ladder to the roof over the 2nd floor of our house. I made it to the 1st floor roof at which point I became catatonic and could not go up or down for over half an hour. I learned that the acrophobia wasn't limited to ladders when visiting Moran State park on Orcas Island and foolishly trying to walk across a fallen log. I made it halfway across before lying down in the middle as my friends tried to coax me back. Laying in wait for me in my own personal Trail from Hell was a deep gorge with a sheer rock wall on the far side. The route was clearly marked to cross by walking over a conveniently placed fallen log. I'm sure to most people this was perfectly reasonable, but to me this seemed too much to ask. I scouted around on both sides of the log and thought I could cross the gorge/creek, but couldn't see a way to climb up the wall on the far side. I seemed to be stuck with walking across the log. I thought about sitting down and essentially crawling over but there was a large protrusion 2/3 of the way across where a branch had been that was going to be harder to crawl over than walk. I knew that the more hesitant I was in walking across it, the more likely that I was to slip, but rational thought didn't really help. In much less time than it took to prepare to do it, or than to write about it, I walked over and continued on the Trail from Hell.

I had thought that I would reach the Mineral Creek aid station (mile 73) with dread of the 8 mile uphill gravel road section that awaited, but after clambering over and through 7 miles of fallen logs and washed out 'trail', the prospect of smooth gravel road seemed positively delightful! After a quick refueling at the aid station, I headed up. The road was not as steep as I remembered, and after some bouts of sleepiness, I started to alternate running with the walking to stay awake. Sooner than it seemed possible, the moon began to glow much more brightly and before long the sun was coming up. This definitely gave me a new boost of energy and it was a delight to reach the No Name Ridge aid station and see Laura and her crew. I think this is the aid station where they had peach slices which were so ripe and juicy I just couldn't stop eating them. I felt bad for the volunteers here who had clearly frozen in the night as you could still see frost scattered all around the aid station. Next up was a section of repeated steep climbs as you can see in the elevation profile below:

The 5 small peaks at the top don't look that bad on the elevation profile, but believe me they don't call them the cardiac needles for nothing! This section of trail was beautiful and is supposed to have some of the best views along the course, but there was significant fog Sunday morning. Watching the views peep in and out of the fog was made for pretty scenery, but not so much for pictures. I took one shot near sunrise:

The food treat for me upon reaching the French Cabin aid station was bacon. Yum! They say everything goes better with bacon, but in this case the bacon alone was perfect. One more short climb and then it was downhill/flat for the remaining 10 or so miles. The downhill was more technical than I had hoped so I couldn't make particularly good time on this section but I was still running. I made a brief stop at Silver Spring aid station after telling them how happy I was to see them (they were the LAST aid station), and then it was 5 more miles of flat dirt/paved road to the finish. At some point on the dirt road I looked at my watch and realized it might be possible to finish in 25 hours. Why didn't I check this sooner? It was amazing how much motivation this gave me and I went from trotting along at 10-11 min/mile pace to running the last two miles in 8:14 and 7:37 respectively. I finally crossed the line in 25 hours and 37 seconds. Close enough to call it 25 hours, right? I did the final 47 miles in an average pace of 15.3 min/mile compared to 14.7 min/mile for the first 53 miles. So I still don't know how, but I managed to maintain a fairly even pace for the entire course. Rich and Scott were there to congratulate me at the finish and Francine arrived shortly thereafter to take care of me and get me home safely. I was all smiles at the finish as you can see in the photos below:

Finish line photos by Scott Railton. From left to right: with Rich, moments after finishing at the finish line, and soaking my feet in cold water.

Yes, I really ran all night for a belt buckle. I am so skinny now I really need one!

White River 50 miler

2010-08-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

Redemption Run. I first did the White River 50 miler in 2007. It was the first ultra I did on the west coast after moving to Seattle from Philadelphia. I was not prepared by the amount of elevation gain in west coast ultras and completely bonked. I had been putting off running the course again until I felt prepared to redeem myself for falling apart the first time. In 2007 I used up all my energy on the first half of the course and barely made it to the first aid station on the 2nd climb, Fawn Ridge, before collapsing in a chair and telling myself I was going to drop. The aid station volunteers encouraged me to keep going, that it was only 5 more miles to the top of the second climb and then there would be 6 miles of downhill. I still remember how intensely I whined to myself, 'You don't understand, I don't want to go downhill anymore than I want to go uphill.' Somehow I eventually decided to keep going and did finish in just over 11 hours.

Skip to 2010. I had wanted to make White River a summer goal race, but with Cascade Crest 100 coming up it seemed more prudent to make it a training run. But in the end I think it was more of a race. The course is made up of two loops, both starting and finishing at the Buck Creek campground off route 410 just north of Mt. Rainier. The course director, Scott McCoubrey was generous enough to organize training runs on the course, both of which I did. Three weeks before the race we ran 25 of the 27 miles in the first loop which took me 5 hours and 15 minutes and reminded me just how tough the climbs are on the course. For me, the course is particularly difficult because most of the climbing is actually runnable. The trail goes up 5,000 feet in the first half, but it is spread out over 6-8 miles. So despite the fact that it is runnable, it is difficult for me to find the right mixture of running and hiking so that I have enough energy to make it through 50 miles. Two weeks before the race we ran the 23 miles making up the second loop which made it clear that the second half is easier than the first half--at least when run separately. It clearly wouldn't feel that way when doing the second loop after the first loop on race day! The practice run on the second half took me about 4 hours and 15 minutes. So going into the race, I was hoping to break 10 hours but not thinking it was really possible given the amount of climbing on the course and the times I had done on the practice runs.

Course map from my Garmin recording of the race. The first loop is on the right side of the road (with an out and back section) and the second loop is on the left side of the road.

We drove down on Friday afternoon and checked into the hotel on Crystal Mountain. I checked in and got my lucky number #24 which I had requested and then we went to the pasta dinner and met up with BJ and Erica and met some runners as well. It was a shock halfway through dinner to look out the window and see Anton Krupicka who had not been on the entrants list, but who set the course record in 2009 and would be the clear favorite to win again this year. Scott McCoubrey showed a video about the race and gave a lengthy description of the course before we took off for an early bedtime.

Saturday morning came all too soon and the temperature was about 50 degrees as we made our way to the starting line for the 6:30am start. I left a drop bag for the halfway point and got back in the car to stay warm until starting time.

Me at the starting line.

The starting line.

Video of the start.

I had decided to go out fast for the first 4-5 miles which are flat to avoid getting too backed up in a train of runners when the uphill started, but wanted to back off a bit on the first steep section up the stairs to try not to burn up all my energy on the first half climbing. It was a gorgeous day and fortunately not as hot as it often gets this time of year and despite the fact that I started sweating within the first mile, I felt comfortable at the fast initial pace and was prepared for the long slog from the Camp Shepard aid station at mile 3.9 to the Ranger Creek station at mile 11.7. The beautiful views of Mt. Rainier that periodically jumped out when there were gaps between the trees made the climb more enjoyable.

View of Mt. Rainier from the first half of the course (actually taken during the training run).

View of the airstrip at the start/finish from the ridge line during the first half of the course.

Fortunately the training run had reminded me that there is significantly more climbing after Ranger Creek before hitting the relatively flat ridge section leading to the turnaround. I was surprised on one of the switchbacks in this section by the site of someone (later learned it was Adam Campbell) followed by Anton leading the race back the other way. The next 3 or 4 miles was punctuated by jumping off the trail to make room for the leaders while cheering them on. I got to Corral Pass at about 3 hours and 10 minutes and grabbed a section of peanut butter/jelly sandwich and banana and headed back towards Ranger Creek. About 2 miles before Ranger Creek the trail finally starts an extended downhill section which continues all the way to the Buck Creek aid station back at the start/finish area. It definitely felt good to be going downhill. A week before the race I had taken a hard fall on a training run, cutting open my knee, forearm and bruising my wrist. So I was definitely keeping totally focused on the trail during the downhill section which although relatively smooth, had plenty of opportunities for additional face plants. I refused to let myself look at my Garmin watch throughout the entire downhill to avoid distractions.

It was a great relief to arrive at Buck Creek still feeling relatively good, and I was surprised to reach this point at only 5 hours into the race. I quickly picked up my hat and some more gels from my drop bag and then got a great pick up from chatting with Scotty at the aid station. He took this picture of me below:

Looking happy before the pain of the second loop. Photo by Scotty Railton.

I grabbed some more food and headed towards the suntop trail and was greatly embarrassed to fall flat on my face about 100 yards past the aid station. Hopefully no one saw me and I was none the worse for the tumble although my banana section was now covered with dirt. I started the climb towards Fawn Ridge and probably made an error here. I pushed hard to run some of the uphill sections alternating with hiking and by the time I got to Fawn Ridge the wheels were getting loose. They hadn't fallen off as in 2007, but I was reduced to hiking the remainder of the uphill sections to suntop--definitely running out of gas compared to the practice run on the second half of the course. And starting at Fawn Ridge my stomach sort of shut down. I tried to eat some grapes there but ended up throwing them away.

The remainder of the climb to Sun Top went slowly but it sure felt good to cross the road and know that there was only a short climb left to the top! Glen Tachiyama was just below the summit shooting photos with Rainier in the background and I managed to break into a trot for the camera. I grabbed some potatoes/salt at the aid station and then relaxed into the long down hill. I left Sun Top at 7 and a half hours into the race, so I thought my goal of finishing in under 10 hours was still intact. The 6.5 miles down the dirt road are the best opportunity to gain some time on the course and I just tried to keep my legs and hips relaxed and swinging freely to channel the gravity. I averaged 7:45 minute miles down the hill which felt great. I generally have a strong preference for single track over dirt road, but at this point in the race the downhill on a road could not be beat!

The last six miles on the Skookum flats trail along the river is actually one of the nicest sections of trail on the course which was proved to us at the second training run when we started with fresh legs on this section. However, it is the most technical section of the course with lots of roots, rocks and short ups/downs with a net elevation gain as you run upriver. It is definitely a struggle to keep running through this section at the end of the race but it was comforting to know the finish line was the next stop and when a nice person on the trail told me I had less than a mile left, it definitely put some more life back into my legs. Francine and Scott were there to cheer me on at the finish line and I was so happy to be done! I finished in 9hr39min beating my previous time by over an hour. I wanted to go sit and soak my legs in the river, but ended up being too tired to find a nearby place to climb down. We sat and watched other finishers, cheered for the winners at the awards and filled up on barbecue before heading home to Seattle.

Approaching the finish line. Photo by John Wallace.

With Francine at the finish. Photo by Scotty Railton.

Some numbers:
Overall pace: 11.6 min/mile
Total time not moving: 9 minutes--don't think I could do 8 aid stations any faster than that!
Pace over the first 27 miles: 11.1 min/mile
Pace over the last 23 miles: 12.1 min/mile

Final thoughts:
I love running through the wilderness and prefer to pace myself so that I can enjoy the surroundings. White River is a beautiful course but it is a serious challenge for me. This year I think I went out a bit too fast at the expense of suffering through the last third of the course, but I was pleased with my time and when I finish a race without any low spells I wonder how much faster I could have pushed it. This is a great race which I heartily recommend. The race is well organized, course well marked and it has a very laid back atmosphere considering that it is the national championship race.

Dancing with whip-poor-wills: May 15th, 2010

2010-05-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

On May 3rd, I received the email with the happy subject, “MMT -- You are in!” Despite running ultras for almost a decade, I had been very slow to tackle the 100 mile distance. I first became aware of the Massanutten Mountain 100 event when Ultrarunnergirl was tweeting updates on the race last year. After suffering through the last 15 miles of Where’s Waldo 100K last August to the refrain of “I’m not going to do a hundred”, I entered the lottery to get into MMT on November 30th. I proceeded to up my mileage significantly starting in December-January, and despite only achieving one 100 mile week, I ran between 50-70 miles 3 weeks out of 4 and ran an ultra every month from January through April. The only problem was that the MMT 100 miler is very popular and awards entries through a lottery which I had not won. Starting in December, I was ~70th on the waiting list for a starting field of 180 and by March had not moved very many places. Convinced that I would not get into MMT, I signed up for the Jemez 50 miler in Los Alamos, New Mexico the week following MMT.

So on May 3rd when I got the email, I was actually torn as to whether I should do MMT or do the Jemez 50 especially since I had already booked flights/hotels for the trip to New Mexico, but had not made any travel preparations for MMT. But then I realized I was the last person to move from the wait list into the race. It was FATE. I HAD to do this race. After all, I had done 50 milers previously, but all my training for the last 5 months was focused on attempting my first 100. So I booked a last minute flight from Seattle, and tried to wrap my head around the course.

The race proceeds clockwise around the Massanutten Mountain ring in the Shenandoah valley which was a homecoming of sorts for me since I grew up in Virginia hiking on the nearby Appalachian Trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The course is known for rocks and repeated climbs. Compared to the west coast ultras I have done, there were many more climbs, albeit shorter ones. Pretty much every aid station was located down off the mountain ridge, which meant every time you left an aid station, you had a big climb! I had no idea how to pace myself over this kind of course so after consulting more experienced 100 mile runners, I decided to take it as easy as possible for the first 20 miles with regular walking breaks for food and liquid intake at least every half hour. Then if I felt good, I would run more consistently but without racing.

The race started promptly at 5am (you can barely see me with the red baseball cap in the photo below at the start) with a 3 mile gradual uphill on a road. It would have been easy to run or even attack this section but I stuck to my strategy of incorporating walking and taking it easy. Keith Dunn was at the 3.1 mile aid station where I refilled my water bottles and headed onto the first section of single track. Despite the rocks and the climb up Short Mountain, it felt great to be on single track.
Photo by Bobby Gill

At Woodstock aid station I congratulated Mark McKennett on his impressive MMT haircut and headed out for the first (only) section between aid stations without a significant climb. Somewhere around this point I got to meet Susan Donnelly as she swept easily past me and offered some tips for my first 100. I did not see her again until the finish line and am looking forward to reading her race report. My first drop bag was at Elizabeth Furnace and I re-stocked on GUs and Nuun and went on. So far I had been very happy with my fueling, having managed to eat a GU or half a Lara bar every 30 minutes. For the first time at this ultra, I decided not to force myself to eat breakfast and I think that worked out well. I had a snack instead of a whole breakfast, but then started fueling every 30 minutes from the very beginning. Having no idea what pace I would maintain during the race, I had written out splits for 36 hours (cutoff pace, and my primary goal of finishing), 32 hours (wishful thinking) and 28 hours (fantasyland). Since I was in the Stonewall Jackson division (no crew or pacer) I had placed my headlamp in the drop bag at Veach Gap since the cutoff here was 8pm. I reached Veach gap around 3pm which made me realize I was way ahead of schedule. I never actually did look at any of the splits which I had written down. I also started my Garmin 310XT at this aid station since its battery life is around 18 hours and I had decided I would rather be able to track mileage at the end of the race rather than the beginning. Ultrarunnergirl was helping out at Veach gap and it was nice to meet the person responsible for so many fun running tweets.

I got to Camp Roosevelt just as it was getting dark and spent a fair bit of time with my drop bagging changing shirt, shoes/socks, and hydration system (from fuel belt to hydration pack). A couple of quesadillas hit the spot and I was off to climb the next hill. Reaching Gap Creek for the first time led to the worst section of the race for me. As with almost every aid station, a substantial climb followed, but this one never seemed to reach a somewhat level or runnable ridge top the way most sections had. In addition my stomach felt a little off for the first time. I was moving so slowly that I was falling asleep on my feet and it is surprising that the rocks (particularly abundant in this section) did not exact their revenge on me. I was surprised to find several runners sitting or lying by the side of the trail in this section. Maybe naps are more common than I realized in 100 mile events. Finally the trail started down and the ability to really run got me awake again.

I begin drinking Coke at all the aid stations after this in an attempt to stay awake. A brief rain shower around 3:30am helped wake me up as well. Much sooner than I would have expected, light begin creeping across the landscape which led to the dance of the whip-poor-wills. I still had my headlight on and two orange eyes gleamed out at me from the trail. The size of the creature seemed too small for the eyes, and as I approached, the creature dispersed as two whip-poor-wills flew a short distance away only to land in the path and stare me down again. This continued for quite some time and I can only think they were having fun playing with the light from my headlamp but whatever the cause, it seemed like a good omen to have them dancing with me down the trail.

When I had reviewed the information about the course on the web site, I had been a little put off when I noticed that 18 miles were on dirt roads. By this point in the course, however, I was rejoicing every time a dirt road appeared since there would be no Massanutten rocks to avoid and I could actually run! I was surprised to still be running at this point in the race and am still not sure how I maintained good energy throughout this race. Whether it was training, starting out easy, eating/hydrating well, or all combined I was just grateful. And already scared that I won’t find this magic combination at subsequent events!

I returned to Gap Creek for the second time and was too stoked by reaching the last aid station to even stop. After a steep climb and rocky trail descent that reduced me to more or less walking, the trail evened out a bit and I was able to run before finally the trail emptied out on a downhill road section where I ran the fastest 2-3 miles of the event before reaching the final 0.8 miles of trail which included a final uphill section. By this point I was so delirious that I even ran the uphill section. I could taste the finish! Ultrajumper was at the finish line to capture this happy picture and I was done! The eggs at the finish line were some of the best I ever had and a nice person even gave me a ride back to my car to save some of the 0.8 mile walk.
Photo by Bobby Gill

First 40 miles pace: 14.6 min/mile
Middle 30 miles pace: 16.9 min/mile
Final 30 miles pace: 17.8 min/mile

As you can tell from the race report, this event could have been a tweet-up, as I met many people who I had previously only known through twitter. The course marking was incredible as I usually get off-course at least once, but I never had any problems following this course. The volunteers and race staff really know how to put on a great event and I hope to run MMT again one of these days.

Other race reports:

Olga Varlamova's report
Brittany Zales report on volunteering at Camp Roosevelt