Jemez Wrap-up

Ouch. Things didn't go as planned for me but had a nice weekend in northern New Mexico nonetheless. Las Alamos is a great high desert town and is surrounded by mountains, though most of them were burned several years ago. My parents and I found a great place right near the start/finish to camp for the weekend and enjoyed great weather. And most importantly, I got my Santa Clara pot! See below for more on that.

First and most importantly, congratulations to Kyle Skaggs who is just an amazing runner; he ran basically the same time as he did last year but on a much harder (and longer) course. I think between him and Anton, they should pretty much re-write all the ultra records in the next few years if they can stay motivated and healthy. Complete results here. Having run Zane
Grey and San Juan, the Jemez course (as it was this weekend) is probably the harder of the 3, with San Juan a close 2nd and Zane Grey at least 20-30 minutes easier for the leaders. Of course that could differ for folks not from altitude, since San Juan's main challenge is the time spent so high.

So on the plus side, I enjoyed running with Kyle (briefly) in the morning and with Karl during the middle of the race. Karl is in very good shape as he his getting ready to tackle the AT starting in early August. Sounds like he has all the logistics dialed in but the thought of getting up every day for 45+ miles of rocky steep trail makes me want to take a nap.

By the way, if anybody is looking for any last minute gift ideas for my birthday, I could use a new hamstring. I think it will be fine (meaning back to where it was before the race at least) in a few days, and hopefully if I can stick to actual trail running and normal hill grades I can keep it that way. The Jemez course was beautiful, but def. a bit rough for me, even were I not nursing this bum hamstring. There were a couple of places were I just laughed when I saw what we were about to run through/over/across/down. The course was marked extremely well and with the remote nature of parts of it, the volunteers had quite a job of getting the markings up and the water hauled in.

I dropped at 32 miles, which not coincidentally was right before the steepest of the 3 mountains the course ascends/descends. Back to the pots; an artist from the Santa Clara Pueblo which is right in between Espaniola and Las Alamos made some nice small blackware pots for all finishers of the 50K and 50 Miler, and I really like that style of pottery. We own a nice larger pot from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, which is also right outside of town. They announced before the race that all starters would get one, but I felt that I should at least finish 50K to earn mine.

Random Thoughts:

The Los Alamos High School nickname is the "Hilltoppers." Come on, they live in "Nuke City USA" and that is the best they could come up with. Here's some suggestions:

1. The WMDs
2. Radioactive Waste
3. The Nukes
4. The Atomic Avengers

Jemez 50 Miler this weekend

It has been quite a while since I raced (12/31/07 ATY) so I'm pretty excited about getting back into action this coming weekend down in Los Alamos. I would be hard pressed to predict a time; for one thing it seems that the course changes each year but I always like to throw a time out there so how about 8:50. That would be a bit faster than I ran San Juan (9:08) a few years ago but my San Juan race was more of a training run effort. From what I've heard the two races are similar in difficulty.

I figure Kyle Skaggs will run about 8:20 and I'd be pretty happy to be within half an hour of him. Nate and Karl are the two other big dogs in the race so it should be a really fun weekend. Two other CRUDers are heading down; Rick H and Harry H so we'll be going for CRUD bragging rights. Rick won the race the first year it was held. My parents are camping and hiking in New Mexico right now and will be meeting me at the race.

It Must Be Spring

Woke up yesterday morning to a huge pile of Bear Crap in the driveway. Woke up this morning and it is snowing. Must be spring here at 7200 feet.

Question: Why did the bear crap in the driveway?
Answer: Because he can.

Playing Catchup

Looks like I've been a bit delinquent with my training log, so here are the last two weeks as well as a few things on my mind lately. First, I watched the Kentucky Derby this past weekend and was sickened by the sight of Eight Belles collapsing with broken ankles at the finish. Does this really qualify as a "sport?" After reading the views of the two sides in the newspapers this week (PETA types on one side, horse racing insiders on the other) I was most struck by the following statistic; 2.4 horses die per 1000 starts, which the horse racing people used to justify the relative safety of the sport. Humm, can you imagine 2.4 runner deaths per 1000 starts in trail or road racing? Math isn't my strength, but I think that would mean 30 - 40 runners dropping each year at big city races like Chicago, NY, and Boston marathons. Of course if that were the case, at least each runner was making up his/her own mind about the risks before signing up, which can't be said for the horses. Another interesting fact was that each of the 20 horses in the Derby were all descendants of the same 1950's horse. Kind of makes you wonder about trail racing in 2050; will all the top contenders be descendants of Scott Jurek! Better get started Scott.

Ice Caves

You'll see in my log reference to the ice caves. These are some neat caves (dry in summer, ice in winter/spring) in the Ice Cave creek drainage about a mile from my house. They are just a few hundred yards off one of my running routes but I had never veered off to check them out so Rick, Jill, and Abby the dog joined Judy, Darwin the dog, and myself for some exploring. After hiking up there, Judy, Jill, and Abby sat in the sun while Rick, Darwin and I rooted around. Pretty cool stuff. As soon as we got down into the drainage near the caves, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees. Next year we'll go in earlier in the spring and they should be more fully coated with ice.

Off the Beaten Path

While Barr trail is great, it gets very crowded and there are plenty of other great trails on Pikes Peak. For our last CRUD long run, we started up Barr Trail and then took what is known as the Water Pipe trail, which heads towards Cabin Creek. There is a pipe and supporting structure there crossing the ravine (no trespassing allowed of course) which you cross to continue on the other side. You then get to the Cog railway (no trespassing allowed) where you head uphill. We only ran on the cog for a few miles till we got to Mountain View, where there is a 1.5 mile trail that heads over to Barr Camp at 10,200 feet. Just a little bit of snow here and it is melting fast. We then headed down the Barr trail and zipped over on another trail back to the Cabin Creek area and reversed our trip. While I'm not suggesting you take this exact route, there are plenty of other trails all over Pikes Peak you should consider exploring.

In the spirit of our "no trespassing" run, here's a little music quiz. One free beer to winner (must come to Manitou on a Thur evening to collect). Name the song and artist of the following:

The little country store
with a sign tagged to the side
Said, "No L-O-I-T-E-R-I-N-G, A, allowed"
Underneath that sign always congregated
quite A crowd
Take a bottle, drink it down
pass it, hey, pass it all around

Mon 04/21 – walk 45:00
Tue 04/22 – walk 45:00
Wed 04/23 – walk 45:00
Thu 04/24 – 1:30:00 including mod tempo run up to No Name Creek (38:00)
Fri 04/25 – 30:00 easy on roads with Darwin
Sat 04/26 – 3:36:00 Gold Camp/Old Stage/Frosty Park/Pipeline tr
Sun 04/27 – walk 1:15:00
Week – 5:36:00 / 40 miles

Mon 04/28 – run 35:00 hard/hilly on roads
Tue 04/29 – run 47:00 up by res and back
Wed 04/30 – run 1:18:00 up past res and back
Thu 05/01 – run 1:40:00 including tempo run to No Name Creek (34:37) and then easy to 7.8 sign
Fri 05/02 – walk
Sat 05/03 – 2:45:00. Barr trail/Water Pipe/Cog/Mountain View/Barr Camp/7.8/Water Pipe/Barr Tr
Sun 05/04 – hike 2:00:00 by ice caves
Week – 7:05:00 / 52 miles

Summer

It is starting to feel like summer here, and I like it. More daylight in the morning and evening makes it more likely that I actually get a run and/or a walk in each day. My summer race plans are now set. I'll be doing the Jemez Mountain 50 Miler on May 17. This one looks like a tough 50; it looks like each year they have made it a bit tougher and this year added a new 10,000+ mountain. Total elevation gain is now just over 12,000 feet making it similar to San Juan but with a lower average altitude. Rick and I ran up to about 10,300 feet last weekend (Old Stage Rd/Frosty Park) and regardless of how clear Barr trail is getting, there is still a lot of snow on North facing gullies higher up. We'll do one more higher altitude run this weekend to get ready for the Jemez race.

My June race will be the Big Horn Trail 100 on June 20. This one should be interesting; it starts at 11:00 AM meaning everyone has to run through the entire night.

And my goal race for the summer is the White River 50 Miler on July 26. I've heard really good things about this race from everyone who has run it, and I've always wanted to do it myself. The field is looking like one of the more competitive lineups of the year so I really hope I can arrive fit and healthy.

August will see me pacing my buddy Rick at Leadville. Since my first Leadville in 2001, Judy and I have been there every year in some capacity; it is my favorite race and we love the whole experience. Rick is shooting for a sub 20:00 this year and I plan on chasing him that last 50 miles to his goal. Judy's "race" goal for the summer is to be able to volunteer at one of the aid stations. She is doing great right now and is getting stronger every day. She is planning on going back to work in a few more weeks.

Required Volunteerism?

Ok, just a short rant today. I just found out that another of the races I was considering this year requires volunteerism as part of the entry process. I know, volunteers are the life-blood of many ultras but does requiring entrants to volunteer really help with this? Or does it just make more red-tape for the RDs who must find something (preferably 6 hours exactly!) for the volunteer to do. And I should say (because I really am a good person!) that I am currently doing volunteer work at a local state park trail system near me but there is no way I would go in and ask them to fill out a form for me so I can run some race. I want to help out with the trails; I'm not doing it so I can enter a race.

The two biggest offenders of this policy in my opinion are:

WS100, which is a for-profit operation and has the highest race entry fee of any 100 mile race. Of course they want free labor; it helps with the bottom line! I think I might start requiring my customers to no only pay for their furniture, but come to my (or another furniture shop) and do 6 hours of hand sanding.

Tahoe Rim 100. This is supposedly the "National Championship" of trail 100s this year, and they want 12 hours in addition to your entry fee for the privilege of racing for the title. Can you think of any other sport that would do this at their National Championship?

Bloody Shin Run

On Sunday Rick H, Dan V, and I headed out from my house to try the Palmer Lake Res/Balanced Rock Road/Rampart Range Rd/Winding Staircase Rd loop. Since moving to Palmer Lake, this has become one of my favorite loops, but it is def. a summer/fall loop with tons of snow in the winter and early spring. We tried it a few weeks ago and turned back after about 4 miles of post-holing. It is 22 miles total, and tops out at 9200 feet (starting at 7200 feet at my house).

There was no snow at all till we go up to the reservoirs at about 7600 feet. Starting here, there were snowbanks extending across the trail every so often for most of the remainder of the loop. Dan was the smart one, as he was wearing tall socks but Rick and I really beat up our shins each time we sunk down into the snow. As we got higher, we were treated to some great views of the snow covered Pikes Peak (South of us) and Mt. Evans (North of us). Probably in a few more weeks this run will be completely clear.


I am feeling pretty good after an easy 3 weeks and am now signed up to run the Jemez Mountain 50 Miler with Rick on May 17.

Also, after the last 2 years being un-sponsored, I'm very happy to be running for Smith Optics/Pearl Izumi as of this week. I'll write up a review of the various shoes as soon as I get them.


Last 3 weeks of training log:


Thu 04/03 – 1:00:00 Including 3.2 mile tempo run up Rampart Range Rd in snowstorm (24:30)
Sat 04/05 – 3:00:00 Greenland Open Space/Spruce Meadows/Spruce Mountain and back.
Week – 4:00:00 / 30 miles

Mon 04/07 – 35:00 around neighborhood
Sat 04/12 – 2:40:00 hilly w/Rick. Crystal Park Road/Palmer Trail/Section 16/Intemman trail/Red Rocks back to Manitou
Week – 3:15:00 / 25 miles

Fri 04/18 – 30:00 easy on roads with Darwin
Sat 04/19 – 23 miles / 3:19:00 SF Trail/Stables/Falcon Loop. Warm.
Sun 04/20 – 22 miles Palmer Lake/Rampart Range Rd loop 3:18 still snowy in places.
Week – 7:10:00 / 49 miles