Pine to Palm 100

The race is over. Here are the results:

http://roguevalleyrunners.blogspot.com/2010/09/2010-pine-to-palm-results.html

I'm recovering. The left ankle swelling has gone down dramatically. Things feel much better today than they did Monday morning. Maybe this weekend, I'll go for a short jog.

Overall, it was a pretty good event. There were some organizational things that need to be worked out for next year's race (more space at packet pick-up, more food at the pre-race dinner, and I don't know what went wrong with the live results), but I'm happy with the event and Hal and Ian and the rest of the team of organizers pulled off a really good race.

A couple things worth mentioning:

The race volunteers. I am always amazed at the volunteers at these 100 mile races. These events would not be possible without them and although every 100 mile race I have attended always seems to have great people working remote aid stations all day and night, this race's volunteers were exceptional. The level of attention and willingness to help was the best I've ever experienced. Thank you all, whoever you are, for helping out all the runners!

The aid stations: A seemingly unlimited supply of GU gels and Chomps as well as the customary bananas, potatoes, cookies, crackers...etc.

The course: More road running than almost everyone expected, but the sections that were on trail were absolutely some of the best. And that last climb up to Wagner Butte? It's not often that the most difficult climb of the course begins at mile 80 and tops out at mile 90 4,000 vertical feet later. Climbing that brute at 2am in a raging rainstorm is a memory I will always remember. Now if there were only a way to link up the trail sections with more trail...

Good Luck?

I'm not superstitious. At all. Don't believe there is such a thing as luck. So I'm not sure if getting zapped by a wasp two days ago means anything except that me and an angry, scared and/or hungry wasp happened to be buzzing along Teton Canyon Road together about 10 minutes out from my car on Saturday afternoon. It felt like a bee sting at first. Right above where my water bottle rests just above the small of the right side of my back. I immediately swatted at the thing, but didn't feel any sort of insect body, so, if it was in fact a bee, I figured it must have buzzed off. It wasn't until I got home that night and pulled my bottle out of the waist holster that I finally saw what had attacked me. There it was lying in the bottom of my bottle hoster...

Death to you, you wascally wittle wasp!

Dear Wasp,


I still have your carcass lying on my countertop so that I may walk by it everyday and know who got the last word. I may have a quarter-sized welt on my back, but I am alive. And you are not.




I could think that having this wasp encounter the weekend before a 100 miler means that I've gotten it out of the way and I won't have this kind of issue during the race. But then again, I don't really believe that's how things work. So whatever happens out there happens and I'm just planning on being able to work through it and get to the finish line sometime in the predawn hours before 6am on Sunday.

One Giant Brown Slurpee Please

Got my September ascent up Table Mtn in this afternoon. This is what the mountains looked like after this week's storms blew through.



I knew it'd be slower going (which is good since I've got a 100 miler coming up in a week) and most likely a slushy sloppy mess.

I was right. This was at 8,000ft.

9,000ft


10,000ft

11,000ft

I don't know that I've ever seen more people on the trail to Table as there was today. And they were almost all college-age looking kids, my guess from BYU-Idaho out in Rexburg. There had to be at least 50 people up there in various places on the trail, not all together, but in a number of groups of 2, 3, 5, 8, or whatever. It sure wasn't an easy day to go up there with all the snow, but everyone seemed to be in really great spirits so it made for a really fun afternoon. I hit the top in about 1:27, spent maybe 15 minutes up there, and then bolted off the top after being chilled to the core by a biting cold wind.

Looking south over Hurricane Pass and the now buried Teton Crest Trail. Will warmer weather over the next month melt this off? Probably not all of it, but maybe most of it will go away to allow for one last TCT crossing in October? Maybe I'm delusional?

And then this is how the next hour was spent. Sloshing through a giant ribbon of brown, Slurpee-like mud and snow. I haven't run in trail conditions like this since the Pocatello 50 back in May!

The wet, heavy, early-season snowfall did a number on the plant growth down lower.

Bear Family

The day after the marathon, I set off on a mellow jaunt up from the Moose Creek TH in Victor on the trail leading up to Taylor Mtn. After 2,000ft of moderate climbing, I turned around and cruised back towards the TH where I was stopped short by about a quarter mile by a guy standing in the trail holding a big stick. Good thing he was there or I would've had day 2 of racing, this time a panicky life-or-death steeplechase competing against an angry protective mama black bear guarding her three cubs.

Cute and harmless looking little buggers, but we kept our distance not wanting to get anything close to cozy with any of them. It took about ten minutes, but they finally wandered off the trail to quietly exist before their next human surprise encounter.

GTR Marathon

Wow. What a week it has been.

It's been a week now since the GTR Marathon and I'm already looking forward to next year. I had my eyes set on the course record, a speedy, yet fairly attainable (I thought) 3:49. I knew it would require a big push, but after some good training in the prior months, I felt I was ready for it. I had three goals set in the following order of importance to me: 1. Set a new course record. 2. Run the entire 26.2 miles. No walking allowed. 3. Win.

I set into a comfortable pace off the start beginning the 2.5 mile, 1,810ft climb up to the top of Fred's Mtn. I felt like I was running right at my AT. Not too fast as to not be able to recover, but at the absolute fastest I could go while still looking ahead to the remaining 23.7 miles. I hit the top in 31:30, grabbed a cup of water, and quickly began the descent feeling surprisingly light on my feet. 15 minutes later, I was on the extra 1.2 mile loop for the marathon course and I breezed through the base area at 6.8 miles in 57 minutes. I was down Mill Creek and past the Teton Canyon aid station at mile 12.5 in 1:42. Smooth. 29 minutes later, I turned off Ski Hill Rd at mile 15.8 and while I was still right at my AT, I felt that I still had enough juice to maintain the pace. I was back at the Base area at mile 20 in an exhausting 3:06 and off onto the last 5 miles around Rick's Basin with 43 minutes to spare. The effort had caught up to me on the climb back up to the base area, but I was still hanging in there. Rick's would be tough, but I had been running this loop during training in a comfortable 40 minutes so I figured I had it. Just keep things together and there'll be a 3:46 course record at the end. Nope. I was working harder than in my training, but going slower. Every time check I had created for myself during my training showed I was losing time. Big time. And then I got a side stitch. And then my hip flexors began seizing up. And there was the wall. The climb out of Rick's contained 100% running, if that's what you want to call it, but it wasn't pretty. I was cooked. Finish time: 3:55:10. 49 minutes for the last 5 miles. Woof.

Next year...