Tomorrow mindy will be running her first 100 miler! You can track her at www.sandiego100.com and using the link below for our spot tracker which I’ll be wearing while I pace her for the last half. Go mindy!
Brief updates via I pad
- and, they’re off. 7:00 am
- mindy looked great at mile 13.8; 9:31 am
- classic mindy. Smiles all the way at mile 23; 11:36am
- still truckin’ along at mile 44.1; 5pm
- Mindy finishes in 29:49:10!
Posted in Running
Capturing my adventures in writing (on door5) hasn’t received much priority for the prior 9 months. But, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been having incredible adventures. This post is being made in an effort to not lose a record of the highlights of the past 9 months of my life.
September 2010
Zion with Ryan and Pat (October 9th and 10th)
Zion with Mindy and Jim Guilkey (October 16th and 17th)
Rim-Rim-Rim with Jay Aldous and Karl Jarvis (November 14th, 2010)
Incredible desert trip with Mindy (Christmas through New Years)
Great Basin National ParkFebruary 2011
Zion with Buzz and Ryan (February 12, 13th)
Solo trip to Zion (March 12, 13th)
Traversary (April 23rd) – Group run of the entire Zion traverse (~50miles). Ran it with my incredible wife who coined the name “traversary” for running the traverse on our 1-year anniversary. Life does not get better than this!
Icebox Canyon with Ryan – Tons of exploring side canyons (May 13th, 2011)
Posted in Yearly Recap
Goat on Mt. Olympus West Slabs
I absolutely love the Wasatch Mountains in the spring! The weather has finally turned and the relentless grip of winter has eased. With a successful Pocatello 50 behind me it’s time to do what I love and try to get fit while exploring a mountain landscape than changes by the minute as temperatures increase and snow melts rapidly.
Mount Olympus West Slabs - with Apollo Couloir descent
Probably THE best short journey in the Wasatch is a run up the West Slabs of Olympus. It has it all: singletrack, bushwhacking, boulder hopping, a steep snow-field, 1,000′ of 5.5, a brief ridge running section, an unbelievably good glissade dropping nearly 1,900′, and a canyoneering-like river gully descent at the bottom of the Apollo Chute. It is not for the faint of heart, but if you’re comfortable scrambling up easy 5th class quartzite and managing moderately steep snow this is about as good as it gets. The snow-field decent is so good right now that I’m going to try and do it every single day until it’s gone….. and it’s going fast.
Yesterday (6/4/2011) I had been having an incredible day running trails and I wanted to finish it off with this route. Ryan and I had done the route the prior day so I knew exactly what the conditions were like. I ran into a large party on my way up the snow-field (Zeus Chute) as I approached the slabs. The gully is chock-full of snow right now, more so than I’ve ever seen before in June. The large group had started early in the AM and it looked like a guided group, probably Exum. They looked at me like I was crazy in my shorts and running shoes. I thought to myself that they were crazy spoiling such a perfect mountain experience as they schlepped 60 lbs of crap with them. Ice axes, crampons, big boots, hundreds of feet of rope, and packs big enough for an everest expedition. It was 6:30 PM and I was just starting the route; light, simple, and with as few man-made items between me and the ground I was travelling as possible. Exactly how I like it.
Close-up of the West Slabs ascent and Apollo Couloir descent
I quickly hit the rock and looked down at where they were on the snow-field, about in the middle. I had a strange surge of adrenaline and I made it my goal to summit and descend the Apollo Couloir before they got to their car. I made good time up the slabs as the route was fresh on my mind from the prior day. The ridge was perfect, and no rattle snakes at all, a rare thing in June. Without losing a step I jumped onto my favorite snow field and only a few minutes later was at the bottom of it, some 1,900 vertical feet later. Yesterday Ryan had pointed out that the descent was so fast that you have to equalize your ear pressure while glissading. yee haw.
At the end of the glissade is the river gully section, which I love! I caught and passed the party on the trail out. 1:10 car-to-car. I was giddy all evening. The perfect Wasatch experience and finish to an already amazing day. Life is grand.
Addendum:
On 6/5/2011 I returned and pulled off a 1:01 car-to-car.
Apollo Couloir. Oh so good right now.
Posted in Running, Scrambling
Vicki, Ryan, Mindy, and Me at the end of Lotoja, which Ryan finished
Short Version:
Slightly Longer Version: “Wasatoja is no gimme”
I knew from the get-go that in order to make this silly “double” happen everything had to go near-perfect. In fact, it was this logistical challenge that made the challenge so appealing to me. Sadly, the run was somewhat of a disaster for me and I ended up not even starting Lotoja.
Wasatoja (Red=WF100; Green = drive; Blue=Lotoja)
Tomorrow is the start of a linkup I’ve been planning for over a year. Last year when the Wasatch100 moved to Friday (it was previously on Saturday), it became possible to link together Wasatch and Lotoja, a classic ~205 mile bike race from Logan, Utah to Jackson, Wyoming. A combination I call the Wasatoja.
It’s an interesting challenge because I need to have what for me is a near perfect run, finishing in Midway somewhere prior to 3:00 AM (22 hrs or faster total time) on Saturday to have enough time to shower, get in the car and drive (or be driven rather) to Logan, a 2 hr drive for the 6AM start of the bike-race. Mindy will be sleeping in our truck at the finish line of Wasatch waiting for me to wake her up and start the drive. Mindy, Brendan, Ryan Kunz and I plan to stay together during the ride, which will be a huge help.
Either way, it’s bound to be fun, somewhat epic, painful, but certainly rewarding if I can pull it off. You can track me through the run at the http://www.wasatch100.com/, and then I’ll be carrying a spot tracker on the bike-ride, which you can watch here.
I’ve had some pretty bad hamstring/hip issues the past month or so, which has me quited worried. But, mentally I’m super-psyched, physically I feel great (aside from the injury), so I’m going to throw myself at it and give it my best. I won’t go down without a fight! :)
I love coming up with challenging mountain routes. I get a huge amount of satisfaction in sharing them with others and I especially dig when others get motivated and inspired by the challenge. For several years now I’ve been trying to perfect a super-difficult 100 mile route in the Wasatch Mountains. My goal was to create something on-par with Nolans 14. When I was in Corsica in April/May this year I was inspired by a route called the GR20 and was convinced that I needed to return and tackle the whole thing. While it might happen at some point in my life I figured why not finish up the Millwood 100 idea (given that its in my backyard!) and then give it a go, it would be good training for Hardrock, afterall. The result is a route housed in Millcreek, Big, and Little Cottonwood and has about 45,000′ of vertical gain. It has it all, everything from beautiful smooth singletrack, wicked steep abandoned mining trails (see video above), completely off-trail sections, less than 1 mile or road, and very little flat. It has been “designed” so that it is easy to make water/food drops, crew, bail, and start or stop in many different locations. It might be done in a single push someday, but it is likely enjoyed most over 3-4 still very challenging days.
Posted in Running
Ty Draney on Knapsack Col with the Stroud Glacier, Mount Arrowhead (12,972 ft), Bow Mountain (13,020 ft), and Sulpher Peak (12,825 ft) in the background.
Short version : This route is a truly inspiring, challenging, rugged, and is easily one of the most beautiful long distance mountain runs in the country. On August 21st, 2010 Ty Draney and I left the Green River Lakes TH, bound for the Big Sandy TH some 80 miles to the southeast. We ended up altering the route slightly and cut it short due to slower than necessary progress, ending at the Boulder Lake TH after roughly 60 miles.
Posted in Running
Tomorrow morning, somewhere around 5AM, Ty Draney and I will take off to do something called the Wind River Crest Route. It’s an 80 mile route starting at the Green River Lakes in the northern part of the range and ending at the Big Sandy trailhead in the south. Originally we wanted to do the Highline route, but it tends to stay lower and further to the west of the exciting part of the range. The Crest Route follows the CDT (Continental Divide Trail) for the most part, but with 3 deviations to the east climbing up to some additional passes and a bit of off trail travel. Below is a map of the route, and a Google Maps version can be found here. More details on the route later.
The Wind River Crest Route
Also, we’ll be taking a Spot Tracker along with “tracking mode” engaged, so someone can watch our progress and as a backup measure should something bad happen. Follow us here.
Mark, Pat, Mindy, Me, and Ryan on Sunday after Hardrock 2010
We’ll it’s a bit late, but before I forget the details of my Hardrock 2010 experience I thought I’d jot them down. In classic form I came back home after the race and flipped the switch back to “work mode” which exacerbates the “dream-like” feeling of the experience.
Hardrock, simply put, is a “unique” 100 miler. Many great runners often laugh at the event and the incredibly slow times (relatively speaking). Nick Clark (paced Nick Pedetella for 30 miles) has a perspective not often publicly expressed about Hardrock (read it here). The race and the runners are quirky and quite different from what you’ll find at other major 100s, but fortunately for me they’re different in a way that I really like. I’m rarely the fastest runner, I have rarely trained as much as the rest of the field, I rarely have the lightest shoes, and I rarely give a damn about how the “race” goes. For me, I show up to Hardrock because I love the course and I love the mountains. There aren’t too many race courses that I can say that about. For example, while the Wasatch 100 is in my backyard I rarely go run on the actual course. In fact, I try to avoid it because in my opinion, in the Wasatch Mountains the WF100 course contains some of the least exciting trail in the whole mountain range.
Mindy, psyched to be on Red Mtn
My attraction to Hardrock is likely rooted in the fact that I do other activities such as rock climbing, technical peak linkups, kayaking, biking, canyoneering etc. I wasn’t a collegiate track star and I didn’t run track-and-field in highschool. I love spending the week before Hardrock in the San Juans. I love seeing my family enjoy the mountains and take some time away from city-life, I love seeing my wife smile as we sit atop a beautiful peak and admire the surroundings, and I love seeing my friends get to be part of the event through crewing or pacing. I get a kick out of the people who show up from Florida or Texas to tackle Hardrock, and I love seeing Hardrock give purpose to people of all ages. John DeWalt will literally do this race until he can’t move any more. There is something about the San Juan Mountains that pulls you in; their beauty, the wild and powerful weather, the steep climbs and brutal descents, abundant flowing water, and endless flowers. In the comment section of Nick Clark’s write-up uber-ultra-runner Anton Krupricka wrote, “I used to think Hardrock was plain stupid. After a couple of years of mountain running and after running much of the course my perspective on that changed and I now see it as the ultimate long-course mountain race. Mind-blowing scenery, relentless climbs and descents, altitude…it has it all to the nth degree.” Well put Anton.
What started out as a bit of a frustrating slog later turned into one of the most fun runs of the year. I signed up for the Speedgoat 50km at the beginning of the year given that it was 3 weeks post-Hardrock this year (past years it has been 1 week after). My process of recovering for Hardrock is an interesting one. Usually 1 week after I feel fabulous and then about 3 weeks after I drop into a pretty low point. This year I was feeling better than usual though, so I figured I may as well run it. Right from the get go I was a few dB down (didn’t feel great). My legs were tired and sore, but I was psyched to be out. I kept wanting to push harder, but my body wasn’t allowing it. It was probably the slowest I’ve ever run up to the tram, but I didn’t care too much. It was so much fun seeing friends out on the course and volunteering. Then, over to Baldy and the rocky descent off the east side. I hit Larry’s Hole and chatted with friends Kevin Lawlor and Kelly Lance who were running the aid station. Then, the short but fun climb up to the saddle. Once at the saddle there were 2 ways to go, one heavily marked to the left and one lone marker straight down. 2 other runners were confused and I was sure that it made sense to go left given how marked it was…. wrong.
