In 'Em To Win 'Em

On Sunday evening I got together with a bunch of friends here in Juneau to celebrate my UROY award. It was a nice gathering of about 50 people. I honestly didn't even know that I knew 50 people in Juneau. I felt a bit awkward to be the subject of such a large gathering, but it was fun to see so many of my friends, from different circles of the local community, together in one place. The type of gathering that I may have been terribly uncomfortable at if I wasn't the bridge between everyone there, such that I knew everyone there.

The question that I was asked the most that evening was, "so what races and running plans do you have for this year"? My easy answer to this question for the past month has been that I just want to have more fun running in the mountains than ever before and to focus on races that I've never run before. Now though I've begun to move toward a few more specific racing plans for this year.

I've known for a couple months now that I would be running Western States, but I have now begun to fill in some of the gaps both before and after June 26th. The biggest news in regards to this is that I'm going to go to Europe in August and run the Mt. Blanc race! Just found out today that I got accepted in the lottery. These races will most certainly be my two "focus races" of the year. I am not going to settle for just showing up and running either one of these without my most focused effort. I will be running to win both of them. I know this may sound a bit bold being that these may be the two most competitive 100 mile races in the world, but I know that I have a chance to win any 100 mile race that I line up for. Doesn't mean that my chances are even all that great in either one of these, but knowing that I do have a chance is really all I need to make that my intention in these races. I'm sure other goals/intentions for both of these races will present themselves as the time draws closer to race day, but for now I'm in them to win them!

Check out my sidebar if you're interested in seeing which other races I'm eyeing for 2010.

UROY

Thanks all for the words of congratulations. It feels good to be "officially" recognized for my performances this year. Although it also feels a little unfair. It felt like I had too much fun running this year to have been capable of having (at least by one publication's standard) the best year of any male ultra runner in North America. I guess therein lies the key to my success.

For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about check out this link.

Out Of Shape?

I took about three weeks after the North Face race to give my body the most rest it's had in about 15 months. I'm now back running most everyday and I'm really surprised how much of my fitness still remains. I was actually kind of hoping that I would feel more out of shape. I'm not going to race again until sometime in March and being out of shape right now would give my mind something to focus on for the next several weeks before I feel like I really need to specialize a bit for my next race. I guess for now I just need to take advantage of the season and get out on my cross country skis and snowshoes. Maybe sometime in February I'll start to think about some training specific to my next event. Or maybe I should just stick with my approach that I used for the second half of '09 and just run for fun and assume that it will apply to my racing. Problem is that my next race might be a 50k which kind of scares the hell out of me with how little fast running I've done in the past year.

Montrail

I'm super stoked to be heading into another year as a member of Team Montrail. As I've said numerous times throughout this year, the Mountain Masochist is the best shoe I have ever worn. I've pretty much stopped wearing anything else. I think it's been more than two months since I ran a step in any other shoe. The good news is that the Mountain Masochist will be back in '10 exactly the same as '09. That means another year of very happy feet for me. I'm also excited to try out some of the new models that will be available in 2010 and beyond. Keep an eye on the Montrail website for news about that. Montrail has also created a new and improved team blog that you can check out here. Also keep an eye on the blog for an announcement about a couple exciting new additions to team Montrail in 2010. Expect that news sometime in the next week.

Looking Ahead

I've been laying really low with my running since The North Face race at the beginning of the month. Only been getting out running about 2 or 3 days a week. The break has been nice but I find myself beginning to get the bug to get back out on longer runs and to get back out more often.

This has also got me thinking more about my running plans for 2010. All I know right now is that I want to spend even more time in the mountains next year than I ever have before, that I only want to run races that I have never run before, and that I will be running Western States on June 26th. Other than those three things everything else is up in the air. I'm really excited to find out where these things take me.

Thinking Back

2009 has been a very dynamic year for me. My life feels like it has changed more than in any other year of the 32 previous years I have lived. My running has also changed more this year than ever before. There were a lot of stressful times for me this year. There were times when I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I felt this not only in my personal life but also in my running. In a year with so much running success it's been pretty crazy to have as much uncertainty, anxiety, and doubts as I have had. There has been a lot of up and a lot of down for me this year. Overall though the up has far outweighed the down and through it all I was able to run 6 shockingly successful races, perhaps the 6 best races I have ever run. Maybe my running was fueled by so much drama and stress. Or maybe when I find more stability in my life in 2010 (yeah, like that's actually going to happen) I'll have even a better year of racing.

At any rate, I thought it would be fun to do a poll of my best race of '09. I had 6 really good ones but I'm curious to see what readers of this blog think was my best. Check out the sidebar for the poll.

Sweet Defeat

Some thoughts about yesterday's race:

I finished 2nd in a time of 6:40:53, about 8 minutes faster than the previous course record. Uli Steidl won the race in a time of 6:33 and change!

Uli ran away with the race coming out of the aid station at mile 39. To that point he and I had run within a few hundred feet of each other the entire way. From about mile 14 on we were separated from the rest of the field. In that 25 mile span from mile 14 to mile 39 we were never more than 10 feet apart. We took turns in the lead and most of the time I felt like we were connected such that we couldn't separate if we wanted to. It felt like we were literally dragging each other down the trail with a 5 foot rope holding us together. We both took the same amount of time at aid stations and we both seemed to be running with the same strengths, that is to say fast on the uphills, fast on the flats, and fast on the downhills. I had assumed that Uli was not that fast on more technical trail, being that most of his racing in the past few years has been on roads. That was definitely the wrong assumption. We ran the technical downhill after PanToll (mile 30) about as fast as one could possible imagine and I couldn't even hear him behind me. He just seemed to hover along a few inches off the ground. For most of the run we hardly talked at all but I felt like we were communicating so much just from sharing the same experience so closely. I felt so focused on moving forward in conjunction with Uli that there almost seemed to be no space in my mind for words. Because of this the times we did speak seemed really significant and almost shocking at times. Simple one sentence statements seemed like profound thesis at the time, because they tended to speak also of the previous 30 minutes of silence. Each word seemed to convey a thousand thoughts. I don't think I have ever felt as tuned in to another runner during a race.

Eventually my body broke down. I made up my mind at around mile 20 that I was going to stay with Uli as long as I could. I wasn't going to fade back slowly to improve my chances of staying strong and thus remain more likely to maintain 2nd place. I was running to win and the only way I was going to be able to do that was staying right there with him. I was not going to let him out of my sight unless I had no physical ability left to keep him there. For several miles (around mile 28-35) I even felt a confidence that I might be able to be the one to pull away from him on one of the difficult climbs in the last 10 miles of the race.

It wasn't meant to be for me though. When my strength began to waver on the climb up out of Muir Beach (mile 39) he was gone out of sight almost immediately. It felt weird to be right there with him for so long and then suddenly he was long gone. I kind of liked the quickness of it all though. I was able to just let him go in my mind and begin to instantly focus on getting my situation corrected. My legs were cramping and I was short on calories. I walked uphill and rubbed my cramping quads, drank lots of fluid, and ate as many calories as I could stomach. Gradually life came back to my physical body and I was able to finish strong.

It would have been nice to win, but it was an absolute honor to share that experience with Uli and I am completely humbled by the race he ran. For 39 miles I was able to push my body to a limit just slightly below collapse. Uli was able to convince his body to stay at that limit for the full 50 miles. I know that my name has been thrown around by some people for Ultrarunning performance of the year (either for HURT, Wasatch, or Mountain Masochist), but Uli's run yesterday was without question a more impressive performance than what I did in any of these races. It was the most impressive running performance I have ever seen in person, replacing what Dave Mackey did at Miwok '08.

It might sound strange but this may have been my most satisfying race of '09. My body failed me before the finish, but my mind dealt with this failure in such a healthy and satisfying way. I had a deeply satisfying and connected experience running with Uli all day. And probably most satisfying of all was that I got to share this race with some of the most important people in my life. I had 8 people that I love dearly there with me at the finish. People that came from all over the continent and made my experience more complete than it ever could have been otherwise.

Going Back To Cali

Hopping on a jet plane tomorrow to head down to San Francisco for the North Face race. I have so many mixed feelings about this one. I have run 3 races on these Marin trails and in some ways they have all been bad races for me. But I have also found a lot of good in these races and feel like I have learned what I need to have a good race down there. I know that I can run a lot faster on these trails then I have previously, but I also know that there are at least 4 other guys in this race who can also run faster on these trails than any of my previous efforts. It should be fun to see how it shakes out.

As a racer there really isn't anything more intense than running against the best runners your sport has to offer and knowing that you do have a chance to win that battle. I know I am not likely to win. I think most folks (and with good reason) are picking Dave Mackey or Uli Steidl for the win, but I am excited to go down south and try to make the unlikely happen. I really don't have anything to lose by running with the intention of being the first one to cross the finish line.

Change Of Pace

Not a lot going on with my running right now. Just running some average runs each day and trying to accept the fact that the trails are all snowed in and that most of my mileage for the next several months will be on the roads or on cross country skis.

It's amazing to me how quickly I've accepted this reality though. As recently as a week ago the thought of running on roads sounded awful, but now I feel fine with it. I'm going to put in 25-30 miles of road running tomorrow. This will probably be more total mileage of pavement than I ran the entire summer and fall combined. For some reason though I am comfortable with this. I guess it's just another example of how fluidly our bodies and minds can adapt to change as long as we don't get too attached to our fears and pre-conceived ideas about what this change will look like.

Finding My Place - MMTR Race Report

I went into this race having almost no idea what to expect. I convinced myself in the days before the race that I needed to be prepared to accept whatever outcome I found. I had had problems with my hamstring for several days the week before the race and I just didn't know if I had much of my fitness left that I had built up over the summer. My training through the month of October wasn't bad, but at the time it didn't seem very good either. I just kind of ran each day with almost no focus on how far or for how long. Toward the end of the month I thought for certain that I wasn't running nearly as much as I probably "should" have been. Turns out this was completely wrong. Apparently the rest was just what I needed.

My hamstring started to hurt just a few strides into this race. I thought for sure I was going to have to deal with that pain throughout the entire day. Turned out that it never hurt again after the first 20 miles. It also turned out that as my hamstring pain went away my entire body began to feel stronger and faster. I ran very comfortable for the first half of the race. I had a few minor stomach problems in that part but somewhere around mile 20 my stomach really settled and I knew that if I could keep my stomach together that things were going to go well.

At the halfway point I knew that I could thrive on the more hilly and more technical terrain of the second half of the course. I just didn't realize how much I would be able to thrive. I ended up running the second half of this one in 3 hours even! With about 15 miles to go I realized that I was really pushing the pace and it felt really good to go that fast. I really had not raced that fast and felt that comfortable doing so ever in my life. I wasn't thinking much about anything. Just running faster and faster and at times falling quite deep into meditation and at other times a seemingly other dimension in which time seemed to almost not exist. I just ran faster and it stopped seeming like it was taking me either a long time or a short time, I was just running. When it was all said and done it had felt like the easiest race I had ever run. My body felt strong the entire way and my mind felt like it had been in a good place the entire time - never too focused on the race itself, but never wandering too far away and getting too distracted. I just ran, and ran fast, and my mind and body simply allowed for me to do that without getting in the way. It was probably the closest I've ever come to running a perfect race because I never really felt like I was running a race and yet I was able to stay focused on my nutrition, hydration, pacing, and other areas needed to run a successful race. I never actually had to think about any of these things. They just happened. I never really had to think about anything, it just kind of all happened as I simply ran quickly through the forest.

Another Day At The Office?

Kind of, but also a bit more satisfying than just another race.

Won Mountain Masochist 50 a few hours ago in 6:27:55. Not sure where that came from. I really haven't run anything fast in several months. I ran the last mile today in 5:25, probably the fastest single mile that I've run since sometime in July.

As far as races go this one went really well. I felt strong the whole day and I feel really good tonight as I'm hanging out in my hotel room eating everything in sight. I ran with the lead pack - mostly consisting of Gary Robbins, Lon Freeman, Vlamir Nunes, and myself - for the first half of the race, but as the terrain got much tougher in the second half I just took off and really began to push the pace. I didn't even care (or know) what was going on behind me. I was dialed in and I knew that if I just kept myself there that it didn't matter what was going on behind me. By mile 30 I was cutting about a minute and a half per mile off the previous course record splits. I continued to attack uphills as I had all day, but after mile 35 I also really attacked the downhills more than I ever have in any race. And the faster I ran the better I felt. When it was said and done I took more than 20 minutes off Dave Mackey's previous course record. This is obviously a really exciting result to me, but also kind of scary (mostly in a good way). More on all of this sometime in the next few days.

As usual, thanks to everyone for all your support, especially my Dad who drove down from Central New York and crewed for me and got to see me race for the first time since 1995 when I was in college.

Mountain Masochist

On my way to Virginia to run the Mountain Masochist 50 miler this weekend. I have no idea if I'm ready to race a 50 miler this weekend. Honestly I haven't even really thought about it. I'm sure I'll be ready to focus on this one by Saturday morning though. Should be a tough field. I'm not in perfect shape right now. But that's almost always the case. At the very least it'll be exciting to run my first race "back east" and my Dad is driving down from New York for this one, so that'll be exciting for me too.

For those interested you should be able to track the race on this website.

Tongass 100

I've had this idea in my mind for a couple years now, but lately it's been moved more to the front of my mind. I want to put together a 100 mile route here around Juneau that might eventually become an actual race. The route I have in mind would likely be more difficult than Hardrock and certainly one of the most beautiful races in the world.



In it's infancy (next summer?) it would probably just be me scouting out and running the route as a test. If I could get one other person to do it with me I'd be stoked. If it became an actual event I would like to offer a 3 or 4 day stage race option. This way more than just a couple people might actual do it. The full 100 mile route would be so difficult that it might be an event more like Barkley than an actual 100 mile race. Unlike Barkley though this would not be a contrived route of numerous loops charging up hillsides for seemingly no reason other than to be really hard. This would be a point to point route that would be almost entirely singletrack trails and ridge running up above treeline. To connect it all together there would be a few miles of pavement, but other than that it would be running 90+ miles of the most appealing (and challenging) trails and mountains that I have ever run anywhere.

Anyone interested in running it with me next June?

Darkness

The dark season is creeping up fast here in Alaska. It's not getting light in the morning now until about 8:00, and by about 5:30 in the afternoon it's mostly dark. I like daylight. But I actually really like running in the dark.

One of my favorite things about 100 mile races is that you are out for so long that you get a full cycle of darkness, into daylight, and back into darkness. I love the transition points. Dawn and dusk. When I've been running all day and then darkness sets in I feel almost like I'm running in a new dimension. In the daylight I notice myself running over the landscape, but once darkness sets in and I can't see as well I begin to feel like I can't tell where my body ends and the trail begins. It becomes a feeling of connectedness to the land and I feel like I'm being pulled along by the landscape rather than running over the landscape (imagine the moving walkways at airports).

I also really like running in the dark without my headlamp on. It's amazing to me sometimes how well I can "feel" the trail. It forces you to run with very relaxed legs, ready to absorb the nuances of any obstacles you might step on. I think this teaches us to be better runners even when we can see the trail just fine. Sometimes when I'm really "feeling" the trail I can run just as fast without my headlamp on as I can with it on. Give it a try the next time you're running in the dark. It's not as difficult as it sounds.

Ouch

I really like when I take a fall when I'm running. It doesn't happen very often but as long as I don't hurt myself I really like the feeling I get from the transition of being on my feet to suddenly being on the ground. It reminds me how vulnerable I am when running along a trail with roots, rocks, mud, ice, and snow. I almost always pop back up before I even realize I have fallen, and I usually feel a lot better than I did before I fell. I guess part of it is from a rush of adrenaline, but I also think a lot of it is from being reminded of my vulnerability out on a technical trail. There is something exhilarating and uplifting in that. There is something empowering in feeling so vulnerable and bouncing up from it without injury.

Does anyone else like when they fall during a run? Or am I just crazy?