Last Post For Awhile?

I'm heading to southern Utah again tomorrow and this time I'll probably be living out in the desert for more than 2 weeks. Lots of biking as well as a river trip with old friends that I haven't seen in months. Likely won't be posting until June 2nd or after.

I've currently ridden 409 miles in the past week, almost all on dirt road or trail. My body is pretty tired out, but generally feeling pretty good. I intend to really test it on Saturday though. (Many endurance cycling enthusiasts know what this means) I'll be happy if I can walk comfortably on Sunday. Even happier if I can ride the shuttle for the river trip on Sunday but that doesn't seem too likely.

I'll post some details of my desert fun as soon as I have a chance.

Red Water In The Bottom Of The Shower

When I used to live in Utah I could always tell how good my weekend was by how dark the red color was in the water in the bottom of the shower when I would get back into town on Sunday afternoon. When you spend time outside in southern Utah the red dirt just gets onto your body, and then into your body, and eventually into your mind and heart.

Well, I am back in Salt Lake now after 6 days in Southern Utah and let's just say the water in the bottom of the shower today was about as red as it gets.

I was camped out in The San Rafael Swell for 5 days and in that time I rode my bike 300 miles, almost all on dirt. The first couple days were kind of mellow because I was still a bit tired from the Miwok. By Saturday though I was ready to go hard.

Afternoon Clouds move in around Mexican Mountain in The San Rafael Swell

I only rode 35 miles on Saturday but it was probably my toughest day of riding all week. It was slow trail, lots of hike-a-bike through sand, technical stretches that were just beyond my abilities (technical desert singletrack used to be my strongest point as a rider but now I kind of feel like it's my first time everytime I ride tech. sections), and when I thought I was just about back to camp I got lost and ended up being out there for almost 2 hours more than expected.

And then Sunday I packed up for an overnight ride into The Maze district of Canyonlands.

My bike loaded up for an overnight ride

I ended up riding 101 miles on Sunday and it turned out to be quite likely the best day I've ever had on a bike. The first 60 miles was a bit boring (scenery wise) but I was having a great time and feeling really strong. Once I got to the top of the Flint Trail my world was about to change drastically.

looking out from the top of the Flint Trail

I dropped off the rim and down to the valley below and suddenly I was in a much more majestic area with no one to be seen for miles on end. I continued South, toward Sunset Pass and saw no one for hours.

looking up toward Sunset Pass from the west

Picture the scenery of The White Rim, except NO PEOPLE. I decided I wanted to make it down Hatch Canyon and all the way to the Dirty Devil River that night.

Looking into Hatch Canyon from just below Sunset Pass

By this point I had been going about 40 miles since I last saw anyone, or anything man made for that matter. About 5 miles from the river I saw a man hiking out in front of me.

Almost down to The Dirty Devil River

I just assumed this was someone who was camped at the river and had hiked up the road for the view. Turns out rather that this guy had been camped back near Sunset Pass (more than 20 miles behind me) and his car was broken down. He waited for 2 days, never saw another person, and finally decided to walk out the 40+ miles back to the closest paved road. He was not doing so well when I saw him. He was almost out of food and water and said that every muscle in his body was aching and twitching. He seemed confident that he could make it to the river on his own so I went ahead and assessed my supplies while he made his way down.

I was able to spare almost 2,000 calories of food, much needed electrolytes (NUUN of course), purify water for him from the river, and gave him my bivy sack to sleep in for the night.

Camp at the Dirty Devil River crossing

It was very windy that night. Neither one of us slept very well because of blowing sand, but he seemed to be feeling much better in the morning. He began the 16 mile walk out of Poison Spring Canyon and I rode ahead to Hanksville and phoned the local sheriff to let them know this guy's situation. The dispatcher made a sarcastic joke that it was a "slow day in Wayne County." If you've been to Wayne County Utah you might understand why this would be a joke. She would send someone down there right away to fetch this guy back to civilization.

Crazy stuff. Probably this guy would have survived if I hadn't come along, but that's not entirely certain. Lots of things could have gone wrong for him, and certainly he would have gotten very sick from the gallon+ of untreated water he would have had to drink from the Dirty Devil and/or Poison Spring. Based on names alone it's pretty obvious that you don't want to drink multiple gallons of untreated water from either one of these sources.

Anyway, I'm back in Salt Lake for a couple days and then I'll be heading back South for some more desert fun. My plan is to make my way back up here by about June 2nd or 3rd and then ride from here up to the start of the GDR over the course of about 2 weeks.

Here are a few more pictures from the last couple weeks that I like. Two of the sunset on the ferry from Juneau to Bellingham and one of my car dwarfed by the Redwoods in Northern California:

Miwok Race Report

I never sleep very well the night before a race. The earlier the race starts, the worse I sleep. Miwok proved to be no exception. The ridiculously early start time of 5:40 combined with the fact that 40 minutes away was the closest place I could find to camp meant that I would need to get up before 4:00 to be to the race on time. This did not prove to be a good combination. I actually did not sleep at all that night! A friend of mine flew into San Francisco to hangout with me for the weekend and I thought that would be a good distraction to keep me from being too focused on the race and thus I might get some sleep. I didn't feel too focused on the race Friday night but I still didn't sleep. I just laid there in my tent for 5 hours and then got up and drove to the start. I suppose just laying horizontal for that time is helpful, but I would have felt a little better about things had I actually slept.

At any rate we all lined up on the beach at day break and at that point there was nothing I could do about not having slept so I forgot about it.

I had no game plan for this race. I just wanted to run for 100k. I hadn't even thought about how I would start out and then suddenly we were a couple miles up the road at the start of the race with me grouped in a lead pack with 4 others: Dave Mackey, Lewis Taylor, Scott Jurek, and Hal Koerner. I felt a little bit like I was in the middle of a Sesame Street spot: "Which one of these things doesn't belong," but the pace felt fairly sustainable and slowly I felt less out of place. Jurek dropped back first (at about mile 4) and then Koerner (at about mile 15). Also just beyond mile 15 was when Mackey began to separate and open up a lead on Taylor and I. For most of the next 25 miles Lewis Taylor and I jockeyed back and forth in 2nd and 3rd place with him running much stronger on the downhills and I a little stronger on the flats and uphills.

I was excited to be in this position but the problem was that my quads had begun to breakdown as early as mile 10! Lack of sleep? Lack of training on such hard packed trail? Or running some of the early downhills too fast? I'm not sure which caused this but it was pretty tough knowing that I was going to have to run through pretty significant muscle pain for more than 50 miles.

I kept moving though and kept being surprised that no one was catching me from behind.

At mile 35 you turn fully around and back track for more than 15 miles so you get to see where everyone else is in the race. I first saw Dave Mackey floating uphill a good 15 to 20 minutes ahead of me. This was also a spot where I was behind Lewis Taylor by a few minutes, but I knew the next 10 miles or so were going to favor me and I expected I would see him again soon enough. After I turned around I finally got to see where some people behind me were at. First down the hill came Hal Koerner and then Scott Jurek and if I recall I think Jon Olsen was right with Scott. They all seemed so close at the time I thought they would all be catching me soon. In reality I had 15+ minutes on most of them at this time (except Hal who was only 5 minutes or so back). And I ended up feeling really strong for the next 10 miles or so. I passed Lewis somewhere around mile 40 and then running in second place I began to feel confident for the first time in the race. I actually felt like maybe there was a chance I could hold off what seemed like the hordes of runners charging behind me.

By mile 48 though this confidence broke and I knew I was in a struggle just to find a way to the finish. The Miwok is an amazingly brutal course. It's not super technical but the downhills are steep, the uphills seem to keep coming at you, and the surface is VERY hard. I'm used to running in Juneau on snow, mud, planks, and moss. The Miwok course is as much different from the trails in Juneau as any trails could possibly be.

As I got deep into my pain beyond mile 50 I really just tried to focus on hydration and eating. Once things get bad it becomes much more important to focus on the basics. Once you are feeling the way I was at this point there is a very thin line between pain and danger. Without sticking to good hydration and eating you are begging for the danger.

At any rate I pushed on. On a climb before the second to last aid station (around mile 52) I saw two runners behind me and I actually felt a sense of relief that at least I could stop focusing on trying to maintain 2nd place that I had been in for the last 15 miles and focus completely on getting back to the the finish.

This was Jon Olsen and his pacer who I saw behind me. They ended up passing me right at the Hwy 1 aid station (mile 54) and then they were gone up the climb ahead. At the time I didn't even realize that it was a racer and a pacer, I thought I had been passed by two racers and was now in 4th place. When I got to the last aid station (mile 58) and found out that I was in 3rd still that gave me a pretty good boost and for the first time in more than an hour I actually decided to fight again. I only had 4 miles to go, I couldn't see anyone behind me down the trail and I wasn't going to let anyone catch me. Problem was I still had a big 2.5 mile climb and then a 1.5 mile drop to deal with. I was still running ok on the flats, but the ups and downs were killing me. This last stretch was painful, but when the finish is that close it finally becomes a good painful, and I start to get a bit emotional about finishing and the pain becomes easier to block out. I was even able to rally and run the last 1/2 mile or so pretty hard so as to at least come across the line looking like I felt as strong as everyone there probably thought I felt. After all, when you drop 3rd place in a field of top runners and most people have no idea who you are, they generally assume you felt great. This couldn't be further from the truth, but at least I was done and could begin to enjoy the excitement in my mind of a 3rd place finish even if I physically was pretty destroyed.

It's a great race they put on there. The post race hangout is great. Lots of tasty food and drinks, amazingly loaded goodie bags. I think there was more money worth of stuff in each bag than the entry fee. Got a chance to talk a bit with some of the people I had just raced against (all great people) and then relaxed for a couple hours before hitting the road.

Slowly over the course of the next day the reality of finishing 3rd in such a deep field began to set in a bit. I'm very proud of this race but by no means was this even close to as good of a race as I could have there. I'll have to wait to see if this is enough to get me back there again next year. I know I can run this course a lot faster than I did. This alone has me thinking pretty seriously about working out my '09 race schedule to be in the Miwok again.

I know there are many who think I'll be throwing away an opportunity that they would love to have by not running Western States this year, and don't get me wrong, I would love to run Western States this year, but it's not going to happen. I'm sure Western States is an amazing race, but I have never been one to choose my races based on how much other people want to do them. I get goose bumps thinking about riding The Great Divide Race next month. Western States on the other hand kind of seems a little too hyped for me. When you finish The Great Divide Race in Antelope Wells, New Mexico you are greeted by a border agent (if it's during the day, there's no one there at night) and then you ride your bike back 80 miles to get somewhere that you can actually get on a bus back to reality. When you finish Western States you are greeted by thousands of cheering fans and media with cameras and microphones. This is not a bad thing. It's just not so much for me. And I don't in any way mean this as a criticism of Western States. I will hopefully run Western States someday, but there is exactly zero chance that I will bag my Great Divide Plans and run it this year. My next ultra running test will be The Wasatch 100 in September where I intend to put everything I have on the line and see how the cards may fall.

Race details:
Shoes: Montrail Odyssey
Food: gels - about 1,000 calories; perpetuem - about 700 calories; bacon - about 500 calories; watermelon - as much as I could shove in at each aid station - maybe 300 total calories; one banana - 100 calories. Total: about 2,600 calories (about 300 per hour).
electrolytes: 5 Nuun tablets

Click here for full results

Quick Miwok Post

Was hoping to get a full race report up today but that might have to wait another day. I've driven 800 miles (to Utah) since the race ended so I haven't exactly had the time.

There seemed to be some confusion yesterday about the results. I did in fact finish third in a time of 8:34:02, but I did not have what I felt was a very strong race.

The trail surface was much harder than anything I run on in Juneau and it took a toll on my legs early on. By mile 15 my quads were fried and from there I just had to lower my head and plug along for 45 more miles.

There were some mental and physical ups and downs in there, but for most of the last two thirds of the race I felt like I was fading. Most of the uphills between mile 15 and mile 40 felt pretty good, but after mile 40 I was struggling every step of the way to the finish.

That said, I'm obviously very pleased with my third place finish, as in I'm so shocked that it really hasn't sunk in yet.

As far as Western States, that one's going to have to wait. There is no decision to be made. I've been planning on riding the GDR for almost a year now and this doesn't change that at all. More on this and a full race report to follow within the next day or two.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words before and after the race.

Congratulations to Dave Mackey on an amazing run.... and to all other finishers on this brutal course.

Time To Go

Miwok starts in less than 20 hours.

My main intent is to have fun. That said I'm going out there to run this thing as hard as I can and learn some things about myself. There are so many strong runners in this race. I could have a good race and not crack the top 25. That's scary and very exciting at the same time.

It's exciting to know that in 30 hours from now I will have about 100 times as much of an idea just where I fit into the serious (i.e. not just Alaska) ultra running scene. Should be a fun day.

Taper?

I'm currently spending a couple days with a friend in Hood River, Oregon. Tomorrow morning I'll be heading south some more, spending a couple days getting down to San Francisco.

I'm feeling much better about the shape I'm in for the Miwok than I did just a week ago. I've gotten some great runs in the past few days and I just keep feeling stronger everyday. I guess I should do a bit of a taper here now but I'm just feeling so good that it's hard to ease back. I'll probably try to do some more biking the rest of this week and ease off the running as much as my mind will allow me. It's tough to cut back though when every run feels really good and takes me to exciting new places that I've never seen and likely never will see again.

Ranier

As expected I'm very anxious and unsettled my first few days away from home. When I used to take trips like this on a regular basis it was always the first 7-10 days that didn't feel quite right.

Today sure was nice though. I didn't drive anywhere today so I spent the entire day outside. That's a good feeling. I found a nice camp last night in national forest near Mt. Ranier so I've decided to stay here again tonight. I ran 11 miles this morning and then biked 50 in the afternoon.

The bike ride was spectacular. I headed toward Mt. Ranier National Park figuring I'd go until the road was closed for the winter and then come back and check out some of the forest service roads and trails around here. When I got to the gate across the road though I noticed that there was a lane plowed on the other side. Thus over the gate and up I went. I had the road completely to myself and it just kept climbing all the time. Eventually the snow banks were as tall as me. Some amazing views of Mt. Ranier up there. Another mile and the snowbanks were twice as high as me. Getting close to the pass, but also into some noticeable avalanche areas. I finally decided I would turn back once I had gone 25 miles. This brought me very close to the pass and I probably should have just pedaled another 10 minutes to the pass but by this point there was so much snow that I was getting concerned for my safety. In spots the banks rose straight up from the white line 20+ feet.

Cruising back down was even faster than expected - continual 30 mph for almost 10 miles without pedaling! I got pretty cold but the air eventually warmed enough to stop shivering. I love a good climb like that. That makes 50 miles feel so easy because I got to cruise the entire second half of the ride and by the time I finished I more or less forgot about the difficult climb getting up there.

Tomorrow I plan to drive to Portland.

Bellingham

Survived the seemingly endless ferry ride.

A couple posts below written on the boat.

Heading to Seattle today and hoping to find somewhere to get out for a run and/or ride.

Funny People

This boat has been going now for almost 24 hours since Ketchikan. It's a beautiful place to be but eventually it all starts to look the same and I await anxiously for landfall tomorrow morning. And then of course it will be the reality of down south. Open space, tangled freeways, and so many choices. I'm not sure I'm ready for all this right away. I may need to drive a few miles from Bellilngham, park my car, and get away on foot or bike for a few hours - as a way of adjusting more slowly to my new reality.

The confines of this boat become more and more obvious with each hour. I recognize everyone now, and all their patterns. This in turn means all these people recognize me. I do my best to avoid eye contact so as to avoid direct conversation, but eventually confinement wins. It's not that I"m entirely opposed to conversing with strangers, but this kind of forced small talk with people I would otherwise not ever be in contact with is a bit difficult for me. Slowly I see it taking place more and more throughout the boat, but I'm always able to avert my eyes to some other task - reading a book, eating a sandwich, taking a nap - so as to avoid direct involvement in these conversations.

But then it's hard for me to not listen. There's the drunk guy who says "you know" at least once in every sentence and has preached to at least 2 other travelers the importance of the right to bear arms and that anyone who has ever shot a gun in their life should be a lifetime member of the NRA. Luckily he's spent almost all of his time in the coctail lounge, which I have yet to venture into.

An amusing conversation between 2 strangers at dinner tonight: one man needs to be able to run 1.5 miles in 10 minutes to pass a test for some reason. I missed the beginning of the conversation so I never caught what this test was actually for. Between the two of them they basically convinced each other that this was an impossible feat for anyone other than Olympic class runners. They were certain after all that the world record for the mile was somewhere around 6:00. Even the guy who claimed to have run most everyday this winter to get ready for this seemed to believe this. As the conversation unfolded he went from being somewhat convinced he could actually do it to being certain that few people in the world could do it. He looked healthy and fit. When he runs this thing in about 9:00 he'll probably be contacting sponsors to back his Olympic dreams.

Ketchikan

Ketchikan came and went way too fast and now I'm stuck with the reality of being confined to this boat for the next 36 hours. And apparently they only have one movie to show as they are about to put Juno on for the second time in 24 hours. At least the weather's perfect and at least I got in a 3.5 hour run in Ketchikan.

I found the town to be an interesting place that reminded me at once of so many extremely different places: Juneau, Moab, Virginia Beach, and at time a nameless small town in that area that's sort of Midwest, sort of Northeast, and sort of South - Southern Ohio, Southern Illinois, Northern Kentucky, Norther West Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania.

The most surprising thing about Ketchikan was how large it seemed. Despite a population of about quarter of Juneau it seems to be so much more filled with people. Traffic seeded to be going in all directions, at all times, like small towns in Southern California that are barely large enough to show up on a gas station road map. And like Juneau there seemed to be houses everywhere you could possibly conceive of putting them. Unlike Juneau though there were also houses and roads built in places you really can't even imagine houses and roads. And of course this left a very noticeable scar on the land.

The first thing you notice are all the forests outside of town that have been clear-cut over the decades in this area where timber was the primary industry for about 30 years. After a bit though the clear cuts begin to blend in with the landscape and you start to notice smaller things as you get closer to town center. This is an area where whole mountainsides are blasted away to put in new roadways and there seems to be huge gouges in the Earth much more noticeable than most places. I'm sure the steep topography is a large part of this, but Juneau is even more steeply situated and seems to have done a better job of building around rather than through the landscape. Juneau has somehow found a way to make a city of 30,000 fit comfortably into a very small area, whereas Ketchikan seems to have had a hard time making 8,000 people fit comfortably into what feels like a larger area.

Leaving Behind

I really didn't expect leaving Juneau to be so difficult. I guess I've spent so much of my 20 months living here talking about all the things I don't like about it that I didn't notice all the things I like about it.

As the ferry pulled out of Auke Bay this afternoon I was reduced to tears as my attachment to Juneau suddenly became so clear to me. It may not be the place I want to call home years from now, but even as I hit the road, not certain if or when I'll be back to Juneau, it's the closest thing I have to a home right now, and likely will remain so far at least another year.

I guess for me it's always been about finding people that I'm happy to be around. This is what made me so fond of living in Salt Lake City and now, even though Juneau has horrible weather and such isolation, I feel that the people here have caused this town to grow on me more than Homer ever did. It really hit me today as I was heading out to Auke Bay to catch the ferry just how much I am happy around the people of Juneau. I dropped Shannon off at work and was thinking he'd likely be the last person I know that I'd see before Utah. Between downtown and Auke Bay though I saw no less than 6 people I know. I didn't even get a chance to talk to any of them but somehow it was really comforting just to drive around and see people that I know.

It's going to be tough to come back here in the fall, because of how horrible the weather is at that time, but it's also very likely that I'll be very anxious to return to the community that I feel more a part of than any since adolescence.

Southbound

Hoppin' on the ferry later today. It's sad to leave Juneau, especially in the midst of the nicest weather we've had here in a long time. I'm also very excited to get away... but very anxious about it all too. I suspect I won't sleep very well for my first few days on the road. Missing Jill. Missing my cats. And uncertain how the heck I'm going to pay for my summer adventure. I'm sure this will be big in my mind for the next several days.

Got in a nice 103 mile ride yesterday. I didn't feel very good for most of the ride but I just kept feeling better and better as I went. By the end I was actually feeling pretty strong. I guess sometimes it takes awhile to warm up.

I'm going to try to post as often as possible from the road. Not sure if I'll have a chance to do so before the Miwok on May 3rd. If not here's the link where results should be posted sometime after the race: click here Hopefully you won't have to scroll down too far to find my name.

I feel pretty good and ready for this race, but certainly not as ready as I would have been if I hadn't also been trying to build biking base at the same time. It would have been nice to build back up to 100+ mile weeks of running with long runs up around 50 miles but I only got up to about 90 and 30 for my longest week and my longest single run. Rode my bike almost 1,200 miles in the past 7 weeks so obviously this cut greatly into my running.

Where I'm At

Got out for a long run today (29 miles) and felt really good. The weather is perfect here now. After weeks of clouds, rain, and then a foot of snow a couple days ago we finally are seeing the sun. Yesterday was my last day of work, and on Tuesday I will board the ferry to Bellingham and then drive down to San Francisco to run the Miwok. Let's just say I'm pretty excited right now. I'm excited that I don't have to go to work anymore for now. I'm excited that my last 5 days in Juneau are going to be warm and sunny... it's supposed to be in the mid 50's by Sunday! I'm excited to ride the ferry to Washington. I'm excited to live out of my car again. I'm excited to be able to drive my car somewhere other than to the end of a dead end road 35 miles from town. I'm excited to race against top competition in the Miwok. And then after all of this I get to train for and ride the GDR. Life is good.

Perspective

Got in 90 miles of riding today. It felt mostly nice to be out on the bike for almost 7 hours. There was a lot of wind. Also quite a bit of rain. And I made the typical mistake with 20 miles to go that even though I was hungry I would just wait until I got home to eat anything else. Finally with less than 5 miles from home I was getting dizzy and light headed so I sucked down some peanut m&m's and sunflower seeds which was just enough to get me home. Six weeks from now a 7 hour ride will hopefully feel short, but right now this is the longest ride I've done since October and I'm definitely feeling good and tired out tonight. Something tells me the GDR might be a little bit difficult :)

32

Decided to give myself a birthday present today of one the most difficult workouts I have ever done. Nothing compared to Catra who runs her age in hours each year on her birthday, but in many ways my workout today felt as demanding as a 32 hour run may have.

I wasn't even out for 4 full hours but the weather made it feel like 10 or 12. It was about 35 degrees, windy, and raining or snowing the entire time. I started out with a 13 mile ride out to the high school track. After a bit of a warm up I started an interval workout of 25 x 400m. I ran the first five pretty mellow (~1:25); the next five a bit harder (~1:17); the middle five as hard as I could (~1:10); and then slowly decreased the last 10 down to about 1:30 for the last few.

By this point I was exhausted, cold, and wet through to the bone and I still had to ride 13 miles to get home. I had all I could do to get my numb hands to work enough to get back into my cycling shoes. I put on every piece of clothing I had with me (which were all soaking wet) and ground out the ride home.

I guess on paper it doesn't sound like too hard of a workout, my interval times weren't even that fast and biking 26 miles is no big deal. In reality though I worked at a very high rate for every single mile and every single interval. When I was running I must have been carrying an extra 5 pounds of water absorbed into my clothing and when I was biking home it was so windy that I was almost always below 10mph pushing virtually as hard as I could. This was one of those workouts in which I felt like every minute was going to be the last that I could endure, and yet I just kept going, and pushing harder and harder.

Without the weather this would have simply been one of my harder workouts in awhile, but the mental and physical stress created by the horrible weather made this a serious test of my ability to keep going when EVERYTHING was telling me to stop. And now that I'm at home, dry, warm, and nourished it's a good feeling to have passed this test.