Crow Pass IV

I hardly ever do races more than once. There are so many great races out there that I like to try new ones. However, next month I'll be running The Crow Pass Crossing for the 4th year in a row. That certainly says something about the appeal of this race. Simply put it's a near perfect course that has a little bit of everything. This year's race is going to be all about pushing what has previously proven to be possible on that course. No one has ever done this race in less than 3 hours (the official course record is 3:05 something). I think the 3 hour barrier is possible and I know I'm not the only one. I think to have a shot at winning the race I will need to go under 3:05. we'll see. It could always be a really sloppy trail and someone could run 3:15 and win. That's the excitement with trail racing. So many variables.

I turned down an offer yesterday to get into Hardrock from the waitlist. This decision was surprisingly easy for me. At this point I feel much more excited about spending most (if not all) of my summer in Alaska and there's just no way I could afford to do Hardrock this year. It's a race that I'm only willing to do when I know I can put 100% effort into it, which would include at least 2 weeks in Colorado to acclimatize before race day. We'll see if this works out better for me next year.

Still undecided about my race plans for the rest of the summer. Thinking about Wasatch or the Bear in September, but maybe another race or two before that too. We'll see. For now I'm just going to focus on being 100% ready to kick some ass on July 18th at Crow Pass. And even more importantly I'm going to focus on enjoying time in the mountains in Southeast Alaska. This is an amazing place to be in the summer and there are so many places to explore that I haven't had a chance to because I'm usually off running around somewhere else in the world in the summer time.