Health Update

October has now come and gone, and still no running for me. My health seems like it has continued to improve, but so slowly that at times I can't actually tell if I'm getting better, or if I'm just getting better at functioning at less than 100%. The good days aren't so bad, but the bad days are still fairly regular, and are sometimes fairly difficult to deal with. I've done my best through all of this to remain as upbeat, forward thinking, and positive as possible, but at times this has been quite hard too.

I've seen a total of 5 western medicine doctors (sports medicine, nuerologists, internists), as well as an acupuncurist, a massage therapist, and a somatic experiencing practitioner. I've done extensive blood, urine, saliva, and stool testing, as well as MRI, X-rays, and a lumbar puncture. These tests have almost certainly ruled out many of the more sinister and/or specific diseases/conditions which fit with some of the symptoms I've had (MS, Lupus, Vasculitus, Neurosarcoidosis, Hypothyroidism, Lyme disease, Celiac's, etc). If I have a fairly well understood condition then I almost certainly have an unusual form of it that isn't showing up the way it "normally" would in tests.

What this leaves me with then is the possibility that I have some kind of excessive physical stress induced fatigue syndrome (i.e. over training). Although I'm very aware that this is a very real thing, and a very real possibility in my case, I'm not certain I'm to the point just yet of accepting this as a diagnosis. I'm currently waiting on a large wave of more tests that the most recent doctor I saw told me would, if not diagnose, at the very least, paint the picture as to what I need to do to get healthy in as short of a timeframe as possible. I'm also planning to have another brain and a spine MRI in a couple weeks.

Once all of these tests are back there really isn't much else I can do if everything still looks more or less "normal." At that point I would simply need to move forward with getting healthy, aware that I may never know what has been the definitive cause of all of this. Although I would much prefer to know exactly what has been the cause of all of this, I'm also feeling myself getting closer to the point of not really caring anymore. Not to say that I don't care about my health, and that I'm not doing everything I can to try to get better, but that I am beginning to feel myself ambivalent as to what disease/condition I'm dealing with. Certainly if I do have some specific disease/condition I need to find out what it is to best treat it, but as more and more testing makes it less and less likely that I have a specific disease/condition (at least one that medicine currently recognizes), then it becomes less and less necessary to be able to put a name to all of this. It then just comes down to getting healthy, and that is something I very much look forward to working toward.

At any rate, I may be getting a bit ahead of myself in thinking much about this before I get the results of these next series of tests. I have found through this whole thing though that it helps very much to have a bit of a mental plan in mind for what to do if a bunch of new tests come back "normal", as this is now something I've had to deal with at least a half dozen times. In this current case I think I may finally be to the point that I'm ready to move beyond the testing and the searching for a diagnosis, and ready to simply move toward being as healthy as possible. This actually feels like a very liberating and refreshing shift. Of course, if this plays out like so many things in life, it'll be now, that I'm willing to stop searching for answers, that I'll find what I've been looking for the whole time. That would be OK with me too. I guess time will tell.

Camp Scholarships Now Available

If you missed the announcement over on IrunFar, I'm super stoked to say that The Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp will now be offering scholarships based on financial need. I've put the first $1500 down on this program, and have begun taking contributions to hopefully raise enough funding to cover up to 3 full scholarships. Thanks to those of you that have already contributed. If you're interested in any of the details of the scholarship program please check out this link:  http://www.akultracamp.blogspot.com/p/scholarships.html

You can find details at the above link on how to apply for a scholarship, how to nominate someone for a scholarship, or how to contribute to the scholarship fund.

Heading up to Oregon for the weekend to hangout with a couple friends who are running the Lithia Loop trail marathon. Looking forward to getting out of town and checking out a race I've never been to, even if it is from the sidelines.

Reflecting On Two Seasons Of Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp

Things came at me so quickly in August and September this year: the combination of moving from Juneau back to Boulder for the school year and coming down with health problems at this same time didn't allow me the time to reflect on the second season of Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp. With my life slowly seeming to come back to "normal" I finally feel like I have the space to recap what was another incredible summer of camps.

When I came up with the idea for these camps I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know if this would be something that people would want to do, and if they did choose to do it I had no idea if/what they would get out of the experience. I still feel like there are some things about camp that fall into the "unknown" category, but after having now completed 6 sessions I have been amazed at how satisfying, worthwhile, and valuable these camps have been - both to me and seemingly to everyone who has come to take part.

It's actually hard for me to find the words to describe what the experience of these camps has been. Each camp has been very different from the others, but the one common theme of all the sessions has been that there have always been so many great people with very open minds. Running in Juneau is very different than running almost anywhere else in the world. For virtually every participant the unique aspects about running in Juneau have been challenging. I don't think there has been a participant yet who has ever run somewhere quite like the running we do during camp. This could of course go really badly. People tend to like things that they understand. However though, people tend to learn the most when they step out of their comfort zones and challenge themselves. To some degree I think this kind of growth has occurred in everyone who has come to camp. Seeing the smiles on people's faces when they complete a run that they never thought they could do has been one of my favorite things about these camps.

Another thing that has been more enjoyable then I ever expected about these camps has been all of the non-running moments. Getting to know so many new people and spending time at the cabin sharing stories, recounting the days run, playing games, eating and drinking. In short, just getting to know so many unique people has been such a pleasant "side effect" of these camps. I've always been a firm believer that people are inherently interesting, intelligent, and fun to be around - and that when they don't come across in this way it's usually a result of the specific circumstance under which we're interacting. I feel like these camps have done so much to solidify this notion as every person who has been at camp has been interesting, intelligent, and fun to be around.

There are of course aspects of these camps which feel a little bit like work, but for the most part doing these camps feels like being on vacation. It's basically the greatest job in the world and I can't wait to do it again 3 more times in 2013. Check out the camp website if you're interested in joining the fun.

Also, if you are interested in coming to camp in 2013, but are hesitant to sign up now because of the health issues that I've been dealing with, I recommend signing up now to guarantee yourself a spot. I am feeling better and better each day, and am more confident than ever that I will be back and running strong well before next summer. However, should my health necessitate the cancellation of any camps you would receive a 100% refund of all fees paid, including the deposit. In other words, if you want a spot for next summer I suggest signing up soon, as nearly one third of the spaces are already filled up for next summer.

Looking For A New Pack?

If you've read my blog for awhile you're probably already aware that I'm not much of a gear junkie. Certainly I talk about gear on here a few times a year, but for the most part I don't get to know the technical aspects of any gear enough to really say all that much about it. I like things that work, but I don't really care why they work, I just want them to do what they are intended to do, and I want them to do it well. When I find a piece of gear that does this I stick with it. It's really that simple for me. More than three years ago I found a pair of shoes that works really well for me and I've worn them on almost every run I've been on since then: Montrail Mountain Masochist. I don't really even know (or care about) all the technical aspects of these shoes, I just know that they perform really well.

On the flip side to this, if I don't like a piece of gear I keep trying something new until I find the piece that I like. An example of this for me would be running packs. In the past 5 years I have probably used a couple dozen different running packs. There are some that I liked a lot more than others, but never one that I felt like I wanted to use on every run. Not until this year anyway. Mountain Hardwear has made huge strides in their running specific clothing and gear in the past two years, and I think their biggest contribution to this point has been their new running packs. The Fluid 6 is a pretty awesome pack if you're looking for something with a high carrying volume for overnight runs or extremely poor weather runs when you need lots of extra gear. However, for those day in and day out 1-8 hour runs, the Fluid Race Vest is the best pack I have ever used! Again, I'm not enough of a gear junkie to go into many of the technical aspects, except that this pack is a close to perfect as anything I've ever used. There are a few very minor things that could use a little tweaking, but the good thing is that the great folks at Mountain Hardwear have already made most of these adjustments and you will see these changes coming to market very soon, if not already. I literally ran a few hundred hours in this vest this summer and can't see myself running in an other pack for a long time (except on runs when I need larger volume). It really is WAY BETTER than anything else I've used.

A Lovely Walk

As the weather turns over to autumn here in Colorado, I've been stuck in pretty much the same holding pattern with my health. The good news is that I'm feeling gradually better and better, but I still have had no luck in pinning down any kind of definitive answer as to what has been ailing me. It has now been almost 3 months since the first symptoms began to appear and in that time I have had more odd sensations, pains, and fears than the rest of my life combined. The past 6 weeks has pretty much felt like a never ending bad dream.  The reality though is that it hasn't really been that bad, and as I've begun to feel a little better, I've been able to start living a somewhat normal life again. I even have some good days now in which I feel almost completely healthy. The problem is that after one or two of these days I seem to almost always relapse back into a bad patch. This past weekend was without question the most I've done active since early August. I even went for a 15 minute run on Friday! First run in nearly 6 weeks. We then had a birthday party for the little one on Saturday and went camping Saturday night and Sunday night. I would've been excited about having the energy to do this much under any circumstance as of late, but considering that I also had a Lumbar Puncture on Friday afternoon I was pretty stoked to be able to do much of anything at all. This coming weekend I'm hoping to take a trip out to Utah if I'm feeling up to it.

I've noticed in the past week or two that my mindset has shifted in all of this. For awhile I was more scared than anything. So much so that I was probably being too patient with seeking advice, care, and testing. Now though I have moved much more to a place of just wanting to heal in all ways possible. I don't feel scared anymore of what I might find out, or that I might not ever find anything out. I've also been fortunate enough to be accepted into a financial assistance program through the local hospital so I can afford to be much more aggressive in terms of testing and/or procedures. I've already had an MRI, the lumbar puncture, and a few thousand dollars worth of blood work (all out of pocket), but at least going forward I know that if I have any more major expenses I won't be footing 100% of the bill. This combined with having a few really good doctors trying their best to help me figure this out, has me now not feeling so helpless, the way that I did 6 weeks ago. I've also come to a better understanding of how important it is to integrate numerous approaches to medicine/healing when dealing with something like this. I truly believe 100% that I have some kind of specific biological condition which is causing my health to be compromised, but it's been cool to realize that western medicine might not be the only way to approach this kind of situation.

At any rate, this is a running blog. Where am I at in terms of my running? Well, of course, I want to run. I miss it dearly at this point, but just being able to get outside quite a bit in the past few weeks has been so helpful in all of this. I've been going out fishing a little bit lately, something I haven't done in a few years, but which has been a large part of my life in the past. I've also been really enjoying the simple act of riding my bike a few blocks to the market or to school to pick up/drop off the little one. One thing I do dearly miss here in Boulder (as compared to being in Juneau), is being always positioned right up against nature. On some of my bad days I hardly have enough energy to go out for a 10 minute walk. If I do that here I am only walking through the city. In Juneau, no matter where one lives you can go out for a 10 minute walk and 8 or 9 of those 10 minutes can be in the natural world. In this sense I have been cherishing our weekend trips to the mountains. I've always loved the feeling of waking up in a tent out in the natural world, but never has this had as much of an impact on my life as it has in the past two months. This past Sunday I spent the entire day outside in nature, and it was without question the best day I've had in several weeks.

It's been fun to observe things going on in the "running world": Run Rabbit Run, Wasatch, UROC, Cavalls, Bear, etc. It seems like there's been so much going on. I've been content to keep most of my focus in my little world here at home and trying to keep moving forward toward better health, but I'd by lying if I said it wasn't really hard to not even be able to do something as simple as go out for a short run. I miss the racing, and the culture of the races for sure. Each time I follow one of these races online I find myself imagining what it might be like to be there. Who I might have the opportunity to meet, and what landscapes I might have the opportunity to run through. Much more often than this though, I find myself missing the remote landscapes that I haven't been able to take myself out to on a daily basis at home. There are dozens of places in Juneau, and a few here in Colorado, that I can't even think about without crying. There are a lot of things that I value very highly in this world, but somewhere right near the very top of that list are all the amazing places I've traveled over the years under my own power. Whether it's been on bike, canoe, raft, or foot I can't possible find the words to describe how lucky I feel to have passed through all the places that I have. The views and the splendor in these places has been beyond anything imaginable, but even much larger has been the impact that these experiences have had internally. The list of ways in which I am in part defined by these experiences could fill numerous pages on this blog. Through some of the most difficult times in the past several weeks, I have felt like my strength has been lower than ever in my life, but never once have I not felt an intense desire to endure, to heal, and to get back into my strength. Without question this optimism and forward thinking has been hugely fueled by my running- past; present; and future, and by my vast experiences in nature over the years.

Today is a near perfect autumn day here in Boulder. I'm not feeling very good today, but I have the energy and the excitement to walk to Elle's school to pick her up from school. Never would I have imagined that I could experience so much and look so forward to walking 4 blocks, but right now I'm really excited for this walk. It's not quite the same thing as running for several hours in the mountains, but when your perspective shifts the way that mine has right now, it's not actually that much different. And I need to find the magic and value in these short walks before I can even begin to imagine running for several hours in the mountains again, something which I have every intention of doing thousands of times again in my life.

A Couple Exciting Things

Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes about my health. This has been an incredibly challenging time, but I'm still moving forward slowly but steadily. I still haven't pieced together a definitive diagnosis, but I have been feeling much better the past few days and I'm definitely moving closer and closer to having an understanding of what's been going on in my body. The good thing is that I've ruled out most of the more sinister things, and I'm beginning to feel confident that this is something that I'm going to be able to bounce back from as strong as ever.

And for this reason I'm super excited to officially open entry for 3 sessions of my Alaska running camps for next summer. These camps have been beyond anything I ever expected in terms of what I've been able to take away from them. I can't wait to do it again next year. Check out the camp website for all the info. Don't wait around if you're wanting to join because they are likely to fill soon.

Waiting Is The Hardest Part

It's been a long time since I've posted on here. Been in middle of moving back to Colorado for the school year, and in the midst of this I've had some bizarre health issues that have taken up virtually all of my emotional and physical energy at times. I'm feeling settled back into Colorado now, but still waiting on lots of test results to try to figure out what's going on in my body. I most definitely won't be able to race Run Rabbit Run or UROC this year, but that's about the farthest thing from my mind right now. Just want to figure out what I'm dealing with, and what I need to do to move forward in a positive and healing way.

In the meantime, here's a link to an interview I did recently:  http://leftcoastrunning.com/article/geoff-roes-interview-with-champion

Also, I plan to finalize the dates for next summer's sessions of Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp sometime in the next couple weeks, so keep an eye here or on the camp website for info. about that. We had four incredible sessions of camp this summer and plan on at least 3 again next summer.

About To Transition, But Not Just Yet

Just finished up my 4th and final camp of the season. Each one of them was a huge success and I look forward to doing a few more again next summer.  Keep an eye here for the exact dates on that sometime in the next few weeks.

It's been an incredible summer of running here in Alaska. I would have hoped for better weather, but despite one of the coldest and wettest summers ever in Juneau I was able to get out in the mountains more this summer than ever before. I'm leaving in a week to head back to Colorado for the Fall/Winter, but not before one last mountain binge up here. As long as the weather cooperates I'm hoping to get in my longest single day run ever in Juneau. I've got a route planned that will be somewhere in the ballpark of 35 or 40 miles with about 20,000 feet of ascent. Looking to "bust it out" in 15 or 16 hours.

It's weird to have run so much this summer, but to have pretty much no idea where I'm at in my running in terms of what kind of actual shape I'm in. I've done a couple mountain runs in the 2-3 hour range in which I've pushed myself pretty hard, and felt pretty good, but otherwise everything has been just about being out in the mountains and enjoying wild and scenic places. Many of the "runs" I've done have had as much stopped time as moving time. I've done almost no runs in which I've actual run the entire time. I did do a 22 or 23 miler last week in which I was running the whole time and that actually felt just fine, but kind of boring.

My plan is to head back to Colorado and begin a little more specificity in my running. I can feel myself wanting to return to a more "typical" running routine in hopes of getting back into some racing soon, but I'm only going to go down that road if it feels right when I start doing it. If things progress rapidly in that direction then I plan to race the Run Rabbit Run 100 in September, and the UROC 100k just 2 weeks later. I am however completely comfortable with the reality that I may also decide that I want to move a lot slower in that direction and maybe put off racing for several more months. Eventually the answer to this will be really obvious to me, but right now this isn't where my mind is. Instead I'm just looking at one day at a time, which means a nice mellow day of rest tomorrow to gear up for the big outing over the weekend. I'll hope to take some photos on this one and get them posted up here sometime next week.

Also, check out this link if you're interested in hearing a bit more about what I've been up to and where I'm headed.

Spaces Remain

I've recently had some folks who have needed to cancel their entry to the August 4-9 session of my Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp so there are now a handful of spaces available for this session which was previously filled. I know many of you probably have your summer plans all in order, but if anyone is interested in doing something a little different next month I'd love to have you up here to Alaska to share these amazing trails with me.

Here's a few photos from where I've been running the last couple weeks:

Summer In Juneau... Finally

It has taken quite some time this year, but summer has finally come to Juneau. I've been back here for just over a month and it has been mostly cloudy, wet, and cool. The snowpack in the mountains is still as deep as would typically be found in early to mid May, but the snow has now set up really nice and firm. This has created near perfect mountain running conditions. Combine this with 3 straight days of 75 degrees (or warmer) and sunny, and this past weekend was about as good as it gets for a mountain running binge. All told I was out running in the mountains for 26 hours in the past 4 days, with about 30,000 feet of ascent. Can't think of anywhere I'd rather be.

And of course, huge congratulations to Tim Olson, Ellie Greenwood, and the hundreds of other runners who had amazing races at Western States this past weekend. Some pretty impressive and inspiring stuff.

Here's a few photos/videos from my past few days:

No Hardrock

Thanks to everyone for the helpful and encouraging comments in response to my last post. Many of you were very dead on in your recommendations and observations. I had my Iron levels retested last week and was pleased to learn that I have been absorbing the supplements quite nicely. My ferritin levels rose from 33 to 97 (the doctor I saw in January suggested I should shoot for getting it up to 100).

I'm back in Alaska now and my plan is to begin the gradual process of getting my strength and fitness back to where I know it can be. I intend to take it fairly easy in the next couple weeks and then begin to incorporate some weight training and some intentional speed work, as my body hopefully starts to feel like it has more energy. It's been so long since I've done any consistent training below 9:00/mile (due to the altitude I've been living at), that even getting out on some mellow 7:30-8:00/mile runs will be a much needed jolt to my system.

I went ahead today and officially pulled myself out of Hardrock! I'm super bummed to have to do this, but I know that I can't be ready to run that race the way I want to run it, and I just don't want to dig myself any deeper into a hole. I think I have a plan in place that could get me back in top racing shape in a 4 or 5 months, but if I tried to run Hardrock in the middle of that it might set things back another several months, and I'm just not willing to do that right now. It's been about a year since I was last able to run fast and feel good doing so. I feel pretty good just plugging along at a mellow pace, but for now I'm not content to only plug along at a slow pace. I want to run fast sometimes too, and I'm quite excited about the challenge of teaching my body to do so again.

Post Transvulcania

Back in the States now after my trip to the Canary Islands for Transvulcania. Certainly my race didn't go as well as I had hoped for. I started out feeling pretty good on the climb up from sea level to over 6,000 ft. In all we did about 7,000 ft. of ascent in the first 12 miles, but when things levelled out and became a lot more runable I began to feel really slow. I basically felt like I was running in several inches of mud, when in reality the trail was quite smooth and runnable. The further I went, the worse it got. Gradually my stomach also started to be less than ideal. It wasn't that I was sick, but I just wasn't processing calories as fast as I knew I needed to. After a couple hours of fading gradually back into the field (was probably running in about 15th place at this point) I linked up with Seb Chagneau who was having very similar struggles. Seb and I ran together for another 90 minutes, but when we reached the aid station at about mile 35 (the high point of the course) we both decided to call it a day. From there it was an 8,000 ft descent back down to sea level before another thousand foot climb up to the finish. Certainly I could have finished, but my body was working so inefficiently most of the day that I was completely worked over at 35 miles. I would have almost certainly been walking most of that descent and struggling just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. In some cases I am happy to push myself to that point, but this race wasn't one of those cases. I wanted to run fast in this race, but I was primarily approaching it as a training run, and continuing on any further than I did would have been a training setback rather than a benefit.

I have now had 3 or 4 races like this in the past year. Races in which I thought I was in pretty good shape and then when I tried to run fast (i.e. race) I felt slow and weak. It's not a fun place to be. No one ever wants to be in a position where they feel like they can't run anywhere near as fast as they could 12 or 18 months previous. More and more I have begun to feel this in my training also. I seem to have plenty of energy and endurance, but my muscles just seem to be weak, slow, and slow to recover. I had some bloodwork done in January and discovered that my iron was quite low, but after 4 months of fairly aggressive iron supplementation my body doesn't seem to have responded. I'll get my iron levels checked again soon to be certain that I'm absorbing some of the iron I'm taking.

My best guess about all of this is that I have been living too high since moving to Colorado. Not so much that i have been living too high, but that I have been training too high. I live at 8,600 ft. and virtually all the training I do is up from there. My body has felt somewhat flat ever since moving to Colorado and over time it has become steadily worse. What I think has happened is that I have been running so high all the time that I consistently train quite a bit slower than I would if I were down lower. Over the short term this isn't a big deal, and can even be a benefit due to the improvement in heart/lungs from high altitude. Over the long term though, I think my muscles have weakened from always running slower. There is also the possibility that my appetite has been suppressed enough due to the altitude that my body has been forced on occasion to use my muscle protein for fuel without me even feeling unusually hungry. The result over time is that my muscles are essential just a fraction of what they once were. The crazy thing is that I can even see it and feel it in my legs. The muscles in my quads are soft, small, feel very weak when I use them, and just don't seem to have the capacity to run hard at all.

The good thing is that I am going to Alaska and will be living/training below 5,000 ft. for most of the summer. Also, when I return to Colorado in August I am going to be moving down from 8,600 ft to about 5,400 ft. If my conditioning over the past 21 months has been negatively effected by living so high, then my upcoming living situation should naturally work things out in time.

Going to Alaska always feels very restorative to me, but this time around it might be a lot more tangible of a restoration than ever before. Not sure how long the whole process will take to rebuild the muscle that I have depleted over the past 21 months, but it feels good to know that the process has now begun.

Transvulcania

It's been a hectic few weeks getting packed up to move out of my place in Colorado and back to Alaska for the summer. That's all finally done with and now I'm off tomorrow morning for the Canary Islands to race the Transvulcania 50 miler. I have had just enough time to get back into good enough shape to go give a hard effort. I'd feel a lot more confident if I had 2 or 3 more weeks of solid training behind me, but I'll make the best of what I have. No matter how it plays out it should be really fun to go to a tropical island and race against many of the best trail runners in the world. In reality I'm approaching this as nothing more than a "training race" for Hardrock, but I've run plenty of really good training races in the past so, who knows, maybe I can pop a good one on Saturday. It's certainly going to take one of the best races of my life to be anywhere near the front of the pack in this one.

June Camp

Wanted to post a quick Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp update.

I had reported a few months ago that the June 8th-14th session was full, but since then I decided to add a 4th session in August. I have recently had a few people switch from the June session to the August session so I now have 2 spaces open in this June session that I was turning people away from most of the winter. I don't think there is a bad time for running in Juneau in the summer, but if there is a best time it might just be mid June. The days are longest this time of year, and the weather tends to be really nice. If you've got this camp in the back of your mind, but not totally certain you want to go for it, I highly recommend grabbing one of these remaining spaces in the June session. There's a reason why this session was the first to fill up in the fall, and now  there are two spaces waiting for a couple lucky folks. Check out the camp website for more info:  http://www.akultracamp.blogspot.com/

The Slow Return To Shape

Not once since I began trail racing in 2006 have I taken as much time off, and been as out of shape as I was this winter. I know it sounds crazy to say that I took the winter off as I was preparing for and "running" the Iditarod Invitational, but in terms of having my body in shape to run, and run hard, this is the lowest point I have gone to in 6 years.

I have now been back at consistent running for just over 3 weeks and I'd be lying if I said the process of getting back in shape hasn't been very gradual. Any other times in the past few years that I've taken time "off" it's been less than a month and I could pretty much start back up and be back in the swing of things in two weeks or less. This time though, I didn't do any typical running for about 3 full months. All of the running that I did in preparation for the ITI was in deep snow, mostly with snowshoes, and mostly hiking. Even during the 350 mile race I probably only ran 80 miles. And so now, 3 weeks into everyday running, I am beginning to feel a little bit back in shape, but I'm also aware that I have a long ways to go.

This past Friday, Joe and I decided to tag South Arapahoe Peak. Typically, even when I'm "out of shape", I can bust out a run like this, and feel fine as long as I don't push it too hard. Not this time though. The combination of the altitude (we topped out over 13,000 ft.) and the vertical gain (a bit over 5k) had me completely wiped out from this sub 4 hour outing. I felt like I had been racing for 4 hours (even though our pace was VERY SLOW), and several muscles in my legs were sore for a couple days after. A nice little reminder that I am still very much out of shape. 

I'm still hoping to be in decent shape by May 12th to put in a good effort at the Transvulcania 50, but certainly Hardrock is the ultimate goal for the next several months. I'm very glad that I still have almost 3 full months before that beast. In some ways it even feels kind of nice to be where I'm at right now, and have so far to go to be where I want to be. Not that I would need any more motivation than simply preparing for Hardrock, but knowing that I have so far to go, somehow makes the whole process feel more exciting, and more likely to be a positive experience. 

Overall my hope/plan is to just keep building and feel a little stronger each week. I've done that for the past 3 weeks, and if I can continue to do that for the next 12 then I think I might just be where I want to be by July 13th.