Sunday, January 6, 2008

Miwok Blues

I've been trying to decide for the past several days whether to run the Miwok 100k in May. I went to bed last night still not sure but when I woke up at 6:59 this morning I decided I may as well just get up and register for the race as long as I was awake anyway. Registration began at 7:00 but it felt really nice to just relax in bed for awhile and it's not like 250 people were going to enter by 7:15 if I just waited a bit. Famous last words. When I finally got up at 7:20 the race was full!! I'm now on the waiting list but I don't expect anything to come of that.

The smart thing to do would be to take this as a sign that I shouldn't do a race in May at all and should just be focusing at that time on preparing for The Great Divide Race. Truth is though I'm thinking pretty seriously about running the Jemez Mountain 50 miler in New Mexico on May 17th. I guess the reason I feel an urge to run a race in May is that I'm not certain of how my body will recover from the GDR. It's entirely possible that I'll be too thrashed to make a serious attempt at a quality race in the late summer or fall. Then again I may have the same problem in May as a result of being too thrashed from the Iditarod Invitational.

The campout went OK the other night. I don't really like winter camping all that much but I did learn some things and actually got a pretty good night of sleep. Best part was that it was entirely clear that night and for my first time ever in Juneau I got to fall asleep looking up at a star filled sky.

I've got some work to do on my sled. For some reason it felt "heavier" than last winter loaded with all my gear but I didn't really have any more stuff in it then I did during the Susitna 100. It also seemed to jerk around on my back more than last year. Through a series of trial and error I'll get it dialed in. I just wish we had more snow so I had more options for training with my sled. Right now my only choice is to take it to the XC ski trails at the Mendenhall Lake Campground. Problem here is that the entire trail is only 1.8 miles and currently probably only has 2 or 3 inches of snow on it.

4 comments:

  1. Geoff~ Again, nothing like field testing to work out the quirks in the equipment. You'll get those sled issues worked out eventually.

    Man, it was cold out there for your adventure! Not as cold as it might be for the Iditarod Invitational, but still... darn cold enough. Gives me the shivers just to think about camping out when it's five above zero.

    My only cold weather camping experience came from my seven month backpacking trip to Europe in the 1980's. I'd gone to Yugoslavia (back when it was Yugoslavia) to visit a friend but arrived late in the evening on a cold twenty five degree December night. I didn't want to call and wake her, so I camped out next to the train yard that evening with engines idling all night long. The ground rumbled, light snow fell and dogs began to bark late into the night and early morning which meant no sleep for me. Blurry eyed, I made my way back into the train station cafe at 5am for a stiff cup of bitter turkish coffee. Not a night to remember, but one that is hard to forget.

    Happy trails ~ ~ Dave

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  2. If you decide on jemez, give a shout, I'd like to meet you...though you'd probably hit top 3 and I'd see you getting an award:) Sorry about miwok, I managed to get in and still not sure why I did - my friend talked me into it. I really always looked at miwok as a prep/test for ws, nothing else.

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  3. You could do Zane Grey at the end of April, or come do the KTR in mid-May.

    Not a bad consellation prize.

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