Monday, August 25, 2008

Wasatch Is Going To Be Kind Of Hard

I've gotten a couple of great Wasatch Course scouting runs in the past 2 days but I definitely need more time to get used to the heat and altitude. I feel pretty wasted tonight from 30 miles today. I ran the last 25 miles of the route from Brighton to The Homestead and then 5 miles from there to my friend's house in Heber. I basically have no ability to run anything uphill right now without my heart rate jumping way too high. I've only been in Utah for 5 days and I've got 11 more until race day so I'm really hoping my body's dealing a lot better with the altitude by then. Yesterday I ran from Brighton back toward Mill Creek as an out and back. That gives me the last 35 miles of the route covered in 24 hours (my run yesterday was in the evening), and about 50 total miles (10 extra doubling back yesterday and 5 extra getting down to Heber today). I guess it makes sense that I'm kind of tired tonight. Tomorrow and Wednesday I'll try to scout everything from Big Mountain over to Dog Lake where I turned around on my run last night. At that point I'll have the last 60 miles of the course under my belt and should be able to comfortably cover the first 40 by early next week (as long as I can arrange transportation so I can cover a decent amount of this mileage without doubling back - unfortunatly my bike is still being shipped down from Alaska so I don't yet have the option of shuttling myself with my bike).
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3 comments:

  1. Alaskan Dave Down UnderAugust 26, 2008 at 3:29 PM

    Yeah, but you always run great when you are like this. You've got 10 more days to acclimatize/acclimate/getusedtoaltitude.

    I look forward to reading your race report whereupon you've blown the supported racers out of the water!

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  2. DianaAugust 26, 2008 at 4:39 PM

    This is probably too late, and maybe you already know..but maybe take some ginkgo biloba? I took that when I traveled to some high altitudes in South America, and didn't have any problems with the altitude. Then again, I wasn't running in patches of thirty miles, either.

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  3. AnonymousAugust 26, 2008 at 5:41 PM

    For what's it worth, I think you should be well acclimated by the time the race rolls around. I recall a study done by a European cross country ski team before the Salt Lake Olympics to find foods that helped the process. I think it mentioned that spinach was a great one but dairy hampered things.

    Good Luck!

    Strabel

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