UROC 100k Race Recap

The UROC 100k ended up being quite unlike any race I've ever run. I've had races with a few low points, but never so many as I had in this race. The good thing was that when I would battle through the low points and turn things around I would feel great for a period of time. In this way it felt a lot like 5 or 6 races crammed into one 9 hour run.

I actually felt really good in my training leading up to this race, but being that I basically only trained 2 weeks I certainly wasn't expecting too much on race day. The open mindedness that I took into this race was probably the only thing that kept me plugging along with almost constant focus and determination all day. Had I gone into this expecting more from my body it might have been hard to keep pushing through so many struggles.

Things started pretty typical. A few guys running really hard out front (especially Mackey and Gall) and a "chase group" of 6 or 8 guys including Wardian, Flaherty, Grossman, Sharman, Basham, myself, and others. For the first 20 miles I felt okay. Certainly I wasn't feeling great but I was having fun and I was happy with my position in the race. At this point I was running anywhere between 3rd and 6th, anywhere from 3-6 minutes behind Mackey and Gall. The pace was fast and I was quite certain that no one was going to keep up anything close to this pace, but I felt like maybe I could hold on to something close to this and hope to drop others as the miles built up.

But then we hit the largest climb of the race, just after mile 20. Almost as soon as we started up it became obvious that I was the one that was going to get dropped. Flaherty and Wardian both put some time on me on this climb and I got to the top of it (mile 26) feeling pretty horrible. I knew I was going to keep plugging along and finish the race but I certainly didn't think there was much chance I would be able to do it as a serious competitor near the front. At one point just past the mile 26 aid station I remember doing the math and trying to figure out whether I was even going to be able to finish this thing before dark. It took me about 3:40 to run the first 26 miles and I was pretty sure I was going to be lucky to run the last 36 miles anywhere near this pace. I was thinking sub 12 hours was going to be a challenge.

And thus down the road I went from mile 26. But slowly I started to feel a little bit better. I was running in 5th place and kept looking behind me. Not because I was worried about whether someone was going to catch me from behind, but because I just wanted to run with someone for awhile. I thought if I could just take my mind off of how crappy I was feeling I might be able to turn things around. And then somewhere a little bit before the mile 33 aid station I realized that I was actually feeling really good. I hit the aid station and got a boost from the fact that I was only 6 minutes behind Flaherty and 10 minutes behind the leaders (this turned out to be some good sugar coating from the folks at the aid station as I was actually 16 minutes behind the leaders at that point). The best news I got here though was that I was getting back onto rolling, technical trail for the next 8 miles. All day I was running stronger than anyone whenever we hit the rolling or downhill trail. I just never really had it on the uphills or on the roads. And so I hit this trail and hit it hard. Suddenly out of nowhere I was feeling about as good as I've ever felt in a race. Within minutes I saw Dave who was walking back to the aid station to drop out; passed Scott who was hurting pretty bad (and would eventually drop out); and passed Matt. These 3 had come through the aid station 16, 11, and 7 minutes ahead of me respectively. And I passed all of them within 3 miles! By now Wardian was the only one ahead of me and when I met him (this is an out and back section) on the trail he looked smooth and strong.

When I finished the out and back trail I was 16 minutes behind Wardian (had taken only a minute off his lead in that 8 miles) with just over 20 miles to go in the race. It was clearly going to be a serious battle to try to catch him. And this was when things got really crazy for me. I would feel great for 2 or 3 minutes at a time, become almost certain that I was going to be able to chase down the lead and then almost out of nowhere I would feel horrible again. Just when I would get frustrated with how bad I felt I would start to feel good again without even realizing it. The stretch from mile 41 to mile 48.5 is entirely road. I knew no matter how strong I ran this part I wasn't going to gain too much on Wardian so I just tried to keep moving steady and save as much as I could for the last part of the race that would really cater to my strengths (mile 48.5 - 53.5). When I got to the aid station at mile 48.5 I found out that I had cut another few minutes off his lead. I was now about 14 minutes behind and feeling pretty good (even though I had had about 5 distinct ups and downs in this stretch).

I headed up the dirt road out of the aid station and just began preparing myself mentally and physically for the 3 or 4 miles of downhill technical trail coming up. I knew that if my body responded the way I was hoping it would that I could likely cut his lead in half on this one short stretch of trail. I hit the downhill and my body responded. I was running smoother and faster than I had run all race. I wanted this terrain to continue all the way to the finish, but knowing that it wouldn't (the last 9 miles of the race is all road) made me push even harder to make up as much time as possible. I was cruising down the narrow trail when I came across some folks at a junction in the trail who told me that it seemed quite likely that Wardian had taken the fork to the left (because no one had seen him ahead on the proper trail that went to the right). This was a very easy spot to go off course because earlier in the race we had come up from the trail to the left and the course markings were still there in that direction because there were still a few back of the pack racers coming up that way.

Almost instantly this news took a huge amount of focus and determination out of me. I didn't know for sure if he had in fact made the wrong turn, but I also didn't know if he was out in front of me. Suddenly I had no idea if I was chasing or being chased. And I was low on calories and I was bummed. Bummed for Mike, but also bummed because I was having so much fun trying to chase him down. Eventually I received confirmation that he had gone off course and that I had a large lead. I put it into low gear and just grinded it out to the finish.

In hindsight it seems very unlikely that I could have caught him if he had stayed on course, but I also think that I would have been able to make it very interesting for the last few miles. He was running uphills stronger than me all day and the last 3 miles of the race is all uphill. Even had I somehow found the energy to pull even with him it's hard to imagine that I then would have been able to out race him up that last climb. But it sure would have been fun to try.

In all this was a really satisfying race and great learning experience for me. It was far from my best day physically, but for the first time ever I learned that I'm capable of pushing through so many low points in one run. I got a bit lucky to win the race, but I feel really satisfied with the fact that on pretty much persistence alone I was able to be in the position to finish near the front of this race. In almost all respects I think this race taught me more as a runner (and as a person) than it would have if I had felt great all day and been able to simply run away from the field on physical strength alone.

It was also a really well run event and a great group of folks to run with (many who I've run with a lot in the past, and many I had never met before). I think this first UROC race was a huge success and it was cool to see everyone involved so excited about the event and looking forward to where it goes from here. I know I am. It seems almost certain it'll only get more exciting in the coming years.

UROC

Heading out to Virginia this weekend to race the UROC 100k. Should be a fun weekend getting together with a lot of friends and running some fun East Coast trails. Although I much prefer the running in the West I do like to get out to the East for a race once a year or so. It adds some nice variety to the big mountain stuff out West.

One thing that I think could be really exciting (for online spectators) about this race is that they will be doing some race day video coverage of the race! There will be a slight delay in the footage, but this is quite certainly the most ambitious attempt at race day coverage of any existing ultra in North America. This is probably just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what's possible in this regard, but it'll be interesting to see how well they can pull it off and how people respond to it. Check out more info. about it here.

In terms of how I'm feeling about this race, that is pretty hard to say. I'm definitely just heading out there with a very open mind. After UTMB I had decided I wasn't going to race UROC. I knew I needed a bit of a break and I was pretty sure I needed a long enough break that I likely wouldn't be running at all until sometime in October or later. After 10 days completely off after UTMB though I started to go for some short runs and I was feeling really good (both physically and mentally). I spent several days trying to decide whether to race UROC or not. In the end I just felt my intuition pushing me toward doing the race. I have no idea how the race will go for me, and I probably have fewer expectations about this race than most any race I've ever done, but I do feel really excited to race this weekend. Ever since definitively deciding (about one week ago) that I would race I have felt really good about this decision and about this race. I have no idea if this means that I will have a good performance on Saturday from a racing standpoint, but I do feel confident that I will have a worthwhile and satisfying weekend no matter how the race plays out for me.

Some folks have complained about UROC being a bit dramatic and over the top in it's marketing approach, or simply in the approach of calling itself, "The Ultra Race of Champions." Certainly I can understand where these sentiments come from as I have always been a big fan of showing people things rather than telling people things. In the case of a race this would mean simply creating the race, enticing top runners to run, offering some big prize money (optional, but perhaps necessary to getting to where UROC is trying to go), and letting folks decide for themselves that this a "championship" type race. At the same time though UROC's approach makes perfect sense to me. Most races have a vision of where they want to get to. In being really clear and open and active with this vision UROC has gotten very far in one year. Compare this to something like the North Face Endurance Challenge Championship race which has instead gone with the "if you build it they will come" approach. I am not certain if North Face's vision with that event was to create a "championship" type race with dozens of top runners from around the world, but one can only imagine this to be the case due to the huge prize purse they put up and the fact that Championship is part of the name of the race. Assuming that this was their vision all along it's amazing to me that they've done almost nothing to promote or encourage this vision. And I think this is the only reason that it took the NF race 3 or 4 years to develop as strong of a field and as much attention on the race as UROC seems to have in it's first year. I'll be honest, the laid-back approach that the NF has taken is probably a lot more my style than the very active approach that UROC has taken, but it's hard to argue that UROC's approach hasn't been more effective in moving more quickly toward their vision. Ultimately though I guess only time will tell, it will be interesting to see what the sustainability will be of these two races. My guess is we'll see some huge changes (presumably improvements) in the next few years from UROC as they continue to be very active about reaching their "vision." North Face on the other hand has changed almost nothing about their race in 5 years and it'll be interesting to see if this static approach will ultimately be to their benefit or to their detriment.

Satisfaction

I recently wrote something to the effect that "this has likely been the most satisfying year of running I have ever had." Based on comments on this blog, emails I have received, and some comments I've read on other blogs it seems as though some people have a hard time believing this. Here's my attempt at explaining it a little more clearly:

The typical confusion seems to come from the idea that satisfaction as a runner is more or less dependent upon race performance. More specifically it seems like many folks can't believe that this could possibly be a satisfying year of running for me because I DNF'ed at Western States and UTMB. I fully accept that for many people race performance and satisfaction as a runner do inherently run hand in hand, but this has never been the case for me. Sure, it's all part of the equation, and performing well at a race can be (and almost always is) really satisfying, but this doesn't (for me) mean that performing poorly is automatically unsatisfying. And more specifically, a couple poor performances certainly don't define an entire year as unsatisfying. I've been on almost 200 runs this year. The vast majority of them have been really wonderful and satisfying, a few of them beyond any satisfaction I've ever gotten from running previously.

For a few years now my primary running goal going into each season has been to be healthy and fit enough to spend huge amounts of time outdoors, in the mountains, exploring my surroundings on the power of my own legs. This year I have done more of this than ever before, and I've been fortunate enough to do this with dozens of really wonderful people. This is why I said that this has likely been the most satisfying year of running I've ever had.

Beyond this though, about 8 or 10 times a year I like to get together with a whole bunch of like minded and capable runners and share the experience of all pushing ourselves as hard as we can over a particular route, each of us looking for a way to do this a little faster than everyone else, or a little faster than we thought possible of ourselves. But again this is 8 or 10 of the 200-300 runs that I go on each year. I'm bummed that I had very little gas in the tank on a few of these runs this year, but in no way do I look at this as reason to feel like this has been an unsatisfying year of running.

Just a bit of food for thought on your Monday afternoon. Hopefully this explains things a little more clearly for those who seemed confused or in disbelief.

Camp Reminder

Wanted to put out a quick reminder that entry is open for the 3 sessions of my Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp for next summer. I have been taking entries for about one month and next year's total space is almost half full already. The good news is that the entries I have received so far have been spread pretty evenly between the three sessions so at least for the time being there are several spaces available for each session. I do plan to do some advertising in magazines and at races in the next several months so if you are interested you might want to move on it before it's too late. It appears in all likelihood that the camps will be filled up by the end of the year, or by the early part of 2012, if not before. Click here to check out the camp website for more info.

The African Attachment

Check out this great little video about UTMB put together by "The African Attachment", a South African film company who is as enjoyable and easy to work with as they are good at making movies. Keep up the good work guys: Check out the film here.

Happy Feet

This has been a very up and down season of running so far for me. It's probably been the most enjoyable year of running I've ever had, but certainly having 2 big dnf's in my top races of the Summer season has been a bit unsatisfying.

One seemingly insignificant (but in fact very important) thing that has been nice to not have to think about all year however has been my feet. Whatever troubles I've had with my body at times this season, foot issues have not been a part of that at all. I haven't had a blister, a black toenail, a numb toe, or any noticeable foot fatigue all year. There are several factors at play here (shoes, continued adaptation, luck, etc), but it's hard not to equate at least some of my "happy feet" to DryMax socks.

I started wearing DryMax socks right around the first of the year and 9 months later my feet are without a doubt in the best shape they have ever been in since I took up ultrarunning. My belief has always been that a sock can only do so much for us. To some degree I of course still feel this way. The perfect sock is only going to do so much to make us better runners, but I can say that DryMax socks are without question the best socks I've ever worn in terms of allowing me to never have to think much about my feet. And really what more can we demand from a sock? If you haven't tried DryMax socks and you ever have any of the above mentioned issues with your feet, I'd highly recommend giving them a try. I was skeptical for years that running socks really varied much at all, but this season has made it really obvious to me that not all socks are created equal.

UTMB DNF - What Went Wrong

My block of training after Western States leading up to UTMB was not great by any means. I got some really long, really fun runs in, but through much of this time my body wasn't recovering as smoothly from long runs as usual and this was forcing me to take more days off than usual. Three weeks before uTMB though I started to feel a lot better for a nice 10 or 12 day stretch in which I got in 3 nice long runs (about 30 miles each and about 25k ascent between the three of them) and seemed to recover right away from each one of them. This gave me a nice bit of confidence going into the race. I felt that my body was feeling better than it had all summer, and I felt that my mind and my body were as ready for this race as any race since UTMB a year ago. I was however a little bit uncertain about the fact that by the time the race would start I had not run a step in 6 days. When I arrived in Geneva on Monday my luggage was not with me. I didn't get my stuff until late Wednesday night, therefore I had nothing with me except the clothes I had worn on my flight, and thus didn't do any running in the days leading up to the race. I was a little concerned about this, but I also looked at the forced rest as perhaps a good thing since my body was having a slow time recovering all summer.

And so I started the race in what I would call a cautiously confident state of mind. The weather was pretty nasty (cold and rainy) at the start but I wasn't too concerned about this. I was carrying (by requirement) enough stuff with me to run through a hurricane. I can't imagine any conditions in which I would ever wear all the gear they make us carry in this race. I have never run a step in my life in waterproof pants, and I can't imagine a scenario in which I ever would.

At any rate, off we were and I was feeling pretty good. It was amazing how similar the first three hours of this race were to the first three last year. The weather was about the same. I was running in about the same part of the pack on the way down to Les Houches, and somewhere near town Mike Wolfe and I seperated a little bit ahead of the rest of the American runners and began the climb over to St. Gervais behind a lead group of 5 or 6 European runners, led by Kilian. On the way down to St. Gervais several runners (including Nico of course) went blowing by us and then Mike and I gradually reeled them all back in on the gradual ascent on the way to Les Contamines. By the time we arrived in Les Contamines (30k) we had caught up with the 4 person lead pack and the 6 of us ran into the aid station within a few feet of each other. Things had progressed so similar as last year to this point that I was kind of caught off guard when we weren't told that the race was being stopped. Instead we made exchanges with our crews and were off up the trail toward the first serious high alpine of the race.

I wouldn't say I was feeling great heading out of Les Contamines, probably pretty average for 20 miles into a 100 mile race. But the rain had stopped, the stars were coming out, and I felt like the 6 of us were likely settling into a lead group that would end up doing battle for several hours of time through the mountains. Mike looked strong, Kilian and Miguel I knew would be strong for a long time down the trail. I didn't know the other two runners but I just kind of had a hunch that we would all be sharing this adventure for a huge portion of the race. I also knew that Sebastien was just a couple minutes back and would probably join us for the fun.

And then we hit the first steep climbing about 20 minutes past Les Contamines and almost instantly my body felt weak and challenged. I was cramping a bit. Cramping in my legs, but also cramping in my arms and my hips and my abdomen muscles. Cramps in places I have never cramped before. This also caught me off guard as we were only just over 3 hours into the race. I've never cramped that early in a race before. And so I had no choice but to slow way down on that climb. Initially I was fine with this. I was pretty sure I just needed to drink a lot, eat a lot, take in some salt, keep moving as best I could, and things would come around for me. I made it to the top of the climb in pretty bad shape and then when I started running down it felt even worse. The muscles all over my body felt like I had already run most of the race. By the time I got down to Les Chapieux (50k) I physically felt like I should be almost to the finish, when in reality I had not even run 1/3 of the race yet. From here things just progressed further in this direction. Each mile I ran seemed to effect my body as though I had run 10. My quads were pretty much destroyed by the time I began the descent down off of Col De La Seigne.

My mind stayed strong and I shifted quickly from try to compete mode to try to finish mode. I slowed way down and tried to regroup. Ultimately it was way too late though. By the time I finally dropped in Courmayeur (78k) my body was just too thrashed to continue. I was to the point in which I was walking the steep descents backward because my quads couldn't take the impact anymore. I was doing damage to my body with every step I took and thus the decision to stop was almost not even a decision that I needed to make with my mind, my body had made it for me.

With this experience behind me it's still a bit diffucult for me to know what went wrong. There were a lot of top level runners (American and Foreign alike) who had days very similar to mine. The common thing I kept hearing from almost everyone who dropped out of this race (which was more than half of the starters) was that they eventually just hit a point where their bodies felt like they had already run 100 miles. For several folks this occured even earlier in the race than it did for me! For me though I don't know how much my troubles were isolated to this race and this specific day. The weather was a bit tough, and it's a challenging course for sure, although not enough more challenging than a few other hundreds I've done (Wasatch, HURT, and Bear) that I should have felt as beaten up physically after 4 hours as I usually do only after 17+. For me I think my diffucult race was more of a larger picture thing. My body has not felt "normal" for the better part of 3 months now. Typically I feel below average (physically) about 20% of the times I go out for a run. The other 80% is usually average or above. In the past three months though this ratio has pretty much been flipped around. I've been able to fool myself into thinking everything was OK by taking way more days off than I usually do, but this race made it obvious to me that it's not a few days off that I need, but rather a few weeks or months. Just as we hit low stretches in our running in the shorter term, I think I have hit a low stretch in the longer term. After more than 24 months of pretty steady growth and strengthing in my body, I have hit a point in which my muscles need to reset a bit before they can go forward. Basically I feel myself at the same point I was in May of 2009. At that time I took about a month off and came back to running not even sure if or when I would race again. By the end of September that year I had run (and won) 3 hundred mile races. I bounced back that time even stronger than I had been before that.

I had a very strong craving to do well in this race, but I didn't have the fitness right now to do so. I'm OK with this. I'm glad that I finally put my body up against something so challenging that I have no choice but to read the writing on the wall of such an inability of my body to perform when pushed to do so. Where this all will take me in the next several months I have no idea. That's the thing about reseting and then moving on. You have no idea what moving on looks like until you do the resetting. I'm actually really excited for the next several months, and to see where this all takes me. It's hard to totally clear the mind, reset, and just go with what feels right down the road, but this will be what I hope to accomplish over the next several weeks/months.

UTMB Delayed... Again!

For those following along online in The States (or anywhere in the world for that matter), we got news a bit ago that the race start has been postponed by 5 hours. We will now be starting at 23:30 France time, which is 5:30pm EST in the US. There's a pretty strong and fairly fast moving storm expected to roll through here right around the time that the race was supposed to start. I guess their hope now is that the worst of it will have passed by the time we start 5 hours later. Going to be a lot of tired folks with this race starting about the time most people are used to falling asleep for the night.

I for one love the later start for a few reasons. First of all the storm is going to bring in some very cool weather. We might be running in some rain/snow in the first third of the race, but by sunrise it's supposed to be mostly cleared up and significantly cooler than it's been. Cool weather = better stomach performance which more often than not = better overall performance. I also like that we will get to see a lot more of the route in daylight. Instead of running in darkness for 10+ hours we will do it for about 6 or 7. I love running in the dark, but these mountains here are so amazingly dramatic I want to see as much of them as possible. And the third reason I like the later race start is just that it's something different. In the United States there is such a format to most of our ultras. They're almost all one of 4 exact distances and they almost all start between 5:00 and 8:00am. I love that this is simply a run around a mountain (it happens to be right around 100 miles, but only by chance, not by design) and that we are starting at 11:30 at night. It just gives the whole thing even more of a unique and exciting feel.

And beyond all of this there is nothing like having 2,500 runners primed and ready to do a run that they've been preparing for for most of the year and then telling them they need to wait even 5 more hours. You can just feel the tension in the air here now. It's easy to react negatively to news like this, and part of me is frustrated with the situation, but the decision has been made and now it's time to just wait a little longer and try to get some more rest. As soon as we line up, take the start, and run out of Chamonix the whole 5 hour delay is going to mean nothing in comparison to the adventure that lies ahead. Personally I have a feeling that this is going to be one of the most satisfying runs of my life so I don't really care so much when we start... just as long as we get to actually finish this time around.

One Year Later

I've been ready to run UTMB again for a full year after last year's postponed race. This has pretty much been my focus race since the day after this race one year ago. Keeping my finger's crossed now that the weather cooperates enough to let this one go off without any stoppages. The forecast currently looks a lot like the weather last year!

My week here in Chamonix started out a bit sour. I arrived several hours late into Geneva on Monday and my luggage (with all my race gear) arrived 2.5 days late! Until late in the day yesterday I didn't know if I was even going to receive my stuff before the race. Certainly I'll be going into this one very fresh as I didn't have anything with me to be able to go out for any running. The only clothing I had were the clothes I wore on the flight. I'm probably a little bit over rested but I'll take that any day vs. being over trained.

For those following along online it should be a pretty good one to follow. When the race leaders pass through La Fouly (110k) they will be giving all of the top runners a small gps device that will show the leaders progress with less than a few minutes delay.

Nothing left for me now except to sleep, eat, and run in the mountains all night and most of the day Saturday. Doesn't get much better than that.

Consistency

It's no secret that consistent practice of any physical activity can and typically does lead to improved performance at that activity. If only it were really that simple though. In the case of something like running there is only so much running that our bodies can handle before it's too much. This amount varies from person to person, but in the case of most experienced ultrarunners I think there is more of a tendancy to run too often than not enough. I do think consistency is crucial to maximize one's potential, but in the case of something as physically degrading (if overdone) as ultrarunning I think long term sustained consistency is much more important than short term consistency. This is to say that I think it's a lot more important to be consistent over the course of months and even years than it is to be consistent over the course of days or weeks.

Why is long term consistency so important in this sport? Running 50 or 100 miles is not a matter of precision and fine tuning. It is a matter of deep rooted mental and physical strength and endurance which is developed through a series of micro adaptations that we make over the course of years. No matter how hard you train in the 2 or 3 months leading up to your first 50 or 100 mile race you are going to get worked over really hard in that race. Of course there are random exceptions, but everyone I know has been physically hammered by their first ultra. On the flip side of this I see folks (myself included) who have trained and raced consistently for a few years (or in some cases for decades) who have been able to make these gradual adaptations such that they can race every few weeks and only the occasional "race gone bad" has the extreme physical effect that those first few ultras seem to have on everyone. I remember shortly after I ran my first 50 miler someone told me that if I kept doing them fairly regularly that my body would "learn" to do this without even being sore the next day. At the time I thought there was no chance of this. Now, 5 years and about 35 races later, I rarely have very much soreness after a 50 mile race.

Anyhow, if you've read this far you might now be thinking, "okay, good point about long term consistency, but this doesn't make short term consistency unimportant." To some degree I think it does though, because in my experience the most likely way to be consistent over the long term is to not over do short term consistency which in almost all cases seems to lead to eventual injury, fatigue, or burnout that limits long term consistency. This is to say that rather than focusing too much on trying to run a certain amount everyday, or a certain amount of time/mileage each week I think most ultrarunners could benefit a lot from just adopting a lifestyle of going out and running when their bodies and minds (and logistics of day to day life) allow for it and not so much when they don't. Running every single day for a year or running 100 miles a week for a year (if you are one of the rare few to pull this off without getting injured or burnt out) isn't going to make you nearly as capable of an ultrarunner as running a consistent and challenging amount of mileage/hours per year for several years. A few weeks without much running, or even a month, will do virtually nothing to set us back once we have built up all these micro adaptations that this kind of long term consistency leads to. But we can only get to this point if we can stay generally healthy for a long period of time.

How do we best do this? By not focusing too much on short term consistency and just taking individual days as they come and letting our bodies dictate when and how much we run. Of course this is just my opinion about all of this. And of course there are many folks who defy this theory, but I would argue that most ultrarunners would actually run more (and faster) over the course of the long haul if they focused less on trying to run a certain amount each day or week and just ran each day and each week what felt right, taking into account the physical, the mental, and the logistics of day to day life as it comes at us. When your body and mind feels good and you have the time in your day to go out and run like crazy then go out and run like crazy. But when you're not feeling good or you just don't have the time to squeeze in a run without it being too much of an extraction on the rest of your life, then just do what you need to do to take care of your body and/or your life and don't stress about not running enough that day or that week. By not running on these days you'll actually be making yourself a better runner over the long haul.

Colorado, UTMB, and 2012 Camps

My summer in Juneau has come to and end and I'm back in Colorado getting settled in here before leaving in a few days to head over to France for UTMB. I had an amazing summer running in Juneau, but didn't really feel physically very good for a lot of it. Everything has really begun to click in the past 10 days though and I have felt better in this time than I have for any 10 day stretch in several months. This has me more excited than ever for UTMB. Going to get in one last long run tomorrow and then head off to New York to visit my family for a few days and then on to France.

I've mentioned a few times how successful my running camps were this summer. They were without question two of the most satisfying weeks of my life. And now I have moved forward with 3 sessions planned for the summer of 2012. The entry forms for those camps are now available on the camp website so sign up soon if you want to guarantee a space for next summer. Based on the response I've gotten I suspect these camps will fill up pretty quickly again for 2012. I will update the "Latest News" section of the camp website as applications start to roll in, but if you want to be sure to have a space in the session of your choice please send your entry/deposit as soon as possible. Also be sure to fully read over the camp website before you sign up. Most things will be the same as 2011, but there are a few changes that have been updated on the camp website. The most notable of these is that the May 28th session will be specifically intended for the more advanced/performance oriented runner. Please fully read the website before choosing to sign up for this session. And feel free to contact me via email if you have any questions about this.

First Summer of Camp is in the Books

Finished up the second session of my running camp this week. I still can't believe how amazing the experience has been of putting on these camps. Both sessions turned out to be amazing. Two of the most satisfying weeks of my life. Thanks so much to everyone who participated. They were such a success that I already have 3 sessions planned for next summer! The dates are up on the camp website and the entry will open beginning on August 15th. Click here for more info.

Beyond this I've just been doing my best to get ready for UTMB and packing up to head back to Colorado for the fall/winter. It sure has been a short summer. I've done a ton of cool stuff here in Alaska since early May, but I feel like this summer could go on for years and I wouldn't run out of run stuff to do. This said, I'm looking forward to getting settled back in to Colorado and enjoying the Rocky Mountain Autumn which can be one of the most wonderful places in the world to spend the next several months.

Running Stupid Interview

Here's a link to an online interview I did last week on "Running Stupid": http://runningstupid.libsyn.com/running-stupid-lxxxv-geoff-roes-interview-

It's quite long but there's some stuff in there that should be pretty informative for runners new to running ultras... and maybe even a few things that would be interesting to anyone.

Crow Pass Race Recap

Crow Pass ended up going as well for me as I possibly could have expected. After my rough day at Western States last month I wasn't really expecting much of anything from this race. I have been focused more on UTMB than anything this whole season and I was really only running Crow Pass once again because there were 8 friends of mine from Juneau who decided to run and I didn't want to miss out on the fun.

And then the race started. And almost instantly I went from being quite ambivalent about the whole thing to really excited about it. I didn't feel great, but I felt good. The competition was as solid this year as it's been in a few years. For the past couple years it's been just Eric Strabel and I, but this year Matias Saari was racing again for the first time in a few years and made it really obvious right from the start that he wasn't going to let Eric and I run away with this one as we had done the previous couple years. In fact Matias ended up setting the pace for most of the first 15 or 16 miles of the race (after Eric had done so on most of the first 2 or 3 miles going up to the pass).

Me? I just kind of hungout right on the heels of whoever was running in front. I ran in front a bit, but probably no more than 2 total miles before I took the lead for good with about 7 miles to go. I would have been more than willing to run in front and do some of the pace setting, but Matias really seemed to want to be in front, especially on the downhills which he was running really strong.

The climb up to the pass was much more relaxed than the last couple years, and once we got over the top still no one really tried to push things very much. I for one was very excited about this. I felt very confident about my chances if the race come down to a contest of who could outlast the others without anyone making a really strong push to separate themselves from the others. And this is exactly how it played out. Eric never seemed to be able to quite keep up with Matias and I on the flatter stretches and I just hungout behind Matias, feeling very relaxed, until finally at about mile 16 Matias pulled to the side of the trail and let me by (I found out later that he was dealing with some cramping issues).

I just kept pushing a hard pace and kept moving one step closer to the finish. I figured Eric was probably not far behind but I also felt pretty confident that my pace was going to be enough to hold him off. I didn't have a lot more left in the tank had I needed it, but I was able to keep a quick enough pace that I just didn't need it. I ended up finishing almost 2 minutes ahead of Eric for my 4th Crow Pass victory and 3rd in a row. I didn't quite get in under 3 hours, but I think the slower time was mostly due to the fact that we just didn't push very hard at all until after the river. I think had any of the three of us been running specifically for a fast time rather than to try to win the race I could have run several minutes faster in the first half of the race, and still likely finish the second half just as fast.

In all this was likely the most I have ever enjoyed this race. I'm not sure why I enjoyed it so much. Maybe it was because I didn't really expect to, or maybe because I felt so smooth and steady throughout the day. Whatever the reason though I sure am glad I decided to run it again this year. Don't know yet if I'll run it again next year, but with the race director talking about adding in some decent prize money it'll be even that much harder to say no.

It was also really amazing to share the race and the day with so many close friends from Juneau. The group of 8 of us who raced were quite the eclectic bunch with 2 in their twenties; 2 in their thirties; 1 in his forties; 1 in his fifties; 1 in his sixties; and 1 who will turn 73 this fall! Three of us won our age groups (would have been 4 but they don't even recognize a 70 and over age group because I think Glenn Frick may have been the first person over 70 to ever complete the race - and it's not like he squeezed in under the 6 hour time limit: he finished in 4:30!) Our 60 year old participant (Guy Thibodeau) came in just under 4 hours, something that I doubt there are more than a handful of 60+ runners in the world that could do, and Guy didn't even have a very good day. If a lot of these Juneau runners decide to go back to Crow Pass again next year that will be another thing that will make it very hard for me to say no.

Click here for a story about the race including results.

Juneau Taking Southcentral AK By Storm?

Heading up to Anchorage for another run at Crow Pass this weekend. Should be a fun one. We've got a crew of 8 of us heading up from Juneau. This will be a fun one to finish up and hang around watching all my friends from here come through the finish. I'm expecting the Juneau contingent to turn some heads up there. We could win a few of the various age groups in this one. If not it certainly won't be for lack of killer mountain training that all 8 of us have gotten in here in the past few months.