Training, Experiencing and Pacing the Wasatch 100

I'm a bit slow in getting this posted - it has been BUSY! It's just gonna get busier too!

WASATCH!

100 MILES!

And of the many people I run with, I think 85% of them were signed up to run in this race, and then another 10% were at least pacing part of it!

I was in that last group. A Pacer. Definitely not in the "I'm crazy enough to run 100 miles!"

On many of our morning runs Steve N kept saying "Man! We gotta get Aaron pacing somebody!"

I wasn't against that at all and I was certainly available, but nobody had asked me.

Finally my friend Ryan said "I wasn't planning on a pacer but if you wanted to pace me from Big Mountain to Lamb's I'm always down with company!"

So I said OK. I'll do it.

A couple of days later, not too long before the race a guy on one of my facebook running groups mentioned he was looking for a pacer for the same section in a way that made me think he was really needing one. Since Ryan's invitation was more of a 'I'd be happy to hang out' kind of thing in my mind, I messaged Ryan to see what he thought. Having run with Ryan a lot I would have liked to pace him if he needed me, but in my head I didn't think he needed me to pace him there. He said go ahead and so I told Steve that I'd be happy to pace him.

Fast forward to the night before the race at my brothers now-annual pre-Wasatch Barbecue and I started to feel like I actually had ditched Ryan as a pacer. He's a very strong runner but the Wasatch is a beast of a race. So I asked Ryan if he wanted me to pace him from Brighton to the finish line - 25 miles of possibly the hardest section of ANY course, and he said yes.

Friday morning I had the day off - so I tracked the race like a hawk and was quite worried that I'd be late to pace Stephen or I would collapse or some other silly thing. Coordinated with Matt to get up to Big Mountain where the first pacers start and then I'd bring his car back from Lamb's Canyon where he was starting his almost 50 mile pacing adventure with Craig (here is Craig's report).

We drove up there and it was awesome to see friends and families and awesome volunteers dressed as Vikings cheering all the runners as they came to mile 39... and wow was it HOT. Many people say the section from Big Mountain to Alexander Springs and then Lamb's Canyon is one of the worst sections not for course difficulty (it's a pretty nice trail actually!) but because of heat and sun exposure. This year started out as one of the hottest races on record AND it was a lot more humid than we are used to in Utah.

Stephen came in, weighed in, grabbed water and ice and we headed out.

 

It was definitely hot and humid!

As we headed up over Bald Mountain the wind picked up, and we kept on moving and up and over little ridges heading down to Alexander Springs

I wish I could have just jump right into that lake!

We started passing quite a few people along this section... it was hot and dusty and both dry and humid at the same time. People were already looking wrecked, and we weren't quite halfway!

We finally made it to the aid station and from the dark recesses of some tents I heard my name yelled.

It was Craig, and he wasn't doing so well. Jennilyn was pacing him and she said "Aaron make him laugh!" which immediately made everything funny in my brain turn off ... not that there is comedy gold to be found in there usually.

The response to "Now turn that off and do something funny" was going into a fairly awesome Mayurasana... I wonder if somebody somewhere got a picture of, as if I don't already have enough pictures of that pose!

I felt bad I couldn't do more, but as you can see in his race report - he overcame and finished strong considering this years difficulties! I had my own duties as pacer, so we got what we needed and headed out.

This section was pretty bad... probably worse than the hard hot earlier course - because you start on some rolling hills on a jeep track through a dry field, and continue on that as it climbs steadily UP over 800 feet in about 2 miles. So not horrible, just slow hot and arduous! So basically after 45 miles for the runners, it WAS horrible!

One thing about this last section before the Lamb's Canyon aid station... you think you are closer than you are a LOT! You are above it, then past it, then above it again, then BELOW it, and you finally run up a hill to get to the aid station right next to the freeway up Parley's canyon.

I kept seeing people I knew or people who were waiting for runners I knew, so in those couple of seconds saying hi, my runner dropped me! After 13 miles I couldn't catch back up to him just on that last little climb to the aid station. I was happy he was doing so well.

Upon entering the aid station, it was great to see so many people in action volunteering. My pacing was over and I had run 13.3 miles on a rough day. I was tired! I was a bit worried about my ability to go another 25 miles with Ryan later on... but figured I would rest what I could and try to get him to the finish.

Other friends came in and got taken care of, it was great to see so much strength, support, awesomeness, and even suffering!

About this time a storm was rolling in from the West, changing the hot mugginess into hot, dusty, mugginess! Havoc on the hyper-allergical-types like me! Ryan was among those too

I found out that Ryan was struggling pretty hard with allergies and overall nastiness... this race wasn't going as well as hoped for MANY people.

I felt bad that I had switched pacing duties on him... I think I was useful to Steve as he ran strongly through this section, but I wondered if I could have been more useful to Ryan at this point. He ended up arriving and DNFing (Did Not Finish, or dropping) at Lamb's canyon (Mile 52) a few hours after I left due to allergies and other health issues.

I put together a video of my 13.3 mile run pacing Steve:



I also saw the Joker on the way back to my brother's house with his van. Yay, SLC Comicon!

Stephen too ended up dropping at Brighton (Mile 75) due to major dehydration, vomiting, and diarrhea. Yikes! It was a rough day to do Wasatch, over 30% of the people who started were unable to finish the race! Surprisingly not the highest DNF percentage in the history of the Wasatch100, but definitely the highest number of people; 107 of the 331 people that started!

I wished I had been able to help more, and I wished I'd been able to see if I really could have run 25 miles more! I even had to run 10 miles because I felt like I needed more!

While I still do not have plans to run a 100 mile race... seeing the Wasatch 100 definitely made me want to keep participating in this Ultra-Running thing.

It has also increased my mileage. August was the first time I'd gotten over 100 miles in a month. I've already surpassed that in September (more on that in the next post).

The Pony Express 50 mile race was the only race I had planned for the rest of the year... But then I signed up for another 50k about 10 miles North of the PE50 route, NEXT SATURDAY!

A 50k? Yeah, add 30 miles 3 weeks before my 50 mile race? Pssh. That's nothing.

Wait, what?! What's wrong with me!?

Kakes is joining the fun and is doing the 30k! She's amazing!

Olympus x2, Longest Month Ever, and More Peaks

Whoa!

I go on one little trip up to the top of Timpanogos, and suddenly I've gone crazy!

Just a few days later I ran to Elephant Rock and back on the Mueller Park trail - getting a PR for time to the rock AND not doing too bad (2nd fastest time) on the way down. The very next morning we went out and hit the Bonneville Shoreline trail and Adam's Canyon up to the waterfall for another 7 miles.

I had decided that after Timpanogos, I should take my wife up Olympus.

For some reason in my head I keep thinking Olympus as a "Tough Hike, but generally pretty easy because it's only like 7 miles" and that after we conquered Olympus we could move on to some other peaks like Pfiefferhorn and more!

*sigh*

Aw how fickle and faint memory chooses to be sometimes.

Olympus is HARD. It is steep, it is exposed for a lot of it, and it just happened to be a very hot and muggy day!

On Timp I had taken the same amount of water as I took up Oly, and had over 85% left. So I figured it would be sufficient for both my wife and I.

Bad idea. We made it to the top in a decent time, but we had sucked down all of the water we had. Luckily our buddy Mark was with us, and he was testing out a new large capacity Camelback for the awesome Trailandultrarunning.com and had a bunch of water so we could refill.

We then drank all THAT water while enjoying views from the top.

Doh! We had a little bit left, and figured that since we are both decent down-hill runners, we would be all right with that tiny amount of water. I started down from the saddle at a decent pace, then slowed to make sure I didn't leave my better half behind!

My legs started shaking and the next 3 miles were HORRIBLE. I felt drained and tired and in pain... but I didn't feel like I had pushed too hard before then.

Not enough food and water on a hot and muggy day had taken its toll! Uggh.

We did make it down - and it was a great trip up to the peak - but wow. We were beaten by the mountain for sure!

I did take my Action Cam - and made a video of the run to commemorate the experience!

Since Saturday was the last day of August - the Olympus run put me at 105.5 miles for the month! I've never been over 100 miles in a month, in fact before August, 84.5 was the most I'd ever reached, so that is a LOT of miles! Unfortunately I think it's the beginning of an epidemic!

Monday morning was Labor day. My brother asked if I wanted to run something - and I said that yes, I did. You'd think I'd be beat after being so badly beaten by Olympus a day and a half before... but I actually felt really good!

So I asked if we could do something I hadn't done, Raymond and Gobbler's Knob in between Millcreek and Big Cottonwood Canyons. I had been up to the saddle that is between these two 10k+  peaks during the Millcreek 50k 40k and wanted to make it up to more peaks.

Yeah - I definitely have a bit of a fever for peaks and mountains right now!  We hit both of them, with our friend Sam catching up to us at the top of Raymond. Fast climb!!

 Wednesday morning I went on a flat run to recover from the peaks

And Wednesday evening I went to Olympus AGAIN to do some pictures of rocky terrain with Mark for Trailandultrarunning.com!

There will be more pictures of the results of those photos after the article is posted on TAUR!

 

Oh and that nice Orange hat, is a Trail and Ultra hat with #ultrachat on it - because every Sunday night they have a chat about ultra running. I need to up my Twitter game so I can take part! It's a nice headsweats hat!

Next up I'll talk about the WASATCH 100 that was this past weekend. I had the honor to pace, support, and train with a whole bunch of participants, and it was definitely inspiring and has made my peak bagging and running epidemic even worse!

The Summiting of Mount Timpanogos

I have always heard great things about the trail to the summit of Mount Timpanogos in Utah County of this great state of Utah.

But in all my 30+ years in this place... I'd never been up there! I still haven't been to Timpanogos Cave, but Saturday morning I finally made it up to the top.

Why now finally?

We had a friend who was doing something crazy. She was attempting to run up to the summit and back down SIX times in one go.

That's about 82-86 miles just because.

That attempt also happened to be on my lovely wife's birthday so we thought we would try to find a way to go support her on that when we were invited to sleep over in Heber with family and go with THEM up Timpanogos on Saturday morning with my niece babysitting!

Babysitting being the biggest obstacle to our adventures... we jumped on that opportunity and headed up to Heber.

5 AM we were up and getting on the road to the trailhead. I got a bit carsick because my brother-in-law Steve is a bit of a maniac driver!

Still we made it and were on the trail at about 6:30 AM

and really

I think I'll just let the video show you:




Completely happy that we were able to make it to the top of Timp. Total time was just under 6 hours - 15 miles total! That moving time of 4 hours was not bad. I think I could cut up to an hour off that too! We'll have to give it a try sometime!

I am really excited about doing some more peak runs now...

Now to figure out babysitting!

Anniversary Fun and Ragnar Trail Snow Basin

First off a little physique comp news - it ain't happening.

Basically the costs (membership, show, fake tans, polygraph) and the pain (ingrown hairs OUCH!) along with the other guy dropping out as well have made it so there really isn't a point for me at this moment. Also I don't think anybody else really cares... so... yeah.

As part of the preparation for that, I have been taking protein after workouts or at night, and I think that has made a big difference, along with actual weights workouts beyond my normal trail runs, BJJ, and Yoga.

I think the workouts and the protein have helped in running, recovery, and BJJ, so I want to try to continue that!

Some Results

We spent a couple of days at the Sundial Lodge at the Canyons Resort in Park City. Beautiful place, and some really nice trails as well. The above picture was from one of the two trail runs we had while we were there. Our first run was a great 7.6 mile run on Friday, then the next morning before check out we had a nice 4.3 mile run.

Here's our video from our trail runs on our Anniversary! (Hi-Def is better!)

We also went swimming for a little bit before the storms chased us away - but I haven't finished that video yet! I wish I had a pool and hot tub after EVERY run - it felt so amazing!

There were some more good morning runs between the Anniversary and the Ragnar Trail Snow Basin - I gotta say I REALLY like the Asics Ard Shorty shorts I have!

Probably the hardest thing about the Ragnar Trail Relay for me - was the two days leading up to it. Every year my company has a HUGE international Convention, so I spent 12 hours on Wednesday and Thursday on my feet on the sole-sucking (ha) floors of the Salt Palace.

I enjoyed my assignment - I got to help people stretch out, work out, and even led a couple of '10 minute' (they turned into 40!!) yoga classes. But it still made for some crazy foot leg and hip soreness!

I was runner number 3, which meant I would be running my first leg on the 'hard' leg, the Red loop. 4.8 miles with a 1200 foot climb in the first 2 miles, then a bombing downhill to the exchange.

Off I go! I love my shorty shorts!

Basically a pretty normal run for me, but just a little bit shorter! Watch tracked me at 4.9 miles in 50:25. Not bad! After that run I felt pretty good, except for some lingering soreness that was the same soreness I had before I ran!

So I tried some tennis ball therapy:

I don't know that it helped too much. My second run was the Yellow loop - 6.3 beautiful night miles that I very much enjoyed. Yellow was my favorite because it was on actual trails more than the dirt access roads. I had a bit of a boost because halfway through somebody caught me. Keeping this guy from catching me sped me up a lot, but he inevitably passed me, and I pushed it to try to catch him, so I had a fast time of 1:02:51. THEN I continued on a second attempt at the red loop when I continued through running with my wife on her late night leg. Total for the night, 11.3 miles in 2 hours and 6 minutes!

Finally the morning came and I ran the Green Loop - the easy leg at Sunrise! My legs were tired and my wife said "So you think you can do this in 30 minutes?" and I said "No way - more like closer to 40!" But once I got moving I decided to push it and see how I could do. 3.6 miles in 32:43... not bad after convention and over 15 miles the night before!

I put together a long video of the relay exchanges - it was a good learning video! Lots of ways to improve.


But here it is

Next up - Experiencing some of the Wasatch 100 course, and my first ascent of Utah's Mount Timpanogos!! (with video)

Millcreek 50k, Speedy Goats, Waterfalls and Outdoor Retailer!

Wow the end of July and beginning of August have been CRAZY.

August isn't going to slow down either!

On July 19th, there was a Bandit Race - the Millcreek 50k - that I decided I was going to run, since I don't have any other long races planned until the Pony Express in October, and it had been a while since I ran a longer race!

So I bought a new headlamp (because we needed a good one of those finally anyway!) and met up with some friends who were running it as well.

Me before the race - waiting to shuttle a car to the finish

The race started at 9 PM at an Elementary school about a half mile from the Grandeur Peak trailhead, and we took off at a good clip - I was definitely in the top ten for this first half mile - but dang some of those guys were FAST!

Then we hit the hike up Grandeur.

UGH. That's a mean hike! You start at about 4950 feet, and end up at 8250 feet in about 2 miles! 3,300 feet! THEN it's a gorgeous run down Church Fork Trail into Millcreek Canyon. I probably went a bit too fast, passing a bunch of people and then I was ALONE for the next five or so miles to the first aid station. I'm not a very big fan of being completely alone in the dark middle of the night on a trail, not because it's scary, it's actually fairly peaceful. But it got a bit boring after a while.

So I slowed a bunch until one of my friends caught up and we stuck together for the next 12 slow brutal miles... climbing... walking... hiking... UP up UPUPPPPPP.

The Moon was really cool when we could see it!

SO TIRED!!

We took the out at Dog Lake, 22 miles in, running 2 more miles for a total of 24 miles in a time of 7:51. That was 3rd place for the Dog Lake Out! Yeah! :p 8k-12k total vertical gain over those 24 miles... depending on which sites elevation tracking.

Leslie, Kreuzer and Me happy to be done!

We thought we'd have to wait a while for Zac to come in, but we were only there for 10 minutes before he crossed the finish line! He's speedy!

It was great to spend almost 8 hours on a training run. Even though it was almost 10 miles shorter than my longest run... that was definitely the hardest run I've EVER done.


Last week we had the opportunity to see the finish of the Speedgoat 50k. Sage Canaday and Anton Krupicka were AMAZING. My brother also had a hard week of NOT training and being at sea level for 2 weeks, so his race was TOUGH. He finished the hardest 50k there is in under 10 hours!

Top 3, and I am still trying to find out who this yellow shirt guy was...

So cool to see that level of competition!

In my own running and workouts I've had some great runs, and I've started some weights and protein to go along with it so I can look GOOD for the Physique contest.

Warning: WAY Too many shirtless pictures coming up. You've been warned!

I also had the chance to see the Outdoor Retailer trade show. WOW amazing products and people walking around there. Some of the best climbers, runners, etc, and it was like nobody cared. So weird. I even saw Anton Krupicka and talked to him for a couple of minutes. Great guy!

Friday Morning I took the day off and had an awesome run with my wife. Yoga poses on a big rock, a fantastic run up a gorgeous canyon - and a really cool WATERFALL! My wife is amazing.

Oh yeah - I got some shorty short running shorts!

 It has been a fantastic couple of weeks - but BUSY!

This coming week is my TWELFTH anniversary - and we will get some runs and fun in up in Park City, and then we will be doing the Ragnar Trail Snow Basin Relay! Should be fun!