2011 Bighorn 100

Jun 27th, 11 / 3 Comments

I finally managed to get my photos from the Bighorn 100 sorted out and uploaded here. I had a great time out at the race crewing and pacing Victoria.

Bighorn is still one of my all time favorite events. The scenery on the trail is incredible and the race organization and support is fantastic. This year with record snow levels in the Bighorn mountains, the original course had to be re-routed but the race organizers did an excellent job pulling together a final runnable route just days before the race. The modified route included an extra out and back spur from Dry Fork, started in Dayton instead of up the road near the Tongue river trailhead, and turned around 2 stations below Porcupine at the Spring Marsh aid station. This made crew access a bit trickier with accessible points only at Dry Fork and Footbridge. But they managed to preserve the majority of the original 100 mile route and still managed to offer the same outstanding aid station support.

Victoria had medical approval to have a pacer for the full 100 miles of the race and after her second pacer dropped out with an injury, I was going to have to pace her for 75 miles from the second Dry Fork stop through to the finish. We figured she would be safe enough running with Kristel and other friends for the first 24.5 miles until she met me at Dry Fork.

In hind sight, I probably should have rested more for such a long stretch of pacing. But there just didn’t seem to be any time between the start of the race in Dayton, driving up to Dry Fork, meeting and helping other runners coming into and out of Dry Fork. The morning and afternoon flew by and I spent the day caught up in the commotion at the aid station. This really caught up with me later in the evening. And as a word of warning, if anyone decides to pace Victoria, make sure you show up well rested and bring your A game. She set the pace the entire time I ran with her and just kept moving relentlessly. She powered up the wall to Bear Camp in the dark like it was nothing. And even when she got tired, she still kept up a determined hiking pace. Unfortunately I turned out to be the worst pacer ever. After warning Victoria about the hazards of stopping and sitting at comfortable aid stations, I was the first to say hell yes to a nice chair by the fire at Spring Marsh. Somewhere in the dark between Bear Camp and Cow Camp, I got really drowsy and started getting tunnel vision in the beam of my headlamp. Reflective trail markers on the trees started to melt and drip down the tree trunks. I dropped back behind Victoria several times and finally told her I needed to take a minute to just stop and close my eyes to refocus again. Asking Victoria to stop when she was still trucking along over 65 miles into her run when I had only gone about 40 miles qualifies me as the absolute worst pacer ever.

We managed to make it through the night and arrived at Cow Camp for a brief breakfast break. On the way back to Dry Fork, we crossed paths with the 50 mile runners. The re-routed 50 mile course started at Dry Fork and went out and back to Footbridge. On the normal race route, the different race distances usually merge together at the mid to back of the pack closer to the finish. This year it was really nice to see the full 50 mile field. They were only about 2 miles into their race and the front runners were flying. It was great to see the rest of our Fort Collins friends charge by us and it helped give both Victoria and I an energy boost to push the final miles in to the Dry Fork aid station.

On the way to the Twin Buttes aid station at the end of the spur from Dry Fork, Victoria started to get really dizzy with bad tunnel vision and spots. She was able to walk the last tenth of a mile into the aid station and stopped for an extended break to warm up, drink some fluids, and try to recover. Unfortunately she wasn’t snapping out of it and with her condition, it wasn’t safe to push through this. So she made the smart decision to drop. It’s really too bad that it ended this way since she was doing so well right up to the end. But she made it home safe and healthy and is already coming around to start considering another 100 miler.

And despite getting my but kicked on the overnight out on the trail, I really had a great time. We had a huge group of friends out there from Fort Collins and Boulder with a lot of firsts and PR’s in all events. This is definitely an event that I’d like to make an annual tradition.

Here’s a link to Alex’s 50 mile report. After resting up at the park, I jogged up the road and ran the last mile in with him.

Here are a few photos from the weekend:

 

 

 

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Mickey

Jun 22nd, 11 / 1 Comment

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any new info for Animal House but I’ve been running with Mickey consistently once or twice each week for the past month. He did spend some time in a foster home in April but has been in the shelter since the beginning of May. I don’t think he has been doing well in the cramped kennels so I’d like to try to help find him a home or at least a temporary foster home as soon as possible.

Mickey is a bit of a problem case so I’m sure that the shelter managers will take extra care in matching him up with the right home. Anyone interested can contact Animal House for much more detailed information than I can provide. Evidently Mickey has had some aggression issues living in a home environment. I’ve personally never seen any behavior from him that would cause me to have any worries so I really don’t know what his exact issues might be. My best guess is that it is from fear and anxiety – he is definitely a bit shy around strangers and I’ve seen him get very skittish a couple times. I don’t think he does well being left alone for very long so I think an ideal home would be with someone who can spend a lot of time with him. And he would probably do well with another dog to keep him company. Every time I take him back to the shelter after a run, he cries and barks when I put him back in his kennel. So I don’t think he’d enjoy living with someone who leaves to work 12 hours a day. The neighbors probably won’t appreciate that either.

Personally I think Mickey is a fantastic dog and whatever his past behavior issues may have been, I think he would be perfectly fine with the right owner and home environment. Every time I’ve taken him out, he gets a little overexcited at first and will try to jump up on you (but who wouldn’t after being cooped up in a small kennel for days) but he really isn’t that hard to control. After a couple minutes, he’ll calm down and he is incredibly mellow and sweet. He knows all of the basic commands and is very smart and eager to learn. He even does great off leash. Of all the dogs I’ve worked with so far, Mickey is definitely one of the easiest to handle.

For the past month, I’ve been taking him out to our Tuesday evening social runs at Reservoir Ridge and I’ve taken him out for a few solo runs. Initially he was a bit shy and reserved around new people at the social runs but the last couple weeks, he’s really warmed up to people and will walk right up to strangers for attention. On this week’s run, we had about 20 runners and 2 other dogs and there were a lot of other people on the trail. Bikers past us and there were small children running around at the trail head. None of these distractions bothered Mickey at all and he was calm and well behaved the entire time.

For running, I don’t think Mickey is ever going to set any speed or distance records. He really enjoys going out for runs but he isn’t incredibly fast and 3-4 miles is usually enough to tire him out. I’m sure he could get in better shape with more frequent exercise but I wouldn’t count on winning the Fast and Furriest 5k or taking him out on ultra distance long runs. I think he’d really enjoy just getting out for a few mellow runs and hikes on a regular basis. I actually think this is a good quality. It’s a really big commitment to own a dog that can and wants to run 10+ miles every day.

If anyone is interested in adopting or fostering Mickey, please contact Animal House. And feel free to contact me with any questions or come out to Reservoir Ridge for our social run every Tuesday at 6pm to meet Mickey in person outside of the shelter.

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Countdown to Hardrock

May 29th, 11 / 7 Comments

Wow, I can’t believe May is almost over. It’s been almost a month since I’ve had time to post any updates here. I’ve been too busy trying to keep up with work in between training and have been spending all of my spare time obsessing over weather reports, snow levels, maps, and split times.

Overall, May has been a great month. Unfortunately our record snow pack conditions have prevented me from getting up in elevation very far so I’ve tried to concentrated on increasing the quality of my training with a little better effort on my long runs, speed work, and strength training.

I started the month with a great 50 mile run with Victoria at Collegiate Peaks.

Victoria at the Collegiate Peaks 50 Miler

Got a couple good back to back long runs in with Nick’s Crosier Triple Bagger and the Round Up with Nick, Alex, Rob, Slush, Cat, and all the rest of the usual FCTR suspects.


Round Mountain Round Up

This weekend I got out to do some exploring to see how far up I could get from Dunraven. I made it up to 9750ft almost to Donner Pass before getting bogged down in solid shin deep snow. Hopefully the 80 degree days on the forecast this week will melt this off – I may make another attempt to get up and over the pass next weekend.

9750ft on the Donner Pass trail.

And here’s a really good reason that I should never attempt any solo route finding and probably shouldn’t ever enter the Barkley Marathons or any other race that requires the use of a map and compass. Nick and I tried to make it up Crosier via the Sullivan Gulch trailhead today just to try something new and have fun exploring. The trail disappeared after a mile and we spent the next several hours wandering around in circles in the fog. We "found" the trail again just by dumb luck. Our original plan to get in a nice 15-20 mile run ended up at 5.5 miles in just under 3 hours. Fail.



(Click here for a larger map.)

I’ve still managed to keep up with a regular running schedule with Animal House. This month I’ve been working with Mickey but he already has someone interested in adopting him. If it falls through, I’ll post more info about him later.

Mickey from Animal House.

Tomorrow is the start of the final count down to Hardrock. Next week is hell week. I’ll be running more than I plan to work to put in as many long, hard miles, as I can. After that I’ll scale back down to another 100 mile week before winding down a very gradual 3 week taper. If the race were next week, I think I could run it. So I’m feeling really good about having one more opportunity to push some quality training and several weeks to sharpen, taper, and rest up to be ready to go on July 8th.

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Greyrock 6 Pack

May 2nd, 11 / 2 Comments

Ever since Eric and Terry finished the full Greyrock Quad back in 2008, several of us have been talking about attempting the full “6 Pack” to complete 6 full summits in one day. I never completed the full Quad after taking a few nasty falls and skipping one summit. So the full 6 Pack seemed like the perfect way to redeem myself from the failed Quad attempt and it fit right in with my Hardrock base training plan.

Over the past week, just about everyone who had originally planned to attempt the full 6 Pack had either backed down or cancelled due to injuries, illness, and family obligations so I was a bit worried that I would spend the majority of my day solo. But thanks to our amazing FCTR group, I spent the full day on the hill in good company with friends. Nick, Sam, Bard, Victoria, Kristel, Ashley, and Steph all made it out for the 5am start. Slush, Jenn, Laura, Cherylin, Dave, Brian K, Gregg, Alex A, Brian, Aaron, and Eric all made it out later in the morning. Somehow I missed Chris out on the trail but found a note on my windshield that he’d run a lap sometime in the afternoon. And Mary made it up to meet Eric and I just below the summit of our last lap and jogged back to the finish with us. I’ve lost track of who ran what but most people ran 1 to 3 summits. Nick managed to get in 3 summits plus one partial lap excluding the final leg to the top before his 7 hour time limit was up. Eric joined in on my 3rd lap and completed 4 full summits.

For springtime in Colorado, the weather was actually pretty nice. We had some high winds at the top early in the day and later in the afternoon some nasty dark clouds blew over and started spitting snow. But as soon as we were half a mile from the trail head all layered up in warm clothes, the sun came back out and the skies cleared.

Here’s a video clip that Eric took of Steph, Dave, and I at the top on lap #3:

I was pleasantly surprised at how well I managed to hold together both physically and mentally for the entire day. I started the run extremely tired from a pretty big 2 weeks training push. On Friday, I barely managed to get through an easy recovery jog with Misty and was at the end of my rope barely able to stay awake and focus while trying to finish up my project deadlines for the end of the month. So it was pretty rough getting up and going for the 5am start but having good company to start with and a goal to catch the sunrise at the top helped get me off to a good start. I finished the first lap in just under 2 hours and took a short break at the trail head and headed back up just behind Nick, Sam, Slush, and Steph. I was feeling the fatigue from an early start after a hard week and since it was going to be a very long day I let them get ahead of me and decided to take my time. I finished this lap in about 2:10 and then took an extended 10 minute break to eat and refill water at the trail head. Eric, Steph, and Dave joined me for number 3 and we kept up a brisk social pace to the top. I finally got a little spring in my legs on the way back down Meadow and had fun cruising the final switchbacks down and finished this lap in just under 2 hours. After a quick 5 minute break at the trail head, I headed back up to grind out number 4 with Eric and Aaron. After a fun 3rd lap, this 4th trip up started to feel like work. But considering that just a couple years ago, I was completely beat after 3.75 laps I felt pretty good about my condition. And no matter how hard or tiring a run like this gets, it’s a great feeling to cross over into something new. After we cleared the meadow junction and made our way to the top of the 4th summit, every step would be a new furthest distance for me on this hill. I made it back to the trail head to finish the 4th lap in 8:38 – 10 minutes faster than the 3.75 laps I finished in 2008. The last two laps were a slow grind but I was still able to hike the steep sections fairly well and even managed to jog a couple of the easy switchbacks. The downhill off the summit was the worst part. There wasn’t any bend or spring left in my legs so I just had to be patient to slowly and carefully pick my way down the really technical sections. In the final descent off of the 6th summit, I managed to pick up the pace when the cows could finally smell the barn. I tried to imagine that if this were Hardrock, I’d only need to do 55 more miles of the same climbing to get to the finish. Honestly, that sounded downright horrible but it at least seemed doable.

The full Greyrock 6 Pack ended up at 45.25 miles with 15,361 vertical feet in 13:59:50. This ended my final 13 day vertical binge with 64,475 feet in 201.75 miles. On Thursday, I maxed out my 7 day vertical total over 40,000 feet. The full month of April ended up with 408.5 miles and 89,667 vertical feet. This included a 40 miles of Sanitas laps with 17,339 vertical feet and two other relatively easy 30 mile long runs. I slacked off a bit and didn’t keep up with my weight training as much as I should have. But I did manage to get a few good quality speed and hard hill workouts mixed in with the long slow miles and set a new 18:20 5k PR.

Overall I feel really good about my training progress for Hardrock. I’ve done some long hard trails that are probably much steeper and more technical than I really need to train on for Hardrock. But I think the long days and hard miles have really improved my strength and endurance. Spending 14 hours out on the trail on Sanitas and Greyrock this month really didn’t feel that bad. For May and June I hope to start getting up higher in elevation on the weekends and will start to mix up my training a bit more to add some more quality with a combination of uphill, downhill, and some flat speed work.

Here are some photos from the 6 Pack:

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Bighorn 100 Info

Apr 28th, 11 / 3 Comments

A lot of our Fort Collins trail runners will be at Bighorn this year so a lot of people have been asking about course info.

So I figured it would be easier to organize and post all of my info in one place here.

I’ve posted the full 100 mile map and elevation profile here.

For current snow levels, check the Bald Mtn Snotel site. It’s a few hundred feet higher than Porcupine but it’ll give you a rough idea of what to expect at the high end of the course.

Jim O’Neil and Sue Norwood are regulars at Bighorn and they might be up in the area to train a few weeks before the race. They posted a bunch of photos before the 2009 race. These were really helpful to see what the trail conditions were like leading up to the race.

Some additional reading:

My 2009 100 mile race report and photos.

Rob’s 2010 race report.

Nick’s 2009 race report.

Alex’s 2010 50 mile race report.

A lot of other locals have run the Bighorn 50k, 50 mile, and 100 mile races. If you come out and join any of our FCTR group runs, there’s a good chance that you’ll meet at least 2 or 3 people who have experience out on the course.

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