What ever it takes!

BigHorn 50 mile trail run

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Location:

Lehi,UT,USA

Member Since:

Apr 29, 2010

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Boston Qualifier

Running Accomplishments:

2009 Provo River Marathon, 4:04:38

2009 Provo Canyon Halloween 1/2 Marathon, 1:27:22

2010 Ogden Marathon, 3:04:39

2010 Deseret News Marathon, 2:51:36

2010 Provo River 1/2 Marathon 1:19:01

2010 Top of Utah Marathon 2:52:24

2010 Just Cuz 1/2 Marathon 1:17:36

2011 13.1 LA 1/2 Marathon 1:19:43

2011 Timpanogos Half 1:16:51

2011 Treadmill Marathon 2:49:26 (pr)

Short-Term Running Goals:

2:45 Boston.

Favorite Blogs:

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Elliptical Trainer 2017 Lifetime Miles: 107.00
Treadmill 2017 Lifetime Miles: 454.20
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
78.500.000.000.0078.50
Altra Lonepeaks Miles: 62.50Elliptical Trainer 2012 Miles: 1.50Swim 2012 Miles: 1.00Treadmill 2012 Miles: 10.00Nike LunarGlide 3 Miles: 6.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.000.000.000.005.00

5 easy mile with the doggie.  She was happy

Altra Lonepeaks Miles: 5.00
Add Comment
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

32 laps in the pool followed by 45 minutes of weights and stretching and 10 minutes on the elliptical just to waste time.  Gotta love taper week.

Weather is shaping up nicely for the weekend. When the 10 Day first was showing Saturday it said 85 for a high at the finish line, now it's down to 71.  Perfect!  85 would have done me in.

Elliptical Trainer 2012 Miles: 1.50Swim 2012 Miles: 1.00
Comments(3)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
10.000.000.000.0010.00

I was going over my pacing plan last night and saw that I have about a 3 mile downhill section where I need to run 6:40 pace.  I wasn't even sure I could run a 6:40 pace so this morning I decided to hit the treadmill and give it a shot.  What did I find?  sure I can do it but I doubt I could recover enough to climb a 2500' climb and then run another 30 miles after it.  I did 4 miles at 6:40 pace and then my stomach started acting up.  Hopefully it was just something bad I ate but I still don't think my body is ready for that.  So my new plan is to not run over 7:00 pace ever and just try and make it up somewhere else.  Weird that I can maintain an 8:00 pace for at least 30 miles but I'd probably struggle pretty bad even running one 90 second 1/4.  I'm definately going to need to re-focus my training if I plan to run Des News this year.

On the plus side... My 10 year old son is a pretty decent little soccer player, he was the top scorer for his team last season but he was really out of shape, he could barely run the length of the field without cramping up and doubling over.  I was really embarassed that my kid was so out of shape so this summer I have started a running program with all 3 of my kids.  I measured out a perfect 1/4 mile loop which I have them all jog around and then try and sprint for best time, we also go to the school and I time them on the 50M dash.  Yesterday my 10 year old had a real break through, at first he struggled to just to get his 1/4's under 2:00, and his 50 under 10.  We've been working on form and pacing and yesterday he pulled out a 104 1/4 and a 7.93 50.  I was pretty excited about it and I'm sure he was happy to have his dad giving him high fives.

Treadmill 2012 Miles: 10.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

I was out way too late with my wife trying to re-live our youth at the NickelBack concert.  Pretty fun show, but I'm too old for that crowd.

I slept in a bit late and then just did an easy 6 mile run on the dirt trails by my house.

The weather forcast at the finish line on Saturday keeps getting better and better, now it's down to 68 with clouds, perfect.  It may be pretty chilly at the start line at 9,000'.

Altra Lonepeaks Miles: 6.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.000.000.006.00

Made the 9 hour trek up to Sheridan yesterday and just relaxed the rest of the day, woke up and went for a nice little jog around town.  If you've never been to Sheridan it's a great place, just a great community with bike trails all over.  It's really quite beautiful here and the weather in the summer is always perfect.

I'm feeling eerily good, not really much soreness in any of the normal areas, hip feels good, shins feel good (the top of my foot still has an issue but I don't think it will be a problem).  I'm getting pretty antsy, the weather at the finish line now says around 80 which I'm a bit upset about, all week it was saying high of 70 on Saturday now all of a sudden it jumps up 10 degrees.  Oh well, can't do much about that.

Nike LunarGlide 3 Miles: 6.00
Comments(4)
Race: BigHorn 50 mile trail run (51.5 Miles) 10:10:01, Place overall: 17, Place in age division: 7
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
51.500.000.000.0051.50

Well, now I got that out of my system for a while.

 

This is going to sound really stupid, but for some reason I envisioned this being a little bit more “fun” I’m not sure why I would think that.  I have about 100 excuses but honestly I don’t think I need to make any excuses, I’m happy with my result, I really had no way to know what to expect and with all my resent set backs just finishing a 50 miler is something I’m pretty proud of.

Stayed at the in-laws last night and actually got a really good night sleep, almost 7 hours of sleep then woke up at 3:00am with no alarm.  My Father in law offered to drive me to the start even though there were buses leaving Sheridan, we got to the start about an hour early and 15 minutes before the buses so I had the porta potties to myself for a while.  It was chilly at the top but I knew that was only going to last for an hour or so, so I was happy about the cold.  Surprisingly the race started with an out right sprint with about 10 guys right off the bat, I wasn’t expecting that at all, I started up chase group 1 with 3 guys behind me, I felt good but we were running through snow drifts and mud puddles pretty fast, I kept thinking “this is to fast” but I didn’t want the guys behind me to pass.  A couple times I saw 6:10 on my Garmin, bad news.  At mile 8 I tripped on a rock and wiped out pretty hard, skinned my knees up but nothing felt broken, the 3 guys all passed me, which looking back actually may of saved me from something really bad happening.  I tripped about 5 times over the first 20 miles, I think that it was simply a matter of me doing all my training runs on the road, my normal running stride just doesn’t lift my feet enough so I kept tripping.  I could tell that falling was taking a lot out of me and decided taking a really hard fall was going to put me back a lot more than just slowing down, so that’s what I did.

I would say this route is almost 50% un-runnable, the up-hills are to steep to run- and the down-hills to technical.  I was pretty upset that I kept walking up hill but then I realized everyone was walking the up-hills and no-one was passing me.

My family was all waiting for me at the mile 33 aid station, I told them I was going to be there between 11:00 and 12:00, at 11:10 I was 3 miles away and saw that it was straight up-hill to the aid station, I averaged about 16:00 pace for that next 3 miles.  All my kids and wife were waiting for me and walked me the last 100meters up the hill.  They told me even the winners all walked that hill so I didn’t feel so bad.  I spent way to much time at that aid station with my family, eating and taking care of blisters, I noticed 2 girls running the 50M come in and immediately leave, my wife told me I had to go catch them so I didn’t get chicked, I knew I couldn’t catch them though, they were hauling.  About 5 miles later I got backed by Girl # 3 and thought, I need to start running with girls, they are way smarter than me when it comes to racing.  I kept jocking back and forth with the 3rd Girl and ran/walked with her for quite a while and eventually broke away.  Besides the 2 girls I could only think of maybe 2 other 50miler guys that had passed me and guessed I was in about 15th place, but I didn’t really care, I knew I wasn’t going to pass anyone, and I couldn’t see anyone behind me so I was content with my place.

Mile 38 all of a sudden like 10 people just stopped right in the middle of the trail (at this point there were 100M, 50K, and 30K people on the trail) and one of the 100M pacers was sword fighting something with a stick, turns out there was a huge rattlesnake just off the trail all coiled up and really pissed off.  Eventually we all bush wacked around it and I decided to try and help scare it away cause we were afraid for other runners coming down the trail,  I found out I could throw rocks almost as good as I could run at that point, and I’m terrified of snakes anyway so I left it to the pacer and left.  Not sure if he ever got rid of it, I hope so.

Around mile 40 the trail actually got really nice to run on, single track without rocks and a downslope, If I didn’t have 40 mile legs I’m sure I could have flown down it, but by this point 9:30 pace felt like sprinting.  Then at 46 miles the trail came out onto a dirt road which also would have been nice to run on but it was 85 degrees at this point and I was dead.  I kept telling myself I just needed to make a running motion no matter how slow it was and just get done.  That 4 miles was miserable, I knew my wife was waiting for me at the final aid station to pace me in so that kept me going. The final aid station is at mile 50, seriously, I thought this was a 50 mile race I was ready to be done.  I’m really happy my wife was there, she was all gung ho and I kept having to tell her to slow down, but without her I seriously would have walked the last 1.5 miles so I was glad she was there. 

I finished strong, never had a major breakdown and was so glad to be done.  I immediately crossed the finish line and jumped into the Ice cold river.  So nice.

 

Things I learned,

Don’t follow the 6:00min/mile guys at the start of an Ultra

Don’t try to find the “dry” way around rivers and bogs, just go through them you’re going to get wet and muddy anyway.

Do train on trails, not roads.

Learn not to fall down so much.

Learn how to take care of your feet better, I dealt with a pretty bad blister almost the entire race.

 

Un-fortunately I am in a really bad age group so I don’t get any award at all, If I came back next year I’m sure I could win something, but at this point I don’t think that will happen.

Altra Lonepeaks Miles: 51.50
Comments(12)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
78.500.000.000.0078.50
Altra Lonepeaks Miles: 62.50Elliptical Trainer 2012 Miles: 1.50Swim 2012 Miles: 1.00Treadmill 2012 Miles: 10.00Nike LunarGlide 3 Miles: 6.00
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