Northfork Fire

Sorry been kinda of quite lately. Just been plugging along training and dealing with wiggles trying to keep from becoming hurt.

Anyways been thinking a lot about the fires the past few days. This is the big news here in Colorado. A dry past few months has created very very high fire danger. My wife found this article and video, just nuts. Have to remember when watching the video that it is in the middle of a sunny afternoon.

You can find the article here: http://kdvr.com/2012/03/27/video-from-inside-the-fire-family-flees-the-flames/

Red Hot Finish Photo

Found this photo at the Colorado Runner website here. This photo makes me realize that I have some work to do and weight to lose. Leadville training/diet starts today.

Red Hot 33K

Went off to Moab again this past weekend for the Red Hot 55K. At the race check in I downgraded to the 33K because of the injury that I had through January and the mouth ache from the root canal 2 days earlier. This also allowed me to enjoy the best part of the course. In years past I would be suffering through this section in the 55K which makes it hard to take in the awesome views like this.



Not really a lot to say about the race but the fact that I did get chicked by a minute or so. Bummed about that. I ran in 6-7th place most of the race but stopped at the last aid station to get water and piss only to be passed. I tried to close and catch up but just did not have it in me. My quads were shot for some reason. Anyways 2:47:00 for 20 miles with 3300 feet of gain for 10th overall. The race was a lot faster this year than years past due to it now being part of the LaSportiva Mountain Cup Series. There was some seriously fast dudes there.

Here are some photos that I stole from other people. Enjoy.

Yes Colorado runners took over the whole hotel



Start line




Awesome rocks!



Where is the trail?



More great views!



Runners going across the Slickrock.



Special Idiots and FCTR groups.

Bucket List

Something that is on the bucket list. One of these days.........

Kauai in Photos and Videos

Not going to write a big post on all the cool things we did, just thought I would hit the highlights with some photos and videos. This island is freakin awesome and the photos don't do it justice. These are some of my favorite photos out of the 600 plus photos that everyone took during the trip.

Thank you again Dad for having us!!! Enjoy!

Sunset







Trailrunning







Snorkeling














Food











Beaches



















Luau





















Ziplining












Waimea Canyon







Mahalo Nu'i Loa for reading!

Brett Farve in Heaven

I mostly try to keep this blog just for running and outdoor adventures but this is to funny not to share. Happy Friday!

Brett Farve, after living a full life, died and went to heaven. When he arrived, God was showing him around. They came to a modest house that had a Green Bay flag in the window. God turned to Brett and said, “This is your house for all eternity, Brett. This is very special because most people don’t get to own their own home in Heaven.” Brett felt very special as he walked up to his house. On his way up the porch, he noticed another house around the corner. It was a HUGE 3-story mansion with orange and blue trim, a 50-foot flagpole with a Broncos flag flying high, a swimming pool with a Broncos logo embedded in concrete on the bottom, Broncos decals in every window and a Tim Tebow jersey on the front door. Brett looked at God and said, “God I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I was an all-pro quarterback, won multiple Super Bowls and even went to the Football Hall of Fame. Why does Tim Tebow get a better house than me?” God said, “Brett, that’s not Tim’s house…..it’s mine”

Books Read in 2011

At the end of year I post my list of books that I read at year and link them to Amazon so you can check them out if interested. Here is my list for 2011. The ones that I put the number in bold are worth the read, the rest were either for work or just plan crap.

If you have any suggestions of books to check out for 2012 I am all ears. I try to read at least 12 a year but if I ever want to knock down my growing list I am going to have to read more than 25. I just don't see that happening.

1. K2: Life & Death on the Worlds most dangerous mountain
2. The Extra Mile- Pam Reed
3. In Defense of Food
4. Coaching for Performance
5. Food Rules
6. Eiger Dreams
7. Paleo Diet for Athletes
8. Relentless Forward Progress
9. Running on empty
10. Seal Team Six
11. Cycling home from Siberia
12. The Big Year
13. The Man Who Cycled the World
14. The Big Book of Endurance Training
15. And Then the Vulture Eats You
16. The Raw Truth
17. Now Discover Your Strengths
18. The Paleo Diet
19. Steve Jobs

Looking into 2012

Been kind of lazy with my posting lately but not really a lot to talk about. Just been training hard for the Red Hot 55K in Feb. With the Hardrock lottery last weekend and not getting in again of course really got me thinking about races for next year. My wife and I need to sit down and figure out what will work before everything sells out. Guess I better quit dragging my feet. Here is what I am looking at for 2012 from April on, now I just need to make some decisions.

April
28th- Collegiate Peaks 25 or 50 was thinking the 25 then Greenland a week later but maybe the 50 would be best.

May
5th- Greenland 50K
6th- Fort Collins Marathon (still want to get that Boston qual time)
12th- Quad Rock 50miler
19th- Buena Vista Adventure Race

June
2nd- Dirty Thirty 50K
16th- Mount Evans (one of my favorite races, 2 close to Black Hills to do?)
17th- Estes Park Marathon (only consider if doing Leadville)
23rd- Lake City 50 (only consider if doing Leadville)
22-24th- Black Hills 100
30th- Leadville Marathon (only consider if doing Leadville)

July
8th- Pace at Hardrock again- 50 miles (not sure if I can do this if I do Blackhills 100)
15th- Leadville 50 (only consider if doing Leadville)
14th- Devils Backbone 50 (only consider if doing Leadville)
14th- Summit County Adventure race

Aug
18-19th- Leadville 100
18-19th- Pike Peak ascent and marathon double (if I do Blackhills)

One race that I am eyeing due to being by my dad’s in MT is

Oct
Le Grizz 50

Thoughts? Or other races I might be missing that are not far away? I use the shorter races as practice training runs for the 100.

Turkey Chase 10K

I signed up for a 10K race today hoping to get a new PR, needless to say I did but it doesn't count because the course was short. Ran 35:53 for the 5.75 mile course according to my Garmin for 5th overall. Little disappointed that I paid $40 for a cluster fuck of a race. I would say that I wasted about 30 seconds at 3 junctions trying to figure out where to go. Who ever thought it was a good idea to do a race on the cart paths of a golf course without course markings is a dumbass, it was a maze. This course is not "flat" like the website said but had lots of small hills. That is ok, at least the money went to a great cause, The Denver Rescue Mission. Here are my splits according my watch.

Mile 1: 6:06 Ave HR 164
Mile 2: 6:33 Ave HR 176
Mile 3: 6:24 Ave HR 175
Mile 4: 6:11 Ave HR 174
Mile 5: 6:21 Ave HR 174
Last 0.75 mile: Not sure, watch includes cooldown for 0.25 of this mile.

I don't think this will be a race I do again next year. Think I will find one that is measured correctly.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Bear Creek 10Spot

Ran a race this morning at Bear Creek Lake Park in Lakewood called Bear Creek 10Spot. It was 10.4 miles with about 1000ft of climbing. Not a lot of climbing but that last uphill at mile 8 hurt! Here is the elevation profile and map from Adam's website.



My plan was to use it as my long easy run this weekend keeping my heart rate under 150 but that did not happen. My average heart rate for the race was 175- OUCH!!! I finished th 10.4 mile course in 1:15:00 flat on my watch which gave 8th overall and 2nd in my age group. Here are my mile splits along with the average heart rate for that mile, can you guess where the hills are.

7:28- HR 170
7:00- HR 177
7:13- HR 173
7:29- HR 173
6:33- HR 170
7:40- HR 177
7:25- HR 174
6:56- HR 176
7:57- HR 179
6:48- HR 178
Last 0.4miles in 2:26- HR 184

This was a really fun low key event that could easily become a yearly affair to run. Great job Adam!!!!

Ramblings and Pranks

Been pondering all week if last Saturday's effort at the 12 Hours of Boulder warrants a race report or not. Most likely not since I treated it as an easy long 6 hour jog and did not do the whole 12 Hours. Anyways props to GZ for finishing is 100!

This weekend I am going to race- strike that- run the Bear Creek 10Spot on Sunday. If I feel good (which has not been the case all week) then I will run hard, if I don't then it will be a fun jog. Could not beat the $20 sign up fee ($40 now for last minute people).

On a side note I had to share this. Now that is a PRANK!

Gemma

So we have been having a lot of issues with our Malamute howling when left alone over the past 2 years since we got him, he gets lonely very easily. This past Saturday we came home from a hockey game to find a written warning on the door from the Westminster Animal Control for the noise after only being gone from 11am-2pm. One of my neighors had complained. DAMN IT!!!

We were at a loss on what to do. We have tried toys, me coming home at lunch, and even taken it to the point of a shock collar. All which have not seemed to work. We can not afford the ticket and possible court cost that this could bring.

My big boy TONKA:



So as a last ditch effort we got this sweet little girl to keep him company.

Meet Gemma-



She is a Black Mouth Cur. Very very sweet and all she wants to do is please everyone. She does have lots of energy because she is only 9 months old which makes Tonka put her in her place more than once.

Lets hope this works. Otherwise we will have to re-home Tonka to a place where the noise will not be an issue and I really don't want to lose my big boy.

Bear Chase 50K

I finally got back on the horse this past weekend and ran my first ultra since last year's Leadville 100 by running the 50K version of the Bear Chase. I just have not had the interest this past year with everything going on in our family's life to do the long races. Anyways a super quick report and some pictures.

I signed up for this race without really putting in any long runs. I was running about 50-60 miles a week for a while just as a stress relieve but my longest run was only 14 miles every weekend doing the Dirty Bizmark loop. About 3 weeks out from the race a I did a 24.5 mile run in the Marshall Mesa/Dowdy Draw area in 3 hours and 45 mins at an easy pace. After that weekend I took the next 2 weekends off due to family coming to visit, needless to say I was a little under trained.

I had 2 goals in mind for this race- A) break my PR at 50K distance which is 4 hours and 31 mins or B) Finish before noon which is 5 hours and 10 mins.

To keep this short I went out at a moderately hard pace but never close to the red line with the exceptions of the small hills on this course. I was able to finish the first 19 miles in about 2 and half hours or so. The third and final lap (12.4 miles) I was doing fine the first 5 miles of the loop then gradually got slower and slower until by mile 29 I was on my hands and knees with the puke fountain turned on in full force. My stomach just shut down again and my body quick absorbing what I was drinking and eating. I was able to walk it in losing about 4-5 places in the standings to finish in 4:50:22 for 14th male and 16th overall. At least I hit my B goal, got an ok time, and got back into ultras again.

What is next? I am pondering doing either the 6 hours or 12 hours of Boulder on Oct 15th. I am leaning towards the 6 hours so that I can go see Braden's hockey game that morning but I am unsure right now. I kind of want to go out for 50 miles which should be very doable on this course in 12 hours. We will see, here are some pictures from the race.

Longs Peak Run

On Friday night I put out the word on Facebook to see if anyone was interested in doing a 14 mile trail run in the Boulder area. This lead to Donald inviting me to join him in trying to break 4 hours to the summit and back of Longs Peak on Sunday. Challenge accepted!


Due to the snow that we discovered from the Boulder Field up we did not summit. And the winds were outragous on the other side of the Keyhole as you can see in this video.


We turned around shortly after this at just over 2 hours. I think if we would have had our mountaineering gear it would have been game on but being in shorts in 30 degree weather with that wind just was not doable. We ended up with 12.5 miles/ ~4000ft of gain in 3 hours and 5 mins.

Phil Maffetone Interview

I have really been trying to follow Phil Maffetone training principles lately and have been trying to absorb anything that I can find about it. It all came about reading Lucho's blog where he talks about it quite often.

This lead to reading this book which I really seemed to agree with what Phil has to say, it just makes sense in my mind. Since reading this book I started wearing a heart rate monitor and minding how my body feels when running. I started doing this about the beginning of July. Since then I have dropped my 145bpm heart rate pace on flat ground from 8 mins per mile to about 7:20 mins per mile. I am very interested to see where this goes.



Ben Greenfield just did a great interview of Phil. You can listen to it by clicking here.

Let me know your thoughts about this training philosophy. Here are a couple more links with more information.

Mark Allen on Heart Rate Training

Want speed? Slow down!