Weekly Run Log - Mar. 20-26, 2011

03/22/2011: Last day in NH for the winter so I did my long run on the Pumpelly Trail and extended it down the road along Dublin Lake. Good run but tough running near and above treeline. 3" of new snow last night filled in the wells around rocks and you couldn't tell if you were stepping on hard pack snow or going to plunge through. Took it easy. Cramping up toward the end. I may need to do more gels or start bringing one bottle of Nuun water to supplement the straight water I have been drinking from the hydration pack. I am playing with the hydration pack in order to run the Grand Canyon but so far the only thing I don't like is that I have no intake of sodium beyond food and that is not enough. S-caps maybe? 2:50, 12.0 miles, 1,900' vert.

03/25/2011: Arrived in Moab! I found a spot to camp out in Behind the Rocks next to a feature called Prostitute Butte. Looks like I will be here for a couple of days. The maps and 4WD roads seemed to be at odds with each other until I took a short run around the "Butte" to recon. ~0:10, 1.0 miles, 50' vert. 

On the way to Moab I couldn't resist stopping at Vail Pass to get some quick turns and dig a quick pit to see what has been going on in the snowpack. Looks like some pencil and knife-hard crusts near the surface with more homogenous layering of lightly faceted grains further down (>50 cm). It agrees with what Cisco told me over the phone: that there had been several weeks of Spring weather followed by a return of winter weather the last week or so. This winter weather was what left me with about 5 cm of fresh powder that enticed me pull off the highway and "shred" a bit. 

03/26/2011: Ran a combination of the Behind the Rocks 4WD road and Tip Toe Behind the Rocks. The navigation was difficult and as a result I didn't run the full Tip Toe road (I just figured that out). The running was easy and there were only minor aches and pains. Don't know if I will stay in the Behind the Rocks area due to the majority of trails being miles and miles of sandy roads. I would like to run some real trails at some point and hopefully with some vertical gain. 1:55, 7.5 miles, 500' vert.

Weekly Summary: 20.5 miles, 2,450' vert.

Weekly Run Log - Mar. 13-19, 2011

03/14/2011: i wanted to run Mt Monadnock one more time before leaving NH so I made my long run of the week the Pumpelly Trail. It was great running once I got on the actual trail. I spent maybe a half hour postholing around on poorly packed ski and snowmobile trails. Just about the time I was about to give up I found the trail and it was perfectly packed for running. Microspikes worked extremely well, even on the rock ledges of the summit. When I took them off to descend from the summit it was not long before I stopped to put them on again. The amount of time reflects my posthole adventure in the woods. 2:36, 10.0 miles, 1,900' vert.

03/16/2011: Kings Highway/Old Dublin Rd out-and-back. Winter mix while running. Felt sluggish through the run but was able to enjoy most of the run anyway. I was still recovering from Monday's run. 0:51, 5.6 miles, 300' vert.

03/19/2011: Skatutakee Loop by Harriskat and Cadot trails. Mushy down low, Cadot trail was actually down to ground though the ground was pretty much mud. Not easy going but still had an alright time when finished. Lungs and heart are feeling better after frying them with this week's long run up Pumpelly. 1:05, 4.8 miles, 1,000' vert.

Weekly Summary: 20.4 miles, 3,200' vert.

A big week with a fair amount of vertical gain. So far the body is feeling pretty good with the training ramping up like this. Hopefully it will continue to feel good even though the mileage that I am running right now is higher than I had hoped to run.

Weekly Run Log - Mar. 06-12, 2011

03/08/2011: Harriskat to Cadot. Then out Old Dublin Rd to the Junction with Jacquith Rd. Then returned by Kings Hwy. Nice views, great weather (high 20s and sunny) feeling good. Was able to comfortably stretch in the back of my truck. 1:17, 7.0 miles, 1,000' vert.

03/10/2011: Harriskat/Cadot/Old Dublin/Kings Hwy loop. Was in the zone for the first time in a while. I usually suffer a bit but today I was able to daydream while running. A bit slow on the ascent but ran it pretty fast nonetheless. Not as much postholing as on Tuesday. 1:00, 5.0 miles, 1,000' vert.

03/12/2011: Kings Hwy, and Old Dublin Road. The trails were quite soft to do the loop. Tried twice and each time decided that I would need to posthole my way to the summit of Skatutakee. Running on the road was fun though. Rocked the tunes and just zoned out. 0:49, 5.6 miles, 300' vert.

Weekly Summary: 17.6 miles, 2,300'

The second official week of training for the summer of 2011. I am getting an earlier start and I am starting with a good base that I worked on by running about 10 miles a week all winter long. So far I am feeling pretty good. I was shooting for 15 miles this week and was able to surpass it a little. I am not going to push it that much this upcoming week so I will be shooting for a long run of about 8.5 miles and 20 total miles. I'll take whatever vert I can get but it will depend on the snow freezing solid again. The forecast is calling for cold nights and warm days for part of next week so maybe it will be possible to get some good vert!

I think my racing this winter has improved my speed. Makes me wonder if I can run 50s or even 100s faster. It is early to be formulating goals for the upcoming races this Spring and Fall. I plan on waiting until the races get closer and then see how my body is doing before I decide on how much I want to push it. I hope to be in condition to attempt to run a fast 50 or 100 at least for one of the races. Fun will be the number one priority as always.

Winter Wild Series End

It was too bad that I missed the first race of the series. But at least I had fun running the three remaining races.

The final race results are in as well as the final points count. I did fairly well in the points competition coming in 15th in my class. They had a professional photographer there to take pictures of the racers. Pretty cool but there weren't many pictures of me. That's okay by me.

Weekly Run Log - Feb. 27, - Mar. 05, 2011

03/01/2011: Harriskat trail plus a little down the Cadot trail and back. I snowshoes the trail last night while it was soft and it set up well. Unfortunately one snowshoer going back and forth was not enough to make a well packed trail. It was getting annoying toward the end of the descent to be postholing every couple steps. But at least I was not on roads and I got some vert. 0:54, 3.25 miles, 700' vert.

03/02/2011: Harriskat trail and back then down to the corner of Kings Hwy and Old Dublin Rd and back. I've chewed up the Harriskat pretty well. It could use a melt and refreeze. 1:02, 4.5 miles, 1,000' vert.

03/05/2011: Series Finale of the Winter Wild race series held at Sunapee. It was awesome seeing the mountain in a different way. Ran up Elliot, down to the Bowl, and up Williamson to the top. Then ran down Ridge to the bottom. There was much greater length and much more vert. Hurt a bit going up. I tried to keep my body at the red line by walking the rollers and running the "flatter"'sections but it is a long course that wore on me after a while. Felt pretty good coming down. Placed 24th out of 133 and third in my age group but only because they put me in the 30-39 age group. 0:42:20, 4.25 miles, 1,500' vert.

Weekly Summary: 12.0 miles, 3,200' vert.

This week marked the last week of work at Mount Sunapee for this season. I think I will be pretty excited to return next year. The most enjoyable thing about working for Mt. Sunapee this year was that I could just work hard and when I left work I had no issues to bring home (except for when I worked Lift Operations or the Learning Center).

With work done I am excited to start training in earnest for this summer's race schedule. I feel it is a bit late to start training for the Grand Canyon and I will just play it week-by-week as to whether I will run it in April. The real priority will be the Collegiate Peaks Trail Run (50 miler) on May 7th. I should have enough time to train for that. 

Next week I am planning on leaving to head west again. I am pretty excited to be have time off again along with the money that I earned at the resort. I will be much happier when I have a cap on my truck as most of the other things I want to tie up before leaving have been completed. 

There it is in a nutshell!