Not quite the 50 that DeanK did, but I bet he didn’t summit a 13er. Friday I ran up to the top of the highest peak in Utah, Kings Peak (13,528 feet). The summit gets about 5,000 visitors per year. However, few people run from the trailhead to summit and back in one day. Most people do a three-day backpacking trip. This was my 8th Kings Peak Summit and the sixth time I have done the summit in one day. I made the run with Craig Lloyd and his neighbor Eric. Read Craig’s detailed writeup here.
Saturday I ran in the tough Park City marathon. This marathon is not your typical road marthon. It is run at altitude and has about ten miles of dirt. The hills are never-ending and it makes an amazing huge circle around the valley, visiting Deer Valley and Park City.
King Peak Story
The trail is very technical including about ten miles of bowling ball trail and another three miles of boulder hopping. It is very tough. I worried about Eric, a road runner, doing this run as his first major trail run. It did check back his speed, but he did very well.
Elevation profile
Our run was about 13 miles in and 13 miles out, with about 5,000 feet elevation climb. I signed up for this run in order to get more altitude training before Wasatch 100. I really enjoyed the run up, but had a rough time running back down because of record warm temperatures. It wasn’t really that hot at that altitude, but I just haven’t been training at all in the heat, so it really affected me. It sapped my energy with about 9 miles to go. I recovered some, but later ran out of water and became badly dehydrated. I finally had to dip into a side stream with two miles to go. I hope there weren’t any nasties in the water. It sure tasted good.
The trio on Kings Peak Summit (Davy, Eric, Craig)
It turned out still to be the fastest summit and round trip I have ever done. It was 3:40 to the summit and 6:58 round trip running time. I did stop the watch at the top and a few times waiting for the others to catch up.
My splits heading up were:
Alligator Lake trail: 0:27
Elkhorn Crossing: 1:00
Dollar Lake sign: 1:22
Trail sign: 1:36
Gunsight Pass: 2:09
Andersen Pass: 2:53
Kings Peak Summit: 3:40
My pace from Andersen Pass to the summit was pathetic. The altitude above 12,000 slammed me. I kept getting very dizzy and would have to stop and get blood back in my head. I even stayed away from the cliffs, for fear I would faint and tumble off the mountain. Ha, ha. Once on top, in a few minutes I felt fine. No headache, which I usually get up there.
Me jumping off Kings Peak Summit
After returning to Gunsight Pass, as I started to kick it into gear in an attempt to catch up to Craig, I took a major face-plant. I did a shoulder roll, but bruised and scraped up my leg, shoulder, back, and bloodied a finger. I layed on the trail for a couple minutes with Eric looking over me. Finally I felt a little better and got up. That is four bad face-plants in only one week. That took the wind out of my sails. I decided to take it easy the rest of the way.
Park City Marathon Story
I ran in the Park City Marathon, my third road marathon of the year. What’s up with that? Am I converting to the dark-side of running? Well, actually, this marathon is not your typical road marthon. It is run at altitude and has about ten miles of dirt. The hills are never-ending and it makes an amazing huge circle around the valley, visiting Deer Valley and Park City. I think this marathon experience would be very attractive to ultrarunners.
Well, yesterday I ran marathon distance, doing a much tougher run up to the top of King’s Peak (13,528 feet) and back with 5,000 feet of climbing. What was I thinking running a marathon the very next day? I’ve never been accused of having judgement that makes sense when it comes to my running. Yesterday’s mountain marathon left my legs somewhat tired, but not sore. I was more worried about the stress my system experienced due to severe dehydration. Also, I had only slept about 8 hours over the past 48 hours. It was not the best way to rest up for a marathon.
However, I was excited to run in Park City because I really wanted to have a good long tempo run at 7,000 feet. I didn’t study the course much and was very suprised to discover how many hills we had to climb. Oh well, what goes up, must come down, and I had a great time blasting down some hills, especially when they were dirt hills.
I wasn’t very serious about this race. I lined up mid-pack at the start, talking with my friend Jim. As we were talking the horn sounded. Oh, I guess I better start running. My race started very good. I was surpised how well my legs felt. I had to dodge and pass tons of runners, but my first mile was 7:17. I lost track of the mile signs, but I reached mile 4 at 30:28. Not bad, about 7:30 pace on some good uphills. Mile 5 was 6:59 and mile 6 (hills) was 8:36. I kicked it back into gear with a 7:26 mile 7 and a 8:01 mile 8.
Me at about mile 10
About that point, the wheels came off my race. I knew I just couldn’t sustain that pace today. We were running on the long railroad trail which was dirt. I loved the dirt and the views of the valley, but after awhile I was ready for something new. Mile 9 was 8:39, Mile 10 was 8:54, Mile 11 was 10:10, and Mile 12 was 9:51.
I next started to have severe gastro problems, very uncomfortable. My pace slowed significantly to 10:31, 12:11, and 11:41. We then made a long hot climb up to Deer Valley, doing a loop. I recovered somewhat and no longer had scores of runners passing me. Next splits were 11:11, 9:40, and a fast 8:13 as I enjoyed cruising the downhill, passing many runners.
Park City
I was now in “hang-on” mode as we ran above Park City. 10:23, 10:53, bringing me to mile 20. The gastro problem was crippling me. So, no other choice but to take an 8-minute bathroom break. Pretty funny to take such a long break during a fast marathon race. I believe the dehydration from yesterday just stressed out my digestive system too much. Bummer. I worried that I would need to visit every porto-poddy from there to the finish, but I didn’t have to.
Oh well, I now was back in top shape. I looked at my watch and realized that finishing in sub-4 hours was very unlikely. However, I had plenty of spring in my step, so why not end this marthon training run in fine shape?
Mile 21 was 8:52, Mile 22 was 9:38. I then dug deep on the downhill to the finish and really kicked up the speed, passing probably 30-40 runners along the way. I eventually caught up to runners I had seen at mile 20 before my long break. It was becoming very hot. I drank as much as possible and started to splash myself with cool water. My final miles were: 8:06, 8:03, 8:42, and 8:16, with a 1:35 for the home stretch. It was a great feeling to finish off strong.
So I finished my 5th marathon in 4:04, my slowest time. But how many of those other runners also ran a marathon distance yesterday? Ha, ha.
It was a wonderful two days, getting in some great altitude and heat training.