I again ran in the Wasatch Front 100 that runs in the mountains from Kaysville, Utah to Midway, finishing at the Homestead Resort. This was my focus 100-mile race of the season. I really wanted do well at this home-town race. In 2006 I struggled to a 34:15 finish and that has bugged me for three years.
This is a very tough 100 mile race with nearly 27,000 feet of climbing. Any finish is great, any finish under 30 hours is super. I set what I thought was a realistic goal of 28:30.
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.
At Katcina Mosa 100K, I paced Mark Ellison for the last 40 miles of the course. I put together a slide-show audio/video about the experience. The race is a tough mountain race that shares part of the course with the Squaw Peak 50, in the opposite direction. I had great fun playing the pacer role. One runner commented, “Boy you are a mean pacer.” Ha, ha, no whining allowed when I pace! Mark successfully finished in under 17 hours.
For the third time, I entered the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 held in the mountains on the north-east side of beautiful blue Lake Tahoe. This race is in its 4th year. The course is laid out on state park and state forest land, climbing ridges overlooking beautiful Lake Tahoe and various reservoirs. The surface is mostly very runnable, soft single track. There is about 19,500 feet of climbs, aided by many switchbacks. Most of the course runs between 7,000-9,000 feet elevation. This race for some reason has a low finisher rate, but to me, this is an “easy” mountain 100 course.
After work I drove up American Fork Canyon to the Timpooneke Trailhead to run up to the top of Mount Timpanogos for the first time this year. It would be my 57th career summit. This run is about 15 miles round-trip and ascends about 4,800 feet to 11,749. I had yet to be above 10,000 feet this season.
Still at scout camp up at Scofield Reservoir, I again got up very early, the sixth straight day that I was out running around 3:30 a.m. I’ve never done that before. I’m going to have to catch up on sleep. For today’s adventure, I decided that I would run all the way around Scofield Reservoir. I bet no one has done that before. My route turned out to be 18 miles.
“I have seen at least a couple runners who have looked worse than you.”
– comment from an aid station volunteer at mile 92.5 after seeing several hundred runners before me.
I ran in the Bighorn 100-mile trail run for the 4th time. Many times these race reports are a means for me to write about an achievement, perhaps setting a new personal best time for a course or a distance. This is not one of those times. The 100-mile distance is such an unpredictable adventure that you never are very sure what the end result will be. I learned a lot about overcoming adversity and not giving up on a goal. For me, this story is a victory — just not the victory I went into the race hoping for.
I ran in the Utah Valley Marathon. At the last minute I entered this marathon, feeling that I had recovered enough from a good finish at the tough Squaw Peak 50-miler just a week ago. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see how I can do. Besides, all the trails were soaked from all the rain this week and a nice road run down Provo Canyon would make sense. It would also be a nice last long run before Big Horn 100 on Friday.
I ran in the Squaw Peak 50-mile trail run, held in the mountains east of Provo, Utah. If successful, this would be my fifth straight finish at Squaw Peak. To me, it is one of the greatest 50-mile races in the country. The views are spectacular and the trails are very challenging. In particular I enjoy it because of all the local participants.
Just a few notes about how I prepare for a 50-mile race such as Squaw Peak 50. Because I’m so anal about split times, I like to construct a spreadsheet that contains a list of the various aid stations, mileages, my goal time, and any previous year times if I have run the race before. I analyze the elevation profile and set a time goal to arrive at each aid station. Surprisingly I can usually come very close. I always tend to start faster than planned, but usually always back off back to my planned pace. I usually keep a close eye on the clock during a race. It helps me to push myself at times when I get lazy.
I wanted to get in an early Memorial Day run, but with an evening downpour, I knew the trails would be slick and I couldn’t risk twisting the bad ankle. So instead I discovered that Striders was putting on a half marathon up in Syracuse. That would be a nice tempo run and wouldn’t do any damage to the foot, so I got up early and made the drive up north. It had only been nine days since I ran Ogden Marathon and two days since I ran 23 miles on the Sapper Joe course. Oh well, I would give it a try.
I ran in the Sapper Joe 50K held at Camp Williams, Utah in Bluffdale, about six miles from my home. Well, actually I ran 23 miles on the course during the race. I never entered the race, but I’ll get to this. This is a new race run entirely on a military base on dirt roads normally closed to the public. But thanks to Lt. Colonel Milada Copeland, a talented ultrarunner, this new race became possible.
