Per Aspera Ad Astra

Standard Big Water loop in 1:34:25.  Top of Mill Creek Road up Big Water to Dog Lake to Desolation Lake to Wasatch Crest Ridgeline to Canyons Junction to Old Red Pine Road Trail to Top of Mill Creek Road.  3000' of gain.  Garmin had 10.7 miles, but I suspect it measures a bit short in densely wooded areas, as the pace tends to jump substantially every time I go around a corner with a lot of trees overhead, indicating that it's cutting the majority of corners in its measurement.  In any case, what matters is that I was doing this loop in 1:5x on a good day 2 years ago and hit 1:34:25 today while going about marathon effort on the way to the highest point, and then relaxing after that point to avoid beating myself up on the downhills.  Was going to run with the group this morning, but have just been exhasted over the last few days, so I slept in.  Sorry everyone!  In any case, this has been a weird few months for me.  I've been lazy and I feel like I'm in terrible shape, but when I go after it, I'm pretty easily hitting times that I've struggled to hit or been unable to hit in the past (2nd at BOSHO again, 1:15 at Provo City,  7 seconds off my PR, 1:10:40, pretty easily, on a super aided half, and now this, which I expected to hit in ~1:40 if I worked super hard the whole time).  I'm running Speedgoat on Saturday, so I hope this will translate, but I have the feeling that I'm just going to be running on fumes after 20 miles or so.  Also, I'm saving all my money for the trip mentioned in the paragraph below and I'm too cheap to buy new trail running shoes at the moment, so I think I'm probably going to run Speedgoat in 5 ounce XC 5k flats, which don't do much for rocks.  That ought to be interesting. :)

In other news, Daria just left for Africa yesterday, hence me not running for the better part of last week.  I won't see her for 5 weeks, so I wanted to spend a lot of time with her before she left, in addition to helping her prepare for 5 weeks of travel, followed by a climb up the world's tallest freestanding mountain (Kilimanjaro) that I'll be joining her there for.  So, while I didn't run, we did plenty of active hiking/walking oriented activities in the outdoors.  One of my favorites lately has been the Solitude hike/disc golf combo, even if I'm terrible on that course.

This was 5 miles, but it had over 2km of elevation change.  I ran up and down the front (west) side of Grandeur in the dark with Holly, with a little extra off the trail.  The actual climb part was 3299' of gain in 2.1 miles, so it's really steep (29.9% average grade), but I made a point to just get my legs used to the rhythm they'll need at Speedgoat on Saturday, so I did it comfortably without walking a step.  The climb was 51:22 with a comfortable easy effort, which isn't so bad, as apparently the best time up it is 39:41.  I didn't enjoy running down it in the dark, as the trail is super steep and a lot of the rocks are loose, so I just took it nice and easy on the way down.  I'm not really in fantastic shape, but I think I should be able to take off at least an hour from my time at Speedgoat 2012.

Really annoyed.  Today was Speedgoat 50k and I DNFd due to lung issues.  I started out pretty conservatively and settled into a pretty easy climbing pace.  At the top of the climb (9.25 miles, rather than 8.3, as they've changed the course, and haven't updated the distances), I was 2 minutes behind Hal Koerner (2 time WS100 champ) and 3 minutes ahead of Ellie Greenwood (WS100 and Comrades champ), so while I didn't start as fast as some, I was in good company.  I took a minute to chug a Fentiman's Rose Lemonade and took off on the downhill feeling good.  I caught Hal halfway down and he didn't look great; I think he DNF'd later...  At the bottom, Ellie was maybe 1 minute behind, and coming up to the top of the pass over to Mary Ellen Gulch, she was 10 seconds behind me.  I felt good at the top of the climb, so I decided to go.  I quickly put her out of sight and passed ~10-ish people in the next 4 miles by running high 7 pace on incredibly technical terrain (the rockiest trail you will ever see in your life, by far)

This is the trail we ran on:

Fun, right?

Coming into Pacific Mine, I had to run down a steep incredibly dusty section behind another runner.  I remember thinking that I should give him space so as not to breathe all the dust, but didn't want to waste time, and stuck right on his tail.  A couple minutes later, the lung issues started...  I've had some exercise-induced asthma a few times in the past, but it was only ever bad over the last 30 miles of Cascade Crest 100 in 2009, so it's not something I think about much.  At first the symptoms were minor and didn't bother me much (pain on deep breaths, but I wasn't running as fast as possible, so it was tolerable).  I could see via an out-and-back that I was 5-ish minutes back of Mark Hammond, who beat me BOSHO, and who was targeting the 5:xx range here, so I felt pretty good about that (he didn't hit his target, and ended at 6:41, but I was gaining on him and felt like I had a ton left).  I figured the lung stuff would clear up, but by the time I left the aid station, it was getting worse and I decided to walk for a minute to try to cough it out.  I was quickly passed by Ellie, which I wasn't happy about, but figured I could catch her on the climb.

As soon as the climb back to Mineral Basin started, however, everything changed.  Suddenly, running for more than a few steps started to cause major seizing in my lungs, so I tried to walk it off.  Soon, though, even a moderate effort hike caused me issues, so slowly, almost all of the people I had recently passed re-passed me.  I kept trying to break into a run to keep up (the trail isn't really that steep), but I'd instantly have to stop, and even had to sit down and wait for 30 seconds a few times.  I figured I'd get to the aid station, figure something out, and then push hard from there, but when the first quarter of mile 21 took me more than 11 minutes (sure, a steep hill, but still, come on...) and dozens of additional people started passing me, I knew I was done.  I walked as quickly as possible back to Larry's Hole, but my pace was absolutely pathetic.  Mile 21 mostly downhill from 20.3 on, but it took me 29:32.  Apparently, my lungs were so messed up that that 5.3 mile stretch from Pacific Mine to Larry's Hole took me over 1:50, despite the climb not being all that steep, except in one short stretch.

Frustratingly, when I got to Larry's Hole, I had to drop, despite my legs, feet, and energy all being dialed in perfectly.  Now I'm at home and don't feel like I even went for a run today.  It's frustrating that this happened, but I have a few valuable takeaways:

1. I need to bring my inhaler on my Kili climb next month.

2. I'm really mad about my result and I'm finally fired up to train for real again.  I've managed to have some pretty decents results lately without training hard, and I keep saying that I'll probably need a bad result to snap me out of this laziness.  This was it.  I'm not taking any chances on St George.  My legs are fine, so training starts tomorrow.

3. I'm going to focus on road racing for awhile.  I'm really annoyed by this race result, so I want to give myself another chance at something longer than a marathon after St George, but it's going to be on roads.  Still weighing options on that.

Profile for what I "ran":

21.6 miles, 7765' of climb, 6078' of drop.