2010 Portland Marathon Results

3:20:28
402/7276 Overall; 76/501 Age

This wonderful trip started a week before when I was out to dinner with my marthoning bud, Morgan. We were talking about next races and when I told her I was running in Portland she offered up her parents place for me to crash. I contacted them (Linda and Roy) and they were very kind and were very happy to welcome me to their home. Being Morgan’s parents, they were totally hip to the marathon prep thing and even volunteered to get my packet for me as I was getting into town late on Saturday. When I did get into town I stopped quick at Applebee’s (two nights in a row) for a steak dinner. I had done a better job of in-between race fueling, munching all day on whenever was nearby, well except for that whole diarrhea thing.

I finally got to Linda and Roy’s house at about 8pm ready to crash. I stayed up a little while and chatted with them for a little while about Morgan, marathoning and life in general. A very pleasant conversation with some very nice people.

I actually slept in Morgan’s old room, which was still setup like a teenage girl. Linda said that Morgan would not let her ‘repo’ the room, so it still looks very much like a room of a 17 year old high schooler. Very very pink. Had I not known Morgan (who is now 22 years old) it would have been creepy of me, for sure. It ended up being funny, seeing pictures of her when she was younger.

I woke up relatively refreshed on race morning and it was already raining, in fact it would rain all damn day until I left the area that afternoon. Downpour, drizzle, mist, repeat. I was having coffee with Roy at the house and I was telling him about my totally awesome custom made water repelling covers for my shoes that I made for the Boston marathon back in 2007. After I gave him the story, I realized that, although I couldnot replicate those here, I could get something close. With ~10 min, some safety pins, two plastic grocery bags and some athletic tape and I got something almost as good. Not sexy by any means, but very effective. They stayed on the whole race and I know they reduced the total wetness my feet experienced.
Because traffic was going to be horrible (~12,000 runners between the marathon and the half) Roy offered to take me downtown for the race and pick me back up afterwards. I got to the starting line about 10 min before race start in a sea of humanity, temps around 50 and rain coming down pretty hard. On the back of my (rather large) bib there listed symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. I laughed because what they really needed was symptoms of hypothermia, because that, if anything, was what was going to happen today.

My shins and ankles were at about 80% and I had high hopes that they would be ok, and I was right. Sometimes you can ‘run through’ shin splints and they get better after a few miles. Sometimes they get worse and debilitating. I was feeling confident at race start that they were in the former condition, and thank the FSM, I was right. In fact, my legs felts better AFTER this race than they did before, which was waaaay cool.

Something really weird happened to me at about mile 4. I was threatened with bodily harm by another runner. With 10,000 marathoners, I had people around me all day long so to make the day go by faster, of course, I decided to chat with fellow runners when able. I found a nice guy from Seattle to chat with and we ended up running together from mile 3 until mile 17 or so. We were commenting on how our GPS watches were giving rather different net distances after just 4 miles (almost 0.25 mile difference) and also noting that the 3:20 pace group leader looked like he was moving a little too fast. As we got near the pace group leader I asked him (a little loud, as he was in front of me) what his watch said our pace was. Before he got an answer in, another guy running with this pace group looks over his shoulder at me and says “If I have to listen to you this entire race, you won’t finish it”. I said “Excuse me?”. He repeated (with a very glaring look) “If I have to hear you for the entire race, you won’t finish it. I’m serious”. I looked to the guy was running with and said “Did I just get threatened?” “Ummm. Yeah”. Within 15 seconds, 4 other runners looked at me and said (effectively) don’t worry, we got your back. The guy I was running with and I decided to put the jerk behind us so we took off and moved up closer to the 3:15 pace group, which was not that far ahead of us. That was weird. I guess if runners are 99.9% nice gentle people, that means there would be 10 jerks in this field. I seemed to have found one of them.

Rain, rain, rain. Blah. It ebbed and flowed from real rain to heavy mist all day. My plastic bag covers worked really well. The race was along city streets all day so there were puddles everywhere, and I managed to miss most, but not all of them. You try you best to run around them without zig-zagging all day.
The aid stations were all well stocked with water, Ultima, and enthusiastic volunteers, especially considering they were standing still in the cold rain, at least we were warm since we were running. They were giving out handfuls of Gummi bears every once in a while at aid stations, and those being one of the few race foods my stomach can handle, I got some every chance I got. Tasty, but it did make it hard to talk.

As with other large races, there were some ‘unofficial’ aid stations also along the course, usually just local folk who showed up to help out on their own. One ‘station’ was a woman with a 1 gallon Ziploc bag full of frozen grapes giving them out by the handful (she even had a little sign) which was awesome and boy, were they tasty. At mile 23 there was another rouge aid station giving out very small glasses of beer. This is the 3^rd marathon I have gotten beer as an aid station drink and as with the other times (all around mile 23, now that I think about it) it was delicious.

At about mile 17, my new friend was starting to fade and I was feeling so good despite the legs and the rain that I sped up hoping to hang with the 3:15 group. I failed and after about mile 23, I started to coast a little bit. I know I would come in somewhere in the low 3:20’s, and I was very happy with that, this being my 4^thmarathon in 8 days. I just stayed steady trying finish strong. When I thought about all the racing I had done recently it got me tired, so I tried not to think about it.

Considering how well the rest of the race was organized, the finish line and area was unsurprisingly awesome. An incredible variety of food and drink, so-so finishers medal, finisher t-shirt, a rose (Portland is one of the many ‘Rose City’s in the country) and even a Douglas fir sapling (they hope you will take it home and plant it. I will plant mine on the Falling Water Trail) Again these volunteers have been sitting in cold rain for hours handing stuff to the martahoners with smiles and happiness on their face. Wonderful people.
Roy found me at our designated meet up point about 5 min after I got there and we headed for his car and back to the house. After a ~3.5 hour not-so-warm shower that was the race, my hands looked a little wrinkly. My shoe coverings did a pretty good job of minimizing the soakedness of my feet. I don’t mind getting wet from the ankles up, but when my feet are wet I am just miserable. With my toe wrapping and lubing, I had no blisters or toe problems this time either. I mastered that problem long ago.

We got back to Roy and Linda’s house and after a quick shower I got in my rental car and headed for the ocean. I try very hard to do at least some ‘touristing’ when I make these trips and when I am by myself, I am very quick and efficient with my time. The 1.5 hour drive to the Pacific was very cool, going through groves of huge trees that came right up to the roadway. Having seen nothing but clouds and rain for the last 24 hours, I was hoping the weather would break as I headed west and it did, about 5 miles from the ocean. Bluish skies and warm temperatures greeted me when I rolled onto (literally, they let you drive on the beach in certain places) the beach. I found a nice log and took a seat and watched the waves come it. Don’t ask me why, but the Atlantic coast and the Pacific coast are very different. The waves on the Atlantic are fewer and farther in between and the beaches are very rocky. The Pacific Ocean has more frequent waves, in fact you cannot hear any one particular wave coming, just a constant wave crashing drone. Also, the Pacific Ocean beaches are huge (deep?) and very sandy and feel great under bare feet. Had I not run a marathon in each of the last two days I would have done a run along the beach for sure.
I took a slightly different route back deciding to drive along the mighty Columbia river and stopped at Fort Clatsop where Lewis & Clark had spend the winter of 1805-06 before they headed back east. That was pretty cool and I learned a little bit more about their epic journey that I had not previous known.

I got back to Roy and Linda’s in the early evening and they took me out to a local steak house to which they had a $25 off coupon, but there was a $35 minimum bill. They were glad to invite me along as they needed me to get over $35 anyways (They even ended up having to order some desserts to go)
We headed back and I got a very good night sleep, even though I had to get up at 4:30 am local to make my 6:15 am flight home. One bummer about flying way west is that you basically have to burn an entire day getting back to the eastern US.

Of all the 50+ marathons I have run so far, this one in Oregon is by far my favorite, so far. Wonderful people, wonderful touristing, wonderful (all except the rain) marathon. This is exactly why I don’t like ‘repeating’ races. I don’t want my memories of this weekend being confused with ‘some other time’ I went to Oregon.

Some final thoughts at the conclusions of this ‘double double’…. I knew I could survive 4 marathons in 8 days because I have survived 100+ mile races in ONE day. Given the choice of 4 marathons in 8 days or 100 miles in one day, I would have to go with the 100 miler. When you do a 100 miler you go slower and relax, knowing you will be running all day long. When I run marathons ,(no matter when I ran the last one) I try to run them about the same time, low 3 hours. Of course, this foursome of races I did them all in respectable times but boy, did I want to slow down even more much of the time. Maybe my mental toughness is getting better now, who knows. As my marathoning career seems to be (maybe?) closing and my ultramarathoning career is taking off, I am looking at these 26.2 milers as nice training runs. On the flight home from this double, knowing that I do not race again for 6 weeks, I am thinking about how many miles I can log this week. On the flight home I was doing my stretches, strengthening my ankles and shins. I barely take any time at all to enjoy an accomplishment before I look forward to the next big challenge, a 100 mile race in the mid of February outside Buffalo, NY. Granted, I have 2 marathons between now and then (one in Late November, one in mid December) but those will be easy. Well, now they will be :)

2010 Layton Marathon Results

3:24:03
11/294 Overall;  1st in age

So I have done a few ‘doubles’ in my running career (two marathons in consecutive days) and had mixed results. It seems I usually have shin problems going into all of them, spare one. I have never done a back to back double (4 marathons in 8 days) before this stint, and I vow to never do it again. I would rather run 100 miles in one shot than do it over the course of 8 days in 4 different races, I’m just sayin’…

This trip started (again) at 4am Friday morning to make a 6:40am flight out of Detroit. Unlike last week, I had a longer flight to get some reading done and did not arrive in Salt Lake City until late morning. The weather wasn’t all that great (nice temps, but cloudy) so the mountains didn’t look that great. I know these mountains well, so my brain filled in the gaps, no problem. I had time to burn and on the way towards the hotel so after a lame packet pickup, I stopped by the Hill Air Force Base Aviation Museum. I usually don’t pre-plan touristy things, I just let karma guide me when in a new place. This time I was way lucky. I got to see a bunch of cool planes up close and personal, including an SR-71. A very cool looking plane that hasbeen my favorite as long as I have known. It is wicked fast (world record holder, still) and sexy looking, especially at a range of 3 feet. A wonderful time killer, for sure. I ate dinner at Applebee’s, but knowing I would eat there (well, an Applebee’s in Portland, OR) the next day, I got something other than Fiesta Lime Chicken. Still good and tasty.

Early to bed, early to rise, at 3:30 am (local) for a 6 am start. This race was a point (staring on the south end of Antelope Island) to point (somewhere in Layton, UT) race so there was a bus to the start at 5 am. Not wanting to miss the bus, I got there plenty early. A quick phone call to my lovely (and still half asleep) wife and I was on the bus into the darkness.
I met some pleasant people at the race start, including a few marathon maniacs and at 6:15 (only 15 min late) we started off, heading North with greater Salt Lake City (at the lights) to our right. It was so dark, I could barely see the road for the first 45 minutes. Had it not been overcast allowing for the city lights to be reflected) we would have all needed head lamps for sure. The view for the first 10 miles was great, except we could not see the mountains to our east. In fact, we didn’t see them all damn day they were shrouded in clouds. On the island, there are hills and a few roads, that’s it. Well, besides a bunch of sage brush and 5 buffalo I saw. The smell reminded me of my home for 3 years, Rock Springs, WY. A nice sweet ‘middle of BFE’ kind of smell.


At mile 10, we left the island and started the 7 mile STRAIGHT shot of the causeway back to mainland Layton. My shins were starting to hurt, so I ran most of the time on the gravel shoulder of the road. Nice even pace all day long, ~7:40/mile. I was tired and I knew I had another marathon tomorrow, so I took it easy. I was never in severe pain, and my shin after this race would not feel much worse than after my first race the previous weekend. The temperature at race start was probably 45, and at race end, maybe 65. Again (knock on wood) a beautiful race day for me and my fellow runners.

This was the inaugural Layton marathon, and as many of you know from reading this blog, running the ‘first annual’ anything is usually a bad idea. But yet, I did it again, knowingly, because it fit my racing schedule. That 15 min late start was the only hitch in the entire day. The course was very well marked, plenty of water at all aid stations, happy volunteers, all good. The finish was nice, well run, cool finishers medal, but the post race food was a little lacking. Oranges, bananas and peanut butter sandwiches. Seriously, that was it. Oh well, room to improve I guess. :)

Knowing I got burned last week for not eating enough (I just wasn’t hungry!) I bought a 6-pack of Glucerna strawberry shake. It is a drink make for diabetics and each bottle has 200 calories. After the race I drank all 6 and they all tasted delish. Unfortunately, I had never done that before. I will just tell you that about 4 hours later I stopped at a pharmacy to buy a box of Imodium-AD. ‘nuf said.

My flight wasn’t until 4:30pm local, so I had some time to burn. Got a quick shower and some ice for my leg and I went to a local sports bar to watch some football. As predicted, I had no appetite. It literally took me about 10 min of staring at the menu to finally decide to get a burger, and I only ate about 2/3 of it. I need to figure out a solid food to eat post race, because I need a solid food for when I am doing 100 milers that sits well and my mouth doesn’t reject (like it does consuming most Gu type stuff) . Later that day I did buy a box of saltines and ate many of those with some peanut butter. That got some calories in me and I didn’t balk at that, but I hope it is enough to get me through tomorrow. We shall see…

2010 Maine Marathon Results

3:23
90/893 overall
14/80 division

One of the most important things to do in between consecutive day marathons is to eat. You have to replenish what you burned race 1 and then stockpile for race 2. My problem has always been I have no appetite right after a race (or heck, during a race either). That hurt me in my debut 100 mile race and sure enough, it got me here as well.

I woke up with two other people in my hotel room. Morgan, (fellow marathon freak and girlfriend to Gary, whom you have heard of before on this blog) and Adam, a marathon maniac from L.A. who just needed a place to crash. We had a pleasant conversation about marathoning the night before at (you guessed it) Applebee’s. Adam was walking the race (due to recent surgery) so he did the early start (6am as opposed to the main 7:45am start) a
nd so I drove him to the starting line early but the early rise was in my normal ritual, so no fuss.
Morgan and I got ready and headed to the start 45 min before the gun. We hung out with the crowds of marathon manics the day before in NH, but couldn’t find them here in Maine until right before race start. The weather was a carbon copy of the previous day, but a few degrees colder and no wind whatsoever. A little wind would creep up near the end, but the temperature would off set it.

The very first steps (and all others) were painful, the first few miles adding up to be horrible. My quads and calves were fine, but my ankles and shins were in pain and I looked silly, trying to compensate. I just tried to be gentle, but honestly wanted to stop from the very beginning. After a few miles I think I just got numb to the pain and my gait got stable and I seemed to get used to it. My first mile was 7:32 and in the end my per mile average was a little over 7:40, so there was not too much slow down. Sadly, I am getting used to running with that pain. I shall overcome. Damnit.

For the second day in a row, there was a portion of out-and-back togetherness that allowed me to again high five a bunch of marathon maniacs, which again was cool. A built in cheering squad, gotta love it. They were all happy and enjoying themselves, many again taking pictures of other maniacs.

Since I did not eat enough I got horribly tired and was running on fumes for the last 8 miles. I actually started taking Gatorade at aid stations (which I almost never do) just to try to survive. Just then I remembered I did not use my new and improved recovery drink, chocolate milk. How could I have been so forgetful??

The course was fine, starting out near a bay (I never did have a good view of the ocean during the race which was a bummer) and then getting to urban ‘backroads’ with lots of color changing trees. Nothing to right home about, just another course, actually. What for sure did stink was that with about 2 miles to go, you can see the finish line area. I hate that, because then those last miles seem to take forever. If and when I design a marathon course, you come around the last corner and you have 100m to go. Done :)

Since I had not eaten enough, after my handstand, I was hungry. Very hungry. I was waiting for Morgan to come in such that I could take her to the airport so I hung around the finish line and ate. A lot. Several glasses of Gatorade, 2 bottles of water, 2 bagels with cream cheese, 2 bottles of chocolate milk and 7 containers of yogurt. Later I would eat a lot more, probably the most I have ever eaten in a 10 hour period in my life. Yeah, I was toast at the end of this one. I am glad I can still say that I learn a little more about my running every race, even after 51 marathons.

A two step flight late Sunday got me home in my bed a little after midnight. I was so completely exhausted because the flights were just short enough that I couldn’t sleep on either one. It took me a few days to catch up on sleep. Now I have to nurse my legs and eat a bunch because my new marathons are next weekend. ugh.

2010 New Hampshire Marathon Results

3:13:03
13/240 overall
My 50th marathon (or longer) race! 
Freaks abound, and I am one of them I admit, but no matter how freaky you think I am, there are those that are far freakier. My good fiend Gary and his girlfriend Morgan are just such freaks. I do ~1 marathon per month, they do 1-2 a weekend. Every weekend. Even when injured. They will both finish 50 states at the end of October, having started just last year. There are many other stories of people just a wacky. I am glad to call them friends and fellow marathoners. This was a weekend of hanging out with the crazies, for sure. Because this was the first marathon of 4 for me in the space of 8 days
It all began with a 4am wakeup on Friday for a 6:10am flight to Manchester. (It was the cheapest, what can I say) I had time to kill (obviously) once I got to New Hampshire so I headed for the ocean. Unfortunately, a nasty coast wide (yes, from Miami all the way to Maine) storm was just finishing its downpour that day so it was rainy and generally depressing at the ocean. I did find a Starbucks and spent some time working on my race schedule for 2011. Its never too early to start, ya know…

Friday night I had dinner with friend of friend of friend (Erin) and her boyfriend Mike. Two wonderful people who were more than happy to lend their place for crashing marathoners. So gracious are they, that they ran out of room, but not to put me out, Erin convinced her mother to let me sleep there. It was pretty cool, I must say.

I woke up at 6 and stopped back at Erin’s house to have some polite conversation and some fresh fruit. We talked about running, school and a cool site called couchsurfing.org. Couch surfing is kindof like hitchhiking, only staying at someone house instead of just riding in their car. Saying it that way makes it look scary. It was really nice to share stories with other crazies.

The weather the previous days had been horrible but (because of my incredible race weather luck) it broke on race day. 45 degree and sunny sunny sunny.

The course didn’t look hilly based on the course elevation profile, but there were zillions of small hills. None of them were too high, just too many of them. The course was (mostly) around beautiful Newfound Lake. It was a nice day, but very windy, in our face most of the day. Luckily though, most of the last 5 miles had the wind at our back.

I have been having shin issues for a few races now. I am working on it, and they are getting stronger, but I knew they would not be 100% for this race. At about mile 17 they started to give me a little grief and were not great at the end. Ice and more stretching reduced the inflammation, but they would not recover by the next race, since it was 18 hours later.

There were lots of marathon maniacs doing the same double I was this weekend (NH and ME) because they are only 2.5 hours apart by car. Because there was an out an back portion of the course, I got to high five about 25 of them. I even got my picture taken by a few of them. Fun people, they are.

Though I did not see him at the start, I saw my friend Chuck Engle during the same out and back (me going out, him back) and he won the race and beat me. He always does. Remember those freaks I was telling you about, Gary and Morgan? Chuck runs just as frequently and a little faster. I chatted with him a bit after the race, and as always, it was great to see him.
I had a pleasant and quick shower and ate some post race food (pizza!) at the sponsoring school and then I started my 2.5 hour drive (all back-roads and very beautiful) to Portland. Where our next chapter takes us

2010 Pocatello Marathon Results

3:44:46
Idaho, what a beautiful place to visit. So nice that I have thought many times of retiring here. It has the beauty of the mountainous west, with vast stretches of openness dotted with large hills and mountains. A little more water and a little more civilization nearby and this would be a perfect place to live out my life.

This race would be memorable for many reasons, but the first was the race check-in the night before. Even though a good size race (over 1000 runners for all races including 350 marathoners) there was no expo at all, just one room with check in stations for each race. In addition to a nice long sleeve technical shirt, we all received a high quality backpack and a bag of potatoes. Seriously. I love it when races try to be unique in their racer loot. I was glad to have packed light so I could bring the bag the bag of potatoes home with me.
A point to point race requiring busing to the start line and a race start of 6:15 am meant I was up at 4 am to start the ritual. Ugh. My good friend Gary got into the Pocatello area at 4am after arriving in SLC after midnight. I saw him for about 5 min before the race start, just enough time to hear about what food (if you want to call it food) he ate in the last few hours along with his 1 hour of sleep. He did just fine (kicked my butt, as usual) anyways. Must be nice doing this marathoning thing when you are young.
I have been dealing with an ankle issue for a few months now.

 Originally I thought it was just another case of shin splints, but it turns out it might be something more like tendonitis of the lower calf muscle in my right leg. After my Alaska marathon 3 weeks ago I had a hard time walking, it hurt so bad. I spend the next week resting and icing it, only working out on my elliptical machine (getting caught up on my TV shows) until it felt pretty good. I went for a 10 miler with the cross country team and 5 miles out I felt fine, then we took the turn to come back and it starting feeling a little rough. By mile 8 it was really hurting and had a serious problem. By the end of the run I could barely walk. No more runs then before this race, just more elliptical work. It had felt fine for days, but I was still very concerned when I finally toed the line, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

The first 10 miles of this race were actually downhill (net drop for the whole race is ~1500’) which you would think would be great, well not for my ankle. At mile 3 I started getting those same pains I had at mile 5 of my last run. My mind went wild with panic. Will I break 4 hours? Will I finish before the cutoff (6 hours)? Will I DNF? I am running 4 marathons in the span of 8 days in early October, will I be able to recover before then? Is my entire quest now in jeopardy? Will I be able to run my 100 miler in February? Am I totally washed up? Yeah, it was that bad. Freaking out like that at mile 5 of a 26.2 mile race is never a good thing. To try to survive, I slowed down and run as gentle as possible. To ease the impact on my ankle I even ran several short sections of the early race backwards. Being so steep, I was essentially only on my toes which gave my ankles a short break which helped a little. What helped more was just trying to keep my form as gentle as possible, with my right foot seemingly never going higher than about 2 inches off the ground. I feared that intense pain that I felt 2 weeks ago would return. My ankle protested the entire way after mile 3, but never got worse. The Vicodin I took right before race start might have helped a little, I’m not sure

At about mile 16, I was caught by a guy running barefoot. He had a pair of Vibram 5 fingers he was carrying and he was putting off their use as long as possible. He was struggling a little bit and so I decided to run with him to keep him motivated and focused. He was hurting pretty bad especially the last few miles but I tried to keep his mind off it. We slowed way down in the last 4 miles or so, and I had hoped we could easily cruise into a sub 3:45 time. With about 800m to go I knew he wouldn’t make it and I had to take off into a full sprint just to get under 3:45 myself. It’s all about the points, ya know.

The post race food spread was one of the best I have ever seen. Pulled pork sandwiches, ice cream bars, chocolate milk, bagels, fruit, etc. Quite nice for such a small race. I only stuck around for a little bit because I had a long day planned for after the race and I was already running late. Gary had already taken off as he had to catch his flight early that afternoon out of SLC. I was not leaving the area until the next morning, so I decided to (even though Grand Teton was close by) to go the heart of Idaho because I had never been there. I figure I should try to do SOME touristing here since I dropped the dime to get here.

Growing up, I visited parks and places all over the United States, but never Craters of the Moon National Monument, just a few hours northwest of Pocatello. It really was cool, and it really did look like the surface of the moon, or like Hawaii with its volcanic rock. Even though the rocks were more than 2500 years old, there was little vegetation. I took the tour of the lava tubes and caves and tried to work on my deathly fear of confined spaces and made little progress on that. Oh well. On the way back to SLC I stopped as took a tour of one of the neatest places I have ever been to, the EBR-1 lab. It was the first nuclear power plant on the planet. It was the first nuclear reactor built for generating power via a nuclear reaction back in the 1950’s. Though never connected to the grid (so never powered a town) it was still a significant place. It was one of 57 nuclear power facilities on the Idaho National Laboratory land, but most of them are gone. This one still stands (and is maintained completely with tour guides) because it had been designated as a national landmark. For someone like me who enjoys reading and learning about the history of nuclear energy, this was totally awesome.

All in all, it was a pleasant trip. A horrible race, followed by some cool touring of the area. Pleasant memories.

2010 Humpy’s Marathon Results

3:09:41
10/320 overall
1st in age

So it is inevitable that when you are trying to do something in each of the 50 states that you need to get to Alaska. Sure, it’s going to be expensive, but the beauty of the trip makes up for it. My family ( here defined as my parents, all their kids, their spouses and kids) gets together every summer for about a week somewhere, usually a national park. It is known as the ‘Family Gathering’. The gathering in 2011 is set to be in Alaska, but it being such a huge place a little more pre-planning was needed. Since I needed an Alaska marathon, I decided to turn my marathon trip into an official recon on the area.

My Mother normally does the vast majority of the planning for these gatherings, but I have begun to take over some of the responsibilities. My family came to Alaska back when I was 6 years old, and that trip contains my earliest childhood memories. Before I left or this trip, my Mother and I sat down and talked about a very loose schedule that I loosely followed once I got to Alaska, which was about 36 hours before race start.

I arrived in Anchorage late Friday night and on Saturday morning I drove 2 hours down to Seward, stopping maybe 15 times to sightsee or just take pictures. I am speed tourist, meaning that when I travel by myself and I can do enough tourist stuff to make me happy in a short period of time. This was definitely one such trip. This time of year is the rainy season in Alaska. Anchorage had gotten 28 straight days of rain before I got there. Clouds were everywhere, so beautiful pictures of mountains was actually hard to come by. Now, I am a mountain guy, and my favorite place on the planet is the Grand Tetons, but these mountains rivaled them in their awesomeness.

When I woke up race morning at 6am local the fog was so thick that visibility was about 200m, but moved to maybe half mile by race start, a very late 9am. This was my second race in a row running with my friend and fellow marathon freak, Gary Krugger. Two weeks previously, Gary and I stayed together for 39 miles of the Burning River 100 mile Championship but this time, he left me behind from the start. His first mile was sub 6, and mine was 6:05. Oh my, I knew this was gonna be bad. Starting out that fast is never a good thing. And sure enough, I was right.

The race course was nice, with half of it along paved bike path along the coast of the ocean, well, along the coast of a bay that was filled with ocean water. If it wasn’t cloudy, the view would have been nice. There was however a nice breeze and it drizzled on and off during the race. A nice 62 degrees made for an almost perfect running day. After almost 50 marathons, I realized that I could only think of maybe four races where the weather conditions actually sucked. I guess I get lucky with weather and racing.

Two weeks after my debut 100 mile race, my body was not at 100%. During the race, my knees gave some grief, my shins a little achy, and so I slowed from my 6:05/mile but maintained a solid pace. As I slowed and noticed a sub 3 was no longer possible, I was comfortable with holding onto a sub 3:15. I was happy with 8 points. I had 3 toenails permanently removed just 12 days before the race but they actually were fine, which was a pleasant surprise.

We were told there was a chance we might see moose during the race. We were told that is not a big deal unless you see a momma moose and a baby. They (like most animals) are worse as the mother is very protective. Well, at mile 18, sure enough there was a momma moose and her baby 5 feet off the bike trail we were racing. As I approached, a ace official warned me about the moose. No problems as both mom and child were just eating off to the side. When Gary ran through about 10 minutes earlier, Mom and baby were on the opposite sides of the path. You are told NEVER to get between Mom and child, but he survived the encounter. Tame moose I guess.

After the race chit-chatted with Gary until Morgan (Gary’s girlfriend and fellow marathoner) came in at just under 6 hours. That is a little slow by normal marathon standards, but she is recovering from a busted hip. A few months ago she ‘ran’ a marathon on crutches, in over 10.5 hours. This woman has more grit and heart than any runner I have ever met. Truiy.

I wanted to enjoy AK for a little while, and so I stayed in the area longer than I usually do. The race was Sunday morning and my flight didn’t leave until Monday evening. After I got some lunch in Anchorage I took a 2 hour drive north to a little town called Talkeetna, 15 miles off the beaten path. You would think a town this far from civilization would be as off the grid as is possible. Nope. I had cell phone coverage as well as internet access at my hotel. Talkeetna is trying hard to survive, becoming a tourist town, so there were lots of little shops and restaurants each with their own little town Alaska flavor. That allowed me to be able to have a caribou (aka reindeer) burger.

According to the nutritional facts given on the menu it was low in fat, but high in cholesterol. Quite delish.
On Monday I woke up early and headed north hoping to see Mt McKinley, the highest point in North America at just over 22k feet. The weather in this area is finicky and apparently McKinley is only visible ~20% of the time. My luck is good, but not that good. I got to see beautiful mountains but not THE mountain. Once I realized that the weather was not going to clear, I left on my 4 hour drive back to Anchorage picking up brochures at a bunch of cool places including the Iditarod Headquarters and the Alaska Museum of Transportation.

A boring marathon but an awesome trip, which not how it usually goes. That was just fine by me.

2010 US Track and Field 100 mile Championship Results (at Burning River 100)

18:29:50
10th overall

As my 50-states-marathon goal draws nearer (46 by this years end), I have wanted to try longer races to see if that was my ‘next step’, Why not do it in style, and enter the 2010 US Track and Field 100 mile trail championship. Bragging rights could ensue.

I ran a 24 hour race (~4mile loop, see how many times you can run it in 24 hours) in April as a prep to see if I could even run 100 miles in 24 hours. I was successful in that little jaunt, so I signed up for the Burning River 100. Since this was the USTAF 100 mile trail championship, the big dogs were out for this race, people whose names are very well known amongst the ultra running community. I figured If I finished strong here, that would be a sign. Since it is a USATF championship, it meant tighter rules, including no headphones and no pacers. That little rule stinks, so I had a lot of time to ponder while running…

BR100 in only its 4th year now, and is ‘huge’ (4th largest 100 mile race in the country with only ~250 entrants) and very well respected and for good reason. The whole thing was awesome, every detail seemed to have been accounted for, and it started many months before runners toed the line. The official race website was loaded with information, including detailed maps and even video highlights of every single segment of the course. Instead of a runner’s meeting the night before to go over important stuff, they made videos of those presentations too. Even before I came to the area, I knew this was going to be a well run race.

Course was very well marked, all 100 mile except for one section between mile 85 and 90. That was a little sucky, but I managed to not get lost. The aid stations were absolutely amazing. Granted, I was near the lead, and this was the national championship, but still. As soon as they saw me coming near the aid station, a person would run towards me (up stream) and ask me what I needed, as I came closer to the huge layout of food and drink (lots of choices!) that forward runner would yell to the aid station workers what I needed and they would get it ready for me. They filled my bottle at each aid station, I had to do nothing but eat. And this happened and every single aid station, all 20 of them. Did I mention they people are each station were also really friendly and encouraging? A better set of aid station volunteers could not be found.

Misty and I came down two weeks beforehand to scout out the course and mark the aid stations she would meet me as my crew. She is such a sweetheart. During the 18.5 hours of the race she saw me for a total of 15 minutes all day. I tried hard to make her life as easy as possible, so she just had to show up at an aid station, hold out my support bag, I rummage through it for what I wanted, and then I took off not to be seen again by here for maybe hours. I learned from my 24 hr race that I wanted to minimize the time spent standing still and she helped me keep moving and focused. I sat down exactly twice during the race, both times only to change socks and shoes.

The night before the race I met up with two running friends, Ryan Miller and Kevin Green, two other ultra runners who I have found on facebook. They are really great guys with happy thoughts of the race. They both started strong, and Kevin finished with a great 26:31 finish, but Ryan had to bail at mile 80 due to a lot of pain, and bumping up against the time limit.

Way back in Nov of 2009 I met Gary Krugger at the Mississippi Space Coast marathon. It was a small race and he passed me at mile 22 taking away a 2nd place finish. I had run a marathon 2 days earlier so I was quite happy with my 3rd place (and sub 3) performance that day. Turns out Gary is way more of a marathon freak than I am. In his mid-20’s, he is trying to run all 50 states, in one year, all under 3 hrs. He is a running machine and a really great guy. According to his girlfriend, he signed up for this 100 miler only because he saw my name on the entrants list. I found him at the starting line and we decided (since we both run very similar pace for marathons) that we should run together for as long as we could.

Gary had no ‘crew’ per se so he started the race with a 2L Camelbak water container. It didn’t take long ( a few miles) for him to curse that decision, so he gave it to Misty, my wonderful and beautiful crew chief, at mile 18, which was the first spot we saw her. Sure enough we stayed together, walking through aid stations and up any reasonable size hill (my strategy all day long). We would come upon people every once and a while and run with them, chatting about the race and our running histories, and had some fun, with sometime personal and graphic conversations. There seems to be no rules as to what is allowed conversation in distance races.


After about 30 miles, I could tell Gary was starting to drag. I was ‘leading’ him and he kept dropping farther back and I kept slowing. I had originally told him that I wanted to stay with him until mile 60, but I realized that he was going to slow me down too much. I was feeling great and wanted to take off. We were sitting in the high 30’s in place when we hit the mile 39 aid station. With a short ‘Dude, I’m gonna take off’, I flew out of there, picking my pace up considerably. I passed 10 people in the next 10 miles. At mile 54.5, I had managed to move up to 20th place. I was feeling awesome. The pains in my feet and legs (most of which appeared before mile 20) were all still there, but more importantly, were not getting worse. My body was strong, but I was starting to get weak, and I knew it was probably due to a lack of food.

The miles plugged along and I was tiring. Between mile 74 and 81, I dropped 3 spots (at that point I was in ~12th place) I had no energy left, and it was the roughest section all day. I simply had nothing left and still one more marathons distance to go. I sent Misty on a run to find me some Monster Energy drink which I got at mile 90 but only helped my spirits, not my energy. At the mile 81 aid station I decided I needed to stay for a little while and eat something. 2 bowls of ramen noodles not only tasted faboo, but it gave me a jolt of energy that helped for at least the next 8 miles. 81 miles into a 100 mile race is a good time to get 10 miles worth of energy.

The toughest part of this race is section R which contains the dreaded ‘Perkins Trail’ which has lots of roots and mud and steep climbs, all between miles 81 and 86. And of course, for most runners this section would be done at night. I had a goal of reaching it before sunset (8:40pm local) and was tickled when I hit that section at 7pm. No headlamp needed, and it made a huge difference. It would have taken twice as long had I had to do it at night.

By mile 90, I was spent, but near the end of the race which had lots of roads and wide bike paths for running on. I had started to walk pretty much full time by then, and lost a few places. My legs were now starting to complain and my energy was toast. I was walking strong, but simply could not run. Mental toughness is still not something I have a lot of. I need to work on that, somehow. USATF has cash money prizes for the first 6 places, and knowing I was out of contention, I just decided to relax and ride it in. I was walking fast (15 min miles still) which is pretty good after I had been moving for 17+ hours. My mantra was ‘keep moving and you’ll finish just fine’.

I knew I was in 10th place when I took the last turn about 1.5 miles from the finish. That last stretch is up a long steady hill on city street. After I made the turn I looked behind me and there, not more than 600m behind me was someone’s headlamp, and it was bouncing. He was running. I was not. Poop. In my only real case of mental toughness, I told myself I was NOT going to lose that 10th place finish. I started running and ran up that entire freaking hill and all the way to the finish line. I kept checking and I am prety sure that my chaser had walked up the hill. I even turned off my headlamp as I did not want him to see how close he was, lest he get ideas of trying to catch me.

I crossed the finish line just under 18.5 hours to a small but loud-cheering crowd. Misty was there and I did my traditional handstand. In fact I did three handstands. My camera that she was using did not like the lighting, so none of them were captured on film. You’ll just have to trust me on this one. I have witnesses.

It was 11:30pm local and there was a bar right near the finish. Misty and I walked (slowly) there afterwards and I tried to enjoy a tall Blue Moon. I had a hard time drinking it as my body was starting to totally shut down. I was shivering pretty bad and felt horrible. I finished the beer and we headed to the car. I didn’t have any food at the race end because I had no appetite whatsoever. That was good, because we headed back to the hotel (about a 20 min trip, and I felt nauseous for most of if. Literally 2 minutes away from our hotel, I told Misty she needed to pull over. Quick. With seconds to spare, she stopped, and I got the door open before I puked. It was the cleanest puke I have ever had. It contained only water and beer, nothing else.
After we sat there for a little bit we finally got to the hotel. I very slowly got out of my running stuff, did a quick check of my toes (only 2 are in bad shape, but they are pretty bad) took a quick shower and was in bed by 1 am.

After only about 6 hours of sleep, I got up and was just happy to be alive. I could walk and my legs weren’t that bad. I predict my gait will be ‘normal’ in only a few days. My body seemed to be just fine with racing this distance. My legs are strong enough to complete it without too many problems, but I really need to figure out the fueling problem. I had it at my 24 hr run as well, I just need to get more food in me, not just more liquids. Other than the ramen noodles at mile 81, nothing tasted good, which is what sucks. I need to find food that my stomach will handle. Of course, I didn’t need any real food until after mile 50, so how do youtrain for that without doing 50 mile training runs? Haa zaa! I am going to do 20 milers without having eaten much the 12 or so hours before. Just some Gatorade and water. Go out the run knowing full well that my body with get tired very quickly, then try ‘new’ things. Room-temp cooked Raman? Do I have to break down and start using gel packs (which I hate by the way)? Something more creative? If I want to do these well, that’s one of the last hurdles to overcome. Compared to the actual running training (which I seemed to have conquered), it should be an easy problem to fix. Of course, I was not 100% healthy either, getting over a sinus infection as well…

The immediate aftermath of the race was quite compelling. In my first 100 mile race, which happened to be the national championship, I finished in 10th place. So according to the US Track and Field, I am the 10th fastest 100 mile racer in the country for 2010. Could I have found my niche? Marathons in general are now almost cliché, being huge and to the point where ‘anyone could do one’, especially if you don’t care about how fast you run it. The crazies have been pushed out to the 50 and 100 mile distances. Could I have found my forte? Could I have found my home? Where I need to be? I am now in very elite company.

I am so glad that that I have Misty there for me. She is so supportive of this psychosis, even now that it has taken me to the point where I run for 18.5 hours straight. I am so blessed to have her in my life. I could not do this without her. She is an incredible life partner and I thank her every day for her presence in my life.
Other Runners Blogs of this race:
9th Place Finisher
Back of the pack video entry part 1 part 2