As Big John McCarthy would say, LET'S GET IT ON!
In three days, I board a plane for Denver, on my way to Leadville, CO, the highest incorporated city in North America sitting at 10,152' -- site of the Leadville Trail 100. There, I will join 580 others (largest in history) at the starting line on the corner of 6th and Harrison, make my way down to the ghost town of Winfield 50 miles away, turn around and head back to the finish. Along the way, there will be two significant climbs (which we'll do twice) -- Sugarloaf Mountain (el 11,311') and the infamous Hope Pass (el 12,620').
This is the race that usually takes people out of the Series -- less than half will finish, falling victim to the various difficulties this course brings, such as the high altitude, harsh weather conditions, or the strict cutoffs. In 2005, I barely made it to the finish -- squeaked in with less than 8 minutes to spare, in 29:52:43. Interestingly enough, that year had the highest number of finishers (213) and finishing rate (54%).
Look for Anton Krupicka to challenge Matt Carpenter's record again. Bill Finkbeiner will be going for his 24th buckle, having the most number of finishes. Also, Garry Curry and Steve Siguaw will be going for their 19th.
I'm very excited to take on this course again -- it will be challenging no doubt, but like the HURT motto says, 'AOLE MAKOU E HO'OHIKIWALE KELA (translates to: WE WOULDN'T WANT IT TO BE EASY!). Best of luck to all my fellow Slam-mates!
Final score: Me-2 and Leadville-0
I'll leave you with a video I made of my 2005 race.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Biggest 100 miler
Ok...I count 580 entrants for this year's Leadville, which happens to be celebrating its 25th Anniversary. That's a lot of people. I can't imagine any other race past/present that can top that. I wonder how many will finish.
Western States televised
Jeep World of Adventure Sports
Saturday July 28th, 12 Noon Pacific
KNBC
Saturday July 28th, 12 Noon Pacific
KNBC
Witness the jaw dropping, adrenalin pumping, sweat flying adventure of the Western States Endurance Run presented by Montrail®. This event is one of the oldest ultra trail events in the world and certainly one of the most challenging: one day-100 miles. Extreme mental and physical preparation are of utmost importance to each runner, for the mountains, although beautiful, are relentless in their challenge and unforgiving to the ill-prepared.This was originally scheduled to air on Aug 11th. I hope someone can record this, since I'll be doing trail maintenance, and will miss the broadcast.
Andy finishes Vermont in 1st
That would be Jones-Wilkins of course.
This is just a quick update while my body is rebooting from single-user to multi-user mode. The time difference, odd sleep patterns, and a few hours of running I did over the weekend has me displaying a 404 Mind and Body not found error message at the moment.
Anyway, I'm glad to report that all my Slam-mates finished successfully. Ronda and Hiroki, who if I'm not mistaken, lead the series, had an incredible run after doing equally well at WS. Hiroki took the lead after Glen Redpath's DQ, and it's too bad A J-W isn't Slamming, since he seems to have recovered quite nicely from his stellar WS performance as well.
Vermont results are already posted here. Same for the Grand Slam. The Last Great Racers all finished as well -- that's Phil Rosenstein, Dan Brendan, and Dirty Girl Xy.
Where the heck are Tahoe's results? Other than Jasper and Molly winning, I've not heard much else. What happened to all the OCTRs?
Badwater had an interesting turn I see...hope Jorge's ok. Congratulations to Valmir Nunes, who I've not heard of until today. Nice to see the SoCal runners doing well again -- great performance by Akos and David. Read their story here, btw.
Ok...I'm off to bed now, or was I supposed to eat lunch.
I'll have a full report on Vermont soon. I think my OD one is finally done, so will post that after I wake up or finish eating.
This is just a quick update while my body is rebooting from single-user to multi-user mode. The time difference, odd sleep patterns, and a few hours of running I did over the weekend has me displaying a 404 Mind and Body not found error message at the moment.
Anyway, I'm glad to report that all my Slam-mates finished successfully. Ronda and Hiroki, who if I'm not mistaken, lead the series, had an incredible run after doing equally well at WS. Hiroki took the lead after Glen Redpath's DQ, and it's too bad A J-W isn't Slamming, since he seems to have recovered quite nicely from his stellar WS performance as well.
Vermont results are already posted here. Same for the Grand Slam. The Last Great Racers all finished as well -- that's Phil Rosenstein, Dan Brendan, and Dirty Girl Xy.
Where the heck are Tahoe's results? Other than Jasper and Molly winning, I've not heard much else. What happened to all the OCTRs?
Badwater had an interesting turn I see...hope Jorge's ok. Congratulations to Valmir Nunes, who I've not heard of until today. Nice to see the SoCal runners doing well again -- great performance by Akos and David. Read their story here, btw.
Ok...I'm off to bed now, or was I supposed to eat lunch.
I'll have a full report on Vermont soon. I think my OD one is finally done, so will post that after I wake up or finish eating.
Weekend forecast...and races
Weather doesn't look too bad for my race in Vermont this weekend -- mid-70's to 80 with 65% humidity, and showers/t-storms. Tahoe will have similar temps, but lower humidity of course. Death Valley, on the other hand, will be a toasty 117 on Monday -- that's just wrong.
The Tahoe 100 mile women's race should be fun to watch -- Sue Johnston will undoubtedly be challenged by Kim Gimenez, Amy Grafius, and Kathy D'Onofrio. Also, Molly Zurn, who won last year's 50M race will be attempting the 100 this year, and should be keeping them company as well. In the men's field, Jasper Halekas returns to defend his title, but Eric Clifton, Jeff Riley, and Sean Meissner will make sure that that doesn't happen.
I'm unfortunately going to miss parts of Badwater, since I'll still be out in Vermont, but should definitely catch the latter part of the race. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how Jorge Pacheco does, along with the usuals up front -- Charlie Engle, David Goggins, Akos Konya, Marshall Ulrich, and Dean Karnazes. Best of luck to Lisa Smith-Batchen with the double, and also to a few local ultrarunners -- Gabor Kozinc, Gary Hilliard, and John Radich.
Finally, good luck to ME this weekend! :-) Looking forward to seeing my Slam-mates, and hoping to come back with a 100 mile PR.
Off to the airport I go.
The Tahoe 100 mile women's race should be fun to watch -- Sue Johnston will undoubtedly be challenged by Kim Gimenez, Amy Grafius, and Kathy D'Onofrio. Also, Molly Zurn, who won last year's 50M race will be attempting the 100 this year, and should be keeping them company as well. In the men's field, Jasper Halekas returns to defend his title, but Eric Clifton, Jeff Riley, and Sean Meissner will make sure that that doesn't happen.
I'm unfortunately going to miss parts of Badwater, since I'll still be out in Vermont, but should definitely catch the latter part of the race. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how Jorge Pacheco does, along with the usuals up front -- Charlie Engle, David Goggins, Akos Konya, Marshall Ulrich, and Dean Karnazes. Best of luck to Lisa Smith-Batchen with the double, and also to a few local ultrarunners -- Gabor Kozinc, Gary Hilliard, and John Radich.
Finally, good luck to ME this weekend! :-) Looking forward to seeing my Slam-mates, and hoping to come back with a 100 mile PR.
Off to the airport I go.
Tapered out...
I really wanted to do a decent run this weekend, but had to force myself to take it easy -- there would've been absolutely no benefit from doing so. There's less than a week now until Vermont, so I probably should go through my dropbags from WS that have been sitting unopened in my room since the race. I just finished my checklist, and split chart. I'll have 5 drop bags -- Stage Rd, Camp 10 Bear (twice), Tracer Brook, West Winds, and Bill's. I can probably get by with just one at Camp 10 Bear, but I'm going to have the others anyway. I'm planning on packing tomorrow, which should go fairly smoothly if my list is accurate -- it's getting to the point where there's less and less thinking involved. Well, I guess it's a lot easier to prepare for races I'm familiar with -- in my case, that'll be Vermont, Leadville, and AC. Here's my split chart for a 22 hour pace -- the plan is to be ahead of it so that I can beat my time from 2005, which was 22:08.On Friday, I went out to the Scout Adventure Race in OC -- a local event held at the Flying B every year. Ed Shapiro, who I met several years ago is the RD, and he manages to always bring out a decent number of participants (70 teams this year I believe) -- many who are actually boy scouts and novice racers just getting into the sport, and a handful of pros. I ended up helping setup the ropes sections -- one was a 50 yard tyrolean traverse (see photo below), and the other involved about a 150 ft of slack-lining. I had help from Calvin (who was just up volunteering at WS the other week), and King Rich, who is a fixture in the AR scene who I met 2 years ago at the Coastal Challenge. It was also nice to see some old faces I haven't seen in a while -- Bernice "Princesa" Pierson, Devlin Rambo, Alberto Flores, Barry Adsett, and Kristine Gillis. Missing were Paul and Karen of Team SOLE -- they were out in Russia with Paul's son Jordan climbing Elbrus, which would be his 3rd summit in his quest to become the youngest to do all seven summits.
The race started at 3:30am, and was a Score-O format, which basically meant that racers had a choice as to which checkpoints they wanted to visit -- the idea is that the harder to find and farther checkpoints were worth more points. I was going to stick around to help Calvin and Colin who were stationed up at Beek's Place, but didn't bring my bike gear, so went home after the meeting. It was probably a good thing, since the last time I rode that section, I crashed pretty hard, and was unable to run properly for a while.Post WS training
Friday night (yes, night) was my first significant run after finishing Western States -- 6 of us started at Chantry around 11pm, attempting to cover the last 25 miles of the AC100. Most people who have done the race will agree that this is the crux of the course -- 2 long steep climbs (Wintercreek and Idlehour), and the rest consisting of some quad-thrashing downhills, specifically 5300' of ups along with 6500' of downs.
I was a little reluctant to attempt this, but think I needed it psychologically before going into Vermont. Based on how I felt and did, I think I achieved my goal. I didn't have the bounce I would've liked, but expected it considering it was only the second week after running WS. More importantly, my quads were back, and my tendonitis didn't bother me. Now if only I feel as good during the race as I did during the training -- that would be awesome.
So the training run went without incident...until we ran out of water.
Earlier, I was warned by Carmella that Millard didn't have water available, so decided to drop some off along Sunset at the end of Chaney Trail. When I got there, the bottom gate was closed, so ended up lugging 2 x 2 Gallon jugs of water up the steep hill, which took me almost an hour. I told Larry's group who was going out earlier in the evening, plus Carmella's group doing the run Sat night that I'd have water there if they needed it. So during our training, when I ran out at the bottom of Idlehour, I was looking forward to the stash, and felt glad that I made an effort earlier, since there would've been no way I could've made it back to my car without refilling there. The others in the group were out too -- Jeff was letting them take drags out of his bladder, since he was the only one who brought enough. Once I got to the Sam Merrill aid station, I decided to take the Mt Lowe road down instead of staying on course, since I just wanted to get to the water as quickly as possible, and thought that it would be faster. It still took an hour though -- the whole time thinking how great it would taste once I got there. When I arrived, I saw that both bottles were gone, and thought that I may have mistakenly been looking in the wrong spot, but soon realized I wasn't. I couldn't believe it -- someone had taken the water! I looked everywhere, thinking someone may have moved it, but knew that I wouldn't find it. After searching for a while, I just sat down in the middle of the trail -- I felt horrible, like someone had kicked me in the stomach. The rest of the group eventually arrived about 30 mins later, and I broke the bad news to them. Eventually, Jason ended up hopping the fence around the water tank, and got it out of the spigot -- didn't taste too bad, especially when you're completely dehydrated. Since we were still under the impression Millard was out, we had no choice but to drink that water anyway, but once we made it to the campground, it was flowing as it always was. It still tasted like crap, but that was normal.
So here's the interesting thing. When I asked Larry the following day whether they saw my stash, he said they came across it around 2am and took about a gallon or so. I got there about 4am, so the water disappeared between that time. Pretty strange...
Remember what comes around goes around.
I was a little reluctant to attempt this, but think I needed it psychologically before going into Vermont. Based on how I felt and did, I think I achieved my goal. I didn't have the bounce I would've liked, but expected it considering it was only the second week after running WS. More importantly, my quads were back, and my tendonitis didn't bother me. Now if only I feel as good during the race as I did during the training -- that would be awesome.
So the training run went without incident...until we ran out of water.
Earlier, I was warned by Carmella that Millard didn't have water available, so decided to drop some off along Sunset at the end of Chaney Trail. When I got there, the bottom gate was closed, so ended up lugging 2 x 2 Gallon jugs of water up the steep hill, which took me almost an hour. I told Larry's group who was going out earlier in the evening, plus Carmella's group doing the run Sat night that I'd have water there if they needed it. So during our training, when I ran out at the bottom of Idlehour, I was looking forward to the stash, and felt glad that I made an effort earlier, since there would've been no way I could've made it back to my car without refilling there. The others in the group were out too -- Jeff was letting them take drags out of his bladder, since he was the only one who brought enough. Once I got to the Sam Merrill aid station, I decided to take the Mt Lowe road down instead of staying on course, since I just wanted to get to the water as quickly as possible, and thought that it would be faster. It still took an hour though -- the whole time thinking how great it would taste once I got there. When I arrived, I saw that both bottles were gone, and thought that I may have mistakenly been looking in the wrong spot, but soon realized I wasn't. I couldn't believe it -- someone had taken the water! I looked everywhere, thinking someone may have moved it, but knew that I wouldn't find it. After searching for a while, I just sat down in the middle of the trail -- I felt horrible, like someone had kicked me in the stomach. The rest of the group eventually arrived about 30 mins later, and I broke the bad news to them. Eventually, Jason ended up hopping the fence around the water tank, and got it out of the spigot -- didn't taste too bad, especially when you're completely dehydrated. Since we were still under the impression Millard was out, we had no choice but to drink that water anyway, but once we made it to the campground, it was flowing as it always was. It still tasted like crap, but that was normal.
So here's the interesting thing. When I asked Larry the following day whether they saw my stash, he said they came across it around 2am and took about a gallon or so. I got there about 4am, so the water disappeared between that time. Pretty strange...
Remember what comes around goes around.
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