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Category: 50K and Marathons

Antelope Island 50K

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When Jim Skaggs moved to Utah about ten years ago, he introduced to the ultrarunning community the unique experience of running on Antelope Island.  He introduced the first ultra on the island in 2006 and now several thousand runners have had the experience running on the island.  The main running event is held in the spring, 25K, 50K, 50-mile, and 100-mile races.   But also in the fall Jim puts on a smaller 50K race with a more interesting and challenging course.

Ogden Marathon

ogden

I ran in the Ogden Marathon, held in Ogden, Utah. It is a nice, mostly downhill, fast course that winds down Ogden canyon.  It starts at 5,400 feet and ends in downtown Ogden at 4,300 feet.   After my good Boston race, I had lofty goals, hoping to finish in 3:15.  Running that fast for 26.2 is pretty flaky, you never know what my happen along the way.  In my case today, I didn’t reach my goal but did set another marathon distance personal record (PR),and improved my Boston Qualifying time (BQ), so I really cannot complain. I was on pace to reach my goal through the first 17 miles, but the wheels then started to come off because of a new problem.

Boston Marathon

Wow, what an experience.  Running the Boston Marathon was truly an urban adventure run. I met my brother, Bob, before the start at the Athlete “village.”  I had arrived about 45 minutes earlier and found a nice place on the side of the high school, out of the wind, with nice warm sunshine.  When Bob arrived, he joined me but as usual, was unprepared for the cold. California kid, you know. A kind guy gave him a cool full body paper suit that kept him nicely warm.

I had my Dirty Girl Gaiters on (black with skulls).  Bob was the only one to comment on them.  I said it was my fashion statement.  Soon it was time for me to go to the start line for Wave 1.  Bob was in Wave 2, a half hour later.   The parade of 14,000 Wave 1 runners going up the road 0.7 mile toward the start was quite that sight to see!   My wife texted me a good luck message from home.  That was nice.

I only had one goal.  Break my marathon Personal Reocrd (PR) of 3:24:49.  Someone questioned whether that was a wise goal because Boston was quite a bit tougher than the downhill Ogden course where I had PRed.  I hoped if I could keep away the cramps, that I could succeed.

Two marathons in two days

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. 

Utah Valley Marathon

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.

Sapper Joe 50K – UT

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.

Ogden Marathon

I ran in the Ogden Marathon, in Ogden, Utah, a fast beautiful race that is mostly downhill.  It would be only my third attempt at a road marathon in comparison to 46 finishes at the ultra marathon distance.  I was nervous going into this race, for good reason, because I had not fully recovered from a non-minor foot injury.  I had really not run seriously for five weeks, when I last raced a 50-mile race.   I had only started to do some treadmill miles a few days earlier.   My theory for going ahead with this race is that the injured tendon is not very involved in straight ahead flat road running.  On the other hand, on trails, the tendon if very involved to keep balance.   So I decided to go ahead and give it a try.   How would I do without any significant running training in five weeks?   I did swim many miles in the pool to keep my fitness up, but I was nervous that my leg muscles weren’t tuned well enough to maintain the fast intense speed of a marathon.

Moab Red Hot 50K+


I ran in the Moab Red Hot 50K+. This trail race is actually a little more than 34 miles. The course runs on various surfaces with plenty of sandy roads and hard slickrock. The scenery is spectacular, making it tough to always watch your feet.

I traveled to the race with a childhood buddy, Jim Kern, who would be running in the 33K version of the race. We were concerned about the weather because it snowing (flurries) and pretty windy before the start. But the day turned out to be fantastic for running.

I tried something really different during the race. I attempted to produce a youtube video as I raced. I ended up taking about 70 photos and recorded 23 audio segments. It probably delayed my finishing time by about 15 minutes total, but it was fun and I’m pleased with the results.

Watch the video. A better resolution video can be found on facebook.

I finished in 6:19, which ended up being about seven minutes faster than last year. Oh well. Only three people older than me, beat me. Watch the video, I hope you enjoy seeing the entire race in 10 minutes.

UltimateXC Moab 50K

I ran in the very tough UltimateXC Moab 50K, south of Moab, Utah.   This race runs concurrently with races of 10 and 20-mile distances.   The course starts along the Colorado River and then climbs up to the top of high redrock rim.   The course would climb up to the rim three times!

This race appeared to be one of those for-profit running events.   The race entry was over-priced, but I couldn’t resist a chance to run in Moab again.   I drove down the night before, found a cheap room at Green River, got a good night’s rest, and arrived at start finish with plenty of time to get ready before the 8:30 a.m. start.

My early arrival gave me a chance to observe the competition.   I observed that the group did not look like a typical ultra crowd.  There were many over dressed and with large backpacks.  Few had trail gaiters on.    I also was surprised to see that the crowd was younger than usual. In fact the average age of the 50K finishers ended out being 35 years old.   I would be running with a bunch of kids.  

The temperature was a brisk 31 degrees at the start.   At the minute I changed to long sleeves.  It was a good choice.  Throughout the day, I would roll up and down my sleeves as the course went in and out of the shade.

At the start, very few wanted to push to be in front.  It was funny to see the race director trying to coax people to the front.    We started on time and away I went running with the top-10 runners up a beautiful canyon.   It was interesting to see how the runners sorted out.  The runners in front eventually all looked like ultrarunners, carrying very little and using gaiters.  They knew what they were doing.    The first five miles was a constant climb up to the top of the rim.     I backed off my pace and was soon running with a second pack of runners.   I was surprised how young and fast this group looked.   I reached the aid station at mile 5.5 at about 56 minutes, and good pace considering all the climbing.   The station was rather sparse of any food.   I was disappointed all day that no stations had sandwiches, but I survived.

The views were incredible as the trail winded around towers.  I really loved the downhill sections because they were mostly pretty technical.  Runners around me would carefully pick their way down the trail, but I would throw caution to the wind, increase my stride and bound down the trail like crazy.   On every long downhill I would pass several runners, but then I would slow down on all the flats and downhills. 

The trail was tough.  Most of it was on 4WD roads either through sandy canyons or down and up slickrock routes.  Long sandy sections really sapped the energy quickly.   The hard slickrock sections at times were tough on the legs.  But I enjoyed the diversity of the trail.

Logan Peak Trail Run – UT

June 28, 2008

I ran in the Logan Peak Trail Run.  This was a tough 28-mile run on single-track and dirt roads up and around beautiful Logan Peak above Cache Valley in Northern Utah.   I would compare this run to a tough 50K event.   The elevation gain is over 7,000 feet and we had plenty of snow to run through.

It was probably silly for me to enter this run because I had not yet fully recovered from running the Bighorn 100 just one week ago, but I felt up to the challenge.   My main reason for running this course was to preview the first tough 11 miles of the new Bear 100 course that will go end-to-end from Logan to Bear Lake.

Homestead Resort Half Marathon

May has been a training month for me, a rare month when I haven’t run in any ultra races.  I’ve been trying to maintain a 10 mile per day average, even when only running 5 days per week.  To do this, I have resorted to doing 3-hour runs before work.  My wife thinks I’m nuts getting up at 2:30 a.m. several times per week in order to hit the trail before 3:00 a.m.   I’ve enjoyed the mornings and pass the time listening to sports radio, catching up on the events from the day before. This morning, at a whim, I decided to go run a half-marathon to get in some speed work and to test my left calf to see if it can take faster paces now.  

I went and signed up for the Homestead Resort half-marathon.   This race starts at the finish-point of the Wasatch Front 100.  The course heads to Soldier Hollow, the location of the cross-country skiing venue for the 2002 Olympics.   From there it heads west above the Deer Creek Reservoir, on a dirt road above the railroad used by the Heber Creeper.  It then returns back to the start on the same route.  About half of the course is on soft dirt/gravel road, making it enjoyable for me.

Utah Valley Marathon – Provo, UT

April 12, 2008

I decided to give another road marathon a try.   When I started running, I went straight to ultras, skipping the marathon stuff because I hate running roads.   In 2006 I gave the Deseret News Marathon  a try for fun to see what I could do.  I didn’t do any special training for it and ended up with a 3:44.   I suspected I could do better but I have low motivation training to shave off minutes.  I would rather train to push distance.