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My Path to Ultrarunning – Part 7: First 100-milers – defeat and victory

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I was both excited and very nervous about running the Bear 100, my first attempt to run a 100-mile race.  Good friends agreed to crew and pace me, and even brought a camper for me to sleep in at the start in Cub River Canyon, in southern Idaho. Back in 2004, the Bear 100 was still a small race and there were only 51 runners starting at 6:00 a.m.  The original course was a large loop course, all in Idaho up in the mountains above Bear Lake.  The course markings that year were an adventure and many people took wrong turns.  An entire group of front-runners went off course and later would pass me in the morning. That night, two runners were so lost they had to spend the night up on a ridge and wait until dawn.  But I navigated pretty well. I carried my GPS with me and several times it helped me stay on course.

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My Path to Ultrarunning – Part 6: Rookie Ultrarunner

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Ultramarathons? I could do that, couldn’t I?  I had just discovered the existance of ultramarathons and within a week registered for the 2004 Bear 100 to be run in less than three months. I was eager to test myself in this new-found sport. I believed I could do it, but still had my doubts.  I began researching ultramarathons on the Internet, reading various race reports, and studying the Bear 100 course.  I discovered that a 50K race, the Midnight Mountain 50K was held on the exact same course in just two weeks so I quickly entered it.  It would be a good way to learn about the course and get a taste of this ultrarunning sport.  I had run about 600 miles so far this year which I thought was a ton of miles, and felt ready. The last running race I had entered was back in 1977, a 5K.

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My Path to Ultrarunning – Part 5: Pushing the Limits and Discovering Ultrarunning

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During this first year (2002-2003) of increased physical activity and adventure running, I started to push the limits even more and considered accomplishing runs that no one had ever run before in a day.  One day I read in the newspaper about two guys, Craig Lloyd and Scott Wesemann, who accomplished a “Utah Triple Crown,” summitting the three highest peaks in Utah in one day.  The three highest peaks are located in the Uinta Mountain range. 1- Kings Peak – 13,528, 2- South Kings Peak – 13,512, 3- Gilbert Peak – 13,442.

My first reaction was excitement, that such a feat was very cool. But when I discussed it with my brother-in-law Ed, I expressed the feeling that they did it wrong.  They used a base camp instead of starting and finishing from a trail head.  Ed and I were convinced that we could do it right.

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My Path to Ultrarunning – Part 4: Injuries and Rookie Mistakes

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My over-enthusiasm for my newly discovered running passion brought with it mistakes and injury.  I always wanted to go further than I was ready.  That tended to be my nature. My boys still tell stories when they were children about the hikes we went on above our cabin. I would push them too far or take what they called a “Dad short-cut.”  They would point to scars on their arms or legs that were a result of one of my adventures.

In 2003, I still wasn’t really a runner, more of a fast hiker or slow trail jogger.  But the problems I encountered are many of the same problems new runners encounter.  My early injuries were typical rookie runner over-use injuries.  The first was Iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS).  The IT band on the outside of the knee gets tight and inflamed causing terrible pain that you can’t run through, especially on the down hills.  Also I suffered from Patello-Femoral Syndrome (PFS) or Chondromalacia caused by improper tracking of the knee cap.  The underside of the knee cap gets terribly bruised causing bad pain, even when sitting for a while with your knee bent.  I was plagued by both of these, did take some weeks off, tried to use bands or braces, and then sent ahead and pushed through the pain.

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My Path to Ultrarunning – Part 3: Life-changing Fitness

Running Paria Canyon in October 2002

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For some of these yearly backpacking trips, I became pretty serious about getting in shape.  For multiple mornings a week I would run back and forth on a paved road near my house along Utah Lake.  I progressed to the point where I was running four miles in about 32 minutes.   I was pretty proud of that, but after each backpacking trip, I would fall back to lazy life.  I didn’t really enjoy these pavement runs and I still had a problem in that I kept competing with the watch, trying to beat my times.  It became harder and more painful.  Another reason I would quit was because of illness.  Back in those days with bad fitness, I would get frequent colds and that was an excuse to quit.

But one year, in 2002, something was very different. Perhaps it was the realization that I was starting to feel old.   I was 43, between 220-230 pounds and would watch my kids run around in the back yard playing with my fit brother-in-law Ed.  I couldn’t really join in if I wanted to.  I was too heavy and out of shape to jump on our trampoline like I used to.  As far as basketball goes, I could no longer even jump and touch the bottom of the net. Back in my early 20s I could come close to dunking a basketball.  I kept trying to touch that net, but just couldn’t.  It was depressing. When I tried to play basketball, I would quickly get injured and now in my 40s, it took much longer to heal. So I gave up basketball. Was this it?  Was it all downhill for the years to come?

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My Path to Ultrarunning – Part 2: Discovering Running and the Outdoors

Chunky me with oldest son in the Sawtooths, 1999

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When I went away to college in Utah, in 1976, I did some semi-serious running for the first time since that aborted junior high track team experience.  Early in the school year at midnight on one occasion I went running with a couple guys up around the Provo Temple for about three miles.  I came back to the dorm exhausted and feeling dead.  A girl who had my attentions would go over to the indoor track to run now and then, so I also went over as a way to spend time with her and later continued running on my own.   For the first time in my life I started to enjoy running.  I even left the track and started running up into the foothills on pavement above BYU, running multiple miles. Several times I would go running at night.  I discovered that it was a wonderful way to clear my head and escape much of the stress of school life and girl frustrations.

I started to associate with a pretty serious runner who also lived in the dorms.  He would encourage me and give me advice.  On the indoor track I improved my personal best mile time to 5:32.8.  He talked me into signing up for a 5K that ran on roads and ended in the football stadium. I started near the front with my friend and kept close to him for the first half mile or so but then I crumbled.  There was no way I could keep up that pace, I started crashing. I was such a running rookie.  I slowed down and was passed by a couple hundred trained runners.  I held on and was able to pass several runners during the final stretch on the track in the stadium.  The race had humbled me but still I looked at the hundreds of runners who I had beaten and it felt like an accomplishment.  But I would not run another race for 27 years.  (I’ve always wondered how good I could have been at that young age if I would have continued training and racing.)

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My Path to Ultrarunning – Part 1: Early Running Childhood Roots

Me with older brother and sister

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Where did my running ability come from? I was born to two parents with good athletic ability. My late mother wrote about her childhood in El Paso, Texas: “We had testing in various athletic skills in grade school – broad jump, running, basketball throwing, pushups etc. I loved these tests because I could outdo all the girls in the school each year. I would wait until the last girl did the pushups and do one more when I was ten. I did 42 pushups. I would do so many that I had a hard time feeding myself the next day. I’m not bragging but I could always out-jump all the girls in grade school and high school in the broad jump. My father was always setting up a contest with me against the boy scouts in the neighborhood. They never liked me for that.”

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Sidelined again – Across the Years 72 hours

It appears that I may again have a stress fracture in my right tibia.  Back in November after a long training run that involved pavement I felt familiar pain in the leg.  It was very minor but with each week it became a little more painful.   Things improved and I decided to go ahead and run Across the Years 72-hour run, but the leg bothered me much of the time and kept me worried.  I had other issues and was disappointed that I “only” ran 163 miles, for 15th place out of about 70 runners.   I recovered well, but the leg is still a bother, similar pain to what was felt in 2012 after Across the Years that year.  But it is less severe this time, not deep bone pain, but surface pain that just won’t get better and seems to inflame the surrounding tissue and muscles.  So, time to go back to the ortho specialist.  On the bright side I can walk, usually without any pain, so I’m hopeful that I can at least hike steep hills.  But if I try running, now the pain comes fast, not quite limping pain, but get close.  So it is time to do other things again and take a break from running.  At my age it is now a delicate balance between tough training and remaining injury-free.

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Grand Canyon double crossing R2R2R #14

Inversion layer of clouds

In 2005 I ran across the Grand Canyon and back for the first time.   At that time, only a few runners could be found running rim-to-rim-to-rim.  Now during some weekends it is almost like a super highway of runners who experience the amazing beauty of the canyon.   It had been about 2 ½ years since I had run in the canyon and four years since I had run a traditional R2R2R using the corridor trails.  It was time to return and I had my sights on attempting a quad crossing, repeating what I had accomplished back in 2006.

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Winter training

Now that winter approaches, most runners start shutting down their training.  I tend to do the opposite, step it up, and increase the weekly miles.  But the type of training shifts from the mountains down to the desert floor.  For me, the summer is about mountain 100s and adventure runs that involve peaks and long climbs.  But during the winter, I love to run on the plains and train for the speedy flat-land races.  This is how I discovered the beauty of the Pony Express Trail, running in the desert during the cold months.

My next races will likely be Across the Years 72-hours, Rocky Raccoon 100, Buffalo Run 100, and Salt Flats 100, all relatively flat courses.  Making the shift from mountains to the plains is not as easy as it may seem, and for me getting even more difficult with age. These past six months have been good.  Even though I slowed down, there has never been a better year for me running uphill.  My downhill speed hasn’t fully come back since the broken leg almost two years ago, but my strength and speed running up hills during later stages of recent 100s has been a nice surprise.  But now it is time to leave the hills behind for a few months and rediscover the flats.  I started my winter training officially started on October 26, later than usual because of a terrible three-week cold/illness. 

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Mogollon Monster 100

Mogollon Monster 100 runs below and on top of the Mogollon Rim in central Arizona.  The Mogollon Rim rises out from the earth 2,000 some feet for a span of 200 miles across Arizona and into New Mexico.  The race gets it name because it is a monster of a race, but also because of a legend that Big Foot roams the course.

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Wasatch Sextuple Crown – Six highest peaks in one day

Could it be done?  Once I set a goal it eats at me to complete it. The highest peaks in Utah are found in the Uinta mountain range, but the most impressive peaks that rise from the valley floor to the sky are found in the Wasatch Front.  Could the top six be summited in one day?  After sumiting numbers 1-3, 5-6 in one day a week ago, I was determined to do it right, all six.   I decided to take work off on Friday and head up to the mountains Thursday night to get it done.

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