Thru Endurance We Conquer!

The first step to any big adventure is learning the trail. Every time you run any little peice of track, you add more knowledge to the database. With as many miles as there are to cover, I think it’s going to take a while to accumulate the knowledge I need! But anyway, last year a new chunk of singletrack opened up here in the valley and I wanted to explore it. All the mountain bikers have been ripping laps, so I figured it was time for a runner to take on Windmill. I knew it would be a big loop, a nice long day and plenty of climbing where I could work in my pole technique. So I packed up my big pack and headed up to Bangs Canyon trail head. The route I had in mind was to drop down Tabaguche to Windmill and take the single track down to the river. Then I’d climb up Third Flats to Billings Canyon and head back to the car. I figured it would be about 21 miles for the loop, which was perfect for the day.  One of these days, I'll get down to Hell's Hole I was lucky - my one midwee...

 It's easy to declare to the world that you want to try a new route on a long trail. It's another thing to actually set all the pieces in motion for that run. There's a lot more then just heading to the trail head, pressing start on the watch and running. Especially for a route that has not been established yet. That's one of the things that's drawing me in instead of tackling an existing long route. The planning and preparation component of the attempt are what makes it fun. Every day you have something new to look forward to. Every map is a new bit of knowledge to add to the data base. With that said, I don't think I'll be ready to take on the trail next year. That was my original hope - that I would run Silverheels this year (and hopefully finish!) and then be able to turn my attention to the trail so I would be able to take it on in 2022. But I don't think it's realistic. There's far too much that we don't know. I know the start and the f...

Step two in the Triple Crown of Moab. Thanks to tightened down COVID restrictions, this race was tiny by Mad Moose standards. They'd had to limit the entire field to 250 runners - across all the distances! That didn't mean the competition was any less impressive though. An entire distance team from San Francisco had decided that Arches sounded like a great first ultra and about time for some live racing. I have to admit, they picked a good one! We decided to just camp in the little campground near the start/finish this time. Nothing glamorous - just a place to park the van pretty much. Since this was a short trip, there was no sense in heading up to the top for just one day, then driving back down. Wasn't as quiet as we would have liked, but it was convenient for sure! All I would have to do would be roll out of bed and stroll to the start in the morning. If only running worked like that.... We watched the clouds drop lower and lower as we ate dinner, then crawled in to the...

 There's a informal trail system just near the house. It's a small area on one of the mesas south of the river. While the land is privately owned (and will get developed over then next 20 years) the people who live around it have created a literal maze of trails. So for one of my long runs, I got into my head that I would try to run it all. Yep - try to run every trail in the park. And all on the same day! I know most people do a "run it all" project for their zip code and take a few months to do it. It seemed like a perfect way to cover some miles, stay close to house if the weather warmed up and the trails got muddy and do something different.  In prep for the run it all challenge, I studied my Gaia and Strava -looking at all the social trails and how to connect them. It quickly became apparent that I wouldn't have any issues getting all the miles I wanted for the day. In fact, I might be running into doing more miles then I wanted. I started trying to plot out ...

I ran the Dead Horse 50k back in 2018 - kinda my year of returning to running. I had pondered upgrading to the 50 mile race after the Vapor Trail 125 mountain bike race was cancelled. I opted to stick with the 50k that year since I really wasn't running all that much and I wasn't sure about running on slick rock for 50 miles. At that point, it was the right choice - I wasn't ready for a 50 mile race by any means. I fell apart in the last 6 miles of the race, the slick rock beating me up and leaving me humbled. So humbled that I'd sworn off distance running on slick rock at that time. But as with anything, things change I was more then a little worried going into Dead Horse this year. While I've been running many more miles on similar terrain, I haven't been running nearly as fast as I was back in 2018. Much slower in fact. Haven't seen a 6 in front of any mile split for a while. How would that affect me going into the fastest race of the Triple Crown? One th...

After moving to Grand Junction, doing the entire Triple Crown of Moab made perfect sense. Drive 5 hours total, I race, Nick gets to ride his bike and it's a fast, fun weekend trip - unlike from Colorado Springs. It's three of Mad Moose Events' Moab races - Dead Horse Ultras, Arches Ultra, Red Hot and finally the Behind the Rock Ultras. For the ultra series it's two 50ks and one 50 miler - doesn't matter which of the races you chose for the different distances. You can do two of the first three, but everyone has to finish with Behind the Rocks. Of course, I had to go and make things difficult with my version of the Triple Crown.  Instead of being smart about it and picking the fastest race for the 50 mile, I went off "which race will have trails I don't want to ride?" as my criteria for picking my longest race. Makes perfect sense to me! But maybe not the smartest for the racing aspect of the series.  Dead Horse - this would be one of the 50ks. Why? Bec...

Now that Nick is finally here in Grand Junction, we've been able to do some fun exploring weekends. Lots of miles running and riding. One of the adventures I've been eyeing is the kinda thing that takes those long weekends of learning the trails and roads. With that in mind, there have been more then a few times where Nick has kicked me out of the van and I've run to the final destination. No better way to learn then actually running! The first day was just an out and back while Nick rode with the guys. The first section of trail, and what might be the busiest chunk. My goal was to turn from the Loma Trailhead to the Salt Creek bridge and then back. I wanted about 20 miles and the Koko was the kind of terrain I needed for that day. Lots of runnable miles, but with some good climbing. As expected, it was quiet on Mary's out to Pizza Point. I met a few mountain bikers, but not to many. That stretch was also really fast - after the initial climb, a gradual downhill with ju...