Prerace
After Leadville, I had three weeks to rest up, do a little running, and anticipate running Wasatch for the 5th time. I wasn’t apprehensive at all, I was excited. I know this course, I’ve done it before several times, I know what to expect at every point. Bring it on.
During the three weeks between Leadville and Wasatch I did very little running. I took a complete week off after Leadville, then basically ran every other day until the week before, and took most of that week off. I did manage to take Joel on a preview run of the course from Brighton to the finish, but we cheated and took the Sandy Baker cutoff, thus shortening our run by about eight miles.
I went to the prerace Thursday, saw lots of friends, met with my two pacers, then headed home. My wife and I went to our favorite Italian restaurant for some carboloading, then home to bed. This time I slept like a baby, relaxed, no worries, no being all keyed up. It was nice to say the least.
I had huge plans for a sub-30 hour run and had made up a pace chart to reflect that. I also told all sorts of people that I planned on going sub-30. Best laid plans and all that.
Race
The race started at 5am and we were off. I took a nice relaxed pace for those first few miles before we started our climb up to Chinscraper. The legs felt pretty good, not tired, my attitude was good. I was excited to be out here and get this last race done.
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| Looking down from the top of Chinscraper |
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| Little bit of snow left over from last winter |
As I went up the climb to chinscraper, I chatted with
Charlie Vincent. He did the Slam a
couple years ago and we had a good time running the miles away. Once on the ridgeline, I got stuck in a conga
line of about 10 runners. There really
wasn’t any good spot to pass, so I just went with it. A few people stopped at Landis spring and I
was able to get by them and make a little bit of time. At about 11 miles, I saw something I’ve never
seen while running Wasatch. A nice big
snow cornice left over from last winter.
It must have been 3-4 feet thick still.
We actually had to cross it. I
wouldn’t be surprised if some of it is still there when the snow flies in a
month or so. On past Grobben’s corner,
past the radar towers (passed Joel here), and down the gravel road to the
Maintenance Shed aid station. Since
Farmington Canyon road was closed, the race wasn’t allowing crew or spectators
there. It seemed really quiet and
subdued with only a handful of cars and people.
Nice and quiet. Not only that,
but there weren’t any motorcycles or 4-wheelers to raise all sorts of
dust. Very nice. The section between the maintenance shed and
the Bountiful B aid is one of my least favorite sections, a couple of steep
climbs, some almost bushwacking, just not fun.
However, I persevered and managed to keep on a sub-30 hour pace. I felt pretty good to this point, but in a
couple of miles after Bountiful, my attitude went south. I felt ok, my stomach was fine, it’s just
that my legs were tired, heavy, and so was my brain. Once I left the Sessions aid, Karen called. First, I was surprised that I got cell
service there, second, she got really worried after hearing me complain. At this point, it just wasn’t fun. It continued to not be any fun all the way to
the Swallow Rocks aid. Here I got a
couple of popsicles, some potatoes with salt and bolted. The good thing was that I was still on a
sub-30 pace. A couple miles past Swallow
Rocks something clicked. It was instant,
my attitude changed 180 degrees, I felt better, I took off for Big Mountain at
a little quicker pace.
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| Descending to Alexander Ridge |
At Big Mountain (39.4 miles) I met Britta, my first pacer. She brought me a Coke Icee, and that hit the
spot. That, coupled with more potatoes
and I felt like a new man. We took off
for Alexander Ridge and Lamb’s Canyon. I
have never run the section between Big Mountain and Lamb’s in under four
hours. We did it in 3.5 hours.
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| Lamb's Canyon for a few minutes |
At Lamb’s I picked up Meghan, my next pacer. Meghan has paced me for the last 47 miles
before and we always have a good time, so I was looking forward to a few miles
of interesting conversation. We took off
up Lamb’s Canyon at a dead……walk. It’s
uphill and just steep enough for me to not run when I’m tired. Still, I managed a pretty good power hike up
the road and up the trail to Bear Ass Pass.
My goal was to get there before dark.
Our headlamps were on when we got to the top of the pass, but Meghan
pointed out that it was technically still light since you could still see the
remains of sunset. I’ll buy it. Down Elbow Fork Trail and up Millcreek road
to Upper Big Water we went.
Upper Big Water is always a cold spot. It sits in a bowl and collects cold air. During my first attempt at Wasatch I dropped
here due to the extreme cold and not being prepared. My plan was to eat a couple of bowls of their
spaghetti, put some dry warm clothes on and get out. We were out in 15 minutes. Going up to Dog Lake, and ultimately
Desolation Lake I started to slow down.
I had no climbing legs left. I
could do the downhills and flats just fine, but if it was uphill, I was going
slow. I saw my hopes of a sub-30 finish
slipping away and knew that I little chance of getting it back. My uphill legs were gone. I knew I would finish, but my time would be
less than spectacular.The Desolation Lake aid is always an interesting place. Another cold spot at over 9000’, it’s easy to sit by their nice big campfire and warm up. Since I’ve wasted time doing that before, we left after about three minutes. By now, the moon was out and it was almost full. At times along the ridge above Brighton we would turn off our headlamps and just run by the moonlight. The shadows were bright and it was pretty cool. Running by moonlight at 10,000’ is something that most people will never experience and one of the reasons I do these things. Park City lights off to the left, Salt Lake City lights behind, Brighton lights off to the right. Very cool in my book.
By the time we got to Brighton, I was slowing down even more. I had been looking forward to Brighton for some time because I knew I could get some scrambled eggs with ketchup. Scrambled eggs with ketchup at 3am after running 75 miles is some of the best tasting food there is. I just wished they’d have had some Tabasco sauce. That would have been awesome (next time in my drop bag!). I decide to take a little break here and we stayed here for about 45 minutes. I did manage a short nap before we took off a little after 4am.
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| Sunrise over the Wasatch, love it |
The climb out of Brighton on race day is one that always
gets to me. Usually my asthma is acting
up a little and it’s a long slow 2.5 mile climb to Sunset Pass. This time it wasn’t too bad. My lungs were fine and we made the climb to
the pass in a little over an hour. Once
on the other side, it’s a very steep, loose and rocky trail into Ant Knoll’s
aid. Everyone is pretty timid here
because of the possibility of a nasty fall.
I hammered it pretty good. I had
run this section two weeks earlier and knew what to expect. Not only that, but my quads were still good to
go as far as downhill running. I was
wearing my Hoka’s to absorb the pounding and away I went. We made Ant Knoll’s by 6am, spent a couple
minutes getting some sausage and took off.
The next climb up the Grunt wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and
we made it to Pole Line Pass aid in a little over an hour. I was so sleepy along this section that I
decided to take a 10 minute nap here.
That did wonders for me, but I wish I would have just had some caffeine
instead and saved a little time. The
next few miles to Rock Springs aid were uneventful except for the elk we saw up
above us on the mountainside. We were
hoping they would just leave us alone.
All along this section we marveled at the sunrise over the Wasatch. This section is one of the most scenic and I
love running through here when the sun is coming up. Beautiful.
We basically ran through the Rock Springs aid and kept going. Next up was one of the toughest sections of
the course, the dive, the plunge, the seven hills of Babylon. Very steep and loose rocky downhills followed
by short steep uphills. Kind of
demoralizing after 90 miles. Still, it
didn’t seem as bad as it has in years past. Don’t know why, it just didn’t.
Eventually we made it to the last aid station, Pot
Bottom. From here it was a fairly easy
climb, some long downhill miles followed by a short section of road. Home free!I did manage to run the last half mile or so to the finish. The run across the lawn with everyone cheering is something that always is enjoyable, especially this year since I had just completed the Grand Slam. A good portion of the Utah ultrarunning crowd knew I was attempting the Slam and I got all sorts of cheers, good jobs, etc. It was pretty neat.
Crossing the finish line I always thank John, the race director for the abuse I’ve put myself through. He just laughs.
Aftermath
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| One tired, but happy little boy |
Once again I did 1st Endurance EFS Liquid Shot as my main source of fuel for the first 75 miles. After that the stuff just won't go down. I switched to some energy bars that I found at the Outdoor Retailer show back in August. They're called Journey Bars and they aren't sweet. They have flavors like Mequite Bar-b-que, Wasabi ginger, Coconut curry. What I did was nibble on one an hour and that got me 200 calories per hour. Kept me fueled just fine.
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| The 12 Grand Slam runners who made it |
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| The nifty eagle Grand Slam trophy |
I have to say thank you to my awesome pacers, Britta and Meghan. Not only did I have the best looking pacers out there, they were great at keeping me on task, eating, drinking, moving.
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| My awesome pacers, Meghan (L), and Britta (R) |
By the numbers
Time – 32:35
Place – 114th out of about 240 starters
Calories burned – the same 12,000
Calories taken in – roughly the same 6000 as usual
Time wasted at aid stations – roughly 1.5 hours
Shoes – La Sportiva Raptors for the first 53 miles, then the Hoka Mafate’s for the last 47.
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