Where's Waldo 100k 2009

Warning, this is a very long race report and can induce insomnia if not careful.

Well, I ran Where's Waldo 100K for the 4th year in a row. This race is a good excuse to take a few days off from work and go see my sister as she lives near where the race is held. Oh, the race is held at the Willamette Pass Ski Area in central Oregon and is a fund raiser for the volunteer ski patrol there.

For the past 2 years the race has served as the USATF 100K Trail National Championship and 3 years ago it was the USATF 100K Trail Masters Championship. They also offer $1000 for first place and $500 for first place masters. You can double dip. Needless to say, for ultrarunning, this is significant prize money and draws a fast crowd every year. This year was no exception.

I like the race because it's well organized, the aid stations are well stocked and have enthusiastic volunteers working them, and the scenery is central Oregon beautiful. Think fir forests with some huge old growth Douglas Firs, perfect trails for running (soft, shady, pleasant), lots of gorgeous lakes to run past, and views from the top of the peaks that are fantastic.

My goal this year was to break the 14 hour mark. I ran 14:08 last year and figured I could take 8 minutes off that time. But I also didn't plan any sort of taper since that week would serve as my last week of long training prior to tapering for Wasatch in three weeks. So, 70 miles the week before and 100 miles including the race last week.

A couple of the other Wasatch Speegoats were there to run the race with me, but both of them are much faster than I am and much better looking (Monica Ochs and Amy Sproston). At just about every aid station I got comments about my Wasatch Speedgoat shirt and how there seemed to be a bunch of them on the course. Nope, just three of us. Nonetheless, it was nice to see that the team is getting recognition on the trail.

Weather on race day was perfect, 40's at the start, clear, warming up to the upper 60's to low 70's during the day and cooling off nicely towards the evening.

So, here's the report.

First Section, start to Gold Lake, 7.4 miles - the first mile is a grinding uphill that no ones runs. Takes you from 5120' to over 6000'. After that there's a 6.4 mile downhill that's fantastic. I got stuck in a conga line on that section until I managed to blast past the 6 runners in front of me. Pulled into the Gold Lake aid at 1:22 into the race, 2 minutes faster than last year. So far so good. I felt great.

Second Section, Gold lake to Fuji up, 5.0 miles - this is mostly uphill, some steep. Time was 1:08, same as last year.

Third Section, Fuji up to Fuji down, 2.5 miles - This section takes you on an out and back up to the top of Fuji Peak. This is a gain of about 1100' in 1.25 miles. The views at sunrise from the top of tis peak are worth the effort it takes to get there. Unbelievable. Then a bombing run back down to the aid station. Time 0:36, same as last year. So far, 2 minutes up on last year, feeling good and ready for more.

Fourth Section, Fuji Down to Mt. Ray, 5.6 miles - This section is primarily downhill, although it is rolling. A great little section for cruising along and enjoying the race. Time, 1:03, 1 minute faster than last year.

Fifth Section, Mt. Ray to Twins 1, 6.6 miles - This section is mostly uphill, but the ups are gradual enough that you can run them.. This is where I would see if my hill work would pay off, and it did. Time 1:28, 7 minutes faster than last year and still feeling good.

Sixth Section, Twins 1 to Lake Charlton, 4.9 miles - Starts out going up but the last couple of miles are downhill. Charlton lake is also the half way point. Huge hoopla, beach party atmosphere make this a great place. Time, 1:00, 1 minute faster than last year. Now I'm up 11 minutes over last year. Things are looking good.

Seventh Section, Charlton Lake to Road 4290, 5.2 miles - This section is mostly flat, but can be the hottest part of the course due to the exposure. This area was logged off several years ago and the trees growing there are fairly small. Time 1:05, 3 minutes faster than last year and up 14 minutes now. This section felt slower to me but it actually wasn't. Still, as I came into Rd 4290, I was hungry, the energy level was down some. I did have a drop bag and immediately drank the 2 Ensures I had, hmmm, maybe slamming 700 calories down in a couple of minutes isn't a smart thing to do.

Eighth Section, Rd 4290 to Twins 2, 7.5 miles - This is the longest section of the course and one of the most difficult. You climb from about 5300' to just over 7000' and it's relentless. Much of it is runnable if you're fresh, after 40 miles, no one is fresh. I left Rd 4290 and walked for a bit to let my stomach settle. Should have just taken the other bottle and drank it later. This section felt much slower than last year, but my time ended up being just a minute slower. Time, 2:03. Lost one of those gained minutes.

Ninth Section, Twins 2 to Maiden Peak, 5.2 miles - this section starts out going down, but in the last mile or so begins the climb up Maiden Peak. When I left Twins, I was feeling just ok, not great, just ok. I ended up walking downhill parts that I should have been running, stupid me, but I just didn't feel like running. I figure I was going thru a little bonk at this point, not enough calories, or maybe it was too much training, I don't know, it was something. Time 1:24 vs. 1:10 last year. Oh crap, I just lost all of the time I had gained so far, now I was a minute down from last year. Can I make it up?

Tenth Section, Maiden Peak to Maiden Lake, 5.1 miles - Easily the most difficult section of the course, you gain roughly 2000' in just over two miles. The grade starts out actually somewhat runnable but just gets steeper as you get higher. In some places there aren't even switchbacks, just straight up the mountainside, ugh! But once again, the view from the top of Maiden Peak (7818') is phenomenal and worth the effort. Then it's a treacherous steep downhill 2.5 miles into Maiden Lake, not much running here unless you have a death wish or want broken bones. Time, 1:45, dang, lost another 8 minutes. Now I really have to fly on the last section.

Last Section, Maiden Lake to the finish, 7.5 miles - this starts out with an uphill, but quickly turns downhill and ends up being a 7.4 mile downhill run. This is my favorite section of the course because if you can or want to open it up, you can. The trail is perfect for running, downhill with very short ups, great footing, if you fall you won't get hurt and you know the finish is up ahead. I tried pushing this some and actually felt pretty good, but the stomach was trying to go south on me and I'd have to back off the pace a little so I wouldn't hurl. Met up with another runner and we just cruised the last few miles together and crossed the finish at the same time. Time, 1:39 for this section, lost another 12 minutes.

Aftermath - The beer my wife got me after I finished tasted really good, but then a beer after a race usually does. The barbequed hamburger was pretty good too. My time was 25 minutes slower than last year, 14:33 vs 14:08. Oh well, I wasn't unhappy. Could I have done better? Probably, if I had put a little more focus on running where I could rather than walking. On the other hand, I did no taper, so maybe tired legs from a 28 mile run the previous Sunday had a little to do with a slow finish. Still, I had a great time and to me that's the name of the game. I love this sport, where else can you trash yourself and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Gear - I wore my La Sportiva Fireblades, Injinji socks, and Nathan race vest. The shoes and socks worked great, no blisters at all, which is unusual, and the vest worked well. I also carried two bottles like I usually do.

Note: The winning time and new course record was 9:11, that's an hour faster than the old course record, an hour! One minute per mile! Average pace 8:49 for 62.5 mountainous miles. 5 people went under the old course record.

Next up, Wasatch Front 100 in less than three weeks. Time to taper.

Last year I ran the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 and failed miserably at 61 miles. I wasn’t injured, I was well under the time cutoffs, I just got a bad attitude in my head and quit. That really sucked and it’s bothered me ever since. Thus, I had to go back this year and redeem myself and finish the thing.
My main race this year is Wasatch, so running the TRT was more of some race practice and a really long training run. My mileage to date is higher than last year and I have more long training runs, so I was reasonably confident that I’d be able to finish TRT (never a guarantee in a 100 mile race).
Originally, my wife Karen and I were going to take our horses out a few days early and get in some trail riding on the same trails as the race. The area above Lake Tahoe is beautiful and I wanted to show these trails to her. Alas, her horse isn’t trail ready yet (he’s a 3-year old Mustang) so she decided to stay home and work. Davy Crockett had asked about carpooling this year like we did last year, but he ended up taking his family. I couldn’t find anyone to carpool with and I really thought it was a waste of fuel to drive myself out to Lake Tahoe. Then I hit on an idea, why don’t I go green and take the train? I checked the schedule, leave Salt Lake at 11:30pm Thursday, get into Reno 9:30am Friday. Leave Reno 4:00pm Monday and get back into Salt Lake at 4:00am Tuesday. Perfect. Cost? $116 round trip, less than what I would pay for gas for the car plus I don’t have to drive. Hmmm, now how do I get to Carson City and the race? I know, call my friend Meghan and see if she can pick me up since she’s running the race too. Meghan teaches Earth Science and is a big fan of going green so she was very willing to chauffeur me around for the weekend. It was settled. I might mention that I also have a UTA annual pass for the Frontrunner commuter train so I only had to drive to the Ogden train station (4.5 miles) and back.
Karen dropped me off at the train station Thursday evening,

I rode the Frontrunner down to Salt Lake. Amtrak was already there, I got my ticket and boarded the train. I love to ride on trains, but going overnight on Amtrak is not conducive to sleep. I think I managed about 3-4 hours total. I woke up the next morning as we were going across the Nevada desert.

I had time to get to the dining car for breakfast (ok, nothing to write home about) before the train pulled into Reno on time (rare for Amtrak). Meghan picked me up about 30 minutes later and we headed for Carson City.
The check in is on the State Capitol grounds and I saw a few people I knew and some that I had been wanting to meet. I finally met Monica Ochs, a fellow Wasatch Speedgoat team member. She and her pacer Annie went with Meghan, Dave (Meghan’s friend), and I to lunch. After that, it was relax and get ready for the next day’s race. I actually managed to get a good night’s sleep, roughly 6-7 hours. That’s rare the night before a race.
Meghan picked me up at about 4:00am and we made the drive up to Spooner Lake State Park, the race HQ. About 115 of us were nervously milling around waiting for the race to start. Finally, at 5am, the race was on.
I knew it was going to be a long day and night, so I tried to just hang back a little bit, but I felt myself running the uphills because I felt so good.

By the time the first aid station came into view, the field had spread out some and I was pretty much by myself (that’s how I usually like it). The first aid station (Hobart, 7900’) had an Irish pub theme, complete with a bar, a bottle of Jameson Whiskey, a keg of beer and a dart board. Runners could partake of any or all. Each runner got one dart to throw and scores were kept throughout the race (we went thru this aid station four times). After a quick dart throw, fill my bottles, drop off my sleeves and headlamp, I was off climbing towards Marlette Peak. The sun was just starting to come up and the view of Lake Tahoe when it came into sight was breathtaking. This section of trail is fairly easy, a gradual climb to around 8600’ then a switchback descent into the Tunnel Creek aid station (8100’). 100 mile runners go thru Tunnel Creek a total of six times so we get to know these people a little bit. Here I did the same, filled my bottles, downed two bottles of Ensure (600 calories, and headed out on the Red House loop. This is a 6.3 mile loop that takes runners to the low point on the course (6800’), then back up to Tunnel Creek. There actually is a red house on the loop with an aid station. Most runners don’t like this loop because it can get warm and the last half mile climb to Tunnel Creek is steep, but it’s no worse than what I train on around here, so no big deal. When I got back to Tunnel Creek, we started seeing the 50K and 50 mile runners heading out on the loop. They start an hour after we do. After another quick pit stop, I headed out on the long 18 mile out and back to the Mt. Rose aid station. This section is rolling terrain, but does climb to close to 9000’ at one point. There’s one water stop along the way and that’s it, so this was definitely a two bottle section. As I got closer to Mt. Rose, I started seeing more and more mountain bikers, day hikers and people out on the trail. Most everyone was very nice and would cheer us on and step off the trail to let us runners go by. I got to Mt. Rose and looked at my pace chart and saw that I was still on a 21 hour pace. Holy cow, way too fast I thought, but I still felt really good. By now I’d covered 26.4 miles and had 24 miles to go to complete the first half of the race. Once again, quick pit stop, downed two Ensures, and back out on the trail. I had my cell phone with me and called my wife from here. She let me know that I was in roughly 30th place and where Davy, Monica, and Meghan were. Davy and Monica were a ways ahead and Meghan was about an hour behind.
I headed out on the return of the out and back. By now the trails were getting pretty crowded in spots and I was glad once I got a few miles down and the crowds thinned out. The weather was also getting warm. It felt like it was around 80, but in the sun it felt much warmer. Running in the heat doesn’t bother me so I was fine. I got back to Tunnel Creek, fueled up again and headed out for Hobart. Now I had to climb those switchbacks, but they weren’t too bad. Across some of the higher ridges, there was a nice breeze to help cool us off some along with the gorgeous views to enjoy.
I got back to Hobart still feeling pretty good. My pace had slowed some here, mostly due to the climbing. Had another inch of beer in a cup, shot a dart, refueled and left heading for Snow Valley Peak. This aid was at the highest point on the course, right at 9000’. It’s a gradual climb and actually runnable for the most part. As I was going up, I came across a 50 mile runner that had just sat down by the side of the trail. I asked her if she was ok and she said something about stomach issues. I gave her a couple Tums and she decided to follow me into Snow Valley Peak. The Tums must have done the trick because she left out of the aid station and I never saw her again. Now it was my turn to start feeling kind of off. For the next 10 miles to the start/finish I felt like I was bonking some. Even though it’s downhill for 5.5 miles, I couldn’t get a run going, just no energy. Mentally I was fine, but physically I wasn’t. I decided that once I got into the start/finish, I would take a few minutes and take care of myself. I hit the start/finish in 11:30. Here I ate, sat for a few, emptied the dirt and dust out of my shoes and took a breather. When I finally left, it was right at the 12 hour mark. Ahead of last year’s time, but not where I wanted to be. Oh well. I left and while I couldn’t get a run going uphill to Hobart, I was able to get a fairly fast walk going. Once into Hobart, another inch of beer, another dart, fix the chafing and get going. Last year I got into Tunnel Creek after dark. This year I knew I would get in before dark. Good deal. Once in Tunnel Creek, I grabbed my headlamp, put on a long sleeve T since it was cooling off some, and headed out on the Red House loop for the second time. By the time I got to the red house, it was dark and the light was on. A few minutes here and I was gone back uphill to Tunnel Creek. I had been wondering how Meghan was doing. Every once in awhile, my wife would call me with updates. As it happened, as I got back into Tunnel Creek, there was Meghan with a couple of new friends getting set to head out on their second Red House loop. We chatted for a few minutes and I found out that she was having a great time. She said something about me being afraid while running alone in the dark and I told her I wasn’t and I preferred running alone. I asked if she was afraid to run in the dark and she said she was, I told her that was because she was a girl. Not a well received comment but I thought it was funny.
I headed out on the long 18 mile out and back to Mt. Rose, I got out a couple hundred yards and realized it might get cool and breezy, so I headed back into Tunnel Creek and grabbed my windbreaker. Good move I found out later. I managed to see Davy filling his bottles at a creek. I think I startled him a little when I called his name. He’s one of the few runners to use a green light so I figured it might be him. As I crossed the meadow to the Mt. Rose aid station, the temperature really cooled down. This ended up being the coolest part of the night, but it still wasn’t too bad. I stayed at Mt. Rose for about 20 minutes. I was starting to get a little sleepy (duh, it’s 2 in the morning). I drank some coffee, had some rice and beans, drank my Ensure and headed out again. By now I was walking with no thought of running, but the walk was still pretty strong. I got to the top of the switchbacks that descend into Mt. Rose and was so sleepy that I set my cell phone alarm for 20 minutes and just lay down in the dirt beside the trail. That 20 minutes was all I needed to get going again. As I was going along the trail I was amazed at how warm it was. The temp. had to be close to 60. I don’t like running in cold weather and I’m usually dressed pretty warm when going thru the night. This time I was still in shorts, a long sleeve T, windbreaker and gloves. Even the windbreaker was unzipped and eventually I took it off. After 9 miles, back into Tunnel Creek for the final time. I was wanting the race to be over and the mosquitoes were biting now, so the stop was short. Daylight was coming on as I started back up the switchbacks to Hobart. I got into Hobart I think at around 6am for the last time. I shot my dart, had a beer and asked for some eggs and bacon. That really hit the spot. I left there feeling pretty good. The final climb up to Snow Valley Peak seemed to take forever, but eventually I got there. By now the sun was up and it was going to be warmer than the day before. I ditched the warm clothes and headed out after a short stop. I could “smell the barn” and I wanted to be done. I finally got to the last aid station, only 1.7 miles from the end. I barely stopped. They asked if I wanted anything to eat, nope, I wanted to get done. I filled my bottles and was out. 30 minutes later I came out on the dirt road to the finish and had to run across the finish line. It was nice to be done. 30 hours 46 minutes, 39th place out of 115 starters. That cold bottle of beer at the finish line never tasted so good. I wanted nothing to eat or drink, just the beer.
After a few minutes, I found a chair to sit in and wait for Meghan and her friends. I set my alarm so I could take a little nap, but they really made up some time and crossed the finish about an hour after I did.
Aftermath – One thing that slowed me down some was a bout of asthma that hit me for the last 20 miles or so. I used to think it was altitude related, but I now think it’s all the dust. Even when I was by myself during the night I could see it my headlamp beam. This seems to be an issue with me for any 100 mile race that’s dusty. I wore my La Sportiva Fireblades. Very comfortable and perfect for this type of trail, but I was left with blisters in some weird spots. Oh well. Liquid diet. The only solids I ate the entire race were the eggs and bacon, also, very little soda. Water, sportsdrink, lots of Ensure, Starbucks Frappucino’s, 1st Endurance gel, and a little soup here and there. No stomach upset and I seemed to be well fueled the entire time.
I had a great time. I redeemed myself after last year’s race. Don’t know if I’ll run it again, there’re other races I want to do, but I highly recommend this one. The scenery alone is worth the race, the aid is top notch. I still want to take Karen out there with the horses and do some riding.

So a couple of years ago my friend Meghan and I did an epic run. The route was on the road around Pineview Reservoir, then up Wheeler Canyon trail to Snowbasin Ski Area. Then up the ski area to the top of Mt. Ogden. From there we caught the Beus Canyon trail down to the trail head in South Ogden. A total of around 30 miles. We had an absolute blast that day and decided to reprise the run today. Alas, the outcome was a little different but we still had a great time.
This morning we met at the Beus Canyon trailhead, left my car there and drove up to the Wheeler Canyon trailhead. The weather forecast was a little iffy, but we were hoping that maybe we could beat out the weather with an early start.

Meghan ready to go


Our goal, over the top (hopefully)

We got started on the road portion around 6:30am. Traffic was fairly light and we finished that portion in a little over 2 hours. As you can see, the day started out fairly nice weatherwise. We kept our fingers crossed hoping it would stay that way.

Looking up Wheeler Canyon

So we got started up Wheeler Canyon around 9am. Wheeler Canyon is a fairly popular canyon for hikers, mountain bikers and equestrians. This day there weren’t too many of any of those.

The trail up Ice Box Canyon

As you can see, with all of the snow from last winter and the rain this spring, the vegetation was very lush. We felt like we were running back east rather than out in dry Utah.

10 foot deep washout

Snowbasin base area


Clouds rolling in

We kept on going up to the Snowbasin base area and noticed that the clouds were starting to roll in. Not a good sign. It hadn’t started raining so we thought we at least start up the haul road hoping it might get better. Well, after about a mile up the road, it started raining and the wind picked up. The top of the mountain was completely obscured so we figured we just head back down to the car using a different trail. Definitely a good call since now it was raining pretty good. We actually came across a couple of mountain bikers out in the rain.
Since we were now tanking the run over the top of the mountain we decided it was time for a mud fest and didn’t worry about avoiding any puddles or mud. We had a pretty good time with that.



As we went back down the mountainside, the rain quit and it actually warmed up some.

The trek back down Green Pond trail is one that I enjoying making. The scenery is great and it’s just a nice cruising trail.

Eventually we made it back to the car but noticed that we had 29.4 miles on the GPS. Since we wanted to go 30 miles, we went back up the trail for .3, turned around and came back down. We got some odd looks from some other hikers we had passed on the way down. Even though we didn’t make our goal of going over the top, we still had a great time and got the miles that we wanted.

A really long ultra

Well, I'm back from the end of one of my longest events ever. Raising my daughter. Last weekend she got married and it was a fantastic time. I got to play a lot with my 2 1/2 year old grandson.

He's the greatest thing since sliced bread and I had way too much fun playing with him. Karen and I went back to Illinois and met up with my two sisters, my Mother, My mother-in-law, father-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, two nieces and a nephew. Everyone had a great time. I got together with friends at the local microbrew and had some decent non-Utah beer. I even bought my son one of his first legal beers, now that he's 21. I even managed to get in a nice long run with a friend in a local state park that I used to run in all the time when we lived back there.

The wedding party

Jessica (our daughter) basically planned the entire wedding herself as we weren't back there to provide any help. She did a fantastic job. The ceremony was kind of a mix of traditional and modern and was humorous. The bride was beautiful, takes after her Mother.

The guy who did the ceremony is Traver's (our son-in-law) cousin and got ordained online just so he could do the ceremony. He had some great remarks.

Dad and Kevin

The wedding was outdoors and the weather cooperated. Something not a guaranteed in Illinois.

Mom and Jessica

Dad and Jessica

Grandma and Brody

Dad and Jessica as we walked up the aisle

The reception was great. The DJ was good and spun some good tunes. I got to dance with my daughter and make a toast to the happy couple. I got the chance to visit with friends and family and catch up on the latest.

Brody busting a move

All in all, a great vacation.

My speedgoat mascot

Just a short little post. Since I'm a member of the Wasatch Speedgoat Mountain Racing Team, I took some pictures the other day of my personal mascot. His name is Flash and he's a Nigerian Dwarf buck. A very cool goat I might add. We also have a couple other goats.

Finally, a post race post

Yeah, it's about time I posted something new. I've been super busy with my race, the Antelope Island Buffalo Run. This year the park let me have an unlimited number of entrants and I figured I'd get around 300-350. Nope, not even close. When the dust settled and race day arrive, 490 people had signed up for either the 25K, 50K, or 50 mile. Holy cow! Panic time. So on race day about 450 actually showed up to run.

It's always been my policy to send out the runners on time to the second. This year was the first year I failed. When I did the pre race briefing for the 50 mile, there were still a lot of people walking down the road from their cars. I decided to hold off for five minutes to give them a chance to start with everyone else. I ended up sending out the 50 mile runners at 6:05:00am. Two hours later I sent out the 50K runners at 8:00am on the dot, and the 25K runners left at 9:00am on the dot. There were the usual stragglers, but no one who left a little late complained.

Looking over the enrants for the 50 mile and the 50K, I knew that a couple of course records were going down. I finally had a pretty good field for the men's 50 mile. Erik Storheim was going to have to work for his win this year. For the women's 50K, I knew that record didn't stand a chance as Nikki Kimball had sent in her entry. True to form, both of those records fell. Nikki blew the women's 50K record out of the water by over 30 minutes and Nick Pedatella brought the men's 50 mile course record to well under 7 hours with a 6:43. Hot on his heels was Hiroki Ishakawa (from Japan) with a 6:45. Erik posted a third place finish with a 7:09. Meanwhile, on the 25K race, Genevieve Keogh set a new course record for the women with a 2:06. I hadn't thought that record would fall, but down it went.

Weather, I was a little worried about the weather. The Thursday before the race is when I mark the course. There was two inches of snow on the ground even though the trails were clear. Trail conditions were kind of icky, but I figured that if we didn't get any more precip, they would be fine on race day, and indeed they were. There were a few puddles, but by in large, trail conditions were ideal. The weather on race day was ideal as well. As usual, it was around freezing in the morning, but this year there was no wind at all. A far cry from past years when the wind has always been blowing on race day. Skies were partly cloudy and when the sun came up, the air warmed up and eventually reached the low 60's I think. A picture perfect day for the runners.

With as many runners as there were, I was worried about supplies, crowds on the trails, etc. but except for a few minor supply issues, things went very well. Elephant Head aid station was pretty slammed with over 1300 runner visits, but they held up well. Next year I need to get them a couple more people for the middle part of the day.

We were treated to a minor medical issue. At first it didn't seem minor as one of the runners that had just finished was complaining about shortness of breath and tingly arms. He thought he was having heart problems (he's 69). Within seconds, we had a doctor who had run the race, an ER nurse, another doctor, and an EMT at his side. Davis county paramedics were called and Lifeflight was called in. Needless to say, the helicopter landing got everyone's attention. Once the paramedics got an EKG on the guy, they found that his vitals were fine. They put an IV in him and transported him to the hospital for observation. He was released later that day with nothing more than a case of dehydration. Thank goodness!

The other excitement was a marriage proposal. Charlie Vincent proposed to Eve Davies. Naturally she accepted and now I need to find out the date.

All in all, everyone seemed to really enjoy the day. The runners, the volunteers, even my family that I suckered into helping out seemed to have a good time. We had plenty of buffalo stew for everyone and even had more beer this year, but I was still cleaned out by the end of the day.

As usual, this race wouldn't happen without a couple of groups of people, the runners (obviously), and the volunteers. Again as usual, the state park was more than accomodating and even the rangers seemed to have a good time through the day. Race day is one of my favorites through the year. I love seeing all sorts of running friends, seeing happy faces, seeing new trail runners having a good time, seeing ultra newbies finish their first ultra. But, I'm usually glad it's over so I can take a break and get back to my own training.

Antelope Island Run in the Snow

Today was a great day for a run. it was snowing fairly hard, the roads were a mess and I had a training run scheduled as part of the Buffalo Run. It seems as though every February training run the weather is a factor and usually not good. Instead of running trails, we usually end up on the roads because ther's too much snow on the ground. Today was no exception, with about 6-8" of untracked snow covering the trails. Not only that, but the roads hadn't been plowed yet. Only one car had traveled down the road and we ended up running in those tracks.
Even though the snow was coming down pretty good, there wasn't much wind, just a very light breeze, and the temperature was about 28.

Regardless of the weather, we do the training runs, so I knew that at least a few intrepid souls would show and I wasn't disappointed. All told there were seven of us that showed up to run. Several elected to go the full 22 miles and the rest of us decided to turn around after seven miles and call it good with 14.

One of the ones who showed was my friend Meghan. We always have a good time running together and today was no exception. We also had another runner with us out training for her first ultra. We were getting quizzed about what to eat, how to train, what's it like etc. It's fun to hear people who haven't done an ultra talk about their worries and then try to reassure them that "yes" they can do it and "yes" they will enjoy it.
14 miles ended up being about the right amount for the three of us, especially me. By the time we had covered about 12 miles, my feet were wet and starting to get cold.....and I don't like cold feet.

It snowed on us during the entire run but had quit by the time we got back to the truck.

As it usually happens, once we finished the weather had changed and the sun came out. Another beautiful finish to a great run.