2019 Event Calendar
Jan & Feb

Week	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat
Dec 30	-	-	New Years Day Barely Organized Run W-Holiday	.	.	.	Y.S Winter Challenge Bandera
Jan 6	Rocks and Roots	.	.	.	.	.	Frozen Otter Ouachita Switchbacks Frozen Gnome 50K
Jan 13	Triple D Swampstomper	W-Holiday	.	.	.	.	Winter Trail Marathon
Jan 20	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
Jan 27	.	Arrowhead...	.	.	.	.	John Dick Memorial 50K Rocky Raccoon 100
Feb 3	.	.	.	.	.	.	Rocky Raccoon 50 Lovin' the Hills Cloudland Canyon 50k
Feb 10	Rocks and Roots	.	.	.	.	.	Book Across the Bay Black Canyon Ultras Sylamore Trail Moab Red Hot
Feb 17	.	W-Holiday	.	.	.	Post Oak Challenge...	Psycho WyCo Antelope Canyon MS 24hr Treadmill Challenge
Feb 24	.	.	.	.	.	.	Chilly Cupid 50k FA Old Pueblo 50 (AZ)

Mar & April

Week	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat
Mar 3	.	.	.	.	.	Addo Elephant Trail Run...	Land Between the Lakes
Mar 10	.	.	.	.	.	3 Days of Syllamo...
Mar 17	Fall Creek Falls 50k	.	.	.	.	.	Clinton Lake Monument Valley Moab-Behind the Rocks Prairie Spirit Trail
Mar 24	Irish Run Saint Paul	.	.	.	.		.
Mar 31	.	.	.	.	.	Potawatomi...	NK50K 31.6
Apr 7	.	.	.	.	.	*Zumbro...*	Free State (KS)
Apr 14	.	.	.	.	.	Zion...	Dane Drifters-Day 1
Apr 21	Dane Drifters-Day 2	.	.	.	.	.	Chippewa Moraine Cornbelt 24 hour Moose Run

May & June

Week	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat
Apr 28	.	.	.	.	.	.	Strolling Jim
May 5	.	.	.	.	.	CRUD 24	*Ice Age Trail 50* DwDirt: Gnaw Bone (IN) CRUD 8
May 12	.	3 Days at the Fair...	.	.	.	.	Spring Superior
May 19	.	.	.	.	.	.	Bunk House Grand Canyon
May 26	Med-City Marathon	W-Holiday	.	.	.	.	Kettle Moraine FANS 12 & 24 Hour Chester Woods War Eagle 50k North Fork 50
June 2	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
June 9	.	.	.	.	.	Bighorn... Bryce Canyon...	Mohican 100 Grandma's
June 16	.	.	.	.	.	Black Hills...	WI Trail Assail 24 Hour Dizzy G.O.A.T Western States
June 23	.	.	.	.	.	.	Afton Trail Run

July & Aug

Week	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat
June 30	.	.	.	.	Tofte Trek W-Holiday	.	Capitol Reef DwDirt: Devil's Lake (WI)
July 7	.	.	.	.	.	.	Curnow Marathon Tahoe Rim Trail
July 14	.	.	.	.	.	.	Never Summer 100k
July 21	.	.	.	.	.	.	Voyageur 50 Pikes Peak Ultra
July 28	.	.	.	.	.	.	Tushars Telluride Mountain Run Burning River
Aug 4	Brewhouse Tri	.	.	.	.	.	.
Aug 11	Holy Funk T-Jo 80K	.	.	.	.	.	Marquette Trail 50 Pikes Peak Ascent Leadville 100 Squamish50
Aug 18	Pikes Peak Marathon	.	.	.	.	6 Days in the Dome...	Lean Horse
Aug 25	.	.	.	.	.	.	BLS 6/12/24 Hour

Sep & Oct

Week	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat
Sep 1	.	W-Holiday	.	.	.	Superior 100 Woodstock	Superior 50, Marathon
Sep 8	R U Chicken Trail Run	.	.	.	.	.	North Face: Madison
Sep 15	.	.	.	.	.	.	In Yan Teopa
Sep 22	Duluth Gravel Run	.	.	.	.	.	Birkie Trail Run Driftless 50k
Sep 29	TC Marathon	.	.	.	Grand Circle Trailfest	.	Bluff Color Fest Hennepin Hundred Arkansas Traveller
Oct 6	.	.	.	.	.	.	Indiana Trail 100 Canyon De Chelly (AZ) Heartland 100 WhistleStop Marathon
Oct 13	Glacial Trail 50	.	.	.	.	.	Mosquito Hill Wild Duluth Surf the Murph 24 The Hard Way Black River Trail
Oct 20	G.O.A.T.Z Trail Runs	.	.	.	.	.	Javalina Jundred Cactus Rose
Oct 27	Hixon 50	.	.	.	.	tBunk...	Icebox 480

Nov & Dec

Week	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat
Nov 3	.	.	.	.	.	.	Tunnel Hill
Nov 10	.	W-Holiday	.	.	.	.	UMTR Banquet JFK 50 Mile
Nov 17	.	.	.	.	W-Holiday	W-Holiday	Afton FA
Nov 24	.	.	.	.	.	.	Cajun Coyote
Dec 1	.	.	.	.	.	.	Hitchcock
Dec 8	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
Dec 15	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
Dec 22	.	.	.	W-Holiday	Across The Years	Tuscobia...	The Huff 50k
Dec 29	.	.	.	W-Holiday	-	-	-

Rocky Raccoon 100 mile 2011

I went to TX the first week of Feb to try my first 100 - Rocky Raccoon. I had done some 50 milers and was inspired by those running the Superior 100 last Sept - especially those doing it as their first or second 100! I asked what my next step would be if I wanted to bump up and was told "just sign up". Oops, I was hoping for a nice list so I could continue pushing it off by not doing the things on the list. Hmmmm.

I ran the 50 at Rocky last year so I decided to give the 100 a try. One reason: it's an 'easier' 100 - the distance is intimidating enough without doing a 'harder' one. I still think that was a good idea. Another reason: I figured I'd sneak away and try to finish one 'out of the spotlight'. I was thinking I didn't want to advertise it and then totally suck, so that was the plan. I've decided that was a dumb idea.

I had plenty of questions leading up to the race. The first question of course: can I actually run/walk that far? I also considered that Feb is not really a good time for a first 100 for someone living in MN. Training-wise I really had no ramp-up in miles. I ran 50 miles at Surf the Murph around Halloween and then basically tried to maintain as much as possible. I ran two 50Ks between Surf the Murph and Rocky - raced one, enjoyed the other!

As the race approached I was thinking: it's better to go into a race undertrained than injured. I wasn't injured, I suspected I might be undertrained. I also realized this was new territory so I started thinking this might be a process - it may take more than one attempt to figure things out and get a finish. The challenge of course was to not let that thought be a cop-out and an excuse to quit.



So what happened? The short version:

Goal: 100 miles, 30 hours or less.
Actual: 80 miles, 25:53.
Needed: 80 miles in 24:00 to continue, so ~2 hours too slow

Splits:
loop 1 - ~5:00 (left at 5:10)
loop 2 - ~5:10 (total time 10:20, left at 10:30)
loop 3 - ~6:12 (total time 16:42, left at 17:15)
loop 4 - ~8:38 (total time 25:53)

How it went:
loop 1 - pretty well
loop 2 - pretty well
loop 3 - pretty well, blister care added ~30 minutes
loop 4 - wow, the wheels really fell off: more blister care, all walking, tired

Problems: I had some blister issues - the heels of both feet, and then later the ball of my left foot. I think the time spent at the aid stations having them treated was the real problem. And then there was the other deal, the bigger deal - I got tired. Not sleepy tired, but "wow this is a long ways" tired. Imagine that. :)

Here's the longer, play-by-play version:

I didn't want to spend much time texting/facebooking and all that, but I did want to report back to people on how things were going. So I had an email set up that I could do Reply All and send a quick message. And after loops 2, 3, and 4 I also thought to take a picture of the clock and upload that to facebook.


Loop 1:

The wood bridges were frost covered and slippery... I was being careful but one of the descents was too steep and out my feet went. I had 2 thoughts: "this shouldn't really hurt", and then "I was wrong" as I hit pretty hard. It definitely could've been worse. A little later we were directed around another bridge and there was a runner down - heard later she broke her leg. I was with Misty and Vicky and we stopped for a bit and then I moved on. Didn't know if I'd see 'the girls' again so started chatting with a guy that looked familiar from another race - really didn't want to spend the next 29 hours by myself! Ended up hanging around him for 2 loops, and was also happy that the girls caught us. Loop 1 was in the dark for the first hour or so.

This is the email I sent after loop 1:
"Crazy trip, nice to be running. Took hard fall off wood bridge but ok. On pace. Hooked up w/Leonard Martin ? (mother road)...
Stalking him now.

Was with misty and vicky more of this loop than expected. Now I'm chasing them and leonard. :-)

So far so good and fun..."

Loop 2:

I was the last one out of the aid station after loop 1 so wanted to catch the others but didn't want to chase too hard. Missed a turn and went the wrong way for a bit. Back-tracked and got back on the right trail. I think I hooked up with the others before the 2nd aid station. About 26 miles in I had my first bit of blister care done... popped left foot heel blister with some guy's knife, didn't pop the right ones, and a guy taped both heels. This was pretty fast compared to later blister care stops. I believe I caught the other folks again after that and finished loop 2 with them. Loop 2 was all in the light.

This is the email I sent after loop 2:
"Loop 2 done... Feeling tired? (40 miles, duh) :-)

10:20ish for 2.....

Still with leonad, misty, vicky...

Too many questions - shut up, brain. Too fast? Too sore? Sticking with Leonard - help me finish or will he kill me?

Oh, Wrong Way means wrong way... Only 5 minutes lost.

So far so good I guess... Going to settle into my own thing.

Loop 3 here we go

Thanks for tuning in. :-)"

Loop 3:

After loop 2 I decided sticking with Leonard was wearing me down too much and I better settle into my own rhythm, so I did. I think I ran the early part of loop 3 with Vicky. Before the 2nd aid station I felt some weirdness with my right heel blisters and decided I better have them looked at. I think a couple blisters joined forces into a pretty big one and then popped. A guy at the aid station taped them up - I appreciated the work but I think it took about 30 minutes which is a long time. Once I got going again I think I was walking pretty well but not doing much running. Caught Vicky and finished the loop with her.

In hindsight it was crazy but my 'plan' was 3 5-hour loops to be done with 60 miles in 15 hours... leaving 15 hours for the last 40 miles. I figured 15 hours wasn't required, but coming in almost 2 hours over that was a concern. The blister care and the fact that it got dark during loop 3 and the fact that I was fading made that a long loop.

This is the email I sent after loop 3:
"Yay - new mileage record for me... 60 miles.

Anyone fall for my 3 loops even splits baloney? Yikes.

16:45ish for 60mi. Blister issues - takes time but the people are great.

Time is going to be an issue. Well, so will the miles. :-)

Ok,big night mode.... Changed clothes... Need new batteries n lights, food/drink, get out there.

Don't wait up, kids. Hehe

See ya."

Loop 4:

Loop 4 (miles 60-80) is where things got away from me. After slowing down and 30 minutes of blister care I came in later than I was hoping from loop 3, and then completely changed clothes which made that a long stop - another 30 minutes of no forward progress. I left at 17:15 which left me less than 13 hours for 2 more loops - less than 6.5 hours each and the previous one had taken me over 6 hours. I tend to freak out when I get too close to cut-offs and thoughts of doom were creeping in.

I was only walking at this point and had some new blisters. I didn't know if I could walk a 6:45 loop anyway, and realized stopping to have the blisters looked at would put me over for sure. So the seeds of doubt were already there, I was about to stop and put myself into a bigger hole, and my thoughts were something like this: "you're most likely not going to make it anyway, and even if by some miracle you push and push and push and do make it... then all you'll have done is qualified yourself to go out and push push push some more to try and do a 6 hour loop, and good luck with that".

Well is there any surprise it ended the way it did? The blister stop on loop 4 was another 30 minutes, and all motivation to push was gone. I walked by myself for all but the last part of the loop... by chance I ran into a friend of a friend and stumbling in together as the sun came up made the last part pretty enjoyable - more so than it otherwise would've been.

This is the email I sent after loop 4 - actually hours later:
"Sorry no update for so long... Phone battery died. May have a chance to send more later but I made it 80 miles. Walked with a guy
the last 4.4 miles - he was finishing 100 and I was finishing 80 - took us 2 hours for those last miles.
My feet are hamburger... Really takes the whole package to finish one of these. I'm pretty satisfied with how it went.
Was nice to go all day and then all night.

Final tally: 80 miles 25:53. Needed to be done in 24:00 to start the last loop. If it's not obvious I really faded.
Room for improvement both physically and mentally.

Thanks for being interested... or at least pretending to be. :-)

-Wayne"

So??

Part of me wonders if I should be more bummed... but I think I'm not because I'm encouraged: I feel like I made it far enough that now I actually believe I can do it. So now what? Well, on April 9th I will try again in Illinois at Potawatomi (the old McNaughton). Yeah, 9 weeks after not finishing an 'easier' 100 I'm going to try a 'not easy' 100... hmmmm. But I'm going with some friends, and we have a plan - so this is the next step in the process. Wish me luck. :)

Dirty River Bottoms...

First, this isn't another race report... in case that's what you were thinking. :) The Thur run this week was on part of the MN River Bottoms. We'd been led to believe we might get wet and muddy and were kinda looking forward to that, but either we were in the wrong spot or we didn't go far enough or things have dried out in the last few days. Though there wasn't much for mud and standing water, there was lots of sand and trees and other 'stuff' in the area - a result of the spring flooding.
















As you can see the conditions aren't horrible, but it does seem like this area could use some help from Mr. Clean. :)

McNaughton, Trail Mix 2010

This might be a record, at least recently - posting the day after a race. I was trying to post this last night while everything was all roses thinking I might wake up to a different story, but so far so good. So the short story is: the last two weekends I've done the McNaughton 50 mile and the Trail Mix 50k. There was some concern that a 50k the weekend after my 3rd 50 mile finish was maybe not that smart, but thankfully it seemed to work out ok.

[btw, this might get kinda long... but if you're here then you must not have anything else to do anyway :) ]

McNaughton... a couple of us decided we wanted to do McNaughton - I had heard a couple years ago that it was a good 50 with such a generous cut-off, and Karen wanted to give the 100 another shot. We put quite a bit of effort into recruiting others and were eventually successful with Mike. So the trip was set.

Here's a link to all the pictures we took: pics
Also Mike has a couple good McNaughton posts on his blog: Westy's blog

The short story here is that I finished well. I had lots of help with 'smart pacing' throughout and being pulled along at the end... so a very good run for me. It was great to see and experience that 'sipping from the tank' early is the way to go so there's something left at the end -- you can't run fast enough early to make up for walking a whole bunch at the end, so it's good to conserve and be able to still run at the end. Seems so logical but that doesn't make it easy to do. Karen, Mike, and I all ran together at the beginning and that was very good for me.

our campsite was just down from the start/finish line - a great place to be, easy to stop in each time around

The run started early and I always like it when the sun is coming up. It got pretty warm (especially considering we weren't used to running in any sort of heat) but otherwise was beautiful weather. The course was in great condition compared to the previous mud years - but thankfully we had just enough mud and water to make it fun. And there are lots of hills so this is a tough course even without slip-sliding around on all the climbs.



So the three of us hung out for loops 1 and 2... just easing into things and enjoying the day and each other's company on a nice run. I ran the first 2 loops in my monkey shoes - I had planned on one loop but everything seemed fine so I did a 2nd. The 20 miles was my longest run in them, doubling my previous longest actually. After 2 loops switching to real shoes seemed like a good idea and that was fine too. I think the monkey shoes get me off to a good start both pace and form-wise. And they were great fun in the streams and muddy sections.



I biffed it once in the monkey shoes - on a smooth downhill my foot slipped out and I was down before I knew it. Later I went to take a picture and my camera was gone... I realized it must've popped out of my pocket when I fell. I was hoping it'd be out in the open and someone would pick it up and turn it in at an aid station - and that's exactly what happened! Yay!! Thank You, honest camera-finding trail runner! BTW, somewhere along the line there was a discussion about my monkey shoes and possible halloween costumes so now they are my monkey/flintstone shoes. :)

this is the hill that normally has a rope... we think Andy took that too

Mike knew he'd have some issues with hydration and fueling so as expected/planned he dropped back to try and work through things towards the beginning of loop 3. And nothing against Karen but by the end of loop 3 I was trying to drop back and run on my own too. :) It seems there's just something about wanting to drop off from a stronger runner when you start feeling tired... but it didn't work for very long so I basically ran with Karen the rest of the way and she helped pull me along to a good finish. Of course, she was hanging back and being smart trying to conserve through the hot part of the day for her next 50 miles. So click click click went the clock as we kept plugging along until finally Mike and I were quite happy and relieved to be done with our 50 miles.



So once I was done it was nice hanging out by the finish, relaxing, chatting with Mike, eating, cheering for others as they came through, and sleeping. Once Karen got rid of the dead weight (me) she had a great 6th loop. Unfortunately the heat of the day took its toll and she got sick on loop 7. And since I was up when she came through and Mike wasn't (well, not really anyway) I got to feel like a jerk doing the "oh no you don't want to drop, are you really sure, couldn't you try this, couldn't you try that, blah blah blah" -- it seems like that's what you're supposed to do, at least a little bit... but shoot, when someone's sick it's kinda hard to say with much conviction "you should go back out there again and hey, it might be better this time". So she made the smart decision to bag it, and it became clear after 4-5 hours of sleep that she had made the right decision as she was still not feeling that well as we packed up and headed back to MN.

So it's always a downer when someone in the group doesn't get what they were after but all in all it was a fun trip, and a good run for me with all the pacing/pulling help. It's a nice course with some variety in the different sections... and it's a tough course with or without the mud. Definitely a race to do if you're at all thinking about it. Road trip next year??

-----------------------------------------

Trail Mix... so on the way back from McNaughton I got this crazy idea to run Trail Mix. 4 loops seemed like a perfect setup for more practice with the smart pacing - this time doing it myself instead of just following along with others doing the work. And I thought maybe I'd even be able to do the whole thing in my monkey/flintstone shoes, raising my longest run in them to 50k. So the plan was to run 'ridiculously slow' [note: this is a phrase that registers with my brain which always seems to think we're running 5 miles and can't compute an appropriate pace for 31 or 50 miles] early with the main goal to be able to run reasonably well on loop 4... not a walk, shuffle, walk, shuffle, "I've crashed and burned" finish. Taking into consideration the recent 50 mile and other numbers my plan on paper was to run the loops in 1:45 with the option of trying to run faster on loop 4 if everything went well.

---loop 1 : I figured it'd be hard to run a 1:45 loop and I was right - finished in ~1:33, with a bathroom stop and trying to walk all inclines no matter how small. The problem here though was keeping the pace way down on the 2nd half when all the 25Kers came flying by.

---loop 2 : I started feeling it, went to the tunes early, and was entertaining the questions: was this a good idea, am I going to have to drop? I eventually realized I was being worked over with the monkey/flintstone shoes - the body wasn't handling the impact like it should - and I decided the cushioning of my shoes would be really nice. Finished in ~1:39.

--loop 3 : I changed into real shoes and that helped a lot, gave me quite a boost right away. I stuck with the 'take it easy' approach and everything just kinda smoothed out and started feeling good again. Oh, I suppose that was the ibu kicking in. Saw Kel on the course with her monkey shoes and she ran back to the start/finish area with me. Thanks for the picture, Kel. Finished in ~1:38.



--loop 4 - since I was feeling quite good I decided for this final loop that I could 'release the hounds' [note: this is a phrase that registers with my brain but it doesn't necessarily mean anything noticeable happens]. It basically started with me running up the smaller inclines that I had previously walked. And then eventually I was actually running harder and faster than I had all day. It was actually kinda fun to be cruising along and, believe it or not, passing people. It might've even looked to my fellow back-of-the-packers like I had been sandbagging. Well, the best part of all that is the smart pacing worked - I actually did it right and it was successful... woohoo! Maybe there's hope after all. Of course, lest I get a big (bigger?) head... I didn't pace all that well on the last loop so I had to back off the last part and save some for the hill at the end. Finished in ~1:22, by far my fastest loop of the day.

As far as trail runs go, Trail Mix is an easy course... especially when they take the ski hill out like they did again this year. So the other crazy part of this plan was that even taking it quite easy, if things held together I figured I could PR. My previous 50K PR was ~7:26 at Chippewa last year. 4 loops of 1:45s would've given me 7 hours, so I thought best-case I might end up in the 6:40-6:50 range. I was so focused on pacing against my previous loops using the cool Virtual Training Partner of my Garmin that I wasn't paying any attention to the total race time... so I was pretty surprised to see 6:13 on the clock as I finished! That still seems crazy to me, like they messed up the timing or something. Oh, and as a double bonus... rumor has it the real medals we got this year are way better than what they handed out in previous years. hehe

Along the way I had some short conversations with people - I was surprised how many asked about my monkey/flintstone shoes - but I basically ran by myself, with the tunes going for most of it (for those who wonder I run with one headphone in and one out). It was a lot of fun seeing friends out there, both running and spectating... including a good-sized group from Duluth. It seems like the last couple weekends were the kick-off to the race season in this part of the country, so let the fun begin (continue)!


So what's next for me? Besides some rest and recovery I'm going to try to run the Ice Age 50 mile within the 12 hour cut-off (gulp). I had decided to save this for next year and I'm not sure who to blame for the change in plans (well, ok, I do know who to blame...), but I'm going to give it a shot. I don't know if I can run a 50 mile that fast, so the plan is to use my new smart pacing skills to run the best time I can... and hope it's fast enough. Anyone want to come along??


Still here? If you made it all the way through you can consider yourself an ultra reader!