Mountains beyond Mountains

byu trackz

provo river trail happy daze

lunarknit

Field house BYU izzle

byu loop

some track " speedwork" a very very loose term. glad to be back on the beautiful byu track

easy 30 min with some pick up 100's

indoor track

7 with Holly and Steph

shoulders and abs and run with Steph and Holly. 5AM is a new frontier for me. A very needed and new frontier.

pm: 3 on BYU track. For the first time in a very long time I'm starting to feel good again. 

2 on the grass loop around the BYU track with 10X hill sprints.

The track team was there- showing replay of the peyton jordan 10k they went 1-2. For anyones info they will be working out there daily 1-5, so open track after that. 

4 miles treadmill. Back, bi, tris with Steph and holly- 2.5 hours 5-7:30 every day. Unreal machines they are.  

One hour core with Steph and holly. Yes. One hour. Well for me it was more like 20 minutes. 

7 miles treadmill. Last mile 6:45

Shoulders with Steph and holly. 6 treadmill 8:41 pace 

Am : 3 

pm : y mountain in an embrassing 31 minutes.  3 

Crazy weather 3 miles on track. Fastish 800 and some 200's

boulder colorado. big trails lots of people but very pleasent

bluffs regional park lone tree colorado. currently dont have the fitness to go far so ill try to go fast.

Bluffs regional park trail. Starting to explore some 

bluffs regional park. hunted some guy down- got down to 6:30 pace. Might be in better shape than i thought.

garden of the gods hike afternoon 

pm : 4 mile fun run 

Buffs park. Not really an easy run place. But discovering some very nice off shoot trails. Wonder what the Utah to Colorado trail ratio is here ? I think there are more public dirt trails here that are easily accessible. 

Happy national running day 

Newport Beach - new home - 2 mile and change walking/ bike path run

Am - 5 sugar house park with Christy. Kept eyes peeled for jake and Allie : ) 

Pm- 5 temple loop. HOT 

Am : hiked in the Unitas 4 miles

pm: state street 5 miles lunar knit. Ran into old Hawaii friend !

pm: double 4.2

Green acres Washington ! Not the run I was hoping to have back down to 3k feet. It was hard. But I'm basically hopping in week 6 of 18 weeks out from bear 100. Feeling good though. Hopefully about 50 miles this week and up to a lot more in the next 9 weeks. 

Pm: 4 hamster wheel miles 

Morningside neighborhood loop. The streets I ran in high school now with just a tad more development. Blood red sun from a local fire. Thinking I need more road hokas. My stinsons are tired 

5 8 min pace 

very solid first longish run. 

10 miles- 8:54/ mile- 774 feet of ascent 

Day of travel yesterday - didn't want to rest but did anyways 

6.3- Provo river trail. Felt real good once I warmed up. Fitter than I thought but also had two day break. Gonna go hard this week ! 

Timpanagous - via timpanooke 

3:47 

got a long ways to go. This could have been worse on the whole and not much better really. 

Provo river trail with clay 8 min pace

oh yeah that didn't go to well haha 

3 miles at track. 2:51 avg for 800's

Provo river trail 6- new Stinson hoka tarmacs I got on sale. A little stiff- but I had put like 1000 miles on my last ones so maybe they wore down or something 

8 miles that sucked so bad

pm at a whole pizza then ran. This was some sort of Christmas miracle. I wonder if I set the whole pizza 5k WR

Am: provo river trail.

remember this american hero?

Headed up up for a little verticle. Very pleasant run. I imagine I felt so good today because of the cool weather. 6 bonneville trail. No snakes. 

19.5 on the Rail trail. I knew it would be raining but - you're gonna deal with that stuff anyways so might as well train in it. Thought I had more nutrition - but turned out I only had two shot blocks. Uh oh. Well the plan was to run to the bike shop and buy a gel there. I got there and they weren't super excited to have a soaking wet short short guy in the shop- I paid with my wet bill and got a gel. Didn't sit right. Whatever. Made it home and enjoyed the run on the whole. Even had two river crossings because of the construction.  

provo river trail 8

feels like my fitness is taking a big step forward. Compared my run in Park City to a year ago and i ran a full minute faster per mile for my 20 miler. 

getting my milage about where I want it this week and then I will maintain- Go up a bit maybe 10-15 more miles a week and then I will start pouring in the verticle K's. 

pm : 5 hot miles. Dat heat training. 

Provo river trail - 7 

Lone peak bail out  / corner canyon 10 miles

got annihilated. Was kinda have heartily gonna go up lone peak and after getting a bit lost and then running out of water - it was done. I was thinking when I bailed that I could have pushed up off sheer will - but on the way down I stopped sweating and extreme dry mouth - just not enough water. 

Am: 10 - legs didnt warm up until like 8.5 miles 

PM: Provo canyon. Been avoiding running with my roommate because he runs at Oregon - and I know he doesn't like running 8 minute pace. Ugh. 5 miles at 7:30 pace 

Got accepted to run Run rabbit run! 100 miles in steamboat springs Colorado. Have about 5 weeks to get ready/ taper haha 

was as good as it possibly could be on 1,300 calories yesterday and none this morning

AM: 10 @ 8:10 pace PRT

pm : 4 slog 

rest day- up to the Y

Up to the Y 6 times- 13 miles and 6k vert gain total

grandeur up- mill creek down 3k elevation gain. 

byu track grass loops- 7:16

Brighton Loop. Brighton also has the best track. ( Byu tie ) 

This race caused me more pain physically and mentally that anything I've done. And yet - I paid 250$ to live this torture. 

The day started at 8 am and the runners were sent straight up the ski hill- the race was in Steamboat Springs Colorado at a ski resort for some sections.  I felt good enough climbing, just took me a couple hours to get warmed up then I was feeling good. We made our way to Fish Creek Falls and Long Lake which are among the most gorgeous sections I've even raced on. Big water falls and rivers with bridge crossings, remote crystal lakes. I was enjoying myself. 

Coming down to mile 20 I felt great. It was a road section and I just went hard. 7 min miles and passed almost 20-30 people. We got to Olympian hall where my super crew dad was waiting. He got me everything and then I was off. The next 20 miles felt good. The sun was setting I was running fast and well. Then the night came and total descent in to horror insued. 

I had been warned it would be cold, but at the end of summer the notion of below freezing temperatures didn't really stick somehow. When we started what would be 5000 foot climb, the threads were beginning to unravel. I saw the woman's leader on my way up, ( elites started later ) and she was moving great and had a huge lead.  Come to find out she would drop - surely due to the cold that was permiating everything ( and apparently a knee injury).  As we climbed to long lake, the end of feeling good was nigh. Several of the aid stations on the course are used 2-3 times. I was on my way to long lake when I got paranoid. I couldn't see anyone. No headlamps. No sound just me. Eventually I made the choice to back track and ran into someone who confirmed we were on the right path. It seems small but it mentally rattled me. 

Next on to summit lake which is where I was moving through the cold dark night alone in a bad spot mentally. Arriving to the hut aid station it was like a morgue. Many people were so unprepared for 20 degrees at 10,000 feet of altitude. Many would start out but then turn around and eventually quit here. I had no pacers for this race so I headed down an 8 mile road the next aid station.  I walked almost every step. Now coming to mile 65 I was walking an unsettling amount. My first half of the race was about 14 hours - the second half would end up being 21 hours.

I arrived down at dry lake mile 65.5 where I would wake up my dad who had been there for hours waiting. He set me up with everything I needed but mentally I was gone. I knew I still had to go down 4 more miles down and then to my utter horror retrace every step back up to 10,500 feet to summit lake.  

I took off and actually made fairly decent time down to the pit bottom point of the race. It was still dark and cold when I made it to the aid. When I got there I could tell by the way people were looking at me things were not good. And I knew they were not good. I waited there until the sun started to rise and fought off the desire to quit. I would for every minute for the next 30 miles fight a desire to quit. I left and just prayed to God I could make it. Back up to the dry lake aid and saw my dad for what would be the last time for the next 35 miles.  

Walked up towards summit lake- it sucked. I hated it. I hated this whole damn race. Cars were coming down the road full of runners that had quit. I just knew I couldn't live with myself. I had to do this. I met a new friend Amy and she was just what I needed to keep going. We went to same pace and when we reached summit lake I asked her how long she was staying there " im not ". It was the right decision. All but a couple who stayed there would not finish the race. Even after 82 miles they would not make it. After filling water and being there for all of a few minutes Amy looked at me and said "Let's go". She was moving better than I so we seperated for that section. 

8 miles to the next aid station when I had a realization that if I walked the whole way - I would not make it. So I hobbled stumbled and screamed my way 8 miles to the next aid. It's worth mentioning that this race was longer than 100 miles.  It's about 103-105.  It seems trivial but it was really messing with me. Now instead of counting down from 10 I was counting down from 15 and that just sucked. I wanted to punch the race director when I finished ugh. 

Headed to the last aid station I was running out of food. I also was getting heat stroke. Here is also where I started day time hallucinating. Piles of rocks become the last aid station, a tree stump was a man wearing a top hat. My own hand coming into my perfrial vision was a border collie. Yes even at mile 90 - I wanted to quit. So bad. 

Finally the last aid station. 96 miles with just 7 more to go. I calculated my time and then just walked in almost all of it. My dad was at the finish and a large crowd of very supporting people. It was wonderful. In a way a parade is wonderful after returning from war. Glad I did it.

edits: spelling some details

3 miles

1,632 ft vert

BST

I GOT INTO WESTERN STATES TODAY!!!!!!!!!!

BST slate canyon loop-

contemplating how fast is possible at western states if I have a 90-95% capacity build up injury free