A Look Back on 2012 – and a Look Ahead

by Brandon  
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I may not have written on here much lately (cue promises of writing more regularly in the future), but 2012 has been a pretty epic year – and I’m not even done yet! That’s right, I’ve still got one more marathon in me this year, but more on that later. First, a quick look back on what I’ve accomplished (so far) in 2012.

In June, I ran my current marathon PR of 3:49:47 at the Mayor’s Marathon right here in Anchorage. It was a hot day (by Alaska standards) and a fairly hilly course, so I’ll be interested to see what I can do in 2013 under (hopefully) more favorable conditions.

In July, I officially became an ultrarunner after completing the Resurrection Pass 50 miler in 11 hours and 20 minutes. I ran with 2 of my good running buddies, it was a beautiful day, and we had an absolutely great time. I couldn’t have asked for anything more at my first ultra.

In August, I slowed things down and spent a week driving and hiking through Alaska and Canada on the Chilkoot Trail with my dad for his 50th birthday. This trail was used heavily during the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1800’s, so there’s a lot of history there and it’s a really wonderful hike. This is the second time we’ve done this backpacking trip, and have lucked out with great weather both times.

The “Golden Stairs”, then and now.

Fun fact: Geoff Roes has the FKT (fastest known time) for running this trail, in 5 hours and 27 minutes. We did it in 4 days. On the last night, a small group of runners came by our camp, and I must admit that I was more than a little bit jealous.

In September, I went north to Fairbanks to run the 50th annual Equinox Marathon. This is widely considered the 2nd toughest marathon in the country, only behind the Pike’s Peak Marathon (which, to be fair, looks a lot harder). To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here’s the elevation profile of the course:

This is a beautiful, rugged race run mostly on trails. It’s also one tough mother. By mile 20, after suffering through all the climbing and the quad-thrashing downhills, my legs were pretty much toast. After that, I adopted a liberal run-walk strategy to get to the end of my slowest marathon yet in 4:37:16.

Was it tough? Yes.
Will I be back next year? Yes.
For the 40 mile ultra? Most likely 🙂

Now, as I mentioned near the start of all this, I’ve got one more marathon up my sleeve for 2012. On December 22, just one day after the shortest day of the year, I’ll be running the Willow Winter Solstice Marathon, about 70 miles north of Anchorage. There will be just 5 hours 15 minutes of daylight that day. I use the word “daylight” liberally here, as it often stays quite dark during the day due to cloud cover and the fact that even when the the sun does come up, it never makes it very high over the horizon. The race website says to be prepared for -30°F to -40°F, and there could be lots of fresh snow covering the trails, making for some pretty slow running. What’s not to love, right?

Looking Ahead to 2013

I’m going to start 2013 off with a bang by running the Disney World Goofy Challenge in January. If you’re not familiar, the Goofy Challenge is to run both the 1/2 marathon on Saturday, and the full marathon on Sunday. We’re turning it into a big family vacation, doing the whole Disney World thing, even taking a Disney Cruise.

Then, things will quiet down for a few months until summer arrives (at least race-wise, I’ll still be doing plenty of running through the cold and snow). Right now I’m planning on running most of my usual races – Mayor’s in June, Ressurection Pass 50 again in July, Moose’s Tooth in August, and Equinox in September.

I do have one big goal for next year, something I’ve talked about here and there with a few people, but haven’t really let the cat out of the bag yet.

Well, here it is: I’m planning to run my first 100 miler next year.

There, I said it, no take-backs. I’m not 100% sure which race I’m going to do yet, but I WILL run my first 100 miler in 2013. I do have a few criteria to go by when deciding which race is going to be my first 100 miler:

  • Relatively flat – for my first 100, I’d prefer something without ridiculous amounts of climbing. I fully realize that 100 miles is a LONG way to run, where so many different things can go wrong, and there is a very real possibility of me not finishing. A flatter course will help stack the deck a little in my favor
  • Late summer or fall race – this will give me all spring and summer to train, and there will hopefully be cool(er) temps on race day.
  • Western States qualifier – ultimately, I’d love to run Western States. If you’re not familiar, it’s the grandaddy of 100 mile races. It’s kind of like the Boston Marathon of 100 milers. Yes, it’s become insanely popular and difficult to get into. But to even be able to apply and test my luck in the lottery, I’ve got to run a qualifier.

With those criteria in mind, I’ve currently got 2 races on my radar: Javelina Jundred in Arizona, and Lean Horse 100 in South Dakota. Right now I’m leaning more towards Javelina Jundred, just because it sounds like a really fun race atmosphere.

So there’s my no-longer-secret goal for 2013. Am I crazy? Quite possibly. Is it going to be awesome? Most definitely.

Resurrection Pass 50 Race Recap

by Brandon  
· · ·

The short version: an absolutely amazing experience, great trail, beautiful weather, and an awesome day of running with 2 friends. I finished in 11 hours 20 minutes, and can now officially call myself an ultramarathoner!

The long version:

The race started bright and early at 6am on Saturday, about 2 hours from Anchorage, so I drove down there Friday afternoon with 2 running buddies (Ray, who I had met while running the Frosty Bottom 25 last winter, and Jonathan, a friend of Ray’s I hadn’t actually met before this) and we camped out a few miles from the trailhead. We also met up down there with Morgan who I know from Dailymile. That night was spent talking about the race and obsessing over how much gear we were carrying (“if I don’t carry that I can save 1/2 a pound”, “if I dump some water there goes 2 more pounds”…). Before bed, we took a quick trip over to the trailhead just to check things out and see who was there. The start line for the 50 miler also acted as an aid station and turnaround point for the 100 milers who had started at 3pm Friday afternoon. There’s technically only a small parking lot at the trailhead, but many people were turning it into an impromptu campground and just staying there for the night. We headed back to our campground and went to bed early in the the hopes of getting some sleep.

We had to check in for the race at 5am, so we were up at 4 to get a little bit of food in us, and to get dressed and lubed up in all the right places. Then we were headed back to the trailhead to get registered. Our “bib” consisted of a number written on the back of our hand with a black permanent marker. They made a few jokes about not calling themselves race volunteers because this isn’t a “race”. I think they’re trying to be careful about how official of an event they make this, so that they don’t have to get a permit, insurance, etc. This is also why there is no registration fee, they just ask for a donation at the end.

There was a pre-race meeting 15 minutes before the race started, which we actually missed because we were back at the car grabbing our drop bags. We were told it basically consisted of “Don’t get lost. Don’t get eaten by bears.” Standing around talking, waiting for the race to start, the most surprising thing to me was seeing the wide range of how much gear people were bringing. The first 38 miles are on a wilderness trail, and is completely unsupported with no aid stations. Most people were carrying similar to what I was – a large hydration pack that carries 80-100oz of water, and plenty of room for extra gear. There were a few people, however, that looked to be carrying nothing more than a handheld and a few gels. I guess that works fine if everything goes well and the weather doesn’t turn on you. But 38 miles is a long way, and if something happens out there, you could have a long cold walk out. I still brought my camera with me – I know I could have saved a few ounces by leaving it behind, but I decided it was well worth it to be able to capture some photos of this epic adventure!

With everyone still just standing around talking in the parking lot, we heard someone yell “GO!”, and we all quickly realized that was the start. The 4 of us held back a bit, knowing we’d be near the back of the pack. We had talked the night before and decided to shoot for 11-12 hours. We knew this would be a relatively easy pace, but that 50 miles is a long way, and that we’d have plenty of time to speed up later in the race if we were feeling up to it. Within probably the first 6-8 miles, Morgan ended up dropping back and running with a group of 2 other women, so it was just Ray, Jonathan and myself from there on out.


Juneau Lake


Looking back at where we came from, partway up the climb to the pass. Juneau Lake is in the far background.

The skies were clear, and we could tell from early on that it was shaping up to be an absolutely beautiful day. Which of course is both a blessing and a curse, because we knew it would be getting hot as the day wore on. The early miles ticked by pretty quickly, moving at an easy pace, taking short walking breaks from time to time, and walking any of the decent hills. As we neared the pass, we knew we had some of the biggest climbs of the day coming up. We were also running into a fair amount of cow parsnip, which if you’re not familiar, is pretty nasty stuff. It is found across the U.S., but is especially prevelent in Alaska. There is an enzyme that is secreted from the stalks that when it gets on your skin, interacts with the UV light from the sun, and can burn and even blister your skin. There were a number of sections of trail with large stalks of cow parsnip leaning across, forcing you to slow down and pick your path carefully, but there’s still only so much you can do. There were numerous stream crossings, which we used to wash off our arms and legs after going through some of these sections.


Finding our way through the cow parsnip.

Speaking of stream crossings, we put a number of these to good use. As the day wore on and it got warmer, I found myself drinking more and more and needing to refill more often than I had anticipated. At the last minute, Ray decided not to bring his water filter (saving himself a whole pound). I did have iodine pills, but that takes a fair amount of time and effort to treat the water, add drink mix to mask the taste, wait 30 minutes, then drink. The streams were all clear and moving quickly, and we were thirsty and tired, so we decided to just drink straight from the streams. It also felt great to splash the cold water over our head and face.


The only patch of snow we had to cross all day.


Approaching the pass…and getting ready to pass someone!

There’s really only one place along the trail where you could make a wrong turn. Coming up to Resurrection Pass, there’s an alternate pass called Devil’s Pass that branches off the main trail. We were told repeatedly “don’t go to Devil’s Pass”, so I knew to avoid it, but I wasn’t sure how obvious the correct trail would be. Well, it became very obvious when we reached that point, as there were actually 2 volunteers stationed there making sure nobody went the wrong way. It was an older couple that looked like they had hiked in the day before and camped overnight. I was surprised to see this considering the size of the race, but definitely thankful.

It felt good to reach the pass, which is actually only at 2600 ft, but it was still good to know we had reached the high point for the day. At that point we were above the treeline and had some really amazing views. There was little snow up there, in fact we only ran across one small patch all day. I had decided to leave my Garmin home, knowing the battery wouldn’t last the entire run. Luckily, it turned out that Ray had a Garmin 910 (with 20 hours of battery life!), so we had a pretty good idea of where we were all day. We passed the marathon mark around 5 hours 45 minutes, and hit 50k around 7 hours. Those last few miles on the trail were getting long. I was getting tired, and really looking forward to hitting the 38 mile aid station and being able to ditch my pack.

We finally reached the end of the trail and the mile 38 aid station after about 8 1/2 hours, and were met by roaring applause from the crowd. Ok, maybe it was just a couple of friendly aid station volunteers and Ray and Jonathan’s families (I had told my wife not to bother and just meet me at the end, though I kind of regretted that). It felt great to drop my hydration pack and put on just a waistpack. I grabbed a few pieces of watermelon while one of volunteers refilled my bottle. Not knowing how I’d be feeling at this point, I had packed quite a bit in my drop bag, including a fresh set of clothes and shoes. At that moment, I was actually feeling pretty good, and in my haste to get moving again, didn’t take much with me (spoiler alert: BIG MISTAKE). I had one 24oz bottle with water, a Clif bar, and 2 gels.

Our original plan was to stick together during the first 38 miles on trail, and then we’d just wait and see how we all felt after that. Leaving the aid station, we ran down several miles of gravel road that was mostly level. Jonathan dropped back a bit while me and Ray pushed on ahead. At one point Ray looked at his Garmin and we were doing something like 8:30 miles! I never would have guessed I’d be able to run that pace after 40 miles. But then came THE HILL.

From mile 41-49, it’s basically 4 miles up a really big hill, hit the last aid station at mile 45, then 4 miles back down. I was still running with Ray at the start of the climb, but he soon started pulling away from me. This is where my not grabbing much from my drop bag came back to haunt me. I was quickly running out of energy, and moving very slowly up this hill. I was starting to get pretty light-headed and at a few points not even walking quite straight. At this point I was also nearly out of water and I knew I had probably 2 miles left to go to the top of the hill. Luckily, Jonathan’s wife had offered to take my drop bag, as they were going to leap-frog us a bit on this last section and offer support. Just as I was at my lowest point, she showed up and I was able to refill my water bottle and get the Mountain Dew and Payday out of my drop bag. These are things I would normally never eat, but I’d read in a number of places that they can really hit the spot late in an ultra – and oh boy were they right!

Quickly feeling revitalized, I was able to pick up the pace and actually passed 2 people on the last part of the climb. It was an amazing feeling to reach that last aid station at the top of the hill. I grabbed a bit of Gatorade to drink, along with some chips and M&M’s and I was back on my way down. After having my low spot coming up the hill and slowing down considerably, Jonathan managed to catch back up to me shortly after I started back down, and we ran the rest of the way together. Even though we had 4 miles of downhill ahead of us, it was far from easy running. After 45 miles, our legs were tired, and any kind of running hurt.

After having walked pretty much the entire 4 miles up, coming back down went by pretty quickly (probably helped by having someone to run with again). We reached the bottom of the hill and were excited to know we only had 1 mile to go. We glanced back over our shoulders at this point, and saw that one of the runners I had passed on the way up wasn’t too far behind us (I later found out he was the last 100 mile finisher). We didn’t want to get passed right at the end, so we picked up the pace. There was one intersection right near the end that wasn’t clear if we were supposed to turn or go straight. Since there was no sign, we figured just keep going straight, but we were a little worried, until Jonathan spotted one of his kids up ahead waving and cheering. We made the final turn (which was clearly marked), and I could see the finish line, along with all my family cheering, just a few hundred yards away. There was a bit of a moment of shock, where it finally set in that I was about to finish my first 50 miler. I just ran 50 miles!

My 2 kids ran out to meet me, and we ran the last 100 feet or so hand-in-hand. My wife, parents, and mother-in-law were all there cheering me on as I finished, along with the volunteers and other runners who were still around. It was a great moment. Jonathan and I finished in 11 hours 20 minutes, right within our original goal time of 11-12 hours. Ray must have had quite a burst of energy right at the end, because in just those last few miles after he pulled away from me, he put considerable distance between us, finishing in 10 hours 56 minutes.

All in all, I was really surprised by how good I felt all day. I was certainly getting tired near the end, but other than that brief low point I hit going up the last big hill, I had pretty even energy all day, and my legs were still feeling (relatively) good. Leading up to this race, I totally expected my legs to feel thrashed by the time we reached the mile 38 aid station, but that definitely wasn’t the case. I felt better immediately after this race than I did after Mayor’s Marathon last month. I’m also happy to report that I didn’t have a single problem with my feet – no blisters or anything! Full credit for that goes to Bodyglide, my Injinji socks, and Altra Lone Peaks.

The whole day really was amazing, and in all honesty, I couldn’t have asked for a better experience for my first 50 miler. Big thanks to Jonathan and Ray (and their wives) for helping to make it such a great day! And an extra big shout out to all the awesome volunteers!

P.S. – if you want to read a race report from someone who totally smoked this race, check out AK Runner Dude.

Finalizing My Ultra Training

by Brandon  
· · · ·

I’m pulling into the home stretch here with my ultra training, with the big day just over 2 weeks away now. I would say that the past 3 months of training have gone especially well. Or at least very consistent if nothing else – without planning or trying, I’ve run 169 miles in each of the last 3 months.

This past weekend, I ran a solo 50k as my last big training run, 3 weeks out from race day. There wasn’t nearly as much elevation as I ideally would have liked, but sometimes you just have to take what you can get. I figure that at the end of the day, 50k is still 50k – which is to say, a long damn way to run. Overall I felt like it went pretty well, although when I finished, my initial reaction was holy crap I have to run another 19 miles in 3 weeks!

I started out slow and took it easy, walking any of the bigger uphill sections. I quietly passed the marathon mark around 4:25 (almost exactly how long it took me to run my first marathon). As a surprise, my wife and kids were out cheering for me around mile 28, which put a huge smile on my face and helped power me through those last few miles. I finished at my parents’ house, running a total of 31.2 miles in 5:18, a 10:11 minute/mile average. This 50k capped off my biggest running week to date, leaving me with 64.2 miles for the week. I was pleasantly surprised with how well I recovered afterwards. The day after I actually felt mostly normal again, and 2 days after my soreness was almost completely gone.

I used this run as the last big test of my hydration and nutrition plans for race day. My hydration pack holds 100oz of fluid, with a decent amount of storage space for food, some extra clothing, etc. There’s also a holster for an extra bottle across the bottom of the back of the pack, which I plan to make use of as well. I’m just going to carry water in the hydration pack, supplementing with 2 S-caps per hour. I’ll use the extra bottle to alternate between Gatorade and Perpetuem, since that will be much easier to refill at streams than the bladder in my hydration pack. And even though I can’t remember the last time I drank a soda, I’ve read in a number of places that for many ultrarunners, a flat Coke or Mountain Dew really hits the spot late in the race, so I’ll have those waiting for me in my drop bag at mile 38.

For fuel, I’m mostly planning on my usual favorites: Clif Shot Bloks and Honey Stinger Waffles. Additionally, I’ll be packing along some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and something I just tried for the first time on this 50k and really liked: PocketFuel. They’re easy to carry and are very calorie-dense, which is great for a long race like this.

One of the biggest concerns that I’ve always had about this race is that for the first 38 miles, you’re pretty much out there all on your own. If something bad happens, help is going to be a long way away. Fortunately, over the last few weeks, I’ve discovered that I know several other people running this race (one that I ran together with for part of the Frost Bottom 25 miler in January, and the other I know from Dailymile). We’ve been emailing back and forth, and we all have pretty similarly relaxed race goals (to finish), so there’s a group of 4 of us that are at least going to start out together, and hopefully at least mostly stick together through mile 38 until we’re off the remote trail section.

The race starts bright and early at 6am on Saturday morning, July 28 (which also happens to be my dad’s 50th birthday, so I’ll be running 50 miles for my dad’s 50th – kinda cool!), and we’re supposed to be there and checked in an hour early. The start of the race is about 2 hours from Anchorage, which means I’ll be driving down there Friday night and camping at the start. I doubt I’ll be getting much sleep (but then again, I rarely get much sleep the night before a race), and then it will be time to start this big adventure!

The Hard is What Makes it Great

by Brandon  
·

Somewhere around mile 20 (before my legs started cramping) of Mayor’s Marathon last weekend, as I was passing another runner, he looked over and upon seeing my Marathon Maniacs shirt, quipped “does this get any easier when you’re a Maniac?”

At the time, I just sort of laughed and told him no. But as I ran on, I thought about it some more and realized that’s entirely the point – I enjoy running marathon precisely because it’s hard. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the great Tom Hanks quote from A League of Their Own:

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

I don’t think there’s a person out there who would tell you that running a marathon is easy. Whether they’re one of the elites finishing in just over 2 hours, or someone that takes 6 or 7 hours to finish, I think they would all agree that running a marathon is hard.

And that’s what’s so great about it. It’s a personal challenge, and there’s an amazing sense of accomplishment that comes with that. I guess that’s what attracted me to running this 50 miler next month – not because a marathon is too easy, but because I want to continue pushing and challenging myself, testing my limits and seeing what’s possible.

I have no illusions about this 50 miler not being hard. In fact I expect it to downright suck at times, and there will probably be times that I’ll want to quit. As they say, you just “embrace the suck” and keep moving forward. But once I’ve crossed the finish line, knowing that I pushed through all of the hardship and the dark places, and made it to the other side – that will be something worth every bit of hard that course can throw at me.

Mayor’s Marathon Recap

by Brandon  
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Last Saturday I ran the Mayor’s Marathon here in Anchorage. This was my 2nd time running this marathon, and for 2 years in a row, it has fallen on pretty much the nicest day of the year. This turned out to be a good thing and a bad thing. Of course everyone likes to run in nice weather, but if it gets too hot, it can seriously slow you down.

Now I use the word “hot” in a very relative way here – it was 65 at the start of the race, and climbed to 75 by the end. Considering that nearly all my long runs are done in the wee hours of the morning, when the temperatures are typically low-to-mid 50’s, 75 felt pretty dang hot. That’s about the hottest it gets in Anchorage. The first 20-ish miles of the course offer very little in the way of shade, so there wasn’t much relief to be found from the sun.

But enough about the heat, onto the race itself…

This was my first marathon since qualifying for the Marathon Maniacs last October at the Marine Corps Marathon, so it was my first real opportunity to wear my Maniacs shirt with pride! There was a decent little group of us, and we got together for a quick photo before the race:

It was fun getting a chance to talk to some fellow Maniacs. I realized what a totally different mindset we have when I said that this was my 6th marathon, and they assumed I meant so far this year.

Once the race got started, I quickly slipped into my groove, ticking off the early miles at a pretty consistent pace, right on target. I was happy that I had managed to hold myself back and not start out way faster than my goal pace. However, I really should have taken the heat into consideration and adjusted my goal pace from the get-go (this is what storytellers refer to as foreshadowing).

After finishing this race last year, I really must have put on the rose-colored glasses, because I didn’t remember quite how hilly this course was. One part I did remember well was the Tank Trail. This “trail” is actually a gravel road on the military base, presumably where they drive tanks. It stretches on from about miles 7-15, and the gravel/rocks can really start to wear on your feet. I’ve heard stories of “baseball size” rocks along this stretch, but I never saw anything that bad. Golf ball size, maybe. And in most places, there are worn-down treads from where vehicles have driven that are a bit easier to run on. This section is also where most of the big hills are. Maybe I was so fixated on the gravel and rocks last year, that I forgot all about the hills.

After the Tank Trail, there’s a short stretch of single track trail (a real trail this time) for about a mile. We have a friend that lives near this section whose husband was also running, so she came down to cheer and bring us bananas for our own private aid station. This trail dumps us back out onto a paved road around mile 16.5.

The marathon course comes very near my house around mile 18. My folks were watching the kids this year, since my wife was walking the 1/2 marathon with her mom, and they came over to cheer me on as I ran past. The kids brought squirt guns to help cool me off, so I stopped for a minute and let them have their fun squirting daddy. As you can see from the photo, my son’s a pretty good shot – right in the eye! 🙂

At this point in the race, I was still feeling pretty good, and still right on my target pace. This wouldn’t last much longer though… Somewhere around mile 20 or 21, the heat finally caught up with me, and my left hamstring started cramping up. I had been taking one S-cap an hour, which had worked great for me in training, but as I discussed earlier, the majority of my training was done in 20 degree cooler temps. For the rest of the race, my pace was slowed pretty substantially because I had to keep stopping to stretch my hamstrings, as they began taking turns cramping. Even when I was running, it wasn’t particularly comfortable, and I’m sure my form was a site to see.

I was still moving at a decent clip though, and I was close enough to the end that I knew I’d still be able to finish sub-4. The race ends on the track at one of the local high schools, and just as I was entering the track, when you would normally try to sprint into the finish, both my calfs cramped up on me. I really had to struggle to bring this one in strong, but I managed to cross the finish line in 3:49:47, an 11 minute PR, and 27 minutes faster than I finished this same race last year.

It’s hard to be disappointed with an 11 minute PR, but it’s also hard not to wonder how much faster I could have run on a flatter course and in better weather. I guess I’ll just have to run another marathon to find out 🙂