Category Archives: ultrarunning

Trail Running in Rocky Mountain National Park

Posted on January 25, 2013 | Leave a comment

A nice video that showcases what it’s like to run the many (high elevation) trails of RMNP.

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motivation – where have you been?

Posted on March 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a new blog post. Despite that, this blog still seems to get a fair amount of traffic to the site. That fact, coupled with fact that I’m just plain motivated and itching to write again, have prompted me to get back at it.

After a long hiatus, it’s often hard to know where to begin again. I thought about trying to do a recap of what’s been going on since my last post, in August 2011. However, I really haven’t posted much for over a year. Wow…what’s happened in the last year? Some top of mind thoughts that I’ll throw out there:

  • Geoff Roes went from dominating every race he ran to a bit of a rough patch, but has recently rebounded and taken his running to new territory – check out his race report from the 350-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational. The picture of Geoff here will give you some indication of just how tough of a race it was (in case you needed an additional clue that an 8-day race across the Alaska Wilderness is as tough as it gets).

     

  • Anton Krupicka is back to his usual tricks. Lots of time out on the trails/in the mountains…lots of great pictures from his adventures (his current one is in New Zealand)…and a fair amount of running. For those of you who have been under a rock, he’s been battling a shin problem for well over a year now. He’s definitely coming around, albeit much slower than he would like. Be patient Tony…be patient. We all want to see you on the start line of the Transvulcania Ultra Marathon in May. Both the men’s and the women’s field for this 83K mountain race is going to be loaded (check out the top participants here). Those fields are just plain sick…although I wish Krissy Moehl and Dave Mackey (2011 UROY) were in there.

     

  • The prize money and the sponsorship in the sport continues to grow. While there is a fair amount of concern over this, I view it as great for the sport. I love how the team aspect of the sport is really starting to shape up, and how it is opening up more sponsorship opportunities for more runners. For example, look at the stacked lineup that Team Salomon has going for them right now – that lineup comprises some of the best men and women trail runners in the world. But, The North Face ultrarunning team isn’t too shabby either. Oh, yeah, and what about Team Montrail.

     

    I’d love to see a head-to-head team race between these two groups…especially in a coed race of about 50 miles. I really think that the sport will become much more of a team event in the near future. While I think ultrarunning will ALWAYS be an individual sport, I would not be surprised to see a team sport emerge around the 50K distance. Imagine Team Salomon facing off against Team North Face in a 50 miler (coed race, top 5 count in scoring…must have at least two females):

    • Team Salomon – Jornet, Heras, Sandes, Frost, Crosby
    • Team North Face – Wolfe, Wardian, Koerner, Semick, Hawker, Kimball
    • Team Montrail – Roes, Jones, King, Greenwood, Vaught

     

  • The sport is just CRAZY fast anymore and so, so deep. When you see great, great runners like Roes and Moehl finishing in 3rd, 4th, 5th and feeling good about it, you know it’s a crazy sick deep sport. There are more and more races – big races – yet there seems to be more and more depth. Remember when the only household names were Jurek & Trason? My how times have changed.

Simply capturing the thoughts above remind me how much I love this sport. I’m stoked to be running and writing once again. Look for more soon.

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Fall Racing Schedule & My Current Fitness

Posted on August 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

In terms of fitness, I’ve been getting in pretty consistent mileage, but not a lot of fast runs.  I’ve sprinkled in a few workouts, but have been doing more trail running lately than anything.  I’ve been trying to do a few runs a week that look like this:

I’m expecting to be fairly strong, but not very fast come October when I’m planning to do the Bourbon Chase relay with the “Stonemill Streaker” gang.   I’m hopeful this relay will feel more like the Wild West Relay in Colorado, than it does last year’s Hood to Coast.  In Colorado, the race was very hilly and at elevation…and I felt great.   I got stronger with each leg.   I’m thinking that for this year’s relay, I’ll be able to handle three legs in 24 hours fairly well (as opposed to last year, when I was dead after leg #1)…they just might not be super fast. 

In terms of upcoming races, here’s how things are looking from my end:

It’s fun getting into shape.  Running is really enjoyable.  I find myself looking forward to the run each day and wanting to get out twice a day, which is a welcome change.   I’m definitely looking forward to the fall races.

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Posted in My Own Running, races, Stonemill Streakers, Training, ultrarunning

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Sunset at West Tiger Mountain

Posted on August 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

This has been a good week of running. Last Sunday, I logged a good, hard effort out at Cougar Mountain. This Wednesday, I blew off a track workout and headed out to Tiger Mountain. It was a great run with my getting up to the West Tiger summits right near sunset.

For whatever reason, I felt really good on the run. Maybe because the weather was cool. Maybe because it was just one of those runs. But, I ran strong the entire time and climbed particularly well. I swear there’s nothing more fun than feel good on a fairly long climb…one that keeps winding and winding…every turn, it just keeps going up.

Tiger Mountain is certainly not the largest mountain in the Northwest. But, it does provide some nice climbs that are incredibly accessible (in 20 minutes, I can be from my house in North Seattle at the High Point trailhead). The elevation change from the 8 mile loop I did on Wednesday was as follows:

My overall route was as follows:

I love running in Seattle….

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Still Pondering Western States

Posted on July 1, 2010 | 2 Comments

I have to start by saying that I am quite shocked that Geoff Roes won Western States. I shouldn’t be shocked. Roes was last year’s “ultra-runner of the year” according to Ultrarunning magazine. And, Geoff has continued to run great in 2010 as well. All one has to do is look at his races/results from the past two years to get a sense of how good Geoff Roes really is:

2009 Race Results

  • 1/17 – HURT 100 miles – 20:28 (1st Place & Course Record)
  • 7/18 – Crow Pass 25 miles – 2:57:12 (1st Place & Course Record)
  • 9/11 – Wasatch 100 miles – 18:30 (1st Place & Course Record)
  • 9/25 – Bear 100 miles – 18:43 (1st Place & Course Record)
  • 11/7 – Mountain Masochist 50 miles – 6:27:55 (1st Place & Course Record)
  • 12/5 – North Face Endurance Challenge 50 miles – (2nd Place & 2nd fastest in course history)

2010 Race Results

  • 3/13 – Way Too Cool 50k – 3:51 (3rd)
  • 4/10 – American River 50 – 5:49 (1st Place)
  • 5/8 – Bear Mountain 50 – 7:06 (1st Place)
  • 6/26 – Western States 100 – 15:07:00 (1st Place & course record)

Additionally, I know that Roes’ is one tough cookie, as he battled it out tete-a-la-tete with Uli Steidl at last December’s North Face Endurance Challenge. The race was fast…very fast. Check out this video of Roes & Uli battling it out at Mile 34 of that race.

I believe Uli to be the toughest runner since Matt Carpenter (12X winner of the Pike’s Peak marathon & course record-holder at the Leadville 100) was in his prime. So, this win by Roes shouldn’t surprise me. It was a close race, with Roes winning by just ~6 minutes…which is nothing in a 100 mile race:

Place

Status

Time In

Time Out

Elapsed

Name

Gender

Age

1

Finished

08:07pm

–:–

15:07:04

Geoff Roes

M

34

2

Finished

08:13pm

–:–

15:13:53

Anton Krupicka

M

26

But, it does surprise me that Roes won.

Why?

Because Anton Krupicka didn’t win.

I don’t think Krupicka is unbeatable. I think he is a great, great runner…but, he’s certainly human. It’s just that in following his training this year (as he posts great details on his blog “Riding the Wind” a few times each week), he just seemed to be primed and ready to go. [Note: Roes publishes his training logs online as well, but it's a bit more difficult to ascertain just how well things are going (the quantitative data is there, but not much color commentary as with Anton)].

In general, Krupicka logs more miles than Roes does, as evidenced by their logs. Both have been very consistent throughout the year. Roes had raced a bit more….but, Krupicka just seems to be training at an insanely high level…such a high level that I expected him to win. I expected him to really open things up from Auburn Lake onward. But, that didn’t happen. And, I’m still trying to figure out why.

My inclination is to thing that somehow, the fact that Anton logged so many miles the week heading into Western hurt him. When you compare the time spent running of Roes vs. Krupicka the week before Western, there is a stark difference:


Krupicka ran nearly 70% longer than Roes. Was this the difference?

I thought so, and said as much on a letsrun.com post earlier today. But now, I am not so sure given the commentary of both Roes & Krupicka following the race. Both seem very pleased with the run…which leads me to believe that both were feeling good.

Roes published a short post on his blog about Western States, promising to offer more race details soon. It’s titled “It doesn’t get much better than that.” But the post is short. It doesn’t provide many details other than to say that:


Today, Krupicka also posted a bit about Western States, but he didn’t say much. He did offer the following:

Another short post…that offers little detail. I guess I’ll be left to wonder. Who knows, maybe I’m overcomplicating this entire thing. Maybe Roes was just the better runner on that day. Maybe he’s the better runner overall (credentials may imply this). Maybe he’s just a bit tougher than Anton. We may never know…but, I can’t wait to see the race reports from each of them.


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Office 2010 Launch key to running consistency???

Posted on June 22, 2010 | 1 Comment

The most significant running thing in my life lately is actually not a running thing at all.    On June 15th, Office 2010 launched for consumers.    As many of you know, I’ve spent the last year building out e-mail marketing programs, display advertising, and e-commerce web sites  to ensure a smooth, global launch of our products.  I came to microsoft becauase I wanted to do “marketing” on a broad scale…and I got more than I could handle.  1700+ SKU’s of office, sold in 37 languages, across more than 200 countries.   

 Being responsible for ensuring that users on the web can buy Office on launch day around the globe was both stressful and time consuming.   I’ve spent way more time doing User Acceptance Testing, Bug Bashing, and Contingency planning than I have doing long runs, repeats, or fartleks.  I’m very proud of how things turned out…a great launch with no major issues.  And, we’ve introduced some great new technology.   For example, we’ve implemented Click-to-run, a new streaming and virtualization technology that reduces the time to download Office from hours to minutes.    You can check it out by downloading the 60-day free trial of Office.  If you have a high speed connection, you’ll be up and running in minutes. 

While I’m proud launch was so smooth, I’m excited that it is now behind me and I can focus once again on running.  I still have the same goals for the year…a solid 50K in September, a great relay race in October, and my peak race at the North Face Endurance Challenge in December.    I’m way out of shape…so, time to start logging miles.  I’m not going to worry about speed….just focusing on getting strong.    

 Hopefully, when I look back on the year in review, my trail running will be as successful as our product launch.

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Happy Trails in 2010!

Posted on December 31, 2009 | Leave a comment

I’m looking forward to 2009 being over from a running perspective.  It is tough for me to quantitatively judge/compare one year of running versus another (at least since I got older and stopped setting PR’s).  But, suffice it to say, I had a pretty lousy year of running.  I’m willing to say it was one of my worst…at least worst without any major injuries.   I don’t quite know why…there were periods when things started to click.  But, it seemed like every time they started going well, something disrupted my running (usually this little thing called Microsoft Office 2010).  

A few big observations from this year (vs. other years):

  • I didn’t race much (2 trail races, one road 10K, and a relay race…that’s about it..less than 20 miles total)
  • I didn’t do many workouts (didn’t run with Tom Cotner’s Wednesday night group)
  • I didn’t do many runs with anybody (other than my dog Achilles), especially given that Lynn (my wife) has been injured and unable to run this year

So, I’m going to do a few things differently this year.                             

I’m going to race often…and I’m going to force myself to gut out the races, even if I don’t feel like I’m in shape for them.  A good embarrassing race where you get passed by a guy that looks something like this (see picture to the right) and you’ll get your butt out the door for workouts and long runs.  It’s that simple. 

I’m going to not miss days.   I used to run for 30 or even 45 days consecutively.  I’d have some easy 3 miles days in there to recover…but, I didn’t miss.  What happened to that mindset?  Need to get that back…it not only got me in great shape, but it made me mentally tough. 

I’m going to show up for the Seattle Running Company Sunday morning trail runs.  Period.   My best run of the year happened to be the Kendall Katwalk run that I blogged about way back in August. 

Which brings me to my last thing for 2010…blog more frequently.  That may seem counterintuitive, but the more I think about running, the more I watch running, the more I write about running, the more I run.   So, look for more regular posts.  

Here’s to the end of 2009…and the beginning of a new decade.  As my IUP coach used to say, “Happy trails!”

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Posted in My Own Running, Seattle Running Company, Training, ultrarunning, Uncategorized

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The weird things that motivate you…

Posted on July 14, 2009 | Leave a comment

As a runner, I’m always amazed at the different “sizes and shapes” of things that end up motivating me.  My good friend, Adam Lint, has been bugging me for a while to move beyond the 50K distance and run a 50 miler (or, ideally, a 100 miler).   I’ve always just shrugged it off, thinking that 50K is far enough for me.  

That all changed on June 27-28th…the day of the 36th running of the Western States 100.    Those close to ultra-running (and ewser-buckle-24ven many who aren’t that close), know that Western States is the grand-daddy of the ultras.  So, it’s not that unusual for somebody such as myself to come along and say “wow, I want to run that race.”    Just read about Gordy and the history of the race, and it’s near impossible to resist wanting to toe the starting line.  Look at the pictures from the race, and the internal call is too much to resist. 

However, despite these attractions, I’ve never wanted to get serious enough about traininig to really tackle a hundred miler, let alone the hundred miler.   That all changed this late June/early July…when I read Brian series of blog posts regarding the 2009 Western States race and — in particular — the one from his wife, Andrea titled, “Oh Pretty Please.”    In that post, Andrea Morrison writes:

I’ll be honest with you – I hate this race. More than anything, (oh pretty please) I just want him to finish it this year and come home with a buckle that we can add to our very unorganized collection of ultra running memorabilia. Then maybe, just maybe, he won’t have to go back next year.

For those of you who don’t know Brian, his wife, or the “history” of Brian and the Western States race, you might get the wrong impression.  The short-story is as follows — Brian led this race in 2006 as he entered the stadium to complete his final lap on the track.  Unfortunately, he collapsed and got DQ’d for getting “assisted” to the finish line (blog post here).   Since 2006, he’s struggled with forrest fires, illness, etc. since, in his attempts to just finish the race and earn a buckle. 

So, what does this have to do with me and my motivation? 

I don’t really know, but for some reason, I’ve planted 2011 in the back of my mind as the year I’ll run Western States.  That’s when I think Brian will be back to run it again.  He’ll be back…I know he can’t bear to leave this one undone (note:  he’s making a smart decision to give it a rest for a while, to go tackle other things and bring some “normalcy” back to his life).   For some reason, I’m incredibly motivated to get in shape — great shape — and build up from 50K’s to 50/100 milers so that come 2011, I’m there on the line (the start & the finish)…when Brian finished Western States. 

We’ll see…2011 is a long way off (wow, I’ll be nearing 40 by that time).   But one thing is certain…running is (and always will be) a team sport…

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Posted in My Own Running, Seattle Running Company, ultrarunning

USATF World 100K Team Announced

Posted on May 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

thumbnailusatf-logo

USA Track & Field has announced its national 100K team for 2009.   The team will compete in Belgium, at the World Cup race on June 19th.  The men’s roster is as follows:

Greg Crowther Seattle WA
Adam Lint Seattle WA
Howard Nippert Colorado Springs CO
Chad Ricklefs Boulder CO
Steve Stowers Berkeley CA
Michael Wardian Arlington VA

Greg Crowther has announced on his blog that he will not be participating this year.   This means that the altnernate, Todd Braje will get a chance to participate.   

While I’d love to see two Seattlites run the race, it’s cool that Todd will get a chance to participate.  His February finish at the Jed Smith 50 miler, where he ran 5:30:50…makes him the #45 American 50-miler of all time.  His time is also the fastest 50 miler in nearly a decade (Brian Teason and Mark Godale ran faster at the GNC 50 Miler in North Park, Pittsburgh  in March of 1999).   He’ll be a great addition to the team.    Should be fun to watch this team…I’m expecting they’ll finish much better than last year, where many of them struggled with the heat in Italy.

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Anton Krupicka’s Blog

Posted on April 9, 2009 | 1 Comment

I love reading various running blogs.  I have links to many of my favorites on my blog.  But, far and away, my favorite blog is Anton Krupicka-krupickaa’s blog “Riding the  Wind.”    Don’t know why I love it so much, but perhaps it’s the simple fact that most of the posts are about a specific trail training run…and, everyday, while in the office I dream of being out on the Barr Camp Trail, Ostrich Peak, or some other single track in the mountains.  

Anton’s posts are very real…as a fellow trail runner, you know what his body and mind are experiencing when he writes things like this:

A run like today’s is most beneficial mentally, I believe. I did not want to run up a 4000′ hill today. My body really didn’t want to. But, this sort of effort is often what we ask of ourselves at the 70, 80, or 90 mile point of a 100 mile race (well, today’s run actually wasn’t nearly as painful as the 2nd half of a 100), and it helps me immeasurably to have rehearsed that sort of fatigue numerous times in training. The important thing is to monitor how I’m feeling the day after a particularly tough run because if that sort of fatigue lasts for more than a day or two, I know it’s time to back off and make sure that I don’t dig myself into a rut.

Great, great stuff…keep blogging (and racking up those miles) Mr. Krupicka.

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