The Worst Running Injury Ever

Cecal Volvulus is a new word in my vocabulary that will always make me cringe in pain.  It's not a common injury, thought it's occurrence has been higher in runners than non-runners and I've seen records going back to The New England Journal of Medicine in 1985.  There aren't any warning signs and nothing to check for to see if you've got it.  What it is, is a twisting of the cecal valve which joins the large and small intestine and prohibits the passage of any more material into the large intestine.  If it goes on long enough gangrene can set in and a rupture of the small intestine can occur, polluting the abdominal cavity.  It is, as you can imagine, excruciatingly painful.

The expedition of pain started for me the evening of Monday, February 18th.  Around 5 P.M. I was running home from work and had just a touch of indigestion.  Nothing unusual, just a little stomach upset.  Amy and I had a normal dinner and a drink and nothing seemed too out of the ordinary, though the indigestion was still there.  We were in bed around 10 and I slept soundly until 11, when I woke up with noticeably more discomfort.  At this point it felt like food poisoning, and I kept expecting the usual 'passing' of waste, but nothing was happening.  I was up and down from bed several times and was even browsing on my phone for symptoms of appendicitis, since what I had now seemed similar to what Amy suffered through with that several years ago.  By 2 A.M. I'd had enough and woke Amy.

She drove me down to what was an empty emergency room at Fairview Riverside.  It was an uncomfortable ride, but I was still in control of myself and managed to walk in and start getting checked out.  I was here for three hours with an IV in my arm and some mild pain medications that seemed to be doing the trick.  Over this time I had a CT scan and and ultrasound, neither of which showed my appendix nor the torsion in my intestine.  This coupled with the location of my pain, in the area just below my navel, and the fact that I had had bowel movements during the previous day led the doctors to feel that it was probably just a bad stomach virus and I was sent home with a bottle of hydrocodone, a pretty solid pain pill.  I was actually a little relived that it was just a bug, and I could get back to things in a few days.  Some home we went, me to the couch and Amy to bed, so she could get some rest and I could toss and turn.

I didn't get a lot of rest, and around 10 A.M. Wednesday morning, I was nauseous and having massive stomach cramps.  I soon started having massive heaves, throwing up everything I'd eaten in the last half a day, and hard enough that I had a bloody nose.  I was curled up on the floor moaning and crying out for Amy and eventually worked my way over to the other side of the house where she could hear me.  There was absolutely no question we'd be going back to the ER.  So, around 11AM we were back at Fairview Riverside.

I was soon changed and back on a table, this time on my left side, since it was the only position I was remotely comfortable, and with an IV back in giving me .4MG/hour of some kind of narcotic (I sure remember those numbers).  Around here I really lost track of time as the pain increased.  I'm not sure how long I was in the ER, but I had one long episode of throwing up while talking to the doctor.  While they double checked the CT scan and still didn't see anything they were concerned enough to want me to stay for a while.  So an ambulance transport was arranged for me to be moved over to University of Minnesota Medical Center on the East bank for observation.  I had it together enough to get off the bed and onto the gurney myself since it was only a few feet.  Amy was left to drive herself over.  I can only imagine what she was going through at this point.

As I was in my new room at UMMC I didn't look at anything other than the wall.  Occasionally someone would come in and want to palpate my stomach, often enough that I was getting pissed off.  Yes the pain was still there, no it hadn't moved, why don't you talk to the last person that did this.  One doctor even put me through that several times.  Part of the problem was that each time I rolled from my side to my back, then to my side again, it took many minutes for the pain to squelch enough that it was tolerable.  The plan, as I understood it, was to take blood from me again in the morning (since they already had for my second ER visit) and if there were still problems have a surgical consult somewhere around 6AM.

The only problem for me is the pain meds were no longer doing anything, and I was beginning to moan and groan non-stop, occasionally yelling, except for the times where I'd pass out for a few minutes.  They have a 0 to 10 pain scale you are supposed to rate your pain on and I repeatedly was saying 9, 9, 9.  I remember quite vividly regularly clawing at the air just trying to grasp at something and sometimes staring in terror into Amy's eyes and begging her to make it stop.  This went on for a long time, but I can't really say the exact time since it was basically a black pit for me.  Sometime during the evening nurse Andrew came on duty and started going to bat for me.  He gave me a some extra checks to see if it was simply bad constipation (if only) and got my pain meds bumped up to 1mg/hr.  Sadly even at that level it wasn't doing anything.

He eventually got the powers that be to get a surgical consult in immediately since the medication and other obvious checks weren't doing anything, and my pain kept increasing.  Clearly, he said, there is something really wrong with this guy.  Amy had been telling them that I handle pain really well, and if I'm screaming then it has to be really bad.

So it was, around 2AM, the anesthesiologist came up to my room to help get me prepped to move and I was soon being wheeled down to the OR.  I didn't really care what they did, I just wanted to be put under.  Amy and I waited outside the OR while she held my hand and I wailed on, the only relief being that I knew I'd soon be unconscious.  The plan was that they would do an exploratory laproscopic surgery (insert a camera and have a look around) then deal with whatever it was when they came to it.  I asked Amy to call my parents when I went in.  The surgeon, Dr. Harmon, came over and introduced himself putting a gentle hand on me, and I was soon wheeled off into the OR.

They had me roll onto my back, then transferred me from the cot to the operating table and strapped my arms down and put a mask on my face.  The last thing I said to them was that I had a really low resting pulse and I'd probably set off their alarms (as I had been all day).  Then I was out.

Some time later I groggily came to in a recovery room, with a nurse attending to me.  I pretty much had no idea what had happened, but she chatted to me and let me know where I was and that my parents and Amy were waiting for me.  After she made sure I was coming around OK, I was wheeled up to a recovery room, which is where I first saw Amy and my parents from inside my fog.  A few nurses moved me to my bed and got me hooked up to all kinds of devices, and we all sat and stared at each-other.  And like it had started, Amy holding my hand.

I later learned that I had cecal volvulus, which they found pretty quickly with the laproscopy.  Unfortunately the only way to deal with this was to open me up with a 10 inch incision starting about 1 inch above my navel and going downwards.  Then removing about 5cm of small intestine, the cecal valve, and the vertical section of my large intestine, for about a foot total.  That includes my appendix as well.  Full recovery, 6-8 weeks.  Right now, my stomach is tender and sore, but nowhere near the pain I had been feeling.

What it looked like before.  The purple blob is the choked off small intestine.  Courtesy of www.stanford.edu.

The after, with the cecal valve and ascending lower intestine removed. Courtesy of eyewitnessanimations.medicalillustration.com

The Western States Lottery

The entry criteria has been a bit of a sore point with me over the last couple of years, as most of my friends know, from frequent discussions about it. But it is what it is. The first time I entered the lottery it was off of a 50-mile qualifier (North Face Endurance Challenge Madison 2009) and I happened to get picked. I had entered because I knew I had little chance of getting in and I wanted to start building up my tickets. Oops, there is that slim chance of it happening. So I went to my first States not having run a hundred before which left a big question mark over me for whether I could cover the distance in under 30 hours or not. I took a risk, potentially taking a spot in the race from someone who did have the cred to make the cutoffs. Fortunately I made it.

 Since then the lottery has gotten bigger and bigger, and only a small change to the entry criteria has been made and that was going from allowing any 50-mile or 100-mile as a qualifier to needing to run one from an approved list. Mainly this got rid of the road ultras which is a baby step. Given the availability of 100-milers I would get rid of the 50-mile qualifier (which I think at 11 hours is pretty soft) and require a 100-miler be run before you can get into the lottery. As a pie in the sky, I'd even require that whatever 100-miler is being used as the qualifier be run in a time proportionate to a 30-hour time at Western (realendurance.com provides a good calculation for that).

So lets take a look at how pared down that would make our own small set of Minnesota entrants, currently standing at 33.  (I'd love to analyze the whole list of lottery entrants, but I'd need access to the raw data since I'm not going to look them all up by hand.)

33 - Current Entrants
22 - Removing those with 50-miler qualifiers (11 of them)
15 - Further removing those who's 100-miler qualifiers didn't match RealEndurance.com's relative 30-hour finish time.  I rounded my values for this up to the next hour to keep it simple.

Assuming that this rate holds across all of the 2302 entrants, applying my changes would yield some promising changes to the odds.

2302 - Current entrants
1535 - Those with 100 mile qualifiers
1046 - Those with a 'fast enough' 100 miler

Still not super odds, but way better than what we've been seeing.  Granted my 'fast enough 100-miler' qualifier might be tough to implement, but getting rid of the 50-miler would be an excellent start.  Given how hard it is go get into Western, I don't think it's out of the question for them to shoot for a 100% finish rate and gear the lottery towards ensuring that.  I think it would be very interesting to see if the finish rate changes significantly on simply requiring a 100-miler qualifier.

Cheers, and for those that do get picked on the 8th.  Train hard, and do everything you can to ensure you get that buckle.

Nerstrand Big Woods Half Marathon

I just finished a half-marathon in Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park. This was a delightful event starting at a small country church (complete with old church ladies and a bake sale) winding through the park, and finishing back at the church. This race has been around for quite a while and was very well organized.

They day itself was cloudy and drizzly, but the temperature was perfect. Check-in was well organized, and my packet even had a little orange tag on it indicating I had won a door prize, some wild raspberry jam. With ample port-a-potties present I made use of them and stashed my gear in the car. It was cool enough out that a warm up jog was necessary, besides the fact that I wanted to be able to start pretty hard. Just prior to the 9AM start we all sang the national anthem in our quiet shy Minnesota voices, with a trumpet accompaniment. Then all the 10Kers and half marathoners lined up.

There was a quick 3-2-1 then go and we all started off for the first 1.5 miles of road before getting to the park. The start felt great and over the first mile I picked it up and started really moving. Of course it was slightly down hill with a strong wind at our backs. I'm glad I didn't think about what the return trip was going to be like (very unpleasant). I moved pretty far up the field on the way to the park as I realized a lot of folks were not taking advantage of the hill and wind. After about 10-minutes we hit the dirt of Nerstrand and started the fun trail running. I quickly linked up with Jonah, a triathlete from the south west corner of the state. We ran pretty much the entire park section together, sometimes separating one way or the other, but never out of site, and chatting for much of the first half, until we both stated feeling the effort.

It was fun winding around and after we separated from the 10K field it was pretty quiet, but there were a few points where we linked back up again and there was some company. The course was impossible to get lost on, with well flagged corners and marshals out at all the confusing turns. And with 4 aid stations, plenty of opportunity for re-hydration. It was really motivating linking up with the 10K the first time and really passing them easily. It's fun to have rabbits out in front of you.

The trail itself dished up some delightfully steep up and down hills interspersed with mostly wide runnable trail. All in all, it was not very technical, but the steep downhilling provided ample opportunity for a good crash (which I managed to avoid). Shortly after the midpoint there was a lollypop section, and on the way back there was a lot of half-marathoners outbound. Another good pick-me-up section where we all cheered each-other on.

Around 10-miles I gapped Jonah at an aid station, which I ran through, and I think he grabbed a drink. And I managed to keep him behind me the rest of the way. After some more fast trail I hit the road, and started beating it towards the church. As soon as I turned the corner for the mile long straightaway I could see the steeple, and all of a sudden felt like I was standing still. The headwind was nothing short of abusive. I was beating it for all I was worth and probably running a minute per mile slower than without the wind and hill. I managed to get it done, though in 1:29:52 and 3rd place. I was pretty pleased for not having really trained hard for it.

The post race was excellent, with the aforementioned little old church ladies serving soup, cookies, bread and coffee. A perfect warm up on a chilly day.

Props to Amy Clark, whom I headed down there with, and who pulled a fine age group victory in 1:49:29.

Superior Sawtooth 100 - 2012

It's not often that the perfect storm happens for a race: the weather is perfect, you show up well rested, well trained, and almost no problems during the race.  This year's version of Sawtooth was all of those for me, serving up a special performance despite a painful shin injury at mile 85.  I punched the clock in 22:41:02 and getting the sweetheart prize for second two years in a row.

A mellow start...

The start delivered perfect weather, upper 50's, sunny and dry.  I like not having any concerns about what to wear.  Amy and I camped out the night before, and though I didn't sleep well, I'd had enough.  I was up at 5 for some breakfast, then back in bed for a bit before suiting up for the day.  We got to the start just as my parents and brother were getting out of their car.  Last year on this same day my brother was in the hospital in a really bad way, so it was great seeing him well enough to be up at Gooseberry to share the morning with me.  He and my dad would go back to Duluth after the start, and my mom and Amy would crew me the rest of the day.

After a few minutes milling about and having a few last words with friends the crowd moved up to the start line for a few last words from John.  Then 3...2...1...and running.  I started near the front, not want to sprint off the line, and soon enough was right up with a lead pack of 5.  Steve Moore was at the front, followed by Adam St. Pierre, Ben Hian, myself, and Jim Kerby moving steadily, but at what seemed like a pretty pedestrian pace considering the talent we had here.  All the same it made me nervous, especially since I knew the kind of speed that Ben had.  Nonetheless, we all stayed together until Split Rock, where we restocked, and Steve started putting the hammer down with other Adam close behind, then Ben, with me and Jim running together.  I never saw Steve again until the finish.

For a long time, Jim and I cruised near each-other.  He was yoyoing a lot.  For about 20 miles he'd surge ahead, then come back to me, then for another 20, he'd drop off, then pull back up on me.  He was being crewed by a friend I'd made at HURT, James, who I ran a loop and then some with in the middle of the night.  It was largely uneventful steady cruising up through County Road 6, which was the last time I saw Jim.  The section getting here is pretty hard and really the first gut check of the race.  In last year's heat, this AS was like a MASH station.  This year, though, I was here an hour and 12 minutes faster than last year and feeling like I was jogging.  Amy kept on me that I was much faster than my plan, but it was one of those days where I was slapping down miles without trying and I felt really good.

Kurt, Paul, and Mike where here to meet me, and I got a good cheer coming on in, in 4th place.

Kurt having a good time

It's not often I get to this point feeling great, but I had no complaints.  I was probably as energetic as I'd ever felt this deep in...of course as 100 milers go, it was early yet.  I had plenty of time to get to Finland in daylight, I can't imagine that a lot of people have to do part of this stretch to County 6 in the dark.  I was pretty fortunate to see the views from Sawmill Creek Dome and the upcoming Section 13 in full daylight.

I got into Finland after the better part of 8 miles and started getting suited up for night running.  I did a quick shirt change while I was at it, put my headlamps on, and headed out with Kurt for the next 12 miles.

Off into the twilight

To rule the night...

After last year's night time pursuit of John Horns (I made up an hour and twenty on him) I got kind of a reputation.  We'd find out soon enough if it was justified.  I was 12 minutes back from Ben, and more than half an hour back from Adam St. P.  I just kept telling myself, run your race and Kurt kept reinforcing that.  Less than a minute out, Ryan Welts came blazing into Finland looking strong and fast.  A few minutes later he blew by me like I was standing still.  I was amazed, but given the rate he was moving, I was convinced that I'd see him again.  So on Kurt and I went, now in 5th.  We had a great time talking as darkness set in and midway to Crosby we turned our lights on.  The temperature stayed great in the darkness and we motored along.  As we hit some really rough sections I started dropping Kurt a little bit.  It's kind of mean, but it is really motivating when you are moving well enough to pull away from a solid experienced pacer.  But the night is mine, right?

A mile or so before Crosby I came upon a runner (Ben) standing off the trail trying to find his way.  I tried to call him back to where I was, and the trail went, but he found a little dear path up to it.  Kurt was a little ways behind me at this point, so Ben and I cruised a little bit more of the single track chatting about his past experience with rabdo, and how careful he was with hydration now.  As soon as we got to the road up to Crosby, Kurt caught back up and we rolled in together.  Matt Patten was running the joint here, and apparently cooking up a storm.  I was so focused, though, that I didn't realize he was there, even though he was cheering.

John Horns surprised me here, all suited up and ready to run with me for the long stretch to Sugarloaf, 9.5 slow miles away.  This is one of the longer, and slowest sections of the race.  I was glad to have him, and we left promptly, not seeing Ben again.  Thankfully, speedy John Maas would run with Ben for a while from here.  I also left Ryan at this aid station.

We had a good time floating along the dark single-track, occasionally hearing voices behind us.  That turned out to be Ryan and his pacer, and they soon moved by us.  No worries, it was late and we were all doing what we could.  I was going as hard as I felt I could at this point, with 40 miles to go.  This race was just getting going after all.  John really helped keep me focused, even so, this section seemed to go on forever taking more than two and a half hours to get through.  Eventually we found ourselves at Sugarloaf where Amy and mom were waiting.  I bid adieu to John and swapped in Amy for a surprise pace gig (she ran this section with me last year) and headed back out.

Unfortunately for Amy, I was on fire, and left her behind almost out of the AS.  Oops, not good to drop the wife.  I blazed this section out, and hit Cramer road, forcing my mom to do some solo crewing, then beat it out for the grind to Temperence.  I'm glad I knew this section, because it was really poorly flagged.  I would have really been questioning if I was headed the right way if I hadn't run this before.  I had passed Ryan along the way and when I got into Temperence Adam St. P was still here, having injured his knee, but still moving.  I left with the other Adam, immediately passing him, as Ryan got in.  This was the last I'd see of either of them, which is surprising since this is where my wheels fell off.

Up until know, I'd beat all my splits for the last two years.  Somewhere early on here, my right shin started hurting and got progressively worse.  Eventually getting to the point where I was really considering if I should drop or not.  I was now in second, and the machismo made me keep going.  Over these last three sections, I ran fully a half hour slower than last year's run, and I'm convinced I could have beat those times if my body had held up.  Instead, I'd spend the next four hours spending a lot of energy battling some serious pain.  These were all really runnable, too, which really hit my morale.

So, through mind numbing pain (I didn't want ibu to cover it up, just in case something snapped, but in retrospect it would have been alright), I kept pounding it out through Sawbill and onto Oberg where my TCRC teammates were.  As I rounded the lake to Oberg I came upon Brian Peterson, Paul Holovnia and one other guy out on the trail, maybe half a mile from the AS.  This picked me up and they ran me in, where Kurt and Mike Bateman were waiting with my mom and Amy.  They pumped me full of chips, potato and broth, since my stomach had been queezy.  Then Kurt tried to rub some cooling gel on my shin and at the slightest tap it hurt so much I screamed.  (If you want to worry your wife, that will do it).

OK, 7 miles to go, and 15 hours to do it before the cutoff?  I don't care how much I'm hurting.  Paul walked me out.  Yeah, walking since my shin tightened up that fast.  Then onto a slow jog.  He was only going to make sure I got moving, but ran the full way with me.  It was awesome.  He was a total trooper doing that, since I was moaning and groaning, and whining the whole time.  I'd had a lofty goal of beating 24 hours, and getting to Oberg before dawn, and totally nailed that.  We were only about a half hour from the finish when we turned off our headlamps.  So it was up the steps to Moose, across the top, down, up the switchbacks (more than I remember) then some flat running and the decent to the bridge.  Last year it was a steep decent, but some trail work made it long and gradual, which was confusing, but ended up in a pleasant surprise when we crossed the river earlier than expected.  I'd been looking behind me a lot, expecting Ryan to catch up, but I'd apparently gapped him pretty well over the last 15 miles.

Paul and I hit the road, and did a little fist bump for a job well done.  No sign of pursuit, a course PR by an hour forty, and second place.  Amy met us at the turn down to the finish, and she and Paul dropped back for me to cross the line.  Oy.  6:41 in the morning and I was spent.  There was a lot of cheering, since the marathoners were still about, but as soon as I stopped I started melting down and could barely register even the handshake from Steve.  I don't think I'd ever left that much out on the trail before.  I'd be happy with a 22:41 on any course, but on this one, I was ecstatic (at least after a nap).

Superior Sawtooth Splits 2012

MILE	Aid Station	To Next Aid	Time In 2012	Split 2012	min/mile 2012
0	Gooseberry	19.4	08:00:00
19.4	Beaver Bay	4.9	11:26:00	03:26	10.62
24.3	Silver Bay	9.9	12:23:00	00:57	11.63
34.2	Tettegouche	8.6	14:25:00	02:02	12.32
42.8	County Road 6	7.7	16:31:00	02:06	14.65
50.5	Finland	11.7	18:13:00	01:42	13.25
62.2	Crosby Manitou	9.4	20:55:00	02:42	13.85
71.6	Sugarloaf	5.6	23:15:00	02:29	15.85
77.2	Cramer Road	7.1	00:26:00	01:11	12.68
84.3	Temperence	5.7	02:03:00	01:37	13.66
90	Sawbill	5.5	03:26:00	01:23	14.56
95.5	Oberg Mountain	7.1	04:53:00	01:27	15.82
102.6	Lutsen		06:41:00	01:48	15.21

Speedgoat 50k - 2012

Optional title for this could be: "What was my safe word again?"

The Grand Old Duke of York,
He had 10,000 men.
He marched them up the hill,
And he marched them down again.


Now when you're up you're up,
And when you're down you're down,
But when you're only halfway up
You're neither up nor down.
            -childrens camp song

The Speedgoat 50k was to be a race like none that I'd done before.  It was at altitude the entire way (low point of 7,600 ft) and easily had the most elevation gain per mile compared to any of the other events.  Really, this would boil down to walking this thing as fast as I could.



On Saturday morning I rode down to the start with Denise Bourassa and Meghan Arbogast at a dark 5 AM.  (See I'm dropping names already.  I'll try not to trip on them).  The race started at 6:30, but it was warm out and it was fun to mill about and visit with people and just enjoy the pre-race atmosphere.  I picked up my race shirt, complete with the tagline "A Meltzer Designed Nightmare" and a free pair of Drymax sox.  I visited a little bit with Mike from North Carolina whom I had lunch with the day before and Jason Loutitt from BC who won HURT this year.  As usual the time went by pretty quickly.

Karl gave us a few minutes of pre-race instructions and we all queued up under the big Hoka arch.  I was a little ways back from the front, making plenty of room for all the studs: Tony K, Killian, Joe Grant, Anna Frost, Jason, Gary and several others.  After a few minutes of milling about here, we were sent on our way and onto a predominantly uphill jaunt for the next 8 miles.  It took me a couple miles to really settle down and start putting out some good effort, since it felt like I was breathing through a straw.  As I ascended the valley opened up and was really beautiful with jagged peaks all over and Salt Lake City way off in the distance.  This was just a precursor for the views later on.

I gabbed with some people, but the field really spread out quickly after about four miles and most of the time I was alone, and going uphill it was really hard to talk and walk at the same time.  I was glad to have my tunes on for all the quiet time.  There were only a few downhills on this first climb up Hidden Peak, but they were pretty sweet.  The first one was a really rocking hardpack singletrack that we could all really tear up.  As we gradually made our way up, largely on rough jeep roads, the trees thinned out and the trail turned onto a big scree field.  It had a clearly marked trail, but made for some really slow running since it was so rough.  After completing this bit, and a little bit more road was a really steep section up to Hidden peak.  8.7 miles at an average pace of 13:02.  Really kicking ass and taking names with that kind of split.

Fortunately the next 7 miles was largely down hill, albeit not easy downhilling.  It did get off to an awesome start, though with a quick road down to the Larry's Hole Aid station, then coming out of there was a beautiful field of blue wild flowers as far as the eye could see, and we got to run right through the middle of them.  Of course, as Karl would have it, after a carrot like this the stick wasn't too far behind.  Coming out onto a road for a long downhill seemed pretty sweet, until the road turned into and endless path of baby skulls (loose rocks, yes, the size of baby skulls).  This was an ankle twisting mess that really schooled me on technical running.  The locals near me really tore this up, and while I ran it alright, was a bit humbled.  After a while, I got into the out and back section just in time to see Anna Frost and Gary Robbins coming back and heading up the biggest climb of the day.  This bit of road was easy and went into the turn-around at Pacific Mine, run by Roch Horton.  They dumped some cold water on me and wrapped a towel around my neck while I chugged some EFS and filled up my water.  Oh yeah, there was a woman dressed as a goat greeting us.

I was just over 3 hours at this point and thought that no matter how hard it got I was looking good for sub-7.  Yeah.  If only.  So I started up the 3000' 3 mile climb almost right out of the AS.  See what that does for your pacing.  It was rough, and starting to warm up.  Partway up, it did get a little overcast.  On this long climb I downed my water pretty fast and really regretted only having one bottle.  Fortunately, near the top, was a pipe spewing clean mountain water out of the ground.  I dumped that over my head, refilled and continued cruising struggling upward.  At long last I reached the top, totally spanked, as I would be every time I got over 9000'.  Then it was another steep downhill cruiser into Larry's Hole again.

Leaving Larry's Hole, was a nice gentle cruise before starting the climb up Mt. Baldy at just over 11,000 feet.  Near the bottom I caught up to Gary Robbins, who, living at sea level was absolutely knackered. We chatted for a few minutes before he crept under a tree to begin his puke fest (fortunately I missed that part).  This was very slow going and for the next 3 miles I averaged 22:51.  The trail to the top culminated in probably a 60 degree slope that you would not want to fall backwards on.  There were people on top cheering me on, and they even gave me a Mr. Freeze so I could make it the other half mile downhill to the Tunnel AS.

Reaching the Tunnel was a big relief, or so I thought.  As I remembered it, the climbing was done, so I asked how far to go, and they said 1600' down hill, another 1600' climb, then down to the finish.  Ugh, over Hidden Peak again.  It was here that I noticed my kidneys hurting, not bad, but enough to notice.  I chugged some EFS quick and had a Popsicle, then started beating it down.  For some reason I thought it might be a good idea to get to thicker air.  Leaving the AS was through a 100m or so tunnel and nice and cool which spit me out right at the top of a downhill section.  I think from here on out, I passed a couple people at this aid and at hidden peak, but no one got by me.

This penultimate down hill was a little over two miles long and was over with pretty quickly. There were a few tourists out, but I could do little more than grunt at them, trying to get out of here in the best time possible.  By the time I started up to Hidden Peak I was pretty beat.  It was hot, but not humid like back home in Minneapolis, and it had take a bit of a toll, especially combined with being up high all day.  I started to close on one guy on the climb, but once I got up around 9000' he just started pulling away.  It was pretty neat getting to the top this time, as there were about 20 people up there on both sides of the trail cheering and ringing cowbells, as hands on thighs I pushed through.

Another quick water load, and some instructions from medical regarding my kidneys and I could finally begin the nearly 3000' foot decent, without a lick of uphill.  So down the jeep road and into the scree.  I could see someone behind me a few minutes back, so was well motivated to push it and not get passed at the end.  While some downhill is fun, after 4 miles it does get a bit old.  Especially when you can see the finish line for most of it.  As I got lower, there were more and more tourists out and about, and I even dropped a couple on bikes.  OK, they were going pretty slow.  The lower I got the hotter it got.  Finally I hit that sweet single-track from early in the day and started traversing the mountain.  Yea, almost done.  Wait, I traversed right past the finish line.  What the hell?  At least it was supposed to go this way.  Finally, I made the final turn, and relief as I crossed under the arch.  Karl was there, and put his hands on my shoulders, asking me how it was.  My answer was : "Before someone does that to me, we usually agree on a safe word."

This was a great race.  I gave it my all and finished in 7:26, only three minutes faster than my 50-mile PR.  I'm hoping that this fits into my schedule next year.  Karl and his crew put on a really classy, well run event.  Everyone at the aid stations has their crap down and I'm guessing has either raced ultras or worked aid many times.  The post race was great with Ultragen recovery drink and all the pizza you can handle.  I don't know if I can do it faster, but I'd really like to give it a shot.

Mid-Summer Simmering

Just a quickie here.  Nothing outrageous going on.  Training is going pretty well despite the ugly heat we've been dealing with.  90's every day does not agree with me, especially with the humidity.  That basically requires my harder runs to be in the morning, and any other run that I don't want to turn into a grind.

I've been doing a nice amount of core work: situps, pushups, and squats three days a week.  It's kind of wearing on me as I've been building up, but in another two weeks I'll max out where I want, then it should get easier.  On the plus side, I'm as strong as I've been since I did kettlebells a couple of winters ago.  It'll help with the long runs, and especially with skiing when winter rolls back in.

I'm also sitting on a lot of beer in the basement.  Three batches of homebrew came to be bottled within a couple weeks of each-other.  Not at all a bad situation to be in.  Plus, when I get through enough of these that I'm ready to brew again maybe the heat will have passed.

Two weeks until Speedgoat 50k, and my chance to bump elbows with a whole mess of superstars.  I'm tempted to bring a camera on trail for some rare action shots, oh and the awesome scenery around Snowbird.  If only I had more than a weekend out there.