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Wild West Relay race report…

Bright and early is a half-truth. ~ me

Getting back on the racing train was great. I had been missing the camaraderie of running with others and the Wild West Relay was just the ticket.

I managed to climb in the sack Thursday night around 9 so actually got in a decent number of cuts before the alarm started blaring at 2:30. It was early but not very bright when I rolled out to meet the rest of the team in Denver for a short van ride up to Ft. Collins. The race started at the Budweiser plant (can’t think of a better place from which to run away) and we met the remainder of the team at the start line. I was batting clean-up in van #2 so I would have to wait a LONG time before hitting the road for my first leg.

Teams consisted of 12 people who took turn running individual sections of the 197-mile course from Ft. Collins to Steamboat. Legs ranged in distance from about 2.5 miles to almost 8 and we competed in the Masters category which meant that we each had to run our respective sections in order. We started at 6:40am and since van 2 wouldn’t have to start our first leg for several hours, we grabbed some food then made our way to the first van exchange point – a school somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Northern Colorado.

We hung out, got organized, chatted with other teams and waited quite awhile for the first runners to arrive. By the time Tom, our team runner, arrived, it was quite toasty. Sammie took our van’s first shift and ran well despite the conditions. By the time I was up for my 2.5 mile jaunt, it was scorching out. I just put the hammer down so that I could get this bake-fest over as quickly as possible and finished in 19 minutes or so.

Then the waiting started once again as van #1 took over the running duties.

We drove back roads to the second van exchange and did our best to get some sleep during our break. We hung out in a campground for several hours until our teammates rolled in around 11:30pm when once again, we were on duty.

We took turns sleeping and running and my second leg started around 4:45am Saturday morning. I love night running and felt awesome during my 5.5-mile section of highway running. Competitors were spread out along the route before me and were just small dots of blinking red lights in the distance. I ran smoothly and managed to pass 6 other runners and finished in Walden with an average pace of 7:50-minute miles. Not too shabby.

The cycle repeated itself and we ended up in a field near the foot of Rabbit Ears pass. I immediately plopped down in my bivy sack and crashed out for a couple of hours until it got too warm to sleep any more. Some time thereafter the other van showed up, followed closely by their last runner and we were off again for our final sections. Up and over Rabbit Ears then I took over the final leg through the town of Steamboat and on to the finish line. 5-miles in 40 minutes (with a couple of delays where I got slightly off course and stuck at a traffic light). Not too shabby. Overall time: 32:25, average pace: right around 10-minute miles. Good times.

Thanks to Kathy, Paul, Sue, Lauri, Merlin, Tom, Lynn, Joel, Dave, Sammie and Frank for including me on the team, to Kevin and Drew for volunteering and giving me a ride back to my car on Saturday and to Rach for putting up with all my crap all the time and baking awesome treats for me and the team. Hopefully more fun times to come.

~stubert.

Run all night? Sign me up…

Ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long ~ Ministry

Run, work, hammer, repeat. Sounds pretty sweet, actually. I have been getting out regularly and feeling okay albeit a little out of shape. That is to be expected, however, given my standards are all messed up. Running marathons last fall made me feel that anything over an 8-minute pace is slow. And running ultras has made me feel that anything under, oh… 13 miles is short. So yeah, I’m all screwed up. But you knew that already.

I have also been building a shed at our house and have actually somewhat enjoyed the process thus far. I also have learned that I should not quit my day job. I have the floor all framed up and covered and it is actually mostly straight so… go figure. I am considering it a success thus far and plan to raise the walls next week. I’ll keep you posted.

Today’s run featured some trails, hills and a lot of sunshine plus 10 minutes of tempo work during which I went out way too fast and blew up a little towards the end. I believe that after I banish doubt, I will start working on accepting being humbled. And that is okay.

I also joined up with a team doing the Wild West Relay this weekend (well, Friday and Saturday). It is a 200-mile relay run starting in Fort Collins, jamming up through Wyoming and back down to Steamboat. All in about 24-30 hours. My shifts come around 3:00 on Friday then around 3:00 Saturday morning and again around noon. This will be my first foray into the team event action. Should be fun (or at least interesting). I plan on putting my well-crafted ability to sleep anywhere to the test and will apologize in advance for any grumpiness I may exude while being rousted for my shifts. Photos of me with Cheetos on my face to come…

Aaaaand Rach has been working her ass off at the shelter and taking care of Georgia, who is a special needs bunny. Georgia is doing really well under Rach’s care and just loves giving kisses and eating piles of greens. Good stuff.

~stubert.

Rollin’…

Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. ~ William Faulkner

The nice thing about being confined to short runs is that they are much easier to squeeze into a hectic schedule. Friends and family in the area make for good times and being able to keep my training schedule is a bonus, for sure.

Friday, I spun a quick 4.5 miles or so on trails and dirt roads near my house. Still feeling no pain but I am having a bit of a plateau where I am unable to get my heartrate down or run as fast as I’d like for the amount of effort required. These things happen and usually one can just roll through them after a few small changes. Overall, I felt great and it wasn’t like my average pace was super slow… just took some more effort than I would prefer to keep up the flow.

Friday night I headed to Denver to meet up with the Roach clan. They are in town for the Harley-Davidson Dealer Meeting (they own Palm Springs Harley-Davidson) and after watching soccer at the Hyatt, headed over to Root Down for a very tasty meal. Pretty cool restaurant, Root Down. They converted an old service station into a hip joint and used sustainable building and recycled materials throughout. The floor was salvaged from an old high-school gym and many of the service station features remain intact. They were even playing awesome 70s-era kung-fu movies in the bar. Good stuff. Tough to get a reservation but the food was awesome and well worth the wait.

Didn’t get home until super late so slept in a little on Saturday then watched the final “real” stage of the Tour. I must say that Contador rode really well and seeing Lance step back into the fray for a podium finish at age 37 after 4 years away from competitive cycling was quite impressive. I was hoping for an Astana sweep but it was great to see some fresh faces out there giving their all to the sport. All in all an exciting Tour. Once the race was over, I hit the trails again for my longest run in what seems like forever. Wait for it…. 5.25 miles! Look out Tony Krupicka, I’m on your heels. (Congrats to Tony, by the way, for crushing in the White River 50 USATF race with a course record 6:32:09… that’s 50 MILES in six and a half hours, people. Awesome.)

Again, felt a little off regarding fitness or whatever is going on but no discomfort in my abdominals so I’ll consider it a win. It was fun to be out in the woods for a run so you won’t catch me complaining.

Post-run, Rach and I headed down to Boulder to meet up with my pops and his special lady, Donna, at the Sunflower Café for lunch. Good eats and great company. They were in town to visit her son who lives with his family in Broomfield and to go to the Rockies game. Hopefully they had better weather than the last time they hit the ballpark. They were on-hand the day the stadium had to be evacuated due to a tornado warning back in June. Excitement abounds.

Rach and I then headed to Broomfield to help out some bunnies and spent the rest of the afternoon at the shelter. There are some awesome little guys there right now (well, there always are) and I spent the afternoon dolling out pets, watching Rach groom and care for a couple special needs bunnies and cleaning up. I even helped one volunteer break into her car so it was a day where I could flex all my special-talent muscles – the petters, sweepers and grand-theft-auto groups got a good work-out.

All in all, a great start to a summer weekend. Hoping to work on the shed foundation today then get to run again tomorrow.

~stubert.

Tiger and Tony are safe…

I’m back, baby. ~ Bender

Running is fun. I know that 96.2% of the population would beg to differ with that statement but when you couple the simplicity of the sport (really, what is more natural for a human?) with the interaction with nature and add the pure rush of it all – running really kicks ass. There, I said it and I feel better for having said it.

People ask me from time to time, “Don’t you get bored?” The answer, for me, is “absolutely not.” Sure, I have some runs that are better than others but I have learned that there really is no such thing as a bad run. I always learn something new and experience the thrill of being outside, enjoying the world around me. When one really gets in the zone, the miles just tic off. Truly a feeling to experience at least once in your life.

So lately, I have throttled down my mileage and so far, this has been a positive move. Sure, I’d like to be able to run longer and look wistfully to the high mountains that surround my home – wishing I could be running among the wildflowers in the thin air of Colorado’s highest peaks. Driving through Leadville on my journey to Gunnison earlier this week, I definitely felt the pang of sadness that this year will not mark my return to that great event. But that is what next year is for. My focus now is to get healthy. So far, so good.

Since getting stabbed two weeks ago, I have kept the mileage low – upping the tempo a bit – and have increased my mileage to runs of 4+ miles. Today, I’ll spin 4.5 and then continue to slowly build back to my “normal” distances. Taking things very slowly right now in order to ensure that I can run pain-free for years to come. Short term sacrifices for long-term gains. Sometimes a tough pill to swallow but definitely the plan I’ll follow.

It’s all about the big picture. And I can see it.

~stubert.

[ed.] – Also, I still suck at golf.

[ed. ed.] – Two items of clarification:

1) I didn’t get stabbed in the prison-yard, Irish pub sense of the word, but by a qualified physician… in the Prison Yard Irish Pub. (If that doesn’t exist, you can’t have it. I thought of it first.)

2) That last sentence of the final paragraph rhymes! That wasn’t even on purpose but you can have that one free of charge. My next post will be entirely written in iambic pentameter.

Short, sweet…

Whoopi-ty-aye-oh ~ Gene Autry

Finally able to get back out on the feet and let me tell you… it feels good. Only running a couple of miles to start but I am feeling strong and have not experienced any discomfort while running on either of my recent outings. Yesterday, I cranked out a couple of miles on our road in 16 minutes. Today, I spun the same route in 15:20 something.

Today’s run was a humid (for here) affair and it was nice to be out on a Sunday morning. Birds were singing, no dust to be seen due to yesterday’s late-afternoon rain showers… good stuff. I just stayed relaxed, focused on my form and enjoyed the run. Yesterday was much of the same with more dust (pre-rain). Still wonderful to be out if only for 15 minutes.

This weekend featured two big races in Colorado: The Hardrock 100 and the Leadville Marathon. The Hardrock is an incredibly challenging course in the southwestern part of the state that features over 33,000 feet of climbing and tops out at over 14,000 feet. Karl Meltzer won again this year (I think this was his 5th victory) in a course record 24:38. Diana Finkel led the women (and all but two of the men!) to win her race in 27:18. Amazing.

The Leadville Marathon was also held over the weekend with another course record being set. Dennis Flanagan finished up in 3:32. The Leadville Marathon heads up Mosquito Pass and tops out at over 13,000 feet. High altitude madness abounds.

~stubert.