So I’m one month into Wasatch 100 training, here’s a brief
overview of the last few months:
The night before the drawing (February 1):
- Feeling like a kid before Christmas, I go to the race website to see what I’m in for (aside from 100 miles and 26,000’ of elevation gain – I knew that much)
- I start looking more closely at the descriptions of the trail sections and notice that the phrases “steep”, “poorly marked trail” and “loose rocks” are used repeatedly and start feeling nervous.
- I remember snakes – you know, the fact that they exist and that the venomous ones are prevalent here in summer.
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| A change of scenery in Monterey, CA with the family for Easter |
At the drawing (February 2):
- I walk into the golf club house in Soldier’s Hollow and see a small crowd of people hanging out around coffee, cookies and fruit and veggie platters. Since these are ultra-runners and not grad students, there is more interest in the fruit and vegetables than the cookies.
- One of the official-looking people up front is almost done with a beer. Its 10 AM. I’ve found my people!
- I notice that the women look normal. They’re clearly athletic and in great shape, but they’re not stick-thin and no one looks extremely weathered and wrinkly, even though they’ve all been doing this for a while (I learned this from eavesdropping and hearing them talk about other ultras, or other years doing the Wasatch 100).
- The race committee remembered a lot of details about prior participants. Its seemed that they had a story about every other name drawn (oh yeah, that woman got air-lifted off Catherine Pass 3 years ago, that guy burned his shoes at the finish line 20 years ago, etc). However, when Anton Krupicka got drawn (he’s famous, for an ultra-runner), they were unimpressed and only remarked “oh yeah, the guy that runs without a shirt on.” Whatever, I was excited…
- They drew 400 runners, which took a few hours. I got drawn in the second half, and when the committee saw how excited I was they joked that I’d have a different expression at Brighton (75 miles into the race). So no matter how miserable I am 500 feet before or after, I will be smiling at Brighton.
Volunteering at the Antelope Island Buffalo Run (March 23):
- My friend Sarah S. and I volunteered to help at an aid station from 5:30-11 AM. Since the island is an hour drive away, we went up the night before to hang out and see how everything worked. It was a lot of fun. We hung out around a propane heater (it was really cold that night and for most of our shift) drinking beer with other volunteers, pacers and racers who were running the next day or who had DNF’d (the cold caused a lot more to drop than usual).
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| Our aid station at the Buffalo Run |
- I was worried that people would tell me I was
naïve and stupid for entering the Wasatch 100 as my first ultra, but everyone
was really nice and encouraging. I got
recommendations for good headlamps for running at night and a good idea of what
types of food are at ultra aid stations (basically, my three favorite food
groups: cookies, chips and PB&J’s).
Don't be fooled by the sun, it was so cold that the water jugs were freezing shut.
Training starts (March 25th):
- I bought Relentless Forward Progress by Bryan Powell to use as a training guide. There are two 100 mile plans, one that builds to 70 miles/week and another than builds to 100 mpw. I’m starting with the latter, so that I can drop to the lower plan if I start developing an overuse injury or get too stressed or something. Bryan was actually racing at the Buffalo Run, so I said hi and told him I really liked his book so far. He was cool; I recommend both the book and saying hi if you ever see him at a race.
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| Early morning run up Emigration Canyon (16 miles, 1200' gain). |
- The first few weeks of training were pretty uneventful. I do my long runs on Fridays with Sarah S. and then a second medium length run on Saturday. This leaves me free to stay out late on Saturday night and have a weekend day not completely taken over by running and recovery.
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| On the way to Black Mountain, so beautiful and desolate! |
- Last Wednesday, I had the bright idea of ending
my 8 mile run with a shit-ton of lunges (6x1 min with 1 min of rest in between,
across a long parking lot, some of which was uphill…). Shockingly, I was still extremely sore Friday
morning when I set out for an 18 mile run.
I ran most of it on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail but took a detour up
Black Mountain to get some good climbing in.
It was hard. It was only ~3200’ gain
for the entire run, but a lot of it was really steep. Since I felt guilty for running instead of
being in lab, I tried to run the steeper downhills on the way back to the
BST. By the time I got back to the “flat”
part, my quads were just as wrecked as my glutes and hamstrings and I basically
hobbled the last 8 miles. But I did it,
I learned from it and I made it out for an 8 mile run the next day without an
excessive amount of pain.
View of the Great Salt Lake from the top of Black Mountain (8000')
