Saturday, November 11, 2006

Ron Herzog 50k Ultra Marathon

50k = 31 miles

today ellen, her boyfriend mike and there friend guss and i woke at 5am (not together) and traveled to granite falls, washington. team mergeo.com adventure racer roger michal is the race director of the Ron Herzog 50k ultra.
ellen who is super fast and just did her first ultra (with some proding from krissy and i) just over a month ago (and did awesome), was keen on racing another. she talked her boyfriend and bad ass mountain guide mike into into giving it a go. previous to today the most he ran at once was 8 miles! i was a bit concerned, but he's an adult and as we found out this guy is super fit, even if he's not a runner... yet. guss has some road experience but this was also his first ultra. me, although i've paced krissy here and there, and am always running ultra distance for adv race training, have not actually done an ultra race since i tore my meniscus two years ago. after the surgery the dr. told me that 15 miles was the most i should run in a week... and never all at once. let's be honest dr.'s don't know everything.

because of the massive amounts of rain we've gotten here in wa we didn't find out until late friday night that the race was still on. roger had to do some recon to see if this particular section called the "tank traps" was in good enough condition to run. it was, however he said it was as wetter than ever last year, and it was even more wet this year. there was talk of a river crossing so high that volunteers would have to assist you across. about 40 hearty pacific northwest ultra runners lined up for the 8am start (a handful of runners did the early start).

i had seen some fast names on the rd's mass email so when he said "go" i was supprised to be in front. then i figured they were just hanging out and would put the hammer on me later. within a mile or so eric clifton and myself found ourselves all alone running the 10 miles of uphill dirt road in the rain. he had bright colored tights on so he was hard to miss. "where had i seen him before?" i wondered. "did i meet you at cle elum?" he asked me. bingo - i had volunteered at the cle elum 50k. krissy had told me this guy was an old school bad ass. course records all over the place. "this was going to be fun" i thought.

i led at first, then eric picked up the pace. i stayed focused on my heart rate as he started to get further away from me. i reeled him in then let my heart rate settle a couple of times. on the flats he was running 6 minute miles! i didn't wanna blow up. i hadn't raced an ultra run in a while and although my heartrate said i could run his pace and i felt like i could.. i dropped it back to about a 6:30 min/mile. around every corner during the climb he slowly got further and further away. before the tank traps we passed some early starters, and steven wort told me he was 2:30 up on me.

i headed into the woods toward the tank traps. now this was my environment!! for those out there that adventure race, i'd call this light bushwhacking. i was flying, and within about 2 miles passed eric. that was the last time i saw anyone. the 6 miles of tank traps was soooo cold. i had mtn biking gloves on because i envisioned pulling myself up by trees and a much knarlier bushwhack that never materialized. it haled and snowed on me.. nasty wet snow. i trouncing through freezing river after freezing river, dunking shoes in the cold water. the trail had a slushy covering to it.

i hit 1/2 way point at mile 16 where the one aid station was located. i knew i didn't have time to spare with a runner like eric behind me. plus i was on track to run close to the course record.... hello, goodbye. i grabbed my bottles and was out. i then spent the next 30 minutes trying to get my gloves back on frozen fingers that wouldn't respond to my minds requests to move. this is when i noticed myself moaning a lot because of the pain in my hands. "you are such a wus" i thought. they still hurt as i type this. down a bit, up a bit, and one trail dump later... i was at mile 28.5 and had done about 5,000 feet of elevation gain when i hit the road. "Ah just 2.5 miles to the finish" i thought. i hate road running, and i'll be honest - it sucked. however i finished 1st in 4:16:02, so i was stoked on that. ellen had a great time of 5:24:16, and mike.. shit, mike was right behind her and ran a 5:24:41!! unreal. guss also had a great time of 5:42:02. an all around great day at the races.

my advice - get out there and run an ultra!! you have to give yourself oportunities to do what you thought was impossible.

my gear:
shoes: montrail highlines w/teko ecomerino wool socks & yankz laces
fuel: heed for the first 16, perpetuem for the second 16 miles
electrolytes: nuun

Thursday, November 09, 2006

coach hart - coaching endurance.com

with the season pretty much over i now have more time to give to my other passion... coaching. so i've created a new website and i'm ready to rock. check it out - Coaching Endurance.com

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

transeivers, shovels and probes

a friend recently asked me my take on transceivers, shovels and probes.. so i figured i'd post my response.


transceiver:

i have used the ortovox m2 (singal antenna) for the last couple years. i like it, works well, great range, etc. the backcountry access tracker (dual antenna) is known for ease of use. i know a couple dudes (copson namely) who love this tranny. it also has a better harness than the ortovox m2. analog have a greater range but are generally harder to use, and pinpoint locations. digital is less range, easier to use.. go digital - they can interoperate.

the buzz last year was on the ortovox s1 (3 antennas - pictured) - both digital and sensor controlled - so look at that one. it's the top of the line and the future they say... and after being delayed over and over again it's now on the market.


shovel:

i personally like life-link gear. i have used a couple of their shovels and currently use their polycarbonate shovel. it's light and pretty good although it's harder than most square, non ridged shovels to make a good even snow pit wall. this is because it not square, and it's grooved as i said. that isn't a huge deal, more of an annoyance really. however if you are out there digging snow pits daily then get a different shovel - like the brooks-range (discussed below).

probes:

it's nice to have ski poles that converts into a probe. last year i skied with the life-link variant (great tough pole). i just got the carbon pro at the end of last year - this one is the bomb, super light and it converts to a probe. having a probe in a pole makes your poles a bit heavier, so it's a trade-off of course - but life-link has figured it out and the swing weight seems perfect and feels natural. i will sometimes carry a real probe anyway... just in case, depends on the situation. i could loose a pole, etc.





if you are serious about long tours in the backcountry (ie: being exposed for days to avalanches) - get the brooks-range shovel & sled attachment



shovel w/sled attachment:

the option i like and will use this year is the brooks-range backcountry shovel and sled attachment. i took the amga ski guiding course last year in jackson hole. they provided all the students with this setup a few months later. the idea is that with a bit of rope, your skis this shovel you can easily build a rescue sled. we worked with these in the class and they were far superior to any other sled configuration... i liked it a lot (you will also need to drill holes in your ski tips if you don't already have them). it's scary out there in the winter, and people get hurt.

when people like doug combs die it makes you rethink what you carry out there.

*** i'm selling some fritschi freerides on ebay

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

you gotta read this book. read it before the movie comes out. the movie is a drama - this is for real.

"To make matters worse, the animals used to make about one-quarter of the nation's ground beef - worn out dairy cattle - are the animals most likely to be diseased and riddled with antibiotic residues. The stresses of industrial milk production make them even more unhealthy than cattle in a large feedlot."

wait for it...

"the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one - there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit."

there it is.. here is some more..

"At SIS-C slaughterhouses, visible diseased animals - cattle infected with measles and tapeworms, covered with abscesses - were being slaughtered. Poorly trained company inspectors were allowing the shipment of beef contaminated with fecal material, hair, insects, metal shavings, urine and vomit."

"An investigation by NBC News said that the Cattle King Packing Company - at the time, the USDA's largest supplier of ground beef for school lunches and a supplier to Wendy's - routinely processed cattle that were already dead before arriving at its plant, hid diseased cattle from inspectors, and mixed rotten meat that had been returned by customers into packages of hamburger meat. Cattle King's facilities were infested with rats and cockroaches. Rudy "Butch" Stanko, the owner of the company, was later tried and convicted for selling tainted meat to the federal government. He had been convicted just two year’s earlier on similar charges. That earlier felony conviction had not prevented him from supplying one-quarter of the ground beef served in the USDA school lunch program."


need more? this book is filled with it - give it a read and decide for yourself where and what you want to consume.