Thursday, August 12, 2010
Foot.....
Was recovering nicely from last weekend's race, ran a solid 6 on tuesday, and went for a long run on mesa trail on wednesday, but halfway through started feeling pain in my foot. Weird, as this has never happened in all of my barefoot adventures.... This was about at 6 miles, so i had a ways to go back, so i kept jogging, pain got a little worse, so i walked, and walked, occasionally jogged, then walked the whole way back. Not fun. That probably didn't help, or the fact that i had to spend the next 4 hours on it at work. So here i am today, with my foot being iced, wrapped and elevated. The pain is localized to the middle outside of the foot, so i'm pretty certain it's not plantar faciitis, but i really have no idea what else it could be. Rest today, hopefully a miracle will happen so i can still get to run Grays + Torreys tommorow....
Monday, August 9, 2010
Eldora Trail 11(ish)k
(not related to the race. Blogs are boring without photos. For lack of race photos, here's some random ones)
"10 seconds"
Megaphone guy- "10 seconds?"
Paul- "10 seconds"
Megaphone- "10 seconds"
-Turns to crowd
"10 seconds"
-Silence-
"5 seconds"
-10 seconds later "5,4,3,2,1," and the horn sounds
The race took off, with a few expected people fighting for the early lead. Last year, Matt Byrne took the race and came back this year to defend his title, but didn't have the lungs to gut it out. About halfway into the race, and at the races highest point, Andy Ames and I (who i had been swapping places for the entire race) caught him
as we began the technical downhill (my favorite part of the race). He wasn't sure which way to go, and we directed him in the right area, and we all began the decent. Last year, this was where i passed Andy for good, and again this year Matt and i did the same, however being the powerhouse that he is, caught me on the uphill, and we battled it out until the next downhill where i passed him again. Then came Bernie. Should have seen it coming. He starts ridiculously far back, then out of nowhere smokes you. Then we got to the small pond you had to run through. About 20 meters of the trail was submerged in water, and no way around it. So, being in my five finger sprints, i elected to power throug
h it. Which, turned out to be incredibly fun. This was preceded by a near vertical downhill, where i put some distance on Andy. We got to the newest portion of the race, where you "follow" the lakes loop snowshoe trail. As beautiful as it was, there was no trail, just orange flags everywhere. The trail was incredibly tight, no solid footing, with several logs to jump over :) After about 1k of that, the trail opened up and Andy passed me for the last time going into the scramble across the hillside (no trail). I stayed
hot on his tail, knowing there was only about 400 meters left to the finish. With a final burst of energy i sprinted past him, and burned the final downhill into the finish area, splashing a few final puddles, finishing 5th overall. Ryan won it (duh), Matt got third, Bernie fourth, and Andy about 5 seconds behind me. Improved a lot over last year, very happy with the results. About a month until slovenia, 2 months until the rocky mountain shootout, and just about a week until i move to boulder. Sadly no pics from the event, my dad got one, and the rest are copyrighted. Eh. Oh! Here's a pic from last week's ridge run in the never summer wilderness.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Archery!!!
Here's a few of the shots on the course.
Ana In the treestand
Dad in the pit blind
Pow! Right in the kisser!
Look! Those deer are fighting! Lets take advantage of the situation!
You aint goin' nowheres.
The hunt begins...
Papi Getting Some practice shots in
Frizzle-Dizzle
Week total = 47
Today's gunna be a good day. Started off with an easy 4 miles, shootin for a solid 15 tonight, and 10 in the morning. The 15 will hopefully be in boulder, along with the AM, since today is my last full day in beautiful colorado. However, i got some sweet tips on where to run in MO, so i'm a tad curious as to what MO "hills" are like. And, get to do more archery today!
This is what the practice range looks like, more pics. to come of the actual course.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Wedz
I think i am beginning to enjoy this "running in the morning" thing. Haven't done it yet this year other than if it was for a race, or i was running with someone. Bared my soles for 4 miles this morning, and felt pretty good. Need to get rid of this strange vibram feet tan, but i'm not sure if i like it or don't like it. One of a kind....
Sunday -15
Monday - 0
Tuesday -AM 3 PM 3 +ultimate frisbee
Wednesday AM 4 PM 13 Miles
Week total 38
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
3 mile Mornings
In an effort to consistently toughen up my soles a bit, i'm instituting some easy 3 mile morning wake up jogs. It's easy additional mileage, and should get my total mileage closer to 80. Got a bow this weekend, and i'm headin up today to shoot inanimate animals. Hooray!
Sunday- BTMR 15 miles
Monday- Ez 5 miles
Tuesday AM. 3 miles PM?
23 miles so far, 60 to go.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Barr Trail
Finally posting about barr.
f my shoes when i got to the actual trail to see if today would be a good day to go barefoot. I had spent nearly the entireweek barefoot in the mountains of boulder, so my feet felt solid, however the downhill portion of the race, and the amount of loose dirt persuaded me to run in my Vibram KSO Trek's. So i velcrowed back up, and went back to the start. After some brief stretches, a couple strides and numerous bathroom stops, i headed to the start line. I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen this race. I went into mt. washington having studied the mountain i
Absolutely an incredible race, most likely my favorite trail race now. The lead up to the race was interesting. This was my week before
Sunday-11 miles at 8000 feet + 3000' change
Monday-(Began a weeklong camp in the foothills of boulder) Stayed up late, slept in. -0
Tuesday - 13 miles at 8000 feet +2500' change
Wednesday -8 miles at 8000 feet +1000' change
Thursday-Rest, but swam at boulder reservoir a good deal, but also drunk my weight in lake water
Friday-8 miles at 8000 feet +1000' change
Saturday - Capture the flag. I purposely chose to be on defense during the game, because there were no boundaries, and some really cool trails to patrol on. My nutrition was particularly interesting, because the camp food was incredible all week, and in limit
less supply. So the day before the race, i had 2 plates of leftovers for lunch, and dominos pizza, a root beer, sierra mist, and a coke in a glass bottle that evening. Delicious. However, i don't feel like this affected me at all for the race, because i didn't think about it until afterwards. I also only got about 4 hours of sleep before i got up at 4:30 to drive to Colorado springs the next morning. Next time i think i'll bring a tent.
Got to the road at about 6:15, perfect time to warm up to the starting area about a half mile up. I got my bib number, some water, and proceeded up the trail, as i had never ventured into the beast that is pikes peak and the barr trail. I took off

nside out, but not for this race. The announcer yelled go (no gun?) and we all went off. My mentality of the race was storm the uphill and don't worry about the downhill. So, i went out with the second half of the pack, and stuck with brandy erholtz for the most part. After about 3 miles, she started to pull away. Mentally i started to break down a tad, but after about a mile, i felt a little pep coming back to my step, and it almost seemed as if the trail was getting less steep. So i sped up. A lot. I felt strong, so i went fast, and all of a sudden, t
here was brandy! I ran past, and kept running, but so did she. I started to see some familiar faces flying down the hill, so i figured i was close, but somehow i kind of fo
rgot that the race turned around. Being unfamiliar with the trail, i didn't really know when the turnaround was going to show up, and all of a sudden it did. It ends here? This is it? I was just getting into it! As excited as i was to be heading back down, i knew there was more in me, so i'm uber excited run again next year, hopefully with a better foot solution. On the descent, my problems started. I was having fun on the trail, jumping over rocks and such, but after about 2.5 miles, i had to stop
and pull a rock out of my shoes. Those shoes. And, to my dismay, i head foot steps coming up behind me. I got going again, and just as the trail got steeper, and more windy, i began to slow down. Both vibrams had holes in the toes, and i wasn't getting any hold from the shoes. At the moment i let brandy go ahead, i had nearly run off the trail if not for a conveniently placed tree. I'm a fan of running aggressively downhill. It's just a lot more fun. But every time i had to turn, i'd lose footing, and have to slow down. Eh. Who really cares. Got passed by 2 more people, GZ being one of them, but all i really cared about was the up. So after reaching the bottom, and ecstatic to see uphill again, i bolted up hydro street, and flung myself around the turn into the finish chute. Overall? Great race despite shoes that fell apart. I'll definitely be chattin with vibram soon. I find out in the next week whether i make the jr. mountain running team, but until then, i'll just keep running up. I see a few 15 milers in the coming week... need to get as much colorado in before i head out to missouri.... Are there hills out there? I guess i'll find out. Quads felt good today, but just about everything else hurt. So i headed out for a pleasant 5 miles in the morning sans shoes to fall in love with my feet again. No shoes no blues eh?
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