Thoughts from Boston

After the events of yesterday, I feel the need to capture a glimpse of what is going through my mind.

As I write this, I am sitting in Boston Logan Airport. 23 hours and 48 minutes after the bombings at the Boston Marathon finish line. All around me, I see the blue and yellow jackets and shirts of Boston finishers, occasionally punctuated by the flash of a finisher’s medal catching the light.

I have never seen so many runners in one place outside of an actual race course. And I have never seen such a forlorn, subdued group of race finishers.

The blue and yellow of the runners is counterpointed by the blue and black of the TSA officers, and the darker blue of air marshals, who are out in force today. Despite this, the security line was nonexistent and, aside from checking to make sure my tools were less than 6 inches long (what does that do, exactly?), I flew through the tightened security in a matter of seconds.

Before I get any further, let me say that I did not run the marathon yesterday. I am in Massachusetts for work, and just so happened to be in Boston yesterday on Boston Monday. I had tried several times to arrange a way to be at the finish line and watch the runners come in. Frustratingly, at the time, that was not possible: there was too much work to do and we had to go by our customers’ schedule.

So it happened that, at three o’clock yesterday afternoon, just under 24 hours ago now, my coworker and I walked into a bar in Dorchester and sat down for a late lunch. Almost the second we sat down, the TV screens lit up with news of two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, just a few miles away.

I would say it didn’t register at first, but it did. It registered that something horrible had happened. It registered immediately that the sport I love, something I have always seen bringing people together peacefully, had been attacked. It registered that I should be worried, and was terribly worried, about the numerous people I knew running and watching the race that day. I registered the sirens of emergency vehicles that were lighting up the city.

Of course it didn’t register that people might be concerned about me. I had lobbied hard to get some time to watch the finish, and as far as many people knew, I was as good as there.  When I finally realized that, after some questions on Facebook to that effect, of course the cell network was swamped, or shut down, depending on who you ask. I tried without success to reach my girlfriend, who was in class in Colorado at the time. I sent texts and email to my family and close friends assuring them I was ok.

Then I jumped back on my phone, looking for updates on my friends.

All the time, I was bombarded by images from the TV. I’m sure by now most of you have seen them: the first blast knocking over a 78 year old runner, who was lifted to his feet by a volunteer; the second blast pouring more smoke and flame into the street, setting of screams as people ran, some away from the blast, but a remarkable number towards the blast. I remember the images of blood pools, not stains, but pools, in the streets of Boston. And I remember the image I can’t unsee, of a man, wheeled away in a wheel chair, clearly in shock, with nothing remaining of his legs below the knee but a fully exposed bone on his left side.

But I remember the other images as well. I remember the incredible number of people who ran, not away, but towards the blast area, tearing through barriers and rendering whatever assistance they could. I remember runners heading straight across the finish line, when most feel they cannot run another step, and running straight on to the hospitals to donate blood. I remember the inquiries of friends making sure everybody they know in the area is ok.

I only had a short time, not enough to begin to process the events, before I had to move on to the next site on our list for the day (a young Vietnamese family, where the mother didn’t look up from texting on her phone other than to help us find a light switch or three). Then it was on to the next site: on Beacon Street, the marathon course: completely empty save for emergency vehicles rushing back and forth.

The weight of events, the emotional nature of the day, only caught up to me late last night, when I finally checked into my hotel. I would get, and still am getting, flashes of pure emotion where I feel like I’m going to sob: something precious to me was attacked in the most vile and cowardly way I can imagine. Something of the innocence of running was lost yesterday, and that hurts me more than I can say.

An 8 year old boy, waiting for his father to cross the finish line, died.

Runners and spectators alike lost life and limb, quite literally. Some will never run again, or at least not on their own two feet.

But I see something else: runners are a community. We are a group of people, the world over, who help each other. When somebody falls during a race, inevitably multiple others will stop, spending precious seconds of a time they’ve worked towards for weeks, months, or years, and offer them whatever assistance they can. At mile 27 of a marathon, a time when they are physically and mentally spent, they will sprint towards danger to help people they don’t know.

Anybody looking on Facebook, or any news channel, today will know how the running community is facing this tragedy. There is no division. There is no sense of giving up. There is no other option but to keep running.

There never is.

Updates coming!

I realize I have not updated in a while. I headed off to England for a week and a half, was back for a couple weeks, and headed back out for work for another week and a half.

I promise I will have updates as soon as I have a chance to catch my breath. Things are happening.

On the Influx of Money to Trail Running.

This post is a response to the Trail Runner Magazine blog symposium question: is the introduction of bigger prize purses to trail races a positive or negative thing overall?

I feel rather unqualified to be speaking on this topic. I am at best a decent trail runner. As such, I am at no risk of winning a large purse. Geoff Roes has written eloquently and passionately on this topic, taking the affirmative position that prize money will help the sport. And I doubt you would find Dakota Jones arguing against large purses, with the $20,000 he took home for the TransVulcania last spring.  That prize allowed him to do his own thing, living out of his truck for the summer.

On the other hand, I saw the comments on the Trail Runner Magazine website responding to this symposium topic. They were resoundingly negative, concluding that the influx of money would destroy the sport, and lead inevitably to illegal drug use, cheating, and would destroy the “pure” nature of the sport.

While that is possible, I believe the opposite. I think that the influx of money will help the sport. Trail running has been growing in popularity in recent years, which has in turn led to more sponsor money, which has led to more exposure and an increase in popularity. This is due in no small part to characters such as Scott Jurek, who I am fortunate enough to call a friend and occasional training partner, and Anton Krupicka, Geoff Roes, Dakota Jones, and Rickey Gates, all of whom also call Colorado home.

The simple fact that so many of the top tier trail runners live and train in the Boulder area means that I have the opportunity to meet and talk with the top tier of the sport. For all of them, the goal remains the same: they love running. They love the trails. They love the mountains. They simply love what they do.

Without the money, without the notoriety, they would still be doing exactly what they are doing to the extent that they could afford to. Indeed, several of them (Scott Jurek, Dave Mackey, Buzz Burrell, and Peter Bakwin, to name just a few) have been around long enough that we can guarantee that they would, since they already have.

Rather than pollute the sport, the influx of prize money gives these athletes the opportunity to perfect their craft, and pursue their dreams in the mountains. Just look at AK’s flurry of FKT’s in the mountains this past summer for evidence, or That Dakota Jones’ summer in his truck, cruising the country and going for epic runs

Far from detracting from the sport, the influx of money allows those elites to make a living doing what they love to do. And not insignificantly, that same money gives us a chance to live vicariously through them via their pictures, their videos, and their writings. Do not think that, without the influx of interest and accompanying money, this would be possible for these athletes without even more extreme self-sacrifice.

I have focused so far on one primary reason I do not believe money will destroy the essence of trail running: the character of trail runners and the reasons that we run trails. There are, however, two further reasons I think play a role:

The first is a simple fact: there is still far more money in road running than trail running. By their very nature, road races are easier to draw people to than trail races. Road races usually occur in highly-populated areas, increasing visibility and drawing in both runners and spectators. This in turn attracts sponsors and prize money. Trail races, on the other hand, generally occur in remote and/or difficult to access locations, leading to less exposure and less prize money.

If your primary goal is to make money, road and track racing is still the place to look.

The second reason is limited to the United States. We have a very restrictive set of guidelines in the US regarding the protection of wilderness areas and national forests. The United States Forest Service must balance the needs and desires of a variety of groups when deciding what can happen on Federal lands, including but not limited to logging interests, off-road vehicles, hikers and campers, mineral prospectors, hunters and fishers, and of race directors. Just ask Dakota Jones if you want to hear about how difficult it is to get permits when the race crosses between two different national forests.

For this reason, races are often limited to just a few hundred entrants (or even fewer) after an arduous process for the RD. We are unlikely to see a major trail race in the United States on the scale of UTMB for this reason, unless it takes place entirely on Forest Service roads. Fewer athletes means less prize money up for grabs, and so I believe the prize money for most races will reach a firm limit.

So no, I do not believe that the increased size of prize purses in trail running will destroy the sport. There will always be small, local, uncompromising races for those that want to avoid the hoopla of the major races. But the bigger purses for the larger races will continue to let those at the pinnacle of the sport to pursue their dreams, and allow us to share those dreams. And not insignificantly, this money will push the excitement in the sport, and push the competition at the front of the field to ever more impressive and inspiring heights. 

Mountain Dreams

This has been a frustrating week in my training. My legs are there, I am ready to run, but the time has not been. I was facing a major deadline at work all week, and 11+ hours a day at work plus an hour and a half or more of commuting does not leave much time for running. Hopefully I can still get a few good workouts in today and tomorrow and salvage a little training out of these seven days. But if not, I have to remember that I a) am in solid shape for this time of year and b) I still have quite some time before my first planned race of the year.

My first planned race (as opposed to my last minute, "why not?" races) is the Golden Gate Dirty Thirty. This is a 50k race in Golden Gate Canyon State Park, just an hour or so away from my house, taking place on June 1st this year. This will be my longest race to date, and it has approximately the same elevation change as the Pikes Peak Marathon, so it should be a difficult challenge for me. Fortunately, I know several other people also running the 50k, and at least one who is planning to run the 12 mile accompanying race. That means I should have a cheering section.

My second planned race, should it come to pass, is the Telluride Mountain Run on August 10. This is a 55 mile monster in, naturally, Telluride, with a total of 20,000 of elevation gain and, since it's a loop course, loss. Dakota Jones is the RD for the race, so it's bound to be interesting. My goal is simply to finish in under the cutoff (16 hours). As of this writing, the permitting process is still underway, but hopefully that will be taken care of soon. If not, the PPM is my backup.

There may be a couple other races in the summer/fall as well. Some friends at work are putting together a team for the Wild West Relay, which takes place the weekend before T-Rad. I may or may not join them, depending on how I'm feeling at that time. Also, my gf has plans to do a triathlon on June 8th, which I intend to do with her. Fortunately, given my plans for the weekend before this, it's a short tri.

Races aside, I have a large number of fun runs in the mountains I would like to take on this summer. With my experiences on Longs last summer, I feel a great deal more comfortable with my abilities in the high country. If Andy Anderson gives you a compliment on your performance on Longs, you take note. The following is a selection:

Grizzly Peak Traverse: Starting at Loveland Pass, this traverse is entirely above tree line, taking you on a ridgeline up Grizzly Peak (a thirteener) before putting you atop Torreys Peak followed by Grays Peak. If I can find somebody to do it with, I can finish at the Stevens Gulch trailhead, otherwise I get to turn around and head straight back the way I came.

Grand Slam on Longs: This might be a warmup for another traverse (the Glacier Gorge Traverse, which I will decidedly not be doing alone, should I do it at all). Taking the Loft route up to Meeker and Longs, this then traverses over to Pagoda Mountain on the other side of the Keyboard of the Winds, back to the Keyhole, over to Storm King and then Mt Lady Washington before returning to the Longs Peak trailhead. Optionally, I can add Battle Peak and Estes Cone before heading back to the trailhead.

General 14ers: At this point, including the peaks above, I have a list of 20 different 14ers I'd like to climb this year. It seems like a long shot, but I don't see that much issue with it. With the (unfortunate) lack of snowpack this year, I hope to be able to get out early in the season and keep climbing into September and October, should I still be in Colorado. The list at this point includes, but it not limited to:

Mt Elbert
La Plata
Kit Carson
Challenger Point
Crestone Peak/Needle
Bierstadt
Grays and Torreys
Longs
The Shermanator
Blanca

That should about do it for the summer! My gf and I are planning to do a number of these together, but the harder (class 3+) mountains I will likely be on my own for.

It looks to be an interesting summer, and I'm looking forward to it.

Two Weeks Summary: Feb 11 - 24

Monday: 6 miles, 700 feet. Sunshine Canyon from work. A little shakedown after the Green/Bear pairing the day before.

Tuesday: 7 miles, 400 feet. Tempo up and down Boulder Canyon from work (4.5 miles of tempo). 16 minutes up, 13 minutes down with a 5:30 last mile. Felt good to get the legs turning over again.

Wednesday: 8 miles, almost no elevation. BRC run plus some extra with Trent Briney.

Thursday: 5 miles, 500+ feet. A slow, snowy trip up Sunshine Canyon from work. Added in a 300 meter swim and additional 2 miles of running in the evening.

Friday: 6 miles. 700 feet. I must have gone up Sunshine again, judging by the stats, but I cannot for the life of me remember this run.

Saturday: Did a quick hike with the gf up around Chautauqua. Flatiron Access loop.

Sunday:  An unexpected summit of Green with Chris and Matt. Met a couple other friends at the top and added the to our group on the way down for a while. Total of 10 miles and about 2750 feet by the time we finished the loop.

After the rather long weeks the previous two weeks (long for me in any case) I opted to take this past week easy. So a quick rundown:

Monday: off.

Tuesday: 6 miles and about 700 feet up Dakota Ridge and down Sanitas Valley.

Wednesday:  7 miles. BRC run in the snow. Still managed a good 7 minute average, with the last two more around 6 minutes despite 3 inches of fresh snow on the paths.

Thursday: 5 miles, negligible vert. Ran up Boulder Canyon for a bit. Threw in another 350 meters of swimming at night.

Friday: 5+ miles, 700 vert. A different route up Sunshine Canyon from work. Clearly this has become a staple of mine. Despite being a trail that very definitely leads nowhere, it's a mentally easy way for me to get some miles in from work. I am hoping to mix it up a little more as the weather gets nicer and toss in more trips up Flagstaff and Anemone. With my race schedule, I think I will definitely need it.

Saturday: No running, but a good two hours of ice skating.

Sunday: 3 miles of deep, blizzard running. Added in 200 meters of swimming and some climbing at the Rec Center.

As I mentioned, this was a bit of a recovery week for me. I had intended to run a bit more, but with the blizzard conditions today my gf had the day off of work and I opted to spend a little more time with her than I generally have the opportunity to do on Sundays. We still goofed around at the rec center for a good two hours, which is a workout in itself.

The training has generally been going well. I put in about 47 the week before last, with a decent amount of vertical, and I think I'm on the right track, inserting a little extra intensity into my training in the form of tempo runs and hill workouts.

That said, I have a schedule for this year that includes thirteen races, for which I only have myself to blame. Not only that, I have the two longest, most difficult races I have ever attempted on the calendar. First is the Golden Gate Dirty Thirty 50k on June 1st (followed shortly by my first tri a week later), which has nearly 8000 feet of vertical. The second is Dakota Jone's Telluride Mountain Run August 10nth, a 55 mile, 20000 foot epic, should it make it through the permitting process.

So it's time to crank it up another notch if possible. I would like to hit 50 miles a week solidly, pushing 7500 vert each week as well. Assuming that goes well, I can keep increasing the intensity, adding in a few shorter races here and there just as a fitness test.

That's the plan going forward. As ever, we shall see how it goes.

Weekly Summary: Feb 4 – Feb 10

Monday:  4 miles followed by 1.5 miles with G. Did a loop near my apartment after realizing that I had forgotten my running gear at home. This was remarkable only because I saw no fewer than 5 Red Tailed Hawks hunting during the run.

Tuesday: 11 miles, 1500 feet. Met up with my friend Justin for a loop around Flagstaff. Halfway up Chapman I turned it up a notch and tempoed the remaining 1.5 miles to the top, then Justin led us for a quick descent.

Wednesday: 5 miles, maybe 500 feet. Went after work with my coworker L. She and I were both tired from tempos the day before so we kept it short and easy. Even so, it was dark and raining by the time we got back to the office.

Thursday: 5.5 miles, 1000 feet. Went up Anemone from work. Easy 16 minute ascent from Settler’s Park. Threw in a bit of scrambling on Red Rocks for the fun of it. Evening: 250m swimming at the Rec Center.

Friday: 6 + miles, 1500 feet. Drove up to Boulder early for a 7AM run with Scott Jurek, Matt, and Bryce. Went up the East Ridge and down the backside to Sunshine. Good way to start the last day of the work week and good to see Scott again after not running with him for a while.

Saturday:  off, save for a bit of Line Dancing at the Grizzly Rose. Hopefully we’ll make it back this Sunday too.

Sunday: 12 miles, 4000 feet. Bear followed by Green from Cragmore TH. There was a bit of a dusting of snow on the ground. Just enough to make it slightly slick going up Bear. But I never wished for more traction.

I made a conscious decision not to push it at all on Sunday, since I only had to run 4 miles to equal my biggest week so far this year. Clearly I moved beyond that. I made a lackadaisical summit of Bear in 52 flat, followed by a less lackadaisical traverse over to Green in 43 minutes. I was forced to take it a bit easier on the descent down Bear Canyon because the snow was just deep enough to cover the ice patches. Still made it back in 2:30.

Just how easy did I take this run? Well,  I stopped three or four times on the way up Bear without stopping my watch (took of the jacket, made a pit stop, and tied my shoes) and never hesitated to stop and chat with anybody who was coming by. It felt good to just enjoy my run for a change.

Overall my training is coming along. I didn’t get a chance to do any hill repeats or fartleks this week, but I definitely pushed up my mileage and my vert. At this point, number geek that I am, I am 20 miles down on last year, but over 10000 up on vertical. I’d call that a more than fair exchange. This week, I’m planning on inserting a little more speed and mileage, but dropping back on the elevation a bit. We’ll see how it goes.  

West from Bear, you can see the Flagstaff Fire burn zone.

East from Bear.

Look at all those mountains!

Weekly Summary: January 28 – February 3

I know it's almost a week late now. This week should be more interesting, though.     

Monday: 6 miles easy. Shakedown run up and down the Canyon from work. Went to the Rec Center after work for an easy dreadmill jog and 250m swimming.

Tuesday: 7 miles, ~1000’ hill repeats. 4x800m hills up Sanitas valley. I decided to  ut in some shorter, sharper hills this week. I found them unfortunately inconsistent, in that my first and last hills were about 7 seconds longer than my middle two.

Wednesday: off. My left (knee tendon. Figure out what this is) was bothering me more than usual, so I headed home and took an ice bath. It helped more than I anticipated.

Thursday:. 6.5 miles, ~750 feet. Up Sunshine Canyon trail from work.

Friday: 6.5 miles, ~750 feet. Same as Thursday, but I injected a little tempo into the workout along Sunshine. Felt pretty solid.

Saturday: AM: 250m Swimming, climbing at the Rec Center. PM: 4 mile bike ride.

Sunday: 11.5 miles, 1500’. Longinsh run around the Doudy Draw area. Took Flatirons Vista South to Doudy Draw, split off on Spring Brook South. From there I looped Goshawk Ridge back to Spring Brook North and Doudy Draw again. Then took Flatirons Vista North back to the car. I thought about adding more on, since my legs were still feeling pretty good, but this had already been my longest week this year, and I had a Super Bowl Party to prepare for, so I called it short. (And for your information, the Superbowl was not the 49ers versus the Ravens. It was Gryffindor vs Ravenclaw)

Overall the year seems to be shaping up fairly well. My left (knee tendon) is feeling better and better. Running does not seem to exacerbate it. If anything, movement seems to help it loosen up and sitting still with my leg bent (ie working) is what causes me problems. But the rest of me seems to be coping well with the increased mileage and introduction of tempo and hill repeats into my training. I have higher hopes for this year than I have in the past.

I am a nerd. That statement will not surprise those who know me. Those who know me only by this blog may or may not be surprised. I say this because, on my Sunday run, I took a ause to admire some of the more interesting geological features around the North Spring Brook trail. During the late Cretaceous (if I recall correctly) much of this area was underwater: the shore of  ashallow, inland sea.

After a few million years, there was an upthrust that created the Rocky Mountains. In the process, this pushed sedimentary rock, which formed on the bottom of the aforementioned sea, up at a sharp angle. This upthrust created features like Red Rocks, the Flatirons, Garden of the Gods, and Dinosaur Ridge among others.

Along the North Spring Brook trail, there’s a long stretch of exposed yellow sandstone that still shows the ripples laid down then the area was still a sea shore. It reminds me vividly of swimming as a kid in Lake Superior, where the wave action always left similar ripples in the sand. Somehow, in my prior runs in this area, I had completely missed this feature, to my detriment.

I only wish I had taken pictures rather than just continuing on, but such is life.