Spokes

For some reason every time I know I have to wake up early the next day, I can’t sleep. I set my alarm the night before for 4:45 AM and went to bed around 10. I woke up just about every hour on the nose and looked at the clock. By the time 4:15AM rolled around, I just laid in bed and waited for my iPhone to tell me it was time to get up. Buzz….It was time to get up. My pre-race plan I rolled out of bed virtually exhausted and put on my battle armor for the day -- shorts, socks, compression, t-shirt, jacket, and my signature trucker hat. I had loaded up my car the night before with all my gear and nutrition so I was good to go. I kissed Julie on the forehead, she wished me luck as I left to go grab some coffee, pick up Chris and carpool to the race. We made it up to Horsetooth about an hour before the race start. Since we carpooled, we were able to park about 100 feet from the start line. This was clutch because outside it was 37 degrees, raining and windy. View close...

In solid Tim fashion, I pushed my last 50K a little hard, and my right hamstring started giving me issues the following week. Despite all my stretching, the soreness was a little much to run hard so I dialed down the intensity a bit. The weather helped me out a bit the next weekend, with a solid late spring snowstorm, forcing me to run some different terrain and give my hammy a break. Sunrise over Arvada Reservoir on a morning run It still blows my mind that I am running a marathon and a half-marathon distance run every weekend. My brain is finally to the place where the thought of 25-26 miles is not a huge deal. April "Showers" run with Chris on Magnolia Road in Boulder I met with Junko, my pseudo mentor, this past week and talked through some more Leadville race strategy. Nutrition, training, how to stay awake all-night, and lessons learned topped the list. She did say something that got to me though. She asked how far I run before I start feeling fatigued a...

The sense of nervousness I normally feel prior to races wasn’t there as I looked up at the expansive Cheyenne Mountain in front of me. The sun had risen about an hour ago and there was a slight chill in the air, but I knew it would warm up soon. This was my third time racing at Cheyenne Mountain State Park, so I knew what to expect in terms of the trails there. It was the home of my official first trail marathon finish a couple of years ago. Race Start Line Racing here is like a flash back in time to the simpler days of trail races. While Leadville and the North Face 50K were huge events with multiple sponsors, big tents and food, the Cheyenne Mountain Trail Race featured a folding table check-in, great volunteers and a 50K field of less than 100 athletes. I got there early to have some coffee and take my time getting my gear together. I’m sort of a spaz before races and it seems like it takes me forever just to throw on some shoes and my hydration pack. I headed over to ...

Another month has gone by. My whole family came down with a nasty chest cold the week of March 21 st that literally crushed my ability to workout and push through anything longer than about an hour. I skipped my long runs the weekend of the 26 th /27 th . We went on vacation the following weekend and all I mustered out on that trip was an 8 mile run in East County San Diego. It was a little concerning as the difference between my planned and executed miles looked like this: March 21-27: PLANNED: 44 Miles EXECUTED: 4 Miles March 28-April 3: PLANNED: 36 Miles EXECUTED: 22.1 Miles I did take the time however, to rest and take the time off that my body needed to in order to recover. After getting back from San Diego I hopped right back into training, and I felt like a new person. The old nagging hamstring injury felt healed, my fitness was better than before, and I have literally felt great the past couple of weeks. EXECUTED MILES: April 4- April 10: 49.2 Miles Apr...

The past three weeks, I’ve been gradually running a bit more consistently. I’ve also bumped up my weekend mileage gradually and so far so good. My right leg is still having some hamstring pain, but it’s more muscular than anything and stretching things out has worked well both during and post run. My weekly mileage since my last post has looked like this: Feb 15-21: 24.7 Miles Feb 22-28: 31.7 Miles Feb 29-March 6: 35.9 Miles March 7-13: 37.3 Miles I’ve had a couple of people ask me how I’m training to run 100 miles, and the key is going to be stacking my weekend days with long runs. My weekend days will be spent on the trail and the peak-week of training has 60 miles stacked over two weekend days. The past few weekend bricks have looked like this (sat/sun mileage): 6.5/13, 15/7, 17/7, 9/18 My heart-rate and cardio system are falling in line where they should be. I did a tempo run this week at 7:15 pace along the Cherry Creek Path and felt surprisingly awesome. I...

Well, training has officially started. I’ve spend the last couple of months just trying to maintain some base fitness. I’ve been doing one day on the spin bike, 2-3 days of cardio strength classes at CAC and mixing in a couple of runs on the weekends to keep the legs moving. I met with a lady by the name of Junko Kazukawa. at Colorado Athletic Club to do some personal training and to look over my planned race and training calendar leading up to Leadville. A little tiny Asian lady, Junko is a legend in the local amateur ultrarunning community. Junko has completed the LT100 a handful of times, a grand slam (four 100-mile races) last year, and is training for UTMB this year (one of the toughest 100 mile races in the world). Here is a great article published on Junko in December: http://www.denverpost.com/lifestyles/ci_29311090/denver-woman-completes-grand-slam-ultrarunning-and-leadwoman I feel like Daniel San training with Mr. Miyagi, and I am soaking up any ounce of wisdom Junko can t...

Well, fast forward 17-months from my pacing experience at the Leadville 100 trail run and I’ve done the unthinkable. This week I pulled the trigger on a race registration that has my stomach feeling like I ate some bad sushi. Somehow I have gone from “ why would you ever think about a 100 mile run, those people are crazy ” to finishing my first 50-miler last year and blurting out “ #@%^ ever doing 100! ” to registering for the Leadville 100. The reality is after finishing my pacing segment with Kristina in 2014, I had the bug to see what I was capable of. I remember Julie asking me in the car on the way back to our hotel how the experience was, and I had ‘ that look ’ in my eyes. That ‘ look ’ that no doubt made her heart sink knowing that I would have my date with Leadville 100 destiny in the future.  My friend Seth had a quote last year that summed it up well for me, " endurance racing is like heroin, buddy. Once you get a taste you cant quit. " The truth of th...