Running Down Under...

Earlier this year I took a new role with a recent acquisition, relocating to Los Gatos, California (just south of San Jose). It's been an interesting transition going from being part of a 50+ person department to a department of 1. And definitely challenging to work on a completely new (medical device) technology. But always interesting.

Chippewa Moraine 50K

This is a little late going to print and a little shorter than usual race reports... both due to a lack of the most valuable non-renewable resource.

4th year of the race. 4th time running it. 4th win? Ah, wouldn't that have been nice! But alas, I knew full well going into this race that for me to win would have required a bunch of women not to show up and/or some horrendous weather conditions that I had more experience dealing with. Though a snowstorm a la 2008 would not have worked since the winner is a Nordic skier...

Photo blog...

To avoid too much focus on those pesky race goals I thought I'd post a collection of photos from Christmas 2010 in Ireland through the recent trip to Colorado/California...

2011 Race Goals

Better late than never. And just in time for tomorrow's race! It’s a short list this year. Though I expect that may change – but we’ll see how things go with weekday hill training in CA and weekend technical trail training in MN...

• April – Chippewa 50K, WI – 4:50. No sandbagging, just no way I am going to be beating the past 2 years’ times (4:41 and 4:41); and in fact 5:00 may be closer to the mark.


• August – Leadville 100M, CO – 24:00.


• December – Hellgate 100K, VA – agghhhhhh – I really, really want to put something crazy like 12:59:59 here but I’m not going to! :)

I’m half thinking of another 100M in the fall – perhaps Pinhoiti (AL) in early November. But won’t make plans until after Leadville. Same goes for Wild Duluth 100K and/or Surf the Murph 50M, October (MN). If not racing, I hope to be at these races to volunteer.

2010 - The Year in Review

This will be a busy blogging week for me - I have to post this one (only a few months late), and then sneak in my goals for 2011 before the first race on Saturday! And I also need to post a ton of photos from the trip to Ireland...

Hello. My name is Helen.

Forgive me readers, it has been 3 months since my last post. In that time I have both lived life and been passionate. But I haven’t had a whole lot of time to blog about it. And the passion didn’t have a whole lot to do with running so probably better you didn’t hear from me. And if I am being fully honest about it I have been taking the easy option and just posting on Facebook. Sorry blogger.

Tuscobia Winter Ultramarathon

First of all - I did NOT do this race :)

Even if I had not run Hellgate last weekend I suspect this would not have been in my plan... but I am intrigued by it and perhaps next year I'll try the 50K as a Hellgate recovery run!

Hellgate 2010

A few things I learned this past weekend –

1. The race is actually 66.6 miles long (I thought it was merely a 66 mile 100K).
2. My pain threshold is way higher than previously believed.
3. Having crew rocks!
4. The hour before dawn is the most incredible time to run through the woods.
5. Always take the bacon.

Going into this year’s race I knew I was not anywhere close to last year’s level of fitness. I wasn’t exactly proud of it, but I was okay about it. The past few months have been a whirlwind time in so many different ways (mostly good) and training simply had to take a backseat. And when needed, I could always pull out the old "foot surgery in June" excuse. No one had to know that it was minor and I was back running within 6 weeks! Oh and that I had run a 100K race in August...

Getting caught up!

Life gets busy, doesn't it?

Running...

- Is going okay. Not great, but okay. And right now I am happy with okay.

Still alive...!

... and planning to get caught up on the blog sometime soon. It's been a busy few months with travel and work and life and... (sort of) training for Hellgate 100K. I will have a slightly different goal to last year! But still really looking forward to the race.

Fall Superior Trail Races

There's nothing like a series of 3 hardcore races on my favourite trail to get me excited about trail running! And even though I wasn't actually racing this year, I was looking forward to the weekend as much as always. It was a long one. A busy one. A memorable one. And most of all, a fun one. I could write pages but given how bad I've been at posting lately I am just going to get my thoughts down and leave it at that. As always, the pictures tell the real story... here are a few but many more can be found at the links posted below. Don's map is an indication of how much work he puts into this event... (Helen)

Where's Waldo 100K

Welcome to Oregon! This was the view from the flight into Portland - Mt. Hood with Mt. Jefferson in the background...

It was so nice of Carrie and Aaron to move to Portland last year. Giving Kami and I a good reason to run Where’s Waldo 100K in south east Oregon.

Bento Box

Lunch time in Tokyo...

Tokyo

(Where's Waldo / Oregon report to follow!)

It's great being back in Japan after so many years... I lived here for 3 years about ten years ago (1998-2001), in a city called Toyama on the west coast (Sea of Japan). During that time I made several trips to Tokyo so had gotten to know the place quite well. Then I was back here for two short visits in the summer of 2004. And now, after a few days here, it certainly doesn't feel like it's been that long... I had forgotten how much I love this town... So this is the kanji for Tokyo:

This is a new building that wasn't here in 04 and proved to be a good landmark on my run this morning...

Because even though the signs are in English and I can read some Japanese, I still didn't have a clue where I was going...

And it was early - though I'd been awake since 3:30AM...

I ended up at the Meiji Shrine - where, upon instruction from the guard, I had to walk not run...

That was cool - it's the kind of place where you want to be peaceful...

First stop is to wash your hands...

And then you can enter...

And read something about the shrine that was established in 1920 in honor of the Meiji Emperor...

The entrance to the main hall...

   You wouldn't want this door to close in your face...

   Beautiful woodwork...

Prayers...

Wine? Apparently so... Then it was off to Yoyogi-Koen where I used to hang out every visit to Tokyo - though I was not a runner at the time so I was seeing it from a different perspective this morning...

 

There were lots of runners about...

And a few dogs - the big ones get a break from the little ones...

   And everywhere, vending machines...

   But more importantly there were some trails...

   Which apparently one is not meant to run on...

   (the above kanji means "stop"!)

  Nobody does graffiti like the Japanese...

   And then, on my way back to the hotel I was running along and looked up to see the good old conical flask symbol which brought back memories - this is the HQ of my old company that I worked for in Toyama...

   

Beta V.5

Ahh, all weekends should be like this... Earlier in the summer I was chatting to Brian about running some of the earlier sections of the Sawtooth course as a training run ahead of his first 100 miler in September. So I was glad that it worked out for him to be able to join me on yet another trip north (I feel like I have neglected Afton this summer!)... Myself, Vale & Dee headed off from the cities around 3pm Friday and met up with Brian in Two Harbors. Chris and Cooper joined us later the campsite. The plan was for Brian to run from Gooseberry to Finland the next day with the rest of us joining him at Silver Bay. Vale would have run the whole thing as part of her training for Sawtooth also but was resting a sore foot. The day turned out to be much hotter than expected, and hotter even that the Twin Cities, but it did mean beautiful clear skies and awesome views of the lake. There was some reprieve with the breeze up on the high ridges but overall it was super hot and humid. We were dripping wet from the start and drinking way more than usual. Which unfortunately meant we ran out of water - a lesson learned there! Though I personally found the Baptism River water to be quite tasty... but I agree, not generally recommended. After a nice long day on the trail we relaxed by the campfire for the evening, entertained by Brian's stories including the lock-jaw one which had us all in stitches. Sunday morning myself and the girls helped out with a bridge building project at Fox Farm Road west trailhead - part of the new sections of trail south of Two Harbors. It was a lot of fun and standing in the cold river for an hour was probably good for the legs! Here are some pictures from the weekend...

Need a pacer? Don't hire me...

I was thinking I was 0 for 3 until Vale kindly reminded me that I did successfully pace her at Zumbro 100K last year. Though I did have help from John and also managed to lose her on one of the loops – that was quite amusing – to come into the AS without my runner! The less successful adventures include...

- Eric at Sawtooth 100M last year... things weren’t going so well in the unusually hot conditions so I ran with him from mile 42 rather than later on. But at 50M he decided to call it a day (but he will be back to complete the endeavor next month!)

- Karen at Kettle Moraine 100M this summer... I am not sure if it’s a reflection on me or not but Karen dropped before I even saw her that day :)

- And now Alicia at Headlands 100M this past weekend...

I knew Alicia went into the race with some shin issues and was also battling a head cold. She seemed to be in good form for the first loop though later I realized she was already suffering from the constant steep climbs and descents. By midway through the second loop I could tell she wasn’t having a lot of fun out there so I decided to run from mile 50 instead of 75 (it’s a 4 loop course – washing machine style). After a 10 minute warm-up in the car we started out with just under 11 hours on the clock. At the first AS 4 miles into the loop we took a few minutes so that Alicia might be able to get in food that would settle her stomach – but to no avail.

Soon after I realized she was in quite a bit of pain and as we talked about it over the next few miles I began to think continuing on probably wasn’t a smart idea. No one wants to drop from a 100 mile race, especially when you know you have the ability to finish, and when you have traveled across the country to run the race. I have no problem pushing people through mental issues and stomach issues (I’m a little gentler here). But the potential for serious injury outweighs the need to finish a 100 miler in my mind. I knew that covering another 42 miles was going to end up doing a lot more damage than good so when Alicia sat down at the Muir Beach AS at mile 58 and said she was done I didn’t argue.

On a positive note, we did still have a fun weekend in the Bay Area. Hanging out Friday night, finding a neat market by our hotel and then a coffee shop that would open at 5:30 Saturday morning - yay! And then when things didn't go to plan on Saturday night we had the chance to enjoy a few hours around the Embarcadero area on Sunday morning - polishing off a breakfast worthy of champions (forgetting about the minor detail of not finishing the race) and then spending a few dollars at the markets.

Before the race prep started in earnest, I had flown out Thursday afternoon to hang out with friends in Berkeley. That evening I had a nice run by Lake Anza in Tilden Park. Then Friday morning, I drove about 30 minutes east to Mt. Diablo State Park. With help from Tony K who put me in touch with a few runners from the area, I started out at the Macedo Ranch trail head, navigated past the cows, and had one of the most glorious runs ever to the summit at 3,849ft. It was just over 10K to the top, on a mix of fire roads followed by relatively smooth singletrack. To be honest, there was probably more hiking than running but I am pretty sure my average heart rate was above what it normally is for a speed workout! It’s been an incredible few weeks of running since getting back on my feet after the foot surgery.

And when I haven’t been running, the volunteering / crewing has been just as much fun. Without a doubt I enjoyed Afton and Voyageur this year every bit as much as previous years. I have said it before and will say it again, if you run races, you simply have to volunteer at one. Give it a try, you won’t be disappointed. And remember, you don’t have to wait until you are injured :)

Voyageur 50M & The Great Danes

Two big events to write about but not a lot of time to write so I am going to do the bullet list post:

Voyageur 50M (with apologies for doing a great disservice to the race/runners by not writing a proper race report)

- Chris Gardner was on fire. He took the lead from Dusty Olson somewhere close to the turnaround I think, getting there in 3:17 and running strong all the way home for a 6:55 finish - one of a very small number of people to run sub-7 in the 29 year history of the race. He clearly wanted this badly and his hard work and dedication paid off. And he seemed to be smiling every time I saw him!

- Kim Holak won the women's race in 8:30 - leading from start to finish. Another runner who was very happy every time I saw her! I really hope we can race together next year - I think it would be fun to see if we can push each other and one or both of us go sub-8. A girl can dream...

- Andy did an awesome job directing the race. It is always difficult taking over an event that has been around for years but I think everyone appreciated the way he kept the integrity of the race while adding a few things here and there.

- It was fun watching the intense competition among the top male runners. The top 4 were within 4 minutes of each other at the turnaround. Chris Lundstrom took second, Dusty third and Brian Peterson (check out his new blog!) finished strong for fourth.

- John had a stellar first half. And a second half deserving of the mug I presented him with later. I have no doubt I will pay for my smart-ass-ed-ness next year... - There were a lot of first time 50 mile runners out there including Lisa, Holly, Amy, Chris, Dan and Arika. Oh and Jeff D who signed up the day before! Kudos to Lisa who wasn't feeling great for something like the first 35 miles but kept plugging away and it all came together for those last 15 miles. If you can get through that on your first 50 miler you are pretty much made to do this :)

- Great to see so many familar faces that I generally only see at races - Tracy & Rasmus (more on them later!), Scott M & Chris H who I first met at this race back in 2008; the sconnies (Brad & Robert); Shelly, Robert & Chris, Dawn & Matt, Bohdan, Kim M, April, Connie (way to go - 2nd place and 2 hours faster than last year!!)... and many more. Congrats to all of you - Voyageur is never an easy day. 

- And as always, it was fun meeting new faces - Dave D from the LPTR gang; and Kyle from Nebraksa who unfortunately had to drop due to injury and hence I met him by giving him a ride back to the high school - turns out he'd also run Psycho Wyco.

- I had a blast hanging out all day, taking pictures along with Lynn Saari at the Swinging Bridge and several other places, running supplies between a few AS (catching up with Leslie & Sam, Anne, Alicia & Maria, Eve and others who were doing a great job keeping the runners hydrated and fed). I brought a few dropped runners back to the start from various spots, managed to see quite a few people finishing - including Vale taking 4th and improving on her time by 40 minutes! And then later I swept from Grand Portage to Forbay Lake... I ran pretty hard in between pulling the tape as the runners were long gone and all I could think was how I need to remember how it feels to run strong along here on the return journey next year!

- Lots of photos from the race at the website and my set here.

- Camped for the weekend at Fond Du Lac - awesome campsite and great company.

Pre & Post Voyageur

- Friday I ran an out and back on the SHT from Highland & Getchell trailhead. I love this section of the trail. There is just something surreal about running so close to (and under) I-35 and yet still being on this technical singletrack. Love it.

- Sunday I intended to run an out and back from Fond Du Lac to Ely's Peak but got rudely interrupted by a bear and her cub. Though I didn't make a fuss about it and decided to let them be while I backed away slowly and fled the other way once I was out of sight and hearing distance. Phew. I am done with bear encounters on the SHT!

- The foot felt great during all of my runs. OK, that is not quite true. Something felt a little off after the run Saturday evening, probably because I had run a little fast. But it felt fine Sunday morning and has continued to be good during a few runs so far this week. I am thrilled to be back at it. Only a few weeks until Where's Waldo - which I will be running, not racing! 

The Great Danes

I was delighted that Tracy and Rasmus had decided to coordinate their trip over with Voyageur - got to see Tracy several times during her race. Rasmus had opted for the Carlton Daze 5K the night before - and only got beaten by 2 Kenyans. Rasmus himself is half Kenyan. There's a good explanation for why he doesn't exactly look Kenyan - or at least Steve is going to write one soon. I think that is what we decided while running the Brickyard Hill this afternoon? Yes, it was a meeting of the bloggers! While it was great to see the guys up at Voyageur I was super excited to have been able to arrange a run together today. Steve's idea for the Brickyard was perfect. And despite their sad news earlier this week, Tracy & Rasmus were still able to make it. After a tour of the brickyard - pretty cool to learn the history of the place - and a little running... we headed over to Jerabek's for some yummy pastries and great coffee (check this place out, you won't be disappointed!). It was a good time. The hill repeats not so much but the conversation and laughs absolutely. Until next time folks.

The place to be...

Voyageur 50M Trail Run

Looking forward to seeing the action from the sidelines this year. After being lucky enough to have 2 of my best races on this course in '08 and '09 I didn't want to tarnish the bright and shiny memory that is Voyageur by showing up to race unprepared - so instead I will be helping out and hopefully seeing a lot of people have a lot of fun. That is, if one considers the power lines fun - which you must if you have signed up! I may just have to run that section to share in the fun...

Beta V

I hadn't thought about it when I scheduled the op for right after Bighorn but it turned out that my return the trails would coincide with the annual Beta run on the Superior Hiking Trail. Perfect timing! The Beta run was originally conceived as a test run for the Sawtooth 100 mile race directed by Larry Peterson. I first joined the group up here in 2008 when I was training for that race - my one and only 100 to date - and it was a really great opportunity to share the trail with some more experienced ultrarunners. It has equally become a wonderful weekend to enjoy with friends.

Friday morning myself, Maria, Holly and Jim met at Lutsen and ran north to Cascade River State Park. It was a beautiful 15 mile run. I had run the first 6 miles to Caribou Trail back in May but the next section to Cascade was new for me. And what a pretty section it was - very cool to be able to see both the vast inland forest and the great lake at the same time from several ridges along the trail. After a very short run last Sunday and then 4 miles on Wednesday I was thrilled to be able to go that far with no foot issues. Well, I shouldn't say no foot issues - my feet were definitely feeling the trail, but the ankle felt good. The tibialis tendon is slightly tender just above the ankle bone but it was exactly the same before and after the weekend so I figure it's just going to take a bit of time for the tendon to fully recover from being disturbed during the surgery.

We took our time enjoying the fabulous weather, plenty of hiking and numerous raspberry picking stops! The only bummer was Maria's stomach wasn't cooperating. After picking up cars back in Lutsen we stopped off across the road for a dip in the Lake - found the perfect spot on the beach at the mouth of the river where the warm water meets the icy cold waves. Back at the house later we caught up with everyone else and started to make a (small) dent in the mountain of food that had accumulated.

Saturday morning we set off for the Caribou wayside to join the trail at around mile 68 of the race with some people planning to finish at Temperance and others going further north, some all the way to Lutsen (~34 miles). Others still, opting for a more interesting route. Suffice it to say that if you see any signs during Sawtooth that read "Flags left, Lake right" you can assume they are meant for Eric. I fell into a nice relaxed pace with the Friday crew, with Tom and Jason always within "hearing" distance... :)

It was another beautiful day, getting pretty warm in the unshaded sections. Jason and Amy had kindly put out water the night before so we had a quick stop a few miles in at Sugarloaf and a refill a few hours later at Cramer. A fully stocked aid station greeted us at Temperance in the form of Tom & Nancy's car - coke and corn chips are hard to beat after 16 miles on the trail! Those of us who were continuing along headed off towards Carlton at a nice clip - being led by Jason after I took us off trail! The hike up Carlton was gorgeous - it's amazing how much fun it can be when you're not mid-race. Holly and I decided to call it a day at Sawbill. I was really enjoying being out on the trail but once I sat down on the grass for a few minutes as we refilled water I knew that "quitting while ahead" was the smart thing to do. Jim, Tom and Jason headed off towards Oberg and then onto Lutsen to complete a very nice training run... I guess a 50K+ could be considered a taper for Voyageur??

After a dip in the lake the legs felt somewhat refreshed but I decided to abandon plans for a Sunday morning run. 37 miles on the SHT is good enough on any weekend and probably more than enough after a month off. I am thrilled to be feeling good as I try to get back into some sort of reasonable race shape in time for Where's Waldo. Though I am sure the endless chocolate, cookies and cupcakes will do their part to counteract that. Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the start of the end of the over-indulgence.

After a smorgasbord of delicious food Saturday evening, we chilled out on the rocks by the fire (that Holly taught me to how to light). Chatting the night away, watching the starry, starry night, listening to the sound of lapping waves. I make no apology for sounding like a sap. Two days of running the trail with friends, sharing good food and great conversation. Not to mention the humour provided by Mr. Look-It-Up. This is what weekends were made for.

Badwater-Arrowhead Double

- How tough do you have to be to run Arrowhead?

- How tough do you have to be to run Badwater 135?

- How tough do you have to be to run both, in the same year?

- How tough do you have to be to win both, in the same year?

Ask Zach Gingerich!

He may not have had the day he hoped for back at FANS 24hr in June but he certainly made it happen in Death Valley yesterday and today.

Mt Whitney Portal 135M

1. Zach 24:44:48
2. Oswaldo 25:05:38
3. Jamie 26:16:12 - new course record!!

Matt Aro was at Darwin (90.1M) at 23.52 (28); Iso Yucra 25:12 (38); Adrian Belitu 25:15 (40).