A couple of things...

The following are all in various forms of draft and some will actually get posted before the end of 2011!

• July - Badwater crewing - I would never have believed the desert could be that pretty. Even at 117 degrees.
• July - Wasatch Front Ultra Relay – myself and Chris opted for (created) the 2-person team.
• August - Leadville 100 - the magnificent beauty of the course made up for too much road.
• September to December – training with a coach. A cool new experience. With lots of long runs in the Marin Headlands. Beautiful!
• December – Hellgate 100k - I raced, really raced, for the first time in about 18 months. And it felt awesome.
• December – Tuscobia – we entered a new world of race directing. And we learned fast.
• 2011 recap
• 2012 race plans

Back where it all began...

After my first trail experience at the Afton 25k in the summer of 2005, I knew I wanted to do more of this. 3 days later I was emailing Larry and hence began my love affair with the Superior Hiking Trail. I came across the email exchange today while doing a search for a work project. I had to cringe at my asking Larry about water crossings! And his response about the "nice bridges" makes so much more sense now that I know him - I can just hear his brain thinking this will be good... I am looking forward to another visit up there next week. It will be my 7th annual! Chris is running the 100 again and I will volunteer Friday and then pace him for the second half. It is always an incredibly fun weekend and a great chance to catch up with everyone. I am sad not to have spent much time on the SHT this summer. It is definitely one of the major drawbacks to the California move. So we will just have to make the most of this big weekend up north. And perhaps one of these years I will actually run a race here again...

Black Hills 100K

I ran this race several weeks ago (June 26) and started the report almost immediately - but got a little side-tracked since. Which means there are a few more race reports to follow!

Black Hills 100K was a tough race for me. There's a simple enough reason for that - my training wasn't what it should be to really race the way I know I am capable of. But, now that some time has passed since the race and I've (sort of) accepted that training is down the list of priorities this year, you will be saved from the worst of my whining.

Coming soon...

Dear Blog,

I have not completely forgotten about you. I now have THREE race reports to finish (and 2 of them to start) as well as a few other random posts about the awesome summer so far!

- Black Hills 100K
- Yosemite Weekend
- Crewing at Badwater
- Wasatch Front Ultra Relay
- Voyageur 50M
- Freaking out about Leadville 100M

Chow. For now.

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 :)