Spring snows and June skiing aside, the summer running season is here. Jumping right into things, Christy and I ran the Dirty 30 last Saturday, a 50K course run along the trails of Golden Gate State Park, located northeast of Blackhawk, CO. Now in its 3rd year, the event hosts three races– a 7, 12, and 31 miler (50K)– and in addition to being really scenic, very hilly and just...
Christy, Lisa Fichman, Larry Siu and me before the race. The oldest ultra run in the country, the JFK 50 miler, took place last Saturday. Its start dates back to 1963, eleven years before Gordy Ansleigh first ran alongside the horses at the 1974 Tevis Cup, which later evolved into the Western States 100, a race which many people incorrectly believe to be the country’s first ultra. For comparisons sake,...
Even at 12,000 feet it was hot. Christy, on the left, and another woman cruise above treeline with Mt. Elbert, the tallest peak in Colorado, behind. The annual 50 mile run, part of the ever growing Leadville race series, was on Sunday. Surging in popularity and now in its third year, more than 300 runners filled out the field, including Christy, who has now run the high altitude course every...
Island Lake and Ice Lakes Basin – just another one of the awesome views out there on the course. Click any photo to enlarge. The 2010 Hardrock 100 is done and now, a week later, I’m still trying to put it all together. In the days that followed, as I embraced my “recovery”, mostly in the form of sitting on the couch and watching repeats of the days Tour de...
8 works for me. The gun goes off at 6am tomorrow and if all goes well I’ll be back here in Silverton sometime on Saturday, the earlier the better. You can follow the race through the Hardrock Live link on the homepage here. I’m trying to stay optimistic about it but the weather looks pretty bad. I overheard a few people at the pre-race meeting mention heavy rain and even...
The lost interview with Kyle Skaggs, the 2008 Hardrock 100 winner and course-record setter.
Runners somewhere around mile 8, on the ridge between Alpine Gulch and Williams. At the end of this ridge are the 14ers Redcloud and Sunshine. Astronomically speaking, Monday the 21st was the longest day of the year, but for about 200 runners, Saturday’s annual San Juan Solstice 50 Miler in Lake City marked the real beginning of summer. Blue skies, dry trails and resulting dry feet contributed to a record...
“…and you can do more than you think you can.”- Ken Chlouber, Leadville 100 Race Director A once-a-year scene, at 4am the headlamps from 509 starters head down 6th street. 46% didn’t make it back within the 30 hour cutoff. [Christy here] That was just one of the many over-used motivational quotes that Chlouber repeated during the somewhat evangelistic pre-race meeting the morning before the 2009 Leadville 100 trail run....
The race was awesome. Reflecting on it briefly here, a few things stick out– I improved on my prior 2007 time, cutting off 1:16, with a good amount of credit due to meeting my goal of getting through aids stops faster. A crash in the early parts slowed me down for a bit, a simplified strategy for food and fluids worked better than my mixed menu last time and the...
You’re only considered to have finished when you kiss the rock. The Hardrock 100 starts tomorrow at 6am, and with any luck could be over sometime Saturday. How will it go? Well, there’s so much to this race, so many variables and unknowns that it’s impossible to say for sure, until it’s over. So I have to fall back on the cliche for my answer– it’s hard telling, not knowing....
We met in Aspen in 2000 and have been happily stuck in the rockies ever since, getting out in the mountains every day we can, in every season and by all means possible. Read More
