First 40 mile week!

It's been a long time coming, but I hit my first 40 mile week since I was deployed a year and a half ago.  I may be slow... real slow, but I hit it.  My wifey and I went and visited Antelope Island for the first time ever, and instantly fell in love with it.  

It is really awesome to have such a natural and wild place so close to the city.  I did an eight mile run here in this awesome state park where I didn't see a single person the whole time.  I did however see 15 bison during my run.

I got a new pair of shoes that I started wearing this week, the Altra Olympus trail running shoes.  It took me quite a bit of time in the store to get over the silly looking wide toe box.  But I got over the looks because of all the praise that I have heard from owners of these shoes.  I have already fallen in love with them, even though I only have 43 miles on them so far.  The wide toe box keeps my feet relaxed while running, and the zero drop really aides me with a more natural stride.  They are especially nice while running down hill because my feet didn't slam against the front of the toe box.

I can't wait to go back out to Antelope Island and go for another fun run in this magical place.  This next week I'm planning to put in 44 miles, and I want to also get a lot more elevation gain than I got this week.  

In a funk

Lately I've been in a funk and haven't been able to get out and go run.  My wifey and I have been able to make a few trips down to Moab where we've done some hikes, and we also ran to Delicate Arch together.

I figured that the best way to commit to something is to throw money at it.  That's the whole idea behind an engagement.  If you throw lots of money towards a wedding ring you have to make sure you're committed at that point.  So, I threw money towards a race, now I've got to commit.  I've signed up for the San Juan Solstice 50 miler.

After signing up for the lottery, I had hopes that I wouldn't get accepted.  I looked into the run more, after signing up and found out how crazy this one is.  I felt that I have jumped the gun and that I am now over my head in this race.  A week later they released the results of those accepted, and my stomach dropped when I saw my name on the entrants list.  Now I'm screwed...

I haven't completed a real run in three weeks and my first real training week starts on Monday, a 37 mile week.  It's time to get out of my funk and start running again.

Why do I do this??

There are times that the things that I do don't make sense to me.  This year I have set my goals high and I am planning to run a 100 mile ultra marathon.  I also want to put in a total of 2000 miles of running this year.  Most people think that I am stupid for wanting to obtain such goals, but luckily my biggest supporter, my wife, is completely on board for helping me reach these goals.

I am not much of a runner.  Last year, I completed my first ultra, the Standhope 60k.  I was not prepared for this race at all, and I mean not at all...  My longest run prior to this race was a whopping 12 miles.  This race was a killer race with over 10,000 ft of elevation gain.  I had two goals for this run. 1. Finish the race.  2. Not to come in dead last.

I opted for the early start, so I could make the time cut offs.  At the 20 mile mark, my wife parked our car because she was doing the 25k race.  I was so tempted to just get in the car and drive back to camp.  I was soaked and tired.  After conflicting some inner demons, I went on to finish the race.  On top of it all, I didn't get last...  I got third to last which blew my expectations sky high.

I learned a couple of things from my first ultra.  1) Train before race day. 2) When they advise that this is not a good ultra for a beginner, listen to them. 3) At 30 miles I chaff in places that makes going to the bathroom miserable.

Right after the race, I made the claim that I was never going to run again.  The next day, as I was sitting on the couch because I wasn't capable of walking, I started looking into my next ultra.

Here are some pics from the Standhope 60k.  I hope to put a lot more posts about my runs, thoughts, and distractions while training for the Tushar 100 in July.

This was the first pass right as the sun was coming up

 This was taken from the second pass during the run.

This is where I had a breakdown at about mile 28, where I doubted everything I was doing and life itself.  I still had 10 miles to go and a couple thousand feet to gain, including the pass over 11,000 feet just right of Standhope Peak (center).