Bulldog 50K

West Coast fun!!! The company I work for was good enough to send me to the west coast for a week long bit of training and as luck would have it there was an ultra about 60 miles from the training location. I signed up without really giving it much thought (a gift of mine) and proceeded to under prepare.

The Bulldog 50K is run in Malibu Creek State Park just a few miles from Malibu and the Pacific Ocean, the location where the TV series MASH was filmed. I flew out on Friday and got off the plane at LAX and was struck with the exciting and terrifing thought that I don't know one single person in the state of California. From LAX to my hotel in Calabasas, CA was your typical 5 lane highway Friday afternoon drive...I decided traffic was either heavy, heavier, heaviest or standstill, but I made it without incident. I settled into the room and then drove to find the race start location and then continued into Malibu. The road wound along steep rock faces and canyons before opening into a jaw dropping view of the Pacific Ocean and intersecting the Pacific Coast Highway. I quickly found that sitting at a green light looking at the view was not a good way to win driving compliments. A little drive along the coast and then back to Calabasas to get some supplies and hang out for the evening.

The next morning was fog covered going to the park so I was glad I had located it the evening prior, temperatures were in the mid 60°'s with light ocean breezes. The race started and ran through the old MASH filming area and slowly climbed to the top of Bulldog Mountain.

It remained overcast and very pleasent for the almost all of the first loop, but the sun burned through the clouds and it became very hot very quickly. Each 15.5 mile loop contained about 3800' of elevation gain for a total just short of 8000'. The second time around was a tough go on the climb, but offered a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean.

The aid stations were well stocked and the volunteers great although there was a 5.9 mile gap between the top of the mountain aid station and the valley aid station. The other runners were great also, I guess shared suffering gives you something to talk about. I had hoped to finish around 6 hours, not knowing how the elevation gain, travel and being under prepared would all add up. I finished in 6:23 and under the circumstances was pretty pleased. The winning time was 3:58 and change by a 45 year old freak of nature, I am way impressed.

This is an ultra that I would give two thumbs up and I aim to do it again, but be better prepared and work in a lot more hill training. Just a bit of closing information, driving across Los Angeles on a Saturday afternoon following a 50K is an adventure in and of itself. Happy trails.

Other Summer Plans

This summer my son and I are planning to climb a couple of 14ers in Colorado. Plans are to go out, stay a few days with friends in Denver and acclimate a bit, then a couple of days with freinds in Grand Lake and then attact a couple of mountains. We have not decided which one yet, but here are a few of our possiblities.

Quandary Peak in the Ten Mile range.

Mount of the Holy Cross, not far from Vail.

Combination of Grays and Torreys, the closest 14ers to Denver.

Uncompahgre Peak Colorado, the 6th highest mountain in Colorado and one of 54 14ers.

Good times with my son and I am looking forward to it.

Middle of May

Well the finger is on the mend, it is amazing how much it put a damper on my running. Every time that I ran it felt as though my heart had moved to my finger and was just pounding away. It also looked pretty silly to run with my hand up in the air above my heart, I think cars kept thinking I was flagging them down. I am sure I will suffer more than anticipated at Andy Payne Marathon, but heck that is so much of the enjoyment, plus getting to see a good group of tatur.org runners.

Looking ahead after Andy Payne, the schedule looks like: Tatur Estim8tur, Barkely Book Fair, Turkey and Taturs 50k, FlatRock 50k, Heartland 50m. I am looking forward to going longer (100m) after Heartland, just depends on scheduling. I am visiting about a potential job change that would certainly lend itself to better running...no shift work and weekends off, just don't know that I can co-exist with the normal people that work straight days.

Here is a favorite quote that I really try to live by, take courage and step out:

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort- Sydney Smith

ER Part II

They say trouble comes in 3's...I really don't believe it, but just to be safe I am going to lay low for a couple of weeks. This is the second trip to the ER in about a month, the first for my son and the second for me. Conduit hanger versus finger and sharp metal won this time and I suspect every time. Nothing like spending Sunday evening in the ER. Wildest thing we saw there was a 3 year old that had a huge treble hook stuck in his foot, it looked like a prop for a movie it was so big. He was going to have to go for surgery because the hook got a bone in his foot, he was a little trooper though.

It had been a good weekend of running and I hope this doesn't slow me down 3 weeks out from the Andy Payne marathon. Saturday a comfortable 9 miles and Sunday after church another 12. Really looking forward to getting back out there and running.

That's Going To Leave A Mark

This is a trail running NO-NO. Actually this is my son's ankle following a skateboard aerial trick gone bad. He landed just wrong and seperated a sub-bone in his foot, didn't actually break anything. I pulled out the cell phone in the ER because I knew he would want to see what it looked like at some point in the future. Oh to be young and to heal fast, he was in a cast for 4 weeks and doing some physical therapy now and will soon be back to full strength and back to the skateboarding, man I wish he would take up a safe hobby like trail running/ultramarathoning. He really has expressed interest in trail running and I hope he will take it up some day. Here is hoping you never look down at your foot after a misstep or slip and find a sight like this.

Motivation

Looking for help out there...How do you stay motivated to run? I run alone most all of the time. Sometimes a brief run with my wife, but 99% of my training is done alone. I have trouble pushing myself out the door at times and I am sure if I had some training partner or partners that I would train harder. The problems are pretty simple I work rotating shift work, schedule changes every week so there is no consistency to my training and there are just very few if any persons in my town that want to train to the extent that I want to. So what do I do...any ideas or helps out there?

Get set GO!!!

The past two months have been terrible for running...between the holidays, work and injuries I have done very little. I visited an oertho yesterday and basically received a clean bill of health (and I am certain another kind of $$$ bill) so I am going to start building the miles. I have missed running with the crew from tatur.org. I am anxious for warm weather, longer days and long runs.