Wasatch Runner

Now that spring has sprung weeks early in the Wasatch, it’s time to finally get up in the hills and do some actual training.

Our first group run is this Saturday — May 19th at 8:00 AM. We will plan on running around 18 miles with around 5,000′ of ascent, give or take. (Or so the maps tell me. I don’t carry a GPS.)

We’ll be meeting at the East Mountain Wilderness Park, which is the official starting line for the Wasatch 100.

From there, we’ll follow the course as it winds along the benches and through the Fernwood Picnic grounds. Though it looks flat on a map, you’ll want to check this section out because there are some little rollers that may surprise you. Continue reading →

Chinscraper Bowl is just now waking up from the depths of winter. If you look closely, you can see a 10′ cornice hanging off the east-facing lip, right where the trail goes.

Chinscraper in the Springtime

Probably best to give that one a few more weeks to melt. If that cornice fell on your head, ten-thousand pounds of snow and ice would smash you flat as a pancake and that could affect your split times.

This weekend might be just the weekend to go for a night-run in the Wasatch. The moon will be 16% brighter than normal.

Party under the SUPERMOON, everybody!

Tomorrow is the official opening day of the Wasatch trail running year.

Everybody get your shoes on and get up to the Huntsman Cancer center tomorrow for the fine, storied (and painful!) tradition known as the BoSho.

Fun begins at 7:00 AM, so get there early. See you there.

*If you have no earthly idea what I’m talking about, email me and I’ll explain why I’m being so coy. Trust me, you won’t want to miss out this year!

Here’s a pretty great video somebody took from this spring’s Buffalo Run:

I’m in there, wearing the red and white plaid shirt.

Super-fun bonus fact: You can spot me way in the background at 2:51 in that video, puking on myself while running. Good times.

There’s been some discussion lately of putting together an informal group of people who are training for the 2012 Wasatch 100 Mile Endurance Run.

Point Supreme, Mile 78.5 on the Wasatch 100 course

I’ve gone ahead and picked some dates and mapped out a couple sketches of what some training runs might look like over the summer. For the most part, I’ve tried to avoid routes that would require a car shuttle or too much logistical fiddling around.

For most of these, water is available either at springs or by filtering from creeks.

These will be self-supported runs. Though we obviously want everybody to come back safely, don’t expect a nice aid station every few miles. You should carry the appropriate emergency gear with you and know how to use it. You may need to bring your own water filtration equipment in certain cases.

Take what you need and pack everything back out with you. Behave kindly towards those you meet on the trail. You guys know the drill. :]

With that stuff out of the way, here is my proposed list of group training runs for 2012:

1. April May 19th: Fernwood Picnic -> Francis Peak -> Fernwood. (22mi, ~4,500′ gain)
2. June 30th: Skyline Drive loop starting in Bountiful and climbing up to Bountiful Peak and then either back down the way we came or a loop over to Farmington Canyon depending on road conditions there. (24+ mi, ~4,600′ gain)
3. July 7th: Big Mountain -> Skyline Road junction -> Big Mountain (28+ mi, a few thousand feet of gain? I’m really not sure.)
4. August 11th: Big Mountain -> Lambs -> Big Mountain (30 mi, ~2,900′ gain)
5. August 18th: Lambs Cyn -> Scotts Towers -> Lambs Cyn (30 mi, 6,000′ gain)
6. August 25th: Brighton -> Finish (24 mi, 6,000+’ gain). Car shuttle required, obviously.

If you’re interested in any of these runs, please drop me a line either in the comments or by email at mike@wasatchrunner.com and let me know. As we get more into summer, I’ll be posting more info for each of these including maps, meeting places, etc.

If you’re doing your own group runs this summer and would like me to repost them here to help get the word out, by all means, please send them to me and I will happily do so.

Please feel free to post links back to this on your own blog and let friends know as well. The more the merrier. They don’t have to be running the race, either. Just come out and have fun. All abilities and speeds welcome.

I’m constantly amazed at the sheer amount of gear I see runners on the trail carrying around. I just don’t understand the concept of spending big money on a pair of ultra-light shoes to save a couple of grams and then strapping ten pounds of water onto your back.

For long-distance mountain running, I’ve managed to compile a fairly light kit that’s useful in most situations. It’s not what I’ll take out if there’s a chance I’m going somewhere remote but if I’m on trails near town with plenty of traffic, there’s no reason not go as light as possible. (Otherwise I carry a bunch more emergency gear which I’ll cover in another post.)

My solution for minimalist hydration

The basic idea here is to combine only a small amount of water with a system that allows me to stop and gather more whenever I need it.

Since not all of the water in the Wasatch is pure, purifying what’s needed is sometimes necessary. I’ve discovered that there are two items which can be combined in order to build a fast and light kit that can facilitate virtually unlimited hydration — the Nathan Elite 1 Plus Waist Pack and a Steripen Journey.

What’s awesome about this is that if you ditch the Nathan gel bottle, the holster is a perfect fit for the Steripen! It doesn’t bounce around and you hardly even notice that it’s there. It’s just along for the ride until you need it.

Use this combo, and you only have to carry a single bottle when traveling through areas with plenty of streams and you can stop and gather water whenever you like. I love it.

I had a busy morning.

Running out the door a little late, I saw the tweet from Craig Thornley saying that he’s expecting a flood of emails for the opening day of registration for the Waldo 100K in Oregon.

Waldo is a race I’ve been meaning to run for a couple years but I set the thought aside since I had to get to work. By the time I had made it into the office and had a minute to check back, much to my surprise — the race was full!

In 2011, Waldo filled to capacity in around 32 days.

This year, it filled in five hours and forty-seven mintues.

What. The. Hell.

I get it. Ultrarunning is popular now. I have no problem with that.

What I do have a problem with, though, is the overwhelming evidence that the path we’re on as an ultrarunning community is totally unsustainable.

Just as a mental exercise, imagine what would happen if the current growth continued into 2013. Simple napkin math tells us that the race would sell out not in a few days or a few hours, but in just under two minutes and forty-five seconds.

Friends, that ain’t gonna work.

To be clear, I’m not here to criticize race directors. They do amazing work and they’re absolutely doing the best they can under huge demand for little (or no) pay and sometimes hordes of cranky runners. We should all be grateful for what they do.

So, this isn’t really news to anybody. We’ve had lotteries for races like the Wasatch 100 and Western States for years now. In Europe, classics like UTMB have a points system which require that a prospective runner race a certain number of qualifying races to accumulate enough points to be able to enter the lottery.

Much talk has centered around implementing other mechanisms to limit the prospective field for popular races.

Some favor increasing race pricing to limit the number of prospective applicants. I don’t think the ethos of trail running really jives very well with this strategy, nor do I even think it would be particularly effective.

Others favor implementing a qualifying system for major races whereby a runner would have to had to run a particular time at a particular distance in order to qualify ala the famous Boston Marathon. This approach seems on the surface be more merit based but doesn’t provide equal access to beginners and elites and I think a lot of people find the mix of grizzled vetrans alongside fresh newbies to be a highlight of our sport.

Some races, such as the Wasatch 100 and the Tahoe Rim Trail 100, require that a runner complete some number of hours of trail work or volunteer work before being accepted. Usually this amounts to a single day of work. I’m not aware of any race that requires more than 8 hours in order to qualify.

So, here’s my proposal:

I believe that popular races should dramatically increase the number of volunteer hour required in order to apply for registration. The most popular should require multiple days of trail or volunteer work in order to even be able to apply for entry. (Working as an RD or Asst. RD should also qualify.)

If runners have thousands of hours a year and hundreds of dollars to register for a particular race, I don’t believe for a second that they can’t give up some of those training hours to go out and serve others by volunteering or invest several days working on their local trails.

If the worst that happens is that this approach doesn’t significantly reduce demand and our trail systems get thousands of hours of free manpower as a result, is that really so bad?

So, friends, that’s pretty much it. What do you think? Is this an idea that warrants further attention by race directors and race committees around the country? If you think it is, kindly drop a link to this post on your own blog and, if you like, leave a comment below.

The word is pretty much out…

International superstar and Team Salomon runner Kilian Jorent is rumored to will be racing the Speedgoat 50K at Snowbird this July. Update (March 2nd, 2012): This has been confirmed.

In addition, Max King and Nick Clark are also expected to show up. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few other really top-shelf guys show up from around the country and don’t discount some local guys like Andy Dorias who has been setting disturbingly fast FKTs throughout the Wasatch.

On the women’s side, I’d expect to see locals Sarah Evans, Danielle Bradshaw and Britta Trepp all setting a fierce pace against out-of-towners Becky Wheeler and Denise Bourassa.

This could well be the mountain race of the year!

Kilian Jorent (via Salomon Running)

I’m not running this year and not just because this course is stupid-hard!

Instead I’m going to volunteer for the race and watch these guys hammer out what could be one of the best mountain running performances of all time. I’m already pumped!

If you haven’t registered for the race and you want to run with these guys for the ten seconds that they’ll be anywhere near the main pack, do it quickly. The race is already filling up.

Jared Campbell is being extremely awesome again.

Go support him and Breathe Utah however you can!

Jared Campbell being awesome on Grandeur Peak