Ilanarama!

We barely got home from our eclipse roadtrip when it was time for our van to hit the road again. The White Rim trip we do most years was scheduled for just a few days after our return to Durango, so it was a whirlwind of shopping, food prep, laundry, refilling the water tanks, and adjusting the bikes before heading to Moab.

We've done the White Rim so many times now (and posted photos here, not every time but many) ( so here are just a few highlights, more photos than text )

Then it was time to head for the second part of this Moab trip, ( more biking and hiking (and photos) )

I ran my first (and so far, only) 50K a little over eight years ago, in October 2014. It was the inaugural run of the Dead Horse Ultra, and I finished solidly at the top of the bottom of the very small pack, in just under 6 hours. I also herniated a disc - possibly because I'd run the Durango Double (a trail half marathon on Saturday and a road half marathon on Sunday) the weekend before - and was injured enough that I ended up sitting out the Boston Marathon the following April. Still, I wanted a rematch, both with the distance and these particular jeep and mtb trails.

It was not to be. I had a long and slow come-back from injury, complicated by menopause and the onset of osteopenia (the precursor to osteoporosis) setting me back with a stress fracture, and I haven't even run a marathon since, let alone an ultra. But last month my internet-friend K, who lives in Boulder, told me that she'd been inspired by the beautiful desert photos of my race report to sign up for the Dead Horse 15K; I hemmed and hawed and considered that 1) I had just recovered from covid-19 and 2) I have done approximately zero trail running since mid-summer; but on the other hand a) 15K is about 9.3 miles, which is a typical long run distance for me, and b) it would be a chance to meet K - and the alphabet won. So about ten days ago I signed up for the race and reserved a hotel room, and on Friday afternoon I drove out to Moab. I had a nice and relaxing dinner at the fancy-schmancy Desert Bistro (the salad was beautiful, the wine was delicious, the main dish was a bit too salty for my taste, alas), went to bed early, and slept reasonably well, waking before my 6:30am alarm.

In the intervening years since I'd run the 50k, the Dead Horse had been taken over by another race management company, moved about a month later, sprouted additional distances, and become much, much bigger. The second running, 2 years later, changed the 25k to a 30k and added a 50-miler; this 2022 running included the 15k for the first time, which attracted 175 runners - more than three times the total number of runners in both distances combined in 2014! I drove up to the starting area on Saturday morning - the thermometer in my truck said it was 25F - and parked in the overflow area. This meant I couldn't wear extra clothes and then stash them quickly in my vehicle, so it was a cold wait for the start: I'd worn capris, a short-sleeve tee in jersey-like fabric, thin arm warmers, thin gloves, a thin buff around my neck and a fleece headband around my ears. (Spoiler alert: this was the right way to dress for the race, if not for the standing-around.) I met up with K and the other friends she'd talked into doing this race (K is a very enthusiastic promoter of things she likes) and we chatted until I realized it was just a few minutes to the race start, at which point I quickly got in the starting chute, positioning myself about the halfway point of the group. (The race does a self-seeded wave start, with three waves starting 5 minutes apart, and K and her friends planned to run in a later wave.)

And we were off! I ran around the parking area and up to the slowly-rising dirt road at what I hoped was approximately half-marathon effort level, trying not to push too hard at this early stage, trying not to feel bad about people passing me at this early stage. It wasn't too hard to remind myself to keep things under control - all I had to do was look over to where the road became 4WD-rough and turned steeply uphill. My first mile clocked in at a 9:10 pace, but pretty soon I was alternately walking and jogging up the ~450' hill, and mile 2 was a much more sedate 12:10.

After cresting the summit, the road swooped back down in short segments, a little down, a little up, a little more down, and so on, and I turned up the speed, though I had to watch my balance and footing on the rough terrain. When mile 3 checked in at 8:25 pace, I noticed that I'd run the first 3 miles in (barely) under 30 minutes, a 10-minute pace average, and set the arbitrary goal for myself of attempting to average under 10-minute pace for the whole race. Though it depends on terrain, my trail runs are typically between 11:30-12:00 pace, so I figured that I could improve that by a couple of minutes per mile with a race effort.

And so I kept up my pace and effort as I headed downhill, passing a few of the people who had passed me earlier, and even catching up with the slowest 30k runners and walkers who had started 20 minutes before me. Mile 4 was at 8:30 pace. When the road started to flatten out, getting less rough but sandier, I started seeing the leaders coming back from the turnaround at mile 4.8. I was carrying my handheld, so I didn't stop at the turnaround aid station, just rounded the marker and headed back the way I'd come.

The turnaround was only 10 feet higher than the start, which meant I had to climb back up the huge hill I'd just run down! But just as it had gently swooped down, it swooped up more gently than the initial climb, and I was able to run mile 5 at 8:50, mile 6 at 9:22, and mile 7 and 8 both at around 10:40 pace. I was still on pace for a sub-10-minute average...and now I was going downhill! Mile 8 was actually about half up and half down, but the roughness of the road kept me from really letting loose once gravity was helping rather than hurting; the road got smoother in mile 9, though, and I clocked 8:15 pace, and then 7:55 on the last bit, just under half a mile of almost imperceptible downhill by my Garmin, down to the parking lot, and through the finish chute at 1:29:39, a 9:28 pace which blew away my arbitrary goal (but made my new goal of sub-1:30 which I decided on at the moment I saw the finish clock from 25 yards or so away).

I immediately went to get some water - I'd finished what was my handheld during the last climb - and then just breathed for a while, as it had been an all-out effort at the end. I went to watch the finishers for a while, but started getting cold; I wanted to watch K and her friends finish, though, so I didn't dare hike back to my car to get my warm jacket in case I missed them. I lucked out, though, because one of the guys waiting at the finish line was holding an extra down jacket for his friend who was running the 50k, and I begged him to let me wear it until either his friend finished, or mine did! So I got to see K's friend Jenn finish, and then she and I cheered K across the finish line, and then I handed back the jacket and took the very very long and cold walk back to my truck. (I'd parked in the "wrong" overflow, just across the highway from the start, but the traffic which was minimal before 8 am was now heavy, and the traffic controllers sent me down the bike path to the underpass which led to the "correct" overflow...then I had to walk back along a service road, into the wind, to my parking area. Maybe a total of 3/4 mile - I was shivering, teeth chattering, by the time I got to my truck! Fortunately solar radiation had made it nice and toasty inside.)

I drove back to my hotel room and took a very long, very hot shower, then drove into downtown and met K, K's boyfriend, and Jenn for lunch, where I ate a burger the size of my head and about half of the huge helping of fries, washed it down with a draft beer (draft beer in Utah is limited to 5% ABV) and plenty of water, and made it home by 5pm, before dark. My butt hurt a lot (glutes are what drive you up the hill, and then I sat on them for three hours!) but otherwise I felt fine, and today I really didn't have any DOMS.

Final numbers: I won my age group! Which feels like a particular accomplishment since this race uses 10-year age groups and next year I age out into the next. I was first out of 14 in F50-59, 14/105 women, and 37/176 human beings.

And now I'm thinking about another 50k sometime...

I think I've trained as well as I can for my race (this Saturday! Eeee!) and I hope that, as the saying goes, proper preparation prevents poor performance!

Over the past 8 weeks I've averaged 42.5mpw. I've done 6 runs of 12 or more miles, with two of 14 and one of 13.7, and run a tempo pretty much weekly with two 9-milers with 6-mile HMP segments, both of them averaging right around 8:13 pace. Today's 3x1 mile on the river trail (a traditional pre-half last workout of mine) averaged 7:37 for the hard miles, but each one got faster, ending with a 7:22 mile. (Admittedly, the first one was net uphill and the second two were net downhill, but none of them had a lot of elevation change.) Most importantly, I've come to terms with my age-related decline and am not, repeat, not, going to be overly-ambitious and push too hard early! (I hope.)

The weather at this point looks decent - a little warmer than I would prefer, but that's offset by a prediction of overcast skies. There will be a headwind, but the race is starting earlier this year than it did back when I ran it before, so I'm hoping the wind will stay fairly light (which is what's currently predicted). So the goals I set back in January still look good. 1:46:45 (about an 8:09 pace) is really a stretch goal, and I doubt I can actually hit it, but if I can average a 8:13 pace, as in training, it will bring me in under 1:48, which will make me happy.

The biggest wildcard for me is the course, since it's been changed since I've run it. We start by running UPcanyon, and then there's a turnaround, and we run back past the start and down the canyon to the finish; I don't know how steep (in either direction) the first part is going to be. The old course had a very steep downhill near the beginning, which is now going to be more like mile 3, and quite a bit of uphill between 7.5-8.5 and 9.5-10.5, which will now be later in the race (when I'm tired). On the other hand, it's all 2000-2500 feet lower than my training, so hopefully I won't even notice the hills. (Wishful thinking.)

Think fast thoughts in my direction on Saturday!

Our friend Ryan puts a White Rim trip together pretty much every year, and because she likes us :-) we get to go pretty much every year: I've posted here about 2017, 2016, and 2013 (and we also did it last year, though I only mentioned it briefly in a general post, and we did it twice with other groups when we lived in Boulder in the 1990s). This year's trip was only two nights as opposed to the three we had always previously taken for the ~100 miles; we went clockwise, which we'd only done once before (in 2013). It was just three couples: me and Britt, Ryan and Steve, and Kristin and Rolfe, with whom we have done many vacations before but never the White Rim. Rolfe had done it solo as a one-day trip several times, but this meant he'd never stopped at any of the interesting side-hikes, while Kristin had never been here before, so we were all looking forward to showing them the amazing sights. We also opted to take our Sportsmobile as a support vehicle, which was the first time for it as well.

The reason for compressing the trip into three days, and going clockwise, was so that we could camp at White Crack, which is usually a lunch stop for us. But this meant that the first day would be on the order of 46 miles, so I cheerfully volunteered to drive the first leg from the staging area at the Mineral Bottom Road: paved road to the turnoff for the Shafer Trail just inside Canyonlands National Park (the ranger gave me some shit for using Britt's parks pass for the rest of the group riding behind, and apparently gave them some shit as well, but she eventually let everyone in without making anyone pay extra); then down the Shafer Trail switchbacks, which was fortunately not too exciting - I did have to jockey around one tight switchback, but luckily I could see ahead enough to use the pull-outs to avoid oncoming traffic, as I wasn't too thrilled about the possibility of having to back up to a pull-out, as uphill traffic has right of way on these twisty one-lane roads; and then along the 4wd shelf road to Musselman Arch, where I traded off with Kristin.

Even after having driven the first 17 or so miles, it was a long way to camp, especially since the weather was dark and threatening; there was a bit of drizzle and a lot of wind, which (of course) was usually in our faces. But it made for some dramatic photos, as the Indian paintbrush seemed to glow against the dark clouds:



( More photos and blah blah )

Flickr album with these plus a few more photos (and no blah blah)

Some photos from several recent bicycle excursions! ( An amusing shot from the aborted June White Rim trip, an actionish shot on a local trail, and a few pictures from yesterday's ride to find cooler weather. )

Moab, in Utah, isn't very far away from Durango. We go there three or four times a year, for the Canyonlands running races in March and October, for the nearby backpacking when our mountains are too snow-covered for access, and for the world-class mountain biking. It takes a bit less than three hours to get there by car; how much less depends on your willingness to exceed the speed limit, and your need for gas and bathroom stops.

Or you can bike there in seven arduous days, over 215 miles of secondary roads, jeep roads, and trails, up mountains and across desert valleys along the route set up by San Juan Huts. (Here is a map Britt put together, showing the route - click "->7.5' Topo Maps" and zoom in to see it more clearly.)

Want to guess what we did? Yeah. Strenuous climbs, scary descents, rain, heat, mud, and mosquitoes - also killer views, deserted roads, and cold beers enjoyed with good friends. I call it a win.



( Day by day trip report, with lots of photos )

All the photos (119!), none of the blahblah

( Advice I'd give to anyone contemplating this trip )

The Canyonlands race in Moab, UT in March is one of my favorites, a beautiful course along the Colorado River, and I've done it every year since 2010. After running the 5-mile course last year due to injury, I was happy to get back to the half marathon at Canyonlands this year, even though I hadn't trained nearly as much as I would have liked. I paced well and felt good despite the windy, warm weather (not as windy as 2011 or 2012, though), and though this was one of my slower races, it is my "best slowest race" compared to others run on similarly low mileage and little specific training. I hope this means that if I can get back to the kind of miles and workouts I ran in 2012 and 2013, I will be able to get back to similar race times.

( Training )

( Weather )

( The race )

Final stats

My chip time was 1:43:46 (one second less than on my watch which I must have started a little early) for the 13.18 miles I ran by my Garmin. Which means my work on running the tangents paid off, as usually this race comes in at 13.2-13.3. I was 2nd of 85 in AG 50-54F, just 15 seconds behind the winner - darn! - and actually, I also came in faster than every woman in 45-49 and all but one in 40-44, who won the Masters award - with a time over a minute slower than my best time on the course, which got me only a 3rd in AG in 2010! (I also beat all the girls under 20, but that's not as significant.) I was the 48th fastest woman out of 1083, and the 165th fastest person out of 1801. Despite all this, this was my second slowest time of five doing this race; but despite that, I feel good about it.

I do have to admit, though, that the placement is only so good because there were not many fast women running - or many at all. The race has shrunk over the six years I've been running it; in 2010 there was a lottery to get in, and over 3200 runners, but for the last several years all entrants have been welcomed and this year there were only 1800 runners. (According to a friend, the drop, which seems to have been most acute between 2014 and 2015, is because Moab hotels have become too expensive.) It's okay - I don't mind being a medium-big fish in a medium-small pond! Or a medium-fast fish, anyway...hoping to get faster!