It’s like one big game of “what-if” and you know the odds are against you. Elbrus Race 2018? In only six weeks? With enough time to get a Russian Visa? By Mail? Dang I’m a glutton for punishment.
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Author: Charles Miske
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Winter End Musings – Where do we go from here?
It’s been a long few years since I ended up returning to work as a “mere employee” and having to waste a lot of time commuting and then sitting at at desk in an office with 26 male employoees and one toilet between us. Since most of them are typical fast-food survivors and need to spend a good deal of time squeezing out toxic waste byproducts while playing on their phones, it’s somewhat difficult to stay properly hydrated.
If you can’t figure out what the connection is, let me know in a message and I’ll spell it out for you.
Fighting the results of my own toxic byproducts of training hard has become a real challenge. Enough so that my training is seriously impacted. Gone are the days of 10 days on and 1 day off.
Learning how to ride a mountain bike while overcoming the delusions of my youth that plague me has been a super difficult challenge as well. My memories of 30 years ago cruising along at 28 MPH on an 18 lb bike with 700 x 20 slicks confound me as I struggle to stay over 15 MPH on my 30 pound full suspension bike. Add in the inverted gravity response to cornering on loose gravel. It’s tough. But it’s part of the game when you’re a certified mountain bike coach for a local high school team.
I also get to spend a lot of time on a trainer, with the bad weather, or should I say typical Utah late winter weather?
I’ve been on the treadmill a lot, with various levels of incline, and overall it’s been okay, though not sustainable at heavy loads right now. I was using an Adidas Footpod and just recently changed to a Wahoo Tickr Run which provides the same data from a chest strap. So far I’ve liked it and it’s a bit more accurate than the pod, which is a mystery to me.
And on top of it all, I’ve been dreaming about Quandary. Remember my favorite Colorado Fourteener that I’ve ascended in every month of the year? I kind of do. I was thinking all winter of going out there to do it, but it’s been a bad weather and wind magnet all winter long. This shot is just an example. I saw days with > 60 MPH winds and way below 0 F.
Suddenly we get this:
Quandary Summit 
Quandary Treeline What is a sort-of retired, but not willing to give it up Skyrunner to do?
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Snowshoe Hike in New Snow
Saturday Jan 21, 2017It snowed last night, and my plan was to head up American Fork Canyon to Tibble Fork Reservoir and do some longer hill repeats. The road was unplowed and if not for the construction trucks heading up and down for the dam repair project, there wouldn’t even be a path. Fortunately I managed to get my SUV up to the lake parking and took off up the trail.
Even snowmobiles hadn’t made it up yet in any great numbers so the trail was really loose, even in the one snowmobile track there. I kept sliding out of the track and up to my knees. No running today. So I quick switched out of my New Balance Leadville shoes and Kahtoola Microspikes and into my Salomon S-Lap X-Alp Carbon and my backpacking snowshoes. Yeah, you don’t run in backpacking snowshoes.
It was “smooth” going to say the least. It was good work heading up the hill and since I was way off on getting anything on Strava [Strava for this report HERE] I just forked into Granite Flats campground to check out the path up the ridge of Box Elder Peak that I could see in previous runs up here. I really want to do that. Not today though. The path was narrow and not tracked out at all. Sank up to my knees and tipped into the creek bottom, even on snowshoes.
I ran into some 12 year old Boy Scouts hauling sleds down toward the parking lot. They were a bit miserable what with the heavy snow and all. Seriously over 2′ up here. Amazing good fun digging snow caves and hauling sleds. Great to see the young ones hard at work up here.
On the way downhill I met another runner heading up in smaller, lighter, faster snowshoes. He had come up planning on running just as I had, but had a backup plan handy (snowshoes) and was going to make a 2 hour workout his new plan for the day.
In spite of the storm it was actually quite warm, around 24F. I wore my Saxx Subzero wind front boxers, Underarmour windstopper tights, TNF base layer, and Pearl Izumi hybrid softshell fleece hoodie. I got in 2.5 miles in a decent, but certainly not fast time. Overall, great fun in a beautiful setting. I got in a rather gentle workout, and over the previous 7 days nearly 20 miles.
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Dirt Road Hill Laps in Saint George Utah
Sunday, Jan 15 2017While on a road trip to Las Vegas for a gymnastics competition for my daughter, I had a few hours to kill early Sunday morning in Saint George Utah. The weather was perfect, about 40F and right at the break of dawn I got out to the trailhead, the top of the dirt road behind the condos at the Green Valley Race Loops (MTB race course}.
Mountain biking Bearclaw Poppy at Saint George Utah I’ve been on this course a number of times, prerunning the course as a NICA certified Level 2 High School Mountain Bike coach, and then riding the local trails for fun and adventure. It’s a blast out there. I will someday run the backcountry trails, but today I needed to do some hill repeats.
From the top of the hill at the condo, down to the lowest section of road is a shorter hill, then the long hill up to the water tank at the walk-over gate to Bearclaw Poppy. I went out and back twice for a total of 5.4 miles and 853 ft of vertical. [Strava]
These are really long hill laps for most normal hill repeat training, but it was hard work to keep the pace up for so long. Much like a Vertical K would be.
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Hill Repeats Up Silver Fork Road
Monday January 16, 2017After my great adventure just the day before running Long Hill Repeats at Saint George, Utah, I decided to do some more. This time up American Fork Canyon, on the Tibble Fork Reservoir side of the canyon, from the parking up toward the gate near the Granite Flats Horse Trailer parking. I’ve done this repeat sequence before a few times. Run from the gate at the parking lot to the gate at the fork to Granite Flats.
That’s right, 10F. Dang cold compared to 24 hours prior in Saint George I wore my New Balance Leadville shoes, and my Kahtoola Microspikes. It was colder than yesterday by about 30 degrees. Yes. 10F was the temperature. It’s difficult to judge how warm or cold you might be under those conditions. When running downhill you have to flip up your hood or otherwise bundle up, and running uphill, unzip a bit to let the heat escape.
Running shoes by New Balance. Microspikes by Kahtoola Three laps is a bit over 5 miles and that’s what I normally do up here with the time I have. That gives me almost a thousand feet of vertical and a pretty good workout. I wore softshell fleece pants by Sporthill with Saxx boxer briefs and Columbia baselayers. I wore a Pearl Izumi softshell hoodie and Columbia vest. One nice addition to my collection is an Icebug buff that kept the lower part of my face warm.
I got in 5.2 miles and got my Strava PR for the first uphill segment. [STRAVA]
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VK on the Stairmaster Stepmill
Tuesday January 17, 2017After doing long hill repeat workouts two days in a row, I decided to mix it up with non-running. That pretty much leaves the Stairmaster Stepmill. An hour VK on the stepmill requires that I go at 85 steps per minute for an hour.
From my calculator HERE
Time: 60:00
Steps/Minute: 85
Vertical Feet: 3400.00
Miles: 0.72
Average MPH: 0.724
Average Pace: 82:49
Vertical/Hour: 3400.00′
Vertical/Minute: 56.67′
VAM: 1036.3Anything over 1000 VAM is better than an hour VK (by definition, meaning that 1000 meters is a kilometer, and an hour is 60 minutes – DOH!)
Oh, don’t forget I was wearing a 12 lb vest too Just let me tell you. It’s dang tough. I don’t recommend this to anyone of reasonably normal sanity. That being said, and hour VK is a totally admirable goal. [ Heart rate on STRAVA ]
Shots of the console readout after the workout BTW: I was wearing a 12 lb weighted vest. Just sayin’
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