I read a few race reports for Zane Grey and I realized this wasn't a race I could just show up for and finish. It has a reputation for being a tough track and not one report I read disputed that idea. I also signed up for the San Juan Solstice. The race sold out in less than half an hour. As planned, I committed to 3 50 mile runs in the next 6 months. This isn't happening without the training.
Prior to January I was having a hard time getting motivated. The idea of driving to a trail head and pushing the vertical in the dark burned me out mentally. I looked back on my training for 2012 and realized I did a lot of it on the roads. A 5-8 mile run out my front door seemed easy. I ran a minimum of 4 days a week in January with the majority of the runs on pavement. The stress was lifted. I wasn't getting the vertical but I was running.
Finally, I had a couple Sherpa John's Fat Ass events on the calendar. One that I looked forward to the most was last weekend. The run took place in Boulder and was going to climb 4 peaks for a total of 9,000+ vertical feet. I had only 6k of vertical for January going into Saturday so I knew it was going to be interesting. All was going fine until about mile 14 when I bit it. Hard. Bashed my knee, forearm, shoulder and racked my head a bit. It was easily the worst fall I've had running and it was on some of the easiest stretch of trail. As a result, I pulled the plug early and did not climb the final 3,000 feet and 10 miles to summit Eldorado Mt. To be honest, I wasn't ready for it at this point anyways. I ended with 18.5 miles, 6.5k in vertical and a wake up call to keep pushing. The climbing has my body aching like it hasn't it months. I'm ahead of last years pace so far and I'm ready to push to the early summer. Here are some pics of the Boulder Fat Ass. Mt Salinas, Flagstaff Mt, Green Mt. The weather was unseasonably warm for the run. We ran through some of last summer's burn on Green Mountain.
