flying with the wings

okay...so at the start of the day, i thought for sure that the nokia n82 and the nifty sport tracker software were going to be the highlight of my workout.  funny that it turned out to be the one thing that failed miserably and it was the SHOES (gee, it's a salomon promotion, go figure) that were the highlight.

up at zero dark thirty and out on the road by 4am, i rolled up to the forest service road just before 6am and met lambert and judy.  we all hopped into lambert's truck and headed up to the fobes trailhead.  it was a brisk 33 degrees, so i bundled up a bit.  i started up the sport tracker software and we were off.  we had 15-18mi on the pacific crest trail planned, so i was running a huge risk of running in the xt wings for that distance without breaking them in first. 

the first mile and a half were a hard uphill haul.  no warm up here, it was scrape your nose steep.  what better way to shock your body into being warm, though, eh?  before we knew it, we were up on the pct and heading south toward lion peak.  after about another mile, judy turned around and headed back down the mountain since she had an 8am cut off time.  lambert and i continued on, constantly headed up.  ever time we made a quick stop for bio reasons or to re-fuel, i'd check the phone to see how it was doing.  it seemed to be recording the workout just fine, but the thing i did notice was that the battery was being eaten alive.  after an hour, the battery was almost completely gone, so i shut the phone off.  after review, i think the problem was that there was spotty cell coverage and the phone was working hard to establish a connection.  i'll try the sports tracker with the wireless option off next time and see how it does.

  i snapped a couple photos at the trail intersection with the nokia and realized that self portraits are not it's forte.  it kept focusing on the things behind me.  haha...i guess the phone knows best, eh?

lambert and i cruised on, having a blast of a time running along and just constantly marveling at the beauty around us.  each new summit provided us with a new amazing view.  i commented at one point that there was too much world for me to take in.

the shoes were brilliant.  they were stable, gave good arch support and were lightweight enough to allow for a quick leg turnover without fatigue.  i hardly noticed the trail through the sole.  the pct in this section is fairly rocky, and not once did i 'feel' any of the rocks. 

after a couple hours of running, we came to the top of the cedar springs trail and decided to head on a little further down the pct and then turn around and head down the cedar springs trail and back to my car.  this seemed like a good option for time, since it would put me back at my car when i needed to be there and give lambert a couple more miles as he ran back up to his truck.  we estimated that we'd be looking at somewhere around 14 miles for the run with that option.

well, the pct has this magic way of foiling the best laid plans.  our short out and back before heading down ended up turning into several more miles than we'd planned and next thing you know, we're dropping down cedar springs trail with only minutes left before i need to be back at the car...and something like four miles left to go.

fortunately, we hit road pretty quick and we were able to run much faster than on the trails.  i'll tell you what, though, the singletrack down cedar springs was so worth all the climbing we'd done earlier.  it was great to let the legs fly and do all the fancy footwork through bolder strewn creek beds and along the grassy meadows.

the salomon xt wings were great on the road, too.  we were really flying on the downhill and i was able to run comfortably in them at a 7:20 pace.  i had a slight hot spot develop on my instep, but after removing the sock, realized that it was because of a bite in the sock fabric, not the shoes.  on all the fairly technical downhill and climbing, the shoes never let my foot slip in the shoe and the toebox was plenty wide enough for my feet.  in comparison to my sauccony trail shoes or my vasque trail shoes, i'd say they're better than both.  better on the toes than my vasques and more solid and better fitting than the saucconys.

anyway, lt and i hit the main road and ran the 2 miles back to my car for a total of 18+ miles.  we were out on our feet for just under five hours (that includes all stops) and all the gear held up incredibly well.  i'll beat the shoes up some more and give a more detailed report at a later date, as well as the phone, but at a first pass, everything worked pretty groovy.

once again, lambert took some fun photos so stop by the scth website and take a look at them.

soundtrack for this post
	lick: hipsters: wax:	Fisherman's Blues The Waterboys The Best Of the Waterboys '81 '90

they're heeeeere!

my package showed up today with all the gear for the salomon xt wings challenge.  i'm now a proud owner of a pair of salomon xt wings (bright RED) a salomon technical training shirt (bright RED) and a nokia n82.  woohoo!  the picture of the salomon gear was taken with the n82 and uploaded from the phone to my flickr account.  check out the resolution on that crazy thing! 

so, the gear is here just in time for another altitude training session on the pacific crest trail tomorrow.  lambert and i will be tackling a section between spitler and lion peaks in the san bernadino national forest.  i'll wear the shoes and shirt and try out the nokia sportstracker software.  if you're a twitterer, i'll try to sort out the logistics for sending the details in a tweet so you can watch our progress if you like.

you know, i really like the concept of letting real life bloggers test out gear and post their honest opinions about the products.  sure, there's a "free stuff is cool" aspect, but more important is the legitimate feedback that others are able to obtain.  at the same time, it is an honor to be picked to participate in this sort of event.  i feel like it's my responsibility to put the gear through the wringer and give a detailed, unbiased review.  i hope that all of us picked to participate in this challenge can live up to that challenge! 

soundtrack for this post
	lick: hipsters: wax:	Camel Walk Southern Culture on the Skids Dirt Track Date

cleared customs and on their way

my gear from salomon should show up tomorrow.  i spent some time this morning taking care of the customs details with fedex and they said that barring any flight delays, the package should be delivered tomorrow.  PERFECT!

i have another pct run planned for saturday and i can't wait to try out the shoes on the trails.  the other thing i'm excited about is the nokia sports tracker website.  seriously, this thing is cool.  with the n82 and the sports tracker software, not only am i tracking my workout, but it is uploading the information in real time to the site.  this means that if i share the workout, anyone can watch my progress.  this is such a cool concept!  it's cool how connected items like this can make you.  now i can just twitter that i'm starting my workout, pass a tinyurl in the tweet to the sports tracker website and presto, instant entertainment.  because, c'mon, we all now how exciting watching a dot move around a map is! 

seriously, though, from a safety perspective, this a great tool.  now, in addition to letting loved ones know where you're going to be running, they can check on your status in real time.  maybe this is what i need to keep my mom from panicking when i take too long on a run in the arizona desert.

soundtrack for this post
	lick: hipsters: wax:	Sleeping With The Lights On Teitur Poetry & Airplanes

altitude training

so, in preparation for the salomon xt wings challenge, i'll be needing to spend the next couple months doing long runs at various altitudes and with mostly long inclines.  that 6,000' to 14,000' climb is going to be a challenge! 

this week it was time on the pacific crest trail with lambert.  i headed up to the black mountain trailhead and met him there at 6am (that meant a wake up call of 3:30 and on the road by 4am!).  we drove up to the pct trailhead at fuller ridge and headed out.  no sooner had we started toward san jacinto when we ran into a post on the trail saying that the pct was closed because of the apache fire.  well, our plans of running up and back down were dashed.  we turned around and at 7765' started heading down the mountain toward the desert.

we cruised along for a while, moving in and out of valleys, following the contour of the range.  as we chatted away happily about running philosophy, gps technology and integrating it into websites, teaching, dogs on the trail and a myriad of other topics, i began to realize just how effortless the run was.  i occasionally looked back to realize just how far DOWN we were running.

the trail wound us down out of the heavy pine and cedar forest into chaparral forest with oak, pine and manzanita and eventually into high desert scrub complete with yucca.  we ran through the exposed burn area where four fire fighters were killed in 2006.  the trail was beautiful and we were having a great time.  after a while, we decided to turn around and after a quick look at the garmin, realized that we had dropped over 2500'.  no wonder it had been effortless!

so, we turned around and began the long climb back up to where we'd started.  along the way we spooked quite a few lizards and the occasional garter snake out sunning themselves on the rocks.  we even came across a sun baked pct through hiker.  after about three hours out on the trail, we were back at the trail head.  it was a great day out on the trail and a perfect mix of company and nature.  pop by the scth website and take a look at the pictures lambert took.

zane grey pacing report

this is a week late, but like lots of things these days, it had to take back seat to a newly mobile thunderclap.  several months ago, one of my bloggers, angie, said that she was going to run the zane grey 50k for her 30th birthday and wanted her trail running friends to show up and run/support with her.  several other folks from the trail running group signed on as well,  so i figured that would be a great excuse to head out to arizona and see my parents and get an event in while there. 

last weekend, we headed out to phoenix and set up camp at my parents place.  early saturday morning, i headed out to payson to meet up with chris and jump into the last half of the race at the washington park aid station.  i showed up a couple hours early and was treated to seeing pinkcorker come through the aid station.  when i saw her new visor i exclaimed, "hey!  you're pinkcorker!  i've read your blog!".  it's such a small world in the ultra running community.  it cracks me up every time i come across someone who i've read but never met.  i also got to meet eliot and his son, asa, while they waited for his wife to come into the aid station.

chris finally showed up and we chatted for a bit while waiting for angie to come through the aid station.  she rolled in just before the noon cut-off for the 50k, so we quickly got her bottles and bladder filled, took care of equipment and then we were off.

my first impressions of the course were those of amazement.  i mean, i've seen the short forests that are around the flagstaff area, but i had yet to actually get INTO them.  the majority of my outdoors experience in arizona has been in the desert, so this was a new treat.  the trail was challenging and quite un-runable at several points.  there were fist to grapefruit size boulders on nearly every inch of this section, along with copious amounts of downed trees.  but it was beautiful.  the views out over the valleys, the towering mesa above us, the smell of pine, the wind blowing through the trees and scrub.  i was in heaven.

we chugged along, yo-yoing with rachel and wound around through washes, climbed over spurs and slowly made our way upward.  angie was great company and made pacing easy.  usually, i do most of the talking while pacing.  telling stories, cracking jokes, being a dorque.  you know.  being normal me.  angie was chatty, though, and that made for fun running.

we rolled into the hell's gate aid station and were greeted by the most enthusiastic and helpful crew.  the aid station was remote and was difficult to get to by 4x4, yet these folks were bubbly, resourceful and observant.  we were provided with first aid, fuel and fluids along with kind words of support and encouragement.  before we knew it, though, we were off again.

the next leg of the course was much more runable, with plenty of climbing, but not quite as steep and with fewer rocks and downed trees.  we continued to cruise along and i began to notice that at no point was angie dropping into that familiar "dark" place that most runners experience while doing endurance events.  she kept chatting along, either telling her own stories or commenting on ones being told. 

time flew by and quicker than expected, we came across one of the race spotters who informed us that the finish was a mere two miles away.  we picked up the pace and flew the remainder of the course.  before much longer, the road was in sight and we could hear voices.  we crested a ridge and down below we could see the finish.  we both started hollering as we dropped down into the valley.  we were done! 

while 17 miles isn't a great distance for me, i did set a pr for the amount of time on my feet.  i did twin peaks in 6:05 last year and bested that time by 16 minutes with a run time of 6:21.  what a great experience, though.  i got to see a part of arizona that i'd only heard of, got to spend the day out in the wild and support friends and athletes in a race!  i enjoyed the course so much, as hard as it was, that i think i may sign up for it next year.  hey, gotta come up with more excuses to get out to arizona to see my folks, right?