Last weekend I forewent racing in favor of sweeping a trail race. While for road races it’s possible to drive around and pick up course markings, for trail races you usually need somebody on foot. So that was my job last Saturday – picking up course flags (plus a bit of trash), not sweeping runners. […]
Mountain adventures
“All up” hill intervals for mountain running
If you’ve ever followed a structured running plan, you’ve almost certainly suffered through hill repeats and/or hill sprints. Run hard up a hill, recover as you go back down, repeat. “All up” hill intervals remove the comfy downhill portion and require you to keep moving uphill as you recover. Yeah, I went there. Why would […]
What did I volunteer myself for? Week in review
I won’t keep you in suspense: I volunteered to sweep at a trail race this weekend. (For the non-runners, the sweeper runs the course after the last runner; no brooms involved.) Having said that, I am going to keep you in suspense on the details for a few more paragraphs. First, a few other happenings: […]
Kicking off 5K training: week in review
As I mentioned last week, I decided to try for a 5K PR at a race that’s a few weeks away (August 4). So last week was my first week of officially training. Here’s how it went: Monday Planned: race pace intervals Actual: race pace intervals, more or less. 6x 2 minutes at RP, 3 […]
Jim Bridger race recap – 2018
I decided to jump into this race a few days beforehand, and I hadn’t run 10+ miles in…let’s say over a year, though it may well be closer to two. Needless to say, I didn’t have high expectations, but I did think I could at least come close to my finish time from 2 years […]
Race and vacation: week in review
Last week we met up with my family for vacation near the Tetons. The week before, I decided at the last minute that I could run a 10-mile trail race the morning of the day we left for vacation. I ran the same race 2 years ago, so my goal was to finish in about […]
Backpacking to Garnet Mountain Fire Lookout
The Garnet Mountain fire lookout is a Forest Service cabin previously used, as the name implies, for watching for signs of wildfires. Now the FS rents it out for overnight camping (or does this count as glamping?) It stands on top of Garnet Mountain at 8,300′, and is only accessible by trails. We hiked up […]
Type 2 fun: week in review
A key component of mountain running, regardless of how fast you are, is the belief that Type II fun is actually fun. Fortuitously, the mountains themselves encourage this belief. The mountainous Type II fun Last Tuesday I hiked/ran (but mostly hiked) Mount Baldy. I’m in a local running group on FB where some people – […]
Charging up for the weekend and a bizarre cat story
To be honest…I spent most of last week in a fog of fatigue. While I like almost everything about Montana, I could do without the excessive number of daylight hours we get during the summer. It’s difficult for me to get to sleep or stay asleep when there’s even a tiny bit of sunlight. And […]
More trails, please: week in review
After my foot’s little freak out last weekend, it decided everything was fine by Tuesday. So things were back to normal this week – except for some of my garden plants, which I left in the afternoon sun too long while hardening off. They got whatever the plant equivalent of sunburn is. It’s looking like […]