May 8 - 14, 2017 - Wapack 21.5 Race

Monday:
     AM: 5.5 miles, 157', 8:44 pace. Easy morning run exploring an old railroad grade near my house.

Tuesday: 9.8 miles, 591', 7:21 pace. Up-tempo morning road run.

Wednesday: 
     AM: 9.8 miles, 591', 7:51 pace. Easy morning road run.
     PM: 3.7 miles, 82', 7:38 pace. Managed to squeeze in a quickie between hotel check-in and dinner in Cleveland.

Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame

Thursday: 4.6 miles, 108', 8:09 pace. Easy morning sight seeing run in downtown Cleveland.

Lake Erie

Friday: 9.8 miles, 591', 7:47 pace. Easy morning run shaking off some travel grogginess. I was supposed to land in Manchester at 9 pm, Instead, through some United Airlines snafus, I ended up touching down at Logan airport after 11 and had a 55 mile cab ride to Manchester, not arriving home until the wee hours of the morning. I should have stuck with Southwest.

Saturday: 21.3 miles, 5030', 9:50 pace. Wapack Trail Race, fourth place, 3:29:46. In most years, this would be a very good time, the seventh fastest on record according to Ultrasignup.com Yet, this year had the strongest field Wapack 21.5 has ever seen, nearly ideal weather and ground conditions, and I didn't even make the podium. From what I could see, the field had mostly sorted itself out by the first aid station at Miller State Park at mile 5 and I essentially ran alone for the rest of the way. I lost a few minutes sorting out some stomach distress, emptying rocks out of my shoes, and took an ugly fall coming down Mount Watatic near the end, but even if I'd been 5 minutes faster the results would have been unchanged. I'm reasonably happy with my time and there's little I could have done differently on the competitive front.

Sunday: Zero. My achilles was acting up, as was the knee and toe I smashed up on Saturday.

Totals: 64.8 miles, 7129', 9h 7m. A bit of an easier week on the distance, elevation, and time front. Could be worse when considering the travel and possible injury.

I'm getting excited for the next race on my calendar, my main "A" race of the year; the Ultra Trail du Mont Albert: La Grande-Traversée (yeah, it's a mouthful) up in Gaspesie, Quebec. Last year I won the 100k distance at this event and had a magical trip overall. New for this year will be a 165k version with 8500 meters of elevation gain, held on a point-to-point course on the International Appalachian Trail. Based on what I saw last year, I'm expecting the difficulty to be similar to the Wasatch 100 and a sub-24 hour finish should be plausible. A french language TV show did a segment on the 100k that gives a good impression of the landscape up there, even if you don't understand what's being said: http://tracedetrail.com/en/trace/trace/25043 I make a cameo at at the 1:38 mark.