Race Report for Jemez Mountain 50K & the Beginning of
our Grand Adventure
Lead up to Jemez-
For the three weeks following the Leona Divide 50M, I ran a
lot of easy runs, and no real long runs.
I really needed a good recovery from the training leading up to Leona
Divide and the race itself. The
one area I did focus a bit on was running faster on down hills. The last week and a half I started to
feel stronger and more comfortable than I have in a long while going up and
down the trails. My splits for a
number of my common easy run routes were faster than ever and I felt
particularly strong on the down hill ascents.
The last week and a half before Jemez was particularly
stressful and busy. Separating
from the Air Force requires a lot of appointments and work, especially if you
are an hour from the nearest AF base.
Secondly, I had to prepare a final for my classes and then do final
grades and attend the graduation and commissioning of this year’s senior AFROTC
cadets. Lastly, Maggie and I were scrambling to pack up all of our belongings
for storage, pack all we needed for the next year into the truck and
camper.
We departed Boulder on Thursday afternoon and began our year
plus adventure abroad, it felt wonderful.
Our first stop out of Boulder was Buena Vista to see our
friends Len and Amy. We met up
with Len and Amy at DeerhammerDistillery. Their distillery as a
fantastic place, fun, comfortable, while still capturing the fact that you are
at a distillery. We enjoyed a few
delicious beverages made with their own Whitewater Whiskey and then headed to
their beautiful house just a few miles away. Thank you Amy and Len for an awesome time and having us
over.
Friday we made
our way to Los Alamos New Mexico.
Los Alamos is surprisingly forested and beautiful. Thanks to Bill, the Jemez RD, we were
graciously provided accommodations just a few miles from the start at Henry and
Suzzy’s house. They had a
wonderfully beautiful house in the
forest. We were taking care of
like royalty, to include attending a pre-race party/get together just down the
street where we met all sorts of great people and enjoyed a great dinner.
Quite a start to our trip… now I just needed to race
well.
The Race-
Everything went smooth before the race, I slept relatively
well for a pre-race night, felt good and was ready to roll. I think the temps were in the low 50s
at the start, which was fortunately early at 6AM. I opted to race shirtless with my visor, hand water bottle
with Vitargo along with some flasks of Vitargo concentrate and of course Hokas
(Bondi) and Injinji Socks. At the
start line I was surprised Michael Dominquez from Boulder wasn’t on the
line. Mike was going to be my only
real competition. Honestly, I was
happy to be able to run my own race today. All my races this year have been unbelievably stacked and I
quite enjoyed a race where I could just focus on my game and the watch.
Right off the bat, I was moving at a quick pace maybe in the
low 7s or high 6s. This race has
great trails that wind through Ponderosa, Aspen and Scrub Oak forest. The trail stays “interesting” with a
lot of funky soft volcanic rock, dusty sand, soot and dirt. A few miles into the run I was at least a few minutes ahead
of anyone and running solo.
The trail wound around the foot hills of Los Alamos making
its way gradually up to the base of the local ski area where things get very
steep. The trail leading up to the
base of the ski area was scant at best and was a bit challenging to follow, but
the constant flags along the course kept things relatively sane. Once on the actually ski area, I
tackled the steepest climb I’ve ever raced. The footing on this super steep ski hill was pretty
rough. The “trail” was grown over
with weeds, there were all sorts of lose rocks and wood as well from last
year’s fire. Up one false summit
followed by a descent straight down the ski run that was truly just weeds and
not a trail. Back at it again to
the true 10,400 summit of the ski area, the trail was mostly a real trail this
time. I was passing a lot of 50
mile guys and galls on the way up this section, but this was the one section of
the race where I know I could have done a bit better. From the top of the ski area I could see down to the
beautiful Caldera meadow… I hope to come back one year and run through this
amazing treeless meadow formed from where the volcano collapsed.
I was grossly under prepared with the course, where aid
stations were and what mileage I would have left at the aid stations. Things leading up to the race were just
too hectic.
At the pipeline aid station I knew from the pre-race brief I
had to go a different direction than the 50M runners, so I made sure I went the
correct way to a short out and back before making my way back via a number of
ridgelines to the finish. At
Pipeline I began to regret not know the mileage and the aid station volunteers
didn’t know either. I was feeling
great pretty much all day up to this mid point in the race and things continued
to go well as I began the mostly down hill descent. It was nice to be able to really change gears and have fun
during the second half of a race, albeit a 50K race. The heat wasn’t much of an issue for me, event though it was
in the 70s I would imagine, there was a bit of a breeze and overall, I was well
recovered from Leona and ready to race today. Halfway down the ridges I ran into, literally, my biggest
challenge of the day: joggers from the half marathon going the same direction
and route to the finish. Running
fast down hill on technical single track is challenging during the last 8 miles
of an Ultra, but passing tons of people running significantly slower is really
challenging. I would say maybe 70%
of the runners on this stretch of trail followed trail/trail racing courtesy
and at least moved a little bit over.
Only about 25% totally moved over for me to pass, but no less than 30%
did nothing at all and were usually annoyed that I was passing totally off
trail. I actually bumped the foot
or shoulder of 3 ladies that were stubbornly not going to even move an inch to
accommodate my passing. I would
have run a few minutes faster if it wasn’t for this “challenge”, but then
again, I assume every fast 50K guy will have to deal with this each year so I
consider it part of the race.
Just before last chance aid station, I would really have
appreciated doing my homework on this race as I for some reason thought the
course record was either 4:12 or 4:19 and had been gauging myself off that
benchmark since the top of the ski area, which had me thinking I was almost
done at around 4hrs. The course
record was 4:55. When I went
through the last aid station and was told I had 2 miles to go, I cursed at
myself for not running faster and then I cursed the RD as surely the course was
long. I kept pushing, but I was a
little bummed at the same time. On
the final steep ascent to the finish, I fell for the first time and cut my
knee, got up and rounded the corner where Felix and Maggie were ecstatic to see
me. Their emotion and cheering was
wonderful and I proceeded to pull out the small sand stained American Flag I
have raced with ever race since I’ve returned from Iraq. The Jemez 50K was the first time I have
removed the American Flag I brought back from Iraq. I carry the flag as a reminder of my time in Iraq, but more
importantly, I carry the flag to remember and honor all the Americans who are
still deployed in hostile environments.
Maggie caught up to me and congratulated me on my win and
new course record of 4:28, I quickly corrected her that I hadn’t set a course
record. Then, the announcer
congratulated me as well for a new course record. I still didn’t believe I had a new course record until they
showed me the old listing. Kyle
Skaggs had run 4:55 at the Jemez 50k, but he ran that time on a course that was
different than the one I ran. Kyle
ran quite a bit more vertical than I did.
The race director, told me that he is pretty sure that I would have ran
a new course record had I ran the old course that day. Changes in the course are a reality of
ultra trail running and I’ll never really know for sure if I ran a better race,
but I do know that I ran well, felt great and did my best.
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| Sporting the winners pottery, the Hokas, Injinjis and the new Ryders Glasses (love them) |
I felt better after this 50K than any other ultra race I
have done to date. I attribute the
total lack of soreness and overall good
recovery on really recovering the last 3 weeks, running in Hokas and
good nutrition: Vitargo during the race, Udos and Ultragen during my
training.
We are in Flagstaff AZ (camping by Shultz Pass) and
then heading to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado to train and then race the
San Juan Solstice June 23rd.
After the race, we camped and had a fun time with our
friends Bones (Chris) and Treva Morath.
Leona Divide 50 Mile Blurb-
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| Top 5 |
Long story short, I had a great time at Leona Divide. Maggie, Felix, my parents and brother Jaxon all came out. The race was cool, fun, well put together, etc... my 6:22 was fast but I never felt "on" or "good". I did manage to put in my best training leading up to this race and that training will pay dividends down the road. How I felt last weekend at Jemez is further evidence that I wasn't ready to run that weekend in California. It was disappointing for me to miss this opportunity, but there will be more races in the future!
