Sun-Wed 8/18-21 - off

A long time coming. Too long of course but what can you do. After the dud race up the mountain and with the usual sore stiffness in the hammie motivation was at an all time low. Toyed with the idea of getting to the pond but it didn't happen, the only exercise in fact was a mostly spur of the moment 30 minute ride to Great Meadows. Sleeping away a good chunk of the afternoon in lieu of doing anything worthwhile. Doubt I made much of a dent in the underlying fatigue, but the vacation which was supposed to let me catch up on sleep was sorely lacking in that department.

Sat 8/17 - AM 3 hours, Barr Trail

Third time most definitely not the charm on the mountain. Kind of suspected a turd was in the offing, but not to the extent of being 18 minutes slower than last year. I had even hoped that not overdoing it with the 6+ hour jaunts in the mountains like I did last year three days before the race would help me this time around. Not so much. While the right leg issues are compromising my ability to run at anything faster than a jog and it was certainly sore afterward, I have to think much of this dud comes down to not sleeping enough all summer. Completely strung out from an endless string of nights not getting to bed before 11. I had hoped the vacation would allow me the opportunity to get decent rest for a couple of weeks, of course it didn't happen. Went to bed at least as late and unable to sleep in to any decent degree. Combined with less napping I may have even ended up more fried coming out of the vacation than going in. Wasting colossal amounts of time on the internet, with only myself to blame. On top of all that sob story the series of mediocre at best race results has made it clear that I'm worn to the nub and some kind of break is in order. As for the race itself, I knew something was rotten in Denmark when I hit the 11 miles to go sign in a time six fucking minutes slower than last year. By 7 to go I was hitting numbers a mile behind where I was a year ago, which made me wonder if maybe I was counting them off wrong in my hypoxically compromised mind. However, when I got to 5 miles to go in just under 87 minutes, even with the altitude I could do the math and recognized that the time was going to be awful. With that a degree of who cares set in combined with get it over with. While I made half-hearted attempts to keep up with runners I raced and lost to last year (namely Dobson and Romero, who also ran much slower than last year oddly enough) but no real hope of actually doing anything. Did a lot more walking the last two miles this year than last year, certainly feeling the exertion but also not really caring at that point. Despite the terrible performance, the generous prize structure affords me the opportunity to run again next year on the race's dime which I certainly hope to do. As referenced above, there were others near me in the final standings who also ran significantly slower than a year ago. In fact, my time from last year would have placed fifth in this year's edition. Not sure what explains how mediocre the race was, people were complaining about the heat but the weather seemed mostly the same as the past two years.

Splits below, for shits and grins last year's number from each "miles to go" marker are in parenthesis:

20:51 (15:00) +5:51
33:08 (25:20) +1:57
44:25 (37:10) -:32 no idea how this happened
55:34 (48:00) +:19
64:51 (56:33) +:44
74:46 (64:54) +1:34 a mile behind, yippee
86:52 (75:45) +1:14
1:41:15 (89:00) +1:08
1:56:43 (1:46:18) -1:50
2:13:46 (2:01:28) +1:53
2:30:19 (2:14:57) +3:04 packing it in at this point
2:50:26 (2:32:31) +2:32

Some haze at the summit, not nearly as much as last year though. Fires in Idaho the likely cause:

In the parking lot of the high school were a few cars that had been totaled by the flood:

Fri 8/16 - AM 30 minutes easy

Woodland Park. Looking for someplace flat to do some light jogging and a shady place to stretch, decided on the ballfields I visited last summer. Fields in use, ran in the woods surrounding them instead incl. an out and back along a dirt road for much of it. Right hammie/glute remains more stuck and sore than I'd like but it's been worse.