Black Squirrel Half Marathon

I tested the waters with a small 5K a couple weeks ago, but the Black Squirrel Half Marathon would be my first proper local trail race in Fort Collins. I was genuinely excited for this race. I knew the course. I felt fit. Many of the competitors were people I’ve run with.

Furthermore, a trail half marathon is the sweet spot for my abilities. It’s short enough that my speed comes into play, it’s long enough that my endurance is a factor, and if the trail is rugged (or muddy) enough balance and agility will also come into play. This is my most successful type of race (finishing 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 1st in four previous attempts).

But running well at this race race was not a sure thing for me. My confidence has taken a beating since moving to Colorado. I’ve raced in CO/WY four times, having three so-so races and one downright bad race. The Black Squirrel course featured over 2,000 feet of climbing (concentrated in one mountain ascent), whereas previous trail half marathons featured only small rolling hills with less that half the ascent. While I have added quite a bit of climbing to my training, I don’t feel it’s a strength for me.

The weather cooperated and it was nice and cool for the race: 50’s, cloudy, perfect. It rained all day Friday, so the trails were a bit muddy in places.

Photo by Erin Bibeau Photography

Photo by Melissa

Photo by Melissa

I didn’t do much of a warmup so I felt pretty awful for the first mile or so. This was planned though, as I wanted to make sure I didn’t start too fast. I wore a watch, but I didn’t look at it the entire race. We hit the base of the big climb and I was starting to feel a bit better, at this point in 5th place.

Photo by Erin Bibeau Photography

Photo by Melissa

I ran hard up the hill (harder than I’d ever run it before), but I kept things under control. There was a lot of race left after we reached the top and the rest of the course suited me better. I moved up one place into 4th. Most of the climb I had people hot on my heels, but by the time I reached the top the gap had opened up a bit.

After 4 miles of nearly continuous uphill I reached the top and without wasting any time I picked up as much speed as I could on the downhill. The first bit was easy, but after just a few turns I reached the really tricky section of rocky switchbacks. The first switchback was just above the low clouds, so you couldn’t see where you would have landed if you missed that turn. I didn’t miss it.

Halfway down the descent a runner rapidly caught up with me and passed me. I was somewhat surprised. I was running the technical downhill about as fast as I thought a person could run it, but I was wrong.

Photo by Erin Bibeau Photography

Photo by Erin Bibeau Photography

I limited my losses and before long I exited the descent onto the rolling valley trails for the last 5 miles of the race, now in 5th place. This was my terrain and I still had plenty left in the tank. These trails are in the wide open valley and I could see two runners just a short distance ahead of me. I pushed hard in the early part of the valley and I quickly made up ground.

Soon #4 passed #3, and a moment later I passed #4 then #3 (so 3-5 had reversed places). I opened up a gap and tried to maintain a strong pace to the end. After a couple hard miles I could no longer see the runner behind me, and I hadn’t seen #1 or #2 since mile 1, so they were surely long gone. I lost motivation to keep pushing myself and I slowed a bit in the final mile.

Photo by Melissa

I finished 3rd overall in 1h40m26s. That was my fastest trail half marathon finish on what was surely the most difficult course I’ve raced. It went well.

Photo by Melissa

Within a minute or two the next two runners finished. I hadn’t recognized either of them during the race, and I had never met either guy in person, but after some quick introductions I realized that these two guys were both acquaintances I had met online via Strava. I’ve been following when, where, and how fast they train (they can see my training as well). I’ve been genuinely impressed with both of them, and knowing they would be racing, I thought to myself that it would be pretty difficult to beat these guys.

It was even harder than I expected.

Running

I had high hopes for lots of running while we were in Nicaragua, but the tropical heat and humidity did me in. I felt lethargic the whole time we were there and I only got out a few times. With little running in the first half of the month I really piled on the miles in the second half, even running a few half marathon length training runs on weekdays (which is rare). It took a while to get back into the swing of things, but by the end of the month I was feeling fit and ready for my next tough race, the Black Squirrel Half Marathon on September 6.

Month	Workouts	Total Dist	Avg Dist	Total Ascent	Avg Ascent
January	19	192.03 miles	10.11 miles	9620. feet	506.32 feet
February	19	227.4 miles	11.97 miles	12301. feet	647.42 feet
March	17	192.96 miles	11.35 miles	10819. feet	636.41 feet
April	15	155.2 miles	10.35 miles	10947. feet	729.8 feet
May	24	252.5 miles	10.52 miles	20364. feet	848.5 feet
June	21	224.51 miles	10.69 miles	33782. feet	1608.67 feet
July	18	201.09 miles	11.17 miles	33696. feet	1872. feet
August	19	212.37 miles	11.18 miles	28465. feet	1498.16 feet
Total	152	1658.06 miles	10.91 miles	159994. feet	1052.59 feet

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Cycling

Surprise! After months of gradual decline in my cycling August came out of nowhere to become my highest mileage month of the year (so far). And that all happened in the second half of the month. So, what happened? A few things.

We bought a Surly “Big Dummy” cargo bike for riding around town and running errands, hauling Will and other stuff. Sure, we had lots of bikes already, but all of my bikes are for racing, and they’re not particularly well suited for much else. It seems strange, but just having a bike with wide tires, fenders, built-in storage space, platform pedals, etc. was enough to get me riding just a little bit each day… and that was enough to get me out on longer rides. The more longer rides I did the better I felt, both about cycling, but also about running. I’d forgotten how good the cross training was for my running, and how much better my legs felt after a couple hours of low impact spinning.

Fall is rapidly approaching and I’ve been itching to spend time on my cyclocross bike. Mountain biking is huge around here, and it is so with good reason. There are many great trail networks, many of which are quite ridable on my CX bike and I can ride to them from my house on that bike.

Month	Workouts	Total Dist	Avg Dist	Total Ascent	Avg Ascent
January	4	64.74 miles	16.19 miles	1114. feet	278.5 feet
February	1	15.9 miles	15.9 miles	0. feet	0. feet
March	2	51.18 miles	25.59 miles	2115. feet	1057.5 feet
April	6	148.91 miles	24.82 miles	6250. feet	1041.67 feet
May	4	73.05 miles	18.26 miles	2810. feet	702.5 feet
June	4	70.06 miles	17.52 miles	4901. feet	1225.25 feet
July	4	62.47 miles	15.62 miles	2986. feet	746.5 feet
August	9	151.9 miles	16.88 miles	6942. feet	771.33 feet
Total	34	638.21 miles	18.77 miles	27118. feet	797.59 feet

In early August a couple friends invited me to go on this run:

But, as I was in Nicaragua, I couldn’t make it. After we returned to Colorado I went up to Rocky Mountain NP to try to complete the loop on my own. I had run/hiked the ascent of Flattop Mountain in July, so that was straightforward enough. From there things got slightly more complicated as the route deviated from well established trails and veered off onto barely distinguishable trails, boulders, and tundra.

At the top of Hallett peak I met two guys from Boulder, Jay and Scott, who were there running, get this, the exact same route I had planned to do. Apparently they saw AJ’s video on YouTube and had the same idea as me. So the three of us headed off together.

First we came to Otis Peak.

Then we finally reached the sketchiest section of the entire sketchy route. This is the part I was a bit worried about doing on my own, so I was fortunate to run into Jay and Scott when I did. We glissaded down Andrews Glacier.

Once we reached the lake at the bottom we had several somewhat technical downhill miles until we reached some busier trails near Bear Lake.

We took a brief detour to see Lake Haiyaha, which also had a good view of Hallett Peak and Otis Peak (where we were a few hours prior).

This was a great route. We hit three 12,000+ foot peaks (Flattop, Hallett, Otis) and glissaded down a glacier. I’d recommend checking it out, though probably not by yourself.

Tagged 3x 12,000+ft peaks, made a couple new friends, skied down a glacier in my running shoes, blah, blah.

— Rob Raguet-Schofield (@ragfield) August 17, 2014

Also, I took a leak on the continental divide. Because I'm 12.

— Rob Raguet-Schofield (@ragfield) August 17, 2014

Last weekend I ran the Peach Festival 5K around the nearby CSU football stadium. I hadn’t yet run such a short, fast race since moving to Colorado. I was kind of curious just how fast I could run at this elevation if I tried. I’ve done very little speed training, instead focusing more on distance and ascent.

Photo by Melissa

Photo by Melissa

It went about as one might expect. I ran quite a bit slower than my last 5K in March, but not embarrassingly slow. My 17:46 was good for 7th place overall (out of 536) and 2nd old man (30-39 age group), which earned me a free peach pie.

Photo by Melissa

A long warmup and cool down gave me about 12 miles on the morning, and we followed that up with a fun time at the festival. Since nobody could tell us whether the pie was vegan we ended up giving it to the college kids who just moved in next door. They partied all night and may or may not have vomited it up at 6 AM the next morning.

Running

I rested a bit more than usual both before and after the Mt. Werner Classic 50K, so July had fewer runs than May or June. I did pack in more distance and ascent per run, so maybe that counts for something. I had a bit of a disappointing race, but after taking a couple days off I bounced back and did my fastest training run since moving to Colorado (9 miles at 6:20 pace) and that lifted my spirits a bit. I’ve still got it (whatever it is).

Month	Workouts	Total Dist	Avg Dist	Total Ascent	Avg Ascent
January	19	192.03 miles	10.11 miles	9620. feet	506.32 feet
February	19	227.4 miles	11.97 miles	12301. feet	647.42 feet
March	17	192.96 miles	11.35 miles	10819. feet	636.41 feet
April	15	155.2 miles	10.35 miles	10947. feet	729.8 feet
May	24	252.5 miles	10.52 miles	20364. feet	848.5 feet
June	21	224.51 miles	10.69 miles	33782. feet	1608.67 feet
July	17	191.69 miles	11.28 miles	33466. feet	1968.59 feet
Total	132	1436.29 miles	10.88 miles	131299. feet	994.69 feet

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Cycling

As has become the pattern for 2014, there’s not much here. Cyclocross season will soon be upon us and I’m not ready. Last year my running fitness barely carried me through cross season, but I’m only riding a fraction of the miles I did last year.

Month	Workouts	Total Dist	Avg Dist	Total Ascent	Avg Ascent
January	4	64.74 miles	16.19 miles	1114. feet	278.5 feet
February	1	15.9 miles	15.9 miles	0. feet	0. feet
March	2	51.18 miles	25.59 miles	2115. feet	1057.5 feet
April	6	148.91 miles	24.82 miles	6250. feet	1041.67 feet
May	4	73.05 miles	18.26 miles	2810. feet	702.5 feet
June	4	70.06 miles	17.52 miles	4901. feet	1225.25 feet
July	4	62.47 miles	15.62 miles	2986. feet	746.5 feet
Total	25	486.31 miles	19.45 miles	20176. feet	807.04 feet

And sometimes the bear, well, he eats you.

Mt. Werner Classic 50K

After a couple of shorter races in June (if you can consider 15-26 miles shorter) I jumped back into ultra racing this past weekend with the Mt. Werner Classic 50K in Steamboat Springs. This would be my first ultra in Colorado after living here for two months.

The course is challenging: a 9 mile long climb to the top of a mountain, 13 miles of rolling terrain above 10,000 feet elevation, then a long steep descent down to the finish line. I was prepared for the challenge. I’ve been running plenty of distance (50-60 miles per week), with lots of climbing (8,000-9,000 feet ascent per week), with a handful runs at high elevation above 10,000 feet. I did a little bit of a taper so I wouldn’t be too tired going into the race. I estimated a great race would put me in around 5 hours, while an okay race would put me in around 5½ hours. I felt I had a good chance to finish in the top 3-5 places overall, and top 10 was almost a sure thing.

The race started slow, but hard. I didn’t look at my time the entire race, only my heart rate. I wanted to pay attention to my perceived effort and keep it under control as much as possible. I let a handful of fast starters go up ahead while I held a steady, maintainable effort up the steep initial climb. I tried not to pay attention to my placing at this point, but it was hard not to notice. I settled into 8th place and ran by myself at my own pace for a few miles.

Eventually I caught up to a pack of 4 in front of me and I slowed down a bit rather than pass them. A few more people caught up from behind as the trail became much steeper and the pack exploded. I went back and forth with a couple different people, but stayed in roughly the same place. There was a slight downhill section midway up the climb, which felt kind of bad after going uphill for so long. Then came one final push on a rocky section of trail up to the summit.

I continued my steady effort, though I was walking more on the steepest sections of the climb and the runners in front of me started to pull away. No matter, I thought to myself, I can reel them back in once we reach the top. Then a couple people passed me. Then a couple more people passed me. I maintained a steady effort. Then a couple more people passed me. My confidence was shaken.

Photo by Ski Town Photography

Once we reached the top of the mountain there was a 6 mile stretch of relatively flat trail before the turnaround point. It was more rolling than I was expecting. The hills weren’t big, so they basically disappear on the same profile map as the big climb. But after doing the big climb these rollers weren’t easy. I couldn’t run as fast as I was expecting. I ran those 6 miles without seeing another person, either in front of me or behind me. I had thought I would use this opportunity to move up through the field, but instead I was further back than I ever planned to be and there was no sign that would change anytime soon.

Then it changed, but not the way I wanted. Just as I reached the turnaround I was caught and passed by 3 more runners. I tried to stay positive, but by this point my confidence was in shambles. This isn’t supposed to happen to me.

By now the cool morning had given way to a blazing sun. I took off my shirt as I ran the 6 miles back to Mt. Werner. The rolling hills featured more up than down on the way back and I was walking more and more. Then I left the shady part of the trail behind and ventured into the exposed area. As soon as the steady sunshine hit me I stopped and almost vomited on the side of the trail. I tried running again but the nausea persisted. My walk breaks became longer and longer until eventually I had broken and I resigned myself to walking the entire way to the next aid station. A steady stream of runners were passing me, but that was the last thing I was worried about by now. Can I even make it to the finish line? On two separate occasions I stopped to sit down on the side of the trail for a few moments.

Since I was moving much slower than I expected, and it was hot, I ran out of water a few miles before the aid station and by the time I finally got there I was pretty dehydrated. I stayed in the shade at the aid station for about 10 minutes while I drank several bottles of Tailwind and water. I was able to eat a little bit of food. By the time I left the nausea was under control enough for me to run, but my stomach was completely full and the sloshing and bouncing was terrible, so I continued to walk a few more minutes.

The downhill became steep enough that it was ridiculous to be walking, so I started to run again very slowly. As the miles went on and my stomach hurt less I gradually increased my speed. The farther I descended the hotter the temperature, but it wasn’t bothering me as much. The last few miles I was running fast–as fast as I felt I should have been running the whole time. I finished in 6:19 for 34th place. This was a far cry from my seemingly reasonable goal of 5:00-5:30 and top 10 (and an even farther cry from my last two 50K races that I won).

The race organization was great, the aid stations were great, and the course was great. I’m glad I started the race, and I’m glad I finished it. I’m still a little bit unsure what exactly happened in the middle of the race and why it happened. Sometimes in a race you clearly make a mistake and you pay for it and you learn from it. In this case there was no clear mistake I made and no clear lesson to be learned… unless the lesson is that everybody has a bad day out there sometimes.

Running

It was a good month. I ran my first two mountain races and bounced back quickly from both. Two more long runs made 3 weekends in a row I ran 4+ hours with 4,000+ ft of climbing. I’ve steadily improved my time at the local bi-weekly Towers Time Trial (1,700 ft ascent in 3.4 miles run all out). I was hoping to get in another long race (50+ miles) this year, but there’s a number of 50K, marathon, and half marathon trail races in the coming months. And, to be honest, I’m better at those distances anyway.

Month	Workouts	Total Dist	Avg Dist	Total Ascent	Avg Ascent
January	19	192.03 miles	10.11 miles	9620. feet	506.32 feet
February	19	227.4 miles	11.97 miles	12301. feet	647.42 feet
March	17	192.96 miles	11.35 miles	10819. feet	636.41 feet
April	15	155.20 miles	10.35 miles	10947. feet	729.80 feet
May	24	252.5 miles	10.52 miles	20364. feet	848.5 feet
June	21	224.51 miles	10.69 miles	33782. feet	1608.67 feet
Total	115	1244.60 miles	10.82 miles	97833. feet	850.72 feet

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Cycling

Month	Workouts	Total Dist	Avg Dist	Total Ascent	Avg Ascent
January	4	64.74 miles	16.19 miles	1114. feet	278.5 feet
February	1	15.9 miles	15.9 miles	0. feet	0. feet
March	2	51.18 miles	25.59 miles	2115. feet	1057.5 feet
April	6	148.91 miles	24.82 miles	6250. feet	1041.67 feet
May	4	73.05 miles	18.26 miles	2810. feet	702.5 feet
June	4	70.06 miles	17.52 miles	4901. feet	1225.25 feet
Total	21	423.84 miles	20.18 miles	17190. feet	818.57 feet

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Walking/Hiking

Month	Workouts	Total Dist	Avg Dist
January	11	27.72 miles	2.52 miles
February	11	26.8 miles	2.44 miles
March	11	32.72 miles	2.97 miles
April	23	64.33 miles	2.80 miles
May	20	57.9 miles	2.9 miles
June	12	32.55 miles	2.71 miles
Total	88	242.02 miles	2.75 miles